Blood Vines

CHAPTER TWELVE

Friday, February 19

8:10 A.M.

Reed filed into the interview room. He had arranged this early meeting with Tanner and Cal to go over what he’d learned from his visit with Alexandra Clarkson.

Tanner, he saw, had beat him there. She looked tired. “Hey, Babs. Bad night?”

“Long. Cakebread Cellars was having a tasting. My ex was there. Me, my ex and free wine are an explosive combination.”

“Fireworks?”

“Mmm.” She yawned and curved her hands around her venti-sized coffee. “But not necessarily the kind you’re thinking of.”

Before he could ask what kind she figured that was, Cal arrived. He carried a box from Tan’s Donuts.

“Sustenance,” she said. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Cal grinned. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never Lord and Savior.”

“She had a bad night,” Reed said. He opened the bakery box and peered inside. “What’d you get?”

“Glazed, filled, chocolate and plain.”

Tanner frowned. “No crullers?”

“Nope.”

“No bear claws?”

“Nope. Glazed, filled, chocolate and plain. If you’d wanted something else, you should’ve stopped yourself.”

“Kiss my ass, Cal.”

“Only if you kiss mine first.”

Reed polished off a pastry and grinned. “Okay, kids, how about we talk about my interview with Patsy Owens’s daughter?”

“I’d rather Tanner here kiss my ass, but-”

“But,” she jumped in, “knowing that’ll never happen, did Alexandra Owens have anything interesting to offer?”

“Name’s Clarkson now. The most interesting thing about the interview was what she didn’t have to offer. Clarkson has no memory of her brother or her years in Sonoma.”

“Bullshit,” Tanner offered, wiping a glob of raspberry filling from her mouth. “Her mother-”

“Wiped their lives of all evidence of their time in Sonoma, and Dylan.”

“Okay, that’s just weird.” Cal dunked a chunk of donut in his latte. “You believed her?”

“I did.”

“How old was she when Dylan disappeared?”

“Five.”

Tanner shook her head. “I remember my fifth birthday party and she forgot her brother? How could that be?”

“I wondered that myself.” Reed eyed the pastries, then went for a second. “I got in touch with the on-call shrink. He thought it could be a form of traumatic memory loss. Like what’s seen in post-traumatic stress disorder and repressed memory.”

Cal jumped in. “I worked a case a couple years ago that involved PTSD. The one where the kid witnessed his brother being shot to death right in front of their house. He was there, at the scene. Couldn’t recall what happened.”

“Exactly. Shrink said Clarkson’s memory loss would have been aided by her young age and her mother’s influence. Obviously, the former Patsy Sommer wanted her daughter to forget.”

Tanner drained her coffee. “Sorry, but that’s really fucked up.”

“No joke.” Reed crumpled his napkin, then sent it sailing toward the trash. “So here’s what we have. Patsy sees the article about Baby Doe. She wonders if it’s Dylan and calls me. Her call to me came in at three P.M. She leaves a message. Sometime later that day, she ingests a bottle of pills.”

Tanner leaned forward. “Why not wait for you to return her call?”

Cal stepped in. “Consider this. Patsy knows it’s Dylan. She calls you to confess. She can’t reach you, and overwhelmed with guilt, kills herself.”

“Are we certain she killed herself?” Tanner asked. “What about a note?”

“No note. But I spoke with the SFME.” Reed opened his spiral. “An investigator Hwang. He called it a clear case of suicide. In addition, she had a history of depression and had attempted suicide twice before.”

Tanner finished off her donut, then licked the sugar from her fingers. “Is it that surprising? Something like that happened to my kid, I’m not sure I wouldn’t go nuts.”

“Autopsy’s happening today, pathologist will call it then.”

“Got word back on the pacifier,” Cal offered. “That particular pattern was available from 1982 to 1986.”

Reed nodded. “It could have belonged to Dylan Sommer. What about the wine crate?”

“Trying to piece together what’s left.” Tanner slid a manila folder across the table. “Robb’s report. Long bone measurements indicate the child was no more than six months old.”

Reed skimmed the report. Another marker that pointed toward Baby Doe being Dylan Sommer. “Remains on their way to the state lab?”

Tanner said they were, then added, “Has it occurred to you that big sister’s traumatic memory loss occurred because she saw or heard something that night?”

It had. The problem would be recovering those memories. If they even existed.

“I read the files,” he said. “She was questioned at the time. By the Sheriff’s Department, the FBI and a social worker. She was scared and confused, but seemed well adjusted. None of the interviewers felt she had seen anything she wasn’t sharing.”

Before either could respond, his cell phone buzzed. “Reed,” he answered.

“Detective, a woman is here to see you. One Alex Clarkson. Says it’s about Baby Doe.”

“I’ll be right down.” He ended the call and looked at his colleagues. “Be available. This may get interesting.”

“What’s up?” Tanner asked.

“Big sister’s downstairs.”