Chapter 2 #2
Once they were inside the Jeep, Emma deposited the metal detector finds on the floor and gestured for Matthias to follow the car. “I want to take a look inside the barn. See if the roof is still intact.”
He shifted into gear and trailed after Fran’s car. As expected, she made a loop in front of the structure and headed back the way they’d come. Matthias turned off the engine, and they stepped outside.
The clouds were breaking up, and hints of blue sky peeked through. Emma didn’t move for a moment and instead closed her eyes. She breathed in the earthy scents of wet grass, listening to the buzz of crickets and cicadas and the caw, caw, caw of a distant crow.
She opened her eyes. Matthias gazed at the barn, hands on hips. She circled the Jeep to stand next to him.
“Do you know when it was built?” he asked.
“The house was built in 1854, so I’d guess within a year or so of that.”
“Our barn wasn’t nearly this big.”
“In Oklahoma?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a real grin and a thick dose of the drawl he mostly kept contained.
Emma dug a keyring from her pocket and strode to the massive doors on the front of the structure, big enough to allow access for loaded hay wagons.
She pulled up short. A man door built into one of the larger ones had been padlocked, but it no longer was.
The hasp was closed, but a tapered piece of wood was stuck through the staple.
“What’s wrong?” Matthias asked.
She searched the ground. “The padlock’s gone.” She tugged the wood loose.
“Let me go in first.” Matthias’s tone was cautious.
“No one’s in there,” Emma replied. “They couldn’t have latched the door from the inside.” She pointed at the chain and lock securing the bigger doors. “And they didn’t go in through those.”
“Are there any other ways to access the barn?”
“Another set of these big doors on the back, but they’re a full story off the ground. We only used them to toss hay down to the pasture.” Then she stopped and thought. “There are stairs—more of a ladder, really—that leads to the lower level.” Where her grandfather used to milk his Holsteins.
“Let me go in first,” Matthias repeated, still soft but firmer this time.
“Okay.”
He opened the door and stepped through. Emma stayed close behind. A flutter overhead suggested either birds or bats. The wheezy whistle told her the winged residents were mourning doves, although she didn’t doubt bats shared the rafters.
The musty smell of old grain, hay, and straw took her back to being a kid, exploring every inch of this barn with her younger sister, including the areas she and Nell had been ordered to stay away from.
If their mother had known how high they’d climbed on the hay bales stacked nearly to the roof, she’d have had a stroke.
There was no hay anymore. Only a wide-open floor and empty space soaring to the rafters.
Emma’s gaze lowered to the wood slats beneath her feet.
Matthias must’ve noticed her reaction. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s been in here.”
“Because the padlock’s missing?” Then he looked down and answered his own question. “The floor’s been swept clean.”
“Yeah.”
“Someone broke the lock, came in, looked around, and swept their footprints clear before leaving.”
“I’m not a cop,” Emma said, “but this is a more thorough cleaning job than someone simply eliminating boot prints.” She strode toward a back corner of the barn.
A broom—a fairly new one—was propped next to the door leading into the granary.
Inside, three stall-like bins had once held oats, wheat, and drums of sweet feed.
Like the hay, the grain was gone. In the last of the bins, Emma discovered a pair of cots, an overturned crate, a battery-operated lamp, and a plastic bucket filled with empty beer cans and liquor bottles.
“Looks like someone’s made themselves at home,” Matthias said from behind her. “Nell?”
“And Zeke.” Emma stepped inside the small room.
Matthias stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Don’t touch anything.” He brushed past her, pulling gloves from his hip pocket.
“You carry those things with you even when you’re off duty?”
“Gotta be prepared.” He tugged them on and started at the bucket, pulling out bottles and cans and peering underneath them. From there, he pulled the blankets from the cots and searched through the dingy sheets and under the wafer-thin mattresses. “No drug paraphernalia.”
“Nell’s always been terrified of needles,” Emma said. “She does pills chased by booze.”
“Sometimes the fear of needles gets overpowered when an addict’s system builds a tolerance. They need a more potent method than pills to get their fix.” His tone wasn’t accusatory.
Other than the few hours she’d spent with Nell in the hospital this summer, Emma hadn’t been around her younger sister enough to make accurate assessments.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she was staying here.
It’s a better shelter than the homeless camp she was living in.
But Eric couldn’t have known. He’d never have permitted it when he has a perfectly good guest room. ”
Matthias faced her. “Would he give them carte blanche to party in his house?”
She didn’t have to think long. “No. He’d have dragged them both to rehab.”
“There you go. Here, they had their privacy and the freedom to do whatever they wanted.”
The image of Zeke’s obituary flashed across Emma’s mind. “The freedom to overdose. I wonder… Do you think Zeke…” She struggled to say the word. “Do you think he died here?”
“The obit said he died in the Washington Hospital.”
“They would’ve pronounced him dead there, but…” She gestured at the cots.
Matthias pulled her into his arms. “Don’t think about it. Nell’s still alive. She’s probably safe with Eric.”
Emma backed out of his embrace. “And where the hell is he?”
“That’s what we have to find out. Where else can we look?”
“I don’t know. He’s not at home. He’s not at his office. He’s not here.”
“What about the guy who wants to buy this place?”
“I can’t imagine Eric or Nell would be with Sonny Jones.”
“If they’ve been in negotiations, Jones might have some idea of where Eric went.”
“It’s Saturday.” Emma drew a breath, thinking. “I have no idea where Sonny lives.”
“We might get lucky and catch him at his office.”
“Maybe. Okay.” Emma shrugged. “Let’s go visit North Star Developing.”