Kate drove down the long driveway, blocking images of the last time she had left this house, and instead noted that the leaf buds on the trees overhead were about to unfurl.
She turned onto the highway. She definitely deserved another cup of coffee.
As she passed the spot where she had crashed her car so many years ago, she glanced at the water.
It was a shining expanse of blue.
The sun glowed behind the fog, incandescent and mysterious.
Soon it would break through.
18
It was moments like these that made Ethan both love and hate his job. He stood on the front porch of the house belonging to the victim’s parents, Allan and Cathy Rigby. Next to the entrance, the orange-pink petals of an azalea bush glistened in the softness of the morning light.
He yanked up the collar of his jacket and gave the property a once-over. It was a modest home, with pale yellow vinyl, a small yard and a little poodle that barked from the moment he rang the doorbell.
Heather had grown up in this house, according to his notes, and had still been living at home the night she went missing. She had possessed that cared-for look about her, he recalled. Hers was a safe neighborhood, a well-kept street, the kind of place that people bought to raise their kids with the confidence that all was right with the world. Their world, at least.
A man in his late fifties answered the door. He wore an open-necked blue and taupe checked shirt and tan trousers. Once upon a time, he was a suspect. Now, he was simply another grieving parent.
“Mr. Rigby?” Ethan said, holding up his badge. “I am Detective Ethan Drake, with HPD Cold Case.”
“Detective, please come in.”
Mr. Rigby led him to a living room decorated with pale blue curtains, beige fabric sofas and dark blue carpets. A woman whom he presumed was Heather’s mother perched on the sofa. A tray of tea and small sugar cookies sat on the glass coffee table in front of her. “Detective, this is my wife,” Allan Rigby said.
Distress had supplanted any welcome in Cathy Rigby’s face. “You are sure it is Heather?” She clutched a large framed photo of her dead daughter, who smiled prettily into the camera.
An image of Heather’s body lying in the peat bog superimposed itself in Ethan’s mind. The memory of his shock of seeing her head, encased in a rubber witch’s mask, kept popping into his head at unexpected moments, throwing him off stride.
He gave himself a mental shake, lowering himself into the chair facing the victim’s parents. “The dental records are a match.”
Cathy Rigby looked at her husband. He frowned at her. “My wife is worried that the police will stop looking for Heather because this body was found.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Rigby,” Ethan said. “Your daughter has been found. I’m sorry.” He hesitated. Now was the moment to reveal his past association with her, as scant as it was. But he couldn’t bring himself to breach that professional barrier. There was a reason it was in place. “Now we turn our efforts from searching for her to searching for her killer.”
A sob broke out of Mrs. Rigby’s throat, a harsh, cawing sound. “I hoped she was alive somewhere.”
Her husband put his arm around her. “I know, Cathy, I know.” He gazed at Ethan. “We never gave up hope. Ever. Heather was a fighter. She would have found her way home if she could.”
He had heard those words before. He knew, if he were in their shoes, he would believe them, hold on to them, keep them close to his heart. But the reality was Heather had probably been killed within hours of disappearing from the bar, had probably no chance of survival, no chance of escape, no inkling of what she had been up against. Killers had their own rules. Victims rarely understood how to react—until it was too late.
“I’m sorry,” Ethan said. “We have evidence to suggest she was a victim of homicide.”
“The night she went missing?” Hope and pain warred in Allan Rigby’s face. Hope, that his daughter had been killed quickly and thus did not suffer unduly. Pain, that if she hadn’t been killed that night, there had been a window of time to find her—and they had failed.
Ethan kept his gaze level. “We can’t say for sure. The medical examiner is not able to give an exact time of death, it’s been so long…” He deliberately trailed off.
“We read the papers,” Mrs. Rigby said fiercely. “They are calling her the bog body. As if she was a specimen.” Her lip quivered. She stared at the photo of her daughter. “No one is talking about her. About the fact that the ‘bog body’ was a real girl. Whose life was taken when she was much too young—” The sobs that had been building in her voice now erupted. “She was only eighteen! Eighteen! She was a good girl. She was in university. She was so full of life… .” She buried her face. Her husband leaned over her, his eyes resigned, mute in the face of grief that was as stark and raw as when Ethan had seen them first interviewed on television seventeen years ago.
Sweat began to prickle his neck, his underarms.
