by Claire Booth
‘We didn’t touch anything, and he had us wear gloves, too, just in case. I’m sorry, sir, I was just so worried. I thought doing that would help me figure out whether I should call you.’
Ghassan said something Hank couldn’t hear and then Fin handed the phone back to him. He glared at her.
‘Mr Worth. Sheriff. I would say I’m disappointed in you, but why bother? Unfortunately you’re not one of my teenage daughters – I can’t ground you for bad behavior.’
Fin was pointing to herself again. Then she gave Hank a little shove. His glare turned to a glower.
‘My Aunt Finella is a bit of an unstoppable force. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
She nodded firmly and drew her hands apart. Keep going. He waved her away.
‘There was nothing there that would indicate that she was abducted from that location,’ he told Ghassan, hoping that switching back to the investigation would alleviate the detective’s justifiable irritation about the search. ‘Obviously, I didn’t have any Luminol or anything, though. So your guys will be able to get a much better read on that than I did.’
A little understated flattery couldn’t hurt. Ghassan fell silent and then covered his phone and shouted something unintelligible. A second later he was back.
‘I gotta go. You keep yourself available, and you tell your dear Aunt Finella to do the same, got it?’
Hank said he certainly would, and hung up the phone.
‘You did not,’ he said immediately, ‘have to lie to him for me.’
Fin tut-tutted and walked back over to their card game. ‘They’re not going to do anything to me. You – with your job – they could do all sorts of things to you. And that’s not going to happen when I have any control over things.’
He half-smiled at her. ‘And this assertive wonder woman is the person who just told a police detective that she was “a little scared” to go into Tina’s house by herself.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m old. I can say I’m scared of a cloudy day and they’ll believe me. Old people get very little credit, and old women get no credit at all. About time it worked in my favor.’
She started shuffling the cards, doing it five times before she spoke again. ‘I messed up the entire thing because I believed in him, or I was trying to protect him, or I don’t even know what at this point. And now, because of me, the police are weeks behind on trying to find Tina. And my husband has disappeared – after lying repeatedly for who knows how long.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to get some fresh air.’
Hank watched her leave out the back door and got himself a glass of water. As the ice rattled out of the dispenser, he stared at his children’s artwork on the fridge door. He walked into the living room, sat down, and dialed home.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Dunc.’
‘Oh, hi. You having fun doing nothing up there?’
Hank thought about his last few days. ‘Yeah. It’s been nice.’
‘You get Fin all settled back in OK? Did you see Lew? Did he look guilty? Like he’s having an affair?’
Hank rested his aching head in the hand that wasn’t holding the phone. ‘I, uh, haven’t seen Lew much.’
Dunc harrumphed. ‘And Finella?’
‘I’ve been staying in touch with her.’ Again with the half-truths.
‘Well, thank you for that, boy-o. Especially because she hasn’t called me back. Typical.’
‘Can I talk to the kids?’
‘Yeah, sure. Just a second.’
There was some rustling and then the stampede of small feet. He listened to them fight over the phone and then Maribel said hello while Benny complained in the background. He asked her about kindergarten and then she handed the receiver to her little brother. Hank got two entire sentences out of him, which was pretty good for his current attention span.
‘He wasn’t supposed to tell you we’ve had chocolate chip pancakes every day you’ve been gone,’ Dunc said when he got the phone back.
‘With syrup, too, apparently,’ Hank said. ‘But you’re the one who has to deal with them bouncing off the walls, so …’
‘Oh, then we go for a walk. All four of us. Don’t worry, I don’t let them hold Guapo’s leash. But I gotta do something since I’m not getting my miles in with you gone.’
Dunc and his miles. He walked between four and five a day, which was usually great because he took Guapo with him. But there was no way he was getting that far with a five-year-old and a three-year-old. His dream was to walk his age in one week – which would be seventy-two miles. Hank kept telling him that only an extremely fit crazy person could pull that off, and he was only one of those two things.
‘Well,’ Dunc said, ‘you don’t sound as down in the dumps as you did before you left, so that’s good. Have you figured out how you’re getting home yet?’
‘I haven’t, actually. I’m going to talk to Maggie later tonight when she gets off her shift at the hospital.’
‘Just make sure you come back un-mopey. The house needs to be normal again.’
The old coot had a point, Hank thought as he said goodbye and hung up. Their home did need to be normal again. Especially with the drama that was about to start with the extended family. Hank hoped he wouldn’t have to be the one to explain everything to Dunc.
He tapped at his cell to pull up Sam’s number and saw that Sheila had called. He was about to dial her back when Fin appeared in the doorway.
‘You need to come see something.’
Sheila’s cell rang again. She declined it with a quick finger jab. It was the same unknown number that called earlier. She went back to what she’d been writing in her notes – instructions to Sam, who was busy digging into Nell Timmons’s background. Derek Orvan had already spent the day doing the same with Clyde. So far, he’d come up mostly empty. Clyde had been a good employee at the sawmill, but nothing spectacular. Although nowadays, dependability and conscientiousness actually were pretty special, she thought. But Clyde retired nine years ago and hadn’t kept in touch, so none of the information on his personality or habits was current. She sighed and started to read Orvan’s reports.
