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Mic pushed her chair away from her computer. She put down her magnifying glass, rubbed her eyes, and stared out the window at the falling snow. She’d spent the last two hours searching all of her informational databases on Tilda and had come up with several things that bothered her. She phoned Slade.
“Hey, have you found anything on Tilda?” she asked.
“Nah, not too much, nothing we can really use. Just what you’d expect. She’s been married to the same man for over twenty years, no kids, no criminal record, and a few traffic tickets. She’s a member of some sort of religious group that I don’t really understand, but they’re not in trouble with any federal agencies, at least not the IRS. Her husband, Wilbur, is one of the deacons in the church. I’ve sent a couple of uniforms to talk with her neighbors. Nothing on any of the major criminal databases.
Mic listened carefully and said, “Well, I think there’s more there than we’re seeing. Dottie did some eavesdropping today and said it sounded to her like Tilda was in some sort of cahoots with Dude about the missing women.”
“Dottie, eavesdropping? I’m appalled,” Slade chuckled.
“Yeah,” Mic chortled. “Imagine that,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, she indicated that Tilda threatened the younger woman, Janie, we saw in the office.”
“Threatened her. Threatened her how?”
“Not sure. I’m going by Dottie’s before I head down to Biddy’s for happy hour. But I did learn one thing about her,” Mic added slowly.
“What?”
Mic smiled. Slade was gonna like this. “I saw in some court documents I reviewed that Wilbur and Tilda had a right-of-way dispute with the property owners of the farm located in front of them. So, I pretended to be from the highway department and I called about posting a road sign. I asked the woman about Tilda and would they object to the sign? She said, and I quote, ‘Tilda was a mean, nasty woman with a horrible temper and that she’s crazy to boot.’ She said Tilda runs up and down the roads past her farm at all hours of the night, often coming home at two or three in the morning. “
Slade whistled. “That’s some late hours for an office manager at a dental practice.”
Mic nodded, “Yeah, I’d say so. Anyway, this lady wishes Tilda nothing but ill will. She said her husband’s pretty nice and that he deserves better than Tilda. In her mind, Tilda’s an awful person.”
“Yeah. I wonder if this lady is just mad at her over the court thing or if this is just a cat fight?”
“Hard to say,” Mic admitted, “but it’s worth checking out. She told me Tilda even got thrown out of the local ‘Ladies Crafting Club’ because she played a dirty trick on another member. If nothing else, she sounds like a persona non grata in her local area.”
Slade was silent for a moment. “I wonder if she has something going on with Dude. Suppose they are having an affair? Maybe she’s in love with him and does anything he says.”
Mic was quiet for a moment and added. “Well, if she is, then it’s highly likely she’s involved. Can you bring her in for questioning?”
“Let me keep digging, and I’ll see what I can come up with. If I can get enough on her, I’ll get her in here.”
“Okay, I’m gonna try to get into some of my medical databases and see if she has any type of a medical history. I wish I could get some information on her family. From what I can tell, she’s from a small town in Arkansas.”
“Sounds good, Mic. I’ll see you later this evening at Biddy’s and we’ll catch up. In the meantime, I’m gonna see if I can pull enough together to get Tilda picked up.”
“Okay, talk later,” Mic said, hung up and returned to her medical databases. She typed in Tilda’s full name and date of birth and was surprised when she was able to access her medical records in a children’s psychiatric hospital in a small town in Arkansas.
Tilda had been diagnosed with an “undefined personality disorder” that could mean just about anything, particularly since Tilda was now an adult.
What Mic did know, was that time was running out to rescue Allison alive. Even though her insulin needs could be decreased if she were somewhere cold, her stress level could increase her need for insulin and she could go into a diabetic coma.
She prayed silently that something would break soon on the case... before it was too late.