Lost Lake Read online

  A loud buzz sounded, and I entered the care center. The lobby was clean and bright, and everywhere was evidence of the center’s specialty: horticulture therapy. Lush green plants and trimmed trees filled the spaces next to white leather couches and wooden coffee tables. I saw a dining hall off the main lobby with floor-to-ceiling windows that, given the location of the center, likely had incredible views of the Arkansas River during the day.

  Rosa Martinez, the general manager, greeted me. She was in her midforties, and while her face was unlined, her hair was prematurely white. She smiled sadly as we shook hands. “I remember you—you’re the police officer who called the other day, aren’t you? I can’t believe this. Sari was a wonderful young woman.”

  “It’s a terrible tragedy. Thank you for meeting me.”

  Rosa nodded. “Of course. Mrs. Chesney is in our A Wing, room 2004. This way, please.”

  I followed her down a narrow corridor. Along the way, the doctor in residence, Duncan Fields, joined us. He was soft-spoken, with a distinct widow’s peak in his coal-black hair. “This is terrible news. I’ve met Sari on a number of occasions, and she was a lovely young woman. Very sad.”

  “It is tragic, Dr. Fields. I wanted her mother to be the first to know.”

  “I have to say, I’m not sure how much Mrs. Chesney will comprehend. She’s taken a sudden and severe turn for the worse,” he said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Is that sort of progression typical?”

  Dr. Fields shook his head. “The disease usually moves slowly, but there’s so much we don’t know about it. Mrs. Chesney may be reacting to some change in her environment. She may even have some underlying health concern that hasn’t been identified yet, such as a bladder or urinary tract infection.”

  “You mentioned a change in the environment. Could it be as simple as her daughter not visiting as regularly this week?” I asked.

  We reached Chesney’s door, and the doctor hesitated a moment, thinking. “Yes, I suppose so. We usually think in terms of new people—like an unfamiliar doctor or a family member who hasn’t visited for a long time—but I don’t see why the reverse couldn’t be true, too.”

  Rosa softly knocked on the door, then opened it and called into the dim interior. “Charla? Charla, honey, are you awake? You’ve got a visitor.”

  We entered the room. Save for a floor lamp in the corner, the lights were off. A woman in her early sixties sat in an easy chair, her face illuminated by the television a few feet away. It was turned to a game show, and the woman watched it with the volume down, a can of soda in her hand.

  She belched softly, then noticed us in the doorway.

  “Excuse me,” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t hear you. Come on in, I’m expecting Paul any moment now, but you three can keep me company while I wait.”

  “Paul?” I whispered to Rosa.

  “Her husband. He died a few years back.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Chesney. My name is Gemma Monroe, with the Cedar Valley Police Department.”

  “Gemma, it’s wonderful to see you again. You and Sari used to play together for hours,” the woman said. “Oh and dear, call me Charla. You always did stand on ceremony.”

  I looked at Rosa and she shrugged in a kind of just go with it gesture.

  “Yes, that’s right, I’m a friend of your daughter, Sari. I’m so sorry, but something terrible has happened to her,” I said in a gentle voice.

  Mrs. Chesney waved at me impatiently. “Where’s my daughter? She was just here.”

  I tried again, unsure how to say things. “Mrs. Chesney, I have difficult news. There’s been an … an accident. Sari was hurt very badly and she died. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  The older woman pursed her lips. “Well, she was just here a minute ago. I bet she and Paul wondered off on one of their little adventures. They like to tease me like that, always going places together, leaving me out. I get so mad, but then do you know what they do?”

  I shook my head.

  “They bring me treats! How can I stay mad when they bring me sweets?” Chesney laughed. “They’ll be along shortly, you’ll see. That is, if her awful boss doesn’t make her work overtime.

  “This damn show.” She turned darkly back to the television and set her soda can down on a cheap-looking wooden television tray with a heavy thud. “It’s got to be rigged.”

  “Do you know her? Sari’s boss, Betty Starbuck?” I asked.

