Page 68 of Cougar Point

He parked at the side of the road again and walked up to the edge of the slope. He looked down to the spot. This time, when he closed his eyes, he saw Olivia Greenwood’s body, not the living room.

Instead of descending the hill, he walked up to the bridge this time. It was pretty obvious how the dump was carried out. The perpetrator could have rolled up after dark and parked on the bridge. From this vantage point there was visibility for miles along the road in both directions. Any other vehicle would be visible a couple of minutes before it got close.

February. The road wasn’t dusty enough for the forensics guys to pull usable tracks from the road surface. The body could have been transported in a van…or maybe a pickup with a tarpover the flatbed. The driver would have parked, killed the lights, then hauled the body out and dumped it over the edge. It could be done by a single man. Under two minutes. And then he was gone, into the night. A pickup truck with a dropping tailgate, like the one on the Park Plaza security video, would be ideal for the job.

This was a well-chosen dump site. The perp was familiar with the area. Lucas was surer of that than ever.

Lots of black Nissan Frontiers around, like Mac had said. But how many in Whatcom County?

This afternoon, Dr. Stephanie Wright was wearing a black pant suit and a lilac shirt. Her hair was tied back. It might have been Lucas’s imagination, but he thought she had warmed a little since the early sessions.

“It sounds like you’re adjusting to being back at work well,” Dr. Wright said. “I have to admit I was concerned when I heard about the homicide case you’re working on.”

“How so?”

Wright sat back in her chair and looked back at him, waiting for him to fill the silence as usual. He suspected that was just muscle memory now. They both knew he wasn’t going to oblige.

“A woman dying violently. A wife and mother. Many would say that’s exactly the wrong case for you to be working given what happened to your wife and your daughter.”

Lucas shrugged, playing up the philosophical attitude he had made sure to foreground a little more in each session. “You know what? I would rather it wasn’t a case like this too. I would rather I had come back to deal with some nice petty fraud case in alumber yard back office, but this is the job. You don’t get to pick what comes in next. I guess it’s the same in your line of work.”

There was the faintest hint of a smile at that.

“I believe you went out to Ohio to speak to the detectives out there. How did that go?”

Lucas took his time answering, considered his response. “It was worth the trip. I think I got some valuable information and it feels like I’m on the right track.”

“And how was Cincinnati?”

“It was nice enough. Not much time for sight-seeing. I was glad to get back home.”

Wright nodded and scratched a note on her pad, and Lucas realized he had made a misstep.

“Speaking of home, you’re still living at the house?”

Lucas nodded. He had carried out the cleanup himself after the crime scene guys had signed off on the scene. He had ripped the carpet up and stripped the wallpaper where it had been spattered with blood. The blood had seeped through the carpet and stained the floorboards beneath. The stains were still there, underneath the new flooring. He thought about that sometimes, those permanent stains beneath the nice new carpet. It was precisely the kind of thought he made sure not to share with Dr. Stephanie Wright.

“I won’t lie, sometimes it’s a little difficult. The memories and so on. But it’s getting easier. Maybe some time you can come over for a coffee, I can show you the place.”

“Mmm,” Wright said, noncommittally.

The sound of a car pulling into the lot outside drew Wright’s attention, and then she looked up at the clock, seeing that their session was almost out of time. One minute to go. Lucas always greeted the looming end of the session with relief. Like he was the point guard on a basketball team with a decent but not-insurmountable lead running out the clock.

“Well, I’m pleased to see you settling in again,” Wright said. “I want you to call me if you think it’s getting on top of you, if you start to find you’re not coping as well as you thought you were.”

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Lucas said. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I may have been a little resistant to this whole…counseling thing when we started.”

“I may have noticed,” Wright said, deadpan.

“Anyway, I was wrong. It’s really helped to talk things through, just as much as it’s helped to get back to work. It’s been a big comfort to know you’re here, to know I can tell you anything.”

If Wright was skeptical about that, she barely showed it.

FORTY-SIX

Rebecca stays with Jack in case the kidnappers make contact again. Ronnie and I follow Lucas in my car. I’ve been to Lynden once. My boyfriend had a booth set up for a downtown craft festival and was selling his wood carvings. Lynden is a pleasant city with quaint restaurants, antique stores, bookstores, micro-breweries, boutique hotels, art galleries, everything you’d find in a bigger city, but on a smaller scale. Lucas circled around some back streets and soon we passed in front of Word of the Lamb, which, in another life, was Abe’s Auto Repair Garage according to the faded paint on one of the garage doors. A Lynden city police car pulls up behind us and a uniformed officer steps out and approaches. We get out to meet the officer but Lucas gets in front and extends a hand.

“Officer Nelson?” Lucas asks, and the officer nods. “I’m the detective you spoke to.” He doesn’t bother to introduce us.

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