Chapter 17 Holt
HOLT
The cabin looked worse in the late afternoon light somehow.
Holt had seen the file images taken in the immediate aftermath of the original fire, the blackened timber frames and collapsed interior walls, and the specific, comprehensive destruction that accelerant produced when it was given enough time to work.
Ten years of weather and neglect had done the rest. The structure that remained was a shell in the truest sense, open to the sky in two places where the roof had surrendered entirely, the walls still standing but barely, the whole thing carrying the particular, exhausted quality of something that had been destroyed a long time ago and simply hadn’t finished falling yet.
The floorboards were another matter entirely.
Holt stood in the doorway of the cabin and looked at what had been done to the interior floor and felt the specific, cold clarity that arrived when evidence stopped suggesting something and started confirming it.
Every board had been pulled up.
Not haphazardly. Not in the way of someone searching in a panic.
The boards had been removed with deliberate, systematic thoroughness, working from one end of the cabin to the other in sections, the pulled timber stacked to the sides in a way that suggested time and intention rather than urgency.
Whoever had done this had come prepared.
They’d known what they were looking for, and they’d been willing to take the time to look for it properly.
June was beside him, her eyes moving across the interior with the same careful read.
“This wasn’t a search,” she said quietly. “This was a retrieval.”
“Or an attempt at one,” Holt replied. “Let’s hope whatever they were looking for, they didn’t find it, or they will disappear into the wind.”
“I don’t know, Holt,” Junes said, pulling on the blue latex gloves that he knew she hated, and gave her a slight rash.
“It’s just off.” She spread her hands wide, gesturing.
“Victoria had ten years to find whatever she thought she’d find in this cabin.
” Her head swiveled as they carefully made their way through what small pathways of the floor were left. “Why would she suddenly do this now?”
“She could’ve buried something here or gotten someone to bury something here and come to look for it,” Holt suggested. “Or maybe Victoria got word that whatever she was looking for was buried here.”
Two of his officers were working the perimeter outside, and the forensic team he’d called on the drive over was twenty minutes out. Lucy was already inside, crouched near the far corner of the cabin where the floor cavity had been fully exposed, her kit open beside her.
Holt crossed the debris carefully, watching his footing on the uneven ground where the boards had been removed, and crouched beside Lucy.
Mrs. Clark lay in the floor cavity.
She was on her side, partially obscured by the shadow of the remaining wall above her, and the days she’d been there had done what days in a Florida summer did to the exposed deceased.
Holt looked at her with the contained, focused attention the situation required and noted what needed noting without letting it become anything else.
“What’s your estimate on time of death for me, Lucy?” Holt asked.
Lucy looked up from her examination. Her expression was professional and careful, as it always was when she was working, the personal responses locked down behind the clinical ones until the work was done.
“Given the temperature and the humidity and the exposure to the elements through the open roof sections,” Lucy replied, “I’d estimate she’s been here somewhere between four and six days.
” She paused. “Possibly a little longer. The conditions have accelerated the process considerably.” She looked back at the body.
“My best estimate puts the time of death before the storm hit.”
“Before the storm,” June said from behind Holt.
“Yes,” Lucy confirmed, glancing around at June.
“Possibly the day before. Possibly two days before.” She reached carefully and indicated the back of Mrs. Clark’s head without disturbing the position.
“I’ll know more once I have her back at the morgue.
But right now I’d say the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the posterior cranium.
It was a single, significant impact.” She looked at Holt directly.
“It’s consistent with what I found on Lacey when they brought her in from the woods and with Judy’s injury as well. ”
Holt was quiet for a moment.
“So you’re thinking it was the same weapon?” he asked.
“I can’t confirm that until I’ve done a full examination,” Lucy told him. “But the location, the angle, and the nature of the impact are consistent across all three cases.” She looked at him steadily. “I’ll know more after I’ve gotten her back to the clinic.”
“At a guess,” June asked Lucy. “What do you think they were hit with?”
“Possibly a tire iron,” Lucy said. “Or something similar to that.”
Holt stood up.
He looked at the pulled boards around him. At the systematic, deliberate pattern of the search. At the corner where Mrs. Clark had been placed in the floor cavity with the particular, cold practicality of someone who needed her out of the way and out of sight.
