by E. C. Diskin
“As in, Michael Cahill, our vic?”
“As in our vic’s father, Michael Cahill Sr. He killed Grace’s sister.”
“Shit.”
“There’s more.”
“Well—don’t leave me hanging. What do you got?”
“He’d been on a bender. Officers found him passed out on the kitchen floor after finding the little girl in his field. The wife had been at the store. Our vic, young Michael Cahill, had been at the Abbotts’ house all day.”
“And why were they sure it was Cahill Sr.?”
“He’d worked at the Abbotts’ house a few times doing handyman-type stuff, and his son played with the Abbott girls all the time. Appears the Abbotts stopped asking him to do work when they noticed bruises on his son. I guess they were all afraid of him. They said he’d had a history of yelling at the Abbott kids, threatening them whenever they came on his property. His wife and child both testified at the trial. He’d been violent with both of them.”
“Did he have any kind of defense?”
“Not really. And there was a hair fiber found on the little girl’s shirt that didn’t match her own.”
“And I’m guessing it was a match for Cahill.”
“Yep. A mitochondrial DNA test was done. Had to be Michael Cahill’s or his son’s. And of course the son had an alibi. Cahill Sr. had no alibi, no character witnesses. He couldn’t remember anything about the day after breakfast, when he’d started drinking.”
“How old were the kids when all this happened?”
“Michael Jr. was fifteen. Lisa was twelve. Grace and her sister were five—twins. The kids, Michael and Lisa, said they’d been playing hide-and-seek, and Lisa saw Mary run to the Cahills’ property. The kids said they’d tried to find her for, like, an hour or so before telling anyone.”
Bishop didn’t respond, so he continued. “This family has had some serious tragedy. I’d say they’re about as cursed as the Kennedys.”
“I’ll give you that. But none of this helps clear Grace Abbott.” Bishop rubbed his stubble. “Maybe we’re getting sidetracked here. I mean, what do we do with that information? And we’re only two people. We can’t chase every possibility at one time. We have to stay focused on what’s right in front of us.”
“But I feel like there might be a connection. Remember when we went through the trash at Cahill’s place? There had been an envelope addressed to Cahill. The return address was Oaks Correctional. Remember? There was no letter inside. Don’t you think that’s interesting?”
“What, do you want to talk to Cahill Sr. in prison and ask what he said?”
“That’s the other thing. We can’t talk to him. He committed suicide three days before Cahill’s murder.”
“What?” Bishop pondered that a moment before shaking his head. “I think we’re getting lost in tangents. His father may have written him letters for years. Doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with anything. We know Cahill never visited him in prison. We still have a girlfriend with no alibi and a solid motive, thanks to those pictures.”
“Well, we’ve also still got ten thousand in cash missing,” Hackett said. “Could have been motive, and we’ve found no connection between that cash and Grace. And what about Jacks and the scopolamine? You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve read about that drug. You can grow it almost anywhere. Scariest stuff I’ve ever heard of. And what about the blonde in those pictures?”
“Well, give me another theory.”
“Lemme talk to Dave Jacks again. I can’t get that drug out of my mind. If nothing comes of it, I’ll let it go.”
TWENTY-TWO
GRACE WALKED AROUND THE PROPERTY AGAIN, traipsing through the hard, crusted snow that would probably remain on the ground until spring. The temperature was dropping, the wind picking up, and the forecast predicted more snow. She looked down at the ground, at the footprints from her first walk, and followed them back to the shed. That wheelbarrow. Maybe if she’d touch it, she could get that vision back. But the door was locked. She wandered down toward the woods again. She refused to be scared. She needed to face whatever these memories were. She began wandering around the back side of the property. Lisa had said they had more than twenty acres. Perhaps she’d recognize the property line.
She buried her hands into her coat pockets and attempted to shield her face from the cold air with her collar. Up ahead, something, a structure, had been built in one of the trees. A treehouse? She approached the old oak, its trunk at least two feet wide, and looked up at the wood platform in the branches, perhaps twenty feet off the ground. No walls, no roof, only a makeshift railing on two sides. Didn’t seem like a treehouse. On the back side of the tree, she saw an old ladder pieced together with various woods. She reached out and touched it. Yes, this was something. She’d been here. She’d climbed this ladder before. She pulled on the rungs to test their strength. Still strong. She began to climb.
Once at the top, she brushed off the snow with her boot and sat cross-legged, taking in the view. She must have done this so many times as a child. The house looked so small and isolated in the center of all this land. There was that big old tree in the front yard, the swing that must have provided at least some moments of joy (or so it seemed from that picture she’d found), Dad’s old truck, the shed, and acres and acres of woods.
And then it happened again. She started to feel sick, the taste of saliva filling her mouth, the instinctive need to swallow down whatever was coming up. She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them. The view blurred. She felt dizzy. She took deep breaths. What was it? “Why am I afraid?” she shouted into the void. And then, as if the voice in her head answered, she heard herself, a younger self, a little girl’s voice scream, “Stop, no, get me down. I wanna go down!” The sound of laughter followed. Not the girl’s. Someone older, someone who found her pain and fear funny. She wrapped her arms around herself, closed her eyes, and concentrated on breathing. Her heart rate slowed. “I’m not scared; you’re not scared. We’re to-ge-ther, best friends for-ev-er.” The words flowed out of her mouth like a singsong chant, something she’d said a thousand times. They’d said it together. She and Mary, their voices blending, their arms holding each other. Her stomach calmed and she felt better. She opened her eyes. “We have each other,” she muttered. It’s what they’d always said.
