by J. R. Adler
“That’s all speculative and circumstantial at best. We’re not rushing to any conclusions.” Sam chewed on his bottom lip. “Besides, it still don’t sound like anyone I know in this community,” he added.
Kimberley took a deep breath and decided not to press the issue any further.
14
Sam pulled his police-issued Ford Bronco into the gravel driveway leading up to a small ranch house in the center of Dead Woman Crossing. The home hadn’t seen any upkeep in years as the painted siding was chipped and the white shutters were either partially broken or hanging off their hinges. A garden overgrown with weeds sat off to the side of the house. The owner had clearly given up caring about its appearance, and the home and property reflected this aesthetic in kind.
“Here it is,” Sam said, putting the vehicle in park.
Kimberley looked up at the house. It was exactly as she had expected, given the fact that Hannah’s mom, Lisa, was a grocery-store clerk living alone on minimum wage. According to what Kimberley could gather on her, Lisa had had Hannah very young and she was her only child. Hannah’s father had never been in the picture and, in that sense, history had repeated itself for these two women. Kimberley hoped to learn who Isobel’s father was and where he was. But most of all, she wanted to see Isobel, to ensure that she was okay.
It took several knocks on the front door before Lisa opened it. Propped on her hip, she held Isobel close. Lisa looked like an older version of Hannah—that same long dark hair and those emerald-green eyes. But time had clearly not been kind to Lisa. The lines on her face were deeper than they should have been for a woman in her early forties, making her face look like a broken vase that was somehow still intact, cracks running all over it as if it were a part of its design. Her skin was red and blotchy, with a wet sheen thanks to smeared tears that hadn’t yet dried. She sniffled and wiped at her nose with a tissue.
“Did you find the person who murdered my daughter?” Her voice cracked and she began sobbing uncontrollably.
“Let’s go inside,” Kimberley said, placing a hand on her shoulder and helping her back into the house.
“Mama. Mama,” Isobel said over and over.
“She keeps saying that…” Lisa wailed.
Kimberley took Isobel from Lisa just as she collapsed on the tattered couch, her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
“I’m sorry,” she cried.
“It’s okay. There’s no need to be sorry. Take your time,” Kimberley said, holding the little girl.
Kimberley looked over Isobel, but when she got to the little girl’s emerald eyes, she couldn’t look away. Almost like she was spellbound by them. She knew she was too young to provide any useful evidence or testimony, but she wondered what those eyes must have seen. Did she see her mother get murdered? Did she see the killer? Would the horrible memory manifest itself into something much worse when she was older? No, of course not. She was too young. She’d remember nothing… not even her own mother. Kimberley closed her eyes for a second to compose herself. Her eyes forcing tears back into their ducts at the thought of Jessica enduring the same fate.
“Mama.” The child began to cry, reaching her hands out for something that would never be there again.
“Will you take her?” Kimberley asked Sam.
“Uhh, sure.”
Sam held the small child in his arms, bouncing her ever so gently. Her cries stopped and she stared up at him, confused at first. He stuck out his tongue and blew out his cheeks, causing an eruption of laughter to come from Isobel. She smiled wide, reaching out for his cheeks.
Kimberley couldn’t help watching Sam. She couldn’t believe how good with kids he was, especially for a man that didn’t have any, or so she had assumed. They had only worked together less than a week and he hadn’t really told her anything about himself. But then again, she hadn’t asked.
Hearing Lisa’s sobs again, Kimberley pulled her attention from Sam and Isobel. She walked to the couch and took a seat next to her, not too close to invade her space, but close enough for comfort.
“We’re going to do everything we can to find the person responsible for Hannah’s death,” Kimberley assured.
Confidence and reassurance were the most important things she needed to get across to families of victims. If they felt you could help, they’d be more helpful, Kimberley had learned. Unless of course they were involved.
Lisa’s shoulders shook a couple more times before she started gaining control of her outpouring of grief and heartache. She sat up straight, grabbing a handful of random restaurant napkins from the coffee table, and wiped her face.
“You promise?” Lisa looked directly into Kimberley’s eyes, a plea for her dead daughter.
Kimberley paused. She never made promises she didn’t think she could keep.
“I need your help to fill in some of the gaps we’re missing?” Kimberley said, changing the subject and pulling out a small notepad and a pen from the front pocket of her shirt.
“Okay.” Lisa sniffled.
“Can you tell me about Isobel’s father?”
She held the pencil upright against a blank page of paper.
Lisa’s shoulders shuddered. “His name’s Tyler Louis. He works in the oil industry out in Texas, and he’s not involved at all. He didn’t even have the decency to send his daughter a birthday or Christmas gift.” There was an edge of spite in her voice.
Kimberley took notes as Lisa talked.
“When was the last time he had contact with Hannah?”
“Hell if I know. That boy took off as soon as Hannah got pregnant.” Lisa let out a huff.
“And how long were they together?” Kimberley asked.
“Maybe a year or two. Him running out on Hannah and Isobel really caught me off guard. He seemed like a nice boy, and then one day he was just gone. Up and skipped town.” Lisa shook her head.
