Burnt River (30 page)

Macy found Ryan resting in the shade near the toilet blocks. He looked hungover and she called him on it. He slipped down his sunglasses so he could glare at her.

“I’ve been stuck in Wilmington Creek all week. Of course I’m hungover.”

“Have you spoken to Priscilla today?”

“I heard one of her interns vomited on the evidence.”

“You heard wrong. It was two interns.”

“You need a pretty strong stomach to deal with what we scraped off the floor of that garage.”

“Better you than me. Has she found anything unusual?”

He shrugged. “Considering what we do for a living, that’s a pretty open-ended question.”

“She’s not returning my calls.”

“You know the drill. Queen Priscilla will not be rushed.”

“How soon do you think we can have the DNA results?”

“That could be another week. Are you having doubts about the identity of the victim?”

“I looked at the preliminary report on the garage. There were two deep freezers.”

“One was empty. The other had some ice and a few bags of frozen peas.”

“How easy would it be to determine if the remains we found in the garage were previously frozen?”

“There would be ice crystal artifacts in the tissue. A quick check under the microscope is all that’s required.”

“I need you to call Priscilla and tell her to do it immediately.”

“If it wasn’t Tyler Locke, who do you think we found in the garage?”

“I’d rather not say until we hear back from her.”

Macy headed for the boat ramp, where they were already loading the pickup truck onto a trailer. It took a few tries to get it lined up properly. She stepped away to make room for the tow truck. The front grille of Ethan’s pickup was crushed and all the tires were flat, but otherwise it was intact. The paintwork was rusting in places and a brown sludge covered the windows. She could see where the divers had wiped it away to see inside. Rust-colored water dripped from the base of the doors and undercarriage onto the tarp they’d spread across the parking lot beneath the temporary awning.

Aiden came over and stood next to her. “I heard you sent Dean up to Lana Clark’s place. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s just something Jeremy dropped into the conversation this morning. It might be nothing but it got me thinking. A female employee up at the Dalton Ranch accused Tyler of stalking her. It got so bad she quit.”

“Why is Jeremy only telling us this now?”

“He didn’t realize it was relevant.”

“Did you speak to the woman?”

“Karen Walcott still remembers it like it was yesterday. Tyler followed her, drove by her house at night with his headlights off, called her up but never said a word. Sound familiar?”

“Wasn’t Tyler in Afghanistan when Lana was being harassed?”

“There’s a chance we were sent falsified service records from a hacked Fort Benning e-mail account. They’re sending over his records again so we can be sure we have a valid copy.”

“I don’t wish to point out the obvious, but you’re the one who said Tyler was in his garage before it blew up.”

“Once I saw the truck was wired up to explode, I got out of there in a hurry. In hindsight, I assumed it was Tyler. I didn’t actually get close enough to be sure.”

Ryan brushed past Macy, wearing his protective gear. “Priscilla nearly bit my head off, but she’s running the tests you asked for.”

“Thanks, Ryan. I owe you a drink.”

Aiden removed his sunglasses and cleaned them with a tissue. “So who do you think was in the garage?”

“Charlie Lott is my best guess.”

Macy stood with the sun on her back and waited for Ryan’s team to open the doors to Ethan Green’s pickup truck. The driver’s side door popped open and Macy stepped away as a crime scene photographer moved in to take pictures. He conferred with Ryan for a couple of minutes before going around to the passenger side. Ryan used a pair of scissors to cut through the wet air bag that was tangled around the upper body. As it peeled away, there was a sucking sound and Ethan’s head snapped backwards so that it was hanging out the door. Dark eyes protruded from a pale face and water streamed through long black hair that glistened like an oil slick caught in sunlight. Ryan called Macy and Aiden over for a closer look. Macy watched an air bubble form between Ethan’s parted lips. She almost lost her breakfast when it popped. She’d already seen enough.

Aiden was the first to speak. “That’s Ethan Green all right.”

Ryan adjusted the body’s position so he could examine the wound on the forehead. “He’s got a contusion here.” He pointed with a gloved finger. “You can see here that it was starting to bruise. It doesn’t look like a strong enough blow to kill him.”

