by Terry Odell
As if he knew what she was thinking, he typed something and clicked the mouse, then gave her a broad smile. “Just a bunch of alte kakers keeping in touch,” he said. “For real communication, I prefer the telephone.”
That sounded like the Sam she knew, although he was hardly an old geezer. She put it out of her mind.
“Did you recognize anyone from the picture?” she asked.
“Clearly, the man in front is Fred Easterbrook, but it says that in the caption. You’re referring to the others, I take it.”
“Yes.”
Sam squinted at the picture. Took off his glasses. Polished them. Looked again. “Judging from how young Fred looks, this is a very old picture. I can’t be sure.”
“Does that mean you can guess? I mean, if you remember Mr. Easterbrook from back then, it means you might have seen these other people when they looked like that, too.” She took the picture in hand again, about to point out the one who’d looked vaguely familiar to her when the phone rang. Sam picked it up.
“Sam Kretzer here,” he said. He was quiet for a moment, then went pale. “Mein Gott. We will be right there.”
“What?” Megan’s heart thumped.
“It’s Rose. We must get to the hospital. Now.”
Megan screamed for Justin as she ran to find her purse. “I’ll drive.”
From the car, Justin called Doctor Evans’ office. Megan strained to listen, or at least figure out what the doctor—or his nurse—was saying, since nobody got put straight through to a doctor anymore. On Justin’s end, it was all generic comments like, “Yes, I see,” “When,” and “How?”
Cursing the morning traffic on the winding mountain highway, Megan glued her eyes to the road, willing the hospital to move closer. Wishing Mapleton had its own hospital. Hoping Rose was all right. But if she was all right, they wouldn’t be barreling down the highway. Or not barreling, given the traffic. Red brake lights ahead had Megan slamming on her own. Coming to a stop inches from the bumper of the car in front of her, she said, “Sorry. Everyone all right?” She looked across to the passenger seat, where Sam gripped the oh shit handle.
“I am fine,” Sam said. “But hurrying won’t do any good if we get into an accident on the way.”
“I don’t think hurrying is an option anymore,” Megan muttered. She craned her neck, trying to spot the problem. “Can you see anything ahead?”
“Flashing lights,” Sam said. “The police. And an ambulance.”
“Somebody else had their accident first,” Megan said under her breath. “As long as we’re sitting here, Justin, what did Dr. Evans say?”
“Ja. Please tell us. How is Rose?”
Justin sucked in an audible breath, then blew it out. “Dr. Evans hasn’t seen Oma in person yet. What his office said was that Oma apparently had a severe allergic reaction to the antibiotics, and went into anaphylactic shock, but because she was in ICU, they were able to reverse it in time.”
“I thought they changed her medication to avoid that,” Megan said.
“They did. Which is why Dr. Evans is going to the hospital to see her.”
“Could it be a delayed reaction to the old medicine?” Megan asked.
“Nein. Those reactions are immediate,” Sam said. “Even a mild reaction would have been noticed, which is why they switched medications in the first place.”
“So maybe someone gave her the old medication by mistake?” Megan eased off the brakes as traffic inched forward, gaining a few yards.
“If that is the case, someone will answer to me,” Sam said. “This hospital is supposed to provide excellent care. Especially in ICU. There should be no mistakes.”
Megan had a brief vision of a lawsuit. She almost smiled. Being sued paled in comparison to dealing with the wrath of Sam.
“When Dr. Evans gets there, he’ll be checking to find out exactly what happened,” Justin said. “Meanwhile, he said they have her stabilized, which is good.”
Could it have been deliberate? But why would someone want to harm Rose? Could it possibly be related to the buried bones?
Traffic began moving again as a police officer directed traffic around a car that had plowed into the guard rail at one of the S curves. Probably taking it too fast. Like she might have done, given her anxiety level. Two paramedics were loading a gurney into the back of an ambulance. Megan took a calming breath and continued down the road, paying more attention to her driving this time. Moments later, the piercing wail of sirens had her pulling over as the ambulance raced past. For whatever it was worth, that meant the person in the ambulance was still alive, and Megan felt grateful for that.
