The Girl from Silent Lake Read online

  The article didn’t specify where exactly the body had been found, but she knew the lake like the back of her hand. When she was growing up, a day spent on the sandy beaches of the lake was the closest she’d come to a real vacation. And there were miles of those beaches, flanked by dense woods that provided the much-needed shade in the summertime. Deer oaks, bigleaf maples, and cottonwoods provided the local kids with year-round entertainment. Acorn treasure hunts, tree-climbing contests that had given her plenty of scars to show off proudly, and necklaces made of double-winged samaras kept the kids busy all weekend long, while the parents caught a little bit of rest.

  Sometimes.

  When she was lucky enough, she was invited to join her best friend’s family for an outing to the lake. Judy’s family was lots of fun, she recalled with a sad smile. She hadn’t seen them in a long time, and she couldn’t bring herself to understand why she hadn’t called them.

  She turned onto North Shore Road and slowed, wondering how she’d be able to locate the place where the body had been buried. Maybe the yellow, do-not-cross tape was still in place, and it would be that easy, if only she could spot that in the dark.

  Several paths led from the road to the lake, eager tourists driving trucks or SUVs blazing new ones each weekend, in search of a stretch of deserted beach they could call their own. The article said the body had been found close to the beach but had mentioned Cuwar Lake Forest, not just Cuwar Lake. That meant she had to drive a little farther and reach the southern limit of the national forest.

  Rolling down her window, she pointed a flashlight toward the forest, darkness already thick, impenetrable from the road. When she was about to turn around and try her search again from the lakeshore, a flicker of yellow tape caught her eye in the distance. She turned onto the path and drove slowly, then stopped a good twenty feet away from the open grave.

  After cutting the engine and killing the lights, she gave her eyes a few seconds to get adjusted to the darkness, then approached the grave. Shielding the beam of the flashlight in the palm of her hand, she kneeled by the graveside and examined it inch by inch. It had been dug with a flat shovel, the lines left in the edges long and parallel, suggesting methodical approach and upper body strength. A man in his prime. It had been dug about three feet deep, not a hasty job but a carefully executed task by someone who cared enough to take his time and risk getting caught only to give the victim a proper burial.

  Remorse?

  Probably.

  She needed to see the crime scene photos to be sure.

  Kay kneeled at the far side of the grave and projected the beam at the bottom of the excavation, seeing something that didn’t belong. A double-winged seed samara leaf, when all the fallen leaves around the grave were oak, not maple. But a samara is nature’s design for a seed meant to fly far from the tree in the gentlest of winds, spinning around and gaining momentum, in search of fertile grounds where it can grow.

  It was probably nothing.

  She spent a few minutes looking at the many tire tracks visible on that path, wondering if the sheriff’s office had taken molds of any of them. There were very few sections of barren ground where the tire tracks had left discernible impressions. October foliage covered almost every square inch, and tire tracks on leaves were as ephemeral as the wind.

  She heard an owl hoot and smiled at the sound, unafraid, although in the local culture the owl was a symbol of death, a bad omen people feared. But death had been there already, had taken its grim toll. The owl was just a bird, nothing else, one of the many thriving life forms one could find on the north shore of Cuwar Lake. The only thing the owl foretold was the presence of mice on the ground, its favorite prey.

  Standing, she ran her hands against her jeans, brushing off the dirt and leaves, and looked around. She could barely see the lake’s shimmering surface under the moonlight, through the thick forest. As far as body dump sites went, this one wasn’t badly chosen; the victim could’ve stayed buried for years without anyone finding her.

  How was she discovered, anyway? The newspaper article didn’t say.

  She climbed into the Explorer and started the engine, frowning when she saw in the headlights the many footprints she’d left at the side of the grave. Thankfully, by morning, they’d all be gone, scattered by wind, a fresh layer of falling oak leaves covering the ones that bore her mark.

  Putting the SUV in reverse, she drove away slowly, careful not to hit anything on her way out of the woods. Her eyes, riveted to the rearview camera, didn’t notice the man who watched her from a distance, arms crossed at his chest, leaning against his car.

  He’d been there a while.

  Five

  Elliot

  Kay had spent her second night after returning to her childhood home dozing off at the kitchen table, with her head nestled on her arms, her face touching the latest local newspaper. The light of dawn and its accompanying concert of chirps and eagle cries found her stiff and unrested, but happy the darkness was finally gone.

  She could bear to look at the house in broad daylight, when the ghosts of her past seemed defeated by the sun. With daylight as her ally, she started cleaning the house methodically, thinking ahead of the days and nights she had to spend there.

  She started with the survival trio, as she liked to call it, kitchen-bathroom-bedroom, the bare necessities of any dwelling. She began with her old bedroom, not a room she wanted to sleep in, but out of the existing alternatives, the lesser evil. The task, which should’ve lasted no more than a couple of hours, ended up taking the bulk of her day.

