Back Against The Wall

A flashlight would have helped, but at least the window was close. Beth angled her head to see down inside the wall. Her heart began to drum at the sight of something...

She screamed, lurched back and tumbled off the step stool.

* * *

TONY NAVARRO ADDED gas to his lawn mower, carried the can to the garage, wiped sweat from his face, then pulled the cord to start the damn thing again. Not too far to go, which was good. July in eastern Washington was hot. He should have gotten the mowing done during an evening this week, when it was cooler. Keeping up with his own yard and his mother’s and often one or even a couple of his sisters’, though, that got time-consuming.

A vibration in the pocket of his jeans had him sighing. Please, not work. He needed the day off. Bad enough he’d already caught shit from his mother for not going to church.

He let the mower die and pulled out his phone. Unfortunately, he knew the number all too well.

“Navarro. Isn’t there anyone else who can take this?”

“I’m afraid not, Detective.” The dispatcher sounded genuinely regretful. “Detective Troyer is on vacation, and—”

“Beck isn’t back to work yet. I know.” With a broken leg, David Beck wouldn’t have to mow lawns, either. Jack Moore...no, he was caught up in a messy investigation. Tony sighed again. “What do you got?”

“This is a strange one,” she said. “Somebody noticed a hole in the wallboard in their garage and took a look in it. He says they can see a human hand. Kind of...withered. His words.”

Tony swore. “It didn’t occur to this guy it’s probably some discarded Halloween decoration?”

“I don’t know. He was pretty shaken up.”

Thus, she hadn’t sent a uniform to check it out. She’d called him. What could he do but commit the address to memory?

Glad he’d been mowing his own lawn and not another family member’s, he was able to go inside for a quick shower and change of clothes. Badge and weapon. Out the door.

The address he’d been given wasn’t half a mile from his house. Homeowner was listed as John Marshall. Caller had been a Matt Marshall.

He could get in, he calculated, look, soothe the homeowners and be home firing up his lawn mower again in forty-five minutes, tops.

To his dismay, in that half mile, he passed from the neighborhoods made up of ranch-style homes, mostly built from the 1960s to the ’70s, to those with older houses. These weren’t as fancy as the ones close to Wakefield College, a private, very expensive, liberal arts school. Those had been handsomely restored. The bungalows on this block weren’t rundown, but homeowners hadn’t done much but keep up the painting and neatly mow the lawns. Still, they were constructed differently than newer homes. A two-by-four really was two inches by four inches, for example, rather than the current, abbreviated size still called by the misleading dimensions. Walls might be even deeper than that, the supports farther apart than in modern construction, too. He’d been counting on the fact that stuffing a body in a typical wall of a house like his was next to impossible, unless it was child-size. Here...he couldn’t say impossible.

He spotted the right number on a white house accented with a bland beige. 1940s, at a guess. The lawn in front was brown—no one here had bothered watering. The detached garage was set back a little farther from the street than the house. Tony had expected the garage door to be open, but it wasn’t. Two vehicles filled the driveway, and two more were parked at the curb in front of the house. A six-foot fence and gate blocked his view into the backyard.

Tony parked in front of a neighbor’s home, grabbed his flashlight and walked up the driveway. Before he could veer toward the front door, the gate swung open and a young woman appeared from between the house and garage. Brown hair was starting to straggle out of a ponytail. Dirt streaked one of her gently rounded cheeks. Her nose, too—no, those were freckles. Maybe her hair was more chestnut, with a hint of red?

“Oh! You’re not...” She spotted the badge and holstered gun at his hip and faltered, “Are you?” She blushed. “I mean, are you a police officer?”

“I’m Detective Tony Navarro, Frenchman Lake P.D. And you are?”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I’m rattled, and—” Breaking off again, she shook her head. “I’m Bethany Marshall. Beth. This is my dad’s house. He teaches at the community college.”

Tony nodded, still at sea but figuring she’d get to the point soon.

“Dad...well, he’s a typical absent-minded professor. It had gotten so the garage was so crammed full of stuff, you could hardly set foot in it. So my brother and sister and I are spending the weekend sorting and getting rid of things. You know.”

