Prey (21 page)

Birch and Peterson were first to arrive. They bounced into the clearing in the Hartwood PD’s battered old Crown Victoria and came skidding to a stop beside the BMW. Peterson got out first and slammed his door. The pathetic look of boyish enthusiasm on his face reminded Winter of an over eager puppy. Birch wasn’t so quick. He eased himself out from behind the wheel and stood there breathing hard for a moment or two, his face flushed, his piggy-like eyes so narrow they were almost shut.

‘Would someone mind telling me what in the name of sweet Jesus is going on around here? First Granville Clarke, and now this.’

‘Where have you been?’ asked Winter.

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘It is our business. You were supposed to secure this house.’

‘I do not work for you Mr Winter.’ Birch’s eyes turned even more piggy like. His expression was more smirk than smile. ‘You aren’t even a police detective, nor are you with the FBI any longer. You have no authority over me whatsoever.’

Winter went to reply, but Mendoza touched his arm.

‘Chief Birch, we need you to identify the body of Eugene Price.’ She was aiming for placatory, but her Brooklyn accent made it sound like a threat.

‘It can’t be him. Eugene Price has been dead for six years. All you’d have left is bones.’

‘That’s the thing, he hasn’t been dead for six years.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Eugene died sometime during the last week, and so far as we can tell he died of natural causes.’

‘That’s impossible. Eugene Price died six years ago. He was murdered by his son.’

‘And the body was never found.’

Birch’s blood pressure was creeping up, the skin on his face and over-sized neck turning pink. ‘It’s not Eugene.’

‘Maybe you should reserve judgement until you’ve had a chance to look for yourself.’

‘I’ll look, but I’m telling you now, you’re wrong.’

Mendoza gave Birch directions to the bomb shelter and watched him waddle off towards the side of the house. Peterson was hurrying along behind him, looking more like a puppy than ever. Winter walked over to the porch and sat on the bottom step. He took out his cigarettes and lit one. He reckoned Griffin should be here in fifteen minutes or so, probably fewer if she found it as ‘unhealthily interesting’ as Mendoza had made out.

He was contemplating a second cigarette when he heard the distant sound of a car moving through the trees. Thirty seconds later a black SUV with County Medical Examiner markings on the hood and doors drove out from between the trees and parked beside their BMW. Griffin got out of the passenger side and stood for a moment gazing over at the dilapidated farmhouse. Winter didn’t recognise the man who’d climbed out of the driver seat. He was in his early forties. Short black hair that was greying at the sides and a pair of John Lennon spectacles. The guy started pulling bags from the rear seat of the SUV.

Griffin came over, a smile on her face. Today’s eyepatch had a five-pointed star picked out in white diamante. Her laden-down assistant came over to join them and she introduced him as Barney. He was almost as tall as Griffin, well over six feet. Handshakes and ‘Hellos’, then it was down to business. Mendoza got the ball rolling by signing over the evidence she’d collected to Barney. The hotel key, the Bible page, the clump of hair. He put everything into one of his bags for safekeeping, then it was Griffin’s turn.

‘So, you’ve found Eugene Price,’ she said, her voice as slow and lazy as ever.

Mendoza nodded.

‘How bad?’

‘That’s a matter of perspective. If you’re talking about the condition of the body, then it’s not bad at all. In fact for someone who’s supposed to have been dead for six years, the body is in surprisingly good condition. But that’s because he hasn’t been dead for six years. If we’re talking about injuries to Eugene Price, then I guess you could say it’s pretty bad. We think he burned his eyes out with a cigarette.’

Griffin just stared at her for a moment. ‘Do you have any idea how many questions I’ve got going around in my head right now?’

‘My guess would be a hell of a lot more than Chief Birch but a damn sight less than me.’

‘Birch is here already?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Griffin groaned.

‘Not a fan, then?’

‘The official line is that Chief Birch is an upstanding citizen and a shining example of everything that a good law enforcement officer should be. The unofficial line is that the man’s an idiot.’

Mendoza laughed. ‘That’s pretty much the same conclusion we’ve come to.’

