Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (20 page)

He liked catching them. It was fairly simple in his mind.

“Some.” Ellie smiled faintly, just a subtle curve of her mouth. “My current involvement requires some speculation on whether or not opposites really do attract.”

Involvement? Interesting choice of word. He might have gone for relationship. Jason stared at the ribbon of road, which was fairly quiet this time of the evening. It was almost midnight now. Fatigue was settling in, something he’d never experienced often before the shooting. Sure, everyone got dog-tired now and again, but he understood fatigue for the first time in his life. Different entirely.

“Kate and I were pretty different.” He briefly shut his eyes. “She didn’t even come see me in the hospital.”

“People handle things in different ways.”

“Not that I cared. We’d broken up.”

“Oh face it, you cared or you wouldn’t have mentioned it. I don’t blame you either.” MacIntosh sounded pragmatic, but thankfully changed the subject. “That sign said there are a couple of motels up ahead and I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a fairly eventful evening and a long day before that. If someone is following us, I haven’t noticed, and I’ve been paying attention. Should we go ahead and stop?”

It wasn’t much fun not being 100 percent. He’d been warned that bouncing back from two gunshot wounds would not be as easy as he imagined. At first he’d thought the doctors were exaggerating, but now he wasn’t quite so sure. “I’m fine with that.”

“Since we’ve been on the subject, you did eat dinner, right?”

“Christ, MacIntosh, you aren’t my mother.”

She signaled to take the exit. “Thank God for that. I’m asking if you want to swing through and get something, because, let’s face it, you are having kind of a bad run in the luck department and starving yourself half to death won’t help. If you are my only backup, I’d just as soon you weren’t going to faint from hunger.”

“You heard the chief.
You’re
supposed to be protecting
me
.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’d sleep with one eye open if I were you.
Have
you eaten?”

In the end they went through a fast-food place and she ordered the coffee he hadn’t been able to provide, a burger for him, and then drove to a chain motel that at least had a pretty well-lit parking lot. While he ate, she checked them in.

“Here’s your key card,” she said when she slid back into the car. “The good news is there is no outside entrance to the rooms on an individual basis and you need the card to get through the inner doors as a guest.”

“Separate rooms?” He gave a theatrical sigh.

“I’m afraid so. If I get reprimanded because it all goes south, I guess that will be
my
problem, right?” She started the car and pulled around to the back. At this hour the place was utterly quiet, the lights in the parking lot illuminating only deserted cars and asphalt. “Or yours if they kill you.”

Actually, since he was the one who technically got her into this, he did feel a little guilty even if he wasn’t really culpable. Neutrally, he said, “I’m good. It looks clear.”

“I agree.” Ellie got out, and before he could stop her she opened the rear door and took out his simple duffel bag. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.”

*   *   *

The television didn’t
do too much for her.

Ellie lay in bed and watched the screen flicker, sorting the day out. She had a pen and paper out courtesy of the hotel, and made some notes by hand, her mind slowing as her body wound down.

This was what she had:

Fielding. 1. Wife was possibly involved with Garrison Henley. 2. Maybe his son is really Henley’s child. 3. Called DEA. Murdered in his bed, but wife and child not harmed.

Brown. 1. Knew Fielding. 2 Knew Santiago. 3. Having an affair with Danni Crawford. Shot on a major thoroughfare but no viable witnesses. 4. Possibly had a tip about the Henley family.

Crawford: Involved with Brown. Had dinner with Santiago and told him about Fielding’s wife and Henley. Ambushed at home and didn’t see it coming. Dead next morning.

Santiago. 1. Car blown up. Friends with both Brown and Crawford.

It really didn’t seem like much.

The links weren’t very strong in her opinion but Santiago was right. They existed. What did they mean? She took a sip of water from a bottle she would make sure the hotel charged the department for because the price was ridiculous, and rubbed her cheek.

It was too thin as it stood, she decided thirty minutes later. They didn’t know enough and whatever was happening was so loosely linked she couldn’t follow the thread.

