It wasn’t quite time for me to head to Randy’s, but I decided to be a little early. It had snowed some since I’d last been at his house, but only barely enough to cover my tracks. Though twilight was coming, casting deeper and darker shadows everywhere, I was slightly concerned that Randy would know he’d had an earlier visitor. His truck hadn’t been in front of the mercantile, so I predicted I would find him already at home. My concern transformed and deepened as the house came fully into sight. Something was very wrong.
Two trucks and the van that was kept at the airport were parked there, with their lights illuminating the front of the house. The trucks belonged to Gril and Donner, but I didn’t immediately know who’d driven the van.
“Shit,” I said as I pulled up next to Gril’s vehicle. I couldn’t figure out how any of this had anything to do with me, but it was impossible not to think I might have somehow been behind this gathering. Had I disturbed something to criminal proportions?
Gril walked out of the house and noticed me.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as I stepped out of my truck.
“I asked for a tour of Randy’s house. He invited me over.”
“Invitation’s been rescinded. Go home, Beth,” Gril said.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing that’s any of your business.”
I stood beside my truck, thinking about confessing my earlier trespassing.
“Gril…” I began.
But I was interrupted as Donner and Randy came out of the house together. Randy wasn’t handcuffed, but there was no mistaking the terrified and confused look on his face as Donner held on to his arm. Randy didn’t want to go with Donner; he had no choice. I didn’t think he even noticed I was there.
“Gril?” I said again.
He looked at me, hesitated a moment, and then said, “You’ll hear soon enough anyway. The dead body might be Randy’s wife, and Christine confirmed that the woman was murdered, strangled.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Might be his wife?”
“Fits her description. We need Randy to … confirm. Christine came to get him; she’s taking him back to Juneau.”
Christine followed the others out of Randy’s house. She pulled the door closed and then stood on the porch, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the scene. She hiked up her snow pants and sent me a distinct frown.
My earlier trespassing didn’t matter. They weren’t here for that.
“He lives alone?” I said.
“As far as I know, he’s been alone since his wife ‘left.’” Gril didn’t make finger quotes in the air, but I heard them in his voice.
“That’s horrible. But wasn’t the body frozen? Has it been that way for six years?”
“How do you know how long his wife has been gone?” Gril asked.
“Believe it or not, just this morning I was talking to Randy about her. She came up in conversation.”
“Maybe she’s been on his mind.”
“You think he killed her?” I asked.
“Unknown at this time.” Gril turned away.
I interjected, “Where has the body been? Where was it frozen?”
“We’re working on that,” he said over his shoulder.
“So, he put her body in Lane’s storage shed recently?” I hurried to catch up to him.
“Again, working on that.”
“You let Lane go.”
Gril shrugged. “No choice right now, but he’s not going anywhere.”
“He was coming out of the mercantile late last night.”
“Yeah?” Gril stopped walking.
“Yes.”
“Good to know. Thanks.” He looked back toward where Lane lived, bit his bottom lip, and then turned back to me.
“Why do you think it’s Randy’s wife?” I asked.
“The tattoo.” He looked toward Christine, still observing the scene from the porch. “Christine did some research.”
“She researched tattoos?”
“I believe so.”
“I don’t get it.”
Christine stepped off the porch and walked toward us as Donner deposited Randy into the passenger side of the van and then stood next to it. He crossed his arms in front of himself and waited.
I didn’t mention my visit to Brayn. I thought about my conversation with Randy in front of the mercantile, when he’d first told me about the strange noise he’d heard, the one I was now sure had come from the girls. He’d seemed bothered by it. Maybe upset, but mostly just bothered. In my mind, now I superimposed a different concern over the one he’d claimed he’d had. Instead of being worried about the strange noise he’d simply heard, maybe he was worried that the person or persons who made it might have seen him moving his wife’s body. My imagination was certainly cranking on high.
“May I ask why you’re here, young proofreader?” Christine said as she approached.
“I told Randy I was considering building a home. He said I could look at his floorplan.”
Christine turned and looked at the house and then back at me. “Well, well, well, of all the cabins in all the woods … You’ll have to have a gander another time.”
“So I understand.”
Christine squinted at me. “No, really, who are you?”
“She’s a new resident, Christine. She has nothing to do with this. Yes, she’s done some work for me, but she used to work for her grandfather, a longtime and well-respected police chief.”
“Oh? That’s interesting. His name?”
I suddenly realized that no one had asked that question before. Donner knew I’d worked for my grandfather. So did Orin. Neither of them had asked for my grandfather’s name. I hadn’t prepared a lie.
I opened my mouth to say something, though it wasn’t going to be the truth.
“I hate to break this up, Christine, but you need to get to the airport before the storm keeps the Harvingtons from flying tonight. Unless you want to stay?” Gril said.
Christine rocked on her bootheels and then puckered her lips as she looked at me. I felt guilty just being in her line of vision.
“No, as much as I love your little hamlet, Chief, duty calls and I must get myself and Mr. Phillips back to Juneau,” she said. “We’ve a body to identify, after all, perhaps a murder confession to take, you just never know. It could be a lucky night. Well, for everyone but the dead woman, I suppose.”
Christine turned and made her way to the van. She got into the driver’s side and started the engine.
