Traces of Guilt

THIRTEEN

Evie Blackwell

A radio station’s upbeat music filled the room. Evie knew it didn’t compensate for her sadness, but it gave her some distraction while she worked. She was deconstructing the crime wall for Ashley Dayton, taking pieces down one at a time, putting the case to rest once more in its boxes. The only thing left to do for Ashley was to add the final report on her remains.

“Want some help?”

She looked over as Ann walked in. “Sure.”

“Caleb is escorting the Dayton family out to the farm,” Ann said. “The medical examiner is going to release the remains for burial in Chicago. Ashley Dayton died of a blow to the head. The answers to other questions her parents have are unfortunately lost to history.”

That the medical examiner had put in overtime to complete the autopsy was what Evie would expect in a case like this. The week was ending as she thought it might, with the case itself as closed as they could make it, given the years that had passed.

“The media is camped out at the Fast Café, so Karen is taking a few days off,” Ann continued. “I think Will has her helping him tear out drywall or some such demolition project.”

Evie smiled. “I’ve been meaning to go pick up my dogs the last two days, and I keep getting interrupted.”

“Will would’ve let you know if they’re in the way. I’d say they’re enjoying their stay in the country, and his own two appreciate the company.” Ann helped her box photographs. “Do you want to suspend this, Evie? Take the last week of your vacation as a true holiday somewhere? Go sit on a beach, find some movies, read a book? No one would blame you. You’ve made significant progress on the Florist case, and it will still be here in January when the task force officially launches. You can come back and work it then-on more than vacation pay,” she added with a smile.

Evie had been considering just that, but didn’t answer. She took down the large pieces of paper from the wall, stacked them, rolled them tightly, and secured it with rubber bands. “Is Grace going to stick around or go to Chicago with you tonight?” she asked instead.

“Josh goes back to searching the farm tomorrow, so she’s planning to stay a few more days. At Marie’s invitation, Paul and I are coming down for Thanksgiving and returning home that night. Grace will probably return to Chicago with us then. I want a few minutes with Gabriel once things have settled down around here.”

“That would be helpful.” Other than in passing, Evie hadn’t seen Gabriel since Friday night. The number of people needing a slice of his time right now would fill a phone book. She glanced over at the other wall, at the Florist case, made a decision.

“I think I’ll stay on the Florist case. I don’t need to report back to work until December first. I can give it this final week. I want to know, Ann, if it can be solved, if I can solve it. It’s not my usual ambition in play here-more a need to have that basic question answered. I think the town needs it after all this turmoil.”

“The new IDs go anywhere?” Ann asked. Caleb had narrowed things down to a forger now in federal prison, and Paul had managed to get information from him in exchange for some considerations on the man’s prison-work detail.

“Nothing so far,” Evie answered. “Paul’s been running the three names through the national databases for me, and I also sent them over to a state researcher. If the FBI can’t lock in on the names, they probably weren’t used. The fact the new IDs exist tells us the Florist family planned to leave if it became necessary. If they were never used, that will confirm they were likely murdered that night.”

“Which goes back to the possible motive for the murders-the large amount of money the Florist family had with them,” Ann said. “Do you want to take another look at the doctor?”

“He’s on my list.” Evie perched on one of the tables, noted that Gabriel hadn’t been by with a new sweet-tarts roll, had to settle for a piece of hard candy from a bowl on the table. “I think I might take the case back to the beginning, start over, see what might show up if I clear the slate.”

Ann paused. “That’s got merit, Evie. The Florist case has gone so many directions, it’s like a spider web that has collapsed and is just a sticky mess now.”

“That’s exactly what it feels like,” Evie agreed. “We know who Ashley Dayton’s killer was, whether or not it can ever be proven. The search to find Grace’s parents will go where it’s going to go. But the Florist case I can still maybe move to the next step. I’m just not sure what we accomplished on it this last week. We know more, we’re inside the dynamics of the family for the first time, but I’m not sure we’ve really changed what we know about the crime.”

Ann nodded. “Then start over, Evie. That gut instinct is probably telling you something important. Use this bare wall to take it apart again.”

“Yeah.” She could fill it once more with blank sheets, begin again on the Florist case. “Ann, do you think being a cop is a choice, or is it something God wires into a person? I’m spending what could be a vacation week to wade through a messy case again, and I honestly can’t say I mind the idea. I’m doing it by choice. That’s just weird when I think about it.”

Ann laughed, lowered the box she held onto the table. “I think you’re young, Evie, and part of what you enjoy about real-life puzzles is that satisfaction you feel at learning the ending. To have true justice, people need answers, so God gave you important work to do. If you weren’t a cop, you’d be curious about other mysteries. You’d be a good research chemist, a scientist, you’d find other puzzles to figure out. When the weight of this job gets to where you need to step away from the blood and violence, you’ll find a new avenue for solving things. That won’t ever leave you. But the impulse to solve crimes, that you can let go when it becomes necessary.”

“That’s one reason you retired, Ann? The amount of violence you had seen across your career?”