“So, he’s had no interactions with Hannah over the past fourteen months?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Do you have a phone number or an address for him?” Kimberley asked.
Lisa shook her head.
“That’s okay. We can get that information.”
“Think he did it?” Lisa asked, looking up at Sam.
“We’re looking at a number of possibilities,” Sam said, looking at Lisa while flipping through the pages of a picture book for Isobel.
“The autopsy report came back with the time of death estimated between two a.m. and four a.m. Did you notice your granddaughter and daughter were missing?” Kimberley spoke a little softer, knowing she had to tread lightly.
“No…” Lisa cried out. “I should have known. I should have felt it. A mother’s intuition or something, but I was asleep.”
Kimberley paused in her note-taking and let Lisa sob. If there was any guilt Lisa was feeling, she needed to get it out.
“We had had a fight that morning. I was supposed to watch Isobel that day, but I got called into work. I work at the local grocery store. She was mad at me, and she stormed out of my house with Isobel. I figured she’d cool off, and I could make it up to her another day, like go out for lunch or spend a day at the zoo, just the three of us.” Lisa stopped talking as she cried. “There is no ‘another day’ now. When I didn’t hear from her for the rest of the day, I just assumed she was still mad at me. And she doesn’t live here, so it’s not like I knew she hadn’t come home.” Lisa threw her head into her hands again. “I should have known. I should have known.”
Kimberley closed up her notepad and placed her hand on Lisa’s back, rubbing it. “None of this is your fault, and it won’t do you any good to think that way. You have a beautiful granddaughter that needs you to be strong for her.”
As if Isobel knew what Lisa needed in that moment, she said, “Nana.”
Lisa looked up, her face soaked with tears, her eyes red, her face crumpled. Somehow, she found the strength to smile at her granddaughter. She found the strength to stand up. She found the
strength to hold Isobel and to tell her, “Nana’s here.”
Lisa held her close against her chest, running her hands through her granddaughter’s hair, whispering words of reassurance and love into her ear.
Sam pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “Mrs. Brown, please give us a call if you remember anything else that could help. No matter how small.”
Lisa took it from him and nodded.
“You’ll find my daughter’s killer?” she asked again, a final plea for justice.
“Of course,” Sam said.
Out in the car, Sam took a deep breath while turning the key in the ignition.
“I don’t usually do that,” he said, putting the vehicle in reverse.
“Do what?” Kimberley looked over at him, studying his face. He wrinkled his forehead and sighed.
“Make promises I don’t know if I can keep.”
“You didn’t. We’re going to find the person who did this. Unsolved cases aren’t really my thing,” Kimberley said confidently, although there was doubt in her mind.
Her last case that had this little to go on went unsolved. It was the case that ate away at her, shook her to the core. “Who’s the King now?” written in blood across the mirror flashed to the front of her mind. The bloody sink. The bathtub. The women. One after another. She rubbed her temples and squeezed her eyes tight, forcing the images to fade just as quickly as they appeared.
Kimberley reassured herself that this was different. This was one murder, not the work of a twisted serial killer, and this wasn’t New York City. This was Dead Woman Crossing, a small town, and people talked in small towns. She was certain one way or another, there’d be a break in the case.
Kimberley pulled out her phone and called the station. Barbara answered on the first ring.
“Custer County Police Department, this is Barbara. How may I direct your call?” she said.
“Hey, Barb. It’s Chief Deputy King.”
“Oh, yes. How are you?”
“Fine. I need you to pull up information on a Tyler Louis. Should be residing somewhere in Texas. Mid-twenties, and he works in the oil industry.”
“I’m on it,” Barbara said confidently. “Oh, yes. There’s a piece of apple pie waiting for you on your desk when you get back.”
“Thanks, Barb. You’re too kind.”
“I’ve gotta make sure you and Sam are eating. Gotta keep your energy up if y’all are gonna catch that maniac.”
Kimberley could practically hear Barb smiling.
“I appreciate it. We’ll see you soon.”
Kimberley ended the call.
“You know you could have asked one of the deputies to do that?” Sam raised an eyebrow.
“That binder Barb put together on the town troublemakers was the most detailed research I’d ever seen. She even had their likes and dislikes listed. I trust her to dig up everything on Tyler.”
Sam cracked a smile. “Yeah, Barb is something else. We’re lucky to have her.”
“She said there’s a piece of apple pie waiting on my desk for me.”
“Careful of the Barb Fifteen.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ll gain fifteen pounds thanks to Barb’s baked goods.” Sam patted his stomach, despite the fact that he was fit from what Kimberley could see.
Sam turned left onto the main road into town.
“Where we heading?” she asked.
“Over to Hannah’s house.”
Kimberley nodded.
Kimberley looked out the window, taking in more scenery of her new fiefdom. Leaving Arapaho and finding their way onto the small two-lane county roads showed Kimberley an almost endless expanse of fields of wheat, random smatterings of cattle, antelope, and a few trees here and there. In the dry environment of Oklahoma, the dust and wind dominated; only voracious weeds and the most virile of seeding plants could hold up to the abuse. The thing that struck Kimberley was how much it all looked the same, even after only a few miles, like she had seen the whole state in one drive. She knew there must be more though. Within that vast expanse of wheat, an entire world must be thriving and moving underfoot, because Kimberley saw countless hawks circling the plains, diving from time to time.
