Chapter 69
the day of the murders
quinn
‘Not there,’ Quinn says. ‘Scroll forward. Yep, that’s it, from there.’
‘How long d’you want?’ Phil asks.
‘Gimme fifteen seconds.’
Phil adds the video he took yesterday to the piece he’s editing. The body is discreetly concealed by brush, but the activity of the forensic boys in their white suits is clear.
‘OK, let’s go to the interview with Billy Stephens,’ Quinn says. ‘Start about four minutes in, when he’s giving me shit about the ID.’
She’d ambushed the Stowebury chief of police yesterday as the ME’s team brought the body bag down from the mountain.
Billy Stephens had threatened to arrest her for trespass – a threat as empty as it was ludicrous given they were on a public highway – and had then made a series of phone calls before he’d finally agreed to talk to her.
Quinn would put money on at least one of them having been to Colt Smith.
Phil pulls up the interview with the police chief now, freezing it on an unflattering still of the man with his eyes closed and his mouth open.
‘Play from there,’ Quinn says.
‘. . . I can confirm that it’s a Caucasian male, aged between eighteen and forty-five,’ Stephens says pompously. ‘At this stage, we can’t confirm cause of death, but it does appear the deceased has been here for some time.’
‘Is it Luke Connelly, Sheriff?’ Quinn says, off-camera.
‘We haven’t made any official identification yet—’
‘But Connelly’s wallet was found on the body, correct?’
‘We’re still waiting for an official identification of the victim, ma’am,’ Stephens says. ‘After that, we’ll take steps to inform the next of kin before any details are provided to the media.’
He says the last word like it’s shit in his mouth.
‘Can you confirm there are signs someone’s been living in the area where the body was found?’ Quinn says.
The police chief’s mouth tightens. It’s clear he’d rather be scooping out his own eyeballs with a hot spoon than talking to her.
‘There are signs of recent human activity, yes,’ he says finally.
Phil leans back in his chair and takes a gulp of his Starbucks special: Nitro cold brew with an extra shot. ‘Fucking asshole,’ he says.
‘Could you be a bit more specific?’ Quinn’s voice says on the recording.
‘It appears someone has been living in the area for some time,’ Stephens says. ‘There’s a sleeping bag, various articles of clothing, food items and the remains of a camp fire, as well as some sort of makeshift shelter. These items seem to have been used very recently—’
‘How recently?’
‘We estimate within the last couple of days.’
Phil pauses the video and reaches for a bag of tortilla chips. ‘He shouldn’t be telling you any of this shit.’
‘He knows we’ve already got it on camera,’ Quinn says. ‘We’ve got audio of the forensic guys when they found the campsite. Keep playing.’
Her recorded voice fills the edit suite again. ‘Do you have any idea if this rough sleeper is connected to the body you found?’
‘At this stage, we’re keeping all options open,’ the police chief says. ‘But we would urge anyone who may have been hiking or camping in the area in the last few weeks to come forward so they can be eliminated from our enquiries.’
‘You think the rough sleeper is that missing kid, don’t you?’ Phil says, stopping the video again. ‘Nicky Gray.’
‘It’s just a hunch.’
‘Jesus fuck.’
‘We know Nicky told Rose he saw someone dragging a body into the woods round about the time Luke Connelly disappeared,’ Quinn says. ‘Rose thinks Nicky recognised them, and helped them get rid of the body. There’s not many people he’s going to do that for, right?’
‘His dad,’ Phil says, counting off his fingers. ‘His cousin Finn. One of his buddies from school, maybe?’
‘Can’t be his dad, because Amy Gray said she was with Mac the night of Raylan’s party, remember?
’ Quinn says. ‘Finn’s a better bet. Nicky’s a good kid, but it doesn’t sound like he’s got that many friends.
Not the kind you’d put your neck on the line for, anyway.
Maggie Walker was the person he was closest to, and I think we can safely say she wasn’t the one hiding the body.
