I thought of the scene the day before, the blood spatter on the clothes hanging on the line, the bloody holes the birds pecked in the sheet that covered the bodies. If Mother Naomi hadn’t come… I willed myself not to finish the thought.
“Chief Jefferies,” someone called out, and Lieutenant Mueller trudged out of the barn. “You dropping in to check on us?”
“I’m hoping I can help,” I said. “Max said no luck so far, unless you’ve had a recent discovery?”
“No. Can’t say that we have, although we’re continuing to search,” he said. Mueller looked as worn out as I felt, and we weren’t even a day and a half out from the killings.
“Tell me where you’ve looked,” I suggested.
“All through the house,” he said. “We’re checking out the barn now.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to nose around inside, see if anything occurs to me.”
“I hope it does,” Mueller said. “If not, we’re out of here when we’re done with the barn, without finding those letters you’re after.”
I signaled that I understood and then started off for the house. At the door, I turned and looked back at the yard again, where Anna’s and the children’s bodies had been. Sadness washed over me. I pushed it back and went inside.
In the kitchen, two floor tiles had been removed, those that had the bloody footprint. They should have arrived at the state crime lab along with the knife, the gun, everything the CSI unit had collected at the ranch the day before, and the boot we’d found at the cabin.
Sooty fingerprint dust soiled the cabinets, their doors gaping open. The techs had pulled out utensils and pots and pans, plates and glasses and piled them on the table. From the looks of it, it was a thorough search. I doubted that I’d find anything they’d missed in the kitchen, so I moved on. I stopped and scouted around the living room, lifted the couch cushions and found nothing. In the dining room, I looked through the china cabinet, then at the long table ringed by chairs, a high chair on one side for little Jeremy. I wondered if he was big enough to sit in it yet. I didn’t think so. I thought how sad that Laurel would never see her son crawl or walk, hear him say his first words.
At the bottom of the steps I inspected the ceiling, wondering about the heating ducts, ultimately deciding Laurel would never have stashed the letters where they’d be dried out and destroyed by the heat over the winter. Examining the walls with each step I took, I moved upstairs. The most likely location had to be Laurel’s room. If I were her, with something to hide, that would be the only place I wouldn’t be seen taking the letters out to read or putting them away. Yet in Laurel’s room, too, Mueller’s unit had done a thorough search. All her long prairie dresses, her cotton nightclothes, were out of the closet. The drawers were empty, and they’d been turned upside down and checked for false bottoms. The bedsheets were gone, sent to the crime lab to check for fibers and hairs. I inspected the spindled headboard, looked under the mattress, and then lay on my back and slid under the box spring and examined the bottom, hoping to find the letters taped beneath.
Nothing.
I rolled up the rugs and checked the floor, board by board. Slow going, it began to feel fruitless. But she must have kept them, I thought. They were too precious to throw away.
Frustrated, I sat on the edge of the bed. It appeared such a normal room. How could something so horrific have happened here? Where are the letters?
In Jeremy’s nursery, I inspected each corner, hoping to find something, anything that looked odd or out of place. They weren’t stashed under the crib, or in the small dresser. I didn’t find them concealed in the wicker changing stand. The closet still had Jeremy’s tiny clothes hanging inside. Hand-me-downs, lightly worn and carefully kept, intermingled with a scattering of newer things: a tiny set of coveralls, a blue cardigan with a hood, and onesies with trains and airplanes. I’d sent a bag of the baby’s things with him the day before, but I thought perhaps I should take more, so Jacob’s family could have them for him. I grabbed a plaid vinyl bag off a closet shelf and stuffed the rest of the clothes inside.