“It was a significant factor, yes. I shifted my interest in solving matters into writing, where I can both create the problem and figure out how to solve it. I’m breathing again, according to Paul. I still enjoy the occasional real-life puzzle, the cold cases Paul and I work together, but when something touches on the personal like this Dayton one did with Grace…” She shook her head, then added, “I used to be able to handle these moments better than I did today. I absorb the grief at a much deeper level now.”

“That’s not such a bad thing,” Evie replied. “I know I seem cold to Gabriel at times, with my curiosity and not much pain showing when I talk about a case. Looking at the photos on the walls, he sees people he knows, while I see strangers. I care about what happened to them, but more in the context of their place in the puzzle.”

“If you couldn’t retain that curiosity and equilibrium, you couldn’t solve the problem, Evie. The longer you two are friends, Gabriel will adjust to the fact you’ll always have a natural detachment about you. You see puzzles. He sees people. God wired you both as He intended. You’ve got a gift Gabriel doesn’t have. And he’s got connections you could never manage. Gabriel is knit into the people and fabric of this community. He’ll be buttonholed for conversations by hundreds of people during the next month. You would smother to death if even just five cops wanted to come help you work the Florist case. You need space, solitude, to think. Gabriel needs to take what happened with Grace and her uncle and figure out how to learn from it. There won’t be another child abused in Carin County if Gabriel can possibly figure out how to apply the lessons taken away from this case.”

Evie took a moment to absorb that. “I hadn’t thought about what Gabriel does next with all this. For me, the case is finished. It goes back in the box and I move on. But Gabriel’s job is to deal with the impact on the community, try to prevent another child from being hurt.”

“Different jobs, different roles. Gabriel’s job is to be watchful, aware of what’s going on, and protect the people who live here. You’re more wired to be a detective, to look closely at a case, solve it, and then move to the next one.”

Evie nodded, looked at Ann, and turned the conversation personal. “I’ve also been thinking if I stay here this week, stay here over Thanksgiving, that I can be sure Rob will wonder again about my priorities when I won’t even take a day off from the job for the holiday. He’s decided I’m pretty much a workaholic since I’m spending my vacation time doing this. He’s probably right. That’s a bad trait for a cop to develop, being that single-minded about work.”

Ann didn’t give her a quick answer, but instead perched herself on the table beside the box and studied her. “Evie, it’s possible that you use work and the time it demands to ensure you stay single. Not that you love work so much, but that you’re scared of what kind of life you might have if you built something outside of work, and failed at it. So rather than feel the stress of your potentially less-than-great personal life, you shift more hours over into work. Does that make sense?”

Evie considered that and sighed. “That’s just sad, Ann. That you can analyze me so easily.”

Ann smiled. “Enjoy the job, Evie. Don’t ever apologize for appreciating these puzzles and solving them. It’s important work-what you do matters. But when your ‘Paul’ starts nudging you to give him room in your life, be willing to let him have that slice of you. You may be less than deft at building a personal life by yourself, but you’d probably do fine building one with someone else. Rob might be that right guy for you. Or it may be someone even more ambitious than you about work-I think you’d make an interesting politician’s wife. But when it’s time, let yourself enjoy that next chapter.”

“Ann, I find it interesting that you are the most relaxed I ever see you when you’re with Paul.”

Ann’s smile grew wide. “I’ve noticed the same. I don’t have to think as much about life when I’m with him. We’re just doing life together, and he has things flowing in a nice direction.”

“Would you take this the right way when I say I envy you?” Evie remarked lightly.

“I’m glad you do. It means you don’t have your head in the sand about the decisions you need to make for your own life. It’s fine to decide you are comfortable with the present, Evie, to decide a future looking like today is something you’re content with. Just look at the options with your eyes open. That’s where wisdom comes from.”

“I’ll try and do that.”

“Paul and I will be back for Thanksgiving,” Ann told her again. “You may have the Florist case solved by then. If you do, that ice cream reward is still on the table.”

Evie grinned. “I’ll take you up on it. Pumpkin pie and ice cream suits me fine. And I never did get my flight overview of Carin County you promised. Maybe we can fit that in over Thanksgiving too.”

“I’d like that,” Ann said. “You’ll figure this out, Evie. The answer is here somewhere.”

Evie appreciated the support, both personally and professionally. “Tell Paul thanks for coming down this weekend.”

Ann nodded and headed out. Evie turned to consider the present Florist crime wall. She’d solve this case if she could, for her own sake and because it would help Gabriel to have it answered. He was having a miserable week, and figuring out what happened to the Florist family would be welcome news. She’d like to leave with that outcome behind her, rather than just pack up and go.

She locked the door behind Ann, picked up a root beer, and went to studying the board, then moved to the blank wall. It was time to go back to the beginning.

Evie propped her feet on a chair, idly eating pretzels, thinking about the Florist case, sorting how she wanted to approach it. A couple of dangling threads were worth pursuing.

She needed the list Gabriel had put together of the county’s violent residents. She’d like to look at those names with an eye for those with boys in their families. Joe Florist had a close call with Frank Ash. Two other boys had admitted being molested by Ash-three they could name, and no doubt there were others. A pool of people, both boys and adults, had reason to want Frank Ash gone. And most of them also didn’t like cops very much.

