08-A Thousand Bones, page 19
“Up here?” Joe asked.
“Yes, Deputy. What do you have to link Snider to Leelanau County?”
She felt a knot growing in her stomach, and she snuck at a glance at Mack, suddenly realizing why he hadn’t said anything. Adderly was about to rip their case apart, and Mack wasn’t going to step anywhere near the fray. She looked back at Adderly.
“Snider said he committed his crimes up here,” she said.
“He didn’t say he actually committed a crime,” Adderly said.
“He as much as said it,” Joe said.
“But he didn’t say it,” Adderly said, pointing his pencil at her. “And I’m surprised as hell his lawyer even let you put cuffs on his client. What did you think you could possibly charge him with up here?”
“Ronnie Langford’s murder,” Joe said.
Adderly’s voice was suddenly sharper. “A ten-year-old crime on the basis of a bloody hammer found three hundred miles away? It’ll take weeks to get the typing back on the blood, and we haven’t yet proven the hair is the same color as Ronnie Langford’s, let alone even human.”
“But she disappeared the same week she broke up with him,” Joe said.
Adderly leaned forward. “But where is the body?”
Joe lowered her eyes, a wash of warmth in her cheeks. It was the same thing the prosecutor in Inkster had said: no body, no case.
The conference room door opened, and Augie stuck his head in. “Sheriff,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a phone call for you from Chicago.”
“Annabelle Chapel’s parents?” Leach asked.
“No,” Augie said. “It’s about the dental records.”
“I’ll take it in here.”
Leach punched the blinking button. He was quiet for a moment, said thank you, and replaced the receiver. “The jawbone is definitely Annabelle Chapel’s,” Leach said.
Everyone at the table looked to Mack. His eyes glinted with satisfaction. “I knew it,” he said. “I fucking knew it. I told you all this weeks ago. She was always the key to this.”
“But she’s not the only victim,” Joe said.
Mack stood up, snatching up his file and holding it up to Adderly. “But she’s the only victim we can put a name to. Hers is the murder we charge Snider with.”
“There’s no more evidence for her—” Joe started.
Adderly slapped the table. “Would everyone shut up for a minute?”
The room fell silent.
“This news may be the saving grace for your case,” Adderly said. “Refresh my memory. When did this Chapel girl disappear?”
Mack didn’t have to look it up. “February 2, 1969.”
“Where did she disappear from?” Adderly asked.
“A ski lodge at Boyne Mountain,” Mack said.
“Wait, I just remembered something,” Joe said. “In Snider’s high school yearbook, it said he was a member of the ski club.”
Adderly was twirling the pencil in his fingers. “Can someone place them together at the ski lodge in February 1969?”
No one answered.
“Then can anyone place Annabelle Chapel in Inkster—ever?”
“No,” Mack said. “I know everywhere that girl went. She was never in Inkster.”
Adderly pulled at his jaw, then ran a hand over his head. “Does anyone have anything that even places Ken Snider anywhere up north during his adult life?”
“Now that I have his picture and a time line,” Mack said, “I can make a damn connection.”
Adderly tossed him a weary look. “You are all missing the point,” he said. “You should have found these connections before you arrested him.”
Joe leaned forward. “But the Inkster PD was going to let him go,” she said. “We had to keep him in custody.”
“You didn’t have to do anything,” Adderly snapped. “You could have watched him, investigated his background, continued to build the evidence. Hell, sometimes it takes years to get enough evidence to go to trial.”
The flush in Joe’s face that had started as embarrassment was growing to a burn of anger, her head popping with snippets about John Norman Collins and the two years it took to build a case against him. That case had all been circumstantial, but Collins had been convicted and was now serving his life sentence in Marquette. So why wasn’t the evidence against Snider enough for Adderly?
“You made a mistake,” Adderly said. “Your arrest was premature, and because of that, I’m going to have to tell three grieving mothers and a pack of reporters that I’m letting Ken Snider go.”
