Jack nodded, and couldn’t keep himself from wondering whether she had been alive for the dismemberment. “Any word on her car?”
Garrison shook his head. “They’re pretty sure he must have dragged her into Brittlebank from the Ashley because she had water in her lungs and stomach consistent with prolonged submersion so the choppers are flying the river line.”
Jack held back a floodtide of emotion. “Did we send the crime scene team to her house yet?”
“Done,” Garrison said.
He wanted to put someone on Caroline, but knew they would question his motives. Instead, he focused on their one suspect. “Can we put the tail back on Patterson?”
“Already on it,” Garrison said, and Jack was relieved that all the bases were being covered, even though it galled him to lose the investigation.
The box in his hand suddenly felt as though it held the weight of the world. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Garrison gave him a nod, and his normally competitive nature was absent. He reached out, patting Jack’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’ll get this guy, Jack.”
Jack nodded, and walked away, taking the box to his office, resigning himself to the fact that at this point, there was really only one thing he could do that wouldn’t jeopardize the investigation: he had to find out what Kelly had known.
He logged onto his computer to check the NCIC and NamUs databases, contemplating which database Kelly had used and whether he could hack her sign-on. Maybe she had saved search results he could access. Maybe she’d discovered something that could help them find her murderer. Maybe whatever she had learned had sent her straight to the killer.
One of the dispatchers poked his head in the door before he could begin. “The
Tribune
’s on hold for you.”
“Tell Ms. Aldridge I’m not available.”
“Uh, it’s not a she. It’s a Frank Bonneau, says you’re the only one he’ll talk to.”
Caroline barely held back her hysteria.
The face she gave to others—she hoped—was solemn and composed—her best poker face. Inside, however, she was quivering like a frightened child.
When Pam didn’t return to work, didn’t call, or answer persistent phone calls, Frank finally sent someone to her apartment to check on her. No one answered her door and the guy came back to work and discovered her car in the garage. That was when they called the police.
Tucked under Pam’s windshield wiper was a piece of paper, in exactly the same spot Caroline had found her slip of paper, folded in just the same way. Except this one was pink. Instinctively, she knew there was more to her note than Jack had led her to believe. Obviously, he didn’t trust her.
Was there anything salvageable between them?
On the driver’s-side window, the number three was written in the same white crayon that drive-through car washes often used to mark windshields for the attendant managing the wash line. In fact, the car was spotless, despite the week of rain they had endured. Pam’s oversized purse was still sitting on the passenger’s seat on top of the laptop she had checked out from the office, as though she had just stepped out of the car momentarily or simply forgotten it.
No one touched the note on the window, but Caroline already knew what it would say:
Death and life are in the power of the tongue; those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18 :21.
The words were imprinted on her brain.
She heard the sirens wailing down the street and knew Frank had finally reached him. Not only was Jack not answering her phone calls, he obviously hadn’t bothered to listen to any of her messages.
Was he blaming her for Kelly’s death?
She didn’t understand anything that was going on.
Right now the only thing that really matters is Pam.
Caroline had gotten her involved in things she oughtn’t to have been involved in maybe. And because of her, Pam was possibly—God, she couldn’t think about that!
Pam’s family lived in Athens, Georgia. Who would make that phone call? The police? Or would Caroline, as her employer, be expected to be the bearer of bad news?
Don’t think that way.
They would find her.
Jack would find her.
Like Amanda?
Or the way they’d found Kelly and Amy?
Caroline shuddered.
At least three police vehicles squealed into the garage, one of them a crime scene unit. Another two cars came in silently, both unmarked—one of them Jack’s. He gave her a simple nod as he got out of his car but went straight to Frank, talking to him while someone else—another cop—barked orders to the men.
Caroline stood there, hugging herself, watching them work, feeling the ten or so feet between her and Jack acutely. They might as well have been standing in different cities.
The men worked quickly, but not quickly enough. A local news van pulled into the garage, conveniently blocking the exit in a pretense of unloading the vehicle. The rest of the local news teams were sure to descend soon.
