Nina curled her upper lip, “He did have another family. What a jerk. It’s one thing to divorce and move away, but to just abandon your family...” her voice trailed off Perri picked up her phone, “I need to call Sarah and let her know what I found. It’s getting kind of late.”
“Absolutely.” Nina was thoughtful, “I wonder if we’ll be able to find out how this turns out in the end. I mean, if they ever catch who killed Amy, and Rodney, if it was the same person. I guess it could have been someone else.”
“I bet not, they happened too close together and Rodney was involved with the car used in Amy’s murder.” Perri dialed Sarah’s number.
Chapter 28
Perri had just hung up from talking to Sarah when her phone rang again. She looked at the number but didn’t recognize it. “Hmm, who’s this I wonder?” She picked the phone up again and answered, “Hello?”
There was a brief pause, then, “Oh hi! Yeah.” Perri stood up and walked to the window. “We are, yes.” She touched the edge of the curtain, “Oh, well ok, I, let me check. I’ll call you back, ok?” She dropped the curtain, “Alright then, I’ll call you back.” Perri ended the call. When she turned around a minute later, Nina was making an exaggerated silly grin, “Yeeees? Who, pray tell, was that M’lady?”
Perri sighed and plugged her phone in by the secretary. “Nick. He wanted to know if I’d consider coming back for the weekend.”
“That’s great! You are, aren’t you?” Nina asked excitedly.
“Oh, I don’t know. I said I’d call back.” Perri sat in the rocking chair.
Nina got up and walked to the opposite side of the bed to sit in front of Perri. “Hey, I’m not sure why you are resistant to liking someone, or at least showing that you like someone.”
Perri opened her mouth to protest, but Nina held up her hand, “No. Let me say this. I know Alan was a turd, a great big, smelly turd,” Perri laughed. “I think you beat yourself up for not recognizing it early on, but who could have? That is something that happens. I know it took you a while to crawl out of the emotional hole you were in, but you still seem to feel like you have to be impermeable to anyone else’s charms. You don’t.”
“Mmm, psychoanalysis your new hobby?”
“No…come on.” Nina slapped Perri on the knee. “I just want to see you happy, you big goose. You like this guy. I can see that. He likes you or he wouldn’t call you and ask you to come back.”
“Yeah, that’s probably the thing though, why do I have to come back down here? I just don’t want to be the one to always put forth the effort.”
“I get that, I do, but in this case, it might be because he is working, at least up until the day of the festival. And the festival is here, not in Vailsburg.” Nina leaned back on her hands and raised her eyebrows.
“You’re right. I know. Ok. I’ll do it. I don’t have to work in the next couple of weeks anyway and it’ll be fun. Right?”
“You bet your hind quarters it will be fun!” Nina stood up. “Good, I’m glad you are going to come back for some, oh, R&R. Maybe not too much rest.” Nina winked.
“I will be sure to keep copious and accurate notes to report back to you.” Perri smiled.
“I gotta live vicariously through you girl. I’m too tired at night to have fun of any sort. I’m getting a bath and hitting the hay.” Nina snapped her fingers as she headed for the bathroom. “Make your call.”
Chapter 29
Wednesday morning breakfast was pleasantly shared with fellow Crow’s Rest guests; two couples and a businesswoman. Alice kept the dining table supplied with fresh pancakes, waffles, sliced fruit with cream, fresh bread with butter and jam, and the sideboard warmers with eggs, bacon, and sausage.
The businesswoman was the first to leave, having a meeting appointment to keep, and Perri and Nina followed soon after. Their bags packed and loaded in the car, they checked out at the desk in the Parlor. “Alice, it has been a real treat staying here; I feel like we found a gem in your hotel,” Perri gave praise.
“I thank you so much, it was wonderful to have you and I hope you’ll come back again sometime. I’m sorry I don’t have any rooms for this weekend, but the festival does draw people in and they reserve ahead of time,” said Alice regretfully.
“Well, I think it’s great your business is doing well,” offered Nina. “Hopefully, we can come back down this way sometime again, and I would definitely refer someone here.”
“I do hope so. You have a safe trip, now.”
Perri and Nina walked through the creaky screen door to the Cooper, sitting in the shade of the trees. “Ready to get back home and your routine?” Perri asked Nina.
“I miss Aaron and Tom, but it has been really refreshing to be away for a few days. I can’t say I’m looking forward to work, but then that’s normal.” Nina turned her face to the morning sun, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. “The air smells like … corn field.”
“I know exactly what you mean, that sort of dusky smell when the corn is close to harvest. I like that too.” Both were seated and snapped in. Perri drove the Cooper past the grassy oval in front of the house, out to the county road, and began to retrace their route home.
***
Sarah Vines was at her desk in a small room at the station she shared with two of the other officers. Their work area was half of a larger room that had been sectioned off with an accordion style partition on a sliding track. The opposite end of the room, on the other side of the partition, was the dispatcher area. Emily was currently seated in front of the computer and radio, her mondo-sized coffee and two tiger tails at the ready to get her morning off to a start.
