The Girls She Left Behind (28 page)

“How'd Gemerle get hold of a box and shovel, anyway?” Chevrier wondered aloud.

“Forest service,” Dylan replied. “The box had had a dozen shovels crated up in it.” His hand found Lizzie's and gripped it.

“I'll say one thing about Jane, though,” he added. “She may be nutty but she's got nine lives.”

Say what?
Lizzie thought, fully alert suddenly.

She'd been floating along on the two men's conversation, happy as a little clam on a tide of the IV morphine or whatever it was that they'd given her. But now the blissful no-worries effect of the drug faded away fast.

“…alive,” said Dylan. “I got to talk to her when she first came into the hospital, before they started working on her. She'd lost a big chunk of her scalp and bled like hell, but she came to. Rolled out of that shed and into the water trough outside just in time.”

At his words, another sharp stab of anxiety pierced Lizzie's opiate cocoon.

“Saved herself,” Dylan said. “But she's not going anywhere.” His head jerked toward a stretcher just now rolling by the foot of Lizzie's bed. “Not under her own power, anyway.”

Strapped to the stretcher by thick leather restraints, the figure was near unrecognizable with its bandage-swathed head and thickly gauze-wrapped arms, its face heavily painted with white ointment and scalp mottled with patchy burnt areas.

But I'd know her anywhere…
They'd have wanted her medically stable before the cops took her into custody, of course; that was why Jane Crimmins was still here.

“Hey,” Dylan said, frowning abruptly.

Following his gaze, she blinked in amazement at how much blood she'd just suddenly produced. Then came shouts, hurrying nurses, and Emily Ektari's dark eyes peering from behind a hastily donned surgical mask.

Finally came a feeling of speeding along way too fast, as her injured body—
I have a body,
she thought wonderingly—was rolled out of the treatment cubicle.

“Prep the OR stat,” someone said.

S
eated outside the eye clinic, Tara watched the stretcher rolling by with eyes that still felt raw and scratchy. Her throat hurt, too, from screaming to get out of the box she'd been buried in, and from crying pretty much nonstop since she'd been rescued.

“That's her, isn't it?” she murmured. “She's the one who was with me in the shed when you came and saved me?”

She felt her mother's arm tighten around her. “Yes. But it wasn't only me. We did it together, all three of us.”

She squeezed Tara's arm again. “You by hanging in there and never giving up, me by being prepared…”

Pushed by two nurses, the stretcher rolled away fast through a door marked
SURGERY
. In its wake a housekeeping aide mopped a trail of bright blood drops.

“And Lizzie Snow,” Tara's mother finished. “By not giving up on me.”

Tara bit her lip. “Is she going to die?”

“No, honey. Deputy Snow is going to be fine.”

Her mom's arm tightened again. Ever since they'd been home, her mom had been saying that everything bad was all over, and from now on life was going to be good.

But Tara didn't believe it. Aaron was dead, for one thing, and she still felt guilty about it. If she hadn't gone off with him, if she hadn't been hitchhiking; if, if, if.

And somehow the worst of it was that her mom seemed to think
she
knew what Tara was going through. But she didn't. Being
taken,
sure she was going to die…no one could understand.

No one. “Honey?” Her mom peered at her in concern. “Honey, I know what you're—”

“No you
don't,
” Tara spat. “You
don't
know, stop
saying
you do.” Screaming now and not caring. “No one understands
any
of it! You're all just
stupid
and ugly and…and
bad
!”

She was on her feet, sobbing, the fear coming back again and the shame along with it because it was
all her fault…

“Tara.” Her mother's arms were around her suddenly. “Tara, listen. You don't think I get it?”

And here it all came again, it's all going to be all right, blah-di-blah. But what she heard next was not what Tara expected:

“You're right. Nothing will ever be the same.”

Tara glanced up. “How…how do you know?”

Her mother looked weary. “I never meant to tell you. Now I have to. But first, you have to promise that afterward…that you'll still love me.”

Tara's throat ached with tears. “Okay,” she said, meaning it.

The clinic nurse beckoned. Peg stood. “Come on, then, let's get this appointment over with.”

Tara got up, too. “And then I have a story to tell you,” said her mother. “I don't think you're going to like it.”

