I spent the next morning with Carrie. We did our morning ablutions and had our morning meal, and then we took a walk across the fields with Pearl, to give the dog some exercise. The Columbia Highway, which runs past the mansion, isn’t really conducive to pushing a baby carriage—too much traffic—so loading the baby up in a carrier and walking across the fields made more sense. I got some exercise, too, which was probably good for me. The experience of hiking through the woods with Rafe yesterday had been more draining than it would have been before I got pregnant, so I should probably do something to try to get back into shape.
After we got back, Carrie got tummy time while I packed sandwiches for the lunch run. Since this was a planned event instead of an impromptu attempt to inveigle myself into Rafe’s investigation, I made my own sandwiches today instead of buying them. There was plenty of food in the fridge, so I put roast beef and turkey and ruffled lettuce and cheese on whole wheat bread, enough for four, and loaded it all up into a picnic basket I fished out of the pantry. The mansion is roughly a hundred and eighty years old, so you can find practically anything you could possibly need here. The attic is chock full of treasures—if you consider former generations’ castoffs treasures, and I do—and one day I intend to go up there and look through it all, with a more discerning eye than I had when I was a kid.
But that wouldn’t be today. Today I dug the picnic basket—I think it dated from the 1950s, judging from the gingham fabric on the inside—out of the pantry, and put sandwiches in it. And added some pasta salad, and some chips, and a few water bottles plus a thermos of coffee. And a little before noon, I loaded the basket and Carrie into the Volvo, gave Pearl a biscuit and told her to be good, and headed for the Devil’s Backbone.
This was my first time getting a look at Darrell’s place. Back in October, I’d gone with Rafe to Robbie’s trailer a few times, and we’d ended up in the back forty once, and were lucky to have escaped. At that time, we’d driven past Darrell’s driveway, so I knew where to find it, but it was my first time to turn in and follow it.
It turned out to be a carbon copy of Robbie’s driveway. Long, narrow, winding, surrounded by trees, and decorated with No Trespassing signs sporting images of automatic weapons.
Like Robbie’s driveway, it opened up into a clearing with a trailer.
Unlike Robbie’s old Airstream, this one was a seventies model travel trailer, white with orange stripes along the side. And it was smaller, the kind of thing you take for a camping trip. It was clear that neither brother had worried much about how he lived.
Rafe’s car, the tan Chevy, was parked next to the trailer. So was a patrol car with the Columbia PD logo on the side. I parked beside it, and got out. “Hello?”
There was no answer. Both the cars were empty, so that meant they were probably already inside the trailer.
I went over to it and knocked on the door. “Lunch delivery.”
But nothing happened. “Rafe?” I reached for the door handle, and then thought better of it. If he’d been in there, he would have heard me knock. If he didn’t answer, he probably wasn’t here yet. He and Nolan and Lupe Vasquez must have walked from here through the woods to the crime scene—or search area—and they weren’t back yet.
It was cold, so I went back to the Volvo and got in before I fished my phone out of my purse and sent him a text. I’m here. I have sandwiches. Where are you?
The message came back a minute later. On our way back. Stay there.
No problem. I was not stupid enough to grab the baby and try to make my own way through the woods without any clue where I was going. They’d get here when they got here, and until then, I was happy to wait.
They must have been close by, because it was less than ten minutes before first Patrick Nolan, and then Lupe Vasquez, and finally Rafe, made their way out of the trees behind the trailer. I got out of the car and went to greet them.
Nolan, tall and lanky, gave me a polite nod. He’s courting my sister Darcy, so I guess he figures he has to be nice to me. Or maybe he genuinely likes me. Who knows?
His partner Lupe Vasquez is his direct opposite. Short where he’s tall, compact where he’s lanky, and female where he’s male, she’s about ten years younger than he is, a few years younger than me, and quite nice. She gave me a friendly smile. “Hi, Mrs. Collier.”
“Nice to see you again,” I told her, and included Nolan with a glance, before I looked past them both to Rafe. “Find anything?”
He shrugged. “A few small bones. Might just as easily be raccoon or squirrel as Katie’s, but we picked’em up. No guns, knives, bullets, anything like that.”
