My Sister's Grave (36 page)

The camera switched back to a news anchor sitting behind the studio desk.

“We’ll continue to check back with Tim to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage on what is shaping up to be a major winter storm.” Dan put down the remote and walked into the kitchen. “At the moment, we’re getting reports of a fire on Pine Crest Road in Cedar Grove.”

Dan’s interest was piqued. He knew the road, of course, from growing up in Cedar Grove, but there was something more familiar about the name than a childhood memory, something more recent that jogged his memory.

“We’re told the Sheriff and fire department personnel responded quickly and were able to contain the blaze, but not before the house sustained significant damage. A Sheriff’s Office spokesman indicates at least one elderly resident lives at that address.”

The memory clicked. Dan had used the address on the subpoena that had never been served, one to compel DeAngelo Finn to appear at the post-conviction relief hearing. He felt a chill. His stomach fluttered. He looked again to Tracy’s briefcase. Then he picked up his car keys and headed for the door.

That’s when he saw her note taped just above the deadbolt.

The lights atop Finlay Armstrong’s patrol car and the two fire engines swirled and pulsed in bursts of red, blue, and white light as Roy Calloway drove down the block toward DeAngelo Finn’s one-story rambler. The Suburban’s headlights illuminated charred rafters poking through what remained of the roof, like the exposed rib cage of a dead animal picked clean.

Calloway parked behind the larger of the two fire trucks and stepped out. He trudged past firemen struggling to flatten and rewind hoses. Finlay Armstrong, standing on the front stoop, caught sight of Calloway and lowered his head into the wind and swirling snow, heading over. They met at the picket fence, a portion of which had been knocked down to run the hoses from the fire hydrant close to the house. Armstrong had the collar of his patrolman’s jacket turned up and the earflaps of his cap pulled down and snapped beneath his chin.

“Do they know what started the fire?” Calloway shouted over a gust of wind.

“Captain says it smells like some sort of an accelerant. Likely gas.”

“Where?”

Armstrong squinted. Snow and ice clung to the fur framing his face. “What?”

“Do they know where the fire started?”

“The garage. They think maybe a generator.”

“Have they found DeAngelo?” Armstrong turned his head and pulled an earflap up. Calloway leaned closer. “Have they found DeAngelo?”

Armstrong shook his head. “They just got the fire out. They’re trying to figure out if the house is safe to enter.”

Calloway stepped through the gate. Armstrong followed him to the front porch, where two firemen stood discussing the situation. Calloway greeted Phil Ronkowski by his first name.

“Hey, Roy,” Ronkowski said, shaking gloved hands. “A fire in a snowstorm. I’ve seen everything now.”

Calloway raised his voice. “Have you found DeAngelo?”

Ronkowski shook his head. Then he stepped back and pointed up at the charred roof. “The fire spread fast across the roof and inundated just about every room. It had to be an accelerant of some kind. Gas probably. Neighbors said the smoke was thick and black.”

“Could he have gotten out?”

Ronkowski grimaced. “Pray that he did, but we didn’t see anybody when we got here. Maybe with the weather he went to a neighbor’s, but nobody has approached us.”

They heard a large crack and instinctively flinched. A tree limb crashed into the yard, scattering the firemen, taking out a portion of the fence, and just missing the back end of one of the trucks.

“I need to get in there, Phil,” Calloway said.

Ronkowski shook his head. “Structure hasn’t been determined safe yet, Roy. Not with this wind.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“Damn it, Roy. I’m supposed to be in charge here.”

“Just make a note. This is my decision.” Calloway took the flashlight from Finlay. “Wait here.”

