Secret Men: a Hunter Dane Investigation (Hunt&Cam4Ever Book 6)

by Adira August

  “Yeah?”

  “Good job.”

  IT WAS LESS small barn than large shed and less a shed than a heap of splintery boards and tar paper. One corner still stood and in it, behind a wood and rusted metal something Hunter guessed was the actual cider press, were the remains.

  They’d been found by a precocious eight-year-old (“I’m Dana!”) who had not waited to be introduced. She’d been playing in her backyard after lunch. While her mother was in the laundry room, she’d taken her little brother through the weeds to the beginning of what she called “The Ditch,” as if it were a title.

  That ditch, Hunter discovered, ended up being an old railroad cut about a mile long through what had been rising farmland. The girl had dashed from the cut to the old cider press building to hide and then sneak up on the farmhouse. She wanted to see the ghost because “even big kids are ascared” of it.

  A peek through a wall, which was mostly cracks held together by loose boards, revealed the remains.

  Dana threatened her little brother with dire consequences if he told their mother what they’d seen as they were not supposed to be more than one house away from their backyard. He’d burst into tears and run for his mama as soon as they walked inside.

  Dana told her tale to Twee whose size and job as police CSI fascinated the girl. The mom gave her statement to Hunter whose countenance and shoulders seemed to fascinate her.

  The little girl was in raptures when Twee recorded her fingerprints with a portable scanner. Brother Stewy shook his head at the device, hiding his hands behind his back. Mom asked if Hunter would do her.

  The deputies grinned at Hunt behind her back.

  Finally, one of the deputies took the family home and went back into service. The remaining one, Stadler, would stand-by in case traffic handling was an issue.

  “Can you show me the haunted house?” Hunter asked him.

  “The Farmhouse,” Stadler said. “That’s what we called it. Look right over there.” He pointed past the cider press across an expanse of crooked old trees toward a bordering row of homes. “That tallest one.”

  Hunter followed the deputy’s finger to a dark silhouette of a two-story house a few hundred feet away. It looked dark. Unpainted.

  “Was painted,” Stadler said when Hunt asked. “Been sitting empty for maybe fifteen years now.”

  Twee took some video but they’d have to put off exploring until the M.E.’s van showed up.

  “Deputy Stadler, were you inside the, um, shed?” Twee asked, rummaging in her case.

  “Yeah. It was my call. Checked to make sure they were real human bones, not some early Halloween prank. Didn’t touch anything.”

  “Okay. I have some sticky film here. I need you to step on these one at a time.”

  He nodded.

  While Twee took Stadler’s boot impressions, Hunter checked incoming missing persons cases from Rivers. She’d highlighted the one she’d shown him the newspaper article about.

  “Deputy, do you think those remains are”—he checked his cell—“James Dobbs and Francesca Gardia? Went missing last spring?”

  Deputy Joe Stadler was a man in his mid-forties whose narrow gold wedding band had settled slightly into the flesh of his ring finger. He spit into the dirt. “Yeah, pretty sure.”

  “You worked the case?”

  Stadler shook his head. “No. We were all in on the search, o’course. Case file’s uploaded; Homicide can release it to you.”

  Rivers already had the file, Hunter had seen it listed. He imagined Cam must have gotten back to the office and helped her out.

  “Did you search in this area?” This from Twee.

  Stadler didn’t like the question.

  She cocked her head up at him. “It would help me to know if the remains were moved here after they died.”

  Stadler pointed along the old tracks. “‘Bout a half mile that way, set back so you can’t see, is the high school.” He pivoted slightly away from her, his arm held straight out like a compass needle.

  “Couple miles past that, Calvary Cemetery abuts Sage Creek Park. That’s where the boy’s car was found. On the street at the boundary. They left the dance early, junior prom.” He stopped and cleared his throat.

  Hunter made notes, head down, giving Stadler space. Twee went past him and took some shots in the general directions he pointed to.

  “So there was nothing that pointed toward this location,” Hunter mused.

