Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (24 page)

“I met her.” He nodded. Mae had been one of those soft, sweet ladies who had a hint of steel underneath. “And I agree one hundred percent she would never on purpose tell us something she did not believe to be true. Not the same thing as lying.”

Ellie hooked her hair around her ear. The mannerism always seemed to mean she was thinking hard, which he respected. Besides, he liked the feminine, graceful movement of her hand when she did it. Her eyes were shadowed, but that could just have been the supposedly romantic effect of the inadequate lighting. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Which would indicate missing-person records are useless. Let’s find the record of the marriage instead, then the legal documentation of the divorce. This mysterious first wife might be alive and kicking somewhere, which will then take her off the table. At that point we can go back to missing persons.”

“Unless it
is
her.”

See, he’d known that was what she was worried about. “Unless it is her,” he agreed.

Someone laughed loudly at a table behind them, but then again, they probably weren’t discussing hidden graves.

“In which case, she was most likely the victim of a homicide.”

“Odds are. I believe there is some protocol involved when a person dies of natural causes and it doesn’t involve dumping them in an unmarked grave and saying they left and later divorced you.”

All things she already knew and maybe he shouldn’t have been so blunt. He softened it a little by adding, “But look, MacIntosh, you obviously think he’s a good guy and not the type to murder his wife, and he was able to legally remarry, so he is probably telling you the truth.”

But if he wasn’t, he would be the main suspect in a homicide investigation. There was no statute of limitation on capital cases. So her difficult decision now was whether or not to tip the county sheriff’s department on whom it might be. He didn’t envy her that one. He didn’t remember his grandparents on either side very well, but he would not want to carry around the burden of being the one to get one of them convicted of murder.

“Where is your family from?”

The question took him off-guard. They hadn’t worked together long enough to read each other’s minds so often. “I’ve mentioned my parents.”

“Mentioned, yes, but no, I mean your family. Santiago? Not a super common Wisconsin name.”

“Johnson is a super common Wisconsin name. Anything that doesn’t end in a
berg
or a
son
is someone from outer space here.”

“Not an answer.”

“Exactly.” He set his napkin on the table. With his upbringing she should be grateful he’d remembered to use the napkin at all. His father tended to use his sleeve. What good manners he had he learned in the military. With a flourish, he took out his wallet. “You ready to go? This one is on me.”

MacIntosh didn’t look disappointed, she just looked tired. “I should have known better than to ask you, of all people, but I am trying to decide how to figure it out and deal with this.”

“Oh,” he said with ironic inflection, “I am the perfect person to ask if you want to figure it out, but not the right one if you want to know how to feel about it.”

Chapter 22

“
Where are the letters coming from?”

She gazed at him steadily. “She doesn’t want you to know.”

It was like a nightmare. He wasn’t an intellectual man in the sense that he enjoyed books and music, but more that nature had its own rhythm and beauty. He appreciated a sunrise through the trees with a kind of poetic wonder, and the glimpse of the sleek movement of a northern pike slipping through the weeds in a glassy lake, or the graceful swoop of a nighthawk across a thickening indigo sunset.

But he wasn’t stupid either. Not at all.

The woman sitting there across the table was lying to him. “I know you always claimed to be Vivian’s best friend, but this is not actually how a friend would act in my opinion. You and I both know I need to find her.”

Softly, she said, “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

He didn’t either and it scared the hell out of him
.

*   *   *

Jody called around
ten o’clock, which was unusual for a woman with children who participated in just about every activity known to mankind. Ellie had been half dozing, the book she’d taken the time to toss into her small bag sliding from her hand, when the ring jolted her awake. She was getting used to Santiago’s nocturnal interruptions, so she answered abruptly without looking at her phone, “What?”

“And here I could swear I was your favorite older sister.”

She levered herself more upright on the pillows of the hotel bed and brushed her hair back. “Sorry. I was half asleep and you are my only older sister, so don’t get too full of yourself with that favorite thing.… What’s going on?”

