Trace of Evil

by Alice Blanchard

  “No, ma’am. You won’t find any firearms in my home,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets and showing her his palms. His bathrobe pockets contained no suspicious bulges. His feet were bare. There was nowhere else to hide a gun on his person. “I went through a court-mandated drug program,” Dominic said. “I’m off opioids for good. I don’t use anymore. That’s all in the past.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she said truthfully.

  “I’m back to farming, like my dad and granddad. I’m an ex-con and an ex-user who’s cleaned up his act.”

  “What about Riley?” Natalie asked.

  “Absolutely not.” He glared at her. “Don’t you think I would’ve noticed?”

  “Maybe he’s not using. Maybe he’s dealing?”

  “Hell, no.” He shook his head with furious eyes.

  “Are you sure? Did you know he was flunking out of school?”

  “I knew he was in trouble, but Riley didn’t want his old man getting involved. I was a major fuckup when he was a little kid, and I think he’s ashamed of me now.” He rubbed his swollen-shut eye vigorously. “You wanna know how I got into drugs in the first place, Detective? I needed a new combine-harvester. Couldn’t afford one, and the banks wouldn’t approve my loan applications, so I started to deal part-time. I told myself I’d stop once I’d raised enough for the combine, but then the money was too damn good.”

  “Riley may not have wanted your help, but he needed it,” she said. “Didn’t you get the school notices asking you to contact the administration?”

  “I did. But like I said … he didn’t want me involved. He told me not to worry about it. He respected Ms. Buckner. There’s no way he would’ve killed her.” Dominic glared at her for a long, miserable moment. “They tell me he’s in a deep coma.”

  “Rest assured,” she told him gently, “the doctors are doing everything in their power to pull him through.”

  His pale gray eyes were embedded in a rich web of wrinkles, and his mouth was curled into a cantankerous scowl. “Peter, come here,” he said, taking a seat on the sofa and folding the boy into his arms. He nodded down the hallway. “Make it quick.”

  There was a large red STOP sign on Riley’s bedroom door. Luke did the honors, cracking it open. First, the reek hit her—locker-room stink. It was dark in here. The miniblinds and burlap curtains were closed. Natalie crossed the cluttered floor and snapped them open, and a strong, cleansing sunlight poured into the room.

  A sloppy mess greeted her eyes—soiled laundry on the floor, abandoned schoolbooks, legal-size pads full of scribbled rap lyrics, crumpled food wrappers, dirty towels.

  They tossed the room for contraband, searching for any evidence of drug-dealing or possession—pills, powder residue, cannabis, cash, works, a scale, a pager. Most high school dealers lived with high levels of stress and had more than the police to worry about. Other kids at school could rat them out or steal their drugs. Riley would’ve had different hiding places, both at school and at home, to stash his supply and keep it safe. Natalie and Luke got to work, rummaging through everything, but came up empty-handed.

  Next, they sprayed the surfaces with luminol, searching for blood evidence, and came up positive for the doorknob and the light switch. Natalie also found a loose bundle of clothing shoved into the far corner of Riley’s closet. She held up a pair of black cargo pants, the Dumbnation T-shirt, and Vans slip-ons—the outfit he’d worn to school yesterday, according to Kermit. She didn’t detect any visible bloodstains, but Lenny would test it for blood and fibers back at the station.

  They confiscated all of Riley’s devices—laptop, tablets—but couldn’t find his cell phone. They emptied the trash receptacles and sorted through the garbage. They vacuumed for any possible cross-transfer of hairs and fibers.

  “Excuse me, Lieutenant?” Officer Bill Keegan, an intimidating presence, came into the room and showed them an evidence bag holding four quarter bags of marijuana and more than a dozen marijuana joints. “We found these hidden in one of the old shacks out back.” He held up a second evidence bag. “And we found this in another shack.”

  Natalie peered at the dead bird—a skeletonized crow with iridescent black feathers covering its leathery, desiccated flesh. There was a thick piece of butcher’s twine knotted around its neck and a number-two pencil driven through its mouth and penetrating its anus. Animal mutilations were a bad sign. It was symptomatic of a deep mental disturbance.

