"And what does Lyle say?"
"He says he didn't do it."
"That's what every inmate says."
"Like I said. Detective work is maddening."
Callie finally cracked a smile. The first one he'd seen from her since the root cellar.
Noah looked across the room at a stack of boxes near the door. Taped shut. Labels written in a man's handwriting. "Those Jake's?"
"Yeah."
"What the hell is in all that?"
"Climbing gear. Hiking equipment. You name it."
"You miss him?"
"Do you miss Lena?" She said it fast, without thinking, and the moment it left her mouth she closed her eyes. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
"It's okay."
A few tears ran down her cheek. She wiped them with the back of her hand and then stopped trying to hide them.
Noah reached over to the side table, grabbed a handful of tissues, and handed them to her. "You want me to stay?"
"No. I'm good."
"You sure?"
She nodded.
Noah looked at her closely. Then he got up. "Call me if you need anything."
She walked him to the door and opened it. He stepped into the hallway and turned back.
"For what it's worth, Thorne. You can do this. You already are."
She nodded once and closed the door. Noah stood in the hallway for a moment, then headed down the stairs and out into the evening.
33
The Adirondack County evidence storage facility was a single-story cinder block building with no windows and a steel door that required two keycards to open, tucked behind the Public Safety Building in Lewis. Callie had arranged access through the Sheriff's Office there. What he actually came for was the knife.
The clerk was a civilian employee named Dottie Farnham who had been managing the facility for nineteen years and who treated every piece of evidence in her care with the reverence of a librarian guarding first editions. She wore reading glasses on a chain around her neck and kept a mug on her desk that said "Chain of Custody Is My Love Language."
"Carter Lyle," Noah said.
She typed the case number into her terminal. "Give me a minute."
Noah waited at the counter while she disappeared into the rows of shelving that ran the length of the building. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The air smelled like cardboard and the faint chemical residue of evidence bags. He could hear herfootsteps on the concrete floor, moving deeper into the stacks, stopping, moving again.
She came back six minutes later with a banker's box and a frown.
"The knife isn't here."
"What do you mean?"