The desk phone rang and Sarah answered her first call of the day, “Good morning, Sarah Vines.”
“Mornin’ Sarah, Ted here. Got the results from the wrecker for you.”
“Oh good. What have you got?”
“Nothing much. The cab was totally clean. I doubt anyone but Rodney was in the cab.” Ted yawned.
“Keeping you awake Mr. Baker?” Sarah chuckled.
“Sorry, I’m not with it yet.” Ted cleared this throat. “The only place we found anything other than Rodney’s own fingerprints, or any other evidence, was on the winch cable. It looks like the person who strung him up got some of their own hair caught in the cable when it was being wrapped around the hands, because it isn’t Rodney’s.”
“How do we know it was the killer; it could be anyone’s, couldn’t it?” asked Sarah.
“Sure, it could, but it isn’t. At least I’m reasonably sure it isn’t.”
“Ok, Ted, you gonna tell me why?” Sarah let her hand drop down onto her desk.
“Yes, I am. The hair on the winch was a match with one of the hair samples we took from the old Chrysler. Neither sample had the root bulb attached. All we can do is compare, but the shaft of hair from the car is completely consistent with the hair from the winch. I feel fairly confident these samples are from was the killer since it seems very improbable that anyone else who was near the wrecker would have been in the car.”
“Yes, that would be the clincher. Fantastic.”
Ted blew out a long breath right into the receiver, “One more thing. There was a crowbar recovered from the periwinkle vines along the side of the road, probably went with the wrecker, but I found blood and hair on the end. Matches Rodney’s hair and blood type. No prints on the cabling or framework, gloves again. But you are looking for someone with sandy blond hair, not cut too short; the sample was five inches long, wavy.”
There was a pause and Ted continued, “And…we got a hit on a set of fingerprints from the Chrysler.”
“You did? Who?” Sarah asked eagerly.
Ted read the results, “One Andrew Kratz, lives in Elkton, or at least he did when he was arrested for fraud in 2012. Owned a garage and was charged with fixing things that weren’t broken. Did a little jail time, no problems since then.”
Sarah scribbled down the information, “Where were the print
s found, Ted?”
“Steering wheel, door handles inside and out, oil cap, air filter…”
“Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.
“Thanks Ted. Good job.” Sarah ended the call. She leaned over the arm of her chair and slipped the paper with the cemetery photograph from her briefcase. The man leaning against the car had blond hair, not sandy blond. “This photograph is forty-two years old. But, I wonder…” Sarah picked up the phone.
***
As the Cooper traveled down the last long stretch of highway toward Vailsburg, Perri’s phone rang. She pressed the button on her steering column that would let her talk hands free. “Hello?”
“Hello? Perri, is that you? I can’t hear you.” Sarah found herself talking very loudly.
“Yeah, it’s me. Sorry, top’s down. What can I do for you?” Perri shouted. Nina pulled her sunglasses down to look over them and silently mouthed the words, ‘What now?’
“Sorry to call you yet again, I really am. But I was wondering if, when you …”
“Sarah, I lost the last part of that.”
“Ok. When you found Jonathan Blackwell’s second family, how far down the line did you go? I mean like his grandchildren, or any further?”
“No. I stopped when I found that he had a second family. I only documented his children. I wouldn’t be able to go too far down the line, not online anyway, because even census records are kept private for 70 years.”
“Oh, I see.”
“It could be done, but it would take a little longer and involve a few more resources, some I may not have access to.”
“Ok, I understand.”
“Are you interesting in finding Jonathan’s descendants”
“That’s exactly what I want to do,” said Sarah.
“I tell you what, Sarah. I’m going to be coming back down there Friday morning.”
“You are?”
“Yes, I …was invited to go to the Festival there this weekend. I’m taking Nina home and will come back Friday. If you still need help then, I can try to work on it for you.”
“That would be a huge help. I hope I don’t need it by then, but if I do, I’ll appreciate your input. I’ll let you go. Thanks.”
“Bye.” Perri pressed the disconnect button.
Nina gave Perri an exasperated look, “Tell me that you are not going to spend your weekend with Nick working on this stuff again?”
“No. Not all of it, at least.”
“Perri, come on!”
“Nina, calm down, I’m not going to put off Nick to do it.” Nina stared at her. She held up her right hand, “I promise!” Nina still stared. Perri held up two fingers, “Girl Scout’s Honor?”
“Ok.” She pointed at Perri, “I am going to check up on you. I am.”
“Alright, ok.”
The Cooper crossed the city limits of Vailsburg and Perri turned off the highway, toward Nina’s house.
***
Perri unloaded her luggage, satchel, and the coffee cup and snack detritus from the last few days, then sorted her laundry and got the first load started. She took a look in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door after self-consciously noting that her jeans were a little more snug than they had been last week. Talking to her image accusingly, she asked “Did you think you could get away with eating like a ravenous pig for four days?” She made a salad for lunch and planned to go for a long walk afterward, knowing that that part probably wouldn’t happen.