Caroline recognized Sandra Rivers, wearing a red suit similar to the one she’d worn last night. Clearly, her radar was on high reception. She spotted Jack and brushed nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt, heading straight toward him, her red high heels clicking loudly in the nearly empty garage. Even as she made her way toward him, two more news channels converged on the scene.
“Detective Shaw!” Rivers called out, hurrying toward him.
Jack threw out a hand to stop her. “This is a crime scene, Ms. Rivers! Back off!”
She looked for a moment like she considered balking, but Jack’s words rang like a God voice in the garage. “Everyone out now!” he demanded. “Move the van!”
Frowning prettily, Sandra Rivers waved her camera guys away— not that the gesture was necessary. They had already leapt back five paces merely at the sound of Jack’s voice. He might not be leading this investigation, but he commanded enough respect that they didn’t question his authority.
Rivers spun around, her radar settling on Caroline, and her expression perked. She made a beeline in Caroline’s direction, walking with renewed purpose. “Ms. Aldridge! I understand Ms. Baker has been missing since Monday, possibly longer?”
Caroline’s stomach sank. Her mother wouldn’t have run from this, she told herself. She blinked at the camera. “No comment, Ms. Rivers. I hope you understand.”
Sandra Rivers nodded, surprised maybe. “Of course,” she said, with a forced smile, but she persisted with the microphone. “On a related note, can you confirm that the
Tribune
is offering a reward for any information leading to Amanda Hutto’s whereabouts?”
“I wouldn’t say that is related at all,” Caroline countered. “No one has established any connection between any of these cases, but yes, the
Tribune
is offering a reward.”
Rivers smiled thinly, her eyes gleaming. “Your late mother would be so proud, God rest her soul,” she said, in her thick Southern drawl. “As for your investigations, are you stepping in now because you’ve lost faith in our boys in blue? And will you continue the more hardcore stories or do you plan to abandon them now that it seems too risky for your employees?” She pushed the microphone in Caroline’s direction.
Caroline blinked again, startled by the mouthful of words Rivers had just attributed to her. Not only was she implying the
Tribune
was generally fluff and couldn’t handle mainstream news, but the answer to either of those questions was potentially explosive. She weighed her words carefully. “Do you tweet, Ms. Rivers?”
“Well, yes! Who doesn’t?” Rivers replied, but looked suddenly confused. She turned to smile nervously for her camera and then turned back to Caroline.
Caroline smiled benignly. “We don’t,” she said. “And we will continue to report the news to our community in a manner the City of Charleston has grown to trust. However, we feel it is best, given the nature of what’s at stake here, to leave the criminal investigations to the capable hands of the CPD.” Caroline forced a gracious smile.
“Well, yes,” was all Rivers said. “Thank you, Ms. Aldridge.” And she smiled brilliantly, turning to her camera and signing off. Only once the camera was down did her smile vanish. She muttered something low, snapping at her men to get everything back into the van. Fellow media cohorts or not, Caroline was pretty sure she hadn’t made a new friend today, and the look Rivers gave her as she walked away only validated her suspicion.
Leaving Jack standing alone, Frank moseyed up beside her, his thick arms crossed. He eyed her with equal measures of pride and censure.
“What?” Caroline asked, staring hard at Jack’s back. He hadn’t even bothered to turn once to look at her.
Frank scolded her. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know better than to go talkin’ to the press?”
Caroline’s cheeks heated. “I wasn’t going to run away like a scared puppy!” she said defensively.
Frank shook his head, but smiled. “Just like your mama.”
“Anyway,” Caroline remarked. “Whatever happened to professional courtesy?”
“That only applies if you’re not a greedy bitch,” Frank stated matter of factly. “Sandra Rivers is a greedy bitch. No matter how you look at it, even without these murders, you’re big news right now too. So next time, stick to ‘no comment.’ It actually works.”
Caroline knew he was right, of course, but she wasn’t in the mood to be chastised. She stood a moment, watching Jack go after Rivers again, ordering her off the premises. He glanced briefly in her direction. She didn’t bother lingering to see if she would be his next target. She left Frank to deal with questions and went back to the office.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“C
an’t wait to see the farmer’s tan you’re gonna get!” Augusta said, as she made her way down the long dock.
