“You’re right. But during a battle with the North Vietnamese, Atkins saved Vincenzo’s life. That’s how he was wounded. The wound was in an area that made him . . . it caused Atkins to be unable to father children.”
Lineberry’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, I hope I’m wrong, but I see where this might be going.”
“I believe Ito kidnapped Mercy and took her to the Atkinses to repay Leonard Atkins. There was a letter from Atkins to Ito that basically said that.”
“Stealing a child to repay a debt? That is sick,” said Lineberry.
“But it may also be the truth.”
Blum said, “But why did he try to kill you? Why not just either take you both or do something less than attempted murder?”
Pine looked at the photo. “I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. From everything we’ve been able to learn about Ito, he was not a violent mobster type like his brother. But he was angry when he learned that Bruno thought he’d gotten screwed on a prison deal. And he blamed my mother. But I don’t think he was some monster. I think he was caught between a rock and a hard place. And when it came to it, I think he just wanted to take one of us. That’s why he did the nursery rhyme. Then he tried to knock me out so I couldn’t raise the alarm. But he hit me way too hard. And I nearly died.”
“But how could he have found your family in the first place?” barked an agitated Lineberry.
Pine leaned away from him. “We met up with your ex-fiancée.”
“You talked to Linda? You didn’t tell me that.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“What did she say?”
“What I thought she would.”
He shook his head. “No, there is no way. I can’t believe it.”
“She was the leak. She admitted it. She had you followed, she searched your briefcase, she overheard conversations. She met with Bruno; she found out about him through a mob buddy of his. She was even going to rep him, but another attorney took over for some reason. She steamed open a letter of yours that laid out my parents’ new identities and where they were going to live in Andersonville, and she made sure that Bruno got it. And he told his brother a sob story and guilted an otherwise law-abiding man into coming down to Georgia and turning into the devil.”
For a moment Pine thought Lineberry might faint or have a heart attack or lash out at her. There were so many emotions sweeping over his features, and his body tensed and untensed to such a degree that she grabbed his arm to make sure he didn’t slide out of the chair.
He finally put a hand to his face and quietly started to weep again.
Pine looked at Blum, who shook her head and put a hand to her lips signaling Pine just to remain quiet.
A long minute passed before Lineberry finally straightened and wiped at his eyes. Blum gave him a hand towel from a table next to the chair, while Pine poured him out a glass of water from a pitcher on the table.
He wiped his face, drank the water, and sat back in the chair, looking about a decade older than he had two minutes before. He gripped Pine’s hand.
“I am so sorry, Atlee. So sorry. This is all my fault.”
“No, it’s not, Jack. You trusted someone who abused that trust. But to be fair, I can understand her anger. You did leave her for my mother. You had two daughters with my mother.”
Lineberry passed a hand over his forehead. “I loved Linda with all my heart. Right up until the moment I met your mother. Then, for me, there was no one else. I’m not proud of what I did, but I’m just telling you the truth. If I had controlled my feelings better . . .”
“My mother was obviously attracted to you.”
Lineberry shook his head. “I was quite a bit older. I was in a position of influence over her. I was a professional who did something stunningly unprofessional. I never thought our relationship would result in pregnancy. I hated myself for having put her in that situation.”
“Did Tim know?” asked Pine.
“Please, call him your father. He was more of one to you than I ever was.”
“Okay, we sort of skirted around this issue before, but did my dad know that you were the father?”
“I never told him. And the timing of when he and your mother met was close enough that he had every reason to believe that he was the father. I don’t believe your mother ever told him differently.”
“But she loved him?”
Lineberry nodded. “She told me one night. He was her age. He was handsome and funny and just a good person. I could see why she loved him. At least now I can. But I was hurt—devastated, really.”
“If that was the case, why did you break things off with Linda? Why did you go to Andersonville? Because it was your job?”
“No, because you were my flesh and blood.” He finished his water and slowly put the glass down. “And despite what I told you earlier and how I reacted when you just now told me about Linda . . . I had suspected that the leak might well be coming from her. I knew she was smart and resourceful. I knew she might have found out about Amanda. It made me angry. And my suspicions caused me to care even less for her. And I needed to get away from her and take Amanda and her family with me, so I could watch over them. But I swear to you that I never knew Linda had found out about Andersonville.”
Pine rose and looked down at him. “I believe you, Jack.”
“Are you going to see the Atkinses?”
“We are. I have no idea if they’re still there or not. It’s been over two decades since that picture was taken. I called the police in Taliaferro, but I’ve heard nothing back.”
“Do you have the address?” asked Lineberry.
“I have the letters that Atkins sent Ito. The envelopes had a return address on them. I did a Google map search. It’s . . . remote.”
“What will you do if they are still there? And . . . Mercy is with them?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But if Mercy is there, and depending on what condition she’s in, I will find a way to tell her the truth, and I will bring her home.”
“Will you let me know what you find?”
“Of course I will.”
“I hope that . . . that she’s alive and well.”
“From your lips to God’s ears, Jack,” said Pine before walking out.
