Cold Woods

by Karen Katchur

  If Parker had any regrets about his last case, which he did, it was that he hadn’t solved it fast enough. If he had, maybe he could’ve stopped the motorcycle-gang member from putting a gun to his own head. Sometimes Parker woke in the middle of the night shaking and sweating, the scent of blood in his nose, the iron taste on his tongue, the image of brains splattered among the trees and autumn leaves. He’d let it get to him, but that wasn’t something he was willing to share, and now wasn’t the time to indulge in personal matters. If Sayres had an inkling Parker was struggling to move on, he’d put him back on desk duty—the last place any detective wanted to be.

  Karla shooed him away from the tree. “I want to get a couple more shots of that carving.”

  “And just when I got comfortable,” he said teasingly and pushed off the trunk.

  “Some of us have to work around here.” She winked.

  Cheryl waved him over. She squatted inside a square in the grid. “What we’re looking at is the skull of a male. In simple terms, you can tell he’s male by the U-shape, or square, jaw, and the square orbits. Also, if you feel the top of the orbit here, it’s smooth. In a female it’s sharp. And this hole here is for the ear. The zygomatic arch stops in a female before it reaches the hole. If it extends past the hole like it does here, it’s male.” She paused. “I’d say, based on the coronal suture, he’s somewhere between forty and fifty years old.” She pointed to an area near the temple. She had since slipped on rubber gloves that looked nowhere near warm enough for the kind of cold they were experiencing in the high elevation.

  Parker pulled his knit hat down over his ears. It made him look much younger than he was, and he’d taken some ribbing from the team about his punk beanie, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to be warm.

  “Do you see this area by the left temple, how the bone is depressed?”

  Parker nodded.

  “This was caused by blunt-force trauma,” she said. “It’s perimortem. That means it happened around the time of death.” She looked closer. “I’ll know a lot more once I get it back to the lab.”

  “So we’re looking at homicide?”

  “That’s for the coroner to decide. But this didn’t occur naturally, that’s for sure.”

  Parker’s phone went off, an unusual signal breaking through the mountain barrier. “Excuse me,” he said to Cheryl and stepped away, checking a text message from G. Brassard. Heading up the mountain now. Geena was the only female homicide investigator in his troop. He’d met her on a few occasions but only in passing. What he remembered most was that she was not only tall but also attractive. The other guys in his unit didn’t want to partner with her because she was good looking. They didn’t want the headache at home.

  Maybe that was why he hadn’t told Becca about her, yet.

  Parker texted Geena back. Blunt force trauma left temple. He’d have to let Sayres know, too, but first he wanted as much information as possible before contacting him.

  He returned to Cheryl and the skull. “Anything else you can tell me?” he asked.

  She stood and pointed to the area inside the grid, not far from where they were standing. “Do you see how the ground is raised?”

  He nodded.

  “My guess is that someone moved quite a bit of dirt around, and it wasn’t easy. The rocks in this area make for some tough digging. Of course, I’ll know more once we get a better look at the stratum.”

  “Meaning someone went through a whole lot of trouble to cover him up.”

  “Exactly.”

  Most bodies were found closer to the roads, a few hundred feet into the woods. Other times bodies, or body parts, were tossed out of vehicles in garbage bags and found along the mountain highways, as if the killer couldn’t be bothered with the effort of hiding his crime. Or maybe the killer assumed, like countless other motorists, that the bags would be thought of as nothing more than trash thrown out a car window by a litterbug.

  Until someone noticed the smell.

  Parker looked down the trail. They were a good way up the mountain. The climb had been steep. Tree roots and rocks jutted from the ground, making it that much harder to navigate. “It’s not likely someone carried his body this far up the mountain and dumped it here.”

  “Not likely,” Cheryl said. “If you ask me, we’re looking at the original crime scene.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Trisha Haines stared at the house from the back seat of the taxicab. She hadn’t moved since they’d double-parked more than twenty minutes ago. The driver didn’t ask why she wasn’t getting out of the car. Instead, he sat patiently, listening to news radio at a low volume. The hundred she’d tossed him earlier had kept him quiet.

