Dedication
For Carrie and Christina
California girls
Contents
Dedication
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Ad for The One Who Got Away
About the Author
Praise
Copyright
Fiona McBride was cruising down a Californian freeway in a sleek new convertible, bopping along to an oldie-but-a-goodie, when a news report came on the radio:
‘Workers on the famed Alden-Stowe Estate north of Paso Robles had a nasty shock this morning … They were digging in an old cemetery when a fresh corpse turned up.’
She nearly ran the car off the road.
Frantically, she began pressing the buttons on the steering wheel, trying to find a way to somehow rewind the bulletin, all the while cursing herself for having just that morning handed her phone in for screen repairs, meaning she couldn’t pull over and start making calls, meaning all she could do was keep driving, head spinning, heart pounding, madly thinking: It can’t be him. It can’t possibly be him. There’s just no way they could have found him.
But of course, they had found him. For all the dread she was feeling that seemed obvious.
Fiona made it home in record time. She hurried out of the car, leaving her new purchases in their fancy bags and a plastic clamshell of coloured doughnuts in the trunk as she rushed up to the porch. In her nervousness, she could barely get the key in the door. Inside, she headed for the iPad. Tapping with her stout fingers, she brought up the digital keyboard and then the website for the Paso Monitor.
They had the same story:
Workers on the famed Alden-Stowe Estate, east of Highway 45, had a nasty shock this morning: they were digging in an old cemetery, north of Alden Castle, when a fresh corpse came up.
Fiona covered her mouth with her hand.
What to do?
Her first thought was to get in touch with the person she liked least in the world. In other words: call Jesalyn. She went to swipe the screen to bring up Skype but as she did so, the device began to vibrate with an incoming video call.
‘Thank God it’s you. Have you heard?’ Fiona said.
‘Of course I’ve heard,’ said Jesalyn, as her smooth forehead loomed forward on the screen. ‘The police called me. They’ve been trying to call you.’
‘My phone is in for repairs. The police called? Oh my God, what are we going to do?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop panicking,’ said Jesalyn matter-of-factly. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll handle it.’
PART ONE
Mack
‘This is going to be my first dead body.’
Sergeant Mack Helber looked across the cabin of the patrol car towards his daughter, Alexa, in the passenger seat. ‘Is that right?’ he replied.
‘Well, my first official one,’ she said, cheerfully. ‘They showed bodies to us in the morgue while we were at the Academy but I’ve never been called out to look at a corpse.’
‘What else did they show you in the Academy?’ asked Mack.
‘Cybercrime,’ said Alexa.
‘Fair enough,’ said Mack. He was an older cop but not set in his ways. That said, he searched around behind the steering wheel of the new patrol car for a place to stick his key until Alexa said: ‘It’s electronic, remember.’
‘Right,’ said Mack, ‘of course it is.’
He threw the fob into the centre console, and pressed a large, circular button to start the engine. ‘I’m never going to get used to not having to put a key in the ignition,’ he said.
‘That’s because you’re old,’ said Alexa, but Mack wasn’t old. He was in his early fifties, and head of one of California’s smallest investigative bureaus, in the winemaking village of Paso Robles. As bureau chief, he was tasked with solving serious crimes that could not be handled by the local patrol. Alexa was a junior officer, in her first weeks on the job. She was also Mack’s daughter, which was how she got away with teasing him. In terms of Paso, they were both relative newcomers: Sergeant Helber had arrived to take over investigations just two years earlier, which was ten years after his divorce from Alexa’s mom. Alexa had come straight from the Academy, in part to spend more time with her dad, whom she hadn’t much seen as a kid, and in part because Paso had a K-9 team.
Mack backed up the car. They were headed for the Alden-Stowe Estate in the hills above the township, following a call from a foreman about a body in an old family cemetery.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ the foreman had said. ‘What’s the big deal about finding a body in a cemetery? But it’s not old. It’s fresh.’
