by Jean Rabe
They were in a Denny’s on Fredricka in Owensboro. It wouldn’t have been Oren’s choice for breakfast, but it was near the landscaper where James Harrison Huffman worked, and James—the young man he was interviewing—had picked the spot. Oren had searched county records for Huffmans, Killians, and Martins—the last names of the boys who drowned sixty-five years ago. There were a few Huffmans and Martins left in Spencer County, but those Huffmans said they were no relation. Only one Martin said he was connected to the dead boy. Oren had an appointment to meet with him early tonight. It would be a long day.
There might be female relatives who’d married, changed their last names, and so would be more difficult to find. But Oren was patient. Maybe he’d turn to the old fart’s club for help. Piper had mentioned talking to the group a few days ago.
He’d also made some calls to Huffmans and Martins outside of the county, connecting with this young man—James Harrison Huffman, age twenty-five, of Owensboro. There was a Killian down in Bowling Green that looked promising, but he told Oren to call back after the weekend.
The waitress set their orders down, refilled Oren’s coffee cup, and twirled away.
James Harrison said this was the only time he was available, as he and his family were leaving for Nashville tomorrow for an extended weekend. But he’d seemed eager to talk.
“My wife says our family is the Twenty Club. Grandpa Julian Joseph—a thing in my family for the men to use both names—was twenty when he got married and had my dad. My dad, Buddy Dean, was twenty when he got married—had to ‘cause he got the neighbor girl pregnant with me. I got married at twenty, but not because I had to. We have a two-year-old boy, Ridley Thomas.” He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, opened it, and proudly showed Oren a picture of the toddler. “My wife says she’s doing this family tree thing for Ridley Thomas.” He shrugged. “I think she’s doing it ‘cause she got tired of scrapbooking. Good, eh? Scrapbooking is an expensive hobby. She was buying shit all the time. Genealogy is a hell of a lot cheaper.”
“Nice looking little boy,” Oren said politely. He stirred the eggs, took a bite, then set the fork down and reached for his coffee. When he got back to the office he’d see if there was more of that Dark Italian. Hell, he might call Nang and ask where he got it, buy some for himself.
“Sixty-five years. That’s a long time ago,” James Harrison said.
Depends on your perspective, Oren thought.
“Why are you interested in a drowning from sixty-five years back?” He replaced his wallet and dug into his stack of pancakes. “I mean, you got me all curious. That boy was a relative of mine.”
“It’s connected to a cold case. Maybe.” Oren decided to be honest. He wouldn’t be revealing anything that hadn’t gone out over the scanner. “We found some bones on the bluff, of a nine-year-old boy. We’re trying to identify him.”
“And it might be related to my great uncle and the other boys who drowned? Maybe a friend of theirs? From the same class? ‘Cause they were all nine?”
“Maybe.” Oren drained the coffee. “Right now I’m just gathering information. Those boys drowned likely the same year the boy on the bluff was killed.”
“Interesting. Nine years old? All of them?” James Harrison shuddered and continued to shovel the pancakes. He said something that was garbled because his mouth was full. “Sorry. Wife says I eat too fast. I can’t tell you much about my great uncle, Neal Robert, or my grandfather, Julian Joseph.”
Oren scribbled in his notebook, trying to keep the names straight.
James Harrison stopped to take a drink of apple juice. “Like I said, never knew either one of them. But I know they were both born in Rockport. My grandmother is still kicking, Julian Joseph’s widow. She lives in Evansville. Never remarried. She could probably help you. She’s pretty big into the genealogy stuff, too. Or at least she used to be. Must be a woman-thing, huh?”
Oren immediately thought another trip to the Taj Mahal lunch buffet was in order. Certainly more appetizing than these eggs.
“Are you going to eat that bacon?”
Oren shook his head. “Help yourself.” He was strict about not eating pork, hadn’t thought to ask the waitress to leave it off when he’d ordered the “special” that wasn’t very special.
“Grandma Huffman still works. Seventy-seven, I think, maybe seventy-eight. She runs an antique store down on Bellemeade, The Treasured Past. My parents are co-owners, but it’s basically hers. They just helped her buy it a while back. She lives upstairs. They’ll probably sell it when she croaks. Hell, maybe I’ll buy it from them. Landscaping? My back aches every night.”
“Are your parents around here, then? Evansville?” Oren thought there might be quite a few Huffmans in the area for him to interview after all. Maybe they were unlisted. He hadn’t found a Buddy Dean Huffman in any Indiana or Kentucky directory.
James Harrison shook his head and spooned up the leftover syrup, not leaving a drop to waste. Then he grabbed Oren’s bacon strips. “No. They live in Nashville. My dad works backstage at the Grand Ole Opry. Mom manages one of the small hotels down there. She gets me great deals when we want to get away for a weekend, like tomorrow. Dad gets us tickets to the Opry. Vacations on the cheap, you know. Tomorrow night we’re seeing Rascal Flatts.”
“Maybe your grandmother—”
“Oh, she’ll be happy to talk to you. Once you get her started, she won’t quit talking.” He pulled a napkin from the holder and wrote an address on it. “This is her shop, on Bellemeade like I said. I can’t recall the phone number, but it’s in the book. She’s in the book—Virginia Huffman.”
“No middle name?”
James Harrison shrugged. He pulled a jump drive out of his front pocket and slid it over.