After washing up her lunch dishes, Perri went to the bedroom to start on the plan for what clothes to pack for the weekend. ‘Oh man, I don’t have more than one really decent outfit,’ she thought to herself as she flicked through the items in her closet. Scrubs, scrubs, faded jeans, old shirts. She made the decision to buy a new pair of jeans and a couple of shirts so she didn’t look like a scruffy bum. “I hate shopping, but, gotta do it.” She grabbed her purse and set off to get the job done.
Chapter 30
Sarah settled down in a booth at the downtown diner to eat the decent breakfast she didn’t have the time to make for herself and drink large amounts of coffee while reviewing everything she had on the case. Periodically, someone would stop to ask about progress or if an arrest was imminent. She was glad she could reply that she wasn’t able to discuss the case, since she would have had nearly nothing concrete to tell them. With the exception of the fingerprint match, which was being followed up on, the dearth of physical evidence forced her to rely on whatever possibilities she could squeeze out of the research Patricia and Amy had been doing. She took out a new notebook and started making notes on a fresh page.
After a three-egg omelet with toast and hash browns and at least four cups of coffee, Sarah had re-read all her notes from start to finish. She had the beginnings of a rough formulation for a possible solution. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. Pretty shaky theory right now, but it was something. She decided to continue in her office, where she would have the privacy to make calls. She paid her bill, leaving an ample tip since she had once been a waitress and knew how tips sometimes made up the better part of a waitress’s income.
Once back at the station, she separated from the pile the information she had received by fax that morning from the Guthrie public library and chamber of commerce. There was a Blackwell Oil & Synthetics in Guthrie, Joseph P. Blackwell listed as the CEO. The company had remained in its original city, Guthrie, since its inception, although it was now housed in a brand-new building in a business park on the west edge of town. This was the second new building the company had built and occupied over the years since the business began on Oklahoma Avenue during the booming growth of the city in the 1890s. Blackwell had diversified and branched out into plastics manufacturing in the 1980s and added synthetic fabrics to their product lines, in 2001.
The business reports showed its ups and downs over the intervening years, especially during the Depression when it nearly folded, but it had done quite well in the last fifteen years, exceptionally well since Blackwell Oil & Synthetics had obtained a number of lucrative government contracts that were renewed at every expiration date. It was the synthetics line that afforded Blackwell the military contracts, for anything from webbing for tarps and ammunition belts to wallets, pouches, duffels, equipment covers, and dozens of other items.
War could be a staggeringly profitable and rewarding business for those who didn’t have to suffer the anxiety of having a family member deployed, lose a family member, need to close their business, or have to serve themselves. The Blackwell family had profited from their contracts quite well, the family members who worked for the company bringing home salaries in the millions. None of them appeared to have served in the military since WWII, when Nathaniel Blackwell had been in the Army Air Force.
There was a company phone number. Sarah dialed it.
“Good morning, Blackwell Oil & Synthetics.” came the rapid, yet bored, greeting.
Sarah introduced herself and asked to speak with Joseph Blackwell. “I’m sorry, Mr. Blackwell is not available. May I take a message?”
“I understand that you probably give this standard answer to anyone who calls asking directly for Mr. Blackwell, but I’m calling from the Russellville, Kentucky Police Department. This is a police matter and I need to speak with him.”
“I’m sorry,” the voice repeated, “Mr. Blackwell is not available.”
“Alright, I will take that to mean he would prefer the police come to your office in person to speak with him personally. I can go ahead and get that arranged.” Sarah had the receiver halfway from her ear to the phone when the receptionist broke from her script.
“No. Don’t do that.” She hesitated, obviously trying to assemble her response in the best way she could to prevent herself from getting in trouble. Her voice lowered, “Mr. Blackwell is ill and he isn’t in the office. He hasn’t been for over a month. Look, I’m not supposed to let that out, but…you ARE the police, aren’t you? Oh God.”
“I don’t know that. No. Can I just take a message? I’ll just pass the message on.” She seemed very agitated.
“Ok, but no, don’t take a message. I’ll go about contacting him another way. What is your name?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“No, but if you don’t I will find out anyway and it will be easier for both of us if you tell me yourself,” replied Sarah.
“I’m Kim.” She waited, “Kim Elhoff. Don’t say anything. We aren’t supposed to let anyone know he’s sick.”
“Alright, I won’t reveal that you told me about it. Don’t fret over it, there are other ways I could have found this out. Thanks, Kim. Goodbye.”
Sarah replayed the conversation in her mind. Why was the receptionist all uptight about telling anyone the CEO was ill? Obviously, it must be a serious illness if he had been absent for over a month, but what was the reason for secrecy? “On to Plan B.”
***
After getting all her bills squared away and doing everything she could do until time to leave, Perri found herself getting anxious about the weekend. It had been quite a while since she’d actually gone on a date. She considered what Sarah had said when she called yesterday, about maybe needing to call Perri if she needed some more research done, and decided to pre-empt having her weekend interrupted by doing the research that day. If she found anything worthwhile, she would go ahead and forward it to Sarah.
Poison Branches Page 16