A Deadly Discovery
Certain she’s seen more than enough death for one lifetime, literary agent Allie Cobb is ready to close the book on her amateur sleuthing, even when she learns that an unidentified body has been unearthed in a local state park. But when a worn and haunted-looking woman shows up on her doorstep with a grim story about her young daughter’s disappearance twenty years ago—and the police confirm that the recently discovered body is hers—Allie can’t bear to turn the poor woman away.
Determined to uncover the truth about the young woman’s murder, Allie begins delving into the circumstances of her life and those she knew so many years before. And when she meets powerful resistance from those she questions—many of whom are now trusted leaders in her small, tight-knit community—she’s sure she’s on the right track. But as she narrows down the list of suspects, Allie realizes too late that a cold-blooded killer is dead-set on keeping the secrets of the past buried, and it will take all her wit and cunning to avoid becoming the second young woman to meet an untimely end . . .
Title Page
Copyright
A Deadly Discovery
J. C. Kenney
Beyond the Page Books
are published by
Beyond the Page Publishing
Copyright © 2021 by J. C. Kenney
Cover design and illustration by Dar Albert, Wicked Smart Designs
ISBN: 978-1-950461-90-5
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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Dedication
A Deadly Discovery is dedicated to the parents
of children who have disappeared.
We hear their heartbeats.
Acknowledgments
A big thank-you to my wife, Nancy, and our friend Brianne Kirkpatrick of Watershed DNA for their advice and guidance to make sure I got the DNA part of this story right. Thanks go to my agent, Dawn Dowdle, who’s done so much to help me find my place in the writing world. Thanks also go to my editor, Bill Harris, for his faith in the Allie Cobb Mysteries.
Contents
Chapter One
I was born with a gift of observation and a conviction that the world is not as it seems. At least, that’s what my boyfriend Brent had once told me.
Who could blame him? In the short time we’d known each other, less than two years, I’d solved three murders in my hometown. Pretty stunning given that I’m not a member of law enforcement.
But that was then. I’d closed the book on my last investigation four months ago. And the emotional toll that case took on me had become a weight that almost crushed me into a million pieces. So, I gave up my crime fighting.
Now, I’m simply Allie Cobb, literary agent and mother to Ursula, the local celebrity cat who wanders around town on her trusty leash with me by her side. As I took a sip of iced coffee, I let out a long, cleansing breath. I’d reached a state of tranquility in both my personal and professional lives.
It was a good day to be alive.
“Penny for your thoughts.” Brent squirted ketchup on the half dozen French fries remaining on his plate. We were having lunch and enjoying the sidewalk seating at Big Al’s Diner, home to the best burgers on the planet, in my humble opinion.
“Trying to enjoy the serenity before things get crazy. My to-do list for the 9/11 Memorial event is getting longer by the day and it’s only a month away. I just hope . . .” I shrugged.
“The committee hasn’t bit off more than it can chew.” He nibbled on a fry. “I get it. I thought the Library Board was crazy when they told me to put on a genealogy class that even included a component where people could take a DNA test.”
I stole a fry off his plate. Brent had only been on the job for three months. People were still coming to terms with the sudden death of his predecessor, Vicky Napier. The directive from his bosses for a new program to put his stamp on the library had led to more than a few sleepless nights.
“I’d been hoping to ease into the job, you know. Making big changes was never my priority. But it worked out. If I could do that, your committee can pull off the memorial.”
“Aww, your confidence in me is inspiring.” I gave Brent my best smile as I stole another fry from his plate. The man had a knack for saying the perfect thing to keep me grounded while also lifting me up. It was a skill I envied.
“Just speaking the truth—” A black-and-white Rushing Creek police cruiser thundered down the road. Brent’s words were lost among the flashing lights and screaming siren.
We turned as the cruiser sped down the street. The recent string of murders notwithstanding, my hometown of Rushing Creek, Indiana, population 3,216, was as safe as any place in America. A high-speed response with lights and sirens usually meant there was a motor vehicle accident on state highway 46, at the southern edge of town. We had excellent public safety services. Whatever happened, I was confident the injured parties would be well taken care of.
“I hope it’s not too serious.” I turned back to Brent when the cruiser was out of sight. “Anyway, you were saying?”
He wiped his hands on a paper napkin. He’d polished off the last of the fries while I’d been watching the police car.
“There are good people on the committee. You’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve seen your Gantt charts and read your meeting agendas. You may not be the committee chair, but you’ve got things under control better than the Watchmaker in Clockwork Angels. No worries, mate.”
I rolled my eyes at his use of an Australian accent with his last comment. “That was awful. Don’t do that ever again.”
“As you wish.” He bowed his head. “And now I must return to my toils at the Victoria Napier Memorial Rushing Creek Library.”
“Must you insist on using the library’s full name all the time. Good Lord, it’s the longest title in the history of libraries.” I winked. The fact that the community had chosen to rename the library after my hero warmed me inside. It was fun to tease Brent about the lengthy name the Library Board had come up with, though.
“And I suppose you still think we should call it the Napier?” He got to his feet, his tall frame rising up like a submarine’s telescope, and kissed me on the forehead. The bristles of his goatee tickled my skin.
“Darn right. It sounds cool. Like MoMA or the Guggenheim.”
“I don’t know. Seems a little highbrow for this hardworking, blue-collar community. Anyway, I gotta run. I’ve got book club after work. Will I get to see you tomorrow?”
“You can always join Mom and me at church.”
Brent hugged me and headed for the library without responding to my invitation. While it wasn’t a surprise, it was still a bit of a disappointment. Brent had rebuffed my requests despite my assurances that attending Mass was more about spending quality time with my mother than anything else.
It was only an hour a week, after all. If he wouldn’t make that small sacrifice, I’d begun to wonder what other compromises, both big and small, he didn’t want to make in our relationship. To be fair, the same applied to me. As I’d gotten older, I’d come to realize I wasn’t the most flexible in the relationship department, either.
I pushed the melancholy thoughts aside and went into the diner to get a coffee to go. A cool breeze from the north had lowered both the oppressive heat and humidity common to Indiana in August. That meant I could enjoy the weather from my spot at the sidewalk table while I went through work email on my phone.
A little while later, I’d just sent a writing sample from a potential client to my assistant for review when Maybelle Schuman settled into the chair across from me.
“Have you heard the news? It’s quite shocking.”
I set down my phone as I took a deep breath. Maybelle was a good person at heart. I was convinced of it. After all, in my book, anyone who spent over thirty years teaching elementary school automatically should qualify as a national treasure. The problem was that, ever since she left the classroom, she’d made a second career as Rushing Creek’s number-one rumormonger.
I couldn’t stand rumormongers.
“The news often is, Maybelle. Can you specify which news, specifically, is shocking today?” Being snippy wasn’t my preferred style of communication, but sometimes it was the only way I could deal with the woman across from me.
“A dead body was found in Beechwood earlier today. The cops are trying to keep the discovery quiet, but apparently it’s been there quite a while.”
Much of Southern Indiana consisted of rolling hills that were unsuitable for agriculture. They were perfect for outdoor recreation, though. Rushing Creek was a mere stone’s throw from both Green Hills State Park and Beechwood State Forest. People visited those places to have fun and get back to nature.
Not dispose of bodies.
I raised an eyebrow while I formulated a response. Beechwood State Forest was a popular destination for outdoorsy types. It contained a five-hundred-acre lake and twenty thousand acres of undeveloped woodlands designated for potential timber harvest. There were a couple of campgrounds and some mixed-use trails running throughout the property, but it was mainly a site where nature could take its course unimpeded.
Despite what I wanted to believe, I couldn’t deny the obvious. A body could be dumped there, and nobody would be the wiser.
“That is big. Who’d you hear it from?”
She frowned. “Oh, I couldn’t name names. That’s how rumors can get started.”
Maybelle lived for the rumor mill. Keeping her sources confidential was absurd.
I should have known she’d play coy with me, though. She’d been a source of information in my previous murder investigations often enough. She had to know I was using our conversation to pump her for the information as much as she was using me as someone to whom she could spread her rumor.
“You sure your source is reliable? A story like that would upset a lot of people.” Maybelle’s rumors tended to wander into the weeds of tall tales, but they often started from a grain of truth.
“My source, as you call it, is quite reliable.” She sniffed, apparently displeased with my veiled attempt to discredit her story. “I would think you’d know that by now. What, with all of the valuable information I’ve turned over to you in the past.”
I smiled and patted her hand. It was part of the game I played with her.
“Just trying to make sure you’re not unfairly accused of spreading false information.” I glanced at my phone. It was time to extricate myself before I got pulled further into Maybelle’s web of rumors and half-truths.
“Thanks for the info. I’ll tell Mom I saw you and that you look great.”
“Thank you, dear.” She patted her gray hair as she sat up straighter. My mom was Maybelle’s doctor, so mentioning her was always a safe move. “And I appreciate you thinking of my reputation. Not everybody is that thoughtful, you know.”
“Indeed.” I gave the old woman a wave and headed for home before I said something I’d regret. With Maybelle, the best thing I could do was listen and treat her rumors with a grain of salt.
To be honest, I tended to treat most things with a grain of salt. Ah, the life of a cynic.
I wasn’t feeling cynical about my evening plans, though. I was getting together with friends for a girls’ night out. My all-time bestie, Sloane Winchester, spent most of her weekends on the road for her professional trail running career. My gal-pal and source for all things chocolate-related, Diane Stapleton, usually worked Saturday evenings at her shop, Creekside Chocolates.
The stars had aligned for us this evening, though. Sloane was taking the weekend to rest and recover after three consecutive weekends of hard races. Diane had finally found someone she trusted to manage the store so she could have a weekend off once in a while.
My mission was to make sure both ladies had an evening of blissful relaxation. And possibly encourage the development of some shenanigans. Without breaking the law, of course. I was a big believer in following the rules.
At least most of the time.
One of the things I adore about Rushing Creek is that I didn’t need a car to get around. With my second-floor apartment situated right along the town’s main drag, Washington Boulevard, I was within a thirty-minute walk of everything I needed. On my bike, it was less than half that.
The trip from Big Al’s Diner to the front door of my apartment took all of ten minutes, and that was because I’d stopped to chat with a few folks. The way my cat Ursula greeted me the moment I opened the door, one would have thought I’d been gone for a month instead of a few hours.
She bonked her head against my ankle, then wound her way through my legs before I even had a chance to take the key out of the lock. Once I did that, she let out a series of mehs, trotted to the kitchen, and took a seat by her food bowl.
“I’m happy to see you too, Ursi.” I followed her and let out a laugh when I got there.
My kitty had cleared a circle the size of a quarter in the middle of the bowl. An abundant amount of her dry cat food remained outside the circle but still inside the bowl. The scene reminded me of memes I’d seen on social media. It was the classic cat definition of an empty food bowl.
“Thank goodness I got home when I did.” I picked up my feline bestie and gave her belly a gentle squeeze. “You might have had to gnaw off your leg or something.”
She batted at my nose to let me know she didn’t care for my teasing. When I laughed, she started squirming until I put her down.
“Fine. I’m a pushover. I confess.” I gave her a couple of kitty treats. “But tomorrow we’re going for a walk. You’re getting a little flab with that belly. Which reminds me, I need to schedule your annual check-up.”
With a flick of her tail, she chomped down on the treats, ignoring the comment about her health. Then she jumped onto her favorite perch, an end table with a cushion on top, and stared out the window. Ursi was a creature of habit, so in a few minutes she’d be curled up like a feline version of a croissant, fast asleep.
The life of a house cat was one I wouldn’t mind emulating.
I pulled the appointment reminder from a little stack of personal mail I kept on a stand by the door. A few minutes later, I had my fur baby all set to see her vet, Cammy Flanagan, for shots and an exam.
I was a human with responsibilities instead of a feline enjoying a life of leisure, unfortunately. That meant I needed to do some work that paid the bills.
I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a manuscript I’d requested from an author. It was the second step in my process of potentially acquiring a new book or series. If I liked an author’s initial query letter and the first three chapters that came with it, I’d ask to see the complete manuscript. If I loved that, I’d make an offer to represent the author.
By the time I had to stop reading, I had fifty pages to go and was fairly sure I’d be making an offer. It was a good spot in the story to call it quits and get ready for an evening of fun and frivolity.
• • •
That evening, Diane, Sloane, and I were seated in a corner booth at the Rushing Creek Public House, the bar and restaurant my older sister, Rachel, owned. The Pub, as it was affectionately known to its fans, was packed with tourists visiting the area reveling in the natural beauty of summer in Southern Indiana.
Most locals avoided the Pub since it catered to the out-of-town crowd. They preferred the sports bar, Hoosiers, or the pizza joint, Marinara’s, which Rachel had recently acquired. While my sister and I were as different as night and day, it was important to me to support her businesses. That’s why I insisted that every evening out with friends needed to start at the Pub.
“So, then this bear cub wandered onto the trail and plopped down right in the middle of it. He had the most adorable black eyes. I just wanted to scoop him up and give him a kiss right on the nose.” Sloane took a sip of her spiked seltzer. She’d spent the last fifteen minutes regaling Diane and me about her adventures training in Montana for a recent race.
“Girl, you are a trip.” Diane dipped an onion ring in ketchup. “I hope you ran right past that thing and didn’t look back.”
“I did better than that. I turned around and sprinted back to where I came from. I checked my time when I got back to my starting point. Personal best.” Sloane raised her drink to us as we laughed.
“I hope you didn’t tell Luke. He’ll want you to carry pepper spray on all your runs from now on,” I said.
“Or run in a suit of armor,” Diane added, her black curls flowing back and forth like ocean waves as she laughed.
My brother Luke adored Sloane and would do anything to make her happy. And to support her trail running career. He’d gone as far as offering to quit his job as head of the Rushing Creek Parks Department so he could travel with her and work as her personal assistant.
She’d insisted he keep working. He liked his job and there was no way she was going to ask him to give up something he enjoyed. God, I loved Sloane Winchester. She was the most kindhearted person I knew. I was more than fortunate to have her in my life.
We’d just received a second round of drinks when Jeanette Wilkerson came in. I waved her over to join us.
“Is she not feeling well? She doesn’t look so hot.” Sloane furrowed her eyebrows. My bestie didn’t talk ill of anyone unless she was concerned about them.
“She does look tired,” Diane said as she scooched over to make room on her side of the booth.
“Hey, girlfriend.” I hugged Jeanette when she arrived.
“What a day. I need a drink.” She dropped into the open spot with a thump.
Diane and Sloane were right. Jeanette didn’t look good. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, as if she’d been crying. Her dark hair, which normally looked fantastic even under the worst circumstances, was gathered in a messy topknot that looked like it would fall apart under the pressure from the slightest puff of air.
Jeanette was an officer with the Rushing Creek Police Department. She’d seen some awful things during her time as a cop, but nothing had ever gotten to her.
Something had gotten to her today. Something frightful.
“Bad stuff today, I take it?” I slid my glass of white wine toward her.
“You have no idea.” She drained the glass in a single long gulp. Before she’d placed the glass back on the table, she asked our server for another one.
“There are rumors something was discovered in the state forest. Was your day related to that?” Diane asked.
“Man, I hate the rumor mill.” Jeanette let out a long sigh as she stared at the ceiling. “Especially when it’s true.”
The three of us sat in silence while we waited for our friend to say more. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Jeanette was a good cop who always tried to do the right thing, like refraining from commenting on a case.
When the server placed another glass of wine in front of her, she took a deep breath.
“Workers have been in an area of the forest preparing for a timber harvest. Earlier today, they found something and called nine-one-one. The call sounded serious, so I responded along with the County Sheriff’s Department.” She shuddered. “All I can say is they found a body.”
My blood went cold as I processed the words. And Jeanette’s behavior. So Maybelle had been right. It wasn’t the kind of news I’d hoped to receive.
The body hadn’t gotten there by accident.
There’d been another murder in Rushing Creek.
Chapter Two
As usual, I began my Sunday meeting my mom on the steps of St. James Catholic Church for Mass. My faith wasn’t particularly strong, but the time spent with her thinking about things much larger than myself helped me cope with the challenges in life.
This Sunday was far from usual.
Normally, Mom met me outside the front of the church, with arms wide open ready to take me into a hug. This day, she was huddled with a few of her friends, speaking in low tones and making furtive glances at other churchgoers. Everyone else was doing the same thing.
I didn’t need a mind reader to know what the topic of conversation was. Until the poor soul who’d been found in the state forest was identified, the rumor mill would fly at full speed.
“Hi, Mom. Ladies.” I hugged my dear mother and nodded to the women she’d been chatting with. “What’s the good word today?”
Mom scowled before she released me. There was no fooling Dr. Janice Cobb. She wouldn’t take the bait I’d just tossed to the group.
“Just talking about yesterday’s awful news.” She flicked a speck of dirt from her jacket lapel. I would never look as well put together as my mom. Not that one’s wardrobe seemed important at the moment.
“You have contacts with the police,” one of the women, Wanda something or other, said. “You must know who it is. Want to give us the scoop?”
I shrugged. I didn’t have the scoop and didn’t want to have it. I’d done my part bringing murderers in Rushing Creek to justice. And with each case I’d solved, a little part of my soul had shriveled up and died. At least, that’s the way I explained it to my counselor.
“Sorry, ladies. My crime-fighting days are a thing of the past. I don’t know any more than you do.” I took Mom by the arm and escorted her into the church before they could respond.
Despite my best efforts to focus on the service, I couldn’t shake the disturbing images of the past twenty-four hours. The police cruiser barreling down the road. Maybelle’s troublemaking smile. Jeanette’s disheveled appearance. The whispers shared among small groups at the church.
By the time Father Edwards brought Mass to a close by telling us all to go in peace, I was ready to scream. The couple in the pew in front of me hadn’t stopped talking about “the discovery” the entire time.
The callous desire for scandal that permeated the gathering was too much. It was a House of God and folks couldn’t set aside the troubles from the world for sixty minutes. It was too much. I gave Mom a hug, told her my stomach was upset, and made for the exit like record-setting sprinter Usain Bolt.
I didn’t slow down until I reached the entrance to my building. The brass door pull was cool to the touch when I grasped it, a welcome respite from the heat of the day. It calmed my frazzled nerves enough so I could climb the stairs to my apartment without hyperventilating.
My knees got weak the moment I stepped into the apartment. I slid to the floor, using the door for support.
Ursi said hello by bumping her head against my ankle, then climbed onto my lap. She stared at me with her big golden eyes, then blinked slowly and started to purr.
Her kitty kiss brought tears to my eyes. I scooped her up in my arms and held her close to my heart. “I love you too, girl. It’s just a panic attack. Give me a minute to change clothes and we’ll go for a walk.”
My counselor had suggested I try new methods to help combat my recent anxiety issues. Despite my initial misgivings, herbal tea had worked. Maybe it was the pleasant aroma. Maybe it was the placebo effect. All I knew was that when I was feeling a lot of stress, the tea calmed me.
For that, I was thankful. Especially today.
I brewed some chamomile in a travel mug and left it to steep while I switched into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that said I’m a Crazy Cat Lady and Proud of It.
“Okay, girl. Let’s get in some steps.” Ursi met me at the front door and held still as I put on her harness. Evidently, she wanted to get out as much as I did. We were truly birds of a feather.
We made a detour on our way out of the building to say hi to Renee Gomez. She was the owner of Renee’s Gently Used Books, which was located directly below my apartment. She was also my landlord.
“What’s up, Allie?” Renee waved to me from behind a cart of paperbacks she was putting out while a few customers browsed the New Releases section. Even though the name of the store included the word Used, she sold new books as well.
Ursi trotted over to Renee, bumped her head against the woman’s black pants, and plopped down in front of her. She liked Renee, but adored treats. Renee always had one ready for her, which my cat had learned. And was always eager to take advantage of.
“Trying to get away from yesterday’s news. Thought I’d stop by to see if the roof work still starts tomorrow.”
My building was almost a hundred years old. That meant the three-story brick-and-mortar structure was gorgeous and had character for days. That meant it also needed a lot of TLC. After years of saving up to pay for a new roof, Renee had recently told me and the building’s other tenants that work was scheduled to begin on Monday.
She grinned as she dropped Ursi’s snack to the hardwood floor. “It does, and I cannot wait. Once it’s done, I can finally think about renting the apartment above you.”
“I get to approve the tenant, right?” We’d often joked that my crime-fighting efforts provided Renee’s building an extra layer of security. To that end, I’d been angling to make sure the person who lived above me was someone I liked.
“Sure, as long as you’re willing to collect the rent, respond to complaints from neighbors, and handle maintenance calls.”
Renee’s expression was as unreadable as a professional poker player’s. She may have been joking. Or, maybe not.
“You’re right. Your building, your decision.”
“I’m sure the mere mention of your name will scare off any unsavory candidates.” She glanced toward the cash register, where a young woman with a toddler held a stack of kids’ books. “Gotta ring up a sale. Enjoy your walk.”
I had no destination in mind, so I let Ursi take the lead. We wandered through the neighborhood for about fifteen minutes, enjoying the smell of freshly mowed grass, the periodic shade of mature oak and maple trees, and the beauty of brightly colored flowers. Then she plopped down next to an ornamental rock to rest. That was my cue to give her a drink from the sports bottle I always carried with us.
She lapped at the water that dribbled out the bottle’s open valve while I sipped my tea and soaked up the sun. When she was sufficiently rested, she stretched, got back up on all fours, and gave me a look that said it was time to go. Fifteen minutes later, we were back in front of my building.
It was a pleasant routine, one we both enjoyed. The exercise was good for Ursi’s physical health and my mental health. With my mind now at peace, I scratched my kitty between the shoulder blades.
“Good walk, girl. If it’s not too hot, we’ll do this tomorrow.”
Ursi let out a little meow as I opened the door and motioned for her to enter.
I came to a dead stop when my gaze fell upon an unfamiliar woman sitting on the steps. A battered box held together by graying duct tape sat next to her.
“Allie Cobb?”
The woman struggled to her feet. She was thin, too thin in my estimation. Her salt-and-pepper hair was parted in the middle. It fell limply to her shoulders, like all the life had been sucked from it ages ago. She wore a blouse with a floral print that hadn’t been in fashion in a decade and her jeans looked like they’d fall to pieces if she washed them one more time. Her eyes were haunted, as if she’d seen more awfulness than even Jeanette.
A wisp of a memory, a mere echo from long ago, flashed through my mind as the woman smiled and held out her hand.
“My name is Connie Briggs. My daughter, Valerie, disappeared twenty years ago. She was a senior in high school. They never found her.”
Vague recollections of the case returned to me. As an eleven-year-old at the time, I was more interested in the latest Nancy Drew novel than local news. Even middle school Allie hadn’t been completely oblivious to the news surrounding Valerie Briggs’s disappearance, though.
“I’m deeply sorry, Mrs. Briggs. I can’t imagine how tough that’s been on you.” Between yesterday’s discovery and the box on the stairstep, I sensed where this conversation was headed.
Someplace I didn’t want it to go.
“Thank you. The police said she ran away, but I always knew better. My Valerie was murdered. It’s her body they found in the forest yesterday, I just know it.” She pulled a tissue from a tattered canvas tote bag and wiped her eyes.
“I truly am sorry. Perhaps you should contact the police—”
“Police.” She practically spat out the word. Disgust dripped from each syllable. “Won’t do no good. That’s why I came to see you. I know you can help me.”
“What, exactly, do you think I can help you with?” The words were out before I could reel them back in. It was an involuntary response, like pulling a finger away from a hot flame. It also meant I was going to help this poor, broken woman. Regardless of what she was about to tell me.
Sometimes, I simply couldn’t help myself.
She wrapped my hand in hers and looked me in the eye. Her palms were cold, and rough from years of manual labor. The unanswered questions, the sleepless nights, the lonely desperation haunted Connie Briggs. And had haunted her for two decades.
“I want you to find my daughter’s killer.” She gave my hand a tight squeeze. I was the life preserver she needed to keep from going under once and for all. “Help me get justice for my Valerie. I know you can do it. Please.”
How could I say no to this desperate and broken woman?
I couldn’t.
“Why don’t you come inside so we can talk?” I put an arm around Connie and guided her into my apartment. Ursi, bless her, stayed close to my unexpected visitor to offer some kitty moral support while I got her settled.
To buy some time while I came to terms with what I was getting myself into, I brewed Connie a cup of herbal tea. It worked for me. Maybe it would work for her, too.
While I was in the kitchen, I kept an eye on her. Ursi had settled next to her on the couch. The woman smiled as she stroked my kitty’s spine. If Ursi was comfortable with the attention from this poor soul, that was good enough for me.
The least I could do was hear her out.
I brought her the tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Normally, I saved the cookies for when Tristan and Theresa, my twin niece and nephew, visited. Given the circumstances, making an exception to my rule felt like the right thing to do.
We chatted for a few minutes while Connie sipped her drink and plowed her way through three cookies. When she asked me for a second cup of tea, I couldn’t help wondering when someone last showed her a kindness.
A few minutes later, I set another cup on the coffee table in front of Connie. I’d also made one for myself this time. I was going to need the chamomile’s calming powers.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning.” I took a drink and breathed in the tea’s soothing aroma. “Tell me about Valerie’s disappearance.”
“It was twenty years ago last Christmas Eve when she went missing. Phil and I had been at work. Annette, that’s Val’s younger sister, was spending the day with a friend. I got home from work around three. I thought Val would be there because we were going to make Christmas cookies. It was a tradition we had.”
Connie squeezed her eyes shut. Even twenty years later, the woman’s anguish was as intense as the day her daughter disappeared.
“Well, those were the days before cell phones, so I couldn’t call her number. Instead, since I was tired from work, I told myself she was out with her girlfriends. When she was still gone by the time Phil and Annette got home, I called around. Nobody knew where she was. That’s when we called the police.”
With the care of someone opening a trunk containing buried treasure, she removed the lid from the box. “Everything about her disappearance is in there. Everything you need to know.”
“May I?” I waited until Connie nodded before looking at the contents. The items needed to be treated with respect.
It was an unremarkable collection. A black spiral-bound notebook, curled in at the edges, was on top. A quick scan revealed it to contain someone’s notes, documenting the case as it happened.
Connie confirmed it was hers.
There was a photo album containing yellowed press clippings and news articles about the disappearance. Most were from the Brown County Beacon, the local weekly newspaper. Others were reports from newspapers in nearby Columbus, Bloomington, and even from Indianapolis.
A nine-by-twelve envelope contained documents about attempts to get the case on national news. The effort had been futile.
Valerie’s high school yearbook was at the bottom of the box, still in its plastic wrapping. Small wonder, since it didn’t come out until months after the girl disappeared.
There were other things that gave me some insight into who Valerie Briggs was—a small stuffed rabbit, a silver key chain from Rolling Hills State Park, a hairbrush.
Then I hit the jackpot. Valerie’s diary. I didn’t dare read it. Not in front of her mother. Odds were Connie had probably read every word in the little cloth-bound book countless times. Still, a diary was a personal, intimate record of one’s most honest thoughts. I hadn’t established that kind of relationship with Valerie to open it yet.
When I was finished looking through the materials, I closed the box, but kept it by my side.
“Why don’t you want to go to the police? I’m sure Chief Roberson would be more than willing to hear you out.”
“No way.” Connie crossed her arms. “I trusted the older Roberson when Val disappeared, and he let me down. That horrible man never believed me when I said something bad had happened to her. Just because my family wasn’t part of the in crowd, he ignored us and wrote the whole thing off as a runaway. My family deserved better then. Val deserves better now.”
I steadied myself on the arm of the couch. Connie’s vehemence caught me off guard. I understood the parent of a missing child being frustrated with the police, but a white-hot anger still burned inside Connie.
As I took a drink of my tea, a few thoughts coalesced. Connie’s distrust for the police made perfect sense.
Twenty years ago, the Rushing Creek police chief had been Louis Roberson. In the view of some, Chief Louis had been a staunch defender of law and order and Rushing Creek’s tourism business. In the view of others, he was a hypocrite who looked after the rich and well-connected and ignored those of more modest means.
The man was now retired and living somewhere in the desert Southwest doing security consulting. The current police chief was none other than Matt Roberson, the former chief’s son.
No wonder Connie didn’t want to go to the police. Despite my promises to family and friends, and myself, that I was finished with crime fighting, I couldn’t turn this woman down.
I looked Connie in the eye and shook her hand.
“I’ll find Valerie’s killer. And get the justice you and your family deserve.”
Chapter Three
I spent Sunday evening going through Valerie’s things in greater detail than when Connie was with me. My goal had been to reach an initial conclusion. Was the woman justified for not trusting the police? Or was she a lost soul who couldn’t get over the fact that her daughter ran away and turned that resentment against the authorities?
By the time I went to bed, I was convinced it was a combination of the two. Based on photos in the various reports I read, the Connie of today was a shadow of the woman she’d once been. The news didn’t paint Chief Louis in a favorable light, either. Regardless of who the recently discovered body turned out to be, the toll taken on Valerie’s family was indisputable.
• • •
On Monday morning, before I devoted a bunch of time to a search for answers to a twenty-year-old question, I knew I had work to do. The kind of work that paid the bills. As the sole proprietor of the Cobb Literary Agency, I had the luxury of working from home, setting my own hours, and going for a walk with my cat whenever I felt like it. On the other hand, I was accountable for paying the rent, keeping the lights on, and making sure my authors were taken care of.
It was a lot of responsibility, but I loved it. And with help from my assistant, Calypso Bosley, the future of CLA continued to be bright.
“What’s on the agenda for this week, Boss?” Calypso propped her combat-booted feet on the coffee table with a thunk. After a yawn, she took a long drink from a forty-ounce stainless steel mug. The aroma of straight black coffee hit me like a tsunami. If form held, she’d down three more of those monstrosities over the course of the day. How the young woman could consume so much caffeine and sleep was beyond me.
Every Monday morning, we met to discuss and prioritize tasks. Calypso worked with me twenty hours a week. She spent most of those hours working without my direct supervision, so getting together face-to-face on a regular basis was important to me.
“First week of the month. That means royalties. I need you to go through the accounts and make sure statements and payments can go out Thursday night.” While it was always gratifying to celebrate the days when my authors’ books were published, I got an even bigger charge from sending them royalty payments. It was the most concrete sign that people were buying their books.
“Easy peasy.” She brushed her obsidian hair from her eyes and took another long slurp from her mug. “What else?”
“We received two client manuscripts on Friday that are ready for editing. One’s a romance, the other’s a mystery. I got the okay from the authors for you to do an initial round of editing. I’d like them back by the end of the day Friday, so I can go through them next week. Doable?”
“Yes! Finally, a mystery.” She gave herself a high five. “Nothing beats some good old-fashioned murder and mayhem.”
I rolled my eyes. Calypso had a sharp mind and a keen attention to detail, two virtues that made her excellent at what she did. She also had the youthful desire to shock me with statements she thought I’d find outrageous. Since I had a mere dozen years on my nineteen-year-old assistant, her attempts typically failed.
She never stopped trying, though. That was one of the things that made working with her fun.
We got through the rest of the agenda in short order. The last item of business involved finalizing plans to celebrate and promote the releases of two of our clients’ books later in the week.
In general, I wasn’t a fan of meetings, but I’d come to enjoy these get-togethers with Calypso. We got important things done and always managed to share a laugh in the process. They got my weeks off on a positive footing.
“Anything else before I let you go?” In an hour, I had a call with an editor to discuss a manuscript I’d submitted, and I wanted to get a few other things done first.
“Just one. Are you going to help that lady who came to see you yesterday?” Calypso took a drink but never broke eye contact, as if she was issuing me a challenge.
“What lady?” I was more determined than ever to help Connie Briggs, but I wasn’t ready for that assistance to be common knowledge. Shoot, the remains hadn’t even been identified yet.
And if word got out that I was getting involved in a case that would include second-guessing the current police chief’s father, I could find myself in a lot of awkward situations. Especially since Matt Roberson was not only the top law enforcement officer in Rushing Creek but was also my ex-brother-in-law.
“God, Allie. Don’t even try to go there.” Calypso stomped to the kitchen to refill her mug. Her ankle-length black cardigan duster trailed behind her like the cape of a medieval inquisitor. “Renee told me about it when we had dinner last night. So, what are you going to do?”
Calypso was more than my assistant. She was Renee’s niece and had been living in the habitable third-floor apartment for almost six months. Nothing happened in this building without Renee being aware of it. When Renee knew something, it was often passed on to Calypso.
“I’m going to help her.” I took a bite of a multigrain bagel I’d been nibbling on throughout the meeting. “If the body they found turns out to be her daughter.”
“My, my, my. And I thought the Kickboxing Crusader had retired.”
I shut my eyes and counted to ten. Calypso knew I hated the crime-fighting nickname Sloane had given me. By using it, she’d skillfully driven home a salient point. I’d promised my family and friends I was done with pursuing murderers. I’d put myself in danger way too often. It was time to leave that kind of work to the professionals.
So much for that. What was it people said about never saying never?
“What was I supposed to do? The woman came to me asking for help. Not the police. To me.” I threw my hands in the air in frustration. “I was reading a book for fun recently. It was about a homicide cop in Maine. He said that he did what he did because it was important for someone to speak for the dead. If it turns out I can help speak for whoever that poor soul might be, I have to do it.
“Besides, those remains might be nothing more than animal bones or something like that. It might turn that some kids at the high school tried playing a prank and it went horribly wrong.”
Four rapid knocks on the door brought my speech to an end. My heart sank when Calypso welcomed the visitor into the apartment.
It was Connie.
“I just came from the morgue. They identified the remains. It’s Valerie.”
She looked as fragile as a newborn doe taking its first steps. In a flash I was at the woman’s side. While I guided her to the couch, I asked Calypso to get her something to drink.
“I’m so sorry.” I held Connie’s hand as tears pooled in her eyes. Twenty years of hoping against hope, of choosing to believe in a miracle, had come crashing down on the woman.
Calypso, eyes wide in consternation at Connie’s condition, placed a coffee cup on the table. At my signal, she dashed off to the bathroom for tissues.
After a while, the torrent slowed. Connie took a sip of her coffee, then blew her nose. A small mountain of tear-soaked tissues had grown at her feet.
“Thanks. I guess I always had a feeling, deep down, that Val was gone. Sometimes, mothers can sense those things. But I never gave up hope that one day she’d come back to me. Maybe even with a family.”
As if on cue, Ursi leapt onto the couch and settled herself in Connie’s lap. She started purring the moment Connie stroked an ear. Anyone who claimed cats were selfish hadn’t met my Ursi.
I wanted to ask if the authorities were certain but stopped myself before uttering something so insensitive. Of course they were sure. They wouldn’t have made her go to the morgue if they weren’t.
“Calypso, there’s a notebook on the shelf to the right of my desk. Would you mind getting it?”
As she turned away, she cursed the murderer and muttered something under her breath. It sounded like, “So much for a high school prank.”
Indeed, my friend. What I’d give to have the police come barging through the door right now with apologies to Connie that they’d gotten it wrong.
I set the thought aside when Calypso handed me the notebook and a pen. Justice delayed was justice denied. It was time to get Connie, and Valerie, the justice that had been denied to them for so long.
“Tell me about this morning.”
Connie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she released it, she opened them. They were clear. The desperation from yesterday was gone. As was the despair from earlier. She had the look of a mother who wanted to take whoever had harmed her daughter for a trip behind the closest woodshed.
It was a sentiment I wholeheartedly agreed with.
“I was getting ready for work when the cops showed up. It was Matt Roberson and one of his flunkies.” The venom with which she mentioned the police chief’s name could have seared a hole through a block of Indiana limestone.
“They came in and told me the remains are Valerie. Someone had strangled her, stuffed her into some kind of bag, then buried her.”
“Jeez, that’s awful,” Calypso said in a hushed tone. She was a tough one who was rarely shocked. It was happening to her a lot this morning.
“How were they able to determine it’s her, dental records?” I needed to get as much information as possible out of Connie while she still had her steely-eyed look. Whatever emotional reserves she was running on would probably reach empty soon.
“No. They’re working on that. They found a plastic ID card holder with her. It had an appointment card with her name on it and some cash. The appointment card was from a family planning clinic.”
My brain started running scenarios in my head. If a clinic like that was involved, maybe she was pregnant. That could be an explanation for running away. But then, why were her remains discovered so close to home. Was she planning on running away and someone murdered her first?
So many questions. So few answers.
“Was she—”
“Pregnant? Uh-huh. During the autopsy, they found extra bones. The coroner thinks she was about seven months along when she . . .”
“I’m so, so sorry.” I put my arm around Connie. After stiffening for a moment, she melted into me.
Despite my best efforts, I had trouble coming to terms with her news. It had to be heartbreaking beyond belief to find out your long-lost daughter had been murdered. But then to find out you’d lost a grandchild, too? Utterly devastating.
We sat in silence as Calypso and I absorbed the enormity of the situation. Connie had been right all along. Whether Valerie had run away was irrelevant now. What mattered was that someone had taken the young woman’s life. And the life of her unborn child.
As we sat there, a time line was beginning to come together. The date she disappeared. The fact that she was seven months pregnant when she died. The name of a family planning clinic. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to give me something to go on. I jotted down my thoughts while Connie finished her coffee.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I sensed she was almost spent.
“Yeah.” She went to the window and gazed out upon the Boulevard. “There was something else in the bag. A sock. There was a bandage in it. There was blood on the bandage. They said they were going to send it somewhere to test it for DNA, for all the good that’ll do.”
“You’d be amazed at the things the police can do with DNA testing,” Calypso said.
I frowned at her before she could say more. I didn’t want her, or anyone, raising Connie’s hopes. Even if it was done with the best of intentions.
“That’s what Roberson said. He also said it’s not a perfect science, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much.” She let out a world-weary sigh. “That’s probably his way of letting the cops off the hook. I didn’t trust his dad. I don’t trust him, either. That’s why you need to find Val’s killer, Allie.”
“I’ll do everything I can.” After chatting for a few minutes, I asked Connie if there was anything else I could do for her.
“Could someone give me a ride home? I need to call Annette. I want to make sure she hears about Val from me before anyone else.”
“No problem.” Calypso grabbed her purse off the kitchen table. “Ready when you are.”
After a promise that I’d be in touch in a couple of days, Connie thanked me and made her exit, with Calypso providing a steadying hand.
While I was alone, I took advantage of the quiet and scribbled down all the relevant items that came to mind. I still thought it was the longest of shots that I could track down Valerie’s murderer. But not even trying made it easier for the murderer to escape justice.
I was on my third page of notes when Calypso returned. She leaned against the door after closing it and shook her head.
“Good golly, Miss Molly. That poor woman.” She went to the kitchen and poured herself some coffee. “Do you really think you can find the garbage bag of a human who did it?”
“No way to know until I give it a shot.” It was the truth. I didn’t know. Experience had taught me not to let doubts derail effort, though. “I’ll give it my best.”
“In that case, the killer better sleep with one eye open.” Calypso lifted her mug toward me. “Since your best always gets the job done.”
Chapter Four
Connie’s visit had left my mind processing ideas faster than I could write them down. I wanted to dig right into the investigation. Murdering someone was, in and of itself, an unspeakably heinous act. But to murder an eighteen-year-old woman, who was pregnant, and then bury her body? That sank to the lowest depths of evil. And I’d come across people who could perform some really evil acts.
I had authors to care for first, though. My call with the editor helped me get back into the groove of agent work. After the call, I spent the rest of the day in my office, focused on the work of Cobb Literary Agency.
After dropping Connie off, the normally tough-as-iron Calypso had made it clear she didn’t want to be alone. She worked on the edits in the living room while Ursi napped on her lap. The only time we took a break was for a carry-out lunch from the Brown County Diner.
She finally took off at four o’clock so she could get to her other job as a server at the Pub. When I was among friends and family, I was a hugger. Calypso was not. Before she left, though, she came into my office and gave me a bear hug so tight I thought my lungs might collapse.
“I had no idea what you went through helping these people. I wanna help any way I can.” She gave my shoulder a soft punch, then almost sprinted out the door.
At first, I couldn’t understand why she was so upset. After all, my assistant loved to brag about how many people she could make uncomfortable when she went full-on Goth. She also claimed not to care what people who didn’t know her thought about her.
