forgotten (Twisted Cedars Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

“Could you make note of that, Carter?” In fact, Daisy had been wearing strappy heels and a dress when she was buried. The dress had been made of a synthetic material that hadn’t decomposed in the seven years she’d been underground.

Regular townspeople didn’t dress up that often in Twisted Cedars. It seemed to Wade that Jim would have remembered if he’d seen Daisy in a dress and heels.

“Tell us as much as you can remember about what was said,” Wade continued.

“Daisy started off saying she was the mother and she deserved to spend more time with her kids. Kyle asked what her doctor thought about that, and then she started swearing and getting all hysterical. Kyle offered to make her some tea, and we all went back to the kitchen. Kyle told her to be quiet so she wouldn’t wake up the kids, but she just kept ranting about how unfair he was being.” Jim shook his head. “As if it was Kyle’s choice to have married a crazy woman.”

“You and Kyle were both aware Daisy had been diagnosed with post-partum depression?” Carter asked.

“That’s what that high-priced doctor the Hammond’s hired in Seattle said. I didn’t buy it. Daisy Hammond was a princess who couldn’t handle the normal demands of being a mother.” He fixed his gaze on Wade. “You remember what she was like. Her parents doted on her, they absolutely spoiled her. All she cared about was looking good and going to parties. I warned Kyle not to marry her.”

“So you think the marriage was a mistake?” Duane asked.

“From the beginning,” Jim concurred.

“Back to that night,” Wade said. “You’d gone to the kitchen to make tea. What then?”

“Well, I put the kettle on. Kyle wanted Daisy to sit down and be quiet, but she just talked louder and louder. She was pacing around that kitchen like a caged polar bear. I could see in her eyes, her head wasn’t right. I said, be quiet or leave. And that’s when she pounced on me.”

Jim had to stop for a moment. He cleared his throat, and then he added, “I was just defending myself, but I guess I pushed her.”

Neither Wade nor Carter spoke for several seconds. Then quietly, carefully, Wade said, “Are you saying you were the one who pushed Daisy against that wall, Jim?”

With trembling hands, Jim covered his face.

At just that moment Wade heard a door open and slam closed, following by hurried footsteps. A moment later, Kyle Quinpool was at the office door. His gaze went from his father, to Wade, then back again.

“What have you done, Dad?”

d
ougal had invited his sister to dinner by text, and she’d said yes, but Charlotte was the first to arrive in her vintage BMW coupe. The vehicle was so not what you’d expect a librarian to drive. She looked great behind the wheel.

And even better when she got out. She’d ditched the dull garb she usually wore at the library—why she was so determined to mold to the stereotype of a dull librarian, he couldn’t fathom—and was in a pair of sexy faded jeans and a pink T-shirt. He met her in the yard and scooped her into his arms.

“I wish I could take you straight to bed. But Jamie will be here shortly.”

“I know. She called me and between us we organized the menu.”

“I had it covered.”

“Frozen pizza doesn’t cut it Dougal.”

He had to smile. “It does for me.”

“Again—I know.” She grabbed a couple bags of groceries from the car. “Can you get Borden? She’s in her carrier in the back.”

“Great. I’ve missed the fur-ball.” He knew his cat was happier in town, at Charlotte’s place, but she had to get used to living out here in the forest with him.

He held her tight to his chest until they were inside, then he set her on the arm of the sofa. “Welcome home, Borden. Remember this place?”

She arched her back, so it seemed she did. When she gave him a beseeching look, he couldn’t resist. So he settled on the sofa and let her claim his lap.

Meanwhile, Charlotte was in the kitchen pulling out salmon fillets, tiny potatoes and bok choy from her paper grocery bags.

“You still have wine?” she asked hopefully.

“More than a case.” Last month when he’d been researching the homicide of Mari Louise Beamish from Pendleton, he’d visited Bishop Creek Winery in the Willamette Valley and come home with some excellent bottles of pinot noir.

“We’re good then. Jamie’s bringing a loaf of bread and dessert.”

“Speaking of Jamie...” Dougal could hear another car pulling into the yard and he went out to be the welcoming committee.

