Buried Secrets, page 23
Tripper sat in the back, his pointy ears straight up, surveying everything happening outside the vehicle. Along with being the best HRD dog Tuesday had ever worked with, Tripper also happened to be the most chill when it came to hanging out in the truck, something all the working dogs learned to be comfortable with. They had to, given the amount of time they spent waiting as search plans were prepared, teams assigned, and search areas distributed. The high drive critical for a successful search dog lived in his heart, yet amazingly, he could dial it down while he waited. Many working dogs couldn’t, and she treasured that about him.
“Your brother is an ass.” Rolf joined them at the truck, cap on his curly black hair and sunglasses hiding his eyes. If she were to place a bet, she’d make one that he wore the dark glasses because he believed they made him look both mysterious and authoritative. She could see him standing in front of a full-length mirror admiring himself, a peacock spreading his feathers so all the females would flock to him. Ugh.
“You should know. Why you’d be surprised is a real mystery to me.” She didn’t miss Addie’s inquisitive glance and explained. “October and Rolf were pals in school.”
“I don’t know if pals would be the right word.” Rolf shoved his hands into his pockets, feet slightly apart. Was that cologne she smelled? Really? On a search? Who exactly did he plan to hit on out here? The man never changed. The full-of-himself boy had become the full-of-himself man. Not full circle. One straight line he was incapable of deviating from. She had to believe it would bite him in the butt in the end.
She gave Addie a look, pretty sure she understood the unspoken message. “They were friends, of a sort.” Addie raised a single eyebrow. Yes, she got it.
“Nobody was your brother’s friend. He just allowed people to hang in his circle. Me included.” Rolf shifted on his feet. Sort of looked like discomfort. Interesting.
The conversation could go on and on, and she didn’t care what Rolf and October were to each other in school or what they might or might not be now. Bigger fish to fry. Tripper had waited long enough. “That would be October.” She threw him a bone of a sort, hoping they could wrap this up. “Now shall we get started?” She opened the door, and Tripper jumped out. His energy quadrupled when his paws hit the ground.
“Let me tell you what I want you to do.” Rolf morphed back into the most important sheriff.
Tuesday held up a hand. “Rolf, please. I don’t want to know anything. You gave us the areas you need us to search, now let us work them, and we’ll tell you what we find, if anything. I don’t want you to share anything else. Period.”
“But…” His brow furrowed, and he pressed his lips together in a frown. “I need you to know what I want.”
“But nothing, and no, I don’t want to know anything. You start telling me what you think or what you want, and I’ll load up Tripper and go home.”
“What? This is my search. I have a right to guide you. I don’t know how they do things in Spokane, but this is my county, and we do things my way.”
“You called the search, but if you’re going to bias it by telling us what to look for and what you think, then we’re done here.” She opened the back door that Tripper had just come out of and waited. Tripper stood next to her, holding his position until she either gave him the command to load up or the command to search for human remains. The choice would be Rolf’s.
He threw up his hands. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re as big a pain now as you ever were. You go do your thing, and I’ll go back to the other site.”
She shoots. She scores. Now, she’d be the bigger woman. “Look, Rolf, you’re welcome to walk along. All I ask is that you do it quietly. You really do risk the integrity of the search if you interject thoughts and theories. If we work blind, our results will be pretty much bullet-proof. Anything that happens out here will hold up in court, and isn’t that what we all want?”
“I can be quiet.”
She raised an eyebrow. Not the guy she remembered. He talked all the time. “You’re telling me you’ve changed?”
This time he actually smiled. “Not much, but I can do it if necessary.”
She’d believe it when she saw it, or perhaps more accurately, when she didn’t hear it. “You ready?” She looked at Addie, who’d been scrolling through the GPS. The tiny smile on her lips told Tuesday she’d enjoyed listening to the passive-aggressive back-and-forth with Rolf.
Addie nodded and lifted her head. “Yeah. I think I got this. Where do you want me to take you?”
Tuesday checked the wind and pointed. “I want to start in the northwest corner and work east to west across the wind. Tripper will need to do this one a little more slowly, and with a fair amount of detail, since we could be looking for more clandestine graves. But if we give him the advantage of the wind, that’ll help him. We may find disarticulated remains too, which will be easier for him. Either way, we want to set him up to be successful if there are more remains for him to find.”
“Got it.” Addie tapped her GPS and started moving. “Follow me.”
Tuesday followed and thought about how right this felt. She and Tripper were a solid team and had been from the beginning. With Addie as their navigator, things somehow felt even better, as though the team had become perfect and, more important, complete.
The light breeze felt good and fed Tripper’s energy, which moved up the lead from his collar to her hand, a sort of tingle that let her know he anticipated the run. About halfway to the start point, she leaned down and unclipped the lead. Tripper took off, obviously eager to get to work even though she hadn’t yet given him the command, a nonsense word that told him to look for human remains but which meant nothing to anyone listening. Might seem odd to those not in the profession. To those who did the same work, it made perfect sense. Too often family showed up at the search, and she didn’t want to announce to anyone within hearing that they were looking for dead people.
