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“Good morning, Maggie,” Chief Digby says as he opens the door. Digby is built like an NFL linebacker and his large frame blocks my view of the interior of his office so I can’t see who else is in the room. “How are you doing?” he asks, trying not to stare at my stomach.
“Just fine, Chief. What’s up?” I ask. Digby steps aside and sitting in a chair next to the chief’s desk is my fellow detective, Dexter Stroope.
“Take a seat,” he says gravely, closing the door behind us. I lower myself into the remaining empty chair and look to Dex. He shrugs. He doesn’t know why we were summoned either.
“I’ll get right to it,” the chief says. “A piece of new evidence in the Eve Knox case may have just been discovered.” His words are a punch to my gut. I haven’t heard my best friend’s name said out loud in a long time. I try to keep my face neutral and wait for Digby to continue.
“A woman brought her teenage son into the station late last night,” he says. “The kid and his friend were screwing around in Ransom Caves the other day and found this.” He pulls a large plastic evidence bag from a cardboard box. Inside is a boot. Filthy and caked with dry mud, but still I recognize it immediately. Maroon and covered with graffiti-style flowers, the leather Doc Martens were among Eve’s prized possessions.
“Jesus,” I whisper.
“Yeah, Jesus,” Chief Digby says. “Kid dropped his cell phone between some rocks and came out with this. Matches the one in the crime scene photos.” Digby holds out a photograph and I recoil as I see a close-up of my best friend’s feet, one bloodied and shoeless and the other clad in a Doc Marten that matches the one in the evidence bag. I feel the banana muffin I had for breakfast roil up in my stomach but force it back.
“Why’d the kid bring an old shoe home?” Dex asks. I can’t tear my eyes away from the picture.
“The mom went to school with Eve Knox, told her son horror stories about the caves trying to keep him from messing around in there. That obviously didn’t work. He brought the boot home and was showing it off to some friends and the mom overheard. When she found out where it came from, she marched the kid right over here and wasn’t going to leave until she talked to me.”
“It’s Eve’s boot,” I say numbly, remembering the day she bought them while we were on a shopping trip to Des Moines. It was the only thing Eve ever paid full price for. She loved those boots. “I’m positive. She wore those things all the time. Who was the woman who brought them in?”
The chief looks down at his notes. “A Karen Specht and that’s what she said too.” He gently places the boot back into the cardboard box.
I nod. “Karen was in our class.” A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. I’m glad I’m sitting down.
“I worked in the sheriff’s office early during the joint investigation with Grotto PD,” Chief Digby says. “The case should have been solved twenty-five years ago but maybe we can do it now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dex says quietly, but from his tone I know he’s pissed. “We all worked that case hard, especially Chief Kennedy.” Dex glances my way. Dex Stroope is in his midsixties, big-bellied with a face that always looks like it could use a good nap. Dex would be well over six feet tall if not for his slumped shoulders. The weight of all the crap I’ve seen over the years, he jokes.
He and my dad have always been tight and I feel a surge of gratitude toward him for sticking up for my dad. The investigation into Eve’s murder and the inability to find her killer nearly broke my dad.
“I’m not pointing fingers,” Chief Digby says, looking directly at me. “I just think we now have the technology and resources to solve it. Twenty-five years ago, I looked Eve’s mother and sister in the eyes and promised them that I would do all that I could to help find Eve’s killer.”
“You’re not going to find much forensics on that shoe,” Dex says, nodding toward the evidence box. “Two decades of sitting in rain and mud will have washed anything of use away. Plus, the kid and his friends had their paws all over it.”
“We’re going to send it all in,” the chief says, spreading his arms open wide. “Have the state lab retest all the old evidence. A lot has changed in forensics in the past twenty-five years.”
