“Don’t worry,” Wayne said, obviously reading my mind or the expression on my face. “He knows you’re OK. Ray was kind enough to assure him of that. Several times.”
“Oh. Good.”
That was all I got out, because now Derek turned and noticed my presence. And if I’d had occasion to complain about his attitude earlier, now I didn’t. He dropped what he was holding and hurried toward me, shoulders hunched in the low crawlspace.
I braced myself-he looked like he was thinking of snatching me up and crushing me against his manly chest-but in the end, he just stopped in front of me, blue eyes intent on my face. “Avery.”
“Derek,” I answered. To my utter humiliation, my lower lip started trembling and my eyes filled with tears.
“C’mere.” He pulled me into his arms, but gently. I leaned my cheek against the soft cotton of his T-shirt and breathed in his now-familiar scent of citrus shampoo and Ivory soap mixed with wood glue and mineral spirits, while I listened to the steady beat of his heart against my ear. It’s amazing how something as small as that can help ground a person.
“I’m sorry about your truck,” I said a minute later, after I had extricated myself from his arms and he had, maybe even reluctantly, let me go.
“It’s just a car,” Derek answered. “What happened?”
I told him and watched the look in his eyes go from upset to angry when I described the car hitting the ditch. “I’m sorry,” I said wretchedly. “I did the best I could. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make the turn at the gates, and I didn’t want to hit the school bus, so I thought it would be better just to get off the road.”
“The brakes didn’t respond?” Wayne interjected. I shook my head.
“I had the brake pads replaced last month,” Derek said, eyes flat and hard. “Nothing wrong with them then.”
“And the airbag didn’t work, either?”
“Good thing I was wearing my seat belt, huh?” I managed a bright smile. Both men glowered.
“Let me know what Peter Cortino says,” Wayne told Derek, who nodded.
“Melissa’s out front, talking to a TV journalist from Portland,” I said in an effort to change the subject. “On camera. You may want to go out there and stop her. Or make a statement or something. He told us he was hoping for another John Wayne Gacy.”
The chief of police rolled his eyes but headed for the crawlspace door. Derek was right behind him. “C’mon, Avery. If Melissa goes on TV and makes this into a case of serial killers and multiple bodies buried on our property, we can forget about ever selling this place.”
“He sounded like he’d love to talk to you,” I said, tagging along behind, “so maybe you can get him to interview you live, too.”
“Between me and Wayne, we’ll get him straightened out.” He held the crawlspace door open so I could get out. The K-9 team had reached the back of the property now and was making its slow way along the tree line. The dog alternated sniffing the ground with sniffing the air, while its handler, a young woman, tall and slender, stood patiently by, occasionally moving forward a step when the dog finished smelling its area and moved on.
“Where’s Brandon?” I asked. Brandon Thomas hadn’t been in the crawlspace, and I hadn’t seen him out front, either, when I arrived.
Derek tossed his head, causing a streaked lock of hair to fall into his eyes. “In there.”
“Inside the house?”
He nodded. “The dog marked inside. Not surprisingly, since there’s been lots of dead bodies there. Long ago, though, so he didn’t mark strongly. At least that’s what Daphne said. She’s his handler. Nice girl.”
“So Brandon ’s looking at the inside of the house, just in case?”
“I told him it was unlikely he’d find anything. We’ve ripped up all the old flooring and taken down all the old wallpaper. All that’s left are the bare bones. No pun intended.”
“I had an idea,” I said. “Remember that earring I found in the kitchen the other day? The one that was similar to what Shannon was wearing that night at Guido’s? Do you think it might have been…” I hesitated delicately, “hers? The skeleton’s? Shannon said they were popular four or five years ago, and that everyone had them.”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Derek answered. “Four years is about the length of time she’s been down there, judging from the bones and what’s left of the tissue.”
“Tissue?” My stomach objected to the idea. “You didn’t mention tissue.”
“I didn’t think you’d want to know. And it wasn’t much. A little brain matter, some hair. Dark. Shoulder length. Very dry and brittle now.”
“That seems like a helpful thing to know. Any ideas of…” I swallowed, “eye color?”
“Afraid not. Eyes are some of the first things to go. I won’t tell you why.” He put an arm around my shoulders. “You look like you’re gonna faint. Need to sit down?”
“I think maybe that’d be a good idea. I was feeling a little woozy to begin with, and all these details are creeping me out. I’d never make it as a cop, or a doctor. At the rate we’re going, I’m not sure I’ll make it as a home renovator.”
“And that reminds me,” Derek said, “if I don’t cut Melissa off at the pass and talk to this reporter myself, neither of us is going to make it as a home renovator.”
I nodded. “Go. I’m going to sit here a minute and breathe.”
“Take your time,” Derek said. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. If you feel better before then, I’ll be out front.” He strode around the corner of the house while I sank down on an old, overturned, concrete planter.
I felt like my carefully constructed, brand-new life was coming apart in my hands. Moving to Waterfield after spending the first thirty-one years of my life in New York City had involved taking a huge leap of faith. I’d been prepared for boredom, cold, hard work, failure, and maybe some initial resistance from the native population. It hadn’t occurred to me to prepare for having my stomach turned on a regular basis by dead bodies dropping in my path, and for that matter, for a quick and early death because someone was out to get me.
OK, so no one had said-at least not out loud-that someone had tampered with the truck. But Derek’s assertion that the brakes were new, coupled with Wayne ’s instruction to pass on whatever the mechanic at Cortino’s said, not to mention the look that had passed between the two men, was enough to put the idea in my head. That and the fact that the truck had been parked outside Derek’s loft overnight, open, with the keys under the mat. Anyone could have sauntered behind the hardware store at some point and done something to it. As Dr. Ben’s son, Derek was well known in town, most people knew where to find him, and in addition to that, the truck had that nice new sticker on the side.
From the front of the house, I could hear the buzzing of voices, and I wondered momentarily how Derek was doing spinning the discovery of the bones on camera. Down at the bottom of the yard, Daphne the K-9 trooper and her canine partner had finished their olfactory search of the back of the property and were changing direction to follow the loosely drawn line in the grass that marked the boundary between Venetia Rudolph’s yard and our own. There wasn’t a fence or anything there, just a slight difference in the heights of the grass on either side of the imaginary line, showing where two different people at two different times had mowed the lawns.
I watched the German shepherd as it kept its nose to the ground, inching forward. It was a beautiful animal, its thick, brindled coat sleek and shiny, but as someone who had never owned a dog, and who was just getting used to being waitstaff to cats, I found it more than a little intimidating. Daphne didn’t: She stayed a couple of steps behind, moving at a snail’s pace, occasionally saying a few words to it. The dog lifted its head to sniff the air, the way it had been doing every few feet, and I could see, clear across the yard, the change that came over it. The fur on the back of its neck rose, and its posture became alert, watchful. It barked once, a short, sharp sound that cut through the crisp autumn air like a knife through butter.