IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO TURN AROUND WITH ALL the vehicles parked next to the field, so I drove past the burned-out farmhouse to where the road widened. A barn nestled against the hillside, its wood siding weathered to a deep umber.
“That’s the barn you painted, isn’t it?” Beth asked.
“Yeah.” The wind had blown a few more cedar shakes off the roof, and old hay formed a brown rug in front of the door. “Did you know Wes said he was at my show? I bet he was trying to steal compositions. He’s never had an original idea.”
My friend looked at me strangely. “Did you know that your expression changed just now? You didn’t even look like yourself.”
I tried to laugh it off. “So what did I look like?”
Beth was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. Not very attractive.”
I gripped the steering wheel harder. “I earned the right to be angry. Wes stole my job.” I explained about the gloves and my theory on Wes’s involvement.
“But that’s criminal. He should be arrested,” Beth said.
“No proof. Yet. But I told Dave. And I think Dave agrees with me.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Me? Nothing. I leave heads-on-a-platter to Dave. I just need to get him my analysis. More importantly, I need to help identify this killer before he can murder someone else.”
I turned the car around. As we drove past, neither of us looked toward the body in the field.
“I’m not sure when Robert’s arriving tomorrow,” I said.
“Don’t worry. How about I keep your offspring overnight after the movie? That will give you plenty of time with your husband.” She gave me a sideways glance.
“Ex-husband. Forget it, Beth. There’s no way I’m getting back together with Robert.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of forgiveness.”
“Ha! That’s a laugh. There’s no way I’ll ever forgive Robert. Not after all he’s done to me.”
“Forgiveness isn’t for Robert’s sake,” Beth said quietly. “It’s for yours.”
The hot flash left me breathless for a moment. “That’s easy for you to say, Beth. You’ve never been betrayed by your best friend. You’ve never sat in your living room, unable to get out of the chair, seeing your life in tatters. We were supposed to grow old together. I poured out my life to him . . . told him everything . . . my whole past.” I made an effort to relax my death grip on the steering wheel. “I didn’t mean to say all that. Sorry.”
Neither of us spoke for a while. Finally Beth turned to me. “I’m sorry too. Maybe someday you’ll share your past with me.”
“Someday. When I know it’s safe.”
She looked at me strangely.
“Forget I said that. So, do you mind a quick detour?”
“Where to?”
“Two of the locations I painted for the show have turned up bodies. Why don’t we take a quick peek at the remaining three?”
The first location was an old farmhouse and pole barn next to the county road. “I doubt our killer would want to be so close to traffic. He’d want privacy.” We parked the car anyway, stepped over a chain barrier, and checked out both structures. A number of cars and trucks passed by, and all slowed to see what we were doing.
Finding nothing but dust, sagging timbers, and knee-high weeds, we moved on to the second site, a rustic log cabin in the woods.
The cabin was gone. In its place stood a brand-new home with labels still on all the windows and a roughed-in deck. The ground was churned-up mud from the bulldozer leveling the earth.
“I suspect if any bodies were around here, they would have shown up by now,” Beth said.
“Um. Two down, one to go.”
The final place looked promising. The road showed evidence of recent use, and the green metal gate was open. We pulled off the county road to the driveway that should have led to a tumbled-down structure next to a small stream.
The structure was still there, but a skid trail to the left ended with a landing of logs waiting to be transported to the mill.
“This won’t work either,” I said. “Loggers have been working here every day. Way too much traffic for a killer. So that leaves just the McCandless place and maybe the burned-out house as murder sites. I want to let that simmer in my brain for a bit.”
“Let me know what you cook up. Cook up. Get it?” Beth grinned.
I rolled my eyes at her and headed home. As we entered the kitchen, a freshly showered Aynslee was sitting at the table, surrounded by crumpled paper from a notepad, her homeschool books, and her laptop. “Some guy called while you were away.”
Beth and I looked at each other. “Did he leave a message?” I asked.
“No. Just said he wanted to talk to you. I finished my math.”
I pulled up a chair next to her and caught a whiff of lilac perfume. The vision of the slaughtered calf lying next to the lilac bushes tainted the moment.
Beth, heading for the coffee pot, must have made the same connection. Her face paled. “Would you—”
“Yes. Aynslee, sweetheart, would you try to wash off the perfume you just put on?”
“I thought you liked it.”
“Usually, but right now it reminds me of the case we just went out on,” I said.
She shrugged and left the room.
“I read that odors trigger the strongest episodic memory,” Beth said.
“Yes. I usually ask about scent in the course of a composite interview.”
Aynslee returned, now smelling of soap, and sat down. “You said you’d look up the stuff on that priest case.” She nodded at the subpoena.
Pulling the subpoena down, I moved to the counter and dialed the listed number.
“Prosecutor’s office, how may I direct your call?”
“Hi. This is Gwen Marcey. I have a subpoena on a Jerome William Daly, case number—”
“Oh yeah. I know that one.”
“Could you fill me in?” I pulled a small sketchbook and black Sharpie from the junk drawer at the end of the counter.
“You’re the forensic artist, right?”
“Yes.” I doodled a woman’s face.
“It’s a bombing and armed robbery in June, five years ago. You drew three of the suspects.”
“My daughter kept calling it a priest case, but I remember the one you’re referring to. I thought you caught someone pretty quickly, though.” I added a blindfold to the sketch.