Her tough girl persona made her emotional reaction to Valerie’s murder all the more puzzling. After all, Valerie had been gone before Calypso was even born.
As I was shutting down my laptop for the day, a revelation hit me. Valerie had been eighteen when her life was taken. Calypso was nineteen. The thought of someone your own age being brutally murdered could shake the foundation of any teen who thought they were going to live forever.
Then I thought of the other young women in the area. They’d likely be confronted with the same harrowing thoughts once news broke that the remains had been identified as Valerie.
I broke out in goose bumps.
Rushing Creek was supposed to be a safe place to grow up. No young person should have to face the trauma of a classmate’s murder. Which was all the more motivation I needed to make sure I found Valerie’s murderer.
“I’m coming for you, whoever you are.”
I grabbed my notebook and went to the computer. It was time for some research.
One of the few clues I had was the name of the family planning clinic on the business card. Connie hadn’t been able to remember all the details. They’d only given her a quick look at the card, claiming protocols about evidence. She was positive the place was called Positive Solutions and had an Indianapolis address, though.
With the power of the Internet at my fingertips, I figured I’d have contact information for the clinic in a matter of seconds. Privacy laws would prevent them from giving me much, if any, information about Valerie. I was undaunted, though. If nothing else, I’d be able to talk to someone there and explain the situation. I typed in the clinic’s name and hit Enter.
And got over a million hits.
“Okay, then. Let’s narrow the search.” I entered the name again, but this time added the terms “family planning” and “Indianapolis.”
And got ten thousand.
After thirty minutes of fruitless searching, I pushed away from my desk. No luck. A few sites I visited verified the clinic had been in operation around the time Valerie disappeared. The problem for me was that it wasn’t open any longer.
“It was a long shot, girl.” I picked Ursi up and stroked her along her spine. In seconds, she began purring. Following my first clue into a brick wall was a bummer. It was far from a dead end, though. I’d just begin anew and head down a different path. And do things the old-fashioned way, by talking to people.
My first stop was Mom’s house. Since I didn’t remember much about Valerie’s disappearance, it seemed like a good move to start with a friendly face who would.
She was in her backyard, drinking lemonade in the shade cast by an old red oak tree. After giving me a hug, Mom dashed into the house to get me a glass of lemonade. While she was gone, I stood in the middle of the yard and bathed in the August heat while the leaves whispered in the wind, telling tales of my backyard adventures as a child. I was lucky. Visits to the home I grew up in brought forth countless pleasant memories.
I had no interest in owning the massive two-story structure, though. It had been built to provide a home for a family, not a single woman and a cat. But with Mom in good health and with the means to keep up with the maintenance, it was one of my favorite places to visit.
“What brings you by?” She gestured for me to join her at the table on the back patio.
“Do I need a reason to visit my favorite mom?” After my father died, my siblings and I had kept a close eye on Mom. She was a smart, capable woman, but we were worried how she’d cope with being on her own. We needn’t have been concerned.
“Of course not.” She gave me a wicked smile. “But you never know. Maybe one day I’ll have a man friend over and we won’t want to be disturbed.”
“Thanks for that. Now I’m going to have nightmares for a week.” I made a dramatic show of pretend gagging. There was, in fact, a guy Mom had gone out with a few times. He treated her well and made her happy. The development delighted me. I still had to make a show of mock revulsion to get a laugh out of her, though.
“I do have a reason for coming by. It’s about Valerie Briggs.”
Mom took a drink. The glass trembled as she drank. After she put it down, she gave me a tight-lipped stare.
“So, it’s true. You’re getting involved in this mess.” Her icy tone was frigid.
News traveled at the speed of light in Rushing Creek, especially when it was horrific, like the news involving Valerie. No doubt, word had gotten around about Connie’s visits. Evidently, the result of those conversations had gotten around, too.
“She asked for my help. What was I supposed to say? She doesn’t trust the cops and doesn’t feel she has anyone else she could turn to.”
“I can see your point. I don’t have to like it, though. It seems like now is a good time to remind you of your promise not to get involved in things like this again.”
Things like this was my dear mother’s way of saying things that could end up with me getting hurt, or worse. I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. The hospital bills that had come from my previous investigations were proof of that.
At the end of the day, someone had asked for my help. Mom and Dad had raised me to always be ready to lend a helping hand. It was a lesson ingrained in me as deeply as washing my hands with soap and water.
As I looked her in the eye, there was recognition she hadn’t forgotten the lesson either.
“I assume you have a notebook in your bag?” When I showed it to her, she smiled for the briefest of moments. This showdown went to Allie.
“What do you remember about Valerie’s disappearance?”
“It was awful. I knew Connie and Phil Briggs in passing. Their kids were about the same age as Luke and Rachel. They were good people. I suppose things started going downhill for the family when the younger sister got hurt.”
Other than telling me Annette had moved to Oregon, Connie hadn’t said much about her younger daughter. She’d only been mentioned in passing in the materials I’d reviewed. I jotted down a note to learn more about her.
“It’s been so long, I’m fuzzy on the details. What I remember is that the younger sister was injured in some sort of off-road accident. She was in the hospital for months. The medical bills were devastating.”
In the hospital for months? Devastating sounded like an understatement.
“When was this?”
“A few years before Valerie disappeared. There were stories Valerie was supposed to be keeping an eye on the sister—”
“Annette.”
“Right.” Mom snapped her fingers, as if my prompt helped her memories come into focus. “The Briggs weren’t my patients, so I don’t have firsthand knowledge, but I remember hearing that Phil blamed Valerie for the accident. It supposedly led to years of emotional abuse, which only ended when Valerie ran away.”
“Or was murdered.”
Mom shook her head. “If it’s true that she was seven months pregnant when she died, then the disappearance happened weeks, if not months, before her death. As far as I can remember, a pregnancy was never mentioned as a factor in her disappearance.”
When it came to medical issues, I took Mom’s word as gospel. She’d been a family practice physician for decades and spent part of her free time reading medical journals to keep up with the latest in her profession. Janice Cobb, M.D., knew her stuff. It was with great pride that I got to tell people I was her daughter.
“So, what happened after she disappeared?”
“Not enough, obviously.” She peered at something in the corner of the yard, as if she was living that harrowing time once again. “Given the problems in the family, most people thought she ran away to escape the abuse. Phil was suspected of being involved in the disappearance but was never charged with anything.”
“Why not? Father abuses daughter. Daughter goes missing. Seems like a no-brainer to me.”
My response carried more snark than I’d intended. In response, she shrugged. What could she do? She was only the messenger, after all.
“Sorry. It’s not your fault. The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach.”
And angry.
Mom squeezed my hand. She’d learned over the years that it was best to let me rail against the injustices in the world.
“I agree, hon. As awful as it was, there was no evidence to connect Phil to any crime. He ended up paying a price in the end. Phil and Connie’s marriage fell apart. He eventually drank himself to death. He passed away about ten years ago.”
Holy cats! First, the man’s younger daughter was seriously injured, which led to financial ruin, which led to the older daughter disappearing without a trace, which then led to his marriage disintegrating. Dire circumstances like that could lead anyone to a bottle for some respite.
“Wow. Heartbreaking doesn’t begin to describe this story.” I wiped away a tear that had formed at the corner of my eye.
“I’m afraid it gets worse. Some years after Valerie disappeared, a maintenance worker at the high school was charged with statutory rape after it was discovered he was having a relationship with a student.”
I shot to my feet as a dose of adrenaline emptied into my veins. “I remember that. I was a freshman. That dude was creepy. What was his name, Ron something or other?”
“Spade.”
“Yes! Ronald Spade.” I scribbled the name in my notebook and underlined it three times. “I remember he went to prison. Any idea what happened to him after that?”
“He did his time and had to register as a sex offender. He lives with his mother. After he was arrested, Connie became convinced that he murdered Valerie, but, once again, there was no evidence to tie him to the disappearance.”
“Maybe now there is.” The convicted pedophile went straight to the top of my suspect list. Then again, I currently only had two suspects, one of whom was deceased. Still, it was a start.
Mom was quiet while I went through my notes. I’d gotten some solid information but wanted to make sure I hadn’t overlooked anything.
“Connie told me Annette’s living in Oregon. She moved there after high school. Would I be correct in assuming she never came back?”
“As far as I know, that’s right. Who could blame her? I can’t imagine spending all those years watching your family fall apart. I just hope the poor girl has gotten professional help. The emotional scars must be unimaginably deep.”
Those close to me were aware of the emotional baggage I carried from being bullied as a kid. Over time, I’d come to grips with my issues. None of them could hold a candle to the demons that must haunt Annette Briggs every day.
Maybe I could help her, indirectly. If I could figure out, once and for all, what happened to Valerie, perhaps some of the pain the Briggs family carried would be eased.
My resolve to find Valerie’s murderer doubled. It occurred to me that, in doing so, I wouldn’t be helping one member of the family. I’d be helping two. That was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
I wanted to get back to the apartment to organize my notes but forced myself to keep my emotions in check. One step at a time, Allie.
“This has been majorly helpful, Mom. I appreciate it. Is there anything else you can remember?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m afraid not. Talk to Luke and Rachel. Valerie was in the class ahead of Luke. They should be able to point you toward people who knew her. A lot of people who were here then are still around. Somebody might know something.”
“Indeed, they might.”
And I intended to find out what, exactly, they knew.
Chapter Five
In the publishing world, books are released almost every day of the week. For a variety of reasons, a majority of books hit bookshelves, both electronic and physical, on Tuesday.
I celebrated the publication of each of my authors’ books on the day of release. This consisted of posting a congratulatory message on the Cobb Literary Agency’s private social media page and posting the cover of a book, with sales links of course, on social media sites. Sometimes, if the release was from an established and big-selling author, I’d make a periodic check of the author’s sales ranking numbers at various sites to see if we’d gotten close to any bestseller rankings.
On this particular Tuesday, books from two authors were coming out. That meant double the notification work. And double the fun.
One of the books was from a debut author. We were keeping expectations low but hopes high for a promising start to his career. The other was the fourth book in a series from one of my longest-tenured clients. It had gotten a lot of positive buzz from reviewers who read it prior to publication. I didn’t want to jinx the author by revealing my hopes to her, but there was a good chance this book would end up on a national newspaper’s bestseller list.
The morning flew by. After the emotional challenges of the previous day, it was a relief to spend a few hours with Calypso focusing exclusively on agency work. At lunch time, we closed our laptops and went to Marinara’s, the local pizza place, to celebrate the day’s achievements.
When the previous owner of Marinara’s died suddenly, Rachel stepped in to keep the place running. In doing so, she saved the jobs of a dozen area residents and kept a popular eatery afloat in the process. Shortly thereafter, she bought the place. I contributed enough capital to give me a twenty percent stake in the business. The purchase agreement made me a silent partner. All day-to-day business decisions were left in Rachel’s capable hands.
I was still an owner, regardless of my status.
As a stakeholder, I took it upon myself to give the place a once-over whenever I visited. That included anything from chatting with the staff to inspecting the restrooms. I then passed on my observations to Rachel.
The first time I reported into her, with a suggestion to build the deck, she grumbled about me being an insufferable buttinsky. When I showed her how the additional seating capacity would recoup the construction costs by the end of the year, she raised an eyebrow. Two days later, she applied for a permit to build it.
Helping my sister with her business, even in small ways like the reports, made me feel good. I wanted her to have all the success in the world. If I could lend her a hand from time to time, I was happy to do it.
“I can’t wait until we have one of these lunches on a book I helped with.” Calypso took a bite from a breadstick. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel like a part of the team.”
“Especially on payday, I hope.” I winked.
“Yeah, that too. But to be able to look at a book, or even better, hold one, and say I worked on it. That’ll be wicked awesome.”
“That day will be here before you know it.” In fact, it would arrive in about a year. A publisher has recently purchased a manuscript Calypso had done the initial edits on. A release date hadn’t been determined yet, but it was going to happen.
I was looking forward to sharing that hallmark in Calypso’s career with her. Sometimes, it was easy to dwell on the tough times. I’d learned how important it was to remember, and enjoy, the good ones.
When the workday was ended and Ursi had taken me for a walk, I pedaled to the library. With its collection of local newspapers, it was an ideal place to conduct background research on the case. In addition, it was always good to see Brent. We’d only chatted via text since Saturday, so face-to-face time was overdue.
“And to what do I owe the pleasure of your luminous presence this fine August evening?” Brent gave me a little bow from behind the checkout counter.
“You know, just a girl, in a small town, looking for answers she may never find.” I slid a collection of books I’d borrowed into the return slot.
He furrowed his eyebrows. “It that from a song? Because if not, it should be.”
“I don’t know. I’d like to think if I’m going to quote things, they’d be from books instead of songs.” I shrugged. “Given what I do, if you know what I mean.”
“Indeed.” He took a quick look around. There were no patrons within earshot. “The answers you’re looking for. They’re related to the Briggs girl, aren’t they? You’re investigating her murder.”
There was no accusation in his tone, but the sadness in his eyes pierced my heart. Brent was a good man. He had a gentle laugh, quick wit, and a soft spot for animals. I was lucky to have him in my life. By taking on this case, I’d gone back on the most important promise I’d made to him.
“Things are different this time. Valerie’s mom asked for my help. I couldn’t say no and still look at myself in the mirror.”
Brent opened his mouth as a short woman with lime green hair and cat-eye glasses placed a stack of books on the counter.
“Duty calls.” He turned his attention to the patron. “How are you today, Mrs. Campbell?”
I wasn’t sure whether we’d been interrupted or if I’d been dismissed. Either way, the conversation was over. As I made my way to the research area, it was time for something else to be over, too.
It was time to end the Allie Cobb Apology Tour.
First, Mom. Then, Brent. I was a grown woman responsible for my own decisions. Someone needed my help. I shouldn’t have to apologize for saying yes to a person in need. I wouldn’t do it either. Not anymore.
As I began my search, I vowed not to get caught up in others’ feelings. If they wanted to get their noses out of joint because I changed my mind about something, so be it. I wasn’t in control of them. What I was doing wasn’t about them, either. Or me.
It was about Valerie.
Researching her disappearance was intriguing. I became so absorbed in the information, before I knew it, the overhead lights flashed on and off twice. That was the signal the library would be closing in fifteen minutes.
Brent pulled up a chair as I was writing down the names of a group of Valerie’s friends.
He leaned forward and planted his elbows on his knees. With the tips of his long, bony fingers pressed together, his hands formed a rough diamond shape. He did this when he was troubled.
“I, uh, gotta get back up front to get ready to close, but I was thinking.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he appeared to struggle for the right words. “I don’t know if you remember, but the other day, I mentioned the genealogy class the library put on.”
“I do. My mom thought the class was really good.” It was true. She’d lavished praise on Brent about it for a week.
“Thanks. Well, I was thinking about your decision to help the Briggs woman.”
The hair on the back of my neck rose to attention. This was not the time or place for an argument. “I’ve made my decision—”
“I know.” He put up his hands, as if in surrender. “And I also know of a way the class might help you.”
I held my tongue long enough for my brain to process Brent’s words. His desire for me to avoid police work came from a genuine concern for my personal safety. It wasn’t that he didn’t think I couldn’t take care of myself. He simply didn’t want me to end up in the hospital again.
Or someplace even worse.
Despite his concerns, and my betrayal of the promise I’d made to him, he was sitting next to me with an offer to help. I took the olive branch with a smile.
I flipped to a blank page in my notebook. “Fire away.”
“The first half of the class was teaching people about genealogy and how to use the library’s software, which doesn’t really help you. The second part of the class talked about public sites like Ancestry and included an option for people to do a cheek-swab DNA test. Then, I showed them how, if they wanted, they could upload the test results to a public database. That way, they could use the uploaded DNA info to search for long-lost relatives.”
Mom had told me much the same thing about the program. The nightmare scenarios my imagination produced were too many to count. The thought of putting one’s personal information into a public database made me want to curl up in a ball while hidden under a blanket behind a locked door.
She didn’t share my over-the-top privacy concerns and went ahead with the testing. As a medical professional, she had intimate knowledge of privacy laws. She’d done her research and was satisfied the process was safe and secure.
Still leery of the whole thing, I hadn’t asked her what she’d learned. Depending on what I was about to hear, I might have to change my position. After all, finding out I was related to Bill Gates was one thing. Having familial ties to Charles Manson was a whole different kettle of fish.
“I get that once someone’s DNA is in one of these databases, they can use it to connect with someone who might be a distant relative. How does that help here?”
“The police found some things among the remains that might have belonged to the murderer, right? If they can test whatever they found for DNA, they might be able to cross-reference that with information already in a database that can be searched by the general public.”
“And that will tell them who the killer is?” It sounded too good to be true. I perked up, nonetheless.
“Not quite. What it can do is narrow the search if enough of the murderer’s DNA matches someone who’s already in the system. Like, for example, someone who took my genealogy class.” He glanced at his watch. “Time to get back up front. Give it some thought. A hit in a public database might at least help determine whether the killer is related to someone from around here.”
I sat there, mouth agape from the stunning information. I’d assumed the police would test whatever DNA they found and check it against some law enforcement DNA databases. If they came up with a match with someone already in their system, bingo, mystery solved.
If there was no match in a government-supervised database, then the DNA sample was of no help. At least, that’s what I’d thought.
How exciting to be wrong.
My heart rate picked up as I put my things into a backpack. I couldn’t go home. Not with this information. I needed to stay on the hunt for clues.
Before I got ahead of myself, it was time to apply Occam’s razor to the case. The most straightforward solution to a problem was usually the correct one. If the murderer was someone local, there was a decent chance that Valerie knew them. And if Valerie knew her murderer, it followed that other folks who knew her would know the murderer, too. That meant the next step should involve interviewing people who knew her.
My stomach growled. It was a sign of where to continue my investigation. It was time for another visit to the Rushing Creek Public House.
Chapter Six
When I left Rushing Creek for college, there were no plans to return. I thought the only redeeming qualities the town had were my family and Sloane. Such was the misguided arrogance of my eighteen-year-old self.
It took four years at Indiana University, another eight living in New York City, and the death of my father to realize how wrong I was.
Rushing Creek has its warts, just like any community. But it’s also populated with honest, hardworking folks who want what’s best for the town. Two of those people were my siblings, Luke and Rachel.
Luke had been with the parks department since college, when he spent the summers cutting grass. From there, he worked himself up the ladder to a full-time employee, then the department head. During his fifteen years serving the good folks of Rushing Creek, he’d met everyone in town. Truth be told, my brother was probably on a first-name basis with everyone in the greater Brown County area over the age of five.
While Luke served Rushing Creek in the public sector, Rachel helped keep the wheels of commerce rolling in her role as one of the town’s restaurateurs. A classic type A personality, Rachel was as successful in business as she was blunt in conversation.
She was oil to my water, which had made for a lot of problems between us over the years. It didn’t change the fact that Rachel knew almost as many people as Luke. She was also highly regarded for her success as a woman in a male-dominated industry. People talked to her. She listened. And remembered.
It was going to come in handy that my siblings, who also knew everyone in town, were close in age to Valerie. That made the Pub the ideal place to visit. I could get a bite to eat and make inquiries at the same time.
I texted Luke and Jeanette, asking them to meet me there, and headed for the exit.
Once outside the library, I took a deep, cleansing breath to calm myself. Just because I might have a way to connect events separated by two decades didn’t mean I’d succeed at it. As I donned my helmet and slipped my research materials into the bike’s saddle bag, I repeated the time-tested mantra slow and steady wins the race. I wasn’t going to solve the mystery tonight. But I could continue to make headway toward a solution.
The bike ride through town only took five minutes but was enough time to come up with a plan. I’d ask questions about Valerie and let word spread that I was looking into her murder. With some luck, my interviews would bear some fruit, and hopefully, someone would overhear my conversations and get in touch with information. Couldn’t beat the promise of a two-for-one scenario.
When I went to the Pub, I normally got a seat in the dining area. The bar was an impressive structure of oak and granite, but the tall bar stools left my feet dangling, like the twins when they did homework at my kitchen table. Such was the life of one who was all of five feet, one inch tall. Tonight, I would make an exception. I wanted people to know what I was doing. The bar tended to facilitate a lot of casual and open conversation, so it was an ideal place for that to happen.
I was waiting for a spiked seltzer when Luke dropped onto the bar stool to my left. He was in his usual summer loungewear—Jack Johnson concert T-shirt, board shorts, and flip-flops.
“Late for a luau?” It never hurt to start the teasing first.
He glanced downward, no doubt at my feet, which were swinging back and forth like opposing pendulums.
“Good thing people are allowed in this place based on age instead of height, like at an amusement park. You would’ve been sent to the kiddie section.”
“Ha ha.” I tried to kick his shin but only managed a glancing blow. “I may be small, but that makes it easier to sneak into your house to prank you without being detected.”
“But if you do that, you risk disturbing Sloane. She wouldn’t like that.”
“Oh, she’ll be totally in on it. I’ll do it when she’s out of town. That way, you won’t have anyone to protect you.” I lifted my drink. “Checkmate.”
“Whatever.” He gave me a smirk, then took me into one of his Luke Cobb bear hugs.
“Luke, stop smothering Allie.” Rachel placed a beer in front of Luke. “If she dies, I’ll have to call for an ambulance and deal with a lot of insurance paperwork that I don’t have time for.”
I pushed Luke away from me with a grunt. It wasn’t easy moving someone who had seventy pounds on me. “Saved by the Beer. That could be a title for one of my authors’ cozy mysteries.”
“Why have you summoned us”—Rachel glanced at Luke as she grinned, revealing perfect white teeth—“O Little One?”
While Luke and Rachel shared a high five, I pulled my case notebook out of my bag. Despite being the butt of their little joke, I couldn’t hold back a smile. Since I’d returned to Rushing Creek, my relationship with my sister had gone from ice-cold tolerance to friendly most of the time.
It was a sign of progress that she felt comfortable enough to make a joke at my expense. It was an even better sign that I could joke right back.
“Little One, eh?” I made a big deal of opening the notebook to a blank page and began writing. “Note to self. Next time Theresa and Tristan spend the evening with Aunt Allie, load them up with lots of ice cream, chocolate, and soda pop. The more sugar the better.”
Luke howled with laughter while Rachel and I participated in a stare-down. The struggle to keep a straight face was tougher than maintaining eye contact with her.
Eventually, she raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Touché.”
“So, let me guess.” Luke pointed at the notebook. “You’re playing Veronica Mars again. You want to know about Valerie Briggs.”
“I am and I do.”
“Called it. Pay up.” Luke put out an open palm to Rachel.
With a growl, she slapped a ten-dollar bill in his hand.
She turned her focus on me. “When we heard about Valerie, Luke said you’d get involved. I told him no way, especially after last time.”
“Yeah, well. That’s what I thought, too. Never say never, right?”
“Depends on what the never is.” Jeanette exchanged greetings with my siblings and settled onto the bar stool to my right. There were still dark circles under her eyes, but the glossy sheen to her long black hair had returned. “And I’m assuming this time never has something to do with the Briggs case.”
I told them about Connie’s visits and the poking around I’d done so far. “I need your help. What can you tell me about Valerie?”
“Off the record?” Jeanette asked.
“Absolutely.” I excelled at keeping information confidential. It came in handy when negotiating book contracts.
“In that case, we have a cause of death. She was strangled. Preliminary analysis points toward a nylon rope of some sort.”
That was intriguing. Southern Indiana is a haven for outdoor recreation, and between the people who liked boating, camping, hiking, and horseback riding, among many other activities, one of the things they all had in common was the need for rope. And given the wet conditions often involved with outdoor recreation, nylon rope was commonly used.
“That could mean the murderer was an outdoorsman.” I scribbled down my thoughts. “Or at least had easy access to camping or fishing equipment.”
“Slow your roll, Allie.” Luke scratched his chin. “I see where you’re going, but nylon rope has a lot more uses than just outdoor fun. We keep a supply on hand at the parks department for when we need to secure something in a pinch.”
“Yeah, it does seem like a pretty big leap in logic.” Rachel shrugged. “Besides, what are the odds you can connect someone to twenty-year-old rope.”
My shoulders sagged. They were right. Connie and Valerie had been denied justice for two decades. Jumping to conclusions in the name of a speedy investigation wasn’t going to do them any favors.
“Between the equipment bag and the rope, we’ve something to go on, at least.” Jeanette took a drink of the root beer Rachel had placed in front of her. “Thank goodness for that.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked. Normally, Jeanette didn’t make editorial comments about work. She was the consummate professional, so something had to be amiss.
“I probably shouldn’t say anything, but since you’re investigating, you need to know, Allie. The chief is taking this case personally. He feels like his family’s reputation is on trial. Everyone in the department’s feeling the heat.”
“What Jeanette’s trying to say, Allie, is to steer clear of the police on this one.” Rachel poured a beer and delivered it to a man with a dark bushy beard at the end of the bar. “Before you try to argue with me, I know Matt. Right now, he’s a wounded animal. Don’t test him. He might bite back.”
Great. An antagonistic police chief. Just what I needed.
While the good people of Rushing Creek had been happy to heap praise on me during my previous exploits, I hadn’t done that work in a vacuum. In fact, much of the credit was due to the unique and open relationship I had with the Rushing Creek Police Department, and Chief Matt Roberson in particular.
Matt had tolerated my poking around and even gave me access to information that normally wouldn’t be available to the general public. Part of his reasoning in doing so was that he wanted murderers brought to justice. If that meant letting me do my thing, so be it. Our unorthodox collaborations got results.
There was another reason he’d chosen to work with me instead of throwing me in a cell for interfering with a criminal investigation. He recognized I had unique skills as an investigator. He valued my attention to detail and refusal to take no for an answer. In effect, I became an extra investigator who didn’t show up on his budget.
Some people questioned the arrangement. There had been letters to the editor of the Brown County Beacon that the police shouldn’t be aligning themselves with me. A few people thought I was merely a pushy buttinsky with a “New Yorker” attitude who thought I could do whatever she wanted because I came from a family with connections.
I found the criticism laughable. It wasn’t like I had my own cubicle at the police station. Nor did I spend my nights listening to a police scanner, ready to spring into action like a small-town version of Wonder Woman. Then again, I could afford to ignore those who disapproved. My livelihood didn’t depend on it.
Matt’s did.
He needed to be seen as an effective department head. Even more, he needed to demonstrate he could investigate a case that would likely end up making his dad look bad, regardless of the outcome. He couldn’t afford even the slightest appearance of weakness or inability to do the job.
In short, he needed me to stay out of the way and let his people investigate the case.
I could do that. Besides, staying out of the way didn’t preclude me from giving the police any helpful information I might dig up. Like the DNA issue.
“Fair enough. I’ll keep to the sidelines.” I turned to Jeanette. “I assume you guys are going to have the blood on the bandage tested for DNA.”
She took a drink before answering. “Yeah, but don’t hold your breath on that end. We’ll cross-check the test results with the databases we have access to. The problem comes from the fact that if the perp has never had to give the police a DNA sample, they might not be in any database.”
“Wait a minute.” Luke scratched his head. “Do you mean to tell me you can identify DNA from something that’s twenty years old? I thought stuff like blood broke down over time.”
“You’re right. Organic tissue does naturally decompose. We may have caught a break in this case, though.”
She told us how air and sunlight are among the components that can speed up the decomposition process. Since Valerie’s body and the bloody sock were placed in a bag that was then buried, those factors were removed from the equation.
“What you’re basically telling us is the killer screwed up big-time when he went to such great lengths to hide the body,” Rachel said.
She laughed out loud when Jeanette confirmed her conclusion. “That’s some serious karma coming around to bite him in the butt, my friends.”
“Serves the monster right,” Luke said and then went on to call the murderer a lengthy string of horrible names that would make a sailor blush. Despite the extreme language, I was in complete agreement with the sentiment.
“What about public DNA databases?” I told them about my conversation with Brent. “Can you check those, like they did with the Golden State Killer?”
Jeanette drummed her fingers on the bar top. “It depends on whether the people who uploaded their information agreed to make it available to be publicly searchable. Not everybody does that.”
“It’s possible, though, right?” Brent had made it sound so cut-and-dried. For Connie’s sake, I hated the possibility of Jeanette pouring cold water all over the idea.
“Yes. And before you get yourself all wound up, I promise we’ll explore every avenue open to us. Trust me, Allie, the department wants to find whoever did this as much as you do.”
“I’ll drink to that.” I lifted my seltzer in Jeanette’s direction.
After clinking glasses, I spent the next thirty minutes asking my siblings to tell me everything they could remember about Valerie.
Since Luke was only one class behind Valerie in school, I was banking that his recollections would be more helpful.
“We didn’t hang out, but she was nice enough. I remember she had straight brown hair that she parted on the side. She always wore jeans, even in the summer. It was part of this tough-girl vibe she had.”
Tough Girl. I didn’t know why, but that caught my attention. I made a note to look into it later.
“What about friends?”
He scratched his head. “I remember she was buddies with Ava Crusie, Star Rockwell, and Anita Young.”
“What can you tell me about them. Back then, I mean.”
“They were practically inseparable. It was common knowledge that if you messed with one, you answered to all of them. They called themselves the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse. They even had matching jackets with a Four Horsewomen logo on the back.”
“Oh, wow.” Rachel refilled Luke’s glass. “I remember that. Weren’t they a bunch of troublemakers?”
As Luke’s junior by two years, Rachel would have been a freshman when Valerie was a senior.
Luke snorted. “That’s what the school wanted you to think. They weren’t bad people, just girls from the wrong side of the tracks who didn’t feel like taking crap from anyone. Star was their ringleader. She used to color her hair black, had a nose ring, and liked to wear a dog collar necklace. She’s a nurse at the hospital now.”
“What about the other two?” Jeanette beat me to the punch by asking the very question that was on my mind. Great minds thinking alike, I guess.
“Ava liked to wear purple and tell people she was a practicing Wiccan. Supposedly some guy, I don’t remember his name, dumped her and she put a hex on him that caused the worst case of acne ever. I don’t know if it was true, but it made for a good story.”
“More like tall tale, brother,” Rachel said. “I know Ava. She owns a fusion restaurant in Indianapolis. The menu is strictly farm to table, organic fare. She was into sustainable foods before there was such a term.”
Rachel promised to give Jeanette and me Ava’s contact information.
“Anita was into art. She’s the one who designed their jacket logo.” He chuckled. “You all would know here these days as Arwen Young.”
“Arwen Young, as in the artist?” I pointed to a gorgeous landscape painting on a nearby wall. “The same Arwen Young who painted that?”
Arwen Young was one of Rushing Creek’s most sought-after artists. She’d had shows all over the United States. After living in Europe for a while, she’d set up shop here about ten years ago. The first time I visited her studio, I almost choked when her assistant told me the price of one of her pieces.
“The very same. She hates being called Anita, so if you go see her, don’t tell her I gave you her real name.”
“Speaking of names, why the nickname?” Choosing to name your group after the mythical figures symbolizing war, pestilence, famine, and death seemed awfully grim.
“It was their way of telling people, ‘Don’t mess with us.’ The guys back then, especially the jocks, thought they could get away with anything. That included girls. There was a story that a guy came onto Star when she was a freshman. When she tried to say no, he sexually assaulted her. Not long after, the Four Horsewomen were born.”
The story made my blood boil, as it brought old wounds back to the surface. When I was a junior in high school, I’d almost been sexually assaulted. Sloane had saved me from that nightmare, but the memory still haunted me.
One of the reasons I’d been so eager to leave Rushing Creek was what I’d seen as an egregious divide between the haves and the have-nots. As time went by, things had improved. Luke’s words were a painful reminder of how bad they used to be, though.
“Let me guess.” I circled Star’s name. I really wanted to talk to her. “Nothing happened when she reported the assault.”
“Wise up, Allie.” Rachel shook her head. “Back then? Nobody would have believed her. I’d bet she didn’t even bother telling the cops.”
“And you’d be right,” Luke said.
“Any idea who did it?” Someone with a history of sexual predation would go to the top of my suspect list.
“There were rumors, but that was it. Some people said it was Ronald Spade. He was on the custodial staff back then. Others said it was more likely a classmate, Cecil Burgess.”
“Bobcat Burgess?” I underlined the man’s name twice. He was a prime suspect, indeed.
Cecil “Bobcat” Burgess had been a scourge on Rushing Creek for years. He’d been a big-time partier and small-time dealer, who made his money selling weed to kids in the area. He was also an excellent baseball player. Those talents had kept him out of trouble until he got busted for having drugs in his car while on campus the summer between his junior and senior years. He got kicked off the baseball team but didn’t get expelled.
He wrapped his car around an oak tree at forty-five miles an hour a week after graduation, walking away with only minor cuts and bruises. What was left of the vehicle was a heap of twisted metal and shattered glass. The brush with death must have opened his eyes, because three months later he joined the army and completed two tours in the Middle East.
After leaving active duty, he returned to Rushing Creek, went to college on the GI Bill and got a degree in business. Now, he owned a ziplining and ropes course situated on a few hundred acres west of town.
Two weekends every year, he hosted outings for young people who’d been like him—troublemakers and petty criminals. He told them his story and how he’d been given a chance to turn his life around. He always finished his talk by shaking the hand of every kid in attendance, looking them in the eye, and telling them they could turn their lives around, too.
Bobcat’s story was a compelling one. The bad boy who became a good man. He openly talked about the skeletons in his closet. The question now was whether there were any skeletons still hidden in the darkest regions of his past.
“Valerie had an off-and-on boyfriend, too,” Luke said.
A scratching sound to my right brought my notetaking to a stop. I chuckled as I turned my head in Jeanette’s direction.
“What?” She put her hands up. A small notebook was in one hand, a pen in the other. “Just because I’m not in uniform doesn’t mean I stop being a cop. This information might prove useful. About this boyfriend.”
With a half grin, Luke shook his head. “His name’s Dak Middleton. He plays in the Thursday night softball league. The best first baseman in the league.”
Luke told us that Dak and Valerie spent as much time apart as they did together. “One day, you’d see her hanging all over him. A week later, she’d practically scratch your eyes out if you mentioned his name in her presence.”
“Are you trying to say she was a psycho?” Rachel’s tone was neutral, but her brow was furrowed. I knew that look. She didn’t care for Luke’s veiled slut shaming. Sometimes, my older siblings got crossways with each other. On these occasions, it was best for me to keep my mouth shut and let them hash things out.
“Relax, Rach. All I’m saying is that he thought he was a big shot since he was all conference in baseball. She didn’t like being told what to do.”
“Do you know where to find Mr. Middleton when he’s not tearing it up at the Rushing Creek softball diamond?” Jeanette asked.
“Yeah, at the grocery store. He’s the butcher.”
Given how Valerie died, Dak’s profession was attention-grabbing. Someone who grew up to be a meat cutter likely would have been strong enough, even back then, to strangle Valerie and carry her body into the forest to dump it. I underlined his name.
By the time I left the Pub, I had a solid list of suspects. There was a lot of ground to cover, but a dearth of solid leads. I was moving forward, though. Hopefully, that progress would lead me to some rock-solid answers and not bury me under an avalanche of lies.
Chapter Seven
On my way out of the restaurant, I heard people talking about a disturbance in front of the municipal building. In a classic eavesdropper move, I rustled around in my backpack, pretending I was having trouble locating my keys, to get the scoop.
“There’s, like, a mob,” a young woman said. “They were chanting and waving signs. It was, like, something straight out of the sixties part of my American History book.”
Protests in Rushing Creek happened about as often as a visit from Halley’s Comet. My interest piqued, I dug deeper into the nether regions of my backpack, mumbling about a fictitious pen I couldn’t get my hands on.
“Democracy in action,” someone else at the table said.
“They ought to go home and let the police do their job.” A red-haired man sitting with them drained his beer. “Stirring up trouble doesn’t help anything.”
Stirring up trouble.
As one with a reputation for doing that exact thing, I couldn’t go home without seeing the alleged disturbance for myself. I hadn’t seen, much less participated in, a protest since I’d returned home from New York. At the very least, I could snap a few photos and send them to colleagues in the City to let them know my tiny hometown wasn’t so boring, after all.
The Rushing Creek Municipal Building was located on Harrison Street, a block east of the Boulevard. The police department occupied the northern third of the structure. The fire department was housed in the southern third. The center third was home to the mayor’s office and a few other city departments.
Constructed of red brick and Indiana limestone with an abundance of windows, the structure tried to convey a welcoming, Hoosier Hospitality vibe. With a police car or two always parked in front, it came up short in that regard, but I still gave it an A for effort.
Growing up, I visited the place only a single time. In high school, I won an award for an essay I wrote about women’s suffrage. I went there to accept it from the mayor. My parents attended the ceremony, and between them, the reporter from the Beacon, and the city’s chief executive, I felt like a real-life version of Jo March, storyteller extraordinaire.
Since my return from New York, I’d visited the building more times than I cared to count. None of those trips had approached the celebratory nature of that first visit, unfortunately.
As I pedaled toward my destination, the protestors’ voices became more and more clear. And angry. Shouts of “No justice, no peace,” alternated with full-throated cries of “Who deserves better? Valerie does!”
I rolled to a stop thirty feet from the group. A quick count confirmed it was fourteen strong. Hardly a mob. They ranged from an elderly man who walked with a cane to a little girl with blond pigtails. Two women were wearing threadbare denim jackets with “Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse” printed on the backs, presumably Star and Arwen. Connie wasn’t among the demonstrators, but one familiar face was.
Calypso.
They shook their homemade signs as they marched up and down the sidewalk. When a chant died down, Calypso, brandishing a bullhorn, led the group in a rhythmic clap until someone began a new one.
A white news van from an Indianapolis TV station pulled up near the group. The protesting didn’t cease until a camera operator and a woman in a suit with a microphone approached the crowd’s leader. The group wasn’t simply looking to make a fuss, its members were truly angry.
I couldn’t blame them.
Despite my earlier thought about taking photos, my phone stayed in my bag. Taking pictures of them and sending them to New York seemed unseemly. These folks were hurting. They deserved respect, not to be ridiculed by people from the big city.
These people cared enough about a girl who’d been gone for two decades to raise their voices until they were heard. They wanted to let those in power know they were watching. They wouldn’t accept another subpar criminal investigation.
A lump formed in my throat. When I walked in the Women’s March, I’d been one of thousands. I was secure that my anonymity would protect me from any reprisals at the hands of a disapproving employer or person with influence.
These people had no such assurances. Calling out the police right on their doorstep took guts. More guts than I had.
Out of the corner of my eye, the glint from a cop’s badge caught my attention. It was Gabe Sandoval, standing near the entrance to the police station. He was young but had an old soul. His lack of hotheadedness helped make him a good cop. Despite my respect for him, my stomach turned when he began writing in a small notebook.
It didn’t take someone with a brain like Einstein’s to guess what he was doing.
The protestors refused to be intimidated. They had a cop twenty feet away, recording their names, yet they carried on.
Was it an intimidation tactic? Simply a matter of logging who was there in case the information was needed later? What mattered was that it seemed to go against the most basic of American rights. The right to speak freely.
And that made me want to shake the hand of every one of the protestors.
Even though they hadn’t noticed me, I gave the group a salute before turning my bike toward home. Would the protest do any good? In this day and age, everything was recorded. I was willing to wager that even if the report from the TV station never made it on the air, the protest would still end up on social media.
How things had changed in twenty years. It was a lot harder to hide the truth nowadays.
As my legs cranked the pedals, the breeze created by the effort cooled my face. My mind wandered as I cruised the handful of blocks toward home. I knew the streets of Rushing Creek as well as I knew my own name, so I didn’t need to focus on steering the bike. Instead, with a free mind, I let my thoughts come and go. A question popped into my head as I rolled to a stop in front of my building.
What was life like for an eighteen-year-old at the turn of the twenty-first century?
Sure, I could scour documents in the library, talk to people who were around at the time, and search the web. Would that give me the historical insight into the Rushing Creek, Indiana, of two decades ago that I needed? Would I understand and fully appreciate the look behind the curtain I so desired?
What I needed was to understand what Valerie’s thought processes were. Easier said than done. Back then, cell phones were becoming more common, but text messaging was still in its infancy, and smartphones were still years down the road. For all intents and purposes, social media didn’t exist.