The front door’s frame had been damaged from the forced entry. Black burn marks and blistered paint revealed where the fire had licked the sash in search of oxygen. Stepping in, Calloway heard wind whistling through the house and the plink-plink of dripping water. The beam of his flashlight danced off scarred walls and the charred remains of furniture. Framed photographs and knickknacks accumulated over a lifetime lay strewn across the carpet. He directed the light at a waterlogged piece of Sheetrock hanging from the ceiling like a wet bedsheet from a clothesline. Snow fell through a gaping hole in the roof. Calloway covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief because the air inside still remained thick with smoke and smelled of burnt wood and insulation. His boots created puddles in the carpet as he stepped across the room.

He leaned through the doorway on his left and swept the light over the kitchen. DeAngelo was not there. He made his way across the living room debris and down a narrow hallway leading to the back of the house, calling out DeAngelo’s name but getting no answer. He used a shoulder to force open the first of two doors, revealing a guest bedroom. The fire had done minimal damage, probably because the room was farthest from where Ronkowski believed the fire to have started. The fact that the door had been closed also would have reduced the flow of oxygen to fuel the flames. Calloway directed the light over a queen-sized bed, pulled open a closet door, and shone the flashlight over a bar and handful of wire hangers.

Retreating from the room, Calloway pushed open the second door, which also stuck in the sash. The master bedroom. Black smoke streaked the walls and the ceiling, but again, the damage was limited compared to the rest of the house. Calloway danced the light over a dresser partially buried beneath a piece of fallen Sheetrock, bent to a knee to lift a dust ruffle, and shone the light beneath the bed. Nothing

He called out from his knees. “DeAngelo?”

Where the hell is he?
he thought. The bad feeling that had started when he heard the report that Finn’s home had been burned grew stronger.

Finlay entered the room. “They’re coming in now. You find him?”

Calloway stood up. “He’s not here.”

“He got out?”

“Then where is he?” Calloway asked, unable to shake the bad feeling that had first come over him when he had heard Armstrong mention Finn’s name over the radio. It was like a bad chill, a cold-to-the-bone feeling. Calloway walked to the closet and pulled on the knob, but the door was wedged tight in the jamb. “Check with the neighbors,” he said to Armstrong. “Maybe he’s disoriented.”

Armstrong nodded. “Will do.”

Calloway braced a hand on the jamb, about to apply more force, when he noticed two darkened points protruding through the door, roughly three feet apart. In the light from his flashlight they looked like two nails shot from a nail gun that had missed the studs and penetrated through the wall. Only these nails were significantly bigger, more like spikes.

“What the hell?” Calloway said. He yanked on the door. It didn’t move, so he put a foot on the wall and yanked again. This time the door swung open faster than Calloway had anticipated, the weight and force nearly pulling the knob from his hand.

“Jesus!” Armstrong yelled, stumbling backward into the dresser.

CHAPTER 53

T
racy felt the Subaru’s engine struggling as the car’s tires fought to churn through the deepening snow. She couldn’t see the center line or the edge of the county road. It was all a long white blanket. With the four-wheel drive engaged and the car in low gear, it plowed forward, but it remained slow going. The windshield wipers slapped a steady beat but couldn’t keep the glass clear of the swirling snow, and visibility had been reduced to a few feet in front of her bumper. Tracy had to resist the urge to hit the brakes when gusts of wind caused the snow to fall in clumps from overburdened tree limbs, creating momentary whiteouts. If she stopped, she might not get the car moving again.

As she rounded another curve, a burst of light momentarily blinded her, causing her to steer closer to the rock face. A rush of wind from an eighteen-wheel truck plowing past in the opposite direction shook her car and spit snow from its tire chains. Maybe she was a fool to be out in weather like this, but she wasn’t about to sit at Dan’s and wait out the storm. It suddenly made sense, so much so that she was dismayed and angry that she had not considered the possibility before. Who else had access to the red Chevy truck? Who had the opportunity to plant the jewelry and the hairs? It had to be someone whose presence on the property would not be conspicuous. It had to be someone who lived there on a daily basis, someone who Edmund House trusted.

Parker.

