Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
It was the middle of the night and all was dark downtown except for the glowing window of Amelia’s office. She sat behind the desk, looking between me and Micah. We were standing only inches apart, but I could feel the canyon that stretched between us. We’d ripped open the seams of a years-old wound, and it didn’t matter how much time had passed, it would never heal. I was beginning to understand that now.
The idea that Johnny might be involved in something that happened to Autumn was the most sickening, terrifying feeling I’d ever felt. I didn’t want to believe that he was capable of getting involved with her. But if there were rumors going around and he knew that Micah wasn’t going to have his back, what would he have done? What lengths would he have gone to if he was backed into a corner?
“I need you to start from the beginning, James.” Amelia’s tone was even and measured.
The laid-back soccer mom I’d spoken to on the street a few days ago was gone now, replaced by a cool, collected law enforcement officer who was ready to start combing through a story. The last hour had triggered her instincts, and she was no longer hiding the fact that she was suspicious. Of all of us.
I strung together the events in my mind before I spoke, trying to arrange them in sequential order. I didn’t know how to explain it all, especially when I didn’t have all the pieces. And I didn’t want to say anything about Johnny that I wasn’t absolutely sure about.
“When you gave me Johnny’s things the day I got here, there was a roll of film in his pocket.” I decided to start there.
She nodded. “Yes, I remember it.”
“The date he’d written on the canister was November tenth. A couple of days before he died. When I developed the film, this photo was on it.”
I set the photograph of the backpack down on her desk. That moment in the darkroom immediately came back to me. The sense that Johnny was there in the shadows. The sound of my name being whispered in his voice. Is this what he’d been trying to tell me?
“It’s Autumn Fischer’s backpack,” I said.
“This is why you were asking if I thought anyone was out there with him? Because you think Autumn was?”
“That’s what I thought at first, so I tried to track her down to find out. I wanted to ask if she saw anything or knew anything about what happened that day. But Autumn isn’t in San Francisco. She never was. I got in contact with her roommate at school, and she said Autumn never arrived for fall semester. Her tuition was paid, her housing set up. She just never showed.”
Amelia’s countenance shifted, her shoulders tensing. “But that was in August. This photo is from November?”
I nodded. “I think Johnny must have found it out there when he was working. I talked to Ben, and he says he hasn’t heard from Autumn since she left, either. When Johnny got back from the gorge, he was trying to reach her.”
Amelia’s eyes dropped to the open backpack. The waterlogged wallet and cracked phone were placed in front of her, Autumn’s license taken from the sleeve. It was obvious by looking at her things that they’d been out in the forest for a long time. Autumn had been missing for months, and no one had known. Not even Johnny.
“There was also a call to you,” I added. “Do you remember talking to him?”
Amelia sucked in her bottom lip, as if trying to decide what she was willing to tell me. “I had a message from Johnny when I got back from Parker’s soccer tournament in Redding.”
“Do you remember what the message said?”
“Nothing particularly alarming. He just asked me to call him as soon as I got back, and I did. But Johnny was already back out at the gorge.” Amelia turned her attention on Micah. “He didn’t say anything to you about it?”
“We weren’t really on speaking terms, which had to do with Autumn. I don’t think he would have come to me about it.”
“What do you mean it had to do with Autumn?”
Micah glanced at me, as if asking for permission before he really came clean. This time, I didn’t try to stop him.
“I had some concerns. People in town were talking, and when I tried to ask to him about it, it didn’t go well. I warned him that he should stay away from her.”
“Why would you feel the need to tell him to stay away from her?” She was testing him now, poking at the unspoken implication.
“I thought they were getting too close,” he said, simply. “I was worried that people were misinterpreting their relationship. Jumping to conclusions.”
That was as close as he was going to come to accusing Johnny, especially when he had no proof.
“And what kind of relationship was that?” Amelia asked.
“Nothing you don’t already know. He was helping her out with school application stuff, teaching her about photography. That kind of thing. Olivia is the one who set it up. But they were spending a lot of time together, and I just wanted him to be careful.”
Amelia’s face betrayed the fact that she’d had her suspicions about Johnny and Autumn. Maybe the whole town did. “You’re not the only one who was concerned.”
I could feel the defenses rising up in me. I couldn’t help it. “What does that mean?”
“It means”—she gave me a pointed look—“the same concern was brought to my attention by another individual.”
Micah looked surprised by that.
“And?” I pressed.
“And I looked into it. I spoke to Autumn and she insisted that there was nothing sexual or romantic going on between her and Johnny.”
My first thought was that Autumn could have been protecting him. If she was, there was little Amelia could have done about it without any evidence.
“Either way, this changes things,” I said. “What are the odds that Autumn going missing and Johnny getting shot are just a coincidence?” That was the question hanging over me. It just felt like too much of a stretch.