  She continued watching the house, where she had a near-perfect view of the comings and goings. The siding was old and faded and covered in years of grit, harsh winters, hot summers. The slate roof looked as though it had been patched recently and the downspout reattached. Otherwise, not much about the house had changed.

  A few more minutes passed. An older couple emerged, slowly making their way down the porch steps, where the concrete crumbled on one side and the rusted metal railing leaned. They were followed by other guests wearing heavy winter coats, their faces somber.

  The house Trisha watched sat directly across the street from where she’d grown up, and sure enough, one of the stragglers in the back of the crowd was her mother. She’d know her anywhere, although it had been three decades since she’d last seen her. Her mother lit a cigarette, made her way across Second Street. There was a noticeable limp in her stride as she lumbered onto her porch and disappeared inside.

  Trisha waited a few more minutes. When it was clear most of the mourners had gone, she got out of the car. The cold December air pricked her face.

  “Do you want me to wait?” the driver asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” she said, not sure how it would go once they saw her. She tossed him another hundred. It was Sid’s money, and she didn’t care about throwing it away.

  She stood in the doorway of Dannie’s mother’s home. There were still some guests hanging around, possibly family members of Dannie’s whom Trisha had never met. The stench of flowers and food, along with the lingering odor of numerous bodies packed into a small room, filled her nose, coated the back of her tongue. Her underarms were sticky. Her entire body was a little sweaty, but no one would be able to tell in her sleek black pants and sweater. She’d dressed carefully, considering her nervousness, and then there was the alcohol she had to contend with that regularly seeped from her pores.

  She stepped into the living room gingerly, her arm protecting her sore ribs, apologizing for elbowing an elderly woman. The woman averted her eyes from Trisha and quickly moved away. It was probably one of Dannie’s mother’s churchgoing friends. She must’ve smelled the evil incarnate on Trisha’s skin.

  Trisha picked her way through the room, slipped a breath mint into her mouth. It had been several hours since she’d had her last cocktail at the airport bar. The shakes would start soon.

  She stopped next to an end table that was littered with discarded plates and half-eaten food. It was as good a place as any to wait it out. She scanned the few remaining faces in the crowd, none familiar, except one. Carlyn. She leaned against the far wall. She was holding a plate of finger sandwiches, dabbing at the corner of her lip with a napkin. There was no mistaking her strong jawline, the lean runner’s body underneath the gray cotton dress. Carlyn had aged. They all had aged, turning into older versions of their younger selves. She willed Carlyn to look her way, to recognize her—if only she would be happy to see her.

  It was a lot to ask.

  “Trisha?”

  Trisha turned and found herself face-to-face with Linda Walsh, Carlyn’s mother.

  “Hello, Mrs. Walsh,” she said somewhat sheepishly. Mrs. Walsh had never been a fan of Trisha’s back when Trisha, Carlyn, and Dannie had been in high school. She’d looked at Trisha as though she were trouble, someone w
ho would lead her daughter down the wrong path. She had seen Trisha for exactly who she was.

  “It’s good of you to come,” Mrs. Walsh said. “Have you seen Dannie?”

  Trisha shook her head. “How’s she holding up?”

  “She’s strong. She has her faith to get her through.”

  Trisha stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She couldn’t stand Dannie’s constant praying back when they were kids, Dannie’s unwavering faith, her firm belief in right and wrong. Trisha didn’t share Dannie’s views. The lines between good and evil had remained forever blurred in Trisha’s mind. Besides, no amount of praying had ever stopped bad things from happening. All the crying, begging, pleading had been nothing but a waste of time.

  And yet she couldn’t discount the fact that at least Dannie had something—her church, her God—where Trisha had nothing.

  Mrs. Walsh touched Trisha’s arm. Trisha recoiled. It had been so long since anyone had touched her in a kind way. She’d forgotten what it had felt like, how good it could be. Mrs. Walsh eyed her and then stepped away without saying anything more.

