Lost Lake Page 14

  Finn went first. “Between the intern and me, we’ve spoken to about two-thirds of the guests who were at the gala the night of Betty Starbuck’s murder. So far, we got zilch. No one saw or heard anything unusual. We’ve still got about twenty to go—some folks have been slow in returning our calls, a few others are out of town on business, traveling, and so on. In addition, the intern has also interviewed all of the museum volunteers and the board members about the Rayburn Diary. Just like with the murder: no one saw anything. No one heard anything. Our guy fingerprinted the safe, and that was a bust, too. All identifiable prints belong to museum staff.”

  In the corner, the intern nodded along as Finn spoke. I squinted, trying to read the tiny print on the nametag on the lapel of his suit jacket, but it was in vain.

  Finn continued. “I spoke with the security guard under contract with the museum. He was broken-hearted about Starbuck’s death and blamed himself. He told us two useful things: he did not do a sweep of the museum after the final gala guest left, and the last time he saw Betty Starbuck alive was when he escorted her to her car that night. She’d given him no indication that she planned to grab a burger and then return to the museum. Gemma?”

  “Thanks, Finn. Guys, we’re waiting on forensics from the crime lab. We have a possible match on fibers found on Starbuck’s body to a shirt that Sari Chesney was wearing at the time of her disappearance. It’s weak. Starbuck’s opal necklace continues to bother me. It was valuable and sellable—a hell of a lot easier to sell than the diary—yet it was left at the murder scene. This, along with the very personal nature of her murder, strongly suggests to me that Starbuck’s murder was not the result of a robbery gone awry. We’ve said it from the start: we’re looking for a killer who knew Starbuck. Knew her intimately.” I took a sip of coffee, then continued. “Looking at her sons, both are suspicious for different reasons. Of the two, Kent Starbuck is the only one without an alibi. Not only that, but he was seen at the museum near to the time of his mother’s death. The problem is, it’s all circumstantial. We have nothing tying him to the actual scene of the crime.”

  I started to review the timeline of Chesney’s disappearance when Chloe Parker from dispatch interrupted the meeting. She stuck her head in the room, a tense expression on her face.

  Chief Chavez frowned. “Yes?”

  Chloe shot me a pointed look, and my heart skipped a beat. My first thought was trouble at home, but then she turned back to Chavez and said in a rush, “I’m sorry to interrupt, Chief. We have a situation in the lobby. A couple of guys just came in. They’ve been fishing at Lost Lake.”

  She stopped a moment to catch her breath.

  Impatient and eager to return to the meeting, the chief was on her in an instant. “Spit it out, Chloe.”

  “Sir, they say there’s a body in the water.”

  * * *

  The fishermen were a pair of young locals. Earl Dare and Billy “Cheetah” Whitehead had parked in the lot of the Haywood Trail before sunrise. Lugging fishing poles, a liter of Coke, a fifth of whiskey, and a pail of sandwiches, they took their time hiking in. They planned to fish until three, then stroll back and be home by six.

  They’d just finished their third round of Jack and Cokes when they spotted the body.

  Finn and I interviewed them in the conference room. A sick feeling had descended into the pit of my stomach, growing more intense the longer the fishermen spoke. They smelled of sweat and Jack Daniel’s and wet wool socks.

  “I couldn’t believe it,” Earl said. He was athletic looking, with a shaved head and eyes bright from adrenaline and alcohol. “At first I thought it was a big log, maybe felled by a beaver. Then I thought it was a drowned deer, or a moose even. Then Cheetah saw the body, too!”

  Cheetah chimed in. “I could see how Earl might think it was a moose. The corpse is, uh, bloated looking. Bigger than a body. But it’s a body, no doubt about it.”

  “Is it a man or a woman?”

  Earl and Cheetah looked at each other a moment, then Cheetah turned back to me and shrugged. “Can’t say one way or another; the hair is long, so maybe a woman? The body is facedown.”

  “Where is it?” I asked, one hand on my stomach.

  Earl considered the best way to explain it. “Well, you have to hike in first. Then, when you reach the lake, go around the right side about a half a mile.”