Shoot, Internet service in small-town Southern Indiana needed a physical phone line and modem. The god-awful screeching that went on while waiting for the dial-up connection to go through was enough to drive one insane.
“It was a simpler time,” my mom had once told me. Maybe so, but it still must have been a lot harder for the have-nots than the haves.
I hoisted my bike over my shoulder and climbed the stairs to the second floor, wondering whether I could have made a go of it as a literary agent based in Rushing Creek two decades ago. Dad had done it, but his most successful client lived in the same town. The stacks of paper he had to deal with amounted to a tiny forest, too.
And the waiting.
These days, when a client sent me a manuscript, I had it in seconds. My papa had to wait days, sometimes a week if the client lived on the West Coast. All the financials were dependent on the good old U.S. Postal Service, too. Dad had to block out hours each week to take care of receipts and payables. It was work that I did in a fraction of the time. And I had twice as many clients.
No, I wouldn’t have been able to make a go of it then. Good old days or no, I was happy with my life in the here and now.
I set the bike by the door and took a deep breath. No matter how many miles I rode or steps I walked, lugging my steed up the stairs left me winded. While my heart rate slowed, I looked toward the apartment across the hall, where Renee lived. No light came from below the door. Evidently, my landlord was asleep. My desire to talk to her about life two decades ago would have to wait.
Renee Gomez was a true unicorn. She ran the bookstore, owned my building, and kept an eye on Calypso. And yet, despite spending so much time with her, I knew very little about the woman. Sure, I was aware that she’d never married, liked coffee almost as much as me, and that her wardrobe consisted of more shades of black than I thought was possible.
But I didn’t know her like I knew Jeanette or Diane, and I’d only made the acquaintance of those women in the past two years. That made her the perfect person to talk to about life twenty years ago. I could probe her memories without falling into a trap of focusing on Rushing Creek at the time.
Light didn’t appear from underneath the door, even after I made a racket of getting my things out of my saddle bags. That interview would have to wait.
With too many random thoughts running through my mind, I fed Ursi, cleaned out her litter box, then changed into workout clothes.
“I’m gonna spend time with the kickboxing bag, girl. Care to join me?”
My feline bestie stopped drinking long enough to pin an ear back before returning to her water fountain. Evidently, she had no interest in working up a sweat. Which was no surprise at all. At times, the life of a house cat sure had its appeal.
To get the most out of my workout, I liked to listen to hard-driving music. Sometimes I chose a classic rock band like Deep Purple. Other times, a current group like Imagine Dragons fit the bill. For this session, I wanted something different, so queued up the blues artist Samantha Fish. The scorching riffs from her electric guitar and rhythmic thump of the bass propelled me into forty-five minutes of sweat-inducing exercise that left my heart hammering like a drum against my breastbone.
As I worked the bag with my fists, alternating combinations with single punches, I tried to envision Valerie’s life in the time leading up to her disappearance. With no Instagram or Snapchat, there was no social media trail to mine for clues.
Assuming her disappearance was a runaway case, she must have felt alone, with nowhere to turn. If she did feel isolated, she had no social media for connecting with people like her out in the wider world. Then again, that also meant she wouldn’t have been subjected to cyber bullying.
Real-life bullying? Maybe. Especially if Bobcat or Dak had been involved. Admittedly, I only had Luke’s recollections to go on, but those could be easily confirmed. If he was right, it wasn’t hard to imagine either boy getting angry with a girl who refused to play by their rules.
And deciding to make her pay.
I made a mental note to see if either man had come up during the first investigation. If Matt’s dad had failed to give them a close look, the murderer might have been hiding in plain sight all along.
About halfway through the workout, while I was practicing leg kicks, a question popped into my head. It seemed like the key to the whole unfortunate affair.
Why?
I flicked sweat from my brow as I kicked the bag’s midsection. The breakthrough gave me a fuel boost. Everything I’d read had focused on the days immediately before and after she disappeared.
The investigation had revolved around her disappearance. There was no evidence she was abducted, so the police decided she left of her own free will. A right-hand jab to the bag was followed with a left uppercut, a punch I threw when I was angry. Nobody had asked the foundational question.
Why did she go missing?
I finished my workout with a left-right-left punch combination and a roundhouse kick. I was exhausted yet filled with the euphoria from the post-workout endorphin rush. I lowered myself to the floor and sucked down the contents of my water bottle while I cooled off.
Ursi sauntered in and began licking at one of my ankles. When I told her vet about the odd habit, she said Ursi probably liked the salty taste. Whatever. It seemed weird to me.
“Here. This will be better for you.” I poured the last bit of water from my bottle into the cap and placed it on the floor.
While my kitty lapped at the water, I finished winding down by taking slow laps around the perimeter of the room. I also teased out my latest Valerie-related conundrum.
Had she been pregnant when she went missing? The card from the family planning clinic made it a reasonable assumption. If so, that might explain a lot of things. It also begged a lot of questions. Was she unable to cope with the pregnancy? Who was the father? Had she told the father about her condition? Did she and the father disagree over what would happen to the baby?
I was practically drowning in questions, so I grabbed my case notebook and climbed out the back window onto my deck, more commonly known as the fire escape landing. A gentle breeze cooled my skin as I transcribed the questions as if my life depended on it.
By the time I got to the bottom of the page, I had two dozen issues. I drew a circle around the toughest one because Connie was the only person I could put it to. Did she know Valerie was pregnant? It was going to be uncomfortable, but it had to be asked.
If Valerie was hiding her pregnancy, she must have had her reasons. Everything I’d learned about her so far told the story of a girl who was quiet, a bit on the rough and tough side, and someone you didn’t want to screw over.
On the other hand, she got into a fair amount of trouble. That hardly made her a criminal, though. Even if you put weight behind the fact that she liked to party, which included drinking whiskey and smoking some weed, she probably wasn’t that much different from dozens of her classmates.
As a truck in need of a new muffler rumbled down the street, one thing was certain. The only way I was going to get anywhere in this investigation was by narrowing down the time frame during which Valerie got pregnant.
I needed a chronology. It had to include as much information about Valerie during the months leading up to her disappearance. What did she do? Where did she go? Did she have a routine? Where did she work? If she had money, how did she spend it? Building the chronology would be like putting together a puzzle. The picture would become clearer with each fact that was put in place.
The time frame I was becoming interested in wasn’t when Valerie disappeared. It was when she got pregnant. Everything had to be based on that.
The voice of reason in my head spoke up to say that I was searching for a motive for Valerie’s murder when there might not be one. It could have been a senseless tragedy in which her pregnancy wasn’t a factor at all.
No.
Valerie Briggs wasn’t a victim of a random act of violence. The killer had gone to too much effort to dispose of the body for it to be random. My gut told me that much. When it spoke, I was wise to listen.
I went back into the apartment and began digging through Valerie’s things, because my gut also told me that’s where I’d find the key to unlock this mystery.
Chapter Eight
I got up early the following morning and began caffeine consumption immediately. The task at hand this day had me completely anxiety-ridden. As I munched on a plain piece of toast, I sent up a prayer that I’d survive my mission—soliciting donations—without throwing up.
There were some tasks in life I didn’t like but did anyway because they were important. Like reconciling clients’ royalty statements to make sure the figures matched the number of books sold. Math wasn’t one of my strengths. I was a word person through and through. But it was critical that I took the time to make sure every one of my clients’ royalty statements were accurate down to the penny.
Asking businesses for donations to the 9/11 Memorial event was not that kind of task.
I was on the committee because I’d been asked to breathe new life into Rushing Creek’s observance of the event. I’d done my share of work, or so I thought, by telling my fellow members what had been done to mark the solemn occasion in New York.
Once the committee listened to my suggestions, I offered to help in any way I could—as long as I could stay in the background. I didn’t want to speak at the event, have my photo taken, or be quoted in an article. All I wanted was to be given a specific assignment, like setting up chairs or making sure drinks were cold.
I hadn’t counted on my fellow committee members taking the position that raising funds counted as behind-the-scenes work.
I’ll freely admit I’m weird. I won’t hesitate to tell someone on the street about one of my clients’ books. But to ask someone for money? Despite exhausting every possible angle under the sun to get out of the assignment, there was no escape. I found myself rehearsing my sales pitch while giving Ursi a goodbye kiss on one of her ears as I left the apartment. There were fifteen businesses on my list.
Lord help me.
My first visit was to Borus Insurance. Ted Borus was my insurance agent. He’d set me up with a renter’s policy and a general liability policy for the agency. He was a good guy, with Rushing Creek roots as deep as anyone’s.
His grandfather started Borus Insurance after World War II. There were stories he made his sales pitch to every household in three counties when he was starting out. Ted’s father took the reins in the nineties and expanded the business to include financial planning. Health problems in recent years had forced him to pass the baton to Ted, but the elder Borus still worked one day a week.
Ted was born at Creekview Hospital, spent twelve years in the Rushing Creek school system, and joined the family insurance agency after college. He and his wife, Savannah, had been married fifteen years. I often crossed paths with her and their three kids at the library. His company sponsored youth sports teams and had underwritten a recent renovation to the high school baseball field.
In short, whenever Rushing Creek needed something, Borus Insurance was ready to step up. In over seventy years of doing business, the Borus family had truly lived the company’s slogan, We’re Here for You.
Given the company’s reputation of generosity, I figured it would be the perfect place to make my first solicitation. I could use the hoped-for positive response to give me confidence to approach the other businesses on my list.
The agency was in a historic two-story brick structure just around the corner from my building. By the time I arrived, I’d rehearsed my pitch seven times. As I pulled open the front door, I knew what I wanted to say. I had my fingers crossed I hadn’t overthought it.
I was greeted by the radiant smile of Felicia Johansson, the agency’s office manager. Between her closely cropped platinum blond hair and the funky red and gray ensemble she was wearing, Felicia looked like a twin of the singer Annie Lennox.
“Allie, my dear.” With the grace from a lifetime of ballroom dancing, she left her spot behind the reception desk and gave me a hug. While I preferred a handshake, Felicia preferred to hug. I never said no to a Felicia Johansson hug. Outside of my family, she gave the best hugs in the world.
We were exchanging pleasantries when her phone rang. “Ted’s running late. He should be here in a few minutes. Why don’t you help yourself to a cup of coffee?”
After brewing a cup of Kona blend in the Keurig machine, I perused the office décor. The wall behind Felicia was covered with plaques and certificates the agency had been awarded. There was no shortage of customer service accolades. The oldest award was dated 1949. The most recent was only a few months old.
Photos of forty years’ worth of Little League baseball and softball teams sponsored by the agency graced another wall. It took a while, but eventually I found one with Luke in it. He was in the front row, down on one knee. A red ballcap with a white wishbone-style C obscured his eyes but couldn’t hide his wide grin.
I chuckled at the boyish enthusiasm emanating from the boys in the photo. My brother loved baseball but gave it up when it became clear that his real athletic talent was on the basketball court. These days, he was content playing softball in the parks department league. Of course, he loved to talk smack that he could have played outfield for the Cincinnati Reds if he’d been born in a different era.
“I remember that team. We lost to them in the league championship.” Ted tapped a fingertip on Luke. “Your brother was good.”
I smiled. Accepting compliments directed toward me made me want to hide under a blanket. I loved hearing them when they were made about my family, though. I’d even come to enjoy hearing nice things about Rachel. That development would have made teenage Allie barf. Times had changed, and me, with them. Like the old saying goes, with age comes wisdom.
“That’s high praise coming from you.”
Ted had been an all-state baseball player in high school. Everyone agreed he was the best ever to come out of Rushing Creek. He was drafted right out of high school by the Kansas City Royals but opted to go to college in Florida on a baseball scholarship.
His plans of making the Major Leagues went up in smoke when he tore up a knee during a preseason workout his freshman year. He lost the scholarship when he was found passed out on the pitcher’s mound at the school’s baseball stadium. His blood tested at three times the legal limit for alcohol.
At the age of nineteen, his baseball career had come to a tragic end.
Ted returned to Indiana, earned a degree in business, and joined the family business. It was the ultimate cautionary tale about the importance of getting a good education and always having a plan B.
Stories of excessive drinking dogged him to this day, though. It was a nasty side effect of the dramatic way his days as an elite ballplayer ended. Despite his denials of a problem, some rumors wouldn’t die. Still, he’d made the best of a bad situation and I, for one, was happy to have him in town.
“Just calling it like it is. Felicia tells me your 9/11 Memorial committee is looking for support. How can I help?”
“I’m soliciting financial contributions.” In a single breath I gave him my pitch, making sure he couldn’t get a word in edgewise until I was finished.
“Wow. That was a mouthful.” He grinned. “What do you think, Fee?”
“It’s a good cause and you should give her what she asks for.” She looked up from her computer screen. “And if you don’t, I’m going to tell her to find another insurance agent.”
My cheeks got hot, but Ted laughed.
“The Boss has spoken.” He gestured toward his office. “Tell me what you have in mind.”
Ted led me down a short hall, adorned with more awards and a few framed thank-you letters from clients. As he fished out his keys to unlock his office, I glanced at the door across the hall. A brass nameplate was affixed to the door. Anthony Borus, Sr. Ted’s father.
“Is your dad ever going to retire?” When Ted and I did business, he always came to the apartment. Before now, the only time I’d visited the agency was to pay my premium. I did it in person to help make sure I got out of the apartment.
“Not if he has any say in the matter. The old man will probably outlive me.” He chuckled. “Dad has some clients who aren’t ready to turn their portfolios over to someone as inexperienced as me. Their words, not mine. In their eyes I’ll always be Tony’s kid.”
Kid wasn’t the term that came to mind when we entered his office. Chief Executive or Captain of Industry was more like it.
A massive glass and aluminum desk gleamed under light provided by unobtrusive recessed ceiling fixtures. Two computer monitors occupied one corner of the desk, a small stack of mail and other documents had been placed on the other.
As Ted waved me into a visitor’s chair upholstered in luxurious black leather, I gawked at the stunning scenery on the wall to my left. Flat-screen monitors spanned the wall at eye level. The screens came together seamlessly to display an outdoor scene so sharp, it was like I was looking through real windows.
“Do you like it? It cost me a fortune, but I hate being cooped up in here without any natural light. I can change the scenery to dozens of different settings.”
He pressed a button on a remote and the screens morphed from a parklike setting featuring mature trees to a grassland prairie with snowcapped mountains in the background. Another click and it morphed into a tropical beach, complete with palm trees swaying in the breeze as an orange sun hung over the ocean.
“Nice. I sure don’t have a view like that at my apartment.” Hopefully, I sounded duly impressed. To be honest, I loved the views from my home. For my money, the vibe I got when hanging out on the deck couldn’t be beat. Still, discretion suggested playing nice with a potential donor was better than absolute candor.
“I’m glad you like it. Dad thinks it was a waste of money, so I have one setting that matches the wallpaper. For when he comes into the office.”
We shared a laugh, then got down to business. The committee’s budget had been prepared assuming that each of our gold-level supporters, of which Borus Insurance would hopefully be one, would donate one hundred dollars. If Ted could afford a high-end video system for his office, he could afford a donation larger than a hundred bucks.
Fingers crossed.
“I won’t bore you with my pitch again. We’re hoping this year’s 9/11 Memorial Service will be one the community will remember for years to come. Your support can make that happen. Can we put you down for five hundred dollars?”
He closed one eye and rubbed the eyelid. It struck me as a tell. Here was a man who was a big wheel in town. He no doubt wanted to contribute, but my request was more than he was counting on. To counter with a smaller amount risked making him look like a cheapskate.
“That’s a lot of money. What kind of name placement will the company get for that?”
Good comeback. A sign of a skilled negotiator. I could respect that.
“Exclusive platinum-level sponsorship designation. Your company name and logo will be placed at the top of all promotional materials and advertising, as well as prominent signage the day of.” I wasn’t authorized to make these offers. We didn’t even have a platinum level until I’d made it up seconds ago. What the heck. I’d beg for forgiveness.
“Sounds good. I’ll ask Fee to write a check. Back in a sec.”
While I waited for Ted to return, reveling in the glory of my success, I studied the shelving unit. It was made of the same materials as the desk, but the style hadn’t caught my attention.
The photos had.
Like the computer monitors on the wall, the pictures offered a glimpse into Ted’s psyche. There was a shot of his family on horseback in the shadow of the Rolling Hills State Park riding stables. Another showed Ted and his wife on a boat. She was waving to the camera while he had one hand on the steering wheel and another around her waist. There were shots of the kids in front of the Eiffel Tower.
The prototypical family man.
Then another photo caught my eye. Fifty or so people were assembled on the deck of the Rushing Creek Community Center. It wasn’t necessarily the folks in the shot that interested me. It was the inscription at the bottom:
Rushing Creek High School Twenty-Year Class Reunion
The date was obscured by the frame, but based on some of the faces, I already knew when this group finished high school. It was the year Valerie would have graduated.
Had she not been murdered.
“And here you go.”
I turned at Ted’s voice. He offered me the check with a smile that featured teeth as straight as railroad tracks and white as new-fallen snow. A dentist somewhere was making some decent cash from the man.
After a round of thanks, I seized an opportunity to do a little sleuthing.
“I see your class had their twenty-year reunion at the community center.” I pointed toward the picture. “Looks like you had a good turnout.”
“Yeah. This past June. We had a good time. Your brother and the rest of the parks department people did a great job with the place.”
“Valerie Briggs was in your class, wasn’t she? It must have been a shock when you heard the news about her.”
Ted looked away for a moment. Perhaps an attempt to keep his composure?
“She was. Since I’m class president, I made it a point at every reunion to ask for a moment of silence in her memory. And in the hope that one day she’d turn up healthy and happy.” He slid into his chair. His normal charm and swagger had evaporated in the blink of an eye. “So much for that now.”
Shame overcame me for bringing the issue up. The discovery of Valerie’s remains had visibly shaken him. Still, I had questions, and who better to start with than the class president?
“What do you remember about her?”
He rubbed his chin. “It’s been so long now. We had a few classes together. She ran with a different crowd. A bit of a party girl from what I remember.”
“What do you mean by that?” I kept my tone friendly.
The “party girl” euphemism made me want to scratch out the eyes of anyone who used it. In my view, it was a pejorative term used against females by people who wanted to control them. It was nothing more than a tactic to diminish women who wanted to enjoy themselves with a few drinks. Just like men did.
“If someone was having a party, she was there. Don’t get me wrong, none of us were angels, but when the weekend hit, Valerie and her friends were ready to tear things up. Most of the girls back then drank beer or wine. Not the Four Horsewomen. They liked whiskey and didn’t say no when someone offered them some weed.”
“Did anyone ever get in trouble for the drinking?” Thanks to my conversation at the Pub the night before, I knew the answer already. Still, I wanted Ted’s take, especially given the stories about his drinking.
“Bobcat Burgess crashed his car a few weeks after we graduated, but that’s all I remember. The people I hung out with were athletes. We didn’t drink. It would have hurt our performance.”
“Do you think Valerie did something dumb that led to her disappearance?”
He shook his head. “I sure hope not. If I had to guess, she was probably messing around with Ron Spade. He was old enough to buy her booze. Maybe she was doing him some favors in exchange. And we know what Spade turned out to be.”
“Do you think Spade killed her?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Valerie had a bad home life and was running with a sketchy crowd. In my business, I have to be honest with people. And to be honest, I can’t help but wonder if she got herself into something she couldn’t get herself out of.”
Harsh words, but when looked at through a lens that went back twenty years, understandable, too.
“What was it like when word got out that she’d disappeared?”
“I was out of town with my folks for Christmas vacation, so I don’t know what things were like when she actually went missing. I got back the weekend after New Year’s. Everyone was still pretty freaked out.” He stared at the reunion photo. “That first day back at school, there were a lot of tears. People were giving each other looks out of the corners of their eyes, too. No one knew if her disappearance was a one-off or if more girls were going to get kidnapped. It was crazy.”
Ted’s computer beeped. “I’m sorry to cut this short, Allie, but I have a call I need to prep for.”
“No worries.” I waved the apology away. “Thanks again for the donation. And for your candor about Valerie.”
“You’re looking for her killer, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “Her mom asked for my help. I couldn’t say no.”
He shook my hand. “That’s the Rushing Creek spirit. Best of luck to you. Let me know if I can help.”
I made my exit after asking Felicia to email me a high-resolution Borus Insurance Agency image for use in the memorial’s promotional materials. I should have been preparing for my next solicitation pitch. Instead, all I could think about were Ted’s comments about Valerie.
And Ronald Spade.
Could it really be that simple? Valerie got involved with Spade, and when things went south, she disappeared? From what I’d learned about the man so far, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. If he managed to escape scrutiny then, it would probably be next to impossible to find evidence to connect him to the crime now.
Besides, when he went to jail, it hadn’t been for a violent crime. He’d had sex with a minor. It was illegal, but both he and the girl had claimed the relationship was consensual. That they were in love, even. Did that make him any more or less of a sexual predator? I didn’t know.
Then again, a sample of his DNA had to be in a law enforcement database because of his conviction. Once the tests on the sample found with Valerie were complete, that question would be answered. Unless no match was found.
Then what?
I wouldn’t think about that. For the time being, I’d go where the trail led me. There was a problem with that, though. My gut was telling me I’d missed something. But I had no idea what that something was.
Chapter Nine
I emerged from the O’Hara & Schmoll law firm battered but not beaten. With a renewed appreciation for professional fundraisers, too. The law firm was the final business on my solicitation list. The office administrator was a sharp woman who peppered me with question after question to make sure the committee knew what it was doing. I addressed each of her concerns in a professional manner and eventually won her over. As we wrapped up, she insisted the grilling she subjected me to was nothing personal. The firm had high standards and wanted to support organizations that met them.
Once I was back outside, I let out a long, stress-releasing breath, grateful that my donation work was complete.
With a stress headache pounding away at the back of my head, I strolled to the Brown County Diner for lunch. Comfort food and a big cup of coffee would go a long way toward kicking the headache to the curb.
The diner’s owner, Angela Miller, was heading out the door as I was coming in.
“Off to your other job?” Despite the nails being driven into the back of my skull, I gave Angela a smile. In addition to owning my favorite breakfast joint, she ran the town of Rushing Creek.
“Such is the glamorous life of a mayor.” She straightened her azure polo shirt that bore the Rushing Creek logo. “Budget meetings with department heads this afternoon. What are you up to?”
I gave her a report on my fundraising activities. “Not that I needed a reminder, but if I had to do that work for a living, I’d starve.”
“And if I had to edit books and take care of a bunch of writers for a living, I’d starve too.” She let out a laugh. “Seriously, though, I heard Connie Briggs asked you to look into her daughter’s . . . unfortunate end.”
“If by ‘unfortunate end’ you mean Valerie’s murder, yes, she asked for my help.”
“And you said yes, I assume?” Her eyebrows narrowed as worry lines crossed her forehead.
I’d known Angela all my life. While in high school, I’d babysat her kids. I’d been a regular customer at the diner since I had money in my pocket, too. In turn, she’d defended me when people in town thought I was a murderer. I knew her. I trusted her.
And could read between the lines to recognize the true meaning behind her words.
She didn’t want me poking around, probably worried I’d pull a Lisbeth Salander, and end up kicking a hornet’s nest and setting things in motion I couldn’t control. I’d made a promise, though. There was no going back now.
“I’m aware of the dynamics at play. I’m not going to turn my back on someone because she’s from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.” She guided me away from the door so we could have some privacy. “Look, the situation is delicate. The police can’t afford to have their investigation go sideways. The community’s faith in law enforcement has been shaken. Everyone needs to do their part to restore that faith.”
Angela was a friend. My chest literally began hurting as I absorbed her words. To say no to her request was like stabbing a family member in the back.
Connie hadn’t asked Angela for help, though. The poor woman had asked me.
“I’m sorry if you think I’m letting you down. I made a promise.”
I expected anger. Instead, she laughed again. “I have to say I’m not happy with your decision. If I’m ever in trouble, though, you’ll be at the top of the list of people I call. At least promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Cross my heart.” I drew an X across my chest with my index finger.
• • •
I was munching on an onion ring a little while later while I made notes from my conversation with Ted.
A shadow came across the table where I was seated. “May I join you?”
Police Chief and ex-brother-in-law Matt Roberson stood, waiting for a reply. He had a cup of coffee in each hand. With an expression that was equal parts smile and grimace, he offered one to me.
“Any time. You know that.” Given the disintegration of Matt’s marriage to Rachel, my relationship with him had not been without its challenges. Things improved after I returned from New York, though, thanks in large part to some horrific developments.
Like murder.
He slid one cup across the tabletop toward me.
“Offering me coffee. You must want something.” I took a sip. He’d already added the perfect amount of sweetener. “Wow, you must want it badly.”
“I do.” He poured creamer into his coffee. “I want you to back off the Briggs case. Please don’t make me beg.”
“Is it a coincidence you just happened to find me here? Or did Mayor Angela send you?”
“Does it matter? You’re here. I’m here. I was hoping we could talk.”
“Talk.” I mentally kicked myself for not seeing this coming when I turned down Angela’s request. “Sure, let’s do that. I say we talk about your father’s botched investigation into Valerie’s murder. Actually, from what I can gather, there wasn’t enough of an investigation for him to botch anything.”
That familiar flame of anger flickered to life in my belly. It reignited, like a phoenix, when the conviction I was doing the right thing was at its strongest.
“Or we could discuss the fact that when Connie Briggs learned a body had been found that might be her long-missing daughter, she didn’t go to the police. She came to me. And when I asked her why she came to me, she said she doesn’t trust the cops.”
Matt’s jaw twitched as he unwrapped a piece of gum. “So that’s it. You think you know all the facts based on what one person told you. That means you get to play judge, jury, and executioner?”
I’d hit a nerve. Good. Matt’s anger told me he took my verbal firebombs personally. That he cared. He cared about Valerie and Connie.
He cared about finding justice for a long-deceased girl and her grieving mother.
But it also meant he’d be running the investigation by the book. In the past, Matt had accepted my hardheadedness when I’d taken on murder investigations. Despite his misgivings, he’d been willing to bend the rules so we could share information. That had helped solve three murders.
Not this time around.
That was okay. I’d figure out who murdered Valerie with or without help from the Rushing Creek Police Department.
“No, Matt. I don’t get to do anything.” I made quotation marks in the air around the word get to drive home my point. “A woman who feels like she’s alone in the world turned to me. I don’t know whether I’m deserving of that trust. What I do know is that I’ll do all I can to prove it was well placed.”
He got to his feet. “Fine. Have it your way. I want Connie Briggs’s trust, too, so at least we’ve got that in common. But be forewarned, if you interfere, even in the smallest way, I’ll toss you behind bars for impeding a criminal investigation. Do we understand each other?”
“I believe we do. I’m sorry, Chief. I have to do this.”
“I’m sorry, too.” The radio on Matt’s hip squawked. He marched out of the restaurant, responding to the call in a harsh tone.
He wasn’t the only one upset with how our conversation had gone. I sat back, closed my eyes, and envisioned a calming tropical beach setting. Despite my efforts to relax, my hands kept trembling.
Thank goodness it was time for my appointment with my counselor.
• • •
There’s a saying that everyone in Hollywood is seeing a therapist. I don’t know if it’s true. What I do know is mental health is not something to be scoffed at. Over the years, I’d experienced my share of stress-induced nightmares, anxiety-ridden calls with editors, and down-in-the-dumps streaks I thought would never end.
Being true to my Midwestern roots, I tried to smile and keep my problems to myself. For the most part, at least. Relief came in the form of homeopathic remedies like essential oils, herbal tea, and a good kickboxing workout. The blues never lasted long and before I knew it, I was back to my usual self.
Of course, Luke and Rachel might have a few choice things to say about the definition of “my usual self.” Ah, life with siblings.
That all changed after I solved the mystery of who killed Rushing Creek’s beloved librarian, Victoria Napier. By that time, I’d been immersed up to my eyeballs in murder three times. Looking death in the eye at such close range had taken a toll. I’d been sucked into a pit of darkness as thick as tar and had been unable to extricate myself.
Mom and Sloane insisted I seek professional help. While I’m often stubborn, I’m not stupid. I took their advice and had been seeing a counselor once a week for a couple of months. Despite my initial reservations about opening myself up to a stranger, the sessions helped. I was sleeping better and not as prone to panic attacks.
Now, though, a new dynamic had entered the picture. I’d chosen to revisit that dark place after vowing never to return. I was going to need help coping with the ramifications of that decision.
Nessie Bogan had a comfortable office on the first floor of a two-story professional building next to the hospital. There was no attention-grabbing sign or anything of the sort. Just a simple nameplate next to the door positioned at eye level—Vanessa Bogan, LMHC.
Like the other times I’d come to see my Licensed Mental Health Counselor, I took a deep breath before entering the reception area. When Nessie called me back to her office, she must have sensed something was up because she cut right to the chase. That my cheeks were burning in shame was probably the giveaway.
“All right, Allie, what have you gotten yourself into?”
“You know how we agreed on the things I can do to make sure I don’t end up in a black hole again? One of them is to be proud of myself for who I am, right?”
She jotted something down on a piece of paper, her face an unreadable mask. There was no judgment, no presumption. Just concentrating on what I was saying. And, no doubt, noting how I was struggling to get to the point.
“Something came up. It’s really important.” I told her about my visit from Connie and all that had ensued since. When I finished the long story and poured out all the feelings I had wrapped up in it, I let out a deep breath.
“I see you’ve given this a lot of thought. That’s good.”
“So, you think I’m doing the right thing?” Despite the fact I took pride in my self-reliance, I found myself wanting Nessie’s approval. But I also knew I had to be doing this for all the right reasons.
“Now, it’s time for the million-dollar question,” Nessie said. “You say you have to do this. Why you? After all you’ve been through, you don’t have anything to prove. Matt Roberson is a good police chief. He’ll do everything he can to solve this case. So, why does it have to be Allie Cobb?”
A couple of answers jumped to mind, but I kept my mouth shut. I needed to take a hard look at myself before answering. After a while, an answer came to me. No, it wasn’t merely an answer. It was the answer.
It was like a current of electricity was coursing through every cell of my body. The current wasn’t harming me, though. It was energizing me. I sat up in my chair and cleared my throat.
“I’m going to find out who murdered Valerie Briggs for two reasons. First, because Connie asked for my help. Second, because this is something I can do. I have a skill that I can use to help others.”
Nessie clapped as she got to her feet.
“Then go get ’em, girl.”
Chapter Ten
My visit with Nessie left me more confident than ever that agreeing to help Connie was the right choice. I walked out of her office with a burst of positive energy that had me practically floating home.
I took advantage of the good vibes to clean the apartment, whistling show tunes the whole time. When I finished my chores, I took Ursi for a walk, then ended the day editing a client’s cozy mystery manuscript. It was a strong story that didn’t need many corrections, which proved to be the icing on the cake of a productive day. I fell asleep scratching Ursi’s back as she snuggled beside me.
The next morning, after a phone call with another client to brainstorm ideas for a new book series, I got an email that made my day. An editor wanted to sign one of my clients, Abby Fraser, for her debut novel. It was an offer from a midsize publishing house that was known, among other good things, for their fabulous covers.
As excited as if I’d just won a lottery scratch-off game, I did the happy dance I did whenever a client got a book offer.
Ursi, who’d been lounging on her perch by the window, opened one eye and let out a little meh to let me know my antics were disturbing her.
“Whatever, girl. Gotta let the good times roll. Which gives me an idea.” I grabbed my bike helmet and headed out the door. It was time for a celebratory hot chocolate.
I cannot say with one hundred percent certainty that Creekside Chocolates has the best chocolate in the world. What I can say is that it serves the greatest hot chocolate delicacies my taste buds have ever experienced.
The first time I met Diane, she made me a drink that changed my life. The concoction consisted of hot chocolate topped with fresh whipped cream. Peppermint pieces were sprinkled on top of the whipped cream.
It was Heaven in a cup.
Between the breakthrough with Nessie and the good news for Abby, I told myself I’d earned one. Plus, it was always good to see Diane.
An electronic ding dong sounded when I entered Creekside Chocolates. The unfamiliar sound brought me to an abrupt halt. The sleigh bells that had been screwed to the top corner of the door were missing. In their place a small white plastic strip had been affixed to the door.
I gave Diane a high five, then asked about the bells as I perched myself on a stool by the cash register.
“Someone stole them.” She threw a dustrag into a trash can with enough force to punch a hole in the floor. “Lord help the little bugger that did it. My uncle gave me those bells.”
“Did you file a police report?”
In a lot of places, merchants grumble about things like petty theft, replace what was taken or repair what was broken, and move on. Not in Rushing Creek.
A few years ago, there had been a spike in shoplifting. As a family-friendly tourist town, the local economy couldn’t afford to have its reputation tarnished. With that in mind, the merchants got together with the police and reached an agreement that all crimes, no matter how small, would be reported and investigated in good faith.
It sent an important message. You could set your cares aside when you were in Rushing Creek. If you caused trouble, though, the town wouldn’t let you ruin everyone else’s fun.
“Officer Sandoval responded to it. He thinks it was an isolated incident. Probably a prank one of the high school kids pulled off. He recommended I get a video camera.”
“Not a bad idea. Renee’s got one at the bookstore. She says shoplifting dropped seventy-five percent after she installed it.”
“I know. It’s more aggravating than anything.” She snapped her fingers and leaned toward me. “Maybe I could hire a private investigator to track down the thief. Someone who looks young enough to get away with going undercover at the high school.”
“If you can get Veronica Mars to come all this way from Neptune, more power to you.”
“I was thinking someone more local and less fictional.” She went to make my hot chocolate. It was great being such a regular I didn’t need to place an order.
“If you’re thinking of me, don’t bother. My plate’s full.”
“It’s true, then.” She placed the drink in front of me. “You’re really going to try to find that poor girl’s killer.”
I took a sip. The chocolate was warm and smooth as silk. Once again, a little slice of Heaven on Earth.
“What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment. Seriously, though, I want to help, and I think I can.”
Diane raised an eyebrow but refrained from saying more. Instead, she crossed her arms.
“What? You don’t think I can do it?”
“It’s not that.” She swept the shop with her gaze. We were alone. “The question is, should you be doing this. From what I hear, Chief Roberson is taking this whole thing personally. Do you want to take the chance of getting crossways with him? I know I wouldn’t want the cops charging me with messing with one of their investigations.”
“Sorry, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were in cahoots with him.” I told her about the conversation I’d had with Matt.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I don’t want you calling me in the middle of the night asking to bail you out.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
The ding dong tone went off. A couple wearing matching yellow T-shirts and baggy shorts entered the store. I sipped my drink while she attended to the customers. Diane was smart, insightful, and trustworthy. I could depend on her being straight with me. As I replayed the conversation in my head, I nodded.
Her objection to my involvement wasn’t because she thought I was incapable or was at risk of getting myself hurt. She was worried about me getting in hot water with Matt. Whether she’d intended to or not, she’d let me know she believed in me.
She thought I could solve the case.
Darn right I can, Diane.
I dropped a twenty on the counter and headed for the door. It was time to make some not-quite social calls.
Chapter Eleven
I’d made progress on the case, but it had been around the edges. I often had to remind my less-experienced authors that their main character needed to initiate action. Take charge of the situation. Just being along for the ride as things happened wasn’t enough.
At the moment, I was in the same situation. If I was going to get to the heart of the matter, one thing couldn’t be denied. I had to confront the suspects.
Facing a suspect and looking them in the eye did two things. First, it let them know they were on my radar. Even if they denied involvement in the case I was investigating, after I met with them, any sudden bank withdrawals or vacation plans would look suspect. No suspect was sneaking out of town on my watch. Second, it put them under pressure. If they were innocent and had nothing to fear, the pressure would pass like a short summer shower. If they were guilty, odds were good they’d make a mistake, and I’d be ready to pounce.
The first suspect in my crosshairs was Bobcat.
As I pedaled west out of town, I formulated a list of questions I wanted to ask the reformed troublemaker. I didn’t know him, so it seemed best to approach him with caution. Between his military service, his story of second chances, and the efforts he made to help at-risk youth, people revered the man as much as mystery fans revered Agatha Christie. If I stepped on his toes, word would get back to Matt faster than I could ride back to town.
Any complaints wouldn’t come from Bobcat. He was above that, from what I’d heard. The criticisms would come from his employees. It was well known they didn’t take kindly to folks hassling their boss.
With the need to be wary in the forefront of my mind, I turned right at an oval-shaped green-and-brown sign that read BC Outdoor Adventures. The switch from Redbud Lane’s asphalt pavement to the adventure park’s drive was jarring, as I wasn’t the best at navigating gravel roads.
Fortunately, the challenging portion of the ride was short. After a bend in the lane, I arrived at a paved parking lot. A cabin painted the same colors as the sign, brown with green trim, stood sentry at the edge of the lot. The rustic vibe sold well in Brown County.
I locked my bike to a post and strode into the building. I was a woman on a mission. Evidently, the staff didn’t get the memo about my being on said mission because they showed zero urgency in tracking down Bobcat so I could talk to him.
After a half hour of waiting, I was about to give up. My patience was rewarded when the man finally arrived. His face and hands were as mud-covered as the overalls he was wearing. The work boots he kicked off may have been brown, but they, too, were so caked in mud it was impossible to tell.
The man’s smile lit up the room when he waved at me. Between that and his penetrating blue eyes, I could see how young women could have fallen under his spell back in the day.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Cobb. We had an ATV go off the trail and end up in a bog. Took some doing to get it out, but it’s done. And the rider is fine, which is the most important thing.”
He asked a young woman behind a counter to get me a cup of coffee and have me wait in his office while he got cleaned up. I had to hand it to the man. He sure seemed to be as good as advertised.
Bobcat’s office was the polar opposite of Ted’s. The only decorations were photos of smiling clients taking part in the park’s activities, like zip-lining and mountain biking. His honorable discharge hung in an oak frame on the wall behind a simple aluminum desk. The spartan theme was impossible to miss.
The door behind me opened and a different man entered. Well, it was still Bobcat, but he’d taken a quick shower and changed into a blue T-shirt with the park’s logo screen-printed across the chest, a pair of tan chinos, and running shoes.
He sat in the office chair next to me instead of behind his desk. It was a smooth move. A way to indicate he didn’t want any barriers between us. It remained to be seen if he still felt that way after our chat.
“What can I do for you? Are you wanting to plan a family reunion?” He snapped his fingers. “Not that. You’re looking to arrange a retreat for your authors, aren’t you? We can oversee team-building exercises, more traditional group discussions, and make sure you all have time for some good, clean, outdoor fun. What do you say?”
A laugh escaped me. “I say you’re quite the salesman. In a good way. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to put on a retreat for my clients. Yet.”
“Let me know when you are. You won’t regret it. So, how can I help you today?”
Here goes. “I wanted to talk to you about Valerie Briggs.”
Like a lightbulb going out, his disarming smile disappeared. He crossed his arms as he sat up straighter in his chair.
“Uh-huh. I heard you were playing detective for Connie Briggs. How do you think I can help?”
“You were one of her classmates. What can you tell me about her?”
He scratched his head. “To be honest, those days are pretty blurry, especially after I got kicked off the baseball team. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”
Despite his denial, his body language screamed he knew something. Since he didn’t know me, he probably didn’t appreciate how diligent I could be. There was no way I was leaving after one question.
“Valerie went missing Christmas Eve of your senior year in high school. People I’ve talked to tell me it was a pretty intense time. You sure you can’t remember anything? Even the smallest item might be helpful. Please try.”
“I remember trying to hook up with her around Thanksgiving. She’d had a fight with Dak. I thought I might get some rebound action.” He shook his head. “I was such a scumbag back then. Anyway, she turned me down. Said she was done with guys. Then she punched me.”
“For someone who doesn’t remember much from that time, that’s a pretty clear memory.”
“Well, I didn’t get turned down very often. And she had a serious right hook.” He rubbed his bicep. It was all I could do to refrain from rolling my eyes.
Since Bobcat didn’t appear to have any sincere interest in helping me, I wasn’t going to waste my time getting evasive non-answers from the man.