It had to have been the brother who’d called, then. “Where’s your father?”

She looked surprised. “He’s in the house. He’s not much good at this kind of thing.”

Okay.

“You see, we found...” She visibly stumbled over what they’d found. “Well, I guess I should just show you.”

Now, there was an idea.

“Let’s do that, Ms. Marshall,” he agreed and followed her lead through the gate and alongside the house, past a garbage can and a recycling container.

He let himself get a little distracted by Beth Marshall, who had a truly womanly body. No matchstick arms here. He wouldn’t describe her as plump, though, just curvy. He happened to like his women curvaceous instead of the currently fashionable stick-thin, so he savored the sight of her while he could.

Two people waited anxiously in the backyard, along with mountains of packed boxes that had been labeled Thrift, Keep and the like. The man said, “Beth?” and then saw Tony behind her. “Somebody came.” He sounded stressed. Tall, lean and handsome in a way that might be polished if he weren’t also sweaty, dirty and disheveled, this had to be the brother. His arm sheltered a young woman, a cute blonde with blue eyes that were puffy and a scattering of freckles across her nose. The youngest of the three, Tony guessed, and probably considered prettier than Beth by most people.

He introduced himself again and got their names. Matt Marshall and Emily Marshall. Were neither of the sisters married? He let his gaze slide to Beth’s left hand. No ring. Did any of them still live at home?

“Okay, let me take a look,” he said.

Matt started to move, but Beth shook her head. “I’ll show him.”

“You should sit down.”

“I’m okay.” She gave an unconvincing smile. “Just bruises. Really.”

“Bruises?” Tony asked, once again following her, this time through a side door into the shadowy confines of the garage.

Glancing over her shoulder, she wrinkled her nose. “I fell off the stepladder.”

“Ah.” He hated to envision her creamy skin blotched with the ugly colors of bruises.

Concentrate. He looked around. The siblings had cleared close to two-thirds of the garage, assuming it had been completely full to start with. Boxes and what looked like a lot of crap were still packed against the far wall. Tony mentally transferred the piles out in the backyard into here and thought, Holy shit. Beth had been understating the problem. Which made him wonder what the interior of the house was like.

Not his problem.

He saw the stepladder right away, and took in the single sheet of wallboard that subtly didn’t match the rest. Stains at the bottom, where bodily fluids would have pooled. Instantly snapping into cop mode, he had a bad feeling he wasn’t wasting his time after all. Didn’t look like he’d finish mowing his lawn today.

Beth hovered behind him as he mounted the ladder. He was careful not to touch the wallboard and snapped on the military-grade flashlight he carried in his left hand. It lit a slice of the interior between two-by-fours.

Despite what he’d seen in his years as a cop, the mummified human hand made his skin crawl. He could see some of the wrist—and the top of a head, the hair blond, stringy, dull but still attached. The size of the hand and arm bone and the length of hair made him believe he was looking at a woman.

How long had she been walled up in the garage of this house? And who was she?

Chapter Two

BETH SAW THE detective go utterly still. When he finally stepped down and faced her, his expression had been wiped clean, but she could feel his tension.

“I need to make a call or two,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d wait outside, Ms. Marshall.”

However pleasantly phrased, it was an order. She nodded and hurried out into the sunlight.

“What?” her brother demanded.

“I don’t know. He looked, said he has to make calls and asked that we wait out here.”

“Damn, it’s hot,” Matt muttered.

Beth saw how pink Emily’s face was. Her own face felt too warm. They should have long since renewed their sunscreen. After putting it on first thing this morning, she’d dropped it in her tote bag, currently sitting on the workbench. “We could go inside, get something to drink,” she suggested.

“Make conversation with Dad?”

“Would that be the worst thing in the world?”

His mouth tightened. “Let’s just sit in the shade.”

“I’ll get the cooler. We can at least have drinks.”

While a police detective decided what to do about the dead woman encased in the wall of the house, she thought, semi-hysterically. Whoever she was, she might have been there the whole time Beth and the others had lived here. As a kid, she’d never have noticed that the wallboard looked a little different. Although...didn’t she used to leave her bike there? Often letting it tip over and bash the wall?

