The Watcher Read online

  When he comes back out, he picks up bags of firewood and throws them into the back of the blue Toyota truck she’s been tracking. In the front seat is a black, pit-ish mutt with a square head and a white blaze. Kateri parks by the free air pump and gets out.

  “Shannon Jenkins,” she calls, and he jolts, his arms raised like a startled baby or an electrocuted man. The crowd at Stewart’s is enough to swallow her voice. She’s in plain clothes, in her own car. No one else there notices her.

  Shannon puts a hand to his chest and then to his belly, calming himself.

  He’s just a kid, she thinks. So was Craig O’Neil.

  “Kateri Fisher,” she says up close.

  “I know.”

  “I need to talk to you,” she says. “You’ve been hard to find.”

  “I’m—” he starts. “I’m not staying at home.”

  When the sun catches him from behind, his hair lights up like a ball of amber. Kateri suspects it’s prettier than he knows.

  “I need you to come to the morgue,” she says, “and I need you to come in for questioning.”

  “The morgue?” he says, and pales.

  “I need a next-of-kin identification,” she says.

  From inside the truck, the dog gives one warning bark to Shannon.

  “For?” Shannon asks.

  Smart, Kateri thinks. “An adult female,” she says.

  His chest seems to give way, to cave in.

  “Now?” he says.

  “I’ve been waiting,” Kateri says, “so yes, now would be good.”

  She goes around to the other side of the truck and pets the dog through the open window. He’s a big baby who laps at her open hand. “Who’s this?” Kateri coos to the dog, and while she waits for Shannon to answer, she gets the address off the dog’s collar. It’s Burlington. She thinks he cannot possibly be staying that far away and driving back and forth. She also cannot have him leaving the state.

  Shannon looks at her through the cab of the truck.

  “You can drop him off first,” she says, testing. “Then you can meet me, and we’ll go together.”

  Shannon looks down at his feet, and Kateri sees the muscles in his jaw set. There’s a chance he’ll bail. He’ll say he’s taking the dog home and will never show, and she’ll lose track of him again for days, or for good. He’s got friends, she thinks. He has someone protecting him. He’s not alone.

  “Where?” he asks.

  “Meet me at the station,” she says. “In thirty.”

  She waits while he pulls out and goes left, the opposite way from his own house, up toward the new construction. The dog pokes his muzzle out the window, sniffing and appearing to smile. He has the loose lips of a hound. But not the soft mouth.

  * * *

  At the station, both Albany and Burlington newspeople approach her on her way in. Behind them is a truck from a Syracuse station.

  “Detective!” the reporter calls. She’s a young woman with that gloss of TV news: perfect hair, shining lips.

  Kateri holds up her hand and shakes her head. She ducks in before they can barrage her with questions about the murdered cop.

  Inside, Hurt and the chief are working on a statement. There’s very little they can actually say, but they need to confirm publicly that yes, a young deputy has been murdered. And yes, they are also working on the disappearance of local woman Pearl Jenkins.

  “We need a DNA sample from one of the kids to match the blood at the house.”

  “I’m taking Shannon Jenkins to the morgue,” she tells them. The chief stands over Hurt’s desk.

  “Did you arrest him?” Hurt asks.

  “I don’t have anything to arrest him for,” Kateri answers.

  Chief Whittaker rubs his face with his hand. Everything about him, Kateri thinks, is a square. His head, his crew cut, his hands, his torso.

  “I know you have urban training,” he says to Kateri. “But things are pretty simple up here,” he tells her.

  “I’ll decide that,” she says. “I can’t connect him to the crime yet.” She smiles by way of a frown and leaves them to collect files from her office before she takes Shannon Jenkins to the morgue.

  She smokes half a cigarette on the sidewalk beside the building, watching the road. She remembers the direction he drove off in, the make and model of the truck, the sight of the dog. But she waits, tapping her shoe, smoking too quickly. It gives her a head rush. She thinks, I shouldn’t have let him go. She watches every car that goes by, every car that’s not his. He didn’t have the look, she thinks, that look that says run. Something about him seemed resigned.

