Chapter 15
Fifteen
Rolling his shoulders to remove the stiffness, Kane bent and peered into the safe. Gently lifting the top item, he flicked open the first page of a spiral notebook, the cover was bent and creased. He handed it to Rhett.
“That’s his writing. I recognize it from the letter he left me.” Rhett stared at the first page, covered in frantic handwriting with lines crossed out, rewritten, and circled. “Look at the dates. These go back years.”
“We’ll look later.” Jenna pulled on examination gloves and waved him from the dressing room. “There’s a ton of things in there and we need to keep moving.”
Kane reached deeper inside and his fingers brushed something metallic.
He took out a tin box that rattled as he retrieved it.
He handed it to Jenna and moved his hand across the bundle of letters.
The top envelope was addressed to Rhett in his father’s shaky handwriting.
“This might be the evidence we need. I figure he was too concerned about your mother’s safety to give this information to the lawyer.
At this stage he didn’t know who he could trust.”
At the back of the safe, Kane discovered a second notebook, this one thinner, with a leather cover and slightly curved as if it had been carried in a back pocket for months.
The edges of the book were dirty and stained with something brownish.
Curious, he flicked open the top page and angled the beam of the flashlight to read it.
“This mentions something about missing girls.”
“What does it say?” Rhett’s face drained of color. “He wasn’t involved, was he?”
Closing the notebook, he handed it to him. “I doubt it. I only scanned the first few lines, but I figure your father saw something he wasn’t supposed to.”
“Dave, look at this.” Jenna reached into the safe and pulled out a small envelope, yellowed with age, with just a few single words written on the front in shaky handwriting
This is the truth.
Kane took it from her and stepped out into the light.
He opened it carefully and slid out a single folded sheet of paper.
Inside he found a list containing names and dates.
Some were crossed out and others circled and a few had question marks beside them.
“I guess we’ll need to cross-reference this with the employees list at the time.
They’re all women. I figure your father was keeping track of those who left early or without notice.
As we don’t seem to have a long list of people going missing at that time, we have no idea if he went to the sheriff with the information or not. ”
“It seems to me he didn’t trust anyone, not even his lawyer with this information.” Rhett rubbed the back of his neck. “We know from his letter he was in fear of his life.”
“There’s something else in here.” Jenna gingerly picked up the old pistol and handed it grip-first to Kane. “It’s loaded.”
Kane checked it and broke it down. “It’s safe now.” He laid it on the nightstand. “What else can you see?”
“Look at this. It’s one of those cassette recorders that ranchers used decades ago to dictate notes.” Jenna pressed a button and the top opened. “It has a tape inside.” She handed it to Kane.
Turning the recorder over in his hands, Kane examined it with care. It had been old before Rhett’s father had placed it in the safe. A crack ran along one side of the plastic cover like it had been dropped a few times.
“If there’s audio on that tape”—Rhett’s Adam’s apple moved up and down as he swallowed—“it might be the last thing he ever recorded.” He moved sad eyes to Kane. “I don’t recall what they sounded like. I hardly remember what they looked like. It’s as if they were a dream I had a long time ago.”
“It will need new batteries.” Jenna frowned. “It might not work but Wolfe will have a way of making it play. He has all those types of gizmos at the morgue.”
After Kane sat the recorder on the nightstand beside the tin box and the notebooks, he turned to Rhett. The color had drained from his face the moment they’d found the first notebook and hadn’t returned. He laid one hand on the tin box. “Are you ready for this?”
“Nope, but we’re doing it anyway.” Rhett looked at him with dread. “Open it.”
Kane rested his gloved fingertips on the tin box.
Small and dented at one corner, with the metal worn smooth from years of being handled.
He turned it in his hand. A person didn’t keep something like this unless it mattered.
He gripped the lid and pulled, but the top stuck fast. Maybe it was reluctant to give up its secrets?
He tightened his grip and it opened with a soft metallic pop.
A torn piece of cotton fabric, the kind used in cheap summer dresses, covered the contents.
He placed the material to one side and stared at the collection of items at the bottom of the tin.
He took them out one by one. A single earring, a small silver hoop bent out of shape.
A red hair band, stiff with dried mud, and a driver’s license in the name of Paloma Cortes, with a faded photo of a young woman staring blankly at the camera.
“Why did my father keep these? They’re the sort of trophies a serial killer collects.” Rhett stared at her in horror. “Oh, Jesus, you don’t think he was murdering people, do you?”
“I don’t believe your father collected these. I figure he found them and kept them as evidence.” Jenna squeezed his arm. “He likely didn’t trust anyone enough to hand them over.”
Taking out the last item, Kane turned over a folded piece of paper in his hand.
Creased with brown water marks, it appeared as if Lawson had hidden it somewhere damp before moving it into the tin.
He unfolded it slowly and stared at a hand-drawn map.
The crude drawing with shaky lines depicted landmarks labeled in a frantic scrawl.
On the map he’d marked an old well and the north fence line.
Circled three times was a hunting cabin in the woods.
Beside it, Lawson had written a single word: Listen.
“Listen to what?” Jenna peered over his arm at the map. “Did he record something?”
Kane placed the paper carefully back into the tin with the other items. He looked at Rhett.
“This is going to take some time to go through. Can we take this into the office to correlate all the information? I’ll get the recorder to Wolfe if it doesn’t work on fresh batteries.
He’s the best person to extract the recording.
” He searched Rhett’s face. “Unless you’d prefer to go through this in private? ”
“No. I trust you to discover what happened to my parents and why.” Rhett cleared his throat.
“But I also understand you have an ongoing investigation here. If someone is murdering the hands, that’s the priority.
Right now, I need to keep a distance from the investigation.
If there is someone on the ranch murdering people and they’ve been doing this for decades, I don’t want them to consider me a threat.
It will give me the opportunity to act as your undercover agent.
I’ll keep my eyes open but make sure Bowman believes I want nothing to do with the investigation. ”
“That’s fine.” Jenna frowned. “But we don’t want you to end up the same way as your dad.
So don’t ask any questions. Just keep your eyes open and your weapon close at hand.
” She smiled. “You’ll be fine with Carter here, and Kalo will be here tomorrow.
It will be normal for you to be showing your visitors around the ranch. Just watch your back, okay?”