08-A Thousand Bones, page 20
“So you changed the place a lot after you bought it?” Rafsky asked.
“Had to,” Don said. “It was nothing but a shell, partitioned off into a couple rooms. Just a hunting cabin, no plumbing to speak of, just a well out back. Like I said, I did everything myself, all the insulation and drywall, re-sanded the floors, everything.”
“I painted and did the decorating,” Jean added.
Joe was looking around. “You did a beautiful job, Mrs. Collier,” she said.
She smiled. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?”
Rafsky gave Joe a discreet nod, and Joe rose, following Jean Collier into the kitchen. Everything was clean and new. Joe tried to hide her disappointment as she trailed Jean back to the bathroom and into the main bedroom. The door to the second bedroom was closed, and Joe could hear music inside. She recognized Elton John singing “Bennie and the Jets.”
Jean knocked once and then opened the door. A girl was sprawled on a bed with some books and a looseleaf binder. Somewhere around sixteen, a slender version of Jean Collier.
“Terry, please,” Jean begged.
The girl rolled her eyes, reached over to the tape deck, and turned down the music.
“This room was just awful,” Jean said, lowering her voice. “I think it was the boys’ room. They left it such a mess, old furniture, dirty clothes piled up. I wanted to refinish the wood floor in here like we did with the rest of the house, you know, a nice natural look with some nice braid rugs. But the floor in here was so stained I couldn’t save it.”
Joe’s eyes traveled over the pink shag carpeting and up the soft pink walls. If Ken Snider had brought any of his victims here, there was no way to tell now. Any secrets this cabin harbored had been erased by the Colliers’ remodeling zeal.
“Close the door when you leave, please!”
Jean Collier heaved a sigh of exasperation at her daughter and closed the door. They went back to the living room. Rafsky was standing near the door, wrapping things up with Don Collier.
“If there’s anything we can do, just let us know,” Don said.
“You’ve been a help already, Mr. Collier.”
Outside, Rafsky waited for Joe as she zipped her jacket against the cold.
“You get anything?” she asked.
“Collier remembered that when they were at the title office, Snider asked if he could hang on to the key,” Rafsky said. “Snider said he wanted to go back and pick up some stuff. Said he’d leave the key on the mantel. When the Colliers got to the cabin two days later, the key was there.” Rafsky turned up his collar. “You get anything else?”
“Jean Collier said Snider left the place a mess.”
“So why did he need the key for two extra days?” Rafsky asked, turning to scan the trees. “Let’s look around some.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Damned if I know.”
They walked around the side of the house, past the Scout. There was a large object under a heavy tarp. Rafsky lifted the tarp to reveal a Ski-Doo.
“Mrs. Collier isn’t going to be very happy about us digging up her yard,” Rafsky said.
“You think there might be bodies here?” Joe asked.
“I don’t think we’ll find anything more of Annabelle. We’re too far from the oak tree for that. But if Ronnie was his first, isn’t it logical he came here, someplace he knew, to get rid of the body?”
“But the bracelet?” Joe said.
Rafsky just shook his head.
They continued around the back of the cabin. Joe noted that the trees had been cleared back at least fifty feet around the cabin, leaving a stand of tall white birches on the fringe of the yard. There was a small shed, old but freshly painted white, and pile of chopped wood along the back of the cabin, stacked roof-high in anticipation of the coming winter. Rafsky had gone on toward the shed, but Joe’s eyes were drawn to a spot near the wood stack, something on one of the cabin’s logs.
She went closer, kneeling to get a better look. It was faint but definite, about two feet off the ground.
“Rafsky!” she yelled.
He was at her side in a second. She heard him let out a long, slow breath.
“Jesus,” he said softly.
28
The morning fog had not yet burned off, and it hovered just above the ground, obscuring the bases of the trees and leaving them levitating like dark ghosts.
