Chapter 4 Cold Case
Cold Case
I returned to the pond, this time in daylight.
The pond mirrored blue sky. The surface was still except for small ripples pushed by the breeze, and breaks in the surface tension where dragonflies touched the water.
The pond was perfectly round, in a way natural ponds rarely were, maybe two hundred feet across.
There were no ducks or geese here—odd for this time of year.
This year’s hatchlings should be clumsy and teenage by now, but there wasn’t so much as a sentry goose left behind.
A man in a wet suit sat on the bank, fiddling with a dive tank. The grass was still damp with dew as I approached, showing his footprints as well as my own. I sat down in the crushed grass beside him, where I’d tried to revive Mason. “Sorry to call you so early this morning, Lieutenant.”
Lt. Fred Jasper nodded. “Thanks, Koray, but it’s no bother. This is Dive Team work.”
The Bayern County Dive Team was down to one member. The other diver, Sgt. Ramirez from the volunteer fire department, was out on maternity leave. Out here, in our rural county, people wore many hats. “Thanks for coming.”
I genuinely liked Jasper. He was in his forties, with graying hair, and crow’s-feet that deepened when he smiled.
His face was sunburned from his time in the water and from umpiring for the interdepartmental softball team.
He was the deputy who raised the most funds in the annual charity drive, and he donated the cash to the local animal shelter.
Like Ramirez, he served on the county’s volunteer fire department.
When I joined the force, he was kind to me.
When I was almost ready to cry after I’d gotten into my first altercation as a new deputy, he had bandaged my bloody knuckles up and given me a pep talk.
I would’ve lost that fight if he hadn’t stepped in.
He never mentioned it to anyone, and I didn’t forget that.
Jasper was a private guy. He never invited anyone to his house, and the rumor was that he lived in a total shack and was embarrassed to have anyone over.
Jasper pulled on his flippers. “So, you don’t think this was an accident?”
I lifted a shoulder. “ER says he had mud in his lungs. Seemed like he was hung up on something in the pond. I had a hard time hauling him to the surface. Maybe snapping turtles?” I wasn’t going to say anything more than that.
Nobody needed to think I was crazy. But I felt like I owed him some kind of warning, at least.
“Weird,” he agreed. “But let’s see what’s down there. If there’s a monster turtle in that pond, I’ll find it.”
Jasper stood, and I helped with his tank. I walked with him as he waddled to the pond’s edge and dropped in with a controlled splash. There were no shallows here, just a sharp drop-off.
Jasper’s back and the tank were visible as he floated around the perimeter, taking pictures. Gradually, he disappeared from view. The light of a flashlight swept under the surface, like a spotlight among clouds.
Here, in daytime, it was hard to believe something monstrous lurked below the surface.
I wanted to believe that last night had been just a terrible accident.
Something tragic had happened, certainly, but perhaps Jasper would return with evidence of a freakishly large catfish or snapping turtle.
No matter what, there would be a logical explanation.
Was it too much to expect that I would never dream of my parents again?
I wasn’t sure. No one besides Nick knew that Stephen Theron, the Forest Strangler, was my father.
Once upon a time, my psychiatrist knew, but she was dead.
I wished she were still alive, so I could ask her about my dreams. I’d assumed I’d done all the psychological processing I needed to do last year, when I began to recover my childhood memories…
I thought my memories were complete, and I had moved on, establishing that my father and I were separate entities.
My father’s Forest God, that antlered shadow in the forest who had exhorted him to kill, had gone silent.
My father was dead. I didn’t feel his presence, the weight of his crimes and love and expectations, any longer. Now I thought of him only when I watched Nick sleeping at night, and bile rose in my throat at the pain he’d caused the man I loved.
I wanted to be free of him, to feel nothing. But all I felt was the hate. He had died a free man, but he’d deserved so much less than that.
My hands curled into fists. I refused to fall into those murky depths of fear and darkness once again.
I would stay on this side of it. What I’d felt last night was a fluke, a blip.
There was a rational explanation for all this, one that would be revealed with enough persistence and clearheadedness.
