Remnants

by Carolyn Arnold

  “Saw what exactly?” I inquired.

  “Just…something.”

  “Why are you being so vague about what attracted you to the man who became your husband?” I ground out, no longer able to keep everything bottled in.

  “If you must know, he was just nicer than the other guys.”

  Translation: she could manipulate and control him.

  “I can’t believe he might have left me,” Darla said. “What makes him think he can make it without me?”

  Jack bristled. She might think I was hard of hearing, but she was hard of comprehending. Her husband could be a killer and she was choosing to wallow in self-pity?

  “What did Stanley major in?” I asked.

  Darla rolled her eyes again. “History, can you believe it? Do you really think that a lot of places hire historians? He ended up going to night school for banking, business, and investments.”

  “He didn’t really have to work, though, if we get right down to it, did he?” I remembered the conversation from yesterday when she’d revealed that she had money.

  “I let him.”

  Right, I’d forgotten that part.

  I took a few deep breaths to cool my temper once more. “Do you know what he loved most about history? A certain culture?”

  “I don’t know. Stanley wasn’t too much of a yapper, but he used to talk to me about going to Mexico. But there’s no way I’m going there. You kidding me? Montezuma’s revenge? No thanks. I don’t want anything to do with that.”

  Pulling from a very, very deep place inside me now, I said, “Thousands of tourists go there every year and are just fine.”

  “Those are the ones you hear about.”

  Another deep breath. “Did he say why he wanted to go to Mexico?”

  She waved a hand. “The people, their culture.”

  “Anything specifically?”

  She shrugged. “He wanted to see Chichén Itzá.”

  A Mayan pyramid…

  “You really think my Stanley is behind the murders?” Darla asked.

  Jack and I remained quiet.

  Darla’s mouth gaped open—the first sign that our accusation had made any impact. “There’s no way. He’s too weak and timid. People walk all over him.”

  Neither Jack nor I would say this out loud, but she’d just provided a reason that supported Stanley being the killer. The unsub we sought claimed power over his victims and could very well be someone who didn’t have it in his daily life.

  “You said he stuck close to home,” I said.

  “No, I said he was usually at home.”

  “Was there anywhere he liked to visit, though? It’s apparent he liked going to Blue Heron Plantation sometimes.”

  “Which I just found out about. From you.” Darla shook her head. “I’m starting to wonder if I knew that man at all. He was the same-old for all the years I’ve been married to him. He’d go to work, come home; he’d do anything I asked of him. And now this? He’s run off and he’s a murder suspect? Why is he doing this to me?”

  It was impossible to conjure empathy for her. I attempted to keep the conversation moving forward. “Why did you move from Michigan?”

  “Why?” She appeared more shaken by that question than the thought of her husband being suspected of serial murder.

  I kept my eyes on her. “Why is that an intrusive question?”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s not really. It’s just a tough one.” She played with the hem of her shirt. “My parents left this place to me when they died. I’d loved it ever since I first visited them here.”

  “One more question for now,” I began. “Was your mother-in-law here for a visit recently?”

  Darla’s belly laugh brought tears to her eyes. “Mrs. Gilbert?”

  She held up a finger. Not an index one to indicate for us to wait a minute but, rather, her middle one.

  The treadmill at the hotel was in for another pounding tonight.

  “What is so funny?” Jack’s tone was gruff.

  Darla lowered her hand. “It’s not really funny, I guess.”

  “Well, it sure as hell seemed like it was,” Jack snapped.

  “You’d just have to know our relationship. It’s, well…it’s not good. We can’t stand each other.”

  Now that was bizarre. Stanley’s mother was without a doubt the one Shane Parks had shown us. But whether they liked each other or not, why wouldn’t Darla know she’d been in town?

  -

  Chapter 17

  PAIGE AND ZACH WERE HEADED to speak with Norman and Gloria West whose son Colin had went missing five years ago. The couple still lived in Savannah.

  As Zach drove, Paige was watching his profile. “You know, we talked about my love life yesterday, but we didn’t get to yours.”

  “Oh yeah?” Zach glanced over. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “So…?”

  “So, what?”

  “Give me something.” Paige might be a skilled profiler and investigator, but when it came to Zach, he kept his secrets well hidden. All she truly knew about him was that he enjoyed doing renovations on his home. She’d never been over there.

  “My life isn’t that exciting,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Ha! Now there was that tell in his eye, that glimmer that told her that whatever he’d just said was the opposite of the truth. She smirked at him. “Who is she?”

  He kept his eyes on the road.

  “Come on. What’s her name?” Paige shifted in her seat and angled against the door so she could face him.

  “Why does everyone need a love life?” he asked.

  “I can tell you’re avoiding here.”

  He glanced over at her. “Fine. Her name is Sheri.”

  “Ooh.” She smiled at him, certain she looked like she was busted doing something evil. “How long have you been seeing her?”

  Zach fell silent and turned into the driveway for the Wests.

  “Zach?” she asked.

  He turned the car off and unclipped his belt. “We have a job to do.” He passed her a smile and got out.

