And There He Kept Her Read online

  Packard approached the open garage with the shotgun raised. He stepped inside, nodded back at the man behind him, and waited as the door lowered. In twelve years as a police officer in Minneapolis, he’d fired his service weapon once. In the last eighteen months with the sheriff’s department in Sandy Lake, he’d already shot two deer and a moose, all mortally wounded after being struck by cars. A bear was another first.

  The weak light on the overhead garage door unit stayed lit. Packard hugged the wall to his left, skirting the four-wheeler and the riding mower, since he didn’t know exactly where the bear was. The trailered fishing boat was a red Lund with a 60-horse Johnson tilted over the stern.

  He could hear the sounds of plastic being dragged and the crunch of dry dog food. Near the back wall, he got his first glimpse of the bear—its snout buried in a torn bag—pinned in the far corner by the boat’s motor. Packard pegged its weight somewhere north of three hundred pounds. Its fur was deeply black and glossy. It smelled musky.

  As soon as the bear realized he was there, it rose up on its hind legs, taller than Packard, who was six four. Packard kept the gun up but paused to marvel at the size of the animal. It moved its pale snout this way and that, sniffing the air. Nothing in its shiny black eyes gave any hint of what it was thinking. In such an enclosed space, they could have been in an interrogation room back at the station. Packard had a ridiculous urge to try to negotiate a deal with the bear. Let it off with a warning if it promised not to attack little dogs or cranky old men again.

  The bear dropped its front paws on the motor’s lower unit, hard enough to bounce the front end of the trailer, then rose up tall again.

  Packard took two quick steps forward and pulled the trigger.

  The twelve gauge thundered. The bear curled like a question mark, then collapsed, boneless, to the floor. Packard waited for a few seconds, then hit a button on the back wall to raise the garage door. Daylight raced across the floor like a sunrise at high speed. He squatted next to the dead bear, his ears ringing. The animal already looked diminished in death. Packard put his hand on top of its head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  ***

  Packard was hours late by the time he turned into the sheriff’s driveway. A decorative split-rail fence ran a short way on either side, then ended abruptly, keeping nothing in or out. The house was a brick rambler with green shutters that backed up against acres of thick woods five miles outside of town.

  Marilyn Shaw answered the door. Early sixties. Hair dyed red with gray roots. Wearing blue slacks and a cardigan sweater over a green shirt. She had a dish towel over one shoulder that she used to finish drying her hands before she took Packard’s between hers and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “You get taller and more handsome every time I see you.”

  Packard towered over her. He had dark hair that had started to recede at the temples in his twenties, then decided to hold its ground, leaving him with a slightly irregular hairline in the front. He kept it short, just this side of a military cut. He wore a trimmed beard almost year-round now that beards on men were the style again. Eyes blue or gray, depending on the light. Women were drawn to the size and shape of him. Men were intimidated by it. He was an imposing figure in uniform, even the brown one worn by the sheriff’s department.

  Packard followed Marilyn inside. “How’s he feeling?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  Marilyn shrugged a bit and waved her flat hand side to side. Packard nodded and followed her to the kitchen.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “If it’s not any trouble,” Packard said. Waiting with the old man and his wife at the scene of the bear attack had taught him it was easier to accept the first offer than decline ten more.

  “No trouble at all. Go on in. He’s watching TV.”

  The family room was on the back of the house. The Shaws’ decor was classic country. Varnished beadboard. A wallpaper border of chickens and checkerboard hearts that circled the ceiling. The family room was heavily carpeted, with bookshelves and an overstuffed sectional and framed wildlife prints. Scented candles in glass jars perfumed the air. Packard had to duck to avoid hitting a low bulkhead. Stan was lying back in a recliner, television remote on his belly, looking drowsy. He slowly turned his head. When he saw Packard, his face lit up. He struggled for a moment to right himself in the recliner. “Hey, you giant sonofabitch.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  The sheriff had been a walking bull of a man. Only five foot nine but broad shouldered and wide through the chest, shaped like a potato on toothpick legs. Before the chemo, he had thick dark hair, gray just over the ears, that he kept swept back with pomade in a tamed pompadour. He was a foul-mouthed bullshit artist with men, a gentleman to the ladies, and a hard-ass on criminals. He and Marilyn taught Sunday school and marriage preparation classes at the Catholic church. The people of Sandy Lake loved him. He could have run for sheriff and won, uncontested or not, until the sun burned out.

