men like Jake Wolf. They never really believe that it’s over. They look for an out, an escape hatch, a loophole, a legal maneuver, something.
A few minutes earlier, they’d spotted Van Dyne’s car in the Roosevelt Mall lot. Myron and Win had run ahead, leaving Lorraine Wolf and Erik Biel in the car. Erik still had a few nylon cuffs he’d bought at the same store where he’d picked up the ammunition. So they cuffed Lorraine’s hands behind her back and hoped like hell that Erik wouldn’t do something stupid.
Not long after Myron and Win disappeared into the dark, Erik got out of the backseat. He moved toward Van Dyne’s car. He opened the front door. He didn’t know what he was doing exactly. He just knew he had to do something. He slid into the driver’s seat. There were guitar picks on the floor. He remembered his own daughter’s collection, how much she loved them, how her eyes would close when she strummed the strings. He remembered Aimee’s first guitar, a crappy thing he’d bought at a toy store for ten bucks. She’d been only four years old. She banged on it and did a wonderful rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” More like Bruce Springsteen than something you’d see from a preschooler. He and Claire had clapped like mad when she finished.
“Aimee rocks,” Claire had declared.
They had all been smiling. They had all been so happy.
Erik looked out the windshield, back toward his car, back toward Lorraine Wolf. Their eyes met. He had known Lorraine for two years now, since Aimee had first started dating her son. He liked her. Truth be told, he had even semi-fantasized about her. Not that he would have ever done anything about it. Not like that. Just a harmless fantasy for an attractive woman. Normal stuff.
He looked in the backseat now. There was sheet music, handwritten. He froze. His hand moved slowly. He saw the handwriting and realized that it was Aimee’s. He picked it up, brought it closer, holding it as if it were strands of porcelain.
Aimee had written this.
Something caught in his throat. His fingertips touched down on the words, the notes. His daughter had held this paper. She had scrunched up her face the way she always did and delved into her life experiences and produced this. It was a simple thought, really, but suddenly it meant the world to him. His anger was gone. It would be back. He knew that. But at that moment, his heart just felt heavy. There was no anger. Just pain.
That was when Erik decided to pop the trunk.
He looked back over at Lorraine Wolf. Something crossed her face. He didn’t know what. He opened the car door and stepped back into the night. He moved toward the trunk, took hold of the hatch with one hand, began to lift it. He heard rustling from the field. He turned and saw Myron come flying into view.
“Erik, wait….”
Erik opened the trunk then.
The black tarp. That was what he saw first. Something wrapped in black tarp. His knees buckled, but he held on. Myron started toward him, but Erik held up a hand as if telling him to stay back. He tried to rip the tarp. It wouldn’t give. He pulled and tugged. The tarp held in place. Erik started to panic now. His chest heaved. His breath caught.
He took out his key chain and dug the end of a key into the plastic. It made a hole. There was blood. He slit the tarp and reached his hands in. They grew wet and sticky. Erik desperately pulled at the tarp, ripping at it as if he were trapped inside, running out of air.
He saw the dead face and fell back.
Myron was next to him now.
“Oh my God,” Erik said. He collapsed. “Oh thank you….”
It wasn’t his daughter in the trunk. It was Drew Van Dyne.
CHAPTER 53
Lorraine Wolf said, “I shot him in self-defense.”
In the distance Myron could hear the police sirens. Myron stood next to the trunk with Erik Biel and Lorraine Wolf. He had called the police. They’d be here soon. He looked across the field. He could see distant silhouettes of Win and Jake Wolf. Myron had run ahead. Win had taken care of securing their suspect.
“Drew Van Dyne was in the house,” she went on. “He pulled a gun on Jake. I saw it. He was yelling all kinds of crazy stuff about Aimee—”
“What stuff?”
“He said that Jake didn’t care about her. That she was just some dumb slut to him. That she was pregnant. He was ranting.”
“So what did you do?”
“We keep guns in the house. Jake likes to hunt. So I got a rifle. I pointed it at Drew Van Dyne. I told him to put down the gun. He wouldn’t. I could see that. So…”
“No!” It was Wolf who had said that. They were close enough to hear. “I shot Van Dyne!”
Everyone stared at him. The police sirens sounded.
“I shot him in self-defense,” Jake Wolf insisted. “He pulled a gun on me.”
“So why did you stick the body in the trunk?” Myron asked.
“I was afraid no one would believe that. I was going to bring him home, dump him in his own house. Then I realized that would be stupid.”
“When did you realize that?” Myron said. “When you saw us?”
“I want a lawyer,” Jake Wolf said. “Lorraine, don’t say anything else.”
Erik Biel stepped forward. “I don’t care about any of this. My daughter. Where the hell is my daughter?”
No one moved. No one spoke. The night stayed silent except for the scream of sirens.
Lance Banner was the first cop out of his car, but dozens of squad cars descended on the Roosevelt Mall parking lot. They kept the flashing lights on. Everyone’s face went from blue to red. The effect was dizzying.
“Aimee,” Erik said softly. “Where is she?”
Myron tried to keep calm, tried to concentrate. He stepped to the side with Win. Win’s face, as ever, remained unruffled.
“So,” Win said, “where are we?”
“It’s not Davis,” Myron said. “We checked him out. It doesn’t look like it was Van Dyne. He pulled a gun on Jake Wolf because he thought that he’d done it. And the Wolfs claim, somewhat convincingly, that it wasn’t them.”
“Any other suspects?”
“Not that I can think of.”
Win said, “Then we need to look at them again.”
“Erik thinks she’s dead.”
Win nodded. “That’s what I mean,” he said. “When I say we need to look at them again.”
“You think one of them killed her and got rid of the body?”
Win did not bother replying.
“My God,” Myron said. He looked back over at Erik. “Have we been looking at this wrong from the beginning?”
“I can’t see how.”
Myron’s cell phone chirped. He looked down at the caller ID and saw the number was blocked.
“Hello?”
“It’s Investigator Loren Muse. Do you remember me?”
“Of course.”
“I just got an anonymous call,” she said. “Someone claimed they spotted Aimee Biel yesterday.”
“Where?”
“On Livingston Avenue. Aimee was in the passenger seat of a Toyota Corolla. The driver pretty much fits the description of Drew Van Dyne.”
