Fallout, page 10
Mary launched into a lengthy discourse about her writing while Dutch peppered her with questions. I was amazed at her creativity. Leroy seemed focused on driving and gradually his grip loosened.
We eventually turned off Highway 395 and headed east on a two-lane, paved road. Leroy handed me a piece of paper. “You’ll need to be my navigator from here on.”
“Okay. Stay on this road for six miles. After six miles, look for a road on your left.”
No one spoke. Leroy kept one eye on the odometer, finally slowing down. “Should be around here.”
“Is that it?” Dutch pointed at what looked more like a field access than an actual road.
“I don’t think so,” Mary said. “Drive up a bit farther.”
Leroy drove another mile before turning around. “There’s nothing here. It has to be that one we saw earlier.” He found the dusty track again and turned on it. Grasses brushed the underside of the SUV as we drove up a small hill, crested it, and started down the other side. Ahead we could see a Whitman County squad car. We pulled in next to it, and Leroy turned off the engine. We were parked on a sharp cliff overlooking a coulee, a valley carved from glacial floods from ancient Lake Missoula. We got out and joined Ryan, who’d been leaning against his car and smoking.
“Down there.” Ryan gestured with his cigarette.
We moved to the edge of the precipice. Through a rusty chain-link fence below, we could see a series of old decaying houses. Dead trees and yellow, wispy grasses marked where lawns once were. A sagging chain-link gate blocked the road down with a No Trespassing sign.
“We walk from here.” Ryan looked at Mary. “You okay with that?”
“I’m pregnant, not crippled.” She glared at him, then reached into the car, pulled out her baseball cap, and put it on.
He gave a tug on the gate, and it shifted enough for us to slip through.
We all trooped down the switchback road. The walls of the coulee rose above us, layers of basalt scrubbed clean from the centuries-old flood.
At the valley floor, the breeze blew stronger, sending the dried grasses into a hushed shhhhhh whisper. Somewhere a door squeaked in its hinges, while a magpie harshly chirruped his displeasure at our presence. The boarded-up houses, with peeling paint and sagging front porches, looked like a set for a post-apocalyptic movie.
Goose pimples tripped down my spine.
“I kinda expect zombies to come out from one of the houses.” Mary brushed her hair away from her face.
I cleared my throat. “Or maybe winged monkeys. Certainly this qualifies as the haunted forest.”
Ryan looked over at us. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” I swallowed my grin. On impulse, I trotted up to the nearest house and tried the front door. It was unlocked.
Inside everything was gray, covered with a thick layer of dust but perfectly intact—as if the occupants had merely stepped out for a moment and forgotten to return. A book lay facedown on the coffee table, knitting needles protruded from a basket near the far wall, and a pair of overshoes sat on a throw rug by the door.
The goose pimples returned.
“Come on, Sam,” Ryan called.
I closed the door and joined the other four.
“The cemetery is just ahead.” Ryan strolled swiftly down the tumbleweed-strewn street.
I caught up with him. “I take it you’ve been here before?”
“Yes.”
I kept pace with him, but he didn’t elaborate on his answer. We passed by a burned-out house, only its charred chimney still standing.
“Doctor’s office,” Ryan said. “Cemetery behind it.”
Handy location if you’re a lousy doctor. I bit my tongue.
A rusted wrought-iron fence surrounded a patch of earth where gray headstones poked out in tired rows. Toward the rear of the graveyard stood a small, simple mausoleum. None of the ground looked disturbed. Ryan paused at the open gate. “Spread out. See if you find any signs of digging.”
I walked left, reading the names on the gravestones while looking for any disturbance. I hadn’t gone far when I came across a series of five small headstones lying flush with the ground. A cherub statue stood at one end with the date of 1986. I caught Mary’s attention and waved her over. “Does this look like what I think it is?”
Mary’s lips tightened for a moment. “A baby cemetery.” She pulled out her cell and took several photos.