Macy’s words were as heavy as boots. She had difficulty lifting them. “Are there any other wounds?”

Ryan tilted the head slightly and teased away a clump of matted hair to reveal the right temple. “There’s some more bruising here and the skin is broken.”

Ryan peeled back more of the wet remnants of the air bag, inadvertently pulling away Ethan’s shirt as well. There was a wound to his chest.

“Here we go,” he said. “That’s an exit wound. Let’s turn him over.”

One of Ryan’s colleagues came over to help. They carefully rotated Ethan’s body. He leaned in, blocking the view.

“It has to be confirmed but I’d say there’s a good chance that Ethan Green died as a result of exsanguination. There are two gunshot wounds. One slug went right through, but with any luck the other will help us identify the weapon used.” He glanced over at Macy. “I assume you’re hoping it’s a 9mm.”

Aiden took hold of Macy’s arm to steady her.

“Are you okay?”

She waved him away but he kept holding on.

“I just need some air.” She looked up at Ryan. “Keep this quiet for now. It changes everything.”

They walked over to the picnic area and Macy sat in the shade sipping water from a bottle while Aiden paced back and forth in front of her.

Macy glanced over at the truck. “Ethan regained consciousness and was shot with his own gun. Tyler could have taken it home with him. It would explain the tie-in with the highway patrolman’s murder. It looks like Ray was right about that after all.”

Aiden thought about this for a few seconds. “That makes Tyler the prime suspect in John’s murder. We need to confirm that Charlie Lott’s body was in Tyler’s garage.”

She kept her eyes on the ground. It was difficult to find a pine needle amongst the cigarette butts. Someone had been wearing bright pink lipstick.

Her cell phone buzzed and she picked it up. “It’s the medical examiner.”

Priscilla sounded like she was on a speakerphone. “Macy, I ran the tests you wanted. There are ice crystal artifacts in the tissue I examined.”

“You’re confident the remains were previously frozen?”

“Yes, I’m one hundred percent sure that’s the case. There isn’t the damage you’d associate with multiple freezing and thawing cycles over a long period. Further tests may give you a better time frame, but I’d say you’re looking at a month, maybe more.”

“We need to get DNA analysis done right away. I’ll call the authorities in Spokane so you have something for comparison.”

“Do you have someone specific in mind?”

“Charlie Lott has been missing for nearly a month. I think his body has been stored in one of the freezers in Tyler Locke’s garage all this time.”

Aiden tried radioing the officer Macy had sent to Lana Clark’s home, but there was no answer. He had the same result when he tried his cell phone.

Macy fell in next to Aiden as they headed for his vehicle. “I told Dean not to go alone. Please tell me he listened.”

“It seems he didn’t.” Aiden slammed the door shut and started the car up. “A team is meeting us up there.”

“How far to Lana’s place?”

“Twenty minutes if we hurry. When’s the last time you tried her cell phone?”

“I’ll do it again now.” Macy left another message on Lana’s cell and dialed the home number before giving up. “No one is answering. Can we send a police helicopter?”

“I’ve got one in the air, but there’s no place to touch down. The terrain is too rough.” He gripped the steering wheel and floored it once they cleared the gravel parking lot. “I didn’t see this coming.”

Macy squinted at her phone. It was difficult to read the screen with the vehicle rattling across the uneven road. The file was in her inbox as promised. “I’ve just received another copy of Tyler’s service records.”

“And?”

“Just a second.” She tried to keep the phone steady. “This is impossible to read with the car bouncing around.”

“Can’t you just call them?”

“Wait. Here we go. It says here that on January twenty-eighth, Tyler was evacuated from Afghanistan for mental health reasons.”

“He’s been in Georgia all this time.”

“He’s not even active duty. He was discharged nearly a month ago.” Macy kept reading. “They’re investigating the source of the e-mail but it appears that Tyler created a bogus account using the name of someone who works in their human resources department and sent us a falsified service record.”

“It was a pretty risky move on Tyler’s part. Someone in my office should have noticed.”

“Tyler had to cover his tracks. If we’d known he was in Georgia all this time, he’d have been viewed in an entirely different light. You’d think someone around here would have known he was back in the States.”

“John must have. They were in the same platoon.”

