Cold Woods Read online

  “Two weeks ago, Thursday. So that was what, December fourth, I think.”

  “And where is your husband employed? Has he been to work in the last two weeks?” Ostrich Legs asked.

  “He works at Cal’s Carpet and Flooring. He works in the back warehouse. But they called two days ago looking for him. I’m supposed to tell him not to show up for work no more.” Her voice cracked. “So you see, he hasn’t been to work either. Nobody’s seen him. It’s not like him to be gone for more than a couple days.”

  The shifty cop spotted Trisha hiding in the shadows in the corner of the dining room, said nothing.

  Her mother continued. “I talked to someone, I can’t remember who, about reporting this when he didn’t show up after the first week.” She lit another cigarette. “They told me there was nothing anybody could do, unless there was a crime or something.”

  “Was there a crime?” The shifty cop pinned his eyes first on her mother before sliding them to Trisha, his gaze like seaweed, slippery and slimy on her skin.

  “No,” her mother said. “He just hasn’t come home.”

  Ostrich Legs closed his notepad. “We’ll ask around, see if anyone knows where he is.” He rested his hand on his gun belt. “If he doesn’t turn up and you’re still worried, you can file a missing persons report down at the station.”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” her mother said. “I’m filing a report.” There was an edge to her tone.

  “I understand you’re upset, ma’am. And if it were a minor missing, we’d get on it right away. But adults are free to come and go. Why don’t you give him a couple more days?”

  “You think he ran out on me.” Her mother inhaled, then blew the smoke in the direction of Shifty Cop’s face.

  Shifty Cop stepped toward her mother. “It happens all the time, ma’am. And we can’t chase after every husband who skips town. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Yeah—you think he left me.” Her voice pitched higher.

  Trisha stepped out from the shadows. “He wouldn’t be the first,” she said. All eyes turned to her. If she could get them to believe Lester had taken off of his own accord, they wouldn’t go looking for him. “Lester, I mean. He’s not the first husband to skip out on her.” Trisha’s father had walked out on Trisha’s mother more than once. It wasn’t until he’d landed in prison that they’d split permanently.

  Her mother shot her a look.

  Another call came in on Ostrich Leg’s radio. He responded that they were on their way and strode toward the door. “We’ll file a report,” he said, shrugging at Shifty Cop like they didn’t have a choice. “We’ll check around and see what we can find out.” They headed out, hopped in their cruiser.

  Trisha watched the flashing lights as they raced down Second Street. Once they were out of sight, she walked out the front door. Her mother didn’t try to stop her.

  Trisha found Carlyn lying on her bed with an open book in front of her. Christmas was in six days. On top of Carlyn’s nightstand sat a miniature Christmas tree with red balls and cheap tinsel. A real tree, a Douglas fir, was downstairs in the living room. Even Mrs. Walsh had been acting funny the last few weeks, trying to get them into the holiday spirit when she’d never cared about Christmas before. She’d even offered to buy a tree for Trisha’s mother. Maybe it was an attempt to cheer her up since Lester had disappeared. Her mother hadn’t accepted the offer. Although she had hung the wreath on the door and strung the bright lights around the porch posts, but that had been done before Lester had made his great escape.

  Mrs. Walsh wasn’t home. She was at the hospital working another shift. Carlyn was alone, studying.

  Trisha leaned against the doorjamb. She cleared her throat to get Carlyn’s attention. Every conversation she’d had with Carlyn in the last two weeks had been abrupt, awkward.

  “What do you want?” Carlyn asked.

  Trisha entered the room and sat on the bed, moved a strand of hair out of Carlyn’s eyes.

  Carlyn smacked her hand away.

  Trisha was stunned. She’d never hit her before. “Why’d you do that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Carlyn said and kept her eyes on the book in front of her.

  “What did I do?” she asked.