Cathy Rigby wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “We’ve had to live without her for seventeen years. Seventeen years of wondering where she was, what had happened the night she went missing, was she alive or dead, had someone hurt her…”
Mr. Rigby closed his eyes, his face working, his arm tight around his wife’s shoulders.
“And now all they want to talk about is how a bog body has never been discovered in Canada before!”
“I understand how insensitive that is,” Ethan said, treading carefully through the land mines of their grief. “The media are making a big deal about this. However, we have not released your daughter’s name, so they can’t really speak about the victim besides what they have found out for themselves. We plan to release your daughter’s name to the press. But we are not going to share any more details beyond that due to the nature of our investigation.”
“How was she murdered?” Mr. Rigby asked, his eyes reflecting an agony that Ethan had seen too many times. And still had not inured himself to.
“I can’t give you more details than that while the investigation is under way. I am very sorry.”
“Was she dismembered, like those other girls?” Mrs. Rigby asked, darting a terrified glance at her husband.
Ethan swore silently at the media. Heather Rigby’s family had read the speculation about whether the bog body could have been “victim zero” of the Body Butcher.
“No. She was not. We do not believe, at this point in time, that her death was connected at all to the Body Butcher.”
A tear rolled down Allan Rigby’s cheek. “Thank God.”
“I know that you’ve been asked these questions many times before, but I’d like to go through Heather’s movements leading up to the night she went missing.”
The tea and cookies went untouched—as Ethan knew they would—while he led Heather’s parents through his questions. He was about halfway through, when he asked, “Did Heather have any piercings, tattoos or cosmetic surgery?”
“Like breast implants?” Mrs. Rigby asked. “No, she never had anything like that done. Did the body have it?”
Still hoping it’s not your daughter.
“How about piercings or tattoos?”
“Well, she had her ears pierced, if that’s what you mean. She was wearing earrings with skeletons dangling from them.”
“I think she had her belly button pierced, too,” her father murmured. Mrs. Rigby shot him a startled look.
Oh, so the father was in on his daughter’s little rebellions.
“No, she didn’t,” Cathy Rigby said.
Allan Rigby gazed at Ethan with regret in his eyes. He didn’t want to cause his wife more pain—he didn’t want to remind her that her beloved daughter had concealed things from her.
“And tattoos? Any of those? Girls her age often got them on the lower back, the ankle, sometimes on the shoulder… .”
“Absolutely not,” Cathy Rigby said. “She knew our opinion about those.”
Ethan looked at Allan Rig
by. He shook his head. “None that I am aware of,” he said.
“Did she have a fascination with birds? You know, did she collect pictures or have a pet bird, or anything like that?” Ethan asked. Cathy Rigby was already mouthing no before Ethan had finished.
“No, I don’t think so,” Allan Rigby said.
“Any other animals or mystical creatures?” The tattoo artist could have been wrong. Never hurts to check.
“She loved rabbits. We had one when she was a little girl. She called it Fou Fou. You know, after the song ‘Little Rabbit Fou Fou’?” Cathy Rigby stared at the photo in her lap. “She really loved that bunny.”
Ethan wrote down “rabbit.” Could the raven actually be a rabbit? Seemed unlikely that a rabbit could be mistaken for a bird, but nonetheless…
The rest of the questions yielded nothing new. Ethan stood, relieved to have this duty completed. He had tried to be as compassionate and respectful as possible.
When he walked outside, he heard the dog run after him. “Come here, Fou,” Cathy Rigby called. He glanced over his shoulder.
She picked up the poodle, and buried her face in his fur.
19
Kate drove into the parking garage, mulling over the interview she and Frances had just given. Had they said enough to motivate the public to call Harry Owen’s office and force him to change his mind?
Her phone rang. “Kate Lange.”
“It’s Enid.” Her elderly neighbor’s voice sounded weak, breathless. Not like Enid at all.
Enid Richardson lived two houses down from Kate. Fifteen months ago, when Kate bought a house in her old neighborhood, Enid and her sister Muriel befriended her. No matter the Richardson sisters weren’t related by blood to Kate, they had shown in so many ways that they considered her a cherished member of their singular lives. Honorary niece, goddaughter, whatever.
“Are you all right, Enid?” She most definitely did not sound all right.
“It’s my heart. I can’t get up.”
Can’t get up? Enid was the most energetic, unstoppable woman Kate knew. “Okay. Just stay there. I’ll be right over.” Kate did a 180 in the parking garage. As soon as the parking exit barrier lifted, she hit the gas.