Other small clouds hung in the still, cold air—the labored exhalations of the searchers as they worked the grounds of the Collier cabin on the edge of Bass Lake.
Joe watched them from her position near the tarp-covered Ski-Doo. The officers wore heavy boots, insulated pants, and bulky parkas stenciled with michigan state police. They carried shovels, pickaxes, and sifting boxes. One officer was already staking out the first of what would be many grids, stringing tape and stabbing flags into the ground. Another had a county map spread out across the trunk of a cruiser.
“Coffee, ma’am?”
She looked back at a young trooper who was holding out a cardboard tray of Styrofoam cups.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a cup. She peeled off the top and closed her eyes as she took a sip of the strong coffee.
It didn’t help. It was so damn cold. She shivered and tucked her scarf tighter into the neck of her parka. The scarf was an old fuzzy red thing that left bits of yarn in her hair, but it was warm.
She heard Mike’s voice and turned to see him standing near a cruiser, hands stuffed in the pockets of his pants, boots covered in mud. Leach had given Mike the assignment of supervising the search, working with the state lieutenant to cover the first square mile, the approximate boundaries of the Collier property. Mike didn’t look happy to be here, and Joe realized there had been no time lately to talk to him about the case or anything else. She wondered how he was handling things. Wondered, too, how Mindy was taking his long hours. Probably not much better than Brad was dealing with hers.
She took another drink of coffee. Brad had called late last night to tell her he wasn’t coming home until tomorrow. It was snowing hard up in Marquette, he said, those big, fat flakes that stuck to everything. The same kind of snow that had been falling the first time he kissed her on a walk through Presque Isle Park, he had added.
She shut her eyes, telling herself there would be time later to make things better with Brad.
When Joe opened her eyes, she saw Jean Collier standing at the kitchen window again, her expression strained. Joe guessed it was horrifying for her, seeing cops digging in her yard for the bones of young girls. Earlier, Joe had caught the face of Jean’s daughter, Terry, peeking out from between her pink curtains. Her expression was one of bland curiosity.
Joe heard the slam of a car door and turned to see Leach and Rafsky making their way up the drive. As Rafsky drew closer, Joe saw his face was wan. He had a wad of Kleenex at his nose.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Caught a bug,” he said. “I’ll be all right.”
“Okay, where is it?” Leach asked.
“In the back, Sheriff,” Joe said.
The three of them went behind the cabin. Joe moved aside the garbage can she and Rafsky had placed there yesterday to prevent anyone from seeing the carving. None of the searchers or other cops had been told about it yet. Rafsky didn’t want it prematurely released to anyone.
Leach squatted to get a better look. He traced it lightly with his gloved finger, then looked up at Joe. “You’re sure this is the same as the other one?”
“See for yourself, sir,” she said. She pulled a paper from her jacket and handed it to Leach.
He looked at the photo. “Okay, so this one on the cabin here looks like the carving on the tree where we found the Chapel girl’s jawbone.” Leach pulled himself to his feet with a soft groan. “Do we have any idea how long this one has been here?”
“Don Collier told me it was there when they bought the place six years ago,” Joe said. “I think it looks like it’s been here longer than that, but I’m no expert.”
“Sheriff,” Rafsky said, “Frye and I have some other things we need to fill you in on. Let’s take a walk.”
She put the garbage can back in front of the carving and led them away from the cabin, under the yellow perimeter tape and deeper into the birch trees. As Joe walked, her eyes flicked from the tree trunks looking for carvings and up into the bare branches for ropes, but there was nothing. She walked until she could no longer hear the voices of the searchers. When she turned to face them, she looked to Rafsky to see if he wanted to start. He gave her a nod, the Kleenex again at his nose.
Joe pulled another paper from her jacket and unfolded it. It was a copy of the twelve moon symbols from the book she had found in the library.
“Remember when I brought you the photographs of the first two carvings?” When Leach nodded, she went on. “Well, there are twelve symbols, sir, one for each month.”
