Pete tapped a stake into the ground to mark the spot.
Gary moved on, following the grid lines back and forth, as radar echoes rippled across the laptop screen. Every so often he’d stop, call out for another stake to be planted, marking another spot they would recheck on the second walk-through. He had turned and was coming back along the middle of the grid when he suddenly halted.
“Now this is interesting,” he said.
“What do you see?” asked Yates.
“Hold on. Let me try this section again.” Gary backed up, moving the GPR across the section he had just probed. Inched forward again, his gaze fixed on the laptop. Again he stopped. “We’ve got a major anomaly here.”
Yates moved in close. “Show me.”
“It’s less than a meter’s depth. A big pocket right here. See it?” Gary pointed to the screen, where a bulge distorted the radar echoes. Staring down at the ground, he said: “There’s something right here. And it’s not very deep.” He looked at Yates. “What do you want to do?”
“You got shovels in the van?”
“Yeah, we’ve got one. Plus a couple of trowels.”
Yates nodded. “Okay. Let’s bring them down here. And we’re going to need some more lights.”
“There’s another flood lamp in the van. Plus more extension cords.”
Corso started up the stairs. “I’ll get them.”
“I’ll help,” said Maura, and she followed him up the steps to the kitchen.
Outside, the heavy rain had lightened to a drizzle. They rooted through the CSU van, found the spade and extra lighting gear, which Corso carried into the house. Maura closed the van door and was about to follow him with the box of excavation hand tools when she saw headlights glimmering through the trees. She stood in the driveway, watching as a familiar pickup truck came down the road and pulled up next to the van.
Miss Clausen stepped out, an oversize slicker dragging behind her like a cape. “Thought you’d be finished by now. I was wondering why you didn’t bring back my key.”
“We’re going to be here for a while.”
Miss Clausen eyed the vehicles in the driveway. “I thought you just wanted to take another look around. What’s the crime lab doing here?”
“This is going to take us a little longer than I thought. We may be here all night.”
“Why? Your sister’s clothes aren’t even here anymore. I boxed ’em up for you so you can take them home.”
“This isn’t just about my sister, Miss Clausen. The police are here about something else. Something that happened a long time ago.”
“How long ago?”
“It would have been about forty-five years ago. Before you even bought the house.”
“Forty-five years? That’d be back when…” The woman paused.
“When what?”
Miss Clausen’s gaze suddenly fell on the box of excavation tools that Maura was holding. “What are the trowels for? What are you doing in my house?”
“The police are searching the cellar.”
“Searching? You mean they’re
“They may have to.”
“I didn’t give you permission to do that.” She turned and thumped up the porch, her slicker dragging behind her on the steps.
Maura followed her inside, trailing after her into the kitchen. She set the box of tools on the counter. “Wait. You don’t understand-”
“I don’t want anyone tearing up my cellar!” Miss Clausen yanked open the cellar door and glared down at Detective Yates, who was holding a shovel. Already he had dug into the earthen floor, and a mound of dirt was piled up near his feet.
“Miss Clausen, let them do their jobs,” said Maura.
“I own this house,” the woman yelled down the steps. “You can’t dig down there unless I give my permission!”
“Ma’am, we promise we’ll fill in the hole when we’re done,” said Corso. “We’re just going to take a little look here.”
“Why?”
“Our radar shows a major bounce-back.”
“What do mean,
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. If you’d just let us continue.”
Maura tugged the woman away from the cellar and closed the door. “Please let them work. If you refuse, they’ll just be forced to get a warrant.”
“What the hell got them digging down there in the first place?”
“Blood.”
“What blood?”
“There’s blood all over this kitchen.”
The woman’s gaze dropped to the floor, scanning the linoleum. “I don’t see any.”
“You can’t see it. It takes a chemical spray to make it visible. But believe me, it’s here. Microscopic traces of it on the floor, splattered on that wall. Running under the cellar door and down the steps. Someone tried to wash it away by mopping the floor, wiping down the walls. Maybe they thought they got rid of it all, because they couldn’t see it anymore. But the blood is still here. It seeps into crevices, into cracks in the wood. It remains for years and years and you can’t erase it. It’s trapped in this house. In the walls themselves.”
Miss Clausen turned and stared at her. “Whose blood?” she asked softly.
“That’s what the police would like to know.”
“You don’t think I had anything to do with-”
“No. We think the blood is very old. It was probably here when you bought the house.”
The woman looked dazed as she sank into a chair at the kitchen table. The hood of her slicker had slipped off her head, revealing a porcupine’s ruff of gray hair. Slouching in that oversize raincoat, she seemed even smaller, older. A woman already shrinking into her grave.
“No one will want to buy this house from me now,” she murmured. “Not when they hear about this. I won’t be able to give the damn thing away.”
Maura sat down across from her. “Why did my sister ask to rent this house? Did she tell you?”
No reply. Miss Clausen was still shaking her head, looking stunned.
“You said she saw that FOR SALE sign out on the road. And she called you at the realty office.”
At last a nod. “Out of the blue.”
“What did she say to you?”
“She wanted to know more about the property. Who’d lived here, who’d owned it before me. Said she was looking around at real estate in the area.”
“Did you tell her about the Lanks?”
Miss Clausen stiffened. “You know about them?”
“I know they used to own this house. There was a father and son. And the man’s niece, a girl named Amalthea. Did my sister ask about them, too?”
The woman took a breath. “She wanted to know. I understood that. If you’re thinking of buying a house, you’d want to know who built it. Who lived here.” She looked at Maura. “This is about them, isn’t it? The Lanks.”
“You grew up in this town?”
“Yeah.”
“So you must have known the Lank family.”
Miss Clausen did not immediately respond. Instead she rose and pulled off her raincoat. Took her time hanging it up on one of the hooks near the kitchen door. “He was in my class,” she said, her back still turned to Maura.