“That’s what I thought.” I moved on, but something nagged at me. The last three graves had a single headstone with the last name of Adams. John Edgar, 1948, Martha Eve, 1950, Peter John, 1977. All had the same final year, 1987. The year the town was poisoned. A very dead bouquet of flowers tied by a bleached ribbon lay on the headstone.
“Over here,” Ryan called from the mausoleum.
I trotted over. The door was open. Inside were two caskets placed on either side of the door, leaving a small area between them. Carved into the wall above was the name West. Both caskets stood open.
“A lot easier to force a door and break open a coffin than dig one up,” Dutch said.
I leaned against the side of the building. My stomach clenched. I felt like I held a jigsaw piece in my hand and had just spotted where it needed to go. “Ryan,” I said slowly. “Last night—”
“Yes.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at me.
The feeling grew stronger, as did my twisting stomach. “Um . . . you knew all about the town. Did you guess the body came from Suttonville as soon as you heard the name?”
“Why would I think that?” Ryan folded his arms. A vein pounded in his forehead.
“Because you know this cemetery, the names of people interred here, Ryan Adams. You’ve been here often—to visit your family’s graves. They’re buried over there.” I pointed. “All of them poisoned in 1987.”
Twelve
Dutch felt his mouth drop. He made an effort to shut it, then asked Ryan, “Is that true?”
Ryan gave a noncommittal shrug.
Dutch waited a moment to see if Ryan would offer any other comments, then entered the mausoleum. The air was full of dust motes floating in the light streaming through the door and the stained-glass window in the rear. The open coffins had been damaged by whatever someone had used to open them. The bodies inside were a jumble of bones and ragged fabric, but he could easily see the skulls were missing as well as other bones—bones that he was sure were sitting in Dr. Solem’s lab in Seattle.
He turned and nodded to the four standing outside. “Looks like we found the graves. I’d bet the farm that the most recent set of bones are from here as well.” He didn’t want to address Sam’s comments just yet. Instead, he exited the mausoleum and crossed over in the direction Sam had pointed. He found the graves, along with a dried pile of flowers tied by a limp ribbon.
He thought back to the conversation the night before. Someone had gasped when he mentioned 1987. Had that been Ryan?
He slowly returned to Mary, Ryan, Sam, and Leroy. How did Ryan, the doomed town, the excavation at LaCrosse, the apple paperweight, and the break-in at Mary and Sam’s place fit together? Or did they?
When he drew close enough to speak without raising his voice, he asked Ryan, “It was no coincidence that you ended up working on this case, was it?”
Ryan took out a cigarette and lighter, then slowly lit it. He didn’t speak until he’d taken a deep puff and let out the smoke. “No. No coincidence.” He shifted his weight.
“You got any idea what’s going on?” Leroy asked.
“No.” Ryan started walking back toward the road. “But I intend to find out.”
* * *
I followed as everyone trooped from the graveyard. I still wanted to ask Ryan about the small headstones. I soon caught up. “Ryan?”
He slowed but didn’t stop.
“What are all the baby graves from 1986?” I asked.
This time he did stop. “The town doctor delivered babies from all over the area.”
“That’s really not an answer,” Mary said. “Why so many deaths in the same year?”
Ryan looked down. “I don’t know. My folks moved to Suttonville from Brewster, New York when I was in high school. All this happened after I’d left for college.”
“So yet another mystery,” Mary licked her lips and leaned toward him. “When did the doctor’s office burn down?”
“Nineteen eighty-seven,” Ryan said.
We started moving again. We’d just reached the point where the road started to climb when a flash from the cliff above caught my attention. I squinted to see. Parked next to Ryan’s squad car and our white Escalade was a third vehicle, a black SUV. I could see someone standing on the far side. The flash came again. Binoculars. “Hey guys, we’ve got company.” I jerked my head toward the cliff.
Leroy, Ryan, and Dutch spun toward the crest of the hill, then sprinted up the road.
The person with the binoculars jumped into the SUV. Before the men could reach the top of the coulee, the rig was gone.
