Snow Creek(69)

“What did you do?” she asked.

Then the hammer went down.





We drive in silence for a while as I think about the blood evidence.

“That’s not what happened, Sarah.”

“It is too.”

“The evidence says otherwise.”

She doesn’t say another word for at least a mile. I stay quiet, letting my challenge to her story sink in. I wonder if Sarah is thinking of a way out of what she said or giving in to the reality of her situation.

“Joshua did it all. He did it to protect me.”

“That’s a story, Sarah, and you know it.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at, Detective Carpenter.”

My eyes burn into hers through the rearview mirror. I’m thinking of the evidence that’s never been mentioned, or thought of as inconsequential.

“The shovel,” I say. “Let’s start there.”

She looks away. “What shovel?”

“The one you used to kill your mother.”

She doesn’t say another word.

It doesn’t matter. I know what happened. The evidence and what Ellie told me in the jail interview room is all a jury will need to convict.





Forty-Seven





Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is a madhouse. It seldom sees press action of any kind. The place is one story, so nondescript that people often pass by thinking it’s a former nail salon or dollar store that’s been stripped of its livery for the next big thing. Whatever that is. Especially here. When I go inside the moron TV reporter is already setting up. I wonder if he and his camerawoman made it to that restaurant—and a motel room.

I tell Sheriff I need to leave. I don’t want to be on camera again. A lot of good it did me last time. I shudder at the very idea of it.

“You need a scorecard to talk to the press?” I ask. “Don’t forget to add Ellie killing her mom to the list.”

He gives me a side eye and a shrug.

“I’ve got this,” he says.

I nod, and he actually reaches over and hugs me.

I can’t think of the last time anyone did that.

“You are the best person I know,” he says.

I don’t deflect. I’m not, but he means well. He cares about me.

“See you later,” I say.

He gives me a quick nod and makes his way to the TV people. I hear him bark at them and tell them no one is making any statements.

I read through my text messages before I start the car.

Mindy notes that dogs alerted on the firepit at the Torrance property.

Found a femur and a human jaw. Tool marks on both.





I don’t need a forensic dentist to tell me who the jaw belongs to. I know. I followed the trail. Just like Regina Torrance did.

As I drive, I consider that the murders were a chain of broken links. Not completely connected but interlocking in peculiar ways. The first to die is unrelated to the sequence, but I count it anyway because the last death—Regina’s—bookends everything. Her reason for dying was the hidden crime which was sure to be discovered. It starts with Regina’s wife. Amy was murdered, or killed by accident at least two or so years ago. A dark, hidden crime. Then, this summer on the other side of Puget Sound, Tyra Whitcomb tells Ellie she killed her mother, Susan. That in turn inspires Ellie to kill her parents, Hudson and Carrie; all three murders are set up to look like boating or hiking accidents.

Except one was a lie. Tyra never killed her mother. She and her father just made her disappear the old fashioned way.

With a threat and a check.

At the same time, or shortly thereafter, Ellie urges Joshua to do the same thing: to kill his folks and sister so they could be lovers in a world of their own.

When Regina finds Merritt’s body on the edge of her property, she becomes frightened that her secret will be discovered, so she disposes of his body in the firepit.

Who could do something like that?

Considering how she managed her wife’s corpse, my bet that dismembering and burning Merritt’s body wasn’t the hardest thing she’d ever done.

Why didn’t she do the same with Mrs. Wheaton?

My thinking is that she just didn’t see her. It was dark in the woods and her vision was poor. In addition, the body was wrapped in a carpet.

All of that is conjecture informed by the evidence.

My phone pings and another piece of the puzzle falls into place as Mindy provides an update from processing the women’s bodies.

Regina poisoned herself. Tox will tell us more. The other one. Wow. Amy’s corpse was filled with charcoal. Like a bean bag. Let’s do lunch next week.





He’s drinking a Scotch and soda while I down a shot of tequila and a PBR. The burn of the alcohol feels good in its own way as it travels down my throat. I don’t even bother with the lime.

“You drink like a guy,” Sheriff says with a smile.

“You do too. Sometimes.”

We laugh and then stare ahead at the back bar while the bartender, a portly man in his late forties, chats up a young pretty brunette nursing a gin and tonic. She’s acting interested, but I’ve seen that look before. Used it myself even. She’s talking to him because no one better has sidled up next to her.