“Then she had to have been desperate,” Joe said. “Marcus Nalchek could have been in league with Walsh.”
Nalchek shook his head. “People trusted my grandfather. Any of the workers would have told Elena that she’d be safe with him. He wasn’t like that scum. He made a terrible mistake. He tried to correct it.”
“The grave,” Margaret said. “Your grandfather must have been looking for Jenny’s grave when he was in the forest.” She met his gaze. “And so were you after he told you about it. You were Sajan’s ‘other one.’ Both you and your grandfather, full of violence and rage.”
“What?” He shook his head impatiently. “Will you keep that coyote out of this, Margaret? I don’t want to deal with him at the moment. Yes, I was definitely filled with both of those emotions. But I didn’t even know what I was looking for. There was no sign of the grave. Walsh did his job well,” Nalchek said. “Every now and then, I would go and look again. But I never found it.” His lips twisted. “Until that freak series of heavy rains that washed away the dirt.”
“And you found Jenny,” Margaret said softly. “No wonder you were so determined to find her identity. You thought it would lead you to the man who was responsible for your grandfather’s death.”
“Partly. I didn’t lie to Eve. Seeing that little girl made me sick, and I felt the same guilt my grandfather had felt.”
“It wasn’t your crime,” Margaret said.
“I suppressed information. Even though I didn’t know for sure that there was a body buried in that forest, and I still kept searching. I set up my grandfather’s estate so that there would never be a possibility of any other human trafficking. And I tried to relocate the remaining laborers who hadn’t already been moved to other areas by the cartel.” He grimaced. “But for years, I protected my grandfather’s memory so that it wouldn’t hurt my family. That was all that was important to me.” He looked at Joe. “You know as well as I do that’s not acceptable.”
Joe nodded. “Absolutely. Not that I wouldn’t feel the same way under similar circumstances. It’s a basic primitive drive to protect the tribe.” He smiled faintly. “And I’m very primitive.”
Nalchek went still. “And that means?”
“You discovered a crime that had happened in the past and assured that it would not happen again. The man who perpetrated it is now dead and cannot be prosecuted. You bent every effort toward finding the killer of one child and protecting another child.” He turned toward the door. “It’s not my case. This isn’t my jurisdiction. And I need to go and make sure Eve is having a good night. You’ll have to take care of it yourself.”
Nalchek and Margaret watched as he walked down the hall.
“Does that mean you’re off the hook?” Margaret asked.
“No, it means that he handed the hook to me,” Nalchek said. “Not safe, considering my past record.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Well, I’m not going to hurt my family after all I’ve done to protect them.” He left the waiting room and started down the hall. “I’ll turn in my resignation as sheriff and say that I intend to go back to the university and work toward an advanced degree. Everyone will understand, considering the fact that they’ve all been thinking I’ve been behaving a little weird about this case anyway.”
“You’re really going back to school?”
He shook his head. “Not right now. I just need to keep away from my family for a while. They know me too well, they see too deep. I don’t know where I’m going. Someplace far away from everywhere to clear my head and see where the wind takes me.”
“I know a place like that.”
He turned to look at her. “You do?”
“Summer Island. It’s an island in the Caribbean where I spent a little time. It’s perfectly beautiful, and they do wonderful experimental work on animals. They have a good security force, but I know that a man like you would be a welcome addition.”