I couldn’t fall into the realm of monsters. Not again.
I waited at the edge of the water while strings of bubbles rose to the surface. At last, Jasper emerged, gave me the thumbs-up, and then plodded toward the bank. I helped him climb awkwardly through the cattails with his massive flippers. He sat down on the shore, and I unbuckled his harness.
“What did you see down there?”
He rubbed his eyes. “Not much at first. Low visibility. But then I saw something weird.”
“Yeah?”
He extended a closed hand to me and opened his fingers. In his palm was something slimy and irregularly shaped.
I picked it up with gloved fingers. It was wing shaped, with a luster graduating from gray to brown.
“It’s a pearl,” he said.
I blinked at him. “But that’s a pond.”
“Right. So, this is the cool thing…there are a few species of bivalve mussel that live in fresh water in Ohio. Rarely, they can produce pearls. I’ve never actually seen any outside of a museum, or when I was younger…” he trailed off.
“Do you think it might have come from someone’s jewelry?”
He shook his head. “I think it’s a natural anomaly unrelated to the case, but interesting.”
I agreed, but still bagged it as evidence, just in case. “Did you find anything else?”
“Not much. The bottom of the pond is very soft. I was able to plunge my arm up to here in it, and it was difficult to remove.” He tapped his shoulder, and mud glistened in the seams of his suit’s sleeve.
“The bottom terrain is dish shaped, with a lot of debris…looks like someone’s been dumping their old Christmas trees there.
Lots of carp and bluegill. Nothing that’s good to eat. ”
“Anything that could hurt a child?”
“No. I didn’t see anything that big.” He sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the pond.
“Do you think the debris could catch a child?”
“With bad luck and in darkness? Potentially.” His gaze drifted to the house, and he frowned.
“What?” I prodded him. Jasper had excellent instincts; if he saw something wrong, I wanted to know about it.
“Nothing concrete. I just don’t like this whole situation. It’s possible for a kid to get hung up on some debris, sure. Unlucky drownings happen all the time. But people who live in a house like that are lucky.”
“Maybe not.” I told him about the skull in the mailbox.
Jasper shook his head. “That’s creepy as hell. Makes me think the people in that fancy house have enemies you should look into. They think they own the world, rich people.”
“You’re not wrong. And the father certainly has that kind of air about him.”
He wiggled his bare toes to dry them. “While I’m thinking about it—are you free to sub out to third base in the next game? Ramirez is taking more time with the baby, and we’re down an outfielder.”
“Are you asking on behalf of the cops or the firefighters?” I teased, knowing his loyalties were divided.
“For the cops, of course.”
“Will there be brats and beer?”
He lifted up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“I’ll be there.”
Jasper gave me a fist bump and packed his gear, then left me alone at the pond.
I chewed my lip. If Jasper thought there was something hinky going on here, then I was certain there was.
Forensics hadn’t gotten back to me about that skull, which I’d dropped off earlier this morning, but I didn’t need their input to start poking around the idea of foul play.
I went back to the sheriff’s office to run checks on Jeff and Drema Sumner.
Drema had filed a complaint when she’d found dozens of dead fish scattered on her driveway six months ago. The investigating officer had chalked it up to a benign teenage prank, but I wasn’t so sure now.
A search for Drema Sumner on social media yielded no results, which was interesting for a woman of her age and income bracket.
I expected to find a public profile full of pictures of her family, vacation scenery, and what she was eating, but there was nothing.
The only people I’d really seen that from were women who lived off the grid and women who were hiding from something.
When I dived more deeply, I found a mention of Drema under her maiden name, Sindley, in the nearby college paper.
She was a photographer whose work was at a gallery opening, and it…
was breathtaking. She worked in brilliant colors, photographing women tangled in sheets and lounging on cushions, with something of a Pre-Raphaelite feeling.
The photos conjured a lush, fleshy sensuality, earthy and vibrant.
Alive. And evidently very much appreciated by critics, too.
The paper noted that her prints had sold out.
I found no other mention of her art, no matter how deeply I searched.