“Why would someone spy on us?” Mary asked. “Come to think of it, how did anyone even know we were here?”
How indeed? Instead of heading up the road, I turned and strolled back to the cluster of houses.
“Hey, where are you going?” Mary caught up with me.
“That could have been a passing motorist, but that’s highly unlikely because the road is almost impossible to find. Or someone is following us, again unlikely, or . . .” I checked each abandoned house, then the trees. I missed it the first time. “There.” I pointed. “A game camera.”
“That’s creepy. Someone’s watching this place.” She rubbed her arms. “But then again, it makes sense. The fence across the road says No Trespassing.”
“True. But the guy with the binoculars—”
“It was a guy?”
I thought for a moment. “Yes. In a dark suit. Anyway, he wasn’t trying to stop us. If he were law enforcement here because of trespassing, he’d be driving an official vehicle, and he wouldn’t be wearing a suit. And he’d cite us, make sure we got out. It’s like he was . . .” The excavation site. The memory of another event pushed into my brain. “Mary, this isn’t the first time a black SUV checked on us. I’m pretty sure, no, I am sure that same vehicle drove past us yesterday at LaCrosse when we were looking at the bones.”
Mary’s brow furrowed. “How can you be sure? Black SUVs are pretty common. Maybe you’re stuck on that particular type of car because that’s what drove into the school.”
A slight shiver went through me. Maybe I am obsessed. I closed my eyes. Because of the return of my purse and deliberate sabotage of my apartment, I knew someone was aware of my location. What was the probability that my stalker and the driver of the black SUV were the same? I couldn’t be sure.
“Do you have some kind of map or satellite app on your phone?” I asked Mary.
“Sure.” She fiddled with the cell, then handed it to me.
I found a map showing the roads around LaCrosse. I switched from map to satellite view. “Look.” I turned the display so she could see. “There’s the cemetery, excavation, and road. Yesterday I saw a black SUV heading north.”
“And this is important because . . .” She looked at me and raised her eyebrows.
“Look again. That road goes nowhere. It takes you to a couple of farms.”
“Maybe they live on one of those farms.”
“I thought you were the one with the imagination.” I turned and trudged back toward the parked cars. She caught up with me but didn’t speak until we’d reached the top.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay. I am being paranoid.” Even as I said it, I didn’t believe it.
* * *
Dutch was winded by the time he reached the top of the cliff. The SUV had already driven off. Tire tracks marked where the vehicle had parked, but the hard earth didn’t record any footprints.
“Can we make tire imprints?” Leroy asked Ryan.
“Why? The driver broke no laws.” Ryan stomped out his cigarette, then moved to his squad car and unlocked the door. “You going to call Dr. Solem about the graves?”
Dutch nodded.
“Okay then. I’ll drop in on the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and let them know.” He got in, but before he could start his engine, on a hunch Dutch strolled over to his window and made a sign to roll it down.
“Yes?”
“This may sound strange, but do you know of any old elevators around here?”
“Not off the top of my head. Is it important?”
“It could be.”
“Okay. I’ll call you if I find out anything.” He started his engine and drove off.
Leroy looked at Dutch. “What was that all about?”
“It may be nothing.” Dutch looked around for the women. He thought they would be behind him when they raced to the top of the coulee. He moved over to the edge. Below, Sam walked toward the town with Mary following. They both stopped and Sam turned in a slow circle.
Leroy joined him. “What’s going on? Where are the girls?”
“Still at the town. Sam seems to be looking for something.”
Sam finally pointed. Dutch’s gaze followed her finger.
Of course. “I think she’s pointing to a game camera.”
“If someone set up a camera, then they should have a record of who could have moved those bodies.”
“That’s true. I’ll call Ryan and let him know.” Dutch pulled out his cell. “No service here. I’ll try later.” He leaned against the SUV. “Looks like we’ve solved the mystery of the unknown remains. I suspect Dr. Solem will want to confirm everything, but it’s probably a case for the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation over in Olympia. They handle nonforensic remains. Looks like you can go back to work on the development pretty quickly.”
