P. Parrish - An Unquiet Grave

“I don’t even have a picture of her.”

Somewhere beyond the trees a church bell rang. It filled the silence. When it stopped, Phillip turned to him.

“Thank you, Louis,” he said.

Louis wasn’t sure what to say. Phillip didn’t wait for a reply. He turned and left the deck.

The drive back to Hidden Lake seemed longer this morning. Maybe it was the sadness of Phillip’s journey back to the Irish Hills yesterday. Or maybe it was because, more than anything right now, Louis just wanted to go home.

But he couldn’t leave things as they were. He had promised Phillip he would find out what he could. And he had promised Alice he would try to help Charlie. Right now, he didn’t feel very confident he could do either.

The gates of Hidden Lake came into view. Near the guardhouse sat two Ardmore cruisers and a midnight-blue state police car. And a few feet down the road, parked almost in a ditch, was a rusty brown Civic. A man stood next to it, shivering in a tattered suede jacket and faded jeans.

Louis pulled up to the guardhouse. A cop walked to his open window and peered in.

“No visitors today, partner,” the cop said.

Louis showed him the pass Dalum had given him Friday, but the cop shook his head. “This is three days old,” he said. “Let me make a phone call.”

Louis shoved the car into Park and got out, leaning against the front fender. His eyes drifted to the man in the suede coat, who was now walking toward him.

He looked familiar. Thin and young, with spikes of orange-tipped blond hair. He wore blue wire-rimmed sunglasses, but Louis could see his face clearly and as the man grew closer, it started to come back to him.

I’ll be damned.

It was Doug Delp, the reporter he had known up at Loon Lake a few years back. The guy was aggressive and obnoxious and Louis had almost decked him once or twice. But in the end, it had been Delp who probably kept Louis out of jail.

Delp’s step slowed suddenly and he pulled off his sunglasses, staring at Louis. When recognition settled in, he came forward quickly, sticking out a wind-chapped hand.

“Louis Kincaid,” Delp said. “What the fuck are you doing back here?”

Louis glanced down at Delp’s hand and hesitated long enough for Delp to know he had to think about shaking it before he did. Doug sniffed from the cold, jamming his hands back in his jacket pockets.

“I should ask you the same thing,” Louis said.

“I’m here checking out Rebecca Gruber’s murder,” he said. “And looking for Donald Lee Becker.”

“Becker’s dead.”

Delp grinned. “That’s what people say about Elvis.”

Louis didn’t reply, glancing back at the Ardmore cop, who was still holding his radio waiting for Chief Dalum.

“I thought they ran you out of Michigan,” Delp said.

“Well, I’m back.”

“You still in Florida?”

“Yeah.”

“Last I heard, you were a P.I. down there.”

“You heard right.”

Delp was looking at him through the blue lenses. Louis turned away from his scrutiny.

“Why you here at Hidden Lake?” Delp asked.

“None of your business.”

“Does it have anything to do with Becker?”

Louis shot Delp a look. Delp smiled. “Hey, it’s juicy stuff, man. You heard, didn’t you? They found some bones at Becker’s old farm up near Mason. He admitted killing six women, and they found all six. So that poses the question, whose bones are these new ones?”

Louis stared at him.

Delp smiled. “This is going to make a helluva final chapter for my true crime book.”

“You’re writing a book on Becker?”

“Yeah, it’s called. .” Delp raised his hands, as if he were seeing the title on a marquee. “The Grim Reaper. The True Story of the Coed-Killing Farmer.”

“Jeez, Delp,” Louis said.

“Come here. Look.”

Delp led Louis back to the Civic. Louis bent and peered in the driver’s window. The car was a mess, filled with papers and boxes. Mounted on a makeshift holder near the glove box sat five police radios, their tops glittering as the tiny red lights zipped back and forth. On the passenger seat was a cardboard box labeled D.L. Becker .

“Looks like you got everything you need,” Louis said. “Why you hanging out here?”

“I would kill for a look at Becker’s hospital file,” Delp said.

Louis shook his head. “Ain’t going to happen.”

“I would settle for some photographs of E Building and the name of Becker’s doctor.”

The Ardmore cop called to Louis, indicating he could go on through the gates.

Louis looked back at Delp. “I gotta go.”

“So you aren’t going to help me? After all I did for you?”

Louis ignored him, climbed back in the Impala, and drove through the gates. In his rearview mirror, he could see Delp huddled near his car.

Louis found Alice in her office, a small room not far down the hall from the nurse’s station where he had first encountered her last week. When she looked up at him, her eyes were circled in shadows, and her red curls looked as tired as she did.

“How was your weekend?” Louis asked.

She took a second to answer. “I had family over,” she said. “Of course they knew about Rebecca, but no one said anything. Saturday, Chief Dalum came to see me and I had to go over things again.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis said. “Is there anything I can do?”

Alice shook her head. “Nothing you’re not already doing, Mr. Kincaid.”

Alice didn’t stand up, and he didn’t want to seem pushy by asking her if they could walk to E Building right now. So he waited, his gaze moving to the window and the spiderweb of black branches against the cloudless sky.

“I have some information for you on Rebecca,” Alice said. “Do you want to sit down?”

Louis slipped into a chair, then realized he didn’t have his notebook with him. Alice was staring at him, and he hoped she hadn’t noticed how unprepared he was. His mind had been on Claudia, not Rebecca. He saw a small steno pad on the edge of the desk and picked it up. Alice waited until he had flipped it open and plucked a pen from his pocket.

“Rebecca was at work Tuesday,” Alice started. “I saw her on and off during the day up to about two. When I left before four, her car was still here in the lot.”

“Okay.”

“On Wednesday, her car was here when I arrived at nine, and I just assumed she had come in early,” Alice said. “She had been working over in C Building with the salvage crews, so not seeing her was no surprise.”

Louis looked up. “Do we know if she made it home Tuesday night?”

“She didn’t,” Alice said. “Chief Dalum told me he thinks she was abducted Tuesday afternoon and left in the woods at dawn Wednesday.”

“So someone kept her for a day,” Louis said.

Alice sighed as she nodded. “It seems that way.”

“Did the chief tell you anything else?” Louis asked. “Like how she was killed or what had happened?”

“No,” Alice said.

He would have to get that himself. He suspected Rebecca’s death had been horrific, and that Dalum hadn’t felt comfortable sharing that with Alice.

“Tell me about Rebecca’s family,” Louis said.

“She had a son, living with his father down South somewhere. No current boyfriends or angry exes.”

“Have you talked to Charlie?” Louis asked.

“No,” Alice said. “The chief won’t let me. I’m sure he’s scared to death in there. How long can they hold him without charging him, Mr. Kincaid?”

Louis gave a shrug. “Forty-eight hours usually, but in a small town, if no lawyer steps for ward. . well, the chief can end up calling it all sorts of things. Even protective custody.”