“No clothes,” Lupe Vasquez added.
I glanced at her, and she added, “It’s only been sixteen years. Some of her clothes should have survived, even out here.”
That was true. I mentioned the attic earlier. There were pieces of clothing up there from a hundred years ago, still in good shape.
Of course, those pieces of clothing had been somewhat protected by being inside, dry and mostly temperate, for a century. Anything that had been out here in the hills for sixteen years wouldn’t be in good shape anymore, but it should still be here. Hundred percent cotton might break down in a decade and a half, if exposed to the elements—or maybe not; I don’t really know—but chances were good that Katie had been wearing something that wasn’t a hundred percent cotton. Plastic buttons on her shirt, if nothing else. A zipper. Some form of shoes with rubber soles.
And she’d disappeared on her way to school. Where was her book bag?
“Were there no clothes found with the bones?” I asked Rafe.
“Nobody told me about any clothes.”
“So she was naked when she was killed? Or was dumped?”
He shrugged.
“Do you know what she was wearing when she disappeared?”
“I looked it up. Jeans, sneakers, striped shirt, blue jacket with a hood.”
Some of that would have survived for sure. If the bones had lain here undisturbed, the clothing and shoes would have, too.
If they’d been here in the first place.
“I brought sandwiches,” I told Nolan and Vasquez, while Rafe headed for the Chevy to put whatever little bones he had in his pocket somewhere better. “And coffee.”
“I’ll take that.” Lupe Vasquez was wearing a heavy lined parka over her uniform, but she still looked cold. The tip of her nose was pink.
I glanced at the trailer. “Rafe will probably say no if I suggest going inside to eat.” And neither of the cars was big enough for all of us. Unless I kept Carrie on my lap, which I supposed would be OK. “How about we all pile into the Chevy and have some food? I’d offer up the Volvo, but the car seat takes up half the back seat.” And their patrol car would have a window or screen between the back and front seats, I assumed—I’ve been in a patrol car a time or two—and that would just be weird.
They nodded. I grabbed the picnic basket from the Volvo and handed it over. Nolan stepped up to grab it. And then the two of them headed for the Chevy while I walked around to the other side of my car to get the baby out of her carrier.
Vasquez and Nolan took the back seat, with the basket between them. Rafe slid behind the wheel, and I took the passenger seat. Vasquez passed out sandwiches and Nolan poured coffee and handed out water bottles. And we munched in contented silence until everyone was warmed up and the food was mostly gone.
“So now what?” I asked.
“Now we search the trailer,” Rafe answered.
“Looking for what?” Vasquez wanted to know, and he glanced at her in the mirror.
“Katie’s clothes, for one thing. Anything that don’t look like it belongs to Darrell Skinner.”
We sat in silence a moment, all of us looking at the trailer.
“It’s going to be tight in there,” I said.
He nodded. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into going home?”
I should have seen that coming. “I will if you ask nicely. Although I was hoping you’d let me stay and help with the search.”
“There ain’t gonna be enough room for a baby and four adults in there, darlin’.”
No, there wasn’t. It would be tight enough with just the three of them.
“I’ll stay out here with Savannah for a bit,” Lupe Vasquez offered, “if you two want to get started.”
Nolan gave her a look. Rafe gave me one. Then they both nodded.
“Sure,” Nolan said. Rafe didn’t say anything, but his look was eloquent. The two of them exited the Chevy and walked side by side toward the trailer. Rafe grabbed the handle, and the door must have been unlocked, because he was able to just pull it open. He nodded Nolan inside, and followed a second later himself. The door closed behind them.
I turned to Lupe Vasquez, who had finished packing up the remains of lunch and was now in the process of moving from the back seat to behind the wheel so we wouldn’t have to talk from front seat to back seat and back. And I was just about to say something when the door to the trailer opened again. Rafe hopped down the couple of steps to the ground, put his hands on his hips, and scowled at us.
Or, I suppose, at me.
I rolled down the window. “What?”
“Did you go inside while you were waiting?”
“No,” I said. I’d thought about it. But I hadn’t actually done it.