  Stan sat up in the recliner, a blanket over his legs. He looked more diminished every time Packard came by. A February snowman in March. His hair had come back thin and white. His scalp had spots and odd scaly patches crusted with blood.

  Packard took a seat on the end of the sectional. A bass fishing show was on the flat-screen TV in front of them.

  “You just missed that guy in the orange hat pull up a seven-pounder,” Stan said.

  “Where they at?”

  “Uh… Hell, I don’t know. I thought it was Minnesota. Could be anywhere.”

  They watched TV for a couple of minutes; then Stan pointed the remote at the TV, turned down the volume, and asked what was new.

  Packard told him about the budget review with the city council. They were underspent in overtime and fuel costs. “Warmer temps forced the ice fishing festival to be canceled, which helped keep overtime down. We’ve been so fiscally responsible I thought it was a good time to pitch the idea of hiring two new deputies. I assume they’ll approve only one. You all right with that?”

  Stan shrugged. “You’re the one who has to be all right with it,” he said.

  Packard had been hired by Stan Shaw eighteen months earlier as an investigator for the Sandy Lake County Sheriff’s Department, but for the last four months he’d been serving as acting sheriff, covering as many of Stan’s duties as possible while the sheriff went through a second round of treatment for colon cancer.

  Shaw’s decision to appoint Packard came as a surprise to the county board of directors. Off the record, Shaw had told them his deputy with the most seniority was six months from retirement and didn’t want the job. The one with the second most seniority wasn’t fit to plan the holiday party let alone run the whole department. Shaw liked Packard for the job because he worked hard and came with no baggage. The sheriff, or the acting sheriff, had to be unpopular at times. Packard had no alliances, no grudges, no debts. He hardly knew anyone. Shaw told the board its options were Packard or no acting sheriff at all.

  The other investigator in the department, and Packard’s closest ally at work, was Detective Jill Thielen. She was one who told Packard about the other deputies, all of them male, claiming it wasn’t fair the single guy who worked all the time got the acting sheriff job. They couldn’t be expected to put in the same hours he did.

  “Congratulations,” Thielen told them. “Now you know how every working mother feels.”

  That shut ’em up.

  Marilyn came in with his coffee. Stan said, “Sweetheart, I just thought of another positive thing about colon cancer. This guy has to review the budget with the board. Not me.”

  Packard smiled, then tried to swallow it when Marilyn tsked and shook her head. “We heard you respond to the bear call this morning on the scanner,” she said, changing the subject.

  “Yeah, damn. I forgot to ask about the bear,” Stan said.

  Packard told them about the old man with the dog and the other guy with the bloody hand. “I cornered the bear in the guy’s garage and shot it,” he said, sipping his coffee.

  “What did you use?” Stan asked.

  “Twelve gauge.”

  Stan nodded his approval.

  “What I want to know is why you’re in uniform and responding to calls on your day off. I heard that on the radio, too,” Marilyn said.

  “I was coming here so I thought I’d be ready just in case.”

  “Benjamin, someone else could have responded to the bear. You need to take time off. You can’t work seven days a week.”

  Oh, but he could. Not all of the work was as exciting as coming face-to-face with a seven-foot black bear, but it was still work. It gave him a sense of purpose. The things he did in his time off—working out and remodeling the house he’d bought—were solitary activities. Too much time alone gave him too much time to ponder whether moving to Sandy Lake after Marcus was killed had been the right decision or not.