She handed him the paper. Leach looked at it and compared it to the photograph of the carving he was still holding. “Okay, so the Chapel carving and now the one on the cabin—they look like the February symbol to me.”
“Yes, sir, we agree.”
“What about the other carving, the one you found on the prayer tree?”
Joe handed him a third photograph. “This is it, sir.”
Again, Leach compared them to the twelve symbols. “This one looks different to me.”
“Detective Rafsky and I thought it might be the symbol for September. Now we think it is just a badly done version of February.”
Leach looked slowly from each photograph to the paper with the twelve symbols, then up at Joe. “So you’re suggesting February has some significance?”
Joe nodded. “Annabelle disappeared February second. Ronnie Langford around Valentine’s Day. And Dorothy Newton last spoke to her daughter in February before spring break.”
Rafsky blew out a sneeze.
“Bless you,” Joe said.
He managed a nod as he turned up the collar of his trench coat. She hadn’t noticed before, but now as the wind rippled his coat, it seemed far too thin for the weather. She realized he hadn’t had time to go home to Gaylord to pick up a heavier one.
“Okay, any ideas on why February?” Leach asked.
Joe hesitated.
“You’d better show him the book,” Rafsky said.
Joe reached into her jacket, pulled out a plastic evidence bag containing a small blue book, and handed it to Leach.
“Have you ever heard the term Windigo, sir?” she asked.
Leach was staring at the title. “Yes.”
“We found this in Ken Snider’s basement. It’s a children’s book called Winter of the Windigo. It’s a story based on an Indian legend.”
Leach turned the book over and read the back. Joe knew it said something about a young brave called Black-feather who saves his tribe by defeating the fearsome Windigo.
“The legend says the Windigo comes out during the harshest time of winter when food is scarce and animals are starving,” Joe went on. “The February symbol is called the Hunger Moon.”
Leach’s eyes came up to her, watering from the cold. “And you two think this all means something to Snider?”
“This is Snider’s book. It is inscribed to him from his mother.” She hesitated, looking for Rafsky, who urged her on with his eyes. “I think Snider might have studied Indian lore, might have come across the moon symbols. Killers of multiple victims often leave signs. Maybe this is part of his weird psychology. Maybe the carving is his way of marking his territory, asserting his strength.”
“He thinks he actually is one?” Leach asked.
“I found out there is a medical condition called Windigo psychosis, where mentally ill people actually think they are possessed with an evil spirit,” Joe said. “Has Snider crossed that line? We can’t say, sir. Maybe a doctor could.”
“Shit,” Leach said, the word escaping in a slow hiss of vapor.
Rafsky sneezed, and Joe glanced at him. He looked miserable.
“If I recall my local history,” Leach said, “Windigos cannibalize their victims.”
Joe nodded.
“And it begins with someone in their own tribe.”
Joe nodded again. “Ronnie Langford was almost a relative. Snider was planning to ask her to marry him and she refused because she was leaving town with another man.”
“So he killed Ronnie Langford in a jealous rage,” Leach said. “But why would he bring her body all the way up here?”
“Jean Collier told me the cabin had been in the Snider family for three generations,” Joe said.
“So he probably spent a lot of time up here as a boy,” Leach said, staring off toward the Collier cabin. “Hard to break those kinds of attachments.”
Joe started to say something, but Leach seemed preoccupied, lost in a memory she wasn’t sure he would share.
Leach let out a sigh. “I grew up here, you know, not very far from this place, in fact. I used to go off alone into the woods. I was always looking for someplace or something—I don’t know—magical. I still do it, go for walks deep into the woods alone. I figured out finally there is no magic place. Except the one in your head when you see a ray of sun breaking through the trees or watch a leaf dance in the air.”
He looked to both of them. “It can be almost a mystical experience, if you’re open to it.”
“Or if you’re very young and lonely,” Rafsky added.
“Or just plain twisted,” Joe said.