The same number called again. She swore and picked it up.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Deputy March, ma’am. Molly March. Ma’am.’
Sheila dropped her pen. It clattered on her desk.
‘Molly, are you all right?’
‘Oh, me? Yes, ma’am. I’m OK. I mean, me personally, yes ma’am.’
Sheila quickly logged into her password-protected jail staff schedule. March was not on duty right now.
‘I … well, ma’am, you said that I could call you if there were any problems. Like with the men deputies and all. On account of them giving me a hard time last month. This isn’t that, but …’
The child was tying her tongue in knots trying to say whatever it was she needed to.
‘OK, Molly, why don’t we just slow down. How about you take a breath and just say what’s on your mind.’
‘Yes, ma’am. I thought you should know they’re planning a sick-out.’
Sheila’s hand, which had been hovering over her computer mouse, curled into a fist.
‘The jail staff?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. Starting with swing shift. And going on as long as possible.’
‘Do you know who’s organizing it?’
‘Bubba is. He’s been going around getting support for it.’
‘Have you been asked to participate?’
‘No. I figure they want to leave me as the only one on duty. Like for extra spite, you know?’
Sheila did know. Very well. They would find it hilarious that a young woman who was brand new to law enforcement and weighed no more than a bag of feathers was locked in by herself with dozens of the county’s worst citizens. She patted at her hair as thoughts pinballed through her brain.
‘What abou
t Gerald Tucker? Did you hear him say anything, do anything regarding all this?’
She could practically hear Molly thinking.
‘Well, he’s not planning it like Bubba is, but … he sure ain’t stopping it. He’s just watching. Like, I don’t know … like he’s watching a movie where he knows the ending. Oh, man, that sounds dumb. I’m sorry, ma’am.’
That didn’t sound dumb at all. It sounded like the most astute observation Sheila had heard in a long time. Tucker knew the end of this movie because he was the director. Bubba might be doing the legwork, but Tucker was behind it.
‘Do you know if patrol is involved, too?’
‘That’s a good question, ma’am. And I don’t. I been trying to figure out if they are, but all I know is the talk in the jail. I can’t tell what they’re doing on their phones.’
‘But they are on their phones? A lot?’
‘Oh, yeah. Lots since all this started yesterday.’
Which in itself was against regulations. She rubbed at her forehead, where a throbbing headache was developing. She told the kid to keep monitoring things like she had been, and call anytime day or night if something new developed.
‘And tomorrow, report for duty just like normal. Act like you don’t know anything about all this. But Molly, I guarantee you that you won’t be there alone. Someone will be with you all shift, OK?’
A relieved sigh came through the phone.
‘Thank you, ma’am. That sure helps.’
Sheila gave her a few more instructions and told her to be careful. When she hung up the phone, she dug two Advil out of her desk drawer and swallowed them dry before she could bring herself to look again at her staffing spreadsheet. Tucker and Bubba’s names were at the top. Damn fools. If they’d tried to recruit Molly, she would’ve at least been conflicted about ratting them out to Sheila. But isolating her had made the decision to side with Sheila an easy one. Thank God. She might be able to contain the damage of this now that she had advance warning.
Tucker’s insidious reach extended beyond the jail, though. He used to work patrol – for years, in fact, until his demotion to the jail. Then he lost the sheriff election to Hank. So now he was out to do as much harm as he could, to both Hank and the department as a whole. The overtime anger was just an opportune circumstance for him to capitalize on. And if he was able to use it to get patrol deputies off the street, that would really hurt. That’s what the public saw and that’s where the political damage would start.
Hank, when he approved her new overtime scheduling, had said he could handle any blowback. But now that it looked like it would become a dispute played out in public, she didn’t think he’d be able to. Especially since he wasn’t even in town, damn it. She had to get a handle on the patrol numbers and try to figure out where each deputy stood. She pulled up the other scheduling spreadsheet and started to go through the names. Then she texted Tyrone to tell him they needed to cancel their dinner plans for tomorrow.
TWENTY-THREE
Nell Timmons had died of lung cancer nine years ago. Sheila thought this was somehow important to the investigation into her husband’s murder. Sam frowned in concentration. He was sitting at his little kitchen table with his laptop. He’d decided to just come home after driving by that address for Hank. It was getting late, and going all the way back to the main office in Forsyth would be a waste of time. He could do the research here.
The Daily Herald didn’t archive its obituaries online, which was totally irritating. He surfed around until he finally found Mrs Timmons’s obituary on a catch-all death notices website. She’d been fifty-nine and died at home after a brave battle with the cancer. Up until her diagnosis, she worked for the White Tail Manufacturing administrative office, where she’d been for twenty years. She was known for her baking and her kind smile. She was survived by her husband of thirty-seven years, Clyde Timmons of Branson, and son Lonnie Timmons of Lee’s Summit. She would be greatly missed.
