Page 84 of Snow Creek

“Hi Detective, it’s Marley again,”says a familiar voice.“Got some info for you. It’s good stuff too.”

I can tell right now he’s of theCSITV generation; you find them stuck in the mundane environment of a crime lab, thinking it would be all nonstop fun—kicked off by an anthemic, bombastic cut byThe Who.

“I’m all ears,” I say.

“Okay. Good. Well here’s where we are: The hammer had on it the blood of three different people: we’re thinking three victims; two female and one male. The hair and also one blood sample is a match for our victim, Mrs. Wheaton. The other two aren’t in the system, but the female victim’s DNA ladders back to both the male and Mrs. Wheaton. The only other tool found on the property that had any blood was a shovel. Again Mrs. Wheaton.”

I take it in.

“Crazy, right?”

“I guess you could call it that. Same with the spatter?”

“Right. All three victims’ blood is present.”

“Thanks, Marley. Send the report.”

I don’t even wait until we are all the way out the door.

“Three victims, crime lab says,” I say as we jump in his car.

Sheriff gives me a puzzled look.

“What do you make of that?”

I pull the door shut and buckle up. “Sarah,” I tell him. “She might actually be a Seattle girl named Ellie Burbank.”

He’s all ears on the drive out to Snow Creek. I tell him that Ellie, in fact, might not be at the bottom of Lake Crescent, and that Susan Whitcomb is more than likely alive—her supposed death was merely an inspiration for the Burbank homicides—and he updates me about the Torrance case and how national media has already started calling.

“And her aunt is sure that’s Ellie? Not Sarah?”

“That’s what she thinks.”

“All of a sudden, we’re Ground Zero for murder,” he says.

I don’t disagree.

“We need to find Merritt Wheaton,” I remind him. “He’s out there somewhere.”

“Right. This is only the beginning.”

I look out the window thinking that this case has been the most bizarre I’ve ever been involved with.

At least in an official capacity.

Thirty-Nine

Bernadine Chesterfield, grandstander and attention seeker extraordinaire, a woman who would snap her gold-framed ethics code in a million pieces just to be in the middle of something noteworthy, sits by the road in a sagging heap.

We pitch to a stop and we get out.

I loathe this woman, and I’m not alone. She’s crying and hunched into a big ball. She looks like she’s had the wits scared out of her.

It’s not quite that. It’s something else.

Sheriff approaches first, and I follow a step or two behind. Bernie and I have a history. A decidedly mixed one. She doesn’t know that he’s the one who made the complaint about her conduct with the media during the Wheaton memorial service. Short as it was.

As fake as it might have been.

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