She went back to the drawer beneath the telephone.
As they walked down the driveway, Bear signaled to him to let Mrs. Sarton get ahead of them, and when she was out of earshot, asked, “Mind filling me in? I don’t want to trouble you, you understand, but-”
So Frank summarized as quickly as he could.
“Okay, but why are we going into the garage?”
“When she surprised her son on Halloween, what if Harold wasn’t taking a fifty-five-gallon drum out? What if he was placing one in here instead?”
Bear shuddered, then said, “Might be another stinker. God, I hate summer.” He fished his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Frank. “Run to the car and get two pairs of gloves and the camera. You have your flashlight?”
“Yes!” Frank said, insulted.
“I assume nothing. You would benefit from the same philosophy.”
By the time Frank came back, Bear was working on a heavy padlock that was fastened through a hasp and staple, the second of two locks that secured the wooden carriage-style doors.
“The night you caught your son and daughter-in-law in here,” Bear asked Mrs. Sarton, “were they using flashlights or were the overhead lights on?”
“The overhead lights were on.”
“Hmm.” He kept concentrating on the lock. Just when Frank thought he should offer to run back to the car for the bolt cutters, the padlock made a satisfying click and released.
“I thought for sure I was going to break the key off in that thing,” Bear said. “All right. Nobody steps into the garage but me, understood?”
Frank and Mrs. Sarton nodded.
Bear pulled the doors open, and sunlight flooded into the packed garage. Stepping inside wasn’t really possible-there was about a foot of cleared space that allowed access to the light switch, but that was about it. Bear left the lights off. The sunlight allowed him to take lots of photos of the front of the garage without using a flash.
When he had satisfied himself that he had taken enough of them, he asked, “Which drum?”
There were three rows of black fifty-five-gallon drums near the front of the garage.
“I’m not sure,” she said shakily.
Bear stooped to read labels. “Most of these are formaldehyde.”
“Used to make particleboard furniture,” she said.
“You said Evelyn put a stack of boxes on top of the one Harold had moved,” Frank said. There were several drums that had boxes on top of them, but only one of those was in the front row. He pointed that one out. “This one?”
“I think so. I can’t really remember, but… I don’t remember Harold moving the boxes after she set them down. I’m sorry, I was focused more on Harold and Evelyn than I was on things in the garage.”
“Did you happen to notice if either of them wore gloves?”
She frowned in concentration. “No, I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have noticed anything so odd.”
Bear sent Frank a look. Frank said to Mrs. Sarton, “He’s going to open up the drum, and it could be pretty bad when he does. You sure you want to be out here?”
She nodded.
Without touching it any more than absolutely necessary, Bear used his gloved hands to move the stack of boxes to the ground, then tried to budge the drum away from the others. He couldn’t move it. So he stood blocking their view and opened the catch on the metal ring that sealed the drum. He opened the lid so that neither Frank nor Mrs. Sarton could see into it. He grimaced as a strong odor of formaldehyde filled the air, grimaced again at the contents, and put the lid down. “Everybody out,” he said.
Mrs. Sarton had a look of shock on her face. “What? What have you found? Is it Derek?” she asked in near hysteria. “Derek out here all these years?”
“No, it’s not him,” Bear said, “but we’re going to have to let the coroner and the detectives take it from here. I think we may have found his girlfriend. Know anything about that?”
She turned paler still and shook her head mutely.
Frank walked her back to the house. “Anyone you would like to call to be here with you?” he asked.
She came out of her stunned state enough to stare at him.
She made him wonder if telepathy worked after all when she said, “My lawyer. I must call my lawyer.”
If he was the only member of the department who would be pleased that she would have legal representation, he could live with it. He couldn’t believe Mrs. Sarton was a murderer.
Not even after a second drum in the garage was shown to contain the well-preserved body of Derek Sarton.
Ike Tucker and John Mattson caught the case. Mrs. Sarton’s lawyer arrived shortly after they did. Since he wouldn’t make Mrs. Sarton available to them, they grilled Frank about everything she had said to him.
“You know she tried to say all this to you guys for years,” Frank said.
“Pointe,” they said in unison.
“He’s not the only person she tried to talk to.”
“No,” Mattson said, “but he’s territorial. He does just enough to be able to say he did what he was required to do.”
Tucker added, “Missing persons isn’t the right job for him, although I can’t say I know what is. I wouldn’t want the job myself. Most of the time, a missing adult, it’s someone who’s out banging his girlfriend in a no-tell motel and loses track of time. Wife calls in worried and everybody ends up embarrassed and mad at us.
“Or the missing person has good or bad reasons to want to disappear. Waste of our limited resources to go chasing after them, especially since it’s not a crime to be missing.
“Other than that, it’s a runaway teenager who is tired of hiding from Creepy Uncle Ernie. Or being hit by Dad. Or getting the younger kids off to school while Mom sleeps off last night’s bender.”
Frank shook his head. “So Pointe believed this man with no debts ran away from a marriage he had been in for forty-five years? A marriage with a tolerant-overly tolerant, some would say-wife who supported him in a luxurious lifestyle. Disappears after threatening to take back management of his company. Does that sound like it should have raised a question or two?”
“Pointe’s pulling the file for us, but he told us that in addition to the family members, he had three other witnesses who said the girlfriend told them it was in the works.”
“Anyone know anything about these three friends of Marlena Gray? Or where they are now?”
“We’ll be looking for them,” Mattson said. “Don’t try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs.”
“Sorry.”
“Yeah, well. In case I forgot to say it-nice work.”
Frank thanked him, but felt uneasy. If all of this led to Mrs. Sarton being convicted of murder, he was never going to think of it as nice work.
Frank and Bear were given the duty of helping to keep the scene secure. Other cars arrived to help and Frank and Bear ended up near the garage, making sure anyone who came close to it had business being there, and signed in and out. Bear told him to stay put and toured around the perimeter to check on the placement of other officers. He wanted to make sure no civilians or press got close enough to be a bother.
The crime lab took more photos, then started dusting for prints, finding some on the outside of the drums, some on the lids. Then they did the same with the light switch and the hasp on the garage lock. He watched them work with interest, listened in on their conversations while keeping an eye on things.
One asked him to go find a handcart, but the other told him to leave the rookie alone, that he was Brian Harriman’s kid and Bear would skin him alive if he left his post, especially since the place was crawling with reporters, who were a little too interested in Frank right now. So the guy used his radio to get another assistant to bring him what he needed.
Frank figured all of that meant Bear had parked him this far back from the road to keep him from being approached by the press, or getting into trouble in some other way.