When she went into the garage, she saw the detective’s broad back and his phone at his ear. Somehow he heard her, though, because he swung around, his dark eyes locking onto her.

Until now, she hadn’t fully let herself notice how handsome he was. Coppery-brown skin stretched over some impressive cheekbones and a strong jaw. A lot of the Hispanic farmworkers she saw in town were stocky and on the short side. The detective had to be close to six feet tall and athletic in a broad-shouldered, lean way. As his name suggested, he had black hair and the darkest eyes she’d ever seen.

He also carried an alarmingly large gun at his hip.

Trying to hide her shiver, she scurried to the small cooler, lifted it for his inspection, and waited for his nod before retreating outside with it. Matt and Emily had pulled folding lawn chairs against the back wall of the house, where the sun, high in the sky, granted them a meager two feet of shade. Since there wasn’t a third chair—they’d come across these in the garage yesterday—Beth sank cross-legged onto the stiff, brown grass and opened the cooler.

“Who wants what?”

Emily peered over her shoulder. “Diet cola.”

Matt took an energy drink, Beth water. Her body sighed in relief to be sitting, but she became more aware of the painful spot on her butt where she’d landed on the concrete floor, and one almost as bad on her shoulder. Plus, her nerves felt as if they were being stretched on a medieval rack. What was the detective saying? When would he come out to talk to them? Meantime, she prayed her father hadn’t noticed the new arrival, wouldn’t emerge to see what was going on. It was bad enough to imagine Detective Navarro interviewing Dad, but Beth didn’t need the stress of dealing with him right now.

Matt stared straight ahead. Beyond him, Emily curled forward, clutching her drink and seemingly studying the grass, or maybe her feet. Beth’s gaze darted from her sister and brother to the corner of the house that hid the side door into the garage, to the brick patio, then back to start all over again. What probably wasn’t more than a couple minutes felt like an eternity.

Detective Navarro appeared, even more intimidating than he’d been when she first saw him. Beth wished he had a more expressive face.

Emily straightened and stared at him.

Matt stood. “So?”

“I’m confident enough those are human remains that I have a CSI team on the way. I don’t want to touch anything until they photograph and fingerprint the section of wall that will have to be torn out.”

On a shudder, Beth hugged her knees. She’d known but still hoped he would say, “I don’t know what we’re looking at, but it’s not human.”

“I’d like to talk to you individually, but first, let me ask a few general questions.”

Nobody said anything.

“How long has your family been in this house?”

It was Beth who said, “Something like thirty years.”

“Do any of you still live here?”

Matt shook his head. “Of course not. We’re adults. I work in the Admissions Department at Wakefield. I’m married and own my own home.”

“I work for the county agency dealing with long-term care and aging,” Beth said. “I rent a townhouse a few blocks from downtown.”

His gaze shifted to Emily.

“What difference does it make what we do for a living?” she burst out.

“It probably doesn’t. I’m trying to get a picture of your family, that’s all.”

She sniffed and, looking remarkably childlike, swiped the back of her hand beneath her nose. “I work at a chiropractor’s office. Dr. Findley. I’m a massage therapist. And I have an apartment near the community college with some friends.”

His eyes met Beth’s. “I gathered from you that your father lives in the house. What about your mother?”

* * *

THE SEEMINGLY INNOCUOUS question froze all three people, who suddenly had a deer-in-the-headlights look that sharpened Tony’s interest.

Beth and the brother glanced at each other. She was apparently elected to answer.

“Our mother left Dad when I was fifteen, so...thirteen years ago. Obviously, we stayed with him.”

A man she’d described as a typical absent-minded professor. Apparently, a man incapable of keeping his own home organized in any minimal way, who was, in fact, indoors at the moment, not even lending a hand. Because—how had she put it?—he’s not much good at this kind of thing. Yeah, that was it.

“Did you maintain visitation with her?” he asked.

“No,” Beth said, so softly he just heard her. Horror showed in her eyes before she looked down at her hands. She knew what he was thinking. “Mom just...went. When she didn’t call or anything, Dad reported her missing. The police thought it was clear she’d chosen to leave.”