  “I did. I read the papers. I saw what happened to that old broad. Good riddance. She got what was coming to her.”

  “Charla!” exclaimed Rosa, horrified.

  I knelt beside Mrs. Chesney’s chair. She smelled like cat urine and overripe fruit, though I’d seen neither a pet nor produce.

  “What do you mean by that, what you just said about Sari’s boss?”

  Mrs. Chesney snorted and turned her attention back to the show, keeping one eye on it as she talked to me in a low, confidential voice. “She’s made my daughter’s life hell for years. It’s good she’s gone! No one will miss her. I taught Sari not to take guff from anyone.”

  I took a deep breath and figured I didn’t have much to lose. “Do you think Sari hurt this woman?”

  At that, Mrs. Chesney let out another snort and spoke in a sing-song voice. “Of course she didn’t. Sari is a sweet girl. Such a sweet girl. That man of hers, though,” she added. Her voice grew sarcastic, and she snorted again. “Now he’s a real winner. Gun-toting redneck thug.”

  “Mac? You don’t like him?”

  But it was too late. Mrs. Chesney had slipped away, somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind, and after a few minutes of silence, her head fell forward with a deep snore. Rosa quietly took my arm and led me from the room, closing the door behind her.

  “Two tragedies in such a short time has been hard on our guests.”

  “Two?”

  Rosa nodded. “Yes. First Betty Starbuck’s death, then this.”

  “Betty Starbuck wasn’t a resident here.”

  “No, but her son Kent volunteers for us. Or at least, he did. He called yesterday, said it was too upsetting to be around folks his mother’s age,” Dr. Fields explained. “It’s a shame; we struggle to get volunteers as it is.”

  I needed a minute to process what I’d just learned.

  “You’re saying Kent Starbuck worked here? Did he interact with Charla Chesney?”

  Both Dr. Fields and Rosa thought a moment, then Rosa nodded. “Well, sure. Kent was so popular and so giving of his time that I’d say—no, I’d swear—he’s worked with all of our guests.”

  I asked urgently, “What about Sari? Did Kent and Sari ever meet?”

  Try though they might, neither Dr. Fields nor Rosa could answer that. I left them and Carver Estates, my synapses firing at the possibility of a new connection between my cases.

  If Kent Starbuck had crossed paths with Sari Chesney, if he knew her, what did it mean? Could they have been partners?

  Maybe that partnership turned sour.

  We’d already established that Starbuck had motive to kill his mother … and we had an eyewitness who placed him at the museum near to the time of her death.

  Hadn’t Starbuck himself told me that he frequented Lost Lake? Was it possible to place him there on the night of Sari’s disappearance, too?

  * * *

  “It’s her, isn’t it?”

  Mac Stephens stood in the doorway of his home. He was pale but stoic, as though he had been expecting this all along. He lived in a small ranch-style house on a narrow street in an older, blue-collar neighborhood on the south side of town.

  Through the neighbor’s open windows, I heard a television blaring the roar of supercharged car engines and boozy cheers that are unique to a NASCAR race. Somewhere else on the street a dog barked once, twice, then fell quiet.

  “Why don’t I come in,” I replied.

  After a brief pause, Mac stood aside. I entered his house and was relieved to see Ally Chang and J
ake Stephens sitting on a couch in the front room. It would be easier to break the terrible news to all of them at once. It was past ten o’clock at night, and I was exhausted. My muscles ached, and I wanted nothing more than a hot bath, a glass of wine, and a long slide into oblivion.

  Mac’s house was cluttered; clothes, magazines, and books covered nearly every surface. Two pizza boxes and a dozen empty beer bottles lingered on the kitchen table. Though the night was mild, a fire burned in the fireplace and the air smelled of burning wood.

  I wondered if the campfire at Lost Lake had smelled like this.

  The walls were lined with a startlingly large collection of swords: bayonets, machetes, daggers, and other types. The weapons were mounted in locked glass cases and were the only decorations on the walls.

  I looked at Mac first, then Ally and Jake on the couch. All three had been crying.

