The Edge

Chapter 39

He left her there by the fire.

Devine looked back at the house as he sat in the SUV, his spirits as bleak as the weather.

The case had its difficulties, but so did every other challenge he’d confronted. No, it wasn’t the case that bothered him so much. It was knowing that no matter what he did he could not make people who were not whole, whole. Not Alex. Not Curtis Silkwell. Not his ex-wife. Not Earl or Annie Palmer. Not anyone whose life had been touched by Jenny Silkwell.

Including me, and I never even knew the woman.

He drove to the police station and found that neither Fuss nor Harper was there. But there was a woman he had been introduced to before. Her name was Mildred James, and she handled the dispatch and all the admin work for the department.

“I’m not sure when they’ll be back,” said James. “Can I do anything for you?”

He sat down across from her. “You lived here long?”

“I was born here fifty-nine years ago next week.”

“Happy early birthday, then. So you know the Silkwells?”

“Oh sure. Wonderful family. It’s so awful what happened to Jenny. I’m sure her parents are very upset. Well, I heard Senator Silkwell is not well, so he may not... be aware.”

“You like working here?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t. There’s never too much to do, I mean nothing that you’d call exciting. And that’s not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. But with more people moving into the area, we are getting more calls and such. There’s even talk of hiring another officer or two.”

“Were you working here when Alex was assaulted?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve been working here over twenty years. Thank God whoever attacked her didn’t kill her.”

I think they killed part of her, Devine thought.

“What can you tell me about the incident?” he asked.

“Well, I was on duty and got the call that a woman had been attacked. I took the information and dispatched the response.”

“Wait a minute, who called it in?”

“The people who found her.”

“How did they find her?”

“Let me think. Yes, they said they were driving past a spot along the coast and they happened to look out and see something lying there. The husband got out to see what it was while the wife waited in the car. He recognized that it was Alex. He ran back to the car and told his wife to call the police, which she did.”

“And then Alex was taken to a hospital where she awoke but couldn’t remember anything?”

“That’s right. That hospital has since closed, it was only ten minutes from here, thank God, or Alex might not have made it. Now, she couldn’t give a statement or help in any way. She was clearly in shock and she had a skull fracture. Her life was in danger until they got things under control. The officers searched the area where she was found, but didn’t find any evidence worth anything. And they canvassed for witnesses, but no one saw anything.”

“Were her parents in town when it happened?”

“Mrs. Silkwell was, and she rushed right over to the hospital when we notified her. Stayed there all through the night. Jenny came up from Washington to help, too.”

“And Dak was out of the country in the Army?”

“I believe that’s right.”

“And Senator Silkwell?”

“He flew up straightaway on a chartered plane a friend of his arranged. I actually picked him up at the airport and drove him to the hospital. He was beside himself with rage, guilt, you name it and that man was feeling it.”

“I understand she had been raped?” Devine said in a low voice.

James assumed a pained expression. “Yes. I’m not sure Alex remembered that part or any part. The mind is funny like that. But her examination clearly showed that she had been raped. We still have the rape kit after all this time, but we never had a suspect to match it to. We ran it through the usual databases and such but never got a hit. We were all hoping that Alex would regain her memory and identify her attacker if she knew him, or at least give a description, but she never did. Now it’s a very cold case.”

“Could I look at the file and the evidence?”

“Why? Do you think it might be connected to what happened to Jenny?”

“Well, Jenny had come up here on some unfinished business and she had talked to Alex about the attack. And I understand that Jenny’s body was found near where Alex was assaulted.”

James frowned. “Yes, I thought that was awfully strange. Well, I can’t see how it would hurt to have another pair of eyes on it.”

She led him to a locked room at the back of the small building and showed him where the files and evidence were located. She had him sign a logbook.

“There’s a little room with a table just through that door you can use. Just let me know when you’re done.”

He thanked her and she left him there.

Devine gathered up the box of evidence and the related files and carried them to the room, where he set everything out. He first unsealed the evidence bags and took pictures of the items inside with his phone. They consisted of Alex’s clothing and underclothing, which was torn and dirty, some hair samples, a pair of women’s sneakers, and the contents of a small bag. They were mostly art-related: a couple of tubes of paint, a brush, a pencil, and a small sketchpad.

He opened the latter and saw some pencil drawings that she had done. They were all of the coastline or else looking out to sea. They were quite good and demonstrated the natural talent that the woman had exhibited while still in her teens.

What he didn’t find was the rape kit. He checked the log that was in the box and it showed a rape kit, but he didn’t see anything that looked like it. He was familiar with them because he had worked with Army CID overseas when some soldiers in his company had been accused of raping a local woman. Two of them had been found innocent, one had not. He was currently serving time in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth for his crime.

He sealed the evidence bags and put them back in the box. He glanced out the window and saw that the rain had started up again. You would be just as wet walking down the street as you would be jumping in the ocean, he figured.

He went methodically through the files and official statements. Alex had told the investigators that she remembered riding her bicycle along that section of the coast. She was on her way to Jocelyn Point after seeing some friends in town. It was later than she had realized and she was hurrying to get home before it got completely dark. That was the last thing she remembered until she woke up in the hospital. There was semen, hair, and other trace on her person from her attacker, but the police never had anyone to match it to. There were no witnesses. Then he got to the part about the couple who had found Alex.

Their names jumped off the page and seemed to scream at Devine.

Steve and Valerie Palmer had been the ones to find Alex and call the police.

Devine checked the date, and then Googled something on his phone.

The story popped up on his screen.

Three days after finding Alex’s body, Steve and Valerie Palmer had died in the house fire. The story said that it had been accidental and due to a portable heater being knocked over, probably by the couple’s cat, which had also perished in the fire. It seemed the drapes had caught on fire and the room had been engulfed in flames while the doomed couple had slept. They had apparently been overcome by smoke inhalation because their badly charred bodies had been found in the bed.

Devine went and asked James about the rape kit. She looked through the box and then through the entire evidence room.

“My God, it’s not here,” she said.

Devine looked at the log to see who had last accessed the evidence. The date was from over ten years ago, and while the ink had faded some, Devine could still make out the name and signature.

Sergeant Richard Wayne Harper.