Presumed Dead Read online

  Almost half a lifetime. And I knew he would divide his existence into before and after Adeline. I remembered what he had said about the ownership of the house, and knew the answer to my next question. I asked it anyway. “Your parents, are they still around?”

  “My mom died when I was six. Dad took off a while before Adeline disappeared.”

  “Know where he is now?”

  “Probably six feet under.” He sat back on his heels and gestured around him. “Just me, now. All this time.”

  I looked around. A big house for one guy, all on his own. A lot of time to dwell on things.

  “So what do you think, Blake?”

  “I’d like to find out what Wheeler was looking into before he died. I won’t lie to you, though, I think this one’s a long shot. Even if the woman you saw was your sister—”

  “She was my sister,” he cut in, his voice hardening.

  I let the rebuke hang in the air for a second and then continued. “I’m keeping an open mind about that. Even if you’re right, and it was her, she could be long gone.”

  “She was long gone for fifteen years. Difference is I know she’s out there, now. I know I can find her this time.”

  His words touched on something that had been at the back of my mind. “I only have one other question for you, before I get to work.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You think the woman you saw was Adeline, and what makes you sure about that, is the fact she recognized you.”

  He nodded firmly.

  “So if she recognized you, why didn’t she stick around?”

  The amiable look slowly drained from his face and his eyes narrowed.

  “I guess you can ask her that question when you find her, Mr. Blake.”

  11

  Carter Blake

  Be careful who you tell you’re a friend of Connor’s.

  I thought about Joe Benson’s words as I drove back to the cabins. Next on my list had been speaking to the local cops. Perhaps some of the personnel who worked on the original Devil Mountain murders were still around. Benson’s warning had been my first inkling that it might not be plain sailing, and from the way Connor talked about the Bethany authorities, I was less than optimistic. I had expected that, of course. Small towns have long memories. I decided to spend a little time seeing what else I could find out about Wheeler. I was pleased to find the cabin had wifi, and used it to do some digging. The news report on Wheeler’s carjacking gave me a few more details.

  Walter Wheeler had just filled up his tank at a gas station in Adamsville, on the west side of Atlanta. A security camera showed him paying at the counter, talking to the cashier, and then driving out.

  Police were called to the intersection down the road eleven minutes later. They found Wheeler face down in the middle of the road. Somebody had shot him twice in the head and hauled him out of his car. Dead at the scene.

  I checked the news reports and there were follow-up stories over the next few weeks. It seemed Wheeler’s murder tied in to a rash of carjackings in the city. His case had one important difference from those other cases though: his was the only fatality. I wondered if he had fought back, caused the situation to escalate.

  David Connor told me that the Atlanta PD had traveled up to interview him when they found out that Wheeler was a private investigator and that he had been working on a case for him. From the way Connor talked about it, it sounded like they were interested in him as a suspect, but I guessed they had been able to eliminate him, since it looked like the case was still unsolved.

  I thought about the reason Wheeler had been there in the first place. It would be easy to dismiss David Connor’s story as the wishful thinking of a family member who had never gotten closure. Without a body, it’s impossible for anyone to be sure, and that uncertainty often leads to false hope.

  The Devil Mountain killings had taken place between 2002 and 2003. Before social media really got started, but well after the internet had embedded itself in everyday life. For whatever reason, this case hadn’t lingered in the public consciousness the way others do. There had been enough serial killings, mass shootings and terrorist attacks since then to bury it. In the wider world, it seemed few people thought much about the Devil Mountain Killer anymore.

  In among the news reports about the killings, getting sparser and more brief as the years went on, I found an old discussion forum about the case. It was hosted on a site called TrueSleuths, which was still active, though there were only a handful of posts on the Devil Mountain forum in the last five years. From the web design, it looked like it had been set up as a bulletin board in the early 2000s, maybe even the late 90s, as a place for armchair sleuths to come and debate the latest media-sensation murder cases, as well as older, pre-internet cases, going back to Zodiac and Manson.

  The most recent posts were from a user called “Mr. Brownstone”. I had a look. The first one was a link to a news article in Virginia, speculating about a link between two murders in Lynchburg in 2004 and the unsolved case. Two hitchhikers killed on rural roads, double tap to the head, .38 caliber, an attempt to conceal the bodies. All part of the Devil Mountain Killer’s signature, as “a source” had pointed out. Mr. Brownstone was skeptical. The hikers were both over sixty and had been robbed. Several of the Devil Mountain victims had been found with their wallets and jewelry untouched; robbery had not been the motive. I clicked through to the linked article and agreed with him. It looked like superficial similarities only. At the foot of the article was a linked piece from two months later confirming his thesis. An itinerant drifter named Rodney Goggins had been tried and convicted for the murders and was currently on death row. A full confession, DNA evidence, the works. The classic motive – he just wanted the money.

  I clicked back to the forum. Mr. Brownstone’s next post was recent, from earlier this month.

  Adeline Connor alive?