  Informing loved ones of the worst kind of loss never gets easy. It’s a bleak, raw moment that is so devoid of hope—so empty—that it leaves me feeling physically sick.

  When you deliver the news to a room full of possible suspects, that complicates matters.

  I took a deep breath and got the necessary words out. Ally gasped, then put her head in her hands and started sobbing. Mac was stoic, nodding, chewing at the corner of his lip. Jake stood up and shook his head.

  “That can’t be,” Jake said. “How can you be sure?”

  “Her tattoos confirmed the identification, and her clothes match what she was wearing in the photograph Mac supplied me. I saw her face. It’s Sari. I’m so very sorry.”

  I walked into the kitchen, found a roll of paper towels under a week’s worth of newspapers, and took it back to the front room, handing it to Ally. She took one and noisily blew her nose.

  Jake continued to pace the room, kicking clothes on the floor out of his way as he went. “This is all wrong. People our age, they’re not supposed to die. Why are you lying?”

  “Jake, please. I understand this is difficult—” I began. Before I could finish my thought, Mac exploded at the wall with a punch. The swords in their cases clanged, and a hole as big as my fist appeared.

  Ally and I both jumped.

  The sudden burst of violence was shocking.

  “Stop it, Mac!” Ally yelled at him, then buried her face in her hands.

  “Shut up, Ally. I told you. I told you all. I knew something terrible happened to Sari,” Mac said. Jake put a hand on his shoulder, and he brushed it off, nearly pushing Jake backward.

  Undeterred, Jake tried again. “Don’t listen to her, Mac. She’s a liar. A lying bitch.”

  “Hey,” I said sharply. “I know you are upset. But I’m on your side. Calling me names doesn’t help anything. Why on earth would I lie?”

  “She’s right. Sari’s gone,” Ally said. She lifted her head and looked at the men. Tears streamed down her face. “Can’t you feel it? She’s gone.”

  Mac breathed heavily through his mouth. After a moment, the anger subsided from his face and a look of confusion crept into his eyes.

  He walked to the fireplace and placed his hands on the mantel, head bowed. “I just don’t understand what happened. Why would someone kill her and not kill the rest of us?”

  “It’s too early in the investigation to have an answer to that, Mac.”

  “Do you think the same person who killed Betty Starbuck killed Sari?” Ally asked. “It’s just too weird that they’re both dead.”

  Ally cocked her head in thought. For a moment, Sari’s bloated, waxy face flashed before me, blank spaces where her eyes and lips had been … but it was Ally’s face, not Sari’s, and her eyes were open, staring down into the dark waters of Lost Lake.

  I shivered. “As I said, it’s too early to know what happened.”

  “Maybe Sari got mixed up with the wrong kind of people. Mac, you said she had big dreams,” Jake said. “Maybe those dreams led to her death.”

  It was Ally who exploded this time.

  She stood up and threw the roll of paper towels at Jake. It hit him in the face, knocking his glasses sideways. “Would you shut up already? You knew her for like five seconds, and somehow that entitles you to an opinion here? I don’t think so.”

  “Please.” I held up a placating hand. “Let’s all calm down. I need to hear once more, from each of you, how things were that night. The smallest detail might make the biggest difference now, in light of how things have changed.”

  After a few minutes of silence, Mac spoke first. “We got to the lake about four in the afternoon and set up camp. We thought we’d brought three tents, but there were only two. I said we could do girls and guys, but Ally offered to share with Jake so Sari and I could be together. We got the tents up pretty quickly because it looked like it was going to rain, but then the skies cleared and it was beautiful. It was so beautiful that night.”

  Mac choked up, so Ally took over telling the story. “We fished for a while, at twilight, when the trout are supposed to be biting, but it got cold and dark quickly. Sari read a magazine in her tent while we fished. She was too scared to get that close to the water. After a while, we decided to just eat the dehydrated food pouches we’d brought. Jake started the campfire and got water boiling.”