“I’ve heard you assaulted Star Rockwell when you were freshmen. Is there any truth to that?”
“What?” His eyes grew wide. “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter. What does matter is whether it’s true. Is it?”
“No. Of course not. I’m not proud of the person I was back then. Ever since that car crash, I’ve tried to make amends for my past. Accusations like the one you just made are, frankly, offensive.” He went to the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on that ATV.”
“Thank you for your time.” I held my head high as I left the office.
Bobcat could get as angry with me as he wanted. I didn’t buy his denial. I’d read a lot of research over the years about sexual assault. Perpetrators of sexual assault often used coercion, violence, and threats of force to abuse people on a repeated basis.
It was a stretch to conclude that since Bobcat may have assaulted Star, he murdered Valerie. It wasn’t a stretch to assume he had convenient selective memory lapses. The main conclusion was I needed to uncover what he was hiding.
Since I was in the area, I decided to swing by Connie’s home. If she was there, I could give her an update.
She lived in a mobile home park known officially as Riverside Acres. It was a pleasant enough name. It was also a deceptive name. Unofficially, it was known as, among other things, the Shallows and Rundown Acres. In short, the place Brown County residents went when they had nowhere else to go.
I turned onto the trailer park’s main drive and pulled over to take in the scene. The metal sign welcoming me was faded from vibrant greens, yellows, and blues to dull shades of gray. The road, while paved, was strewn with cracked asphalt and too many filled-in potholes to count.
There were trailers of all shapes and in all conditions. Some had satellite dishes attached to the corners of the roofs. Over-the-air antennae rose above others, like long-legged spiders struggling to touch the clouds above. A few dwellings looked abandoned, with cracked windows held in place with duct tape. It was a sad place, one filled with broken promises and shattered dreams.
Connie’s home was at the end of a cul de sac of single-wide dwellings. A concrete pad that served as a parking spot for her compact four-door was to the left of the structure. A white picket fence outlined the perimeter of the property. A concrete walkway led from the street to the trailer. The lawn, though small, had been recently mowed and was free of weeds.
Cobalt blue shutters provided a pleasing accent to the beige vinyl siding. Connie took pride in her home. She may have been battered, but she wasn’t broken.
I knocked on the front door, which had been painted the same shade as the shutters.
After I knocked a second time, an unfamiliar voice asked, “Who is it?”
“Allie Cobb. I’m a . . .” What exactly was my relationship with Connie? Friend? Consultant? “I’m working on a project for Connie.” It was a boring response, but without any idea who was on the other side of the door, I didn’t want to be too specific.
Especially if the voice turned out to belong to someone with the Rushing Creek Police Department.
Seconds ticked by. The humidity of the August afternoon began to wrap its damp tentacles around me as I waited.
Maybe Connie wasn’t home. I hadn’t called ahead to confirm she was available to chat. Given the current circumstances, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she had a friend stay at the trailer when she was gone. It seemed like a good way to ward off a nosy reporter looking for a story.
Or someone with a twenty-year-old secret.
Eventually, Connie opened the door. There was some color in her cheeks and her hair had regained some luster. She still had dark circles under her eyes, though.
“Sorry for the rude welcome, Allie.” She waved me inside. “I’ve been getting calls and visits from every reporter within five hundred miles. Delilah’s my official visitor screener.”
Delilah introduced herself. She lived next door to Connie. In that time, they’d become close friends.
“It’s horrible what some of these people have tried to do. All supposedly in the name of news. The other day, I caught one of them going through Connie’s trash. That’s when I decided enough’s enough.”
“That’s very kind of you.” I meant it. These days, it seemed like people didn’t get to know their neighbors like they did when I was young. It made me glad I knew my neighbors, even the guys who ran the sock store across the hall from the bookshop.
To be able to count on somebody nearby in times of trouble was a gift. I had that relationship with Renee. One couldn’t put a price on something like that.
I gave Connie a rundown of my progress on the case. She gave Delilah a fist bump when I told her I had a few suspects. It was gratifying to give her some good news.
“I have some questions. Is there someplace we can talk?”
Delilah, bless her, picked up on the hint. “I’m gonna have a smoke. I’ll be outside if you need anything, Connie.”
While we got settled at a small Formica-topped dining table, I gave the trailer a quick scan. The décor was dated, with dark wood paneling on the walls and threadbare carpet on the floor. A boxy television from the days before flat screens stood atop a wooden stand filled with VHS tapes.
Connie’s things may have been old, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care about them. A small curio cabinet held precious figurines that were breathtaking in their beauty. The kitchen appliances sparkled in the sunlight. There wasn’t a dust mote to be seen.
Her refusal to give up was inspiring, Even more reason to help her find the answers she deserved. And hopefully, some peace with those answers.
“About the rope fibers the police found, does that ring any sort of bell?”
“I’ve dried laundry on a line all my life. At the old house, we hung things on a rope. I don’t remember what kind it was, though. Since moving here, I’ve used a plastic-coated wire.”
“And just to make sure I’ve got my time line correct, you were living here at the time of Valerie’s disappearance.”
“Yeah.” She looked away for a moment. “Annette’s medical bills kept piling up. To keep us out of bankruptcy, we had to sell the house, then we had to sell one of the two cars we had. We moved here the summer before Valerie’s junior year.”
She went on to tell me how the family, which had started to come apart at the seams in the aftermath of Annette’s accident, completely fell to pieces after moving into the trailer. The girls resented having to move into bedrooms a fraction of the size of what they were accustomed to. The close quarters magnified the daily strife that had existed between Phil and Valerie. Annette became withdrawn and sullen, spending as much time with friends as possible.
And Valerie rebelled.
“We knew she was running with the wrong crowd, but what could we do? She barely talked to Phil. When they did talk, it always ended in a shouting match. It was all I could do to keep a little bit of peace around here.” She chuckled. “You know what? She never missed school and never missed a shift at the hardware store. She was going to move out as soon as she graduated. She never got the chance.”
It was a tragic story in every sense of the word, one the Ancient Greeks would have been proud of.
And then a thought hit me. Valerie’s attendance at work and school indicated a young woman who understood responsibility. If she was going to run away, it would have made more sense to wait until she graduated. That way, she’d have her diploma and whatever additional money she’d been able to save up between December and June.
I made a note in my phone to look for Valerie’s bank records. If she’d been putting money into a savings account, I needed to find out what happened to it.
“What can you tell me about Cecil Burgess?”
Connie adjusted the collar of her shirt. “I never liked him when he was a kid. Nothing but trouble. Valerie couldn’t stand the sight of him.”
“Why is that?”
“He treated girls bad. Like they were property, not people. He’s a changed man now. A good example for the kids.”
“Do you think he could have had something to do with Valerie’s disappearance?” The police had barely looked at Bobcat at the time. My conversation with him made me suspicious of him.
“To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe? Valerie and the girls weren’t angels, but they steered clear of him.”
“What about Ronald Spade? Has anything come to mind that you haven’t mentioned before?” Since his name had come up repeatedly already in my investigation, I wanted to know every detail about the man, regardless of how insignificant it seemed.
“The fact that he lives in this trailer park makes me want to throw up.”
Really. This was interesting. “How long has he lived here?”
“Don’t know for certain.” She went to the window over the kitchen sink. “It’s his mom’s place. He came here after he got out of prison.”
Butterflies started flapping their wings in my belly. I was getting close to putting a couple of puzzle pieces together.
“Do you know where his mom lived back then?”
Connie turned to face me. “Same place she lives now.”
The puzzle pieces came together with a satisfying click. Spade’s mother was living nearby when Valerie disappeared. Despite the claims to the contrary that I’d read, maybe the man had been in the vicinity on the day in question.
It was Christmas Eve, after all. It didn’t take much to imagine Ronald paying his mother a holiday visit. What if, at some point before or after hanging out with dear old Mom, he crossed paths with Valerie?
Playing out the scenario in my head, I could see her asking him to make a liquor run for her. In response, he may have asked her to join him for the ride. And once she was in the car, the unthinkable happened.
It was a plausible scenario. The thing I needed next was going to be way more difficult to obtain. I needed proof. That would be hard to unearth. If it still existed, it had remained hidden for two decades.
Well, as the old saying went, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
All I had to do was figure out in which direction my next step would lead me. And hope it didn’t take me off a cliff.
Chapter Twelve
I left Connie’s feeling a lot better than when I’d arrived. Sure, I had more questions now, but for the first time I had one suspect I could prioritize over others.
Talking to people was a reliable first step in gathering information. The problem was that it was like dumping the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on a table, spreading them out, and making sure they were all right-side up. It was preliminary work. It needed to be done but wasn’t part of the actual assembly of pieces into the complete picture.
My conversation with Connie had brought a few pieces together. I had a long way to go and things still made little sense, but it was progress.
I wanted to get home and put my thoughts down on paper, but Delilah brought my momentum to a screeching halt.
She was hovering over my bike, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. Something on the handlebars had caught her attention, probably the computer. When I cleared my throat, she turned her head toward me.
“Do you really use this thing to get around town?” When I nodded, she let out a humph and tapped the ashes from her cigarette so they floated in the direction of my saddle bags. “If you ask me, a car makes a whole lot more sense.”
Was the woman trying to send me a message of some sort? Intimidation, perhaps? If so, it was a waste of energy on her part. I didn’t have time or the inclination for games.
“A car’s a lot more expensive, too.” I brushed the ashes off the bike. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
She dropped the cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out with her sandal, maintaining eye contact with me the whole time.
“Connie’s my friend. She’s been through a lot. You better not be setting her up for a fall.”
I blinked. Delilah might as well have slapped me in the face. I’d worked tirelessly to make my hometown a better, safer place. I paid my taxes, served on volunteer committees, and supported local businesses.
Oh, and I’d also managed to solve three murders in my spare time.
Yet, here was this stranger calling my intentions into question. The nerve of the woman.
“I haven’t promised her a thing. Only that I’ll try my best to find her some answers. Nothing more, nothing less.” I mounted the bike. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a murderer to catch. Your friend’s been waiting twenty years. I don’t want to make her wait any longer than she has to.”
Without giving her another look, I jammed down on the pedals. Fueled by my annoyance with Delilah, I didn’t slow down until I was out of the trailer park. Once I was back on Redbud Lane and headed toward town, I sat up and took a deep breath. Using one hand for steering, I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow and let the breath out slowly.
Getting angry at people wouldn’t help my cause. And it sure as heck wouldn’t do Connie any good to hear her investigator was flying off the handle at people. I made a promise to apologize to Delilah the next time I saw her. If need be, I’d visit her to do so.
I eased the bike onto the shoulder of the road. A minute or two of deep, cleansing breaths would clear my head for the remainder of the ride. As I pulled on the brake levers, the whine of an engine filled my ears. Before I could look for the source of the sound, a blow to my back sent me hurtling off the bike. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a motorcycle speed away.
Then I tasted dirt, and everything went black.
• • •
When I came to sometime later, I opened one eye. A sea of grass filled my vision. Oh, yeah. I got knocked off my bike. Bit by bit, my senses returned. I rolled over on my back. The move didn’t cause any mind-numbing pain, so that seemed like a good sign. As I stared at the cloudless blue sky, I took an inventory of my condition.
Hands and arms moved without problem, though both shoulders ached. Same for my legs. The middle of my back throbbed, but that appeared to be it. Could be a lot worse.
I eased myself into a sitting position. Both of my palms were scraped and crimson. That’s what I got for leaving in a huff and forgetting to put on my cycling gloves. My left forearm was bloody and covered in tiny black pebbles that were embedded in my skin. There was a nasty gash running down my lower right leg. The injury looked like it belonged in a horror film but wasn’t deep.
Having survived a gunshot wound, these injuries were nothing.
Satisfied I wasn’t going to bleed to death anytime soon, I removed my helmet. The front portion was crushed. Well, better to need a new helmet than a new skull. Now I had a reason to shop for a new brain bucket.
As I got up on one knee, a truck motored by without so much as slowing down. I called the driver a few unrepeatable names for their indifference to my plight.
Thank goodness Mom wasn’t around to hear the foul language.
My bike lay on its side in the grass, a good ten feet from me. I limped over to it and dug my phone out of a saddle bag. With unsteady fingers I dialed 9-1-1 to report a hit-and-run. Then I sat right back down.
An ambulance arrived first. The paramedics were my old friends Boomer and Chelsea.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Allie.” Boomer, whom I’d first met when I’d been knocked out in an alley, gave me a quick head-to-toe visual scan.
“I missed seeing your smiling face.” I drew in a sharp breath when Boomer moved my arm to get a closer look at the scrapes.
“Aww. I’ll bet you tell that to all the paramedics. Will you get in trouble if this conversation gets out when I see Brent?”
“I like the idea of a jealous boyfriend. Maybe I can get a nice dinner out of it.”
We shared a laugh. “The way that guy can cook, I don’t blame you. The snacks he brings to game night are amazing.”
Evidently satisfied I didn’t need a backboard or anything extreme like that, Boomer helped me to my feet. When I nodded that I was okay, we walked to the ambulance. My gait was slow and unsteady.
“No rush. Your injuries appear to be superficial, but you still took a big tumble.”
When I was seated at the back of the ambulance, he began cleaning my wounds. The disinfectant stung, but it was a relief that I hadn’t broken any bones.
Boomer’s partner, Chelsea, joined us. “The bike’s intact. I left it where it was in case the cops want to take pictures. Looks like you had luck on your side.”
“Yeah, lucky.” While I was fortunate not to be more seriously injured, something more sinister than luck sure seemed to be involved in my initial launch off the bike.
A police cruiser rolled to a stop behind us. Officer Tommy Abbott emerged. Like most of the Rushing Creek cops, he was smart and hardworking. He also wouldn’t dismiss the growing unease in my gut as paranoia.
We exchanged greetings while Boomer bandaged my cuts and scrapes. The paramedics then gave him a report.
“Dispatch said it was a hit-and-run. Any chance you got a look at what hit you?”
“It came from behind. I only saw it for a second. It looked like a motorcycle. More of a dirt bike than one of those big touring things.” I told him what happened. I held back a few details, though. Things I wanted to share only in his confidence.
When Boomer and Chelsea finished their work, I insisted a ride to the hospital wasn’t necessary. “Officer Abbott can take me home. I’d prefer to finish my report from the comfort of my couch.”
After some protesting, Boomer assented, with reservation. “You may have a concussion or internal injuries that will only show up with a scan. If you start having headaches or pain, go to the hospital immediately.”
When I promised I would, Boomer escorted me to the cruiser while Tommy took photos of the scene. Before he got away, I called him back to the car.
“Do you know Star Rockwell?”
“Yeah, she works in the ER. Why?”
“Her name came up in conversation recently. I was wanting to talk to her about . . . the 9/11 Memorial event.” It was only a half lie. I did want to speak with her.
“If I see her, I’ll tell her you want to talk to her.”
I gave him my phone number and my thanks. Star could help me put some of the puzzle in place. Of that, I had no doubt.
Once inside the vehicle, I closed my eyes and took deep, cleansing breaths. My heart rate slowed as the air-conditioning cooled me off. Physically, I was fine. From time to time, when I played with Ursi, things would get rowdy and I’d end up with some nasty-looking scratches and bite marks. My current injuries weren’t that much worse.
Emotionally, it was a different story.
After putting the bike in the trunk, Tommy got in the car but didn’t put it in gear. “Tell me what really happened.”
With as much detail as I could recall, I told him everything from the moment I said goodbye to Connie.
“I didn’t crash. I’d already pulled over. Whoever hit me had to get close enough to do it. That means intentionally moving to the side of the road. And then whacking me with something.”
He scratched his chin. “Stay here.”
He returned a few minutes later and showed me a handful of photos on his phone. “I didn’t find any skid marks or other evidence of someone slowing down or swerving to avoid you.”
I studied the images. There were narrow tire tracks in the gravel to prove I had, in fact, moved to the shoulder. My bike looked to be about fifteen feet away from where the tracks ended. A low whistle escaped me.
“I must have gone for quite the flight. Lucky the damage isn’t worse.”
“In my perfect world, the paramedics wouldn’t have moved you until I arrived. It would have helped my investigation to be able to get pictures of you where you landed.”
“Why is that so important? I mean, you saw where I ended up.”
All things considered, I was quite happy with the paramedics for attending to me as soon as they arrived. Discretion suggested I keep the thought to myself, though. Tommy was on my side in this, after all.
“True, and I did get pictures of that. I want to show you something.”
He opened his notebook and drew a straight line down the middle of a blank page. He drew an X at the midway point of the line, a circle where the line ended, and a Y off to the right of the circle.
“Looks like some sort of math equation to me.”
“Fine, art’s not my strong suit. This is a rough sketch of the accident. You’ll notice”—he ran his index finger along the length of the line—“that the direction of travel from X, which is the point where you got hit, to the circle, which is where you landed, is a straight line. This indicates whatever hit you came from behind and the impact pushed you forward.”
A lightbulb glowed to life in my head. “Instead of something sideswiping me. Force applied from the side would have pushed me off the road at a greater angle.”
“Exactly. With the right resources an accident reconstructionist could probably give you a decent estimate of the precise angle and speed our perp was driving when he or she hit you.”
“You said perp. You don’t think this was an accident.” A shiver went down my spine. It wasn’t due to the air-conditioning.
“Nope. Given the distance and angle you traveled after you were hit, and the fact that you hadn’t come to a complete stop yet, my guess is the motorcyclist came up from behind, whacked you with something solid, and kept going. It was a premeditated act.” He put the car in gear. “Let’s get you home.”
Tommy’s decision to get moving at that point was a kindness. Even though the drive was no longer than ten minutes, it gave me time to digest his analysis. Getting run off the road mere days after starting an investigation into a long-dormant murder case couldn’t be coincidence.
Once we were inside the apartment, I made straight for my case notebook. “Have a seat at the dining room table. You want some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I only have a few more questions so I can complete my report. Shouldn’t take long.”
I dropped the notebook on the table as I shuffled to the coffee machine. The shock was wearing off and the adrenaline was running low, so I needed a caffeine pick-me-up. When the pot was gurgling, I took a seat across from him.
His questions were standard follow-up items. What color was the motorcycle? Was the driver wearing a helmet? Did I catch any of the numbers on the license plate? Did I know how much time elapsed between the accident and my 9-1-1 call? I couldn’t answer any of them with any degree of certainty.
“Doesn’t give us much to go on.” Tommy rubbed his eyes.
“Maybe you can ask around to see if anyone remembers seeing a motorcycle in that part of town.”
The part of my back that had taken the blow started to throb. It was no doubt going to look a frightening shade of purple tomorrow. A warm, soothing bath would ease the discomfort. If the soreness of my back didn’t prevent me from climbing into the tub.
“I’ll let you know if we come up with anything.” He got to his feet. “I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.”
“Before you go, the fibers that were found around Valerie’s neck. You wouldn’t happen to know what color they are, would you?”
“Come on, Allie.” He rubbed the nape of his neck. “You know I can’t discuss the Briggs case. If Matt found out I gave you information, he’d fire me in a heartbeat. And not just me, that goes for anyone in the department.”
“Fine. I thought, as an officer of the law, your highest priority would be using all available resources to apprehend a murderer. But if not—”
“Don’t even go down that road.” He pointed a finger at me. “We’ve set up a hotline for people to call in tips. Matt and Jeanette are working twenty-hour days. We want to catch the killer as much as you do.”
“Then let me help you. Anything you tell me stays between us and Ursi.” My kitty, who had been napping on the couch, raised her head and let out a blasé meh. “And she keeps secrets better than anyone.”
Tommy glared at me. The only sound in the room was a rapid tap, tap, tap coming from his shoe against the hardwood floor. Eventually, he threw up his hands.
“I’m sorry. I can’t divulge that information. I can’t tell you that the fibers are the same color as the petals of a sunflower. Sorry.”
A new surge of adrenaline coursed through me, just enough to nudge the discomfort from the crash into the background. I jotted down the color in my notebook.
“Tommy, you’re a prince. At least you would be if you would have told me the color, but since you didn’t . . .”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well, I guess I owed you.”
“Anything else you can’t tell me? We could call it even.” It was underhanded to take advantage of having helped Tommy in the past. Then again, he was the one who said he owed me.
“You didn’t hear this from me.” He waited until I promised and crossed my heart. “The bag Valerie was found in was an equipment bag to store baseball gear.”
“Interesting.” This was good intelligence.
“I need to go. A word to the wise. Avoid Ron Spade. We’re keeping a close eye on him. If word gets out you talked to him, or even got within fifty feet of him, Matt will go ballistic.” He jiggled his keys in his hand. “I trust we’re even?”
“More than you can imagine.”
Once Tommy was gone, I dug into the box of Valerie’s things. Spade worked at the high school. He might have had access to the athletic department facilities. And the equipment stored within them.
It would be shortsighted to focus my investigation solely on him, though.
“Here it is, girl.” I sat on the couch next to Ursi and opened the yearbook from her senior year. “Let’s see who was on the baseball team that year. And whether any of them looks like a murderer.”
A little while later, the muscles in my back spasmed. I let out a little yelp that sent Ursi scrambling off the couch. It was time for that bath before my back completely seized up.
I snapped my notebook closed with a satisfied sigh. Thanks to Tommy’s tip, I had thirty-four baseball players on my suspect list. I’d be able to remove most without much trouble. The freshman and junior varsity players weren’t a concern. Eliminating them wouldn’t take long. Then I’d be able to focus on the most likely suspects.
I was like a bloodhound that had found the killer’s scent. I was on the hunt and there was no stopping me.
It was only a matter of time before I caught up to my quarry.
Chapter Thirteen
The latest entry for Allie’s book of investigating murders: attach a rearview mirror to your bike’s handlebar or to your helmet. That way, you can see if a madman is bearing down on you from behind and take evasive action.
I’d always thought rearview mirrors on bikes were a scam created by someone filling a need that didn’t exist. As I poured coffee into my favorite of the three Wonder Woman mugs I owned, I was reassessing that position.
While the hot bath and essential oils had temporarily soothed my injured muscles, sleep had been hard to come by. When the alarm went off, a nighttime of tossing and turning due to head-to-toe discomfort left me groggy and Ursi grumpy.
She’d nipped at me when I dragged myself out of bed. It was something she only did when she was annoyed with me. I gave her a few kitty treats when I filled her food bowl.
“So sorry I ruined your night’s sleep, Little Miss Princess and the Pea.”
I downed an Advil with a big gulp of coffee. When I reached toward the top shelf for a plate, my back muscles screamed in protest. The plate stayed there. I could eat my bagel on a napkin.
My back felt better after a long, hot shower. The scrapes on my arms and legs no longer stung, either. Taking that information as more data that I’d survive, I answered the knock on the door with a smile.
“Geez Louise, Boss. What happened to you?” A wide-eyed Calypso grabbed my hands and gave them a close-up inspection.
“Took a tumble on the bike yesterday. It looks a lot worse than it feels.” That wasn’t exactly true, but Calypso didn’t need to know that. “Come on in. let’s get started.”
“I heard you had a close call with a motorcycle, but I didn’t know it was this bad.” She filled her coffee mug.
So much for avoiding the rumor mill. Maybe I could use this to my advantage, though. I asked her what she knew.
“I was working at the Pub last night. The woman from the Beacon was talking about it. She’s planning on contacting you.”
Ah, yes, Kim Frye, the reporter for the Brown County Beacon. Kim was one of two reporters on the paper’s staff. Thanks in large part to her stellar work, the paper’s quality far exceeded its modest means. She was smart, determined, and had a nose for a good story.
I had the utmost respect for Kim, but I didn’t need her poking into my poking around.
“She probably picked it up from a police scanner. I’ll be happy to tell her it’s nothing. Thanks for the warning, though.”
“Uh-huh.” Calypso stared at me over the rim of her mug. “The body of a girl who’s been missing my whole life is discovered. At the request of the girl’s mom, you start looking for the murderer. A few days later, you wreck on your bike, something you never do. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
The problem with working with Calypso is she was as incisive as she was outspoken. There was no point trying to refute her supposition.
“To be honest, I don’t think so, either. Do me a favor and stick to the company line, okay? I wiped out on a patch of gravel. That’s all.”
“Come on, Boss. Nobody’s going to believe that. Like it or not, your reputation precedes you.”
I sighed, then winced when my muscles protested from the larger than normal air intake. “The reputation we need to be concerned about belongs to the Cobb Literary Agency. Where are you on the manuscript edits?”
With the conversation back where I wanted it, we spent the rest of the morning on agency business. After discussing the edits I’d assigned Calypso, we moved to her work on the royalty statements. Satisfied she’d done flawless work on them, I had her process payments while I sent out notices to my clients that they were on the way.
The final item on our agenda was the status of the query in-box. I was giving her more responsibility with this task every week. Initially, I only let her go through the queries and send rejections only to those who hadn’t followed my submission guidelines. Failure to follow those guidelines got the author an automatic rejection. After a couple of months of that, I began to let her send rejections to those she could tell didn’t meet the agency’s standards.
“We received sixty-three queries this week. There are three I think you’ll be interested in. I saved them in your review folder. There are another five I don’t think you’ll want, but I wanted to leave that up to you.”
I gave her a high five. It was gratifying seeing Calypso put her talents to use. The last few weeks, I’d also noticed the additional time I had in my schedule, thanks to her efforts. That extra time was coming in handy while I was investigating Valerie’s murder.
“Great work. I’ll look them over this afternoon.” I filled our coffee mugs. “Time to enjoy the weekend.”
After Calypso took off, I did some stretching to work out the remaining kinks in my muscles. When I finished, I felt surprisingly good. Confident that was a sign I was on the way to a speedy recovery, I grabbed Ursi’s harness and gave it a shake.
“Come on, girl. Let’s take a walk and tamp down any rumors regarding my adventures of yesterday.”
She trotted right up to me and sat on my foot. The gaze of her unblinking golden eyes said everything. Ready to roll, Mom.
Ursi was excited to get outdoors. She hadn’t injured herself within the past twenty-four hours, either. Her progress down the stairs was like the hare while mine was more tortoise-like. I apologized when I reached the ground floor. She gave me an impatient meh and stroked a paw against the door.
“Lead the way, then.”
Once outside, she stopped for a second and sniffed the air while she looked to the left, then the right. Evidently, something to the right was more interesting because she headed that way.
Within a few minutes, my cotton shirt began to stick to my skin. The sauna-like conditions were good for my sore back and limbs, though. When Ursi decided to take a break under the shade of a massive sugar maple, I attempted some toe touches.
Normally, I’m as limber as a gymnast. I often play a game with the twins to see who can touch their toes. On a good day, I can bend over and put my palms on the floor.
While Ursi looked on, I struggled to brush my ankles with my fingertips. As my arms dangled, she got up and licked the salt off my fingers. It was one of her odd habits. She usually didn’t do it in public, though.
“You are so weird.” I flicked at her nose with my fingers, then straightened back up. That’s when an idea popped into my head.
“Let’s head back, girl. I want to check something out.”
Initially, Ursi protested, but when I promised to give her some fancy soft food I kept for special occasions, she practically leapt ahead of me. Some people think cats aren’t smart. I’m among those who know better.
A little while later, Ursi was devouring her meal while I searched for a spare bike helmet. I got a new helmet every two years. That way I always had the latest safety measures protecting my noggin. When I got the new helmet, I kept the one I’d been using as a spare. Call me obsessive, but one never knew what might happen out on the road and the spare would need to return to service.
Like getting whacked by someone on a motorcycle.
“Here it is.” I backed out of my bedroom closet, where I’d stashed the helmet on a shelf. Relief coursed through me as the chin strap engaged with a solid click. My idea was insane enough as it was. Undertaking it without head protection would have made it a nonstarter. This way, I could tell myself I was minimizing the risk.
To my head, at least.
I gave my bike a tire-to-tire inspection before leaving the building. After my soak the night before, I’d called Mom to assure her I was okay. While we talked, I’d given my trusty steed a cursory exam. I’d been pleased with both Mom’s acceptance of my explanation of the crash as well as the condition of the bike.
It would be a lie to say I wasn’t a touch shaky when I started turning the pedals. It wasn’t a physical issue, though. Rather, I found myself glancing over my shoulder more often and taking longer at stop signs to resume pedaling.
The ride along Redbud Lane was unnerving. Despite telling myself not to, I still slowed to look at the scene of the accident. I broke out in goose bumps when I considered what could have happened.
For the second consecutive day, I turned into the mobile home park. I wasn’t paying Connie a return visit, though.
I was paying a visit to Ronald Spade. Or, to be precise, to his home.
My tires crunched on dead leaves as I rolled to a stop two trailers down from my destination. While Connie’s trailer showed the pride the woman had in her dwelling, Ronald’s displayed a serious disinterest in upkeep. The front lawn was little more than a patch of neglected weeds. A window shutter was missing and the wooden steps to the door were splintered and in need of replacement. Whatever Ron had been doing with his time since being released from prison, it sure wasn’t being spent on home maintenance.
It had occurred to me during my walk with Ursi that I might find a clue there. Sure, it was a long shot, but what if Ronald had hidden evidence related to Valerie’s murder at his Mom’s place?
My research indicated the police had searched the apartment where Spade was living at the time he was arrested. They’d found nothing to incriminate him in Valerie’s disappearance.
Spade’s mom, like everyone in the mobile home park, had been interviewed, but her home hadn’t been searched. In hindsight, that helped prove the police didn’t take Valerie’s disappearance seriously.
To be fair, though, what could the cops have done? There was nothing to indicate foul play. They had nothing to go on.
I, on the other hand, did.
Nobody seemed to be at home, so I stashed my bike behind a bush and crept around to the back side of the trailer. I had no intention of looking inside. I wanted to know what was underneath. A white vinyl skirt covered the gap between the bottom of the trailer and the ground, creating a crawl space about two feet high. My aim was to root around in the crawl space.
A loose piece of skirting wasn’t hard to find. In minutes I was on all fours, squirming through an opening into the gloomy, cobweb-filled cavern. My muscles only made a mild protest.
It was helpful to be young and have quick recuperative powers.
The musty conditions got the best of my nasal cavities and I let out a loud achoo. When there was no response to my sneeze, I began my search. With a small flashlight in my mouth to guide me, I made my way from one end of the crawl space to another. The gravel beneath me was soft, but I was still grateful I’d had the foresight to wear leggings and keep my cycling gloves on.
After ten minutes of methodical searching, my hand sank into the gravel. When I pulled it out, the pebbles rolled away to reveal a piece of canvas.
“What do we have here?” I pulled on the cloth until it came free. It was a tarp. Apparently, someone had hidden it here by covering it with gravel. I unfolded it and took in a sharp breath.
“Jackpot.”
Chapter Fourteen
Stoked that I’d found the proverbial smoking gun, I let out a laugh. How long had this section of nylon rope been hidden here, right below Spade’s living space?
While this may have been a moment of triumph, the police needed to take the next step. Just because I wasn’t working with them didn’t mean I was against them. Before making my exit, I took a few pictures of the rope. Then, I took a few more snaps of the crawl space. If the rope went missing, I wanted proof of what I’d found and where I found it.
With my mission accomplished, I scrambled back into the daylight as quietly as I could. A quick scan of the area assured me the coast was clear, so I sprinted to my bike. I’d tempted fate enough. The call for the cavalry could wait until I was some distance from the house.
As I punched the numbers for the Rushing Creek Police Department, another piece of the puzzle fell into place. The investigation was gaining momentum.
A few minutes later, a Rushing Creek police cruiser motored past me, coming to a halt in front of the Spade residence. Jeanette got out and said something into her radio.
A couple of minutes after that, another car arrived. Matt emerged from the driver’s side. A woman dressed in a gray polo shirt and black pants got out of the backseat. It was Spade’s mother. Apparently, Matt had picked her up from wherever she was working.
Despite my desire to insert myself into the scene, I stayed still, confident I’d provided enough information in the call to lead Jeanette to my discovery.
Since Matt didn’t want me interfering, I’d also let discretion prevail. If an anonymous tip led to the discovery of a potential key piece of evidence, so be it.
Thankfully, I’d anticipated finding something in the crawl space, so I’d worn two sets of clothes. I stashed the top layer, leggings and a long-sleeved shirt, both of which were now dust-covered, in my saddle bag. I covered them with a shop towel and a spare inner tube, just to be safe.
I draped my riding gloves over the handlebars. If anyone asked why they were so grungy, I’d blame the accident. Seemed plausible to me.
Besides, this business of having to investigate Valerie’s murder while looking over my shoulder for the authorities was getting old. If they questioned me and didn’t like my answers, tough.
While Matt and Spade’s mom were engaged in a heated conversation, complete with arm waving and finger pointing, I read work emails. There was no point in getting behind on my day job, after all.
Eventually, the woman threw up her hands and went inside. As soon as she was out of sight, Matt and Jeanette went around to the back of the trailer. I held my breath while they were out of sight. A line of sweat had formed on my brow by the time they finally returned.
The knees and elbows of Jeanette’s navy uniform were dusty. She was smiling, though.
And holding a loop of yellow rope in her gloved hands.
Matt bagged the evidence, then entered the trailer. Jeanette spoke into her radio again, then strolled toward me.
“Afternoon, Allie. Imagine my surprise seeing you here.” She brushed the dust off her uniform as she gave my bike a once-over.
“I was in the area.” I pointed in the direction of Connie’s home. “My client lives over there. So, what brings you and the chief here?”
“It’s funny you should ask. We got an anonymous tip there was potential evidence in the Briggs case. The tipster said we’d find it in the Spades’ crawl space. You saw that we found something, I assume?” She picked up my gloves and studied them.
“I saw you put something in an evidence bag. From here it looked like some rope.” I took a drink from my water bottle. “It caught my attention because I heard Valerie was strangled with yellow nylon rope.”
Jeanette chuckled as she kicked at a few pebbles. She was my friend. She was also an officer of the law whose boss didn’t want her discussing case details with me.
“I’ve heard the same thing. Though you need to be careful. You, of all people, should know sometimes a rumor turns out to be true and sometimes turns out to be something else entirely.”
“Indeed, I do. And if it does turn out to be true?”
Yet another police cruiser came to a stop in front of the Spade trailer. That made three of Rushing Creek’s four police cars in one place at the same time. Hopefully no bad guys would get wind of this and try to knock off a bank.
“I have to get back to work. Evidence to collect, that kind of thing.” She leaned in close. “If it is true, and I’m not saying it is, things are looking bleak for Ronald Spade.”
She turned on her heel and was gone before I could respond. As I sat on my bike, a shadow of doubt started to gnaw at my sense of accomplishment.
It was a question of timing.
If Spade was the murderer, he couldn’t have killed her at the time of Valerie’s disappearance. She wasn’t far enough into her pregnancy for that timing to work.
Before I could ponder further, Matt emerged from the trailer. After a few words with Jeanette, he marched right up to me.
“I told you to stay out of this.”
“And I believe this is a free country and I can ride my bike where I wish.” While it wouldn’t do any good to antagonize the man, I wasn’t going to let him bully me.
He scratched his chin, then looked up at the sky. When he returned his gaze to me, he chuckled.
“Sometimes you are so much like your sister it scares me.”
“Like my sister or your ex-wife?” Bringing up Matt and Rachel’s divorce was a cheap shot, but I didn’t care. A murder needed to be solved. In time, we could get over any feelings that might get hurt. Nothing could bring Valerie back.
The least I could do was stand up for her.
“Two sides of the same coin, actually. You’re both smart, strong-willed women who won’t hesitate to put me in my place. Especially when I need it.”
“Oh.” It was all I could manage. His apology took all the righteous indignation–fueled wind out of my sails. And served as a timely reminder that he really was one of the good guys.
“Jeanette told me you just happened to be in the area when we arrived. You sure you don’t know anything about the anonymous tip that brought us out here?”
“I know nothing about any anonymous tips.” Since the tipster was me, the call hadn’t been anonymous. Taking a razor-thin view of the matter, at least.
Jeanette’s evidence collection kit was open on the hood of her cruiser. She and the other officer were out of sight, presumably taking another, closer look around the trailer. It made me wonder if any fingerprints could be recovered.
Hopefully, none of mine would show up. Not that I needed to worry about being accused of Valerie’s murder, but still. Plausible deniability regarding the discovery of the rope was something I wanted to maintain. For the time being, at least.
“Of course you don’t.”
“Thank goodness for the tip, regardless of who made it.”
“You’re not wrong. Nobody should jump to any conclusions, though.” He gave me a long look.
Message received. I wasn’t going to give up that easily, though. “You have to admit the circumstances look a little suspicious. Ronald Spade was a suspect in Valerie Briggs’s disappearance. Now, rope that’s eerily similar to the rope used to strangle her is found on his mom’s property.”
“Suspicious, yes.” Matt popped a piece of gum into his mouth. A sure sign of stress. He used to smoke when he was feeling the pressure. I was pleased he hadn’t reverted to his old habits.
“But not definitive.”
He shook his head. “I know the town wants Valerie’s murder solved. I want that, too. I can’t go off half-cocked, though. I don’t have to just uphold the law, I have to follow it. And that means ensuring this investigation is conducted legally, thoroughly, and in such a way that all suspects’ constitutional rights are protected.”
The passion with which he spoke caused a lump to form in my throat. It was reassuring that we wanted the same thing. It crushed my spirit that we couldn’t work together to get it.
“Fair enough.” Sensing an opportunity to mend some fences with Matt, I took a deep breath to give me time to figure out how to phrase what I wanted to say next.
“I appreciate the effort you’re putting into the investigation. Both the department and you personally. It means a lot.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Despite what some people think, I’m not a carbon copy of my old man. I’ve sworn to protect and serve everyone in this town. That’s what I’m doing.”
I wasn’t certain if Matt’s clapback was aimed at me or Connie. The message was received loud and clear, regardless of its intended recipient. It did provide me with an opening for another question.
“Have you talked to your dad about the case? And the, you know, recent developments?” I hadn’t spoken to the man since Matt and Rachel’s divorce had been finalized.
“I called him. Figured he ought to know. To warn him in case reporters started showing up on his doorstep, too.” He spat out his gum and immediately replaced it with another piece. “People want to crucify him for this.”
“Was he able to give you any insight into the case?” If people wanted to crucify the man, so be it. Figuratively, not literally, of course. Louis Roberson had been known to play favorites, dispense justice unequally, and turn a blind eye to sexual assault matters. In my book, he wasn’t a good man and hadn’t been a good cop.
He had information about this case, though. That’s what mattered at the moment.
“Not a lot. He told me everything relevant would be in the case file.”
“What about information that might not appear so relevant? I mean, he must have had some thoughts or ideas he kept to himself or put in a notebook that never got into an official file.”
“He thought the father, Phil Briggs, probably killed Valerie. By all accounts, the two couldn’t stand each other. There wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with anything, though. When he died, dad figured that was the end of it.”
“And now?” Since I had Matt talking, I figured I’d keep going until he shut me down.
“He was wrong. And I have to figure out what, exactly, he was wrong about.” He tipped his hat and walked back to his vehicle, his cryptic response sending shivers down my spine.
One thing was beyond dispute. I needed to take another long look at my time line. Even if I accepted the premise that Ronald Spade was the murderer, it was physically impossible for him to have committed it on or around the time of Valerie’s disappearance.
So, if he did take Valerie’s life and used the same rope that was found under the trailer to do it, when did it happen? Did he abduct her and keep her prisoner somewhere? Or did she leave town and fall prey to Spade upon her return?
I didn’t know Ronald Spade personally. By reputation, I knew him as a creep who had a thing for teenage girls. I’d never heard of him being violent, though. Things like abduction and murder didn’t fit his profile. He was less a wolflike predator and more a wandering coyote looking to capitalize on an opportunity that might come his way.
No. Too many puzzle pieces would have to find a home before I decided Spade was the guy. There was still much investigating to be done.
Chapter Fifteen
I completed the ride home without breaking my pedaling cadence as I rolled past the accident site. I leaned my bike against the wall outside my apartment door, and all of a sudden it was like my lungs were able to fully expand for the first time in ages. My eyes even teared up. Evidently kissing the pavement had shaken me up more emotionally than I’d realized.
“Hey, girl. I’m home,” I said once I was in the apartment. “In the ISO 9000 category, it’s been one day since your mama’s last cycling wreck.”
