An Unsettled Grave Page 6

  A school photograph of Hope Pugh.

  CHAPTER 7

  Carrie squatted down to pick up the safe with both hands, straining to lift it. Auburn reached to help her but she said, “I’ve got it.”

  Auburn moved to help her navigate her way toward the steps. He winced when her leg crashed into a box of tools, sending them scattering. “Why don’t we put everything inside one of these boxes?” he asked.

  “I’m good,” she said, clenching her teeth. “Every envelope and bag in here is rotted and was never properly sealed. If we try moving it around in this basement, we could contaminate any piece of evidence that’s left. Better to leave the whole thing intact.”

  “Do you want me to at least get it in your car?” he said, watching her mount the steps.

  “It’s not that heavy,” she grunted.

  * * *

  Carrie heaved the safe up the stairs to her hotel room, moving it two steps at a time. She dropped it on every second step, slid it, gripped it by its edges, cursed as she lifted it, and dropped it again. At the bottom of the steps, the painted-face clerk stormed out of the front office, shouting, “What the hell is all that noise?”

  Carrie cursed under her breath. She felt the bones in her spine compress as she shoved the safe over the top step and braced herself against it, trying to catch her breath. Once it was flat, she was able to push it across the worn carpet all the way to her room.

  She plowed the safe across her hotel room, crashing it against the bed frame and chipping the cheap dresser, but it didn’t matter, it was chipped in other places already. She got the safe under the table at the far end of the room and collapsed over it, resting her arms on its cool surface.

  The lid squeaked as she pried it open, forcing it back on its bent hinges, until it was left hanging at an odd angle over the back of the frame like a dead animal’s protruding tongue. From the floor next to her, she grabbed her bag, a tactical model made from sturdy nylon with multiple pockets, and undid the first one. A tangled mass of black rubber gloves spilled out. She picked out a pair and pulled them onto her hands.

  She bent over the safe and sifted through its contents, assessing what was inside before she removed any of it. Several folders contained photographs and newspaper clippings. One held documents on official letterhead from the FBI and State Police, another was stuffed with handwritten notes torn out of a spiral pad.

  Last was a large paper bag marked Evidence. There were no long-form investigative reports of any kind. No evidence forms. No chain of custody for anything. She took a photograph of the inside of the safe with her cell phone, pulled out a notepad and pen, and set them on the table.

  Item: CS-1, she wrote. File folder containing various photographs.

  She lifted the manila folder and laid it carefully on the table. Some of the photographs were stuck together. She did her best to pull them apart without tearing them. For the ones that couldn’t be pulled apart, she bent and folded them as much as she could, trying to see what they contained, then let them be.

  CS-1-A. School photo. Someone had written Hope 5th Grade 1981 on the back. The smiling little girl’s wild red hair was frizzy and pulled back. Her mother had applied some sort of straightener, but the girl’s natural curls were too strong to be contained. Her eyes sparkled. Alert. Fierce. Intelligent.

  Hope Pugh would be dead soon after the photo was taken, Carrie thought. Son of a bitch.

  CS-1-B. An 8 x 10 black-and-white photograph of the front of the Pugh house. Carrie looked at the photograph, realizing it was the same place she’d been to earlier that day, and that it had been much better kept back then.

  The next group of photographs showed the home’s interior, including multiple pictures of Hope’s bedroom, the basement, and backyard. Carrie remembered what Mr. Pugh had said about the investigator going over the house with a fine-tooth comb, thinking Hope might be hiding there. She found photographs of Mr. Pugh’s tool shed and workbench, including close-ups of his tools, focusing on his saws and shovels. The cop didn’t think she was hiding there, Carrie thought. He was making sure she wasn’t cut up and buried there.

  The first place to check in any missing child investigation was the house. Kids were always falling asleep in a crawl space or some closet or attic, getting into places adults never expected them to. The cop, whoever he was, had been smart not to let on that he suspected the parents. It was much easier to search someone’s house with their permission than it was to get a search warrant.

  She pulled out the last photo and laid it on the table. It didn’t belong with any of the others. It was taken outside, at night, but wasn’t in the Pugh backyard. It had way too many trees. It looked like some kind of makeshift campground out in the woods.

  In the background stood an old brick fire chimney and stove, the basin filled with burnt sticks. Spread out in front of the stove was a blanket, with a few scattered leaves blown across it. Two things caught Carrie’s eye. An overturned stuffed bear lay in the center of the blanket, and on the lower-right corner, what looked like a child’s sock. It was dirty, but the smiling face of a cartoon character was visible, printed across the top.

  She dropped each of the photographs into its own plastic bag, wrote their new numbers on the surface of the bag in marker, and set them aside. She reached back into the safe and unrolled the large paper shopping bag marked evidence, shaking loose decades of dirt that had dried to it sides. The bag wasn’t sealed. She peeled it open, peering down at the contents, scowling at the intense stink of mildew.

  Inside was a blanket, likely the same one in the last photograph, but covered in mold from years of storage inside the police station’s damp basement. She lifted the fabric, keeping it far from her face, and laid it on the table. She picked at the blanket’s edges with the tips of her fingers. Dead bugs and dirt were embedded inside each fold. Something was buried inside the blanket. She could feel it through the fabric. Its plastic wrapping crinkled each time she pulled another layer away.

