Part 37 (1/2)

”It looks like a buckle of some kind.”

Liz made a sound in her throat. ”Oh, G.o.d, it's a little shoe buckle.” Her gaze was riveted on the rusted chunk of metal, and he knew in an instant what they had found.

”The day she disappeared ” Liz said, ”Carrie Ann was wearing ” She swallowed. ”She was wearing a pair of black patent leather shoes. I think that's what that bit of leather is, and that's the buckle that must have been on top of her shoe.”

He dug a little more, revealing bit by bit what they now all believed lay beneath the dirt. The shoe was mostly gone, eaten away by time and insects, but there was enough of it to recognize what it had been. He brushed away more dirt, exposing the first glimpse of bone, and heard Liz's sharp intake of breath.

Undisturbed for all these years, protected beneath the house from animals and weather, the body would remain pretty much the way it had been placed in the homemade grave. Though most of the clothes would have rotted away and the flesh would be gone, the bones would remain in the position they had been in from the start.

The moment the anklebone appeared, Zach stopped digging. He carefully removed a little more dirt from the area and saw that a s.h.i.+nbone followed. Smaller than those of an adult, they could only be the bones of a child.

”Time to call the sheriff. Wouldn't you say so, Ben?”

Ben nodded gravely. Like everyone under the house, he was eager to leave. ”I'll make the call right now.” Moving toward the access hole in the closet, Ben hauled himself up and hurried off to use the phone.

They left the site exactly as it was. Crouching low, Raul and Pete followed Ben. They had almost reached the exit when Raul paused.

”That sounds like a train.”

”Can't be,” Sam said. ”Track was abandoned years ago. The tracks aren't even there anymore.”

The flashlight in Miguel's hand began to tremble. ”It comes some nights about this time. It comes down the track that is not there.”

”I'm getting out of here,” Pete said, scrambling toward the exit, Raul close on his heels. Following the boys, Zach grabbed his s.h.i.+rt and pulled it on over his head, noticing for the first time that the temperature had returned to normal. He reached for Liz's hand to help her out through the hole, and realized she was trembling. He looked over to see tears in her eyes.

”Time to go, love,” he said gently, not wanting to be down there anymore than the boys.

Liz looked back at the shallow grave. ”I knew she would be here I knew it but I prayed I'd be wrong.”

Zach squeezed her hand. ”It's all right, baby. If it's Carrie Ann, she'll finally be able to go home.”

Liz nodded and the tears in her eyes ran down her cheeks. Zach helped her out of the opening into the house and climbed out behind her.

As much as he ached for the dead child and its mother, at the moment all he could think of was how the h.e.l.l they were going to explain all this to the police.

Thirty-One.

The ten-minute wait for the cops to arrive seemed like hours. Elizabeth paced the small, spa.r.s.ely furnished living room listening to the distant sound of sirens. A little while later, three sheriff's department patrol cars rolled up in front of the house. As Zach and Ben let the group of uniformed deputies into the living room, Elizabeth waited anxiously by the door.

”Thanks for coming,” Ben said to Bill Morgan, the county sheriff. Morgan was tall, his blond hair streaked with silver, making it even paler than Ben's, a big, husky man who looked as if his ancestors could have been Vikings.

”They called me at home,” Morgan said. ”Figured I'd better get out here.”

”Sorry about that,” Ben said.

”Hey, that's what I'm paid for.”

It was agreed Ben would talk to the sheriff first. He was a former deputy in the district, and Elizabeth and Zach both hoped that with Ben reporting the discovery, the insane story would sound more believable.

”Let's go into the kitchen,” Morgan said to Ben. He cast a look at Zach. ”I'll talk to you two in a minute.” Morgan had recently been elected sheriff of San Pico County and so far had a good reputation.

Still, when he returned to the living room it was obvious he'd had a hard time believing Ben's story.

He fixed his attention on Zach. ”Donahue's told me some of this. I'd say it's down right crazy, but since it seems there's a body under the house” For confirmation, he glanced over at a deputy who had just returned from a trip below.

”They got a body, all right. Too small to be an adult, but it's definitely human. Been there a good long while, I'd say.”

Morgan nodded, pulled a small notepad out of his light tan s.h.i.+rt pocket and flipped it open, then returned his attention to Zach. ”Looks like Ben was right. Sooo I guess I've got to listen to what you have to say.”

Zach looked at Elizabeth as if he didn't quite know where to begin, then plunged in. ”First of all, as your deputy said, I think you're going to find out the body has been down there for years, possibly since the sixties. I presume Ben mentioned the Martinezes, the husband and wife who murdered a young girl in Fresno?”

”He did. Apparently he thinks they may have been a serial couple who killed the victim you found under the house.”

”According to what we've discovered, I think it's highly possible. As you follow up on this, Sheriff, chances are you're going to find out the victim was abducted in 1969 from her parents' home in Sherman Oaks. Her name is Carrie Ann Whitt.”

The sheriff made notes in his pad.

”The year Carrie Ann disappeared, the Martinezes were living in the old gray house that sat on this spot way back then. By the way, if it turns out the body's that old, it means none of us could have had anything to do with the crime, since we weren't even born then.”

”That's right, Sheriff,” Elizabeth added. ”We only got involved in this when Se”ora Santiago began having trouble.”

”Any chance the Santiagos are related in some way to the Martinezes? Maybe their parents knew them, might have somehow found out about the body and told them about it?”

”They've only got a few distant relatives who live up north,” Elizabeth said, ”and their parents weren't even living in this country back then.”

The sheriff pinned her with a doubtful stare. ”So the way you figured all of this out is that the lady who lives here has been seeing a ghost.”

”I know it's hard to believe,” Elizabeth told him. ”At first we didn't believe it, either. Then we started doing some research. This is where it led us.”

Morgan scratched his big silver-blond head. He started to say something else, but a commotion at the door drew his attention as the county coroner and his men walked in, carrying their equipment.

”Body's under the house,” he told them. ”There's an access through the closet in the bedroom, another outside on the north side of the residence.” Morgan pointed toward the bedroom and the men clopped off that way.

He returned his attention to her and Zach. ”If what you say pans out and the girl really is Carrie Ann Whitt, we're talking about kidnapping. That means we'll be calling in the feds.”

Zach nodded.

”I need you to write all this down how you figured this out, who you talked to, everything that happened up until tonight. In the meantime, I don't want any of you leaving town.”

Zach flicked a glance at Elizabeth, who wished she weren't so glad he would have to stay. Of course, the hearing for his father's operation was set for Thursday, so even if he went back to L.A., he would have to return.

”You finished with us?” Zach asked.

”I'll need to talk to the others, get their take on all this. As soon as I'm done, you can all go home. But like I said, I need you to stay in the area. There's bound to be more questions.”