CHAPTER 45

brEE AND SAMPSON LEFT Cherise Malcomb with her go-cup and Fifi and headed north at her suggestion. Cherise said she was no friend to her, but she knew her late husband’s ex-girlfriend, Lucille Wallace, now Lucille Danvers. She and her husband ran a country store about twenty miles north on U.S. 93.

Cherise also said she knew about the twins being given up for adoption when Billy and Lucille were teenagers and that there had been under-the-table money involved. But she claimed that had all happened long before she met Billy Malcomb, when that money was barely a memory.

Cell service was horrible in the narrow canyon, and the snow was dumping at two inches an hour as dusk fell and they approached tiny North Fork, Idaho, where the two main channels of the Salmon River met and took a hard turn north. The Danvers Country Store was at the south end of town, a log-faced two-story building with a neon Rainier Beer sign in the window.

They parked and hurried through the snow to the porch. They kicked the snow off their boots and went inside.

A woodstove blazed in the corner to the right. To the left, a woman in her sixties wearing a blue fleece pullover sat at the counter behind the cash register, alternately staring at her phone and scribbling something on a pad of paper.

“Hold on a second,” she said to Bree and Sampson. “Be right with you. I’m addicted to this thing.”

They grabbed chips, homemade turkey sandwiches, and drinks and brought them to the counter as she said, “Ha! There it is!”

She looked up at them, beaming. “ Quilt is the Wordle of the day!”

Bree smiled, liking the woman immediately. “My husband’s grandmother plays it.”

“I just started last month,” she said. “I play this and that Spelling Bee. Love them. And the doctor says it’s good for the stuff going on with my memory.”

Sampson said, “Business slow?”

She laughed as she rang up their purchases. “A real snoozer until you two walked in. What brings you up this way in the dead of winter?”

“Are you Lucille Danvers?” Sampson said, and she nodded.

Bree said, “We came to see you, Mrs. Danvers.”

“You did?” she said, the smile fading a little. “About what?”

Sampson said, “We’re detectives investigating a traffic death near Elko, Nevada.”

“Yes?”

“The victim’s name was Ryan Malcomb.”

Lucille Danvers stared blankly at them for a moment, then her hand traveled slowly to her mouth. She got up from behind the counter, waddled fast to the front door, turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, and drew down the blind.

She burst into tears. “Was it my Ryan? Please tell me it wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Bree said, going to her and giving her a hug.

“Even though I had them for only a day, I never stopped loving those boys,” she said as she blubbered. “Even after I married Big Ed and had my girls, I never stopped loving them.”

When she calmed down, she told them the adoptions had been handled by an attorney her mother knew. She and Billy were each given ten thousand dollars to stay quiet about it.

Bree said, “Who was the attorney?”

“Mel Allen in Salmon. He’s dead. Twenty or maybe thirty years ago. I can’t remember so many things these days.”

Sampson said, “And you never heard from the boys?”

“No,” she said sadly. “I got updates over the years from Mel, a few pictures of them and their family, letting me know they were okay and reminding me to keep quiet about the money and all.”

Bree told her that Ryan Malcomb had petitioned the court to unseal his adoption papers, that he had known who his biological parents were. That saddened Mrs. Danvers even more. “He knew who I was and didn’t contact me? I wonder why.”

They showed her a photo of Malcomb, and she was stunned. “I know him,” she said. “He came to the store several times over the past four or five years, said he was rafting and fishing in the area. Sometimes he was fine. Other times, he couldn’t walk very well.”

“He developed muscular dystrophy as a teenager,” Sampson said. He gave her a brief rundown of Malcomb’s accomplishments and wealth but left out his possible involvement in a deadly vigilante ring.

Mrs. Danvers was amazed. “He did all that? My son?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bree said. “And we’re trying to track down his brother.”

“Like I said, I don’t know anything. I can’t help you.”

“Mrs. Danvers,” John said, “by any chance do you still have those photographs of the boys and their family?”

“Big Ed doesn’t know I have them,” she said softly. “But he’s in Twin Falls tonight with our daughter and granddaughter. I’ll go up and get them.”

She left and a few minutes later returned with a large manila envelope. She pulled out a plastic sleeve containing three snapshots.

Bree and Sampson recognized the Wheeler family from the coverage that had surrounded their murders. In the first and oldest picture, a formal family portrait, Norman and Patricia May Wheeler, sister to Theresa May Alcott, were proudly holding their babies.

The second, taken when the boys were roughly five, showed them with life preservers on sitting on a dock on what Bree assumed was Alice Lake. It was remarkable how much the twins looked like each other. The only real difference was their expressions: One twin was laughing. The other was staring at his laughing brother coldly.

In the third picture, the twins were seven or eight with buzz-cut hair; they were back on that dock again. One was holding up a big trout, and the other stared off, his fists clenched.

“That’s all you’ve ever seen of them?” Sampson asked.

“Well, except for the one who came in here over the … you know what? I think I remember he paid with a credit card last time he was in,” Mrs. Danvers said. She sat down behind the register and fiddled with a laptop computer. “I think it was Labor Day last year. Or was it the year before?”

“Mrs. Danvers?” Bree said. “It doesn’t—”

“No, my memory is shot in some places, but I remember him, I—”

She seemed to freeze for several moments, as if lost somewhere.

“Ma’am,” Sampson said. “We’re sorry we took up so much—”

The woman pivoted in her chair, her eyes glassy. “I remember now. He bought a dozen jars of huckleberry jam. My huckleberry jam.” Mrs. Danvers smiled in deep satisfaction. “My son. He bought all my jam.”

“That’s nice,” Bree said.

Her brow knitted. “What did you say his name was again?”

“Ryan Malcomb.”

She brightened. “Well, that should be easy.” She turned to the computer again. “I’ll show you. Big Ed keeps track of inventory. And every credit card payment goes to Quicken.”

Sampson looked at Bree and gestured to the front windows. It was almost dark. Snow peppered the glass.

“Mrs. Danvers,” Bree said, “with the weather, we should be going.”

“Won’t take but a second,” she said. “I know I’m—”

She seemed to freeze again.

They stood there for several more awkward moments before Bree said, “Mrs. Danvers, we’re going to leave our cards here. If you find what you’re looking for, you can let us know.”

The woman smiled uncertainly and nodded. “I lose track of what I’m thinking about.”

“We understand,” Sampson said. “Are you alone, ma’am?”

She looked up at the clock—it was almost half past five. “Oh, my daughter Kate will be along at six to help me close.”

“Well, then, you’ve got our cards.”

The older woman smiled at them. “My son bought all my jam. Wasn’t that nice?”