Sophie felt Daniel’s tension in the fingers that imprinted themselves on her back.
Very deliberately, he said, “Because Sophie isn’t the only one who doesn’t believe Michelle Thomsen killed herself.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Daniel was aware of Sophie’s shock as she turned her head to stare at him, but he didn’t take his eyes off Burton, who looked as stunned.
“You’re investigating,” he said slowly.
Daniel hadn’t admitted as much to himself, but after a moment he inclined his head. “I am.” What else could he call what he’d been doing? Good God, this past couple of days, he’d spent more time looking into Michelle Thomsen’s death than he had in Doreen Stedmann’s much more recent murder.
And now he had some concrete evidence to support the gut feeling that had been driving him. Until today, Sophie hadn’t come across anything in the storage unit that could possibly explain murder and a killer’s frantic efforts to find something. He’d hoped when she did she would recognize it. He hadn’t expected what she did find…but now a picture was taking shape in his head. His growing suspicion made one thing clear: Sophie was the one person who could – and had – connected the two deaths. That made her a threat to the killer.
And the man in whose living room they were standing was high on Daniel’s list of suspects.
“Jesus,” Elias murmured. He ran a hand over his face. “I can’t believe this.”
“Can’t you?” Daniel said flatly.
He gave a short, unamused laugh. “That’s why you came up here? To grill me?”
“Have I grilled you yet?”
“It’s starting to feel that way.”
The two of them stared at each other.
When the silence stretched, Sophie intervened. “Actually, we’re here because I thought you might remember something.”
Burton transferred his gaze to Sophie. “Something?”
“The necklace Mom always wore.” Her urgency bled through in her voice. “I thought maybe you’d have kept a painting or drawing that showed it.”
He glanced up automatically as if checking, but the way he’d painted Michelle looking over her shoulder meant the necklace wasn’t visible. “I remember it,” he said. “A heart. It sort of bothered me, because it looked like it was melting down. You know? I couldn’t decide what that was supposed to mean.”
Interesting viewpoint, Daniel thought. Maybe more of the lovesick teenager’s wishful thinking, but interesting nonetheless.
Sophie didn’t say anything.
“I have other drawings and paintings of her. I rarely throw any of my work away. I’ll go look, if you want to wait.”
“Why don’t we go with you,” Daniel said.
“I don’t like people in my studio—” He saw Daniel’s implacable expression and shrugged. “Fine.”
Daniel kept his hand on Sophie as the two of them silently followed Burton past the kitchen to a door that stood open. He wasn’t sure if he was being protective, or staking a claim. He hadn’t altogether liked the way Burton looked at Sophie, who must evoke Michelle for him.
Through the door was a single-story addition that couldn’t be seen from the front of the house outside. It was larger than the living room and kitchen combined, with vast sweeps of window and skylight that, with a slate floor, gave it the feel of a conservatory.
Several easels appeared to have work in progress. Paint-splattered tarps protected the slate. Custom designed cupboards and niches filled the two windowless walls. Some of the cupboards stood open or had no doors, revealing unused canvases in a variety of sizes, already stretched, matting material, frames, unused brushes, tubes of paint. A couple of large tables were standing height, although tall metal stools would let the artist sit if he chose. On one, it appeared he’d been in the middle of stretching a canvas. An industrial sized stapler was beside it.
Burton went to the far end and began hunting. Paintings by the dozens were kept from bumping each other by dividers. Drawers that glided open were repositories for large folders filled with simple sketches and charcoal or colored pencil pieces. He flipped through a few whole notebooks.
“Do you have any organization?” Daniel couldn’t help asking.
There was a glimmer of humor in Burton’s eyes when he glanced over his shoulder. “Some. By year, by subject. This early stuff, I haven’t looked at in a long time.”