I could tell by the look on Amelia’s face that she was wondering the same. There’d been nothing circumstantial to frame what happened at the gorge that day, and accidental firearm deaths were nothing new to a forest ranger. But this was more complicated than a wilderness photographer out at a remote location, caught in the path of a stray bullet.
“The first step here is confirming that Autumn is, in fact, missing.” She scooted the chair back, reaching into the cabinet behind the desk. Then she took out a box of blue latex gloves, fitting them on her hands. “But it’s important to keep in mind that anything’s possible.”
Micah and I watched as she slipped the backpack into a plastic bag. It was exactly like the one she’d given me when I got to Six Rivers. The one with Johnny’s things. Now, Autumn’s backpack and everything inside was evidence.
“Do you have any reason to believe that someone would want to hurt Autumn?” she asked.
Micah shook his head, but I hesitated, and Amelia caught it.
She fixed her eyes on me. “What is it?”
I swallowed. “Maybe nothing. But Sadie told me that Ben was devastated when Autumn broke up with him, and that he’d tried to hurt himself after she left.”
The thought had crossed my mind more than once. Maybe Ben had done more than get upset when Autumn told him she was leaving. Maybe he’d done something he hadn’t meant to. Lashed out in a way he couldn’t take back. I’d seen the exact same thing happen that night in the gorge when Griffin Walker died. If Ben had done something he regretted, it was plausible that he might try to take his own life.
There was a shift in Amelia’s expression now. “You think Ben Cross—”
“I don’t think anything. I’m just telling you what Sadie said. If Autumn went missing when she left for school, that lines up with Ben…I don’t know what he did. A suicide attempt? She didn’t give me specifics.”
But if the incident had made its way through the town rumor mill, then Amelia already knew what those details were.
“All right. And who exactly touched all of this?” She looked between us, setting a hand on Autumn’s things.
“Both of us.” I cleared my throat. “And Johnny, I guess.”
I tried not to think about how his prints being on the backpack could be used. What kind of picture it could paint.
“And where exactly did you find it?” she asked.
“It was in a closet. Up on a kind of shelf.”
“Any idea why he would have put it there?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Would you say from where you found it that you think Johnny was”—she paused—“hiding it?”
The question was constructed carefully, spoken in a tone that I couldn’t decipher. My eyes narrowed on her, the meaning of the question clicking into place. “What are you implying?”
Amelia stood, one hand resting on her belt. “I’m just asking for more information so that we can start to figure out what the hell is going on here.”
If I was honest, I would tell her that it did seem as if Johnny had tried to conceal the backpack. If he hadn’t, why not leave it out somewhere in the cabin? It hadn’t just been tossed into the closet; it had been placed up in the cubby. But that didn’t mean he was hiding it. It could just mean that he was keeping it safe.
“It was in the closet, like I said. I was looking for something and ran across it.”
“What were you looking for?”
“A warmer coat. I didn’t bring much with me,” I explained, not missing a beat. Amelia already didn’t believe me. I wasn’t going to give her more ammunition by trying to explain that I thought my brother’s spirit was communicating with me from beyond the grave.
“Do you think it’s possible that Johnny hurt Autumn?” She asked the question point-blank.
“No.” The answer was a knee-jerk reaction.
I waited for the complete and utter certainty to hit me with the words. The overwhelming conviction that it was true. But it didn’t come.
She locked the evidence in one of the cabinets behind her. “I’ll try to get in touch with Autumn’s mom. See when the last time she heard from her was.”
“All right.” Micah nodded.
“And if you could both stay available and in town, that would be very helpful. I’m going to have more questions. And I’ll request access to anything else you’ve found, James. Johnny’s records, accounts, everything.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
Micah’s hand found my back and he guided me to the door. But before we even made it outside, Amelia stopped us.
“I want you both to know,” she said, looking between us, “I’ve spent a lot of time on this town’s history since Johnny’s death. I’ve spent a lot of time on his history. It goes without saying that the last time Johnny was implicated in the events surrounding someone’s death, that due diligence wasn’t done by the person who held this office.”
Micah’s hand tensed on my back.
“But I have every intention of getting to the bottom of what happened here.”
The insinuation was clear. Amelia had done her homework not just on Johnny but on all of us. And she wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned. Not like Timothy Branson had done.
The sky was still pitch-black when we made it outside, and there were still at least a couple of hours until dawn. But there was no way Iwas going to sleep tonight.
We walked to Micah’s truck in silence and got in. The engine rumbled, warming up as we sat there, staring out the windshield without saying a word. What had just happened? What was about to happen?
“We’ll grab Smoke and your stuff and you can stay at my place tonight,” he said, not really asking.
He pulled onto the road, turning the truck around, and the headlights washed over the icy street. For once, I didn’t argue with him. The idea of sleeping in the cabin with all of Johnny’s buried secrets made me tremble. I didn’t want to know what else I’d find there, and honestly, I was done looking.