  This was brand new. Nobody had commented. I clicked in, wondering what Mr. Brownstone, whoever he was, knew. There wasn’t much there, just a short paragraph about Adeline, and how her body had never been discovered, and then the revelation that her brother, who had been under suspicion briefly in 2003, now believed he had seen her alive. But how the hell did he know that? Connor hadn’t spoken to the media, as far as I knew.

  I spent a little longer going through the posts on the forum, but found nothing to tell me who he was or where Mr. Brownstone came from. I considered posting something myself, or sending him a message, but decided to wait until I had done a little more digging. In the meantime, I had other people to speak to.

  12

  Carter Blake

  “You got an appointment?”

  The question was not asked in an unfriendly tone, but all the same, the look in the young deputy’s eyes told me the answer to the question ought to be yes. The metal name tag on the right breast pocket of his light blue shirt said HAYCOX. He was in his early twenties, I guessed, and tall, though he was sitting down. His fingernails were neatly clipped, and he wore an expensive-looking watch on a leather strap. It stuck out: a wristwatch was practically an eccentricity on someone of his age.

  I looked around. The front office of the sheriff’s office was small but neat. Pine woodwork, a gray carpet, a couple of pot plants. The kind of place where they have the time to vacuum and generally give a damn what the place looks like. The three desks in the office were uncluttered. From in the back somewhere, I could hear the sound of a radio. I looked back down at Deputy Haycox.

  “No, I don’t have an appointment,” I admitted. “I can come back later if it isn’t convenient.”

  He shot a glance at the back of the room. I followed his gaze and saw two doors. One marked “Private”, the other “Sheriff J.M. McGregor”. As we looked, I could swear I heard the volume of the radio being turned down a little. So the sheriff was in.

  “What’s it about?”<
br />
  “I wondered if I could talk to him about David Connor.”

  Haycox blinked as he heard the name. “In regard to what?”

  I heard a slight creak of hinges as the door opened behind me.

  “It’s okay, Dwight.”

  I turned and saw the man I assumed was Sheriff McGregor standing in the open doorway.

  I estimated he was in his early sixties. He was dressed in the same uniform as Haycox: light blue shirt, navy tie and chinos. His hair was gray and neatly trimmed. His eyes were brown, and they regarded me in that way all cops do, whether they’re looking at a possible DUI, a murder suspect, or a guy asking for directions: suspicious, until you give them a reason not to be.

  “Sheriff McGregor?” I held my hand out.

  He reached out and gripped it hard for a moment, then released it. “I happen to have five minutes. Your lucky day, I guess, Mr …”

  I considered giving him another name for a split second, and then decided against it. No reason to. Not anymore. “Blake,” I said. “Carter Blake.”

  He took that in and then glanced at Haycox, who said nothing.

  He gestured for me to go in first and followed, closing the door. The sheriff’s office was like the public area, only more so: both smaller and neater. There was a desk and a computer and a swivel chair, and a wooden chair with red fabric upholstery for visitors. McGregor sat down behind his desk, reaching underneath it to turn the radio down even further, but not quite off. It was a football game he was listening to. The breathless commentary and swells of crowd noise lingered in the air, too quiet to easily make out any words.

  Aside from the monitor and keyboard, there were only two items on the desk: his hat, which was gray felt with a gold trim, and an autographed baseball. There was a steel filing cabinet and a bookcase against the wall. The bottom shelves were taken up with neatly labeled binders, and the two upper shelves with books. I scanned the spines and saw the titles were mostly things like Georgia Department of Lakes 2015–17 and State Census 2011. I also saw the Devil Mountain Killer book I had bought in New York. That Haycox guy outside would have been in elementary school then, but McGregor was the right age to have been around for the original investigation, assuming he hadn’t moved here from elsewhere. His name didn’t ring a bell from my quick reading of the book, though.

  I was conscious of his eyes on me as I looked around his office. Eventually, he broke the silence.

  “You mentioned David Connor out there, Mr. Blake. I assume that means you’re here about Walter Wheeler.”

  Straight to the point. I had wondered how I would broach the subject of Wheeler, but McGregor had saved me the trouble.

  “Has David Connor spoken to you about that?” I asked.

  He shook his head slowly. “Connor’s smarter than that. What’s your interest?”

  I let that one go for the moment. Again, my mind shuffled through the index of ways I could justify my presence. When dealing with law enforcement, particularly personnel that might be hostile, it’s always better not to give them an excuse to shut you down right out of the gate. I opted for something like the truth.

  “I’m working with an organization David Connor has been in touch with. The Missing Foundation, perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  I cleared my throat, taking care to avoid words like “we”. “The foundation works with the family members of victims of certain crimes.”

  “Certain crimes?”

  “Specifically, people who have been abducted, or are suspected of having been murdered, but where no body has been recovered.”

  McGregor folded his arms and leaned forward on the desk, a thin smile on his lips. “Something told me it would be along those lines.”

  His tone did not promise great cooperation in my future.

  “You’re familiar with the case, then.”

  He took his time answering.

