by Gregg Olsen
I didn’t understand what she meant. The funny thing about it was that I didn’t even ask. I just accepted it. The next morning, I found her in front of the fireplace burning papers and photographs. I watched my own image get licked and then devoured by orange and blue flames.
Ten minutes later, we were gone, and my name was no longer Shelly. We took nothing with us. Not even those pink bunny slippers. I always missed those slippers so much.
“Anna,” she said, trying out my new name as we drove toward the highway, “starting over will save us. Starting over is the only way we can survive.”
My pizza is long gone. Two beers too.
I think of Joshua and Sarah and how they’ll have to start over their lives. Just like Hayden and I did. Depending on how the family court judge rules, it is possible that Sarah will go into foster care until more permanent arrangements can be made. Among the list of things that Hayden hated me for was how he had to, as he said, “serve time” in foster care. I was out there somewhere, and he was alone with strangers. It was my doing. I left him. He didn’t know why.
Not then.
Nineteen
The night had been a rough one. I doubt I slept more than two or three hours. I tossed and turned and struggled to find the cool side of my pillow. I dreamed of cats and Hayden. I pick up my phone and open my email. Nothing but a bunch of spam offering me things I don’t need and don’t want. Nothing from my brother. I remind myself, as I put my feet on the floor and head to the bathroom, that someday he’ll write me back. He has to. He’s my blood. He’s all I have.
I put a pod in the coffeemaker and wait while it pushes hot water through the ground coffee. My phone pings and my heart skips a beat.
Hayden?
I look down. It’s not my brother. It’s an update from the crime lab.
We will run the samples this morning. Expect a call after lunch.
I finish my coffee, take a quick shower and dress for work. My first stop is at the community planning office where I’ll ask for a printout of the property owners closest to the Wheatons, before heading out to Snow Creek.
The printout is scant in information. There are only four property owners—Maxine and Earl Jacobson, Ida and Merritt Wheaton, Regina and Amy Torrance, and Daniel Anderson. The house with the sweet potato vine is a ghost on the page. A squatter, I think. A squatter who’d been there for what seems to have been a long time. A notation indicates that the previous owners had left the area before we went digital. They owed back taxes to the tune of $2,024 and apparently felt the tax bill didn’t justify the reality of what they had.
I completely agree.
As I get up to leave for Snow Creek, Sheriff appears in my doorway.
“Want some company?” he asks.
I smile.
“Sure. I’ll even let you drive.”
As we drive, I tell him about Maxine and her cats.
“Seriously? More than a hundred?”
“I didn’t exactly count them, but that’s my guess.”
“Wife and I are more dog people.”
Second-growth firs are a ribbon of green from my passenger window. The view from where I sit as Sheriff drives is stunning. Really. The forest is a massive green wall on either side of the road, every now and then giving way to the shimmering waters of Snow Creek. We had a small creek in Port Orchard. Hayden loved looking for salamanders there.
Sheriff slams on the brakes as a doe jumps into the roadway.
“Jesus! We almost hit her.”
“We didn’t,” I say.
He looks ashen and reaches over. “Are you okay?”
I exhale. “Fine. We’re all fine.”
“I don’t like close calls,” he says.
I know he’s thinking of the car accident that left him with a metal plate riveted to his skull. He jokes about setting off the metal detector at the courthouse. It’s not really funny. He’d veered off the highway and hit the barrier. Hard. A few in the office gossiped that he’d been drinking at the Indian casino and the state patrol covered it up.
It helps having friends in law enforcement.
Drunks, criminals and people looking for a second chance know that.
Like me.
It was Tony Gray who somehow managed to excise details of my life from law enforcement files. I didn’t ask how. I assume someone helped him. He’s not what anyone would call a digital native. He’s what I call, however, the man who gave me a chance to live a life in which I could be the best part of me. He saw it in me, before I really did.
He eases his foot onto the gas pedal, while I look down at the plat map.
“Slow down,” I say as we start moving. “The Anderson property is right here, on the left.”
We proceed up a slight incline. As driveways go around here, this is the nicest one by far. It’s not paved, of course, but its compacted gravel makes for a smoother ride than the rutted-out ingress of his neighbors.
He studies me. “You sure there’s a house up here?”
“Folks out here have a thing for long, winding roads,” I say.
My eyes widen as the house comes into view.
“I didn’t expect that,” I say.
“Impressive,” he says.
What held our attention wasn’t the Anderson house, though it was nice. It was a small two-story, painted white, with black shutters. More Nantucket than, say, backwoods Washington.
The yard was filled with wood carvings done with a chainsaw. There were bears, eagles, totems, and more. Some were painted with bright colors of marine paint. While chainsaw art isn’t my thing, the collection here was carved by a master—if there’s such a thing. A Smee-like character from Peter Pan looked like he could speak. I did a double take at a sea otter because I actually thought it was real.
“Some serious talent here,” Sheriff says.
“No shit,” I say.
