Snow Creek(59)

The urgency in my voice jolts him to his feet.

Just as we head out the door, Nan calls out that the crime lab is on the phone.

“Should I tell them to call back?”

I snap the receiver right from her hand. I might have hurt her, but I really don’t care. She makes every moment annoying. And I’m pretty sure that’s why she does it.

“Hi Detective, it’s Marley again,” says a familiar voice. “Got some info for you. It’s good stuff too.”

I can tell right now he’s of the CSI TV generation; you find them stuck in the mundane environment of a crime lab, thinking it would be all nonstop fun—kicked off by an anthemic, bombastic cut by The Who.

“I’m all ears,” I say.

“Okay. Good. Well here’s where we are: The hammer had on it the blood of three different people: we’re thinking three victims; two female and one male. The hair and also one blood sample is a match for our victim, Mrs. Wheaton. The other two aren’t in the system, but the female victim’s DNA ladders back to both the male and Mrs. Wheaton. The only other tool found on the property that had any blood was a shovel. Again Mrs. Wheaton.”

I take it in.

“Crazy, right?”

“I guess you could call it that. Same with the spatter?”

“Right. All three victims’ blood is present.”

“Thanks, Marley. Send the report.”

I don’t even wait until we are all the way out the door.

“Three victims, crime lab says,” I say as we jump in his car.

Sheriff gives me a puzzled look.

“What do you make of that?”

I pull the door shut and buckle up. “Sarah,” I tell him. “She might actually be a Seattle girl named Ellie Burbank.”

He’s all ears on the drive out to Snow Creek. I tell him that Ellie, in fact, might not be at the bottom of Lake Crescent, and that Susan Whitcomb is more than likely alive—her supposed death was merely an inspiration for the Burbank homicides—and he updates me about the Torrance case and how national media has already started calling.

“And her aunt is sure that’s Ellie? Not Sarah?”

“That’s what she thinks.”

“All of a sudden, we’re Ground Zero for murder,” he says.

I don’t disagree.

“We need to find Merritt Wheaton,” I remind him. “He’s out there somewhere.”

“Right. This is only the beginning.”

I look out the window thinking that this case has been the most bizarre I’ve ever been involved with.

At least in an official capacity.





Thirty-Nine





Bernadine Chesterfield, grandstander and attention seeker extraordinaire, a woman who would snap her gold-framed ethics code in a million pieces just to be in the middle of something noteworthy, sits by the road in a sagging heap.

We pitch to a stop and we get out.

I loathe this woman, and I’m not alone. She’s crying and hunched into a big ball. She looks like she’s had the wits scared out of her.

It’s not quite that. It’s something else.

Sheriff approaches first, and I follow a step or two behind. Bernie and I have a history. A decidedly mixed one. She doesn’t know that he’s the one who made the complaint about her conduct with the media during the Wheaton memorial service. Short as it was.

As fake as it might have been.

“I’m so stupid,” she says over and over. “So damn stupid.”

No argument comes from me—or Sheriff.

She doesn’t need any prodding. She unfolds herself and starts talking. Her blue slacks are torn and there’s blood on her sleeve.

She sees us looking at her clothing and the blood oozing from her arm.

“I’m fine. That’s just a scrape. I ran like hell.”

“What happened?” Sheriff asks.

She steadies herself against the car.

“I came out here, you know, to see how the kids were doing. They seemed so lost. Really. I just wanted to help.”

I don’t ask if she was making a court mandated visit because I know she wasn’t. I know her M.O.

“The house was quiet, and I went looking for them. I thought maybe they’d be in the orchard, but they weren’t. I got kind of worried. With everything going on around here, I wasn’t sure what to do. I mean, I thought something had happened to them.”

I want to tell her to cut to the chase, but I don’t and Sheriff nudges her along.

“I went back into the house to leave a note. My cell doesn’t work out here so I couldn’t call.”

“None work out here, Bernie,” Sheriff says.

She nods. “Right, so I wrote a note and as I went back to my car, I thought I heard something coming from the barn. It sounded like a hurt animal or something. Real muffled. I went inside, oh God. I saw something that I shouldn’t see.”

“What, Bernie? What did you see?” I ask, knowing that I’m not a patient person, the way Sheriff is.

“I called out their names again. And then I found them. They were in the back of the barn. Joshua was crying, and Sarah was telling him everything was all right. He stopped when he saw me. And when he turned to look at me, I don’t know… I saw that his pants were unbuttoned. He saw my eyes and turned away, while Sarah just snapped at me.”