“What about the animosity over the mascot?” Jenny said.
“There were a few articles about it in the newspaper,” Tracy said, “but it didn’t seem to be that controversial, and I don’t see high school kids getting too worked up about it. That’s one thing Eric Reynolds said that I do believe. He said the parents were more concerned about it than the students. I taught high school. Some of the students couldn’t even tell you the school mascot, and those who could really didn’t care. They’re more concerned about who they’re taking to the formal, where they’re going after the game on Saturday night, and how they’re going to get alcohol and get laid.” Tracy leaned back against the counter, thinking. “Something else had to have happened that night.”
The kettle whistled. Jenny poured hot water into two mugs and handed one to Tracy. “If Eric Reynolds is orchestrating this, maybe there’s something on his computer or his cell phone—a text message with Lionel or Hastey. We have enough to get a judge to issue a subpoena, which would allow us to take a look.”
Tracy had considered that course of action. “I don’t see Reynolds being that careless. Again, if we’re right, we’re talking about someone who’s not only managed to keep a forty-year secret but also got the others to keep it.”
“Agreed, but Hastey’s a drunk and Lionel’s no rocket scientist. One of them could have sent Reynolds an e-mail or a text.”
“Maybe,” Tracy said. “But if we do look and we’re wrong, we’ve alerted Eric that he’s a suspect.”
“He already knows he’s a suspect, Tracy.”
“True.”
“What other option do we have?” Jenny asked. “He’s had forty years to cover his tracks. And unless we can come up with something else, it feels like we’ve hit a dead end.”
CHAPTER 29
The rooster did not crow in the morning, and Tracy wondered if the bird had met its doom in the jaws of a coyote or a raccoon. That was the problem with crowing too loudly. You gave away your position and made yourself vulnerable. It made her think of Eric Reynolds and his proactive decision to invite her to interview him. She’d love to find a way to use it to make him vulnerable.
She put on her running clothes and laced up her shoes, hoping the cool air would invigorate her and the endorphins would help her to think of something she hadn’t yet considered.
She took the longer run to the clearing, starting to feel a connection to it. Far from being scared of ghosts there, Tracy found the place peaceful. When she arrived, she noted that the leaves of the shrub Archibald Coe had most recently planted had already started to turn brown and now were looking wilted, and not for a lack of rain.
“I can’t help you without something more,” she said to the spot where Kimi Kanasket had lain. “I wish I could. You don’t know how much I wish I could—for your father and for so many others like you. But I need something more.”
She looked up the hill, half expecting the leaves to begin to shake and the branches to sway and the wind to sweep down the hill and hit her in the face as it had that first night. But the wind didn’t come, and neither did any inspiration.
When Tracy got back to the farmhouse, she sat down at the table and wrote out her thoughts on possible motives, including romantic relationships, petty jealousies, some conflict between the Ironmen and élan and his crew, or with Tommy Moore. She hoped that getting the possibilities on paper and out of her head would give her a new direction, but like the wind that morning, inspiration did not come.
She unplugged her phone from the charger, started up the stairs checking messages, and noticed that she’d missed a call.
The number was not associated with a name, and Tracy didn’t recognize it, though it had a Seattle area code. The caller had left a message, so Tracy played the voice mail. When the caller identified herself, Tracy stopped climbing the stairs. The voice was tentative and unsure, nothing like the strong businesswoman Tracy had spoken with days earlier. Tracy didn’t wait for the message to finish. Halfway through, she pressed “Call Back” and hurried up the remainder of the stairs and into the bathroom.
Sixty minutes later, Tracy was back in her truck driving north on I-5, a trip she felt like she could now make blindfolded. Her hair remained damp and felt greasy. In her rush, she’d failed to thoroughly rinse out the shampoo. She called Jenny on the drive and explained what had happened, letting her know that she would not be going into the sheriff’s office to prepare the affidavit in support of the subpoena to search Eric Reynolds’s home.
“Why don’t you take a stab at drafting it and leave a couple paragraphs at the end. I can dictate those on the drive back, depending on what I find out, if anything. This could be a wild-goose chase.”
Nearly four hours into her drive, Tracy neared Seattle’s baseball and football stadiums south of the downtown skyscrapers. She took I-90 east and fifteen minutes later exited for the Highlands. Following the GPS’s directions, she made the first right at the top of the hill and drove through a newly constructed shopping area, coming to a roundabout with a grass park surrounded by a waist-high wrought-iron fence. Old-fashioned street lamps and quaint two-story English colonial townhomes rimmed the perimeter. Despite the clear fall weather, the park and sidewalk were empty but for a lone man walking a chocolate lab on a leash.
Tracy found the address and parked in the street at the foot of stairs leading up to the small front porch. She was early, but she wasn’t about to wait in the car. She pushed out, quickly climbed the steps, and knocked.
“Mom, she’s here,” a female voice inside said, followed by the sound of a deadbolt disengaging.
Tiffany Martin pulled open the door with a look of resignation and said, “Please, come in.”
Two adult women in their thirties, remarkably similar in appearance, waited in the small marble entry. Like their mother, the two sisters were well put together, hair and makeup done and nicely dressed, but also like their mother, they each looked on edge. Tracy knew they were all reliving those horrible moments fifteen years ago, and she regretted having to put them through it again.
“These are my daughters, Rachel and Rebecca,” Tiffany Martin said.
Tracy greeted each, and Martin motioned for them to step down into a spotless living room with white leather furniture. A sprawling palm in the corner near a game table and a large oil-based painting provided color. The room held the smell of a vanilla air freshener.
“That’s it,” Martin said, her voice catching as she nodded to a brown file on the glass coffee table. None of the women moved to touch it. Rachel, standing closest to her mother, wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“We talked about it as a family,” Rachel said. “We didn’t want another family to suffer if they didn’t have to.”