Interesting. Maybe the Frank Ash murder and the Florist family disappearance were connected, if she put her finger on the right family that harbored violence. She wrote the idea down at the top of a new pad of paper.

She wanted to talk with Phil Peters and his wife, Jenna. The wedding that had nearly not taken place was on the Florist family calendar for that Sunday, the event noted in a hot-pink marker. Susan and Jenna were good friends. They would have been confirming wedding preparations that week-flowers and cake, decorations and invitations. A lot of time spent together. If a problem was brewing, Susan likely would have let something slip-maybe not significant at the time, but what about from the perspective of looking back? Evie made a note to see Phil and Jenna in person.

What else? Evie began cataloging what she knew.

The Florist family had been accumulating cash and storing it somewhere. Could she trace where it had gone? Where was the money now?

Scott had purchased new IDs for the family as Simon and May Carnoff-using their middle names-their son Joseph Carnoff. The accompanying birth certificates, the social security numbers, would pass a cursory check. So far, none of the alternate names appeared to have ever been used. Keep pushing to confirm the IDs were never used.

The father and son had feared the other had murdered Ash. They both seemed to be innocent of any involvement. But plenty of others likely had a motive to want Frank Ash out of the way. Who did kill Frank Ash?

The Florist family disappeared sometime between Thursday night and Friday morning. Had she ever pursued an interview with the friends they were meeting at the campground? Evie was stunned to realize she hadn’t even thought of them beyond that they had called the authorities to report the Florist family hadn’t arrived. Who are they?

“Dublin,” she muttered as she shuffled quickly through the file… no, there it was. “Durbin.” William and Nancy Durbin, family on Scott’s side. Nancy was Scott’s younger cousin, the notes indicated.

The Durbins certainly knew the Florist family’s travel plans. Evie felt a hot spark of interest. Any reason they could have been involved? That was a new direction-a nice big maybe.

Evie circled it on her new page of notes. What better way to get away with a crime than to control when and how it was discovered? The Durbins would have been able to make sure everything was tucked away nice and neat before the cops were even called. It felt promising. Evie was relieved just at the thought. There were new avenues to explore.

All right… She leaned back, clasped her hands behind her head. What better place to hide a camper and truck than in a campground full of campers and trucks? Maybe camouflage the camper-old decal stickers, dirty it up, swap it with another camper set in among the weeds so it looked as if it had been parked for months. The truck could simply have plates swapped, be left sitting at the lake’s boat launch in a row of parked vehicles. The first day or two of the search had focused south around the Florist house. Cops wouldn’t have been looking at campgrounds north of where the family had been traveling. That first night, drive the truck and camper another thirty minutes or so north, tuck the camper and truck into a campground full of other campers, leave those parts of the mystery hidden in plain sight. The bodies were still a problem, but Carin Lake is right there. Go out at night, weight them down, drop them over the side of the boat. The Florist family arrive at their destination, were murdered, vehicles moved, their bodies dumped-all taken care of before you call the cops at seven o’clock Friday morning to say your friends haven’t arrived. And you’re a whole bunch of cash wealthier if you knew about that money…

Evie whispered “Eureka,” wondering if she just might have it.

She ran that thought out. This case maybe isn’t that complicated. They simply hadn’t looked in the right direction. Like Grace’s uncle being well-known in town but hiding his true colors, maybe these killers had done the same. William and Nancy Durbin… family, where she had gone so many times before in her thinking. Were they having money issues, and then suddenly had none?

She picked up her pad and added more notes.

How hard would it be to make a camper disappear, a truck? If William Durbin left the keys in the truck, the truck unlocked, how many hours would it remain at the boat launch before someone stole it? An hour maybe? It could have been driven away before cops were even looking for the truck. Park the camper on a weed-filled lot, it would be equally invisible.

Evie felt a cold certainty as she wrote, for this was not only possible, it fit with the facts of the case. She needed to know a great deal more about William and Nancy Durbin, and fast. They might be good, salt-of-the-earth people, and this was a flight of fancy that would crash into a wall… or they might be the desperate people who had spotted a quick answer to all their troubles and murdered three people to acquire a lot of cash.

Evie glanced at the time. Ann and Paul might not have taken off from the airport yet. She grabbed her phone and made the call. “Paul, I need a favor.”

“Name it, Evie.”

“Everything you can tell me about a local couple without Gabriel finding out I’m asking.”

“Names?”

“William and Nancy Durbin. She’s a cousin of Scott Florist.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Evie put down her phone, feeling another surge of confidence. He didn’t even ask-it was there in his voice. This might be the answer, and he’d get her the information she needed. Knowing Paul, she’d probably get a call back later this evening.

She wasn’t going to do a victory dance yet, but she felt like celebrating just the same. She should order in some supper. There were only so many pretzels that qualified as a meal, she told herself as she set them back on the table.