  “You’ll never meet someone if you don’t take off the uniform and get to know people socially,” Marilyn said.

  By meet someone she didn’t mean friends—not that he had a lot of those either. She meant romantically. Packard shifted nervously in his seat. Stan did the same, but probably because of the cancer.

  “Marilyn, don’t pester the man. He’s doing his job and my job. That’s a lot of responsibility.”

  “All I’m saying—”

  “I hear you, Marilyn,” Packard interrupted, smiling. “I’ll work on it.”

  He changed the subject by asking how her seedlings were doing. Marilyn was a master gardener who could put dirt in a shoe and grow a foot. She asked him if he’d started swimming yet.

  “A week ago,” he said.

  “What’s the water temperature?” Stan asked.

  “Above forty-five degrees. That’s the magic number.”

  Marilyn crossed her arms, grabbed her elbows, and shivered. “Mother Mary and Joseph. I can’t even imagine. You must be blue as a berry coming out of that water.”

  “I wear a wet suit. It keeps a layer of body-temperature water next to your skin. Once you get going, you can stay warm for twenty minutes or so.”

  “Benjamin, that sounds perfectly dreadful to me.”

  Packard smiled and shrugged and visited with the Shaws for a while longer. The purpose of these visits had started out as a way to keep his boss informed about what was going on at work. Lately, he could sense Stan was less interested in work, and so the conversation wandered from town gossip to the weather to stories they’d heard from deer hunters or people ice fishing. Stan had another treatment scheduled for the next day. Packard didn’t ask how the chemo was going. He could see how hard it was on Stan. If they were still treating him, it meant they hadn’t given up. That’s all he needed to know.

  When it was time to go, Packard handed Marilyn the empty coffee cup and shook the sheriff’s hand. “I’ll see you again soon. Let me know if you guys need anything.”

  Back in the truck, Packard listened to the radio chatter as he tried to decide whether to go home or to the station. No one was expecting him to come in, and they wouldn’t be particularly thrilled to see him if he did. A day off for the boss was a day off from the boss. He could give them that at least.

  His personal cell phone rang just as he was putting the truck into reverse.

  “Ben, this is Susan Wheeler.”

  The few times Susan had a reason to call him, she always introduced herself by her first and last name, like it was their first meeting. She could come off as humorless if you didn’t know her. Also, if you did. She and Packard were cousins.

  “Hello, Susan Wheeler. What’s up?”

  “Jenny is missing.”

  “What do you mean, ‘missing’?”

  “I mean she wasn’t in her bed this morning, and she didn’t go to school. No one has seen or heard from her since last night.”

  The clock on the dashboard said it was just after 11:30 a.m. Packard already had questions but decided to hold them until he could meet Susan face-to-face.

  “Do you want me to come to your house, or do you want to meet me at the station?”

  “I’ll meet you.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Chapter Three

  The Sandy Lake County Sheriff’s Department was part of a larger complex that included City Hall, the license bureau, and the county public works department. The two-story blond-brick building sat a block north of the highway, surrounded by a large parking lot.

  Packard walked a white-tiled hallway past glass doors and a community bulletin board that flapped with flyers for fundraisers, lost pets, and an upcoming sheriff’s sale. In the department’s reception area, Kelly Phelps was sitting at the front desk. She didn’t look happy to see him.

  “I heard you were on the prowl. You’re supposed to be off today.” Kelly had been with the department for thirty years and had as much authority as the sheriff, if not more. Get on the wrong side of Kelly, and you’d ask to be locked in a jail cell for your own protection.

  Packard held up two fingers and tried the sheriff’s line on her. “I’m doing two jobs.”

  Kelly shook her head, not buying it. She waved a hand at Packard, pushed a button on her phone, and said, “Sandy Lake Sheriff’s Department.”

  Susan was sitting in one of the waiting-area chairs. A petite woman with straight brown hair parted on one side and tucked behind her ears. She was dressed in jeans and a green T-shirt with a bike on it. She held a red zippered case in her lap.

