THE MISSINGS (Aspen Falls Thrillers Book 2)

by Peg Brantley

“He’s not here, Bond. He’s fine.” Celeste Wentworth did not like sharing the spotlight. While her mother prattled on about some half-forgotten classmate and his accomplishments, Bond made a mental note to call her father in the next couple of days.

  Stephanie walked up with a drawing this time, and something that resembled either a permission slip or a Parent-Beware teacher’s note.

  “Mother, really. I don’t have time to talk right now.”

  “I suppose Chase isn’t home and you’re having to do everything without any help. Has he even bothered to call?”

  “As a matter of fact, he isn’t, and he did. And frankly, we make it work for us. It doesn’t need to work for you too.”

  Silence.

  “Well, darling, I’m only trying to—”

  “Yep,” Bond said. “Well is right. We’re doing well, so thank you for asking.” She took the drawing from Stephanie and anchored it to the refrigerator with a heart-shaped magnet. Then held her hand out and waited for her youngest daughter to hand her the other piece of paper.

  “Okay, darling. I get this isn’t the best time to talk to you. I’ll try again in a few days. In the meantime, you know I’m always here for you.”

  “I know, Mother. Thank you. Good-bye.”

  Bond hung up the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. “Stephanie, go tell Angela that dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.”

  Bond looked out the window and wondered about the black Mustang parked just up the street with two men inside. They’d been there when her mother had called. They were still there. Lost? On a break of some kind? As she opened the door to go see if they needed something, the driver glanced in her direction, made eye contact, then started the car and drove away.

  Chapter Seven

  The Benavides Home

  Wednesday, September 19

  Chase stepped between mother and daughter, the silence split only by the visual daggers Ramona Benavides hurled in her daughter’s direction. The four of them stood on the front porch, Mrs. Benavides effectively blocking entry, while Elizabeth, Chase and Dan Murillo did a kind of strange dance in front of her.

  He bowed his head a little and held out his hand. “Mrs. Benavides, I’m Senior Detective Chase Waters.” He kept his hand out while he made eye contact with the gray-haired woman. She looked away, then back again. When their eyes met a second time, her hand came into his. Slow, hesitant, more out of respect than anything. He did his best to return the respect by giving her hand a gentle squeeze. He dipped his head again and let his hand fall to his side.

  “I understand and appreciate your concerns,” Chase said. “But our only reason for being here is to help find Rachelle.”

  Chase watched her gaze move from him to the man standing just behind him. “This is Detective Daniel Murillo.”

  Daniel reached forward to also offer his hand. “Ma’am.”

  “Come in. Before the whole world see.”

  Mrs. Benavides backed through the entrance and held the screen open. Daniel grabbed the outer door, allowing her to move ahead of her uninvited guests.

  “Please. Room for everyone in kitchen.” The woman moved slowly, giving Chase an opportunity to look around. He had noticed the tidy yard when they walked up to the porch, and the inside reflected the same loving care. Small, but well-maintained. Framed photographs covered almost every surface of the living room as they walked through it to the kitchen. Crosses, from rough-hewn to ornate, and paint-by-number oil paintings blanketed the walls.

  Chase itched to begin asking questions related to the case, but knew that would not be the way he’d get any answers in this home. “Do you paint?”

  “My husband. Painting the numbers help him to relax.”

  The four adults almost filled the room. Chase noted a new microwave tucked on the counter next to an old oven. A large, scarred table dominated the space. It reminded Chase of the well-used, well-loved table in his own kitchen.

  He waited for Mrs. Benavides to sit.

  “May we?”

  “Course. Would you like some cold tea?”

  “Very much. Gracias.”

