Mindy Mejia - Leave No Trace

‘I told the police I didn’t know it was him until they started showing their pictures on the news. Josiah came in a few times a year, and he didn’t look any different than most people exiting the Boundary Waters. No one would have noticed him in town. You can’t throw a rock around here in the summer and not hit a guy wearing a backpack. He always said he was stocking up for next year and always paid cash. Rations, lures, clothes, and I only remembered him because he cut the tags off everything and packed it up right in the store.’ He swallowed. ‘That’s what I told the police.’

I set my cup down. ‘I’m not the police.’

Robert looked out the window, where the Keep Blackthorn in Jail sign was posted across the street. ‘I met Josiah Blackthorn when he and his boy moved to town. He bought a secondhand canoe off me and started coming in regularly after that. Not a big conversationalist, always had his son in tow, but we talked paddle and portage routes, fishing spots, all the regular stuff. Then one day he came in by himself and something was different. He asked to speak to me privately and I brought him up here. He was sitting right where you are now and I noticed… I noticed dirt on his clothes and under his fingernails. It was early in the season – the ground hadn’t even thawed yet – and I remember wondering how he could’ve gotten all that dirt on him.

‘He said he and his son were moving, leaving town, but he wanted to keep buying his camping supplies from me. He gave me a list of items and two dates. April first and October first.’

‘And you agreed.’

He nodded. ‘I knew right away when I looked at the list. Preppers and survivalists are good customers for outfitters. I figured the Blackthorns were going off the grid somewhere and true to his word, he came in like clockwork twice a year after that, right up until this fall. He didn’t show up this October first and I was worried, wondering if I should do something. I’d given him…’ Robert covered his mouth, as if trying to keep the coffee from coming back up. ‘I always gave him my card when he came in, and I told him if he or his son ever needed anything, they knew where to find me.’

The words trailed off and a storm of emotion worked over his face, pumping the scars on his temple with fresh blood.

Robert sold me Josiah’s unclaimed supplies, which I packed into the car along with the rest of the gear. I was fitting the last of the boxes in the trunk when a vintage Chevy drove by, the rasping putt-putt noise unmistakable, and I lifted my head in time to see the driver stop in the middle of a left turn. His hunched frame swiveled in the window and we stared at each other, neither making a move. Before I could decide on a reaction, an oncoming car honked its horn and the driver stepped on the gas, pulling onto the side street.

Slamming the trunk, I walked straight to the police station a few blocks away. I had the business card Officer Miller had given me along with Josiah’s arrest records, but I didn’t need to look at it when the desk sergeant asked who I wanted to see.

‘Sergeant Coombe, please.’

It took fifteen minutes for the guy to waddle out into the waiting area and when he spotted me, his eyebrows shot up to underline the furrows in his forehead. Waving me back, we went to a messy office littered with empty vending machine wrappers and enough stacks of paper to suggest he thought the computer age was a giant hoax.

I unfolded a piece of paper from my backpack and set it on top of one of the stacks. Heather Price’s creased face smiled up at both of us.

When he saw it, he gave a shocked laugh and leaned so far back in his chair the hinges shrieked. Then he crossed his arms and looked me up and down, as if checking for weapons. The last time he’d done that, he’d had to take a bloody agate out of my hand, so he probably assumed anything was possible when it came to me.

‘Heard you ended up at a mental hospital. How’d that work out?’

I shrugged. ‘I’m still kind of there.’

‘Better there than here. Especially when you seem to have a thing for dead bodies.’ He grunted and nodded at the picture. ‘Officer Miller, huh? I was wondering about that request when it came through.’

I got down to it, giving Sergeant Coombe a slightly different pitch than what had worked with Robert Anderson. Instead of victim solidarity, I went for the unsolved case angle, but I’d barely outlined the situation before he was in stitches.

‘ You’re his shrink?’ He couldn’t stop laughing and, in all honesty, the man had a point.

‘I’m trying to figure out what drove them into the Boundary Waters in the first place.’

After wiping his eyes with a napkin, he wadded it up and overhanded it into the waste basket. ‘Never thought they stuck around. Frankly, I was shocked as shit when your boy turned up here. Back when those two went missing, I assumed they hightailed it to ­Canada.’

‘Why Canada, then? What were they running from?’

He nodded to the paper. ‘You already filled in your own blank.’

‘The medical examiner’s report said she died of a heroin overdose.’

He rifled through a drawer and pulled out a few packets of Cheetos, offering one to me. I happily dug in as he took me through the finer points of the autopsy with a mouthful of orange mush. Heather’s body had shown evidence of chronic heroin use including scar tissue on her veins, abscesses on her lungs, and even tissue death in her heart.

‘Her heart was dying?’ I scooped up the last of the Cheetos crumbs. ‘That doesn’t sound like Josiah’s fault.’

‘No,’ he licked his fingers, ‘but listen to this.’

The heroin hadn’t actually killed Heather, not by itself. The medical examiner also found a contusion on her brain. Somehow, she’d received a blow to the head before she died and the pain-­inhibitors in the drug prevented her from getting help before a blood clot formed.

‘So she fell and hit her head?’ I asked.

‘Maybe. Or something – or someone – hit her.’

Someone with a history of violence. I carefully folded the empty Cheetos bag and laid it on the desk. ‘Why did you close the case? Why was it ruled an overdose?’

He tossed his own bag and wiped his fingers on another napkin. ‘Believe you me, I searched that scene for any evidence of wrongful death. We couldn’t come up with anything and according to the medical examiner, the drugs and the contusion were kind of a chicken and egg thing. We found her dealer and he confirmed she bought and shot alone, so my chief closed the case.’

I picked up Heather’s picture. ‘What do you think happened?’

‘Why, you know something about it?’ His voice changed; it became threaded with that universal flint edge handed out to every cop along with their gun and badge. My pulse reacted, but I smiled as I deliberately folded the paper and slipped it back in my backpack.

‘Back then I was still learning how to pick locks in Lincoln Park.’

He shook his head. ‘Well it’s probably good you ended up where you did… and lucky for Josiah Blackthorn he ended up wherever he did.’

‘Why do you say that?’

His lips thinned out. ‘Cops are pretty fair psychologists, too. I don’t know exactly what happened to Heather Price, but I do know Josiah Blackthorn was hiding something.’

The Cheetos had sucked all the moisture out of my mouth. Clearing my throat, I thanked Sergeant Coombe for his time and got up to go, but he stopped me, making me wait while he left his office – to do what? Get a tape recorder? Another officer? I wasn’t at liberty to reveal anything Lucas had told me, but maybe he could see it in my eyes. A body – Heather Price’s body – draped over Josiah’s shoulder. I checked my phone and thought about leaving before he could come back, but as I moved toward the door he appeared again, handing me a box that looked like it held files. I set it on the desk, lifting the lid.