“God, calm me down, please,” she whispered. “I want so badly to have this solved, I’m grasping at this idea. It could be the one, it feels promising and possible and right, but I need the facts to support it before I upset and maybe taint an innocent couple. Please don’t let me say anything to Gabriel about this until I know for certain. But I know something about you-the truth matters-and maybe you’ve led me to find it. If that’s the case, thank you, profoundly. If this isn’t it, move me off this idea and on to others.” She thought about something else to say, realized just whispering the prayer had begun to calm her. “Thanks again, God, that at least there’s hope an answer is here. I’m going back to work now. Thanks for this idea.”

This could turn out to be like the counseling and the doctor-something that fit, but wasn’t the answer. Evie accepted that. Paul was the guy with the ability to get her concrete information. She’d have something in a few hours, a day at most, and she’d know. One of these ideas would pan out to be the right one sooner or later.

She pulled out her phone to order something from the pizza parlor, studying the crime wall while she waited for her order to be taken. What else? William and Nancy Durbin seemed to be a brilliant possibility. Experience had taught her if there was one idea left to find, there were two. There would be something else here. What else? She started thinking again about the night the family disappeared.

“Evie.”

She looked around as the door pushed open. “Hi there, Gabriel.” The man looked like he’d aged years in the week she had known him.

“It’s one a.m.” he told her, voice rough with exhaustion. She was surprised at the time. No wonder she was beginning to get bleary-eyed. “Finding something?” Gabriel asked.

She bit her tongue so as not to tell him. She wanted to tell him it could be William and Nancy Durbin, but she didn’t have word back from Paul, and she refused to let herself give Gabriel a roller coaster of an idea that turned into a dead end, not after the week he’d had. So she went with what she was working on now-maybe it would cheer him up.

She broke a breadstick in two and held out half. “I’m on a roll of sorts. I think I’ve located who did kill Frank Ash, so I’m going to push on that for a bit to clear that question.” She gestured to the pages spread out on the table as he walked over. “Names appearing on your violent list who have boys in their family, age fourteen to seventeen.”

“Find the motive, find the person who did it,” he said, sinking into a chair beside her.

“Exactly. It might not have been the two boys’ families we know about. If there were two, there likely were more. Your list of violent people in the county fits who could also murder Frank Ash.” She used a napkin to wipe a smear off her laptop screen. “A.22 is rather an odd gun of choice for this group. I’ve got gun permits for every type of weapon you can imagine for people on the list, but no.22 so far. But I figure someone had access to a.22 even if he didn’t own it.”

“Yeah, I can imagine that.”

“Anyway, I’m going on the assumption someone on the list did the crime and wouldn’t want to throw away a perfectly good gun. He might have used it again or at least still have it. The Ash murder is still open, the evidence on file, so I’ve sent the slugs through the lab again. Maybe we get a match to a later crime.”

“An obvious step-one I wish I’d thought of first.” He tried to smile, but he was so tired it didn’t come off that well.

She patted his arm resting on the table beside her. “You’ve had a few other things on your mind. Eat something.” She pushed the pizza box his way, took another slice out for herself to encourage him to do the same. “I’m going to go see Phil Peters and his wife on Friday. They already have family in town for Thanksgiving, but they’ll send the last ones off to the airport Friday morning. I told them I’d be over their way about one o’clock. Want to come along?”

He pushed up the pizza box lid, took a slice. “If things are quiet here, sure.”

“I want to have that conversation in person rather than on the phone. Not just because Scott and Phil partnered together. Susan and Jenna were friends. I think Jenna would have known about Decatur-maybe not the specifics, but about the counseling. I’m curious why she never said anything about it. Or if she told Phil, why he didn’t say anything. And if she never told Phil, why not?”

“Good questions to ask them both.”

Evie decided it was time to change the subject. Gabriel needed to sleep, but he also looked like he needed to talk. “How’s Grace?” she asked gently.

He sighed. “I left her watching a movie with Josh at my parents’ place. The media-thankfully-haven’t bothered her. Maybe they’ve heard my dad would run them off. Having Rachel around for the weekend helped-you can tell Grace and Rachel and Ann click well together. Grace was lighter in mood than I thought she’d be.”

“I’m glad. The weather looks good for this coming week. Clear skies, windy, but not too cold.”

Gabriel nodded. “Josh will be out there with the dogs in the morning. Grace still wants to be the one doing the map work, and so far none of us have been able to talk her out of it.”

“For her own reasons, Grace knows what she needs to do.”

“I get that… it’s just so painful to watch. I’ve got a press conference tomorrow at one p.m. Hopefully it will satisfy the last of the lingering media. You’re welcome to attend. We aren’t naming the person of interest in the Dayton girl case, so speculation is all over the place. But the questions about Kevin Arnett have been minimal. The Dayton family has agreed to stay quiet about what we’ve told them in order to give Grace breathing room.”

“That’s kind of them.”

“They understand better than most what she’s going through.” Gabriel pushed his chair back. “Don’t work too late, Evie. Well, I guess it’s already beyond late,” he said after a glance at his watch.

“Just until I get through these names,” she promised. “I’ve left the top up on the convertible, so I won’t freeze going to the house.”

He smiled. “I saw that. Call if you need me in the morning. I’ll be around.”