  Chase watched Ramona Benavides shake her head as Elizabeth walked over to retrieve some glasses out of a cupboard. With a nod to acknowledge her mother—who continued to communicate silently with her daughter by tilting her head in the direction she wanted her to move—Elizabeth veered to another cupboard and took down two of what were clearly the family’s best drinking glasses. Then she straightened her shoulders and took down two more. A moment later Chase sipped some of the best iced tea that had ever crossed his lips. “This is wonderful. I’ve never tasted any tea this good before.”

  Ramona blushed. He sensed she still didn’t like him in her house. But somehow, they’d managed to come to a truce. Chase knew the older woman didn’t completely trust him, but for now, they could find a way to work together toward the same end.

  Daniel pulled out his notepad and the older woman bristled.

  “Please, it’s to help us remember. That’s all,” Chase said.

  Chase caught Elizabeth’s attention. “I’m going to ask your mother a lot of the same questions I asked you earlier. Please let her answer in her own words. We never know when something important might be revealed.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  Almost a half an hour later, with the answers to all of the questions more or less matching the ones he’d received earlier from Elizabeth, Chase asked if they could please see Rachelle’s room. “We may need to remove some things for further examination, but we will leave you with an itemized list and will return those items when we’re finished.”

  “Course.” She waved her arm in Elizabeth’s direction. “You take.”

  He needed for it to be just him and Daniel in the room so after Elizabeth opened the bedroom door, he asked her to go help her mother find a good photograph of Rachelle they could have for the file.

  The two detectives stood in silence inside the small room for a moment, each getting their own impressions of its occupant.

  “You know, we’re lucky they have their own bedrooms,” Daniel said. “I shared a room with my brother until he went into the Army.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Two mismatched bookcases, filled with novels and a few books on economics, sat against one wall. Chase walked over to examine it more closely. Some of the novels were classics. In Spanish. A small desk butted up against another wall under a window. It was organized and ready for the next time someone sat down to study. Two dog-eared textbooks on social work caught his attention. One dealt with immigrants and refugees, the other with health care.

  A small laptop was closed in the center of the desk, and Daniel unplugged it from the wall to take back to the station. His expression as he readied the laptop for transport told Chase that Daniel had figured out the purpose for his presence had been more diplomatic than technology-inspired.

  “You could have just asked, Chase.”

  “I didn’t have time. Forgive me?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “While you’re thinking, would you get in touch with the college and make sure she made it to her class this morning? We have to get a timeline going.”

  Rachelle Benavides had left the house at seven o’clock that morning to catch a bus to her economics class at the college. She should have been home by eleven o’clock.

  Even without the two Hispanic DBs Chase had on his caseload, this whole situation felt bad. Rachelle Benavides was either in trouble—or dead.

  Chapter Eight

  Aspen Falls Police Department

  Thursday, September 20

  Squad meeting. Chase sat with Daniel Murillo and Terri Johnson. The three detectives in the Aspen Falls PD—plus Lieutenant Butz, who hadn’t investigated squat since 1987 and wouldn’t know a bloodstain pattern if it had a label, and whose last name inspired more than one deserving joke—sat in the room. All three detectives had better things to do, but when your s
uperior called a mandatory meeting, and you liked your job, you went.

  Welcome to my world. Chase kept capping and uncapping his pen, a dead giveaway to everyone who knew him that his brain had processed Lieutenant Melvin Butz’s carefully planned detective squad meeting outline, and it no longer mattered. Chase knew all of the questions and all of the answers, and the total waste of time galled him.

  The officer-involved shooting Chase had just closed wouldn’t come to trial for months. He’d already met with the DA’s office and turned over his file. The court case would take a chunk of change from his day, but what else was new? Detectives often spent more time in court than on any other part of the job.

  The delay before trial gave him time to focus on his other workload. He had two open missing persons cases. One was a probable runaway. Chase suspected the seventeen-year-old boy would either come back home or turn up on another town’s police blotter. He hoped, for the sake of the kid, the first scenario won.