  What a brat.

  She followed him to the front door. “You’re really not going to tell me?”

  He knocked. “Not right—”

  The door opened, and Gloria West was standing at the threshold. They’d called ahead, so she just stepped back to let Paige and Zach inside.

  “They’re here, Norman,” Gloria called to her husband as she closed the door.

  Gloria was a slight woman in her fifties with pale-blue eyes and deep frown lines. A brief look at their backgrounds indicated that she and Norman didn’t have any other children besides Colin.

  A man came into the entry. Like his wife, Norman had deep wrinkles, his concentrated mostly in the brow.

  Paige could only imagine how horrible their last five years had been. Waiting for a call that never came, knowing but not ever wanting to accept that their son was most likely dead.

  “Is there somewhere we can sit?” Paige asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Gloria said, turning to lead them toward the dining room by the look of it. “Here, take a seat wherever you like.” She implied the table, which had a lace tablecloth and two placemats atop it. Gloria picked up the mats and stuffed them into the drawer of a sideboard covered with framed photographs of an overweight young man, probably Colin. “Do either of you want an iced tea? Water? Coffee?”

  Paige held up a hand and smiled politely. “No, thank you.”

  “I’m fine,” Zach replied.

  “I’m just going to grab a glass of water for myself, then,” she said.

  They took seats on either side of the table, leaving the heads for Norman and Gloria.

  Norman walked around and sat down. Seconds later, Gloria returned with her
water. She slipped into her chair and held on to her glass with both hands. The water clearly wasn’t so much something Gloria had needed because she was thirsty, but a psychological aid to calm her.

  Gloria pointed to the row of framed photos on the sideboard. “He was a handsome man, wasn’t he? He had his whole life ahead of him.”

  “Sweetheart,” Norman said softly from the other end of the table.

  “I know, I know.” Gloria looked at Zach and then Paige. “I promised him I wouldn’t get carried away talking about the past, but it’s so incredibly hard. Do either of you have children?” Her gaze was on Paige.

  “No, I don’t,” she answered.

  “You don’t know what you’re missing. They are a blessing. And we were blessed with one. He was a miracle. And then—” her chin quivered “—he was just taken away from us.”

  “Gloria,” another loving verbal poke from her husband.

  “Yes, Norman.” Gloria palmed her cheeks although no tears had fallen.

  Paige imagined that she must have run out of tears over the past five years.

  “What interest does the FBI have in Colin?” Norman asked the question, but he seemed to do so hesitantly, as if he expected them to say they had found his body. He wanted to know but didn’t at the same time. A body meant any hope that had kept them moving forward would be extinguished.

  Alternately, Gloria’s eyes were wide with hope, but the spark was dim. “Did you find him?”

  “Have you heard why we’re in town, Mrs. West?” Zach asked.

  Gloria’s gaze drifted to her husband, and she blinked slowly. “We have.”

  “The remains of several people have been found,” he went on, “but we haven’t identified them yet.”

  “We’re hoping there might be something you could tell us to help our investigation,” Paige jumped in before the Wests could respond to Zach.

  “Well, I’m not sure what,” Norman said. “We filed the missing person report. The cops investigated for a little while but nothing came of it.”

  “They told us to accept that our son was dead. Can you believe it? Accept it?” Gloria’s cheeks reddened.

  “Was Colin living with you at the time he went missing?” Paige asked.

  “No, he was renting a place in town with Jesse Holt.”

  Paige’s ears perked up. “Jesse Holt?”

  “I take it you know him,” Norman stamped out.

  Paige glanced at Zach and then looked back at Norman. She nodded. “We do.”

  “Oh, he’s bad news,” Gloria lamented.

  Zach leaned on the table. “Why’s that?”

  “He experimented with drugs,” Gloria answered. “Tried to get my Colin involved, too.”

  Paige noticed how she had claimed Colin as her own, but it didn’t seem to make any impact on Norman. The couple was an exception to the statistics of what normally happened when a child went missing and was presumed dead. They gave the impression that they were there for each other, weathering the storm together. Most marriages fell apart. Paige had to wonder, though, if the foundation would crack if they found Colin. Given how long ago he’d gone missing, though, if his remains were found, they’d likely just be bone now and the identification process would likely take awhile, especially if they had to wait on DNA.

  “Colin never did drugs, though?” Paige asked.

  Gloria was quick to shake her head, but Norman pursed his lips.

  “You’re not so sure, Mr. West?” Zach queried. He must have noticed the differences in their reactions, as well.

  “Peer pressure can be hard to battle at any age,” Norman began, sliding a look across the table to his wife, “but our boy was never a fighter.”

  “He was calm and peaceful. But you have to admit, Norman, that he’d have followed that Jesse kid to the end of the world.”

  “No, I can’t, and I won’t.”

  “Colin wanted to please Jesse, but you don’t think he did drugs?” Paige directed her question at Gloria.

  “She doesn’t want to get the boy in trouble,” Norman interjected. His voice turned stern. “He’s probably gone, Gloria. They don’t care if he did drugs other than if it might help find him.”

