22
Objectively speaking, Mandy understood she wasn’t objective.
What did she truly know about her father thirty years ago?
She’d been five when the Dixons had disappeared.
Too young to understand much of anything, not to mention shut out from the ensuing blizzard of adult conversations.
Her parents behind closed doors, again and again.
Her father and someone or another sequestered away, night after night.
But her father, Chief Ian Grady, involved in the Dixons’ disappearance?
No way. Her father purposefully contaminating a crime scene?
Absolutely not. He’d spent the rest of his life genuinely obsessed with what happened that night.
Reviewing the details, poring over his notes, chasing down fresh leads.
Whatever the lab report said, whatever Adams believed—no, just no, no, and hell no.
Which was making for a very awkward end to her and Samuel Adams’s conversation.
“What are you going to do?” she finally demanded, pacing her office.
“What do you mean?”
“With this. This new information.” She paused long enough to glare at Adams. “Leak it to the media, blab about it all over town? It’s not fair, you know. My father’s not even alive to defend himself!”
“What do you think happened?” Adams asked patiently, hands in his pockets. “Any scenario you can picture that would explain your father’s DNA being present in the bloody footprints?”
“Of course not!”
“Me neither.” He remained matter-of-fact. She scowled at him. “You know what I do when I’m not certain of something?” he continued calmly. “I keep my thoughts and wild theories to myself until I can sort out what’s what and absolutely, positively verify the facts in question. Then, I act.”
She wasn’t sure what to make of this. “You have wild theories?”
“Absolutely outlandish ones,” he assured her.
“Such as?”
“Uh-uh-uh. You weren’t listening. I don’t share conjecture.
Worst thing you can do. Next thing, you’re solidifying one specific scenario in your mind, then twisting the facts to fit that sequence of events.
Sloppy policing, bad science, et cetera, et cetera.
A good detective follows the known truth to the solution, not the other way around. ”
Mandy just stared at him. Her blood was boiling, her heart practically thumping out of her chest. She couldn’t decide if she hated this man, or just his words, or hell, maybe this entire goddamn case.
To be honest, she also felt exposed, anxious, and scared.
Because as the state’s designated investigator, Adams could absolutely build a case against her father, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing Mandy could do about it.
That her father was dead didn’t even matter.
Frankly, a fair number of cold cases concluded with a deceased suspect being found “reasonably” responsible for the crime.
In those instances, the cases were considered resolved, not solved, as there would never be a trial.
Is that what this would become? Thirty years later, her father, the town’s police chief, would go down in history as the “likely” perpetrator of the Dixons’ what…
? Murder? Because that would be the other “reasonable” inference.
All these years later, the family had to be dead, and her father, thanks to DNA evidence, had done it.
She thought she might throw up.
“I don’t know why my father’s DNA was at the scene,” she managed at last. “But him…hurting an entire family, four children, one of them nearly the same age as me? Absolutely, positively, I don’t accept that. There’s another answer. I just don’t know it yet.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Detective Adams shrugged. “I don’t have all the answers yet, either.
Like I said, I met your father. Did he strike me as the kind of guy capable of disappearing six people, then spending the rest of his years pretending to obsess over their whereabouts?
I’ll admit, that wasn’t my first read on the man. ”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Keep digging. Ask more questions, run more evidence. The good news is, having gotten fresh results from the lab—and rather provocative ones at that—my bosses will feel motivated to authorize additional resources. This is the first major development in nearly thirty years. I know you don’t like it…
but just getting new information is useful in its own way. ”
“You’re right. I don’t like it.”
“Plus, you got another crime scene, new skeleton and all that. Seriously, what the fuck is up with that property?”
“Those remains are probably historic. The well was already completely overgrown thirty years ago. Hard to believe one has anything to do with the other.”
“And yet, we don’t know that they don’t. Start with the facts, not the conclusion, remember?”
“Please tell me you’re driving back to Concord now.”
“The remains are in Concord,” Adams agreed. “As well as most of the evidence, and yet…”
Mandy closed her eyes. Shit.
“It’ll take a bit for all that to be processed. In the meantime, I think I’ll do a little more hands-on exploring right here. Check out the site for myself. And didn’t I hear something about a historic ledger and—not at all disturbing—the bones of an infant?”
“Those are in Concord, too,” she tried.
But of course the damn man had done his homework.
“Copies of the pages were left behind for your historical society, right? The value of local knowledge and all that. I’m a big fan of local knowledge.
The right people, being asked the right question, at the right time.
So I think I’ll stick around to check out those possibilities as well. ”
Mandy was screwed. He wasn’t going anywhere, the new and improved DNA test wasn’t magically changing, and when others started to learn about the results, because people always heard of such things…
She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. Decided to go with keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. “If you’re really going to do this…”
He waited expectantly.
“You should start at the historical society. Betty and Mason know just about everything and everyone relevant to the town of Shereford—past, present, and future.”
“And they’re working out of where?”
“Second floor of the congregational church. See that pretty white steeple in the middle of the town green? You can walk over in a matter of minutes.” She smiled flatly, hoped it didn’t sound like she was kicking him out, while also hoping he’d take the hint.
Adams nodded. She wished he was a little less intelligent and attractive.
The least he could do was have sagging jowls or a bulging gut or lettuce stuck in his teeth.
But no, even his scars looked good on him.
A man who’d been there and done that on behalf of his country.
And had still chosen a profession where he was called to serve.
Honestly, she missed her mother right now.
Her mother would know what to say, how to put it all in perspective.
As it was, Mandy longed to run to the historical society to share every last outrageous detail with Betty.
But she couldn’t. Her father, the possible implications of that damn DNA test. Mandy just couldn’t.
“You need a place to stay?” she asked at last, then catching the nuance inherent in the question, “I mean like a hotel! We got plenty of local inns. I mean that kind of thing.”
Adams grinned. “Got it covered. Friend has a condo I’ve crashed at many times.
Even when I was young, I liked this town.
Just passing through the covered bridge, feels like I can finally exhale, leave the world behind.
Then, of course, once I read about the Dixon case many moons ago…
Naturally I kept visiting Shereford. Personally and professionally, how could I resist? ”
“You’re never heading back to Concord, are you?”
“Can you blame me?”
She scowled. He packed up his bag, and not even bothering to be subtle about it, she showed him straight to the door.
Second he was gone, Mandy collapsed behind her desk, rubbing her forehead furiously.
For the first time in her life, WWMFD couldn’t magically show her the way.
Because it no longer mattered what her father would do. It mattered what he had done.