Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Seth had done countless witness interviews in his career so far, but none had ever taken his breath like this one. He’d never forget this image; Claire Dyer across from him, her hair honey-toned as she tried to hold strong, concealing words that held so much power.
And she must’ve known they were powerful—that was why she’d been so afraid to tell him.
“I… found something,” she confessed.
He leaned forward. “What did you find?”
“A necklace. In my dad’s room. It was a silver chain with a butterfly pendant on it.
I thought it looked familiar, but my sister said it wasn’t hers, and my dad hasn’t been with another woman since my mom died.
That’s what he says, at least. I thought it must be my mom’s, but my dad’s never been one to keep stuff like that around. That’s not the strange part, though.”
Her hands were shaky as she took out her phone. After a few taps, she showed him her screen. On it, an article, dated just over twenty years ago. The website had an old-school look, too-large text over a gaudy green background, like it hadn’t been updated since posting this.
“An article about your mom’s disappearance,” Seth said. “Looks like this was from before she was considered deceased.”
“Yeah, but read this part.” She pointed to an italicized paragraph at the bottom of the article.
“Celine Dyer was last seen wearing white sneakers, denim overalls, a blue knitted sweater, and a silver necklace with a butterfly pendant on it,” he read out loud. As he did, the weight of her discovery dawned on him.
Holy shit.
Vindicated, he said, “Do you have the necklace?”
A hopeless look sank her features. “No, I tried to go back and look for it, but I couldn’t find it. My dad must’ve moved it. I wish I’d at least taken a picture of it, but—I don’t have the proof, but I saw it in his room a few nights ago. I wouldn’t make something like this up, I swear.”
“Hey, I believe you,” he reassured her, and she deflated in relief. “How’d that make you feel? When you made the connection between the article and the necklace?”
“Confused. How could my dad have it if my mom was wearing it when she went missing?” She quieted for a moment.
“Part of me kept thinking, maybe the poster was wrong, like, maybe my mom wasn’t even wearing it.
Another part of me assumed the worst. Like maybe my dad does know what really happened to her. ”
“Has he ever been violent with you or with anyone else?”
“Not like, hitting us. Not me or my sister, anyway. He could be rough with the boys. Smacking them if they did something wrong, grabbing them too hard, that kind of thing.”
“I see. So from what you’ve seen, it wouldn’t necessarily be out of character for him to be violent.”
“Not really.”
She was still holding things back, he could tell, but Claire had already given him plenty to work with.
The threads were colliding—Ron’s physical and emotional power over these young men, the potential that one of them witnessed something to do with his wife’s death.
A recipe for psychological trauma. And if what Claire suspected was true, about her dad being involved in drug trafficking, then the heroin itself could be part of the message.
Part of what the killer was trying to expose.
“The farmhand you mentioned, who was there when your mother was still alive,” Seth said. “You said his name was Trevor?”
“Yes. Trevor Sloane.”
He wrote that down. “Is there anything else you can tell me about him? His demeanor, his attitude, anything at all?”
“Not a whole lot. I never paid much attention to him. Like I said, the farm stuff was the boys’ domain.
But I do remember my dad would get frustrated with him.
That was why he brought in Dylan with a Y.
We usually only ever had two farmhands working at a time, but there was something about Trevor not getting enough work done. ”
“You might say Trevor was a bit of a black sheep.”
“In a way.”
Seth took a moment to mull it over.
Some grudges could last a lifetime. Maybe Trevor never got over the fact that Ron “fired” him.
Seth had no idea what would prompt him to come back now, but maybe his plan had been to bring an outside detective in because he assumed the Fairview police were all in Ron’s pocket.
He orchestrated a homicide, brought in Robert Haylock, and gave him a map to Celine Dyer’s body.
But Haylock didn’t follow the map. He didn’t even include it in any of his reports. Maybe he told Ron Dyer about it, which gave Ron a window to go burn down the evidence and move the body somewhere else.
If any of this were true, then Seth really was in over his head here. It wouldn’t only mean re-opening a twenty-year-old case—it’d mean Robert Haylock, of all people, could have been a dirty cop. How was he going to convince Delaney—convince anyone—of that?
Not without the body.
He took a breath.
One thing at a time.
Before concluding the interview, he asked Claire to write down a list of every farmhand she could remember so he could let Chief Wells know.