‘You know, the original investigation would have gone so much smoother if he’d been on vacation that week. He viewed the whole thing as though Jeremiah Lowe and the sheriff’s department had some sort of vendetta against him. It was completely counterproductive.’

‘Clearly there was no vendetta,’ Winter said. ‘We met Lowe. The impression I got was that he’s competent and professional. He knows his stuff.’

‘Of course there wasn’t, and yes he does. Birch is just a little man who desperately wants to believe that he’s a bigger fish than he actually is.’

‘Not so little,’ Winter added. He pointed to the side of the house. ‘The crime scene is that way.’

‘Lead on.’

They arrived at the clearing just as Birch was hauling himself from the ground. Peterson was already at the top, offering his hand to help his boss. Birch batted the hand away and climbed the last couple of steps. He stopped at the top to catch his breath, wiped his brow with a handkerchief, then dipped his head towards the medical examiner.

‘Dr Griffin.’

‘Chief Birch.’

He shook his head slowly, profoundly. ‘That’s a hell of a thing down there. A hell of a thing.’ He turned to Winter. ‘Okay, Mr Bigshot Profiler. How about you tell us what we’re looking at here?’

Winter met Birch’s eye. ‘You know, I can’t help wondering how you didn’t find Eugene six years ago. How did that happen? I mean, he’s right there under your nose, and he’s been here all this time.’

Birch huffed and puffed like the answer was on the tip of his tongue. In the end he didn’t say a word, he just turned and stomped out of the clearing, Peterson trailing a few steps behind.

Mendoza lifted her sunglasses and stared at Winter. ‘What happened to playing nice with the other children?’

Winter looked back along the path, back the way they’d just come. In his mind, he was retracing his steps all the way to Hartwood. He saw the BMW pulling away from the house and driving along the pitted dirt track that cut through the trees. He saw them turn on to the winding two-lane road that led into town.

‘Jeremiah Lowe would have been thorough. He would have turned this place upside down. So why wasn’t Eugene found during the initial investigation?’

Nobody answered. Winter went over the interview with Lowe in his head. The detective had said that there had been a snowstorm, and that it was one of the worst he’d ever seen. He retraced the route from Hartwood to the Price house, the roads blocked with snow, the bumpy track leading to the house as good as impassable. The ground would have been covered by snow, the path to the clearing hidden beneath a blanket of white. And they were looking for Nelson at this point, not Eugene.

He turned to Griffin. ‘Lowe said that the investigation was hampered by a snowstorm. Do you remember how long the snow stayed on the ground?’

‘At least a week, maybe longer.’

‘And did the storm block the roads in and out of Hartwood?’

Griffin nodded.

‘As for this place, I’m guessing that you couldn’t even get in here with a snow plough. Does that sound about right?’

‘I managed to escape after four days, but that was still four days too long.’ She laughed. ‘That’s not something I’m hoping to repeat any time soon.’

All of this fitted his theory. After four days stranded in Hartwood, Lowe and his people would have been itching to get back to Rochester, leaving Birch to clean up. Would Birch have bothered coming back here to search the woods? Not a chance. That would have been way too much like hard work. Which meant that this place would have only got a perfunctory onceover right at the start of the investigation. After all, the main crime scene was at the Reeds’ house. That’s where everyone would have congregated.

‘What’s on your mind?’ Griffin asked him.

‘I’m just wondering how long Amelia had been hanging around waiting for the perfect storm to hit.’

‘Alive or dead, hiding someone isn’t easy,’ Winter continued. ‘With a dead body you’ve got all that hassle of dragging them out into the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, and digging a shallow grave, and you’ve got to do all that without anyone seeing you. And if they’re alive, well, that’s even tougher. You then need to keep your victim fed and watered, and you need a hiding place, somewhere well out the way so no one can find them.’

He looked over towards the trees, saw the sun playing on the leaves. No one else spoke. They just stood in a ragged circle, the light wind and bird calls breaking the silence. He glanced down at the open trapdoor.

‘Okay, so what if you’re trying to hide a live body and you’ve got cops crawling all over your house? That’s going to be even tougher, right? And you’d better believe that they’re going to be crawling all over the place, because your brother has just committed one of the worst murders that this town has ever seen. So if you’re Amelia Price what are you going to do?’