  I thought a moment. “Before or after you reach the campsites?”

  “Before. But not by far, maybe a dozen yards. We stuck one of our fishing poles in the sand along the lake and tied a bandanna to it. We thought that might help you all,” Cheetah said. He was about seventy pounds heavier than Earl, and I briefly wondered how he had earned his nickname. “It’s tangled up in some reeds. The body, not the fishing pole.”

  “That was smart thinking, leaving a marker,” Finn replied. “Did it look like the body could break free of the reeds? Could it float away before we get up there?”

  “Hell, no.” Cheetah said with a shake of his head. “I could see the legs and arms. They’re twisted up pretty good in those reeds. I think the body might even be snagged on a submerged log or tree trunk or something. I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”

  Earl said, “I’ll tell you something, we’ve been fishing up there since we were kids. And today is the last day I’ll ever fish Lost Lake. Not after this.”

  Cheetah added, “And I don’t think I’ll be able to eat fish anytime soon. Maybe ever. I know what happens to corpses in the water. They go to the bottom of the food chain.”

  We finished interviewing the young men, then Finn and I headed to the trailhead. We drove in silence, the sick feeling in my stomach continuing to intensify.

  If it was Sari Chesney’s body—if she’d been in the water this whole time—how had her friends missed her? Mac and Ally … Jake … they’d said they had searched the area.

  Why had I been so certain she was somewhere safe?

  “I should have insisted on a dive team.”

  “It never would have been approved.” Finn glanced over at me, his brow furrowed. His light eyes were troubled. “You didn’t know, Gemma. You had no reason to suspect she was in the water.”

  “Where the hell else would she have been? A woman goes missing from a lake and I assume she’s run off.”

  “This is not your fault.”

  I swallowed hard. “It might not be my fault she’s dead, but it is my fault an exhaustive search wasn’t performed of the area. I took Mac Stephens’s word for it that he and the others had looked everywhere for Sari.”

  What if she’d been alive, injured somewhere nearby, as Mac Stephens and the others and I had searched the campsite? I walked through that morning, replaying my steps, my decisions, feeling worse by the minute.

  What if there had been an opportunity to save her and I’d missed it, caught up as I’d been in the belief that she’d disappeared of her own accord?

  After Finn parked, we took a few minutes to change into hiking boots and grab backpacks from the trunk of his car. We’d loaded them before leaving the station, and they were heavy with flashlights, investigative kits, water bottles, and a satellite phone.

  By the time we reached the lake, it was early afternoon. The skies had grown dark with heavy thunder clouds and the wind whipped the water up into whitecaps that skimmed across the lake. The little sunlight that remained danced among the trees, jostling leaves in and out of shadows. Twice I almost believed that I saw a woman in a white dress gliding through the water only to realize each time it was a whitecap.

  I didn’t like being at the lake.

  The Lost Girls had been in this water for an entire winter, their bodies trapped in the ice. Lifeless, frozen in place and time. What a strange and terrible pact they’d made, not only to each commit suicide but to do it here, at this remote and lonely place.

  We slowly walked down the trail, eyes peeled for Earl and Cheetah’s fishing pole with its marker. The hike in had left me with a sheen of damp
sweat that was rapidly cooling into something cold, clammy, and unpleasant.

  Eventually, Finn pointed up ahead to a patch of murky reeds that jutted out into the water like a thick finger, exactly as the two fishermen had described it. A fishing pole with a red cloth wrapped around the tip stood out of the ground.

  We started picking our way through the knee-high reeds to the water’s edge.

  I jumped over a nasty-looking section of boggy water, watching where I stepped. Then Finn grabbed my shoulder, stopping me short. “There.”

  I looked to where he pointed and felt the breath catch in my chest. “My god.”

  The body was facedown. Long strands of ink-black hair billowed from the head, gently moving with the water like tentacles from some strange new sea creature.

  I swallowed and said thickly, “The hair … I think it’s her.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I called it in on the satellite phone.

  After a few minutes, Chief Chavez came on the line and said that Valley Mountain Search and Rescue would send a chopper in to retrieve the body.