“After you left, I called Mom like you asked, but wasn’t quite sure just what I was looking for. The result was interesting anyway. Maybe you aren’t the only detective in the family.”

“Okay.” Ellie had to admit to a certain level of apprehension. “Did she know about the previous marriage?”

“Yes, but not until the two of us put the pieces together. I was on the phone with her for two hours.”

“That is definitely taking one for the team.” Ellie adored her mother in many ways, but there was a reason—Santiago listening aside—that she’d asked her sister to call their mutual parent. Apparently living in a beachside condo on the Florida coast afforded her lots of time to talk and Ellie didn’t have time for that right now. “I owe you. What did she say?”

“Oh, you’ll pay. Anyway, she at first was a little quiet. I mean, this is Dad’s family, and though they were married for decades, I guess they hadn’t ever talked about it. But, yes, he’d said something once or twice. I guess his grandmother had mentioned it when he was a young boy. No details. Dad had the general impression the ex-wife had just up and left. No real explanations as to why. It was way before he was born, obviously, since by then Grandpa had remarried, and as a boy and even a young man, he hadn’t bothered to ask what exactly happened.”

“But he
had
mentioned it to Mom.”

“Anyone would be a little curious, don’t you think? His father was married to another woman. As we get older, we tend to not be so self-absorbed and start to ask these sorts of questions.”

Some people might be a lot curious. Ellie knew she was. “Mae acted just a little strange once she realized the direction I was going … swore she could not remember her former sister-in-law’s name. I don’t believe that for a minute, do you? She is way sharper than I am. Not that it matters, because I can access court records and find out, but I really need to know in what state they were divorced. Here in Wisconsin, or wherever she went? That many years ago not all records were kept the same. Here, no problem. An obscure county in New Mexico? I might never find that one. Did you know that New Mexico was not admitted as a state until 1912? With a per capita of about one person a square mile back then, and—”

“Just ask him.”

The interruption was warranted and Ellie knew she was tired and torn in more than one direction, so she stopped talking.

Jody said again emphatically, “Ellie, I don’t care about the history of the state of New Mexico right now, though I assume it is very fascinating. Just ask Grandpa these questions you want answered. I am not at all sure where you are going with this, or even why you are so concerned, but the truth is, you need to just go straight to him and
ask
him. Not Mom, not me, and not Mae.
Him
.”

Trust her sister to get straight to the point.

“I did ask him. The day he called me and asked me to come up because the grave had been found, I asked him face to face. He denied knowing who those bones could belong to.”

“Then I’d say he doesn’t. But if you are so bound and determined to find out, ask him again.”

“I’ll think about it. This is not the only thing going on. I’ll call soon.”

When she pressed the end button, she stared at the popcorn ceiling of her motel room and contemplated the other case, putting this one out of her mind. Grasso had said, the hum of the airport in the background, their conversation interrupted by the announcements of flights going in and out, that Joanne Fielding had been an interesting interview.

She seemed afraid. Okay, Ellie would buy that. Her husband had been killed right next to her while she slept. She would be afraid too.

But Joanne had been spared and so had her son.

It gave her some measure of satisfaction to call Santiago at such a late hour, but to her disappointment, he was obviously still awake and answered on the second ring, irritatingly clear-voiced and alert. “Yeah?”

“Answer one question for me.”

“MacIntosh, I’m in the room next door. Why are we talking on the phone? If you need me to come over and tuck you in, just say so.”

“Thanks but no thanks.” She was getting pretty good at ignoring his more irritating comments. “If Grasso thinks Joanne Fielding is scared, but she isn’t particularly in hiding, what is up with that? Yes, she left the state, but he discovered where she is, so it follows the bad guys could find out too. She is not in the witness-protection program, she never even asked apparently. If, through her, Fielding found out something about a drug cartel supposedly laundering money through the Henleys’ chain of liquor stores, wouldn’t she have been targeted too?”