  The only vacuum in the house was dead, and replacing it took a trip to Mount Chester’s only Walmart store, a thirty-five-minute drive. On the way in, she used the opportunity to grab some breakfast at a pastry shop, glad to see no one recognized her. She wasn’t up for conversation, just happy to be anonymously on her way as soon as possible. Once at the store, she decided to stock up on some fruit and vegetables, and added cleaning products, household consumables and a new set of bedsheets to her cart. Then she returned to the ranch, mad as hell she’d forgotten to get air fresheners and shampoo.

  Approaching the house at high noon was a different experience than it had been the night she’d arrived. The ranch was less menacing, looking frail and shabby, as if about to fall apart if the winds picked up. Before unloading her shopping, she walked the front lawn, deciding what to do first. Yesterday’s list forgotten, she opted for giving the tall weeds outside another few days of life, in favor of cleaning the living spaces inside to a level that she could tolerate.

  She dove right back into cleaning the bedroom, and when she finished vacuuming, wiping all the surfaces and making the bed with the new dark green sheets, it looked almost livable.

  Kay took the old sheets to the laundry room and loaded the washer, only to storm back to Walmart a few minutes later. The thing hadn’t been in use for months, judging by the thick layer of dust settled on its command panel, and was not powering up. Three hours later, a well-built, bearded man by the name of Joe finished installing the new washer-and-dryer combo, took the old ones to the curb, and gratefully accepted a twenty-dollar tip with a smile colored by chewing tobacco stains on his crooked teeth.

  The next few days were spent scrubbing the floors, cleaning the windows, running laundry load after laundry load, until the acrid smells were finally replaced by the lavender scent of dryer sheets. But scrubbing the kitchen floor took its own special kind of toll, and she found herself throwing up after finishing that section of hardwood, bent over the weakened rail of the front porch. When the heaving relented, she rinsed her mouth with some bottled water and slammed the door behind her, car keys in hand.

  “Screw this,” she muttered a few moments later, from behind the wheel of her Ford, peeling off in a cloud of dust and pebbles.

  Twenty-five minutes later, she was unlocking a room at the Best Western downtown. There, she immediately ran herself a bath, immersing herself in blissful, cleansing peace until
the water turned cold. A few hours later, her senses soothed by the warmth and cleanliness of everything that surrounded her, she found the willpower to leave behind the promise of a good night’s sleep, and headed back to the ranch.

  She couldn’t afford to leave the place unguarded for one single night.

  That had been two days ago, and she couldn’t believe she’d arrived almost a week earlier. The fridge was clean and held some real food, not just beer and frozen dinners, although she couldn’t bring herself to cook yet. Maybe later… maybe never. Deli meats, sliced cheeses, strawberries and apples made up her diet, and the croissants she kept getting from Katse Coffee Shop, over the mountain.

  A couple of times she’d tried calling Judy, but got her voicemail. She couldn’t find the words to leave a message. How could she explain not having called her best friend for all those years? As soon as the cleanup was done, she’d drive by and speak to her in person. That was a promise she made to herself, a promise that made her smile with fond anticipation, the bitter guilt for being out of touch for so long starting to dissipate.

  Once the scrubbing and cleaning was done for the most part, she’d found herself with nothing to do, yet, for some reason, postponing the planned visit to see her best friend. Instead, she looked for jobs, but there were none in Mount Chester, population 3,823. She was willing to do anything, even wait on tables at one of the local diners, but nobody was hiring until the start of the winter tourist season, only a month away. And she couldn’t bring herself to visit with old acquaintances and ask for their help. That would trigger more unwanted memories, questions, and gossip. Better to go at it alone; she’d done it before. Thankfully, her savings account could handle her living in Mount Chester for six months until Jacob was released and she could return to her real home, in San Francisco.

  She ached to speak with her brother and planned a visit to him. He couldn’t take calls; no inmate could, unless, of course, the caller was a federal agent, which she wasn’t. Not anymore. She thought of him almost every moment, wondering how he was surviving behind bars and dreading the conversation she was going to have with him, if she had no answers yet. No solution, no promise of an earlier release, of an appeal that would move fast enough through the system to make a difference.

  Not a day too soon, little brother, she thought, then suddenly wondered if the 3,823 people noted on the town’s sign included her or not, or when it would include her again, if ever. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be there long enough for that to happen.

  The first knock on the door barely registered in her mind and she quickly dismissed it, thinking it must’ve been a woodpecker, busy at work up in the old oak tree looking for some grub. But the second, louder rap had a rhythm to it, strong evidence it was generated by a human.

  She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  Frowning, she wiped her hands on a paint-stained rag and headed for the living room, feeling for the weapon holstered at her hip, under her loose shirt. Then she opened the door, tentatively at first, then widely, as soon as she saw the badge the stranger was holding at her eye level.

  “Detective Young, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office,” the man said, and his Texas drawl made her smile. “May I come in?”

  Her frown returned. “Um, sure.”

  He didn’t look like any Franklin County detective she’d seen, resembling a Texas cowboy who’d boarded the wrong flight. In worn-out jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt stretched over well-defined muscles, he looked nothing like a detective would, especially during business hours. Usually, the sheriff departments all around the country required business casual attire—slacks, shirt, tie and a jacket—but this detective apparently had not received that particular memo. The black, wide-brimmed hat and the Lone Star belt buckle were statements to that effect.