Joe looked up quickly. She had to blink Adderly back into focus. His face suddenly softened with something close to pity.
“Like all inexperienced cops, Deputy Frye, you let your emotions rule your head,” he said. “And I understand that.”
Adderly turned to Rafsky. “But you, Detective Rafsky. You’re a seasoned investigator. Why didn’t you stop her? You had to see this was a bad arrest.”
Rafsky set down his pen on the blank pad, his gaze going first to Joe, then to Adderly. “You are right,” he said. “But Deputy Frye and I took a chance. To leave Snider in Inkster would have probably resulted in him being released and then running. We hoped that if he spent five hours in the car with us and if he saw the area where he says he committed his crimes, he would break. He didn’t.”
“And he won’t,” Adderly said.
Rafsky gave a small shrug. “I admit it may have been a lapse in judgment on my part.”
Mack snorted. “Maybe that judgment was a little clouded.”
Rafsky swiveled in his chair toward Mack. “Clouded?”
“Yeah,” Mack said. “Three nights on the road and a hot little rookie maybe you wanted to impress?”
Rafsky’s lips drew into a thin line, an angry spark to his eyes. Joe wanted to say something—no, throw something at Mack—but she knew if she did, it would embarrass both her and Rafsky. She could see a creep of color on Rafsky’s neck, but he said nothing, just turned his chair back toward Adderly.
“Mack, enough,” Leach said. “Let’s stay on topic here.”
“The topic seems to be their incompetence,” Mack said. “Nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade.”
“Then let’s call this what it is as well,” Adderly said, shoving his chair back and standing. “A mess.”
“Gordon, wait,” Mack said. “I’ll find you a connection between Annabelle and Snider. I’ll go to Petoskey today. I’ll place that fucker in that town, damn it.”
Adderly closed all the files he had in front of him. “We don’t have time, Mack. Snider’s entitled to a probable cause hearing within fourteen days, and I’d bet my ass when his lawyer gets here, he’ll scream for one as soon as possible. And I might as well walk in there naked holding my dick with what you guys have given me.”
“So you’re going to just let him go?” Joe asked.
Adderly hesitated. “Yes.”
Mack started to say something, but Joe cut him off. “Mr. Adderly, please don’t do this.”
Adderly snapped his briefcase shut. “If I file cause now and then drop the charges the day before the preliminary hearing, I’ll look like a monster to every mother and a fool to every reporter out there. My office loses all credibility.”
He jerked the briefcase off the table and took a step toward the door before looking back at Leach. “I’m sorry, Cliff,” he said. “I really am.”
Joe stood quickly. “Mr. Adderly.”
Adderly stopped again, drew a breath that lifted his round shoulders, and turned to her. She pushed back her chair and came around the table, toward the pile of evidence stacked on the table.
“He takes them,” she said tightly. “He rapes them. And he hangs them.”
She picked up the deer hoist by the frayed rope and held it up above the table. “With this.”
Adderly didn’t move. Joe felt the eyes of the others, and she turned, looking around the table. The five men were looking back at her with the expression of people at a funeral who did not really know the deceased. Solemn. Sad, maybe, but with a determined detachment that kept the pain from getting too close.
“Mr. Adderly,” Joe said, “please give us our fourteen days.”
Adderly blew out a tired breath. “You have forty-eight hours,” he said. “Find me something.”
27
A cold wind was moving across Lake Michigan and up the mouth of the river. It was blowing so hard the water was being forced backward against the dam, creating tiny whitecaps. Joe watched a lone gull struggle against the wind until it finally gave up and took shelter on the leeward side of a Fishtown shanty, where it sat, forlorn and rumple-feathered.
“I got you a beer.”
Rafsky sat down across from her, setting two plastic glasses on the table. Joe didn’t look at him as she reached out to take the cup. She took a drink and looked back out at the water.
“Can we go inside?” Rafsky asked.
“No, I need to be out here.”
They were the only ones out on the deck. Rafsky turned up the collar of his trench coat. “Okay, you need to cool off,” he said. “But do I have to freeze my ass off in the meantime?”