  “I would’ve gone with you to the trail, because we’re friends. You didn’t have to, you know, lead me on.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Stop toying with me, Trisha. I’m not some kind of experiment you can try and then just walk away from when you don’t like the results.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Forget it.” Carlyn slammed her book shut. She wiped her eyes. “Why are you here, anyway?”

  “The cops were at my house,” Trisha said. “We have to get our story straight.”

  “Fine.” She swiped her cheek. “What do you want me to say?”

  “That I slept at your house on Wednesday night, December third. We went to school on Thursday. We were here on Thursday night, the whole night during the blizzard. We were out sledding the next day when school was canceled.” This way Trisha was covered. She was never alone, never in the woods, didn’t do what she’d done. She’d have witnesses, an alibi.

  “What about Dannie?” Carlyn asked.

  “Dannie was with us the entire time.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, that’s what you’ll tell them?”

  “Sure, why not. Although, you weren’t in school on Thursday. And Dannie wasn’t with us Wednesday night. It was just you and me in my room, alone.”

  Oh, now she understood what Carlyn had meant earlier, why she was upset. Trisha had slept in Carlyn’s bed, she’d kissed her, touched her in places she never had before. She’d forgotten. She’d pushed so many thoughts, images, out of her mind, she wasn’t sure anymore what had happened and which order they’d happened in. Her lies had become truth. The truth had become lies. It all made sense now. “Of course I remember being here with you,” she said.

  “Do I mean anything to you?” Carlyn’s lashes were wet with tears. “Or am I just a game to you? Something you tried and didn’t like?”

  The easy thing for Trisha to do right now would be to lie. Lying came naturally. But no matter how badly she wanted to tell Carlyn that it had meant a great deal to her that they were more than friends, she couldn’t. She couldn’t because what she realized was that she cared for Carlyn more than she’d ever cared for anyone in her life. She’d do anything for her, and that included not lying to her. She loved her, but not in the way Carlyn wanted her to.

  “Well?” Carlyn asked.

  “I . . .” Trisha searched for the right words.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “That’s it? You’re sorry?” Carlyn wiped the tears spilling onto her cheeks.

  Trisha reached for her.

  “Just leave,” Carlyn said and moved away. “Please. Just leave me alone.”

  Trisha hesitated. She couldn’t think of what to do, what she could say, to ease her friend’s pain. Maybe the best thing she could do was what Carlyn had asked of her.

  She left.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Parker leaned forward, his forearms resting on the small table between him and Scott, giving Scott his full attention.

  “Look,” Scott said, appearing extremely uncomfortable for the first time during the interview. “I can’t say one hundred percent I know what S. S. stands for, but I have a pretty good idea.”

  “What do you think it stands for?” Parker asked.

  “‘Slate Sisters,’” Scott said. “It sounds kind of stupid now, but it was a friendship club—you know, the kind you make up when you’re kids.”

  “Who was in this friendship club?” Geena asked before Parker could.

  “Trisha Haines, Carlyn Walsh, Danielle Teagan—or Dannie’s married name now is Torino, I believe.”

  “Any other members in this club t
hat you know of?” Parker asked. Geena took notes.

  “No, it was always just the three of them.”

  “Do you know who carved the initials on it?” Parker asked.

  “I assume Trisha, although I didn’t see her do it. But she’s the one who stole it. As far as I know, she kept it with her in her house.” He paused. He looked as though he was going to say something else but then changed his mind.

  “We found the bat next to Lester’s remains,” Parker said. “We believe it’s the weapon that struck him in the head and killed him.”

  Scott stared at Parker.

  “What?” Parker asked.

  “It’s just . . . I was reluctant to say anything earlier because I don’t have any proof, but I believe Lester used to hit Trisha’s mother,” Scott said.

  Parker nodded. “We have records of a couple domestic complaints from the neighbors. Sharon never pressed charges.”

  Scott ran both his hands through his hair this time, exposing more gray strands underneath. “I think Lester abused Trisha too,” he said.

  “Abused her how?” Geena asked.

