My Sister's Grave

by Robert Dugoni

  “Is there anything you’d like to say to Detective Crosswhite?” Vanpelt asked.

  House gave her a tight-lipped grin. “I don’t think words can express how I feel at the moment,” he said. “But I hope to thank her in person someday.”

  Tracy felt another chill pass through her, as if a spider had crawled along her spine.

  “What would you like now?” a reporter asked.

  House’s grin widened. “A cheeseburger.”

  The television cut back to Vanpelt outside the jail. She was straining to keep a grip on her umbrella, the wind also causing a rustling sound as it blew across the microphone. “As I said, that news conference was recorded earlier this afternoon, after which Edmund House left this jail behind me a free man.”

  The news anchor said, “Maria, it seems remarkable that a man who has spent twenty years behind bars for a crime that it now appears he did not commit could forgive so readily. What happens now to those who were potentially involved?”

  Vanpelt had a finger pressed to the earpiece. She shouted to be heard over the wind. “Mark, I spoke with a law professor at the University of Washington this afternoon who told me that, regardless of whether or not Edmund House ever pursues civil charges for the violation of his civil rights, the Department of Justice could decide to step in and pursue criminal charges against those involved. It could also take over the investigation as to what happened to Sarah Crosswhite. So it appears that this story is far from over. This hearing may have raised far more questions than it answered. But tonight, Edmund House is a free man and, as you heard him say, in search of a good cheeseburger.”

  The anchor said, “Maria, we’re going to let you go find shelter before the wind blows you away, but has there been any word from Detective Crosswhite?”

  Vanpelt braced as another gust of wind swept over her. After it had passed, she said, “I spoke to Detective Crosswhite during a recess in today’s proceedings and asked if she felt vindicated by the Court’s ruling. She said the hearing wasn’t about vindication. It was about finding out what happened to her sister. At the moment, that appears to be a lingering question that unfortunately may never be answered.”

  Tracy’s cell rang. She checked caller ID. Kins.

  “I just e-mailed the list to you,” Kins said. “It’s long but it’s manageable. Is this the truck with the rear light out?”

  “It’s a truck with a rear light out. Could very well be more than one around here.”

  “We’re getting news reports they freed House.”

  “Shocked the hell out of everyone, Kins. We all figured Judge Meyers would take the matter under advisement and issue written findings. But if he didn’t rule today, it might not have been until after the weekend. He wasn’t about to let Edmund House stay in jail.”

  “Sounds like the evidence was pretty overwhelming.”

  “Dan did a great job.”

  “So why do you sound so subdued?”

  “Just tired, and thinking about everything. My sister and my mom and dad. It’s a lot to digest this quickly.”

  “Think about how House must feel.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Twenty years in Walla Walla’s a long time for him to find himself suddenly walking the streets a free man. I read an article once about Vietnam veterans being sent home from the war without any time to decompress. One day they’re in the jungle watching people die, the next they’re back home, walking the streets of Anywhere, USA. Many of them couldn’t handle it.”

  “I don’t think anybody will be out walking the streets tonight. They’re predicting a blizzard.”

  “Here too, and you know these people can’t drive these hills in the snow. Stay warm. I’m heading home before the crazies totally clog the roads.”

  “Thanks for this, Kins. I owe you.”

  “And you’ll pay.”

  Tracy hung up and switched applications on her phone so she could open Kins’s e-mail. Her initial pass through the materials he’d sent indicated that the list of potential license plate combinations was not insignificant. She scrolled through a second time, quickly scanning the names and cities of the registered owners, looking for anything familiar. She didn’t see a name she recognized, but she did see the word “Cascadia,” and stopped scrolling. The vehicle was registered to a “Cascadia Furniture.” She took her phone to the nook where Dan kept his home computer, shook the mouse, and keyed the name into a search engine. “Wow,” she said, surprised when the search resulted in close to a quarter of a million hits.