He pulled out a few paintings and, without comment, propped them up for Sophie to see. He’d captured her mother in a variety of moods and poses. One, a watercolor, was of Sophie and Michelle both, sitting by a beach fire and seemingly roasting hotdogs or marshmallows. The light suggested oncoming dusk; firelight cast shadows that made their faces both mysterious and compelling. The technical skill of the painting that hung over the fireplace wasn’t there yet, but the artist’s eye was.
Daniel looked at Sophie, to see her gazing at this painting with an expression of such yearning, he had to grit his teeth against his desire to turn her away from it and say, Don’t look. Remembering so much her mind had blocked out had to be killing her. He’d have wished it wasn’t happening, except he really did believe she’d be better off with answers. Better off letting go of the anger and sense of abandonment to remember her mother with love.
“Damn,” Burton said suddenly, softly. “There it is.” He took a folder to the nearest table and opened it, then stood aside. Both Sophie and Daniel crowded forward.
Sophie gasped. Daniel stared at the drawing of Michelle’s head and shoulders. She was laughing, and it appeared her arms were outflung. She wore a bikini top that revealed a swell of breasts richly suggested by the merest shading of pencil. The pendant on a fine chain was clearly drawn, making Daniel guess the artist had studied it closely before.
Daniel was flooded with a rush of the kind of exhilaration he hadn’t had any reason to feel since he took this job in Cape Trouble. In the back of his mind, it occurred to him that he’d missed this: a predator’s instinct, an awareness that he was closing in on his prey.
The necklace locked in the trunk of his car was the one Michelle Thomsen never took off, and yet wasn’t wearing when her body was found.
*****
Sophie had gamely gone back to work at the storage facility.
“What else am I going to do?” she said a little tartly when he had suggested she could take the afternoon off. “Pace and speculate and worry? I’d rather have something to concentrate on. And don’t forget that ticking clock. If it’s up to me, this auction is going to happen.”
Her determination had been there from day one, but it was strengthening, if anything, undeterred by the assaults on her, literal and emotional. She’d set out to make the auction a success for Doreen’s sake; as she’d said, as a memorial. But he had a feeling her motivation had become something more. Maybe it was those summers with her mother that she wanted to save.
Disturbed by the unfamiliar stir of emotions, Daniel left her somewhat abruptly. He had recalled Slawinski to guard duty, telling him quietly and out of Sophie’s hearing that no one, and he meant no one, was to be allowed to so much as step foot into that storage unit, never mind get near to Sophie. He’d been able to tell that his intensity scared the crap out of the poor kid, but he’d needed to impress on him that he meant what he said.
Earlier, he’d ignored some phone calls while they were at Elias Burton’s house and then during the drive back along the winding coast highway to Cape Trouble. Now, as soon as he left the storage facility, he pulled over, set the emergency brake and called up voice mail.
The second was from the sheriff. “I’ve pulled everything we’ve got on the disappearances of those women. Call if you want the highlights, or you’re welcome to go through it all.”
The remaining messages weren’t anything that couldn’t wait. If what he suspected was true, he’d need assistance from the sheriff’s department anyway. He was beginning to think he ought to send one of his own young officers to receive trai
ning in fingerprinting, but he’d have wanted someone who really knew what he or she was doing for this job anyway. Surfaces on the jewelry were mostly too tiny to take more than partials, and the fact that Sophie had handled some of the pieces complicated the job further. The shoebox was a possibility, but cardboard wasn’t ideal. He could hold out for the state crime lab and technicians, but if his suspicions were right, the sheriff’s department would want to be involved. He’d get quicker results letting Mackay’s people handle it than he would if he sent everything off to the state, too.
He called in to let Ellie know where he was going, then drove straight to North Fork.
This time Mackay emerged from a door down the hall rather than his own office to greet Daniel. His eyebrows rose at the sight of the cardboard box Daniel was toting. “That was fast.”
“I have something interesting.”
“Ah. Bring it in here.” He led the way into the same room from which he’d just emerged. It held a long table surrounded by chairs. There was a whiteboard on one wall as well as a rolled up screen. A large easel supported a currently empty bulletin board. Four white cardboard banker’s boxes, similar to the ones used for evidence storage by plenty of other police departments, were lined up on the table.