“Oh, and she had a blanket placed over her,” Lucy told them.
“Someone was trying to hide the body?” June asked.
“No,” Lucy said. “It was tucked around her. Like someone had put her to bed.”
Holt’s brows shot up. “So it was someone who cared about her that did this to her?”
“I think so,” Lucy said. “They tucked Mrs. Clark in like she tucked them in.”
Holt thought about that, and the feeling that they were still not seeing the big picture of the case deepened.
“Maybe it was Alfred who covered her?” June reasoned, obviously reading the conflict about the case in Holt’s eyes. “He’s worked with Mrs. Clark for years and years.”
“Could be,” Holt said, his jaw clamping. He’d known Mrs. Clark for as long as he could remember. She’d babysat him and Tom when they were kids. Anger spurted through him, but he pushed it back. “Do you know if Tom’s been told yet?”
“No, sir,” an officer said from behind him.
Holt turned to look at him.
“Sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropping,” the young man said. “I just brought this over to you.”
It was a piece of cardboard in an evidence bag with what looked like part of a skyline logo on it. “Where did you find this?”
“One of the officers slipped off the boards and fell into the floor near what was once the kitchen area,” the man told Holt. “He stepped on it. But we did take pictures of the area, and one of the officers will let the forensic team know.”
“Thank you,” Holt said, looking at the item.
“What is it?” June asked, tilting her head as he showed her, and she frowned. “That looks almost like the logo for one of Barbara Bass’s items.”
“Barbara Bass?” Holt frowned. The name seemed familiar.
“You don’t know who Barbara Bass is?” June and Lucy asked in unison, staring at Holt as if he were insane.
“No.” Holt shook his head. “But one of you can tell me who she is.”
“She started off with a cooking show,” Lucy answered. “Her recipes were unique, easy to make, and delicious.”
“Her show quickly took off as she was very popular, especially with busy moms,” June continued. “She was a housewife from Miami, and her show just took off.”
“Soon she had her own merchandise and one of those buy them while you still can shows on top of her cooking show,” Lucy said with a grin. “Actually, she came to stay here one year.” She turned and looked at June. “Do you remember that? We went to meet her as Lacey got us VIP tickets.”
“Yes,” June said, nodding, and her face fell as dark emotion flashed in her eyes. “That was about two weeks before…” She swallowed. “Before Shaun and the other four men were killed.”
“She didn’t write that resignation letter,” June said, then glanced at the cardboard in the baggie in Holt’s hands. “Maybe Gilbert bought something from the show.”
“Could be,” Holt agreed and passed it back to the officer. “Please see that forensics gets this and let them see if they can connect the part logo to the Barbara Bass show.”
“I’m just waiting for the body to be collected,” Lucy told them. “Once I have Mrs. Clark back at the morgue and I’ve done a more thorough examination, I’ll have something more definitive for you.”
“Thank you, Lucy. I appreciate it,” Holt told her. She gave them a tight smile as he and June walked away.
As they cleared the doorway and watched the forensic team pull up, June turned to him.
“I’m having my doubts about Mrs. Clark typing out her resignation letter,” June told him and took a breath. “I just hope that we don’t find out that Alfred didn’t type his either.”
“Let’s hope not,” Holt told her.
“That letter from Mrs. Clark was typed,” June continued. “It was formal, polite, and so properly structured.” She looked at Holt. “Someone wrote it for her. I’m sure of it.”
“Victoria needed the household accounted for,” Holt said. “If both Alfred and Mrs. Clark simply disappeared without explanation, questions would be asked immediately. Resignation letters would’ve bought her time to escape.”
“We should’ve noticed this,” June said. “The security footage that Sienna gave us shows Alfred loading the safe and the suitcases. It shows Victoria getting into the car and Alfred getting into the car and driving off.” She met his eyes. “Mrs. Clark isn’t in that footage at all.”
Holt looked at the floor cavity.
“We can look at it in a few ways,” he said. “Mrs. Clark left before they did. Someone else got hold of Mrs. Clark before she could meet Victoria and Alfred.”