  She added the words “Cedar Grove.” It reduced the hits significantly, but there were still too many to efficiently go through. “What else?” she said out loud. After three days, her brain was fried. She couldn’t think of any additional tag words to reduce the number of hits.

  Tracy slid back her chair, about to grab another beer, when she recalled where she’d heard the name before. She looked about the kitchen. The boxes containing the files she’d accumulated during her investigation of Sarah’s disappearance were stacked in a corner. There’d been no need for Dan to bring them all to court each day. She set the top box on the kitchen table and riffled through the files until she found what she was looking for. Sitting, she flipped the pages of the transcript containing Detective Margaret Giesa’s trial testimony. She knew the trial testimony well, having studied it, and quickly found the portion of Giesa’s testimony she was looking for.

  BY MR. CLARK:

  Q. Did your team locate anything else of interest in the truck cab?

  A. Trace amounts of blood.

  Q. Detective Giesa, I am placing on the easel what has been marked as the State’s Exhibit 112. It is a blown-up aerial photograph of Parker House’s property. Can you tell the jury, using this photograph, where your search next proceeded?

  A. Yes, we went down this path to search this first building here.

  Q. Let’s mark that building you’re pointing to with the number one, then. Did you note anything of interest in that building?

  A. We found woodworking tools and several pieces of furniture in various stages of completion.

  Tracy shifted her focus back to Kins’s e-mail. “Cascadia Furniture,” she said.

  An explosion rattled the windows and shook the house, causing Rex and Sherlock to bolt upright and race to the plywood-covered window barking, just before the house plunged into darkness.

  CHAPTER 52

  Vance Clark was gathering his briefcase and coat from the chair and standing to leave Roy Calloway’s office when the radio on Calloway’s desk crackled. Finlay Armstrong spoke, though his voice was barely audible through heavy static.

  Calloway adjusted the dial.

  “Roy, you there?” Finlay sounded like he was talking in his car with the window down.

  “I’m here,” he said, then heard what sounded like distant thunder but quickly recognized to have been a single explosion. The fluorescent bulbs flickered and dulled and cut out completely. A transformer had blown. Calloway swore and heard the emergency generator kick in, like an airplane engine gearing up for takeoff. The lights came back on.

  “Chief?”

  “We just lost power for a second. Hang on, the generator is still kicking in. You’re breaking up. It’s hard to hear you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re breaking up.” The lights dimmed, then brightened.

  “Storm’s picking up.” Armstrong was shouting. “Wind gusts . . . You need to get out here, Roy. Something . . . You need to . . . here.”

  “Hang on, Finlay. Say again. Repeat. Say again.”

  “You need to get here,” Armstrong said.

  “Where?” The radio crackled. The static increased. “Where?” Calloway asked again.

  “DeAngelo Finn’s house.”

  The high winds had toppled trees and knocked out all power. Downtown Cedar Grove looked like a ghost town, with the wind whipping snow into drifts piled high on the deserted sidewalks, the streetlights
and store windows blackened. Farther out of town the windows in the houses were similarly dark, indicating the power outage to be at least citywide.

  Snowflakes slid over the windshield and swirled in the cones of light from the Tahoe’s headlamps. They struggled to illuminate the branches that the wind had ripped from trees and left littering the road, which caused Dan to drive slowly and swerve frequently. As he approached the turn to Elmwood, he noticed a fire burning atop a telephone pole like a distant torch—a transformer. That explained the darkness. The entire electrical grid for all of Cedar Grove was down. The city had no emergency backup power, which was a costly upgrade that the city council declined to invest in several years back, reasoning that most residents had their own generators. Of course, backup generators didn’t solve the problem of spotty cell phone reception in a mountain town, especially during a major blizzard.

  Dan pulled into his driveway and saw tracks in the snow from a car’s tires, but did not see Tracy’s Subaru. It immediately worried him. He checked his cell. No bars. When he tried calling her, he got a persistent beep.

  Where the hell could she have gone? he wondered.