Daniel set down his own box beside them, but didn’t open it. “Tell me,” he said, knowing Mackay wouldn’t have just dug out the boxes, he’d have gone through them. The itch. “When those women disappeared, did they have anything with them?”
“In some cases, we have descriptions of what they were wearing. Any jewelry. Otherwise, no.”
“Can you recall some of that jewelry?”
Mackay cocked his head, willing to play along for the moment. “Sure. Some of it’s vague, though. You know how people are. There was a wedding ring. She was the only married victim. A charm bracelet – that girl worked at one of the resorts, and her roommate for the summer said she had a boyfriend who bought her a new charm for special occasions.”
“I told you Michelle Thomsen supposedly never took a necklace off that her husband had given her, but it wasn’t with the body and never turned up. Until now.” Daniel pulled on latex gloves, opened the flaps of the box and lifted out the shoebox. When he removed the lid, Alex Mackay gazed down at the jumbled contents for a long minute. Then he looked up, his expression hard.
“Where did you find this?”
Daniel told him.
“Damn,” Mackay said softly. “There are too many pieces of jewelry in there.”
Daniel had been disturbed by the same realization. They knew of five, maybe six women who had vanished, plus Michelle. The shoebox held eight separate pieces of jewelry. It was possible some of the women had been wearing more than one – say, a necklace and bracelet, but he was betting that wasn’t the explanation. Additional victims could have been snatched elsewhere, even as nearby as the next county. Police departments didn’t always communicate well. And there were women who could disappear without anyone noticing, or, if they did, caring enough to report them gone.
“Why only four boxes?” Daniel asked.
“One of the investigations wasn’t ours. Not sure whether Cannon Beach handled it themselves, or whether it was Clatsop County. Either way, I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from us.”
They each took a box and pored over the contents. By chance, Daniel had gotten the young wife. Near the top was a photograph. He studied it, feeling the same grief he always did at such a moment. She’d died so damn young. No chance to have children. Her husband had probably remarried, and had kids and raised them with another woman. Daniel also decided Noreen Vaughn hadn’t been a natural blonde. The killer might have been disappointed when he discovered that, or maybe he didn’t care.
Daniel gently placed the photo on the table top and started reading police reports. He hit pay dirt almost immediately.
“It’s her ring,” he said.
Mackey lifted his head, peering at Daniel over the reading glasses he’d produced from a shirt pocket. “How do you know?”
“It had an engraving inside. ‘Forever and a Day.’ So does the ring in that box.”
“That can’t be coincidence, and especially not on top of it looking like you’ve identified the Thomsen woman’s necklace.”
“No.”
Daniel restored the contents of the box, put the lid back on and reached for another.
After a minute, the sheriff grunted. “This one’s a dead end. She was staying at a cheap motel over here with a few friends. She’d been out on her own for several years, and neither the mother nor the friends knew her jewelry well enough to be sure what might be missing.”
In the next box, the sobbing friend of another missing girl had been quite sure she was wearing a fine gold chain strung with tiny garnet beads. Daniel had to stand to scrutinize the jewelry, but his memory hadn’t let him down. There it was.
“Here’s a description of the charm bracelet,” Mackay said. “Sterling silver, had a dog charm in memory of one that had recently died, a kite, binoculars – evidently she was into birdwatching – and a little book with pages that could be turned. A few others, but they were more usual.”
“We’re three for three,” Daniel said gruffly. “Four for four, counting Michelle Thomsen.”
“Hell.” Mackay removed his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Or maybe I should say hot damn. I do love catching up to creeps who thought they got away with an ugly crime. It would be real helpful if we knew how this collection came to be in the hands of the eager volunteers putting on that auction.”
“My theory is that it was given accidently. Stored with some other stuff, maybe.”
“And our killer forgot it was there?” Mackay sounded skeptical.
Daniel’s mouth twisted. “Or someone else gave it away without asking him first.”