“Some day, they will put more warning signs and lower the speed limit on this road,” Sam said. He snorted. “Although I doubt it will make a difference. People drive how they want.”
Megan checked the speedometer. And eased off the accelerator.
When they arrived at the hospital, Sam went straight to the information desk. Justin tried phoning Doctor Evans, but this time, all he got was the answering service telling him the doctor was on his way to the hospital. Sam was being helped by a woman wearing a volunteer pin, and seemed oblivious to Justin’s presence. Justin asked a second volunteer if Doctor Evans had arrived. The man checked the computer. “Not yet.”
“What now?” Megan asked.
“You will wait here. I am going to ICU.” Sam’s shuffle was gone as he strode purposefully toward the elevator.
As soon as Sam disappeared inside the elevator, Megan took Justin’s hand. “Come with me. I need to talk to you.”
Chapter 24
Gordon wasn’t surprised to see Colfax sitting in his chair, behind his desk, using his computer. He’d done it while they were working on the Bedford case. Two steaming mugs of coffee on the desk tempered any irritation Gordon might have felt. Gordon had accepted that Colfax never did anything more intrusive than use the computer to log into the county system to check his messages, or access county files and databases. But it still rankled him to walk into his office and see someone at his desk. Enough so he wasn’t going to use the visitor’s chair. He hovered at the edge of the desk, waiting until Colfax finished whatever he was doing.
Remembering the text from Megan, he popped open the message on his phone. A link to a site he wouldn’t be able to read on his phone’s tiny screen. He forwarded the message to his email, which he’d check out as soon as Colfax finished.
Colfax clicked at the keyboard for a moment or two, then rolled the chair back. Without so much as a thank you or an apology, he relinquished the seat to Gordon. Gordon took the chair without comment. He opened his email, quickly dealing with the routine before opening the forwarded message, which said, “Do you recognize anyone in the background?” The link opened to an old newspaper clipping. A young Fred Easterbrook took up the foreground, but that wasn’t what Megan had asked. He squinted at the photo, tried enlarging it, which didn’t help. He printed it and tried his magnifying glass, with no better results. He showed it to Colfax. “Anyone in the background look familiar?”
Colfax pulled a pair of readers from his pocket and settled them on his nose. “Take a blurry, archived newspaper article, and you get a blurry computer printout. I don’t recognize any of these people. Should I?”
“The guy in front is Mapleton’s town crazy.” Gordon explained his visit to Fred’s place. “Megan Wyatt, the woman who sent me the link, asked me if I recognized anyone in the background.”
“Megan Wyatt. I met her on the last case, right. Cute brunette? Protective boyfriend?”
Gordon ignored the comment.
“Okay,” Colfax said, in apparent response to Gordon’s silence. “Why did she send it?”
“I have no idea. She’s interested in the case—the bones were found near the home of the people who raised her.”
“Kretzer. Now, I remember. So, call her and ask who she thinks is in the picture.”
“Good idea.”
Gordon’s call went straigh
t to Megan’s voicemail. “Rose Kretzer’s been in the hospital. Megan’s probably there visiting, so she’ll have her phone off.” Gordon sent a quick text, asking Megan to explain the significance of the picture.
Colfax’s cell rang. He listened for a while, took out his notebook and jotted something down. “Female,” he said after he disconnected. “Based on the forensics voo-doo machines, one’s between twenty five and forty. Five-six. The other one is under twenty-five, estimated eighteen to twenty. Five-three.”
“What?”
“The bones. Finding the second arm moved them higher up the list. And I think Asel gave them a nudge. Still can’t wrap my head around that one.”
Gordon tugged at his ear. “Two women disappear, and there’s nothing in the records about it? That’s what’s hard to wrap my head around.”
“All sorts of possibilities. They’re not from around here, for one. How far away have you searched?”
