Louis didn’t want to anger Dalum, but he couldn’t resist saying something. “In the early days, it was inhumane.”
Dalum took a moment before answering. “Maybe. But they did the best they could with what they had. Many of these people had nowhere else to go. Even their own mothers didn’t want them. As far as I’m concerned, this was a good place in many ways.”
Louis let it go. He stopped and scanned the trees until he saw the break of the clearing. The single white shoe stood out against the brown ground. The yellow plastic flowers lay nearby.
“The flowers are Charlie’s,” Louis said, pointing. “He said Rebecca needed them to wake up.”
Dalum stepped forward, looking at the flowers and the shoe. Then his gaze moved over the trees and he turned almost a full circle.
“Any thoughts on where she was killed?” Louis asked.
“Not a one. It’s been about thirty degrees out here the last few nights. From the looks of her body, she was kept awhile.”
“And it was probably done indoors,” Louis said.
Dalum was still looking. “Yup. And as far as I know, all the buildings are empty except one.”
“How many buildings are there?”
“Well,” Dalum said, “I know they had a P Building, so if they all had letters, that would make. .”
“Sixteen,” Louis said.
Dalum exhaled a sigh.
Louis started to ask another question. He wanted to know how big the Ardmore Police Department was, if they had a homicide detective, and if they had the manpower for a search of this kind. But he knew it was none of his business. And a part of him didn’t want to deal with another case. But he was seeing Rebecca, lying in the grass, her skin frosted blue. Seeing her and wondering what her last name was, and who was going to miss her tonight.
“I’ll have to call in the state police,” Dalum said.
Dalum didn’t sound happy. Louis could guess why. Five years ago, Louis had his own experience with the Michigan State Police. It had ended his law enforcement career in Michigan.
“Maybe Charlie will just tell you where he killed her,” Louis said.
Dalum’s gaze swung quickly back to Louis. “You think Charlie Oberon killed that nurse?”
“I’m leaning that way,” Louis said.
“Why?” Dalum asked. “Because he’s a crazy man?”
Louis started to say no, but maybe Dalum was right. He had made a quick assumption, something no investigator should do. And he had made it because of what Charlie was. And, maybe even, where he was.
“Damn,” Dalum said softly.
Louis glanced over at him. He was looking back toward the red brick buildings.
“I was really hoping they’d just let this place die peacefully,” he said as if to himself.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a white handkerchief. He tied it to a bare limb above the nurse’s shoe. “I’ll need you and Miss Cooper to come down to the station for a statement,” Dalum said, starting back toward E Building.
“Of course,” Louis said.
“Might take a couple hours.”
“No problem.”
Louis glanced at his watch. He knew Frances expected him back for dinner, but things at home had been so tense, he was dreading another evening with Phillip hidden behind a newspaper and Frances folding laundry.
But now there was something else, too. He had to explain to Phillip that the search for Claudia had come to a dead end, that they would probably never find her remains.
“So, your work finished here, Mr. Kincaid?” Dalum asked as they walked back to the cruiser.
“I think so,” Louis said.
“Then you’ve really got no reason to come back here to Hidden Lake, do you?”
“No.”
“Just as well,” Dalum said.
Louis didn’t answer. He stopped and looked back at the empty windows of E Building. As much as he wanted to help Phillip, he hoped he’d never have to come back to this place again.
CHAPTER 10
It was dark by the time Louis walked out of the Ardmore Police Station. Alice had asked for a ride back to the hospital, so he waited near the door, out of the wind, watching the street.
The shops were dark, CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING signs on the doors. Christmas lights twinkled in the window of O’Malley’s Hardware. A single car made its way slowly up the street, a faint sprinkle of rain shimmering in its headlights.
“Thanks for waiting.”
Louis turned to look at Alice. He hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to her once Chief Dalum had shown up and he wondered how she was doing. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but there was something else in them, too-disbelief. The same disbelief he had seen in the eyes of so many other people whose quiet lives collided with catastrophe.
“You okay?” Louis asked.
Alice nodded, stuffing her hands in her pockets. “I just want to go home.”
“You want me to drive you home?”
She shook her head. “No, just back to the hospital is fine. I need to get my car and lock up.”
Louis led her to Phillip’s Impala and helped her inside. She was quiet as he backed out of the space and flipped up the heater.
“Did you know her well?” Louis asked.
Alice sighed, folding her hands in her lap. “Pretty well, but we weren’t close. Rebecca came to Hidden Lake before me.”
Louis slowed for a stop sign, then drove on through, leaving the soft glimmer of Ardmore behind them as they headed out into the empty farmlands.
“Her last name was Gruber,” Alice said.
Louis didn’t reply, knowing nothing he could say would make this any better. But he did have some questions, ones he knew he shouldn’t be asking because this wasn’t his case. But he couldn’t help it.
“Can you tell me more about Charlie Oberon?” Louis asked.
Alice didn’t answer immediately, but her eyes were on him, looking for some level of trust. “I’ve known Charlie for six years,” she started slowly. “And I’ve never known him to be violent.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Louis asked.
“We’re not sure. He’s been diagnosed as several things. Schizophrenia, mild retardation as a result of possible fetal alcohol syndrome or drug addiction. Maybe brain damage due to physical abuse as an infant. No one seems to be able nail it down since we have no history on him.”
“Who brought him here?”
“The state. They found him wandering the streets of Jackson in the summer of seventy-four. He seemed to function on the level of about an eight-year-old. Things haven’t changed all that much really.”
She made a sniffling sound and Louis glanced over at her. But she wasn’t crying, just reaching into her purse for a Kleenex so she could blow her nose.
They fell into a silence that was broken only when Alice had to give him some directions. Out here, in the emptiness of the hills and fields, with no streetlights to relieve the darkness, Louis wasn’t quite sure where he was.
The blue and red bubble lights of a cruiser were visible well before they pulled up to the Hidden Lake entrance. Louis produced the pass Dalum had given him, and the two cops at the guardhouse waved him through. Beyond the administration building, he saw a flurry of lights-small jerking ones, like flashlights. The Ardmore Police Department didn’t have any floodlights, so Dalum was waiting for the state to bring some. The few cops here were protecting the scene and walking the grounds.
Louis swung the Impala in next to a cruiser, but didn’t switch off the engine. He turned toward Alice. She was watching the flashlights, the Kleenex balled in her hand.
“It’s going to be hard to go back in there,” she said softly.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Louis said.
“I have to. I have to finish boxing the records.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I won’t be. The superintendent has arranged for extra security.”
“Is there anyone else still working here?” Louis asked.