“Thanks, Gabriel.”

She’d tell him to get some sleep, but it would sound too much like his mother. Gabriel had family, and they were going to provide that support and strength he needed to get through this. She saw him off, then locked the door.

God, I’ll mention what you already know. That is one man carrying more weight than is good for him. Help me give him answers. It’s not much, but it’s what I can do.

Not for the first time she felt like she was in the middle of having that prayer answered tonight. William and Nancy Durbin might be the key to the Florist family disappearance. Evie stretched her arms back, looked again at the names spread across the pages, thought she was looking at solving the Frank Ash murder, a case she hadn’t even come here to work. It felt good, being useful. She pulled over the list of names and went back to work.

While Evie ate breakfast Monday morning-after a very short night-she perused the report on William and Nancy Durbin, which Paul had emailed to her. The report was still preliminary, more info was coming, but already it proved useful.

The Durbins had been married for four years at the time the Florist family went missing. Longtime residents of Carin County, both had attended the local high school. They made a respectable living farming, he also worked as a notary and did earth-moving jobs with his backhoe to bring in extra cash, and she tutored in math and gave piano lessons, had won awards for her pies. No debt on the property-the mortgage paid off the year before the Florist family disappeared, Evie noted from the date.

William had a long string of DUI arrests going back to his teens. Nancy had been arrested twice on minor drug violations. They were divorced now. An unusual distribution of assets had occurred. The cash and investments had been split, but they still jointly owned farmland, cattle, and horses, and lived on the same property but in separate houses on opposite sides of the land. There had been two domestic-disturbance calls since the divorce, both involving a shotgun being fired at the pet of the other.

It was the kind of acrimonious split suggesting each would be of a mind to implicate the other in a crime if given the chance. Evie wanted to interview them both as soon as possible. But her night of restless sleep had raised some questions she was mulling over now, and it was cooling her certainty that this was the answer.

Why had Scott arranged to go camping with the Durbins, of all people, on a last-minute vacation when the focus of the trip was to repair the relationship with his son? There weren’t boys the same age in both families. To go camping beside a huge lake and not go out on the water didn’t seem likely. So maybe the Durbins had the boat? Or had Scott been planning to rent a boat once they arrived? That seemed equally as likely. If not for a boat, why plan to meet up with the Durbins? Maybe a social thing, a family thing that just sort of happened? You’re going camping? Oh, so are we, let’s park together and share meals. Good luck getting out of that when it was a family relationship. Evie could see a scenario like that playing out.

The Durbin marriage couldn’t have been too rocky back then. If they were heading toward a nasty divorce, they wouldn’t have been going camping, staying together in a twenty-some-foot camper. So the marriage was probably okay at the time. No doubt volatile on occasion, but reasonably peaceable.

Ample assets were in play when the couple divorced, suggesting forty thousand wouldn’t have seemed like a life-changing amount. But maybe that amount in cash was significant at the time of the camping trip? She needed the rest of the report from Paul’s researchers to answer that question. Money was often a motivator for murder, but three killings, one of them a child? The need would’ve had to be acute.

The Durbins fit the crime. They could control when the police were informed, they had the means and the time to get rid of the car, camper, and bodies. But she shook her head as she tried to picture them taking it as far as a triple homicide. If there was trouble between the relatives, Scott would not have agreed to the camping trip. He was a cop, so he wouldn’t have been blind to tension that acute. If money had been that strained, Scott would likely as not have made them a loan. And my biggest problem with this report, she told herself, tapping the page of notes, the Durbins divorced in acrimony. If there was a murder in their past, one of them would have tried to frame the other to get the entire estate.

With that realization her solid idea felt like it died.

She’d interview them. She’d find out how tight money had been for them back then. But on a second look, her hot lead of the night before was turning cold. The Durbins had no obvious reason to murder the entire Florist family. Killing a child truly changed the equation. The DUIs William Durbin had racked up were as much a reason for her doubts now as the acrimonious divorce. A drunk couldn’t keep this kind of secret for thirteen years, nor could a bitter ex-wife.

Monday morning was turning out the way she feared her week was headed. She would spend the next few days interviewing people on Gabriel’s list who had kids, see if she could firm up something about the Frank Ash murder. She’d see if the doctor would talk to her once more. She wanted to pursue further the new IDs Scott had acquired. She’d interview the Durbins, and later in the week, Phil and Jenna Peters. But she might not find her answer, she had to admit to herself.

Killing a family of three-and one of them a kid-requires something unique as the trigger, Evie acknowledged, reading the report again, and she knew in her gut she didn’t have it yet. She’d convinced herself this was solid, and now the roller coaster headed back to reality. She’d push on the Durbins, but it was beginning to wobble. The interviews would be interesting, though. She’d head that way first. Maybe the idea would turn hot again when she met William and Nancy Durbin in person. She could always hope.

She smiled to herself and poured coffee to go, headed out to the car. She’d take hope wherever she could find it, knowing it would be a long week. Luck was mostly perspiration. She’d keep digging until there were no more questions to push and something gave. It usually did.