She didn’t answer.
“Frye.”
“What?”
“We’ll find something. We won’t let Snider walk.”
She was silent, staring at the shanty house across the canal, the one where Pete the Buddha-bellied Romeo held sway over his ramshackle little realm. She was staring at the smoke curling up from his chimney, envisioning him inside with a drink, his dog, and his woman.
“I want to live over there,” she said, pointing. “I want to dive off the dock in summer, sit by the fire in winter, with my only worry being who’s going out to buy beer and the next cord of wood.”
Rafsky laughed. “No, you don’t.”
She finally looked at him. It took a moment, but she smiled, then burrowed down into her coat. “No, I don’t.”
Her eyes went back to the water as she thought about how hard it was going to be to find something to appease Adderly. Mack was already on his way to the Boyne Mountain ski resort. Armed with a photo of Snider, he was looking for anything that could connect him to Annabelle Chapel—a hotel receipt, lift ticket records, a witness with a good memory.
Mike had been given the task of sorting through the personal items taken from Snider’s Inkster home and was pushing the lab for a quick analysis of the hammer, the deer knife, and the shotguns from the basement. Holt had been assigned to deal with the mothers, a task that put his gentleness to good use. Leach had been the one to call Annabelle Chapel’s parents in Chicago to tell them about the jawbone being a match. Then he had given Joe and Rafsky their assignment with one simple sentence: Find some way to connect Snider to Echo Bay.
The first thing they had done was run a check of property records in Leelanau and three nearby counties. There was no record of Snider owning anything.
Joe took a sip of her beer. “Rafsky, what are we going to do?” she asked quietly.
“Snider had to have a place to go here,” Rafsky said. “He didn’t just dump them and then check into the Carp River Motel.”
Joe was quiet for a long time, thinking.
“You have an idea?” Rafsky asked.
“Not sure, just a fragment of one. Something Snider said the first time we were at his house. When we were questioning him, he started to say something about his father. Something like, ‘Dad had—’”
“Had what?” Rafsky asked.
“My partner, Mike, he says even the most humble slob on the Ford line has a place up north. Maybe Ken Snider Senior did. He was a hunter.”
“No Sniders showed up on the real estate rolls.”
“Maybe he had a place but Ken sold it after the father died.”
“We could go back to the county, but without a year, we aren’t going to find it in forty-eight hours.”
Joe was watching the shanty across the canal. Pete appeared, scampering out in his bathrobe to grab his newspaper off the dock. She rose quickly.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ve got an idea.
Theo took his time coming out to the front counter to talk to them. Joe could see in his face that he was miffed at her.
“Give me one good reason why I should help you, Joette,” he said.
“Look, Theo, I had no control over that story being printed,” she said.
“How do you think I feel getting scooped by some lousy beat reporter on some stinking downstate rag?” Theo said. “I mean, maybe the Detroit Free Press, but the Inkster Gazette?”
Theo was pouting. Joe couldn’t really blame him. The bones had been his story since the start, something beyond the church bake sales and routine break-ins. He got the same adrenaline rush from being involved in this as she did as a cop.
“Your story today was good,” she said.
He sniffed. “It was just a follow-up. But tomorrow, the big boys are going to be eating my dust.”
Rafsky had been quiet, but now he stepped forward. “What are you printing?”
Theo hesitated, then smiled. “Why not? Come back and see.”
He led them to the back, where the pasted-up pages of tomorrow’s front page lay on light tables. SNIDER LINKED TO 2ND MISSING GIRL; TEEN DISAPPEARED FROM BOYNE SKI RESORT.
“Shit,” Rafsky muttered, turning away. “Mack.”
Joe turned to Theo. “Theo, you can’t release this yet.”
“You see all those reporters in town?” Theo said. “No more playing catchup for me.”
Rafsky came forward. “Okay, then let’s make a deal here. You hold this story about the positive ID on Annabelle Chapel, and we’ll give you the next break we get.”
