Traces of Guilt

by Dee Henderson

  The light was blinking on her phone. She entered her password to play back messages. “Lieutenant, it’s Sheriff Thane. This is an official call. Please call me back at your first opportunity.” Gabriel gave her a number. There was a long pause during the recording. It was the first she’d heard his voice since she left Carin. He went on, “Evie, we’ve found a property of interest out on County Road 33—the phone canvas turned up the lead. I’m working on a warrant and hope to search there in the morning. Feel free to just show up if you can join us. Anyway, you can reach me at that number anytime. Either way, I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  He sounded like the same Gabriel, but terribly sad. She picked up the phone and hit the speed dial for her boss. Someone else would have to ID the guy from the river. She needed a couple of personal days.

  The state and federal flags in front of the Carin County sheriff’s office hung heavy with moisture, but the metal ringlets rang like a bell as they struck the pole in the wind. Evie turned up the collar of her coat as she walked the shoveled sidewalks and was glad to step into the heated building. She greeted the officers she recognized. Iris was at the front desk and on the phone. Evie pointed toward the hall, and Iris nodded for her to go on back.

  Evie found the sheriff in his office just putting down his phone, so she tapped on the doorframe. “You called.”

  Gabriel merely nodded and reached for his hat and coat. “Come with me.” No Hello or Nice to see you. She wondered if she could see more gray hairs than before. Looking grim, he headed outside and over to the truck he favored, paused to open the passenger door for her. “You’ll want to buckle in.”

  Something really, really bad. Evie didn’t know what to brace for, icy roads or dreadful news, but she prepared for both. The snow had come down heavy in the county over the New Year’s weekend. The roads were packed with it and showing ice in places. They headed out of town, and she soon recognized the route the Florist family might have taken the night they disappeared.

  “Sorry for the terse welcome.”

  Evie glanced over at him. She knew pain when she heard it. “Tired of talking about it?”

  “I understand what Grace means when she says talking about it is like ripping her guts out. We’ll get to it, Evie, in about thirty minutes when I show you why I called. The warrant came through an hour ago. We’re just waiting on the crime-scene people to arrive before I serve it. How’s Springfield?”

  He obviously wanted a change in subject. “I’d say the job is much the same as it’s been,” she responded, “mostly messy crime scenes to wade into and try to solve. I had a nice Christmas with Rob and his family. Even his mother was mostly kind in her remarks about my being a cop. It probably helped that Governor-elect Bliss called while I was sitting down to dinner with them, to formally invite me to his inauguration in Springfield and the press conference the next day when he plans to announce the new task force.”

  “That’s next week?”

  “The twelfth for the inauguration, one p.m. the following day for the announcement.”

  Gabriel nodded. “I figured it would get some press. I’m glad you’re taking the job. You’ll solve a lot of cases over the next couple of years, I’m sure of it. Can I get an invite?”

  “Of course. If I can’t get you in, Ann can.” They shared a chuckle. “Seriously, Gabriel, I’d like to show you my place if you have time for a meal. I built the dogs two large doghouses, and after seeing Will’s creations, I added a few more items to their backyard playground as their Christmas presents. You’ll enjoy seeing it, even in the winter.”

  “I’m sure I will. Who looks after the dogs when you travel?”

  “Two people in my neighborhood, both recently retired vets. They’ve got some post-deployment problems they’re working through, and the dogs are good therapy. Apollo and Zeus enjoy their company. If I’m not home, one or both of the guys will be around.”

  “I’m glad you’ve got that arrangement.”

  “Anything new with you?”

  “I bought myself a new snowblower.”

  She laughed. “Please tell me Christmas was more interesting than that.”

  “The county mostly behaved itself. There were a few home burglaries while people were at the Christmas Eve church services. We had our share of domestic-disturbance calls with family grievances escalating at holiday gatherings. We had two suicides and a probable murder-suicide. As you know, the season can be extra stressful for people with ongoing problems in their lives.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s the job, Evie.” He looked over, smiled. “More cop work than detective work, I’ll admit.”

