My Sister's Grave

by Robert Dugoni

  “What the hell?” Calloway said. He yanked on the door. It didn’t move, so he put a foot on the wall and yanked again. This time the door swung open faster than Calloway had anticipated, the weight and force nearly pulling the knob from his hand.

  “Jesus!” Armstrong yelled, stumbling backward into the dresser.

  CHAPTER 53

  Tracy felt the Subaru’s engine struggling as the car’s tires fought to churn through the deepening snow. She couldn’t see the center line or the edge of the county road. It was all a long white blanket. With the four-wheel drive engaged and the car in low gear, it plowed forward, but it remained slow going. The windshield wipers slapped a steady beat but couldn’t keep the glass clear of the swirling snow, and visibility had been reduced to a few feet in front of her bumper. Tracy had to resist the urge to hit the brakes when gusts of wind caused the snow to fall in clumps from overburdened tree limbs, creating momentary whiteouts. If she stopped, she might not get the car moving again.

  As she rounded another curve, a burst of light momentarily blinded her, causing her to steer closer to the rock face. A rush of wind from an eighteen-wheel truck plowing past in the opposite direction shook her car and spit snow from its tire chains. Maybe she was a fool to be out in weather like this, but she wasn’t about to sit at Dan’s and wait out the storm. It suddenly made sense, so much so that she was dismayed and angry that she had not considered the possibility before. Who else had access to the red Chevy truck? Who had the opportunity to plant the jewelry and the hairs? It had to be someone whose presence on the property would not be conspicuous. It had to be someone who lived there on a daily basis, someone who Edmund House trusted.

  Parker.

  In their rush to convict Edmund, no one had checked Parker’s alibi. Parker had said he’d worked a late shift at the mill, but no one had bothered to confirm it. There’d been no reason to, not with a convicted rapist to blame. It was just as likely that Parker, known to be a heavy drinker, had been out knocking back a few in one of the local bars, decided to drive home on the county road to avoid the highway patrol, and stumbled upon Sarah stranded and soaking wet. Parker would have been a familiar face. Sarah wouldn’t have hesitated to get in the cab with him. What had happened from there? Had Parker made a pass and gotten angry when Sarah had rejected him? Had there been a struggle where Sarah had hit her head? Had Parker panicked and hidden her body in a garbage bag until he could safely bury it? Parker would have known about the dam going online. He lived not far from the area that was to be flooded. He also knew the trails in the foothills, and he’d been part of the search team, so he would have known when and where to bury Sarah’s body. And maybe, most importantly, Parker had had a ready scapegoat to give up when Calloway came calling: his rape-convicted nephew.

  The lumber mill in Pine Flat where Parker had worked at the time of Sarah’s disappearance had since closed. How had Parker continued to make a living? How did he pay the bills? He’d made furniture as a hobby when Tracy had lived in Cedar Grove, selling a few of the pieces at Kaufman’s Mercantile Store on consignment. Apparently he’d gone into business for himself—as Cascadia Furniture—and had bought a flatbed truck to deliver what he sold.

  Tracy thought again of her question to Dan. Where would Edmund House go now that he was free? But House had already answered that question when she and Dan had first met him in Walla Walla.

  I can already see it. The looks on the faces of all those people when they see me walking the streets of Cedar Grove again.

  Where else could he go? Where else but to his uncle’s home in the foothills? Edmund House had insisted that Calloway and Clark had conspired to convict him, and that had certainly seemed to be the case, but it didn’t explain who had hidden the jewelry in the coffee can in the furniture shop and who had planted the blonde strands of hair. Neither Calloway nor Clark could have done it, not with Edmund at home and on high alert, not with an entire CSI team scouring over the site. Had Edmund also figured out that his uncle had been part of the conspiracy, and had willingly joined Calloway and Clark in order to cover his own crime?

  Tracy briefly took her eyes off the road to check her cell phone. No bars. She wondered if Dan had made it home and found her note. She wondered if he had gone to get Roy Calloway. She spotted a pile of snow that looked to have been plowed from a side street and left along the side of the road, and slowed to have a closer look, trying to remember if that was the turn that led up the mountain to Parker’s property. If she guessed wrong, she’d likely get stuck, with no way to turn around.