Savannah stopped in the middle of trying to push one of the smaller boats back into the boathouse. Wearing a white wife-beater to match her cast, she was already getting sunburned in areas not covered by material. She was sweaty, sticky and her arm itched.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Going through the boathouse.”
“Obviously.” Augusta pointed at the boat. “If you keep at it, you’re going to end up with a cast on your other arm. Why didn’t you ask for help?”
Savannah shoved at the boat one more time, then tugged to no avail. It was good and stuck. “Because I obviously overestimated my coordination and strength.” She grinned.
The smallest of their boats, the dory, sat wedged in the door, caught on something just inside the boathouse. Savannah couldn’t drop it, because it wouldn’t quite rest on the dock. She didn’t want to damage the wood.
“Here, let me help you.” Augusta poked her head inside, kicked something out of the way, and then pushed the dory out onto the dock. “How the hell did you get it off the hooks?”
They both eyed the small craft. Though their mother had probably never set foot in one of these boats after Sammy’s death, all of them were in pristine condition. “I bet she had Josh look after the boathouse,” Augusta mused out loud.
Savannah shrugged. “Probably should have sold them all a long time ago, but good for us, because it’s more for the auction. In fact, there’s a twenty-five-foot Chris-Craft in there that’s probably worth at least a hundred grand.”
Augusta glanced inside. “I think it was Granddad’s.”
“Yeah, I was going to ask Josh about it.”
“Maybe we should just give them to him?”
Savannah placed her good hand on her hip and wiped the moisture beading over her brow with her cast. “Instead of selling them?”
“Maybe.” Augusta poked her head back in the boathouse. “If he’s put this much work into it, I’d say his feelings would be hurt if we didn’t at least ask, but hopefully, he’ll just let us sell them.”
“Yeah, okay. That’s fine.”
Augusta stood there, studying her, and Savannah knew she was about to get personal. She could see it in her expression.
“So you’ve been working on everything but your book since you got the cast on your arm and if you can move boxes and boats, you can’t tell me it’s preventing you from writing. What’s going on with you?”
Savannah shrugged. “Writer’s block, I guess.”
“If I’ve got to deal with this bullshit, and all you have to do is a write a book, you’d better get something down on paper, even if it’s total shit, Savannah . . . or we’ll all end up with nothing after all this is done.”
Savannah recognized the accusation in her sister’s tone. She knew exactly what Augusta was thinking. Beyond the fact that everyone seemed to believe it was so easy to write a book. Augusta thought their mother had played favorites one last time, giving Savannah the easiest of the three tasks. She sighed. “I tried using the old typewriter, but it’s not helping.”
Augusta frowned at her. “Has this sort of thing happened before? You got one book out and published—why can’t you write another?”
“Writer’s block. It happens all the time,” Savannah admitted, skirting the actual issue, “but never this bad.”
She’d been having night terrors again lately, and even tried writing some of them down, but whenever she attempted it, her fingers sat paralyzed on the keyboard.
In fact, she hadn’t been able to write much of anything for about a year, and she was terrified to try. The last time she had spilled her words on paper, thinking they were nothing more than a construct of her own imagination, she had experienced a macabre sense of déjà vu one day after a fruitful day at the keyboard. Seated on her couch, watching the news, suddenly detail for detail of her story began to unfold on the screen, narrated by a busty anchorwoman with shiny pink lips. It freaked Savannah out.
“Anyway,” Savannah said, steering the conversation away from uncomfortable territory. “I just wanted to see what was in the boathouse; then I got a sudden urge to take the dory out.”
“Out on the water? You can’t steer that thing one-handed, Savannah!”
Savannah raised a brow and offered a little grin. “I bet I could, but I got it out here and then decided a boat ride on the marsh alone, while great for my muse, might not be so great for my overall health.”
“Jesus . . . no kidding!”
