My Sister's Grave

by Robert Dugoni

  He started the car, about to pull away from the curb when headlights approached, aimed directly at his front bumper. A Tahoe plowed to a stop, sliding sideways the final few feet. Dan O’Leary jumped from the driver’s side in a heavy jacket and hat. He left the door open, the lights on, and the engine running.

  Calloway lowered his window. “Move the Goddamn car, Dan.”

  Dan handed Calloway a piece of paper. Calloway took a moment to read it, then crumpled it into a ball and banged his fist against the steering wheel. “Pull your car to the side and get in.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Dan gripped the handle above the door and braced his other hand against the dash. He had his feet planted on the floorboard mat, but it only partially stabilized him as the Suburban bounced onto the county road, back tires fishtailing. Calloway corrected and punched the accelerator. The tires spun before gripping, and the big car lunged forward. Snowflakes assaulted the windshield and limited the reach of the headlights to dim cones that the darkness swallowed just a few feet from the hood. Dan repositioned himself on the bench seat as Calloway swerved to avoid a fallen branch.

  “James was distraught,” Calloway said. “We knew House had done it. We weren’t buying his bullshit about a board splintering and cutting his face and arms but we couldn’t prove it. I told James we’d never convict House without somehow tying him to Sarah. I told him that, without a body, without any forensic evidence, House would walk. No one had ever been convicted of first-degree murder without a body. The forensics weren’t good enough back then.”

  “And he agreed to provide you with the jewelry and hair?”

  “Not initially. Initially he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “What changed his mind?”

  Calloway glanced over at him. “George Bovine.”

  “Branch!” Dan shoved his feet into the floorboards as Calloway swerved, just missing a large limb. After a moment to catch his breath, Dan said, “You put Bovine up to it, just like you put him up to coming to talk with me.”

  “The hell I did. Bovine came to speak to James when the news broke about Sarah’s disappearance. I knew nothing about it. James called and asked me to come to the house. Bovine was already there. Tracy and Abby weren’t home. James shut the doors to his den and Bovine told us what I’m sure he told you. A week later, James called me back to the house and handed me the earrings and the hair in plastic bags. I never considered the possibility that some of the strands might belong to Tracy. As I said, those kinds of things weren’t on our radar as much back then. I put the jewelry and the hair in my desk drawer and thought it through for days before I brought in Vance Clark to discuss it. We both decided the evidence was of no use unless we could somehow get a warrant to search Parker’s property, and the only way to do that was to get a witness to implicate House and put his alibi in question.”

  “How’d you convince Hagen to testify? The reward?”

  The back end of the SUV slid as Calloway navigated a turn. When he corrected, the car shuddered and the engine revved until the tires regained traction. “Ryan’s father and I went to the academy together. I’d known him since the day he was born. When his father was killed during a routine traffic stop, I started a fund for the family. Ryan would come in and talk to me whenever he drove through Cedar Grove.”

  “So he knew about Sarah.”

  “Everyone in the state knew about Sarah. During one of our conversations, I told him I needed someone who could say they frequently traveled that road at odd hours of the day and night. He checked his calendar and said he’d made a business trip that day. All I needed him to say was he took the county road and saw House’s truck. I thought that when CSI found the evidence, House would realize he was screwed, tell us where he buried Sarah’s body, and that would be the end of it. He’d take a plea, life without parole, and we’d be done with him. I never envisioned a trial.”

  Calloway slowed the car and whipped the steering wheel to the right. The Suburban bounced and bucked as it left the county road and started to ascend the mountain.

  “Fresh tire tracks,” Dan said.

  “I see ’em.”

  “You brought the jewelry and hairs with you when you executed the search warrant?”

  Calloway squinted and waited for a gust of wind to pass. “Couldn’t do it with the CSI team present, and I couldn’t make an extra trip out to the property without House getting squirrelly on me. Parker did it.”

  “Parker? Why would he set up his own nephew?”