  The second one, the Rachelle Benavides case, worried him. That one had kept him at his desk far longer into the night than he’d wanted. He’d gone back to the Benavides home and talked with the father. Carlos Benavides was a quiet man with a defeated posture. As he considered all of the things that may have happened to his daughter, his already collapsed shoulders curled in toward his heart even more.

  Both the patriarch’s wife and daughter seemed surprised at his willingness to do whatever necessary without question. Chase knew about family secrets and miscommunication. He guessed those issues weren’t exclusive to one culture. He understood the feeling of helplessness Carlos Benavides must be experiencing at this moment. It sucked.

  Chase had spent the morning with Rachelle’s friends from school while Daniel interviewed the neighbors. They’d both come back to the station empty.

  For the thousandth time he hoped they would find no connection between the girl’s disappearance and the two other corpses discovered earlier. Both of those were also young. But they were male. Hispanic. One mutilated. One not. No IDs and no families looking for them—at least not through official channels. Only two facts connected Rachelle to the murder victims—age and origin. He hoped the fact that she was a she, that her family was clearly involved in finding her, and that at this point she was only missing, would be enough to keep her on one list and off another.

  Butz’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Waters, you got anything more on that missing? Not the boy, the wetback.”

  Chase pushed down the words he wanted to use to put Butz in his place. This wasn’t his battle to fight right now. He set his pen down and the silence stretched. He wanted to give Daniel a chance to say something. To give the Hispanic detective a chance to stand up and be strong for his heritage. He waited. Nothing. He wanted to kick Daniel—make him speak up, but Daniel’s position wasn’t Chase’s battle to forge either.

  When no one moved, Chase answered, “Rachelle Benavides is a young woman with close ties to the Hispanic community. She’s a part-time student at the college and not likely to be a runaway. She attended her economics class yesterday. Nothing unusual. Daniel and I have interviewed her family, her neighbors, and a few of her friends from school. Daniel is going through everything on her laptop but we don’t have anything yet. There’s no reason for her to have left on her own, and so far, there’s no evidence of foul play.”

  Chase paused, then: “What exactly did you mean by ‘wetback’, Lieutenant?”

  After an initial clueless look the man at least had the grace to flush crimson.

  “My apologies for not being PC,” Butz said. He gave a perfunctory nod in Daniel’s direction. “Especially considering.”

  Chase closed his eyes and shook his head. The man was a relic. His pension couldn’t come soon enough. How he’d managed to hold on to his job for this long, particularly with an African-American chief of police, proved a testament to the collective bargaining system.

  “I don’t know how you cut opening a case when the spi—uh, señorita has been MIA for less than twenty-four,” Butz said. “If it weren’t for those other two DBs, you’d figure along with the rest of us that she was just movin’ on like those people do. You waited for the juvie white boy but not the Mexican. This world is gettin’ stranger and stranger.”

  “Lieutenant, I did not delay any search for the ‘juvie white boy.’ His parents didn’t make a report until he’d been gone for two days.” Chase rarely chose a wait-and-see attitude when a person went missing. Especially a kid. He’d much prefer to waste a little bit of time than come in too late.

  A knock on the half-open door and the undeniable bulk of their commanding officer presented itself. Aspen Falls Chief of Police Cornelius Whitman.

  “Please excuse my interruption of your meeting, Lieutenant,” the chief said.

  Butz looked like the kid caught spraying graffiti on the playground. Had Whit heard any of the exchange? Wouldn’t matter. The chief knew all about the overweight, past-due-for-retirement Lieutenant Melvin Butz.

  “I have some pertinent information for Detective Waters and I wanted to get it to him ASAP.”

  Butz nodded and squinted suspiciously at Chase. Chase bit back a laugh. He had absolutely no designs on Butz’s job.

  “The body of a young Hispanic female was discovered this afternoon. Could be your missing girl. There was no ID.” Whit checked the paperwork he’d brought with him before handing it to Chase. “Her heart, both kidneys, and lungs had been removed.”