Grace carefully climbed down the tree and continued walking along the wood line, looking into the underbrush, her arm outstretched, feeling the branches as they swatted her hand, bending, springing back, their limbs sharp and brittle. As she headed toward the house, she noticed footprints. Not hers, she realized. She traced her former path with her finger: walking to that shed, the woods, collapsing into the snow. She remembered seeing the area where her knees had hit the ground. She scanned the path back up to the house.
No, this was an entirely different path, toward the woods over there. What was over there? And then she saw her mother again, carrying something—a bucket. What was in there? Trash? Food scraps, she remembered. She was going to the big compost pit. The vision faded into the ether. Grace walked in that direction, following the footprints that ended at the edge of the woods. She looked into the brush at a clearing up ahead, about ten feet inside the wood line. But she didn’t see a pit. Just dirt and snow.
She made her way back to the house and into the basement. Daylight flooded the space through the windows above the washer, and she stood in front of the mound of stuff in the center of the room, determined to face whatever was down here.
She sat on the cold concrete floor, emptying the contents of an old steamer trunk filled with photographs: school pictures; landscapes; close-up shots of flowers, birds, Grace’s young face. Her mom took these shots, she thought. The artist, always observing, studying her surroundings. She stopped at one of the pictures—the backside of a young girl, maybe seven years old, brown wavy hair flowing over her shoulders, sitting wit
h an older boy under a tree. He was smiling. It looked like he was reading her a book. Grace stood and walked to the window, looking out into the backyard. There was the tree.
She found more photographs, birthday cards, art projects. Her parents were in several pictures. Both smiling for the camera. Both looking happy and loving.
She found some photos of Lisa when she was younger too. Nothing too remarkable. Except that she was never with Grace in the pictures. They were each pictured in various moods and moments, but never together.
Grace continued emptying the trunk. She pulled out a painting with her name scrawled along the bottom with the word Kindergarten. She studied the picture. A man with a beard, a woman in a skirt, and a child with pigtails, all stick figures, all standing beside a white house, holding hands. The man held a big umbrella that extended over their heads, shielding them from rain. Lots of rain. But the rain didn’t come from clouds. Along the top of the picture were drawings that looked like giant insects crawling across the page, with long legs extending out from their oval bodies. A few of the legs were drawn jagged, almost like lightning. Grace rotated the drawing and realized she was not looking at giant insects but at eyes with long lashes, some of which became stormy. The eyes were crying. The family and the house were covered in tears.
She piled the contents onto the floor and studied the empty trunk’s interior. Its scent, like mothballs or mildew, was familiar. Yellow satin, torn in several places, lined the inside of the top. She traced her fingers through the ripped material. Her heart began to race. She heard pounding, like feet or hands, kicking a box, a young girl shrieking. She felt queasy and tried to calm her breathing—it was all happening too quickly. Her rib cage ached; she felt possessed by this little girl’s cry. She slammed the trunk shut and scooted away, shaking, hands over her eyes, desperate to stop the screaming that filled her head.
But she couldn’t escape it. She was inside, blinded in darkness, scratching frantically, tearing fabric, shouting, Get me out! I want to get out!
She opened her eyes, shocked, and sucked in air. Rocking back and forth on the cold concrete, she wept. She wanted out of this house, out of this mind.
Bishop made it clear before Jacks arrived that he was simply humoring his partner. Hackett didn’t care. He hoped it meant Bishop would let him take the lead this time, and he said as much as Jacks walked into the station. Bishop patted him on the back. “Sure, rookie. Have at it.” They led Jacks to an interrogation room and suggested he take a seat, but he refused.
“Guys, if I need an attorney, you have to tell me. It’s the law.”
Hackett smiled and sat at the table. “You can call an attorney anytime you want. You don’t have to talk to us. But I was just hoping you might be able to help us. Please,” he added, motioning for Jacks to join him.
Jacks pulled out a chair, and Bishop took the seat directly across from him and leaned forward. “I think you’d better tell us how you were involved with Grace and Cahill.” He patted Hackett’s arm and sat back in his chair, nodding, as if Hackett could now begin.
So much for giving him the lead. “I wasn’t involved,” Jacks said, removing his hat and coat. “Grace works at my restaurant. That’s it.” His expression remained steady but his voice cracked. Hackett opened his mouth to speak, but Bishop said, “Come on, Dave. You’re in love with Grace. You want to protect her. We get it.” Hackett almost threw his pencil in frustration.
“Who said that?” Jacks asked.
Hackett jumped in. He had to take charge. “There are pictures of her all over your house. She gets engaged, and the next morning her boyfriend is dead.”
“I told you, I was with Sheri that morning.”
“You drugged Sheri,” Hackett said. “That alibi isn’t gonna work for you.”