  “I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t know how far it went. I saw bruises on her arms.”

  “Did she ever tell you Lester hit her?” Parker asked.

  “No. She wouldn’t talk about it with me, but one time I asked her straight out. She didn’t confirm it, but she didn’t deny it either.”

  “What did she do?”

  “For one, she stole the bat from gym class. I got the impression she wanted it to protect herself.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She cried.” Scott got up, paced the small room. “I always suspected it was so much worse than she ever let on. But I was a kid. I wasn’t sure what to do. I wanted to help her. And then . . .”

  “And then what?” Parker asked.

  Scott hesitated. “And then Lester was gone, and I admit a part of me was glad. We all know the system isn’t as effective as it should be in these types of cases. I was happy he was gone, and she wouldn’t be thrown into the system. I don’t think I understood that at the time, but as I got older, I did.”

  “How did she act after Lester disappeared?” Parker asked.

  “What? Do you mean did she act guilty?” Scott asked. “No, but she wasn’t the same. She stopped hanging out with her friends. She wouldn’t talk to me. She was, I don’t know, distant,” he said. “After a while, I gave up trying. I guess we all did.”

  “Meaning?”

  “By the end of our senior year, none of us hung out together anymore. And then I heard Carlyn went off to college. Dannie got married. I enlisted.”

  “Where did Trisha go?”

  “I have no idea,” Scott said.

  Parker nodded. Trisha had gone to Vegas, as far as he could tell, and that was where she’d stayed.

  “One more question before you go,” Geena said. “We found Lester’s remains near the Appalachian Trail.” She pulled out the photo of the trail for Scott to see. “Does this look familiar to you?” She slid it across the table to him.

  Scott picked it up, looked at it. “Sort of,” he said. “We used to hang out on the mountain doing stupid kid stuff: drinking, smoking. We had a spot where we would sit on this big rock underneath this tree with Kilroy was here carved on the trunk.”

  Geena passed Scott the photo with the Kilroy tree.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Scott said and handed the photo back to her. “That’s the tree.”

  For what seemed like the hundredth time, Parker and Geena exchanged a look.

  “He was found about five yards away,” Parker said.

  After Scott left, Parker and Geena went through their notes.

  “Here’s what we know,” Parker said. “Trisha stole a softball bat from the school gym. The same kind of bat found near Lester’s remains and believed to be the murder weapon. At some point after stealing said bat, she carved into the aluminum the letters S. S. with a heart around it: a symbol of a friendship club she belonged to with her two best friends, Carlyn and Danielle.”

  Geena checked off the points in her notebook.

  Parker continued. “Scott confirmed they used to hang out on the trail not far from where Lester was found. And if Lester was abusing Trisha, then she also had a motive for wanting him dead.”

  “Sounds about right,” Geena said. “Let’s say Trisha is our lead suspect. How does she end up with the bat and Lester in the woods?”

  Parker gave it some thought. “What about this. One day in December, Trisha and her friends are hanging out on the trail. She brings the bat with her for what purpose?”

  “Maybe they’re afraid of bumping into a bear or some other animal, like Sharon was going on about, and they bring the bat with them for protection,” Geena said. “But instead of a bear, Lester shows up. They argue. She hits him with it.”

  “Okay. And then Carlyn and Danielle lie for her,” Parker said, recalling his conversation with Carlyn. He wasn’t totally convinced she’d been honest with him, and now it seemed likely that she’d recognized the bat and lied about it. Maybe she was lying about other things as well.

  Geena added, “What if Trisha lured Lester to the woods with the intention of killing him, and her plan worked? Then she wouldn’t need to rely on her friends to keep her secret. Otherwise, it seems like a pretty big favor to ask of your friends.”

  Parker scratched his chin. “Who else do we know had access to the bat?”

  “Sharon, for one. And Cal, if he was in fact hanging out at Sharon’s house. I suppose Trisha’s friends could’ve had access to it. I think we can rule out Scott. He never went to the house.”