Alexa had briefed Mack, who’d offered to drive up and take a look. He felt pretty sure the foreman was mistaken about the body being fresh. The soil in parts of Paso is like clay – that’s what makes it so productive, as a wine-growing region – and in all likelihood the body was old but well preserved. Still, they needed to check it out. Alexa had also briefed forensics, who would then follow.
Nobody seemed panicked and nobody was in a rush.
Alexa touched the screen of the in-car navigation, saying: ‘Do you have a street address?’
‘I know the way,’ said Mack, ‘the Alden-Stowe Estate is the one with the castle.’
‘Off the Chimney Rock Road?’
‘Yep. You can see the turret from the road.’
‘Oh! I know that place. It looks incredible. Have you ever been inside?’
‘Me? No. There used to be a family there but they’re gone. These people who dug up the body, they’re developers.’
They headed out of Paso and turned right onto the Chimney Rock Road, into the hills, where grapes were grown and wine was made.
‘This whole area is so pretty,’ said Alexa.
Mack drove on, climbing higher into rolling hills, slowing as he tried to locate the iron gates at the entrance to the Alden-Stowe Estate. He pulled up to the intercom, buzzed his window down, and pressed the button. He announced himself, and the gates pulled back.
They nosed through, taking care over the old cattle guard, and pressed their wheels onto the gravel drive.
‘Oh my God,’ said Alexa.
At some point, the drive had been shaded by mature oak trees, all along its winding length, but now it was one raw and bleeding stump after another.
‘Who would do this?’ she said. ‘You live in Paso, surely you know you don’t cut down the oaks?’
‘But these new owners aren’t from Paso,’ said Mack, his tone derisive. ‘They’re from LA.’
They drove on, passing a small cottage on the left-hand side of the driveway, then a smooth-walled chapel, Spanish mission style, and then, on the right, Alden Castle loomed into view.
It was made of stone and covered in ivy, with tall old windows and a drawbridge over a dry, overgrown moat. A broken chimney dominated the roofline.
Mack parked the patrol car out the front and turned off the engine. A woman in a pin-striped skirt suit was waiting for them. She had a zip-up satchel under one arm and her blonde hair styled into a neat bob.
‘Hello and welcome,’ she said, stepping forward in polished heels to offer her manicured hand. ‘My name is Caroline Moyes. I’m the attorney for the Pinkhound Company. We own this estate.’
‘Sergeant Mack Helber,’ said Mack, opening his wallet to show his credentials, ‘and this is Officer Alexa Helber.’
Caroline said: ‘Helber and Helber?’
Mack said: ‘That’s right.’
Mack had the sense of Caroline looking them both over, as if to figure out how the relationship worked.
‘Are you … father, daughter?’ she said. There was doubt in her voice,
which made sense. Mack Helber was a lanky person – immensely tall, with long arms and long legs and big hands and freckly skin and a sandy moustache – while Alexa was short and dark and soft and round, like her mother had been.
‘We’re colleagues,’ Mack said. ‘Where’s this body?’
‘It’s up that hill,’ said Caroline, pointing behind the castle. ‘You can’t drive. Not your car, anyway. It’s an old horse trail. But I’ve organised transport.’
She gestured towards a golf cart. Mack noted the bright Pinkhound logo – a hot-pink racing greyhound – emblazoned on the side. There was a man in a pink fluoro vest and a matching pink hard hat sitting in the front bench seat, behind the steering wheel. Mack approached, hand outstretched.
‘Sergeant Helber,’ he said.
‘Hans Sams,’ said the cart driver. ‘I’m the foreman.’
Mack climbed in beside him, and Alexa and Caroline got in the back.
The foreman started the ignition and the golf cart began moving up the path behind the castle, headed for the top of the hill. The journey took about fifteen minutes over potholes and sharp rocks, common to the region. The foreman flipped the engine switch to off and they all jumped down.
‘This is terrible,’ said Alexa.