  Trisha kept her distance from the other guests after that. She’d lost sight of Carlyn. It was just as well. She ducked into the bathroom, peed, checked her makeup. Already the dark circles under her eyes had bled through her foundation. The hollows in her cheeks were deep, hole-like. Her face was emaciated. What she wouldn’t give for a drink.

  Another thirty minutes passed, and finally the last of the mourners headed out, dabbing at watery eyes, a sea of black dresses and dark suits piling out the door.

  Trisha licked her dry lips, moved from the corner of the living room, where she’d been standing, hiding, next to an artificial plant. She entered the kitchen. Carlyn sat at the table across from Dannie. Dannie’s round cheeks were flushed and wet with tears. Her blonde hair had thinned through the years: so much so that Trisha could see clear through to Dannie’s scalp.

  Carlyn was patting Dannie’s hand and stopped when Trisha approached. If Carlyn was surprised to see her, it didn’t register on her face. Dannie, however, looked up, a small smile on her lips.

  It took everything Trisha had not to scratch her arms, pick at her skin. “I’m sorry about your mom,” she said. “I came as soon as I heard.”

  Dannie stood, a little reluctantly, Trisha thought. She reached out to give Trisha one of her big, warm, enveloping hugs.

  Trisha stepped back, out of reach. She hadn’t meant to, but it was a reflexive reaction, to pull away, to not allow herself to be touched if she could help it. And then there were her bruised ribs to consider.

  Dannie dropped her arms, folded them, covered the rolls on her belly, her eyes cast down. “It’s been a long time,” she said. “Too long for old friends.”

  “Yes.” Trisha wanted nothing more than to collapse in Dannie’s embrace, to cry, to not let go. Hold me, she longed to say. For old times’ sake. But she was here to offer her condolences, not break down.

  “Hey, Danielle.” A man stepped into the kitchen. He was short, thin, with dark hair that was graying at his temples.

  Dannie went to him. “Where are the girls?” she asked.

  “They left with my parents a little while ago.”

  So Dannie had kids. Wasn’t that nice.

  “I’m sorry; where are my manners? Vinnie, I’d like you to meet Trisha, an old friend from high school. And you remember Carlyn.”

  “Sure,” he said of Carlyn. “Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand to Trisha.

  She offered hers, limply, a dead fish, and quickly pulled it away.

  “It’s nice of you to come. I know Danielle really appreciates it.” He wrapped his arm around Dannie. She rested her head on his shoulder. The stress of the day was on her face, in her eyes.

  “You ready to go?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Dannie said. “I’ll come back tomorrow to clean up. I just don’t have the energy to do it tonight.”

  “We’re right behind you,” Carlyn said, finally acknowledging Trisha, giving her a look that asked her to stay behind.

  “Good to see you,” Dannie said to Trisha and then looked to Carlyn. “Lock up for me,” she said before leaving.

  Once they were alone, Carlyn handed Trisha the newspaper that had been sitting on the table. “Dannie’s mom was found holding this when she had the heart attack.”

  Trisha read the headline: Human Bones Discovered near Appalachian Trail. “I see,” she said and put the paper down. If Carlyn was expecting a reaction from her, she wasn’t going to get one. Trisha had become a master at hiding her feelings, wiping any emotion off her face. “I gather you and Dannie keep in touch?”

  “We see each other on occasion.”

  Trisha nodded, hurt by those two little words, on occasion. They’d never reached out to her, come looking for her, kept in touch with her. She felt cheated.

  Carlyn stared at her, and Trisha could feel her disapproval, her disappointment, as though they were still teenagers and no time had passed at all. “Do you have something you want to say to me?” she asked.

  “Why are you here?”

  “You haven’t seen me in years, and that’s the first thing you want to know?”

  “Look, it’s not that I’m not happy to see you,” Carlyn said. “It’s not that at all.”

  “Like hell it isn’t,” Trisha said.

  “Then what are you really doing here, Trisha?”

