by Alex Kava
There were only a few diners but every single one turned to get a glance at the dog. Grace, however, was more fascinated by the rock waterfall, the tropical plants and the stream that flowed through the atrium. Obviously, the indoor vegetation provided interesting scents.
Maggie and Lucy had drinks in front of them. The women sat across the table from each other. Maggie scooted over on the booth’s bench to make room for Creed next to her while Lucy scooted in the other direction to greet Grace.
“Is it just the three of us?” Creed asked.
“Detective Pakula’s a few minutes late,” Maggie told him. “He said we should go ahead and order.”
“I’ll get your waitress,” the hostess said as she placed the menu in front of Creed. “Can I get you something to drink from the bar? Perhaps a bowl of water for your partner?”
He glanced at the women’s drinks in front of them. Maggie had a beer, Lucy a glass of wine.
“I’ll take you up on that bowl of water. And a beer for me.”
“Would you like me to tell you what beers we have?”
He pointed to Maggie’s glass. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
When the hostess left, Maggie said, “I was telling Lucy about your facility. She rescues dogs, too.”
Creed raised an eyebrow and met the woman’s eyes. “Why am I not surprised by that?”
It was the first time he’d seen the woman smile. Everyone kept saying Lucy Coy was retired, but Creed had a hard time figuring out how old she was. Her eyes were soulful, her skin radiant, and she had the poise and confidence of a woman who was content with herself and her life.
“I take care of mine,” Lucy said. “But I don’t have the skills to train them.”
“If you’re ever interested in learning, you could come down sometime.”
“Ryder and Hannah have a long waiting list for dogs and for training handlers,” Maggie said. “Last spring they signed a contract with DHS to provide virus sniffing dogs for the airports.”
“Impressive.” Lucy sipped her wine and the smile turned thoughtful. “I may take you up on that offer.”
A waitress named Rita interrupted to take their orders. She turned to leave when a man called out to her. Creed would have guessed he was a cop even if the guy had been in a crowd.
“Hold on a minute,” the man said as he slipped into the booth next to Lucy.
He wore a sports jacket over a black T-shirt and jeans. He scraped his hand over his shaved head and waved off the menu she offered.
“You still have that eight ounce filet?”
“You want steak fries with that?”
“Of course, I want steak fries, but you better give me whatever vegetables you have instead.”
She’d barely left the table and the man stretched out his hand to Creed.
“Tommy Pakula. Call me Tommy. Call me Pakula. Whichever you like.”
“Ryder Creed. And this is Grace.”
“Grace, the wonder dog,” Pakula said as he offered his hand to Grace, keeping the fingers low so she could sniff without putting her head back. It was a gesture of someone who knew how to approach dogs.
“Have you found out anything?” Maggie asked.
“It’s good to see you, too, O’Dell.” Pakula’s tone was that of a colleague comfortable enough to exchange barbs. He laced his fingers together and placed them on the table. “I called in a favor. She’ll be moved to the top of the list tomorrow morning. But the CSU techs found something interesting when they were transferring her.”
Pakula glanced around to see if anyone was in earshot. Creed knew the detective purposely avoided referring to the victim by using the words body or corpse for anyone close enough to listen.
“She had a gadget on her ankle.” Pakula pulled his cell phone out. He swiped the screen a couple of times then handed the phone to Lucy first, who passed it to Maggie and Creed.
“Looks like a tracking device.” Creed recognized the small black contraption with a nylon strap. “I use a similar one with my dogs. They’re small enough to wear on their collars. I usually drop one into the pocket of their vests. I can locate a dog if she gets hurt or lost.
Pakula was nodding. “We’re checking to see if this one has a memory card or an internal data storage. Anything that we might be able to download.”
“Wait a minute,” Maggie said. “Are you saying there’s a chance we might be able to track where this woman was before she ended up at the bottom of the lake?”
Pakula raised an eyebrow at her and did a quick glance around. Then he looked to Creed, waiting for him to answer.
“It’s been in the water for almost a year,” Creed said. “Mine are water resistant, but I’d say it’s a long shot as to whether or not the data storage is still available.”
“Any guesses how she died?” Lucy asked keeping her voice low.
“I’m leaving that to your buddy Fox to tell us tomorrow.”
“Harold Fox?”
Pakula nodded.
“He’s very thorough.” Lucy seemed pleased with his selection to do the autopsy. To Maggie and Creed, she said, “He was one of my favorite students.”
“I’m trying to keep our team on this small and tightlipped,” Pakula told them. “I only want people I can trust. I’m still trying to find out who else was in that house and where they went. Dunn had to have someone helping him. I think they’re holding them somewhere else.”
“How well do you know and trust the people you have on the team right now?” Creed asked.
Rita brought their food, and Creed could feel all eyes on him as they waited while she distributed the platters around the table. As soon as she was gone, Pakula put his elbow on the table and leaned forward, “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“My dive tank malfunctioned while I was under water.”
“Wait a minute,” Maggie said. “Why didn’t you tell me?” In the next instant he could see the memory register with her. “That’s why you came up gasping.”