Savannah scratched her arm above her cast. “Yeah . . . I was putting it back when you came out.”
They both peered down at the boat, lying upside down on the dock, with its recently polished wood surface gleaming under the midday sun, and started to giggle. It was the first time Savannah remembered laughing with Augusta since they were children. It felt good.
Obviously, Augusta felt the same. “You wouldn’t still be in the mood for that boat ride?” she asked.
Together they peered around at the peaceful setting, at the spartina grass ruffling gently in the breeze. The rains had left the water levels high. But with just the slightest breeze and the sun peeking out from behind paper-thin stratus clouds, it was about as idyllic as it could get. Add one boat with a female passenger—or two—and maybe funky hats—and you had the makings of a Renoir painting. But it wasn’t what you could see out there that gave Savannah a sense of ambivalence. She shook her head, scrunching her nose.
“Yeah, me neither,” Augusta admitted.
So they worked together to get the boat back in the boathouse and on the hanger where it should have remained.
“Has Sadie come back?” Savannah asked.
“Nope. I was going to call her, but I figured I’d give her some space.”
“Yeah, I talked to her this morning—walked by her house. She says she reckons we ought to figure out how to fend for ourselves and that she’s not doing us any favors by hovering.”
Augusta seemed to take offense at Sadie’s innuendo. “I can’t speak for you and Caroline, but at home, I do everything for myself and what I don’t do doesn’t get done.”
“Yeah, but we’re home just a few months and suddenly we’re counting on her for everything. I guess it’s too easy to fall back into old habits.”
“True, but Sadie’s an enabler,” Augusta countered. “I mean, how many years did she do everything for Mom—right down to refilling her meds and stocking her liquor cabinet, even though she knew Mom’s weaknesses better than anybody?”
Savannah cocked her head. “What would you have had her do? Tell her employer to go shove it?”
“Right. Well, I guess nothing is really black and white, is it?”
They fell into silence as they pored through the boathouse, looking for things to throw out, things to sell. It had the smells and the aura of a well-loved workspace—not a musty, moldy forgotten old storage unit. In some ways, Savannah felt like an intruder in her own home. Sadie and Josh were far more deserving of the place.
Savannah watched Augusta poke through sailing paraphernalia, noting her vacillating mood, and decided it was as good a time as any to talk about the dreams she’d been having. Sometimes they had a frightening link to reality, and Savannah had come to recognize the ones that shouldn’t be ignored by the knot of apprehension they left in the pit of her gut.
“So you’ve been seeing Ian Patterson on the sly, haven’t you?”
The expression on Augusta’s face was almost comical. Her eyes widened incredulously, and she looked momentarily chastened, before her brows collided. “How . . . did you know?”
Savannah didn’t feel comfortable explaining, not even to her sister, so she used the same line she always used. She shrugged. “I just guessed.”
In fact, Augusta was keeping her secret about as quiet as humanly possible. She hadn’t said a word about anything, but Savannah
knew
.
“Are you gonna tell Caroline?”
Savannah bit the inside of her lip. “I really think you should.”
“Are you kidding? She’ll go out of her mind! You saw how she reacted when I told her I wanted to offer the reward for Amanda Hutto!”
“Augusta, that man is a suspect in two murders.”
“Yeah, well
I
believe he’s innocent!”
Savannah looked at her meaningfully. “Are you willing to stake your life on it?” The question wasn’t meant to be hyperbole. The risk was about as real as the sweat trickling between Savannah’s breasts, down her arm and into her cast.
Augusta gave her a beleaguered look, full of confusion, and that didn’t do much to reassure Savannah. “I just have this feeling, Sav. Please don’t tell Caroline.”
“I can’t promise and it’s not fair for you to expect it.”
Augusta frowned.
“Come on . . . what would you say if the situation were reversed? Would you let me carry on with some guy who was being investigated for multiple charges?”
Augusta didn’t answer, because both of them knew the answer. Augusta wouldn’t balk at telling Caroline—or for that matter walking straight into police headquarters and demanding police protection whether Savannah wanted it or not.