Sam put the vehicle in park on the side of the road in front of a small blue ranch house. Unlike Lisa’s home, the outside was well maintained with freshly painted white shutters and perfectly hedged bushes lining the front of the house. Kimberley and Sam got out of the vehicle and walked to the front door. He twisted the handle and the door opened.
“She doesn’t lock her doors?” Kimberley questioned.
“No one does around here. This ain’t New York City,” Sam said, entering the small home.
Kimberley pursed her lips together. For the most part, New York City was safe. True, people didn’t leave their doors unlocked, but they also didn’t walk around in fear of being murdered or robbed at any moment. Like any city, there were unsafe areas, but, on the whole, it was safe. It was obvious when someone hadn’t been to NYC, because they talked about it in generalities, based on what they’d seen on television. Looking at Sam in irritation, Kimberley presumed he had never set foot outside of Oklahoma.
The front door opened to a small living room and an open-concept kitchen. Inside, everything was immaculate and well kept. Not a single item was out of place. The home was sparsely furnished, the living room only having a loveseat, a coffee table, and a TV stand with a small flat-screen television. The kitchen had a square table with two chairs and a highchair. They walked through the house, down the hall, passing a bathroom that was spotless, a nursery that had nothing more than a few toys, a crib, and a rocking chair. Hannah’s room was like the rest of the house: clean and sparsely decorated. Just a made full-size bed, a dresser, and an end table sat inside the room. Hannah clearly didn’t have much, but she took pride in what little she had.
“She didn’t leave in a hurry,” Kimberley said, looking inside the closet. Her clothes were hung up and color-coded and an empty travel suitcase sat on the floor.
Sam nodded his head while pulling open some drawers of the dresser. All the clothes were folded neatly and stood up on end.
“She was tidy,” he noted.
Kimberley raised an eyebrow. “A little surprising.”
“Why’s that?” Sam looked over to Kimberley.
“The run-ins I had with her, she was always late, flustered, and frantic, and with a young child, I’d expect an unkempt home. You should have seen my apartment in New York—toys everywhere, piles of clothes,” Kimberley thought out loud.
“You’re right, she’s very tidy,” Sam said, looking around.
“Like a type-A personality. She’s a planner.”
Kimberley walked over to Hannah’s bed. On the wall above it was a large bulletin board covered in photos and quotes, almost like a mood board for a life she wanted and dreamed of. There were pictures of places overseas: the Caribbean, Australia, the Eiffel Tower. A pang of sadness hit Kimberley like a punch to the gut. Hannah wanted more out of life. She wanted out of Dead Woman Crossing. And she got the exact opposite. She shook her head in disgust at the person who took it all away from her.
“It’s just so sad. Look at this.” Kimberley pointed to the mood board.
Sam stood beside her and glanced up, scanning all the colorful images.
“She had so much she wanted to do and see, and some asshole just ripped it all away.”
“It’s a fucking shame.” Sam shook his head. He looked over at Kimberley. “You alright?”
Kimberley pulled her eyes from the mood board and looked at Sam. “I will be once we catch this guy.”
They walked back down the hallway, into the living room, giving Hannah’s home a final once-over.
“I was hoping we’d find something like a planner saying, ‘Meeting with so and so.’” Sam scratched at his chin.
“Well, we’ve got her cell phone. Burns is in touch with her provider to get the device u
nlocked and pull records,” Kimberley said.
“How long ’til we have those?”
“A day or two.”
“Why don’t we head on over to Kent’s place? He don’t live too far from here.”
“Maybe we’ll have more luck with this town’s only ghost tour operator than we’ve had with Lisa and Hannah’s home.”
“Don’t get your hopes up—Kent Wills is a bit of a nutjob.” Sam tilted his head.
15
Leaving Hannah’s house, Kimberley and Sam were once again navigating back roads on their way out of town toward the outskirts where Kent Wills lived. With wide-open space and no cars in sight, the road felt like their own; a telegraphed path that their vehicle had to traverse merely for the sake of it. Looking out at the countryside, Kimberley was already starting to grow tired of the same scenery set in a seemingly continuous loop. Tree. Wheatgrass. Tree. Wheatgrass. Oh look, a cornfield. Tree. Wheatgrass.
Could this be any more drab? Kimberley thought to herself. I mean hell at least in—
SCREEEEECHHH.
Kimberley’s head slammed forward, pulling her from her thoughts with a violent force.
“Jesus Christ,” Sam yelled, as he just missed the tail end of a deer hopping off into the tall grass.
Kimberley could smell burned rubber as the Ford Bronco had come to an immediate halt. Kimberley looked over at Sam, who still had his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly.
“Sorry about that. I zoned out for a moment,” he said, looking over at her.
Kimberley’s heartbeat was just starting to come down. “Does that happen a lot around here?”
“Well, we do have a lot of wildlife. Probably never saw that in the city.”
“Can’t say I have. In the city you dodge pedestrians, but they don’t move like that,” Kimberley said with a small smile.