“She scares me,” I said.
Gril laughed once. “She’s smart and strong-willed, but you have nothing to fear.” He put his hands in his pockets as we watched the van leave. “You might want to be ready with a name next time.”
“I will be. Is there anyone else with them? Is she in charge of Randy by herself?”
“Yes. She wouldn’t let anyone join her. I tried.”
The light had dimmed some with one less vehicle’s lights. Donner joined us, but it was impossible to see his face.
“Do we know when last he spoke with his wife, Gril?” Donner asked.
“Unfortunately, they haven’t spoken for years. He doesn’t have a working number for her, either. When she left, she didn’t want to ever speak to him again, or so he says that’s what he concluded. He hadn’t realized it would be so literally, but she never returned his calls, and then her number quit working. He didn’t think it meant she might be in trouble. He claims she’s had divorce papers for years, too, but just never signed them. He said he didn’t much care, thinking she was just ignoring him to irritate him. He just went about living his life, says he hadn’t really thought about her for a long time.”
“So bizarre,” I said.
“That can happen out here sometimes,” Donner said. “You forget there’s another world out there. Benedict can insulate you, in bad ways as well as good.”
“We’ll do our due diligence. I will know more later tonight,” Gril said. “Go home, Beth. Get out of the cold.”
There would be no rechecking the toothbrushes tonight. I hopped into my truck, watching Gril and Donner as they walked back to each of theirs. I led the way away from Randy’s house, but the two of them followed close behind. I slowed and came to a stop outside the Petition shed. I stepped out of my truck and waved as they each passed by. It was reasonable to think I’d stopped at the shed to get some work done.
However, after their taillights were no longer visible, I jumped into my truck and headed back toward Randy’s. But I didn’t stop there—the toothbrush questions would definitely have to wait to be answered.
I’d been around killers before. My grandfather had arrested two brutal serial killers in Missouri. I’d been in the same police station where they were being held inside a cell, locked up, but not muzzled. I’d heard them, watched them, observed them. I’d used some of their words, chunks of their personalities in some of my books.
They behaved like killers, said things that killers would say. They were obviously evil.
I also knew some killers could fake it. I wasn’t oblivious to their skills or that impressed by my intuition, particularly in its new incarnation, the one that had been influenced by Travis Walker.
But Randy wasn’t a killer. I was almost one hundred percent sure he wasn’t.
Someone was, though.
I was drawn back out to the scene where the body was found, not because I suspected Lane (though I didn’t not suspect him), and not because I didn’t think Christine and her crew had done a good job, but because I’d helped my grandfather enough to know that, yes, I did have something—a way of seeing things that few people had. The first time at the shed, I’d only glanced in briefly and neither Gril nor Christine had shared any pictures with me. I just wanted a look inside, a chance to take my time and see if anything struck me.
My headlights glimmered off the wood planks, seemingly even more dilapidated than they’d been before. I stopped and looked at the shed through my windshield for a few minutes.
I left the truck running but threw it into park. The light from my headlights would help but wouldn’t be enough. Fortunately, I had a flashlight in the glove box. I grabbed it and was grateful to find it still had battery power.
Thankful again for all my winter gear, I high-stepped in my boots through the snow. I swung the flashlight out toward the gravestones. They were far enough away from the road that I didn’t think I’d explore them tonight.
I stood in the shed’s open doorway and shone my flashlight inside. Things, boxes, traps were still there, but better organized. The boxes had been lined up, some of them stacked. I didn’t understand what steps had been taken to gather evidence, but my grandfather would have had everything taken in for closer looks. Where would this stuff go here in Benedict? Or would it be shipped back to Juneau? Maybe that’s what was going to happen at some point. Is that why everything had been semi-organized?
Nevertheless, I carefully stepped inside and looked for the box of baby clothes. It wasn’t hard to find; it had been placed on top of three other boxes. My glove-stiff fingers lifted the flaps.
I stuck the flashlight under my chin and aimed it inside the box. The baby clothes were clean and folded. I saw lots of blues and yellows. There was no way to know what gender of child these clothes might have covered, but I got the impression they’d been for a boy. I looked for sets of matching things, similar items, but didn’t find any. If these clothes had been used for fraternal twin girls, the parents hadn’t cared that the clothes weren’t feminine or that the girls wouldn’t be dressed to match each other.
I packed the box up again and closed the flaps. I shone the flashlight around the shed. Nothing else struck a chord. There was nothing unusual or special about the size of the space. There was no indication that a body had been on the floor, stuck up against the wall. The light from my flashlight didn’t glimmer off even one strand of hair.
I had to come to the realization that my trip out to the shed had been only for me, something to satisfy a curiosity even I didn’t understand completely. There was nothing new to see here.
I sighed and shook my head at myself.
And then the world fell apart.
Cracks and crashes, too-loud booms sounded as the shed fell in and on me. Instinctually, I covered my head; and a good thing I had, I thought, as a plank came down hard on the forearm that covered the scar. The pain seared up through my elbow and all the way to my ear, but my head hadn’t been hit. I yelled.
But no one would hear me out here. I was pinned in place. I couldn’t move any part of my body, except the toes in my boots.
I was completely trapped.