Gordon grabbed his legal tablet and started making notes. “Here, and the surrounding counties. I mean, why would someone bring a body here? Transporting it would be a major risk. Doesn’t make sense.”
Colfax brought his mug to his mouth. “Since when do crimes have to make sense? To us, anyway. They make perfect sense to the people who commit them.”
“True enough.” Gordon brought Colfax up to speed on the Kretzers’ acquired land. “I’m trying to figure out how to justify a trip to Denver to interview Roger Ignatius, the guy who headed up the corporation back then. Roger, Suben and Clark.”
“Denver’s its own county, so technically, it’s out of my jurisdiction, too. But if you need help, I’ve got contacts. Tell me what you need and I’ll see if I can pull a string or two.”
Colfax initiating contact meant one less item the mayor could bitch about. “Anything that tells me who was involved in the Kretzer land deal. Ignatius is the agent on record. He may or may not have been hands-on with the day-to-day operations of the corporation, but he should know the players.”
Colfax was scribbling in his notebook. “What else do you have?”
“Damn near nothing, as I’m sure you know. Waiting on whatever the CSR team digs up—literally.”
Colfax’s phone chirped again. He studied the display. “They’re on site. Want to pop over?”
* * * * *
“Park here,” Gordon said as Colfax swung his vehicle along the Kretzers’ street. “This is the shortest way in.” He led Colfax through the woods, although given there were six Crime Scene Response criminalists working, it wouldn’t have been hard to miss the sites. Gordon took in their equipment, automatically thinking about whether his budget would ever cover such luxuries. Which it wouldn’t, since Mapleton didn’t have and was never likely to have, the money or manpower for a forensics team. And, to be honest, they rarely needed one.
Colfax made the introductions. “Everything under control?”
“Love a neat scene,” one of the techs said. “Last two I worked were gross-outs. One guy had been dead a week. Don’t know what was worse, the decomp or the fact that he was found in a Dumpster outside a sushi restaurant. Talk about stench. This is a vacation.”
“Seems straightforward. Keep a lookout for anything that might confirm a homicide,” Colfax said.
Gordon wandered to the other sites and chatted with the techs, who were digging, brushing, photographing, and making sketches.
“What would you surmise, based on what you’ve seen?” Gordon asked.
“Whoever buried these was organized, methodical. And a bit whacko,” the tech said.
“Explain.” Gordon wanted someone else’s opinion, to see if it matched his.
“Whacko because he—or she, but given the hatchet job, I’m saying he—dismembered the bodies. Organized, methodical because they’re almost like collections. Arms in one place, legs in another, torsos somewhere else.”
“You’re finding more than one person’s bones in each… collection? More than two people?”
“So far, looks like two victims. It’s hard to tell if they were put in the ground at the same time, or if he came back and added the second set of body parts. We’ll know more when we get them back to the lab and can tell who’s who.”
“That eliminates the theory that erosion, a mountain lion or coyote buried them, then?”
“Yeah. Can’t see any predator sorting his kill—or even if the parts were somewhere else and dragged over here, no coyote is going to put all the arms in one spot, and the legs in another.”
“Heads up!”
Gordon snapped to attention at the cry from one of the other sites. He jogged over. “What?”
The tech extended a rib. “Here.” He brushed off the dirt and pointed. “Tool marks. My guess is a knife.”
“As in someone stabbed her? That wouldn’t be the result of the… butchering, would it?”
“Not likely. My money’s on stabbing. Although we’re going to be looking for tool marks at the joints, especially since we’re not seeing bone fragments.”
“So no chain saw massacre,” another tech said.
Colfax furrowed his brows. “A thirty-year-old knife? Assuming whoever did this actually kept the thing, wouldn’t it be hard to match? You know, if he sharpened it—wouldn’t that change the pattern?”
“Definitely. It’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to match the weapon. But we have to look,” the tech continued. “Whoever did this clearly knew what he was doing, but I don’t think anyone’s good enough to dismember a body without nicking bone on at least one of the joints.”
