The Porsche was hardly recognizable from the photos kept in Clive Reynolds’s file. That car had been sleek and jet black. It looked fast with its streamlined silhouette and whale tail spoiler. This thing looked like something that had been dug out of its watery grave. The once fire engine–red interior was faded to the color of the Ruins ticket, and its headlights were opaque. Patches of verdigris sprawled across its hood. Through the open driver’s side window, Hudson noted the severed seat belt and the empty passenger seat. The human remains had been transported to the medical examiner’s office.
“It’s like online dating, right?” said Kole. “The pictures and the real thing don’t have a lot in common.”
Hudson smiled and allowed himself a momentary time-out from the investigation to wonder how much experience Sergeant Kole had with online dating. Everyone knew he had been involved with a transcriber a few years ago, who no longer worked at the PD. The relationship had only surfaced because it was entangled in an officer-involved shooting and the downfall of one of Black Harbor’s most notorious drug dealers, the Candy Man. It seemed uncharacteristic of Kole to have a relationship under the microscope like that. He was reserved and sure of himself. No, Hudson decided. He would not have an online dating profile.
“Has the body been ID’d yet?” he asked, knowing the answer. It was just an attempt to get the ball rolling, to show that he had been focused on this investigation rather than concerning himself with the mystery of who killed Brix Garrison. Red treads, red treads. The words ran on a loop in his mind ever since they’d left Morgan’s lips.
“Not yet. Winthorp’s got the bones at her office. Last I heard, she submitted a request for dental records.”
Hudson nodded. Identification through dental records could take six to eight weeks, maybe longer. It was possible they could get authorization to push it along quicker, but not unless something came along to make the case more urgent. A word that never applied to cold cases. However, it was clear they were dealing with more than a disappearance; the mystery of Clive Reynolds’s fate involved at least one homicide. Nevertheless, the homicide was twenty years old. He knew what the state’s perspective would be: that the identity of the drowned man in the car had waited two decades. It could wait another two months.
“You see that, don’t you?”
Hudson looked to where Kole was pointing. He wore black latex gloves; they both did. The bitter December air seeped in at the wrists and got trapped. His hands felt like blocks of ice. He bent and peered through the driver’s side window to see inside the cramped interior. The back seat was so small, it looked like it could only fit a fridge pack of soda, possibly a child lying across it. And this was not a vehicle for children, as Kole mentioned when he first introduced Hudson to the dive team’s photos. Built to accelerate to sixty miles per hour within five seconds, the Porsche 930 Turbo had a nasty habit of killing its owners, earning the moniker the Widowmaker.
But the back seat wasn’t what Kole wanted him to see. It was the rusted rod with a bulbous head that lay across it. Hudson sized it up. It was too short to be a golf club. “Torque wrench?” he guessed.
Kole looked mildly impressed. “Didn’t peg you for a car guy.”
“I’m not, but I’ve watched a few How It’s Made episodes in my time.”
“Good show. What’s funny, is—well, it’s not funny,” Kole said as he took his phone out of his coat pocket, “was that the passenger’s right eye socket was busted. Winthorp sent me this.”
Hudson glanced at the image on Kole’s phone. It was a picture of a skull set on a white cloth. A hand held a ruler next to the broken orbital bone. No, it wasn’t just broken, it was gone. Apparently, it had been pulverized so severely that pieces had torn away and floated to the bottom of the lake.
“He was dead before impact.”
“Or close to it,” Kole acknowledged.
Hudson stepped back to broaden his depth of field. “The driver’s side window. It was rolled down.”
“Or smashed out completely.”
He approached the car again and reached inside the square opening. His right hand found the window crank. It was stuck at first; immobilized by water and two decades of debris. But with a little elbow grease, the crank turned and a panel of glass slid upward.
Glad for the brief exertion that thawed him, if only slightly, Hudson looked at the severed seat belt again. Threads hung loose from it. Turning on his phone’s flashlight, he scanned the floor for a jackknife or something that could have cut the restraint. But he didn’t see anything. If a knife had been used, it could have fallen to the lake bed or the person who escaped could still have it in their possession. Doubtful, but not impossible.
“You think they’re alive?” Hudson posed to the universe.
Kole tipped his chin in the direction of the driver’s seat. “It’s possible. They made it out of a drowned vehicle. Leave it to Black Harbor, though, for them to catch a stray bullet in the throat or something.” He stopped abruptly, apparently realizing the picture he’d just painted. Garrison had caught a bullet in the throat. Two more in the vest.
Hudson focused on the open window again. Whoever had driven the Porsche into the lake had known enough to wait until the vehicle was fully submerged to roll it down. He’d have to measure it, but the opening looked large enough for a grown man to crawl through. He grabbed the door handle. His gloved hand stuck to the stainless steel. It felt like he was touching a bar of dry ice. The hinges groaned as he pulled the door toward him. On the other side now, Hudson thrust his arms through the open window. The frame dug into his shoulders, but he managed to get his torso completely out.
He heard shoes crunching on snow and looked up to see Kole wielding his phone. “Say ‘Cheese.’”
It was something Garrison would have done. Hudson rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help smiling, just a little.
“That’s going up at your retirement party.”
“If I make it that far.” Hudson bit his lip, concentrating. “I figure if I’m roughly Clive Reynolds’s size and can wriggle my way out…” Carefully, he backed out of the opening and stood next to Kole again.
Kole was nodding. “You’re dead on, almost. What are you, six three, six four? A buck eighty?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s how Winthorp ruled out Clive being Joe Blow in the passenger seat,” said Kole. “The femur’s too short. That guy, we’re looking at five eight, five nine. Husky boy.”
