Night Sins

by Tami Hoag

  “If you can set your emotions aside for a second here, Paul, imagine how this looks to us,” Mitch said. “You claim you can't remember who bought your van, then it turns up in the hands of the man suspected of kidnapping your son. You'd better be glad I know you, Paul”—he leaned ahead to point a finger in Paul's face—“because, I'm telling you, if I were just another cop, we would be having this conversation down the hall with a lawyer present.”

  Paul shifted in his chair, his expression half scowl, half pout, like a petulant student trying to act tough in the principal's office. “I didn't sell the van to Olie Swain.” His voice trembled slightly. “The guy who bought it from me must have resold it without changing the title.”

  Mitch sat back with a sigh and picked up the DMV fax. “Do you remember what time of year it was when you sold it?”

  “I don't know. Spring, I think. April or May.”

  “Title was changed in September,” Mitch said, handing the document to Megan. She gave him a look that did not go unnoticed by Paul.

  “Ask Hannah,” he said belligerently. “Hannah remembers everything.”

  “You wouldn't have any paperwork on the sale in your tax records?” she asked. “You being an accountant and all . . .”

  “Probably. I would have looked by now, but I've been busy with the search and, frankly, I couldn't—can't—see what bearing this has on anything.”

  “Look it up,” Mitch suggested, the good guy again. “It'll tie up the loose end.”

  “Fine.” Paul crossed his legs and shifted his body so that his focal point was away from Mitch and Megan.

  Wise to that ploy, Megan strolled behind him directly into his line of vision. “Mr. Kirkwood, I still have a couple of questions about the night Josh disappeared.”

  “I was working,” Paul said wearily, rubbing his forehead.

  “In the conference room at your office,” Megan finished. “And you never checked your answering machine?”

  “No,” he whispered as Josh's voice played inside his head—Dad, can you come and get me from hockey? Mom's late and I wanna go home. A tremor went through him. “Not until . . . after . . .”

  “After what?”

  Dad, can you come and get me from hockey? Mom's late and I wanna go home.

  He sniffed and ducked his head, shielding his eyes with his hand. “The next day.”

  “Do you still have the tape?”

  Dad, can you come and get me from hockey? Mom's late and I wanna go home.

  “A—no,” he lied. “I . . . I couldn't keep it. I couldn't listen—”

  Dad, can you come and get me from hockey? Mom's late and I wanna go home.

  He shuddered. “I just want him back,” he whispered through the tears. “I just want him back.”

  Megan blew out a long breath as Mitch sent her a warning look. “I'm sorry to put you through this, Mr. Kirkwood,” she said quietly. “I don't enjoy it.”

  Mitch offered Paul a box of Kleenex and a pat on the shoulder. “I know it's hell, Paul. We wouldn't ask if we didn't have to.”

  “Chief?” Natalie's voice came over the intercom. “Noogie's on line one and I think you're going to want to hear what he has to say.”

  He went around the desk again, picked up the receiver, and punched the blinking light. “Noogie, what's up?”

  “I'm at St. Elysius, Chief. I think you better come out. I picked up a radio call to the sheriff's department. A woman out here on Ryan's Bay is reporting her dog found a kid's jacket. They think it might be Josh Kirkwood's.”

  CHAPTER 26

  * * *

  DAY 8

  3:07 P.M. -26° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -45°

  Ryan's Bay was the rather grandiose name for what was essentially a big wet spot in an area of sloughs west of Dinkytown, windswept and bleak in winter's grip. The land had been annexed into the Deer Lake municipality in the seventies, but there was no city sewer or water service and the residents of the Ryan's Bay area thought of themselves as being independent from the town, which explained why Ruth Cooper had called the sheriff's department when her Labrador came charging out of a stand of cattail stalks with a child's jacket in his mouth. Steiger himself was on the scene wearing a shearling coat with the collar turned up, a big fur trapper's hat warming his greasy head. He appeared to be the star attraction in what was already a media circus.

  “So much for preserving the scene,” Megan muttered as Mitch pulled his Explorer in alongside the KSTP news van, blocking the van in.