  “I can handle mine easier than yours,” she said.

  A comfortable silence settled as Gabriel drove them north for thirty minutes. The woods grew thicker and the snowfall more even. Traffic dwindled to only the occasional vehicle.

  Gabriel began to decelerate, and Evie sat up straighter, knowing from the tension in him they were nearing their destination. They took a curve, and Evie saw sheriff vehicles parked along the roadside. Gabriel pulled in behind them but didn’t shut off the engine. He pointed to a driveway up ahead. “Elliot Fray owns that property. It’s a decent-sized place—he raises horses, cattle, leases out his farmland for a share of the crops. He’s not on any of our lists, no priors of any kind. A good guy, according to those who know him. Been in this county all his life. He’s married, father of two. His wife died of cancer about fifteen years ago. Sons are married now, each living on opposite coasts. Elliot is an old man now, not as active, but he’s still a hands-on owner with a good business sense. My father knows him better than I do.

  “That phone canvas you suggested turned up a postman who remembers a mailbox post being shattered and replaced.” Gabriel nodded to the end of the driveway. “That mailbox. Elliot doesn’t remember the specifics, only grimaced at the reminder and said he’s replaced it at least four times now, as delivery trucks coming into the property misjudge the turn. Probably true enough; it’s a common problem along these country roads, especially in the winter. But one of my deputies took some initiative and walked the roadside before the first snow came down and found some items of interest.

  “We’ve got dried blood on the underside of an almost-buried rock found near that replaced mailbox, blood that matches by type with Scott. And a fragment of front headlight plastic that matches the model of truck he was driving. That was enough to put several deputies walking this road, and they located a few more small pieces of debris that match the Florist truck.

  “Back twelve years ago, four employees worked for Elliot Fray, handling a dozen horses and a hundred-plus head of cattle. They’ve all moved on since, and there’s new staff now, but we tracked the former four down. There’s nothing I’ve discovered about them that would cause concern. The staff worked daylight hours, mucking out the stalls, exercising the horses, feeding the cattle, cutting the hay. Elliot was considered a good boss, not one to say much, concise on what needed done, one who did the work alongside them.

  “What I’ve got are two odd facts those employees mentioned. Elliot nearly drank himself to death back a dozen years ago. He had never been much of a drinker until that year. And there’s a barn on the property that has been locked for years. He told staff the floor was buckling. He didn’t want an accident, to be paying a workman’s comp claim. They vaguely remember the concrete was buckling some in the freeze and thaw. It’s the oldest of the barns on the property. The building was padlocked the same calendar year the Florist family disappeared. With the dried blood, the headlight fragment and other debris, a locked barn, and a very sympathetic judge, it’s enough for a warrant to search the property.”

  “You think the Florists were involved in an accident here, and it was covered up?”

  “I don’t know what to think, Evie. I’ve spoken to Elliot twice. When he says he doesn’t remember anything unusual happening back then, he’s convincing. If the deputy hadn’t fou
nd what he did, I would have written up the note about the mailbox and moved on.”

  “What did Elliot say about the barn?”

  “The same as what his past employees told me. I asked if I could see inside, and he said the padlock key had been lost for years. He’s mostly polite, but turns grouchy with the conversation going on for a while. He wasn’t interested in having me buy him a new lock.” Two vehicles pulled in behind them. “There’s crime-scene personnel now. I’m going to serve the warrant to look around, get this search started.” He held out the keys. “It’s likely to be a long day. Come back to the vehicle and kick on the heater to warm up occasionally.”

  “Thanks.” Evie pocketed the keys.

  Evie hung back as Gabriel served the warrant, catching only a quick glimpse of the man inside his doorway before he closed it again. Gabriel organized his men, his deputies spread out to walk the property, the current employees going along to handle the gates, move horses and cattle out of the way as required.