She sighed, guiding Tara forward. “But it's a story you need to know. So you'll believe you're okay.”

“Okay,” Tara repeated, thinking
one step. Then another.
Not that hard if you just took them one at a time. So maybe—

“Hello, Tara.” The nurse smiled kindly at them.

So maybe her mother really did know best.

FIVE DAYS LATER

U
nidentified white female, age approximately ten years, hair blond, eyes blue…

“Those space-age polymers worked.”

Saying this, Dylan glanced over at Lizzie from behind the wheel of his own car, a beautifully kept old red Saab 900. He'd insisted on driving her to the medical examiner's office in Augusta to view the body.

Nicki. It might be…

“In the vest?” she replied. He'd kept up a line of chatter all the way from Bearkill, on country roads to Houlton and then on I-95.

“Yeah,” he said. “Frickin' bullet packed a helluva punch and I've still got a bruise the size of Texas on my chest. But since the rescuers didn't have to pick me up in pieces and stuff them in a body bag, I'd call it a success.”

Engaging her in small talk was his attempt to keep her mind occupied, she supposed. That way maybe she wouldn't dwell on the small body awaiting her identification.

But it wasn't working.
Cause of death, blunt-force trauma.

“You never asked how come they found us there,” Dylan said. “And I wouldn't bring it up, but you owe that office assistant of yours a big vote of thanks.”

That got her full attention at last. “Missy Brantwell? But I thought—”

“Right, that she'd hightailed it out of town for the last time along with everyone else. Which she had. Got her mom and her kid situated. But then she came back.”

Oh, for pete's sake.
But of course; that was Missy.

“Couldn't raise you on the phone or the radio, or find me or Chevrier, either, so she called Trey Washburn,” Dylan said. “He started phoning around, and once he heard about Chevrier calling for backup, he had some creative suggestions about where to look for you.”

Now they were south of Bangor, speeding through flat, empty territory with nothing but a thin scrim of evergreen trees on either side: each exit miles from the previous one, gas stations and convenience stores sited directly at the ends of the ramps, signs visible from the interstate.

“Trey knew about the sheep hut,” she said.

A state cop flew by with his lights on, no siren. When they caught up, the trooper had a car pulled over and was approaching. Dylan lifted an index finger in salute as he drove past, and the trooper nodded sideways in reply without taking his eyes off the targeted vehicle.

“Right,” said Dylan. “Trey called the forest service and the 'copter pilot said she thought she could probably beat the flames back enough with the rotors, 'cause it was raining by then.”

The storm, when it finally came, had been historic; two-plus inches of rain overnight and more the next day, dousing the fires decisively. Not that Lizzie had noticed any of it; she'd been busy learning to breathe again after surgery for a punctured lung.

The first exit sign for Augusta appeared. He pulled out and passed a small sedan, then got over to the slow lane once more.

“And Trey was right,” Dylan said. “About his hunch. So here you are now.”

“So here I am,” she repeated shakily. Once the chest tube was out there'd been little reason to keep her in the hospital.

Or so she had insisted, and at last Emily Ektari had given in. They rode in silence awhile. Then: “What about the cars?”

Dylan laughed humorlessly. “Turns out Cam Petry flew here. Bangor to Portland, there to Houlton. Then she rented a car.”

He pulled out and passed a fuel truck. “And Jane had a Lexus she'd bought back in New Haven. Both vehicles in the impound lot now.”

He returned to the right-hand lane. “Plus the stolen van, that's all of 'em.”

The Saab still handled as neatly as ever, she noted, trying not to think about how much she had missed it.

And him. “Snow tonight,” she said, looking out at the iron-gray sky.

He glanced at her again. He had been, since the events of a few days ago, unceasingly kind. “Yeah. Lots, they say.”

In the heavy rain's aftermath it had turned very cold. Back in Bearkill, people were wearing parkas and boots and mounting plow blades on their pickup trucks.

“Here we are.” Dylan took the downtown exit with the ease of long familiarity, wound through back streets along the river, and pulled into a gated parking lot.

Inside the low brick building, the walls were institutional green, the overhead light buzzing fluorescent. He led the way down linoleum-tiled corridors to an office anteroom, then into a large cool open area like a surgical suite.