  She made the turn and punched the accelerator to keep her speed up the grade. The tires of her Subaru fell into fresh ruts that had been made by a vehicle with larger tires and a wider wheel base—a flatbed truck. Her car shuddered back and forth as if on a track at a carnival ride, and the headlights bounced and shimmered off the trunks and limbs of trees swaying violently in the wind. Tracy leaned forward, peering through an ever-shrinking window of visibility as ice and snow gathered on the windshield, seemingly immune to the wipers and the defroster hissing hot air.

  Tracy slowed into a corner, about to accelerate out of the turn when she saw a branch sticking up out of the snow. She braked hard and jerked to a stop. The headlights extended just far enough to illuminate two other trees that had fallen across the path. She’d get no farther in the car. Tracy looked about, uncertain how much farther it was to Parker House’s property, or if she was even on the correct road. She again checked her cell phone. No reception.

  Were Dan and Calloway on their way? She had no way to know. Instinct told her she didn’t have time to wait.

  She checked the clip of her Glock, slapped it back into place, and chambered a round. After slipping two additional clips into the pocket of her jacket, she pulled on her hat and ski gloves and grabbed the flashlight she’d found in a drawer in Dan’s kitchen. Tracy shoved open the door, using her forearm to brace it against the howling wind and keep it from slamming shut. She steeled herself for the weather and what was to come.

  CHAPTER 54

  DeAngelo Finn hung crucified inside the closet door. His arms were raised shoulder height, metal spikes driven through the palms, blood dripping down the wood from each one. The weight of his body was held up by a rope tied around his waist and hung on a hook. Finn’s head listed to the side, eyes closed and face ashen in the intense beam from Calloway’s flashlight.

  Roy Calloway put his ear to Finn’s chest and heard a faint beat. Finn moaned.

  “He’s alive,” Armstrong said, disbelieving.

  “Get me a hammer, something!”

  Armstrong stumbled out of the room, spilling whatever remained atop the dresser to the ground.

  Calloway’s instinct was to remove the belt, but if he did, Finn’s weight would be transferred to the spikes through his hands. “Hang on DeAngelo. We got help on the way. Can you hear me? DeAngelo? Hang on. We’re going to get you down.”

  Ronkowski and two of his firemen trailed Armstrong into the room. One carried a powerful lantern.

  “Jesus,” Ronkowski said.

  “I need something to pull them out.”

  “You pry those nails out and the pain will kill him,” Ronkowski said.

  “What if we drive the points out from the back?” one of the firemen said.

  “Same problem.”

  “We could cut around the spikes,” Calloway said.

  Ronkowski wiped a hand across his face. “All right. Let’s do that. We can lift him to take the weight off his hands. Dirk, get the saw.”

  “Forget that,” Armstrong said, stopping the fireman. “Just pull out the hinge pins and take down the whole damn door. We can use it like a stretcher.”

  “He’s right,” Ronkowski said. “That’s better. Dirk, get a hammer and screwdriver.” Ronkowski stepped closer to DeAngelo. “He’s having trouble breathing. Lift him up to take the weight off his rib cage.”

  Calloway lifted Finn by the waist. The old man moaned. Arms
trong returned with a chair from the kitchen and slid it under Finn’s legs, but Finn was too weak to push himself up. Calloway continued to support his weight as Dirk returned with the hammer and chisel and started on the top hinge pin.

  “No,” Armstrong said, “take out the bottom bolt first. We’ll brace the top.”

  The fireman knocked the bottom pin out of the hinge, then the bolt from the middle hinge. Armstrong and Calloway steadied the door.

  “You got him?” the fireman asked.

  “Do it,” Armstrong said.

  The fireman knocked out the top pin. Calloway braced against the weight of Finn and the door as he and Armstrong managed to turn the door and slowly lower it onto the bed.

  “Get the tie downs,” Ronkowski said. “We need to strap his body to the door if we’re going to carry him out of here.”