Except one thing was consistent, and even as the weight of exhaustion made her lie back and close her eyes, she had to wonder if it meant something.

No matter what Metzger said, they needed to talk to Fielding’s wife.

Her phone beeped. She glanced at the screen and sighed before answering. “I could swear you’d be asleep. For that matter, why would you think I
wasn’t
asleep?”

Santiago said, “We need to talk to Fielding’s wife.”

“Could you stop doing that?”

“Doing what?”

Reading my mind.

She muttered, “It doesn’t matter … what caused this epiphany for you?”

“The damn Henley thing. It doesn’t feel quite right, but I can’t discount it. So she screwed him and maybe he is the baby-daddy, but I can’t see him murdering three cops over that. We are still in the dark about something
really
important.”

Since that was a summary of her feelings, she really couldn’t argue too much. “If you decide to go to Florida, go ahead.”

“What if we both go?” Santiago said. “Aren’t you babysitting me? Metzger wants us out of town. Let’s just head south tomorrow.”

“The case up north counts too.”

“The missing-person case that could be decades old compared to exploding cars and cops splattered on sidewalks? Not to us, not really.”

She snapped off the television. “I get the point, so you can stop.”

“MacIntosh, do you mind telling me why this cold case is so important to you? I mean the truth of it, not the evasive bullshit.”

“I’ve already told you,” Ellie said. “The skeleton was found on my grandfather’s property—”

“Your grandfather’s property, right. Look, I’m just going to ask it. Do you think he did it?”

“What?”

“Put that body in the ground.”

At that moment she really despised Jason Santiago. “No. Can I say no again? I’m just puzzled and understandably concerned.”

“No?” he said with more directness than she wanted. “Man up. You think he did it but want to prove otherwise. I get it.”

“You get nothing.” The defensiveness was too much. She heard it in her own voice and toned it down. “I don’t think he did anything. But I do think maybe he knows something. It puts me in a very tenuous position.”

“Tenuous? It is kind of late to sling around big words.”

“Good night.”

She hung up, not in the mood for his caustic comments. Maybe he was right. Maybe she should just forget the whole thing, let Carson handle it, and do
her
job.

On the other hand, perhaps Georgia Lukens was right, and it wasn’t in her to let it go.

The indecision did not bode well for a good night’s sleep. Maybe in the morning she’d call Metzger and find out how he felt about the two of them flying down to Florida and let that decide what happened next.

It would be nice to be absolved of the responsibility, she thought dismally as she rolled over and looked at the patterned curtains blocking the view of the parking lot. Orange and black zigzags on the material. Who chose that?

If the chief said go, it would probably just postpone her decision, not make it for her.

Chapter 19

The flames grew, hungry and demonic, leaping and licking with a hissing sound
.

Purge by fire.

He wasn’t quite sure what possessed him. Anger. Frustration. Fear. Guilt.

All of those, probably.

Not a new concept to burn away the evidence … people had been doing it for ages, and he embraced the ritual of destruction.

Everything went. He spared not one beloved thing. Clothing, shoes, even the letters she’d saved so carefully, written by her father to her mother during the war. The faded blanket knitted by her grandmother …

Gone.

Afterward he’d been so sure he would feel better. Relieved. Absolved.

But in the end, after the last ember faded, he felt … empty
.

*   *   *

Trees.

Jason had to admit there were a lot of trees.

He’d woken to the surreal realization that he was in a generic room by himself, a little disoriented and a lot unhappy as he remembered the destruction of his car, with nothing but a duffel bag with two shirts and some clean boxers—at least he’d put those in—a shaving kit, and his cell phone charger.

So he’d brewed coffee in the crappy little pot the hotel provided, tried to ignore the picture of a giant peach blossom on the wall—hell, this was Wisconsin, after all, where had the peach thing come from?—brushed his teeth, and took a long, hot shower. MacIntosh didn’t call, and he didn’t call her either. He’d been sitting on the bed, surfing the channels, when she’d finally knocked on his door.

“Ready?” She’d looked as if she slept maybe four hours, with slight circles under her eyes, and wore jeans and a light blue shirt.