“On what basis?”

Matt answered, his tone curt and edged with old anger. “She left a note on the computer. Took her purse, some of her jewelry and I guess some clothes.”

“Birth control pills and toiletries,” Beth added.

“Car?”

They all shook their heads at once.

“Was a suitcase gone?”

Matt and Beth looked at each other again, leaving Emily out. With reason, Tony realized. She’d have been eleven or twelve, maybe, when their mother had run away.

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “I don’t remember anyone saying. I mean, why wouldn’t she have used one when she packed?”

Did he really not get it? “I presume your father can tell us,” he said.

He was beginning to find those silent exchanges irritating. He should have separated the siblings from the beginning.

“I sort of doubt he’ll remember,” Beth said. “He’s...kind of vague about details. You’ll see.”

Mentally ill? If he was still teaching at the college level, could he be? Tony’s curiosity about the man grew.

“I should speak to him next,” he said.

Beth jumped up. “Let me get him for you.”

He moved fast, staying right behind her when she dashed for the French doors. She cast him a startled glance when she realized how close he was, but damned if he’d let her warn her father in any way.

She pushed open the door, letting cool air spill out, and called, “Dad?”

“Beth?” A pleasant tenor voice preceded the man. “That you?”

“Yes, there’s someone here to see you.”

As soon as he saw her father, Tony had to discard preconceptions he hadn’t realized he’d formed. The guy didn’t have a receding hairline, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose or narrow, stooped shoulders. No sweater vest or corduroy jacket with leather patches on the elbows, either. If he smoked a pipe, Tony couldn’t smell it.

Instead, the man was tall, thin, handsome, his brown hair graying at the temples. He hadn’t shaved today, and his stubble was clearly gray. Tony saw a resemblance to Matt, in particular, and perhaps to Beth in the bone structure and shape of the eyes. Only Matt’s coloring—blond and blue-eyed, like his younger sister—kept him from being the spitting image of his father.

Tony couldn’t help recalling the straw-yellow hair he’d glimpsed inside the garage wall.

“Bethie?” Perplexity had her father looking from his daughter to Tony. “Who’s this?”

Tony stepped into a comfortable family room with aging carpet and furnishings. Floor-to-ceiling, built-in bookcases covered one wall.

“Mr. Marshall? I’m Detective Navarro with the Frenchman Lake Police Department.”

“Police department? Are you a friend of Beth’s?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. I need to talk to you about something your son and daughters found in the garage. Perhaps we could sit down.”

Appearing bewildered, he sank onto a well-worn recliner that faced a television. “Certainly, but... I don’t understand.”

“Dad, we found something upsetting—”

Tony laid a hand on her arm, silencing her with a shake of his head. “Ms. Marshall, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to speak to your father alone.”

Alarm flashed in her hazel eyes, but she subdued it enough to nod and say, “I understand.”

Her father watched her go outside with a concerned expression he transferred to Tony. “Is something wrong?”

How was it possible that not one of his three adult children had gone into the house to say, Hey, Dad, we found something strange? Especially given that this was his house. His garage.

Tony went for blunt. “We’ve found what appears to be a human body behind wallboard in your garage.”

John Marshall only stared at him. “Did you say a body?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But...who found it? How?”

“There was an old hole in one sheet of wallboard. Beth took a look in it and called us. I agree that it does appear to be human remains. Crime scene investigators will be here shortly.” Undoubtedly as thrilled as he was to lose their Sunday off. “In the meantime, I need to ask you some questions.”

“I don’t understand. Nobody has gone into the garage in years. How could someone have gotten in, or—” Even he boggled at the unlikelihood of a killer getting around decades’ worth of accumulated belongings to stash a body.

“I suspect the remains have been there for many years, Mr. Marshall. The body appears to be at least partially mummified, which can happen under some circumstances in a dry climate like ours.” Insect-free circumstances, as this would have been until the damage opened the hole, likely much later. He paused. “Because you reported your wife missing, I need to ask about her.”

