In the ladies room, Frankie checked her face in the mirror and ran her hand through her hair. Her first face-to-face with Director Davis and she’d come off like a nincompoop. One thing she knew. First impressions last. And this hadn’t been just Davis. The Chief and Billy were there, trying to let her off the hook, but she’d been the one who made the rookie mistake of allowing that bitch reporter to trick her into breaching the case.
Shake it off, she told herself. This wasn’t her first time to hit rough waters. Take a hard look at every suspect, even the ones Billy hadn’t wanted to acknowledge like Clive Atwood. Do the job. Close the case. Success trumps mistakes.
She went to her desk and opened Judd’s file on Atwood that included a psychological workup by a prison psychiatrist. In the doctor’s opinion—while Atwood tested out with a genius IQ and appeared to understand normal moral standards—he was incapable of adhering to them: “Extreme abuse during Atwood’s childhood has created a sense of rage that can be triggered by feelings of exclusion or rejection.” What bothered her most was the psychiatrist’s underscoring of the word “rejection.” Had Caroline rejected Atwood and he killed her for it?
On the last page he’d added a notation: “Incapable of separating reality from his own mental projection of a situation. Lack of emotional control suggests primary weakness in personality structure. Pathological behavioral disorders indicated. Recommend against release into general population.”
God knows how Walker had gotten his hands on the report, but she was grateful he did. So far only Judd’s suspicions had connected Atwood to the Lee case. This report supported his contention that Atwood was capable of homicidal rage. She hadn’t decided whether to accompany Judd to the rice fields. This report tipped the scales in his direction.
At noon she pulled up to Judd’s house and saw he was raking leaves out of the front flower beds. He gave her a quick wave, stowed the rake on the porch, and came down the walk with his chest puffed out and stomach sucked in. She smiled at his touch of male vanity. She’d seen Billy do the same thing.
They took I-40 across the new bridge into Arkansas bypassing the town of West Memphis. Never-ending construction on the interstate meant battling the semis and the concrete barriers that had narrowed the highway to two tight lanes. They turned onto State Highway 147 and headed south through fields of soil the color of wet coffee grounds. Judd asked a few polite questions, but they mostly watched as the farmland swept past.
Frankie hoped to bring fresh eyes to a case that other professionals had shelved. Judd had spent thousands of dollars on the investigation trying to bring peace to Finn’s mother. She’d also picked up that Judd had his own issues to resolve about his cousin’s disappearance. Possibly this trip would help.
Forty-five minutes later he directed her to turn onto an elevated levee road that ran between the rice fields. The fields were like giant rectangular swimming pools scooped out of the earth and filled with water to irrigate the rice crops. After driving several minutes, the levee road terminated in a spoon-shaped parcel of land broad enough to allow the rolling stock that harvested the rice to turn around. Five corrugated storage sheds lined one side of the circular driveway. Frankie parked in front of the sheds. A tangle of bushes and scrub trees about thirty feet away blocked their view of the fields.
“This way,” Judd said, getting out of the car. A dirt path through the patch of trees opened to a clearing. In the center stood the memorial marker for Finn. A handful of orange lilies hung limp over the lip of the zinc vase attached to the marker’s base.
“The hunters found Finn’s clothes over there to your left,” he said. “Beyond those bushes are the rice fields.”
Frankie walked through the bushes to where packed earth sloped down to the water’s edge. A flock of green-headed mallards dabbled in the shallows for waste grain. The sparkling wetland stretched in front of her. The ducks suddenly burst from the water and flew overhead. Hard to imagine this peaceful place as a murder scene. She went back to where Judd was waiting.
“Gracie Ella drives over a couple of times a week with fresh flowers,” he said. “I came with her one time. She brings a chair and spends a good part of the day chatting with Finn. The strange part is when she stops talking and listens to him respond.”
“How about if we start with the day Finn disappeared,” Frankie said. She took out her memo book.
He nodded. “It was a Friday in November. There’d been too much rain. The Mississippi threatened to crest ten feet above flood stage with more rain on the way. Crazy weather. Finn had no reason to be out here.”
He pointed across the water. “Hunters came in from that direction and spotted Finn’s clothes. They didn’t think much of it until they found his Camaro parked in front of the sheds with the keys in the ignition. They couldn’t find anyone around, so they called the Sherriff’s Office.
“First theory was he’d stripped down and was wandering around in the cold. Or he could’ve accidently drowned. Deputies searched for two hours then the Sherriff brought in tracking dogs. You can see there’s a lot of acreage to cover, plus there’s the ditches and riverbanks, which aren’t too far from here. The water in the fields is about three feet deep. A person could drown if he hit his head or was wacked-out on drugs. Suicide was a consideration, but they didn’t find a note.
“The Sherriff contacted Aunt Gracie Ella. I joined the search. They brought in boats and dragged the fields and tried to search the riverbanks, but the current was too fast. It started to rain. Poured for three days. I stopped at a convenience store for sandwiches and coffee. This crazy-looking woman in line got in my face and whispered, ‘The devil sent the rain.’ Then she crossed herself. It was creepy.