His answer took a minute. “That’s true. I guess I’m not sure either why she is comfortable enough with her situation to not ask for help. You can’t have it both ways. Was the call to the DEA agent a strike back at the Henley family by Fielding that backfired? It sure looks like it on the surface, but it all doesn’t fit together very neatly. I wish we knew more about Lieman and how Fielding even got his number.”

“I know they keep the operations involving undercover agents close to protect them, but we are also law enforcement. I say we ask Metzger to try and get us more information on that angle.”

“Sounds reasonable. That has bothered me all along too. One of those loose ends that might unravel the whole thing, but it could be that they knew each somehow in another way. That would explain why Fielding didn’t use the chain of command.”

“If so, why didn’t Lieman mention it?”

“That’s a pretty good question. I say we call the chief in the morning and push it.”

Then she said it. “Lieman is law enforcement.”

Santiago said grimly, “That has occurred to me too.”

*   *   *

Jason watched the
flickering screen but the images flowing through his mind had nothing to do with the show.

In his head played the scene of two men opening the door of a bedroom and approaching a sleeping couple and taking out the husband but not the wife.

Bang, bang, bang
.

It probably could have been him. Bursting through the door of his apartment would be simple enough, but he did wonder if the reason they’d tried another method didn’t have to do with the fact the complex was so busy with people of all kinds coming and going. Both Fielding and Danni had houses, so escape was just a matter of getting out the door. Chad had been caught out on the street. Jason’s room was generic with a queen bed that had a bedspread patterned with black bears and pine trees, and paneled walls to resemble what the average tourist might think of as a north woods lodge, but it did have a nice lovely window overlooking the same lake as the restaurant where they’d had dinner. He’d left the drapes open so he could gaze out over the water because he was really, really tired of watching television in general.

Full moon. That seemed appropriate somehow.

He got up and prowled the room, restless and edgy. He could usually feel a case closing in, and if ever that was happening, it certainly seemed to be this one. Resting his hand on a table by the window, he stared out.

It was dark—not cold, not yet, not even here, but it looked chill and black out there under the silent, brooding trees.…

There was a shadow by the steps that led downward toward the dock. He saw it at first as just something obscure, his brain busy with the whirlwind of the past few days, his attention only abstract until it was caught by the way the figure slipped past the tall pines and disappeared.

No one walked like that unless they were being
stealthy
. In fact, very few people were out and about at this time of night, especially here.
Couldn’t a person get eaten by a bear or something out here in God’s country?
Jason glanced at his cell phone and it was past twelve.

Shit.

No part of him had believed they would actually be followed, but then again, his car had blown up and Danni was dead.…

Time to go. He slipped on the shoulder holster but kept his weapon in hand before he left the room. The air smelled like pine and water and it was hell-and-gone different from Milwaukee.

He’d knock on Ellie’s door, but it was very quiet and someone might hear. Much more without sound than what he was used to at home, with the people who worked later shifts coming and going and the busy street beyond the apartment complex. Maybe it was just as well he was a city boy and couldn’t sleep without some sort of background noise.

There was one advantage to cell phones. He pulled his out, leaning against the wall in a shadow, hoping the illumination didn’t send off too much of a signal, and sent a text.

Man outside. Weird.

Enough for a warning. He crept around the end of the building and wished he’d pulled on a sweater or something. Not that he wasn’t sweating already. The light breeze was cooling it on his skin but he would be less noticeable if he wore something dark.

His back scraped along rough wood siding intended to be rustic, but half dressed it wasn’t comfortable, though he doubted the company that built it intended to have someone edging along it without a shirt.

He held his weapon, walking carefully around still fully leafed-out shrubs that rustled, and hoped the slight breeze would be a reasonable explanation to anyone who might notice. He wasn’t nervous, which always surprised him. Even the night he’d been shot by the Burner he hadn’t been particularly nervous, just focused, and that it had gone wrong hadn’t been because he was jumpy.