  “Where did you find the dead bird, Bill?” Luke asked Officer Keegan.

  “Out back in an old toolshed, hidden behind some crates. The drugs were in the equipment shed, tucked under a loose floorboard.”

  “Did you document everything?”

  “By the book.”

  Due to staff constraints, all the uniformed officers in the department had been cross-trained to handle certain preliminary aspects of a criminal investigation—they could run a grid search, secure evidence, document the scene, and testify in court as well as their hardworking counterparts in the Criminal Investigations Unit.

  “It’s time to talk to Dominic,” Luke told Natalie.

  Five minutes later, she was seated in the living room with Dominic and his son. Peter had the roundest face she’d ever seen, like a tambourine with blinking brown eyes.

  “Did you see Riley after school yesterday?” she asked Dominic.

  “No,” he said. “One of my heifers was giving birth.”

  “What about you?” she asked Peter. “Did you see Riley after school?”

  The boy nodded shyly.

  “What time did he get home?”

  “Around three, I guess.”

  She jotted it down. “When did he leave the house again?”

  “Ten minutes later,” Peter answered.

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he take anything with him?” Natalie asked.

  “Just his phone.”

  “What kind of phone?”

  “His Samsung.”

  “And he drove off in his Camaro?”

  “Yes,” the boy answered.

  “And he didn’t tell you where he was going? Did he mention India Cochran?”

  “No.”

  “Did he mention his teacher, Ms. Buckner?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did he change his clothes after school?”

  Peter shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “What was he wearing when he left the house?”

  “He says he doesn’t remember,” Dominic said protectively.

  “Riley was in trouble,” Natalie explained. “He was flunking out of school. That must’ve been humiliating for him, having to repeat a grade when all his friends were moving on. He was under a tremendous amount of stress. I’m trying to piece together his actions yesterday, where he went and who he talked to…”

  Dominic smoothed his hand across his thinning hair and said, “All I know is my son had his whole life ahead of him, and now he’s lying in a coma, and he can’t talk to me or even open his eyes.” His voice cracked.

  She didn’t know what to say. The news was grim, either way—whether Riley came out of the coma or not. She glanced out a nearby window. Luke and the officers were loading evidence boxes into the back of a cruiser. “We found marijuana hidden in one of the sheds out back,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t sound concerned.”

  “Oh, come on. What teenager doesn’t smoke a doobie now and again?” he argued. “Weed should be legalized. Everybody knows that. There’s a big difference between possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to supply, and my boy isn’t dumb. I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s dealing. He’s seen me at my worst. Crazy wasted, pissing at the moon. I warned him … don’t you take the wrong road, like I did. He witnessed my transformation. Hell … I gave up drugs for life. I saw the light in prison. That’s why I joined Narcotics Anonymous. It’s helping me with my issues. I took
up farming, and I’ve revived the family farm, and now I’m raising a herd of cattle, and my boy … my Riley … just because he’s doing poorly at school, why would you assume he must be dealing?”

  “We found quarter bags and a dozen or so joints,” she told him.

  “Fuck that.” He cinched his robe tighter and folded his hands together in his lap. “Back when I was dealing, you know who my best customers were? Nice, well-dressed middle-class folks. I guess their lives must be pretty boring, huh? They flagrantly break the law. North side, south side, east side—you’re okay, buddy. To the contrary, everything on the west side’s a crime.” He shook his head. “Maybe it’s time to call my lawyer. My son isn’t here to defend himself.”

  “We also found a dead bird,” she interjected, “a crow with twine knotted around its neck and a pencil driven through its innards. Do you know anything about that?”

  “That’s mine,” Peter blurted.

  Dominic touched the boy’s arm. “Hush up.”

  “But I found it!” Peter protested loudly. “It’s mine!”

  “Where’d you find it?” Natalie asked him.

  “Over by the gravel pits, behind Big Rock.”