“Have you talked to the family about this?” I ask, successfully tamping down my emotions for the time being. Nola Knox, Eve’s little sister, has always been her own person, to put it diplomatically. To put it less diplomatically, Nola is crazy. Weird shit happens when she is around. People get hurt, small animals go missing. In one of my earliest memories of Nola she is ripping the wings off fireflies and pressing the abdomens to her earlobes for a pair of glowing earrings. Then there was the baby squirrel Nola found when she was nine.
It was going to die anyway, Nola had said as a group of us kids stood around her staring horrified at the bloody knife in her hand. No one has ever forgotten that and never let Nola forget it either.
Chief Digby shakes his head. “Not since Nola was a kid, but I’m sure they’d be glad to know that we are reinvestigating. Now that I’m chief, I’m in a position to bring a fresh look at the case. Let’s get it retested and if there is any usable DNA maybe we’ll find a match.
“Genealogy sites like Ancestry aren’t charging law enforcement agencies for their services, so that won’t cost the city.”
While Digby talks, snippets of memories shuffle through my head. The day Eve and her mom and sister moved across the street and we became instant friends. The sleepovers and bike rides, the hikes down the bluff behind our homes to the caves where we laughed and shared secrets and tried to hide from Nola and my brother.
I’ve tried for over two decades to stuff the memories deep down. It’s too painful to conjure up images of Eve’s shy smile, her red hair and the sprinkle of freckles across her nose. I can’t walk past a secondhand shop without thinking of all the vintage clothing she’d buy and wear with pride.
And then there are the flashbacks of Eve’s dead body splayed out as my flashlight swept across the cave floor. Her head matted with congealed blood, her eyes open wide and staring blankly up at Nola and me, her mouth contorted into an ugly grimace. The two of us running to the nearest neighbor’s house for help. I rub my eyes, trying to scrub away the images.
“You’ve been pretty quiet, Maggie,” Chief Digby says. “What are you thinking?”
I look to Chief Digby. “Can I have it?” I ask. “The case? Eve was my best friend and I’m the one who found her,” I say, suddenly knowing that no matter how sad, how traumatic it will be to relive Eve’s final days, I’m the one who must do this. “It’s time I go on desk duty until the baby comes anyway.” As if on cue, the baby does a quick somersault, a trick she does whenever I sit still for too long. I wince at her antics and lay my palm against my midsection.
Digby quietly considers this for a moment and then asks, “Are you sure this is something you want to take on right now?”
“It won’t be a problem,” I assure him. “It makes the most sense.”
This seems to quell any doubts Digby might have. “Great, it’s yours,” he says. “Just make sure Dex is up to date on your other cases. Anything new on those arsons?” he asks.
There has been a series of old buildings being set on fire, mostly abandoned farm buildings out in the county, but the most recent was within Grotto city limits. I shake my head. “Nothing new. I’m working with the sheriff’s department and the state fire marshal. They agree they are all connected. Fires are all set at night with the same kind of setup and chemicals. Other than that, we are at a standstill.”
“Okay, keep me posted on the fires. In the meantime,” Chief Digby says, rising from his desk, “inform the Knox family and you better review the case files for reference. Once word gets out I’m sure we’ll get a slew of tipsters. And let’s get a press release ready. There will be lots of inquiries. Then gather all the evidence in the Knox case together and send it to the state lab. Let them know it’s coming.”
I slowly get to my feet, my mind whirling. I think of the last time I saw Eve and the angry words we spewed at each other. “You got this, Maggie?” Dex asks as we leave Digby’s office and step back into the squad room.
“Yeah,” I say with forced confidence. “I’m going to go talk to Charlotte and Nola Knox right away. I don’t want them finding out about this from someone else. I should talk to my dad too.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Dex agrees. “Nola Knox is hell on wheels when she gets her back up. Tread lightly,” he warns. “Remember what she did to Nick Brady?”
“I remember,” I say, but it’s the flashes of Eve’s bloodied face that have been seared into my memory. “See you later, Dex,” I say, heading for my desk, my feet heavy with dread. It’s time to get to work.