The reference to manufacturing safety was lost on my cat, who was an expert on leisure. She gave me a little meh and went to her food bowl and stared at me. It was her classic maneuver. She was waiting for me to make what she knew was the right decision. In this case, the right decision was to give her a reward in celebration of completing my trip intact.
“Fine. You win.” I scratched her spine as I shook a few treats onto her dining mat. She closed her eyes and started licking at the air as my fingers gently rubbed her shoulder blades. A few seconds later, she started purring.
The mini-motorboat sound made me smile. Some say that a cat’s purr helps heal injuries in both felines and humans. I didn’t know if I bought that story. What I did know was that Ursi’s purring made me smile and feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
That was healing enough for me.
To make sure I didn’t forget any details from my excursion, I copied the notes I’d taken on my phone into my case notebook. I also added some facts, and a few questions, to my time line. With each question, the enormity of my task seemed to grow.
Despite the progress I’d made, how could I possibly solve a twenty-year-old murder? Especially without help or cooperation from the police? I was no Jane Marple, after all.
Finding the rope had all been the result of acting on a hunch. Nothing more. Relying on guesswork wouldn’t get me very far. I needed facts.
At best it was an almost insurmountable task. At worst? I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. I didn’t want to consider the worst.
I’d promised Connie I’d help her. And I was doing just that. I’d found the rope. The rope was real progress. Now, I had to hope forensic analysis would confirm a match with the fibers found around Valerie’s neck.
In the meantime, I’d keep forging ahead.
Once I finished working on my notes, I poured myself a tall glass of iced tea and read the queries Calypso had saved for me. When I was finished, I sent her a text congratulating her on a job well done.
Then I called her. “Since you did so well on the queries, I have another job for you.”
“I already have two jobs, Boss. I don’t need a third, especially since I’m on my way to my other one.”
“Don’t think of it as a job. Think of it as helping an author get one step closer to her dream of becoming a published author. Calypso Bosley, Dream Maker.”
“When you put it that way. I’m in. What say you, O great taskmaster?”
I laughed. She was such a trip. “I love the Canadian train heist query. Would you contact the author and ask for the complete manuscript?”
“Totally, dude. That’s an awesome story.”
I had to hold the phone away from my ear. Calypso’s excited shouting was deafening.
“Let’s dial back the enthusiasm for now. A polished first three chapters does not a novel make. Often, a new author will spend most of his or her time on those first chapters since that’s what agents initially accept. The proof of a good storyteller will be in how well the manuscript holds up.”
“Fascinating,” Calypso said in a deep Mr. Spock–type voice. Then she returned to normal. “Gotcha, Wise One. I’ll send her an email as soon as I get off work tonight. Bosley out.”
Calypso’s sign-off made me laugh again. It was a much-needed emotional release after all the stress of recent days. With my head in a good place and my body feeling better, I plopped onto the couch to make sure the royalty payments had gone out without any problems.
Ursi leapt from her window perch to the arm of couch, strolled along the back, and came to a stop behind me. A few seconds later, she placed her front paws on my right shoulder and started purring.
“Well, hello there.” I looked at her. “Are you here on business or for pleasure?”
She bopped her nose against mine, then dropped onto the seat next to me and curled herself into a ball with her back against my thigh. In no time, she was fast asleep, snoring like she was a tiny saw working through a block of wood.
I chuckled. My kitty was the greatest in the world.
A little while later, I went to the kitchen to figure out something for dinner. The shelves were woefully bare. My provisions consisted of an almost empty half gallon of skim milk, two eggs, leftover ramen in a plastic container, one bagel and a tub of butter. The freezer didn’t have much either.
While grim, the situation presented the opportunity to parlay it into dinner with my honey. I texted Brent to ask him if he wanted to get together. He responded within a minute, which was nice. What wasn’t so nice was his reply. He needed to spend the weekend working on his thesis, but he promised to make it up to me next week.
Such was my love life.
When Brent accepted the position of Library Director, I made it clear I had my own life to lead and expected him to do the same. He was also going to have to find his own place to live. I was thrilled that our long-distance-relationship days were over, but I valued my independence.
My apartment was more than just my home. It was also my workplace and gym. I didn’t want to give any of that up by taking on a roommate. Even if it was a roommate with benefits.
Besides, Brent’s dog Sammy was too big to be cooped up in an apartment. The golden retriever was a wonderful dog who’d even made friends with Ursi. It warmed my heart when Sammy visited to see him curled up in his doggy bed with Ursi right by his side.
Over the long term, a big, energetic dog living in an apartment, with wood floors to boot, was an untenable situation. I hadn’t bothered asking Renee about it. My lease already carried an extra monthly charge for Ursi, and I had to beg Renee to get that. A dog simply wasn’t going to live anywhere in her building.
Since I had no interest in breaking my lease, Brent had found a two-bedroom bungalow with a fenced yard a few blocks from the library. I almost choked when he told me how much the rent was. Then again, there was no way he was going to part with Sammy.
Something told me his weekend of thesis work was going to include some board gaming. His house had become the go-to location for a group of friends who enjoyed Numenera and other games featuring oddly shaped dice as much as he did.
I was thrilled he’d made friends. Admittedly, a little less so when I wanted him to cook for me. That was my shortcoming, not his, so I moved to plan B.
“I’m off for a grocery run, girl. Do you want anything?” I scribbled out a shopping list.
If I didn’t stick to the list, I’d end up with too many things to carry on my bike. It enforced a type of discipline my waistline was thankful for. Ice cream and cookies stayed on the store’s shelf, while fresh fruit and frozen vegetables made it home.
When Ursi chose not to reply, I checked the cabinet where I kept her supplies. Good. She still had plenty of kitty litter. The litter I bought came in large plastic containers that didn’t weigh much but took up a lot of room. I had to be strategic when I made a purchase, as that meant I got little else on those trips.
I hardly minded, though. A few extra trips to the store were totally worth not having the expense of owning, insuring, and registering a car. It was another way I could support the local economy instead of ordering online from a remote big box store, too.
A couple of minutes later, I kissed Ursi on the ear, grabbed my reusable grocery bags, and headed out the door. On the ride to the store, I had a brain blast.
Dak Middleton.
He worked in the meat department. If he was there, I could corner him. My legs mashed down on the pedals as I picked up speed. All of a sudden, this was a two-for-one trip.
Rushing Creek Grocers wasn’t the kind of store one typically found in the city. With dozens of aisles offering everything from ten brands of coffee to live lobsters in a tank, that kind of place made my brain hurt. I had nothing against those stores.
I just didn’t like shopping there.
Everything I needed could be found on the shelves and in the cooling units of Rushing Creek’s compact grocery store. As a bonus, if there was an item I wanted, I could ask the owners to make a special order. For me, it was the best of both worlds.
A lime green bike rack was stationed by the store’s entrance. As I locked my bike to it, I got a craving for a margarita. I laughed at the effect of subliminal suggestion and made a mental note to add a lime to my grocery list.
To have it with the chicken fajitas I now wanted for dinner.
Once inside, I grabbed a cart and took a right-hand turn, bypassing the fresh produce. Groceries could wait. At the end of the aisle, I was hit with the mouthwatering aroma of rotisserie chicken. Maybe I would have some of that instead of fajitas.
“Focus, Cobb.” I shook my head as I pushed the cart toward the meat counter.
Luck was with me. Dak was slicing some deli ham for Jack Rogers. We got caught up over the rhythmic rum, rum, rum of the meat slicer.
“Good work on the Borus donation.” He gave me a smile that made my heart flutter even though I was happily involved in a relationship.
“Thanks. I apologize if I stepped on anyone’s toes for not running it by the committee. I didn’t want to give Ted a chance to change his mind.”
He waved my mea culpa away. “That’s what I like about you. You’re not afraid to make a decision. The committee needs that.”
“Needs what?” Dak gave him the ham, which was wrapped in white butcher paper.
“Allie’s decisiveness.” He told Dak about the donation.
The butcher’s ruddy complexion glowed as he let out a low whistle. “Nice. Think you could get something like that for the blues festival?”
“One committee’s enough for me, thanks. I’ll put in a good word for you, though.”
“That’s the spirit.” Jack gave me a fist bump. “I gotta go. Be ready to give a full report at next week’s committee meeting.”
“What can I do for you?” Dak asked after Jack took off. He was smiling, but his gray eyes conveyed wariness. It was a look I’d been on the receiving end of more times than I could count.
“Half a pound of roast beef, please, sliced thin.” I took a deep breath. “I’d also like to talk to you about Valerie Briggs.”
His smile morphed into a grimace.
“I heard Val’s mom hired you.” He put on a fresh pair of gloves to prepare my order. “Guess it was only a matter of time until you decided to track me down.”
“Is that a yes, then?”
He ran the meat through the machine and placed the slices on an electronic scale. When the readout got to eight ounces, he wrapped it up.
“I heard the police found some rope under Ron Spade’s trailer. That it might be the same rope that was used to kill her. Is that true?”
“Yes. The police will need to test the rope before any conclusions can be drawn, though.”
Dak nodded, then wrote something on the package before giving it to me. “My shift’s over in a half hour. Meet me in the parking lot. I drive a silver SUV.”
Fortunately, my grocery list was short, so I breezed through the store formulating what I wanted to ask. The problem was I had milk and some yogurt, so I couldn’t let the interview go too long. My saddle bags were fantastic, but they weren’t designed to keep things cold. Oh, well. I’d deal with it.
Since the grocery store isn’t very big, the parking lot was accordingly pint-sized. The problem was that of the dozen vehicles within my sight, four were silver SUVs. To someone like me, who didn’t own a car, they all looked identical.
To avoid the embarrassment of aimlessly wandering around the parking lot like an extra in a zombie film, I packed the groceries in my saddlebags, then rearranged them. Twice. It was a pathetic attempt to look busy, but I figured it was better than standing around looking bored. Or worse, helpless.
Dak saved me from my predicament by strolling out of the grocery store and waving at me. As I trotted to catch up to him, he took a drag on a vaping pipe, then blew out a huge cloud of white smoke. To my surprise, there was no noxious smell to accompany the cloud.
“What do you have in that? Seems pretty mild.”
“Water.” He took another drag and blew the steam away from me. “I’ve been trying to quit for ten years. Vaping got me off cigarettes. I’m hoping the water’s my last step into a nicotine-free life.”
“Hats off to you. Quitting smoking isn’t easy.” It couldn’t hurt to play nice with the man. He wasn’t a suspect. Yet.
“Promised my wife I’d quit when she got pregnant with our first kid. I’m almost there, only twelve years later.” He laughed and came to a stop in front of an SUV with a shine that was near blinding when I looked straight at it.
“Better late than never.” I cleared my throat. “I’m sure you’re busy, so I’ll cut to the chase. Do you mind telling me where you were the day Valerie disappeared?”
“I was out in a tree stand deer hunting. It’s a Christmas Eve thing my family does. If anyone bags something that day, we donate the meat to a local shelter.”
It was a tradition I’d never heard of, but I appreciated the sentiment of doing something for the less fortunate during the holiday season.
“Any luck?”
“My dad got one. He was a wizard with a bow in his day. Anyway, when I got home there was a message from Val for me. She wanted to borrow my car. I figured it was the perfect time to give her the present I got for her. I got cleaned up and drove over to her place. When I got there, she was already . . .”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he looked away.
“She meant a great deal to you.” It was a manipulative statement that made me feel like a jerk, but I needed information.
“Yeah, well, we dated, so I guess you could say that.”
“Do you remember the time she left the message?”
“Ten o’clock. We got in from the field around three. It was a little after four when I got to her place.”
“Twenty years on and you remember those times pretty well. That’s impressive.”
“Not really. I told the same thing to the cops and reporters about ten times.” He took another hit from his vape device. “You want to know why I still remember that day like it was yesterday? Not a week goes by when I’m not reminded of her. And how I wasn’t there when she needed me. If I had been, maybe she’d still be alive.”
It was a heavy burden to carry for so long. One I wouldn’t wish on anybody.
Unless it was all an act.
“I heard your relationship with her was kind of stormy. Would you agree with that?”
“Sure, we had our ups and downs. We were teenagers. What would you expect? Dating Val was like trying to corral a wild horse. Some days, she was kind, trusting. Other days she was skittish and would rather claw you than hug you.”
“Do you think that was due to her home life?”
“Didn’t help. I mean, her old man was horrible. He never hit her, but he’d cut her down in a second with his words. Her mom tried, but she could keep the peace only so much. Val got back at him the only way she knew how, by rebelling.”
Dak’s phone chimed. “I need to pick up my kids.”
I thanked him for his time. “I appreciate your candor. Just one more thing. Any idea what happened to her?”
“She thought she was invincible. For my money, she probably mouthed off to the wrong person. And it cost her her life.”
Speaking her mind shouldn’t be a reason to have her life taken from her. Dak’s assessment only strengthened my resolve to figure out who that person was.
Chapter Sixteen
My chat with Dak had me troubled. He seemed believable enough, but I regretted not thinking to ask him if they were together when she disappeared. If they were together, then it made perfect sense that she’d call him. He was her boyfriend, after all.
What if they were broken up at the time, though? After all, Bobcat had admitted to hitting on her just a few weeks before she disappeared. Just because Dak claimed to have a present for her didn’t make it true. Calling an ex to ask a favor sounded like an act of desperation. And another thing: If they really were apart, had their split been amicable? If not, why would she call him?
And there was something else. Dak said he’d been in a tree stand. Could anyone verify that? What if he’d paid Valerie a visit, been part of something awful, and returned to the woods in time to cover his tracks? Many questions unanswered, indeed.
• • •
After a night spent doing more tossing and turning than actual sleeping, I texted Sloane in the morning to see if she was available to help with the case. Within a minute, my phone’s ringer went off.
“Will this put me in mortal danger? No offense, but I prefer to stay in one piece.”
I laughed. God love her, Sloane always knew the perfect thing to say at the perfect time. She was the best friend anyone could ask for.
“How about some cross-training? I want to take a ride to think things through. I could use a partner to bounce ideas off of.”
“Is that all? I can totally do that. You promise no guns or weapons of any kind will be involved?”
“Cross my heart. I’m dealing with a lot of loose threads and you’re so good at listening and helping me figure things out. When we’re done with the ride, I’ll buy you lunch at Big Al’s.”
“Be there in a half hour.”
Since Sloane was an elite-level trail runner, she had to be mindful of her nutrition. With the national championships coming up in a couple of months, discipline with her training and diet were more important than ever. Normally, she wouldn’t step inside a burger joint unless it was the off-season. And even then, it was with reluctance.
Things were different with Big Al’s, though. The diner’s owner, Al Hammond, spent most of his time over a grill with a spatula in his hand. When he wasn’t crafting the greatest burgers in North America, he was pouring coffee and chatting with customers.
It was during one of his chats with Sloane that Al had a brainstorm. He worked with Sloane to craft a meal from items already on his menu that were healthier than his typical burger and fries. After some trial and error, they came up with a platter that featured an omelet made of egg whites and chopped vegetables, whole wheat toast, and one’s choice of turkey bacon or turkey sausage.
They called it the Running Winchester.
The dish became an instant hit, thanks in no small part to the tie-in with Rushing Creek’s most famous athlete.
While I waited for Sloane, I took the bike into the courtyard at the rear of my building to give it some overdue TLC. To make things more fun, I put Ursi’s harness on her and let her explore the surroundings while I worked.
Since I moved back to Rushing Creek, I’d ridden an average of two thousand miles per year. That was a lot of wear and tear, so I took my bike to Brown County Cyclery, the local bike shop, twice a year for professional maintenance. I’d never truly appreciated how complicated a bike could be until I became so dependent on one. My mechanic told me a typical bike is made up of over eight hundred separate components. Without proper maintenance, any one of those parts, from a tiny wheel bearing to a brake cable, could fail and leave me in a ditch somewhere.
I never wanted to end up in a ditch, but if it was going to happen, it wouldn’t be because I failed to maintain my trusty steed. When one included my recent mishap, I’d crashed four times in my life. Never once had it been due to a part failure. I intended to keep it that way.
By the time Sloane arrived, I was buffing the bike’s frame so its black paint job shined like the sun.
“What up, girlfriend?” Sloane and Ursi met in the middle of the courtyard. My feline leapt into my bestie’s arms.
“Hey, Allie.” Sloane waved as she cuddled the cat.
“Just about done here.” I tossed the polishing rag into a bucket and hugged Sloane. “I’ll let you two have some alone time.”
“It’s only fair since your mommy gets to have me all to herself on our bike ride.” Sloane kissed Ursi on an ear. They carried on a private conversation as they followed me upstairs so I could stash my cleaning supplies.
It took Sloane and Ursi five minutes to say goodbye to each other. I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help being cheered by their antics. Their connection was undeniable and made me happy, even if it made me feel like a third wheel sometimes.
As we buckled our bike helmets, I threw down the gauntlet.
“You know, Sloane, one of these days I should just go to the Humane Society, adopt a cat, and drop it off on your doorstep. That way you can have your own. And Luke won’t be able to say no since it was a gift.”
“Not a bad idea.” She took a drink from her water bottle and threw a leg over the top tube of her twenty-seven-speed, triathlon-style bike. “But then I’d need Aunt Allie to come by and clean out my fur baby’s litter box when I’m out of town. If you’re good with that—”
“Good point. Maybe not the best idea, after all.” I loved Ursi with all my heart but often joked about how I wished I would have trained her to go potty in the toilet instead of in her litter box. Flushing was much easier than scooping. In reality, training one’s cat to use the toilet wasn’t a good thing for the animal for a variety of reasons. So, I stuck to the tried-and-true litter box.
“Uh-huh. The wisdom is strong in this one.” Sloane laughed and I couldn’t help chuckling at the reference to Star Wars, which she loved so much. “Lead the way, Master Jedi.”
“I thought I was your Kickboxing Crusader?”
“You are, but if you solve a case from back when we were in middle school, you deserve a promotion to Jedi.”
On that empowering note, we got moving. I chose to head north, though I didn’t have any specific destination in mind. While we pedaled, I brought Sloane up to speed with what I’d learned. She listened without comment until I finished my report. She was such a good listener, I had no doubt she could repeat my report practically verbatim.
Before we got too far out of town, we turned east. Sloane asked a few questions to clarify some things. When we rolled to a stop at a four-way intersection, she took a drink, then tilted her head to the side. Something was on her mind.
“Have you visited the spot where they found Valerie?” When I said no, she wagged her finger at me. “We should go. Right now. I mean, you’ve always gone to the spots where your other murder victims were found, right?”
My other murder victims. Holy cats, what had I become? The thing was, Sloane was right. While the circumstances of each murder had been as different as could be, I’d still gone to the scenes of every crime I’d worked on.
Each time, I’d learned something valuable, too.
“Indeed. I’ve been so focused on what happened back then, I haven’t thought much about the here and now.” I took a drink from my water bottle. The cold liquid invigorated me. “I think you get Master Jedi level, now. Shall we?”
“Race ya!” Sloane took off in front of me. With her arms resting on the handlebars and the rest of her body tucked close to the sleek frame of the aerodynamic machine, she jetted away like a rocket.
My bike was a multipurpose workhorse, not a speedy thoroughbred, so I had no chance of catching her. That was fine. She’d get in a quick, high-intensity workout and I’d catch up at the forest’s gatehouse.
And pay the admission fee. Which was only fair since she was the one who was helping me.
At the forest’s entrance, we pulled to the side to study the map the gatehouse attendant had given us. Solid green lines marked the paved roads that wound through the property. Hashed lines indicated the horse trail. Dotted lines were the hiking trails.
I pointed to a spot in the upper right-hand corner of the map. “This is where Connie told me they found her.”
Sloane let out a long whistle as she ran a finger from where we were to where they’d found Valerie. “Man. That’s pretty out of the way. Your perp would have had to drive and then hike to get there.”
“My thoughts exactly.” I looked around. The gatehouse, a small wooden structure with a cedar shingle roof, hardly evoked images of Fort Knox. The gate was nothing more than a steel tube attached to a short metal post so it could swing open and closed. There was a length of chain at the end of the tube to allow the gate to be locked to a wooden post on the other side of the road from the gatehouse.
“Assuming the current setup is similar to what was in place back then, it wouldn’t have been hard to cut the chain and drive through undetected.”
“If it was the middle of the night, for sure.” Sloane snapped her fingers. “Do you think we could check to see if they have, like, maintenance records from back then? Maybe there’d be a copy of a work order to fix whatever damage your perp caused getting through the gate.”
“Spoken like a true construction titan.” When Sloan’s father died, she inherited his estate, including a hundred acres of prime real estate she was now developing. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
To simulate what the murderer may have done, we rode our bikes twenty miles per hour, the posted speed limit, until we reached the relevant trail head. Then we hiked at a brisk pace until arriving at an area cordoned off by the all-too-familiar yellow police tape. A little part of me died at the idea that nobody had bothered to remove the tape when the police released the scene.
“Twenty-five minutes, give or take.” Sloane slipped under the tape and marched straight to the area of overturned soil that had made up the de facto grave. “Then, if you assume he needed another five or ten minutes to find this spot, we’re talking an hour just to get in and out.”
“Agreed. And then another half hour to dig the grave.” I took some photos of the scene.
I shuddered as an image of a shadowy figure lowered a bag with a young woman stuffed inside into the ground, then covered up his work.
Anger flamed inside me. I wanted to punch something that wasn’t my kickboxing bag. The monster who committed this horrific crime. The police who gave the original investigation at best a half-hearted effort. The Rushing Creek community, who merely shrugged, then turned a blind eye to Valerie’s fate.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten to center myself. If I wasn’t careful, the flame would grow until it was out of control. That would only lead to poor decision-making and rash actions, neither of which would help Valerie. The cool analytical mind of Allie Cobb, literary agent, was what I needed, not an enraged caricature of myself, playing the part of the deceased’s avenger.
After a few moments, I opened my eyes. With Sloane beside me, we walked the crime scene’s perimeter.
“To keep a body hidden for twenty years tells me two things. One, this wasn’t some random spot to dump a body. Whoever did it made an effort to bring Valerie here. To this spot.”
Sloane furrowed her brow, apparently deep in thought. After a few seconds, she looked at me with wide eyes. “Which would mean the killer knew it was safe to get rid of her here. He would have to know the area pretty darn well to make a call like that.”
“Indeed, which brings us to the second point, my dear Watson. The murderer had to have used a shovel to dig deep enough to keep the body hidden all this time. That begs yet another question.”
“Where did he get a shovel?” Sloane rubbed her temples. She was a sensitive soul who tried to focus on positive things for the sake of her mental health. My bestie had provided invaluable help, but she was near the end of her emotional reserves. I needed to get her out of there.
“That, too. I also want to know where Valerie was murdered.”
“I get it. Was she killed here, like maybe a lovers’ quarrel got out of hand, or someplace else, and the body was brought here?”
“Bingo.” I put my arm around Sloane and guided her back to the trail. “Now, how about that lunch I promised you?”
She didn’t need to be asked twice. Her long legs and rapid pace made it tough for me to keep up. That was okay. I was ready to put the haunting scene behind me as much as my bestie was.
As we pedaled back to town, I found myself asking the same question: What did I learn from the trip?
Given the location of Valerie’s grave, I was convinced the murderer was someone local. Granted, that didn’t help a lot since all my suspects were local, but it reinforced the notion that focusing on Rushing Creek residents was the way to go.
While I wasn’t certain, I was pretty sure Valerie had been murdered somewhere else. Sure, Sloane’s scenario that Valerie snuck into the forest with a lover, got into a dispute, and was murdered in the heat of the moment wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. It seemed to me, though, that someone who committed a crime of passion would have dumped her by the side of the road and hightailed it out of there.
In the scenario that was more probable to me, Valerie was strangled someplace else. The killer needed to get rid of the body, so he stuffed her in the equipment bag, took her into the forest, and buried her.
That took some thought from someone who had ice water in his veins.
By now, I also had no doubt the murderer was male. The violence of the crime made me think it was much more likely committed by a man. I’d spent over a decade reading manuscripts involving criminal acts of all sorts. I’d often fact-checked the stories to ensure plausibility. That experience now had me convinced a man committed the brutal acts that took Valerie’s life.
We took a right-hand turn, and a few minutes later came to a stop in front of Big Al’s. Sloane had let me spend the time on the ride working out the myriad puzzle pieces in front of me instead of chatting. God love her.
While I locked our bikes to the rack, a few more pieces hovered above my imaginary puzzle. With a click of the lock, they dropped into place.
A profile of the murderer was becoming clearer all the time, like when I wiped the condensation from my bathroom mirror after a shower. A male, from the area. Using a Rushing Creek baseball equipment bag wasn’t a coincidence, either. Those things weren’t available for public consumption.
Valerie’s murderer had been a member of the Rushing Creek High School baseball team. Now, it was up to me to figure out which one.
Chapter Seventeen
Sloane and I were seated in our favorite spot in the diner, the booth farthest from the entrance, so we could talk without being disturbed. Whether we liked it or not, we were both local celebrities or sorts, and folks enjoyed stopping by to say hi.
Sloane was the famous one. Between her incredible exploits on the professional trail-running circuit, her donation of land that became a city park, and her careful stewardship of the property that was being developed, everyone in town loved her. Due to her humble nature, the fame often put her ill at ease.
I encouraged her to welcome the good wishes and adulation. She was a truly kind person and deserved all the goodwill that came her way.
I, on the other hand, was more infamous that anything. Folks generally appreciated my efforts to support the community, like my regular book donations to the library and membership on the 9/11 Memorial committee. Those activities didn’t get me on the front page of the Brown County Beacon, though. Which was totally fine, by the way.
Most people knew who I was for one of two things. I was the eccentric single woman in her thirties who took her cat for walks and didn’t own a car. I was also the pushy busybody who may have solved a few murders but had rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in doing so.
So, Sloane was Rushing Creek’s Wonder Woman. I was Batwoman.
That was okay. She was the yang who brought the light. I was the yin who carried the dark. In reality, we were besties who never seemed to have enough time to just chat. That made the corner booth in the back our dining spot of choice.
“I heard there’s a freshman girl at Rushing Creek who’s becoming quite your protégé.” I took a long sip of my chocolate milk shake. The mocha-tinged decadence was delightful.
“It’s awesome. She started with the cross-country team in middle school because her friends were doing it. She caught the running bug and won the all-conference meet last fall. And she has fun running. That’s the most important thing.”
When Sloane was in town, she set aside one workout per week to run with the local youth. The goals were to teach proper running form and how to be a good sport. In the year Sloane had been leading the runs, participation had grown from one girl to over two dozen youth, both boys and girls.
The emphasis on fun was just the latest example of my dear friend and sister-in-law having her priorities in the right place. If the kids wanted to get competitive, Sloane was quick to remind them the competitor was the clock, not each other.
She was filling me in on the group’s latest run when Maybelle Schuman came through the front entrance.
“Don’t turn around. Gossip Central is in the house.” I sunk lower in my seat and sent up a prayer she wouldn’t see us. Our lunch had been so pleasant. I didn’t want it interrupted.
“Allie, there you are.” Maybelle waved and bustled toward us.
So much for our quiet lunch.
The woman took a seat next to Sloane. “I saw your bikes outside and wanted to see whether or not you heard.”
Sloane and I exchanged a quick look. My bestie took a sip of her green tea and focused on her omelet. Whatever Maybelle had to say, Sloane wasn’t interested. Having been on the receiving end of some nasty rumors not so long ago, she despised gossip.
I, on the other hand, had to keep my ears open. The older woman was a potential source of information, even if her stories needed to be viewed through a thick lens of skepticism.
“Heard what?” I braced myself for something scandalous as I took a bite of my burger.
“The police arrested Ronald Spade for the murder of the poor Briggs girl.”
I swallowed so fast I almost choked. Sloane sucked in a sharp breath.
Maybelle’s eyes were wide. I was all too familiar with the look. She was dying to spill the beans but wanted me to take the bait. I’d learned the best way to handle situations like this was to engage but not feed the flame. Otherwise, I risked getting sucked into fire.
“That’s certainly news. Thanks for letting us know.”
Her rumors were usually half right at best and flat wrong at worst. There was often a grain of truth deep down in them though. I just had to sift through the muck to find it.
“Yes, it’s kind of you to tell Allie.” Sloane patted Maybelle’s hand. “Where did you hear about this?”
It was a deft move on my bestie’s part. A display of compassion while asking for sources.
“I saw it with my own eyes. I was out for a walk, going past the municipal building. A police car pulled up. Mr. Spade was in the back. Chief Roberson and Officer Wilkerson walked him into the station.”
Okay, that was potentially big, but it felt wrong. I disliked adding fuel to the flame, but sometimes, like now, the risk of being scorched was worth it.
“Any idea what brought this about?”
Maybelle took a drink from the coffee our server brought her. “Supposedly, the police found some rope under his trailer. They did some tests and it matches fibers found on the girl. Sounds like case closed to me.”
“Indeed.” I exchanged another look with Sloane. She pressed her foot down on top of mine. My bestie’s warning was spot on. Encouraging Maybelle at this point was a bad idea.
“How are your grandkids? Do you have new pictures?” Sloane asked. A surefire way to get the older woman to shift gears was to bring up her family.
Five minutes later, after showing us the latest photos, Maybelle told us she had an appointment. I promised to pay for her coffee as a thank-you for the information. She accepted with a small grimace, then took her leave.
“What do you make of that? If she actually saw Matt taking Spade into the station, it has to be true, right?”
I scratched a mosquito bite on my arm. “Maybe. If he was in handcuffs, yes. I didn’t want to ask that question, though.”
Sloane nodded as she stabbed her fork at the remnants of her meal. “Good point. Too bad you can’t ask Jeanette about it.”
“True. But I don’t think I have to. Jeanette was with Matt, right? And this went down a couple of hours ago. The cops would be tight-lipped about the reason for bringing him in. That begs the question—”
“How did Maybelle find out?” Sloane smiled. “Someone leaked that info. Whoever did it knew it would get back to you.”
I clinked drink glasses with Sloane.
“It would appear I still have allies in the good old Rushing Creek PD.”
“Oh, come on. You always have and always will. I mean, I get why Matt wants you to stay out of this one. It can be really hard being the child of a troublesome parent. Especially when you have to clean up after them in public. You know his heart’s in the right place, right?”
“I do. And, as always, thank you for reminding me things aren’t as bleak as I think they are.”
Sloane had firsthand experience on this topic, after all. As the daughter of bestselling author and notorious drunk Thornwell Winchester, she’d spent more time than I could imagine fixing her dad’s screwups and apologizing for his misdeeds. She’d always borne that cross with grace and dignity, too. Such was the amazingness of my friend.
Matt had confided in me not so long ago that he hardly relished following his father’s footsteps in law enforcement. He’d tried to make the right choice by becoming a cop. When he became chief, he worked hard to end his father’s system of cronyism.
Like Sloane, he’d faced a lot of complaints about his father. Unlike Sloane, he’d also been forced to dodge barbs hurled at him from those who preferred his father’s penchant for selective justice.
To make amends for her father’s transgressions, Sloane had donated the real estate and the funding for a new community park. In a way, Matt was trying to make amends, too. I needed to salute him for stepping up and doing the right thing.
What I wouldn’t do was let him stop me from finding Valerie’s murderer.
Our conversation turned to more pleasant topics. On Sloane’s end, after months of effort, she’d finally trained Luke to separate whites from colors when doing the laundry. I, in turn, was able to give her a glowing report on the strides Calypso was making with the agency.
By the time we left the diner, after exchanging hugs with Big Al, of course, I felt good, centered. The case was headed in the right direction.
Some things were bothering me, though. Instead of heading home, I popped back into the diner for a slice of Big Al’s carrot cake, then pedaled to the library. I wasn’t above attempting to bribe my beau, after all.
Brent grinned when he looked up from the scanner as I entered the building. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“Do I need a reason for coming to visit you?” With the cake hidden behind my back, I got up on tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek. “And bring you this?”
His grin transformed into an ear-to-ear smile when I revealed my surprise. “Perfect timing. I was planning on taking a lunch break in a few minutes.”
“Then let me join you while you dine.” I sauntered toward the library’s break room. There was no need to tell him I wanted to discuss the case until he’d devoured the carrot cake.
While he ate, Brent filled me in on his previous evening’s exploits. It bored me to tears. I had tried, really tried, to become interested in his role-playing board games. It didn’t matter, none of them could hold my attention.
But I deeply cared for my guy, so I used my active listening skills until he finished. When he asked me about my day, I seized the opening.
“I wanted to run some things by you. About the case.” I left it at that. Our positions on the matter were as solid as the walls surrounding us. Hopefully, he’d see my request as an olive branch, of sorts.
He tapped a plastic fork on the edge of the paper plate where a few of the cake crumbs remained. After what seemed like hours, he crumpled up the plate and tossed it into a nearby trash can. He dropped the fork into a gray and black lunch box.
When he’d zipped the container closed, he let out a long breath. “Against my better judgment, tell me what’s on your mind.”
I filled him in on my trip with Sloane and the news from Maybelle. When I finished, I started pacing around the room.
“The thing is, I don’t think Spade’s the guy.”
Brent raised an eyebrow. “The chief isn’t known for rash decisions. Seems to me, if he brought Mr. Spade in, he must have a good reason for it.”
“Sure. And believe me, I’m glad the police found the rope and connected it to Valerie.” I didn’t mention that I was the one who found the rope first. It seemed smarter to refrain from poking that hornets’ nest.
“Here’s my quandary. Ronald Spade didn’t live at the trailer at the time of Valerie’s disappearance. He had his own place. So, how did the rope end up there?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Maybe he got rid of the rope he used to kill her. Then, sometime later, he remembered he didn’t use it all and panicked. Without thinking, he hid the rest instead of tossing it in a lake. I mean, the guy doesn’t strike me as the sharpest tool in the shed.”
I nodded. “Could be. But hiding it there put his mom at risk. What if the police had found it back then? Would they have believed her if she claimed she didn’t know anything about it?”
“The police weren’t trying very hard, though, right? What’s your alternative?” The question wasn’t merely a sarcastic retort. It was Brent’s way of prodding my thought process along.
Running the pad of my thumb across my fingertips, I puzzled over the missing pieces to the mystery. When another piece clicked into place, I snapped my fingers.
“What if someone else, the real murderer, hid the rope there?”
“To frame Spade’s mom?” He shook his head
“Yeah. That does seem like a stretch. But what if the murderer had kept that section of rope around, hiding in plain sight, waiting for the right time to get rid of it. Then, when Spade got out of jail, he moved in with his mom since he was a registered sex offender. It’s the only alternative he had. That’s when the murderer hid the rope under the trailer.”
Brent poured us each a cup of coffee, apparently warming to the subject. He often told me part of the enjoyment he got out of gaming was the problem-solving aspect of a campaign. This was proving to be another opportunity for him to practice the discipline.
“If we go with that premise, then why did the murderer keep the rope in the first place? It seems to me it would have made more sense to get rid of all of it at the time of the murder. I mean, whoever killed Valerie couldn’t have known for certain the body would never be found.”
It was a good point. I sipped the aromatic dark roast as my mind turned puzzle pieces left and right, this way and that, until I found a fit.
“The murderer couldn’t get rid of all the rope because someone might have noticed if it was gone. So, the unused portion was left in plain sight. Then, over time, Valerie’s disappearance became a sad story in the history of Rushing Creek. Most people moved on. When Spade was released from prison, the murderer saw his chance to snip the final loose thread and stashed the rope under the trailer.”
“And the rope, which might have been noticed had it gone missing at the time of Valerie’s disappearance, got moved without anyone being any the wiser.” He shook his head.
“And if Valerie’s remains were ever discovered, the rope used to strangle her now happened to match the rope hidden under a convicted sex offender’s home.”
“Wow, that’s devious.”
“And possible? Plausible, maybe?” My heart was pounding as if I’d just pedaled two miles at full speed. My senses were tingling in anticipation as I awaited Brent’s response.
He rubbed his chin, then cleaned his glasses. Time seemed to stop while I waited.
“I’ll give you definitely possible, getting close to plausible. If you’re right, though, you know what you need to do.”
“Yep.” I thanked Brent with a long kiss that hopefully left him a little dazed, then hustled out of the library.
His version of what I needed to do and my version of what I needed to do were two vastly different things. Hopefully, my version would turn out to be the right one.
Chapter Eighteen
I dashed home and, after a stop to feed Ursi, headed for the shower. It was a place I could relax, both body and mind. Often, as the hot water cascaded down from above and created a steamy mini sauna, my mind would open itself up to solutions I’d not considered before.
As I massaged my scalp with tea tree shampoo, the pieces of information I’d gleaned throughout the day morphed into a coherent narrative.
Valerie’s murderer was most likely a former Rushing Creek baseball player. It also seemed unlikely that the murderer had kidnapped and held her hostage before committing the brutal final act. If my reasoning was correct about the first points, she must have been murdered a few months after her disappearance. That meant she went somewhere, into hiding perhaps, for a few months.
By the time I was finished showering, I was left with a question.
Why did she choose to leave when she did?
I fetched Valerie’s diary from her box of things. When I’d reviewed it before, I’d been operating on the assumption she left because she was unhappy with her home life. If there had been a specific reason for why she took off that Christmas Eve, she may have left some hints I’d missed before.
“We’re getting there, girl.” I patted a spot on the couch, inviting Ursi to join me, and opened the diary. It was time for some serious reading between the lines.
Ninety minutes later, I read the final entry. I wiped a tear from my eye as I closed the diary. The words told the story of a young woman in great pain. She had ambition but felt shackled by her circumstances. She was smart but saw no way to put her brains to use. She craved independence but had been browbeaten into fearing her own shadow.
The poor girl. Regardless of whether she was pregnant, I could totally empathize with her feeling that she was backed into a corner. With nowhere to turn and nobody to lean on, she struck out on her own.
I ran my fingers up and down Ursi’s spine as I thought things over. The cat’s purring instinctively soothed me. Which generated another idea.
Among other things, Valerie had written a number of poems in her diary. They were well-crafted and quite moving. She’d also jotted down what appeared to be song lyrics. More often than not, the words conveyed a dark, unhappy mood.
Every now and then, she made lists of names, presumably people in a study group. I made a mental note to cross-check the names with her classmates. If they were in her diary, they must have mattered to her in some way.
She’d also written a lengthy entry about attending a bonfire after a Rushing Creek football game. In my hometown, high school football and bonfires went together like peas and carrots. In a tradition that went back at least fifty years, a Rushing Creek senior hosted a bonfire after each of the team’s home games.
While the school never sponsored the events, no doubt due to concerns about drinking and other illicit behavior, they were woven into the fabric of high school life as much as Homecoming and Senior Prom. Sloane and I had attended a few of the bonfires. Thanks to the recently departed Georgie Alonso, I didn’t have fond memories of them.
But the entry in Valerie’s notebook read like a fond memory.
Ursi was kneading my thigh with her front paws. “Hold that thought, girl.” After a moment, she stopped. I’d learned the hard way the value in warning her before moving. Even when they were trimmed, her claws could pierce the skin with minimal effort.
I set her next to me and dug Valerie’s senior yearbook out of the box. The bonfire tradition was so important, a few photos were always included in the fall semester social activities.
During a previous review of the yearbook, I’d come across a two-page section devoted to Valerie. If there was photographic evidence of her attending a bonfire, it might be included there.
With a methodical patience that would make Hercule Poirot proud, I flipped through the pages, taking a moment to scan each one. Eventually, I found what I was looking for.
Yes.
With that familiar fire in my belly returning, I gazed at the result of my efforts, a black-and-white photo in one corner of the page. The caption below it indicated the shot had been taken at a bonfire the last weekend of August. Valerie was arm in arm with her fellow Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse, grinning at the camera as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
My fingers traced the image of Valerie’s brow. The sad, lonely girl of her notebook was nowhere to be seen.
“What happened to you that night, Valerie?”
The image didn’t answer that but generated another idea. What if the event in the photo was the same one mentioned in the diary? More to the point, what if Valerie hooked up with someone and got pregnant that night?