  Newspeople, civilians, sheriff's deputies, and loose dogs trampled the snow as they milled around. Mitch cut the engine and started to turn toward Paul in the back seat, but Paul was already out the door and hustling toward the center of the storm. Reporters turned and stepped back for him. Cameras swung in his direction. Mitch jumped out of the truck and sprinted after him, hoping in vain that he might be able to prevent the very scene into which Paul Kirkwood plunged himself.

  Steiger was holding up the bright-colored ski jacket like a trophy. A strangled cry wrenching from his throat, Paul launched himself at the sheriff, grabbing the jacket and sending Steiger staggering backward. Paul fell to his knees in the trampled snow. Clutching the coat in both hands, he buried his face in it, sobbing.

  “Oh my God, Josh! Josh! Oh God! No!”

  Mitch shoved his way through the ranks of press that had closed in, his temper spiking. As he broke into the center of the circle, he turned on them, shouting, “Get out of here!” He batted down the lens of a video camera zooming in on Paul. “Jesus, don't you people have any compassion at all? Get out of here!”

  Behind him he could hear the awful sound of Paul Kirkwood crying. There was nothing in the human experience with which to compare a parent's grief. It was a dismemberment of a living soul, so excruciating it went beyond all known adjectives. That wasn't a thing for people to witness on the six o'clock news.

  Father McCoy was on one knee beside Paul, a hand on Paul's shoulder, his head bent as he tried to keep his words of comfort from being swept away by the cutting wind. Steiger stood six feet in front of them, looking disgruntled and at a loss, spiritual matters beyond him.

  Mitch flashed the sheriff a twisted smile. “Thanks for alerting my office, Russ.”

  Steiger sniffed and spit a glob of mucus in the snow.

  “Move it back, people!” Megan called, flashing her ID as Noogie and two other officers herded the crowd back up onto Old Cedar Road. “You're on a possible crime scene! We've got to ask you to move back!”

  “Leave me alone!” Paul shouted suddenly. He shoved at Father Tom as he pushed himself to his feet, sending the priest sprawling in the snow. “I don't want anything from you! Get the hell away from me!”

  “Hey, Paul.” Mitch took hold of his arm and steered him toward the sloughs, away from the watchful eyes of the press. “Come on. We need to take a minute and think about what this means.”

  “He's dead,” Paul said thickly. He held the jacket out in front of him, staring at it as if his son had just vanished from inside of it. “He's dead. He's dead—”

  Mitch pushed the coat down. “We don't know that. We've got his jacket, not him. This jacket is described on every poster and report about Josh. The kidnapper would have been smart to dump it right off the bat.”

  Beyond reason, Paul had started to cry again, a soft, eerie keening. “He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.”

  “Houston!” Mitch called, motioning one of his officers over from the crowd-control detail.

  The burly, bearded cop shambled over, snow screeching beneath his heavy-duty Arctic boots. The moisture from his breath had frozen white in his thick facial hair. What was visible of his face was red from the cold and the wind.

  “I need you to take Mr. Kirkwood home,” Mitch said. “Explain what happened to Dr. Garrison and stay with them until I get there.”

  “You bet.” Houston draped a beefy arm across Paul's shoulders. “Come on, Mr. Kirkwood. Let's get you home. It's too darn cold to stan
d around out here.”

  Before they could take a step, Mitch took hold of Josh's jacket and tried to extricate it gently from Paul's grip. “Come on, Paul,” he said quietly. “This is evidence now. We need to send it up to the crime lab.”

  Reluctantly, Paul let go. Hands over his face, he walked away with Houston.

  “He's in a lot of pain,” Father Tom said, dusting the snow off the seat of his parka.

  “How about you, Father?” Megan asked. “Are you all right?”

  His glasses were askew. He straightened them and tugged down on the earflaps of his hunting cap. “I'm all right. I should have known better. Paul isn't one of my bigger fans. But when Noogie came into St. E's to use the phone and told us what was going on, I felt it was my duty to be here.”

  “Us?” Mitch said, looking off toward the church. It was perhaps a quarter mile away to the southeast, its spires thrusting up above the naked trees.

  “Albert and I were going over some church accounts,” the priest said. “If you're concerned about discretion, I think the cat's already out of the bag.”