In his mind, he knew that feeling bad about it was ridiculous because he certainly hadn’t blown up his own car, but he still did for some reason. So he coped with it in his usual way and said with his best leer, “Whenever you are. Unless you want to stay for a bit. I thought I’d made that clear enough. We’ve got the room until eleven, right?”

Luckily, she just brushed it off, which was just as well, since sometimes he even embarrassed himself. “Let’s go utilize our current banishment from Milwaukee to further the good of law enforcement, shall we? I’ve a found a place on Highway 21 that is pretty good for lunch. Then we’ll catch 39 and go straight north.”

“That’s how this is going to go? I still think we need to talk to Joanne Fielding, face to face.”

She’d taken the time to look at him searchingly. “I called Metzger. He’s sending Grasso to Florida. We’re out of it for now. He made it painfully clear. I got an earful about us involving you in the first place, and another one about you having dinner with Crawford, which by the way, was not my idea.”

“She’s a friend.” He stopped and briefly closed his eyes. “
Was
a friend. Dammit.”

“I’m sorry.”

So was he, remembering finding Danni, the ominously cracked door, all the blood …

“Me too.” He’d gotten up from the bed with only a minor twinge that he hoped didn’t really show. “Let’s just not argue about it. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it, but I hate flying anyway. I much prefer skeletons. If we are banished from Milwaukee, let’s dabble in the foibles of past sins.”

“I can’t believe you even know what foibles means.” But MacIntosh had laughed, not with mirth particularly, but it had cracked the tension at least a little.

“Let’s just go,” he’d told her, picking up his bag.

Now, as they drove past towns with names like Wautoma, he ventured into shark-infested waters again. He was terrible about expressing regret. Kate would support him on that, but it was worth a try if it kept the conflict to a minimum. “I could have been out of line last night. I was pretty tired.”

“Are you actually apologizing? Don’t make me faint while driving, please.” Ellie’s mouth curved slightly but he doubted it was a smile.

“That shit about your grandfather. I was kind of shooting from the hip.”

“From foibles to shit. That’s more you.” She slowed down for a tow truck with an old International Harvester hitched to the back. He hadn’t seen a truck like that in years. When did they stop making those? About a billion years ago.

He moderated his voice. “Just tell me what happened. One on one and nothing else.”

“Define the question, please.”

“What happened with the grave.”

“If I knew what happened, you wouldn’t need to be part of the conversation.”

“We are in no-man’s-land here. I wouldn’t mind a purpose.” He looked at a corner tavern called the Pike and Post as they drove by. A pretty little lake with a dock was right beside it, the water glassy in the late-morning sun. “Pike and Post? Who came up with that name? Do you fish and drop off your mail at the same time?”

“I haven’t been in that particular bar,” she said dryly.

“Well, let’s definitely stop at one fairly soon. Leinenkugel is my current painkiller of choice. Anyway, could you give me a little more information on just what we might be looking for? No offense, but you’ve been kind of vague on this, and every time I ask, you clam up.”

“I’m not withholding information, I just don’t really have much. Carbon dating is actually really expensive, did you know that? If we could say with some burden of proof to substantiate the claim that we thought we could solve a possible crime and that this was so-and-so, the state might pick up the tab. For a random case like this, probably not.”

Her voice was entirely neutral. He wasn’t sure that was how she felt.

She went on. “That said, the ME was able to give a little information that is helpful. She had fillings in the teeth that were left, and the wear was minimal, so our victim probably wasn’t that old when she died, and he is certainly thinking it was in this past century. A broken wrist that had healed but fractured again postmortem is another clue. Otherwise, nothing. Not a scrap of clothing, not one button, not a single indication of how she came to be there. Animal damage to the bones and scavengers might be responsible for the missing teeth because the body was obviously disturbed, but there were some suspicious striations that might indicate cause of death.”

“Knife?”

“He thinks so but couldn’t say for sure. It is possible to stab someone to death and avoid leaving much evidence of the homicide once the soft tissue has gone away.”