  His blue truck, empty of the dog and the firewood, pulls in on time and parks in the back of the station where the employee cars are. She watches him sit in the driver’s seat for a moment, ruffling his hands through his hair, looking down at his lap, probably at his phone. She sees him take a deep breath and try to relax his shoulders before he gets out.

  She drives him out to the coroner’s office in a squad car and not her own. He doesn’t talk on the way there; he just picks at his fingers. His nails are bitten down and ragged. She notices that his hands are soft and not rough from dishwashing the way she would have thought.

  They enter through the front, not the way Kateri and Joel Hurt came in to identify the bones. In the lobby, the receptionist sees Kateri and picks up her phone, announcing, “Detective Fisher and a guest to see you, ma’am.” She hangs up and nods at Kateri.

  The office is dark. Black tile floor and walnut paneling. There are two leather chairs that it seems unlikely anyone ever sits in. Elise Diaz comes out in a sharp, conservative suit, completely changed from the way Kateri saw her early this morning, in a rain jacket and rubber boots.

  Dr. Diaz shakes Shannon’s hand and then holds it and feels the edge of his sweat shirt, the hood of which is up around his neck like a cowl. He swallows. In his left hand, he grips his keys on a short woven lanyard with a print of bears. Dr. Diaz takes that hand, notices the keys, and tells him he can relax. Kateri watches as he tries to release his fingers. He puts the keys in his jeans pocket.

  “Thank you for coming,” she says. She walks him down another black-tiled hallway, shoes clicking, and stops outside a wooden office door with her name on a matte-gold plaque.

  “Come in,” she says, and ushers them into a warm room with a beautiful, intricate Persian rug and black-and-white photographs of trees. Shannon sits on the edge of a leather chair, facing the desk. He’s pale and, Kateri thinks, brittle.

  But pretty well dressed. Both his hoodie and his jeans are clean and fit well, and they seem both new and of good quality. She wouldn’t have guessed he’s been living in poverty in the woods.

  Diaz has paper bags, and inside them, evidence in plastic bags. She takes the bags out one at a time, and Kateri notices a wave a nausea or panic wash over Shannon. He swallows and rubs his throat.

  “I have some articles,” Dr. Diaz says, “that I’d like to see if you recognize. These are pieces of clothing or personal effects,” she says. “Nothing gory or scary. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She pulls out a small bag first. “Shannon,” she says. “Is it okay if I call you Shannon?”

  He looks for a moment like he can’t fathom what else she would call him. “Yes,” he says.

  She reveals the bracelet. “Is this familiar to you?” She lays the bag on the table between them.

  “Can I?” he says, reaching for it.

  “Of course.”

  He picks up the bag and looks closely. “That’s my mother’s,” he says.

  “How do you know?” Kateri asks.

  He points at the stones woven into the braid of the bracelet. “These are rose quartz,” he says, and shrugs. Then, “She made it herself.”

  Kateri nods encouragingly and hands the baggie back to Elise Diaz, who pulls out a larger bag.

  It contains the suede boot, caked with mud along the bottom from the woods and stained on the top with bl
ood spatter.

  “That’s my mom’s,” he says. Then, “You don’t have both.”

  “Only one was uncovered,” Kateri says.

  “It’s from Walmart,” Shannon offers, and Elise checks inside to confirm.

  “Thank you,” Dr. Diaz tells him.

  “That’s it?” he says. “Those are just things.” He looks at Kateri. “I thought you said there was an adult female.”

  “What we have,” Diaz says, “is not fit for public viewing.” She tilts her head down, knowing, but still gentle with him. “I can show you a photograph if you’d like, but I don’t recommend it.”

  “What is it?” Shannon says, suddenly shrill.

  Kateri presses her lips together. “It’s bones.”