  Mitch said nothing. He took a good long look at the area. The “bay” itself was frozen and adrift with snow that piled up against the thick stands of skeletal blond cattail stalks. A winter-white desert with dunes that shifted beneath the frigid breath of the wind. It had to be a haven for mosquitoes in the warmer months, but people had still chosen to build homes around the edge of it. The half-dozen houses that ringed the northwest side of the bay ranged from a winterized cottage to a pricey custom cedar shake job with elaborate decks that would have looked at home on Nantucket. They sat back from the shore on large, well-spaced lots of three to five acres that were thick with evergreen and hardwood trees.

  Beyond them to the west, beyond the rolling open farmland and copses of trees, the horizon was milky with airborne snow. The sky was awash with brilliant paintbox shades of fuchsia and tangerine as the sun began its descent. There were no houses on the southeast shore, only a huge thicket of scrubby brush and thin young trees like a stand of giant toothpicks. The nearest homes in that direction ran south on the block behind St. Elysius, small, neat boxes with ribbons of smoke curling up from their chimneys.

  Mitch completed the circle, drawing his gaze up to Old Cedar Road, lined with cars and vans and people stamping their feet to keep the feeling in them. Albert Fletcher stood at the end of the line, a tall figure in a somber black coat, a black hood drawn tight around his thin face.

  “Did the two of you ride over with Noogie?” Mitch asked.

  “I did.” Father Tom raised his brows as he, too, spotted the deacon. “Albert must have come on his own. I didn't think he was interested in coming out. He told me he wasn't feeling well, thought he had a cold coming on. . . .”

  “Apparently he's feeling better,” Megan said, hunching her back against a gust of wind.

  “Hmm . . . I'd better get going,” the priest said. “I'm sure Paul won't be happy to see me, but I think Hannah is going to need a shoulder to cry on.”

  He trudged off across the snow and climbed the bank to where Albert Fletcher was standing. The two men left together.

  Mitch turned his attention to the small jacket he held and the name that was written inside the collar with indelible laundry marker. He held it out for Megan's inspection and she took it from him, sighing heavily. “This doesn't leave any room for doubt, does it?”

  Steiger came over with a woman who held a big black Lab on a leash. The dog danced along beside her, barely able to contain his excitement. “Mitch, this is Ruth Cooper. Her dog found the jacket.”

  Mitch nodded. “Mrs. Cooper.”

  Megan shot the sheriff a look, then introduced herself. “Mrs. Cooper, I'm Agent O'Malley with the BCA.”

  “Oh, yes. How do you do? Caleb, sit,” the woman said, tugging on the leash. Caleb had the lean, muscular body of a young dog, and he wiggled and shivered from his head to the tip of his tail as he cast a hopeful look up at his mistress.

  Beneath her thick cream knit stocking cap and inside a puffy cream and mauve ski jacket, Ruth Cooper was a small, rounded woman in her sixties. Her pert nose was showing the effects of too much time out in the extreme cold by turning the shade of red worn by deer hunters in the fall. She shifted her weight back and forth from one snowmobile boot to the other as she told her story.

  “I was walking with Caleb,” she began, and the dog wagged his tail enthusiastically at the sound of his name. “He can go off his leash, but we don't trust him not to run off on an adventure, so either Stan or me goes out with him—even in this weather. And Stan, he can't go out in this now, you know; he's got that awful flu bug going around. I told him to get the shot this fall, but he's so stubborn. Anyway, we were walking around the bay, and Caleb, he likes to go out into the reeds and scare up birds, so off he goes, and he comes running back with this.” She grabbed one sleeve of Josh's coat and held it up. “I knew right away. I just knew. That poor little tyke.”

  “Mrs. Cooper,” Mitch said. “You walk Caleb out here every day?”

  “Oh, yes. He needs to get out and Stan and me don't care for kennels—not with a big dog like Caleb. We're out here every day. That's our place over there—the tan Cape Cod house. Would you like to come in for coffee? It's awfully cold out here.”

  “Maybe in a few minutes, Mrs. Cooper,” Mitch said. “I'm sorry to keep you out in the cold like this, but we'll need to see exactly where Caleb dug this up.”