“What’s wrong?” Lupe Vasquez wanted to know. She was still standing outside the car, in the process of moving from the back to the front.
Rafe scowled at her, too. It must be a general sort of scowl, and not directed at anyone in particular, since he couldn’t possibly suspect her of having gone inside the trailer without letting him know. “See for yourself.”
She closed the door and moved toward the trailer. I decided that the invitation included me, as well, and got out of the Chevy with Carrie in my arms. “What’s going on?”
“Better if you just see for yourself,” Rafe told me, in a voice that was deeply disgusted. Meanwhile, Lupe Vasquez jumped up and disappeared inside the trailer.
I arched my brows, but walked past him and stuck my head through the door. And looked around. “Oh.”
Rafe nodded. “Yeah.”
“I don’t suppose this was how the sheriff’s office, or the ATF people, left it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t imagine so.”
“And he wasn’t just a messy housekeeper?”
“I imagine he was,” Rafe said, “but this is more than messy housekeeping. This looks like somebody blew through and turned the whole place upside down looking for something.”
It did. It looked exactly like that. All the cabinets and drawers stood open. The seats were off the banquette in the kitchen, exposing the storage areas below the seats. They were open, too. The floor was a mess of cups and plates, clothes and shoes, dirty magazines and shampoo bottles. Patrick Nolan and Lupe Vasquez were picking their way across the floor, carefully.
“For your information,” I told Rafe, “I texted you as soon as I realized you weren’t here. I wouldn’t have had time to do this between the time I arrived, and the time you came back.”
“I didn’t think you did, darlin’.” Although he was still scowling.
“This probably could have happened anytime between October,” when Darrell died, “and now.” The trailer had been sitting here empty, and everyone in the county knew that Darrell was dead and the place was unoccupied. There are always going to be people looking to see how they can benefit from a tragedy.
Rafe nodded. “And I don’t know that it didn’t. But the timing’s suspicious.”
“With it just getting out,” in the past few days, “that Katie’s remains have been found up here, you mean? Who would have thought to search Darrell’s trailer, though? And for what? I mean, if Darrell killed her, and Darrell’s dead, what would be the point?”
“Same point we’re making,” Rafe said. “Looking to see if Darrell did it.”
“Yes, but you’re the police. It’s your job to figure out what happened to Katie. Who else would care, at this point, whether Darrell did it or not? I mean… I’m sure the Millers want to know what happened. Hell—heck—I want to know what happened! Most people in Columbia probably feel the same way. But I don’t see why anybody would think to turn Darrell’s trailer upside down to find out.”
Certainly not the Millers. Katie’s mother had given me the impression of someone who was on the ragged edge of a nervous breakdown. She would have spent last night clutching wet tissues and sipping brandy.
Rafe shrugged. “Somebody did it. Whether it has to do with Katie or not. And if whoever it was found what he was looking for…”
I stated the obvious. “It won’t be here anymore.”
“We’re still gonna have to search.” Rafe said, with a scowl at the trailer. “This just makes it harder. I’ll try to make it home for dinner, but if I don’t, don’t wait for me.”
“How about you just let me know?” I said, since I could see that he had a terrible job in front of him. “Audrey had suggested that maybe we could come over to their house tonight, so I guess I should tell her that it doesn’t look likely.”
He nodded. “Maybe in a couple days. Saturday might work.”
Because even if he hadn’t figured out what was going on by then, he probably wouldn’t be working on Saturday night. Not on a cold case where there was no danger of anyone else getting hurt.
“I’ll tell her,” I said. “Good luck with it.”
He nodded. “Thanks for lunch, darlin’.” He leaned in and brushed a kiss across my mouth, and dropped another on Carrie’s head. And then he went back inside the trailer, and I made my way to the Volvo, and went back the way I’d come, with my snooping instincts unsatisfied.
Back in Sweetwater, Audrey was sad not to see us for dinner, but happy that we’d committed to Saturday. “Would Coq au Vin be all right?” she asked, sounding a little worried. Maybe because it was the first time she’d have us over for dinner, and she wanted to make a good impression.