Gabriel Thane

Gabriel pushed aside another branch threatening to slap his face as he followed his brother back to the vehicles. Tuesday’s search was over, another dozen flags had been set, and Gabriel-once Josh and Grace were safely out of sight-had dug up the ground to check what the dogs had found, but had discovered only animal remains. He watched Grace striding ahead of them, carrying the maps, while the dogs, happy to be free from further responsibility, circled around her.

“How’s it going, Josh?” he asked.

His brother grimaced. “She stands looking out at the lake a lot, or silently crying as she walks behind me, marking the map. She won’t talk about much of anything. She’s sometimes got headphones on, listening to music while we trail the dogs.”

“Want me to come up with a solid reason she can’t come out here for a few days?” Gabriel asked.

Josh shook his head. “It won’t change things for her, Gabriel. Every day we clear more of this land and don’t find anything, her sadness goes deeper. She’d convinced herself her parents were here, that we could find them. She’s letting that go now. She’ll go back with Ann and Paul Thursday evening, let me finish the search without her. Later in the week, the weather looks like it’s going to turn, slow the search down.”

“She’ll be at your place this evening?”

“Dinner and a movie, then I’ll take her over to our folks to sleep. It helps that she’s not trying to stay at the campground-I don’t have to worry about a reporter or former neighbor showing up. Why don’t you bring Evie over and join us? Or at least take Evie out to a movie or something. She’s been doing nothing but work too. It can’t be what she planned when she thought about coming to Carin for a working vacation.”

“She’s got a guy, Josh. Name of Rob Turney. And the more I think about it, the more I think he might be good for her. Evie’s like Ann. She gets her head into a case, she just keeps turning it until something gives. She needs a life with someone other than a cop. The work never shuts off otherwise.”

“All the more reason she needs to take a break. Frankly, you need the break more than any of us. You’re looking pretty low, Gabriel, and it’s not just the day-old stubble on your chin.”

Gabriel rubbed his jaw, knew the tension he felt was visible, looked ahead at the farmhouse as they approached it. “This place does that to me.”

“Yeah, we’re both feeling a hint of what Grace is going through.”

Josh pushed aside a low-hanging branch. “Grace hasn’t said anything directly about her uncle. She’s alluded to it, if you know what to listen for, but that’s all. She did mention she’s been going to church with Ann and Paul. I find it interesting that she’s been able to face her pain with God easier than she’s been able to talk with people.”

“A little at a time,” Gabriel replied. “How about you-you’re going to be okay if she does mention it?”

Josh nodded. “I think so, if only because there are a few things I would like to say that I can’t bring up until she opens that door. I think at times she is the saddest person I know, but then her gaze will clear and there’s the Grace I remember.”

“She’s cracked a window, coming back here, letting herself remember.”

“I think so,” Josh agreed. “She’s doing this alone, and that’s the part that’s so troubling.”

“You’re there for her. She can’t fall that far down into her memories when friends like you are around.”

“That’s mostly what Ann and Rachel were doing, just being there. Anyway, food and a movie tonight. Come by if you change your mind, bring Evie,” Josh mentioned again as the two caught up with Grace and the dogs.

“I’ll see,” Gabriel said. He went and said goodbye to Grace, then turned toward his truck. He wasn’t sure he wanted to knock on that door. He’d found some kind of footing with Evie-task-focused, a friendship forming, not unlike the early days with Ann. Evie didn’t want anything else right now. Another week, the Florist case solved or not, Evie wasn’t even going to be here. He was careful to keep that in mind, for her sake as well as his.

Gabriel pushed open the post-office door, held his hand palm down behind him in the silent command Will had taught him.

“Do you know what the weather was like the night they disappeared?” Evie called over to him without looking up. “Full moon and bright, cloudy and dark, or…?”

“Quarter moon, clear skies, but relatively dark,” he replied. “And good evening to you too.”

She looked up then, smiled, yet all she said was “Thanks,” and then turned back to her notes.

“How does pizza sound for dinner again, shared with your dogs?”

That got her attention. He whispered a Dutch word Will had taught him as he stepped aside, and the dogs both barked. Evie was up in a flash. The dogs raced across the concrete floor to join her. She laughed and crouched down to give them a double hug. “Oh, you adorable guys, you look wonderful!”

Gabriel smiled at the warm greeting. “While you’ve been working, at least these two have been having a real vacation.”

“Yeah, I saw the photos of them on the course Will had built for his own dogs, the teeter-totter and the hurdles to jump. I felt guilty even considering bringing them into town after I saw what they were enjoying with their two new friends.”

Gabriel handed over the tug-of-war rope Will had made for them. “Apollo, Zeus, here you go,” and the dogs leaped over to pick up either end, showing off for Evie. She laughed, watching them.

“What kind of pizza do you want? I’m going to order a medium meat-lovers just for them.”

Evie’s grin lit her face. “Canadian bacon and pineapple, if you don’t mind being weird.”

“I can handle it.” He nodded at the second wall she was now filling in. It was, surprisingly, mostly artwork. “I’ll order us dinner to be delivered and then you can talk to me about what you’re doing. Does that work for you?”