  Calloway shook his head. “You still don’t get it, do you, Dan?”

  CHAPTER 58

  Sarah sang along to one of Tracy’s Bruce Springsteen CDs, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the E Street Band. Tracy was the bigger fan; Sarah didn’t even know all the words. She just liked the way the Boss’s butt looked in jeans.

  She sang the lyrics to “Born to Run,” trying to take her mind off of the thought that Tracy was leaving. Not leaving physically, but getting married, that things would change.

  The drive from Olympia had been long and melancholy. Sarah was happy for Tracy, but she also knew things wouldn’t be the same now that Tracy had Ben. Tracy had always been Sarah’s best friend and, in some ways, like a second mother to her. What Sarah was going to miss most were the late nights they stayed awake talking about anything and everything, from shooting to school and boys. She used to ask Tracy if they could still live together after Tracy got married. She smiled at the recollection of climbing in bed beside Tracy, her sister’s comforting warmth helping Sarah to go to sleep. She thought of their prayer. She’d never forget their prayer. Many nights it was the only way Sarah could fall asleep.

  She heard Tracy’s voice in her head.

  I am not . . .

  “I am not . . . ,” she said aloud.

  I am not afraid . . .

  “I am not afraid . . .”

  I am not afraid of the dark.

  “I am not afraid of the dark.”

  But she was, still, even at eighteen.

  Sarah would miss sharing clothes and waking up with Tracy on Christmas morning. She’d miss sliding down the banister and waiting around a corner to scare Tracy and her friends. She’d miss their home and their weeping willow, the way she used to swing from its braids and dangle over the lawn engrossed in some fantasy in which the lawn was an Amazon River filled with alligators. She’d miss it all.

  She wiped a tear from her cheek. She thought she’d prepared herself for this day, but now that it had arrived, she knew she hadn’t. Nor could she have.

  You’re leaving next year for the U-Dub, she told herself. At least now Tracy will have Ben.

  Sarah smiled, recalling how mad Tracy had been when they had handed her the silver belt buckle. She’d looked like a bee had stung her in the ass. She didn’t have a clue why Sarah had let her win. She was too mad to even notice that Ben was wearing a new shirt and slacks. Sarah had helped him pick out both. God knew he couldn’t do it on his own. Ben had called two weeks before the tournament and told Sarah that he wanted to propose at their favorite restaurant in Seattle, but he could only get a seven thirty reservation, which meant they’d be cutting it close unless they left straight from the competition. That meant Sarah driving home alone, and they both knew Tracy would get all “big sister” on her. Sarah had needed something to make Tracy not want to drive home with her, and she didn’t have to think about it for long. Tracy hated to lose, but what she really hated was if Sarah let her win, at anything.

  The rain fell in large drops, splattering the windshield, though they were still not the deluge Tracy had worried about. Like it never rained here? Please.

  She belted out another line from the song, singing along with the Boss.

  The truck lurched.

  Sarah sat up. She checked her rearview and side mirrors, thinking she’d hit something in the road, but it was too dark to see behind her.

  The truck lurched again. This time she knew she hadn�
�t hit anything, but the truck began to buck and sputter, losing speed. The tachometer needle fell quickly to the left, and the gas light illuminated on the dash.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  The red bar had dropped to “E.”

  Sarah flicked the plastic with her finger, but the needle didn’t move. This was not happening. “Tell me this is not happening,” she said.

  It wasn’t possible. They’d filled the truck on Friday. Tracy hadn’t wanted to have to do it in the morning, worried they could be late. Sarah had bought a Diet Coke and bag of Cheetos in the convenience store for the ride.

  You’re going to eat that crap for breakfast? Tracy had chastised.

