Best Kept Secrets Read online

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  “If she hadn’t died of those external wounds, she would have suffocated after being buried under two feet of dirt.” Olivia Hawthorn, leader of the forensics team had her dark-brown hair pulled into a knot. With her white lab coat over a black skirt, she looked like an actress playing the part of lab technician. As she spoke, she pointed to the aged, rusty tool lying on sheet plastic on a white worktable.

  “It’s an old Stanley number 52 twenty-four-ounce hammer. Traces of the victim’s blood were embedded in the rusty head,” Olivia said. “They still make this model with the wooden handle.” Daily, she surprised detectives with her extensive knowledge of just about everything.

  Morgan held her breath, taking in every detail: orange rust on blackened steel, wood streaked with gray, and black where the metal head was attached. She longed to touch it and feel its weight. The paper wrapper around a warm sub sandwich crinkled in her hand. On the way, she had Donnie stop at a sandwich shop.

  The natural wood triggered something in the back of Morgan’s mind. Could it get any simpler? It could. Anxious for details, she urged Olivia to continue. “And …?”

  “And what? This hammer was the original model for those that came after it: rip claws and framing hammers, serrated, titanium, and masonry hammers.” Olivia picked up the tool and turned it in her latex-gloved hands.

  “There are so many kinds.” Donnie chuckled, pretending to know as much as Olivia did about tools.

  Morgan gave him a sidelong glance. “So it’s old,” she said with her mouth full. No pretending. She didn’t know shit about hammers.

  “Before 1970 this hammer was in every household.”

  “There’s no way to trace it. That’s what you’re saying,” Donnie said.

  “Right.” Olivia set the hammer on the table and moved across the room to her computer. “We also found long blond hairs in the girl’s hands. It isn’t the victim’s.”

  “Great!” Donnie said.

  “Two girls got into a fight. One of them beat the other’s face in with the hammer.” High school girls overflowed with emotions, good and bad, Morgan remembered.

  “I don’t think so.” Donnie shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then back again. “In the nineties, nothing surrounded that field but farmland and a few distant homes. They’d just begun building that Target store off 126th street. It was a K-Mart back then, remember? So, what was she doing with a hammer in the middle of the woods?”

  “Hanging up signs for the prom?” Olivia suggested.

  “No. Someone intended to kill our victim,” Morgan said. “She deliberately brought a hammer to the fistfight.” She turned toward her partner. “Donnie, I have a feeling about this. Both Hallie and this girl had their faces crushed in. Their murders went way beyond accidental killing. The amount of anger it would take to strike someone’s face—to crush it like that—is vengeful and deliberate. She brought that girl into the field to kill her, I’m sure of it.”

  “Why do you think it’s a woman? That blond hair could belong to anyone. Boys grow their hair long too.” He pointed to the corner of his mouth, indicating that Morgan had mayonnaise on her face.

  With a wadded napkin from her pants pocket, Morgan wiped her mouth. “You ran the hair through the database?”

  “It’s almost impossible to get DNA from a strand of hair. Luckily there’s enough follicle on the end to run a good test.”

  With her mouth full, Morgan said to her partner, “Do you think they’re linked, Donnie? What if this blond hair matches the blond hairs found in Hallie’s bed? I have a good feeling about this.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “We’re building a case that Hallie’s lover killed her. He smashed Hallie’s face with some kind of mallet. A hammer seems the most likely. And how many cases have we seen where the victim’s hands were broken and the face was beaten in?” Morgan argued. “We’ve seen at least four since I started working with you.”

  “You’re trying to link them all?” The pitch of Donnie’s voice rose.

  “Detectives!” Olivia interrupted. “Mind if I finish?”

  Both Morgan and Donnie turned back to the specialist.

  “So, our victim here was on the North Side cheerleading squad. Like I said, she died of these external wounds. If she didn’t, she suffocated after being buried under two feet of dirt.”

  Morgan stopped short of stuffing another bite into her mouth. “Wait. How do you know she was on the cheerleading squad?”

  “The sweatshirt,” Olivia explained.

  Donnie’s eyebrows went up.

