Page 52 of Skin Game
“I’m going to head over there now. Might as well since I’m up here.” Casey tugged his wallet out of his back pocket, removed one of his business cards, and handed it to Paul.
“Here’s my cell phone number and email address if you remember anything. Or if you see or hear anything suspicious.”
“Thanks,” Paul said, slipping the card into his shirt pocket. “We’ll be in touch.”
Denny Pritchard’splace was even more remote than Paul and Etienne’s. Dilapidated and forlorn, it was surrounded by a lifetime of broken and discarded machinery—truck chassis, an old yellow school bus, two semi-truck containers, and more—that also dotted the cleared area around it. The forest was creeping back as well, making a play for consuming the yard and all of its ornamentation with the help of its sidekick, the European blackberry. Casey didn’t want to think how or why he’d brought those vehicles up here. A trickle of woodsmoke leaked from the stovepipe-style chimney at the roofline.
The gravel drive that led from the road to Denny’s house had been regularly maintained, and Casey wondered if that was Etienne and Paul’s work. As suggested, he’d honked his horn several times as he drew closer before parking next to the twin of Elton’s pickup. He waited a few minutes for some kind of acknowledgment from Denny before getting out.
Gabriel would not be happy if Casey returned with extra holes in him.
The front door opened wide enough for Denny himself to shuffle out onto the porch. An ancient shotgun was loosely gripped in his gnarled hands and vaguely pointing Casey’s direction.
Opening the door of his truck, Casey slid out and landed in the muddy churned-up earth at the end of driveway.
“Afternoon, Denny, it’s Casey Lundin from the Forest Service,” he yelled.
“I’m not so old I don’t know who you are, Lundin. Whatbrings you by?” Denny grimaced, although it could have been that the man thought he was smiling. Casey figured he didn’t give a shit and greeted any visitor with a menacing scowl.
“We’re still looking for Calvin Perkins. Someone thought they saw his truck on the highway recently. I’m just wondering if you’ve seen or heard anything that might suggest he’s up this way?”
Casey continued to stand by his truck—the way Denny was handling that rifle had him wary. At least, warier than he typically was when dropping in on Denny. There was something less controlled about him this time.
To his credit, Denny appeared to consider Casey’s question for a few seconds before shaking his head and saying, “Nope, I haven’t. Useless piece of shit, maybe he got himself killed. If the forest didn’t take him outright, one of his buddies probably did.”
A low rumble that Casey hadn’t been paying attention to increased briefly in intensity. He realized that Denny’s gas generator was running in the background and wondered why. But it wasn’t Casey’s business and Denny was what was politely called eccentric. The man probably had enough fuel to last until the weather changed for the better and past that point.
“Thanks, Denny. If you notice something, maybe let Paul or Etienne know. They can reach out to me.” He knew full well that no one up The Valley would willingly call the Sheriff’s Office, but they might contact Casey or Greta.
Denny gave him a chin nod and then went back inside his house without saying anything further.
“Alright then.” Casey used the steering wheel to heft himself back into the truck. “I guess he’s not answering any more questions today.”
Bowie had no reply.
He stopped at a few more of the occupied homes on the way back down to the highway while Bowie slept like the dead in the back seat. His dog didn’t even ask to get out of the truck. No oneother than Paul and Etienne had noticed any traffic that could be remotely considered unusual, which only added to Casey’s expanding theory about the Clark-Allards’ past.
“Those Newfies could be special agents too, Bowie. Enforcers, maybe. What do you think about that?”
TWENTY
GABE – THURSDAY EVENING
Gabe didn’t like that Casey had gone alone to Snowcap Estates. Why hadn’t Greta gone with him? Weren’t they work partners? The events of last fall, when Casey had been attacked and Gabe couldn’t get to him fast enough, snuck into his mind. For a short period of time, he and Elton hadn’t even known where Casey was, and that had sent his blood pressure skyrocketing.
He was pacing in his living room, but it wasn’t at all satisfying seeing as he had to turn around again every three seconds. Giving that up, he stopped in front of Alfred and the stack of boxes and glared at them.
“Obviously, I’ve missed something important in you all, more important than the yearbook.”
Lifting a random box, he carried it to the coffee table and opened it. This was the one that seemed to be the contents of a young woman’s dresser drawer. Carefully, Gabe removed everything, setting the items on the table after examining each one. He even tried opening the lip gloss, but it was permanently sealed shut. Taking the empty box, he turned it upside down and shook it. A tiny, gold-colored hoop earring that must have been trapped in a crease dropped out with a softplinksound.
He picked it up and peered at it. Had his mother worn this earring and then lost its twin? How? Had she been at a high school dance? Or hanging out with friends? Since he didn’t know how to feel about the earring and what it said about a young Heidi or the fact that it had been in a box since the mid-seventies, he tossed it back and set that box aside.
Gabe repeated the process with three more of the boxes, finding nothing to note. Box number four was the one that held the spiral notebooks. He’d thought at first that they were full of teenaged Heidi’s class notes and homework, but when he flipped the top one open this time and scanned the page, he realized it was a diary. They all were.
The earliest one began Saturday, January 1, 1977.
This is the diary of Holly Pritchard.