I did some quick math. If she got pregnant in late August, she likely would have been aware of her condition around Halloween. At Thanksgiving, she may have been trying to keep her condition to herself. Thus, her reaction when Bobcat hit on her. By the end of December, the signs of pregnancy would have become harder to conceal with each passing day.
Her condition would go a long way in explaining why she disappeared. She was pregnant and decided to leave town. I set aside the question of where she went to keep focused on the timing.
According to Connie, Valerie was seven months pregnant when she died. If she was four months pregnant at the end of December, that would put the time of the murder around the end of March.
I dashed to the kitchen. I kept a copy of the school calendar on my fridge. It helped me keep track of the twins’ breaks. During those weeks, I helped Mom watch the kiddos on days Matt and Rachel couldn’t get away from work. I ran my finger through the calendar until I came to late March. An entire week was blocked off in gray, indicating school was closed.
Spring break.
A theory as sharp as a professional photograph taken at Brown County Photo Studios came into focus. I wasn’t ready to share it with human ears, so I searched for Ursi until I found her curled up in the center of my bed. She opened an eye and yawned when I sat next to her.
“Sorry to bug you, but hear me out.” I dropped a kitty treat between her front paws to entice her to pay attention.
“Valerie goes to a bonfire, parties it up, and ends the night hooking up with some guy. A couple of months later, boom, she finds out she’s pregnant. By Christmas, since she was beginning to show, she panics and takes off before her secret’s discovered. She goes to a family planning clinic in Indianapolis. At some point, she decides to keep the baby. She uses the money she’d saved up to hide out in Indy until spring break. She returns to Rushing Creek and confronts the father. Things get out of hand. He kills her, stuffs her in an equipment bag he has on hand and goes to the forest to get rid of the body.”
Ursi gave me a long look. Her stare, with those amazing golden eyes, held me transfixed. After a moment, she blinked once, then curled up and went back to sleep.
“I’m glad you agree. That rules out Spade once and for all. The killer kept the unused rope and planted it to frame him later. That’s some diabolical behavior going on there, girl. Thanks.”
I kissed Ursi on the head and dropped another treat in front of her. My search was narrowing. It was time to blaze a new trail and focus on athletes.
After some time going back and forth between the bonfire photos in the yearbook and my list of baseball players, I had a pared-down group of suspects. There was more digging to be done, though. For starters, there could have been more baseball players at the bonfire than I could glean from the yearbook. Luke could help me with that.
I snapped my fingers as another idea came to mind.
I needed to pay Ted Borus another visit. Besides being a baseball player, he was a big wheel of his class. He could probably tell me the name of every person who attended the bonfire in question, including whether the memory-impaired Bobcat had been in attendance. And then there was Dak. I could ask him about the status of his relationship with Valerie at the time.
With a feeling of intense satisfaction I’d not yet experienced on this case, I closed my notebook, grabbed my keys, and headed upstairs. I was in the mood to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
I knocked on the door to my assistant’s apartment. It was convenient having a coworker, and someone I enjoyed spending time with, living so close by.
“Calypso? You home?” I waited a moment. “Dinner at Marinara’s is on me tonight.”
A shuffling sound came from the other side of the aged pine door. The young woman had told me she rarely had visitors and she was fine with that. It did tend to make her leery of opening the door when someone knocked, though.
“Did I hear the words dinner and Marinara’s?” The door opened a crack. A sliver of Calypso appeared in the opening.
“You did. As well as on me.” I glanced at my watch. “This exclusive offer expires in thirty seconds.”
She ran her fingers through her hair as she opened the door all the way. Her ever-present black eyeliner was missing, which was odd. The fact that there were natural dark circles under her eyes was cause for concern. The rumpled T-shirt and frayed sweatpants she had on had me flat-out worried.
“Are you feeling okay?”
The apartment was spartan in its furnishings. Even with the dearth of furniture, it looked like a tornado had just torn through. A load of unfolded laundry was piled up in one of the two director’s chairs. A stack of “Justice for Valerie” signs leaned against the other one. Papers of all sorts were strewn over a square metal coffee table and had spilled onto the hardwood floor.
The haphazard condition wasn’t like Calypso. While she was quite the enigma personality-wise, there was no doubt about one thing—she was organized and tidy.
“Sorry about the mess. I was up all night working on another protest. Guess I crashed and burned.” She scooped a blanket off the futon. “Take a load off while I get cleaned up.”
With the sound of Calypso’s shower in the background, I studied the documents. Page upon page featured Valerie’s senior class photo, along with a phone number people could call to report information about her.
It was a different number than the one the police had set up.
My shoulders drooped. It wasn’t surprising that Connie wouldn’t trust the hotline the police had set up. It was still heartbreaking, though. How much anger at and mistrust for the police must the woman have that she wanted people to send information to a source other than the authorities?
Enough for her to ask me instead of the police to solve Valerie’s murder.
I was studying the agenda for the upcoming protest when Calypso emerged from her bedroom. She was wearing a tank top featuring the logo of the seminal punk band Black Flag, black jeans, and her signature black boots.
“The Angel of Darkness returns.” Calypso gave me a mock curtsey, then grabbed a black canvas messenger bag. “Let’s do this thing. Now that I’m awake, I’m hangry.”
With the sun low on the western horizon, the sky had taken on the shade of rosé wine. A steady breeze had pushed out the heavy humidity from earlier in the day.
The conditions made for a pleasant stroll to the restaurant. They were also reflective of my mood.
I’d made a ton of progress on the case. Enough that I could plan on spending Sunday afternoon on work, then try to get together with Brent for dinner. Having a plan was empowering. Rachel liked to pull my chain by commenting that my dedication to planning was a sign of me acting like an adult even though I was the size of a middle schooler.
She wasn’t off base. On either point.
The heavenly aroma of garlic breadsticks greeted us as the restaurant came into view. My mouth started watering the same time Calypso’s stomach rumbled.
“My sentiments exactly.” I chuckled as my companion’s cheeks turned a pale shade of pink. “An order of sticks for each of us, I assume.”
“For an appetizer. I haven’t eaten a thing all day.” She power walked ahead of me and held the door open. “After you. I mean, you are part owner, so that means you can get us a good table, right?”
I peeked inside. Every table was occupied. Then I glanced to my right. A new deck had been installed in recent weeks. A two-seater table was unoccupied.
“Take that. I’ll get us menus.”
While Calypso secured our table, I took a moment to chat with the hostess. She told me business had been going nonstop all day and that the vegetarian calzone was the special.
Satisfied that my duty as a silent partner was finished for the day, I joined Calypso.
“Thanks, Boss.” She took the menu I offered her. “I don’t want to get all mushy, but I know how much you like the Pub. I appreciate you choosing someplace different.”
I looked up from my menu. Calypso’s eyes were watery. On top of that, her hand trembled as she picked up her glass of water. Something was off.
“When I first moved to New York, I waited tables to help make ends meet. I totally get not wanting to hang out where you work.” I closed the menu and leaned toward her. “You’re not yourself today. What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t think it was that obvious.” She let out a ragged sigh as she wiped a tear from her cheek.
“It’s this whole Valerie Briggs thing. I’m not that much older now than she was then. After I met Connie, I wanted to do something to help, you know? So I got involved with the group that’s been protesting. I feel like I’m making a difference, but being constantly reminded of her death is so draining.”
I was given a reprieve from responding by the arrival of our server. The timing couldn’t have been better, since I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. When we’d given our orders and were alone again, I leaned back in my chair. I sensed Calypso needed to hear encouraging, supportive words, something from the heart. Suck it up wasn’t the right message.
“Everyone processes death in their own way. Some get angry. Others are moved to tears. And there are those who choose to keep things inside. To me, the important thing is to understand it’s okay to have feelings and express them in our own way. It’s what makes us human.”
The server returned with our breadsticks. Calypso inhaled them like she was a human vacuum. When she was finished, she wiped her hands and threw the napkin down with a grunt.
“How do you do it without ending up in a padded room?” She took a long drink of her water. “I mean, it’s not like investigating murders is your job or anything.”
The distraught young woman across from me was nothing like the confident, sarcastic one I knew. The discovery of Valerie’s remains had shaken her to the core. The arbitrary nature of how a life could be cut short in the time it took to turn the page of a book was a bitter lesson to learn.
The easy response would have been to talk about being thankful that mental health was a common concern in the twenty-first century. That wasn’t what she needed, though.
She needed honesty. The ugly truth with no protective screens attached. This was a moment Nessie and I had recently spoken about. I needed to be honest. Not only for my own sake, but for Calypso’s, too.
“I do it because I want to see justice done in the world.” Calypso opened her mouth, as if to protest, so I put my hand up. “I know it sounds lame, but it’s true. When I first started down this path, it was a gut reaction to help a friend.”
“And now?”
“It’s like the line in The Lord of The Rings. We can’t choose the times we live in. We can only choose what to do with that time. Someone needs to speak for the dead. Sometimes, that someone’s me. When that happens, I choose to do so.”
Calypso scratched her head. “Then why not become a cop? You could fight for truth, justice, and the American way every day.”
“No, I couldn’t. Not day in and day out. Jeanette and I have talked about this.” I left it at that.
The details of what my cop friend and I had discussed one night over a bottle of Riesling would forever stay between the two of us. It would have to suffice to say I had all the respect in the world for cops and the job they did when they did it right.
Our dinner, a supreme pizza, arrived. We spent the rest of the meal gushing over the fabulous spices in the sauce and the incredible garlic brush on the crust. After I paid the bill, I asked Calypso if there was anything else on her mind.
“No. I think I’ll call my mom when I get home. I haven’t talked to her in a while.”
I smiled. It was no secret that Calypso’s relationship with her parents was almost nonexistent. For her to attempt to open a line of communication was a good sign. Whether it succeeded was an issue for another day. What mattered to me was that she was making the effort.
She was trying to reach out before it was too late. If only Valerie had been given the chance to do the same.
Chapter Nineteen
The previous edition notwithstanding, Sunday morning was always a highlight of the week. It was just me and my mother. Brent wasn’t a churchgoer and Mom’s man friend—I couldn’t bring myself to call Pete her boyfriend—was a member of the local Lutheran congregation. We joked with him that he had the benefit of all the religion of us Catholics without the guilt.
Pete was a nice enough guy. After getting over some resentment that he wasn’t Dad, my sibs and I came around to welcome him with open arms. To be honest, I was the last to accept him. It was after a long, tearful heart-to-heart with Rachel.
She’d reminded me that Pete would never replace Dad. She also acknowledged how close Dad and I had been, both as family members and business colleagues. Everyone in the family understood his death had hit me harder than my sibs. But as harsh as it sounded, Rachel got me to accept that he was gone and nothing I did would bring him back. I owed it to Mom, and myself, to let him go. And to let Mom find happiness. It was her life, after all.
Our lives were too short to begrudge someone happiness when it arrived on their doorstep. I needed to remember that.
Father Edward’s homily had been about the power of forgiveness. He’d emphasized that, in the wake of Rushing Creek’s most recent tragedy, it was understandable that long-held anger and bitterness would surface. But holding on to those toxic feelings didn’t help anyone, especially Valerie.
He reminded us that forgiving Valerie’s murderer didn’t let the person off the hook. What it did do was allow us to let go of those negative emotions. It was an act of love we gave to ourselves.
They were comforting words. I had no doubt they would help a lot of the folks in the congregation. I wasn’t one of them.
Forgiveness would come after I brought Valerie’s killer to justice. For the time being, I would take solace in the belief that it would happen.
No, the knowledge that it would happen.
After Mass, we went to the Brown County Diner for brunch and our weekly catch-up. Between the time she spent with Pete, looking after the twins when needed, and her own job, Mom was busier than ever. I was looking forward to spending time talking about family and not thinking about the case.
“I heard you were at Marinara’s last night.” She stirred creamer into her coffee.
“Best breadsticks in town.” I told her about how pleased I was with the deck. “I’m confident it’ll pay dividends for years to come.”
“About that. I know you want to help, but when you go there, you should be there to enjoy yourself, not to check on the status of the operation. Rachel’s a smart businesswoman. That’s her job, not yours.”
“I know. I just want to be helpful. I want it to succeed.” Marinara’s previous owner had resorted to some illicit activities to keep the restaurant in business. My sister wouldn’t be doing that.
“Of course you do. The thing is, you’re getting a bit of a reputation among the staff there.”
“What kind of reputation?”
Mom suddenly found her breakfast potatoes fascinating. My scrambled eggs were suddenly unappetizing.
“Don’t shoot the messenger, okay? The staff’s gotten scared of you. The fact that you’re always questioning them about things makes them nervous, like you’re an undercover health inspector.”
For a second, I was stunned into silence. Then my cheeks began burning. “Holy cats. I thought I was being subtle. Merely trying to make conversation. I am such an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot. Well, maybe a little bit, in this case.” She gave my hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Rach can’t be at both places at once. I thought I was doing a good thing. Is that so wrong?” Lord, I sounded like such a whiner.
“Not at all. The thing is, your sister has her finger firmly on the pulse of the Rushing Creek restaurant scene. The deck you suggested? When she bought the place, she already had her eye on doing that. When you suggested it, she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to rain on your parade.”
“So, she doesn’t want my help.” I stuck out my lower lip. It was the classic pouty move I went to ever since I was little.
“Let me put it this way. How would you feel if Rachel or Luke started offering suggestions about how to run your agency?”
“I’d appreciate the thought, but it’s not like they know much about being a literary agent.” It took a second, but then my cheeks got warm again as the implication hit home.
Mom tried to hide a smirk by wiping her mouth with a napkin. At least she was kind enough to try to hide her reaction, even if the effort failed.
“It’s not that she doesn’t want your help and isn’t appreciative that you have money invested in the restaurant. She thinks everybody will feel better if you let go of the Undercover Boss approach when you’re there and simply enjoy yourself. I agree with her.”
Undercover Boss? Ouch!
I took my time chewing a forkful of eggs. It was a fair point about leaving the business to Rachel since she was the expert. One thing was odd, though.
“Why did she go to you? She could have talked to me easily enough. Telling me off’s always been a favorite pastime of hers.”
“She went to me because she didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” Mom let out a world-weary sigh. “She thought I’d do a better job of delivering the message than her. The two of you have come so far. She didn’t want to risk ruining that.” She took a drink of her coffee. “Did I?”
“I guess you did. Message received. I’ll dial back my snooping and leave everything to her.” I pointed a finger at Mom. “Unless I see something outrageous. Fair enough?”
We clinked coffee mugs and the conversation turned to Mom’s vacation plans. She wanted to go on a cruise but couldn’t decide between a Caribbean trip or a European river excursion. We were having a great time debating the pros and cons of each when Jeanette slipped into the space next to me.
“How are you this morning, Officer Wilkerson?” Mom asked our server for another coffee cup.
“Keeping busy.” She filled her cup to the brim and sook a sip. “Taking a little break, so I thought I’d drop in to say hi.”
We chatted for a bit before Mom addressed the elephant in the room.
“I heard you made an arrest in the Briggs case. Any truth to that?”
Jeanette stirred her coffee. “You know how it is with rumors, Janice. I can’t comment. Other than to say we do have a person of interest in the matter.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Mom straightened her shoulders and smiled. “I guess I’m hoping for a speedy resolution to this whole affair.”
“Completely understandable. The department wants that, too.” Jeanette kept her gaze focused on Mom, as if I wasn’t there. It was probably on purpose since I was on double secret probation with Matt.
“I can tell you one thing, though.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Allie gave us a tip related to DNA testing. I’m not at liberty to share anything else but wanted you both to know we appreciate the tip.”
My friend turned to me and looked me in the eye. “Thank you for that, Allie. We appreciate it.”
“No problem.” I would have preferred to respond with a sage or profound comment, but my mind was busy getting its exercise by jumping to conclusions.
In fewer than twenty-four hours, Jeanette had managed to feed me two key pieces of information about the case without communicating anything directly to me. She had to be the one who leaked the circumstances of Ronald Spade’s visit to the police station.
This second piece was even more critical to the investigation. They’d gotten a hit on the bloody bandage found with Valerie. This was a huge breakthrough.
Jeanette’s police radio squawked. She finished her coffee and got to her feet. “Duty calls. Great seeing you, Dr. Cobb. Talk to you soon, Allie.”
When she was gone, Mom raised her eyebrows. “While I love seeing your friends, didn’t some of the conversation strike you as a little odd?”
Good. She’d telegraphed her message clearly enough for me to interpret it, but not enough for a member of the public to do the same. I needed to keep the info close to the vest so nothing came back to my dear friend. A fancy dinner on me was in Jeanette’s future as payback as soon as I brought Valerie’s killer to justice.
“I think it was her way of making sure there aren’t any hard feelings since she can’t help me with case information like in the past.”
“I see. Well, that was kind of her to make the gesture. I like her. I’m glad you’re friends.” Mom nodded like the issue was closed and turned her attention back to her brunch.
When we were finished, Mom asked if I wanted to do some window shopping. A new art gallery featuring hand-blown glass had opened and she wanted to check it out. I begged off, claiming I had work to do, which was true. I just didn’t tell her the work was case-related, not agency-related.
As soon as I got back to the apartment, I called Connie to let her know I had some updates. She was free, so I told her I’d be there in twenty minutes. On my way out the door, I tossed Ursi a kitty treat and promised her we’d go for a walk as soon as I returned.
I had to be mindful of my roommate’s waistline, after all. Too many treats without exercise wasn’t good for her.
My client was waiting in the doorway as I rolled to a stop in front of her home. Her hands were clasped together in front of her chest, as if she’d been praying. If that’s what she’d been doing, I said my own little prayer that my report would give her some much-needed comfort.
And hope that justice wasn’t far off.
She poured me a glass of iced tea while I gave her a quick rundown of recent developments.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand all this DNA stuff you’re telling me.” She took the seat across from me. The ever-present dark circles were still under her eyes, but they weren’t as pronounced. Hopefully, it was a sign that, for the first time in years, there was hope in her life.
“I’m convinced the DNA from the bloody bandage they found in the bag didn’t match Valerie’s DNA. That means a couple of things. First, the sample couldn’t be Phil’s. Valerie would have shared about fifty percent of her DNA with him since she was his daughter. If the sample contained Phil’s DNA, Valerie’s DNA would have showed up, too.”
“Sweet Jesus, when they never found her, I became convinced Phil had killed her. How could I have been so wrong?” Connie covered her mouth with her hand as a tear ran down her face.
“You mustn’t blame yourself.” I gave her free hand a squeeze.
Her reaction reminded me of the self-recrimination I felt for not being by his side when Dad died. As deep as that pain had sliced into me, I could only imagine the pain the woman across from me must be confronting. I could totally empathize with it, though.
“We can’t change the past. We can use this information to change the future, though. Your husband’s name will be cleared, once and for all.”
A tiny voice in the back of my head said that until the killer was caught, a cloud of doubt would hover over Phil Briggs. While it was true, there was no way I was going to burden Connie with that issue.
She bit her lip, then took a drink of her tea. “You’re right. It will give me something good to tell Annette.”
“How is she coping with all of this?”
I hadn’t reached out to Valerie’s younger sister. My gut told me any contact from me would only make the situation worse for the woman. She had her reasons for leaving Rushing Creek and never coming back. I could respect that, so I decided I wouldn’t contact her unless I had no choice.
Hopefully, now that her father was in the clear, she’d be willing to return. Even if it was only for Valerie’s funeral, it could be the beginning of a long-overdue healing process.
Despite my cynical nature, I always had room for hope.
“It’s hard to know with her two thousand miles away. She’s happy her sister’s been found. We’re having a funeral on Friday. She’s coming in town for that. Some people are planning a public memorial on Saturday and we’ll be there, too. It would mean a lot if you joined us.”
Annette had been severely damaged, both literally and figuratively, while living in Rushing Creek. It was understandable that coming back would be hard for her. That was reason enough to double my resolve to catch Valerie’s killer.
“I’ll be there.”
“What about Ron Spade? Will they test his DNA?”
The thought of raining on Connie’s parade made my heart sink. I had to be honest with her, though.
“If his DNA is already in a government-supervised database, I’m sure the police will check to see if it matches the sample from the bandage, if they haven’t done so already.”
“He went to jail for molesting that girl. Wouldn’t they have taken some of his DNA then?”
It was a fair question. While I didn’t have the answer, I was pleased that Connie was processing what I was telling her.
“I would think so, but I don’t know for certain. If they have his DNA on file and it matches the sample they found, I’m sure they’ll arrest him. If they don’t have his DNA on file, the police can’t arrest him without probable cause. They also can’t make him give a DNA sample without the same.”
“So, you don’t think he did it.” Her tone was flat, like someone who’d lost too many battles to count and had lost yet another one.
“I don’t. This isn’t a bad thing, I promise. It’s like taking a captured chess piece off the board. My search is narrowing. I’m making progress and I’m going to keep digging until the job’s done.”
Connie forced a smile, but there was no heart in it. I got up and gave the poor woman a hug. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me in tight. Her tears dampened my shirt as I held her.
“Thank you, Allie.” She gulped a lungful of air as she wiped her eyes with a tissue. Then she chuckled. “I don’t know what else to say.”
I gave her forearm a friendly squeeze. “You don’t have to say anything. If you want, we can have a nice long chat over lunch when this is all finished. My treat. How about that?”
“I’d like that.”
“It’s a date, then.”
As we exchanged goodbyes, Connie smiled. This time her heart was in it. It was a pleasant smile that made her look years younger. Hopefully, I’d restored her faith in the world. Even a little bit would be okay.
That was more than enough to keep the search going until I restored it completely.
Chapter Twenty
Ursi was sitting by the door when I got home. She yowled at me before marching straight to her bowl. Then she fixed me with an unblinking stare.
“All right, already.” I refreshed her water bowl and gave her some diced turkey bits for dinner. “How you’re able to stare at me like that without having your eyes dry out is beyond me.”
She flicked one ear backward before her meal. I think that was her way of saying, “Whatever, Mom.”
While Ursi ate, I munched on a snack of celery sticks and peanut butter and updated my case notebook. When I finished, I sent Brent a text asking if I could bring him dinner. He replied almost immediately that he needed to ask for a rain check.
“It’s you and me tonight, girl.”
Ursi, who was in the midst of an after-dinner grooming session, gave me a quick glance, then returned to licking a foreleg.
“Ignore me at your peril, young lady. You may recall I promised you a walk. After you’ve finished making yourself gorgeous, of course.”
A little while later, Ursi led me down the stairs, but instead of waiting for me to push the door open, she turned left into Renee’s bookstore. Never one to turn down a chance to spend time in an all-time favorite location, I followed her lead.
And almost ran straight into Ozzy Metcalf. The sourpuss, who was one of the banes of my existence, almost dropped a stack of used paperbacks on Ursi.
“What’s this?” He sneered as he stared at me as if I was a piece of cat poo. “I thought you ran a respectable business, Renee, not an animal shelter.”
“I do.” She pointed to a sign posted next to the cash register. “All are welcome here. That means cats, too. Now, are you going to buy those books you’ve been carrying around all afternoon or are you just going to make me reshelve them?”
With a huff, he put them on the counter. Facedown.
Despite my better judgment, nosiness prevailed, and I peeked at the spines of his selections. I expected Zane Gray or Larry McMurtry. What I saw made me let out a low whistle.
“Kristan Higgins, Courtney Milan, Nora Roberts. I had you pegged as more of a Western or Thriller man, Ozzy.” I winked at Renee as I yanked the man’s chain.
“These are for Shirley. I thought you’d know that since you claim to be her friend.”
Shirley was Shirley Price, the owner of Soaps and Scents, the place where I purchased my aromatherapy products.
“Just because I don’t know what she likes to read doesn’t mean we aren’t buddies.” Maybe I’d taken the antagonistic approach too hard. I extended an olive branch. “Can’t deny those are some great choices you’ve got there. Amazing authors.”
“Milan is Shirley’s favorite and Roberts writes darn fine police procedurals as J. D. Robb.” He pointed a bony finger at me. “Not that you’d know anything about a writer of her stature.”
So much for my attempt at diplomacy. Then again, Ozzy and I were the human definition of oil and water. It hadn’t helped our relationship when I accused him of murder a while back. Without Shirley to run interference, the crotchety old Ozzy was back.
I opened my mouth to fire back with a witty retort, but something stopped me. It was an image of Connie after I told her Phil wasn’t Valerie’s murderer. The sorrow mixed with regret was like a punch to the kidney. It was too late for her to take back the things she’d said about her husband.
It wasn’t too late for me to be nice to Ozzy. There was no harm in it at all, as a matter of fact.
“I got to meet Nora at a book signing. She was so kind. I have an autographed copy of New York to Dallas I’d be happy to share.”
He stared at me for a moment, then rubbed his chin. “I haven’t read that one. Let me think about it.”
With a smile, I told him to contact me any time and strolled toward the children’s section. I hadn’t bought the twins any books in a month, which meant I was way overdue.
I was debating getting a Captain Underpants book for Tristan when someone nearby cleared their throat. I turned to find Ozzy standing there.
“I hear you’re sticking your nose where it shouldn’t be again.”
I chuckled. The man certainly had a way about him. “I don’t know that I’d put it that way, but yeah, I am.”
“The Briggs girl. I remember her. She liked to hang out at my shop and watch me work. She wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t a bad kid, either. Not like some of those rich kids from back in the day.”
Despite my cool feelings toward the man, there was no denying that Ozzy was a true woodworking artist. When tour buses came to town, the passengers would congregate at the front of Ye Olde Woodworker to watch Ozzy turn a nondescript block of maple into a stunning candlestick or jaw-dropping cardinal, the state bird of Indiana.
He wasn’t known for his patience with others, so if he let Valerie stick around, she’d earned the privilege. It was gratifying to hear someone say something nice about her, too.
The comment about the rich kids also piqued my interest. I was tempted to ask him who he was referring to, but I didn’t want to push the issue. It would be easy enough to confirm who were the better-off kids in Valerie’s class. And who among them would have been likely to want to hurt her.
“She wanted to be a social worker. Did you know that? She was going to help kids who were in bad spots like hers.”
“Thank you for telling me that. I’m doing everything I can to find out who killed her.”
“Good.” He looked down. Ursi was curled up at my feet. “You do that, and I’ll make you a carving of that cat of yours. It’s pretty.”
Too shocked to respond, I simply nodded as he walked away. A moment later, Renee appeared by my side.
“I heard your little exchange. Can you say surprised?”
“Totally.” I handed her two books, one for each of the twins, and asked her to save them for me. “Ozzy also said something intriguing about the case. I need to mull it over.”
Ursi and I made for the exit. While my feline companion wanted to enjoy the August sun and heat by sitting in every soft spot of grass we passed, I needed to walk to think.
With each step I took, I reviewed the time line in my head. If my assumption that Valerie returned to Rushing Creek to confront the father was correct, what exactly did that mean? Was it simply that by then she would be far enough along that her pregnancy couldn’t be denied? That seemed logical enough, but there was a puzzle piece missing.
Why, specifically, spring break week?
We made our way toward the high school. I was hoping that looking at it might provide me with a brain blast. The campus was quiet, which wasn’t surprising for a Sunday afternoon. As we ambled alongside the single-story brick-and-concrete structure, a repeating tink, tink, tink sound drew Ursi’s attention.
“I don’t know what it is, either. Lead the way.”
I followed her to the athletic fields. As we approached the baseball diamond, the source of the noise became evident. A group of boys were taking batting practice. It was the sound of an aluminum bat hitting a baseball.
Apparently satisfied that the mystery was solved, Ursi stopped by the outfield fence, plopped down, and began licking a paw.
While my companion groomed her gorgeous tortoiseshell coat, I watched the ball players. There were four of them—one pitcher, one batter, and two fielders. After the batter took ten or so swings, they rotated positions, so everyone got to take some swings.
During one break to gather the balls, a memory of Luke in his white and blue home uniform, playing on this same field, came to mind. He was in the outfield and a towering fly ball was hit in his direction. With a graceful ease, he loped to his right and caught it without breaking stride.
The crowd rose to its feet in a raucous cheer as he jogged to the dugout, flipping the ball toward the pitcher’s mound on his way. The memory made me smile. Even though I wasn’t much of a sports fan, it had always been fun watching my brother play ball in front of a cheering crowd.
Then it hit me.
The baseball team had a rule that the players weren’t allowed to leave town during spring break. While families went on vacations and seniors took off for Florida, Rushing Creek baseballers stayed home and worked out to make sure they met the required number of practices to start playing games.
Valerie’s return during spring break suddenly made perfect sense. The father was a baseball player.
No doubt about it.
She showed up so there would be fewer classmates around when she confronted him. In a frightful twist of fate, that must have also made it easier for him to dispose of her body without being detected.
Diabolical, indeed.
“Come on, girl. I want to look at something.” I gave a tiny pull on Ursi’s leash and we made as rapid of a return to the apartment as our short legs would allow.
The afternoon was getting on, but I was hot on the trail. Nothing else mattered. The three messages I’d received from authors over the course of the afternoon weren’t urgent, so I set them aside for Monday morning.
I opened my case notebook to the suspect list and pulled up the time line on my computer. Between the bonfire photos from the yearbook and the conversations I’d had with folks in the past week, I’d determined six baseball players had attended the relevant bonfire.
The murderer was one of those six. I knew it as well as I knew my own name.
As I studied the names of the ballplayers in question, my thoughts went back to the games I attended in high school. The final scores didn’t matter to me. I was interested in the atmosphere surrounding those contests.
Students, and often the community at large, loved the varsity athletes. The star football and basketball players were worshipped by some as gods, but it was different with the baseball team.
Even with Bobcat no longer part of the program, the team that took to the diamond for Rushing Creek High School Valerie’s senior year was good. It was so good it won the conference tournament and reached the state finals. The baseball team had something no other team at the school had.
It had respect.
People rooted for the other teams, both boys and girls. But, across the board, the Rushing Creek Ramblers came up short on the scoreboard more often than not. Because of that, the games were social events as much as anything.
Not with the varsity baseball team.
The results on the scoreboard mattered. The bleachers were full every home game. And local boosters made sure the team lacked for nothing, from matching cleats to the latest in protective eyewear.
Yes, the baseball players were the type of kid Ozzy mentioned.
So, where did this leave me?
Six young men. Six entitled athletes. They all attended the bonfire. They all had an equipment bag like the one Valerie was stuffed into. I was now faced with one unanswered question.
Who had access to the rope used in the murder?
Once I figured that out, I’d have the killer. Unfortunately, answering that question would have to wait. My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen. My finger hovered over the Answer key as I debated whether I was safe taking a call from a stranger.
I pressed accept.
“Hi. I’m trying to reach Allie Cobb. I have information for her about Valerie Briggs.”
Chapter Twenty-one
I stared at the phone, unable to decide what to do next. Part of me, the paranoid one, wanted to hang up, assuming the person on the other end of the line was a prank caller. Another part of me, the sensible one, wanted to refer the caller to the tip line the police had set up. The third part, the curious one, couldn’t resist the temptation of information.
“This is Allie. How can I help you?”
“This is Star Rockwell. A friend of mine said you might want to talk to me.” There was a pause. “About Valerie.”
Boomer had been true to his word and passed my message along. I couldn’t say yes to meeting Star fast enough.
Ten minutes later, I was shaking hands with a woman not much taller than me. Her brown hair was styled in a bob that called to mind the inimitable Phryne Fisher. She had an easy smile, but her dark chocolate eyes had an unmistakable sharpness to them. Nothing got by this woman.
“Thanks for meeting with me. It’s nice to know someone is taking Valerie’s murder seriously.”
We were in the park across the street from the library. She gestured for me to join her on a bench under the shade of a sweetgum tree.
“V-Blade loved this place. The four of us hung out here a lot. The less time she had to spend at home, the better.”
“V-Blade?” I’d not heard Valerie referred to that way.
Star chuckled. “It was her official Four Horsewomen nickname. We all had them. It was our way to be cool and separate ourselves from everyone else. We took our initials and added a weapon. I was S-Rocket. Looking back, it was pretty juvenile.”
“Not at all. It’s cool to me. I imagine it was a way to make your years growing up a little less lonely. In fact, I wish my bestie Sloane Winchester and I had come up with nicknames for each other like that.”
We chatted for a few minutes, mostly about the trials and tribulations of growing up in Rushing Creek. I sensed Star was feeling me out, like Ursi the first time she met Brent’s pup Sammy. Since she didn’t know me, she was being cautious; no doubt she wanted to determine if I was trustworthy.
I couldn’t blame her. I was doing the same thing.
Eventually, she decided to broach the subject by asking how the investigation was going. I told her I was making progress but still had a way to go.
“Do you have any suspects?” She eyed me like a skittish cat.
“A few.” I didn’t want to risk jeopardizing the investigation by sharing too much information, but I could throw her a bone. “Ron Spade isn’t among them.”
“That’s good. I mean, the guy’s a creep, but he wouldn’t have laid a hand on V-Blade. He knew not to cross the Four Horsewomen.”
“Unlike Cecil Burgess.” It was a calculated shot. I didn’t want to injure the woman, but she was the one who contacted me.
She stared at the grass. “Yeah, exactly.”
“I’m so sorry he hurt you.” I put my hand on her arm to attempt to reassure her. I wasn’t here to expose long-hidden scars. I just wanted to find out who murdered her friend and bring that person to justice.
“For a while, I was sorry, too. Not for a long time, though. The Four Horsewomen taught me it wasn’t my fault. He was the criminal, even if nobody ever believed me.”
“Do you think he might have had anything to do with Valerie’s death?”
She shrugged. “I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. I just don’t see it. Not after Ava cornered him at school and threatened to shiv him if he tried to touch any of us again.”
I let out a laugh. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. Then again, I understand Ava’s a chef. I guess she’d know how to shiv someone.”
“That’s why she was the one who made the threat.” Star smiled for a moment, then turned serious. “Speaking of threats, I heard you got run off the road the other day. Do you think it was connected to your investigation?”
Despite my previous admonition to Calypso, absolute candor seemed to be the way to go with Star.
“At the risk of sounding paranoid, yes.” I told her about the crash and the associated injuries. “The problem is I only got a quick look at the motorcycle. It wasn’t enough to get a good ID.”
Star played with one of her earrings, apparently deep in thought. “Where did you say this happened?”
I told her. “I’d gone to see Bobcat, then Connie, and was on my way home.”
“That dirty, rotten . . .” She shot to her feet. “I have an idea who ran you down. Come on.”
I followed Star to her car, a silver Honda Hybrid. Small and fuel-efficient, it was the kind of vehicle I’d own if I had to have one. Not that I had plans on getting one any time soon. Still, it couldn’t hurt to keep an open mind.
“Where are we going?” In a moment of panic, I had visions of Star driving into a field, confessing that she was Valerie’s murderer, and then ending my life.
My vivid imagination was invaluable in my life as a literary agent. It was less so in times when irrational fear had me wrapped up in its clutches.
“You said you were coming back into town on Redbud Road, right?” She gave me a quick look as we headed out of the parking lot. At my nod, her brows narrowed. “Just a little while after paying a visit to Cecil. That’s no coincidence. We’re going to pay him another one.”
I held on for dear life as Star barreled through town, turning the steering wheel left and right like she was at the helm of a video game. A guy with short hair and a bushy beard gave her a one-fingered salute in response to her leaning on her horn when he didn’t get out of the street fast enough.
“Do you always drive like this?”
“Like someone out of a Mad Max movie, you mean?” She laughed. “Nah, only when I’m on a mission. Like we are now.”
She shouted at a pair of bicyclists to stay in the bike lane as she swerved around them, barely avoiding a head-on collision with a delivery truck.
I gritted my teeth and held on for dear life as the tires squealed in protest to her yanking the steering wheel to get us onto Redbud Road without slowing down. I also promised to drop an extra donation into the collection tin at Mass on Sunday if I survived this trip.
A few terror-filled minutes later, we whipped into the recreation park’s parking lot, skidding to a stop mere inches from the office building.
“Woohoo! That was fun.” Star bumped my arm with her elbow. “Swear to God, when the kids are in the car, I use my turn signals and never exceed the speed limit. Now, let’s get some answers.”
She leapt from the car and had her hand on the office door handle by the time I had unbuckled my seat belt. This woman was proving to be a force of nature. S-Rocket couldn’t be a more perfect nickname for her. By the time I got out of the car, her back was to the door.
“It’s locked and all the lights are off.” She pointed toward a black pickup truck in the far corner of the parking lot. “That’s Cecil’s, so he must be around here somewhere. Come on.”
We came upon him in a garage, tinkering with an ATV. Star didn’t bother knocking. She marched right up to him.
“We need to have a talk, Cecil.”
He straightened up, wiping his hands on an orange shop towel. His frown turned into an outright scowl when his gaze moved from Star to me.
“Long time no see. I’m afraid we’re closed, so you’ll need to come back tomorrow. I’ve got a big crowd coming in that I need to get ready for. You ladies have a nice evening.”
He lifted the vehicle’s engine cover, but Star put her hands on it and forced it closed. “No. She has questions. You have answers. You’re going to give them to this woman right now.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Yes, you do.” She picked up a wrench. “Let me put it this way. You tell Ms. Cobb what she wants to know and you and me are even. Got it?”
I held my breath as they stared at each other. Words weren’t needed. The realization that the stories about Bobcat assaulting Star were true, and that nothing had been done for the girl, was a punch to the solar plexus followed by a kick to the spine.
Over twenty years ago, that girl had been a victim of a sexual assault. Now, she was a woman who was offering the man who assaulted her a get-out-of-jail free card. All in exchange for information to help bring her friend’s murderer to justice.
When he didn’t respond, she threw the wrench at the ATV. It bounced off a fender and fell to the floor with a jarring clang.
“Fine. We’ll do it the hard way. Did you whack Allie when she was out on her bike the other day?”
“No. Absolutely not.” He dug his phone out of his pocket. “I don’t know what your problem is, but if you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the cops.”
Faster than a cobra could strike at unsuspecting prey, Star swiped Bobcat’s phone from his hand. The she dropped it down her shirt.
She was quickly becoming my hero.
“Let me rephrase my question.” She went to the corner of the garage and yanked on a tarp. Underneath was a black dirt bike. “Is this the bike you used in your attempt to murder that woman?”
“It’s not what you think.” He put his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t attempt to murder anyone.”
Star had Cecil in full retreat mode. It was delicious to see her knock him down a peg or ten.
“Fine. Have it your way. I have clothing that I’ve kept hidden for almost twenty-five years. I think it’s time I take them to the police. Come on, Allie. You can be my witness when I turn them in.”
She locked arms with me and guided us out of the garage. We’d gone twenty feet when Bobcat asked, no begged, us to stop.
Star kept her voice low so we couldn’t be overheard. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Allie. Thank you. Now, for V-Blade.”
We turned around.
“Well?” Star crossed her arms. “Start talking. I haven’t got all day.”
“Okay, yes, you’re right.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “It was me.”
“What do you mean, ‘It was me’?”
“I’m the one who hit you, Allie. I’m sorry.”
I lunged forward, but my arm was still interlocked with Star’s. She held me in place. It was a good thing, since right then I wanted to punch the man who could have killed me.
“Why did you hit her?”
“I don’t know. I panicked, I guess.” He locked gazes with me. “Your poking around freaked me out. I didn’t mean any serious harm. I just wanted to scare you into giving up your investigation.”
Star’s hold on me loosened. I took a single step forward. Any more and I would have torn into the man. And wouldn’t have regretted it for a second.
“Why did I freak you out? You told me you can’t remember anything from the time Valerie disappeared. Were you lying? What was so important that you thought it was a good idea to darn near put me in the hospital?”
Just like that, Star shot past me. Despite her size disadvantage, she grabbed Cecil by his shirt and shook him like he was a ragdoll. Then she practically dragged him back into the barn, shouting “What are you hiding?” the whole time.
I followed, unsure what, if anything, I should do. Witnessing twenty-three years’ worth of anger erupt like a volcano right before my eyes was shocking.
And I thought I’d seen it all.
She shoved him against the SUV. Then, with her chest heaving, she put her hands on her knees. “Spill it.”
“I took her to Indianapolis.” Bobcat shouted the words, as if his explanation would be more believable if it was made at maximum volume. That, or he didn’t want to give Star a reason to come near him again.