Daniel Anderson emerges from the house and walks toward us. He seems normal. No gun. He has a neatly trimmed beard on a square jaw. It looks authentic. Not like the hipsters that flock to Port Townsend on the weekends to pose as lumberjacks or mariners. He’s lean and has close-cropped dark brown hair. He’s wearing Carhartt jeans and a purple University of Washington shirt emblazoned with the university’s mascot: a husky. When he smiles, I notice straight away that he has all his teeth.
“You folks from the fair committee?” he asks as he approaches.
His eyes are blue. The kind of blue that’s not really found in nature. Dark, with violet undertones. I break my gaze and Sheriff speaks up.
“No,” he tells him, holding out his badge. I do the same. “I’m Sheriff Tony Gray and this is Detective Megan Carpenter. Your work’s awesome, really. Daniel Anderson, right?”
“Call me Dan. I have a business license,” he says. “Take me a minute to get it.”
“No,” I tell him as he turns to go inside. “We’re not here about that, Dan.”
He stops and looks at me warily. “Then why are you here?”
We tell him about the Wheatons, though not everything. If he gets the Leader or reads news online, he’ll know about the body found off the logging road. Since we don’t know for sure that it’s Ida, I won’t volunteer anything. Rumors thrive in the dark, unknown places like Snow Creek.
“Did you know them?” I ask, omitting the word “well” because no one seems to know anyone out here other than to wave to now and again.
But Dan does.
“Yeah, Merritt used to come down here. We both dug working with wood. He’s a furniture maker and he’d bring pieces over to me to sell for him. Didn’t like dealing with outsiders. Funny that way. I told him he was a commune leader without a real commune one time. That pissed him off.”
Sheriff interjects. “You were close?”
“No,” Dan says. “I wouldn’t say that. He came down here to unload his tables and stuff. We had a beer a time or two. His favorite was Miller. Tastes like piss to me, but hey, I stocked up some and we shot the breez
e.”
“Did you know Ida? The kids?” I ask as he leads us over to a bench carved in the shape of an orca. I run my fingers over the grain of the wood. Smooth as satin.
He sits on a stump ready for carving and faces us.
“No. Not really. I was thinking of inviting them over one time for a barbecue. You know, to be neighborly. He wouldn’t have anything to do with that. Said his wife was shy and his kids were too unruly to take anywhere. I never saw anything like that in them. Always seemed like a nice family.”
“Ever say he was unhappy with his marriage?” I ask.
Dan doesn’t answer right away.
I give him a little push. He’s holding back. “What’s on your mind, Dan?”
“Oh, I don’t know. One time he told me, now he was a little drunk, he said that Ida didn’t always do what he wanted her to do.”
“What did he mean, if you know?” Sheriff asks.
Dan looks at me. He’s embarrassed about something.
“It’s fine. Go ahead.”
He nods. “Okay. It creeped me out. He told me that he’d trained her to do what he wanted and lately she’d been holding back.”
Ruth Turner’s “hand-picked” comes to mind just then.
“You mean sexually?” I ask.
He nods again, his face now pink. “Yeah, that’s the way I took it.”
We talk a bit more, mostly about his artwork. Sheriff asks if he knows any of the other neighbors and if they were close to the Wheatons.
“Old Maxine used to have the kids over,” Dan says. “Said they were nice kids. That relationship fizzled out; not sure why.”
“I chatted with her already,” I say.
He gives me a smile that’s almost a wink. It’s disarming. “You see her cats? Merritt called her Crazy Cat Lady.”
I smile. “I thought one of them was going to go home with me. Or at the very least attach itself to my calf.”
“No shit,” he says. “I have one showing up here every now and then. I imagine cats don’t like living in those conditions. Her heart is in the right place, but anything over two cats is too many.”
“Do you know the people holed up in the mobile?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says. “Place has been abandoned for years. No power. Surprised it’s still intact. Guess some people just need a roof over their heads and don’t care what it’s like. Meth-heads stayed there for a few months. They’re gone now. I think whoever has it now uses it on weekends only.”
“Some vacation getaway,” Sheriff says.
“I guess you could call it that,” Dan says.
“What about the Torrances?”
“Those gals keep to themselves. Just like everybody out here, I guess. I haven’t seen either in months. Last time I was over there was to return one of their Nubians. She got loose, ended up way over here. Regina was glad to get her back. Amy was inside and didn’t come out to say hello. Regina went in and got me a nice brick of their cheese. Give a big hello from me, when you speak to them. Always liked those girls and how they ditched the city to make a life out here. Kind of like Little House in the Big Woods.”
Sheriff and I thank him for his time. I hand him my card.
“Please call if you have anything to add,” I say.
He smiles at me.
Sheriff looks at me and I turn to leave.
“When they turn up,” Dan calls out, looking up from my card, “tell Merritt that I’ve got some dough for the live edge dining table.”
As the sheriff backs up the car to turn around, he glances at me with a sheepish grin.
“Don’t say anything,” I say.
He does anyway.
“You like him,” he says.
I ignore his remark.
“Let’s get going.”
Twenty
I’m on edge. Teetering. When it comes to gut feelings as I work a case, I’m not infallible. I’ve been wrong a few times. Two, in fact. This one, however, I know what I know inside. I just need confirmation because the law requires it. I’m learning how to follow the rules, something I avoided completely when I was younger. I look at the dead, black mirror of my phone. I want to see the DNA results to confirm who Jane Doe is.
