Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
“Ultimately, to the Walleye Tavern to pick up your car.”
I watch the scenery strobe past. “Are you taking the long way? Blue Gil is the other way.”
“I thought if we were doing this thing as a team, you’d want to see where Craig and Marty were found.”
Without thinking, I sit straighter, my neck stiffening. The truck begins to slow as we pull off the main road onto the easement. Keith turns toward me, lifting his sunglasses. His eyes flick over me, the shade of coffee without cream. “Jill, tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking...well honestly, a variety of different things. You know I do research for fiction, right?”
“Right.”
“You know that the dead bodies I’m around are live people in makeup, mannequins, or CGI. For the last example—CGI—there’s nothing actually there. It’s all smoke and mirrors.”
“But you research? You look at police photos, evidence, and read the particulars.”
“I do.”
“There are no dead bodies there, but if you don’t want to see this, I can turn around.”
Before us the road goes on like a black ribbon dotted with yellow, heading up and up.
Where we sit, the road is lined with a swale on each side and dense trees beyond that.
With the midafternoon sun, the sunlight streams through the tall branches, illuminating patches of ground below.
If we went the other direction from the cottages, the road would be lined with open fields for nearly five hundred yards before a patch of trees on either side.
This county and many around it are blessed with diverse topography.
There can be hills followed by long stretches of flat land.
In the evening, the sun sets over a sparkling lake, beyond a golden field of wheat, or upon rows of green corn stalks.
Besides lakes, there are ponds, rivers, and streams all flowing toward greater bodies of water.
“I want to see it,” I finally say.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, my hesitation was silly. It’s that I’ve met Marty and your brother. It’s a bit more personal than what I research. However, you’re right. I came to Blue Gil to learn what happened. As we drive, will you fill me in on more that you know about Craig?”
Keith lowers his sunglasses back over his eyes and puts the truck into gear. We move forward with a lurch. Gravel pings the undercarriage of the truck. I watch the trees along the side as Keith begins to speak.
“How far back?” he asks.
“When did you learn he was dead?”
“My father called. We didn’t know he was gone; we just knew he was missing.”
“And what were you thinking? I mean, was it like him to disappear?”
Keith seems to wrestle with his answer, his knuckles blanching with his grip upon the steering wheel. “We weren’t close.”
“Didn’t he used to live up by you in the Upper Peninsula?”
“Before he graduated high school, I received an appointment to Kings Point. Four years at the Merchant Marine Academy followed by five as a commissioned officer. By the time I went back to Marquette, Craig was out of Michigan State, a big football hero, and had just started working for a private high school near Marquette.”
“You’re five years older.”
“Do they make you do math in Hollywood?”
I purse my lips. “Go on.”
“Our parents have lived in the UP for most of their adult lives. Having both of their sons back was what they wanted. The only thing was, during the second year of Craig’s probationary period at the school, there was a young woman.”
My stomach drops.
Keith looks my way. “Fuel, Jill. You asked if rumors burned out for lack of fuel. For Craig’s fires there was always new fuel. Craig was good at a few things. Football and finding fuel.”
“So, what happened with this girl?” I ask. “There were rumors?”
Keith shakes his head. “While Craig was at Michigan State, he discovered that he liked ladies, lots of them. And there were plenty. That’s where he met Serena. My parents were thrilled that he was going to settle down. Serena had two more years in East Lansing to finish her degree.”
“She has a degree?” The question came out a little too high-pitched before I could stop it.
A smile spread across Keith’s face. “Yes, fashion design. I’m not sure she could be more cliché.” He looks my way. “Depending on the size of his life insurance policy, she’s now faced with dusting off that piece of paper and looking for a real job.”
Life insurance. Why didn’t I think of that? Instead of pursuing that train of thought, I ask, “What happened in Marquette?”
“The girl’s name was Diana James.”
“What happened?”
“There was a truck parked at a rear parking lot of a city park one night. It was late and unusual. The policeman heard voices and figured it was two kids. He knocked on the window. According to Craig the glass was too steamed for the policeman to see inside.”
Bile bubbles from my stomach. “Craig and Diana? Was she a student?”
“Yes. An eighteen-year-old student. Lucky bastard. If she had been underage, shit would have gone another way. Since she was legally an adult, neither she nor her parents wanted it public. You see, her dad is a judge.” He shrugs.
“Law enforcement and school came to an agreement. They agreed to keep the incident hush-hush if Craig left town. The school even offered to give him a glowing recommendation.”
“That’s when he came here.”
“Just before his hire in Blue Gil, someone leaked information about the police report to someone on the search-and-screen committee. The offer was rescinded.”
We’re now at a stop sign, yet my mind is swirling one hundred miles per hour. “Wait? It wasn’t rescinded. He was hired.”