  “VMSR owes us a few favors. I’ll catch a ride on the bird with the ME and the crime scene techs,” Chief said. “See you in forty minutes.”

  Finn and I waited at the campground. I tried not to think about all the rain we’d had, the time that had elapsed since Sari’s disappearance.

  What evidence had been lost, washed away, or removed?

  Soon enough, the sound of a helicopter filled the air and the rhythmic whir of the chopper’s blades was a welcome distraction. We watched as the aircraft set down in a meadow a hundred yards from us. Chief Chavez climbed out first, his body bent at the waist, his yellow windbreaker incongruously bright. He was followed by two crime scene technicians, Dr. Bonaire and his assistant, and a tall, thin man I didn’t recognize.

  The group joined us at the campground, and we walked to the water’s edge as Chavez made introductions. “Gang, meet Charlie Darcy. Darcy, this is Finn Nowlin and Gemma Monroe. Guys, Darcy is a lieutenant with the fire department and a volunteer with Search and Rescue.”

  We shook hands and then looked toward Lost Lake. The chief exhaled loudly when he saw the body. “Is that Sari Chesney?”

  I said, “Yes, I think so. The hair, the flannel shirt…”

  Chavez nodded, his jaw tight. “All right, let’s get her out of the water.”

  The crime scene techs were already suiting up in black rubber waders. Together with the medical examiner’s assistant, they spread out a dark tarp on the ground. This was followed by a white body bag. The techs then went to the lake and gingerly stepped in, careful not to stir up mud from the bottom of the lake. They reached the body and gently began to untangle her from the reeds, manipulating her limbs with the utmost care.

  Disturbed, I watched as they fought the moving water and the stiff body. The flannel shirt snagged on a broken reed. One of the techs, a petite woman, tugged on the shirt, then suddenly slipped, nearly landing in the water but for the saving grip of her colleague.

  Cold sweat trickled down my spine.

  I’d never seen a body come out of the water before, and I didn’t know what kind of damage to expect.

  Bonaire called Finn, Chief Chavez, and me over for a conference.

  “It will be impossible to establish time of death. I want you to know that, going into the autopsy. I may be able to determine if this was a homicide or a suicide, but please note, I said may. Exposure to water for any length of time does a terrific number on organic materials,” Bonaire said. Though he was dressed for the environment and weather in jeans, boots, and a windbreaker, the handkerchief he removed from his back pocket was white and silky.

  He wiped his brow and continued. “It’s critical you understand that. From what the chief has told me, this young lady may be a suspect in the Starbuck homicide. That, of course, changes nothing in my approach to the autopsy, but I do understand that time of death is absolutely crucial. So, I’ll do what I can, but I’ll tell you now it will be very, very difficult. There may be … organisms growing in the body that might help narrow down the time frame, but don’t count on it. This water is very cold. Decomposition will have slowed.”

  Finally, the techs had the body out of the water. Gently, slowly, they laid it face up on the plastic tarp. The flannel shirt was torn at the hem and Chesney’s clothes—the shirt and jeans—were heavy with lake water. Liquid seeped from her; like a flood of tears the water ran down to the lake from where it had come.

  I took in the blue flesh, puffy with bloat, marred by creatures. Much of Sari’s face had been preserved by the cold of the water, but not all of it.

  Not the eyes, not the lips.

  I had to look away.

  To the techs, I said, “Please, check the back of the neck and the right ankle. Are there any tattoos?”

  One of them knelt by the body. With a gloved hand, he carefully pushed the wet hair off of the neck and rolled the head to the side.

  I waited, my breath held.

  After a long moment, he said, “There’s a tattoo. The skin is stretched, but I think it’s a star.”

  “Check the right ankle,” I whispered.

  Another long minute as the tech carefully rolled up the pants leg. “There’s a second tattoo. I can’t tell what it is, though. Maybe a flower?”

  “It’s a four-leaf clover,” I said.

  The girl who loved her mother and her cat was gone. The girl who worked at a museum and had a boyfriend and a best friend had been replaced by this bloated corpse.

  Bonaire and Chief Chavez stared at me expectantly. I nodded once. “This is Sari Chesney’s body.”

