“They always do.” Logan drank some coffee. “Do you know a man named Carl Hammer?” Logan asked.
“Nope,” Bill said. “Is that the dead guy?”
“We don’t think so, but his ID was found on the premises,” Logan said. “Are you aware of anyone living in the property?”
“No way. The house is supposed to be empty.”
“When was the last time you were on Widow’s?” Logan asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe two months ago.” Bill paused. “I can probably get the date from my credit card. I paid for the ferry online.”
“Could you do that?”
“Sure. Where can I send it?”
“I appreciate it.” Logan gave him Tessa’s email address. “Thanks.”
After ending the call, he turned to Tessa and relayed the information. “We can double-check with the ferry, but it’s only about three hours to Bellingham. There’s no reason he couldn’t have come over here more recently than two months ago.”
Tessa drained her cup. “If he starts to look like a suspect for other reasons, we can dive deeper into his vehicle records.”
Her phone rang. “It’s Henry.” She answered it. “Hey, Henry. Logan is here. You’re on speaker.”
“I just walked out of the autopsy.”
“Wow,” Tessa said. “That was fast.”
“It was first on the schedule.”
“And?” Logan asked. “What can you tell us?”
“I’ve attended autopsies before, but that was . . .” Henry paused. It sounded like he was swallowing. “Just bad. Really bad.” He cleared his throat. “The ME said he’ll get you a preliminary report in a few days, but I can give you the basics now.”
Tessa pulled a yellow legal pad from a drawer. “Go ahead.”
Henry continued. “From the eruption patterns of the wisdom teeth, the ME estimated the deceased to be a male adolescent approximately thirteen to sixteen years of age. Half of his mouth has extensive, recently completed dental work. The other half has extensive decay that has not been addressed. If we can locate the dentist who did the recent work, x-rays should be sufficient for an official ID.”
“Was the ME able to determine cause of death?” Tessa asked.
“Yes,” Henry said. “He was shot in the head at very close range.”
Tessa made a note. “Did the ME have any luck identifying him?”
“No, but he has a number of old injuries—possibly from abuse and/or neglect—that might help with that. He has a number of small bones that were broken and healed improperly, so he didn’t receive medical treatment for those. One of those injuries was a growth plate break. It was never set. The way the bone healed, he would have had one leg that was a little shorter than the other. He would have walked with a slight limp. If we had medical records, that injury alone would probably be enough for an identification.”
“That sounds familiar.” Tessa tapped her pen. She got up, crossed the room, and shuffled through a filing cabinet.
Logan thought of Bill Jones. “How long has he been dead?”
“Ten to fifteen days.” Henry sounded proud. His estimate had been close.
“Anything else we should be aware of?” Logan asked.
“No,” Henry said. “Do you have any specific questions?”
“We’ll call you if we do. Thanks, Henry.”
“I’ll be back on the next ferry.” Henry ended the call.
Tessa pulled a file. “I took a missing person report thirteen days ago.” She opened the file and returned to her desk. “Gavin Edwards, age fifteen, foster kid. His foster parents, the Waldens, thought he’d probably run away. He’d done that before. Someone thought they saw him on the ferry, so we passed the case to deputies on the mainland.”
Gavin’s death wasn’t her fault. He was probably dead before he was reported missing, but Logan knew Tessa would blame herself.
She looked up, regret filling her eyes. “He never left the island.”
5
Tessa swallowed a lump of guilt the size of a softball. Then she pushed away the potentially crippling emotion. She couldn’t save Gavin now. Justice was all that remained. After gathering information from the original missing person report, she called the medical examiner’s office and gave them the names of the dentist and doctor who’d treated Gavin after he’d been taken into the foster care system. Both practiced on the mainland. Since x-rays had gone digital, it wouldn’t take long for the ME to get the records and make the comparison.
“We should have a definitive answer soon.” She looked down at the file and cleared her throat. “Gavin was taken from his father’s custody five months ago and placed with the Waldens, who have an excellent reputation. They have been fostering kids for almost twenty years. Gavin’s father is in prison for assault, drug possession, and an illegal-weapons charge. He won’t be eligible for parole for another six years. Gavin’s mother left when he was five. We assume his father was the one who physically abused Gavin. No one knows where his mother is. Her last-known address is on Vashon Island, but the social worker was unable to locate her back in December. Gavin has tried to run away in the past. He wanted to look for his mother.”
Tessa paused for a breath.
“Who reported him on the ferry?” Logan asked.
“One of the ferry operators.” Tessa pulled a photo out of the file. It was a grainy black-and-white image of a tall adolescent male wearing jeans and a dark hoodie. “The clothes match what the corpse was wearing, but a hoodie and jeans isn’t unique, especially among male teenagers.”
“What now?” Logan asked.
“We wait for the ME. I don’t want to go to the Waldens without an official ID on the body. It would be cruel to tell them Gavin is dead if the body turns out not to be him.”
She tried to concentrate on reports. The regular business of the sheriff’s department didn’t stop for one murder. Just before noon, her phone rang, and the medical examiner confirmed the body was Gavin. Anger and guilt sank to the bottom of Tessa’s stomach as she relayed the news to Logan.
“I’m sorry.” Logan got up, crossed the room, and gave her a hug.
She allowed herself a few seconds to grieve, resting her head on his shoulder. “Thanks.”
Then she straightened and took a deep breath. “Let’s go interview the foster parents.”
With Logan at her side, Tessa left the station. They climbed into her SUV. The Waldens lived on the east side of the island. “I should have followed up on Gavin’s case. We only searched for him for a couple of days; then the information from the ferry operators came in. I was too quick to pass off the case to the mainland.”
“Most teens who go missing are runaways,” Logan said.
“I know.” But she shouldn’t have made assumptions. “I did a thorough background check on the Waldens when they reported Gavin missing. Everyone on Widow’s loves them. Every single person I asked gave them a glowing recommendation.”
She turned at a stop sign. The landscape flattened out as she headed east. The Waldens operated a small hobby farm. A long driveway bisected two pastures. A half dozen sheep grazed on one side. On the other, a small donkey shared its grassy space with three alpacas. Tessa parked in front of a long low farmhouse. Behind the house, the sun shone on Harlot Harbor. A fishing boat was tied up to a private dock. On the front porch, Mrs. Walden and a boy of ten or eleven sat in Adirondack chairs, snapping green beans in a big wooden bowl.