‘You’re going to muddy the waters as much as you can,’ said Griffin.

‘Exactly. Most people would like you to believe they’re happy to go that extra mile, but that’s bullshit. The truth is that most people are looking for an easy life. They’re searching for the path of least resistance.’ Winter turned his attention back to the hole and for a split second it was six years ago. Scenarios span through his mind, possibilities and hypotheses and almost-certainties. ‘Amelia’s timing was perfect. She waited until she knew the storm was going to hit then went to the Reeds’ house with Nelson. Then she stood and watched while he murdered them.’

‘Woah,’ said Griffin. ‘Back up there a minute, cowboy. There’s no evidence Amelia was in the house while the Reeds were murdered.’

‘That’s because nobody was looking for that evidence. In this case everyone was happy to accept that there was only one gunman up on the grassy knoll. Of course, the fundamental problem with evidence is that it’s open to interpretation. One set of facts can lead to more than one story.’

Griffin studied him, sunlight bouncing off the diamante stars on her eyepatch. ‘At this point I’ll just have to take your word that she was there.’

‘But how did she get her father into the cellar? asked Barney, breaking into the conversation. ‘The cops would have searched this place. They would have seen a line of footprints leading through the backyard, and they would have gone to investigate, and they would have found this place. Except that obviously didn’t happen.’

‘Amelia must have hidden her father somewhere else,’ Griffin suggested.

‘Why?’ asked Winter. ‘There’s a perfectly good hiding place right here, so why go to the trouble of finding somewhere else? She just wouldn’t. Remember, she would have been looking for the path of least resistance.’

‘And she couldn’t have brushed over the footprints,’ Mendoza cut in. ‘That would have left a trail that was just as obvious.’

‘Exactly. So how did she do it?’ Winter pulled out another cigarette and played with it while he spoke. ‘I think Eugene was right here all along, under the ground and out of the way. He was here on the night the Reeds were murdered. He was still here when the snow cleared enough for the cops to be able to get out here, and he was still here long after they’d gone.’

Mendoza shook her head. ‘Except that doesn’t work. We’re back to the fact that they would have seen the footprints leading out to the woods.’ She went to say something else and stopped at the last moment. ‘Shit. Amelia brought him here before the snow hit, and she didn’t come back until she was certain as she could be that the cops weren’t coming back.’

Winter nodded. ‘That’s the way I see it.’

‘How long did she leave him for?’

‘It took four days for the snow to clear enough for people to escape from Hartwood, so at least that long. But she would have wanted to give it a few days longer to allow for the police turning up unexpectedly. You’re looking at a minimum of a week, but probably longer.’

‘What about food and water?’ asked Griffin.

‘Amelia would have left water, bottles of the stuff. Crates of it. As for food, there were shelves full of cans back in the cellar. I’m sure she could have worked something out. And even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be that big a deal. The way I see it, it comes down to the rule of threes. In an extreme situation you can’t survive for more than three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Eugene was okay for air and shelter, so as long as he had water, he’d be good for three weeks without food.’

‘You think she left him there for three weeks?’ Griffin asked.

‘If she’d needed to, then yes, that’s exactly what she would have done.’

‘What if he’d died?’

‘We know that she’s clever, and careful. She also has patience and can plan. She would have been confident that that wasn’t going to happen.’

‘But she couldn’t have been a hundred per cent certain.’

‘And that was the gamble. She needed to stop her father. At that point, that was the most important thing to her. If he had died, then I guess she would have waited until the ground thawed, and then she would have gone deep into the woods and buried him, and then she would have probably packed up and quietly left town. With her father dead, there would be nothing to keep her here.’

Griffin stared down into the hole, down into the dark. ‘I’ve seen some things, but this has got to be the coldest thing I’ve ever come across. It’s the length of time she held him for that I find incredible. Six years. How can someone do something like this?’

‘That’s the wrong question.’

‘So what’s the right question?’

‘There are two actually. Where is she? And why involve me at all?’