“Okay, this is important, Augusta, so listen to what I’m about to say. . . .”
Augusta glared at her. “Are you taking lessons from Caroline about how to be Mommy in absentia?”
Savannah wouldn’t allow Augusta to bait her. “There might come a moment when you will ask yourself, ‘What should I do?’ Do what Augusta Aldridge would never do.”
Augusta screwed her face. “What the hell is that? A commentary on my life? You think I need to second-guess my actions because they aren’t the ones you and Caroline would take?” She tossed down a brush she had picked up. “Boy, am I sorry as hell I came out to commune with my baby sister!” She stalked out of the boathouse.
Savannah followed her out, yelling after her. “It’s not a commentary, Augusta! You’re just too damned predictable!”
Augusta turned, walking backward, her face a mask of indignation. “Yeah, well, doing the right thing
is
predictable, Savannah!”
“That’s my point, exactly!”
Augusta spun on her heel and Savannah watched her go, knowing it was time to talk to Caroline. There was no way she could keep what she knew to herself, especially now that Augusta had confirmed it.
Caroline would have closed the office early except that news didn’t stop for anyone. Life went on; so did the headlines.
She couldn’t imagine how her mother had weathered the disappearance of their brother, making decisions, smiling bravely for the cameras. For Caroline’s part, she felt as though her life was coming unglued and she couldn’t even afford to focus two minutes of her own time to piece it back together. There were so many other things that took precedence.
When she got home, she found Augusta sitting on the porch, sipping a glass of lemonade, jeans rolled halfway up her calves and her strawberry-blond hair twisted haphazardly on her head. Augie regarded her with cool blue eyes, watching her walk wearily up the drive. “Long day?”
Caroline nodded, but couldn’t quite find the energy to speak.
She stood there a moment, looking at her sister, and wondered how long it had been since they’d all been back under the same roof. It felt like an eternity, but the days were passing in a blur and she had barely spent any time with either of her sisters. At this rate, the year would be over . . . and then what? Would they each go their own way? The thought of that made Caroline glum. Dropping her briefcase on the bottom step, she sat down next to Augusta on the porch step. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, how are you holding up?”
Augie sighed. “Okay, I guess.” She took another sip of her lemonade and offered the glass to Caroline.
Caroline took a tentative sip and nearly gagged on the unexpected taste of vodka.
Augusta laughed. “I got into Mom’s stash.”
“That’s not like you.”
Augusta narrowed her eyes at Caroline and asked, “Yeah? How the hell would you know?”
Even in the growing twilight, the air was thick and hot after the heavy rains. The sun had beaten down mercilessly all day, baking everything it touched. Whatever moisture the rains had infused into the landscape was quickly evaporating. Caroline noticed the fine sheen of sweat on Augie’s arms and the slight sunburn on her shoulders, and meant to ask if she’d been out in the sun, but the barb stung. “Touché,” she said.
So they sat there, cocooned in the silence that followed.
“Where’s Savannah?”
“Inside.”
“Sadie?”
“Still angry.”
“No dinner?”
Augusta turned to look at her, her eyes gleaming. Caroline thought they held a trace of challenge. “Nope.”
“So what are you doing out here?”
“Waiting for the sun to set.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Felt like it.”
Caroline wanted to remind her that there was a psycho out there somewhere, but something about Augusta’s expression made her hold her tongue. Her blue eyes were a little glassy, and she looked a bit like she had been crying at some point during the day.
After a moment, Augusta continued. “You know . . . I read an article in the
Tribune
that said researchers were concerned the fireflies are vanishing. Apparently, Clemson is doing a study, asking folks to sit out in their yards from eight to ten and count fireflies, then go online and record the numbers on their site.”
As much as she wanted to say she read every single article every day, Caroline couldn’t possibly. “You read that in the
Tribune
? ”
Augusta nodded and swirled the drink in her cup. “Somewhere in there between all that death . . . maybe page five. I had to look hard to find a story that didn’t make me want to stuff myself in a sack of stones and jump off that dock out there.” She gestured in the direction of the boathouse.