Frozen (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (35 page)

There was a perceptible pause. “Neil? I … I suppose.”

“Can you tell me about the night you called 911 two years ago?”

“Why?” The woman didn’t sound too happy. “I told it all to the police then. How do I even know you’re a police officer?”

“His arrest is a matter of public record.” Ellie pointed it out with practical reassurance. “And feel free to contact the sheriff’s department to confirm my identity. I’ll give you the number of my supervisor. Or,” she paused, “if you don’t want to go to that trouble, just give me the gist of what happened that night after asking yourself who besides a police officer would care. Young women get roughed up too many times to mention in this country. It’s happening now to someone as we speak. I have a report that says at one o’clock on a November afternoon he pinned you to the floor and choked you until you lost consciousness. Do you have anything to add?”

“Like what?” The young woman sounded not hostile, but uncertain. “That says it all. We had an argument. It happens.”

If she could take the time, Ellie wished she could do this face to face, but Jane had been missing for several days now.

Rick’s theory the killer kept them alive had better be accurate.

Unfortunately, she didn’t think it was.

“Yes, people argue, but not every man chooses to assault his fiancée. What did you fight about?”

“I don’t even remember. It … just happened.”

“Ms. George, this is pretty important.”

“Why?”

“Until I can confirm you aren’t still communicating with Neil Hathaway, I can’t really tell you.”

“I’m not,” the young woman said faintly. And then she added in a stronger voice, “I’m
no
t. The bastard.”

“Your help would be appreciated.”

“Okay … fine. One minute we were just there, watching television, and then the next arguing over something. I got up to get a beer, and then he caught me from behind, and I was on the floor, and he had … he had—” She stopped, and Ellie could hear her make a small sound of distress in the background. “He had a knife. Big one. The one he uses for hunting. He ran the tip of the blade down my face before he choked me. That asshole. I have a scar.”

That rang a bell. Ellie shuffled papers on her desk, breaking out in a light sweat.
Wasn’t there
 … didn’t she remember … hell yes, there it was. Her gaze focused on the page and she took in a breath.

Margaret Wilson had an unexplained cut on her face, not postmortem, and she’d been strangled.

This,
Ellie thought,
I might be able to take to a judge
.

Wound to the face, the medical examiner’s report said, but nothing specific about the knife.

She found her voice. “Why did you drop the charges?”

“Look, I just told you he attacked me. When I thought about it, I decided it was best to not piss him off even more. Neil seems like a friendly guy, but he has some real creepy issues. I packed up, moved down to Hastings with my mother, and tried to forget about the whole thing.”

That was hardly a new story. It was exactly why more men weren’t prosecuted for assaults on the women they supposedly loved.

Ellie said, “I’m going to need a deposition from you. I’ll send an officer over. Tell him everything you just told me.”

She called Pearson back. “Over your chef salads, tell McConnell this little story about Neil Hathaway. Maybe
he
can get us a warrant without any physical evidence.”

Chapter 28

There was a time to stay very, very still, usually before the kill. It was that definitive deep breath between recognition that this was the moment, and the rise of excitement before it. Stealthy was better than the raging charge.

Animals knew it. Instinct was a powerful force.

He needed to be low, to be invisible.

It could be done. He’d walked past a doe once, dropping a fawn. She’d been resting against a log, not making a sound, the birth arrested by his presence, but in the end he’d spotted her and lifted his rifle.

Sometimes fate just wasn’t in your corner.

Not much sport in a kill like that. He always needed more.

*   *   *

The drive was
heavy with slush from the melted snow and ice, and barely discernible except as a break in the trees. The filmy light lent the scene odd depth and definition, like a blurry Ansel Adams photograph.

“There’s a gate.” Rick Jones braked the car and slid to a stop by the paved road access. “We’ll have to go in on foot.”

Bryce was surprised at the deputy’s resolution, because, quite frankly, they hadn’t liked each other from the beginning, and here Jones was, willing to take his word on it. He opened the car door. “He said it was private. I don’t know anything about this place. I haven’t been here before.”