In their rush to convict Edmund, no one had checked Parker’s alibi. Parker had said he’d worked a late shift at the mill, but no one had bothered to confirm it. There’d been no reason to, not with a convicted rapist to blame. It was just as likely that Parker, known to be a heavy drinker, had been out knocking back a few in one of the local bars, decided to drive home on the county road to avoid the highway patrol, and stumbled upon Sarah stranded and soaking wet. Parker would have been a familiar face. Sarah wouldn’t have hesitated to get in the cab with him. What had happened from there? Had Parker made a pass and gotten angry when Sarah had rejected him? Had there been a struggle where Sarah had hit her head? Had Parker panicked and hidden her body in a garbage bag until he could safely bury it? Parker would have known about the dam going online. He lived not far from the area that was to be flooded. He also knew the trails in the foothills, and he’d been part of the search team, so he would have known when and where to bury Sarah’s body. And maybe, most importantly, Parker had had a ready scapegoat to give up when Calloway came calling: his rape-convicted nephew.

The lumber mill in Pine Flat where Parker had worked at the time of Sarah’s disappearance had since closed. How had Parker continued to make a living? How did he pay the bills? He’d made furniture as a hobby when Tracy had lived in Cedar Grove, selling a few of the pieces at Kaufman’s Mercantile Store on consignment. Apparently he’d gone into business for himself—as Cascadia Furniture—and had bought a flatbed truck to deliver what he sold.

Tracy thought again of her question to Dan. Where would Edmund House go now that he was free? But House had already answered that question when she and Dan had first met him in Walla Walla.

I can already see it.
The looks on the faces of all those people when they see me walking the streets of Cedar Grove again
.

Where else could he go? Where else but to his uncle’s home in the foothills? Edmund House had insisted that Calloway and Clark had conspired to convict him, and that had certainly seemed to be the case, but it didn’t explain who had hidden the jewelry in the coffee can in the furniture shop and who had planted the blonde strands of hair. Neither Calloway nor Clark could have done it, not with Edmund at home and on high alert, not with an entire CSI team scouring over the site. Had Edmund also figured out that his uncle had been part of the conspiracy, and had willingly joined Calloway and Clark in order to cover his own crime?

Tracy briefly took her eyes off the road to check her cell phone. No bars. She wondered if Dan had made it home and found her note. She wondered if he had gone to get Roy Calloway. She spotted a pile of snow that looked to have been plowed from a side street and left along the side of the road, and slowed to have a closer look, trying to remember if that was the turn that led up the mountain to Parker’s property. If she guessed wrong, she’d likely get stuck, with no way to turn around.

She made the turn and punched the accelerator to keep her speed up the grade. The tires of her Subaru fell into fresh ruts that had been made by a vehicle with larger tires and a wider wheel base—a flatbed truck. Her car shuddered back and forth as if on a track at a carnival ride, and the headlights bounced and shimmered off the trunks and limbs of trees swaying violently in the wind. Tracy leaned forward, peering through an ever-shrinking window of visibility as ice and snow gathered on the windshield, seemingly immune to the wipers and the defroster hissing hot air.

Tracy slowed into a corner, about to accelerate out of the turn when she saw a branch sticking up out of the snow. She braked hard and jerked to a stop. The headlights extended just far enough to illuminate two other trees that had fallen across the path. She’d get no farther in the car. Tracy looked about, uncertain how much farther it was to Parker House’s property, or if she was even on the correct road. She again checked her cell phone. No reception.

Were Dan and Calloway on their way? She had no way to know. Instinct told her she didn’t have time to wait.

She checked the clip of her Glock, slapped it back into place, and chambered a round. After slipping two additional clips into the pocket of her jacket, she pulled on her hat and ski gloves and grabbed the flashlight she’d found in a drawer in Dan’s kitchen. Tracy shoved open the door, using her forearm to brace it against the howling wind and keep it from slamming shut. She steeled herself for the weather and what was to come.