  Ruth and Caleb led the way with Steiger right beside them.

  Noogie walked beside Mitch, talking in a low voice. “Chief, I was on the search team out here Friday. We were all over this ground and no one found so much as a gum wrapper. We had a dog from Search and Rescue, too. That jacket wasn't out here.”

  Mitch frowned. “When was the last time you saw Caleb go out into this general area, Mrs. Cooper?”

  “We were in this same spot yesterday afternoon.” She stopped along the edge of the slough and pointed.

  “Did you see anyone here between then and this afternoon?” Megan asked, idly unzipping a pocket on the jacket to check the contents—a wad of tissue, a Bubble Yum wrapper.

  “I see people out here from time to time. We got this nice path, you know, for snowmobiles or walkers or cross-country skiing. Some of these fitness people are just crazy. They'll go out in all weather for their jogging or whatever,” she said. “There was a man out here early this morning. I was in my kitchen heating up water for Stan's Theraflu, and I looked out and saw him walking on the path.”

  “Did you get a good look at him?” Mitch asked.

  “He came right up to the house, but he was all bundled up, you know,” she said. “He'd lost his dog. Wanted to know had I seen him. A big hairy thing—the dog, not the man. I told him no and he asked would I keep an eye out. I said sure. You know, I just love dogs. I'd sure look out for one lost in this awful cold.” Caleb wagged his tail and bowed at her feet.

  “My men searched this area already,” Steiger said to Mitch. He had his hands rammed into his coat pockets and looked as stiff as a carved totem pole from the cold. “There's nothing else here to see. I say we take Ruth up on that coffee.”

  “I just want to have a quick look,” Mitch said, and started down the bank.

  “His son's dog, he said,” Ruth went on. “The dog's name was something kind of odd. Grimsby? Gatsby? Gizmo. That was it. Gizmo.”

  A cold blade of dread went through Mitch. He froze halfway down the bank. Gizmo. In his mind's eye he could see the drawing from Josh's notebook—a boy and his dog. A hairy mutt named Gizmo.

  “Mitch.”

  Megan's tone turned his head in her direction. He looked up at her. Her eyes were wide, her face as colorless as the snow. In her gloved hand she held a strip of paper. The wind made it flutter like a ribbon.

  He charged up the bank and caught the end of it between his fingers. He realized he hadn't known what cold was until he read the words and his blood ran like ice
water in his veins.

  my specter around me night and day

  like a wild beast guards my way

  my emanation far within

  weeps incessantly for my SIN

  4:55 P.M. -27° WINDCHILL FACTOR: -45°

  What the hell does it mean?” Steiger stalked around the table, his hands on his lean hips.

  Megan sat on the table with her feet on the seat of a chair and her elbows on her knees. This was the conference room where she had first seen Mitch, dancing in long red underwear, one week ago to the day. He leaned back against the wall directly in front of her now, his arms crossed, his expression hard and worn. His face was carved with lines of strain and shadowed with fatigue, lean and tough.

  The room had changed as well. They called it the war room now. A map of Park County and one of the state of Minnesota covered the cork bulletin board, red pins poked into them marking search territories. The long wall held a time line of the investigation on a sheet of white paper three feet wide and twelve feet long. Everything that had happened since Josh's last sighting was noted on the time line, scribbled tributaries branching out from the main red artery, notes in red ink and blue ink and black ink. On the white message board at the end of the room, Mitch had added the verse from the latest note in his bold, slanted handwriting.

  This was where they came to brainstorm. Away from the noise and activity of the command post. The war room had no phone, no volunteers underfoot, no press peering in. In this room they could sit and stare at the latest of the messages and listen to the clock tick as they struggled to decipher the meaning. All they knew with certainty was that the quote was from William Blake's “My Specter.”

  “He could be saying he has a split personality,” Megan offered, earning a derisive snort from the sheriff. “Or an accomplice.”

  “Olie Swain,” he grunted. “He was guilty as sin. You saw those pictures he had—”

  “They were old,” Mitch argued. “He had a clean record here—”

  The sheriff rolled his eyes as they crossed paths in their pacing. “Once a chicken hawk, always a chicken hawk. You think he lived here all that time without putting it to some kid?”