  Then I swerved to the side and hurled my breakfast into the weeds, retching again and again, until there was nothing more to give.

  * * *

  “Folks, we’re running out of daylight. It won’t help matters if someone twists an ankle. Let’s break for the night and pick this back up tomorrow,” Chief Chavez said.

  Charlie Darcy, the Valley Mountain Search and Rescue volunteer, offered to set up camp and stand guard over the crime scene. The chief eagerly accepted, then pulled me and Finn aside.

  “It’s going to be hard to keep this quiet. You know the local news hounds monitor the air traffic, to say nothing of our leaker. They’d have heard the report of a body, the call out of VMSR. I’ll try to contain this as long as I can, but I can’t guarantee Search and Rescue will do the same,” Chavez said. “Get a jump on notifying the next of kin.”

  I nodded. “Sari’s mother has dementia. I’m not sure how much she will comprehend. Her friends, though…”

  “Yes. Get a move on.”

  Sari Chesney’s body was carefully wrapped and then loaded into the chopper. Chavez, Bonaire, his assistant, and the crime scene technicians followed the body. The pilot started the engine, and I stood watching the aircraft for a long time, first as its blades began to rotate, then as the big bird lifted up and veered east, heading back to town.

  “You coming?”

  I nodded at Finn. “Let’s get off this mountain.”

  It was full dark when we reached the trailhead and the parking lot. We were quiet on the drive back to the station, each lost in our own thoughts.

  Finally, Finn spoke. “You okay?”

  I looked at him. He stared straight ahead, eyes on the road, and I saw in his profile the strong set of his jaw, the straight lines of his nose.

  “Why do you ask?”

  He glanced at me. “I’ve never seen you get sick before. It’s not your first body.”

  “No, it’s not.” I turned away from him and stared out of the passenger window as the woods flew by, long swatches of darkness punctuated here and there with patches of white moonlight. “It’s the lake. Lost Lake. There’s something … wrong about that place. It feels haunted somehow. Sinister. When I think of Chesney, in the water, all this time … facedown, staring into whatever dark abyss lies under the surface … Some cases just hit yo
u the wrong way. I don’t know, maybe it’s the Lost Girls, too. So many dead women.”

  We were in town before Finn spoke again. “What do you think happened?”

  “Honestly?” I replied, looking again out the window. This time, instead of trees it was houses and shops that passed in a blur, illuminated by porch lights and streetlamps. “I have no idea. Each time I imagine a scenario it seems so wrong, so stupid. Did Ally, Mac, and Jake kill Sari and conspire to cover it up? Did Sari steal Owen Rayburn’s diary and kill Betty Starbuck, and then she either committed suicide or was murdered? Did some unknown subject kill her? Maybe she had a stalker. None of it makes sense. What do you think happened?”

  Finn shrugged as he pulled up next to my car in the station parking lot. “It’s always the boyfriend. Every damn time.”

  “Mac Stephens is a nurse. He’s a healer.”

  “He’s human.”

  I climbed out of Finn’s car. “You look exhausted. Get some shut-eye. I’ll notify her friends and family.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that by yourself.”

  “Please. I’d like to be alone for a while. Get some rest, Finn. I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

  Police operations run twenty-four hours a day, but this time of night it was typically quiet inside the station. I said hello to the officer at the front desk and made my way to the squad room.

  At my desk, I found the Sari Chesney file.

  I was glad to be alone in the room, alone with my thoughts. I stared at her photograph, knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep if the last image I had of her was the terrible thing I’d seen dragged out of the water.

  My body felt leaden, heavy with remorse and guilt.

  I’d been so certain she would turn up.

  After a while, I closed the file. My night was not yet over.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Carver Estates was a long, squat building the color of red desert clay, perched high on a hill at the end of a winding road on the east side of town. I parked in the empty visitors’ lot, then walked to the front entrance and rang the doorbell. Though it was long past visiting hours and the center was closed, I’d phoned ahead. After explaining the situation, the manager had readily agreed not only to have the on-call doctor meet and escort me to Sari’s mother, Charla Chesney, but to be present herself.