  “Peat’s who you want to talk to,” Stadler said, still looking into the distance.

  “Pete who?”

  “P-e-a-t,” Stadler told him. “Ray Peat. His case.”

  “Okay, thanks. One thing about the remains.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You said you were pretty sure it was them. Did you see something specific or does it just seem logical?”

  The M.E.’s van pulled up to the edge of the field. Stadler took a step away from them toward the van.

  “The question, Deputy?”

  Stadler paused. “She’s wearing a friendship ring on her right hand. My daughter gave it to her. They’re best friends. Were.”

  He continued toward the street and didn’t look back.

  AVIA RIVERS WASN’T SURE how she could take a bathroom break when Hunter might need her at any time. She ended up carrying the laptop with her down the hall to the single toilet “RESTROOM” as the legend on the door read.

  Washing her hands, she wondered if Cam had come back. She was pretty sure he would have had a less clumsy method for peeing. And she wasn’t sure how much of the information she gathered needed to be sent to Hunter while he was in the field.

  The door to the Institute was right outside the bathroom. When she tried the handle, it turned easily revealing a reception area. Past the empty desk, an open doorway led to a small break room. Inside, Cam was setting up a coffee-maker. The box sat open on the floor next to him.

  He had the plug and was reaching for the outlet. Avia took a step toward him, but froze when the plug fell from his hand and hit the countertop. He scrabbled uselessly to pick it up; his fingers seemed out of his control.

  Avia faded back out of sight and opened the front door. She moved into the opening, as if she were just entering. Knocking loudly, she called out, “Cam? You in here?” She waited, half in and half out.

  He didn’t answer.

  Avia closed the door.

  Back in the Unit offices, Merisi messaged he was on the way in. She made her first executive decision and sent him to Hunter. Having been at crime scenes as a reporter, she imagined her Lieutenant would be grateful for another set of hands.

  Diane had disappeared into her office and there wasn’t much for Avia to do until her team needed something. It gave her time to think.

  Like most Winter Olympic sports enthusiasts, she’d been a die-hard fan of Camden Snow. Last year, he’d missed the entire Alpine ski season. Everyone assumed it was because he’d been shot in a burglary at his mother’s law offices.

  Avia called up the 2016 World Cup schedule. The opening event was in late October. CNN reported that Cam wasn’t entered. The shooting was the first week of November, before the next event was scheduled.

  Avia knew a season’s opening event might be skipped for a lot of reasons, the major one being poor snowpack. It all made sense. It was logical to assume he’d have competed later if he hadn’t been shot.

  Berating herself for being far too curious for anyone’s good, she went back to the case screen. Still. Cam was her age, mid-twenties. His leg seemed healed. But he’d just taken on the headship of a start-up non-profit research concern and didn’t seem to be on any training/rehab schedule.

  The sudden realization that Camden Snow, who’d mounted his first podium at age eleven, had quit skiing for good shocked her. Why? Was he also shot in the hand? Something that caused nerve damage?

  “You look perplexed.” Cam entered from the hall.

  Avia felt her face heat. He raised an eyebrow but
didn’t ask. She checked the screen. Just the case information.

  “Yeah. I - um - I had to use the restroom and ended up taking the whole laptop with me in case they called in.”

  “Very dedicated,” he grinned. “I told the Lieutenant we needed cells for the Unit but Natani said no money. Give me yours.”

  She handed it over and he swiped and tapped for a minute. “Here. You’re hooked-in. I wrote a little app for us. A lot of what you can do from here, you can do from your cell.”

  He took a seat at her table. “How’s it all going?”

  “Okay, I hope. Two cases at once is a challenge.”

  “Two? Now?”

  She brought him up to speed. He whistled. “You will be good at this. You find the Farleigh connection?”

  “I did. If I read the explanation right, the Farleigh whose wife owns the house is a first cousin once-removed to the name Hu- the Lieutenant gave me.”

  “Okay. Did you make a diagram so he can understand that at a glance?”

