by Rebecca York
“Which is what?”
“He’s in his late fifties—at least.”
“You’re right. He doesn’t look it.”
Jonah was silent for several moments, then said. “Here’s my crazy theory about Frank. When you were a kid, did you ever read the Narnia books?”
“Yes. I loved them.”
“Then you know they were about kids who had adventures in another time continuum. They could be gone for years, but when they came back, they were no older than when they left.”
“I remember.”
“I think Frank goes somewhere like that. It’s a good place for him. He’s not married, but if I had to guess, I’d say he has a lover there. It could be a whole harem, but I think he’s not that kind of guy.”
“That’s a lot of speculation.”
He shifted in his seat. “Okay, here’s my secret. For me, being a telepath means I’m always aware of people I care about. You. The other Decorah agents. Frank. I don’t mean I eavesdrop on them or know exactly where they are—but they’re part of the background in my head. And, um, when Frank goes away, he goes away. He’s not there.”
“My God. Do you talk to the other guys about it?”
“No. We never discuss his private life because we don’t want to jeopardize it for him.”
“In your case, because you love him like a father.”
He shot her a quick glance. “It’s that obvious?”
“I know your emotions. I know he means a lot to you.”
Jonah nodded. He had never put his feelings for Frank into words, but Alice’s assessment made sense.
He reached for her hand. “He finds people who are misfits because of their special talents and brings them into the Decorah family. I’m thankful that he found me.”
“Like you found me.”
“Uh huh.”
“What about your real father?” she asked.
He felt a pang of sadness—and anger. “He and my mom were killed by a drunk driver on the highway.”
Her grip on his hand tightened. “I’m so sorry.”
“I was already in college. I’d moved out of the house, but it was still hard. I went from being a kid—to taking care of myself pretty quickly.”
“That sounds rough.”
“I coped.” He swallowed hard, refocusing on good memories. “Dad and I got along. He taught me how to fix cars—and we’d do stuff like camping and fishing.”
“Good.” She was silent for a moment, then asked, “What about your talent?”
“I didn’t really recognize it when I was a kid. Actually, not until I got into police work, and I realized I could tell if people were lying to me. Which was why I got fed up with the department. There was a lot of lying in the administration—on a lot of levels.”
“Oh.”
“Lucky for me, Frank approached me at a conference. He recognized what I had, and when I joined Decorah, Grant and Mack spent a lot of time improving my skills.”
They sat together, not needing to talk, and watched the tourists enjoy the crisp fall day. Finally he said, “We should do some grocery shopping.”
They drove to a supermarket near his apartment, and the place was another surprise.
“So drugstores have stuff you’d find in a grocery. And groceries have stuff you’d find in a drugstore.”
“Right. They both want to take advantage of one-stop shopping.”
Alice pushed a cart up and down the aisles, marveling at the number of products and the variety of produce.
“A lot of this stuff isn’t in season,” she said as she picked up a box of strawberries. We have them on the farm, but only in the spring.”
“They’re shipped in from Latin America. Or somewhere else that is warmer than here. But the later it gets in the year, the less flavor they have.”
She nodded. “So don’t bother with them?”
“Right.”
She reached for a bag of green beans. “These are already snapped.”
“They want to make it convenient. What do you want for dinner?”
“That’s a hard question, since I didn’t get any choices for months. What if I said—pancakes with sautéed apples?”
He laughed. “Fine by me. Should we get pancake mix?”
“You don’t need a mix. It’s just flour, milk, butter, and eggs. And baking powder.”
“If you say so.”
“And we’ll get some other stuff too. Like maybe ground beef and potatoes.”
“Sure.”
They bought the supplies they needed. As they cooked the simple dinner together, Alice kept glancing at Jonah.
“What?”
“I’m still coming to grips with how everything’s changed.
“Yeah.” His face clouded, and she knew where his thoughts had leaped.
We’re not going to lose each other, she said.
She knew it might not be true. And that gave their lovemaking later an edge of desperation.
In the morning, Jonah checked on Teddy’s progress, then said to Alice, “I should set up the hunt for the bodies.”
“Can I help?”
“It’s probably going to be a tedious process. Let me show you how to get into the Web, and you can prowl around on your own for a while. Don’t get onto any porn sites—or you’re likely to pick up a computer virus.”
“I guess you’d better explain that.”
After setting Alice up with his laptop, and giving her his cell number in case she ran into any problems, Jonah went to find Grant at the Decorah medical facility.
His friend looked up as he came in the door.
Jonah took a seat next to him at the front desk. “I suppose you know Alice and I are going to go back and try to save Hayward’s other victims—by eliminating the sick bastard as he’s scooping up the first woman.”
“Frank told me. And he said you might need some help from me.”