Tripper didn’t need her to utter anything right now. At this point in his career, he knew when he was on the clock and when he wasn’t. He’d known for hours that they were heading to work, and the second she unclipped the lead, he got down to it. She took her GPS unit out of her harness and started the track log that would record Tripper’s movements. She’d be able to see him as he moved, and at the end of the search, the sheriff’s office would be able to download the track and see the coverage of the search area. Addie’s GPS track log would record their movements.
“We’re not there yet.” Addie looked back at her as Tripper whizzed by, his nose down, his eyes intense. He moved with grace and intention, a powerful machine that worked to please.
She nodded as she put her GPS back into her chest harness. “I know. Sometimes I let him start early. You never know what he’ll find.”
“Got it.” Addie glanced down and then back up. “We’re almost there. About another hundred yards.”
She loved how Addie embraced her role as navigator. A natural. Another sign that Addie wasn’t just some woman who’d wandered into her life. “Please start your track log once we get to the corner of the area. It’s important to be able to document our movements.”
Addie nodded as she continued with intention toward a point ahead. “Will do.”
“You know, for telling me to zip it, you two are talking a lot.” Rolf’s step was heavy behind them.
How much trouble would she get in for pinching off a sheriff’s head?
* * *
This wasn’t the first time Addie had been around working dogs potentially searching for remains that might be Anthony’s. She’d seen them perform, knew how good they could be. Had been impressed by their dedication and focus. That none before had found her brother had caused a combination of relief and sadness.
Today marked the first time she’d been an active participant in a search. Not that this one looked specifically for Anthony. Just a possibility kind of situation. She might want to believe the remains Tripper had already found were unrelated, except the feeling in the pit of her stomach said something different. Everything felt different.
In a way, she wished Tuesday had insisted the sheriff go back to the other site. That she didn’t particularly like him might be an understatement. If pressed, she’d admit she liked him a little more than Tuesday’s brother, October, but that wasn’t saying much. The edge she afforded Rolf came with how he took down Hinchcliff. Quick and efficient. That slight edge aside, both were colossal assholes. Over the course of her career, she’d discovered she didn’t do well with assholes. With Rolf, it hadn’t been her call, and she needed to make peace with it. Concentrate on her job in this search and support Tuesday and Tripper. Consider the sheriff background noise and shut him out.
They’d just made their second east-west pass when Tripper took off. His body tensed, his nose came up in the air, and he seemed to be in his own world. Fascinating to watch. Tuesday turned to glance at her as she said, “Mark it.”
She hit the button that placed a mark at the coordinates where she now stood. Then she jogged after Tuesday as she followed Tripper. It took her a few seconds to realize Tripper had just amended the search pattern. Tuesday had warned her before they began that if he went into scent, all plans morphed. He would show them where they needed to go, and that appeared to be exactly what he did now. Her nerves began to sing.
“Well, shit.” Rolf followed, sounding more like a bull in a China shop than a former football player. Clear to her that he didn’t find this as exciting as she did.
A good two to three hundred yards away, Tripper dropped his nose to the ground and began working back and forth, back and forth. She hurried to keep up, and just as she reached Tuesday, she tripped on a downed tree and started to tumble. Rolf, right behind her, grabbed her arm. Everything went dark.
“Dude, what the fuck did you do?” A young Rolf stood at the tree, staring at an unmoving figure on the ground. The guy wore a pair of boxers and a jacket.
October kneeled next to the body, his hair long, his blue eyes bright. “What, are you stupid? What do you think I did?”
“Looks like you killed him.”
“Then you have good eyesight.”
“Where the fuck are his jeans?”
“Need to know, and you don’t need to know. Now help me.”
He backed away. “Fuck you. I don’t want any part of this. I’m no fucking killer.”
October stood and put his hands on his hips. “Oh, you’ll fucking help me, or else.” His blue eyes looked black.
Rolf took a few more steps back. “Please. That shit might work on other people, but you forget who my dad is. I can’t have anything to do with your craziness. I have a future, man, and this ain’t it.”
If possible, October’s eyes looked even darker. “Good old Sheriff Adler. How do you think your daddy is gonna feel after I tell him what you did to Cindy Fisher?”
He shrugged. “Not my fault she got drunk and passed out. I didn’t do anything any other guy wouldn’t have.”
“No means no, dude, and I heard her say no. Most guys know what that means.”
“Fuck you.”
He smiled. “Pretty sure that’s what you did to Cindy, and pretty sure Daddy won’t like that you did it to her after she passed out. I wonder how that would look on the front page of the newspaper? Sheriff’s son rapes an unconscious senior from the local high school. You’ll be famous.”
“No proof, my man. Not like that.” He pointed to the body.
His smile was ugly. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
“What? You got jack shit.”
“Can you say pictures?”
Rolf’s gaze snapped to October’s face. “Nobody saw that.”
October laughed. “Saw what? Thought you said nothing happened?”
“You asshole. What did you do?”
“Hedged my bets. Now you gonna help me with this or not? And by not, I mean seeing your face front and center on the six o’clock news.”
Rolf’s face turned crimson and his words strangled. “What do you need?”
