Elizabeth buried her face against my shirt, her tears warm, breath hot and quick. Her hands clenched into small fists. I simply held her. There was nothing I could say to ease her pain. I could only be there, hold her as she wept, crying at the horror, the loss and the inexplicable questions that no one could answer. She looked up at me, and I used my thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks. We turned and walked to the car. The breeze kicked up a notch, and the sun churned buttery clouds in shades of gold and lavender.
I ignored the phone vibrating in my pocket.
SIXTY
I pulled my Jeep into Elizabeth’s driveway and shut off the engine. During the drive from the cemetery, I told her about the sketch Luke Palmer had drawn, his story about why he was in the forest, the bullet in his backpack, and the search for the marijuana grove in the heart of the national forest.
“Sean, I want to sell my home. My business, too.”
I said nothing.
“This home was mine and Molly’s. It’s where she grew up, learned to ride a bike. It’s where she nursed baby birds that left the nest too early. I bought the business so that Molly and I could do something together. She’d come to the restaurant after school, do her homework, help with cleaning, and we’d be together.”
The phone vibrated in my pocket.
I reached for it and looked at the caller ID. The window displayed: Unknown Call. I answered.
“O’Brien, this is Ed Sandberg. Sheriff Clayton said he wants to hold off releasing the sketch that Palmer drew.”
“Why?”
“He says, and I’m quoting here, in his twenty-eight years in law enforcement, he’s never seen a composite drawn by an inmate and then released to the media. And this inmate is being held on three counts of murder. The boss calls it a smokescreen, a conflict of interest, and to release it would set a precedent and break all kinds of investigative protocol. He did say it’s good jailhouse art, though.”
“Palmer’s not been sentenced. He’s being held in connection with his alleged involvement in the crimes. We don’t know for sure that he did it. I think he didn’t. How can the sheriff call it a conflict of interest if you have an eyewitness to a crime, a man who can not only describe it, but can draw the image of the person who could have committed the murders?”
“I’m an investigator. He’s the sheriff. I didn’t have to call you, but since you were a former homicide detective, as a courtesy, I thought you’d want to know.”
“Did you match the bullets, one from the tree and one from Palmer’s knapsack?”
“We’re using a spec scope and 3D rendering on the bullet from the tree. It was pretty fragmented. We might be able to do a match if they came from the same gun.”
“They did.”
He was quiet a moment. “We haven’t found the pot field. The teams worked until sunset. They’ll be back in the morning. Later, O’Brien.”
He hung up and Elizabeth asked, “Was that the police?”
“Detective Sandberg. He says they haven’t found the marijuana field and the sheriff is refusing to release to the media the composite Luke Palmer drew.”
“Why?”
“He says that since Palmer is being held and charged with the killings, it’s a conflict to have a composite sketch drawn by him and released to the media.”
“What do you think?”
“Because of the intense national publicity, I think the sheriff is looking for a quick resolution. He’s out of his comfort zone, and he’s afraid of making the slightest mistake. He sees what he believes is more than enough evidence, and he’s ready to lock the cage.”
“Where is the drawing Palmer did?”
“Here, between the seats.”
“May I see it?”
I reached down and lifted the file folder with the remaining copies of Palmer’s sketch. I started to turn on the interior light for her, but thought that we’d make a good target. “Let’s go inside.”
We sat at the kitchen table. I opened the file folder and slid out the composite sketch. Elizabeth stared at it for a moment. Her mouth opened slightly, a sound trapped somewhere in the back of the vocal cords. I asked, “What is it?”
“I’ve seen that man before.” Elizabeth stood, holding one hand to her lips. “I feel sick.” She turned and ran from the kitchen.
SIXTY-ONE
Five minutes later, Elizabeth returned. She sat back in her chair across the table from me. “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Where did you see him?”
“At the restaurant.”
“When?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Think, Elizabeth.”
“I’m trying. My daughter just died!”
“Did you see him at some point after Frank Soto was taken into custody?”
“Yes! It was a day or two after Soto was arrested. I remember now. He sat alone at a corner table. From where he sat, he could see the front door, people coming and going. I remember he seemed to linger over his breakfast, and I asked him if everything was all right.”
“How did he respond?”
“He said the food was good, and it reminded him of the food his mother made when his family went camping. Then he asked me if I ever went camping. I told him not in many years, it was more my daughter’s thing. She’s the outdoors gal in the family. He smiled and asked where her favorite camping places were. I told him she used to love going to Gamble Rogers State Park because of the beach.”
“Did he ask you anything else?”
“No.”
“He was trying to see what you knew.”
“What do you mean?”
“Camping. A natural segue would be camping in a forest, maybe it was something that you did with your daughter. He was looking for information, anything that might have indicated you were afraid to enter a forest because, maybe, you could run into a pot farm.”
She touched her throat with her fingers, looked beyond me to a framed photograph of her and Molly on the wall. In the picture, they were at the beach, tossing bread to seagulls flocking all around them. Their smiles were wide, and behind them the sky was drenched in sapphire blue.
“Elizabeth, try to remember everything you saw or even felt in the presence of this man. Anything, okay?”
She nodded. “What does all this mean?”
“It means that whoever this guy is, he thought Soto was going to be out of commission for a while. So your customer, the guy in that sketch, and the same guy that Luke Palmer says shot and killed Molly and Mark, paid you a visit. He’s got balls.”
“Dear God.”
“He must have wanted to get any indication that you might have been apprehensive to have your daughter go back into the national forest because of something she’d seen or heard. He ordered a breakfast, made small talk, played his cards close, and then directed the conversation to see if Molly might have told you something about what she saw or might have seen in the forest. Is there anything else you can remember about this guy?”
“He’s probably in his late twenties. He has large, dark eyes. His hair is black and he combs it straight back. He uses gel, too. He looked like one of those muscular guys you see at swanky resort hotels setting up cabanas and fetching beach towels for wealthy guests. He wore a gold cross on a chain around his neck. I remember watching him hold a fork and knife. His hands seemed delicate. Long fingers and nails that could have used a clipping. He had very white teeth and a big smile. There is no reason why I would have suspected he was capable of cold-blooded killings.”