CHAPTER
71
THEY PULLED ONTO A GRAVEL ROAD and continued down it until the gravel disappeared and the road turned to dirt. And then the dirt turned to wild grass and weeds, and then some young trees blocked their way.
“This doesn’t seem promising,” said Blum.
Pine added, “Looks like the forest is reclaiming its land.”
They got out of the car and threaded their way through this maze, finally emerging into an open area. Next, they came upon a rusted mailbox perched on a rotted, leaning post. Pine looked inside, but it was empty. She examined the faded metal numbers someone had hammered onto the post.
“Matches the number address on the letters the Atkinses sent,” said Pine.
They cleared a small bend in the path, and in front of them was the mobile home trailer that they had seen in the photo. It had not aged well. One part of the front wall had fallen off, exposing ratty, filthy insulation. The door was off its hinges, and a section of the roof had collapsed. A large cinder block provided the steps up to the door.
“Clearly no one has lived here in a while,” noted Pine. She stepped up to the door and looked through the opening. “Shit!”
She jumped back and her feet hit dirt. She pulled her weapon but didn’t fire.
“What is it?” asked an alarmed Blum.
“Snakes,” said Pine as she slowly backed away. “Copperheads. A whole nest of them in there, all over the place.” She holstered her gun. “Well, we’re not going to search in there, not that we’d be able to find much.”
“What did Atkins do after he came back from the war?” asked Blum as they walked back to the car.
“I couldn’t find out much about him or his fam
ily. We need to check in with the local cops. They never did get back to me.”
“I wonder why,” said Blum.
“Let’s go ask them.”
They drove to the county seat in Crawfordville and entered the sheriff’s office located there. They told the woman at the front desk who they were and what they wanted. She directed them to an office down the hall, where a uniformed man in his thirties sat behind a desk. He was short and wide, his hair was neatly parted on the side, and he was freshly shaved.
Pine again explained who they were and why they were there.
“Go ahead and grab a seat,” said the man. “I’m Deputy Sheriff Tyler Wilcox, by the way. You say you contacted us?”
“I left a voice mail and sent an email.”
“Huh. Never heard it or saw the email. But we got some glitches in our system.”
“I hear you all are the biggest employer in the county,” said Pine.
Wilcox chuckled. “We’re one of the only employers in the county. I’m born and bred here. I love the place, but it’s not for everybody. Probably why our population keeps going down.”
He shuffled some papers on his desk and then leaned back in his chair. “So you want to find this fellow Leonard Atkins?”
“Yes. We went by his last known address, but it’s obviously been abandoned for a very long time. Full of snakes now, in fact.”
“Lotta places like that around here,” noted Wilcox. “I don’t know the name, Agent Pine. But I’ve only been with the sheriff’s office for ten years. From what you’re saying this goes back a lot further than that.”
“Yes, it does. The photo I have is from 1999.” She took it from her pocket and passed it over to him.
He looked it over before passing it back.
“Don’t recognize them. So the husband and his wife, and, what, their daughter, Becky?”
“We think so, yes.”
Wilcox adopted a cautious look. “Can I ask why the FBI is interested in them? I mean, is there anything I need to know from a local cop’s perspective?”
“The FBI isn’t interested in them. I am.” She added, “It’s a personal matter.”
Wilcox glanced at Blum and then directed his gaze back at Pine. “Well, okay. Look, the man you might want to talk to is Dick Roberts. He was the sheriff way back. Retired now. But Dick knew pretty much everybody back then.”
“Is he still around here?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll give you his address and then phone him to make sure he’s okay with talking to you.”
“Can you do that now?”
“I can see this ‘personal’ matter is important to you.”
“It is. Very important.”
He wrote an address on a piece of paper, slid it across to her, and then picked up the phone.
It rang twice and then Wilcox said, “Hey, Dick, it’s Tyler Wilcox, how you doing? Right, good, good. Well, I ain’t had a chance to do much fishing, and last time I went only thing I caught was the flu.” Wilcox chuckled at his joke as Pine watched him impatiently.
“Look, I got an agent from the FBI here, an Atlee Pine and her associate. They want to talk to you about a family that used to live around here a long time ago. Yeah, a Leonard Atkins and his wife. And his daughter. Right, okay. That sounds good. Thanks, Dick.”
Wilcox hung up and looked at Pine. “He’d be glad to see you. Lives about ten miles from here. Put that address in your GPS and you’ll get there.”
“Did he say anything else?” asked Pine.
“He said he knew Atkins, and he’ll be glad to talk to you about it.”
“Well, thank you very much for your help.”
“Always glad to help fellow law enforcement.”
They walked out and Blum said, “What do you think Roberts can tell us?”
“Hopefully, everything.”
CHAPTER
72
THERE COULD NOT HAVE BEEN a greater contrast between the Atkinses’ old homestead and Dick Roberts’s place.
It was a neatly constructed log cabin with window boxes where fall flowers popped out in burgundy and gold. The grass was healthy and trimmed, and the flower beds were well laid out and meticulously weeded and pine mulched. A metal carport next to the cabin housed a new-looking cobalt blue Ford F150 pickup truck. Smoke was coming out of the stone chimney on this chilly day.