  “I’m here to make sure you two keep your mouths shut.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  JULY 1979

  Trisha was ten years old when her family moved to Bangor, a small town in rural Pennsylvania.

  They rented a truck; packed the few pieces of furniture, dishes, and odds and ends into boxes; and drove from Illinois straight to the small semiattached house on Second Street. They pulled the clunky truck into the parking space in front of their side of the home and unpacked. In an hour boxes and garbage bags full of clothes littered the curb.

  Trisha’s mother was convinced the move was a good thing: a fresh start for both mother and daughter.

  Now her mother sat on the worn plaid couch in the patch of yard smoking a cigarette, the red polish on her fingernails cracked and chipped. Sometimes Trisha thought of her mother as a woman down on her luck, trying to find her place in the world. Not today. Today was one of those days she believed her mother was nothing more than white trash. Compounding this low-life image, Trisha’s stepfather, Lester, downed a beer, belched, and tossed the can into the back of the truck.

  Trisha turned away, stared at the dirt under her toenails. She knew what her family looked like to the outside world. She knew what she looked like—poor white trash sitting on the stoop outside a row home in another stinking small town. No one had ever said this to her; it was something she understood, having seen a glimpse of a better life, or at least a richer one.

  She’d been on a school trip back home to the Art Institute of Chicago. A black limousine had been parked alongside the curb, and four young girls, maybe in their twenties, had slipped out of the doors with their long legs, platform shoes, maxi dresses. They’d clutched little handbags, giggling, tossing salon-styled hair over their shoulders.

  Trisha had watched them walk into a fancy restaurant, the taste of envy on her tongue. Staring out the dirty window of the school bus, she’d made a promise to herself that one day she would buy designer clothes and ride in limousines. One day she would escape her shitty, white-trash life.

  She picked at the threads fraying on her jean shorts, taking a break from carrying books, eight-tracks, and posters into her new bedroom. She’d already hung her favorite poster of Tom Petty on the dingy white wall. A mattress lay on the floor in the corner covered in yellowing sheets and a purple comforter. She always slept on the floor. They’d never had enough money to buy her a bed frame.

  One day, she thought as she ripped a string from the fray, somehow, someway, she’d get herself some money and buy herself the biggest, fanci
est bed she could find.

  She looked up and down Second Street. All the homes, or half homes slashed down the center to make two, were carbon copies of white siding, slate roofs, cement porches. Dust hung in the air, kicked up from the slate mines and settled at the bottom of Bangor’s hill. The gray film coated the windows of the houses and cars, dulling any color that may have otherwise brightened the small town. She licked her teeth and felt the grit in her mouth.

  Still, it was a nice-looking street: much nicer than the one she’d lived on in her old home.

  Sensing Lester’s eyes on her, she quickly covered her bare legs with her arms, making herself as small as possible. She kept her head down and pretended to be engrossed in watching an ant move the body of a dead worm. It wasn’t until the weight of Lester’s stare lifted that she raised her head again.

  He’d turned his attention to the beer in his hand, poured it down his throat. He’d polished off a six-pack. It wasn’t even noon.

  Three houses down, two girls played hopscotch while holding on to beach towels wrapped around their heads, the long material cascading down their backs.

  Across the street, a woman waved at Trisha’s mother. “Hello,” she said, making her way over. She was dumpy, shuffling on her feet. Her face was bright and cheery. She shook Trisha’s mother’s hand. “I’m Evelyn. Welcome to Second Street.” They exchanged a few pleasantries. “Is this your daughter?” she asked and walked toward Trisha, welcoming her with the same huge smile on her big moon face. She pointed to the two girls playing hopscotch. “That’s my daughter, Danielle, and her friend Carlyn. Why don’t you go say hi?”

  Lester stepped onto the porch, a fresh beer in his hand. His fingers brushed Trisha’s shoulder as he reached out to shake Evelyn’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  “You too,” Evelyn said. “I saw the Illinois tags. What brings you all this way?” she asked, making friendly conversation.

  “New job at a carpet store.”

  “Are you a salesman?” she asked.