“I need you to get that shovel and start digging.”
Addie’s eyelids fluttered, and when she opened her eyes, both Tuesday and Rolf knelt next to her. She sat up and took a deep breath. A few yards away, Tripper held a down, his eyes intent on Tuesday, his body tense and alert. Addie knew what that meant. She shifted her gaze, and she moved closer to Tuesday. Tripper looked at her strangely, as if she’d done something terrible. She wasn’t the one who’d done a terrible thing.
She directed her soft words to Rolf. “You knew.”
His eyes widened, and it was his turn to back up. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
She reached out and took Tuesday’s hand, squeezing it firmly, keeping her gaze on Rolf’s face. “No wonder you wanted to go with us. You had to be certain we wouldn’t find it.”
Tuesday stood and helped Addie to her feet. “Find what? What did you see?”
She glanced quickly at Tuesday as she made sure to keep her distance from the sheriff. “Long story, short, Rolf helped your brother bury a body, and I’m pretty sure they buried him right there.” She pointed to where Tripper still waited.
“Rolf?”
Rolf started to back away, his hand moving toward the gun at his belt. The color had drained from his face, and his eyes looked wild. “It wasn’t my fault. He made me do it.” The sound of a gunshot blasted through the air seconds before blood sprayed from Rolf’s head and he dropped in a heap to the ground.
Chapter Twenty-six
This couldn’t be happening to her again. Tuesday’s pulse raced as she grabbed Addie’s hand and dragged her into a thick stand of trees. She crouched and tried to breathe. Her heart pounded so hard, she wondered if the big one would hit any second. Tripper raced to the trees with them and pushed against her, obviously sensing both her fear and the danger. What was it about her that brought bullets flying straight at her?
She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Her pulse slowed, a little, and her heart took it down a notch or two. She asked Addie, “What did October do?”
Addie kept low beside her, trembling. “It’s awful, Tuesday, and I wish I could unsee it. They were both young men. From what I could glean, October killed a guy and forced Rolf to help him bury the body.”
“How could he force Rolf? His dad was sheriff when we were kids. All he’d have to do was call him, and October would have been sent to jail.” Funny how she had more trouble believing Rolf assisted in a crime than she had believing October killed someone.
“What I got from it revolved around your brother having proof that Rolf raped a girl from their school while she was passed out. He threatened to destroy him by exposing what he’d done. Rather than risk it, Rolf helped him.”
Tuesday’s hands trembled, and she held onto Addie. Her presence helped to steady her. “It was true.”
“What do you mean?”
It all came back to her in a rush of memory. “A girl in school left abruptly, and the rumor mill said that she’d been raped but would never say who did it. Lots and lots of rumors, and Rolf’s name came up more than a few times. Nobody took it any further because of who he was.”
“Rolf did it.” Addie’s expression soured. “He was not a good guy.”
“That’s not all. A kid from the Nine Mile High School also disappeared, and the kids kept saying October had something to do with it. I wrote it off to kids being kids. He was really good-looking and got all the girls. Other guys hated him for that. It made sense they’d use something like that to try to steer the girls away from him. As much as he was a pain in my ass, I never believed him capable of murder.” She had believed him capable of violence though. She’d been on the receiving end of his fist on more than one occasion.
“How about now?” Addie studied her intently.
Tuesday peeked around the tree. October stood in the distance, legs spread, a handgun at his waist and a rifle in his hands. “Now, I think I was very, very wrong back then.”
Strangely, her heart quit racing, and the initial panic eased up. Tripper obviously sensed the change in her too, and his body relaxed. He also quit pushing so hard against her. As she peered out at October, memories flew through her mind and began falling into place like a thousand-piece puzzle. Her brother was a killer, and he’d been doing it for a very long time.
“I need you to get Rolf’s gun.” She stared at October from the cover of the big pine and recognized his weapons. They’d belonged to their father. Unless her mother had changed her ways, and she didn’t believe that to be the case, those guns would be in perfect working order. The accurate shot that went through Rolf’s brain attested to it.
“Ah, no can do. He’ll pick me off.” Addie stayed behind the big pine.
Already thinking through strategy, Tuesday knew what had to happen next. “I’m going to draw him in the opposite direction. Pretty sure he’s here for me anyway. I suspect Rolf was just a bonus.” She slipped her arms out of her pack and dropped it to the ground. She needed to move fast and didn’t want to be hampered even by the smaller daypack she’d put on for this particular search. Her shoulder burned where the straps had rubbed against her scars.
Clearly alarmed, Addie grabbed her arm. “No, no, no, no.”
“Yes.” She might not have Addie’s psychic abilities, but she knew what had to happen in the next few minutes. One option and one option only. It all fell to her.
“He’ll kill you.” The alarm in Addie’s voice pulled at her. She thought she understood. They were two flawed women who’d found their way to each other, and now October stood out there loaded with weapons, preparing to destroy what they’d just discovered. Not gonna happen.
She stared around the tree at him for at least a full minute. She wasn’t wrong. She couldn’t be. She glanced over at Addie. “I got this. I still have eight lives left.”
