All She Ever Wanted Part 25

"Okay. Where does that leave us?"

Grace warmed her hands on the coffee cup. "I feel for Eleni, but I also wonder if the girl still longs for her baby. Does she regret giving him up for adoption? Would she be desperate enough to steal Annabelle to try and replace what she lost?"

"But we checked her pedigree. The girl lives at home . . . where is she keeping the baby?"

She shrugged. "I haven't gotten that far, and maybe it's a dead end. It's just another thing that's got to be checked out."

He nodded. "And the boyfriend, Krispy Kritter, he seemed clueless."

"Right. If Eleni Zika took Annabelle, I doubt Krispy was involved."

Just then her cell buzzed and she glanced at the caller ID. "Chelsea and Leo," she told Chris as she picked up the phone. "Good morning."

"Louise Pickler is digging a hole in her backyard," Chelsea said breathlessly. "A big hole. She won't talk to us and she won't let Leo come into the yard. She's got a box there that she . . . she's trying to bury something."

Grace winced. Judge Costantini wouldn't sign the search warrant, and now this. "Hold tight. We'll be right there."

"But you said the judge wouldn't sign the search warrant."

"Things have changed. The digging could be construed as suspicious behavior." Grace grabbed her jacket as Chris tossed his empty cup into the trash. Some judge wouldn't be happy about getting called out of bed, but they would get their warrant.

While Chris drove, Grace made the calls.

The first call was to her boss, Sgt. Bruce Hopkins, who understood the urgency. "We'll get two uniforms over to the Pickler residence," he said. "I gotta ask, this woman's digging now, with the ground frozen? She must be using a pickax." He was sending over someone from the canine unit to help with the search. Next Grace called the prosecutor's office to request the warrant be run by another judge in light of the new evidence. The a.s.sistant prosecutor wasn't sure of the outcome, but she promised to get the search warrant before a judge, "even if I have to drive it over to some judge's house with a latte." Grace knew that a verbal okay was enough to start searching.

They arrived to find Chelsea, Leo, and the uniforms standing in Louise Pickler's side yard. One cop kept watch while the other spoke to Louise over the wooden fence.

"Where's our warrant?" Chris asked as he cut the engine.

"Any minute. At least she's communicating with them." Grace got out of the car and flew across the lawn.

"She won't let anyone in," Chelsea said, tugging on the sleeves of her hoodie.

"Why isn't anyone breaking through the gate?" Leo demanded. "Any of us could hop over the fence. We need to stop her."

"Please." Grace held up her hands in an attempt to calm him.

"Don't you dare tamper with my property, Leo Green!" Louise shouted from the other side of the fence.

"What about the search warrant?" Chelsea asked.

"We don't have it yet," Grace told her. "We really need to try to deal with this, and I have to ask you to move back. Wait inside."

"Tell the persecuting attorney to back off!" Louise barked.

Leo was shaking his head, but Grace insisted. "Please. I know you want us to make progress here." She lowered her voice. "She's highly agitated."

Chelsea pressed the cuffs of her sweatshirt to her face, nodding. She touched her husband's arm and gave him a tug. Reluctantly, Leo backed off, too.

"I'm one of the good guys," Louise lamented. "One of the true American heroes, like George Washington and Elvis. I cannot tell a lie."

One of the cops cracked a grin, but he was turned away so that Pickler couldn't see.

"Ms. Pickler?" Grace called. "Louise? It's Detective Santos. We talked briefly yesterday." She leaned close to the fence, trying to peer through the narrow slits. "We would really appreciate it if you'd open the gate and come talk to us."

"Talk is cheap, and so are you," Pickler responded. "Where'd that cop go? The good-looking black dude in the uniform?"

So much for female bonding, Grace thought.

"I'm right here, ma'am." Jefferson stepped up to the fence again. "Like I said, we don't mean to inconvenience you, but it would help our investigation if you would let us come into your yard and look around."

That's it, Grace thought, impressed with the officer's approach.