  Avia blinked like he’d asked if she’d sculpted their images in cookie dough. “I’m still trying to figure out if I send him that in the field or hold it for the morning briefing.”

  “If he asks, you get it to him. You don’t know who he might talk to or what might be relevant.” He grabbed the laptop and called up the Farleigh information. “Watch the big screen, this is really simple, you do it in your text program.”

  “Oh,” Avia said. “I was making it complicated off the word ‘diagram’.”

  “Add dates of birth, cops really like dates of birth. For everyone all the time. Then send it.”

  “Thanks. Where would I get Celeste’s? She’s out-of-state so I can’t access driver licenses.”

  “The original case reports will have it. On our server.”

  “The Unit has its own server?”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s how we maintain confidentiality. Only you, the Lieutenant and Natani can access everything. Someone would have to file Freedom of Information Act to get our case files. You’ll see redacted parts marked when you read one. Just highlight and right click.”

  “That’s pretty-” Every screen went suddenly blank.

  Before she could ask, Diane Natani came out of her office. ”Sorry, Cam, I had to deactivate your password. Avia, come on into my office. You can enter a new one and log in again.”

  Cam stood up. “I have to get to work. Oh. Rivers might want to film the fish autopsy in the morning. I would.”

  He left with a small wave.

  MERISI’S ARRIVAL allowed Hunter and Twee to take a look at the farmhouse while the M.E.’s office, in the person of Dan Gordi, handled the scene. Hunt told Twee to leave her case. If they needed to collect anything that looked like evidence, they’d need the owner’s permission or a search warrant.

  It was getting late. While they still had decent light, Twee got video and still shots of the view from the shed to the house. She felt like she was taking art photographs, for the twisted limbs of the old trees crept into every frame. Magazine-worthy pics or not, the remains of the orchard prevented her from getting a single clean shot of the structure.

  About 200 feet from the press shed, they came on the railroad cut. Hunter jumped down and turned to help the barely five-foot tall Twee down the eight-foot embankment. But she handed him the cameras, laid on her belly and slid backwards to the ground.

  Hunter walked along the track while she brushed herself off to find an easier spot to climb up. He wanted very much to avoid any scenario that included his hands on her very succulent ass, holding her up while she scrambled for purchase. The cut became shallower and he stopped at a section where the wall was only five-and-a-half feet high. He could offer his hands as a stirrup and she could easily step up.

  He could see over the rim and realized he could see. The view from here to the house was unobstructed. The late afternoon sun shone on the front of the house facing as away from him. From this perspective, he could see straight through to the front door, though nothing was identifiable from 500 feet away.

  “Cool,” said Twee, clinging to the wall next to him, like a four-legged spider. He’d been so focused on the house, she’d snuck up on him.

  “How are you doing that?”

  She grinned. “There’s footholds dug in.” She gained the top with no help from him. “Hand me the cameras, please?”

  He did so and then examined the wall of the embankment. There were two semi-rectangular spaces gouged out of the clay. He looked around on the ground. Candy wrappers. Bent soda cans.

  “Kids,” he said to her, lifting himself to the top using his hands for leverage. She was crossed-legged in the clear space between the weeds getting shots of the house.

  “I got a little telephoto action with the video camera,” she said, switching.

  Hunter kept to the side, examining the area. The weeds comprised a fifteen foot strip that ended abruptly where the trees began. Moving diagonally away, he looked for signs of regular human visitation. He saw nothing but a few rotting apple carcasses and tangled deadfall.

  “Are we ready to go?” Twee called.

  “Yeah.”

  Twee started toward the house in a straight line along the narrow strip between trees that bounded either side and shadowed the ground.

  “Careful of the deadfall,” he told her when he caught up.

  She looked around. “No, it’s good.”

  They both used their flashlights as they walked along. “It’s broken up here,” Hunter said.

  “Kids cutting through the property?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But I haven’t seen a condom, beer can, butt or candy wrapper since we cleared that ditch.”