“I drove her there, all right? She said she had last-minute Christmas shopping to do. She offered me fifty bucks to drop her off at the Greenwood Mall.”
Star was still trying to catch her breath, so I marched up to him. I wanted to smack him for hiding the truth for so long, but there had been enough threats and violence. Instead, I waited until he looked me in the eyes.
“How was she supposed to get home. Did you offer her a ride back?”
He wiped his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. “I didn’t stick around. She said she was meeting some friends and would get a ride back with them.”
His story was as flimsy as a cheap, balsa wood toy airplane. There was a grain of plausibility in it, though. Assuming, of course, that he was telling the truth.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone this at the time? You know, when you could have made a difference? Like, saving her life.”
He dropped his head until his chin touched his chest. “The only person I cared about back then was me. She wanted a ride. I gave her one. She paid me. Our business was done. To be honest, I didn’t care what happened after that. That last thing I was going to do was draw attention to myself by telling people I’d given her a ride to Indy. If people started poking into my business, they’d have found things I didn’t want them to find.”
I was speechless. Utterly without words.
The thought of withholding information that could have helped the authorities find Valerie was unconscionable. Especially when that information could have prevented her murder.
“You’ve had twenty years to concoct your story. Why should we believe you? You were on the baseball team. For all we know that bag was yours.”
It was important to use we instead of me. Star’s stake in this showdown was as big as mine, if not bigger.
“Back then, I was a total dirtbag. I freely admit that. I don’t blame you for not believing me. Let me show you something.”
He rummaged around in a modular closet, tossing things aside until he found what he was looking for. “Here it is.”
With an air of resignation rather than victory, he tossed something at my feet.
It was a bag.
I ran my hand across the black nylon material. The Rushing Creek baseball logo was faded with age but still easy to read. Familiar, too. Connie had shown me a photo she took of the bag Valerie had been buried in. It matched the one in my hands.
“After I got kicked off the team, I threw it in my trunk and forgot about it. It was one of the few things that didn’t get destroyed in the crash. I took that as a sign and kept it.”
“What do you think, Star?” I held out the bag to her. “Should we believe him?”
“I’m guilty of a lot of things. A lot of bad things.” He held his hands out in a pleading gesture. “But I’m not a murderer. All I can do is ask you to believe me.”
Star’s gaze went from the bag to Bobcat to me. When we made eye contact, her upper lip began to tremble.
“We’re done here, Allie. Let’s go.” She marched out of the barn without waiting for me.
“This isn’t over.” I tossed the bag to its owner. Maybe it exonerated him. Maybe it didn’t. That was a determination to be made at another time.
Star was in the car by the time I caught up. Her face was in her hands and she was shaking like a leaf in an autumn breeze. The poor woman. Years ago, she’d been traumatized, and today she’d had to live that trauma all over again.
I tried to get into the car without disturbing her. When she looked at me, her tearstained cheeks made my heart ache.
“I’m so sorry.”
She smiled and let out a little laugh. “Don’t be. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become such a crier. These are tears of relief, I think. I’ve been waiting so long to confront that monster. God, it feels good to have finally done it. Thank you.”
Her reaction had me puzzled, yet pleased, too. If I’d helped her, in even the smallest way, deal with some of the emotions she’d kept bottled up all these years, our meeting had been totally worth it.
“You’ve been a huge help. The least I can do is buy you a drink. What do you say?”
“I’d like that. And while you’re at it, maybe you can tell me how I can help you catch V-Blade’s killer.”
“Deal.” As we headed out of the parking lot, I closed my eyes and sent a message to Valerie’s murderer.
I’m still coming for you. And I’m getting closer.
Chapter Twenty-two
The moment my alarm went off to Grace Potter’s soul-tinged rocker “Back to You,” I was out of bed, ready to attack the day. Normally, I liked to start my workweek with a cup of coffee while I read emails.
Not this Monday. And especially not after the mind-blowing events of the previous day.
While I had a murder to solve, my authors needed to come first. That meant getting agent work done. While the coffee brewed, I took a shower and plotted out my day. I had a lot of balls in the air and needed to focus to make sure none of them crashed to the ground and brought me down with them.
After a couple of hours emailing authors and editors about various manuscripts, I pushed away from my desk and gave myself a high five. One editor was taking a cozy mystery manuscript to her acquisitions committee later in the week. It wasn’t a guarantee an offer was forthcoming, but it was a super-positive sign, and a time to call it a day on a good note.
After lunch, I asked Ursi if she was up for a walk. She was curled up on my bed like a croissant and responded by giving me a wide yawn and flipping over to her other side.
“Guess I wore you out yesterday, huh?” When she ignored my question, I scratched the ruff of her neck for a minute, kissed her head, and headed for the door. It was time to collect the donations businesses had pledged, but not paid, last week.
And to cut down on my list of murder suspects.
After a weekend relatively free of humidity, as I stepped outside there was no doubt the dog days of August had returned. The air was like a wet blanket under an unforgiving sun. I took my time strolling down the Boulevard, trying to use as little energy as possible.
On days like this, I was thankful for not needing my bike. When I was on two feet, I could play vampire by dwelling in the shadows cast by the buildings on Rushing Creek’s main drag. My plan was to work my way down the shady side of the street, cross and come back the other way, then return to my starting point. With almost a dozen businesses to visit, it was going to be a long, hot slog.
The cause made it totally worth the sweat, though.
When I reached the south end of the Boulevard, I popped into Marinara’s for a drink to cool off. And act like a normal person and not a creepy Undercover Boss.
While I sipped an iced tea, I went through my fundraising materials. So far, I’d collected almost three hundred dollars and was only a quarter of the way through my labors. It was a much-needed reminder of how generous my community was.
Which made it even more upsetting to accept that one member of the community also murdered a young woman twenty years ago.
With that sobering thought in mind, I dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table and returned to the task at hand.
When I got to Borus Insurance, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Ted was one of my suspects, so this visit had taken on a new importance. Initially, my plan had been to drop off a receipt for the donation he’d made and show him a mockup of the promo materials with his company logo on them.
Now, while I did that, I also planned on doing some snooping.
I chatted with Felicia for a bit while Ted finished a call. During our conversation, I wandered over to the photo of the baseball team that included what I was now calling the Dirty Half Dozen. Next to it was Ted’s All-State plaque and a framed letter from Florida Coastal University offering him an athletic scholarship.
“What happened to him?” I returned to the receptionist desk. “If he was such a hot shot, how come he never made it to the pros?”
“Depends on who you ask.” She leaned across her desk and glanced toward Ted’s office. “Officially, he got hurt. Tore a ligament in his elbow or shoulder. The injury was career-ending.”
“What about unofficially?” Felicia wasn’t one to gossip, so she had my undivided attention. Whatever she had to say could be taken to the bank.
“Ted was a bit of a partier growing up. Still is, actually. But that’s beside the point. There’s been a rumor that while the injury was serious, it wasn’t in and of itself career-ending.”
“Then what ended it?”
“His drinking. He had a fondness for the bottle in high school, but evidently it got out of control when he was out from under the watchful eye of his parents.”
“Really.” I didn’t know what else to say. Accepting that Ted’s injury had ended his budding baseball career kept his golden boy reputation intact. To think something else, especially something so unsavory like alcohol abuse, was tantamount to heresy.
Ted interrupted my train of thought by joining us.
“What have you got for me, Allie?”
I nodded to Felicia, hoping she’d understand the gesture as a thank-you, and followed Ted to his office.
It was like Bilbo entering Smaug’s lair. A palpable sense of doom came over me as I eased myself into the seat across from the man.
He smiled. It was an easy gesture, almost hypnotic.
I shook my head. It was nothing of the sort. It was a salesman doing his thing. The man was harmless.
“Here are some mockups for your review.” I slid the artwork the committee had agreed upon toward him.
“Great. Let’s take a look.”
With an athleticism that age hadn’t diminished, he eased into his chair as he plucked a red pen from a holder on his desk. After a moment to study the mockup, he set to work with the pen.
I brushed aside my annoyance that he wanted to change the committee’s work. But he was our biggest donor. As the old saying went, rank hath its privileges.
Instead, I turned my attention to the photos behind him. My gaze drilled in on the shot of Ted and his wife on a boat. The image sent the gears in my mind into motion.
Ted looked up. “Something the matter?”
“No. I was admiring that picture of you and your wife. Looks like an amazing boat. Is it yours?”
“I wish. Between the maintenance they need, getting them in and out of the water, and winter storage, that’s more work than I want to take on. That boat belongs to a friend. You know that saying about pools, right?”
“The only thing better than owning a pool is having a friend who owns a pool.”
“Exactly.” He laughed. “The same can be said for boats.”
The man had a point. One of the fringe benefits Rachel enjoyed as owner of the Rushing Creek Public House was access to the indoor pool at the adjacent Rushing Creek Inn. She liked to take the twins there, especially during the winter, so they could burn off pent-up energy. Sleep was never a problem the night of a trip to the pool.
Ted returned the mockup to me. The changes he wanted weren’t drastic. The committee wouldn’t have any objections to them.
“I’ll get this to our art person and circle back with you.”
He escorted me to the door, but hesitated when he put his hand on the handle.
“I heard the police and mayor tried to put the kibosh on your investigation. Can I assume you’re still at it?”
“I am.” I locked my gaze on his. “Getting close.”
He didn’t flinch or look away. Instead, he winked. “What I wanted to hear. If I was Valerie’s killer, knowing you’re on the case would have me sweating bullets.”
“That’s the way I want it.”
When I finished my rounds, I popped over to Big Al’s to cool off with a Caesar salad and a giant glass of water. I texted Jack Rogers, the committee chair, to see if he was available to join me so I could give him a report.
Ten minutes later he walked through the doorway. He was a good-looking guy. Muscled without looking like a body builder. His confident stride and buzz cut were carryovers from his military service.
I liked Jack a lot. He was a teacher, and his genuine kindness and patience didn’t end when the bell rang to signal the end of the school day. If I didn’t have a beau, I wouldn’t say no if he asked me out.
“What’s the good word, Allie?” He slid into the booth space across from me. “I feel like a gangster, meeting all the way back here. You don’t want me to whack someone, do you?”
I tried a Godfather-style Italian accent. “You’ll know when I want you to make someone an offer they can’t refuse.”
He let out a loud belly laugh.
“Everything okay here?” Al asked as he placed a soft drink in front of Jack.
“No worries.” Jack took a sip of his drink and chuckled again. “Let’s just say that life as a mob boss isn’t exactly part of Allie’s skill set.”
Al and I exchanged a look. Given the dealings I’d had with Al’s brother Willie, who allegedly had deep connections to organized crime, there was little doubt between us I could hold my own against a group of goodfellas.
There was no need to put that belief to the test, though. Discretion being the better part of valor, and all that.
“I dunno. There’s more to Little Ms. Cobb than meets the eye. Watch yourself, Jack.” Al winked at me as he took my cup to refill it.
“Care to explain?” Jack’s eyes were wide. Al’s comment wasn’t what he’d expected. Not by a mile.
“I think not. A woman must have her secrets, after all. Now then, about today.”
At the end of my report, he raised his drink to me. “Amazing work. A month to go and the budget’s fully funded. If we continue to raise funds, maybe we can have the fireworks show people have asked about.”
“You’re okay with the changes Ted wants?”
“If we’d already sent this to the printer, I’d have a problem. The materials aren’t due to them until the end of the week, though. We’ll be fine.”
I let out a stress-releasing breath as I ran my fingers through my hair. It was reassuring to have the committee chair decide Ted’s changes weren’t a problem.
Jack’s phone buzzed. “I gotta get back to school for a department meeting. Anything else?”
“There is, actually.” I told him about my exchange with Ted regarding the boat.
“Huh, that’s weird.” He frowned. “That boat sounds like the one his folks own. They’ve had it for years. Why?”
“I was curious. As hot as this weather’s been, it’d be nice to spend some time on the water.”
“And you’re looking for that friend who owns a boat.” He nodded. “I get it. I’ve got a bass boat. If you want, I’d be happy to take you out on that. Not quite the same, I’ll admit, but it’s still a watercraft and I’m its intrepid captain.”
I cringed in response to the salute he snapped off. “I’ll let you know.”
Once I was alone, I called Officer Tommy Abbott.
“I need some help with something. Can you run a registration check to see if anyone in Ted Borus’s family owns a boat?”
“That’s an oddly random yet specific request. And something I can’t do without having a good reason.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to put him in a bad spot, but the information was critical.
“What if I told you checking that could lead to the arrest of Valerie’s murderer?”
There was silence on the line. I waited. Matt had taught me the value of holding one’s tongue during a conversation. If I opened my mouth, it could give Tommy an excuse to say no.
Jeanette had helped me enough. I didn’t want to go back to her. This was too important to the case. I needed him to say yes.
“So, should I treat this as a call from a tipster?” There was the familiar clicking of a computer keyboard in the background.
“An anonymous one. Like the one I heard you guys got last week. Since, you know, you guys have this investigation totally in hand.”
“And we appreciate the vote of confidence.” The clicking was replaced with the scratching of a pen on paper. “Hmm.”
The scratching continued. The excruciating wait dragged on for what seemed like centuries. There was more clicking and scratching until, at last, Tommy took a breath.
“It turns out Borus Senior’s owned a boat for twenty-five years. Of course, I know that since I’ve been on it a couple of times and not because you asked me to check any boat registries. I know Ted’s sister Molly. Didn’t know the boat’s been in the family for so long. The shape it’s in, they must take good care of it.”
And another piece of the puzzle dropped into place.
“Thanks, Tommy. If you ever want a freebie book, hit me up.”
I needed to talk things out with someone. It was Monday afternoon. Calypso would be starting her shift at the Pub. It was looking like I was going to have an early dinner.
I blew a kiss to Al as I breezed out the door. The man’s restaurant was turning into my main source for information exchange. For a moment I was horrified at the thought that I was like a drug dealer, working out of the last booth of a restaurant. Thankfully, instead of working in illegal controlled substances, I was working in information to solve crimes.
The secret lair of the Kickboxing Crusader.
Holy cats, Sloane would be in heaven if she ever got word of that thought.
At the Pub, Calypso directed me to a round two-seater table by the front bay window. It wasn’t ideal for a confidential discussion, but it was nice to enjoy the sunshine without being in the brutal heat. And it was her favorite table. I couldn’t begrudge the location since she was helping me.
“This must be serious, Boss. You don’t usually hunt me down like this.”
“Don’t worry, but I do need your help right now.” I told her about the photo in Ted’s office and then getting confirmation that his family owned a boat at the time Valerie was murdered.
“So what?” She shrugged. “Maybe that picture was taken on a friend’s boat.”
Sometimes the young woman’s attitude made me want to strangle her. This time, she was challenging me to think hard about what I was implying.
“Point taken. But what if I’m right? He didn’t say who owned it. Wouldn’t your normally say the picture was taken on so-and-so’s boat?”
“I would, but I don’t have any friends rich enough to own a luxury pleasure craft. Seems to me all you have is a picture on a shelf and confirmation Ted’s parents had a boat at the time.”
I was undeterred by her skepticism. It was making me think. It was helping me line up the remaining puzzle pieces.
“I also have proof he was at a party the same night as Valerie about seven months before she was murdered. Which may have been the night she got pregnant.”
She pulled at some spikes in her hair. “Now you have my attention. Proceed.”
Over the next five minutes, I laid out my theory. When I was finished, Calypso sat quietly for a few moments, her index finger tracing a circle someone had carved into the wooden tabletop.
“Your theory’s got merit. I’ll give you that. It’s not enough to take to the cops, though. What about the boyfriend, Dak? What if his family had a boat, too? Or the dude who crashed his car?”
I sat back, deterred but not defeated. She was right. All I had was a wild theory based upon a few random facts. When it came down to it, I still had three murder suspects.
“I guess I keep digging, then.”
“You could do that.” She got to her feet and smiled. “Or, you could do something like Agatha Christie loved to do. You know, have the main character host a meeting under the pretense of something else. When everyone is there, you tell a story that gets the murderer to freak out and confess.”
We laughed. My phone buzzed. It was a reminder that one of my authors had a new book coming out tomorrow. I looked at my calendar and had another laugh.
“When you’re right, you’re right, Calypso. I think I’ll do just that.”
Chapter Twenty-three
By the time I got home after my check-in with Calypso, my head was overflowing with permutations and scenarios. An intense sixty-minute kickboxing session helped work the accompanying nervous energy out of my system and slow down my thoughts. It wasn’t until I threw my last punch and kick combination that I’d worked out enough anxiety to call it a day.
After a soothing cool shower, I tumbled into bed and was asleep in seconds, with Ursi curled up at my feet. I was getting ever closer to my quarry. It wouldn’t be long now. I could feel it in my bones.
At some point, my furry roommate decided she needed food immediately or she’d die, because I was awoken by her walking all over me. She started at my feet, marched up one leg, over my arm, and came to a stop at my shoulder.
My efforts at ignoring her were fruitless. When I opened my eyes, she bopped her nose against mine and let out a little meh. We’d lived together long enough that, at this point, the battle was lost.
“All right. I live to serve.” I checked my phone and saw it was almost time to get up anyway, so I shuffled to the kitchen and topped off her bowl, which was far from empty. At least in human terms.
With my little princess busy munching on her dry kibble, I started some coffee, then fired up the laptop. Once java cleared the cobwebs, I found my head to be calm and clear. No grogginess. No stress-induced inability to focus. It was a sign of good things to come.
I hoped.
The first thing on my agenda was to post notifications on social media about the author’s new release. While I was comfortable turning bits of the agency’s social media’s responsibilities over to Calypso, it was important for me to be the one who posted good news like contracts, releases, and new clients to the agency chat group.
With that task complete, I spent the rest of the morning editing manuscripts. Due to the nature of my work, I didn’t read for pleasure as often as I liked. There were only so many hours in a day, unfortunately.
Editing my clients’ stories made up for it, though.
While I made my way through a chicken Caesar wrap at lunchtime, I had a new idea about the case. I sent Brent a text asking for another favor. It wasn’t a make-or-break piece of information, but it would help crossing some of the remaining suspects off the list.
He responded before I’d finished my dessert of applesauce and cottage cheese. The attachment he sent made me want to break out into song.
Gotcha.
My phone buzzed to remind me I had a counseling appointment in an hour. God love technology. I often wondered how my parents survived without it. With Brent’s report in hand, I gave Ursi a hug and grabbed my helmet.
I needed another chat with Dak.
Relief rolled through me as I turned into the grocery store’s parking lot. His truck was parked in the same spot as the other day. I wanted the element of surprise, so I came up with a couple of requests to throw him off-balance before I asked my million-dollar question.
“Hey, Dak.” I waved when he looked up from the meat slicer. “Can I get a half pound of thin-sliced turkey.”
“Coming up.” He placed a small pile of Brent’s favorite deli meat on the scale. When he had the right amount, he wrapped it up. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. I’m putting together a special meeting for the 9/11 Memorial committee and other interested parties for tomorrow evening. I could really use you there.”
“What do you need me for?”
“Two reasons. One, I’m going to make a special announcement about Valerie, and I’d like you there since you were her boyfriend. It’s a surprise, so keep it under your hat. Two, Ted’s going to be there, so it might give you a chance to hit him up for the help with the blues fest.”
“Thanks for thinking of me. I can make it if it’s after six.”
“Perfect. Give me your phone number. I’ll text you the info.” Once I had his contact info, I took the package. “Oh, one more thing. I was chatting with some folks over the weekend. Did your family ever own a boat back in the day?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, I was telling Luke the other day about how someday I want a boat. Nothing too fancy. Just something to get me out on the water and away from it all for a while. I’m thinking of something secondhand to save money. Luke was saying you guys had one, so I guess I’m wondering if you still have it and what maintenance is like.”
“We had a fishing boat with an old Evinrude outboard motor. My dad took us fishing a lot when we were younger. I don’t think that’s the kind of boat you’d want though. Not exactly designed for sunning yourself on the water.”
“Steer clear of fishing boats, Good to know.” In more ways than one. “Thanks. I’ll send you the invite.”
My business with Dak concluded, I pedaled to the library to present Brent with a thank-you gift.
“Hey, you. What did I do to deserve this?” Since nobody else was around, he opened the package right there on the checkout desk. “I was always taught to beware strangers bearing gifts.”
“I’m not a stranger.”
“Strange person, then.” He stuffed a handful of turkey into his mouth.
“Fair enough.” I’d been called many things in my life by many people, including Brent. I took being called strange as a compliment.
“I wanted to say thanks for the class list.” I showed him a screenshot of it. “You’re sure this roster is complete?”
“Yep.” He pointed to one name, then another. “That’s the grandmother and that’s the mom.”
That meant Cecil was in the clear. I was down to two. If I could get them at the meeting, I’d be set.
I thanked Brent with a kiss on the cheek and headed back outside. The temperature was in the nineties. Dark clouds were forming in the west. They were the kind of conditions that signaled a storm was brewing.
It would arrive today, tomorrow at the latest. When it did, it would hit with lightning, thunder, and torrential downpours. Stormy weather to accompany stormy times, indeed.
I took a moment to craft a message, then hit Send on my meeting invitation. Something told me the get-together would end up being as wild as the incoming weather.
The final appointment of the day was with my counselor. I was riddled with anxiety as I sat in the chair across from her. I was also in no mood to beat around the bush.
“I know who killed Valerie Briggs.”
Nessie tapped her pen on a yellow legal notepad. “I see we’re cutting to the chase today. Shall I call nine-one-one?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t have any proof.”
“If I’m not mistaken, one should have proof before accusing someone of something as serious as murder. Or has something changed since we last met?”
“Nothing’s changed. Just because I don’t have proof doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” My tone of voice had an edge on it sharp enough to slice through a fresh watermelon in a single stroke.
“There’s no need to get defensive. This is clearly important to you. I’m simply trying to make sure we’re on the same page.”
She was right. As my counselor, she deserved my honesty. At the same time, she was still a person. There was no need for me to be a jerk.
“My bad. I’m sorry. What’s making this case so hard is the police treating me like a bad cold. I’m not the bad guy. I’m trying to catch the bad buy.”
Despite doctor-patient confidentiality assurances, I thought it best to stop there. There was no need to chance throwing Tommy or Jeanette under the bus, even if it was unintentional.
“I’m sure the police don’t think you’re the bad buy. How about you give me a try? What has you frustrated?”
I needed a moment to compose my thoughts. This was a new experience, despite all the conversations I’d had with the friendly, helpful woman sitting across from me.
“Here’s my dilemma. How do I prove someone committed a murder twenty years ago when there’s no hard evidence?”
I took her through the case from start to finish. Not a detail was omitted. Connie’s case materials, my research, the photos, the rope, the DNA information. She took notes as I talked of narrowing the scope of my investigation down to two suspects.
“The answer’s right there. I can see it. Taste it. But it’s just out of reach.” I stretched my arm toward her, making sure my fingers were extended out as far as they could go. Then I let it fall to my side. I let out a little grunt of frustration as I did so.
“I gotta hand it to you, Allie. When it comes to facing moral dilemmas, you don’t mess around.” She laughed, then turned serious. “In all honesty, that’s quite the situation you’ve found yourself in.”
“I know, right? Everything about this case comes down to timing, and I’m twenty years late. No matter what I do, that’s one thing I can’t change.”
She poured us each a glass of water from a carafe. Then she took a drink. “I love the filtered water here in the office. The water at home doesn’t taste as good. I think it’s because of all the hard water particles.”
“You could always get a water softener.” Water in Indiana is notoriously hard. Going without a softener can lead to scale buildup that damages appliances and leaves one with itchy, dry skin, among other issues.
“You’re right. I had one for a while but hated the slimy way I felt in the shower. I never felt like I really got clean, so I got rid of it.” She took another drink.
There had to be a point to this. Nessie always had one. It was on me to let it ride and see where we ended up.
“My situation with the water softener reminds me of your current one. You want something to work, to fit together like pieces of a quilt. When you’re unable to sew them together, it’s aggravating.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Then let me ask you this. Why not step away from the thing that’s causing you so much stress? You said the police have the DNA sample. Seems to me that, with the sample, it’s not a matter of if but when they arrest Valerie’s murderer.”
Once again, I was faced with the million-dollar question. This time, I was ready with an answer.
“You know how this town is. People talk. Word’s going to spread about the DNA match. As soon as the killer finds out, he’ll be out of town before Matt Roberson and company has a chance to show up at this doorstop.”
“But one of your suspects runs his own business and the other has a good job at the grocery store. I’m not trying to be a naysayer, Allie, but I don’t see either of them leaving town any time soon.”
“Fine. Point to the shrink. A butcher’s skill is needed everywhere, though. Same for insurance agents. Either of them could come up with an excuse for moving that sounds plausible.”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“There’s a delightful Australian TV show called Mr. and Mrs. Murder. It’s fabulous. One of the recurring themes is that the police have rules they have to follow. The protagonists often ignore those rules in order to solve the murder before the bad guy can get away.”
“Okay.” She nodded, but her pursed lips indicated she’d lost the trail I was blazing. “So?”
“I’m going to play by my own set of rules and catch Valerie’s killer before he has a chance to escape from my grasp.”
On my way home, I made an unscheduled stop. It was an impulse decision. As I applied the brakes in front of Ye Olde Woodworker, I hoped it wasn’t a mistake.
Sawdust swirled around Ozzie as his chainsaw sliced through a log twelve inches thick like it was a hot knife through butter. I picked a spot by the entrance to his work area that I hoped would let me watch him work while not bugging him.
He sliced two more pieces from the log, like he was cutting pieces of bread from a giant-sized loaf. When he was finished, he put down the saw and wiped his brow with a blue shop towel.
“What do you want?” He grabbed a broom and swept the sawdust on the floor into a single pile. “Well? I haven’t got all day. I’m a working man.”
“Right. Sorry.” I took a step toward him and stopped. “I wanted to thank you for your kind words the other day about Ursula, my cat.”
“Ursula, huh? Ursula K. Le Guin was a darn fine writer. Now, you’re gonna tell me about the time you met her, right?”
He was engaging me instead of simply telling me to get lost. I took it as a good sign.
“I wish. My dad met her once though. He told me that story a dozen times, at least.”
“Your dad was a good man. He did a lot for this town.” He pointed his broom at me. “You’ve got big shoes to fill if you want to be like him.”
In the time that it would take to snap my fingers, my eyes welled up. In a weird way, the curmudgeon had praised my father at the highest level.
“I’ll never come close to filling his shoes, but I’ll try. I’ll get out of your hair, but I was wondering if I could ask you about something you said the other day.”
He took a dustpan off a hook and waved it toward him. “Fire away.”
“You mentioned Valerie wasn’t like the privileged kids. Would you consider Ted Borus or Dak Middleton privileged back then?”
“The Borus kid, sure. Then again, living under his daddy’s thumb made his life of luxury not so enjoyable, if you get my drift.”
“What about Dak?”
“He was always pushing the envelope. Trying to get away with things just to see if he could. Kind of like Bobcat in that way. He’s changed for the better. Still doesn’t cut enough fat from the T-bones I get at the store, though.”
I thanked Ozzy again and got out of there before his mood soured and he chased me off with the broom. Or worse, the chainsaw.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Tonight’s the night, huh?” Calypso scratched Ursi with one hand as she flipped to the next page of a manuscript she was editing with the other.
A little bit ago, my kitty and I had returned from her annual checkup with the vet. Her hip was sore from the rabies vaccination, which had her in a foul mood. She was punishing me by lavishing all her attention on Calypso.
“That it is. Dr. Flanagan clipped Ursi’s nails, cleaned her teeth, and gave her a clean bill of health. So, there’s nothing to distract me this evening.”
I sent the meeting agenda I’d been working on to the printer. We were going to have an official committee meeting. Even with the budget being fully funded, the committee had an opportunity to make the occasion even more memorable. I wasn’t interested in sitting on my laurels. The occasion was too important.
“Wish I could be there. It would be awesome to have my phone recording when things get crazy.”
A sigh escaped me. It was loud enough that Ursi pinned an ear back and gave me a disapproving look.
“What?” Calypso set the manuscript aside. “I’ve got a vested interest in this case. And I’ve helped you. You can’t deny that. I’m like Gray to your Dex.”
The Stumptown reference made me close my eyes and shake my head. But it also stopped an impending anxiety attack in its tracks. She did have a point, of sorts. She’d been a great help with the case. Having someone there who knew my plan couldn’t hurt.
“If you want to check with Rachel about picking up a shift this evening, be my guest. What you tell her is between you and her. Keep your lips sealed about what I’ve got planned, though. The fewer people who know, the better.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Wait a minute. You’re going to give the cops a heads-up, aren’t you? What if things get out of hand?”
I’d given the question a lot of thought. Regardless of how I looked at it, I came to the same conclusion.
The police had to be kept in the dark.
Calypso frowned when I explained my reasoning. After a minute, though, she reached for her phone.
“Since you’re a friend, my lips are sealed. I’ll figure out a way to be there. Something tells me you’re gonna need it.”
I hoped she was wrong on that point. The dark storm clouds that continued to build suggested she wasn’t.
A few hours later, I strode into the Pub’s private meeting room. With a messenger bag containing important materials over my shoulder and a new pair of chinos to go with a Cobb Literary Agency polo, I was striving for an all-business vibe.
If only I was as confident on the inside as I appeared on the outside.
“Looking good, Boss.” Calypso gave me a wink. “Can I get you something to drink while you wait for your meeting to start? Maybe something unorthodox with an arresting flavor that will take your breath away?”
Her words jarred me enough that I almost lost my step. Calypso evidently thought this was going to be fun and games. Like something out of an episode on an Acorn TV mystery. Simple, clean, and tied up with a happy-ending bow.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Iced tea. No sweetener, please.” I stared at her long enough that Kim Frye, the reporter from the Beacon, cleared her throat.
“Something wrong, Allie?” The ever-inquisitive reporter had her pen and notepad at the ready.
“Nah. Sometimes Calypso likes to yank my chain about how much caffeine I drink.” I chatted with Kim while the rest of the meeting’s invitees arrived.
When she asked me if the police had made any progress in locating the motorcyclist who hit me, I kept to the company line. It was a silly accident that I brought on myself by getting distracted. She didn’t seem convinced, but let it drop. For now, at least.
Jack and Dak arrived together. They were in the middle of an animated discussion about the latest baseball standings. They gave me a quick nod and took seats next to each other to continue their discussion.
I was seized by a moment of panic as my planned seating arrangements were suddenly at risk.
Just then, Ted walked in, dressed in a flawless suit and tie. I had told him the committee wanted to publicly acknowledge him for his support, so he’d dressed for the occasion. Kim had her camera handy. A photo op was in the cards.
Just not the type folks were planning on.
Other folks drifted in. Angela, Matt, the other committee members, and finally, Connie.
A murmur developed among the gathering. Why were Connie and Dak among us? I needed their presence for my plan to succeed, but they had no real part in the “official” meeting.
Once everyone had arrived, I asked them all for their attention.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. Before we get started, let’s give a warm welcome to special guests Connie Briggs and Dak Middleton.”
I led the group in a round of applause, then busied myself getting people seated where I wanted them. Dak and Ted needed to be next to each other, Matt nearest to the door, Connie and Mayor Angela by each other’s side.
While we were getting settled, Calypso entered the room to take drink orders. When she got to me, she leaned in close. “Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you, Boss?”
“There’s a method to my madness. Do me a favor and keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.” I forced a laugh. After having kept my voice low to prevent being overheard, I let it return to normal. “We’ll have an order of supreme nachos, potato skins, and fried veggies. Thanks.”
One of the things about Rushing Creek community meetings was that they are equal parts social and business. While people chatted, I distributed the agenda. Jack tugged on my arm when I got to him.
“Why are Dak and Connie here? I don’t recall discussing them yesterday.”
“We did, in a roundabout way. Their attendance will help us keep donations rolling in. Watch and learn, my friend.”
Calypso returned with refreshments. I took a long drink of my iced tea. I was going to need to be in good voice.
“I’ll turn the agenda over to Jack in a moment. Before I do that, I wanted to make an exciting announcement. The committee is thrilled to announce that we’ve met out budget for the 9/11 Memorial.”
The group responded with energetic applause. This was good. I wanted to put people in a happy frame of mind.
And, in the process, convince a murderer to let his guard down.
“I’ve asked Dak and Connie to join us to get their input on a proposal that’s been made to the committee. It was suggested we continue fundraising and that a certain percentage of what we collect from now until the day of the event be set aside to establish a fund in Valerie Briggs’s honor. Depending on how the fundraising goes, it could be anything from a memorial plaque somewhere to a scholarship awarded annually to a Rushing Creek High School student.”
Around the room, jaws dropped. Except for Kim’s. She was too busy taking notes.
“Connie, as Valerie’s mother, and Dak, as her boyfriend, we wanted you to be here for the announcement of this generous proposal. Any feedback you’d like to offer is appreciated.”
Angela spoke first. She was a smart woman who recognized an opportunity to get some easy, positive press.
“I think it’s an excellent idea.” She gave Connie’s hand a gentle squeeze. “While I’m sure nothing will ever ease the pain of losing your daughter, as mayor, I fully support this suggestion to keep her memory alive.”
The grieving mother wiped away a tear with her thumb. “Thank you all. I’d like that.”
“Borus Insurance will match any donations between now and then. Fifty cents on the dollar.” Ted adjusted his tie. “I’ll also talk to the treasurer from the class reunion committee. If there’s any money left from that, we’ll see if it can be directed to this fund.”
“Nice, man.” Dak gave Ted a friendly jab to the ribs. “I’m sure the grocery store can make a contribution, too.”
With positive vibes bouncing around the room, I turned the meeting over to Jack. The break would give me a chance to study the crowd.
Calypso delivered the appetizers as he brought the meeting to order. She gave me a long look. “Do you need anything else?”
“We’re good for now. Why don’t you check back in a bit?” I hesitated for a moment. “In case folks stick around after the meeting.”
“Will do.” She made her exit, without any snarky comments this time. Thank goodness.
I appreciated that Calypso wanted to help. Beneath her indifferent, tough-girl exterior was a young woman who wanted to make a difference.
Growing up, she’d been wounded by parents who didn’t understand her. Her move to Rushing Creek had been a symptom of that. Yet, in the few months she’d been my neighbor, that tough-as-steel exterior had begun to soften.
Her involvement in the protests for Valerie was a big sign that she cared about something more than herself and her aunt. Her presence here was another one.
Despite my earlier reservations, I was glad to have her as my wingman.
While Jack ran the meeting, I spent my energy observing my suspects. Dak and Ted both seemed completely at ease. To be fair, a lot of the meeting focused on promo, so the insurance agent was basking in a lot of goodwill.
It took an hour to get through the agenda. By the time Jack asked if there was any other new business, nobody had tipped their hand. Ted was busy on his phone while Dak munched away at a healthy serving of nachos.
“If there’s no further business, I’ll bring the meeting to a close. Thank you all for coming. And thanks to Allie for bringing the Valerie Briggs Memorial suggestion to us,” Jack said.
The scraping of a few chairs was my signal. Jack had served up my next move. There was no time to waste.
“Speaking of Valerie, can you give us an update on the investigation, Chief?”
In the blink of an eye, the room became as silent as a graveyard at midnight. All heads turned toward Matt.
He took a drink of water, then looked at Angela. At her nod, he cleared his throat and got to his feet.
Was it unfair to put the man on the spot like this? Probably. This was one of those moments when it was better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, though. Besides, he, and Angela for that matter, hadn’t even given me the chance to help them find Valerie’s murderer.
Connie had come to me for help. In answering her call, I was trying to be part of the solution. If Matt wanted to be angry with me, so be it. There were more important issues at play than bruised egos and hurt feelings.
Like apprehending a murderer who was sitting here among us.
“As I’m sure you can all appreciate, since this is an ongoing investigation, I can’t comment about any details. I can tell you we’re exploring a number of leads and are looking forward to solving this case as soon as possible.”
Kim raised her hand. “There are conflicting reports regarding Ronald Spade’s visit to the station this past weekend. Can you clarify whether he’s a suspect?”
“Like I said, I can’t comment about specifics other than to say he was asked to come to the station as a person of interest.”
“Do you have any suspects?” A bland nonanswer wasn’t going to deter the reporter. Rushing Creek was fortunate to have Kim Frye.
Matt opened his mouth but was cut off by Connie.
“When are you going to arrest someone for my daughter’s murder?”
I shot to my feet as a rumbling grew among the gathering. I’d pulled on all these strings. If I didn’t act fast, these people could get upset and leave and the whole thing would unravel like an old sweater. That was one thing I could not let happen.
“If we could all take a breath, folks, I have a suggestion.” I held out my hands like a teacher quieting a class until I had everyone’s attention. “We all want to know who took Valerie Briggs from us. It’s been a long wait. Too long.”
The room was filled with people making sounds of assent. The level of tension, which had been rising like a rocket, eased off a touch.
I was no longer assembling a puzzle. Now, I was playing chess, with the murderer as my opponent. I’d managed the preliminary moves like a pro. The next move was the most difficult one I’d make. My experience with words needed to be put to use perfectly, or things would blow up in my face.
“Hear me out, please. I think it’s important to understand something. Before an arrest can even be made, we need to understand the circumstances that led up to Valerie’s murder.”
“And who’s going to tell us that,” Dak asked with a snort.
“Me. It’s time for the world to know the truth.”
Chapter Twenty-five
The room erupted in a cacophony so loud Rachel rushed into the room to see if there was a medical emergency. Kim was shouting questions at me. Matt and Angela were gesturing like their hair was on fire as they exchanged words.
“People, please!” Jack banged on the table so hard the glassware shook. It did the trick, though, as everyone quieted down again.
Matt was the one who broke the renewed silence. “You’re way out of line, Allie. One more word and I’ll arrest you for interfering with a criminal investigation.”
“I’m afraid he’s right,” Angela said. “Now is not the time to be throwing allegations around. I know you mean well but—”
“Let her talk.” Connie’s tone cut through the room like a sword. “If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been told ‘Now is not the time’ over the last twenty years, I’d be a rich woman. I want to hear what she has to say.”
“Mrs. Briggs—”
“Save it, Roberson. She’s worked hard to find Valerie’s murderer. That’s more than your father ever did.”
Matt swallowed as his cheeks turned a shade so red, they could have ignited a piece of paper if it got too close. He wanted this to end. For the meeting to be over. To lead the horse back into the barn.
But it was too late for that. And he knew it.
At that moment, I felt sorry for him. He was a decent guy who’d admitted to me one time that he’d never planned on becoming Rushing Creek’s police chief. It was like the old Rolling Stones song, though. We didn’t always get what we want.
“Fine.” He wiped his hands.
“I want to go back to the August before Valerie disappeared.” I pulled Valerie’s yearbook from my bag. “Specifically, to the first football bonfire of the year. It was in late August. I’ll tell you why that matters soon.”
A pink sticky note marked the photo of Valerie at the bonfire. I flipped to it.
“Here’s proof Valerie was there that night. Of course, a lot of people were there. Ted was the host, so he was there. A bunch of other athletes were there too, like Dak. Even troublemakers like Cecil Burgess were there. We all know what the bonfires were like back then. The alcohol flowed as freely as the weed was burned and late-night rendezvous weren’t uncommon. Am I right?”
Heads nodded, some more reluctantly than others. The truth wasn’t always pretty.
“Let’s fast-forward to the day Valerie disappeared. It was about four months after this party.” I pointed at the black-and-white image of a smiling Valerie.
“We know she called Dak. He was out hunting, so she left a message, asking to borrow his car. By the time he got to Valerie’s house, she was already gone. Apparently, that was the last anyone heard from her. Or so everyone thought.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Matt was chomping down on a piece of gum so hard his jaw appeared to be in danger of snapping. He had his notebook open, though.
“When her remains were discovered, a business card was found on her person. It had an Indianapolis address. How’d she get there? Cecil gave her a ride. He kept quiet about it because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. The business card? It was from a family planning clinic.”
There was a collective gasp as understanding dawned on the group.
“Yes. Valerie got pregnant the night of the bonfire. By late December, she couldn’t hide her condition any longer. The reason she wanted to borrow Dak’s car was to drive to Indianapolis for an appointment at the same family planning clinic. When Dak didn’t return her call, she lost patience and talked Cecil into taking her.”