She wasn’t referring to the corpse. They hadn’t seen that yet. She was referring to the state of the old cemetery. At some point it had been a pretty rectangle with a white picket fence, a short iron gate and several old headstones, set amidst the centuries-old oaks. Now it was a construction site. The picket fence had been knocked over, presumably by the bobcat that was sitting to one side of the cemetery; the gravestones had been ripped out and piled up and some had been broken in the process; the trees up here had also been hacked down to raw stumps.
‘You have a permit for this?’ asked Mack, pointing at the felled trees, some with their roots naked in the air.
‘I’m not sure that’s your jurisdiction,’ said Caroline, stepping forward defensively, as if to block his view.
‘Right. But corpses are my jurisdiction. So where’s the body?’
‘In that corner,’ said the foreman, pointing.
‘And who found it?’ Mack took a small notebook, with attached pencil, out of his inside jacket pocket and began to take notes.
‘The bobcat driver. We sent him home.’
‘You sent him home?’
‘He was vomiting,’ said the foreman.
‘Not good. Witnesses should stay put. Were you here when he found it?’
‘I was,’ said the foreman. ‘He had the bobcat going, then switched his engine off. He called out: “Boss, I found a body.” I told him: “I’m expecting bodies. We’re in a cemetery.” He said: “No, no, it’s not in a coffin. And it’s not old, it’s got a suit and tie on.” I went to have a look. And then we called you.’
‘And only then did he contact us,’ said Caroline, as if that were out of line.
‘All right,’ said Mack, tucking the notebook away again. ‘Let’s have a look.’
He strode across newly turned clay, towards the bobcat, and looked into a recently excavated hole. He was far too experienced to react to what he saw, which was indeed a fresh corpse, rather dapperly dressed in the remains of a suit that may have once been white, a scorched lavender shirt and a dirty polka-dot pocket square. The flesh had rotted away from the skull, and the eyes and the open mouth were filled with clay.
‘Officer Helber,’ he said. Alexa took some tentative steps forward and tried not to gag. ‘What do you make of this?’ he said.
Alexa shook her head, unable to speak.
‘What I see is evidence of fire. And see the way his hands are coming up like fists?’ said Mack. ‘That’s what happens when a body burns. The ligaments shrink and shorten, and the hands curl.’
‘Okay,’ said Alexa, leaning forward to get a better look. ‘I see.’
‘We need to get some police tape up,’ said Mack. Reaching back into his jacket for his notebook, he turned to Caroline, saying: ‘Obviously our first task is going to be to figure out who this is. Then why he’s in there. Any ideas?’
‘You’re asking me?’ replied Caroline, looking with distaste, not at the corpse – she’d stayed a few metres away from that – but at the clay clinging to her pumps.
‘I’m asking for your best guess.’
‘I would prefer not to guess,’ said Caroline. ‘We only took over here in January. This has nothing to do with us.’
‘All right,’ said Mack. ‘You took over in January, and what are we now? End of March? So, you think this guy has been here longer than three months?’
‘Again, I’m not sure I’m the person to ask,’ said Caroline.
‘I’m asking Officer Helber.’
‘Oh, wow. I don’t know,’ said Alexa. She had a hand over her nose, and her eyes were a bit watery. ‘He’s decomposed, but not completely, although that process would go slower in the clay.’
‘Very good. Okay, well, the forensic team will have a look,’ said Mack. ‘In the meantime, I’m going to need statements from everyone who was here when this guy got dug up and whatever details you’ve got about the sale: who owned this place before, who owns it now, that kind of thing.’
‘I’m ahead of you,’ said Caroline, unzipping a leather-bound binder and passing over a sheet of paper. ‘We signed a contract to purchase the estate from the Alden-Stowe Family Trust. That was last September, and we took over in January. Here’s a list of the beneficiaries of that Trust, some of whom lived here before we took over. They also had a long-time housekeeper, a woman called Penelope Sidwell, who I believe is now in Paso. You’ll find her details on there as well.’
‘You’re very organised,’ said Mack, taking the list.
‘We’re here to help.’ Caroline smiled.
