Chapter 19 Missing #2
The couch had been shoved over and the credenza rifled through. All the drawers in the kitchen were dumped out and cabinet doors open. A broken jar of spaghetti sauce was splashed on the floor. The place smelled like mint; there was some drying on a rack in a dark corner, untouched.
I wound up the wooden staircase. The master bedroom smelled of dust, dried flowers, and evaporated perfume.
All the clothes had been torn from the closet and strewn on the floor.
Another bedroom must have been Dana’s once upon a time; posters covered the walls, and a dried-out paint set was on the dresser.
The bedspread was a celestial print, with moons and stars on a navy background.
Dana’s art stood on her dresser and easels, paintings of haunted woods, and serpents coiling around crystals.
Someone had torn the canvases, slashed them open.
This was so, so very personal.
I flipped through the canvases, pausing when I saw a familiar image: a black snake biting its own tail. It was painted in acrylic on a canvas with a wine-red background. The title was scrawled in the corner: Forever.
I inhaled. Dana knew this symbol. And Viv did, too. Despite her alibis, it looked more and more like Viv was to blame for what was happening to the Kings of Warsaw Creek. And now it seemed like they were getting their own revenge.
I peered briefly into the bathroom, at the clawfoot tub where Viv’s mother had tried to kill herself. To my relief, it was empty. The bathtub faucet dripped musically over a spreading rust stain on the cast iron around the drain.
Viv’s bedroom smelled like incense. The curtains were drawn, and orange afternoon light burned through.
I stared at the unmade bed, not seeing blood there, but there were signs of a struggle: there was a hole in the plaster to the right of the bed, at the right height for the head of a woman of Viv’s stature to land.
I examined the hole for hair or blood, but nothing was visible to the naked eye.
I turned to an armoire, its doors open. Within, I saw what might have been the remains of an altar: candles and years upon years’ worth of wax in layers dribbling from a shelf, curling around crystals that had become embedded in it.
The candles were burned down, and the wax was long cold.
In the background were framed pictures nailed to the back of the armoire: Dana and their mother.
A mirror was turned down on the shelf, and a shattered mason jar, once full of garlic cloves and nails, lay on the bottom shelf of the armoire.
I poked at the jar with a pencil. There was a piece of paper inside it. I donned gloves and pulled it out and unfolded it. On the paper were the names of the Kings of Warsaw Creek circumscribed by that symbol that kept turning up—the snake eating its own tail.
It should’ve been warm in this room, on the second floor of a house with no central air. But this place was cool, cool as evening shade.
I returned downstairs. I heard something then, a scraping in the kitchen. The sound was coming from the sink’s drain. I stared at the drain, wondering if a snake was going to crawl up from it.
Instead, I heard a giggle.
I leaned forward, holding my breath, daring the voice to say something.
It didn’t. I must have imagined it.
Right?
I poked through the mail piled on the floor. Viv’s rejection letter from college was rumpled on top. I found some solicitations from animal-rescue organizations and a bill from the local medical center. I opened that.
My brow creased. It was a bill for a D I counted at least three unknowns.
Might be clients, might be the perpetrators.
These marks were fragile, pressed into dust and likely to blow away in a stiff breeze.
I paced around the house, through Viv’s garden, smelling lemon balm and mint and rosemary. I wondered if she found any peace here. She slept with that curse unfolding in the dark of her bedroom, surrounded by the until-now untouched bedrooms of her family.
I waded deeper into the backyard, smelling something freshly burned as I got closer to the tree line. Grass. Grass and wood. Probably applewood; I could detect that sweet note in it.
A round burn mark spread here, piled high with ashen lumber. It looked like the remnants of a bonfire. For a moment, I was afraid of finding Viv’s remains in it, a body curled in the heart of it.
I circled it, touched the ash. Pieces of broken glass shone among the ashes. Maybe this was part of one of Viv’s workings? Or had someone come here to destroy hers and put the remains here? I wasn’t sure, but in the ash, someone had drawn the ouroboros I’d come to dread.
I retreated, examining the perimeter. The grass was worn in a circle here, as if someone—or many someones—had paced around the fire.
Witches. I imagined Viv orbiting that fire at night, murmuring to it her plans for revenge.
And maybe in the company of others, the same ones I’d caught on camera at the Hag Stone—everywhere and nowhere.
Or maybe whoever had taken Viv had burned evidence here.
Part of me wanted to believe this was Viv’s work, that she was still alive. But she would never leave her animals behind, definitely not scared and hiding in shadows.
I thought of Dana. If whoever had taken Viv had also taken Dana, no one would ever know.
—
I guarded the scene until Forensics arrived.
I tried to call Viv, but her cell clicked over to voicemail.
I didn’t hear it ringing anywhere in the house, so maybe she had it on her.
I checked in with the cell company, to see if they could triangulate her whereabouts.
They reported that the last ping they got from her phone was from the Grey Door just after two a.m., around the time I’d expect her shift to end.
I called Monica to tell her Viv was missing.
Monica was quiet for a moment. “Did you find any blood?”
“Not so far, but Forensics will look for traces. It sure looks like foul play to me.”
“What do you think the odds are that the Kings of Warsaw Creek got tired of Viv’s agitating and decided to silence her?”
“Pretty high. I just can’t prove it…yet. I’d like just fifteen minutes in the Sumner house. It gives me the creeps.”
“You’re thinking about Dana Carson’s fingerprint on that windowsill.”
“I want to get back in there and dust every surface. That’s an old house, and I bet it talks.”
I checked on the Sumner house on the county auditor’s website as we spoke.
The house had been built in 1911. It had changed hands several times, to people with the same last name, Sumner.
Jeff had grown up in that house. He’d been there when he and his chums burned Warsaw Creek, and he was there when Dana disappeared. It could be a crime scene.
Digging around in the Sumner house sounded like a good time, but all we had right now was Dana Carson’s prints on the windowsill.
It wasn’t enough to get me a warrant. Any lawyer worth their salt would argue that Dana and Jeff were chummy, and that she visited his house for a party back in the day.
I couldn’t refute that perfectly reasonable explanation, even though I knew in my gut what had happened.
I was hamstrung by the rules, and I had to follow them.
I ordered tails on the Kings of Warsaw Creek, hoping they would lead us to Viv. The Vice guys were bored, and they were delighted to pick up some OT. But we had to track down the men first.
I tooled by the Sumner house, but Jeff wasn’t there. Nor was he at the hospital, but his wife’s car was. I checked the plant next. No car.
My phone rang. The call was from Monica’s number. I noticed that she was calling me direct again, not using the sheriff’s office’s new radio system. Maybe she was being a curmudgeon about it, and I was ready to tease her when she announced:
“Good news. I just got word that Mason Sumner woke up from his coma.”