Claire gave him a list of six names, six possible suspects.
But considering Trevor had actually known Celine Dyer, he held a firm spot at the top of that list.
He finished the recording with a simple, “Thank you for sharing all this with me, Claire. Interview concluded at 12:48 p.m.,” and shut it off.
With the recording no longer looming over them, Seth leaned back in the booth and crossed his fingers behind his head.
“Wow. That was a lot.”
“You’re tellin’ me…” Claire rubbed her arms like she was cold.
It was easy to see all this through the lens of his investigation, but these people were her family. Whether Ron murdered his wife or not, Claire’s fear of him was real. And Seth sensed she was still holding things back.
“I have to say, I don’t love the idea of bringing you back to Fairview after this,” he said.
“You sure you don’t wanna get a hotel out of town or something, at least until we have a chance to look into everything?
I’ll take you there. I don’t mind. I’d feel better if you weren’t in town at all until we catch the killer. ”
Claire considered it, but ultimately shook her head.
“I won’t leave my place when we get back.
I don’t want my family thinking I talked to you or the cops at all.
Like I said before, worst thing I can do is start acting different.
As long as they don’t find out I met with you today, they won’t get mad at me. ”
“And if they do get ‘mad at you’? What are you afraid will happen?”
She bit her lip. “It’s just not something I wanna deal with.”
“Still, you shouldn’t have to be afraid of your own family. Or anyone, for that matter. You’re allowed to leave town for a few days.”
Her gaze lowered. “I know.”
But she added nothing else. What more could he do? He couldn’t force some sort of preemptive witness protection on her. Even if a huge part of him really wished he could.
After packing up his things, Seth stood up, and Claire did too.
They both lingered next to the table. At the smell of something savory frying in the kitchen, Seth’s stomach growled against his will.
He hadn’t eaten all morning, which was a rookie mistake.
He was no good to anyone if his head wasn’t working right, but it was always easy to lose time on a case like this.
“I’m gonna use the washroom real quick,” Claire said. She still wore that anxious look, but the conversation seemed to loosen some of the tension in her shoulders.
“Hold on,” Seth said, “I’m gonna get us some food for the road. What can I get you?”
Claire hesitated. “Um… think they make pancakes to-go?”
“I bet they do,” he said as he fished his wallet out.
“Thank you,” Claire peeped. “I’ll be right back.”
Without thinking, he gently touched the small of her back. “Yeah, I’ll meet you outside.”
She scurried off, and he tried not to think about why the hell he did that—and why it felt so natural. But he owed her a lot more than pancakes.
Claire was taking a while. Alone outside, Seth leaned against the warm hood of the car and took a bite of his egg sandwich as he scrolled through his phone. Claire’s pancakes-to-go were in a Styrofoam container on his car beside him, and he hoped she was okay in there.
He angled his screen to see through the glaring sunlight. The name Trevor Sloane had yielded too many results on Google, so he’d narrowed down the search to Trevor Sloane, Missouri, then Trevor Sloane, northeast Missouri.
That got him a hit.
There was a privatized mental health facility near the border of Illinois, about an hour east of here. Belleville.
Under the staff page, he found the hit.
Trevor Sloane – Gardener
A long-time Belleville resident himself, Trevor tends to the gardens around the facility, creating beautiful displays that relax both patients and visitors alike.
Below was a photo of a skinny man in a light blue jumpsuit standing next to a rose bush. He had a clean-shaven face and grinned tightly at the camera. The brows, the eyes. They did look like the sketch.
Finally, Claire came out of the restaurant and trotted over to him. Her nose was cherry-red, and he recognized the pink hue rimming her eyes. It was the same way she’d looked last night.
“Sorry,” she said. “Had a bit of a panic attack, then the lady inside was chatting with me… said I looked like someone who used to work there.”
He stood up straight. “You all right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
He didn’t believe that. God, he wished she’d just let him park her in a hotel away from Fairview. Instead, he gestured to the to-go box with his elbow. “They gave you a knife and fork and syrup on the side.”
“Thank you, that’s sweet…” Claire tentatively dug into the box. The sugary smell lifted into the air. Before she started eating, she added, “I never got to say I’m sorry about last night, by the way. For the way I acted…”
“Don’t worry about that.” Seth showed her his phone. “Is this him?”