Collier County was dredging a creek so they could replace old bridge abutments with new ones. Backhoe dug up a box.”
“Box?”
“Like a shipping crate. Wood. Dimensions were six by three by four feet. Lid was nailed shut. The remains were inside.”
“When was this?”
“Uh…Only three months ago. FBI was given a heads-up. Everything was sent to an Agent Rud…rud…”
“Rudkowski.”
“That’s it.”
That son of a bitch. Drex removed his ball cap, put his elbow on the table, and rested his forehead in his palm. The Champagne was churning hotly in his stomach. “The remains were positively identified as Marian Harris?”
“Using dental records.”
“Cause of death?”
“Suffocation.” Then, “Oh Jesus.”
“What?”
The boat was slowing down. They would be anchoring soon. Through the glass walls enclosing the lounge area, Drex could see Elaine and Talia laughing together as they set the dining table for lunch.
Drex said, “Gray, you still there? What?”
He heard the deputy swallow. “Man, this is grim.”
“Tell me.”
“There was blood inside the crate. On the underside of the lid. Streaks of it, like claw marks. Appears the vic was buried alive.”
Chapter 5
Gif shared Drex’s horror. “Buried alive?”
As soon as Drex had returned from the yacht cruise, he’d showered off the salt spray as well as the taint of Jasper Ford. He’d parked himself in front of the borrowed fan and placed a three-way call to Gif and Mike. They’d been waiting to hear about his afternoon excursion, but the news about Marian Harris was unexpected. It had rocked them, just as it had Drex.
“A minute after hearing that, I had to sit down across the table from him and eat chilled watercress soup and shrimp salad with his homemade rémoulade.”
“Mild or spicy?”
“Fuck, Mike,” Drex said. “That’s crass, even for you.”
“You’re right. Sorry. I’m deflecting my guilt. How did I miss that her body had been discovered?”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Gif said. “It really wouldn’t have done us any good to know before today.”
“At the time she was found, she’d been missing for almost two years,” Drex said. “A widow, no children. Most of her friends in Key West were snowbirds, vacationers, jet-setters from the U.S. and abroad. Word eventually would have gotten around to them, I’m sure, but I doubt there was a groundswell of reaction. Local news in southern Florida may have made the recovery of her remains a headline. ‘Authorities hope the discovery will provide clues into the Key West’s woman’s kidnaping and apparent murder.’ Then, on to weather and sports.
“I don’t know if there was a memorial service or observance of any sort. But it didn’t warrant national news coverage, so it was easily overlooked, Mike.”
Marian Harris’s fate was upsetting to Mike and Gif, but, because of his mother, it affected Drex in ways they couldn’t relate to.
He didn’t have any substantial memories of her, only infinitesimal snatches of recollection lurking in the dark corners of his memory. But they were meaningless because he couldn’t fit them into any context. He had no points of reference. By the time he was old enough to retain memories, she had been long absent from his life.
When he reached an age to become aware of and curious about this deficiency and had asked to see a picture of his mother, his dad had claimed not to have one. Then, as now, Drex figured that he’d been lying, or, if telling the truth, it was because he’d destroyed any pictures of his ex-wife.
Their separation had been bitter, absolute, and permanent. His father even went so far as to have his and Drex’s names legally changed so that, even if she had rethought her decision and wanted to reconcile, she wouldn’t have been able to find them. Though Drex didn’t learn of that until years later.
In his early teens, when he was going through a rebellious phase, he’d demanded to know how he could contact her. His father had refused to provide him with any information, describing their severance as an extraction and an exorcism.
The only picture Drex had of her was the one that had been circulated by the Los Angeles PD when she went missing, and he hadn’t seen it until years after the fact when no one was still actively looking for her.
It was then that he had assumed the search. He didn’t really expect to find his mother living somewhere in obscurity. He had reconciled that she’d been killed and that her remains had been left where they were unlikely ever to be found.
No, he didn’t begin searching for his mother. Rather for the