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“The plate checks out,” Birk noted, peering at the screen on his laptop. “What else did you see?”
“I swam around to the driver’s side and cleaned off part of the window. I spotted two skulls inside. But it will take substantial excavation to get that car to budge from its resting place.”
“The tow truck has a heavy-duty winch,” Lando pointed out. “I’ve already made the necessary calls and contacted Zeb Longhorn, Tribal Police. He’s on his way.”
“Getting it out of there is your department,” Birk reminded him. “You’ll no doubt want to leave the remains inside until you get the vehicle back to the lab, correct?”
Lando nodded. “That job goes to forensics.”
Birk hit a few buttons on the keyboard, trying to define the search area. He turned the monitor around to show Bonner. “Do you have a recovery team at the ready, or will you need us to hook up the lines underwater?”
“Guys,” Beckett began in a frustrated voice. “You’re not listening. I’m telling you that car’s stuck under ten layers of mud. It ain’t going no place any time soon. Pulling it out will take all afternoon. It’ll take a high-powered crane to do the job.”
“Which is why I’d like you to hang around in a consultant capacity if that’s okay,” Lando noted. “As of now, Zebediah Longhorn takes the lead. This corner of Spirit Lake is part of the Reservation. He’ll want you to oversee the removal of the car once he arrives and assesses the situation.”
Later, a half dozen local Native divers turned out to help. As Beckett predicted, it took hours for the crane to lift the Dodge Charger out of the mud and murky lake. For a few moments, the ugly twisted metal of the classic car swung suspended in mid-air.
“I should call Daniel. Let him know what’s happening,” Lucien muttered as the winch operator finally got the vehicle onto the shoreline. He watched the tow truck driver haul the rusted metal onto the bed and lock it in place.
Brogan recognized the sad look on Lucien’s face. “I’ll do it.”
“Thanks.”
She moved a few feet away to use her phone. Swiping through her contact list, she hit Daniel’s number and waited for him to pick up. She wasted no time on preliminaries. “It’s Brogan. Birk and Beckett found the Dodge Charger. Before you read about it on the Internet or someone posts a video of the recovery online, Beckett’s certain there are two sets of human remains inside. I’m so sorry, Daniel.”
There was a long silence before Daniel could speak. “I can’t believe she was in the lake, only a few miles out of town this entire time. I feel sick knowing that. I should’ve done more to find her sooner.”
Brogan thought of Lyssa’s own words around the campfire. She refused to let Daniel take on more guilt than he’d already suffered. “It was an accident. Conor was driving way too fast. He missed a bend in the road. It’s that simple. Nothing you or anyone else could’ve done would’ve prevented what happened. Nothing. You understand it could take weeks to know if it’s her. Right? Test results will take that long to come back, maybe longer.”
“Is her family there? Did they show up to be there for her?”
She looked hard at the people gathered to watch and spotted the Mayfields wiping away tears. “They’re here. And I see Chief Bonner talking to them now. After all these years, it seems Lyssa is no longer missing.”
19
After getting a resolution for Daniel, the next two days flew by as they refocused their efforts on the Dolworth murders.
Adelai Lucas proved to be an elusive person to interview. She was a no-show for their Friday morning Zoom meeting. Numerous emails and phone calls went unanswered. But thanks to Birk, he’d given them leverage to force Adelai into talking.
“After digging deeper, Birk found that Chad’s former girlfriend had a teensy drug problem around the time Mack and Anna died,” Lucien relayed. “Her criminal record includes an arrest at LAX when she entered the country from Spain with two ounces of heroin.”
“You plan to blackmail her into talking to us?” Brogan prompted as she fed the dogs their breakfast.
“Why not? She hasn’t shown she cares one whit about those kids who vanished, let alone solving the murders. Why shouldn’t we threaten to expose her to her high society friends?”
“It might work,” Brogan murmured as she fixed her coffee. Looking over the rim of the mug, she stared at Lucien. “How do you intend to get your point across without making another trip down to L.A.?”
He turned his laptop around so she could read the email he’d composed. “I’m giving her one final chance to do the right thing and talk to us before I hit send. Let’s see what she says about going public with her drug-related arrest.”
“Lucien, you can’t do that. There has to be a better way.” She picked up her phone and scanned Birk's report for another cell phone number to use. “Here. I’ll try this one and see if I can’t reason with her. Even if I have to leave a message, it’s better than a threat.”
“I’m telling you, this woman will ignore a voicemail.”
She punched in the number anyway. “It’s ringing.”
To her surprise, Adelai picked up. “Hello?”
Before Brogan began her spiel, she put Adelai on speakerphone. “Hi, there. I’ve been trying to email you. My name’s Brogan Cole, Rory Cole’s daughter. I’m not sure we’ve ever met. Anyway, I was trying to get hold of you about your children’s hospital charity event in December. I was wondering how I go about getting tickets and donating. Do I have an old email address, or were you ignoring me?”
