by Jeff Carson
“The next day my father came to visit you, asking about Nick Pollard’s disappearance.”
She nodded. “Yeah. He was a nice guy, your dad. He was concerned for us.”
“But that day, the fifth of July, you guys didn’t mention your father had left the fireworks show the night before.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell your father anything. I didn’t speak that day when your father came over. I talked to your father the next day, after my dad had left. When we went into the station and did the interviews.”
“Okay.” Wolf nodded. “Were you concerned for your safety when my father came asking about Nick Pollard that next day? On the evening of the fifth?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Because my father had a bag of bloody clothes lying next to the house. I saw it the next day. Then I thought about how my father had yelled all those things the night before, and … I put two and two together.”
“So you saw the bag of bloody clothes, too?”
Kimber nodded.
Wolf frowned. “So, he left it outside all night? The bag of clothing?”
“Yes. It was up against the house.”
“So it was there when my father was there talking to you about Nick.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell my father about the bag? About your suspicions?”
“I hadn’t seen what was in the bag yet. I checked it later. After your father left.”
Wolf leaned back and took a breath. “My father came the next evening. The evening of the fifth. So you saw the bag of clothes the next evening.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Why are you asking the same questions over and over?”
“You said you saw the bag of clothes the next day. Now you’re saying you actually saw it the next evening.”
She snorted a laugh. “I saw it the next day, then I looked in it the next evening.”
“What exactly was your father yelling at you about? Do you remember what made you think he’d done it?”
She looked annoyed at his change in tack. “I don’t know. The whore thing, I guess. He kept telling me I was a whore. Like, because I’d gone out with Nick, I’d been going out on the town and screwing every guy or something.” She looked at Wolf. “Then the cops show up because he was missing? And he left the fireworks show? And then the clothing with blood on it? Didn’t take much to put two and two together.”
Wolf nodded and sipped his coffee. “Do you have those bloody clothes?”
She snorted again. “No. Like we told your father, my dad left with those clothes. Your father never found any blood traces. They scoured the place.” She looked into her cup. “What? Are you testing me or something?”
Wolf sipped his coffee. “Like I said, I haven’t watched your interview yet. Do you know who called your father that night? At the marina?”
“No. They say it was a woman. I still don’t know who it could have been.”
“It was the number to a gas station down the valley, right at the junction of Highway 734,” Wolf said. “That didn’t ring any bells with you back then?”
She shook her head.
“And it still doesn’t after all these years?”
She shook her head.
“And did you or your mother suspect he was seeing someone else? Cheating on her?”
She frowned and then shook her head.
He stood up and walked to the kitchen doorway. So far he’d seen the entryway to the house, which was a cramped T-Junction that went left and right. They’d gone left into the kitchen.
“Could I see this room I keep hearing about?”
She stood up. “Yeah, sure. It’s not the same, though. I’ve made sure of that.”
She led the way through the kitchen doorway, past the front door and into the living room, which was a good-sized rectangular space with creaky wood floors and the bay window. A wood-fired stove stood against the interior wall on a brick hearth, which extended in a semicircle a few feet in front of it. The stack of wood on the hearth was reduced to slivers.
Wolf bent down and ran his hand over a logo on one of the bricks. Tracer Building Supplies.
“What?” Kimber asked.
Wolf stood up. “Who made this hearth?”
“I don’t know. It was here when my father bought the place. Must have been Mr. Heeter, I guess.”
“Mr. Heeter?” Wolf asked.
She pointed out the window toward a house on the hill a quarter mile down the shoreline. It was a two-story structure with a deck off the back, higher than the Greys’ cabin, and clearly visible above the tops of the pines.
“Mr. Heeter. My parents bought the place from him.”
Wolf nodded and looked past her into the hallway. “The room?”
She turned and flipped a light switch and a coverless light bulb lit up the corridor. There were three doors, one on the near left and two on either side of the hallway at the end.
She stopped at the first door. “This is it.”
She twisted the knob and pushed the door open. It creaked on its hinges and cool, stagnant air that smelled like fabric hit Wolf’s nose. An uncovered square window straight ahead illuminated the space in soft natural light. There was a crisply made single bed against the left wall, a dresser, and a nightstand.
Wolf ran a hand over the door jamb.
“I removed the lock, and the bars on the window,” she said, following his eyes.
“May I?” Wolf asked, stepping into the room.
“Be my guest.”
The boards underneath him squeaked as he walked to the picture window. Looking out the glass, he noted the grooves cut into the wood on the outside frame—three on each side and two on top and bottom.
“That’s where the bars were. My dad cut those grooves and put rebar in there. I cut them out when he left.”
Wolf shifted his gaze to the woods beyond. Old-growth trees butted up against the back yard of the property, the darkness within deepening with each passing minute. He put his face to the window and saw the lake through the trees off to the left.
He turned around when a series of digital ding sounds came from the living room, like a car door left ajar, only much louder.
Kimber glanced quickly toward the noise and then seemed to dismiss it.
“Is that the doorbell?”