  As she undid the last flap, she found what was buried there, hidden away inside a yellowing plastic bag that had been stapled multiple times. She picked up her cell phone and took a picture. It was the same stuffed bear and child’s sock from the photograph, perfectly preserved. The sock was light blue. Thick. Meant to be worn under boots in the cold weather.

  Carrie reached into her left pocket for the knife she kept clipped there. She flicked the karambit’s curved blade open with one hand, feeling the warmth of its metal handle in her palm. The weapon was designed to resemble a bird’s talon. It was never intended to do anything but rend human flesh.

  She’d inherited the blade from Jacob Rein and, like him, had put it to use against a man who preyed on the innocent.

  Carrie used the karambit’s razor-sharp point of the talon to slice the plastic bag open along the side. She slid the stuffed bear out of the bag and laid it on the blanket, then removed the sock and spread it out, placing it exactly as it appeared in the photograph.

  She pulled off the gloves and scratched behind her ear, then ran her fingers up and down the back of her head, feeling the lengths of her hair sliding between them, staring at the items spread out in front of her, then back at the photograph. It was all an enormous puzzle. She wasn’t sure she had all the pieces and had no real idea of what the finished picture was supposed to look like.

  She put on a fresh pair of gloves, picked up the folder filled with handwritten notes, and spread them all out across the floor in front of her bed. Some of the notes were crumpled and stuck together, many with just names and phone numbers and no explanation. She sifted through them, making a stack of the useless ones, and a much smaller stack of the ones with any kind of narrative.

  Spoke to neighbors. No one saw anything.

  February 14th—Spoke to school Principal. No concerns with parents. Hope never spoke about running away. No distant relatives.

  A phone number, with the words Speak to pediatrician when he gets back from vacation.


  She came to the last handwritten note and stopped. It was folded in half and had mud smeared around the edges. February 14th—Found kid’s hiding spot. Collected blanket, sock, stuffed bear. Found knife.

  Knife? Carrie thought. She went back to the table and raised the corners of the blanket, making sure nothing was stuck to the underside. She looked down into the safe. The hotel light was dim and the remaining files had spilled their contents. She scooped them up and set them on the carpet, then tilted the safe to get a better view inside its dark belly. Something rattled when she moved it. Carrie reached in and found a filthy plastic bag, rolled up long and thin.

  “Come on,” she whispered as she peeled the bag open.

  It was a switchblade handle, long and thin, and caked with dirt. The blade was still seated inside. It had rusted in places, but when she pressed the small silver button to click it open, the stiletto’s steel flicked outward, bright and clean.

  She walked the knife over to the lamp and held it directly beneath the bulb, leaning so close she could feel its heat on the tip of her nose.

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered. There, on the polished surface of the blade, were the faded ridges and whorls of a fingerprint.

  She set the switchblade down and photographed it, then marked and numbered it in her notebook.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time she pulled out of the motel’s driveway and got back on the main road. She turned onto the main road and saw it was called Auburn Street. The lights of the stores that were still open made the town look more alive than it had in the daytime. People strolled along the sidewalks. She smelled pipe tobacco, sweet and rich, and a man holding a long-stemmed hickory pipe nodded to her as she slowed to let him cross the street in front of her car. He took his time in the road, not worried about oncoming traffic. It wasn’t the kind of place where anyone moved fast.

  Carrie checked her phone and saw two missed calls. Her first thought was that Nubs had finished her bath and tried to call her back before getting ready for bed. Instead, the calls were from an unknown number with no way to call back, and no message left.

  The only people who used unlisted numbers were telemarketers and bill collectors. I’m lonely, she thought, but not lonely enough to talk to the likes of you.

  It was after eight P.M. She pictured Nubs snuggled in her pajamas, surrounded by the dozens of stuffed animals Carrie had bought for her over the past year, warm and safe in bed. She was about to text, “You still awake, kiddo?” but stopped. If Nubs is in bed it would be selfish to interrupt that, she thought. No matter how much I could use another “I love you too” text right about now.

  She slowed down as she drove past the Liston-Patterson police station. The lights were off again. “Stupid small-ass town!” she said, smacking the steering wheel in frustration.

  The phone rang again. Another unlisted number. She put it to her ear and said, “Detective Santero. This is a police phone, and I swear to God if you’re bothering me in the middle of an investigation just to sell me a warranty on my car or some bullshit, I’m going to come find you and rip out your eyeballs.”

  A pause on the other end, and then a familiar man’s voice said, “That seems excessive.”

  “Rein?” Carrie asked. “Oh, thank God. I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere out here and there’s no one at the station. This place is total hicksville. The goddamn motel lady thinks I’m a hooker, and—”

  “Carrie?” Rein said.

  “What?”

  “Be quiet. I don’t have much time.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Phone minutes are expensive, and I only have a few,” he said. “The body that they found, have they identified it yet?”

  “Almost,” Carrie said. “Everyone seems to think it’s from this little girl that went missing almost forty years ago. Hope something.”

