Page 2 of In the Bones
And yet, her summer wardrobe was short two pairs of jeans, three tops, a bikini, and a jacket she swore up and down had been in her closet last summer.
In all the years that he’d worked as a detective with the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, this had to be the strangest theft Tim had ever seen.
“It’s cases like these that make me grateful we live in the sticks,” Sol told him after they’d parted ways with Mrs. Greene and promised to be in touch. “If this was New York or Chicago, the missing stuff would be meth and there’d be a shooter hiding in the bathroom ready to take our heads off. What do we get instead? The freaking J. Crew Bandit. Or more likely, a lady with so many clothes she can’t keep track.”
“Don’t jinx us,” Tim told his fellow BCI investigator as he steered the SUV off the residential road and onto Route 12, “or we’ll be on a drug raid before noon. But yeah, this is definitely one of our fluffier cases—and don’t forget, my last one involved the alleged trafficking of cocaine that turned out to be laundry soap.”
It wasn’t that Tim craved a more substantial crime, far from it. Now more than ever, a peaceful community was exactly what he needed. The last five years had brought one wild case after another, splashing Jefferson County across national news tickers. While there was nothing good about those transgressions, which had left the community scabbed and tender to the touch, they had produced two positive outcomes. The first: Tim’s investigative instincts were nearly pitch-perfect, the violence resonating like a tuning fork to refine his every gut feeling, premonition, and hunch. He was a different detective now, a specialist whose skills far surpassed what he’d absorbed in prior years of working for the BCI.
The second outcome, which couldn’t be topped, was his daughter.
“It is bizarre, though,” he added, as the car whooshed down the highway toward Alexandria Bay, where the bureau’s Troop D station was based. The sun blazing through the glass was warm and Tim felt drawn to it like a housecat, but when he cracked the window to keep from overheating, the air delivered a frosty slap. “She was so specific about what was missing, which makes me think she’d notice if something of real value had disappeared too.”
“Agreed, she’s a total type A mom. Did you see those kids in their designer sweaters? And the dog’s matching bandana? Sheesh.”
Tim pondered that as he cast a glance at Solomon, whose head nearly brushed the car’s roof. His long-time colleague had recently gotten a trim, the result not unlike a freshly mowed yard. Jeremy Solomon’s hair was a high-pile carpet of pewter gray, impervious to rain, snow, even hats. A feat of nature that never failed to impress.
“She said she hadn’t seen the stuff since the end of last summer,” added Tim, “when they packed up for home. But she’s also sure they didn’t bring it back to Massachusetts with them.”
It wasn’t unusual for summer residents to have a second wardrobe, especially when they stayed for the whole season, and people who spent that much money on clothes tended to rotate pieces in and out. Tim supposed it was possible the woman had inadvertently donated the missing items, but Solomon was right. She seemed too hyper-organized for that. “Remember when I asked about the husband? If he knew where the stuff had gone? She said she hadn’t brought it up and didn’t want to bother him at work. No qualms about bothering the state police, though.”
“Maybe the husband has a lady friend,” offered Sol. “Think he’d let her do some shopping in his wife’s closet while she was out?”
It was a theory, but they didn’t have a lick of proof. The lack of evidence—any evidence at all—was precisely the problem. Annalise Greene was missing some clothes, she’d called the state police to report a burglary, and Tim and Solhadn’t found a single sign of a break-in: no open window, cracked doorframe, or scratched lock. And when they’d pressed the subject of access, asking whether a relative, neighbor, handyman, or cleaner could easily gain entry to the house, Annelise had sworn she and Mr. Greene possessed the only keys.
“I honestly don’t know what else it could be,” Solomon said. “The whole thing is weird as hell.”
Tim had to agree. In spite of the twins and the big black dog, the house had been decked out like the Met, every room decorated with expensive-looking paintings and vintage prints. There was no alarm system—few homes in the remote region had them—but Annelise Greene had been positive that she’d locked all the windows and doors. If someonehadbroken in during the off-season, when the house had been sitting empty, surely they would have cleaned the place out. A burglar wouldn’t bypass quick-grab valuables in favor of a stranger’s used clothing.
Would they?
THREE
Nicole
“I’m glad you’re here. I owe Stacy a lot for this.”
I owe Stacy too, Nicole thought as she followed the man through the glossy black door.
Mikko Helle had an accent that reminded her of a Swedish Eurovision star, though she knew from her research that he was from Finland, born in a small town on the southern coast. Online, she’d seen his hair in a variety of styles from a mullet to a buzz cut, but it was shaved on the sides now and ammonia blond, his natural shade of chestnut leeched away. Both of his arms were wrapped in tattoos that included a skull in a hockey helmet and Mikko’s long-time number: 24. At thirty years old, he was a retiree who looked like David Beckham, smelled like vanilla tobacco, and had officially made the Thousand Islands his summer home.
Up until Mikko, Stacy had never resisted giving a referral, but Nicole understood why she’d put up a fight. “I don’t know,” her friend had said. “A former professional athlete? He could be a womanizer or a weirdo.” Nicole had been willing to take that chance, even if Stacy wasn’t.
“Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, one with a steam shower. I’ll be getting a barrel sauna too, for the yard. It was ordered in January, and still it’s not here.” Mikko rolled his eyes and gave a snort—some people just can’t get it together, the look seemed to say—as he showed Nicole the powder room. It wasn’t until they reached the kitchen that she was able to get a word in, but she needed to showcase her qualifications in order to seal the deal.
And qualified she was. Two years keeping house for a family across the border in Kingston, Ontario, until they sold in favor of a lake house in Muskoka, followed by four more at the hotelin Clayton. After that, she’d gone into business for herself. It had happened when Blair began high school, Alana just a year behind her. Nicole had wanted more control over her hours as the girls entered their teenage years. All she told Mikko, though, was that her services were of real value to summer folk.
“Good, good,” he’d said dismissively as she spoke, scrunching up his nose at a streak of grease on the counter. “Any friend of Stacy’s is a friend of mine.”
“Well, I appreciate that. Your home is beautiful, by the way. Looks like you’ve made a lot of changes, huh?”
Mikko said, “It was a big job, yes, but my contractor insisted the house has good bones.”
Even unfurnished, the home was a triumph of creamy white walls, marble tile, and glass. In the hall, the wainscotting was sharp enough to cut skin. A chimney, painted black, ran up the house’s center like a woman’s satin-clad spine. The place reeked of joint compound and fresh paint, though, and the scope of the task that lay ahead was beginning to sink in. Everywhere Nicole looked, vestiges of the reno remained. The windows were marred with gummy squares where the manufacturer stickers had been scraped free, glue baked onto the glass by the sun. Grout marks dirtied the tiles on the backsplash, and the white kitchen cabinet doors were grubby with gray finger smudges. It didn’t need a spit shine; every inch of the residence would have to be scrubbed and polished, and cleaning this place by herself was a colossal job.
But now, here, was the study, with a wall of floor-to-ceiling built-ins painted a rich shade of cyan, a nod to the river outside Mikko’s door. When he moved in, those cabinets would be full. There would be a desk. A laptop. The thought dispatched a shiver of optimism. Nicole could do this. It would work.
“Can I ask why you decided on Cape Vincent?”Why here, she wanted to say,at the northernmost edge of the country? Why, when you could have gone anywhere?