Jamie held out a glass bowl of fruit salad and a baguette to him. “Make yourself useful.”

They ate outside on an old wooden picnic table that had been here forever. He’d scrubbed it clean and sanded it earlier in the day.

Maybe he’d pick up some stain the next time he was in town.

The food was good, much better than frozen pizza, he had to admit.

After a first taste of everything, he told them about finding Ellen Lachlan’s number in the online directory, then meeting her at a coffee shop. “Later we went to the bar, where we both had more to drink than we should have. But she had a hell of a story to tell, and I guess she had to wash it down with something that dulled the pain.”

“How old is Ellen?” Jamie wanted to know.

“Four years older than Ed. So sixty-four, sixty-five. Somewhere around there.”

“So she would have been very little when her parents brought our father home?”

“Yes. But she seems to remember it quite well. She said right from the beginning her parents treated Ed differently than her.”

Jamie had stopped eating as soon as he began talking about Ellen. “How so?”

“They would ignore him when he was crying and leave him for hours in his dirty diapers. Ellen remembers trying to change him and her mother telling her not to bother, saying that he wasn’t as special as she was.”

“Why did they treat Ellen so much better than their son?” Charlotte asked. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Ellen said he was a difficult baby and he grew up to be a difficult child. Willful and stubborn, something like that.”

“Lots of children are like that,” Charlotte insisted. “I see them every week during reading circle.”

“Well, the Lachlan’s weren’t equipped to handle that, I guess. From what Ellen remembers, Ed was six when he had his first beating in the barn—his father used his belt. And there were lots more. For the first two years Ellen would put salve on the welts. But when Ed turned eight, he stopped telling her about the beatings. He stopped talking to her entirely.”

Jamie covered her face, as if she was trying to block the mental image he was painting. “I don’t understand how anyone could do that to a child.”

“I wonder if he came to hate his sister,” Charlotte said. “Because she was never beaten.”

“Ellen didn’t come out and say so, but I think you’re right. She said their mother used food to punish Edward, too. He wasn’t allowed to eat the same meals as the rest of them. He was given leftovers and never dessert.”

Both Jamie and Charlotte stared down at their plates. It was hard to eat good food and listen to a story like this one.

“When he was little, Ellen would sneak him food, especially ice cream which was his favorite. But that changed, as well, when he turned eight. He wouldn’t accept treats of any kind from her.”

“I can’t bear it.” Jamie looked ready to burst into tears.

“He must have been a very angry little boy.” Charlotte’s face was getting paler with each new detail.

He wondered if she was thinking how lucky she’d been to be adopted by a family like the Hammonds.

“Unsurprisingly, Ed tried running away a lot. When he was still talking to her, he told Ellen he was planning to find his mom. He made up elaborate stories about the house they would live in, the great food she would cook for him and the fun things they’d do together.”

“Escapism like that is common in abused children,” Charlotte said.

“It’s just appalling that the adoption agency didn’t screen his parents properly. Or that the neighbors or his teachers didn’t step in to help him,” Jamie said.

“Systems have improved since those days,” Charlotte said. “But we still hear about too many sad cases of abuse. I don’t know if society can ever eliminate it completely.”

“Can you imagine how alone he must have felt?”

Jamie was fairly melting with sympathy for their old man. So next he told them about Ed being asked to drown the unwanted kittens, but choosing to wring their necks instead.

“Maybe he didn’t want them to suffer,” Charlotte said.

“I doubt he spared their suffering a second’s concern.” He’d told both his sister and Charlotte about the time his father had killed his pet kitten. He’d done it as easily as Dougal might squash a mosquito biting his arm.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Jamie insisted. “If he hadn’t been abused...”

“Not all abused children find it so easy to kill animals.”

“But he wasn’t even loved as a baby,” Jamie pointed out. “What chance did he have?”

Dougal didn’t answer, because he didn’t have one.

“What happened after he finally ran away for good?” Liz asked.

“The family never saw him again. Ellen said when he was arrested for killing his second wife, they didn’t even talk about it, even though the case was all over the newspapers and TV.”

“They didn’t feel even a little bit responsible?” Jamie looked at him incredulously.