  Olivia explained, “I went to high school at North Side. For years they decorated the gym hallway with the old cheerleader outfits. Her sweater design was from the late nineties. I even verified it with pictures from the web.”

  “Late nineties,” Morgan repeated. “What year?”

  “That sweatshirt was part of the uniform they wore from 1996 through 2000. After that, they switched to the white one.”

  “Thank you so much, Olivia. You’ve been extremely helpful.” Donnie turned toward the door.

  “We can do a dental check for records.”

  “We don’t have time for that.” Morgan leaped after him.

  “Good night, Detectives.” Olivia closed her door.

  These days, Donnie hated to work late. Though Morgan hoped they would. This case had been cold for too long. And Morgan wanted to open it back up.

  “I brought the missing persons’ files from the nineties with me. I’ve looked through the first five years of records, and this case isn’t with those. Help me sort through the rest. It’s in there, Donnie, it has to be.”

  “Computer records are easier. I wish someone had taken the time to file these.” Donnie spread the paperwork from 1995 through 1999 out on his desk.

  Morgan held a folder in her hands. “In 1995 there were no cheerleaders, missing or otherwise,” she said.

  “In June of ninety-six a high school girl was abducted from a gas station in Plymouth, Indiana. She was a cheerleader for a different high school. Her body was found in 2001.”

  “Here it is. March 1997, Suzanne Aiken from North Side High School disappeared and was never found. She was a cheerleader.” Morgan looked up at her partner.

  Donnie sat in his desk chair with his hand out. “Give it to me.”

  Morgan held it as Donnie read aloud, “Her parents were Benjamin and Leeanne Aiken. She had two little sisters, and Mom stayed at home.”

  “Aiken owns a furniture store in Castleton.”

  “She had lots of friends. Police interviewed ten of them,” Donnie continued.

  Morgan leaned closer. “There was a long session questioning her best friend, Becky Lewis. Afterward, the detectives determined—she was abducted at the mall, near the movie theater. How on earth did they figure that?”

  Donnie waved his hand in front of his face. “Morgan, you smell like onions.”

  “Sorry.” She covered her mouth.

  “Let’s see. Search teams scoured the area, but no one saw a car. No one saw anything. Looks like Becky said she waited for her at the movie theater, but Suzanne never showed.”

  Morgan kept a hand at her mouth, directing onion breath away from Donnie. “They had nothing else to go on. Her boyfriend, Ekhard Klein, had an alibi too.” She politely stood back and pointed to the page. “What’s that say?”

  “He was with his dad in the hospital. Dad was treated for an overdose of painkillers.”

  “That sucks,” Morgan said. “Ekhard Klein was Hallie’s supposed fiancé. Coincidence?”

  Donnie leaned back in his chair. Morgan stepped around the desk and picked up her half-eaten sandwich.

  “I think we start with Suzanne’s family.” He picked up a phone book. “Her parents are still alive and living in Indianapolis.”

  Morgan spoke while chewing her food. “Call them.”

  “Ask nicely,” Donnie teased.

  “Please?”


  CHAPTER 15

  CARYN

  Breezy air cooled Caryn’s cheeks. She stood in front of a coffee shop near the IOA where the warm smell of pumpkin pie permeated the air. She had her purse and a briefcase in her hands and vaguely remembered Harry and Riannda ushering her to the door. “Go on home. Come back when you feel better,” they had said.

  The effects of the ipecac syrup, kept in the back compartment of her desk for just such an occasion, had worn off. In the bathroom, she’d vomited two more times. The feeling was wretched, but worth it to get off work at a moment’s notice.

  Pie. Caryn took a deep breath of the fragrance. She opened the door of the coffee shop to the sound of bells. The bakery shelf held a variety of enormous muffins chock-full of blueberries and chocolate chips. Scones sprinkled with cinnamon and dotted with raspberries. There were little cakes decorated with pretty frosting lines, and marzipan flowers sat on top of yellow squares.

  “May I help you?” A college-age blonde with her hair in two braids faced Caryn from the other side of the case.

  “Pie. Do you have pumpkin pie?” Caryn asked.

  “Oh. No. But we are featuring our pumpkin spice latte right now. Iced or hot.”

