CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

May 14, 2015

9 P.M.

High Mountain Valley

Near the Central Idaho Primitive Area

 

After getting a few sips of the hot tea down him, Lott dug out some crackers from a bag he had brought and some cheddar cheese he had stored in the fridge and cut up the cheese for them to use as a snack.

After the cold and the workout they had had, they both needed something to keep them going.

As he started to warm up, a few more pieces were coming clear and making this puzzle even more bizarre.

If that were even possible.

He and Julia needed to talk about what they were going to do next.

“Well,” Julia said, “at least we know it wasn’t Willis Williams who did this.”

Lott shook his head. “I don’t think we can rule him out in the slightest.”

Julia looked up at him, clearly puzzled. “Why do you say that?”

“None of this makes any sense at all,” Lott said. “And the puzzle piece that bothers me the most is where is Trish’s car.”

Julia sat back, clearly her detective brain coming back strong as the tea warmed her up.

“Someone drove her up here already embalmed and dumped her in the lake?” Julia asked. “But why?”

“And being embalmed, they clearly didn’t want her found,” Lott said.

“So us spotting her was an accident,” Julia said. “But I still don’t see why?”

“With her car gone,” Lott said. “We wouldn’t have looked for her here, in the lake. We would have searched that cliff face we drove down and hundreds of other miles of highway and never found a thing.”

“She would have just vanished,” Julia said, shuddering slightly.

“Just as all the women associated with Willis Williams have done over the last decade.”

“Oh,” Julia said.

For Lott, having Trish dead was slightly better than having her just vanish. But only slightly. At least with a person vanishing, there was always hope they might show up alive.

Lott needed to get Julia back thinking as a detective again.

“Remember where the road in here came up over that slight rise and we could see the lake and this house below us?” he asked.

“You think someone embalmed Trish,” Julia said, “put her in her car, and pushed it off the edge up there and into the lake?”

Lott nodded. “A window must have broken or a door came open in the fall into the lake and Trish floated out of the car. Otherwise we never would have found her. Ever.”

Julia looked at Lott and he could tell she was thinking the same thing he was thinking.

“You think there are other bodies in that lake?” Julia asked, now following his thinking completely.

“It’s a long shot,” Lott said, “but I think we need to have divers check it out, at least to see if there is anything down there at all. And find Trish’s car which I bet anything is down there.”

“And we can’t have Williams know we are even here or looking,” Julia said.

Lott agreed with that as they both took some crackers and cheese, and he put the teakettle back on the burner to warm up more water.

“I have another problem I can’t figure out,” Lott said. “Trish does not fit Williams’ normal victims.”

“Too old,” Julia said.

Lott nodded. “Exactly. The woman who disappear have always been thirty or under.”

“So why do you think this might be Williams?” Julia asked.

“Because it fits,” Lott said. “You never investigated the monster, but I did. I know his profile from front to back. He was born and raised in Seattle and until the age of ten his father was a mortician.”

“Oh, shit,” Julia said.

“So Trish might have discovered something or seen something she wasn’t supposed to see just by living here.”

Julia nodded. “Likely and possible knowing Trish. Remember that single chair out there on the lawn. She would have been able to see the road above the lake from there.”

Lott hadn’t thought of that, but it made sense.

“So she reported what she had seen to someone in McCall,” Julia said, “and that got her killed.”

“If we are right, my gut sense is that the reason there are no abductions and disappearances near McCall,” Lott said, “where Williams has a home and always goes to within a week of an abduction, is that McCall is where he plays with and kills his victims.”

Julia nodded. “And that would be possible if he has help in the local law enforcement.”

“This is all speculation,” Lott said. “Just trying to put pieces together in some desperate fashion, make some sort of sense of an event that makes no sense. But if I’m right…”

He let that fade off into the faint crackling of the fire and the steady pounding of rain on the deck outside.

Julia picked up her holstered gun and slipped it on her belt, then went and made sure every door was locked.

Lott put his gun on his belt as well.

Then she came back. “We’re going to need to be very, very careful if we are right.”

“Very careful,” Lott said.

He had no doubt that this was going to be a very long night.