  He popped open the glove box and switched on a flashlight. Rex and Sherlock, who’d begun barking when he’d pulled up the driveway, became more animated as he approached the house. “Hang on,” he called out, opening the door and bracing himself against 286 pounds jockeying for his attention. “Okay, okay,” he said, petting them as he shone the flashlight about the room. He found Tracy’s briefcase hanging from the back of one of the kitchen counter’s elevated chairs. “Tracy?”

  No response.

  “Where is she, boys?”

  He’d talked to her just thirty minutes earlier. She’d said all was fine.

  “Tracy?” He walked through the house calling her name. “Tracy?”

  His cell phone still showed no bars. He dialed again anyway. The call did not go through.

  “Stay,” he said to Sherlock and Rex as he pulled open the front door, though neither appeared too interested in following him into the garage, where he plugged in the portable generator he’d wired to the main electrical panel.

  Back inside, the television was now on, though the sound was muted. He picked up a half-finished beer from the coffee table. The bottle remained cool to the touch. He hit the “Mute” button on the remote control. The local weatherman was using diagrams to explain the size of the storm and its path, talking about high- and low-pressure systems and predicting up to an additional eighteen inches of fresh snow by morning.

  “The problem now isn’t the snow, it’s that the winds are increasing in ferocity,” the weatherman said.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Dan said. Sherlock whined at the sound of his name.

  “Due to the recent warming and freezing pattern, ice is forming on the power lines and weakening tree limbs. Some of you may have seen the debris in the roads or heard those limbs snapping outside. We have at least one report that a transformer fire has knocked out electrical power to nearly all of Cedar Grove.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Dan said.

  The camera switched back to a news anchor sitting behind the studio desk.

  “We’ll continue to check back with Tim to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage on what is shaping up to be a major winter storm.” Dan put down the remote and walked into the kitchen. “At the moment, we’re getting reports of a fire on Pine Crest Road in Cedar Grove.”

  Dan’s interest was piqued. He knew the road, of course, from growing up in Cedar Grove, but there was something more familiar about the name than a childhood memory, something more recent that jogged his memory.

  “We’re told the Sheriff and fire department personnel responded quickly and were able to contain the blaze, but not before the house sustained significant damage. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman indicates at least one elderly resident lives at that address.”

  The memory clicked. Dan had used the address on the subpoena that had never been served, one to compel DeAngelo Finn to appear at the post-conviction relief hearing. He felt a chill. His stomach fluttered. He looked again to Tracy’s briefcase. Then he picked up his car keys and headed for the door.

  That’s when he saw her note taped just above the deadbolt.

  The lights atop Finlay Armstrong’s patrol car and the two fire engines swirled and pulsed in bursts of red, blue, and white light as Roy Calloway drove down the block toward DeAngelo Finn’s one-story rambler. The Suburban’s headlights illuminated charred rafters poking through what remained of the roof, like the exposed rib cage of a dead animal picked clean.

  Calloway parked behind the larger of the two fire trucks and stepped out. He trudged past firemen struggling to flatten and rewind hoses. Finlay Armstrong, standing on the front stoop, caught sight of Calloway and lowered his head into the wind and swirling snow, heading over. They met at the picket fence, a portion of which had been knocked down to run the hoses from the fire hydrant close to the house. Armstrong had the collar of his patrolman’s jacket turned up and the earflaps of his cap pulled down and snapped beneath his chin.

  “Do they know what started the fire?” Calloway shouted over a gust of wind.

  “Captain says it smells like some sort of an accelerant. Likely gas.”

  “Where?”

  Armstrong squinted. Snow and ice clung to the fur framing his face. “What?”

  “Do they know where the fire started?”

  “The garage. They think maybe a generator.”

  “Have they found DeAngelo?” Armstrong turned his head and pulled an earflap up. Calloway leaned closer. “Have they found DeAngelo?”

  Armstrong shook his head. “They just got the fire out. They’re trying to figure out if the house is safe to enter.”