As they pulled up and got out they could hear a dog baying. When they walked up the pea-gravel drive to the house, the front door opened and a large white-and-tan basset hound bounded out and continuing its baying.
A man appeared in the doorway.
“That’s Rosie,” he said. “She sounds all ferocious but give her a sec and she’ll roll over to get her belly rubbed.”
A moment later Rosie did just that. Pine knelt down and performed the rub while Rosie wagged her tail and smiled up at her.
“You folks come on in,” said the man.
“You’re Dick Roberts?” Pine rose and walked toward him as Blum and Rosie followed.
“In the flesh.”
Roberts was in his early seventies, around Pine’s height, lean and wiry with silver hair and a mustache of the same color that drooped around the edges of his mouth. He had on faded denim jeans, old leather boots, and a red flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows showing muscled forearms.
He had the eyes of a cop, thought Pine. Observant, suspicious, expectant.
They followed him into the house. The front room held a fire-place, which was glowing warmly and invitingly. On the wooden mantel were pictures of people, probably family and friends, Pine surmised. The furnishings were old, but they were well built and looked comfortable. A colorful rug covered part of the plank floor. A gun rack with an over-under shotgun and a deer rifle hung on one wall. There were some pictures and framed photos on the log walls. Everything appeared neat and clean and well organized to Pine’s eye. She hoped his memory was just as clear.
“You folks want some java? Just made a fresh pot.”
“Yes, please,” said Blum, and Pine nodded.
He got their drinks, and they settled into chairs around the fire while Rosie plopped down next to Roberts’s feet and promptly fell asleep. He gently stroked her head and said, “You can’t train a basset hound. No better scent dog in the world, in my opinion. But that’s why you can’t train them. No manner of obedience lessons can stand against their natural scent instincts.”
“Well, she’s very cute,” said Blum.
“We keep each other company,” said Roberts, settling back with his coffee.
“Is it just you and Rosie here, then?” asked Blum.
He nodded, his eyes crinkling a bit in sadness. “My missus died two years ago. Out of the blue. Alive one night and dead in the morning.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Blum. “Sudden loss like that is impossible to make sense of.”
“But you got to go on living,” said Roberts. “And we had a lotta good years together. Just not as many as we thought we’d have. We raised us a passel of kids and they’re all doing good. And they don’t live that far away. Three in Atlanta, one in Macon, and one over in Tennessee.”
“I’m sure having them close by is very comforting,” said Blum.
He nodded and then looked at Pine. “Len Atkins?”
“I understand that you know him?”
“That’s right.”
“Is he still alive?”
“That I don’t know. He’s long since moved from here.”
Pine’s spirits plummeted. “We went out to where he last lived. The trailer. Now it’s just full of snakes.”
“Didn’t know that. But I haven’t been over there in a long time.”
She showed him the photo. He looked it over carefully and nodded. “Yeah, that’s Len and Wanda for sure.”
“And the girl?”
“Don’t know her, at least I don’t think I do. You can’t see her face in the photo. But she’s a big girl.”
“The nam
e says Becky. The picture is dated July 1999. You ever hear of a Becky?”
He shook his head, looking uncertain. “I’d have to think about that.”
“When did the Atkinses move from here?”
“Shortly after their son died.”
Pine and Blum exchanged a stunned look. Pine said, “But I understood that Atkins couldn’t have children because of an injury he sustained in the Vietnam War.”
“Well, that’s right. He did get shot up over there, from what I remember. I lucked out, my lottery number was really high, but not old Len. He had to go over to those damn jungles and fight for who knows what.”
“So his son?” prompted Pine.
“Len and Wanda had Joe before Len went to Vietnam. Hell, if I remember correctly, Len was only twenty or so. I guess he couldn’t have any more kids after his injury.”
“So when you went to visit Len and Wanda, was there anyone else living with them?”
“Not that I ever saw. I mean, their trailer was real small, I’m sure you saw that for yourselves. Barely room for them and Joey when he lived with them.”
“Did they ever come into town or anything? Were they ever seen with someone who looks like the girl in the photo?” asked Blum.
“Len didn’t really come into town. He was a rural postal carrier. Wanda did some sewing and cleaning for ladies and businesses here and there. But they kept to themselves. I knew Len, but I can’t say I really knew him, if you understand me. I don’t think anybody did. The war, I think, messed with him, like it did a lot of men.”
“And his son, Joe?”
“He lived with them till he got married. And Joe was young. Maybe nineteen. Oh, that was back in the eighties, I guess. Then he had his own little place not too far from them. He worked as a security guard at one of the big manufacturing plants we used to have near here, when they actually made stuff in America. Then after that closed, he started selling security systems and gadgets like that for companies and such. Made a pretty good living from what I understand.” His brow furrowed. “His wife was a strange one. Can’t remember her name off the top of my head. She was into all sorts of crap: voodoo and I guess what you’d call holistic stuff. But she had a mean streak.”
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