  The engine quit. The steering wheel became difficult to turn. Sarah muscled the car around the next curve. A slight downward slope allowed her to coast a little, but it certainly was not enough to travel the remaining distance to Cedar Grove, however far that was. As the truck slowed, she steered to the dirt shoulder, tires crunching on gravel, and slowed to a stop. She turned the key. The engine whimpered as if laughing at her. Then it just clicked. She sat back, suppressing a scream. Springsteen continued to moan and wail. She shut off the radio.

  After a moment of anxiety, she said, “Okay, time to regroup.” Their father always said to be adaptable and have a plan. “Okay, what’s my plan?” First things first. “Where the hell am I?”

  Sarah checked the rearview mirror. She did not see headlights behind her. She did not see anything behind her. She looked all about her surroundings. Sarah had once known the road well, but now she didn’t take it as often with the interstate, and she’d not been paying attention. She could not get her bearings. She checked her watch and tried to calculate how much time had passed since she’d left Olympia, hoping she could calculate how much farther she had to Cedar Grove, but she couldn’t be certain what time she’d actually left the parking lot. She knew that, once she exited for the county road, the Cedar Grove turnoff was twenty minutes. She estimated she’d been on the road for ten minutes. If that was the case, then her best guess was that it was another four to six miles to the turn. It wasn’t a stroll in the park, especially not in the rain, but it also wasn’t a marathon. Maybe she’d get lucky and a car would come along, though there wasn’t much traffic on the county road anymore. Most people took the interstate now.

  Promise me you’ll stay on the interstate.

  Why hadn’t she listened? Tracy was going to kill her.

  Sarah groaned, allowing a moment in which to feel sorry for herself. Then she got back to devising a plan. She contemplated sleeping in the truck bed, but thought of the panic it would cause when Tracy called the house in the morning—and Tracy would call to tell Sarah the news—and Sarah didn’t answer the phone. Tracy would have their parents flying home from Hawaii and the FBI and everyone in Cedar Grove out looking for her.

  “Well,” Sarah said, thinking it through another moment. “You’re definitely not getting anywhere sitting here. Time to start walking.”

  She slipped on her jacket and grabbed Tracy’s black Stetson from the seat. The silver belt buckle lay beneath it. She slid the buckle into a pocket of her jacket, wanting to hand it back to Tracy in the morning to remind her of what a pill she’d been. They’d get a good laugh out of it, and the buckle would forever remind them of the night Tracy got engaged. Maybe Sarah could mount it on a plaque or something.

  She was stalling. She was really not looking forward to a long walk in the rain.

  She put on the Stetson as she stepped down from the cab, locking the door. As if to spite her, the rain increased in intensity, a rush of water that came with a roar. She walked along the edge of the pavement, hoping to find some shelter beneath the canopy of trees. Within minutes, water began to trickle down her back. “This is really going to suck, big time.”

  She pressed on, singing to pass the time, the lyrics of “Born to Run” stuck in her head.

  “Everybody’s out on the road tonight, but there’s nothing . . . I don’t know all the words.”

  Sarah trudged on. After another few minutes, she stopped and listened, thinking that she had heard the sound of a car engine, though now she couldn’t be certain over the sound of rain beating on the canopy and trickling to the pavement. Sarah stepped farther onto the shoulder and looked back up the road, straining to hear. There. Headlights marked the pavement a second or two before the car came around the bend in the road. Sarah stepped to the shoulder, one foot on the pavement, leaning out and waving one hand overhead while using the other to cut the glare from the headlamps. The vehicle slowed and came to a stop in the road. Not a car.

  A red Chevy truck.

  CHAPTER 59

  Tracy opened her eyes but she remained in complete darkness. Disoriented, her head in a fog of confusion and pain, she fought to shake away the cobwebs and remember what happened. She lifted her head, which caused a sharp pain to radiate across the top of her skull. She winced. When the pain lessened, Tracy pushed herself to a seated position, bracing on her arm for support. Her head pounded. Her limbs felt leaden. She took several deep breaths, continuing to gather her thoughts and trying to orient herself. The images came back in pulses.

  The ramshackle house as she had approached.