“I couldn’t breathe no matter how much I adjusted the regulator. No kinks in the lines. I checked for leakage in the hoses but didn’t find anything.”
“What are the chances of a tank just malfunctioning?” Maggie asked, but Creed could already see she didn’t believe that’s what had happened.
“I’d say the chances are pretty slim,” Pakula said, his eyes on Creed. “You think someone tampered with it.” A statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
“Son of a bitch,” Pakula muttered and swiped his hand over his jaw. “You still have it?”
“In the back of my Jeep.”
“I’ll have our lab guys check it.”
Then as if he remembered something else, he dug a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of his sports jacket. Without unfolding it, he handed it over the table to Creed. “Take a look at this.”
“What is it?” Lucy asked.
Creed opened the paper. Inside was a colored drawing of a woman’s portrait. It was a computer rendering. She was attractive with an angular face, high cheekbones, brown eyes, long brown hair parted in the middle. There was something very familiar about the woman as if he’d met her somewhere.
“I had one of our techs zoom in on that Polaroid then run it through an age progression software.”
Creed blinked and took a closer look. That’s why she seemed familiar. So, this was what Brodie would have looked like as a young woman.
Chapter 50
Creed followed Maggie’s directions. She rode with him and Grace this morning. Lucy had volunteered to personally deliver the DNA swabs of Creed’s mother to Harold Fox. She’d meet them later.
Creed followed Highway 92 again, and when they passed by Lake Wannahoo he noticed Grace’s nose in the air. An hour and a half later, they hadn’t seen much traffic, and
the distance between farms continued to grow as they saw fewer and fewer houses.
Maggie had been to Nebraska before, so she was familiar with the landscape, but she faced the passenger window, staring out as if it captivated her attention. Creed knew her silence had nothing to do with the rolling meadows and cornfields. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet all morning, outside of giving him an occasional direction. Something was bothering her. Whatever it was, he’d leave her to decide if and when she talked to him about it. He was content to deal with his own thoughts, and he actually welcomed the silence.
It didn’t seem real to him that this was where Brodie had come to die. Of all the places he and his mother had traveled to follow up on tips, rumors or sightings, none had been in Nebraska. Detective Pakula talked last night about how Interstate 80 was a major thoroughfare for human traffickers. It was possible that this state was simply a stopping place along her torturous journey. He had spent too many years trying to imagine what she was going through. Whether she was scared or hungry. Now, he wasn’t sure what difference it made to know what she had gone through, to find out how many more years she had lived or even how she had died.
The two-lane blacktop was a straight ribbon that rolled over and between meadows. To either side, Creed could see creeks and ravines cutting through some of the steeper areas. Pastures of tall grass were dotted with black cattle—sometimes reddish brown—roaming along the hills and valleys. Some of the cornfields were terraced, tall edges cut into the earth. Others grew in rows that circled and weaved along the hills at impossibly steep angles. Huge pivot-irrigation systems stood idle, their work finished for the season. The light brown cornstalks had very little green left, almost ready for harvest.
Small ponds were filled with geese. Hawks glided overhead in a blue cloudless sky. Creed had noticed one perched on a fence post watching the grass-line ditch.
As they moved farther west, the landscape began to flatten. Windmills and grain silos were the tallest structures for miles. Giant cottonwoods and straggly cedar trees lined the highway, but Creed was struck by how well he could see the horizon, since most of the trees were cluttered around farmsteads.
He didn’t quite understand why Eli Dunn couldn’t or wouldn’t just give them directions. All the man had done the previous day was point to a section of the lake. He didn’t even tell them about the sunken car. In the dark green fog of the lake with churned up sediment, it would have helped for Creed to know that minor bit of information. Instead, Grace had pinpointed the dive area more definitively than Dunn.
“You should have told me about the tank,” Maggie said without glancing at him. Her eyes stayed on the view out her side window.
Her voice startled Creed. He’d almost forgotten she was there.
So there it was. The reason for her silence.
He wasn’t good at detecting others’ moods and emotions. That was Hannah’s expertise. But there was definitely a hint of anger in Maggie’s tone. No, it wasn’t anger. What was it?
“I didn’t want you to take me off the case,” he told her. It was as simple as that.
More silence. More miles.
“Up ahead,” Maggie finally said. “There should be train tracks that cross the highway. There’ll be a sign to our left for Brainard. We'll want to take a right turn just before the tracks.”
“Before or after the sign?”
“Before.”
It didn’t take long, and he could see the tracks and the sign. The turn to the right, however, was not so easy to find. If he hadn’t been told it was there, he could easily have driven passed without even noticing. The narrow gravel road was flanked by cornfields on each side. So much for seeing the horizon.
Maggie was double-checking her notes. Creed noticed that she’d brought Eli Dunn’s small notebook, but she wasn’t referring to it at all for any of the instructions.
“Not quite a mile then a left turn,” she said. “This next one’s a dirt two-track into a pasture. There’s a large dead tree just before the turn.”
“None of these details are in his notebook?”