  Packard knew his cousin didn’t like being touched so he didn’t try to hug her or shake her hand. She didn’t like small talk either. “Let’s go back to my office,” he said.

  Packard waved a security badge in front of a card reader and led Susan through the door and down a hallway past a large open room with desks arranged in rows, past a conference room and a break room, finally coming to the sheriff’s office in the back. The framed photos and articles on the walls were about Stan Shaw. Packard wanted everyone to know he considered his use of the sheriff’s office to be temporary. He hadn’t even wanted to clear Stan’s papers off his desk. Kelly had done it for him.

  Packard sat and flipped his yellow pad to a clean piece of paper. “You said Jenny’s missing. Tell me the details.”

  “I got up at six thirty this morning to go for a bike ride. At six forty-five I knocked on Jenny’s bedroom door to get her up for school. When I opened the door, she wasn’t there.”

  “What time did you last see her?”

  “It was around eleven thirty last night, just before I went to bed. She was still doing homework.”

  Packard wrote the time on his notepad. “Did you hear or see her get up in the night at all?”

  “No.”

  “Has she done this before?”

  Susan blinked and nodded slowly. “I’ve caught her sneaking out at night, yes. She ignores her curfew whenever she feels like it. Since Tom died.”

  Susan and her husband, Tom, had moved to Sandy Lake more than a decade ago. Susan was familiar with the area from summers at the family cabin, same as Packard. His mom and her dad were sister and brother. Their father—Packard and Susan’s grandfather—had built a house on Lake Redwing back when you didn’t have to be a millionaire to do so.

  Susan and Tom owned a restaurant, the Sweet Pea, that served elevated comfort food. A bit fancy for Sandy Lake but the summer tourists loved the place. Susan developed recipes and cooked. Tom was front of house.

  Before moving to Sandy Lake himself, Packard had last seen Susan at her wedding. She and Tom, both avid cyclists, had biked from the hotel where the wedding party was staying to the park where the ceremony was held, then stood before an officiating friend in cycling kits—all black for the groom, all white for the bride—proving Susan had a sense of humor after all; you just had to be patient to get a glimpse of it.

  He’d only had one social visit with his cousin and her family since arriving in town. Last summer he’d gone to the Sweet Pea and sat at the bar with Tom, who had recently been diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. Tom wore a baseball cap to hide where they’d shaved the top of his head and implanted a reservoir under his scalp that would deliver drugs right to his cerebrospinal fluid. He talked like a man with miles of road ahead of him, offering to help Packard remodel his house and to take him ice fishing in January. His daughter, Jenny, was waitressing that night—a pretty girl with short brown hair and a spray of freckles who took her phone out and looked at it every time she stopped at the end of the bar to pick up an order.

  Susan was cooking the whole time and only stopped by long enough to bring Packard his food and ask Tom if he was feeling okay. When he said he’d had enough, Packard drove him home.

  The next time he saw Susan and Jenny was at Tom’s funeral.

  Packard made some notes on his pad. “What did you do when you saw she wasn’t in her bed at six forty-five?”

  “I called her. No answer. I texted her and asked where she was and told her she better not miss school.”

  “No response?”

  Susan shook her head.

  “Then what did you do?” Packard asked.

  “I went on my bike ride.”

  “Did you stop anywhere?”

  “Not really.”

  Not really was not really an answer. That and the sudden slump in her shoulders told Packard she was lying. He pushed back. “You know as well as I do that when kids go missing, the first people scrutinized are the parents. If you were with someone this morning who can corroborate any part of your story, you might want to tell me.”

  Susan sat up straighter. “I rode about forty miles and then I stopped to see Sean White Cloud in St. Albans. I was at his house for an hour or so before I rode home.”

  Packard knew Sean White Cloud. He was an EMT. Young American Indian guy with a chest like a whiskey barrel and a big smile. They’d worked a number of emergency calls together.