“That would be great.”

Gabriel offered her the sack of other dog toys Will had sent with him. Evie sent a couple of tennis balls sailing down the length of the post office, and the dogs gave an excited bark and surged after them. Gabriel pulled out his phone and ordered dinner with an extra twenty-minute delay. She needed the time to play with her dogs.

Gabriel pulled another tasty piece of pizza from the box, glad he’d ordered the thick crust. He picked up his root beer. For having dinner with a lady, it was as comfortable a date as most he’d had, which was either a sad fact or an acknowledgment that he didn’t mind an evening with good food and work mixed in… along with an intriguing woman, he added silently, watching Evie over the lip of the bottle.

Evie had settled on a chair with her feet propped on another one, the dogs on either side of her. The dogs were content, having eaten well, played hard. Evie gestured at the second wall. “The sketches show the most likely routes the Florist family took that night from the house to the campground. If they needed to stop for gas, they went this way”-she pointed-“if they were interested in scenery along the route, they went that way. I started putting Xs on the routes, trying to figure out if that was where the crime happened, what was the most likely scenario. At the house, someone wants the cash they’ve got stored in the safe. At the gas station, someone wants the truck they’re driving. That kind of thing. Just plotting where possible events might have taken place, seeing what makes the most sense.”

“Okay, I follow. Anything new pop out?”

“A couple of things.” She drank the last of her root beer. “What if they were killed in a car accident, three people dead? A truck and camper accident, in this case. We see that all the time. A family gets killed in a bad vehicle accident. Only someone covers up the crash. Someone with multiple DUIs. Someone hauling a drug shipment. Driving a stolen semi. Someone with a reason to hide the accident from the authorities decides to cover it up.”

He leaned forward, finding the idea interesting. “A bad accident that kills people is possible,” he agreed. He’d worked a few horrific crashes during his career. “And I agree there could be a motive to hide a wreck, but the means to do so? If the truck could still be driven well enough to haul the camper, it probably wasn’t a serious enough wreck to kill three people. And you’re talking major moving equipment to clear vehicles off a road that were damaged enough for deaths. A tow truck. A tractor. You couldn’t haul them much of a distance unless you could get them on a flatbed. If they went over the side of a bridge, down a ravine, smashed into a cornfield, or were moved there, the vehicles eventually get found. Maybe not in first few days, but the first week or two they’d get spotted from the air.”

Evie considered that, nodded. “A wreck is the cleanest answer, and not finding them means someone wanted to cover it up. But I’ll go along with you that it isn’t easy to hide a wreck of this magnitude.”

She leaned over to pat each dog. “Here’s another idea. Say they arrived at the campground as planned, got parked, and settled in. Since the whole idea of the trip was family time, they get up early and rent a boat to go fishing, get out on the lake at dawn. Did the family get killed on the lake?”

Gabriel found the question equally intriguing. “A boating accident?”

“Could be,” Evie said. “The boat flips suddenly, the water’s really cold, three people drown. It happens. The problem is the truck and camper. Again, someone would have to have a reason to cover up what happened and move their truck and camper out of the park.”

“State parks after hours use an honor system,” Gabriel said. “You choose a place to park, the next morning park staff comes by and collects the lot fees, signs you in. You could figure out quickly who was a recent arrival by seeing who didn’t have a check-in card lying on the vehicle dashboard. It’s possible they could have arrived at the park and there’s no record of it-if the vehicles were moved before staff came around.”

“That’s good to know. But it doesn’t fit that it was a stranger crime. Someone recognizes the Florist family, kills them on the lake, knows what their truck and camper look like, finds the vehicles in the campground, and moves the vehicles before their friends call the cops to report they hadn’t arrived,” she summarized.

Gabriel liked the clean lines of it. The family was killed on the lake, the vehicles were moved, and all before the cops began the search. But he could see problems. “Bodies float,” he pointed out, “unless they’re weighted down. And gunshots on the water echo-a violent crime would have been heard by someone. I can see choppy water and a speedboat wake causing a smaller boat to flip over, I can see a near collision between boats, I can see an accident that puts the Florist family into the water, and maybe the son panics-it’s cold water, trying to save each other, the family drowns. I can even see it being unnoticed-other boaters a distance away don’t realize what’s happened, especially if there’s fog early in the morning. But the bodies would have been found. Maybe not that morning, but a day or two underwater, a body comes back to the surface. Three people drown-they get found unless deliberately held down somehow.”

Evie thought about it, then said, “The family is killed on the lake. Someone had a reason to kill them and the time to cover it up, weigh down the bodies. They were out on the lake at dawn. Did anyone else disappear that weekend? Did the Florists see a body dumped in the lake, and someone had to kill the family to keep what they saw under wraps?”

Gabriel had to smile. “Now you’re really getting out there, Evie.”

“Yeah, I’m getting out there,” she conceded. “But the idea of something happening to them after they arrived at their destination seems like a possibility. That lake is the perfect place to make bodies disappear.”