  She knew what he meant—an ancient boulder on the dirt road leading into the abandoned gravel pits, located about a mile and a half north of the lake. Locals referred to the huge boulder as Big Rock.

  “Did you put the pencil through it?” Natalie asked Peter, who shook his head.

  “I found it like that.”

  “Peter, that’s enough,” Dominic said. “You don’t have to say anything.”

  Natalie asked Dominic, “One more thing? I need to know more about Riley’s relationship with India Cochran.”

  “Relationship?” Dominic scowled. “He’s known her since middle school. Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  The front door creaked open, and Natalie’s stomach clenched. Officer Troy Goodson stepped inside. A big guy, tall and broad-shouldered, with cautious eyes. “We’re all set, Detective.”

  “Thank you,” Natalie said. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “S’okay, I’ll wait.” Troy adjusted his duty belt and hooked his thumbs into his waistband, looking like he wanted to kick the crap out of Dominic. An old grudge perhaps. There were plenty of unresolved grudges in this town.

  “Okay, we’re all done here, Detective,” Dominic told Natalie, and she could feel the tension in her facial muscles as she tried to maintain her composure. “You can contact my lawyer, Vinnie Patalino, for anything else you need.”

  She closed her notebook and stood up. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

  He gazed at her pleadingly. “Riley’s fighting for his life. He needs your prayers.”

  She nodded stiffly. Someday, she would keep her promises to the victims’ families. She used to pray all the time, but she hadn’t forgiven God yet for taking Willow away so young.

  16

  The police station was located in a three-story granite building at the heart of downtown, nestled between an Olive Garden and the town hall. Due to its proximity to the restaurant, the station sometimes smelled of garlic and tomato sauce. Natalie pulled into the parking lot around back and sat for a moment, her head throbbing as if a thousand pneumatic drills were boring into her skull. She hadn’t had her third cup of coffee yet and was struggling with caffeine withdrawal. She gathered her energy, got out of her vehicle, and headed for the back entrance.

  Seventy-five sworn law officers made up the rank and file of the Burning Lake Police Department. There were twenty support staff, and whenever things got a little heated around here, like they were now, everybody chipped in by taking a heavier caseload and volunteering for overtime if necessary.

  Natalie stopped by the kitchen for a cup of coffee before grabbing her mail and heading for the elevators. She took a steel car up to the third-floor detective’s unit, where her desk was situated across the aisle from Detective Buckner’s. Brandon was on unpaid leave pending the internal investigation. He was staying with his father across town and hadn’t returned any of her messages yet. She sat down at her desk and answered a few emails. Her mouse pad said PROPERTY OF BLPD. Her ivy plant had died a few days ago because she kept forgetting to water it, and now the leaves were brown and curled. The only other personal touches on her desk were two crayon drawings by five-year-old Ellie and a framed picture of ten-year-old Natalie and her sisters dressed as witches one long-ago Halloween.

  “Hey, Natalie.” Detective Augie Vickers, a bland-looking man in his late forties, came over and stood so close to her desk, she could smell the liverwurst on his breath. His exhaustive reports were no fun to read. You got lost in a sea of details. “We didn’t get the tox results back from the hospital yet, but my contact at the state lab says some of the contraband we found at Haymarket Field was Kush, not marijuana.”

  K2 was a synthetic cannabis that went by a hundred other names—spice, black mamba, fake marijuana, blaze. Synthetic cannabis was created in homegrown labs, combining noncannabis herbs with chemical compounds that could be highly toxic. It was easy to overdose on K2, because it wasn’t anything like marijuana, more like amphetamines, and could lead to hallucinations, seizures, convulsions, tachycardia, stroke, acute psychosis, brain damage, and even death.

  “Confirmed Kush? That might explain Riley’s seizures,” Natalie said.

  “Exactly. I’ll head over to the hospital after the team meeting and find out if the tox results are back, but I’d bet my left nut that’s what caused them. We found two other witnesses who attested to the fact that Brandon didn’t touch Riley, was in fact nowhere near him when he collapsed. So I think we can rule out the use of force. Fuck it, Natalie. How do you spell relief?”