  “Bones,” he repeats. “What happened to her?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Kateri says. “It’ll help if you submit a DNA sample. It’s not mandatory, but”—she nods at Elise—“it will help Dr. Diaz make a definite match. Your mother doesn’t have any DNA already on file, so the best we can do is match her to next of kin.”

  The shadow underneath his cheekbone is deep and greenish. He looks gaunt in the light of the office.

  “What kind of bones?” Shannon asks.

  Kateri looks at Elise Diaz. A sort of heavy resignation has settled over Shannon’s face, his lips sinking, his eyes hooded.

  “What kind of bones?” he asks again.

  Elise folds her hands on the desk. “There’s an intact pelvic bone,” she says. “And most of a spine.”

  “That’s it?” Shannon says.

  “That is all that has been recovered to date,” Kateri says. “Forensics are still digging.”

  “Where would the rest of it be?” he asks.

  She’s alarmed by his seemingly matter-of-fact questions. He hasn’t broken down. He has shut down, weighted, lingering in a dark logic.

  “In the woods?” Kateri says. “Animals do the most damage.”

  He swallows.

  “I mean,” he says, “what makes you think she’s dead?”

  Elise raises her eyebrows at Kateri.

  “Shannon,” she says, “when is the last time you were home? At the house on Hidden Drive.”

  He shrugs. “A few days, I guess,” he says. “A week?”

  “Where have you been staying?” Kateri asks.

  “With my friends,” he says.

  “Around here?” Kateri asks, and he nods, but offers nothing else. “When is the last time you spoke to your mother?”

  “When I was home,” he says. “She doesn’t have a phone.”

  Kateri straightens and drums her fingers on the file folder she has brought with her.

  “Just tell me,” Shannon says.

  “There’s a significant amount of blood inside the house,” Kateri says. “That indicates an attack, with blunt force. The remains we found, however, were yards away from the house,” she says. “And near these other items that belonged to your mother.”

  She watches him breathe through his teeth, biting down on his tongue.

  “Are you okay with giving a DNA sample?” Kateri asks.

  “Yeah,” Shannon says. “Of course.”

  “We can complete that at the station,” Kateri says. “There are some other questions I need to ask you, and Dr. Diaz has quite a bit of work to do.”

  Diaz stands and reaches for Shannon’s hands.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she says.

  Shannon bows his head, letting her hold his hands. “Thanks,” he mutters.

  Diaz nods toward the lanyard that hangs out of his pocket. “I’m quite fond of bears,” she says.

  “Oh,” he says, and blushes hard and sudden, his face flared hot pink. “Me too,” he says.

  Outside, the wind has picked up and blasts across the parking lot. Shannon hunches up his shoulders, but his ears and cheeks remain hot.

  “I thought I had to see her,” he says inside the squad car. “I thought there was a body.”

  Kateri shakes her head. “There are only pictures and things,” she says. “I’m sorry, I should have told you.”

  She had no intention of telling him. She wanted to see how he reacted to the possibility of seeing the body. He has remained quiet, ashen, and pinched the entire time. Except for the blush, she thinks.

  * * *

  That afternoon, Hurt appears on the TV news in a black suit and a black-patterned tie. He looks taller, slightly older on-screen, his hair darker, his face more serious.

  He announces that they have uncovered the body of a young deputy and that they are looking into possible foul play, with a suspect at large, who should be considered armed and dangerous. In addition, he says, they are investigating the disappearance of Pearl Jenkins and the connection to recently discovered remains inside Silver Lake Park.

  “This is an ongoing investigation,” Hurt says, without mentioning the missing girl. “I’m unable to take your questions at this time.”

  He steps away from the podium, and Chief Whittaker waves his hand to the crowd, dismissing them, and leans into the mic to say, “Thank you, Detective Hurt.”

  In the hallway, he caves in a little. Kateri watches him as he closes his eyes, his spine curved forward like he’s folding inward.

  “Joel,” she says, approaching.

  “What time is it?” he asks her.

  “Three thirty,” Kateri says.

  “I need a drink,” Hurt says, and eyes her, tentative.