“Maybe they did. Or maybe they didn’t. By then Alva Mae, Mari Louise, Bernice, Isabel, Charlotte’s Aunt Shirley and Crystal Halloway were all dead. Nothing the Lachlans felt could have changed that.”

There had to have been something inside Edward Lachlan, a germ of something bad that was activated by the abuse and grew into the monster that Edward became.

Dougal had been raised by a loving and kind mother.

But what if he hadn’t?

Was that same seed for evil lying dormant inside him?

day seven after the accident

t
he call from the Ashford Police Department came at four o’clock on Friday afternoon. The mood in the office was lighthearted, even though most of them would be on duty this weekend. Several of Wade’s deputies were kidding with Marnie in the bullpen.

Wade got up to shut his office door.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat?”

“I said this is Detective Todd Waverman from the Ashland Police Department.”

“Right.” He jotted down the name.

“We had a fellow come in fifteen minutes ago to report a missing wife and ten-month-old baby girl.”

A chill washed over Wade.

“He brought pictures and the woman looks like a match to your unidentified female victim from the accident last weekend.”

“Is that right?” Wade had been hoping for a break through like this. But something felt wrong.

The baby, for instance.

Not once had Birdie given any indication she might be a mother. And yes she had amnesia. But could a mother really forget something like that?

“What’s the man’s name?”

“Richard Caruthers. He’s a director at the Shakespeare Festival we have down here. His wife works there, too, or she did before the baby was born. She did make-up and hair and acted some, too.”

Checkmark to the hair and the makeup. He’d also heard her quote from Shakespeare. “Why did it take Caruthers so long to report her—them—missing?”

“He claims he left his wife and the baby last Friday at their family cabin on Hyatt Lake. That was the last he talked to her until he drove back to the cottage this morning. When he got there, her car was still parked out front, and the runabout was moored at the dock, but no one was in the cabin.”

“Any signs of a break-in or struggle?”

“I’m on my way now to take a look. But Caruthers says the place seemed normal. His wife’s purse was where she normally kept it, cash still in her wallet, on a hook in their bedroom. And her phone was on the kitchen table—out of juice.”

“So not a robbery. Could she have gone to the neighbors?”

“Caruthers says he checked, but none of the neighbors were home. He says they didn’t socialize much out there, anyway, mostly kept to themselves. I’ve got a crime scene team on the way. Just wanted to talk to you first.”

“Our Jane Doe has remembered nothing since the accident. She still doesn’t know her own name, and hasn’t mentioned husband, or a baby.”

Is she still in the hospital?”

“She’s staying at the Heartland Women’s Shelter here in Twisted Cedars. She came to us all bruised up—looked like she’d been handled pretty roughly in the weeks before the accident.”

“That’s interesting. Think the husband roughed her up?”

“It’s one explanation.” He was out of his chair. Pacing. Thinking. “What’s your take on the husband?”

“Seemed genuinely upset—especially about his kid. Though I take that with a grain of salt. Not just because he’s the husband and I’m not going to take his word as gospel—but he works in theatre for God’s sake. If he needed to act upset about a missing wife and kid, I guess he could.”

“Saying he roughed up his wife—what do you suppose happened to the kid?”

“God only knows.”

Wade sketched out a possible scenario. Suppose there’d been a terrible fight between this Richard Caruthers and Birdie. Caruthers does something to hurt their child. Maybe even killed him. Birdie might have been so terrified, she ran, eluding her husband until she made it up to the highway. Maybe she stayed hidden for a while.

Then Chet Walker’s truck appears in the distance. She leaves her safe spot and waves him down.

But why doesn’t she ask Walker to call 911?

Unless she was in such a state of shock she couldn’t talk. Walker can see she needs help. Probably offers to take her to the police, or a hospital.

Instead, she pulls out that piece of paper she’d ripped out of the back of Dougal’s book, where she’d underlined
Twisted Cedars
.

Why she would want to go to Dougal Lachlan’s birthplace, Wade had no idea. But this scenario would explain why Chet Walker hadn’t driven his usual route to Port Orford, but instead had taken the more treacherous mountain road to their town.