“Craig had to get out of Marquette. Despite the looks of this town, Blue Gil was his big opportunity. He spoke with someone on the committee. The next thing we know, he’s engaged to Serena and the offer was reinstated.”
“Someone from here—in Blue Gil,” I clarify, “on the search-and-screen committee knew he was accused of inappropriate behavior.”
“No, Jill,” Keith says as we continue driving, passing old farmhouses and open fields. “Someone here saw the police report. Though Diana wasn’t underage, the situation resulted in a charge of indecent exposure.”
“That’s a felony.”
Keith nods. “It can be. It depends on the circumstances. I’d just started on the Marquette police force.
Our parents were well known. The school didn’t want the publicity.
The charge was changed to a misdemeanor.
It was Craig’s first official offense. By the time the paperwork was complete, you’d have thought he ran a stop sign.
However, I know that the report that was leaked wasn’t whitewashed. It was the original police report.”
“How do you know that?”
Keith looks my way. “I’m the one who leaked it.”
I suck in a breath. “Shit, no wonder you weren’t close.” We’re silent for a bit when I ask, “Does Serena know that you did that?”
“No. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because I want you to know that I tried to stop him from coming to this innocent small town.”
“Blue Gil isn’t innocent, Keith. It wasn’t before Craig Gilbert came to town and it sure as hell isn’t now. Ask my sister. We have some pervert out there who’s still walking the streets.”
I’ve lost track of where we are, my mind being on our conversation, when I see the debris from a distance. That’s what it looks like at first, but as we get closer, I see what Hank was talking about yesterday. There are bouquets of flowers, teddy bears, balloons.
“I drove this way last Saturday and I didn’t see this.”
Keith pulls the truck over to the easement on the opposite side of the road. “It’s been growing each day, like the damn stuffed animals are rabbits.”
“Shit, there are two,” I say, realizing that there are two crosses, both made of wood, painted white, with names written in gold paint.
One reads Coach.
The other reads Marty.
By the time my shoes are on the ground, and I close the truck door, my hands are shaking. “I saw Marty with my sister on Saturday afternoon. It’s hard to believe she’s dead. She was just a kid. Kids shouldn’t die.”
Keith doesn’t speak. His eyes are on his brother’s makeshift memorial. “I wanted to set up a camera out here last week,” he says. “I went to Joseph about it.”
“To see if the person responsible for Craig’s death would come back?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s common for the killers to do that.”
“Manes wouldn’t let you?”
“No, and if we had, we’d have video evidence of whoever disposed of Marty’s body.”
“Oh shit. You would.” I stare at Marty’s memorial. Her flowers are fresher and her balloons float higher. “What was the sheriff’s reasoning for not doing it?”
“At first, he didn’t give one. Then he said it’s private property and not an option.”
“But is it?” I point back to the place where the swale goes up. There’s a strip of land about six feet wide and then the edge of an unplowed field. “Isn’t this shoulder, the swale, and that easement county or state land?”
“County, I checked. Manes still said no.”
I walk to the edge of the road. The ground of the shoulder is a hodgepodge of tire tracks and shoe prints. “How many people do you think have been here?”
“Too many to identify the killer.”
About ten feet away, I see the depth of the ditch. “That is...what do you think...six feet deep? It’s still muddy down there.”
Keith shrugs. “In some places deeper. When I arrived here last week, all over the county, these swales were raging rivers. They’ve dried up considerably since then.”
I look in one direction and turn the other, following the road. “Raging?”
“Yes. I think that all the runoff from the fields flows this way. Periodically, the farmers set drainage tubes underground. It keeps the fields from flooding.”
“Craig was found here?” I point to the memorial.
“But he might not have started there,” Keith says, completing my thought. “He could have easily floated or the water pushed him. That would make sense about why he wasn’t found earlier. Manes swears up and down this area was searched.”
Again, I look up and down the long road. “Which way is south?”
Keith turns a complete circle, looking up at the sky before he points to the other side of the road. “That way.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I thought water flowed south.”
“No. That’s a common misconception. Water isn’t picky. It flows the direction of least resistance.” He points the direction we came. “That’s downhill.”
I turn the opposite way, looking uphill. “He could have fallen in the swale up that way, and if the water was strong enough, been transported down here.”
“Why bring Marty here?” Keith says as he looks all around.
“It’s remote.”
“But whoever did it, knows that people were coming out here for Craig.”
I feel the metaphoric wheels in my head spinning. “The guy who killed Marty, and probably the one who hurt Julie, wanted Marty found. He wanted her found and wanted the police to know he, not birds, removed her eyes, just in case she wasn’t found right away.”
“What does that tell you about this killer?” Keith asks.
“He wants recognition. He was probably in the gymnasium yesterday morning.”
“I would agree.”
I turn a complete circle. “This place is pretty open. Where did you want to put a camera?”
Keith points across the street. “Any one of those fence posts.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Let’s check the fence posts.”