It wasn’t much, but the article did at least give Sam her workplace. The best source for anything else would be Lonnie, of course. But he wasn’t in a real helpful mood at the moment. So Sam fixed himself a sandwich and hunkered down at the laptop. The company office was closed and would be until Monday, according to the voicemail recording. Work around it, the Chief would say. Sam drummed his fingers on the Formica tabletop and pondered. Then he started in again. A half hour later, he unearthed a partial list of employees courtesy of an old online park district newsletter. The company had sent a contingent to a community cleanup day, and, thank God, the newspaper had taken pictures and interviewed people. He started with someone named Jeanette Pistoresi because, well, there was only one of those in the phone book.
‘Oh, goodness, yes, I worked with Nell. How long has she been gone now? Ten years? Why do you ask?’
‘Just about ten years, yes,’ Sam said, and then took a deep breath. He hated this part. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, but her husband, Clyde, was found dead earlier this week. We at the sheriff’s department are, um, just trying to figure out exactly what happened, and it’s always helpful to know more about a person’s history.’
‘Oh, how awful. That poor man. I’ll say a prayer. And anything I can do to help, sweetie. What do you need?’
‘What was she like?’
‘Hmm, well … she was a quiet soul. Very kind. She was in charge of the birthdays – you know, remembering when people’s were, sending around the birthday cards for everyone to sign. And she’d bake the cakes. Oh my, was she a baker. Such delicious treats she’d bring in. Homemade candy at Halloween, cookies at Christmas. Always so generous.’
‘And did she continue working after she got sick?’
‘She tried to, but it got bad real fast. Her husband convinced her that she should quit so she could focus on her health.’
‘What about her son?’
‘I don’t think he was around then. You’d need to talk to Mary Johnson or Bea Kircher. They worked with Nell the longest and might know more about that, because I seem to recall that there was something. But I never knew what it was.’
She hadn’t stayed in touch with Mrs Kircher, but she knew how to contact Mrs Johnson. Sam carefully wrote down the phone number. He had her name – her photo was in that old newsletter – but Mrs Pistoresi had just saved him from having to spend hours rattling around online databases or calling the huge number of Johnsons in the county white pages. He thanked her profusely and placed his next call.
Mrs Johnson sounded much older than Mrs Pistoresi. She was shocked at Clyde’s death. She’d worked with Nell Timmons the whole time Clyde’s wife was with the company.
‘Of course, the company changed hands so many times we didn’t even know who we worked for at the end. Probably the Chinese,’ she said. ‘But you don’t care about that. You want to know about Nell and her family. Let me think.’
She went quiet, and the silence lasted so long Sam wondered whether he should ask if she was still there.
‘Nell started after her boy was old enough to be in school. She just had the one. I don’t remember his name. But I do remember that he’d get into trouble every now and then as he grew up. The school would have to call her at work, that sort of thing. That was how I knew. But I never got the feeling that it was too serious. Just standard teenage boy stuff, you understand? I do know that it would always be her who was called – not Clyde. She told me once it was because he was hard to find in the far reaches of the sawmill, but I think it was because the boy preferred dealing with his mother. Clyde was a fine man, and a good husband. You might wonder how I know that and I’ll tell you, young man. You sit next to a woman for twenty years and you’ll know how she’s treated by the people in her life. And he treated her good. He didn’t hit her, and he didn’t yell, and he didn’t isolate. I saw all of that happen over the years with ladies who came through. But not Nell. They were a good, solid couple.’
‘You think Lonnie preferred Nell over Clyde?’ Sam asked.
Clyde was devastated by his wife’s cancer diagnosis. He drove her to and from work every day and would take her to her chemo appointments, Mrs Johnson said. It pretty quickly got to the point where she wasn’t able to keep working. So Clyde up and retired, too, to take care of her. Sweetest thing you ever saw. But it was a steady decline, and she was gone within a year. He didn’t speak at the memorial service, but the boy did.
Sam bolted upright, knocking the laptop and rattling his dinner plate. ‘He did? What did he say?’
‘Oh, how much he loved his mother, how hard she’d fought the cancer. That kind of thing.’
Sam squashed the last bit of his sandwich in frustration.
‘I’d love to know more about that, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Do you recall anything else he said, or anything Clyde said to him?’
She thought about it. Again it took forever. Sam passed the time pressing crumbs into his napkin.
‘He said that his ma had always loved him for who he was. Which, I must say, I took to be a dig at his father. But then I knew the history, didn’t I? He said how he was glad to have made it back to Branson before she passed, and he said he wished he could have her chocolate cake one last time. That got a nice chuckle from everyone. He also said he appreciated that so many folks came. There weren’t that many, honestly. People from work, and some that had to be from Clyde’s job at the mill. That was about it. They were private people, like I said.’
Clyde Timmons had come up to her afterward and thanked her for being such a good friend to Nell all those years. ‘He was just so devastated. He shook my hand, and he said he couldn’t believe it had happened so quick. I said it was normal to feel that way. He just looked at me like he was seeing right through me. Like he was still seeing Nell somewhere behind me.’