Page 38 of The Witch's Orchard
“It’s her,” Jacobs says. “It’s her. I’ve stared at those pictures long enough.”
He’s talking to himself, I realize. Not to me. His skin, which had been ruddy yesterday when he confronted me outside the bakery, is a sick gray color, and I think for a minute he might step away to vomit in the bushes.
He sighs instead, scrapes a rough palm over the stubble on his cheeks and chin, and then he turns to me and bears down with a hard stare. But before he can open his mouth the little old man in the suit clears his throat and leads us all out of the stone circle, then says, “Strangulation. With, perhaps, a fabric belt or scarf. There are claw marks on her throat and blood under her nails. I’d guess she scratched at her own neck, trying to get whatever it was off.” He pauses and sighs and then says, “I’ve still got Molly’s records on file. Her dental will have changed but… I treated her when she sliced open her chin. Six stitches. You can still see the suture marks.”
He holds the tip of his index finger just over the scar.
“Ah, hell,” Deputy Barnes says. We turn and there’s another deputy and a pair of EMTs with a stretcher coming down the hill. Behind them, standing with his eyes screwed shut and his hand over his mouth, is Max Andrews.
I watch as Barnes takes off across the creek and scrambles up the side of the gorge toward Max. Beside me, Sheriff Jacobs is seething. His voice is all bitter bile as he bites out, “This isyourdoing.”
I don’t turn to look at him. I just watch as Barnes puts his hand on Max’s shoulder.
I say, “How is that?” I keep my tone soft, calm.
“You just had to ride into town with questions. Getting people riled up.”
“Max hired me to find his sister,” I say.
“Well, you sure as hell did.”
He moves away and directs the deputies. The female deputy opens up her bag and takes out a big DSLR camera and the flash goes off and off and off, and I watch as Shiloh emerges from the field and runs up to Max and puts her arms around him and he buries his face on her shoulder and cries.
“Yeah,” I say to myself. “I sure as hell did.”
THIRTEEN
AT THE SHERIFF’S STATIONI sign a statement and initial page after page of everything I’d done that morning and everyone I’d spoken to, everywhere I’d gone the day before. The process takes hours, and the whole time all I can think about is Molly’s pale face, Max crying on the hill, the sound of screaming crows.
When I finally get back to Honey, I am exhausted and it’s afternoon. My stomach groans for food, but I feel a weird, sickening guilt about even being hungry.
“Hey,” a voice says.
“Deputy Barnes,” I say, turning to him.
“AJ,” he says, “Please call me AJ.”
I nod and lean against Honey’s door, let her hold my weight.
“Hey,” I say. “How’s Max?”
“I’m not sure,” AJ says, crossing his arms over his chest. He shakes his head and looks down at the cracked asphalt between his black boots. “I left him with Shiloh.”
“Okay,” I say. I open the driver’s-side door.
“What will you do now?” AJ asks.
I say, “I don’t know. Max hired me to look for Molly. I did. And now she’s been found. This is a case for the police now. A case for you.”
My voice is hoarse and strangled, and my belly writhes with angryguilt. I slide into Honey’s driver seat and roll down the window enough to say, “Good luck.” And then he gives me a short wave and I pull out of the station parking lot and head back to Crow Caw Cabin.
When I get there, the door is hanging open.
“Damn it,” I breathe. I get out of the car and pull my gun.
It’s probably just Max or a cleaner he never mentioned, but I did spend an entire day poking the hornet’s nest and now Molly is lying in the morgue. As tired as I am, my old reflexes surge to life and adrenaline sharpens my senses.
I sweep into the cabin, alert and ready. I take stock. In the living room, my rucksack is open and its contents litter the floor. A change of clothes, some pens and an old notebook, chewing gum and a package of crackers, crushed to crumbs and bursting from the plastic. My laptop is gone.