  Caryn nodded. “A large, please. Hot.”

  The blonde handed her the warm cup topped with a heap of whipped cream. Not pie, but it would have to do.

  In the corner of the low-lit coffee shop, Caryn got comfortable. She took off her jacket, pulling the left sleeve over the bandage on her arm. With her right hand she scooped her laptop out of her briefcase and set it on the small table. After it booted up, she typed his name into the search bar.

  Never in a million years had she expected to see him again. Yet here was Ekhard Marcus Klein within a tap-tap of her fingers. Eks, whom she had written off and given up for dead. Eks, who had changed his name to Nathaniel Johnson.

  And so he wasn’t dead. Just dead to me. She hadn’t seen him since the day of her graduation from high school. Ekhard was her only sibling and only living relative.

  Seventeen years, four months, and twelve days was how long. She knew the number of days. He had dropped her off at graduation at 9:04 in the morning on June fourth in 2001 and said, “See you in hell.” And she hadn’t seen him since.

  He didn’t call. He didn’t stop by, not for holidays or birthdays. She remembered being very angry with him. It had taken eighteen years, four months, and seventeen days to say that without wanting to kill him.

  Kill him.

  There was an idea.

  Ekhard/Nathaniel currently lived in Lafayette, north of Indianapolis. He worked for a small accounting firm with a ridiculous name, Baker and Baker. Everyone knows there’s no baking at a CPA office. Caryn thought it should be called Checks and Balances, or Numbers-Are-Us. Nevertheless, he was hired in 2014, replacing William Baker as the one in charge of small business bookkeeping. Before that, he had worked in eastern Indiana for another accountant, Gary Pritchard. That job came after getting the sack at Garrison Electric.

  Research was a cinch for Caryn. Easy as pie, she thought—her mother’s saying. She breathed in the warm scent of her pumpkin spiced latte. Though pie wasn’t easy at all. Like her mother, Caryn couldn’t bake if her life depended on it.

  She remembered that her mom always bought cold, grocery-store pie-in-a-box. That was easy. Mom talked about recipes that her mother and grandmother had made when she was a child. Apple and berry pie. Even sugar pie. Caryn wondered what that was. She imagined that it was full of creamy white pudding and topped with mountains of white, fluffy whipped cream. Heaven to a seven-year-old.

  I never got to try it, she thought, and bitterness boiled up again, the flavor of vomit.

  Ekhard hadn’t left a trail. Except for Garrison Electric, it was almost like he didn’t exist before working at the accounting firm. Caryn muttered to herself, “And where are you now, dear brother?”

  Two women at the round table next to Caryn’s looked over at her. The one wearing white horn-rimmed glasses with little jewels on them sneered at her. Or smiled. Caryn couldn’t tell which, so she grinned back, picked up her paper coffee cup, and toasted the woman as the ladies went back to their conversation.

  Caryn sniffed at her latte, then took a cautious sip, scalding the tip of her tongue. She licked cinnamon whipped cream off her lips and reset her focus.

  Nathaniel Johnson had an address: 6818 Hyacinth Court in Lafayette. It would take an hour and a half to drive up there, but it might be worth it. To see him again.

  Maybe, just maybe, he’d want to see her. They could go out for dinner. Or drink lattes together. Or just drink. Perhaps she should bring him a gift. A new tie. Or a bottle of wine. She wondered if he drank wine. Maybe he was a bourbon drinker like Dad. Caryn decided to stop at the liquor store on the way.

  In the recent picture of Ekhard on the website of the Baker and Baker Accounting firm, he looked older, though not any heavier; his skin was mottled, and he hadn’t shaven. “You look like shit,” she said out loud.

  The lady in the horn-rimmed glasses looked over at Caryn again, as if defending Ekhard.

  “What?” Caryn asked her.

  Without answering, the woman turned back to her friend.

  He was thirty-nine. The same age as Mack, and he looked bad for his age. His thinning hair was slicked back and too long. He had died it dark brown and the color did nothing for his skin tone. The picture of him from the waist up showed that he was thin—too thin for a man his age. The one redeeming feature was that he looked genuinely happy. And how could that be? Caryn wanted to see for herself.