So Finn’s the most likely. From everything I’ve heard, the two of them were closer than most brothers.
Second choice would be Raylan Adams. Either way, both kids are dead.
Telling the truth can’t hurt them now. So why wouldn’t Nicky come forward? ’
‘Protecting their reputations?’
‘Living rough in the woods for fifteen months? Even the most loyal friend’s not going to do that just to protect their dead buddy’s name.’
‘So who’s left?’
‘Grandpa Colt.’
Phil leans back in his chair, ruffling his Tintin quiff of hair. ‘Fuck a duck.’
‘Yeah, I know. I’m not really feeling it, but who else could it be?
’ Quinn taps her pen against the editing desk, thinking out loud.
‘For the sake of argument, let’s agree Nicky helped someone move the body.
And then, after the accident, something happens to him.
Maybe he’s traumatised, or in shock, or just spinning out over the whole thing.
But he runs away from the lake and goes up into the mountains, back to the scene of the crime. ’
‘How come nobody found him? The search went on for weeks.’
‘Everyone assumed he’d drowned, didn’t they? They wouldn’t have been looking for him in the mountains.’
‘Surely he’d go home to his parents? Maybe not immediately, but once he got his head straight?’
‘Yeah, but maybe something wasn’t right at home. If he was involved in Connelly’s death, that could’ve been reason enough to run away. And his head must have been totally scrambled over losing his cousin and his girlfriend and most of his buddies. The kid must’ve been seriously fucked up.’
Phil tosses a handful of chips into his mouth. ‘You really think he’s been living rough in the mountains for the last fifteen months? Why the fuck would he do that?’
‘He’s got some sort of psychological connection to the place? Can’t leave it?’
‘But how’s he survived? Kid’s gotta eat.’
‘This is Vermont. Throw a rock, and you’ll hit a doomsday prepper with a cabin in the mountains and a cellar filled with canned food and survival shit.’
‘Raylan’s parents’ cabin is about half a mile from that crevasse,’ Phil says.
Quinn points a bang-on finger at him.
‘They left town after their kid died,’ she says. ‘It’s been empty ever since.’
‘There’s no way he’d survive a winter outdoors without shelter. You get six feet of snow up in the mountains, and it’s below zero for weeks at a time.’
‘We need to talk to Colt Smith again,’ Quinn says. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that fucker knows exactly where Nicky is. We tell him we’re working on the assumption Nicky was involved in Luke’s death, and see if he blinks.’
It takes less than forty minutes to finish editing Quinn’s story. She sends it over to the INN news desk, and then meets Phil outside by the car. It’s colder than she expected; the early October air has a raw chill that suggests winter isn’t far away.
She wonders where Nicky Gray will be sleeping tonight.
Cops are crawling all over the mountainside where Luke’s body was found; she doubts he’ll risk going back to Raylan’s cabin, assuming that’s where he was staying.
Whatever demons forced him to literally run for the hills, she hopes he can finally lay them to rest and come home.
This town – this family – has suffered enough.
She texts Amy Gray as Phil drives them to Colt’s farmhouse, asking to talk. It may all be wild speculation on her part, but if there’s even a chance Nicky is alive, living rough in those mountains, his mother deserves to know.
She’s surprised to see Amy’s beaten-up old Chevy parked in front of the farmhouse next to Colt’s truck. She knows Amy has no love for her father-in-law.
Hate wouldn’t be too strong a word.
The front door is wide open, despite the frigid weather.
The hackles on the back of Quinn’s neck stand up. You don’t survive long as a war correspondent without developing a sixth sense for danger.
‘Something’s off,’ she says, as they get out of the car.
Phil shoulders his camera as they approach the front door. Quinn goes in first, pointing silently towards the rug crumpled against the far wall. It looks as if someone skidded on it at high speed.
She stops short when she reaches the sitting room.
‘Oh, Amy,’ she says. ‘What did you do?’