* * *
The forensic team – four experts, androgynous in ballooning white coveralls and facemasks – arrived at the gravesite in a second Pinkhound golf cart, and made their way across the cemetery, slowed down by the clay that clung to their shoes.
‘Do you think they’ll be able to identify him?’ said Alexa.
‘Yes. But I’ve already got a fair idea,’ said Mack. ‘One of the guys at the station told me, before we came up, there used to be an old guy living here.’ He flipped open his notebook and looked at the comments he’d written before leaving the station. ‘Owen James Alden-Stowe III. He’d be eighty-three, if he was still alive, and apparently he was pretty famous in town for wearing a white suit.’
‘That guy has a white suit on. You think it’s him?’ said Alexa.
‘I don’t know. Could be a ruse, but I guess we’ll see. Apparently he hasn’t been seen for years. The story was that he’d had a stroke, or dementia, and couldn’t leave the estate.’
‘That corpse hasn’t been there for years,’ said Alexa.
‘No, it hasn’t,’ said Mack.
‘You think somebody killed him recently?’
‘Maybe,’ said Mack.
They waited, with Mack going quietly through possible explanations in his mind, until Alexa noticed the four forensic officers lifting the corpse out of the mud. She looked around as if to say: ‘Okay, now what?’
‘Send the body down in the golf cart,’ said Mack. ‘Then come back for us.’
Caroline nodded and beckoned the foreman over. Returning her attention to Mack, she inquired: ‘How long does an investigation of this type take?’
‘How can I answer that?’ Mack said, reasonably enough. ‘We don’t even know who it is, let alone what happened.’
‘Of course,’ said Caroline, smiling tightly.
‘I’ll have to put some officers on the main gates,’ said Mack. ‘I guess you’ll do your best to make sure that nobody gets through? We can’t have people traipsing all over the place now it’s a crime scene.’
‘I understand,’ said Caroline, her smile tighter still.
The golf cart returned, and they bounced over rocky terrain,
back to the castle, where they all shook hands, before Mack took the wheel of the patrol car for the drive back to Paso. Alexa winced as they made their way along the driveway lined with the dead and dying trees.
‘Why have they done this?’ she said.
‘Progress,’ said Mack, wryly.
They arrived back in Paso shortly before lunchtime. Mack’s idea had been to drop Alexa at police headquarters, where she could get started on the paperwork side of the investigation, while he continued on to the morgue.
‘Are you sure?’ said Alexa, as they parked. ‘I’m happy to come with you.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Mack. He went to kiss her forehead, remembering in time that this was work.
* * *
‘Hey, Tony.’
‘Hey, Mack.’
The chief forensic pathologist at the San Luis Obispo morgue was a third-generation Italian-American called Antony Arnone – Big Tony for reasons obvious to anyone who saw him. He emerged from the cutting room in his billowing outfit and shook Mack’s hand.
‘Your body’s on my slab,’ he said.
‘Well, let’s go see it,’ Mack responded. He followed Tony through the morgue, but only as far as the swinging glass doors that opened into the cutting room. There they separated: Tony backed through the doors, leaving Mack in a vestibule with a view over the steel tables. Mack watched as Tony pulled back the sheet to reveal the corpse, with a plastic tag now hanging from its big toe.
‘Christ,’ Mack heard Tony grunt over a microphone in the cutting room that carried his voice into the vestibule. ‘This isn’t much to work with.’
‘Sorry about that,’ said Mack.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Aren’t you meant to tell me?’
‘Fair call,’ said Tony. He leant in to get a closer look, and to begin picking at the corpse with his scalpel, removing samples – clay, flesh and fabric – and inserting them into clear test tubes held out by a silent assistant.
‘Do we know who it is?’ said Tony.
‘Again, you’re meant to tell me,’ said Mack.
‘Right – but it’s got to be the old man who used to live up there, doesn’t it? Owen Alden-Stowe. He was famous for his white suit and this is definitely a white suit.’
The Lucky One Page 1