  The flatbed truck partially covered in snow.

  The door leading to the kitchen.

  Stepping into the main room.

  The crown of hair just above the back of the seat.

  Parker House turning his head and opening his eyes.

  You smell just like her.

  Someone had hit her from behind. When Tracy raised her arm to touch the back of her head, her wrist felt weighted. She shook her arms and heard the rattle of chains. Her heart raced. She struggled to stand, but a wave of nausea overcame her and she fell back down, on one knee. She inhaled deep breaths until the wave of nausea passed and tried again, slowly rising to her feet, stumbling but managing to regain her balance.

  Tracy felt the manacles clasped to each wrist and ran her hand along what she estimated to be a foot-long chain between them. From the feel of it, a second, thicker chain extended from the chain between her wrists. She followed the links hand over hand to what felt like a rectangular plate. Her fingertips traced the contours of the heads of two hexagonal bolts. She braced a foot against the wall, wrapped the chain around her hand and tugged on the plate, sensing a slight give, but another wave of nausea and throbbing pain overcame her.

  She heard a noise behind her. A wedge of dull light pierced the darkness, slowly widening—a door was opening. Someone stepped into the light, a shadow, and the door closed, plunging her back into darkness. She braced her back against the wall, raised her arms, and prepared to strike or kick.

  She tried to follow the sound of footsteps shuffling about the room, but in the darkness, they seemed to come from all over. She heard an odd whirring noise. A sudden, sharp flicker of light followed, momentarily blinding her. Tracy dropped her gaze, waiting for the black–and-white spots to clear. Then she raised a hand to reduce the glare and saw that the source of the light was a single bare bulb dangling from a wire hung over a wooden beam, one of two beams running horizontally across a dirt ceiling scarred where a shovel had scraped.

  Beneath the bulb, a figure knelt with his back to her, cranking a handle that protruded from the side of a wooden box. With each rotation of the handle, there was a sound like the beating wings of a swarm of unseen insects, and the filament inside the bulb pulsed. Its color changed from orange to red and, finally, to a bright white that pushed aside the darkness, revealing her surroundings and her circumstances.

  Tracy estimated the room she was in to be perhaps twenty feet long, twelve feet across, and eight feet high. Four weathered beams served as vertical posts bracing the two ceiling beams. As she had discerned, rusted metal manacles cuffed each wrist with a foot-long piece of chain between them. The second chain, perhaps five feet in length, was welded to the rectangular plate she’d felt with h
er hands. The plate was bolted to a concrete wall. Scraps of mismatched carpet covered portions of the floor. In a corner of the room was a wrought-iron bed with a tattered mattress and, beside it, an equally worn sitting chair. Crude shelves lined one wall—canned goods on one, paperback books on another. Beside the books was a black Stetson that Tracy hadn’t seen in twenty years.

  Edmund House straightened and turned. “Welcome home, Tracy.”

  CHAPTER 60

  A snow-laden tree limb slapped the windshield, exploding in a burst of white powder. Calloway didn’t slow. He followed the tracks around another bend, about to hit the gas, then quickly hit the brakes hard, bringing the Suburban to a sudden stop inches from the back of Tracy’s Subaru.

  Snow covered the back window and the roof of the car, but it was only an inch or two thick. Dan looked ahead and saw branches sticking up from the snow, which had otherwise buried a tree that had fallen across the road.

  Calloway swore under his breath and removed the radio microphone from its clip, playing with the radio’s controls, using his call sign and asking if anyone could hear him. He got no response. He tried a second time, but again, the response was silence. “Finlay, you there? Finlay?”

  He replaced the microphone in its clip and shut off the engine.

  “Get what?” Dan asked.

  Calloway eyed him. “What?”

  “You said I don’t get it. Don’t get what?”

  Calloway unlocked the shotgun, pulled it from its rack, and handed it to Dan. “We didn’t frame an innocent man, Dan. We framed a guilty man.”