Ten minutes later, Kate unlocked the door to the old Victorian home of the Richardson sisters and rushed inside.
“Enid?” she called, running into the kitchen. It was empty.
She sprinted upstairs. Although she knew the Richardson sisters quite well by now, she rarely went to the upper level of their home. “Enid?”
No answer.
The first door on the left was Enid’s bedroom.
“Enid!” Kate cried.
Enid lay on the bed, her breathing short and rapid. “It’s my heart. I took the nitro…but it hasn’t helped.” She paused for breath.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
Enid’s lack of protest was indicative of how badly she felt, Kate realized as she dialed 911.
The dispatcher answered on the first ring.
“My neighbor is in heart failure,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “We need an ambulance.”
“What are her symptoms?”
“She’s short of breath. Sweating. She can’t walk. She says her medication isn’t helping.”
“We’ll be there in less than ten minutes. Stay with her.”
As if she would leave her.
“Please go to Muriel,” Enid whispered. “I told her to have a nap. But she’ll be scared when the ambulance arrives.”
Kate hurried from the room. Muriel’s door was shut. She paused outside, listening. She heard a tell-tale snore. She wouldn’t disturb the elderly lady until the ambulance arrived.
She rushed back to Enid’s bedroom, checking her color carefully. Had her lips become more purple? Had her breathing worsened?
“I’m sorry,” Enid whispered. “This is such a bother for you, Kate.”
I’m the one who is sorry. This is my fault.
Neither Enid nor her sister Muriel had been the same since they had been trapped by Elise Vanderzell’s killer last summer. Both had grown noticeably frail. Kate had watched their decline, trying to keep her anxiety and guilt at bay. But seeing the once-vibrant Enid unable to lift her head off the pillow terrified her.
“Can you stay with Muriel while I’m in hospital?” Enid asked. “She knows you.”
“Absolutely—”
The strident wail of the ambulance announced the arrival of the paramedics. Kate sprang to her feet and ran downstairs to the front door to admit the Emergency Medical Technicians. She followed them as they ran up the stairs with a stretcher.
It was only then that Kate saw Muriel. She stood by Enid’s door, wearing her big black coat. Her hair hung in limp strands around her face. “Enid?” she asked. “Enie? What’s wrong?”
Kate took Muriel’s arm and drew her away from the doorway. “She’ll be okay.”
Muriel pulled her arm out of Kate’s grasp. She returned to the doorway. “What’s wrong with Enid? What’s the matter?” Tears gleamed in her eyes. “What did they put on her face?”
“It’s an oxygen mask,” Kate said. “She’s not feeling well, Muriel. They are helping her.”
The EMTs strapped Enid into the stretcher. Kate’s heart constricted. The elderly lady appeared shrunken as she was carried down the stairs. Enid gave her sister a thumbs-up, unable to speak with the mask on her face, and then let her eyes droop closed. Her eyelids were tiny mollusk shells, bruised and blue against her bloodless face. Kate put an arm around Muriel’s shoulders.
“Muriel and I will come as soon as we can,” Kate called, not sure if Enid could hear her.
Please don’t die.
“Where are they taking her?” Muriel asked, trying to shake off Kate’s arm. “I want to go with them.”
“She’s going to the hospital. We’ll go very soon.”
“The hospital?” Terror flashed through Muriel’s eyes. “Enid has to go to the hospital?” She began to cry. “No, not the hospital!”
Kate didn’t know why Muriel was so upset about the hospital, and wished she could take back the words. It took her fifteen minutes to calm her down, although she suspected it was the presence of Muriel’s cat, Brulée, that soothed the Alzheimer’s-stricken woman.
Now Muriel sat at the kitchen table, threading Brulée’s tail through her fingers. Kate put on the kettle. “Would you like some tea?”
“When is Enid coming back home?” Muriel asked.
“Soon, Muriel.”
Muriel started to rock. “Where did she go?”
“She’s at the doctor’s.” Kate said the words tentatively, hoping that Muriel’s experiences at her doctor’s office were better than the hospital. Muriel nodded, fingering the cat’s tail. Kate exhaled. Another land mine avoided.
The kettle boiled. “Let’s have some tea,” Kate said, relieved she could offer this comforting routine to Muriel.
While Muriel drank her tea, Kate called Finn, the shaggy blond dog walker-cum-Guy Friday who had proven his friendship time and time again. His voice mail answered. Damn. “Finn, it’s Kate. Please pick up.”
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