  6818 Hyacinth Court. She committed the address to memory and shut off her laptop.

  The lady at the next table stared over her horn-rimmed glasses and watched Caryn tuck the computer into her bag while carrying on a discussion with her friend: “So Madeline talked to the principal. I tell you, she is a real piece of work. Mrs. Von Broche told my daughter she imagined things. Can you believe it?”

  I hate being stared at. Caryn’s furrowed her brow. “What?” she asked. Hackles up, she didn’t expect an answer. She slung her purse and computer bag over her shoulder, and with her free hand picked up her coffee.

  The Horned Lady placed a hand on Caryn’s arm just as she was about to walk past. “Excuse me, I know you. You were a friend of Amy Dufresne, weren’t you?”

  Caryn stopped. She had known Amy Dufresne. She’d been a dear friend, until … “Amy is dead.”

  “I know. She and I were college roommates at IU in Indy.” The woman touched her glasses, adjusting them.

  “How do I know you?” Caryn asked.

  “We met at The Blue Room. Remember?”

  Perhaps it was the memory of Amy, or the shock of being connected to Amy this long after her murder. The cup of hot coffee slipped right out of Caryn’s hand and landed in the woman’s lap.

  Like a cat having kittens, the woman howled and jumped to her feet.

  “I’m so sorry.” Caryn tried to brush the coffee off her, but it had already soaked into her shirt and jeans.

  “What were you thinking?” she shrieked. She took off her glasses and set them on the table, as they were splattered too. Her friend ran for some napkins.

  “I’m so sorry.” Caryn fussed over her.

  The Horned Lady hunched her shoulders, peeling the blouse away from her chest. A dollop of foamy whipped cream ran down her thigh. The friend returned a moment later with a thick stack of brown-paper napkins. She pressed them into the woman’s stained blouse, saying, “It was only an accident. I’m sure it was just an accident. We’ll get this all cleaned up.”

  Caryn apologized and made her way for the door, moving quickly to get away from that coffee-pie smell.

  Outside, she tucked the white horn-rimmed glasses into her pocket.

  CHAPTER 16

  CARYN

  Caryn unlatched the clip from the belt loop on her jeans and flipped between the five keys to find the right one. On the ring were ke
ys for each important part of her life. Ekhard wasn’t among them. But he was only a short drive away.

  They had been close growing up. After Mom left them, Dad spent most of his time sucking down booze. As a parent, he became so useless that by the time Caryn was in high school, Ekhard had to take on the role of parent, chauffer, and guardian. He was the only one who gave a damn.

  Inside her Hyundai, Caryn slouched in the driver’s seat and pushed her bags to the passenger side. After closing the car door, she took a breath, her mind spinning in all directions.

  She thought about her drunk, useless father and her mother. At least Anna Clare had gotten away. Like Ekhard, her mother had escaped and disappeared too. But that was another story, one Caryn didn’t wish to revisit, ever. When she did, it made her angry.

  Gripping the steering wheel with one hand, Caryn started the car with the other. A woman’s voice bellowed over the radio, drums beat a danceable rhythm to the words. And she stiffened, reminding herself that consequences, whatever they might be, were still within her control. She had decided to reconnect with Ekhard, with her childhood.

  Traffic was forgiving for a change. The Genesis bumped along, rolling like a billiard ball toward its destination. I-465 was clear through the exit to I-65 North, and the drive to Lafayette didn’t take as long as she had anticipated. Gliding into town on the curved exit ramp, she made a quick stop at Walmart for a bag of lollipops. It was just the thing to help settle her stomach. It had always worked when she was a kid. As a last-minute decision, she grabbed a bottle of Kentucky’s finest for Ekhard. A peace offering.

  Taking a scenic route through Lafayette, she circled into Ekhard’s neighborhood like a hawk. How long had he lived here? She turned left on Hyacinth where neat, single-story houses lined clean streets and mature trees extended like battered umbrellas over each yard. She parked in front of 6825, a white house with faded green trim and too many potted plants near the front door. Ekhard’s house, two doors diagonal from that one, had no potted plants on the stoop.