“Tyler probably asked him to keep it quiet.”

Aiden tapped the steering wheel. “I’m no expert on these things, but Tyler seems a little too organized to be suffering from PTSD.”

“I hear you. I’m guessing he panicked when he found out John and Lana were dating. Other than getting wounded, the only way he could get back to Fort Benning in a hurry was to pretend to have a mental breakdown.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

Macy was beginning to feel ill. She spoke slowly and kept her eyes on the road. “He returns to Georgia and finds he can’t engage with Lana in a socially acceptable way, so his obsession escalates to the point that he starts stalking her. Maybe he figured if he scared her enough she’d come running to him for help.”

“But she came here instead.”

“She thought she was safe, but it turns out she moved to her stalker’s hometown. I wish Jeremy had told us about Karen Walcott sooner.”

“If he didn’t take it seriously when it happened, he’s not going to give it much thought years later.”

Aiden joined Route 93 and increased his speed. “And then there’s Lindsay. I’m not sure what Tyler’s motive to kill her would have been, but he certainly had opportunity. He was her closest neighbor.”

Macy tried Lana’s number again. “Still no answer. How much farther?”

“Ten minutes.” He passed several eighteen-wheelers that had pulled over to the side. “We have to take a secondary road the rest of the way. It’s going to get hairy.”

He took a sharp right and his back wheels skidded to the left. The SUV rocked back and forth a couple times. Macy groped around the glove box and pulled out an empty evidence bag.

Aiden glanced over at her. “Shit. Sorry. Are you going to be sick?”

Macy held the bag under her chin. “It’s okay. I just can’t talk right now.”

“I’ll open the window.”

Macy stuck her head out the window and her ponytail whipped around and hit her in the face. They were climbing out of the valley now. Through the trees she could see sunlight reflecting off water. There was a stream down there somewhere. She turned away and tried to focus on the road twisting out in front of them. They passed a handful of mailboxes on the way up. The houses were lost in the pine trees. There wasn’t a single car.

“She lives in the middle of nowhere. You’d think she’d want to be close to people after what happened to her back in Georgia.”

“I doubt she has much choice. It’s probably all she can afford.”

They slowed down before turning left onto a narrow road.

“Almost there.” Aiden pointed beyond the passenger-side window. “You can just see it through the trees.”

“I’ll keep my eyes on the road if that’s okay with you.”

Aiden drove another fifty yards before parking his vehicle in a turnout. He picked up the radio and requested an ambulance and made sure there were roadblocks in place north and south of the junction on Route 93.

He checked his gun and looked over at Macy. “You feeling better now?”

She lied and said she was fine.

He reached around to the backseat and pulled out two bulletproof vests. “I imagine this is going to be a little large on you.”

She pulled it over her head and did up the straps. It felt like she was wearing a sandwich board. They watched the one-story house from where a line of trees opened into a small clearing. Macy recognized Lana’s light gray Toyota. Dean’s patrol car was parked off to the left with the hazard lights blinking. The rest of the team was still five minutes away, but Aiden didn’t think they should wait.

“I think Tyler is long gone.”

“I’m worried about Dean and Lana.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Have you ever been inside this house?”

“A few times in high school. It looks small from the outside but there are a few bedrooms.” He craned his neck. “As I recall, there are a couple outbuildings at the rear of the property. One’s a garage.”

“So there may be another car.”

“I’ll sweep around to the right and check it first.”

“I’ll go to the left and meet you around back.”

As Macy moved through the trees, mosquitoes and blackflies rose from the dry undergrowth in swarms. She swatted them away. Everything stuck to her. Her shirt and trousers felt heavy. She could hear her heart beating in her head. A branch snapped and she swung her gun in a wide arc, but saw nothing. She took furtive glances at the house and over her shoulder as she made her way. There wasn’t a hint of wind. She stepped through an opening in the trees and entered a vegetable garden that had been laid out in careful rows. Everything was dead. Dry husks of corn stalks grew up past her head. The earth was powder dry. She moved through the rows, growing more anxious with each step. At the rear of the garden, a path crisscrossed with animal tracks led deep into the woods. Flies buzzed around a wooden compost bin secured by a heavy metal latch.