  “What did he say again?” Parker checked Geena’s notes. He noticed she didn’t need to refer to them, not even once.

  “Scott said that Trisha kept the bat in her house. For protection,” Geena said. “As far as motive, we’ve got Sharon and Trisha, possibly Cal,” she said. “They all had the strongest motive for wanting him dead.”

  “Right. But what would Sharon or Cal be doing in the woods? Neither one of them would have a reason to be there,” Parker said. “The body wasn’t moved, so that makes the woods our crime scene.”

  “And whoever did it buried him. Otherwise, if kids hung out there all the time, someone would’ve found him a long time ago,” Geena said.

  “Someone definitely buried him—deep enough that the animals hadn’t even dug him out.”

  “We need to check on those weather reports,” Geena said. “It’d be awfully hard to dig with a foot of snow on the ground.”

  “Near impossible,” Parker said. “Who do you think is our main suspect?”

  “Based on what Scott told us, I think it’s Trisha. It was her bat, her hangout on the trail, her stepfather.”

  “I agree. Let’s bring her in for a chat, and we’ll go from there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  At her mother’s request, Trisha carried up the box full of Christmas decorations from the basement. She set it on the floor next to the tattered couch in the living room. The foam from the cushion crumbled onto the worn carpet. Her mother came up behind her, handed her a beer.

  “Cheers,” Trisha said after pulling off the tab. She took a long swallow. “I’m going to buy you a new sofa,” she blurted, wondered where that had come from. Why was she feeling so generous all of a sudden?

  “You got some money off that no-good husband of yours?” her mother asked.

  “Yeah, I got some money off him.” More than some. She wasn’t the only one who had talked too much when intoxicated. She’d listened, learned, skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars from his winnings and assorted businesses through the years. The cash she’d lifted was hidden, locked away in a safe-deposit box in a bank. She was the sole proprietor.

  She’d earned it.

  Her mother laughed. “Well, at least you got something for it.”

  Trisha opened the box of decorations. The wreath she remembered from her teen yea
rs was on top. It looked a little shabby, but after she straightened the red bow, blew the dust off the plastic needles, it was decent enough to hang on the door.

  “Where’s the hook for this?” she asked and searched through the box, found strings of blinking white lights, a tree skirt, a star.

  “Here.” Her mother turned the wreath over. The hook was taped to the back. “So I wouldn’t lose it.”

  “Clever.” Trisha opened the door. She noticed a police cruiser was parked down the street. Scott got out of the car.

  “Great,” she mumbled and hung the wreath on the front door while Scott made his way up the narrow path of the sidewalk. The snow was piled high on either side of him, but his dark-blue uniform was hard to miss against the white backdrop. He crossed the street and stopped in front of her house; he saw her standing on the other side of the storm door looking out at him. She stepped onto the porch, met him halfway.

  Trisha’s mother joined them.

  “Mrs. Haines,” Scott said, nodding hello.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Scott.” She handed Trisha her winter coat with the faux fur–lined hood along with a string of blinking lights. She gave Scott the rest of the strings of lights. “Well,” she said. “I’ll let you two catch up.” She went back into the house.

  Trisha pulled the coat on. “I guess you’re helping me,” she said, motioning to the lights, and started wrapping a string around the porch post. Her ribs ached when she raised her arm.

  Scott leaned against the railing. She hadn’t gotten a good look at him the other night when he’d given her a ride home from the bar. It had been dark. She’d been drunk. But in the daylight, she could see him clearly. He’d aged well. The gray flecks in his sideburns, the lines by his eyes, made him more handsome than she’d remembered. She bet underneath that uniform was a body that was slapped together with nothing but muscle. He even smelled good: some kind of aftershave she couldn’t place. It had to be a brand you’d buy at a local drugstore. He wasn’t the type of guy who would drop a couple of hundred dollars on designer cologne.