The clock on the only wall that was not lined with morgue drawers read two o'clock; they were right on time. A young man came in, wearing a lab jacket, corduroy slacks, and Hush Puppies.

He had an ID badge, too, but she didn't bother reading it. Her mouth was dry, her heart hammering. Dylan's hand cupped her elbow.

“Will you know?” he asked.

She nodded. Half the toe tag was in the slot on the drawer's end plate. The other half would be on the body.

The technician grasped the drawer's handle and pulled, and the drawer slid out soundlessly. Inside, the small, defenseless-looking bundle lay wrapped in a white sheet.

The smell of bleach rose from the sheet. “Are you ready?” he asked gently, and she nodded again.

He drew the sheet back, revealing the small, still face with its lavender eyelids, its bluish pinched nostrils and marine-blue lips. A bruise mottled the forehead and one cheek.

Lizzie dug her nails into her palms, bent closer to be sure. Nausea rose up, but as the room swam tiltingly she felt Dylan's hand still gripping her arm.

She stepped back, steadying herself. This child had a broad, flat nose, a dimple in her chin like a vertical knife mark, and curly hair.

And no tiny birthmark. “It's not her.”

The technician glanced up questioningly. “You're sure?”

“Quite certain, thank you. This isn't my niece.”

Turning away sharply from the body lying before her, she felt nothing but a moment of pride as she realized she'd gotten through it all right. After all the worry over how she might react, what she would do if it turned out—

But it didn't. Because it wasn't Nicki, I came and saw that poor little girl for myself, but it wasn't her it wasn't—

“Lizzie?” said Dylan worriedly when they got back out into the corridor. But she didn't answer, pulling roughly away from him. She made it all the way down the hall into the ladies' room and then into the stall before she began to weep.

“S
o all that time you spent with Peg wasn't really a waste after all,” said Dylan a few hours later.

They were in Area 51's familiar barroom, decorated with North Woods memorabilia: yellowing photos of beast-drawn carts, a crosscut saw blade as tall as a man, bills of sale for the lumber camp's provisions—salt, sugar, lard.

“Yeah, you think?” A small laugh made Lizzie's chest hurt.

But it was true. If she hadn't kept Peg in the loop, then Peg wouldn't have shown up with a gun.

And that would've been bad. Meanwhile Lizzie's own weapon had been returned to her; her hand went reflexively to it just to make sure.

“Hey,” she added, “you never know when persistence will pay off. Although in this case it was just my own personal brand of damn-fool stubbornness, I guess.”

Chevrier looked up. “Don't bust your own stones, Lizzie, all right? That's my job.”

“Yeah, okay, boss,” she shot back at him. But she was still glad to hear it.

Leaning back, she looked around at what remained of dinner: burgers for everyone but herself. She'd managed a scrambled egg. Dylan and Chevrier were there, and beside Missy, Trey Washburn was returned from a farm where he'd been moving the animals back in.

Any thoughts Lizzie might've had about Missy and Trey being a couple were banished by the way Trey looked at Lizzie now: like a dessert he'd thought had been snatched away from him but now here it was again, as delicious as ever.

“Anyway, if you ask me,” said Chevrier, “I think all Jane Crimmins's I'm-so-unstable act has always been fake, and now it's just another plank in the cockamamie insanity defense the legal hotshots're trying to build for her.”

The attorneys who'd petitioned the court to be allowed to represent Jane Crimmins pro bono, he meant, since the county was not exactly swarming with lawyers who were experienced in murder cases, their request had been granted.

He drank some beer. “I still want to know how this Gemerle guy picked the spot he did, though. To bury the girl, I mean.”

Trey Washburn looked up. “Well. I've been doing some research about that. What?” he added at Chevrier's look. “There's plenty on the Internet, you know, you don't have to be a cop.”

Chevrier nodded skeptically. “Okay, Doc, let's hear it.”

“Well,” Trey began, “from what I've read it seems the only decent thing the guy ever did was volunteer firefighting. Those big fires in Vermont, remember? Gemerle was seventeen that year.”

Chevrier's look changed to one of interest as Trey went on: “Gemerle went up there, joined a crew.”