  “Hope Pugh,” Rein said.

  “Right. Jesus, you’re like Wikipedia for old criminal cases or something.”

  “Do the police still have any evidence?”

  “Some. It was never packaged properly and isn’t in great shape. I found one thing, though. An old switchblade that I might be able to get prints off of,” she said. She raised a clenched fist in the air and shook it, saying, “Except the goddamn police station is closed and I don’t even know if I have any powder.”

  “I wouldn’t put powder on it if it’s that old,” Rein said. “The oils forming the print might be too degraded to bond anymore, and you’ll ruin it. I wouldn’t put any powder on it if it’s that old until it’s been glued.”

  “Oh sure, yeah,” Carrie said. “That’s great, except if I don’t have powder, do you honestly think I have cyro . . . sierra . . .”

  “Cyanoacrylate.”

  “Whatever! Cyrano de Bergerac, for all it matters, because I don’t have any. No glue. No fuming chamber. No nothing.”

  “So make one,” he said.

  “Make one?” she asked.

  “That’s what a real detective would do.”

  * * *

  Carrie made it to the hardware store just as the elderly owner was opening the register to do his final count for the night. He had yellow, stained-looking hair smeared back across the top of his head, and his baggy plaid shirt bunched at the shoulders under the straps from his overalls. “We’re closed,” he said.

  “I need five minutes,” Carrie said, pressing her hands together. “Please. I just need a few quick things, and I am spending money that doesn’t belong to me, so I don’t care what it costs. Please?”

  He frowned and looked at the clock. He slapped the register shut and said, “I’ll clean up while you look around, but don’t dillydally, young lady. I’ve got a date tonight.” He shuffled behind her and locked the door, flipped the sign around that said CLOSED, and waved her on. Carrie thanked him and hurried down the first aisle. She headed straight for the shelf displaying all kinds of tapes and superglue. She picked the strongest of both she could find, and bought several of them. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

  “What now?” the owner said, looking up at her from his broom. He cupped his left hand behind his ear and leaned toward her.

  “Your hot date. Your wife?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, going back to sweeping. “She passed on more than ten years ago. It’s one of the ladies from church. Mary, with red hair.”

  Carrie raised her eyebrows, impressed. She went farther down the aisle, looking through a display of flat cardboard that could be shaped into boxes, trying to figure out how big they’d be when assembled. She grabbed four of different sizes to be safe.

  “Wait, hang on,” the owner said, resting the broom against his shoulder. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn black book that was secured by a rubber band. He pulled off the rubber band and flipped through the pages, licking his thumb each time he turned a page, and shook his head as he read the last thing he’d written. “Wilma. She wears a wig. She’s from the bowling alley. Mary with the red hair is tomorrow night.”

  Carrie laughed, carrying the boxes and other supplies up to the counter and setting them down.

  The old man eyed her. “How many nights are you in town for?”

  “Just a few. I’m working on something.”

  “You like pinochle? I play in a league and we might have an open seat tomorrow night.”

  “I thought you had a date with Mary?”

  He flashed a smile, more gum than tooth. “You just let me worry about that.”

  Carrie laughed again, heading down the next aisle. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time, mister, but I’m afraid I don’t have time to socialize.”

  “Well, if something falls through, keep me in mind. I can show you around town.”

  She went past the hammers and mallets and screwdrivers, around the boxes of nails and screws of varying sizes and colors. Bins along the bottom of the shelves held piles of loose nails, under a handwritten sign marked USED NAILS�
��NICKLE A PEACE.

  Lunchboxes and thermoses and lawn chairs were stacked along the back wall, along with ziplock baggies and other things a working man would need on a job site. Carrie grabbed a large roll of aluminum foil and searched until she found an electric coffee warmer, the kind that plugged in and was nothing more than a flat disc you could set your mug on to keep it hot on a cold day.

  She checked the list she’d written on her phone of the items Rein said she would need. I hope that’s everything, she thought. She carried the last items to the counter and set them down in front of the register.

  The owner started tallying them up, writing in a notepad with a sharpened carpenter’s pencil. “What do you need all this stuff for?”

  “I’m doing a science project,” Carrie said.

  She reached for her wallet in her back right pocket and the owner’s eyes snapped toward the black Glock holstered on her hip. She pulled out her wallet and covered the gun with her coat, then offered a county credit card.

  He took it. “You a police officer?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m afraid I have to revoke my invitation, then. I can’t date any more police officers. Not after the last one. You all are too crazy.”

  Carrie touched her heart over her jacket. “I’m hurt, but I understand.”

  He laid the credit card in an old-fashioned carbon paper press and wrapped his hand around the machine’s lever. “You sure you got everything, right? Once I pull this, I’m closing up.”

  Carrie turned, looking around the store once more. She had everything she needed for the fuming chamber. The only other thing would be to try and process the blanket, sock, and stuffed bear, but she hadn’t seen anything on the shelves remotely close to what she needed to do that. “That should be everything,” she said, adding, “unless you have any luminol or an ALS.”

  “What’s luminol?”

  “Chemical treatment you spray on fabric to reveal old bloodstains.” She waved the idea away. “Not important.”