The Hidden Grave (Harriet Harper Thriller Book 2)

by Dominika Best

  “And that's when you called the police?”

  “Exactly. As I was leaving, I noticed the photo on his desk. I knew immediately that was Lauren. I still don’t see how she’s connected to this.”

  Harri sat back, still not fully believing this was happening. After all these years of searching for her sister, she’d been shocked to find her connected somehow to the disappearances of boys years later. It still didn’t make sense to her.

  Apparently, it wasn’t making any sense to Gavin either.

  “What were the names of the boys you got Chris Becker’s name from?” Gavin asked.

  “We didn't get last names, but they introduced themselves as Chuck, Manny, and Gus.”

  “And this was regarding Dan Ledeyen’s missing person’s case?” he asked.

  “That's right.”

  “Thank you, Detective Harper.” He stood up to go.

  “I need to pee, Gavin. Are you seriously gonna keep me in here for another couple of hours?”

  Gavin turned to her. “You’ve found two bodies in the three days since you've been here. Robinson is going to want to come in to question you, as well,” he said.

  “I don't know anything about the Atticus case,” she said. “The bloodhound found him. I came here to search for my sister like I do every year. As the cop on her cold case file, you know this because I call you every year. Everything else I've just stumbled onto.”

  Gavin folded his arms across his chest.

  Harri continued. “Could it really be just coincidence that Tim Ledeyen’s son was one of the boys that have gone missing? Have you linked the cases together yet?” she asked.

  “Which cases?” Gavin asked.

  “Dan Ledeyen’s disappearance and Atticus Menlo's death. Oh, and another boy seems to have gone missing. His name is Alan Prentiss. He’s an addict like Dan and hung around with all those kids downtown,” she added.

  “I'll look into that,” Gavin said.

  “Can I please use the bathroom?” she asked.

  Gavin gave her a wry smile and gestured for her to follow him.

  “I hope you’d be this sweet to me if I found two dead bodies on your patch,” he said as he led her out of the room.

  He pointed her to the bathrooms.

  “Of course, I would,” Harri said even though she knew that sometimes procedure was procedure and if their roles were reversed, he probably would've sat in that same room just as she had for hours.

  About an hour later they finally released Jake and Harri on their own recognizance. They had been cleared as mere witnesses and Harri and Jake decided that they would treat themselves to a nice dinner. Jake found a steakhouse in Eugene that had amazing reviews and they both sat down with a glass of wine. Harri could not believe the events of the day.

  “Are you still consulting with them?” she asked.

  Jake shook his head.

  “Nope. I've been relieved of that position, as you said I would be. I did give them all my notes for a profile.”

  “You're a civilian like me now then,” Harri said.

  “That's right. No more insider information for us,” he said with a wink.

  “Well it's not like you were giving anything away anyway,” Harri said. “That picture, though.”

  Her shock had given way to a renewed determination to discover exactly where that place was. Where Lauren had been held and by whom? She assumed one of the boys had been Chris Becker. She would be calling on Becker’s father to get a picture of him.

  She also had a phone call out to Dr. Brand, the woman who was an expert on all things Oregonian and supposedly knew the Willamette Forest like the back of her hand. That camp had to be in the forest and Harri would find it.

  “I have the photo of the boys,” Jake said. “I'm not sure how we’re going to identify all of them twenty-five years later,” he said.

  “Maybe we should start with the missing child database online. What’s it called?”

  “NamUs,” Jake nodded.

  “Maybe you can start searching through the database while I beg Becker’s dad for childhood photos of him.”

  “I don’t think he’ll want to talk to you,” Jake said.

  “Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.” Harri sipped her glass of wine. “I also called Dr. Brand while I was waiting for you. I set up a meeting with her first thing tomorrow morning to have her look at the photo. I’m hoping she’ll be able to put us in touch with Robbie the botanist.”

  “Slow down, Harri.”

  “Why? This is the closest I’ve gotten to Lauren.”

  Jake swallowed a bite of steak.

  “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m better than okay,” Harri said.

  Adrenaline coursed through her system. There was a trail. She’d finally found it. The look on Jake’s face stopped her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I was thinking of the photo.”

  “And?”

  “The trees. The photo looked like it had been taken in the summer.”

  Harri frowned. Tension coiled in her stomach. The wine in her mouth turned sour.

  “Lauren disappeared in the early fall,” she said.

  “They kept her alive, Harri,” Jake said quietly. He let that sink in. “Whoever took her, kept her alive. She must have been a captive for almost a year.”

  Nausea rushed up into Harri’s mouth as the horror of what Jake was saying flooded through her. Kept her alive. Captive. Almost a year.

  16

  Day 4 - Night

  Harri and Jake only pretended to eat the rest of their dinner. They sat in almost silence. The realization of what Lauren must have gone through in that year quelled any excitement Harri had in finally discovering a solid lead. Jake’s face appeared haggard. Harri could only imagine what he must have seen as a profiler. He knew better than anyone what Lauren must have gone through.

  They called it an early night. Harri hoped a good night’s sleep would prepare them for the big interviews they had planned for the next day.