Obviously perturbed, Marshall said, “The police were convinced she’d left on her own.”

“I understand you found a note.”

“Yes, when I sat down at the computer that evening and moved the mouse, I found that Word was open to a document she must have created. It was brief.”

“Do you still have it?”

He shook his head. “We’ve replaced that computer several times since. I’m sure I printed it for that police officer, but I didn’t need to for myself.” Old pain parted the curtain of vagueness. “I could tell you what it said word for word.”

Tony preferred to locate the printout in a file at the station. On an investigation, he rarely trusted anyone.

“Did the police fingerprint the computer mouse?” he asked.

“It was only one officer, and he didn’t suggest anything like that. He really wasn’t here very long.”

Tony understood. People went missing all the time. Law enforcement response was quite different when a child disappeared, but adults most often did turn up later.

“We thought she’d call.”

“Had you quarreled right before she disappeared?”

“Right before?” he said in apparent surprise. “Well, I don’t know. That was a long time ago. She’d been annoyed with me, but I hoped whatever was bothering her would pass.”

Tony barely refrained from shaking his head. How could this guy fail to grasp the implications here? Well, sure, she and I weren’t getting along. Save the note on the computer? Why would I do that?

“Did you hear from her?” It was conceivable he wouldn’t have told his kids, depending on what was said. Or that he’d choose to lie now.

“Never a word.” He sounded puzzled. “Didn’t seem like Christine, but... Bethie was old enough to take over helping her sister and making meals, so nothing changed all that much.”

Unbelievable. His wife vanished into thin air, but in his view, nothing much changed because, hey, his fifteen-year-old daughter stepped up and kept the family running. Either John Marshall was the most self-centered human being Tony had ever encountered, or he was guilty as hell. Maybe both.

The conglomeration of stuff in the garage made sense now. Tony was willing to bet a pile of boxes had started growing at that exact spot in the garage shortly after Christine Marshall had run away from home. There was a good chance, in fact, that her husband had immediately made sure the one stretch of wall wasn’t visible, in case the police actually troubled to do a walk-through of the house.

Tony rose to his feet. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Marshall. I need to ask you to stay out of the garage. We’ll block both doors with yellow tape.”

A look of glazed bewilderment was all the response he received.

As he went out the French door, he heard a spate of voices. The department’s two crime scene investigators must have just come around the side of the house, both suited up in white Tyvek and carrying a toolbox, camera and more. Matt and Beth had obviously hopped right up, while the baby sister didn’t bother. Arms wrapped around herself, she had summoned an expression that was a cross between pouty and distressed. Was self-centeredness hereditary?

“Jess,” Tony said, nodding. “Larry.”

They both appeared grateful to see him. Their job didn’t usually include a lot of interaction with victims’ families.

He looked at the Marshall siblings. “You might want to wait inside with your father.”

“Can’t we go home?” Emily blurted. “Do we have to sit here?”

“Do you all have your own cars?”

Nodded heads.

“That’s fine, then. Let me get phone numbers and addresses first.”

Beth’s chin jutted out. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Neither am I,” her brother said, suddenly belligerent.

Tony raised his eyebrows but only said mildly, “That’s up to you.”

He jotted down Emily’s contact info. She fervently hugged Matt and Beth, then fled.

No loss.

Tony stepped into the garage to join his team. Individual interviews with the siblings could wait until he knew what he was dealing with.

* * *

BETH WENT TO check on her father, to find him sitting in his recliner, staring into space. He must not have moved.

“Dad? Are you all right?”

He turned his head. “How could this happen?”

“You mean, us noticing something was off and checking it out?”

“No, that the detective asked questions about your mother.” His fingers bit into the arms of the recliner. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t, either,” she admitted, going to perch on the upholstered arm of his chair, where she could give him a quick hug.

More agitated than she’d ever seen him, he didn’t even seem to notice her embrace. “Are they sure?”

“I don’t think so, yet.” Although, Detective Navarro wouldn’t have called a CSI team if he wasn’t reasonably sure.

CSI. In our house. The idea was unreal. In those white getups, they actually looked like the swarm of investigators in the background on TV shows like NCIS.