  Calloway stepped through the gate. Armstrong followed him to the front porch, where two firemen stood discussing the situation. Calloway greeted Phil Ronkowski by his first name.

  “Hey, Roy,” Ronkowski said, shaking gloved hands. “A fire in a snowstorm. I’ve seen everything now.”

  Calloway raised his voice. “Have you found DeAngelo?”

  Ronkowski shook his head. Then he stepped back and pointed up at the charred roof. “The fire spread fast across the roof and inundated just about every room. It had to be an accelerant of some kind. Gas probably. Neighbors said the smoke was thick and black.”

  “Could he have gotten out?”

  Ronkowski grimaced. “Pray that he did, but we didn’t see anybody when we got here. Maybe with the weather he went to a neighbor’s, but nobody has approached us.”

  They heard a large crack and instinctively flinched. A tree limb crashed into the yard, scattering the firemen, taking out a portion of the fence, and just missing the back end of one of the trucks.

  “I need to get in there, Phil,” Calloway said.

  Ronkowski shook his head. “Structure hasn’t been determined safe yet, Roy. Not with this wind.”

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  “Damn it, Roy. I’m supposed to be in charge here.”

  “Just make a note. This is my decision.” Calloway took the flashlight from Finlay. “Wait here.”

  The front door’s frame had been damaged from the forced entry. Black burn marks and blistered paint revealed where the fire had licked the sash in search of oxygen. Stepping in, Calloway heard wind whistling through the house and the plink-plink of dripping water. The beam of his flashlight danced off scarred walls and the charred remains of furniture. Framed photographs and knickknacks accumulated over a lifetime lay strewn across the carpet. He directed the light at a waterlogged piece of Sheetrock hanging from the ceiling like a wet bedsheet from a clothesline. Snow fell through a gaping hole in the roof. Calloway covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief because the air inside still remained thick with smoke and smelled of burnt wood and insulation. His boots created puddles in the carpet as he stepped across the room.

  He leaned through the doorw
ay on his left and swept the light over the kitchen. DeAngelo was not there. He made his way across the living room debris and down a narrow hallway leading to the back of the house, calling out DeAngelo’s name but getting no answer. He used a shoulder to force open the first of two doors, revealing a guest bedroom. The fire had done minimal damage, probably because the room was farthest from where Ronkowski believed the fire to have started. The fact that the door had been closed also would have reduced the flow of oxygen to fuel the flames. Calloway directed the light over a queen-sized bed, pulled open a closet door, and shone the flashlight over a bar and handful of wire hangers.

  Retreating from the room, Calloway pushed open the second door, which also stuck in the sash. The master bedroom. Black smoke streaked the walls and the ceiling, but again, the damage was limited compared to the rest of the house. Calloway danced the light over a dresser partially buried beneath a piece of fallen Sheetrock, bent to a knee to lift a dust ruffle, and shone the light beneath the bed. Nothing

  He called out from his knees. “DeAngelo?”

  Where the hell is he? he thought. The bad feeling that had started when he heard the report that Finn’s home had been burned grew stronger.

  Finlay entered the room. “They’re coming in now. You find him?”

  Calloway stood up. “He’s not here.”

  “He got out?”

  “Then where is he?” Calloway asked, unable to shake the bad feeling that had first come over him when he had heard Armstrong mention Finn’s name over the radio. It was like a bad chill, a cold-to-the-bone feeling. Calloway walked to the closet and pulled on the knob, but the door was wedged tight in the jamb. “Check with the neighbors,” he said to Armstrong. “Maybe he’s disoriented.”

  Armstrong nodded. “Will do.”

  Calloway braced a hand on the jamb, about to apply more force, when he noticed two darkened points protruding through the door, roughly three feet apart. In the light from his flashlight they looked like two nails shot from a nail gun that had missed the studs and penetrated through the wall. Only these nails were significantly bigger, more like spikes.