  “I can handle a drink,” she says.

  TEN: SHANNON

  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9

  Bear Miller’s house was a mock Italian villa on the edge of town, one of the new houses going up in the luxury tract. In fact, his was the only house on its street, and empty lots in various stages of construction sat around it. They were all huge, five thousand or more square feet, Bear’s house with an in-ground swimming pool, a tennis court, a three-car garage.

  It sat alone at the top of Fountain Street, the way my house sat alone at the bottom of Hidden Drive. Around it, poured-cement basements. No streetlights. Few trees, except where the woods began to encroach from behind.

  He could kill me, I thought, and just have me poured into the foundation of another home. No one would ever know. I wasn’t even sure when someone would start looking.

  The upper room in the front of the house had a wrought-iron balcony. A bigger balcony spread across the back of the house and overlooked the pool and the tennis courts. And beyond that, the dense woods.

  Bear parked in the middle garage spot, and the door opened automatically with a whisper. Inside were a kayak, a mountain bike, and a tiny yellow roadster with round mirrors on the sides and the top down.

  “How long have you lived here?” I asked.

  “Not long,” Bear said, and pointed to the boxes lined up near the door.

  A dog came bounding from the backyard to greet us.

  “Watch out,” Bear said before I opened my door, and I flinched as the dog approached, barking “He’s exuberant,” Bear laughed. “And he likes men.”

  The dog was mostly black with a white blaze and white paws. He was part pit bull, with a big square head but long legs and a thin, athletic body. When I opened my door, he jumped right on me, front paws on my shoulders, licking at my face so eagerly that he hopped on his back feet.

  “Buddy,” Bear said, sharp. “Down.”

  “Is that your name?” I said to the dog. “Who’s a good buddy?”

  “He’s a rescue,” Bear said. “He’s head shy.”

  The dog circled my feet in the garage, openmouthed and panting, his tail thumping.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He’s been hit,” Bear said. “If you raise your hand,” he said, and demonstrated, lifting his hand near the dog’s face, and the dog cowered, wincing, his eyes squinted shut, his shoulders braced for what he thought was coming.

  I got it. I was head shy myself. My mother didn’
t hit often, but when she did, she meant it. I remember my ears ringing from one thump when I was still really little. She’d caught me with matches. I was just sitting on the porch lighting one after another, sometimes pressing it into a dry leaf and watching the bright edge curl and snuff out, fascinated and thrilled. She clocked me from behind. “Don’t ever,” was all she said.

  I crouched down to the dog’s level, and he leaned into my chest like a hug.

  “He likes you,” Bear said.

  Inside, there was an open kitchen with slate-gray stone counters and light birch cabinets. It looked out over a giant room where the ceiling was the full height of the house. A wall of windows faced the backyard, uncovered. The floors were dark and sleek.

  I felt filthy. I leaned and wiped my hands on my jeans, and was afraid to come very far into the house.

  “How long has the water been out?” Bear asked.

  “A few days,” I said.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to make assumptions about what you need. But the bath is down there.” He pointed to where the hallway curved around the back of the living room and into a large master suite. “Why don’t you take a hot shower, and …”

  “I don’t have any clean clothes,” I said, and stopped myself short. I sounded like a brat, but I couldn’t stand the idea of getting clean and then putting on the same greasy things. I’d rather stay dirty.

  “I’ll give you something while these wash,” he said, as if it were obvious.

  We had an old washer and dryer set in the basement, and I hated going down there. I’d wear jeans twenty times before I washed them.

  The hall was marble floored. To the left was a spacious office with a heavy dark desk and walls lined with bookshelves. Along the ceiling was dim, recessed lighting. In the bedroom, just the edge of a big white bed was visible.

  I started laughing, from nerves, from embarrassment. “Who are you?” I said, and it came out snarkier than I’d meant.

  Bear patted the dog’s side. “Go lie down, Buddy,” he said, and pointed toward a plush Oriental rug in front of the fireplace.