“I don’t need a disclaimer, Grantham.”

The property was butted up against a county forest, the road a dead end, and as they got out of the vehicle, the isolation reached out to curl around him. In the summer, it would be wooded and lovely, but right now … now, it just seemed lonely.

Circumventing the gate was just a matter of climbing the fence on one side, and at the top of a good-size hill they found a stone and timber structure, about as old as the cabins on Loon Lake, weathered to a dull gray, lichen on the warped roof. The drive was tangled with weeds, the separate garage shuttered and locked. The branches whispered eerily over their heads as they approached the walk and scrunched through piles of wet leaves. Rick had his hands inside his jacket, and his eyes were still bloodshot, but more focused than earlier. “I’m still not sure what you think we’ll find here, but with your track record, I’m willing to take your word for it. Any ideas?”

There wasn’t much question the man was both edgy and strung out to a degree that Bryce registered as dangerous. “No.”

Is this a huge mistake?

They were alone. In a remote place. The thin autumn wind brushed past, carrying the fecund scent of rotting leaves. The snow from the storm was melting, but not gone, and there were piles of ice next to the foundation of the decrepit building.

Jones had a gun. Bryce realized it, but it hadn’t been a particular concern, just something he’d
known
. If the guy snapped again, he could easily shoot him and conceal his body, or maybe even invent a story that would make it all seem like self-defense.

Now he wished he’d called Ellie to fill her in on their destination. He hardly wanted to be gunned down and chucked into the river.

“This was
your
theory.” Rick’s face was strained.

It had been. Now he was second-guessing himself. If Jones really thought he’d done something to his girlfriend, they were alone and the man was edgy …

“Where do we look?” Jones insisted, his face drawn, his boots scraping the snow- crusted gravel.

“Inside the garage?” Bryce rubbed his hands together. It really wasn’t that cold, but he was uncomfortable in this remote place. The river was a sheet of dark glass in the disappearing sunlight, and the forest thick around them, silent, watching. “I don’t know. This is much more your area than mine.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re thinking understanding a psycho is part of my job, think again. We catch them. We don’t ever try to understand them.”

He squared his shoulders. “Look, it’s remote and Hathaway said something about it to me. I think we need to break into the cabin.”

Rick looked at him with that squared-jawed thrust he’d seen before. His breath frosted in the cold air. “You think we’ll find Jane in there?”

The strong underlying feeling they both had she was dead wasn’t necessarily a brotherhood he wanted to be a part of. Bryce said, “I think we might find … something.”

With a mutter Bryce couldn’t quite catch, Jones walked to the front door, picked up a rock from a clump of dying weeds next to the stoop, and smashed in the window at the top. The sound of breaking glass was loud in the shrouded silence.

The deputy reached in, unlocked the door, and said, “Here we go.”

*   *   *

Not being able
to get ahold of Rick or Bryce this late in the afternoon made her uneasy. If the victim had been anyone but Jane, Ellie would trust Rick implicitly, but he wasn’t really stable right now and she didn’t blame him, but she didn’t trust him at the moment either.

She pressed the end button on her cell and sat in her car in the parking lot outside the sheriff’s office, repressing the urge to toss her phone out the window.

If Neil Hathaway was really a suspect, and Rick knew it, what would he do? If Bryce was the number-one suspect, what
would
he do?

For the first time in her career, she had serious reservations about a fellow officer, and it wasn’t that she doubted Rick, it was just logic. In his shoes … well …

Shit
.

At least the weather was better, she decided, as she started her car and pulled out of the lot.

She tried Bryce again. No answer.

The five minutes from the station seemed to take forever. The motel sat in its asphalt lot, squat and generic, and the clerk at the desk inside confirmed that Dr. Grantham had not checked out, yet when Ellie went up to his room, he wasn’t there. She went back downstairs, got the clerk to give her a key card, and checked out his room. The new razor sat by the sink, and one of the new shirts he’d bought was on the bed, still on the hanger. He’d left all right, and not without the intention of coming back. His duffel bag sat on the floor.