  Twee walked slowly, her light moving back and forth over the ground in front of her.The remains of branches and leaves lay in a long, dark shroud between the trees.

  Hunter squatted down on the pathway ahead. “This is oil.”

  She bent down. Elongated drops, streaks of something blacker than the detritus it lay on.

  “We need a warrant for this?”

  “We do.” He moved further toward the house. “Here’s more.”

  “Hang on, I want to get a shot of this.”

  “No. We’re here legally because this property isn’t posted otherwise. But I don’t want to collect anything with evidentiary value. We were on railroad access by the cut. Let’s see if Natani can get us a phone warrant for a residential property.”

  While he called, Twee walked a zig-zag along the accessway. “The crush strips in the deadfall are at either side. The area between is consistent with wheel track width. A car that leaked oil.”

  Hunt held up a finger, listening to someone on his cell. “Rivers has the address and owner’s name. … No, not yet, that’s why we want to collect- … uh-huh. Not yet on that, either. ... Okay.”

  Hunter pocketed the phone. “Let’s check out the perimeter of the house. No pictures from here on.”

  “Okay, Boss.” Twee capped her lenses. “Those kids went missing like, three-four months ago, right?” He nodded. “You really think something from that long ago would still be here? It’s more likely grounds maintenance or something, don’t you think?”

  They crossed from the orchard area onto an impressive expanse of lawn, maintained but not cared-for.

  “Maybe. We’re a semi-arid desert region. Hardly any rain over the summer. And if it is used motor oil, it would have soaked into the deadfall enough to not wash off.”

  They climbed brick stairs to a wraparound porch bordering the front and sides of the structure.

  “Artificial light at night is actually better for following the oil,” Twee said. “We should do it tonight. Just in case we ever find a car to match it to. Someday.”

  “We’ll see,” he said, only half listening to her. He peered through the glass inset. A shotgun hallway led all the way to the kitchen. He could see the window in the backdoor. Limp curtains hung on either side.

  “Look at the
kitchen floor.”

  “Okay. Why?”

  “It’s clean. No dust.”

  “Except for the little black things,” she said, nose almost pressed to the glass.

  “Those’ll be rodent droppings, I think. Maybe field mice.”

  Twee shielded her eyes to get a better look. “Well, there can’t be any food left in there.”

  “No. But it’s warmer than the below-freezing nights we’re already getting. Look at the silt build-up.”

  Along the bottom of the front door, where it met the sill, a dark layer of dirt had accumulated, obscuring the ninety-degree angle with a slope of wind-blown silt.

  “This hasn’t been opened in a while,” she said, moving along the porch. “Same on the picture window, not that it opens.”

  They examined all the windows the porch gave them access to. All sealed with fine dirt. Moving to the yard, they started on the basement windows. Twee wrinkled her nose.

  “Broken sewer line?”

  “Tree roots beeline for clay pipe,” Hunter said.

  “We assuming?”

  They rounded the front of the house again to check the opposite side. “Old as the house is, all these trees, smell of shit, makes sense. But we never assume if we can help it, Twee.”

  She grinned. She knew never assume was her Lieutenant’s personal mantra. They both squatted down next to the last basement window. Every one had been thickly crusted with dried silt, old spider webs and leaf debris.

  “Boss, it’d take longer than a few months for this to happen. This is like, years.”

  “Agreed.”

  She rose. “I saw a utility porch as we came up.”

  “Uh-huh.” He straightened and backed away to get a full view of the side of the house.

  There was a wide chimney, and he suspected fireplaces in both living room and upstairs bedroom. The roof sloped up and the attic roof intersected it. There was a small metal vent under the eaves at the top.

  Twee had seen Hunter this way before: still, blank-faced and focused. As if he soaked up the scene in some way. A shudder ran through him.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Hunter Dane didn’t hear her. It was such a mundane house. A big, comfortable house to raise a family in. Kids playing on the porch in summer. A Christmas tree in the picture window in winter. He imagined he’d find the remains of a kitchen garden if he looked around back.