“Sort of. We caught Jerome Daly pretty quickly. Two others got in a shootout in Kellogg, then crashed while trying to escape. Double fatality. Some people believe there may have been a fourth, but we’ve never been able to confirm it.”
“Why so long—”
“This has been a real roller coaster to bring to trial. The prosecutor quit and moved away. We had to have a continuance, then the lead investigator’s son was murdered by a serial killer. Continuance. Then he committed suicide. Yet another continuance.”
“Good grief. Has Jerome been in jail all this time?”
“No. He’s been out on bail.”
“Really?”
“He’s not much of a threat,” the clerk said. “Has all kinds of medical problems. Can’t even get out of bed. Anyway, we’ve scheduled the trial for the first week of June. Are you available?”
“Sure. Can I arrange to talk with the prosecutor or will there be a deposition?”
“I’ll get back to you on that.”
I gave her my phone number and hung up, then looked at my daughter. “It sounds like this could be interesting, so let me pull the file.”
The three of us trooped into Robert’s office where I opened the closet door. White storage boxes were stacked shoulder high.
“This is your filing system?” Beth asked.
“It works. One box per year.” The box I needed was on the bottom. We rearranged everything, and I placed the container on the desk. My filing system was simple: first the year, then month, then numeric order. According to the clerk, I was looking for June of that year. I quickly found the thick, manila envelope and handed it to Aynslee, then returned the box to the closet. “Let me know if you have any questions.”
Beth and I traipsed back to the studio. “I don’t think we need these.” I randomly opened the top book from Beth’s library collection on profiling. “Active signature behaviors are methodical actions, such as repeated victim choices or specific injuries that represent a strong message meant to be understood by others.”
I slammed the book shut. “Injuries. Why didn’t I see that before?” Sitting at my computer, I soon found the selection of photographs I needed.
“What did you just think of?” Beth asked.
“I was so obsessed with Mattie’s appearance that I overlooked the injuries to her hands. These are the photos of the bodies in the grave.”
Beth leaned over my shoulder. “Ugh.”
“I could see the hands of one of the bodies. It’s . . . yeah, here.” After enlarging the image, I examined it carefully. “Nothing.” I leaned back in my chair. “It would have been helpful to have another signature.”
“One that didn’t involve a resemblance to your daughter.”
I gave Beth a wry smile. “Yeah.”
“What’s that?” Beth pointed to a corner of the screen at something gray-white.
I enlarged the detail. It was rounded and partially hidden by a fold of moldering fabric. “A watch maybe?”
“Rotate it.”
I gently manipulated the shape. “It’s a compass.” I printed out the image.
“What does it mean?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll put it with the rest of the materials, then I think I’ll get the drawing done of the girl in the cow pasture. I should have time to finish it today.”
“Time!” Beth checked her watch. “Oh, I have to run. Date night with Norm. I’ll call.” She raced to the kitchen. After grabbing up her coat, emptied food containers, and lavender case, she gave me a quick hug and trotted to her SUV.
I locked the door after her, trying not to think about date nights, ex-husbands, and dead redheaded girls.
Shadows filled the house as a late-afternoon storm moved in. I turned lights on in the living room as I passed through on my way to the studio. If this storm knocks out the power . . . Before booting up my computer, I grabbed candles from under the studio sink and checked for another infestation of ants. Or worst yet, spiders. The temporary plywood bottom on the cabinet still reeked of insecticide from spraying it earlier. Good. I jotted caulk on a lime-green Post-it Note and stuck it to the wall above the sink.
After downloading the dead girl’s photo onto my computer, I selected the best angle and printed out an eight-by-ten with her face scaled to a six-by-four-inch format. On a hunch I printed the photo of the ripped part of my map found in her hand. I placed the photo of her face on a light box, taped it down, and laid a clean sheet of Bristol board over the top. When I clicked on the light, I could clearly see the girl’s torn and battered image.
I carefully traced as much of the undamaged image as possible, adjusting to account for her injuries and decomposition. I could see her eyes were not deep set or bulging. The shape of the eyelids would need to remain average and her eyes were closed. The tip of her nose was pointed and the width somewhat narrow. I guessed at the shape of her lips but could place them accurately using her teeth.
Two hours later I’d finished her drawing. I taped it to the window next to the photo of Aynslee and the sketch of Mattie.
A tremor raced up my spine. The three images could have been sisters.
“Mom?” Aynslee called from down the hall.
Hastily I pulled the drawings and photo down. “Yes?”
“What’s for dinner?”
I glanced outside. The inky darkness reflected back my own image. A gust of wind sprayed raindrops against the window. I hoped Dre finished mopping up any evidence at the cow pasture.
Turning the drawings facedown on my drafting table, I flipped off the studio lights and strolled to the kitchen.
Aynslee was inspecting the contents of the refrigerator. “Bread. Eggs. Jelly. Mountain Dew.”
“No milk?”
“Nope. Guess that rules out tuna noodle casserole.” She walked into the pantry and opened the chest freezer. “Pizza or chicken pot pie?”
“Chicken pot pie. You start the oven.” I sat on the floor and opened the cupboard. “Canned green beans, corn, peas, or . . . quartered artichoke hearts?”
“Huh?”
“I think this was from when Beth was trying to teach me to cook. How about corn?”
“Yeah.”
I stood and found a saucepan. “How goes the research paper?”
“Good. It wasn’t a priest case like I told you.”
“I thought not.”
“I mean, that was only part of the name. It was the Phineas Priesthood.”