“Of course.” I’ve known her my whole life. Even if the food was bad, it wouldn’t change how I felt about her. And I’m sure Audrey’s Coq au Vin would be far superior to anything Rafe would get at home. I mean, I can cook, but I don’t often attempt anything ambitious. Or anything French. “Would you like me to bring something? Wine?”
“I’ll handle the wine,” Audrey said, “but if you’d like to bring something for dessert, feel free.”
We settled on a time, and then a customer wandered in and I wandered out, and glanced at the door to the law office. Since I was here, I might as well stop in and say hi.
Darcy was at the front desk, as usual, and as usual, she got out of her chair to come over and coo at the baby. I’d informed her recently that she should think about having one of her own, so I refrained from doing it again, just told her, “I saw Nolan just now.”
“Oh?” She flushed. I guess she must really like him, if just the mention of his name was enough to make her blush.
“Up on the Devil’s Backbone, by Darrell Skinner’s trailer. They were about to go through it when I left.”
Darcy moved back around the desk. “He was one of the people who was shot this fall, right?”
I nodded. “The youngest of the Skinner brothers. I guess he’d have been around your age. Not that that matters, since you didn’t grow up here.”
Like Rafe’s son David, Darcy had grown up with adoptive parents, and had only made it to Sweetwater a few years ago. Unless she’d run across Darrell since she got here, she wouldn’t have known who he was. And I didn’t think she’d be the type he’d try to pick up. Attractive, sure. But a bit too dark-skinned for a good old Southern boy with prejudices, no matter how pretty she was.
“Patrick grew up here,” Darcy said. “And he’s my age. He might have known Darrell.”
He might, and I wondered why that hadn’t occurred to me. “I’m sure Rafe will ask him. Or Nolan will mention it.”
It might already have happened. They’d spent some time together this morning, walking the perimeter of the crime scene, and if it hadn’t, they would be spending more time in each other’s company this afternoon, sifting through the contents of the trailer. Rafe was sure to ask both of them what they knew about Darrell and the other Skinners, if he hadn’t already.
“We’re having dinner with your mother on Saturday,” I said. “Unless there’s a reason she wants only me and Rafe—and the baby—the two of you could join us. She’s making Coq au Vin, so it shouldn’t be a problem with the food.”
Darcy’s lips curved. “I don’t think you can invite me to my mother’s house without asking her first, Savannah.”
“Of course I didn’t mean for you just to show up,” I said. “I figured you could ask her. Or hint. You’re her daughter; I’m sure she’d be happy to have you to dinner anytime you want to come.”
“I’ll talk to Patrick about it,” Darcy said, “and we’ll see.”
After a second she added, “We usually go out on Saturday nights, if he doesn’t have to work. But I don’t think he’d mind spending the evening with my mother. And you.”
No reason why he should. I’m likeable. And they could still go back to her place, or his, and do whatever they’d been planning to do after dinner. Same as if they’d had dinner in a restaurant.
“Good,” I said. “Hopefully we’ll see you, then.”
She nodded. “Did you need something?”
When I looked blank, she added, “Here? Did you stop by to see someone? Your brother? Your brother-in-law? Your sister isn’t here.”
Oh. “No, I was next door at Audrey’s and decided I should say hello. I don’t need to talk to anyone in particular.” Although if Dix was here…
Darcy’s lips curved, as if she’d guessed what I was thinking. “Go on back. He’s alone.”
“Can I leave the baby? I don’t think this’ll take long.” Especially as I’d already vented most of my frustration over the phone.
“Sure,” Darcy said. “Bring her over here.”
I brought the car seat around the desk, and left them both to walk down the hallway to my brother’s office in the back. The door was closed, and I knocked on it. When there was no answer, I turned the knob and pushed the door open. “Dix?”
“He left,” Jonathan’s voice said behind me, sounding amused. “He heard your voice out front, and slipped out through the back door.”
Damn. I mean… darn. He must really not want to see me. What did he think I was going to say or do, that I hadn’t already covered over the phone?
“Coward,” I told Jonathan.
He grinned, and then the grin fell away, and he gave me a concerned look. “Everything all right with you?”
“Of course.” Why wouldn’t it be? “I just wanted to chew him out about Charlotte again.”