  Ronkowski fitted an oxygen mask over Finn’s face and checked his vitals. When a fireman returned with the straps, they removed the belt from around Finn’s waist and maneuvered the straps under the door and cinched Finn about the ankles, waist, and chest.

  “All right. Let’s see if we can get him out of here,” Ronkowski said.

  Calloway took the end of the door by Finn’s head. Armstrong grabbed the end near his feet.

  “On three,” Ronkowski said.

  They lifted in unison, trying to avoid any sudden movements. Finn groaned again.

  As they maneuvered the door through the jamb, Armstrong said, “Who would do it, Roy? Jesus, who would do something like this to an old man?”

  CHAPTER 55

  The cold bit at her, finding every seam in her clothes and pricking at her skin like dozens of needles. Tracy lowered her head into the wind, stepped over a fallen tree, and followed the tire tracks up the slope. She stayed in the ruts left by the tires, but her boots still sank up to her calves, making every step a struggle. She became quickly winded but trudged on, afraid to stop, pushing aside any thoughts of going back, telling herself it was futile since she could never reverse her car down the hill and turning it around was not an option. Besides, she’d put these events in motion. She needed to stop them.

  Two hundred yards up the slope she came to the edge of a clearing. In the near distance, through the swirling snow, she could just make out the faint glow of a light and the shadows of buildings and snow-covered humps. She recalled the aerial photographs at Edmund House’s trial, which had depicted multiple metal-roofed buildings, as well as cars and farm equipment in varying stages of restoration littering Parker House’s yard. She didn’t imagine it would change much. This was the right place. She turned off the flashlight and crept toward the light at the back of the property, stopping behind the bumper of the one vehicle not buried beneath snow—the flatbed she’d seen at the courthouse. She scraped the snow and ice off the license plate and confirmed it to be the same as the plate number that Kins had provided. Satisfied it was the same truck, she studied the ramshackle wood-plank structure. Two feet of snow had piled atop the roof. Foot-long icicles hung like jagged teeth from its eaves. No smoke came from the flue.

  The wind found a space between the collar of her jacket and hat and sent a chill down her spine. Her fingers had gone numb inside her gloves. She feared losing more dexterity if she waited much longer.

  She shuffled from the flatbed to the wooden steps, which had been recently shoveled. The wood sagged beneath her weight. On the tiny porch, she pressed her back against the siding and waited a beat before leaning to look through a window’s glass panes, which were icing over on the outside and fogged on the inside.

  Using her teeth, Tracy pulled off her gloves and unzipped her jacket. She reached for the Glock and felt the cold numbing her fingers. She alternately blew into each of her fists and reached for the doorknob. It turned. She gently pushed. The door stuck, and for a brief moment she thought it was bolted. Then it popped free of the jamb. The windowpanes rattled and she again waited a beat, the wind shoving hard at her back, nearly pulling the knob from her hand. Then she slid inside and, quickly and quietly, closed the door. She was free of the wind, which whistled through the house, but not the cold. The room was freezing and held the pungent smell of fermenting garbage.

  She flexed her fingers, trying to improve circulation while quickly orienting herself. A table and chair sat beneath a small four-paned window. An L-shaped counter with a metal sink led to an opening to another room, in which was the source of the light she’d seen through the cabin’s window. Though she stepped cautiously, the wood planks creaked beneath her feet, the sound only partially dampened by the muffled whirr of a generator—the likely source of power for the light. Tracy slid along the counter to the doorjamb between the rooms. Gun in hand, she leaned around the corner.

  The light was especially bright because it was coming from a bare bulb. The lamp shade had been removed and it rested on the floor beside a rust-colored armchair that was facing away from her. An orange extension cord snaked along the floor and down a darkened hallway. Tracy stepped in. She stopped when she saw a crown of gray hair protruding just above the back of the armchair—someone was slumped in the seat. She detected no reaction to her presence. Tracy stepped in farther, angling around the side of the chair, the floor continuing to betray her presence. She stepped past the side table, the face of the chair’s occupant coming into view from behind the wing of the chair.