Kimber hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”
“What was it?”
She walked out into the living room and Wolf followed. She pulled a phone out of her pocket, focused intently on the screen, then tapped and pocketed it.
“I have an array of motion-activated cameras and perimeter alarms set up around the property.” She pointed up at a tiny speaker mounted in the corner. “When they’re tripped, they trigger the alarm.”
Wolf walked to the window and looked outside. “So did you know I was coming?”
“Yes. I have it set to notify my phone, and I knew that someone had driven in, but I didn’t know it was you.”
“That was your camera on the tree, by the two boulders.”
She nodded.
“So you can watch who comes in and out.”
“I have to get on my computer and sit and stare if I want to do that. But that’s definitely not my style. I would guess that was Mr. Heeter leaving. Or a deer. Or a bear.” She shrugged. “Who knows?”
“So a motion sensor being tripped out in the woods or a person leaving on the road is the same sound?”
She nodded. “Yep. Not exactly top-of-the-line, but good enough for the job.”
“And what exactly is the job your system is performing?”
“I’d like some more coffee.” She disappeared back into the kitchen.
Wolf stepped to the window and looked out. He looked down at his truck, noting that the beads of water had almost dried on the paint. Despite the lifting clouds, it was dark, and getting darker, and he saw little past fifty yards into the trees. The west windows of Mr. Heeter’s structure were g
lowing pink now, reflecting the sunset.
He walked into the kitchen and saw Kimber standing by the sink, stirring her coffee.
“So … tell me about it,” Wolf said, leaning against the counter. “Why all this security?”
“My father left us on the sixth. The day after your father came to talk to us about Nick. My dad knew the cops were onto him. He knew my mother and I knew about him. About what he’d done. And then, a couple of days later, my mother left. I’d heard him threaten my mother numerous times. If you two leave me, I’ll hunt you down, stuff like that.” She stared into her swirling coffee. “She left a note. And she just left.”
The file on Wolf’s passenger seat contained a copy of the note. “What did the note say?”
“It said she was going into town, and she’d be right back. Into Rocky Points. Then she … just never came home.”
“She took her truck?”
“Yes.”
“And your father took his truck the day before?”
She nodded.
“So you were stranded up here.”
Kimber’s eyes swam with tears, glittering in the vague light of the kitchen. “She called me the next day from some payphone from somewhere. She said she was going back home. Back to Tennessee. She apologized, and said she had to follow her heart and go back home. She left the truck down in Rocky Points, in the grocery store parking lot with the keys in it. I had Mr. Heeter take me down.”
Though he knew the incredulous story already, he felt a mild shock as he watched her tell it.
She wiped her eyes and smiled defiantly. “Sorry. Old habit. Playing the victim.”
She walked to the wall and flipped on the light switch. The kitchen filled with yellow light, washing out the majestic views outside with hard interior reflections.
“I have to say, I don’t blame you for being upset. Your parents both abandoned you. But that doesn’t explain the security measures. Do you think your father took your mother? Is that why you’ve rigged the place like an army base? Because you think he’ll come back for you, too?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe my father came back, and then made my mother write the note. Then took her or something. And then there’s always been Mr. Heeter. Not exactly the most normal of men.”
“You think Mr. Heeter is dangerous?”
“No,” she said with a chuckle. “He’s sweet. But maybe creepy? Like a dirty old man? I mean, I live below him, and he lives up the hill. He has a big telescope, and who knows where he’s pointing that thing at all times. He’s always been socially awkward, too, and now that his wife is dead he’s worse. His wife was definitely his better half. He’s a Vietnam vet, and I think whatever happened to him over there screwed with him. Dangerous, though? I don’t think so.”
She rinsed her coffee cup and put it on a drying rack.
“And what about your father?” Wolf asked. “You think he’s coming back for you?”
She shrugged. “Your father and his department looked into my mother. They never found her in Tennessee. Or any trace of her making the trip there. Your father figured she hitchhiked out of town, because buses didn’t run back then from Rocky Points to Vail, which was the nearest place you can pick up a bus. But the bus company in Vail didn’t remember her either. No credit-card receipts. Not that there would have been any. Our family always used cash.
“After all that investigation into my mother and father and not getting anywhere, believe it or not, it was your father’s idea all those years ago to put motion sensors out there. He came out and helped me rig up the system. I’ve updated it a bit here and there over the years, adding the Wi-Fi camera on the road. But, basically, it’s all your dad’s fault I live like I’m on an army base.” She smiled and sniffed.
Wolf returned her smile, feeling pride in his father.
“So you’ve been living here by yourself for the last twenty-two years?”
She nodded with her chin up.
“And how have you kept the place up? How are you making a living?”
“Don’t worry, Sheriff. I pay my taxes like the next person.”
Wolf shook his head. “No, I mean it must be tough. You hunt for food? Fish?”
“Yeah, I do that. But I have money. My father came into money back in Tennessee. An inheritance. That was the reason we came out here and how we could afford this place. But when they left, my father and then my mother, they never touched the money. They just left it here for me.”