  The parent in Chase kicked into gear and he felt the horror, followed by anger and resolve. Then his professional self resurfaced. “Any connection to our other victim?”

  “Other than being gutted like a fish and left somewhere to rot?” Whit asked.

  “Yeah. Other than that.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ute Indian Burial Ground

  Thursday, September 20

  The body had been found in the old Ute Burial Ground southwest of town. Chase parked his SUV on the shoulder by the other county cars, clicked off the ignition in the middle of a Coltrane riff, and hiked up the hill. Graves of Ute Indians, most still marked by piles of rocks, dotted the hillside.

  He shook his head and tucked the half-eaten red licorice twist in his pocket. Wherever he worked a murder the space felt desecrated. But here? Something sour and burning worked its way up his throat into his mouth. The Ute had called this place the Shining Mountains. Both the land and the Indians had been here long before gold brought prospectors, civilization, and ski resorts.

  And murder.

  Crime scene tape surrounded a relatively small area, and Jax Taylor—the Medical Examiner—stood in the middle of it, alternately taking photos and diagramming the site. Chase watched her work. You do enough of these scenes and you learn to point and shoot with one hand.

  When Dr. Taylor saw Chase coming toward her she let the camera fall against her chest and waited for him. Pulled down the mask covering her face.

  “Detective.”

  “Hey, Doc.”

  She stepped to the side and allowed him to get his initial impressions. Some detectives liked the ME to tell them everything. Chase liked to see things for himself, and Jax Taylor knew the way he preferred to work.

  He saw a young woman, her face chewed beyond recognition. From the look of her nude body, and judging mostly by her hands, which were smooth and unwrinkled, she was in her late teens to early twenties. He felt a flash of the horror she must have felt. The fear. He wondered if she’d been killed quickly or tortured.

  Long black hair tangled and matted. Hispanic. Could she be Rachelle Benavides?

  “Clothes or ID?”

  “Not near the body.”

  He walked around to the other side of the dead girl. Squatted to get a closer look. It was like someone had done the autopsy already, but hadn’t replaced the organs. A long, deep incision, from just below her neck to her abdomen gaped open. The exposed bones of the sternum reflected clean slices.

  Shit
. Chase closed off the part of his brain that wanted to cry out and rage against what this young woman had gone through. She would come to him in his dreams. She would be there when he woke in the mornings. But right now the best thing he could do for her was act as her advocate. Do his job.

  He closed his eyes and heard the crackle and pop sounds of the masses of maggots who claimed their part of the body. Flies were all over the interior where once a heart pumped blood and lungs drew in oxygen. Chase waved away the flies and saw the empty spaces, the remaining internal organs almost unrecognizable. He saw bite marks around an area where flesh had been ripped away.

  “Could wild animals have taken her heart and lungs?”

  “Nope. They were surgically removed. Even with all of the decomp, the cuts are clean.”

  Chase examined the victim’s face. It had been chewed to the point of obliteration but he couldn’t see any obvious contusions on either her face or her head.

  “Before you ask, other than the obvious, there are no other signs of trauma.”

  “You read my mind, Doc.”

  He observed the surroundings. No obvious blood pooled into the soil, no trampled ground to suggest a struggle. This was a dumpsite. Just like the other. Again, he didn’t have the advantage a crime scene could give him.

  Jax confirmed what he already knew. “Akila Copeland came to the scene but there was nothing much for her to find. She identified a few drag areas and that’s all. What we have is a body without any other clues.”

  “How long ago, do you think?” Chase asked. The wind shifted and he pulled out his handkerchief and put it over his nose. The pungent vinegar smell burned his sinuses. Even trying to use his mouth to breathe couldn’t keep the smell at bay. Pretty fast decomposition if this was Rachelle Benavides.

  “Based on the deco juice and skin slip, I’d say she’s been dead about a week. But with the missing organs and the fact that she wasn’t sewn up afterward, it could be five days.”