  Evie walked beside Gabriel as they trailed down the slope to the old barn, fighting through heavy snowdrifts. The drive this direction hadn’t been plowed. The owner had joined them in cold-weather jacket and boots, now walking beside them—elderly but not particularly frail, a man accustomed to hard work. He wasn’t saying much, but he wasn’t as angry as Evie would have expected, given the warrant to search his property.

  The barn showed the neglect of years, paint flaking off weathered boards, weeds tall enough that a few poked through the deep snow. The deputy with them had brought along bolt cutters. The rusted padlock hanging from the barn door showed its age.

  “Elliot, you could give us the key.”

  “Haven’t had it in over a decade. I told you that when you asked me to open this place before.”

  “Then I’ll be buying you a new lock.” Gabriel nodded to his deputy.

  He cut the padlock, then pushed away the snow to get the door to swing outward. The smells of dust and hay hung in the air. The light from the doorway was enough to reveal the interior as they stepped inside.

  They were staring at a damaged truck and camper.

  Gabriel’s face turned to flint. He swung around. “Where are they, Elliot?”

  Evie had to walk away from where the bones were being excavated. Officers standing at the perimeter watching the crime-scene team work had their badges covered with strips of black tape as a sign of respect for one of their own. Thankfully, the frozen earth was cooperating, as the Florists’ bodies had been buried deep, well below the frost line.

  Gabriel was still doing the interview at the house. The DA had joined him, and the story had mostly come out now. She felt more than slightly sick and gratefully sipped the coffee someone had handed her. She’d push this one away—she would have to—but it would take some time. Gabriel wouldn’t be able to do so.

  She strode over to the vehicles, considered knocking the snow off her boots to sit inside for a bit, but the wind was dying down and she was bundled up. Instead, she leaned against the vehicle and closed her eyes, breathed deeply and let the time pass.

  Minutes later she saw Gabriel leaving the house, gave him time to talk with his deputies and the crime-scene supervisor before joining him. His face was etched with a grief beyond words. Evie understood it better than he realized. It was like another boulder had crashed down.

  “I can’t do this with the smoothness you do, Gabriel.” She held out a sweet-tarts roll.

  He looked at it, blinked, then managed a smile. “Thanks.” He thumbed out the first one, offered it to her. She took it. He slid the next two into his mouth. “I can get a deputy to drive you back to town or you’re welcome to take my truck. I can catch a ride with one of the guys. There will be a press statement to release, questions to answer, but that won’t be today. This is going to take some time.”

  “I’ll leave here when you do. I asked my boss for a few days off.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  She reached over and squeezed his arm. “Tell me the details, just dump them and get them out of your head. You’ll drown in them otherwise. You’ve got to talk to someone, Gabriel. If not me, go talk to your father.”

  His gaze met hers for a long moment. Then he gave a nod and said, “Let’s walk, Evie.”

  He pushed his hands into his pockets as they moved down the driveway, didn’t speak for a long time, and when he did his voice sounded tired. “The accident happened at the end of the driveway. Scott was driving north, as we did, doing about forty miles an hour, the truck pulling the camper. It was dark that night, but road surfaces were good, there wasn’t much traffic, and he was driving safely for what this was. He hit a horse.”

  Evie flinched. Even knowing that was coming, the image hurt.

  “The impact shattered the horse’s ribs, the animal went under the truck rather than over it, crushed its legs. The truck stopped mostly on the road, the camper swung to the maximum movement of the hitch, came to rest against the back of the truck.” Gabriel rubbed his eyes. “The horse was alive, but dying, screaming in pain, trapped under the truck. Scott shot it to put the animal out of its misery. It’s pretty much chaos. Scott’s hurting from the impact of the crash, the airbags deploying. Susan’s nearly hysterical, and Joe’s throwing up. The accident scene, it was . . . bad.