  He took off his hat entering the house and remained standing by the door. Without the shadow cast by the dark felt, she could see a tall forehead littered by unruly, light brown hair, slightly furrowed above blue eyes that looked straight at her, inquisitive, restless. A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth while he studied her openly, without trying to hide his gaze.

  Irritating as hell.

  “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “I heard one of the top FBI profilers had returned home,” he said, giving the living room the typical cop once-over. “I figured I’d stop by and introduce myself.”

  She refrained from fidgeting, from showing how uncomfortable his presence made her, especially when she noticed how carefully he examined his surroundings. Had he been inside the house before? She had no way of knowing, but one thing was certain: she didn’t believe a single word he’d spoken since he stepped over that doorsill.

  She forced her smile to look sincere. “Well, now we’ve met, Detective. Anything else?”

  He leaned against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankle. “Ms. Katherine Sharp, is that correct?”

  “Kay,” she rushed to correct him. “Everyone calls me Kay.”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied, a hint of a smile touching his blue eyes. “So, what’s a hotshot fed like you doing in a place like this?”

  The man was nothing if not direct, but she wasn’t going to answer his baseless questions. Surprised, Kay took longer than a split second to reply. “I don’t see how—”

  “You burned out or something?” he asked, his smile touching the corners of his lips as he sized her up. “Or does it have something to do with your brother being in jail?”

  Angry, she propped her hands on her hips and took one step closer to the door. She knew the type well, having encountered them frequently in her years as a fed. Nosy cops on a fishing expedition, when the days were too peaceful to justify their existence on the taxpayer-funded payroll. “I believe I can’t be of any real assistance with anything, Detective, and I have work—”

  “Oh, but I believe you can,” he replied, his Texas drawl prevalent, a constant reminder he didn’t quite belong. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it to her. “I believe you can help me sort out what’s written in this letter. Make some sense out of it.”

  She took the crinkled, typed letter and swallowed a curse. She recognized the font she’d used, the layout of the page. Even before she read the first few words, she knew it was one of the letters she’d sent. Yet she pretended to read through it, while thinking of how best to handle the situation. If she wanted to have a conversation face-to-face with the detectives investigating the Cuwar Lake murder, she would’ve signed the damn thing.

  “Seems pretty clear to me,” she replied, folding it and holding it out for him to take back.

  He didn’t.

  “Ma’am, I’m just a Texas lawman who landed up here, trying to make a living. I’m not as smart as you are. Why don’t you explain what it says, in plain English, words I can understand and use while hunting for the son of a bitch who murdered that woman?”

  She stared at him for a quick moment, wondering if he wasn’t actually playing dumb. She still didn’t buy a word he was saying, but decided to play along.

  “The letter suggests the killer is experienced in taking lives, and especially in disposing of the bodies in a manner that speaks to experience, to routine. And there’s a reference to a certain ritual, as seen in the way the victim was buried. The positioning of the body, the blanket he wrapped her in, that speaks of remorse.”

  “Anything a simple cop from Austin can actually use?” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, still leaning against the wall.

  “The letter suggests this might be the work of a serial killer,” she added, then stood, waiting. She wanted him gone, out of the house as quickly as possible. Somehow, having a cop inside her home turned her into a nervous wreck, although if the same situation would’ve happened in San Francisco, she would’ve invited the fellow law enforcement officer to stay for coffee and she would’ve gladly discussed the case.

  Then she realized she was making a mistake, behaving
differently from what she would’ve normally done in the city.

  “How about some coffee, Detective?” she asked, changing tack, turning and stepping over to the kitchen counter.

  His smile widened into a full-blown grin. “How about we drop the anonymous letter act? And how about some beer instead?”

  Damn. And it’s not even eleven o’clock in the morning, pal. That’s how they do law in Austin, Texas? With a cold one in hand?

  She held her breath until her back was turned to him, while she took two cold beers from the fridge. Then she let herself exhale, her frustration muted and lengthened until it sounded like normal breathing.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, handing him the bottle.

  He popped the cap with a quick gesture, then looked around before locating the trash can and sent it there with a precise shot across the room. He whistled when the cap landed neatly in the trash, then held the bottle up to hers, though without touching it.

  “Cheers,” he said, then gulped down thirstily almost half the contents. “Well, let’s see. You’re the only criminalist with a psychology degree within a hundred-mile radius. I also know this isn’t the first letter we received from you, even if you just moved back here. Coincidentally, the other letters had a San Francisco postmark. You’ve been keeping an eye on the local events, now, haven’t you?”

  Of course, she had. It was her hometown. Her skeletons.

  The drawl was still there, but the simple-boy-from-Texas routine was completely gone. She weighed her options for a while, then decided to own it.

  “Guilty as charged, Detective,” she replied without smiling. “But last time I checked, writing letters wasn’t illegal in Franklin County.” She sipped her beer slowly, savoring the cold flavor.

  “No, but interfering with an active investigation is,” he replied calmly. “You see, now we can do one of two things. I can listen to what you have to say, or I can put you on notice to stay away from the investigation. I’m not afraid to arrest a former fed, Ms. Sharp, keep that in mind.”