“Was there anything else with the shoebox that might have come from the same source?”
Daniel explained about the miscellaneous contents of the larger box. “I’m assuming all the things in that box were given more or less at the same time. I’ll start by contacting the people whose donations were identified. Sophie’s got an uneasy feeling about a quilt that was in there. She says it’s a beauty, easily a hundred years ago, hand-stitched. The kind of thing people usually keep in the family.”
“None of the victims would have had anything like that with them,” Mackay said thoughtfully.
“No, but what if someone was clearing out a deceased relative’s house to put it on the market? Or had just moved Mom or Dad to a nursing home? Hell, we could even be talking about a landlord who discovered a stash in the attic of a rental and was getting rid of it.”
“Would the killer have left his souvenirs behind?”
“Not unless he thought the hidey-hole was secure. Or died.”
“Or was just moved to a nursing home,” Mackay mused. “That age isn’t unheard of for a serial killer. A guy who is in his late seventies now, say, would have only been in his fifties twenty years ago.”
“There are a couple of ladies in Cape Trouble who know everything about everyone. I can find out quick enough if there’s anyone like that in town. But there’s no saying this donation came from someone in Cape Trouble. Could be anywhere in the county. Probably not farther away although I know some of the donations did. In that case, there should be a mailing label, anyway.”
“Locals much outside your city limits are a lot less interested in the saving Misty Beach thing. Unless they’re ardent environmentalists, why would they care? I’m betting most of the stuff that was locally given is from your own residents.”
“I’ll start there,” Daniel agreed. He nodded at the shoebox. “We both know it’ll be a miracle if we get lucky with fingerprints.”
“Yeah, this isn’t the kind of guy who is usually in the system.” Mackay stood and stretched. “But if we can get even a clear partial, we’ll have something to match up to any solid suspects.” He raised his eyebrows. “I
f you’ve got time to recap what you know, I need to assign a detective to work our end of this.”
Having expected that, Daniel agreed. Mackay produced a guy named Sean Holbeck who was somewhere around Daniel’s age and both listened well and asked the right questions. He’d grown up in Cannon Beach, his father managing one of the big hotels, and actually remembered the disappearance of the women.
“I have a sister,” he said. He scrubbed a hand over his own brown hair, further dishevelling it. “A couple of years older than me. She’s blonde. Our parents suddenly wouldn’t let her go anywhere. Man, was she pissed.” Expression grim, he stood looking at the tangle of jewelry. “Maybe it was thanks to them that she lived to get married and have kids.”
On that bleak note, they parted, Daniel still feeling the rush of energy that told him he was closing in on answers. He even had some places to start, although he was reluctant to consider the first one.
Cape Trouble P.D. officer Abbot Grissom had recently helped his father move into a small apartment in an assisted living place. Twenty years ago, Grissom might have still been living at home, or at least stashing some of his belongings there. Abbot Grissom, who hadn’t been first responder but who had undeniably lived in Cape Trouble at the time, who would have regularly patrolled through the Misty Beach Resort and maybe spotted an exceptionally pretty woman who spent summers there. Grissom was married, and Daniel was betting his wife had been doing a lot of the work of clearing Dad’s place.
Abbot Grissom, who Daniel had trusted to watch the video at the storage facility and who claimed not to recognize anyone even conceivably connected to Doreen Stedmann.
And then there was Benjamin Billington, who was emptying out the lodge in preparation for seeing it razed once Misty Beach was sold. He hadn’t been sentimental enough to want to hold onto furniture that even Sophie still remembered as special. If he didn’t like antiques, likely he wouldn’t have had any interest in an old quilt, either. Daniel thought Harlow Billington had been too old to be a likely candidate for a sexual predator – plus, if he’d been a killer, why would the disappearances have stopped? Benjamin, now, would have been just about the right age, and here on the coast only for summers. What’s more, those visits had ended at some point. Daniel fully intended to find out when.
Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) Page 18