  Harri was ready to ambush the senior Becker at his office in the hopes of getting a photograph of his son at age twelve. If that avenue didn’t work, she’d have to troll the internet for any information or photos on the young Chris Becker. She wasn't hopeful she’d find anything because people in the early 90s hadn’t been on the internet yet. At least, their photos weren’t.

  They drove back to the Daniels Inn still without speaking. Harri wasn’t interested in making small talk and Jake wasn’t either. Theirs was a comfortable silence and Harri was thankful that Jake was with her.

  They hugged goodnight at her door and as Harri was about to go in, she turned back to face him.

  “Thank you for being here, Jake.”

  He smiled. “Good night Harri.”

  “Good night, Jake.”

  As she closed the door on his smiling face, she knew the smile wasn’t genuine. She knew he put it on just for her and that he was smiling through the pain and horror of their discovery. It made her cherish their renewed friendship even more.

  Harri threw her phone and purse on the bed and turned towards the bathroom when her phone buzzed with a call. Having no idea who might be calling her at this late hour, Harri rushed to answer it before the caller hung up. Her heart dropped when she saw who it was. Her lieutenant at the Los Angeles Police Department. Violet Howard never called her this late. It couldn’t be good news.

  "Harri here.”

  "Harri, it’s Violet,” her Lieutenant said.

  "Is this a friendly call, Violet?”

  “What do you think? I can’t imagine what you could have done to warrant the phone call I just got from a Detective Robinson at the Eugene PD,” Violet said.

  Harri was gladdened to hear Violet’s tone as frustrated, but not angry.

  “I’ve discovered two dead bodies,” Harri said.

  “You haven’t killed anyone, have you?” Violet asked her dryly.

 
“Did Detective Robinson imply that I had?”

  “He was angry enough.”

  "I didn't go looking for them. The only set of remains I’ve been looking for, I still haven’t found," Harri said.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Violet about her searching for Dan Ledeyen. His disappearance was too uncomfortably close to the Atticus Menlo investigation.

  "There's no way I could get you to come back down here, is there?" Violet asked.

  “It’s my time off, Violet. Are you asking me or telling me to come back to LA?”

  Harri knew Violet was a big supporter of hers and that Violet understood how important these yearly visits up to Oregon were for Harri. With everything that she'd uncovered, Harri wasn’t going anywhere.

  "I can't make you do anything, darlin'," Violet said. "I'm just giving you a friendly phone call to let you know that your ruffling feathers up there. Ruffling somebody enough to have the balls to call one of my bosses down here about you."

  Harri's heart dropped for the thousandth time that day. Her stomach was still not doing very well and even though she managed to eat half of her steak at dinner, her stomach had grumbled in protest.

  "I finally found a viable lead to what happened to my sister, Violet. After close to ten years of coming up here and looking for her, I finally found something. No one can take me off this path.”

  "It could get messy up there for you," Violet said.

  “It already has, Vi. But this time I’m bringing my sister home.”

  “Watch your step, Harri. You've made some enemies up there," Violet warned.

  "What else is new?”

  "You got me there," Violet said and the two women said their goodbyes.

  Harri clicked off the call and bit her lip as her stomach grumbled with liquid.

  She dragged her purse onto the bed and paused.

  Had somebody been in her room?

  She looked around. Housekeeping had been there, of course. She couldn’t shake the feeling. All her senses were firing.

  Somebody had been in her room.

  This morning, she’d left her computer in the middle of the table. She was sure she had closed her laptop, but now the lid was slightly open as if somebody hadn’t closed it all the way.

  She frowned and walked over to the laptop. She pulled open the screen and the laptop woke up from sleep.

  The internet browser was still on the news article that had given her Chris Becker's apartment address. Had she not shut down the laptop?

  What was that sound? Water running. It had to be coming from the room next door. She turned around and stared at the closet. Without making a sound, she tiptoed over to her bed and pulled her service weapon out of her purse.

  She pulled the gun out of its holster and undid the safety. With the gun pointed down to the ground, she crossed the room in four steps to the closet door. She stopped in front of it and put her gun at the ready. She swung the door open with her left hand and found herself staring at an empty closet.

  “Don’t lose it yet, Harri” she said to herself and redid the safety on her gun. She closed the closet door and hesitated.

  She should check the bathroom. Just in case. She undid the safety again and walked to the bathroom door.

  Harri inhaled and threw the door open.

  The bathroom was empty.

  The bathtub, however, was quickly filling with water. Harri hadn’t showered that morning, so there was no way she’d have left the water on. She put her gun away and reached over to turn off the water.

  That’s when she saw it.

  It was dark and floating in the middle of the bathtub. It looked like seaweed, but she knew it was a clump of hair.

  A clump of hair with something shiny attached to it. Harri ran back to the bedroom and grabbed her purse. She pulled out her bag of plastic gloves and her pack of evidence bags. She never went anywhere without either of them for this reason. Harri put the gloves on and peeled one of the bags off.