Even though I know who it is.
“How do people live out here without phones that work?” I ask as we pull away from Dan Miller’s place on our way to the Torrance property.
Sheriff pops another cherry candy into his mouth.
“Waiting on those reports?”
He reads me. He is the only one who can. Though only as much as I allow.
“Of course. We’ll need the warrant right away.”
“Theory?” he asks.
“It’s all about the claw hammer. I think that Merritt Wheaton killed Ida and wrapped her up in the carpet.”
“Where? In his workshop in the Quonset hut, or in the barn?”
I nod. “She was hit in the back of the head. Had to be at home. No one carries a hammer around.”
“Carpenters do.”
I make an annoyed face. “I guess so. But not this control freak. He’s going to kill her where no one can hear or see anything.”
“Motive?”
He’s lobbing the easy ones at me. I answer anyway.
“Like I said, control freak. You heard Dan. He said Ida was pushing back on her duties, I guess. They come from a fundamentalist sect that, as far as I can tell, is their own invention. No church that I can find. After spending time with Ida’s sister Ruth, I definitely got a Children of the Corn vibe.”
He smiles at the reference.
“There,” I point, “that’s the Torrance place. Pull in there.”
“You sure?”
I look at the plat map. “Yes. And by the looks of it, this driveway is about a mile long.”
“More like a road, than driveway,” he says.
“Apparently that’s the way they like it out here.”
The road, or whatever it is, is deeply rutted. No effort has been made to stabilize its surface. Sheriff expertly navigates the deep dips. He slows to cross a pool of mud and water.
“Shouldn’t have had my car washed yesterday,” he says.
I see a potato chip bag stuffed next to the console.
Shouldn’t be eating chips, I think.
“Well looky here,” he says as the barn and house come into view. “A real house.”
I’m surprised too. The sight of the Torrance farm is unexpected and makes me think of a bias that I have about Snow Creek. Yes, they are off the grid. Yes, they want to be by themselves. Dan, Maxine, the Wheatons, and now Regina and Amy Torrance… they carved out their own lives in the woods. They weren’t living in squalor—with the exception of Maxine’s herd of cats—like a bunch of tweakers or head and neck tatted white supremacists.
We get out and go to the door where we find a note referencing an RV trip and someone named Jared, who was watching the animals.
“No one on the county property rolls around here with that name,” I say.
“He must be from town,” Sheriff says, peering through the window on the door. “A caretaker, I guess. Someone has to be taking care of the animals around here.”
A hint of smoke from the barely burning embers of a firepit across the yard between the house and the goat barn fills my lungs.
“Must have just missed ’em,” I say. “I’ll leave a note for Jared to call me.”
I tuck my card with a message into the door jamb next to the note.
“No one’s in trouble,” I write. “Just trying to find out if anyone knows anything about the Wheatons. Please call me.”
Just as we hit the highway off Snow Creek Road, my phone pings. I feel an adrenalin surge even before I play the voice message from the crime lab on speaker.
It’s the call that I’ve been waiting for.
“Hey, Detective Carpenter,” lab tech supervisor, Marley Yang, says, “we got a match. It’s mother and son. This is no guess. Real thing. No doubts. Your
victim is Ida Wheaton. Good luck with the case. Find the son of a bitch who killed her. There, I said it. Bye now.”
“Let’s go get a warrant,” Sheriff says.
My phone pings again. It’s from a number I don’t know. This time I put the phone to my ear and listen.
It’s Dan Miller.
“A… Detective, I saw you admiring some of my work. Would like to give you a carving. No charge. OK? Unless that’s against some county government policy. If it is, it’s a dumb one. Let me know. Okay? Bye. It’s Dan. Dan Anderson.”
“Everything okay?” Sheriff says. “You’re suddenly very quiet. That’s a trait I’d never ascribe to you, Megan.”
I look at him, then out the window. “Nothing. Landlord’s going to fix the broken window in the basement.”
It’s a lie. I suspect he knows it. He doesn’t pry. I like Dan Anderson. Though I don’t like relationships; I know most people would chide me for even thinking that’s his intention. Egotistical. Narcissistic. Whatever. If anything, I know people and the way they think. My mother taught me that. She might not have known it at the time, but she did.
This time Sheriff has his ear pressed to the phone. I watch him as he drives. I know he cares about me. He’s the closest thing I have to family. Or a friend. A relationship. A lifeline. Hayden is off in the desert and I wonder if he ever thinks about me.
“Warrant tomorrow,” he says looking over at me.
“We need to notify Joshua and Sarah and Ruth that Ida was murdered. I’ve tried Ruth’s husband’s phone multiple times and no one picks up. I want to be the one to notify.”
“Not my favorite thing to do,” he says. “But it does come with the job every now and then.”
I’m thankful that murder in Jefferson County is a rare occurrence. There has only been one since Sheriff Gray gave me the job I was meant to do. It was the wife of a tourist from Indiana. Her body had been found at low tide off the ferry dock. She’d been strangled. He’d been found in his hotel room, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
