The Redemption Game Page 25

  “That would explain Nancy feeling like she’d saved him.”

  “In a way, she did. I just wish he hadn’t had to go through so much at her place before he finally found his way back where he belonged. He’ll make someone a great dog.”

  Jack looked at me in surprise. “What do you mean? You’re not keeping him?”

  The pit bull bumped against Phantom like he was punch drunk, and that tail of his never stopped wagging. I shook my head, ignoring the pang in my heart.

  “I can’t keep every dog that comes along. That’s how Nancy got started.”

  “This isn’t every dog,” Jack said. He nodded toward Phantom. “Look at her. I’ve never seen her react to another dog like this, have you? You really want to send him away? They look like they belong together.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re a romantic,” I said, and felt silly for not realizing it before.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. Life is better that way.”

  “Yeah,” I said, after a minute or two. I slipped my hand into his without looking at him, the heat rising to my cheeks when I felt his fingers grip mine. “I guess it is.”

  We continued on that way, the air taking on an evening chill, the sun sinking lower in the sky. The pit bull and my shepherd kept step ahead of us, oblivious to it all.

  #

  We returned to the mainland at just past ten that night, both Jack and me worn after putting in a full day’s work. Phantom was restless, clearly eager to get moving once Reaver was returned to his pen. There was only one reason we’d set out this time of night, and she knew exactly what that reason was.

  Jack drove his Honda Civic halfway down the lane to the Davis home, and pulled off to the side. It was the same place I’d found his car last night, and I shivered at the memory.

  “Where do you want to start?” I asked.

  “Near the barns,” he said without hesitation. He’d clearly already been thinking about this. “Maybe they buried some of the remains around there.”

  I got out of the car, then released Phantom from her seatbelt in the back. Her ears were pricked forward, body already tensed. I might still be on the fence about this, but Phantom was more than ready to begin.

  Dogs are trained differently to search for human remains, with unique commands used when they’re looking for the dead versus a live find. They have to be, or else you’d have every K-9 going nuts every time a cemetery is nearby. Phantom had been trained on vomit and viscera, spare blood from the donor bank… Whatever we could come up with to make sure she knew all the scents she might come across when searching for a live find.

  Training for the dead was a different process. We used decaying bodies—or body parts—at all stages of decomposition. Bone fragments, adipocere, human teeth, death shrouds…. Whatever we could get. She got the same reward for remains that she did with a live find—an enthusiastic game of tug—but I far preferred looking for live people. Phantom seemed to sense that there was inevitably something sad, an ending she had brought home, when she alerted on remains. I didn’t like to put her through that too often. Sometimes, however, it was necessary. Tonight seemed like one of those times.

  The night was cool, a chilling sea breeze blowing off the water. Jack and I had both showered on the island, and he wore a spare Flint K-9 uniform—khakis and a black Flint K-9 T-shirt. I wore the same, though I had a jacket and Jack had left his in the car.

  “We could go back and get it,” I said, after we’d gone only a short distance.

  “No need, I’m not cold.”

  “You’re making me cold.”

  He laughed. “I can’t help that. Do you want me to go get my coat so you can wear it?”

  “No.”

  We walked on in a comfortable silence while I watched Phantom for any sign that she might be onto something. It was a warm night, which meant she would normally keep her nose up to catch any scent particles on the air. Since we were looking for a body, however, and most likely one buried below ground, her nose remained glued to the grassy floor.

  “How’s your head?” Jack asked, after half an hour of a whole lot of nothing.

  “Fine. Yours?”

  “Better. You know what I mean, though. That headache you keep getting.”

  “I don’t have it right now,” I said. “You’re overreacting, you know. It’s not like I have them all the time.”

  “When did you have the last one?”

  I had to think about it. “During the search the other night.”

  “You were overtired then?”

  “And now I’m rested.”

  “You don’t think it might be a good idea to talk to a doctor about this?”

  “It’s a headache, Jack. I can handle it.”

  I couldn’t actually see him in the dark, but I could sense his irritation. “It’s not just a headache. What about the voices.”

  “Voice. Singular.”

  “Your abusive ex—”

  “He’s not my ex. It’s not like Brock and I were high school sweethearts.”

  The tension went up a notch between us. “The abusive father of your child, then.”

  I stopped, the words and tone cutting deep. “I’ve barely heard him since this winter, when we were looking for a group of battered women. I’m no psychologist, but I think there may have been a link there.”

  Phantom was still doing her thing up ahead, though Jack and I stood facing off in the darkness. After a few seconds, he sighed.

  “I just worry about you. You work too hard, have too much responsibility and nobody to help with any of it.”

  “I have people to help,” I said. “Monty. Bear. Sarah. Therese. I have people, Jack. You’re the lone wolf around here, not me. I’ve got my pack.”

  He didn’t argue the point. To my relief, he resumed the trek behind Phantom. I kept step alongside him, willing the subject of chronic headaches and voices from beyond the grave to fade for at least the night.

  Barely half an hour later, with Jack and me walking in companionable silence, I saw Phantom pause up ahead. Her head came up. Her body went still. Then, her tail lifted. She dropped her nose to the ground. And she was off, at a trot.