“No kidding. So he'd have known…”

Trey looked vindicated. “Yup. Same kind of rural area we've got here. And wasn't that Rusty Harris's van he stole, from up in Allagash?”

Now Chevrier got it. “Sure was. Rusty was retired from firefighting per se, but he still had a scanner in the van's dash.”

“Right again,” said Trey. “So he'd have heard where the fires were, what he'd find up there, too. Tools, maybe the crates they came in…”

“Everything he'd need,” Chevrier agreed.

Listening, Lizzie winced at the misery in her ribs. She'd skipped the pain pills to keep her mind clear for the morgue visit, and afterward had forgotten them.

When I get home,
she promised herself as Chevrier finished his beer and turned to her.

“You get your applications sent? Better do it soon, Lizzie, if you want to get out of here before winter really settles in.”

For the Boston PD, he meant. Her old job, catching homicide cases in the metro area; bright lights, big city.

She frowned at her Coke glass, took another painful breath, and said: “Yeah, well. Change of plan. I'm not going.”

She looked up. “I'm staying here.” She felt their astonished eyes on her. “I just…”

Trey Washburn's face lit up. Missy looked pleased, too, and Dylan worked unsuccessfully to hide a smile of surprised relief.

Only Chevrier remained expressionless. “How come?”

Which was the question she'd been asking herself, too. When she'd talked to her old lieutenant again, he'd made it clear that her vacated spot would be available to her once more, no problem.

Even the high-rise condo overlooking the river, still full of the rugs and furnishings she'd lovingly collected for it, had not yet sold; in a week she could be sleeping in her old bed.

She closed her eyes, imagining it, then opened them to find Area 51's enormous clear glass jar of pickled eggs still looming beside the antique cash register on the polished mahogany bar. A rerun of
The Andy Griffith Show
was on the big-screen TV, the sound turned down low so the scanner on the shelf behind the bar was audible.

The scanner was always on when she was in here now, just as the bartenders knew she drank single malt when it wasn't Coke; they kept a fifth of Battlehill under the counter for her. Then there was Rascal, waiting patiently for her out in the Blazer right now.

But the dog wasn't the reason, either. “I don't know, boss. Guess maybe I just don't want to be a quitter.”

She got up, the bandage over her ribs pulling annoyingly, and dropped some money on the table.

“Anyway, I guess if I'm still welcome here I'll come to work tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future.”

Nobody replied, but nobody had to. Chevrier's silent nod of agreement was all she needed. Flipping the collar of her leather jacket up against the chill, she stepped outside where half-frozen rain dripped steadily from the
AREA
51
sign.

The fires on the ridge had come very near to burning Bearkill to the ground; partly melted, the big-eyed alien with the cocktail glass in his hand looked as if he'd been hit by a science-fiction ray gun, his glowing head smooshed sideways by heat.

But you survived, too, didn't you, buddy?
As she walked down the gleaming wet sidewalk to where the Blazer waited, the doused-campfire scent of drenched embers drifted in the night air. But behind that floated the crisp smell of snow, from the mountains where the ski lifts had at last begun operating.

“Hey.” The voice came from behind her.

“Hey, yourself.” It was Dylan, hands in pockets, shoulders under his black topcoat hunched up against the cold. He caught up and walked alongside her.

“I heard from the New Haven cops. They dug up Gemerle's yard like you wanted. Found bones in it. An infant's. And some others. Adult women, one young girl.”

So she'd been right. She wondered how many of them would be identified and how many consigned to unmarked graves; even dental records worked only if you had some idea of which dentist to ask.

“So that's where Cam Petry's child got to,” she said.

Dylan nodded slowly. “Yeah. D'you suppose she ever found out? There at the end, do you think he told her?”

“That he'd killed the baby?” She gazed down the empty street. “I don't know. I hope not. Jane might've told her, though.”

She took a deep breath. “But the big question, when it comes to whether or not Jane told the truth in the end, was…”

“Yeah. Did she love Cam?” Dylan put in. “Or did she hate her?”

“…was could they forgive each other,” Lizzie finished.

He nodded, purse-lipped. Then: “I'm glad you're staying.”