  “No, Mac started the fire. I tried, but my fingers were clumsy from the cold of the lake. Remember? I’d filled everyone’s water bottles and collected enough for boiling,” Jake said. “But the water was so cold it froze my fingers.”

  “That’s right. I started the fire,” Mac said, having collected himself. “And the girls cooked dinner.”

  “What time did you start drinking?”

  The three of them looked at one another, thinking.

  Finally, Ally spoke. “It was before we ate. I remember because we were joking about pre-dinner cocktails. So, maybe seven o’clock?”

  “And it was just the wine?”

  “No, there was whiskey, too. I brought a bottle,” Jake said. “We did shots before we opened the wine. Well, most of us did. Ally stuck with the wine.”

  Ally flushed. “I wasn’t feeling well. I had maybe one glass and then stopped drinking.”

  I pictured the scene, the group warming themselves up with alcohol and the heat of the campfire. The warmth from the alcohol would have faded quickly, though, as the temperatures dropped.

  “When did you smoke the weed?”

  Again the three of them shared a three-way stare, and then Ally answered. “After dinner. It was Sari’s weed.”

  “Ally!” Mac said, annoyed.

  “Well, it’s true. What difference does it make now? It’s legal, anyway,” Jake answered, coming to Ally’s defense. He added: “Mac and Sari and I were the only ones who smoked.”

  Ally nodded. “I don’t smoke, ever.”

  “I’m hardly concerned about the marijuana. Okay, so you set up camp, you fish, then you eat dinner, drink, and smoke. What else? Did you see anyone at the lake? Hear any strange noises?” I asked. “Were you scared?”

  Mac sat up. “Scared? Scared of what?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I’m trying to get a sense of what the evening was like. If there was anything unusual that stands out, now, in hindsight.”

  “You know, there was one weird thing that happened. I’d forgotten all about it,” Ally said. She put her hands between her knees and began to rock back and forth. “Sari and I went into the woods after dinner to pee. Not very far, just enough to be out of sight of the guys. We stuck close together, though. Anyway, as we were finishing, we heard the strangest sound. It sounded like a woman’s laugh, coming from the water. Do you remember, Mac? Sari asked if you and Jake had heard it, too, but you said no. You said it was likely a loon.”

  Mac nodded. “Yeah, now that you mention it, that was really strange because neither Jake nor I heard it. But I thought of loons right away. Spring is the start of their mating season, though they are rare.”

  “Could there have been someone else there? A woman, or a man?
”

  “I doubt it.” Mac shook his head. “Next you’ll suggest it was the Lost Girls. Yeah, Sari told us all about them. She tried to scare us with that old ghost story. Look, if there was someone else there we would have heard them. Or seen them. It was a clear night.”

  Ally was the first to connect the dots, and she paled. She went so white that for a moment I thought she was about to pass out.

  Mac noticed and leaned over, gently touching her on her knee. “What is it, Al? What’s wrong?”

  Her eyes filled with fresh tears, and she stammered out: “If we were alone at the lake, that can only mean one thing. One of us did it.”

  Ally took a deep breath and repeated, “One of us killed her.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Midnight in the canyon and the woods surrounding my house were black and still. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted, his call urgent and insistent. The house was dark, save for a single porch light, its warm glow attracting an enormous moth that flitted about the bulb.

  Inside, I quietly rummaged in the refrigerator until I found enough leftovers to cobble together a plate of dinner. While it heated in the microwave, I poured and then quickly drank a glass of cabernet. The wine burned going down and I closed my eyes, grateful for the pain, grateful for the reminder.

  I was alive.

  I couldn’t seem to get warm. Memories from the day continued to assault my senses: the wind-whipped lake … the smell of the fetid water seeping from Sari Chesney’s body …

  Her face …

  I ate standing up, shoveling lukewarm chicken and limp broccoli into my mouth, forcing myself to chew and swallow the food though I’d already lost my appetite. Then I poured a second glass of wine and sat in the living room, in the dark, under a quilt on the couch.

  Ally Chang had been correct. If they’d been alone at the lake, and if Sari’s death was ruled a homicide, then one of them was a killer.