  “She’s got something,” I said.

  We followed the dog across the sodden pasture toward the tree line. Had Nancy and her accomplice—whoever that might have been—buried other victims out here? Jack seemed so certain, but I still wasn’t sold. Her motives may not have been great, but there were definitely reasons for her to kill Nancy’s husband and future daughter-in-law. And if the ex-con from down South had been abusing Reaver, that likely would have been more than enough to incite Nancy to violence.

  But how many others could there possibly be, whose absence no one would have noticed? Locals couldn’t just be killed and— literally—tossed out to pasture, could they? Not without someone asking questions.

  We reached the tree line, and Phantom wavered. She retraced her steps, whining slightly. Something was confusing the scent. Understandable, since this entire property seemed soaked in every unpleasant odor known to man. Rather than going into the trees, Phantom loped back toward the pasture, then continued scenting along the fence line. At the far end of the fence, close to one of the ancient barns, I caught Phantom in the beam of my flashlight as she stopped. She barked twice, and lay down.

  A very clear alert.

  “She’s got it,” I said.

  Jack and I ran to her, the smell of animals and decay getting stronger as we neared the barn.

  “I thought they checked in there,” Jack said. “Finnegan said they went through both barns.”

  “That’s not where she’s alerting,” I said. “This is the spot, right here. If the scent were in the barn, that’s where she would lead us.”

  He frowned. “So, you’re saying someone’s buried here.”

  “I have no idea, but that’s a possibility.” I looked at him when he didn’t say anything, clearly unhappy. “What did you
think, she was going to lead you to a cache of bodies like the one in the basement? Chances are, Nancy or whoever she was working with buried these guys a long time ago.”

  “Maybe,” he said noncommittally, eying the barn. “With a smell like this, how thorough do you think the police were when they went in there, though?”

  “Jack, I’m telling you. That’s not where she’s—”

  “I know,” he said, a bit impatiently. “But just because she smells something there doesn’t mean there’s not more to find inside here.”

  We walked past the dog and toward the lopsided barn entrance. I shone my flashlight through the doorway before Jack and I risked a step inside, to a dark cavern filled with cobwebs and filthy, abandoned dog crates, a pile of stinking blankets in another corner. Twenty-eight dogs had been pulled from here, six of them in such bad condition that they’d already been euthanized. The other twenty-two were malnourished and terrified, with sores all over their underfed bodies from lives spent in crates. Their muscles had atrophied; their bones were malformed.

  My eyes filled at the reality of what these animals had lived through. Why hadn’t I intervened sooner? Nancy might have saved lives in animal rescue once upon a time, but I should have seen how far from that she was now.

  This shouldn’t have happened.

  “Jamie,” Jack called, and I pried myself from my thoughts with effort. He was on the far side of the barn, looking at the crates. My stomach turned, as I tried to imagine what he might have found.

  “What have you got?” I asked, shining my flashlight toward him. He shook his head.

  “Nothing. Can we bring Phantom in, maybe have her check this out?”

  I nodded, and went back to get the dog.

  Suddenly, a man’s voice cut through the night, echoing in the darkness. You can’t do this to living creatures. What in hell’s wrong with you, Nancy?

  Not Brock. I didn’t know this voice, but the anger and profound pity for the animals struck a chord with me.

  Get off my property. Get out or you’ll never go anywhere again.

  That voice, I knew well. Nancy.

  “Jamie?” Jack said.

  “Just a second.”

  I stepped outside and gulped fresh air, grateful that this time the voices hadn’t come with the feeling of a spear piercing my skull. Still shaken, I scanned the night for Phantom.

  My shepherd was several yards away, still lying in the same spot. She looked at me.

  “Here, Phan,” I said.

  She stood, but she didn’t take a step toward me. Instead, she whined, circling twice with her nose to the ground, and pawed the earth. As if to say, Come on, now—I did my job. Why are you over there? I already told you where to find them.

  “I know, girl. We’ll get to it in a second. Come here first.”

  She didn’t budge. I hesitated. I’d learned long ago to trust my dog—it’s one of the most important lessons anyone working with K-9s has to learn. And she was clearly trying to tell me something here.

  “Jack, can you come out?” I called. I went to the dog, whose tail whooshed excitedly when she realized I’d finally gotten the message.

  I paced the ground, but it was hard to tell much, covered as it was in mud and feces.

  I swept my flashlight beam across the area once. Then back again. I was just making my third pass when Jack came out, and my flashlight hit it:

  A flash of metal, barely visible in the ground.

  “There,” I said. I hurried over, Jack close behind, and dropped to my knees to get a better look. It took some digging before we finally found it:

  A door handle.

  “What is it?” Jack asked.

  “It must be an old root cellar,” I said. “They’re still popular around here. They’re great for storing crops like potatoes and squash and other root vegetables, through the winter.”

  We worked together on hands and knees, our gloves and clothes soon filthy, until we’d cleared everything from an old wooden hatch built into the ground.

  Jack’s hand was on the handle, but he paused and looked at me. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. In another life, you would have said we needed to call someone right about now.”