  “A few weeks ago, a guy was sitting where you’re sitting, asking me the same questions you’re no doubt about to ask. That man is dead now.”

  He left a pause that seemed to demand some sort of response.

  “Is that a warning?”

  “This isn’t amusing, Mr. Blake. You ask if I’m familiar with the case, by which I assume you really mean, am I familiar with the Adeline Connor murder case. I’m familiar with it, all right. I headed up the search team when we looked for her. I was there when we found Eric Salter’s car.”

  “You believe she’s dead.”

  “She is dead. That bastard got her. Even if she wasn’t dead when that car went into the river, she was afterwards. No way could she have survived that, and the blood loss. Her body was swept away by the river. I hear David Connor is having trouble accepting that.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  He shook his head. “I just told you no. Connor hasn’t spoken to me or any member of this department in fifteen years, as far as I’m aware. Some people would say it was understandable.”

  “Because he was a suspect?”

  “Whichever way you look at it. Either because we suspected him to begin with, or because we never caught his sister’s killer.” McGregor sighed and closed his eyes, massaging them with the balls of his thumb and index finger. He seemed to look ten years older, all of a sudden. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure if David Connor has spoken to anyone in town for fifteen years. It beats me why he’s still here. He could have sold that place and started fresh someplace else.”

  I didn’t interrupt, but I had my own ideas about why Connor would stick around. Leaving Lake Bethany would be an admission that it was over, that he had given up.

  McGregor looked out of the window at where my rented Lincoln Continental was parked in the lot. I saw him register the New York license plate, and knew he was committing the plate to memory. He looked back at me.

  “So we had kind of forgotten all about Connor, in a way,” he said. “The younger kids talk about him, about how he was the killer and we just couldn’t prove it. He’s the spooky old man in the house on the hill, and he ain’t even thirty-five. And then a few weeks ago, your friend Wheeler comes in to see me, asks if I can spare the time to talk about … about what happened fifteen years ago.”

  “You don’t like to talk about it.”

  “You’re very perceptive. I like you better than Wheeler already.” He reached forward and picked up the autographed baseball, weighing it in his hand. “We got a lot of that back then, of course. News people coming by all the time, then amateur detectives for a little while. We kept quiet, hoping people would move on, and eventually they did. It tailed off after a few years, and I was just fine about that. Things took a long time to recover. Maybe they still haven’t. The rubberneckers still come, maybe not so many, but they come. The families don’t come, not like before.”

  I nodded. “You don’t want people dragging up old memories.”

  “And I don’t intend to encourage you to, either. So if we keep this discussion confined to David Connor and the unfortunate death of Mr. Wheeler and why I think you’re wasting your time here, you and me will stay friendly.”

  I considered carefully.

  “How much do you know about what happened to Wheeler?”

  “How about you tell me what you know, and we’ll see if we can take it from there.”

  I knew there wasn’t much I could tell him that he wouldn’t know already if he had taken the time to read the news report or put in a call to his colleagues in Atlanta, but I guessed he wanted to make sure the information transfer wasn’t a one-way deal.

  “David Connor hired him,” I said. “From what you’ve said, I figure he went private right off the bat because he knew …” I paused, chose my next words carefully. “He knew that coming to see you wasn’t an option for what he wanted.”

  McGregor ey
ed me carefully, as though looking for an implied insult. After a minute, he motioned for me to go on.

  “Connor believes that he saw his sister in Atlanta, several weeks ago. Alive.”

  “I’m aware that he is under that illusion, yes. Wheeler told me.”

  How many other people had Wheeler spoken to? Could one of them have been the guy calling himself Mr. Brownstone on the TrueSleuths forum? McGregor was waiting for me to continue.

  “He tried to find her himself, with no luck. He reached out to my friend at the Missing Foundation, like I said. They weren’t able to directly help him, but they suggested hiring a private detective. That’s where Wheeler came in. He was looking into Connor’s story in Atlanta when he was killed.”

  I stopped and just looked at McGregor. I could have told him a little more than that, of course, but I had talked enough. It was over to him.

  “Shame for Wheeler,” McGregor said. “Like I said, I never took to the guy, but … damn shame. You have to be careful, in an unfamiliar city, don’t you? Mr. Wheeler wasn’t careful enough.”

  “So he came and spoke to you after taking the job,” I said. “Just once?”

  “Definitely just once. I couldn’t have helped him even if I particularly wanted to. He told me why he was here and asked a whole lot of questions.”

  “You didn’t like the questions he asked?”

  He paused and gave me that appraising look again. “I didn’t like the questions, or the way he asked them. He seemed to believe Connor with no evidence. I hope you’ll be a little more skeptical. He talked to me like we’d screwed up, that Adeline was alive. I told him what I told you: that she isn’t. She’s out there, somewhere, but not alive.”

  My eyes moved to the books on his shelf. The one about the Devil Mountain Killer in particular. I wondered if I was about to ask one of the questions that had gotten Wheeler kicked out.

  “And what about her killer?” I asked. “Is he still out there, too?”

  McGregor sighed and looked down, as though disappointed.