“Yeah. I’ve got Teddy working on trying to identify the victims through accounts of women whose bodies were never found. But we need more than that—like DNA evidence.”
“They didn’t have DNA evidence back in the fifties and sixties.”
“No. But they had DNA we can use. You know; like all those ads on TV for finding your ancestry?”
Grant nodded.
“Well, if we get samples, we may be able to narrow down the victims better.”
Grant gave Jonah a direct look. “You’re thinking about going back to the estate and digging up the bodies.”
“First we have to find them. We need to get a cadaver dog.”
“And its handler. Which brings up the point that we can’t just waltz in there and start poking around. Not with that local cop on the alert.”
“We’ve got two choices. We can sneak in at night. Or we can string out the line we gave Officer Cooper.” Jonah was thinking it through as he continued to speak. “But he was pretty pissy about our being there. If we asked for permission, we’d probably have to jump through a lot of hoops to search for the bodies and dig them up. That would take time. And we might never get permission.”
“You have time. You could spend years on research.”
“No, Alice and I are scared shitless, wondering if we’re gonna screw up the timeline so we never meet.”
Grant gave his friend a sympathetic look. “Right. I wasn’t thinking. I guess we have to go in at night and risk getting ourselves and a dog handler arrested.”
“Uh huh.”
“We’d better start with the canine. Can you use a search and rescue dog? I know a guy who does that.”
“Cadaver dogs are different. Search and rescue dogs are looking for living people who can be saved, and cadaver dogs are looking for the dead. They find them from the smell of a dead human drifting up through the earth.”
“After more than fifty years?”
“As far as I know.”
Jonah’s gaze turned inward as he remembered the last time he and Grant had visited the property. �
��We’ll have to make it clear to whoever goes with us that this is a stealth operation. Which may make it hard to find someone willing to do it.”
He went off to call several people and groups who advertised cadaver dog services. Most were willing to work with Decorah Security but backed out when they heard the assignment was on private property and had to be secret.
After making six calls, he found a guy named Doug Frampton, from Carol County, who was intrigued enough to keep listening.
“Why does it have to be covert?” he asked.
“We’re investigating serial murders that occurred fifty years ago. The bodies are buried on an estate where the ownership is in dispute. We went there a few days ago, and a cop was instantly on our asses. We left, but we want to come back at night.”
“You’re sure the bodies are there?”
“It makes sense. The killer was kidnapping young women, forcing them to get into great physical shape, then hunting them for sport on the estate. It’s a big place. He had plenty of room to use the grounds as a private cemetery.”
Frampton winced. “Okay I’ll join you. When do you want to do it?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I can bring Daisy to your place tonight.”
“Your dog is Daisy?”
“Yeah, I named her after my grandmother. She was dogged in pursuit of buried bodies. In the metaphorical sense, of course.”
Jonah laughed, then gave Frampton directions. He proposed leaving in an SUV just before dark—which would put them at the estate around eight.
He headed home around 5:30 and found Alice in the kitchen, proudly taking a meatloaf out of the oven. To go along with it, she had made mashed potatoes, using the immersion blender she found in one of Jonah’s cabinets.
“That was a Christmas present that I never used,” he said.
“I looked it up on the Web. It’s fun.”
“You don’t have to do all the cooking.”
“I like it. It’s a lot easier than when my mom did it. I mean, you just put that wand right into the pot where you cooked the potatoes, add butter, milk and salt, and mash them up.”
He shook his head. “You’re adapting pretty well.”
The tone of his voice must have told her something was up.
“What?”
“After dinner, Grant and I are going out to the estate—with a cadaver dog and handler.”
“I want to come,” she said at once.
“I knew you’d say that, but in this case, it’s better if you stay here.”
“Why?”
“Because the morning I came to the estate looking for you—a cop showed up and was pretty aggressive. He could come back, and the fewer people we have, the better.”
“You and Grant are both going.”
“We’ll be on gravedigger duty. Do you really want to dig up long-dead bodies?”
She winced. “If you put it that way—no.”
As he got ready to go to the Decorah office, she reached for him. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
“Won’t the cop see your flashlights?”
He shook his head. “Another modern invention you don’t know about—night vision goggles. You can see pretty well in the dark with them. Of course, everything looks green, but you get used to it.”
Before he left, they hugged tightly because both of them now knew that every step they took toward fulfilling their mission could mean they’d end up separated forever.
oOo
When Jonah arrived at the office, Frampton and a handsome black and brown shepherd were in the office waiting room, talking to Frank.
The handler was a man who looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, and Jonah wondered briefly if he would be up to the assignment—physically. But he was the only one who had agreed to take the job.
The team, including the dog, piled into an SUV and headed for the Bay Bridge. On the way, Frampton asked questions about the case.
“How did you find out about a bunch of bodies from fifty years ago?”