  “Let’s hope so,” she said, her desk wobbling just a little.

  “Oops. Gotta fix that,” Augie joked and walked away.

  “Hey, thanks,” she said cynically. Her first day on the job—as was the custom for all rookies—the guys had given Natalie the worst desk in the unit, the one with the wobbly legs. She kept a matchbook tucked under the shortest leg to keep it from driving her insane, but once in a while it slipped out of place.

  The afternoon sun glared through the office’s wide, old-fashioned windows. She got up and closed the nearest set of blinds. The air vent above her desk cooked her head in the wintertime and froze her scalp in the summer. Today she had a pounding headache, and the drone of background noise drilled into her skull.

  On the far wall, next to an old-fashioned clock, was a large-print calendar, big enough to read from across the room. All the significant information was posted there—team meetings, interviews, appointments, court appearances. The Criminal Investigations Unit consisted of seven detectives and a supervising lieutenant detective. The unit handled homicides, suicides, non-traffic-related accidental deaths, in-custody deaths, and any other suspicious incidents resulting in life-threatening injuries. Traffic accidents, however, were handled by a small team of qualified officers.

  A row of heavy-duty binders lined the shelves to Natalie’s right, and her active investigative files were spread across her work table. A case was declared “cold” when the detective-in-charge had reached a dead end and her more current cases were piling up. It was a matter of priorities.

  The Missing Nine were different, however. Special. They’d been passed from detective to detective inside the unit for years in order to get new eyeballs scouring through the voluminous information. Why had they failed so far? Conflicting stories, few verifiable facts. The homeless population was afraid to talk to the police, whether their apprehension was justified or not. Details were scarce. Witnesses scattered. Leads dried up. Transients were almost impossible to track.

  Natalie had been studying the nine case files for months now, searching for any new links or leads. A few weeks ago, she’d found something that appeared to connect at least two of the cases together—but hadn’t informed Luke about it yet, preferring to dig up mo
re evidence to support her theory first. And today, she’d gotten an intriguing third connection.

  It all began with Dustin Macgowan, a transient so covered in dirt he looked like a paperdoll-cutout come to life, limbs and clothes covered in earth, two radiant eyes lined with cracked mud. He disappeared nine years ago, simply vanished from an alleyway that smelled of urine and garbage. All that was left of Dustin was a paper bag in the shape of his hand wrapped tightly around the neck of a pint of whiskey and a bloodstain pattern on the brick wall.

  Natalie had recently discovered an overlooked clue in Dustin’s file, however—something that wasn’t mentioned in any of the police reports. A dead crow was visible in one of the police photos of the cluttered alleyway Dustin once called home.

  Now she opened the binder and leafed through its careworn pages. There. She used a sticky note to mark the spot, then pulled down a second binder. Like Joey used to say: Reduce it down to the basics—beginning, middle, end. Natalie carried both binders with her down the hallway and knocked on Luke’s door.

  “Come in,” he said, hanging up the phone.

  “Got a minute?”

  “Sure, Natalie. What’s up?”

  She closed the door behind her and took a seat. “King Edward,” she said, handing him one of the binders and opening it to a specific page.

  Luke’s office chair squealed as it rolled over the antistatic floor mat. “Edward O. King,” he repeated, looking down at several color photographs in their transparent sleeves. “Yeah, I remember this guy. One of our Missing Nine. Used to wear a fright wig, mumbling to himself and scaring the tourists. Disappeared five years ago. What am I looking at? Pictures of his shopping cart?”

  “He vanished without a trace and left the cart behind. These pictures were taken about a week later, after his social worker reported him missing. See here?” She pointed at one of the photographs. “There’s a dead crow in the cart, underneath all that junk. You can only see its wings in this picture, so we don’t know if it was mutilated or not. It could be roadkill.”

  Luke nodded. “King Edward was certainly a hoarder.”