“Yep,” Leroy said softly. He moved away, staring at the ground. His jaw clenched and unclenched and he rubbed the back of his neck.
“Something wrong?”
“Nah. Just . . . thinking.”
The wind kicked up, sending a dust devil twirling between the sagebrush. A red-tailed hawk floated on the updraft, watching the ground for a tasty mouse.
Soon the two women joined them, slightly out of breath from the climb.
The sound of a diesel engine and a cloud of dust preceded the arrival of an older blue Ford truck. It parked on the road and a man in a battered cowboy hat, red plaid jacket, and jeans stepped out. His face was a network of wrinkles, and a small white mustache lined his upper lip. “Can I help you folks?”
Dutch stepped forward. “We were just leaving.”
“I see.” He looked at the women, then Leroy, before addressing Dutch. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I believe so. And you are . . . ?”
“Hank. Hank Jenicek. I own this.” He waved his hand at the surrounding farmland. “I kinda keep an eye on anyone paying too much attention to Suttonville, especially this time of year.”
Dutch’s forehead wrinkled. “Why this time of year?”
“We’re coming up on September 29. The anniversary of the town’s . . . I guess you’d call it death. People used to come by pretty regular, lay flowers on the graves, even some protesters, but not much anymore. People forget.”
Samantha walked over to Hank. “Are you the one who put in the game camera?”
“Game camera?” Hank asked.
“Someone installed a camera on one of the trees down there,” Sam said.
“No,” Hank said. “But that’s not such a bad idea. What’s your interest in the town?”
“I’m sorry. I should have answered you.” Dutch stuck out his hand to shake Hank’s. “I’m Dr. Dustin Van Seters.” They shook hands. “We believe someone removed some bodies from the Suttonville graveyard and we’re following up on it.”
“Some bodies? Which bodies?”
“The West family.”
“Edwinna and Ned?” The old man shook his head. “He and his wife were good people.”
“You knew them?” Sam asked.
“Yep. Shameful to disturb the dead.” He turned toward his truck.
“One more thing, Mr. Jenicek.” Sam brushed her hair from her face. “There are a number of baby graves all from the same year, 1986. Do you know anything about that?”
“I heard rumors, that’s all.” He gave a half-wave, got into his pickup, and drove off.
“Every so often I wouldn’t mind hearing a few rumors,” Sam muttered.
Leroy unlocked the car door. “Lunch?”
Dutch nodded. “Head to Pasco.” As soon as they reached the highway, he was able to get cell service and updated Ryan on the game camera. After he disconnected, they drove in silence.
When they reached the edge of town, Leroy found a small restaurant in a strip mall and parked.
Mary had been bent over her phone since they’d left Suttonville. Once inside and seated, she finally looked up.
“What are you looking for on your cell?” Sam asked her.
“I think it’s more what am I not finding.” She waited until the waiter took their orders and moved away. “There’s surprisingly little known about what happened in Suttonville. Rumors flew that the doctor poisoned the water, then committed suicide. They think he started with the children and babies.”
“That’s so sad,” Sam said. “He had to be a monster to do that. No one was even allowed to bring him to justice.”
“There’d be no closure for the families. And speaking of which”—Mary took a sip of Pepsi and showed Sam her phone—“the most interesting thing of all is who discovered all the bodies. None other than Deputy Ryan Adams.”
No one spoke for a few moments while Sam read.
“I wonder why Ryan didn’t mention his connection to Suttonville last night at dinner,” Dutch said.
“He probably didn’t want to think about it.” Sam looked at each of them. “He found his parents’ and brother’s bodies. That had to be a terrible shock.”
“It was worse than that,” Mary said, taking her phone back. “On September 29, 1987, there was a terrific windstorm. A lot of damage and power outages. No one was able to connect to Suttonville, but because of the storm, no one thought this was unusual until the power grid was restored four days later. By the time Ryan went over to check on his family, they’d been dead for several days.”