Jonah kept himself from glancing at Grant. He couldn’t tell the dog handler the truth—that he’d time-traveled back to the scene of the crimes.
He settled on saying, “We got the information from a source who has to remain anonymous.”
“But you think the info is reliable?”
“We wouldn’t risk getting caught by the local cops if we didn’t,” Grant answered.
That kept Frampton quiet for a few miles before he asked, “Do you know anything about the victims?”
“We’re trying to find out more. That’s why we want to locate the bodies. We’re assuming they are all young woman, probably in their early twenties.”
“You often take cases this complicated?”
“Not usually. But this is special.”
Jonah was relieved when they drew near to the estate and he could focus on looking for the spot where he had parked the night of the fire. He drove down the road once with his lights on, then switched them off and came back, slowing as he reached the dirt turnoff. Pulling off the blacktop, he headed for the edge of the woods, then stopped near where he’d parked the Chevy.
They all got out, and Frampton let Daisy get used to the environment. As it turned out, the moon was almost full, and they didn’t need the night vision goggles to walk the property.
“Do you know where the remains might be?” the dog handler asked.
“I wish I did,” Jonah answered. “I assume his graveyard’s not too far from the house for him to carry the women over.”
“Do you think the killer would want to see the graveyard from the window?”
Jonah considered what he knew about the man. “That’s a good possibility.”
“We can get closer to the house and start walking a grid.”
Jonah didn’t have a better suggestion. He and Grant held back, letting the man and dog do their work.
After two hours, Frampton and Daisy were still going, and Jonah was surprised at the man’s willingness to push himself. He was thinking they might have to come back another night when the dog stopped and alerted on a patch of ground about two hundred yards from the river and about the same distance from the house.
While Frampton rewarded Daisy with praise and dog treats, the Decorah agents went back to the SUV for their shovels and the goggles so they’d be able to see fine details and wouldn’t dig right through a decomposed body. Working carefully, they began poking around in the now hardened ground.
“I think the graves won’t be more than a few feet down,” Frampton said as he and Daisy withdrew to let the agents work.
Jonah was the first to feel his shovel blade hit what was either a small rock or bone. He and Grant switched to trowels and began scooping earth away. After a few minutes, they uncovered a pelvic bone.
The dog came leaping over, and Frampton had to restrain her.
They collected a DNA sample from the bone, then began looking for more.
“I can help,” Frampton said.
“Appreciate it.”
After taking the dog back to the vehicle, he joined the Decorah agents in the digging.
With all three working, it took only another couple of hours to find the five victims and to bag samples.
They were just heading back to the car when Daisy started barking furiously.
Chapter 19
“Christ, what’s that?” Jonah muttered.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a powerful flashlight beam hit him in the face.
“Hands in the air, don’t move.”
The three men froze.
Jonah recognized the voice. It was Officer Daniels, the cop who had chased them off the estate the first time. He must have spotted something going on over here, turned off his lights, and crept up on the action.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
To his companions Jonah said in a low voice, “Watch it. This guy is trigger happy.” To the cop, h
e said, “We’re unarmed. We came back to look for the bodies I told you about.”
“Unarmed?” The cop had a dilemma now. He had three suspects who might be up to no good, but he couldn’t search them because while he was busy with one guy, the others might get the drop on him.
“How do you know about any bodies?” he demanded. What he should have done was call for immediate backup, Jonah thought, but he wasn’t going to make helpful suggestions.
Jonah had been mulling over an answer to that question all evening. Now he said, “The granddaughter of one of the victims always suspected that Arthur Hayward was responsible for her grandmother’s disappearance. She hired Decorah Security to see if we could find the body and prove what had happened.”
“You said five bodies.”
“Our research told us there were likely five victims.”
“That sounds like a cock and bull story. You got a guard dog in the vehicle. What are you here to steal?”
“Nothing,” Frampton answered.
“And who the hell are you?”
“I am Douglas Frampton, a licensed cadaver dog handler. The animal in the vehicle is not a guard dog. She locates human remains, and she found five bodies on this property.”
“Prove it.”
“We can take you to the graves,” Jonah said.
“Yeah, because you put the stiffs there,” Daniels said.
Jonah suspected the response meant the guy wasn’t going to release them now. This small-town cop was such a dick that Jonah wanted to scream, but he kept his voice even. “I told you last time. These are cold cases. The women disappeared in the late fifties or early sixties. I wasn’t born then.”
“Nor was I,” Grant added.
“And I was a toddler,” Frampton said. “The remains are completely skeletonized. We reburied them.”
“Why?”
“To keep predators from getting to them,” Jonah answered.
“We’ll have a look at the graves in the morning,” Daniels snapped. “Meanwhile, you three are under arrest for trespassing.”
“Jesus,” Jonah muttered under his breath.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“What about my dog?” Frampton asked.