  She returned to the bathroom and plunged her hand into the cold water, grabbing the hair in the process. She pulled the gruesome patch of hair out and put it into an evidence bag. She zipped it closed and only then did she look more closely. She sucked in her breath when she recognized exactly what it was.

  Her sister’s favorite silver pin: a girl with a ponytail riding on a surfboard.

  Harri gulped down her scream and took the bag with the hair and pin into the other room.

  Someone had left her a message, but it didn’t have the intended effect. They were trying to scare her off. Whoever had been in her room wanted her to leave.

  Their message had backfired.

  There was no way Harri would leave now. The intruder had confirmed to her that she and Jake were on the right path. The path that would lead them to Lauren. Whoever had been here knew where her sister’s body was buried. Harri would find them and Lauren. Of this, she was now sure.

  Harri went to her laptop bag and pulled out her fingerprint kit. She dusted both the bathroom doorknob and the knobs on her bathtub with fingerprint powder. A few fingerprints appeared but on closer examination, they appeared to be hers.

  She dusted the desk and her laptop and found all the surfaces clean. Except for where she had touched her laptop to open the screen. Every other part of the laptop was wiped clean.

  Whoever had been in her room made sure they hadn’t left anything to identify them behind.

  Now, she had to decide whether to call Detective Gavin French about what she had found. She thought of calling Jake, but then decided she couldn’t just yet. He needed sleep. He didn’t need a new reminder of the horror Lauren must have gone through.

  17

  Day 5 – October 1, 2018 - Morning

  Harri arrived at the senior Becker’s ten-story office headquarters in the center of Eugene early. She lied about an appointment with Andrew Becker that got her to ride up the elevator to his tenth-floor office. She was halfway there and hoped the rest of her ploy would work.

  Jake Tepesky had stayed behind at the Inn to search the NamUs database for boys that had gone missing between the years of 1994-1995. He hoped to match the faces of the boys in the photo with those in the database. If they could connect faces to names, they’d be able to talk to relatives about where the boys had gone that summer.

  The elevator opened to the penthouse offices of Andrew Becker. It was showtime. Harri pulled her badge out and readied herself to get access to Andrew Becker by any means possible.

  “May I help you?” the young blond secretary asked. If Harri imagined the perfect secretary for a billionaire, this woman would be it. Big round blue eyes and short blonde hair made the perky young woman the picture of innocence and youth. The woman had to be just out of college.

  Harri put on her best smile.

  “Hi there. I’m here to see Mr. Andrew Becker,” Harri said.

  “Do you have an appointment?” the secretary asked.

  Harri flashed her badge at the woman. “I’d like to talk to him about a case I’m working on.”

  The woman looked at Harri’s badge closer. She was sharp. Harri had to give her that.

  “This badge is from Los Angeles. Are you working with the Eugene Police Department?” the secretary asked. Harri knew that Eugene PD had to be all over Andrew Becker regarding his son’s death.

  “I’m not investigating Chris Becker’s suspicious death. Rather, I’m here about a crime that happened about twenty-five years ago to Chris Becker,” she explained.

  The woman picked up the phone and dialed a number. "I have a detective here to see you from the Los Angeles Police Department about a crime committed twenty-five years ago,” she said.

  The secretary listened and then nodded. She hung up the phone and turned to Harri.

  “Mr. Becker will see you,” she said.

  Harri stepped back in surprise. She didn't think it would be that easy. Wondering what exactly she was going to find in that office, she nodded and stepped up to t
he large oak double doors.

  She opened the door and stepped into a huge office. A massive desk sat in the middle of the room, a gray-haired mustached man wearing a baseball cap sitting behind it.

  “I heard the LAPD was sniffing around my son,” Andrew Becker said.

  “I'm actually more interested in your son as a victim and not as a perpetrator,” Harri said.

  That got the old man's attention.

  “I’m Detective Harriett Harper with the LAPD,” Harri continued.

  He waved his hand. “Sit,” he demanded.

  Harri bristled at the command but obeyed because she needed this man's cooperation.

  “What are you talking about Chris being a victim?” he asked.

  “Did your son ever go to a camp during the summer of 1995?” she asked as she pulled out her notebook.

  “Why?” he asked suspiciously.

  “I'm going to be really upfront with you, Mr. Becker. I know that your son was identified as a pedophile for inappropriately touching a fourteen-year-old boy five years ago. He also had a felony charge of indecent exposure.”

  “My son was a horrible man. What of it?” he asked.

  “Many times, and this is not giving your son any sort of excuse, perpetrators were themselves victims. I’m investigating a crime that occurred around 1994-1995. Recent information has come to light about a camp being the center of this investigation. I believe your son might have been there at that time.”

  “I don’t know of any camp my son went to,” Andrew Becker said. “I wasn't really around back then because I was building up my business. His mother and I divorced when he was ten and I only had weekend visits with him. Maybe that was part of the problem,” he said.

  “Would you have a picture of your son when he was that age?” Harri asked.

  “Why?”

  Harri decided to ask a different question.

  “When was the last time you were at your son's apartment?” she asked.

  “I haven't spoken to my son in twelve years,” Andrew Becker said.

  “That’s a long time not to speak with your son.”