She glanced over at him. “I’ve been looking at the Durbins-I was sure it was them for part of a day-but as volatile as they are, it’s mostly petty stuff. I didn’t get any particular hostile vibes from my interviews with them, and the money as a motive just doesn’t work. They simply weren’t broke enough to justify killing an entire family.”

“I could have told you that had you asked,” Gabriel said mildly.

“It would have been a family thing if it was them, and I didn’t want to drag you in that direction again.”

Gabriel chuckled. “I appreciate it. They’re mostly nice people, who direct their annoyances and frustrations at each other. The rest of the world gets a pass.”

“I concluded the same. Something happening at the campground, after the Florist family arrived-that idea still resonates as interesting to me.” She studied the sketches again. “And I come back to the initial question. Where did this happen, Gabriel? At the house? During the drive? At the campground? Or is this a case where the family decided to run, and they vanished because they chose to?”

“Evie, those are questions we’ve been asking about this case on and off for twelve years. You need to accept that it may not be solvable, at least not with what we know today. You’ve given us a lot more information to consider than we had before, but the missing piece may not be here.”

He could see from the stubborn set of her jaw that she didn’t want to accept that. He felt an odd tenderness at the fact she didn’t want to let this go. He’d admit they were finished before she did, but she’d get there. “What are the checkmarks on the aerial maps? Those are new.”

She shifted to look at where he pointed. “I’ve been checking off properties where I can document an interview took place. It’s another way to look at the same basic question-the most likely routes they might have traveled that night and where something might have happened. Thirty miles is a lot of territory. I wanted to make sure everyone living along those routes was interviewed, that there weren’t gaps in the coverage asking the basic questions-did you see anything, hear anything, notice something unusual that Thursday night or Friday morning? There are a few gaps as you get farther north toward the campground, a few stretches where it’s four miles between interviews, but it’s not out of line with the number of homes in the area. It was an interesting question, except it didn’t take me anywhere particularly useful.”

Gabriel studied that map. “Trying to fill in those gaps after this many years is a long shot, but it’s something to consider.”

“If someone had noticed something, I’m guessing they would have made a point to call and mention it at the time,” Evie replied. “Putting out a new reward for information might help, though, give someone with a sliver of a memory a reason to call you.”

“Let’s give that some thought. So the new IDs haven’t gone anywhere?” he asked.

Rather absently, she shook her head. “They don’t appear to have ever been used, not for a driver’s license, for tax returns, to register a PO box, take out a business license, buy real estate or a vehicle. The state databases don’t have the names, and the FBI is about done looking at national records.”

“What about the idea of the son becoming a cop?”

“I’ve been looking through police academy class photos, because I like that idea, looking for someone who resembles Scott’s photo when he was twenty. So far it’s not led anywhere.”

He studied the work she’d done and nodded. “Evie, let’s call it a night. Ride with me out to Will’s with the dogs, they might as well stay with him the last few days rather than be stuck in town. We’ll find something to talk about that isn’t work. At some point you have to accept this case has pushed as far as it’s going to move, and let it go.”

Evie looked at the two dogs stretched out beside her, ran her foot over Apollo’s back. “They have been enjoying their stay with Will and his dogs.”

He smiled. “Why don’t you let me help you pack this case away tomorrow, you can have Thanksgiving with us on Thursday, and then you should get yourself home, have Friday through Sunday as a true vacation before you’re back at work with the State Police on Monday. I’m feeling rather guilty you haven’t watched more than one movie since you’ve been on this so-called vacation, haven’t enjoyed that nice house you rented. You’ve only worked. Rob would enjoy seeing you this weekend, I’m sure, and there’s probably stuff you need to do in Springfield.”

Evie faintly smiled back. “Kicking me out, Gabriel?”

“Just trying to be fair-minded. I really do appreciate what you’ve done here, Evie. These people are my friends, and I want to know what happened to them. But there’s a point you put it back in the box and go on with life. I think we’re there.”

She nodded. “I’ll think about it, Gabriel. There’s a place where I’m content to say I’ve done what I can do, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet. Let’s take the dogs out to Will’s. You can find me some ice cream for dessert if there’s a place still open this late.”

“I imagine there is,” he replied, mildly amused. As stubborn as Ann, he thought, but really didn’t mind. Evie did this job until there was nothing else to do. That determination was apparently bedrock to her personality.

Evie slipped her shoes on, the dogs crowding around her. She laughed. “I’m coming with you, guys.” She glanced over and smiled. “I’ve missed running with them. They do a couple of miles with me most days.”

He tried to imagine doing that for fun, couldn’t picture it. “I’ll settle for tossing a tennis ball for them to chase.” He held the door open, and the dogs maneuvered Evie outside ahead of them. Gabriel looked between Zeus and Apollo, thought the two animals had her figured out. They shepherd her around as the third member of their pack without her even realizing it. Smart dogs. He held the back door of the truck open, and they scrambled in behind the front seats. “Think they would like ice cream? We could get them both basic sundaes.”

Evie clicked her seat belt in place. “They’d love it.”

Gabriel wouldn’t mind another hour with the dogs around. Evie relaxed when they were with her. He’d take full advantage of that.