But where the hell was he?

If Rick had gone off the deep end, it could be bad.

The sense of panic she felt was unexpected and telling. And the conclusion was she was worried about both of them.

Maybe Bryce had gotten someone to take him out to the cabin so he could change his tire and arrange to have the tree moved. Or maybe Rick had showed up again.

It seemed logical to take Highway 17 south. Hathaway’s parking lot was nearly deserted when she pulled in, only one car in the closest spot to the door, and Ellie got out and stared at the façade of the building. She probably should have called McConnell. He and Pearson could still be in their meeting, but this might warrant a heads-up.

On the other hand, if she did, Rick could get in trouble and she couldn’t risk it. Rick was off the case.

Why weren’t either of them answering their damn phone?

“Dumbasses,” she muttered.

It was almost closing time. The sky was a deep, dark indigo and the woods had thickened with shadows to the point the opaque visibility would soon be an issue. She got out, checked her weapon, and walked up the steps to the door of the store. A small bell jingled as she went inside.

The lone customer was a young man buying ham salad and a six-pack of beer. He nodded at her and picked up his package, and Russell Hathaway thanked him by name. The older man recognized her as well, she could tell, and though he smiled affably enough, unless it was her imagination, his eyes took on a certain wariness.

“Evening, Detective.”

She nodded. “I have a few more questions for Neil, Mr. Hathaway. Is he here?”

“No, ma’am. Sorry. He got off at four.”

“Is he at home?”

“Couldn’t say. He didn’t tell me his plans.”

Ellie considered the older man with a level look. “I understand he was arrested up near Ely for assaulting his girlfriend a couple of years ago.”

Russell Hathaway’s face visibly tightened. “Yes, he told me about it. They were drinking, got into an argument and it got out of hand. She dropped the charges.”

“Out of hand? Did he mention he disfigured her with a knife and choked her until she was unconscious?”

Neil had obviously left out the details, from his father’s reaction. After a moment, Russell shook his head, his expression strained as he braced his hands on the counter. “No. I admit I hadn’t heard that.”

“Do you believe he’s capable of it?”

“Ma’am, I am not going to answer a question like that about my own son.”

And that,
she thought,
was answer enough
.

“I’ll need his address.” They could question him again tomorrow when McConnell was with her. No way she would go after him on her own. Not the way it was all shaking out.

“He lives with me. Here’s the address.” Russell reached under the counter and pulled out a small pad of paper, took a pen from a cup near the old cash register, and jotted something down. He handed it over, his hand not quite steady. “Though I doubt he’s there right now. My son spends a lot of time out of doors.”

She hesitated and then asked, “Has anyone else been by, looking for Neil?”

“No.”

Where the hell is Rick? Where is Bryce?

“Thanks, Mr. Hathaway. Have a good evening.”

No response. The older man stood there, unmoving, as she pushed open the door, the little bell ringing.

It was ten miles to the Grantham cabin, dusk glimmering down, low-hanging clouds that had thickened all afternoon lending a premature darkness under the trees. The big elm was still there, in a lifeless sprawl across the curve of the drive, splinters of wood and cracked branches everywhere. With the general damage from the storm, not even the county had been able to get a tree-removal service out there and the crime scene investigators had to hike for it when they searched the cabin and Bryce’s car the second time.

Ellie parked to the side, the area rutted from other law enforcement vehicles, and got out, her breath frosty. She pulled on gloves and climbed a low bank, going around the barricade of the giant fallen tree on foot. Soil still clung to the roots, exposed like naked, dirty veins.

It was silent except for her passage as she trudged up the lane, only a whisper of a breeze stirring the branches overhead. The crunch of her footsteps was loud, and as she crested the hill, she saw the Land Rover still sitting in crooked isolation, the cabin silent and closed, the lake black ice in the background. She went down the steps and peered into the portion of the interior she could see through the crack in the curtains in the window by the front door.