"No, no, not gonna happen," Louise said in a singsong voice. "In fact, you shouldn't even be standing on my lawn. If you don't watch it, I'll call the FDA and the FCC."

Grace shot a look behind her at Chris, who grinned in a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and bewilderment. They'd dealt with emotionally disturbed persons, but it wasn't often that they came wrapped up in such a colorful facade.

Jefferson turned away from the fence and shrugged in defeat as Grace's phone buzzed. She answered, got the message from the prosecutor's office, and nodded.

"That's it. We got the warrant."

The two cops straightened and went to either side of the fence. Everyone knew the procedure: knock and announce. The police had to knock on the door and announce themselves. This often meant giving a resident time to pull on some clothes or get down the stairs in the dark. In a case when the police needed the element of surprise, like a drug bust in which the resident could be flushing evidence down the toilet, knock and announce could be suspended. But Ms. Pickler deserved a formal warning.

"Ms. Pickler?" Grace called, knocking on the gate with her knuckles. "The police have a warrant to search your home. It would be helpful if you would open the gate and cooperate with us."

Silence. Then, in a quiet voice, Louise said, "Go away."

"That's it. She's denying us entry." Chris gestured toward the door. "We can go in."

"Ms. Pickler," Jefferson said, "we're coming in."

The gate swung open, and behind it, Louise Pickler stood holding her shivering little dog. Her hands were red and chafed, her face solemn. "Do I get to sit in the police car?" she asked quietly.

Jefferson squinted at the woman, but Grace nodded. "Sure, you do. It's a lot warmer in there. I'll get you set up." She reached for Pickler, but the woman stepped toward Jefferson. "Uh-uh. I'm going with Fresh Prince."

As Louise Pickler headed toward the street with Jefferson, Grace followed Chris and the other patrolman into Pickler's backyard.

Even from the gate, the mound of dark dirt in the corner of the yard was obvious. Rich and dark as coffee grounds, it rose up at least a foot above the rest of the lawn.

Grace probed it with the toe of her boot. "Looks like potting soil, and it's not very well packed."

"Looks like she tried to dig in a few places, but couldn't break through the frozen ground," Connors said, circling a few spots in the lawn that were hacked bald, the dirt a silvery shade of gray.

Chris spotted tools by the back porch: a shovel, spade, hammer, and an ice pick.

"An ice pick." Chris shook his head. "I've never tried to dig with one of those. I guess she wasn't going to let the frozen earth stop her."

"So what do you think?" Connors stood staring at the dark mound of dirt. "Should we wait for forensics?"

"With an infant missing next door?" Grace went to the porch for tools. "Time is of the essence. If there's a baby under there, we need to get her out. Can you get some quick photos before I start brushing away at the dirt?"

Quickly, Chris and Connors both took pictures with their cell phones. Holding a spade, Grace squatted down beside the pile of dirt. How could she stick a shovel into the mound if Annabelle was truly in there? Thinking of the films she'd seen of archeologists on a dig, she tossed the spade aside and used her hands to wipe away the top layer of loose soil.

The soil was cold, but the chunks of black dirt were easily swept away.

The moldering smell grew more acrid as the soil flattened out beneath her hands. A flat surface. And suddenly she was brushing dirt from a cardboard box.

"There's a box." Her fingers plunged into the dirt to seize the edges and extract the box from the earth.

The odor was cloying now-more foul than just the smell of potting soil laced with fertilizer. The box had markings on it-a decorative pattern, like those boxes you purchase to store things in your closet.

Everyone watched as Grace laid it gently on the ground and removed the lid.

Nervous antic.i.p.ation was thick in her throat, and the odor that hit her made her gag and turn away. But not before she recognized the stench of death and the remains of a small body in the box.

She had just dug up a shallow grave.

Chapter 33.

"What's in the box?" Chelsea asked from down below. "Can you see?"

"Grace just picked it up and put it on the ground." From his perch atop the garbage can, Leo had a clear view over the fence into Louise Pickler's yard, but it was no subst.i.tute for being there.