“Atwood flew in from Miami. He started shooting his mouth off about Finn being involved with the Silver Elves.”
Frankie glanced up then wrote the word “elves,” but decided she’d leave that part out when she talked to Billy.
“I know it sounds weird. It’s a cult. These two sisters wrote several books on Elven philosophy. One book described a rebirthing ceremony where you’re supposed to strip naked and immerse yourself in a river. Atwood told the investigators Finn had the book in his room. They decided he either walked through the rice fields to the river for the ceremony and accidently drowned, or he’d committed suicide.”
She stopped writing. “Where was Caroline during all this?”
“Second year Vanderbilt Law in Nashville. She came home every weekend to be with Aunt Gracie Ella. After a while she stopped coming.”
“You said Atwood and Caroline became secretly engaged before Finn disappeared.”
“That son of a bitch took control. I believe that in a less stressful time Caroline would’ve seen through his act.” He sighed. “Maybe not. Finn was no fool, and he was taken in.
“Aunt Gracie Ella spent the next year walking the fields and riverbanks looking for him. Then she started calling the Sherriff’s Office saying Rosalyn had hired someone to get rid of her son.”
“What happened with that?”
“Nothing. The cops saw Aunt Gracie Ella as another parent driven crazy by grief. I was living in Las Vegas by then and making it to the final tables at no-limit hold ’em tournaments. When I heard she’d been hospitalized, I came home. I’d met Johnnie Walker when he ran security for the Memphis tournaments. You know Walker?”
“By reputation,” she said. “I heard when Walker gets involved in a case he makes the other side look stupid.”
Judd stifled a laugh. “You got that right. It’s tough to pick up a year-old case, but Walker agreed to give it a shot. Right away he spotted the inconsistencies. The condition of Finn’s clothes was the most obvious. His shoes and socks were clean and dry, but his pants had been dipped halfway up the legs in muddy water. That made no sense. The Sherriff’s report didn’t mention meth activity in the area, and there was no evidence Finn had ever been suicidal. Walker wanted to interrogate Atwood. He tracked him to Avenal State Prison in California, but Atwood had already been released.”
Judd pulled a photo from his jacket pocket. It was of him and Finn on a tennis court holding a trophy between them, squinting in the sun with happy grins. They were young. Could’ve been brothers.
“This was before Atwood got his hooks in Finn. It’s how I remember him, strong and confident, a great life ahead.”
She wondered if Judd realized the changes in himself since the photograph had been taken. He’d put on thirty pounds and the sparkle in his eye was gone. Not gone. Finn’s disappearance had stolen it. She handed back the photo.
“Anything else I should know?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said softly. “I could’ve stopped it.”
A vibration ran through her. This was how confessions start. “What do you mean?”
He pocketed the photo and stared at his shoes, breathing hard through his nostrils. “The day Finn disappeared he called and asked if I would ride with him over to Arkansas. He wouldn’t say why, but he was pretty insistent. I’d been invited to sit in on a high-stakes game. A producer from Nighttime Poker was supposed to be there. I’d built a reputation at regional tournaments. It would’ve been a chance for some good exposure. I told Finn I couldn’t go with him.” Judd swiped at his cheek. “If I’d been with him, maybe I could’ve done something.”
“You’ve kept this to yourself?”
He nodded. “I was ashamed to tell Aunt Gracie Ella.” His jaw worked. His heart had to be twisting like meat rolling out of a grinder.
She’d been in his shoes. A man died in a car accident, someone she believed she’d loved. She’d felt responsible. A doctor prescribed pills for her anxiety. The pills took over her life. She’d recovered from the dependency but her guilt over the accident and the shame about the drugs had stayed with her.
No one knows what it’s like until they’ve been through it.
“I drink a lot. That’s how I live with myself,” he said. “It’s not going to change until I find out what happened to Finn.”
“In Key West where I was a patrol cop, people would party all night then drive this remote two-lane highway. I don’t know how many accidents I came upon where I had to hold the victim’s hand and talk to them while they bled out waiting for the ambulance. I couldn’t save them. My job was to investigate the accident then clear the roadway. I learned to move on.”
“But you didn’t cause the accidents.”
“You didn’t cause your cousin’s death. If you’d gone with him, you’d be dead, too.”
They drove to Judd’s house. Before he got out of the car, he surprised her with an awkward hug. His cheek against hers was clean-shaven. He smelled of soap, not alcohol. He leaned back and smiled. She’d never seen him smile on TV even when he’d taken down a mountain of chips on a big bet. On his front steps, he turned and waved goodbye.
She hadn’t been able to shake the guilt about the accident she felt she’d caused. Nothing she could do would make it right. But if Judd found out what happened to Finn, maybe he could beat his guilt. She’d do what she could to make that happen.