Jonathan nodded, but said, “So you and Rafe are… um...?”
Um… what?
He tried again. “Yesterday, when you called Catherine… was she able to help you? When she came over last night?”
When she… what?
“Oh,” I said, before I’d even thought it through, “that. Sure. She was a big help. Having a new baby is tough. I’m sure you know that. And then the move down here. I like Sweetwater. Rafe doesn’t, so much. So it’s a bit of a strain on him, being here. But we’re doing all right.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Jonathan said sincerely, and gathered me in for a hug. I hugged him back, and tried not to feel guilty that I was, for all intents and purposes, lying to him.
Not that what I’d said wasn’t true. Having a new baby is tough, and Rafe wasn’t altogether happy to be back in Sweetwater. But I hadn’t called Catherine for help last night. She certainly hadn’t come by, and by not telling Jonathan that, I felt like I was enabling my sister in whatever the hell—heck—she was doing.
But at the same time she was my sister, and until I knew what was going on, I owed her my loyalty. So when Jonathan let me go, I did my best to smile naturally. “Thanks.”
He smiled back, and it looked like he couldn’t tell the difference. “Anytime. Rafe seemed all right the other night, but after Catherine rushed out just after dinner yesterday, and didn’t come home for hours…”
“I’m sorry,” I said, even as I envisioned stringing my sister up by her eyelids. “Yes, we’re all fine. Thank you for letting us borrow her.”
“Of course.” Jonathan smiled again, and then glanced at his door. “I should get back to work. I just heard your voice out here, and thought I’d make sure things were all right.”
“I appreciate it.” I leaned in for another hug, this time because I was afraid my expression would give me away if I didn’t. How dare my sister use me—and the freaking well-being of my marriage!—as an excuse for ducking out on her husband?! “I guess she’s home?” Since she wasn’t here.
Jonathan nodded. “She was tired this morning. After being up so late…”
I growled, but was able to catch myself before I let it out. Instead, I pasted a bright fake smile on my face. “I’ll drive over there and see if there anything I can do to help.”
“That’s kind of you,” Jonathan told me.
“Oh,” I pried my teeth apart so I wouldn’t accidentally break something by grinding them too hard, “it seems the least I can do.”
He went back inside his office, and I stood there for a moment, with my fingernails digging into my palms, before I’d calmed down enough to walk down the hallway to the lobby again, and give Darcy a mostly natural smile. “He ducked out the back, the big chicken.”
Darcy smirked. “I’m sure he’ll come back when he sees you leave.”
“And when he does,” I told her, as I gathered up the car seat with the baby and headed for the front door, “you tell him that the longer he avoids me, the worse it’s going to be when I catch him.”
“Yes’m.” Darcy was grinning by now.
“She hasn’t been back, has she? Or called?”
“Charlotte?” She shook her head. “Not that I’ve seen.”
“Let me know if she shows up.” I thought—briefly—about stopping by the Albertsons’ house on my way to Catherine’s, but discarded the idea. I was too angry with my sister right now to be able to deal with anything else, even if I was angry with Charlotte, too. And giving Charlotte the full blast of what I was feeling right now would be unfair. Not that I wouldn’t blast her too, once I got around to it. But at the moment, I wanted to blast Catherine more.
Darcy said she would pass my message along to Dix, and then she watched me walk out the door. I scanned the square while I walked to the Volvo and buckled Carrie into the back seat, but saw no sign of Dix. Nor was it logical that I would. He wouldn’t be standing around the square, freezing in his shirtsleeves while he waited for me to drive away. He was probably inside one of the stores. Audrey’s, or the café, or one of the others. But unless I wanted to walk around and eliminate them one by one, he could stay where he was. I had bigger—or at least more important, or more imminent—fish to fry.
Even so, I raked the plaza with a fulminating glare. If he was watching, there was no reason not to let him see how angry I was. Even if that anger was, mostly, directed at someone else right now.
And then I got into the car and vented some of my feelings by backing out of the parking space too quickly—after I made sure no one was in my way—and peeling around the corner with a squeal of tires. Rafe would have been proud.