“That’s bullshit, man. Fuckin’ women. They’re all over you and then it’s like they wake up and you’re not good enough anymore.”
“Cut the shit,” Hackett said. “You had a nice little supply of scopolamine at your place. All we have to do is run a hair test on Sheri and it’s gonna confirm what we already know.”
“Hey, man, I may have had some pot at my place, but nothing else in that house is illegal.”
Bishop leaned in again, but Hackett put his hand on his arm. This was his tangent. “You didn’t have a prescription. And a medical dose is less than one milligram. Those little capsules had about eight times that amount. It may not be a controlled substance, but you’re obviously aware of its powerful side effects. That was a homemade supply, and the woman you were with the morning of the murder says she was drugged. No memory of sleeping with you. Someone drugged Cahill with something too. All roads are leading to you, Dave.”
“Sheri Preston is a fucking liar. And those pills are recreational. I take them to relax. We both did.”
“Come on, Dave, it’s a little late to play dumb.”
“I’m not a murderer!”
Bishop jumped back in. “If you’re protecting Grace, you might want to rethink this. She put you up to it?”
“What?”
Hackett opened his mouth, but Bishop beat him to the punch. “Whoever killed Cahill didn’t act alone. Right now it’s looking like a good circumstantial case against you—you want to take the fall?”
“Oh my God, this is crazy,” Jacks said.
Bishop turned up his intensity. “Everyone says you were obsessed with Grace. Maybe she took advantage of your feelings. Convinced you to do something you didn’t want to do. You don’t seem like a violent guy, Dave. No record. Don’t let that girl get away with something and spend your life in prison. Maybe she said if you got rid of Cahill, you could be together?”
“What? No!”
Hackett didn’t like where this was going. Jacks might throw Grace under the bus just to get off the hook. He needed them to stay focused on that drug. “What are you doing drugging people without their knowledge?”
“I didn’t!”
“I’ve been reading up on that stuff you had in your apartment, Dave. ‘Devil’s Breath,’ some call it. Big in Colombia. Used to rob, rape. Doesn’t take all that much, and the victims don’t even know what’s going on. They become so docile you can make them do anything.”
Jacks opened his mouth but stopped himself. He wiped his brow. Hackett let him have a moment. Bishop leaned forward, but Hackett threw his arm out to stop him again. He wanted to see where Jacks would go with this.
“I didn’t know it was that bad. I swear.”
Hackett nodded. “You heard of roofies, right, Dave? When a person is given a roofie, he can be hypnotized later and will usually recall what happened. With scopolamine, it isn’t possible to remember because the memory is never recorded. The drug interferes with the part of the brain that records events. Do you have any idea how serious it is to even have that stuff?”
Jacks’s face and neck flushed red; his eyes watered. “I didn’t do anything to Michael Cahill. I swear to God. Yes, I’ve always had a crush on Grace. Yes, I was sad that she got engaged, but that’s it.”
The truth was finally emerging. Hackett pushed a piece of paper and pen across the table. “Write down the names of every person who was at your party on Friday.”
Jacks took the paper and began writing. “I don’t even know everyone’s last name. I know the staff’s, of course, but other friends are really first name only.”
“Just do the best you can.”
Bishop obviously had less patience. “So you’re going to go down for this alone, huh?”
“I slipped Sheri a pill. But that doesn’t mean anything. I never did anything to Michael.”
“Why’d you slip her the pill, Dave?”
“So she’d consider me.”
“What do you mean?” Hackett asked.
“I was told that they’d loosen someone up. Make ’em give someone another look. I
don’t have the best luck with women, okay?”
“Dave, who else have you given the pills to?”
He didn’t respond immediately; Hackett could sense he was trying to calculate how much to say.
“You’re in a heap of trouble here,” he said. “Slipping someone a drug and sexually assaulting her? We’re talking criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. Of course, we haven’t decided whether or not to charge you. But if you can help us in this Cahill case, things might go a little better for you.”
His head dropped, his focus now on the table. “I’ve only used them twice.”
“Who else?”
Jacks hesitated and Hackett slammed his hand on the table.
“Grace,” he finally admitted. “One night we were all out drinking. She always looked at me. I got the sense that maybe she could like me, but she had a boyfriend.”
“So you thought you’d drug her.”
“It wasn’t like that. I only wanted her to give me a chance. Drop her defenses.”
“When did this happen?”
“Like, a month ago.”
“Did you bring Grace back to your place?”
“No. I took her to Cherry Beach. We kissed. She didn’t resist. I looked in her eyes and knew there was a chance. We got in my car and I knew she’d go anywhere with me. I started driving to my place, but then I played it out. Michael was a pretty big dude. I panicked. I drove her home and got her inside before I left.”
“Was he home at the time?”
“His car was there. It was, like, four in the morning though. He was asleep. I laid her on the couch and left.”
“Did Grace remember being with you?”
“If she did, she never said so. I told her at work that I enjoyed our night together.”
“And what did she say?”
“Not much.”
Hackett nodded.
“But I never drugged Michael. I barely knew the guy. No one ever asked me to kill him, certainly not Grace.”