Visions of Fred Easterbrook leaped to the forefront of Gordon’s brain. Fred was a hunter, knew how to dress his kills. Would it be that different butchering a deer or dismembering a human? Fred was methodical, sorting his garbage before burying it in his yard. A shudder rippled down Gordon’s spine. Could one of these bodies be Fred’s wife? And if so, who was the other one?
* * * * *
Gordon was relieved Colfax kept his mouth shut on the ride to the station. He needed to think, and listening to Colfax’s unending banter wasn’t going to cut it. Maybe the detective was grinding things in his head, too. Gordon tried to piece together everything they had so far, and it was more than he could wrap his brain around at the moment. Nothing fit together. Everything pointed to homicide, which meant this was an open case. Cold, perhaps—sub-zero, even—but it couldn’t be ignored.
Colfax pulled into the parking lot, still unusually quiet. Entering through the back door, Colfax crossed the room and settled into the visitor’s chair. Gordon followed, sitting behind his desk. The two sat for a long moment.
“White board?” Colfax broke the silence before it reached the uncomfortable stage.
Gordon nodded. With a visual representation, connections often jumped out. And right now, all he had was a collection of random facts. “I’ll get it.” He went to the multi-purpose room, standing there, trying to decide whether it made sense to set up in the larger space. But if he did, the case would become a focal point, and for the time being, he was still trying to keep things low key. He wheeled it down the hall to his office and set it in front of his filing cabinets.
“This is going to be one hell of a long timeline,” Gordon said.
“Let’s start at the beginning.” Colfax went to the board and picked up one of the markers. At the far left of the board, he drew a large X. “Somewhere around here, we have a dead body.”
“Only one? There were bones from two females.”
“Until we get confirmation that the bones have been in the ground the same length of time, let’s look at one as our primary.”
“You think someone added the second bones later?”
“I’m still collecting facts.” Colfax wrote Body #1 on the board. Above that, he wrote Body #2. “What else do we have?”
“Questions is what we have. Where were they killed?” Gordon said. “Were they killed in the same place? At the same time? What’s the connection between victims? I could go
on forever.”
Without comment, Colfax simply wrote the questions on the board. “Who was the guy you wanted me to question?”
“Roger Ignatius. And the now-defunct corporation—Roger, Suben and Clark. They handled the sale of the property adjacent to the Kretzers’, and even though we don’t have a surveyor’s report, we’re looking at that part of the property as the bone site, so we can’t discount their involvement.”
“You’re saying if the bones are on the Kretzers’ property now, it wasn’t their property when they were buried?”
“It’s quite possible. The Kretzers annexed the additional acreage around 1980. I haven’t got the exact date—with Rose in the hospital, it seemed like it could wait.”
Colfax added Roger, Suben & Clark to the board, paused, and wrote Kretzer as well. Although Gordon’s stomach did a quick twirl at that, he knew they had to be included. He hoped they’d be eliminated as quickly as they went up.
Which reminded him of Megan’s picture. He picked up another marker and started writing names at the upper right of the board. Fred Easterbrook. Below his name, Gordon taped the newspaper picture and added a large question mark above it.
Gordon stood back and studied the board. “You know what’s missing?”
“Other than a viable suspect, the names of the victims, and a motive?”
“For starters.” Gordon’s cell rang. Megan. He held up a finger indicating he needed to take the call. His first thought was of Rose. “Megan. What’s up?”
“Can you come to the hospital? Or can I come talk to you?”
“Is it Rose? I can get away.”
“If it’s not too much trouble. I might be overreacting, but I think someone might have tried to kill Rose.”
Gordon’s heart stopped. “What? Is she all right?”
“Yes, the doctors are trying to find out why someone gave her the wrong medication. But I have a funny feeling it wasn’t an innocent mistake.” She huffed out a shaky breath. “Listen to me. I sound like Angie.”