Hudson felt color rise in his cheeks. Kole was testing him. He’d seen the email from the medical examiner’s office, but he hadn’t had a chance to review it. Correction: He had, but he’d chosen to spend his time prodding Morgan Mori about an incident entirely unrelated to this one.
Or was it?
Morgan had been at the Reynolds estate the same night Garrison had been shot by a man with red-soled shoes—who could be anyone from Kai Steele to a random thief who’d heard through the grapevine that the Fast Mart was easy money. And yet, the urge to tell Kole about Garrison’s side business as a PI gnawed at him.
Let’s just say I have an offer.
As he’d come to learn within the past twenty-four hours, Garrison had been the first officer to connect with Eleanor Reynolds regarding the case of her missing husband. Could he have picked the investigation back up, all these years later?
“Clive Reynolds filed a claim on his car missing in July 2000,” he said, thinking out loud. “And he disappeared ten days later.”
“Yes,” said Kole. He shoved his hands in his pockets, braced himself against the wind that suddenly rolled through the impound lot. “You insinuating that Clive dumped the car himself? For the insurance money? After he bashed some poor bastard with a tire iron?”
Hudson exhaled. A puff of fog hung in the air for a second, suspended. “Stranger things have happened, no?”
“This is Black Harbor. You know what we call it when strange shit happens around here? Tuesday.”
Hudson laughed, dug the toe of his shoe into the snow. He looked into the car again and frowned. “The victim was wearing a canvas jacket. I wonder what Clive Reynolds was doing with a guy like that. Doesn’t seem his type.”
“Blue-collar, you mean?”
“Yeah.” His mind flipped through the mental Rolodex he kept of Clive. Family photos, newspaper clippings, magazine articles. He was always wearing a suit, or at the very least, business casual, such as when he went to car shows or the golf course.
“That’s a you problem to figure out.” Kole clapped him on the shoulder. He waved to the community service officer in the little outbuilding, signaling his departure.
The weight of Kole’s hand translated to the weight of the case pressing down on him. The first step in identifying the driver was identifying the victim. Because if he identified the victim, he might be able to answer the question of why someone would drive a $40,000 Porsche into the lake.
In 1978, when the vehicle would have been purchased new, $40,000 was a lot more money than it was today. Remembering his college economics class, he knew that the U.S. historically experienced an average inflation rate hovering between 3 and 4 percent, and it was higher back then, closer to 8 percent. That meant that in 2000 when the car had been dumped, it had a buying power of over $100,000. And today, he was looking at what would have been a $160,000 collector’s car rusting away in an impound lot.
Hudson had work to do. And it started by diving into that box of records on his coffee table.
Kole was walking back to his Impala.
“Wait,” Hudson called.
The sergeant turned. Another gust of wind tore through the lot, blowing Kole’s blond hair across his forehead. This was how cops got weathered, Hudson realized. Standing in the harsh elements, investigating drowned cars in below-freezing temps.
“Where would you start?” he asked. “Without the dental records.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Hudson furrowed his brows.
“I’d wait. And listen.”
Hudson winced as the wind bit into him. He wanted to ask what Kole meant, but for fear of giving off the impression he didn’t know what he was doing, he kept silent.
“I’ll have Atchison release it to the media. Set up a tip line. There’s no sense keeping it quiet anymore. This thing’s been an anchor for the past twenty years. God only knows what other secrets have been stuck down there with it.”
Hudson nodded. Sergeant Atchison was the department’s public information officer.
“Then, I think we should send the dive team back down there to search for Clive Reynolds’s remains and the knife that was used to cut the seat belt. Who knows, you could have two mysteries wrapped up with a pretty little bow before Christmas.”
Hudson’s breath hitched with excitement, until he realized that Kole was referring to solving Clive’s disappearance and the identity of the victim in the passenger seat, not Garrison. He couldn’t help it. “Or three,” he suggested.
Kole paused. “What are you talking about?”
Hudson swallowed. He’d gone and done it. His hand shook as he handed Kole his phone, a tremor that could be chalked up to the cold. But Kole would know better. He stared at the image from Hudson’s camera roll: the screenshot from Kai Steele’s social media. Even though Morgan had clarified “red treads” instead of “dreads,” it didn’t rule him out as a suspect.
“Ah yeah, this SOB,” Kole muttered. “Let me guess. You think he robbed the Fast Mart and killed Garrison.”
Hudson shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“A lot of shit’s possible, Hudson. What isn’t, though, is you working this case.” There it was, the cool edge he’d expected. “You can text me that pic if you want and I’ll forward it to Wesson PD. But no more. I put my ass on the line for you to have a chance at solving this case, the Clive Reynolds case.” Steam puffed from his nose. He gave Hudson his phone back. “Don’t fuck it up. For either of us.”
Hudson wet his lips. They were chapped, cracked. A subtle tinge of blood hit his tongue. “You’re right. Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be focused.” He tipped his chin toward the drowned Porsche, then turned and walked toward his Impala. Hudson listened as he slammed the door, started the engine. His tires crunched on packed-down snow as he ambled out of the impound lot and onto the street.
The walk back to his own vehicle felt arduous. He’d thought handing off the picture would make him feel lighter, but it had the opposite effect. It felt as though he’d given up something that didn’t belong to him, taken the solving of it from Garrison and given it to someone from Wesson PD who might never complete the case. Unfinished business. Garrison would be rolling in his casket.
Behind the wheel with the engine on, he gave his car a minute to warm up. He ripped the latex gloves off and threw them on the passenger seat. His fingers were almost too frozen to grip his phone when he took it out of his pocket again and pressed the Home button. A new email message popped up from Morgan Mori.
Can we talk? Off the record.