"How big is the box, anyway?" Chelsea asked. "A jewelry box? A shoe box? Or bigger?"

"Bigger." The muscles in his chest clenched when he saw Grace open the box and turn away. "s.h.i.t." He jumped to the ground.

"What is it?" Chelsea asked.

"I don't know, but it's not good." He took her hand and tugged her along, running around the fence to the gate in Louise's yard.

The fresh grave was a horrible sight, surrounded by perplexed cops. Without a word Leo pushed his way into the circle of people and looked down into the box, at the small carca.s.s dressed in a pink knitted sweater.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Chelsea gasped. "The bones of a little baby."

The foul odor brought tears to his eyes, but the sight wasn't as bad as he expected.

"That's not Annabelle." Leo stared hard. "It can't be."

"What do you mean?" Grace asked.

Leo knew he was no expert, but he had been a bio major in college. "The decay of the carca.s.s is way too advanced to be someone who was killed in the past thirty-six hours."

"He's right," Detective Panteleoni agreed. "This thing is rotted down to the bone already."

"And look at that skull." Beneath the rotting sinew, Leo could see that the jaw was elongated. "It's not human. It's a canine . . . a cat or a dog or a wolf."

"We'll send the bones for a.n.a.lysis," Grace said. "Just to be sure."

"Why would someone put a dog in a pink knit sweater?" Chris Panteleoni asked.

"You're talking about Louise Pickler," Chelsea pointed out. "She's always treated her dogs like humans."

At that moment Louise appeared at the open gate with Officer Jefferson. "My Coco!" Pickler rushed toward the open box. She knelt beside it reverently, as if she'd been given a chance to say one last word to a dying friend. "Mommy's baby girl."

Leo turned to his wife, who watched the scene intently.

"Coco died down in South Carolina," Chelsea told Leo quietly. "Did I tell you that? She must have hauled the dog's body up here to bury it in the yard."

"Ms. Pickler, are these the bones of a dog?" Detective Santos asked.

"My Coco. I came back to New York early when she died. I wanted to lay her to rest here in the yard she loved. And down in South Carolina, my sister Gwyn kept complaining of the bad smell, even though the box was wrapped tight in a garbage bag."

"Your sister had a point," Chris Panteleoni said. "Dead bodies smell, Ms. Pickler. Is that why your house has a bad odor?"

Pickler's mouth formed a pout that reminded Leo of a monkey's a.s.s as she cuddled ChiChi close. "It's not so bad. You get used to it, and it's worth a little smell to have my loved ones close by."

"You mean there are more dogs buried in this yard?" Jefferson asked.

She nodded. "Some in the yard. A few of them are in the crawl s.p.a.ce under the house. That's what I used to do when they died in the winter and the ground was too hard to dig up."

"A pet cemetery." Leo turned and marched out of the yard.

He'd had enough of crazy Louise and her canine dysfunctions.

He was done with the roller coaster of emotions involved in tracking down Annabelle's abductor. The breathless chase when someone revealed himself, only to slam into a dead end.

"Leo . . ." Chelsea caught up with him by their side door.

"I'm done with this."

"You're giving up on Annie, just like that?"

"Of course not. But I'm done with the cops and our neighbors and the doctors. Everyone claims to help, but no one is willing to stick his neck out."

"Grace has been trying to help."

"It's her job." Leo put his hands on her shoulders. "Look, I won't get in the way, and I'm not giving up. But there's got to be a better way to find the person who took our baby."

Chelsea locked her hands on his arms, her eyes unwavering. "If there is, we'll find it," she said. "Every time one of these leads falls short, I'm devastated, too. But part of me is relieved that crazy Louise didn't take our baby. I want to find our baby healthy and whole. She's out there, Leo. We just have to find her."

There was certainty and clarity in her blue eyes. Chelsea was on solid ground again, and in the nick of time. With everything crumbling around them, they needed to hold on to each other.