  “Elliot had been trying to corral his prized horse, which had jumped the gate after being spooked by a wolf. He was carrying his hunting rifle and a side arm, hoping to spot the wolf. He got to the foot of the drive just as Scott shot the horse. Elliot goes crazy, shoots Scott. Scott shoots back, but he’s dying. Susan runs to her fallen husband. Joe scrambles to get his father’s gun that had fallen on the roadside, tries to kill Fray. It’s not clear yet who killed Susan, whether a stray bullet from Elliot or Joe, but she was hit in the side. Joe died there beside his mom. Fray survived it mostly by luck—two bullets passed through his arm without hitting bone.

  “It was a hellish accident that shifted to a multiple murder in less than thirty seconds. And I believe Elliot when he said it was the heat of the moment—the screams of his horse, the blood, the adrenaline, the gunfire—that he reacted to. He never thought until it was too late to think, and by then it was all over.

  “It takes a sizable forklift to move a dead horse, but it wasn’t the first large animal to die on the property. Elliot had the equipment. He buried them and then buried the horse. Drove the truck and trailer into the first barn, padlocked it, and threw away the key. The horse’s bones—they’ll tell the story, as will the bullets in the bodies. The truck still has the impact damage, and there’s horsehair and traces of blood on the vehicle’s undercarriage. The tires have rotted, the food inside the camper has petrified, but it’s otherwise as it was that night it all happened. The crime-scene folks are going to excavate everything. We’ll have our answers confirmed.” His voice became rough. “It should never have happened, not that kind of accident, that collision of gunfire. . . .”

  She tightened her grip on his arm for a brief moment. “Another tragedy pulled from the ground. You’ve had too many of those, Gabriel.”

  “This will go down as one of the saddest cases I’ve ever closed.”

  “What about the employees?”

  “They worked days, didn’t live on the property. Never knew a thing. It was a strong stallion and a beautiful animal, the man’s pride and joy. He told his employees the horse had gotten free of its paddock, broken its legs, that he’d been forced to put the animal down. Most of them used the back entrance to the property that comes in at the stables, rather than this road that runs around the house. Whatever was left at the crash site, Fray had resolved it enough that it wasn’t obvious to anyone there had been a collision like what took place there. A broken mailbox was about all that was left to see. He told us he handled the blood by dumping a load of feed, using his tractor’s scoop to shove it off the road as if a spill had happened during a turn into the farm. The birds would have cleared it away for him in a day or
so. The underside of a rock with dried blood on it and the small debris left behind from the damaged vehicle are the only lingering pieces of evidence.”

  “Elliot Fray wasn’t on our list of names,” Evie said. “He’s nowhere in the case file.”

  “Your deer accident was one of your first hunches; the actual truth was so close it rhymed. You had mapped out who it was cops had interviewed along the routes, where there were gaps. The phone survey was targeted off that data, and it gave us the broken mailbox. If not that, we would have found this eventually—the right phone call, the right question. Someone would’ve remembered a horse died that week.”

  She smiled at the pep talk Gabriel was giving her. “The owner would have said nothing unusual happened that week; he wouldn’t have confessed simply because he received a phone call. And the odds one of his former staff would remember a horse dying that particular week would be slim. This was an accident that turned into a crime scene, and someone had time to cover it up. If there’s a reason it was missed originally, blame the lack of traffic on this roadway late on a Thursday night when it happened. You got lucky with the mail carrier remembering the mailbox. I’m okay, Gabriel, with the new piece of information turning up mostly by luck. The case is solved. That’s the point of all this effort, however it comes.”

  “Yeah, you take the win however it comes.”

  “What’s going to happen to Elliot?”

  “He’ll die from his pancreatic cancer long before the DA is able to bring formal charges and take the case to trial. His doctor confirmed it’s in the late stages. That’s the only reason he was willing to talk with us today. There’s no specific punishment he’ll face, and this way he doesn’t leave to his sons the discovery in that barn.”