  He nodded grimly, jaw set. “If I call someone, I’m out of the investigation. Who knows when I find out whether Tim Monroe is down there.”

  “You have your answer, then.”

  It still took him a few seconds before he worked up the wherewithal to pull up the door.

  Or try.

  It took several attempts, with both of us working together, before it even budged. On the second or third try, I heard another unfamiliar voice crying out in my head. And another. A third joined them, until it seemed there was a chorus of the damned locked inside my skull. Some were male, some female. Some seemed vaguely familiar, but Nancy’s was the only one I recognized easily. She was there only occasionally, though. I heard Albie weeping. Begging to stop. Dogs barking in the distance.

  Screams, echoing through the night as though they came from the very bowels of hell.

  My stomach turned. That deadly, damnable arrow pierced my skull again.

  Finally, we were able to haul the door open. Jack and I both backed off at the smell, so pungent that it felt like it was a living thing. I pointed my flashlight inside, illuminating a dark hole whose secrets seemed to rise up and surround us.

  The voices got louder around me, but at this point the smell was the true enemy. I gagged, which is saying something considering where I come from and what I’ve seen over the years. Jack turned his head away, arm over his mouth and nose.

  There was no question this time: we’d found Nancy’s hidden cache.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  He hesitated, clearly torn, but finally shook his head and stood up. He stepped away, pulling out his cell phone. “Let’s get the police in here. There’s nothing more we can do.”

  I fought to focus on him instead of the clamor inside my head, but suddenly they all went still.

  Everything quieted.

  He was already dialing when a single voice whispered in my ear.

  Please. Don’t leave me. I’m here.

  It was so clear, I thought someone had actually spoken.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Jack.

  He looked at me, confused, and shook his head with the phone at his ear. “Hey, Sheriff,” he began.

  Don’t leave me, the man said again.

  A shiver ran up my spine. I shone my flashlight inside the hole again, until I found a ladder leading inside.

  “I know,” Jack was saying. “You said I should stay away from this place—but I didn’t. I’m calling you now, though.”

  Trembling, head pounding, I put my flashlight in my mouth and swung my body down into the cellar.

  “Jamie. What the hell are you doing?” Jack demanded. Above ground, Phantom whined.

  I held onto the door for a second, until my feet found the rungs of the ladder. I hardly needed them—it was only a two- or three-foot drop down. I stepped in something slick and viscous, and my stomach lurched. I didn’t even want to know what that was.

  I’m here.

  I trained my flashlight beam on the far wall, and ran it back and forth through the cramped space. One wall was lined with shelves, where canned goods and old glass jars had been opened and emptied. I put my arm over my mouth and nose, trying to block out the overwhelming stench of human waste. A couple of articulated human skeletons were seated together against another wall, as though the two had died together.

  Here, the man insisted. Don’t leave me.

  I turned around, scanning the space.

  At the far end of the cellar, there was a cavern—like someone had planned on adding another room, but gave up. My flashlight beam froze in place. My voice caught, before I could get the words out.

  “Jack,” I called. “He’s here.”

  I went to him then. Tim Monroe. He didn’t move, slu
mped over and inert. I put my ear to his chest, and then was on my feet again an instant later.

  “He’s alive, Jack! His breathing is shallow, but he’s alive.”

  I heard Jack swear, and a moment later call for an ambulance. I remained where I was, my hand resting on the skeletal frame of Barbara Monroe’s missing husband.

  Chapter 27

  I WAS AT THE KNOX COUNTY JAIL Monday morning first thing, but barely had time to say hi to Bear before he had to go meet with counsel before his hearing at ten a.m. That gave me an hour to kill. I knew I could pay a quick visit to Jack and would likely be welcomed, but I wasn’t really in the mood to be social. There were too many unanswered questions swirling in my head.

  Tim Monroe still hadn’t woken up, and was currently in Intensive Care at Pen Bay Medical Center. His prognosis was good, however—he had some superficial wounds, but overall he was in remarkably good health for a man who’d been kept underground for the past two months. The stored food had been his saving grace; living on canned beans and pickled beets may not be ideal, but it’s sufficient to keep a body alive. The doctors suspected his body had shut down fairly recently, and with adequate nutrition, hydration, and rest, he would make a full recovery.

  Barbara and Julie were beside themselves with relief.

  Fred and Albie still hadn’t been found, which meant without them and with Tim still unconscious, it was impossible to completely piece together everything that had happened. I still hadn’t told Jack about the voices I’d heard that night in Nancy’s yard. I’d replayed them in my mind, trying to identify players that as yet remained a mystery. I knew that I’d heard Albie’s voice, and I was fairly certain Fred had been in there, as well. Had the three of them really been in this together all these years? At least according to the scenes that had echoed in my mind, Albie had been an unwilling participant. I couldn’t get a handle on Fred, though. Had Nancy manipulated him the way she had Albie, or had he been the mastermind all this time?

  At shortly before ten o’clock, I went into the courtroom and sat down. Court was already in session, with a surly-looking judge with thinning hair and glasses presiding. I waited for Bear to be led into the courtroom, but there was no sign of him. Ten o’clock came and went. I scanned the crowd in confusion. There was no mention of his case; no mention of him at all.