Dak’s hands were balled into fists. His complexion had taken on an ashen pallor. Was he upset with the news or because he was close to being found out? I couldn’t tell.
Ted, on the other hand, was scrolling through his phone, like a bored teenager. His lack of interest had me intrigued. Everybody else was giving me their undivided attention. Why wasn’t he doing the same?
Over the next few minutes, I reviewed what happened after Valerie disappeared. It was all common knowledge, but I wanted to show how woefully inadequate the investigation had been. To be fair, I was clear that this all went down at a time before cellular technology and wireless devices had become ubiquitous. It would have been much easier to disappear back then, with fewer chances to leave an electronic footprint behind.
“Assuming all of this is true, and I’m not saying it is, why didn’t she tell anybody about her condition?” Matt flashed a smug grin, evidently satisfied he’d punched a face-saving hole in my story.
“Because she was scared,” Connie said. “Of what the town would have said. Of how I would have reacted. And especially of what Phil might have done.” She choked back tears. “Oh, my poor baby. I failed her.”
Matt’s smile disappeared.
Angela put an arm around Connie. “You didn’t fail her. You didn’t fail anyone. Any fault lies at the feet of this community, which failed to be there when your family needed it.”
The mayor looked at me with watery eyes. “Please continue.”
I’d struck a nerve. Instead of begrudgingly listening to my story because they had to, now the powers that be wanted to hear it. Oh, they were going to hear it, all right. Because it was the truth.
As I picked up the thread of my narrative, I strolled around the room. My movements helped me assess who was paying attention.
Everyone was.
“According to the coroner, Valerie was seven months’ pregnant when she was murdered.” I paused a few beats to let the word sink in. “Remember how I told you she got pregnant at the end of August? When we add seven months to that, we arrive at late March.”
“You’re contending that’s when she died?” Kim’s brows were furrowed. To her credit, she was trying to get down every word I was saying. This meeting had turned into way more than she’d bargained for.
“Yes. The third week of March, to be more precise.”
“How can you be so sure?” Jack asked.
“Because that’s when spring break was that year. That’s when she came back to Rushing Creek.”
I’d moved my queen into dangerous territory and was still many moves from declaring victory. The wrong word would leave my king exposed to checkmate.
I took my case notebook from the bag. It was like I was the main character in an episode from the old black-and-white Parry Mason television show.
“It took some doing, but I put together a list of people who attended that bonfire. Among them were the six seniors who were on the baseball team that school year. The father of Valerie’s unborn child was a baseball player.
“She came back to town spring break week because she knew a lot of people, especially in the senior class, would be out of town. That would make it easier to get around unnoticed. The people who she could bet her life to be in town? The baseball team.”
Matt cleared his throat. “That’s true. Back then, there was a rule that if you wanted to play baseball, you couldn’t go out of town during spring break.”
“Valerie knew one other thing when she came back to town. She knew that even though the father was in town, his family wouldn’t be. She’d be able to confront the father in secrecy. No phone calls. No friends, no family around to cause drama.
“And no witnesses to her murder.”
Dak’s complexion had taken on a greenish pallor. Meanwhile, Ted kept putting his phone on the table and picking it right back up again. I positioned myself behind the two former baseball players.
One of whom was Valerie’s murderer.
Matt had slid his hand to his hip, where his gun was holstered. He must have used his cop Spidey Sense to intuit we were getting close to the big reveal. He was ready to spring into action if needed. The understated way he made the move indicated he didn’t want to pour gasoline on an already combustible situation.
My dear assistant had no such reservations. Standing in the doorway, Calypso’s arms were crossed. Her feet were spread shoulder-width to block any exit. Her phone hung loosely in her grip. I had no doubt her thumb was ready to press the Record Video icon.
With the chess pieces in position, I took a deep breath and made my final move.
“Valerie confronted the murderer at his home. She told him about her condition. Only one living soul knows the details of that conversation, but we can safely assume they argued.”
“What makes you say that?” This time it was Angela who’d asked the question.
“There’s this.” I placed her diary on the table between Dak and Ted. “Every now and then, Valerie wrote lists of names. I checked. They weren’t names of friends, or family, or even classmates. They were names for her baby.
“She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t want to keep the baby. Think about it, folks. Ever since that awful day when her sister almost died, Valerie’s life had been a living hell. But now, she had something inside her that was beautiful and hers and nobody was going to take that away.”
“Come on, Allie.” Matt rubbed his chin with his free hand. “I was willing to give you some latitude, but now you’re completely into conjecture.”
“She’s not wrong.” Connie wrapped her arms around herself. “Those years were terrible. For all of us. Phil was so angry, and when the bills kept piling up, he drank more and more. Things got worse between them with each passing day. I could see how she might have thought about a baby, and for the first time in a long time, having some hope.”
Ozzy’s words came to mind. Valerie hadn’t been a bad kid. She’d been a damaged one. Her father had emotionally abused her, and her mother hadn’t supported her. The poor girl’s reckless decision-making was due to a lack of support at home.
“Exactly, Connie. She went to the father of her child hoping to work out a future for herself and the baby. Maybe for all three of them. But that young man wanted nothing to do with her or his child. Tempers rose, and at some point, he put his hands around her throat and choked her until she was unconscious.”
The room was silent, except for Connie’s intermittent sobbing.
“When he realized what he’d done, he knew he needed to finish the job. Oh, he might have only been an eighteen-year-old high school student, but this young man was one cool customer. Some marine rope was close at hand, so he cut off a section, wrapped it around Valerie’s neck, and strangled the life out of her.”
I wanted to get a look at the murderer eye to eye, so I took another walk around the table. A few more cracks were showing in his façade.
Kim stood. “Are you trying to tell us Ronald Spade murdered Valerie? After all, rope matching the murder weapon was found on his property.”
“No. Mr. Spade may have messed around with underage girls, but he’s no murderer. Besides, he didn’t have an equipment bag like the one the murderer used. Only members of the baseball team did.”
I returned to my spot behind Dak and Ted. We were oh so close to being in checkmate.
“Once the killer realized what he’d done, he could have gone to the police. It was a horrific ending, yes. But it was also something that happened in the heat of the moment. At that point, had he come forward and confessed his crime, I’d wager he would have gotten off on a manslaughter charge and would be out of prison today.”
Several eyebrows were raised. “Is that right, Chief?” Kim asked.
“A manslaughter sentence in Indiana carries a sentence of ten to thirty years. So, yes, that is possible, hypothetically speaking.”
“It don’t matter now. Since he didn’t do that. The coward.” Connie practically spat the words out. They were laced with the venom of a deadly pit viper.
“Instead of coming forward, the murderer emptied his equipment bag, stuffed Valerie into it, then took off to dispose of the body, like nothing more than a bag of trash. He knew the lay of the land at the forest well enough to get in, carry Valerie to a secluded spot, and dig a makeshift grave deep enough to keep her hidden for decades.
“He was in and out in a couple of hours, all under the cover of darkness. Only someone local could have pulled that off. Only a member of the Rushing Creek baseball team could have done all that and returned to town with his secret intact.”
I chuckled. “It was the perfect crime. Except for one detail the murderer overlooked.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“This has been riveting, Allie. I’d love to stay, but I have an appointment.” Ted reached for his briefcase as he began to stand.
I put my hand on his shoulder and applied downward pressure, forcing him back into his seat. “This won’t take much longer. Besides, as class president, I think you owe it to Valerie to be here when the truth is revealed.”
Calypso closed the door behind her. I gave her the slightest of nods in appreciation. If the killer was going to make a run for it, he was going to have to get through her first, and then the door. My assistant was one sharp young woman.
The rest of the gathering was hanging on my every word. Even Connie’s attention was focused on me. As she looked in my direction with bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes, a new flame kindled to life inside me.
It wasn’t a flame of anger, though. Or revenge. This was a flame of justice. Finally, after so many years, Connie was mere minutes away from receiving some.
With one hand on Dak’s shoulder and the other on Ted’s, I reviewed for everyone the circumstances under which Valerie’s body was discovered.
“Let me get this straight.” Kim pulled another notebook out of a brown leather messenger bag. “Are you telling us that if that area hadn’t been marked for timber harvest, the body might not have ever been found?”
“It looks that way. In retrospect, the smarter thing would have been to dump her body in the Rushing Creek and hope the water would take her away, or sneak into the state park and bury her there.”
“So, the location ended up being the killer’s second mistake.” Angela took a second to look around the room, trying to figure out who the murderer was. “What was the first one?”
“Valerie’s murderer failed to completely empty the equipment bag. He left one thing. A sock. Inside that sock was a bloody bandage. The police sent the bandage to a lab for DNA testing. The results came in a few days ago. Isn’t that right, Chief?”
“That’s correct. That was also confidential information. How did you come by it?” His eyes were like daggers. I had a feeling his staff would be getting a stern lecture about leaking case details in the near future.
“Oh, you know. This is Rushing Creek. Nothing stays secret forever.” I took a drink to calm my nerves. The tension continued to build, both inside of me and throughout the room.
“We can deduce that the test results confirmed neither Valerie’s father Phil, nor Mr. Spade, was the killer. If the sample from the bandage found with Valerie had formed a connection to either of those two men, we would have heard about it.”
“Is she right, Chief?” Jack asked as he refilled his water glass.
“She is.” He got to his feet. Whether it was so he could appear authoritative or for another reason, I couldn’t tell. “On Monday, I notified Mrs. Briggs that the result cleared her husband. I had a similar conversation with Mr. Spade later the same day.”
Minute vibrations in my hands revealed both Dak and Ted’s agitated conditions. They were trying to control their body movements, and their emotions. Their efforts had been futile. I crossed my arms to give them a false sense of security.
“If Phil Briggs didn’t kill his daughter, and Ronald Spade didn’t do it, either, who did take Valerie’s life? You see, there was nothing in any government-supervised database to match the sample taken from the bandage. While the sample allowed us to rule some suspects out, it didn’t provide a complete match.”
“I don’t understand.” Dak looked over his shoulder at me. “If there was no match, how can you know who killed Val?”
Sweat lined his upper lip. His gaze was darting back and forth between me and Ted, while his toe was tapping the floor at the pace of a hummingbird flapping its wings. His composure was unraveling with each tick of the clock.
“I wouldn’t, if not for a recent program the library put on.” I told them about Brent’s genealogy class and how the attendees were given the option to upload the results of their DNA tests to a publicly searchable database.
“Nineteen people took the class. I have a copy of the roster. While we don’t know how many chose to make their DNA results public, the police got a hit on one of them. It confirmed a distant familial relationship between the person who attended the class and the person who murdered Valerie.”
“Distant familial relationship? That doesn’t sound very specific.” There was doubt in Jack’s words. “I mean, that could mean almost anybody, right?”
“In this case, it refers to family members two degrees apart, like a grandmother and grandchild. That indicates the murderer was someone local. With that piece of information added to the timing of Valerie getting pregnant, her disappearance, the time frame during which her life was taken, and the equipment bag, I was able to whittle the suspect list to the baseball players who attended the bonfire down to three.
“The other day, Cecil Burgess showed me his equipment bag. It had the same logo and styling as the one used to bury Valerie. He was a bad seed back then, yes. A murderer? No. The bag proved it.”
“It’s Dak.” Ted pushed away from the table and pointed at his former teammate. “He and Valerie were dating then. He’s the one who got her pregnant. He’s the one who killed her.”
The room exploded in utter pandemonium. People shouted at Matt to arrest Dak. Others rushed to be at Connie’s side.
If I didn’t get the situation under control, and do it fast, all could still be lost. All I’d offered up so far was circumstantial evidence and conjecture. If the murderer got out of this room, he’d have time to concoct a story, lawyer up, or worst-case scenario, grab his passport and flee the country.
“Enough!” I took off my shoe and pounded it on the table, à la Nikita Khrushchev at the U.N. General Assembly.
“You’re all forgetting a few key things. Like the rope that was used to strangle Valerie. It was high-quality marine rope. Dak’s family had a fishing boat, but they spent most of their time hunting, not fishing. It didn’t make sense for his family to spend a lot of money on a top-of-the-line product like that.”
“Yeah. We used nasty old cotton rope.” Dak looked around the room, begging people to believe him. “We used it for hunting, too.”
“Come on, man. You expect us to believe that?” Ted snorted. “Sounds a little too convenient to me.”
“You’re right, Ted.” I pointed my finger at him. “The Borus family has owned a twenty-five-foot walkaround boat for over twenty-five years. They berth it at Lake Monroe. My guess is that a number of people in this room have been on it.”
Ted licked his lips and stood. His eyes were narrowed, and his brow was lined with sweat.
“What about the rope the cops found under Spade’s trailer,” he asked. “DNA that old probably isn’t foolproof. You need to arrest Dak, Chief. Right now.”
“Nice try, Ted.” I shook my head and looked him in the eye.
“That rope was yours. Remember what I said earlier about spring break? Everyone knows your family always went someplace warm that week. Since you were playing ball, you had the house to yourself while Mom and Dad took little sis to some beach resort. And with nobody around to interfere, you were able to keep the leftover rope hidden in plain sight. In your barn.
“Where you murdered Valerie.”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Your dad might have asked what happened to the rope if you’d gotten rid of all of it. Since you held on to most of it, nobody was the wiser.” I took a step toward Ted. “Then, when Ron Spade went to prison, you saw your chance to get rid of it, setting him up to take the fall. Just in case.”
“You’re insane.” He pointed at me as he looked at Matt. “This is slander. Chief, I want you to arrest this woman.”
I ignored his desperate plea and stepped closer toward him until we were mere inches apart. The acrid stench of sweat was radiating from him like light emanating from the sun.
“Well done, Ted. By framing Spade, you tied up the last loose thread. In case Valerie’s body was ever discovered, the rope would send the cops in his direction, not yours. And since he worked at the high school, it was possible that he could get his hands on an equipment bag. Too bad you overlooked the sock. And the bandage that was inside it.”
“You’ll pay for this,” he said in a low tone that was laced with venom.
“Let’s all take a breath, folks.” Matt put his hands up in a placating fashion. “Ted, I’d like you to step away from Allie.”
“I don’t think so.” Before I had time to react, Ted grabbed me and spun me around. One arm was around my neck. The other had my arms pinned against me.
He tightened his hold around my throat. “If anybody takes one step closer, I’ll break her neck.”
Blood pounded in my head as he applied pressure to my carotid arteries. My breathing wanted to gallop away like a wild mustang. If that happened, I’d end up hyperventilating. Which would mean possibly passing out.
And being unable to defend myself.
“Do what he says.” The force in my voice encouraged me, despite my dire condition. What I needed was time. Time to formulate a plan. Time to turn the tables.
Time to get Ted’s confession.
I closed my eyes and turned my focus inward. Deep, calming breaths. Ignore Ted’s sickly sweet cologne and his jalapeño-tinged breath.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth. You’ve been in tight spots before.
In a few moments, the roar of blood in my ears subsided as the pounding in my carotid against Ted’s arm slowed. Once again, the discipline learned from my kickboxing training was about to give me the upper hand.
When I opened my eyes, it was like time had come to a screeching halt. Every person in the room was standing still, like they’d been hit with a supervillain’s freeze ray. The scene would have been almost comical, if not for the fact that Matt had his gun drawn.
And it was pointed at me and Ted.
Matt wasn’t known to have an itchy trigger finger. Pulling his gun was simply a reaction to Ted’s violent behavior. At least, that’s what I told myself.
“There’s no need to do anything rash, Ted. Let Allie go and we can talk about this.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Ted tightened his grip around my neck and lifted me up until only my toes contacted the floor.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. Matt, you’re going to put your gun away and then Allie and I are going to walk out of here. If anybody tries to stop us, she ends up taking the big sleep.”
The reference to the classic Raymond Chandler novel made me want to laugh. Ted may have committed a heinous murder, but he had no idea how the criminal mind worked. And he sure as heck didn’t know a thing about being a private investigator.
I was familiar with both. And I also knew I wasn’t walking out of this room under his control.
“Don’t think so, dude.” I stretched my neck to open my airway. It was time to finish the story.
“You want to know why Ted killed Valerie? She wanted to keep the baby. Ted Borus, Rushing Creek’s golden boy, couldn’t have that. He had a scholarship to play college ball. A pro career was on the horizon. A child out of wedlock meant scandal. Maybe even put his future at risk. You couldn’t have that, could you, Ted?”
“You’re a liar.” Ted’s shout left my ears ringing. His hands and arms were covered in perspiration, though. The sweat was causing his grip on me to loosen.
“I’m fairly sure I’m right. You always got whatever you wanted. Valerie was going to get in your way.”
I looked at Matt. When we made eye contact, I winked. It was time.
“Just like I’m going to get in your way now.” I inhaled as much air as I could, then lifted my leg and kicked back, right into Ted’s shin.
He let out a yowl, like an injured animal, and lost his hold on me.
With one arm, I executed a backward punch. My fist rammed into his nose with a satisfying crack. I leapt away from him and spun around, ready to take him out with another kick or punch.
It wasn’t necessary. As I balled my fists, Matt leapt across the table and pinned Ted to the floor, face-first.
The chief cuffed Ted and pulled him into a sitting position. Blood ran down the insurance agent’s face from his broken nose. Tears filled his eyes as Matt yanked him to his feet. He was clearly in no mood to spare Ted with any gentleness.
“All right, I did it. Allie’s right.” He slumped back to the floor, his knees evidently incapable of supporting him. The tears began to fall in torrents. When Matt began to read Ted his Miranda rights, he waved the chief away.
“We hooked up at the bonfire. I knew she and Dak were together, but that had never stopped me before, you know.” He sucked in a ragged breath. “She told me she was pregnant over Thanksgiving break. I called her some names and told her there was no way I could be the father. When she disappeared, I thought my troubles were over.”
“You monster!” Connie lunged at him, but Angela held her back. “You killed my baby.”
Ted shook his head. “I didn’t mean to. She showed up, with no warning, and told me that she was going to ask for a paternity test. I freaked out. When I realized what I’d done, I panicked. I got rid of the body someplace I thought nobody would look.”
With Jack’s help, Matt hauled Ted back to his feet and led him toward the door. Calypso was still standing guard, God bless her.
She handed Ted a napkin. “For your nose. To stop the bleeding.”
“Thank you. That’s kind of you.”
“Not really. I don’t want you bleeding all over the floor.” She looked at me and saluted by raising her chin. The young queen of sarcasm was back.
Before Matt could lead him through the doorway, Ted turned to face Connie. “I’m sorry for what I did. Valerie’s ghost has haunted me ever since that night.”
“Then it’s about time she got some rest.” She turned on her heel and made a beeline toward me. “Thank you, Allie. Thank you for giving my family the answers we’ve been looking for all these years.”
She collapsed into my arms and wept twenty years’ worth of tears. I held on to her with all my might and wept with her. For her family and for Valerie. Hopefully, now the Briggs family could have the peace they’d been denied for so many long years.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“And I thought my evening working on budgets was exciting.” Brent refilled my wineglass and chuckled. “I don’t know whether to give you a standing ovation or get down on one knee and plead with you not to put yourself in danger again.”
“A little of both would be okay. Though I think I’d prefer the standing ovation.”
My beau and I were sitting on the deck at Marinara’s enjoying a glorious sunset and an equally delicious bottle of Riesling.
It was over.
Once Connie had said goodbye and exited the Pub with Angela by her side, I’d collapsed into a chair, closed my eyes, and shut out the world.
I’d kept my promise.
The respite was painfully short-lived. Given the circumstances, nobody wanted to stick around after the meeting, so a few minutes later, Calypso tapped me on the shoulder.
“Sorry, Boss, but I need to clean up. The sooner I get the blood off the carpet and wall, the better.” She handed me a cup of coffee. “Your sister said you might need this.”
The coffee was tepid. Not my favorite temperature. Then again, since the table had been cleared and wiped clean, I figured Calypso must have waited for as long as possible before disturbing me. As I sipped the drink, I came back to life a bit.
“Thanks. I need to give you a raise. Or get my sister to give you one.”
“I’ll take what’s behind door three. You both can give me raises.” She slipped on rubber gloves and sprayed the wall where drops of Ted’s blood had landed.
While Calypso worked, I drained the coffee. When she moved to the floor, she gave me a long, silent stare. It was time for me to leave.
I gave her a hug and made my way to the nearest bar stool. From my perch, I kept an eye on the hubbub going on out front. Red and blue lights pulsated from a pair of police cars while officers collected witness statements. A small crowd had gathered around my fellow committee members, no doubt trying to get firsthand accounts on what had happened.
Rachel, with a cell phone to her ear, emerged from her office. I was trying not to eavesdrop, but some habits were hard to break. Based on her side of the conversation, she was having a testy conversation with either the pub’s insurance carrier or a reporter. I couldn’t be sure which, but at the moment, either seemed plausible.
After taking a look out front, she said something into the phone and moved toward the bar. When she made eye contact with me, she ended the conversation with an abrupt, “I’ll have to call you back.”
She slipped onto the vacant stool next to me. We didn’t speak. She stared at her phone as she ran her fingers along the edge of the neon green screen protector.
“That was a pretty dumb thing you did in there.” She put up her hand before I could respond. “And pretty amazing, too. For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks.” I took a drink from a glass of water she placed in front of me. I winced as the cool liquid went down my throat. I guess everything in the area of my neck was going to hurt for a while. It was a minor inconvenience, though.
“I’ve read enough of my clients’ manuscripts to know it might not have ended with a confession. I was gambling it would, though. Regardless of what he tried, there was no way Ted was going to be able to run for long.”
“You’d know better than me.” Rachel’s phone rang. She rolled her eyes, evidently recognizing the caller’s number. “It’s Kim Frye. I better take this. Do me a favor. Don’t solve any more murders in my restaurant, okay?”
I laughed. My sister, who didn’t compliment me very often, had been more than reasonable with me and my stunt.
“Okay.”
As she turned her attention to the phone call, my heart began to race, and I broke out in goose bumps. My rational mind told me the symptoms were signs of a delayed reaction to stressful event. My emotional mind said I needed to get away from the spot where everything went down.
“Gotta go, Rach.” I grabbed my bag and double-timed it out the door.
And right into the crowd gathered on the sidewalk.
Despite my desire to cover my mouth, announce, “I’m sick,” and rush down the street, I took a deep breath and faced the group. If I didn’t engage now, this throng, or another one, wouldn’t let me rest until I did.
“There she is, the Kickboxing Crusader herself.” Sloane hip-checked her way from the back until she was face-to-face with me. Then she wrapped me up in a lung-collapsing bear hug and lifted me off the ground.
A round of applause broke out during the embrace. When Sloane released me, she took me by the wrist and raised my arm in the air.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about, people,” Sloane shouted.
My cheeks burned hotter with each person who shook my hand, gave me a hug, or asked to take a selfie with me. I was grateful for the support, but I was bone-tired, too, physically and emotionally.
Tapping into an emergency reserve of energy way deep down inside of me, I smiled and shared a word with every single person. It was like I was a combination rock star and politician. When the last person had shared his well-wishes and gotten a selfie with me, I gave Sloane another hug and made my way to Marinara’s.
I was ready for a drink. Two, maybe.
Brent, God love him, answered my text by saying he’d be right there. Since it had taken him all of ten seconds to respond, I had a feeling word had already gotten to him about my “performance.” I had to give him props for not adding any drama to a stressful situation by demanding an explanation.
Now, here we were at Marinara’s. The wine danced on my tongue. The red sunset over the hills of Southern Indiana was breathtaking. For the moment, tranquility reigned.
Then Brent’s chair scraped against the recycled plastic deck planks. He stood, unfolding his long, lanky frame. At times, I forgot how big he was.
I tried to sink into my chair when he gave me a devilish grin and lifted his drink. Sammy, who had settled himself next to me, joined his dad by getting up on all fours.
“Holy cats, don’t embarrass me, please.”
“Just doing what you asked.” He got the attention of the diners who were on the deck with us. “Please join me in a salute to the amazing Allie Cobb. Today, she once again made our community safer by bringing a murderer to justice.”
He put down his drink and led the diners in a round of applause. Even Sammy got in on the act by barking and trying to lick my face.
With a full heart, I gave everyone a little wave. As our server placed a veggie calzone in front of me, I gave Brent the most menacing side-eye I could muster. I couldn’t hold it when the young lady told us dinner was on the house. At the same time Sammy rested his chin on my thigh and let out a little woof.
There was still a lot of kindness, of pure goodness, in the world.
“Heroes get served first.” Brent cut the calzone with loving care. The irresistible aroma of the fresh-baked crust mingling with glorious Italian spices made my stomach grumble.
I took a bite. It tasted as amazing as it smelled. Two more bites immediately followed. The fabulous taste won out over the discomfort involved with swallowing.
“Okay, you’re forgiven for the public display of foolishness.”
“Good. In that case, try not to put yourself in harm’s way again. Sammy’s my best bud, but he still comes up short on the conversation end.”
The dog barked in agreement.
Tension drained from my shoulders as we dined. Things were going to be okay.
Even Matt’s arrival didn’t darken my mood.
“You sure you’re all right?” He sat when we gestured for him to join us. Even though he was still in uniform, I sensed this wasn’t an official visit, especially when he accepted Brent’s offer to share his pizza.
“Having my throat squeezed like a stress ball wasn’t the most fun I’ve ever had, but it’s fine. You’re not here to tell me Ted’s recanted his confession, I hope.”
“Nothing like that. He’s asked for a lawyer. Tommy’s keeping him company until counsel arrives.”
Matt polished off his piece of pizza and drained a glass of water like it was his first meal in days. I felt for him. Stressful, emotional situations like the one we’d just been through burned more calories than a two-hour bike ride through the Brown County countryside.
On top of that, he had a long night ahead of him. Getting a signed confession was likely going to take hours. On the other hand, I got to go home, curl up with Ursi, and have a full night’s sleep in my own bed.
I didn’t envy the man.
“Say, Brent, would it be possible for me to have a moment with Allie alone?”
“Sure. Sammy could probably use a stretch of the old legs. Come on, buddy.”
When I offered Matt some of my calzone, he declined and took out his notebook.
“First things first. I want to thank you for what you did. It’s good to have Valerie’s murderer behind bars.”
“Just doing what had to be done.”
“I appreciate that. I have to say something, though, just between you and me.” He tapped his fingertip on the notebook. “Don’t ever try to pull a stunt like that again without giving me a heads-up. People could have been hurt, and not just you. Got it?”
“I do. And I’m sorry. I regret putting you in that situation. I didn’t see any other options.”
He crossed his arms and gave me a long, penetrating look. I’d seen it before. He used it on the twins when they were telling him a fib. Inevitably, they crumbled under the unrelenting glare of their father.
What I’d just told him was the absolute truth. There would be no crumbling. Not even the tiniest fidget.
Eventually, he let out a long sigh as he rubbed his temples.
“Fine. I guess I have no choice but to accept what you’re telling me at face value. Indulge me, though. I was keeping a close eye on your movements around the room.”
“And everyone’s reactions, I assume?”
Matt was a good cop, after all. His attention to detail was one of the things I’d been counting on.
“Oh, yeah. It wasn’t a coincidence that you spent so much time right behind Ted and Dak, was it?”
“Nope.” I took a drink of my wine. The semi-sweet elixir calmed me as it passed over my taste buds. Once again, I repeated the mantra, Everything’s going to be okay.
“I used that tactic to make Ted nervous, uncomfortable. Up the pressure, as it were.”
“Clever. Be honest with me, though. That was an impressive story. How of much of it did you really know?”
And there it was. Eventually, someone was going to put that question to me. It warmed my soul, like the evening sun was warming my face, that I had an easy, and honest, answer.
“I knew all of it. The problem was a lack of proof. No direct evidence, to use your parlance.”
“So, you decided to put on a big charade. If you don’t mind me saying so, that was a pretty big chance you took. You would have been in a lot of hot water if it backfired.”
“You’re not wrong.” I refilled my wineglass. “To me, it was a risk worth taking. Honestly, I thought the only way to catch him before he manufactured a reason to get out of town was to bait a confession out of him.”
I kept the fact that I got the idea from Calypso to myself. It would be a secret between us girls.
Regardless, it was time to put my cards on the table.
“Look at it from my perspective, Matt. I know, as law enforcement, your hands are tied on certain things. Even if you guys knew for certain Ted was the murderer, without probable cause, there was no way you were going to get a DNA sample from him. My accusation wouldn’t hold up in front of a judge. Ted’s a smart dude. Eventually, he’d get wind of the match from the library program. He’d know his grandma attended and put one and one together. Once he figured that out, there was no way he was going to be sloppy enough to leave any potential DNA evidence around.”
“We might have caught him another way. The Rushing Creek PD may be small, but we’re not without our resources.”
“No doubt about it. My concern was that he’d take advantage of that delay to put his affairs in order and get out while the getting was good. He could’ve moved his money into an offshore account, gotten the wife and kids together, told them they’re going on a surprise trip, and boom. He’d be long gone to the Cayman Islands before you could lay a hand on him.”
Matt scratched his chin. “You read way too many thrillers. That’s a pretty far-fetched scenario.”
“Maybe so, but Connie had waited twenty years for justice. I was going to do everything I could to make sure it wasn’t delayed any longer. I’d promised her, after all.”
“Well, I have to tip my hat to you. Once again, you pulled it off. If there’s a next time, do me a favor. How about you bring things to a conclusion in a less-dramatic fashion.”
“Deal.” That was a favor would be more than happy to honor.
Chapter Twenty-eight
One of the things I always found fascinating about solving a crime was how, in the blink of an eye, life went back to normal.
For most folks, at least.
When I got home from Marinara’s, I still had to feed Ursi and clean out her litter box. There were phone calls to return, emails to answer, and clothes to wash.
The following day, the sun still rose, bathing Rushing Creek in all its intense summer glory. The storm had finally blown through in the night, giving the area a thorough cleansing.
Meanwhile, I had pressing agent work. Two editors sent me offers on the same manuscript. It was so delightful communicating that news to my client that I smiled all morning.
Late that afternoon, Kim Frye called me to discuss the “Showdown at the Pub,” as people were calling it. The interview lasted for a half hour, then she had to go so she could meet a deadline. Just like that, life went on.
Because that’s what life does.
Despite how much we want to, we can’t pause the clock or wind the hands backward. Time marches on. I had to do the same.
Getting back to a normal routine also meant an uncomfortable conversation with Mom. She admonished me no less than four times that it wasn’t my job to save the world.
“Can’t you find a safer hobby, like stamp collecting or, I don’t know, board games like Brent?” There was a challenging tone to her voice, but also a hint of desperation. My mother simply wanted her little girl to be safe.
“I can’t help it, Mom. I have a knack for this sleuthing thing. You’ve got to admit it, it keeps your life interesting.”
She laughed. “Thank God I let my hair go gray naturally. Your hobby would have me making trips to the salon for a color every week.”
We chatted for a while, then the conversation turned to Valerie’s upcoming memorial service. The forecast indicated we were in for perfect weather, so the event was being held at Cobb Memorial Park.
“Will you be speaking? You’re the hero of the day, after all.”
Now that the admonishment phase of the conversation was over, the pride in Mom’s voice made me tingly from head to toe. I’d never doubted for a second that Janice Cobb loved me with all her heart. She wasn’t a warm and fuzzy type of person, though. When she paid you a compliment, you’d earned it.
“Nobody’s asked me. I’m just gratified I was able to solve the case before the memorial. To be honest, if anyone does, I’ll say no. The day should be about Valerie, and only her.”
The line was silent. At first, I thought we’d been disconnected. Then Mom took a deep breath. “Times like this are when I wish your father was around to see who you’ve become. He’d be so proud.”
“Don’t get all mushy on me now. You’ll make me blush.”
We shared a laugh and promised to look for each other at the service. Luke and Rachel had already promised to be there, too. It made me feel good to know the Cobb family would be out in full to celebrate the life of someone the community had lost too soon.
• • •
The day of the event, I slipped an extra supply of tissues into a pocket of my shorts, gave Ursi an extra hug when I kissed her, and headed out the door with a surprisingly light heart. Calypso had helped plan the event. She told me that once Valerie’s murder was solved, the tone of the memorial had shifted. Instead of a call for answers, it was going to be a celebration of the young woman’s life.
Word had gotten out that Valerie’s sister Annette would be at the service. The town was buzzing with excitement at the news. Welcome, Annette signs had gone up in every storefront window along the Boulevard. My eyes teared up simply thinking about the development as I knocked on Calypso’s door.
My jaw dropped when she opened it. Unless she was in her uniform at the Pub, my friend’s color of choice was black. She often accented it with red or white, but obsidian was the main shade in her wardrobe.
Not today.
She was in a banana yellow T-shirt, royal blue shorts, and sandals with yellow straps. The shirt featured an artist’s rendition of Valerie’s smiling face with a simple inscription below it:
Beloved Daughter, Loving Sister, Loyal Friend
“Before you say anything, yellow and blue were Valerie’s favorite colors. It was the least I could do. Tomorrow, I’m back in black.” She shut the door behind her with a little more force than normal and marched toward the stairs.
I suppressed a smile. Sometimes, my tough girl assistant couldn’t hide the soft heart under the prickly surface, despite her best efforts.
The service was held at the park’s gazebo. Members of the community had decorated it with yellow and blue streamers. Potted yellow daisies and blue forget-me-nots had been placed in the planter beds at the structure’s base. The comforting scent of freshly mown grass contributed to an overall aura of peace.
I gave Luke a fist bump as I congratulated him on the parks department’s great work in preparing the site.
“Looks great, bro. Well done.”
“It was the least we could do.” He shrugged. “Twenty years too late. Valerie deserved better.”
I put my arm around him. “We can’t change the past. You helped change the present, though. You helped me in my investigation, and you made sure the park looks better than ever. Be proud of what you’ve done.”
Sloane, who was on the other side of Luke, leaned behind him and winked. She’d told me that he’d been struggling with feelings of self-recrimination. I was familiar with the sentiment. The least I could do was to offer him some comforting words.
The service began with a few words from Connie. She started by thanking the community for its recent support and mentioned a few friends by name for helping her maintain her belief that one day, Valerie would be returned to her. After a few funny stories about Valerie that sent ripples of laughter through the crowd, she ended with a gentle reminder that all members of a community have value, regardless of who they are or where they come from.
The final comment drew a huge round of applause.
After that, the three remaining members of the Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse read a poem they’d written for Valerie. By the time they finished, not a dry eye was left among the hundreds in attendance.
Angela then made a short address in her role as mayor. When she finished, she nodded to someone in the crowd.
“In conclusion, we’d like to unveil a memorial of Valerie that will be displayed in a place of honor at Rushing Creek High School.”
Ozzy joined her on the platform as a table was brought forward. Whatever he’d crafted was hidden under a yellow tablecloth. The crowd held its breath as the woodworker and mayor each took a corner of the covering. At the count of three, they pulled the cloth back to unveil a stunning woodwork likeness of Valerie. The gathering let out an ooh, then erupted into another round of applause.
I was happy to join in.
Brent, who was behind me so as not to impede my view, leaned over my shoulder.
“Could it be that you’re wrong about the old coot?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong about someone.” I let out a small laugh. “It can’t be denied that he’s a wizard with wood. And had a soft spot for Valerie.”
“Go figure,” Brent said. “Amazing what happens when we get to know people.”
“Indeed.”
When the event came to an end, I hung around, hoping to get a closer look at the woodcarving and share a few words with Connie and Annette. A throng had gathered around the women, so I kept myself busy by admiring Ozzy’s incredible work. I was taking photos of it when I noticed him out of the corner of my eye.
“It’s beautiful. Thank you. And thank you for everything else, too.” I meant the words with all my heart. Every single one of them. The man had played a role in helping me track down Valerie’s murderer. He deserved to know I appreciated it.
He gave me a nod and a small salute, then turned away. The response, while subdued, still gave me hope someday we could become friendly. On this day, hope truly did spring eternal.
As the well-wishers visited with Connie and Annette, I basked in the warm sun. The two women were the collective center of Rushing Creek’s attention. They deserved every microsecond of it. Lord knew it had taken long enough.
My heart stopped for a moment, though, when Matt approached them. A man I hadn’t seen in years was by his side. It was Louis Roberson, his father and the former Rushing Creek police chief. The man who had done such a pitiful job investigating Valerie’s disappearance all those years ago.
Despite my better judgment, I inched closer, eager to hear what Louis had to say.
The foursome exchanged a few words of greeting, then the older man cleared his throat.
“Mrs. Briggs, Miss Annette, I humbly apologize for not working harder for your daughter. When your family needed me the most, I failed you. For that, I’m terribly sorry.”
For a moment, only the melodious call of a nearby cardinal filled the silence. I tensed, ready to intervene, if needed.
I needn’t have worried. Connie looked the man up and down, drew in a breath, then opened her arms to him. The hug was brief, but powerful. For a moment, the sky turned a brighter shade of blue while a cooling breeze swept away all the anger and despair that had built up over two decades.
Connie put her arm around Annette. “Thank you, Chief. We accept your apology and forgive you. Valerie’s home now. That’s what matters most.”
The woman’s grace was admirable. As she turned to me, she looked ten years younger. The dark circles under her eyes were gone. She was even standing a little taller.
“Annette, here’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Connie guided her daughter to me. “This is Allie. She’s the one who caught Valerie’s murderer.”
We said hello and exchanged a hug.
“I wasn’t going to come back, but then Mom told me what you did.” Annette released me so she could wipe away a few tears. “Thank you for that.”
“I’m happy I could help.” Over Annette’s shoulder, I noticed a handful of reporters with microphones had gathered. “I also want to say thanks to your mom for having faith in me. I have Valerie’s things at my apartment. If you’d like to look at them before you return home, I can drop them off at your mom’s any time.”
The ladies looked at each other and smiled. “We’d like that,” Connie said. “If you’ll stay and go through them with us.”
I choked back more tears.
“I’d like that. Very much.”
As I turned to go, I noticed a grasshopper at Connie’s feet. I pointed to it and asked the women if they were familiar with the myth of the grasshopper.
Annette smiled as she put her arm around her mom.
“I am. A grasshopper can only jump forward, not any other way. According to legend, when one of them appears to us, we’re being asked to jump forward without fear into the next chapter of our lives.” She wiped away a tear. “I think this grasshopper was sent by Valerie. It’s her way of telling us it’s time to move on. To go ahead with our lives without her.”
We remained silent as the creature leapt from Connie’s foot to Annette’s, and then hopped away into the field of green. Like Annette said, it kept moving forward.
Connie’s eyes got watery as her gaze followed the little messenger’s progress. Then she hugged one daughter as she nodded to the spirit of the other.
“Will do, Val. We love you, too.”
• • •
Later that afternoon, Brent and I were back at Big Al’s, in the exact same seats as when the whole crazy affair began. I sipped on an iced tea while he spooned up the last bits of his chocolate milk shake.
“Interesting couple of weeks, huh?”
“That’s putting it mildly.” I looked around. “If I see Maybelle, I’m running away.”
He laughed as he pulled the stem from a cherry coated in chocolate syrup. “No argument there. So, what’s next for Rushing Creek’s intrepid crime solver? Has anyone approached you about any other cold cases?”
“No, which is fine by me. The 9/11 Memorial’s only a month away. That’ll keep me plenty busy.”
“Awesome. Hopefully, it’ll help you put the last couple of weeks out of your mind.”
I nodded but kept my mouth shut. I’d learned a lot of things investigating Valerie’s murder. One thing stood out among the others. I’d learned the importance of never forgetting the loved ones we’ve lost. We needed to keep them in our hearts and in our minds.
No matter how long they’ve been gone.
Books by J. C. Kenney
The Allie Cobb Mysteries
A Literal Mess
A Genuine Fix
A Mysterious Mix Up
A Deadly Discovery
About the Author
Award-winning and bestselling author J. C. Kenney grew up in a household filled with books by legends like Agatha Christie and Lilian Jackson Braun, so it was no surprise when he found himself writing mystery stories. When he’s not writing, you can find him following IndyCar racing or listening to music. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife, two children, and a cat who is the inspiration for Ursula in the Allie Cobb Mysteries.