“They might be, but I can’t seem to break his code. I’ve even sent copies to our expert at Quantico.”
“Are you sure there really is a code?”
“We’ve thought about that.”
Creed waited for more, but that was all she offered. Her mood had not lightened.
The dead tree could be seen from a mile away. It was huge with scraggly branches jutting out in all directions. It looked like the slain skeleton of a monstrous creature, bony arms and legs flailing, reaching toward the sky even after it was sliced in half by a mighty bolt of lightning. Creed couldn’t help thinking the tree was an appropriate marker for a graveyard.
Before he took the turn he saw the State Patrol SUV and the Butler County Sheriff Department pickup. The pasture road was a rutted two-track with grass in the middle. It ran so close to a stand of cedar trees that Creed had to go wide and off the narrow track to avoid the branches swiping at the side of his Jeep.
He glanced at Maggie. She didn’t look pleased that the troopers had beaten them here. She was unbuckling her seatbelt and practically opening the door before Creed had come to a full stop. She marched through the tall grass, leaving Creed and Grace behind without a word.
Creed went about his business, preparing the gear he and Grace would need. A land search was definitely easier than a water search. But there was a lot of territory to cover. He avoided glancing over, though he was curious what Eli Dunn had in store for them today. He wanted to tell Maggie to send the man back. All Grace needed was the general vicinity. He didn’t trust the guy. And more importantly, he didn’t trust himself around Eli Dunn. Because all he had to do was look into the eyes of that bastard and Creed wanted to choke the life out of him.
Grace waited patiently in the back of the Jeep, watching out the open tailgate and suddenly she saw something that made her wag. Creed turned to see Lucy Coy’s vehicle bouncing its way over the path. He scratched Grace under her chin and smiled.
Maggie had told him that some law enforcement officers said Lucy Coy had mystical powers because of her Indian heritage. There was no denying that the woman brought a calm reverence to these scenes. Creed could already feel the throbbing in his head slowing down. If today was the day he found Brodie’s remains, he was grateful that Lucy Coy was here.
Chapter 51
Florida Panhandle
Jason had agreed to meet with Sheriff Norwich at the Waffle House on Avalon Boulevard. Over eggs, grits and bacon and, of course a plate-sized waffle, he handed off Raelyn Woodson’s cell phone.
She clicked it on, saw that it was locked then placed the phone beside her coffee cup.
“You didn’t mention this at all to Mrs. Woodson?”
He shook his head and forked another bite.
“There’s something else,” he said. “I took Scout back to the girl’s bedroom yesterday. Thought I’d let him get a fresh scent of everything. The bed was stripped down. Laundry basket in the closet was gone.”
He didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Maybe the sheriff had even told Mrs. Woodson that she could clean the room. If Jason had done a better job the day before, it wouldn’t have mattered at all. But from the look on Norwich’s face, he knew immediately, that no such permission was given.
She slid her plate aside—scrambled eggs and bacon, only a bite or two taken—and planted her elbows on the table. He caught himself wondering if it would be rude to ask if he could take what she left for Scout.
“Confidentially, we’re looking at the boyfriend,” she told Jason.
“Not the father?” Normally, he wouldn’t ask, but Olivia had made him curious.
“Father’s deployed in Afghanistan.”
Jason nodded and shoveled in another bite.
“But the boyfriend is new. Couple o
f the neighbors said Raelyn didn’t like him. Which is really not unusual. Kids are going to side with their fathers.”
“Does the boyfriend have an alibi?”
Sheriff Norwich picked up her coffee cup and held it up for the waitress who was making the rounds. She waited until the woman left the table. Took a sip, put the cup down then planted her elbows again and leaned in.
“He’s a long-haul truck driver. It hasn’t been easy getting a hold of him. Or rather, it’s been easy for him to put off being available. Truth is, I’ve nothing to connect him to her disappearance, but I’d sure feel better knowing she’s not somewhere in his truck.”
Jason wasn’t sure why she was telling him all this. All he wanted to do was bring her the girl’s phone.
“Fact that you found her cell phone makes me believe she didn’t run off on her own. The longer she’s gone, the more her mother wants to believe the girl’s run away. I guess she’s done it before. Not long after the divorce.”
She sat back and sipped her coffee. Her eyes were watching the other customers. Without looking at Jason, she said, “I sure wish your dog would have found something.”
And his stomach clenched, mid-bite. He continued eating only because he didn’t want the sheriff to see that it mattered. She wasn’t passing judgment. Just stating a fact. Jason was the only one passing judgment on himself.
Last night, he’d texted Creed. Told him that a second search had come up empty. He was too embarrassed to tell him that Scout had taken him up and down a bunch of trails only to bring him back to the shed with the freezer.
Those stupid training treats.
Creed’s reply was short: TRUST YOUR DOG.
So if there was nothing there, there was nothing there. Plain and simple. His dog couldn’t say it any simpler. He thought about the bed sheets and how Mrs. Woodson had watched him pull the covers back and let Scout sniff in between them. He wondered if she had been disgusted with the dog nosing through her daughter’s bedding. But what if he’d missed something else.