Rafsky laughed softly, then lost it in a cough.
Leach held out the book and the copies of the photographs.
“So what do you think?” Joe asked, taking them back.
“I never close my mind to anything,” Leach said. “But I want you to keep one thing in yours. No matter what we uncover, no matter what we find out he did to these girls, remember, he is just a man. He is not some fanged creature with super powers.”
Leach looked toward the cabin. “Let’s head back,” he said.
“Sheriff,” Joe said, “can I suggest something to you?”
Leach nodded.
“I don’t think we should tell Mack about the Windigo part of this,” she said. “Mack’s obsession with Annabelle Chapel is beyond normal. You know if he leaked this, it would make national news. And the mothers can’t hear something like this. Not even the suggestion of it until we know for sure.”
Leach nodded again. “All right.”
They started back to the cabin. She stayed with Leach, and Rafsky fell into step behind them. After a few feet, she heard Rafsky sneeze again. She stopped to let him catch up.
His hands were tucked into his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the wind. She untied the red scarf from around her neck and stepped back to him. He stopped abruptly, and she looped the scarf over his neck and crossed it under his chin.
“Thanks, Frye,” he said.
“You’re welcome, Rafsky.”
29
It started to snow as they made their way back to the Collier cabin. Leach had asked Joe to find Holt. She found him standing guard at the yellow tape in the driveway, and asked him to follow her to the backyard. When she moved the garbage can aside to reveal the carving, Holt’s eyes widened.
“Sheriff wants to know if you can figure out how to cut this out of the cabin wall without leaving a huge hole,” she said.
“You want to take the actual carving as evidence?” Holt asked.
“Yes. And keep it a secret.”
Holt leaned in and touched the carving.
“Holt, you hear me?” Joe said. “No one can find out about this carving being here until the sheriff tells you it’s okay. No one. That includes everyone at the station, including Mack.”
He looked at her solemnly and nodded. “I gotta go home to get the tool I need.”
“Make it quick,” she said, moving the can back in front of the carving.
Holt hustled off, and Joe turned back to the scene. The searchers had already finished with the area directly around the cabin. There were mounds of leaves, piles of displaced dirt and rocks. But the evidence boxes and bags still sat empty.
If they didn’t find something, their theory that Ken Snider started his murderous career closer to home might not hold up. Just finding the cabin and the carving and putting Snider in Petoskey was more than Adderly expected. But Adderly had told them he wanted more—bones on the cabin grounds.
A familiar laugh rose up to her left, and she turned to see Mike. He stood near the corner of the cabin, his cap tipped back on his head, his cheeks red, smile wide. There was a young girl standing next to him, and Joe’s first thought was that she shouldn’t be inside the tape, but then Joe realized it was Terry Collier.
The girl said something about David Bowie. Mike said something about Mick Jagger.
Joe thought of the photograph of the girl stretched on the hood of Mike’s cruiser. She couldn’t remember now what she had done with the picture, but she made a mental note to look for it.
“Mike,” she called.
He gave Joe a Don’t bother me look, and she called again. He pushed off the cabin and walked over to her.
“How’s the search coming?” she asked.
“They haven’t found anything but a dead raccoon.”
“How far are they into the trees?”
He shrugged. “Twenty feet or so.”
Joe didn’t hide her annoyance. “Maybe you should go keep on an eye on things, help the lieutenant out.”
He was going to say something, but he didn’t, turning on his heel and walking off toward the trees. He gave Terry a small wave as he passed and disappeared into the pack of blue jackets. He had just made it past the shed when Joe caught the chatter on a nearby radio. Something about a rope.
She broke into a run, sprinting past Mike and breaking into the trees. Ahead, she saw a trio of officers huddled near a tall tree, faces turned to the sky. She stopped and looked up.
It was about thirty feet up, maybe five feet long, tied to a heavy limb—a piece of old rope with a frayed end.