  Gloria scowled at her husband. Maybe there were underlying currents of tension…

  “Fine, he might have smelled like weed on occasion. He told me that it was Jesse smoking it, though.” She fired a glare at Norman. It seemed to bounce right off him.

  “The report says that you last saw Colin two days before he disappeared,” Paige said, steering the conversation back to the facts.

  “Yeah, we went over for a visit, and he seemed agitated. He and Jesse had just had a falling out. Jesse said he was moving out, and Colin didn’t know how he was going to pay the rent,” Norman explained.

  “How did Colin support himself?” Zach asked.

  “He was working as a clerk at Clancy’s. It’s a grocery store in town.”

  Paige made a note of this.

  “I really think that Jesse did something to him, I always have.” Gloria was shaking.

  Paige would ask Pike if they’d looked into Jesse Holt after Colin’s disappearance the next time she saw him.

  Fifteen minutes and several questions later, Paige and Zach were loaded back in the SUV.

  “I wish we had some answers for them,” she said.

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Speaking of answers…” She smiled over at him. “How long have you and Sheri…you know?” She wiggled her eyebrows.

  “Ugh,” he said. “I’d thought you’d have forgotten about that by now.”

  “You’re not the only one with a good memory.”

  “Fine, fine. One year.”

  “One year!” she exclaimed. “Holy crap, Zach! You’re practically married. Wait, you’re not married, are you?”

  He was laughing. “Ah, no. Well, not yet anyway. I was thinking of—”

  “You were?” she interrupted.

  His laughter died down.

  “On Valentine’s Day,” she realized aloud.

  He shrugged. “Yep, but duty called.”

  “Sorry, Zach. Did she understand you being pulled away?”

  He nodded and smiled. “She’s the most understanding person I’ve ever met.”

  “Ah, Zachy’s been bitten by the love bug.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh, God help me.”

  -

  Chapter 18

  TELEVISION WAS FOR THE WEAK-MINDED, and he found the futility of sitcoms to be tedious and mind-numbing. His thoughts would always drift—as they often did anyway—to the freedom of the spirit, to being rid of the flesh that bound him to Earth. There was one program that held his attention, though, when he decided he felt like watching something, and that was the news. Events most people considered to be tragic, to be evidence of a world full of chaos, he rather enjoyed hearing about. The car bombs, the terrorist attacks, the murders—these things only proved how fleeting an earthly existence was and how the way one spent one’s time mattered.

  When he wasn’t making sacrifices, he was usually thinking about them—either past offerings or those yet to come. There was a hunger that raged through him that made such sacrifices necessary, and the constant natter in his brain told him he was living his life with purpose and according to divine plan.

  He went to the fridge, took out a bunch of grapes, and broke off a cluster. He put them into a bowl and then filled a glass with cold, filtered water. Sitting down in front of the television with the bowl of grapes on his lap and the glass of water on the side table, he was ready for the eleven o’clock news.

  “Hey, honey.” His mother padded toward the sofa, wearing a robe over her pajamas and slippers on her feet.

  He smiled at her, yet felt nothing for the woman who had given bir
th to him. And she knew how he viewed her, how he didn’t have the same feelings other sons had for their mothers, but she accepted him for who he was. She didn’t try to fix him when the rest of the world saw him as a freak.

  He’d had no friends in school and was teased excessively for being different, but that was a small price to pay for being chosen. It had taken him awhile to fully realize his purpose, but once he had, there was no stopping him. He lived on a higher plane of existence than his human peers, one they couldn’t comprehend. He saw the entire spectrum from life to death and beyond.

  “I see you got yourself a snack,” his mother said. She put a hand on his head as she walked along the back of the sofa toward the kitchen.

  The home was open concept on the main level. The kitchen was next to the living area, and the latter had no interior walls. Rather, the arrangement of furniture and a large oval rug defined the space. He’d often imagine his father sitting in the chair closest to the TV, but his imaginings would never become reality. His father must have been ashamed of him as he rarely came around.

  The doctors had labeled him and wanted to medicate him. Some had wanted to institutionalize him. But his mother hadn’t let those people near him. She was like a mother bear with a cub, and he really could get away with anything in her eyes.

  He turned on the television, and its light was harsh against the otherwise shadowed living area. He and his mother preferred to watch in relative darkness with a couple of table lamps turned on.

  The banner for the eleven o’clock news flashed on the screen, the station’s logo prominently displayed in the center.

  His mother returned and sat on the couch next to him with a bowl of premade popcorn and a caffeine-free soda.

  Chemicals upon chemicals were always her choice of snacks. People considered a risky lifestyle one that consisted of sleeping around, smoking, drinking heavily, or a combination of the three, but what would end up killing them was the so-called food they put into their bodies.

  “The FBI has been called in after more severed remains were pulled from the Little Ogeechee River,” the news anchor stated calmly from the news desk.

  His eyes snapped to the screen. More remains? What did they mean more? And what remains?