Page 15 of The Sister's Curse

“New radios. They even have Bluetooth and do texts,” he muttered. I could see he was trying to refocus after the fight with the sheriff. He fiddled with the controls, and my cell phone chirped.

I fished my phone out of my pocket and stared at the number that appeared on the screen. It was Chief’s. A text message announced:This is some Star Trek level stuff.

“Pretty slick,” I agreed. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about whatever was happening with the sheriff. And it was clearly none of my business.

He punched some buttons on his radio, and my phone rang.

I answered it.

It beeped a sharp electronic tone when I picked it up, and Chief spoke into the radio. “See? We can even make phone calls.”

“Nice.” I handed Chief the animal crackers.

Chief thanked me and tore into the bag. “I heard you had a tough call last night.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I almost lost that kid. If I had been a few minutes faster…”Maybe he wouldn’t be in a coma.

“You did everything you could. It was just shitty circumstances, kiddo.”

“Except…I’m not so sure.” I told him about Mason’s lungs being full of mud, about how difficult it had been to pull him from the pond.

Chief leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers over his chest, and listened. “And you think someone put that kid in the pond? Held him or weighted him down?”

“I think it’s possible. I’m not sure where I fall on the babysitter. Her clothes were dry, and she didn’t seem to register that Mason was in the pond. I got some warning bells when I looked into the father, Jeff Sumner. He’s a big business honcho, maybe one with enemies, and he was seriously looked at when a girl went missing in the past.”

“Mm. I remember that guy.” Chief’s eyes narrowed. “Sumner and some of his buddies were suspects in the disappearance of a high school girl, Dana Carson. We suspected Dana was dead, but her body was never found.”

“Did you work that case?”

“Well, I tried. Jeff and his cohorts were classmates with Dana. They lawyered up immediately, and we got stonewalled pretty much out of the gate.”

I leaned forward. “What made you suspect them?”

“They called themselves ‘the Kings of Warsaw Creek.’ They were trouble from the start. History of petty crimes and vandalism, the kinds of things that property owners can easily be paid off to drop charges.”

“Sounds like you knew them pretty well.” Warsaw Creek was atributary of the Copperhead River, one that wound, snakelike, through many acres of private land. “Why Warsaw Creek?”

“They set fire to the creek when they were kids. Almost caused a forest fire. They dumped a whole lot of chemicals from Jeff’s dad’s plant into the water and set it on fire for shits and giggles on Halloween.”

“That is…spectacularly dumb.”

“And typical for them. There was a three-hundred-year-old oak that stood in the park across from the courthouse. They poisoned that tree and killed it, just for kicks.”

“What the hell?” I sucked in my breath. I was pretty sure that if they’d crossed paths with my father, he would’ve destroyed them for their affronts to his forest.

“They were minors and got off with a fine.”

“What was their connection to Dana?”

“Dana was last seen at a gas station, with those guys. They were all each other’s alibi, saying they left her there and went to the bowling alley that was owned by one of their fathers.”

“Mm. Shady.”

“Definitely. But there wasn’t enough evidence to charge any of them. No body, no evidence, and we were stuck.”

“But you liked these guys for the crime.”

“Yeah. I did.” He stared up at the ceiling. I could see from the set of his jaw that he hadn’t liked leaving the case alone. Every cop had cases like that. “The girl, Dana, had no reason to take off. Popular girl. She’d never been in trouble.”