Wolf stared at her.
There was a muffled caw of a crow outside. He looked out the window, focusing through the reflections. The western sky glowed orange, but over the lake the sky was black.
“And you haven’t had any contact with your father since that day he left?”
She shook her head.
“Do you suspect he’s ever come back?”
She shook her head.
“What about that alarm just now? That doesn’t even bother you?”
She shrugged. “I’ve been living alone for so long, I’ve gotten used to it. I was freaked out at the beginning, but I have multiple guns within arm’s reach, I can see three hundred and sixty degrees from inside the house, and I just go on living my life. I figure that if my father is out there and wants me dead, he’d have done it a long time ago.”
He looked at his watch—8:32 p.m.
“Listen, as you’ve probably heard, we found more than just Nick Pollard out there. My father came here with the notion that your father may have killed that boy. Now, we’ve brought up a total of eight bodies.”
She closed her eyes. “I know. I saw the news.”
“I’ve gotta get back to the station.” He pulled out his card and gave it to her. “I’ll be back in touch, all right?”
“Oh, wait. Look.” She pointed next to the phone on the wall.
Wolf saw a business card that said Daniel Wolf, Sluice County Sheriff.
“Your father pinned his card right here twenty-two years ago. Told me to use it if I needed it. I’ll just pin yours right under it.”
Wolf nodded, still staring at the plain white card with a raised SCSD logo and glossy black ink reading: Sheriff Daniel Wolf.
“Ma’am, I want to be clear. I’d like to be back in touch with you soon, so if you’d please stay available, I’d appreciate it.”
“Yeah, of course. So don’t go driving off and disappearing?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” She made no effort to hide the suggestiveness in her voice.
Kimber saw him out the door and closed it behind him. He walked down the steps into the darkness, and when he looked back up saw her drawing the bay window drapes, looking out into the night beyond him.
Outside the night air was damp and chilled to the bone, as if the cold air pooling on the lake had billowed over the lip of the cliff and was now lapping against him. Faint laughing and chattering voices came from the water, and when he looked, he could see a tiny cluster of lights all the way across the lake. He realized the noise was coming from the marina bar on the opposite shoreline. It looked to be miles away across the water.
He sat in the SUV and looked up at the cabin windows. The slit between the drapes fell closed, fingers pulling out of sight.
With a deep breath he fired up the SUV and backed away.
Chapter 19
Wolf’s engine whined hard and the headlight beams bounced against the pines as he left up the dirt road from Kimber Grey’s.
He stopped for a moment at the road that came in from the right—the road to Mr. Olin Heeter’s place—and got out.
Wolf’s feet crunched on the wet dirt road as he walked into the spray of light from his SUV and studied the ground. There were no tire marks on the road other than Wolf’s incoming tracks. None came or went in the soft earth from Mr. Heeter’s home.
Again, Wolf wondered about the alarm Kimber Grey had heard.
He did a slow circle, studying the dark forest around him, and saw no
thing. His SUV hummed softly, and billowing exhaust floated through his headlight beams.
He got in and turned up the road toward Olin Heeter’s.
A quarter mile up the road, the trees opened and a cabin loomed, dark and deserted-looking.
He parked in front and the headlights raked the house, illuminating windows covered with pulled curtains.
He shut off the lights and engine and got out.
Wind rushed through the pines surrounding the hilltop house, sounding like a distant waterfall that rose and fell in strength. The lake shimmered in the moonlight below, and in the distance a light from Kimber Grey’s cabin gleamed through the trees.
The front yard was overgrown with weeds and wildflowers and no lights were on. Add the covered windows, and the place had all the signs of being deserted. But Kimber seemed to speak about the man like he was a fixture in her life.
He stepped to the front, climbed onto the squeaking wood porch and pushed a glowing doorbell button.
A classic ding-dong chime sounded within.
There was no answer, though Wolf could have sworn he heard a thump and then the creak of a floorboard.
He knocked and waited for more noise from within, but none came.
He turned and looked into the forest behind his SUV. The moon passed beneath a cloud, lighting it up around the edges, dropping the ambient light.
He flicked on his flashlight and swept the beam over the forest’s edge, seeing nothing beyond the first tree trunks. He turned and shone it into the nearest window, illuminating fabric drapes pulled tight.
He stepped off the porch and kicked something. When he swung the light down into the grass he saw a geode, cracked in half, with exposed purple crystals on the inside. He set it back down on the porch next to the support beam of the deck and walked along the front of the property to his right, bobbing and swiping the light beam ahead of him and against covered windows as he went. The land inclined down as he walked around the side of the house, revealing a lower level with walkout sliding glass doors in the rear. They were covered with drapes on the inside as well.
As he looked down the rear wall of the house, a low whoosh of wind came from his left, where a row of rocks had been stacked in a three-foot-high straight line, like a rear perimeter fence one might see in the rural Irish countryside. Beyond it was nothing but the mercury-pool lake far below and the pinprick lights of the marina in the distance.
