“What happened?”
“Jason was convinced that someone had been digging around the site. There was some unexplained loose dirt, like someone had filled a hole about this size”—he put up his arms like he was carrying a sack—“but we dug up one of them and nothing was there. I think it was some of the kids at the school messing around. Still do. Except—what if I was wrong?”
“Can you show me one of those holes?”
“They won’t still be there,” he said. “Not after five months. With the rain and everything.”
“Maybe it’s still happening.”
“Nah, I think I would have noticed.” Brian glanced at Jasper. He looked undecided.
“It can’t hurt,” Jasper said.
They walked around the construction site and toward the back fence. Brian said, “We still miss him.”
“You always will,” Max said. “But time helps,” she added. It sounded like a lie sometimes, and this was one of those times. Jason’s murder was senseless.
“Jasper said Michael’s folks wrote to you about Jason?”
“Yes.” She didn’t feel it necessary to go into details. “I met with them Saturday and they filled me in.”
“They’re good people. Considered me family, too, ever since Sara married Mike. Practically adopted me. Our folks have been gone for some time, it was just Sara and me for a while.” Brian stopped at the edge of a line of redwoods. He glanced back toward the construction site, then looked at the trees.
The redwoods were two and three deep, all along the west fence, from the edge of the old gym all the way to the far north property line. Max could see the tree she’d climbed on the other side of the old gym, where the trees were a mix of magnolias, oaks, and elm.
“Well, shit,” Brian said, then glanced at Max. “Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I really don’t remember where they were. Jason pointed out three, maybe four. But this is a hundred-yard stretch of trees here, and it was someplace in the middle. Close together—I remember that. But they could have been made by anyone, even an animal, like I’d told Jason.”
“I’ll walk through here and see if anything pops out at me,” Max said. She picked up a long stick and poked at the ground. There was a lot of soft ground here, mulch and needles from the redwood trees. And Brian was right—five months of rain and drainage, the ground would have settled.
But if the holes were deep or big enough, there might be remnants. With the clear sky and sun nearly straight up, this was the best light of the day. And if she didn’t find anything now, she’d be back tomorrow.
Brian said, “Jasper, I have to call the cement contractor about tomorrow’s pour.”
“Go. I’ll keep Ms. Revere out of harm’s way.”
Brian left, and Max glanced at Jasper. “You will?” She walked slowly, eyes cast downward, poking the stick into the ground periodically.
“Wouldn’t want you falling down the rabbit hole,” Jasper teased.
“You don’t have to stay with me,” she said. “I’m okay on my own.”
“I have no place I need to be.”
“Why is it that neither Brian nor you mentioned Jason’s interest with these trees to the police? That Jason found evidence there had been digging?”
“Honestly, it wasn’t on our minds. Jason was very detail-oriented. He noticed things that other people missed all the time. Very focused. Brian and I thought he was being quirky.”
Max squatted to check out a mound of dirt; it was an anthill. She moved quickly away from it.
Jasper grinned. “Don’t like bugs?”
“Not particularly, but I’m not squeamish, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Not generally squeamish. However, there were a few situations over the years she’d found herself in that she hoped were never repeated.
They walked all the way to the corner and found nothing suspicious. Max took a heavy-duty Maglite from her purse.
“Do you always carry a two-pound flashlight in your purse?”
She laughed. “I thought it might be a little dark here. Maybe the light will reflect something.” She handed him her stick. “You poke this time.”
They walked back just as slowly as they’d come. Max was glad that Jasper didn’t feel the need for a constant stream of conversation. She had the distinct impression he was still trying to convince her to go out with him.
“There’s probably nothing here,” Jasper said five minutes later. They were near the middle of the section of trees.
“Jason thought there was.”
“Five months ago.”
Max wasn’t deterred. Jason was killed for a reason; it wasn’t just a random crime. At least, it didn’t feel like a random crime.
“I’ll come back in the morning,” Max said, “at dawn. The light will be different.”
“You shouldn’t be out here a—” Jasper’s voice cut off and he yelped. She would have laughed at the sound if he hadn’t sworn a blue streak right after.
She turned and found Jasper on the ground. His foot was buried in dirt. “Shit, that hurts.”
“What happened?”
She shined the light around Jasper.
“A sinkhole. As soon as I put my weight on it, my foot went in.”
His foot was deep in the hole, halfway up his left calf.
“Is it broken?” Max asked.
“No, but it hurts.” Still sitting, he pulled his foot from the hole. He felt the ground. “This soil doesn’t seem any different from the rest.”
“Except for a hole.” She tilted her head. “Don’t move.”
“What? Is something crawling on me?”
“No, just trust me.”
She walked to the edge of the trees. The hole that Jasper had stepped in was in the middle of a slight concave. Almost imperceptible. She took out her cell phone, made sure the flash was on, and took a picture of the ground. With the flash, it was obvious that the ground had sunk in. It was narrow, but several feet long. She showed Jasper the image. “What does this look like to you?”
“I don’t know—a sinkhole?”