Theo eyed them both. “Sorry, no deal.”
Rafsky looked to Joe, and she took the lead. “Okay, but can we look at your back issues, Theo.”
“For what?”
“I can’t tell you yet. If we find something, you’ll be the first to get it.”
Theo pursed his lips. “All right. Follow me.”
He led them to the room with the bound copies and left them alone. Joe pulled out the binder for 1969.
“What are we looking for?” Rafsky asked.
“Real estate transactions,” Joe said. “You can’t do anything in this town without Theo printing it. You have a baby, get married, break your collarbone playing football, buy a cake or a cottage, it will be in the Banner.”
They sat side by side at the table and opened the 1969 book to January. Joe was aware of Rafsky’s closeness, the mix of smells—soap, the starch of his shirt, and the peppermint he had popped after drinking his beer. She felt the slight press of his thigh against her own under the table.
The real estate transfers were wedged in between the obituaries and the church announcements under the heading LEELANAU LOG. They were listed only in the Thursday edition, so it didn’t take long for them to work their way into February. She was watching Rafsky’s long finger work its way down the column of type when it suddenly stopped.
Feb. 1, 1969. Kenneth H. Snider Jr. to Donald and Jean Collier, Section 42, Echo Bay Township.
Rafsky’s eyes came up to hers. There was hope there, but it was restrained. Back out in Theo’s office, Rafsky called the county appraiser. Joe watched as he wrote something on a pad. He thanked the clerk and hung up the phone.
“We’ve got the address,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The cabin was on Bass Lake about eight miles northwest of Echo Bay. It was several miles from the original site of the bones but just outside the eastern border of the expanded search grid. The cabin was isolated, set back in a stand of beeches and poplars, with no other houses visible.
Joe took note of the place as they drove up the gravel road. An old-style dark log cabin, small but well maintained. Too well, Joe thought, her spirits falling slightly. She had been hoping to find the cabin in the same state it had been six years ago—and empty. But it was neither. There were some tenacious pink fall asters in the window boxes. And there was a shiny green Scout 4x4 in the drive.
Don and Jean Collier were in their forties, the wife plump and bubbly, the husband lean and red-faced from working thirty years delivering mail. They listened, with solemn attentive faces, to Rafsky’s explanation of why he and Joe were there. Rafsky kept his words general, but Joe could see the morbid curiosity and horror in their eyes. They had read the papers. They had heard the stories about what had been going on almost in their backyard.
“We couldn’t believe it when we saw his name in the paper,” Don Collier said.
“Kenny Snider seemed like such a nice boy,” Jean added.
They were sitting straight-backed on the sofa together. Joe was perched on a bench in front of a spinet piano, notebook and pen out. Rafsky had positioned himself closer to the Colliers, sitting on the edge of a blue La-Z-Boy.
“So you bought the cabin from Snider?” Rafsky asked.
“Nope, from an agent,” Don said. “I saw a listing in the Charlevoix paper. I was working up there but we always wanted to live down in this neck of the woods. We bought it in sixty-nine but didn’t move in until last spring when I finally retired. I used to come down here every weekend to work on the place. Shoot, took a couple years to make this place livable.”
His wife jumped in. “The cabin was a mess.”
Don nodded. “But it was on the lake, and there’s only so much lake frontage, you know.”
“But you met Snider, right?” Rafsky asked.
“Yeah, at the closing in the title office in Petoskey. February 1,” Don said.
Joe caught Rafsky’s eye. They had placed Snider in Petoskey the day before Annabelle Chapel disappeared. And from Petoskey, it was a quick fifteen-mile trip down US-331 to the ski resort where Annabelle was last seen.
“Did Ken Snider tell you why he was selling?” Rafsky asked.
“Oh, yes,” Jean said. “He didn’t want to sell because the cabin had been in his family for three generations. But now that his father had died, he said he needed the money.” She shook her head slowly. “I still can’t believe what I am reading about him.”