  “Jesus,” she said, as the chin lifted, the eyes opened, and he turned his head to look at her.

  It was Parker House.

  CHAPTER 56

  Parker House gave Tracy a startled, wide-eyed stare. It was not a look of surprise. It was the unmistakable lingering look of fear that Tracy had seen too often in her job, one that came from victims of violent crime. Blood saturated the arms of the chair where the metal spikes had been driven through the back of each of Parker’s hands. Two more spikes pierced the top of each of his boots, driven through Parker’s feet into the floor boards. A pool of blood flowed from beneath each sole.

  Tracy pried her eyes from Parker’s ashen face and quickly looked about the room. She noted the darkened hall just to the right of a wood-burning stove and switched on the flashlight. Heart racing and her head spinning, she fell back on her training as she crept down the hall, gun extended, flashlight sweeping left to right. She braced her back against one side of the hall, swung around a door frame, and danced the light over a rumpled bed and cheap dresser. Tracy swung back out and repeated the maneuver into the second room, finding it to also be empty, but for a single bed, dresser, and nightstand. She returned to the living room, trying to make sense of it.

  Parker had closed his eyes. She knelt, touching him gently on the shoulder. “Parker. Parker.”

  This time, when his eyes opened, they remained hooded, half-closed, and he grimaced as if the small act brought him pain. His lips moved but emitted no words. He took in short rasps of air and swallowed with seemingly great effort. The words finally came in ghostly gasps. “I tried . . .”

  Tracy leaned closer.

  “I tried . . . to warn . . .”

  His eyes shifted from her face to something above her, but she realized too late her mistake. The light had been a ploy to draw her in, a moth to the flame, the hum of the generator meant to deaden sound.

  Tracy sprang to her feet but was unable to turn before she felt the dull impact against the back of her head. Her legs buckled and the gun slipped from her hand. She felt arms around her waist, catching her, keeping her upright. Breath blew warmly against her ear.

  “You smell just like her.”

  Roy Calloway and Finlay Armstrong carried Finn and the closet door through the house and out the front entryway. With the storm gusting, they had to be careful it didn’t catch on the door and pull it from their grasp like a kite.

  “Take it slow,” Calloway said. He could feel his boots slipping on the ice-covered front walk and shortened his steps, shuffling his feet until they’d managed to maneuver the door into the ambulance.

/>   “Let’s move,” Ronkowski said.

  Before stepping from the ambulance, Calloway leaned down and whispered in Finn’s ear. “I’m going to finish this,” he said. “I’m going to finish what I should have finished twenty years ago.”

  “We got to go, Roy,” Ronkowski said. “His vitals are nose-diving.”

  Calloway stepped away. Ronkowski slammed the ambulance doors shut, and the vehicle lurched forward, fought for traction, and finally got moving. It plowed through the snow, lights rotating. Calloway watched it go with the remaining firemen. They stood beside Finlay as if frozen. Snow covered their gear and ice crystals clung to their facial hair.

  “Is anybody’s cell working?” Calloway asked.

  Nobody’s was.

  He stepped to Armstrong. “I want you to take your car and get on over to Vance Clark’s house. Tell him I said he and his wife are to go with you. Tell him I said to bring his gun with him and keep it close by.”

  “What’s going on, Roy?”

  Calloway grabbed his deputy by the shoulder but kept his voice even. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I heard.”

  “Then I want you to go to my house and get my wife. You bring all three of them back to the police station with you and you wait by the radio.”

  “What should I tell them?”

  “Just tell them that I insisted. My wife can be stubborn as a mule. You tell her I said it is not open to discussion. You understand?”

  Armstrong nodded.

  “Go on now. Go on and do as I say.”

  Armstrong’s boots sank into the snow as he struggled to reach his patrol car. When he’d driven off into the swirling snow, Calloway slid into his Suburban, pulled the Remington 870 shotgun from its clip, opened the breach, and loaded five shells. He shoved a handful more into his pocket. If these were to be his last remaining days in office, he was going to go out doing his job.