“Grams’ll talk to you, but she wouldn’t have known Neal Robert. Don’t thinks so, anyway. She would’ve been—” Again he tipped his head back and counted. “Twelve, thirteen. Okay, I suppose she might have known him. She was from Rockport, same as my grandfather was. Childhood sweethearts I was told. So, maybe she did. That drive there is a copy of my wife’s genealogy stuff. Maybe it’ll help you.”
“Thanks.” Oren grabbed the bill and the jump drive. “I’ll mail this back to you when—”
“Don’t worry about it, those things are cheap. Four bucks at Walmart.” James Harrison slid out of the booth. “Listen, nice to meet you, Sheriff. I have to run. Can’t be late for work. If you need anything else, or want to talk to my wife about those files, call us next week. We get back late Monday.” He headed for the door and looked over his shoulder. “Thanks for breakfast.”
Oren pushed his plate away, decided he’d save his calories for the Taj Mahal. Maybe Millie was available for lunch again. The Taj twice in the same week. Yeah, he could handle that.
It was a few minutes past eight when he pointed the Ford west toward Evansville. He called into the office, but Piper wasn’t in yet.
“Coming in late,” Sylvia D reported. “I’d imagine she’s hurting bad, getting shot yesterday by Gretchen. Surprised she’s coming in at all. She’s meeting Mr. Thresher at nine in the park, and then she’ll be in. Do you need me to call her—”
“Nope. Just let her know I’m going to Evansville to—”
“You’re digging into the bones, aren’t you? A lead?”
Oren let out a breath. “Digging,” he said. “I’ll be back after lunch.”
“Hope you find something,” Sylvia D said. “The boy needs a name.”
“And so does his killer,” Oren returned.
He’d be in Evansville by nine, figured he’d spend an hour at the antique store, find a reason to kill another hour in the city—he could spend the time dallying, he’d be working late today—and then scoot over to the buffet. See if Millie wanted to join him. He hit his hand on the steering wheel.
“Millie.”
His only granddaughter—and soon to be fellow deputy—was graduating tomorrow and he hadn’t bought
her a gift. He and his wife had talked about it, but hadn’t come to a consensus. They’d been going to toss her money for law school, but that wasn’t happening now. Maybe dishes, pots and pans. She’d need all that for her place. Maybe she already had that stuff. Maybe he’d get her a necklace. He’d call his wife for ideas and then spend the hour shopping.
“Shit and back again,” he grumbled. Good thing he had a credit card.
24
Twenty-Four
Piper sat on the designated bench in the park. Someone tap danced inside her head—a whole chorus line of tap dancers that aspirin wouldn’t silence. Her morning had gotten off to an ugly start.
When she went to get in the loaner Hyundai this morning she stared at the spot where the driver side mirror should be. It could have happened at Gretchen’s, or when someone brought the car back yesterday, but the BITCH in dayglow yellow spray paint spaced out across the doors had come courtesy of whoever was intimidating her. Probably had torn off the mirror, too. The random blobs of color on Nang’s classic pickup had made matters worse. Fortunately, her and her father’s personal cars were in the garage.
But the double garage door had been tagged, too, and Paul Blackwell was furious—and concerned when she mentioned the previous damage to her Ford and finally talked about the email threats.
Paul said he was going to report the vandalism to the Rockport police on his way back from a big box store in Owensboro, where he would buy paint, motion sensor lights, and a home video surveillance system. He squealed away before she could present an effective argument.
The spray paint was nasty, but harmless, just another notice, done late last night. The neighbors said they didn’t see anyone or hear anything.
Harmless, yes, but it was an escalation. What was next? Serious damage? Maybe burning the place? A half-full gas can—that didn’t belong to her father—had sat in front of the garage. It had only made her more angry and determined.
Her dad had taken the gas can with him, said he’d give it to the police, said he’d mention the threats, too. They wouldn’t find fingerprints on the can. Piper knew her foe was too careful to leave prints.
She looked at her watch. At 8:55, she was five minutes early to the park, but actually late to work. She’d intended to be in the office by six-thirty so she could see if Diego had come up with anything on the Celica. If he’d found an owner and address, she had planned to pay the soul a visit and hopefully make an arrest. Have something good to report to Mark the Shark. But none of that happened. She’d have to attend to that after this meeting.
Her head pounded.
Piper passed the time waiting for Mark by using her phone to scroll local classified ads, see the apartment listings. It wasn’t the spray paint that fueled the fingers of her good hand; it was the desire for a little distance from her father. His raised eyebrows at Nang’s early-morning presence hadn’t been lost on her. Piper’s life. Piper’s business. Nothing happened, but her dad didn’t need to know that. And her dad’s garage hadn’t needed to be targeted by the vile soul pestering her and Mark the Shark.
I really need to get my own place.
Not that her apartment wasn’t her own place. But above her father’s garage, it was less than twenty feet from his house. The proximity had been great when he was ill. It felt smothering now. Maybe she could find something furnished because she didn’t want to acquire…things. “Stuff” was an anchor. The more you had, the more it weighed you down—cementing you to a town, a county. Her future was too murky for…things.
Not a single listing looked appealing. Was that why Millie was going to rent a one hundred and thirty-year-old house that currently had no working plumbing or electricity?
She tipped her head back and let the slight breeze drift across her face, ruffle her too-long bangs. Damn, she still needed a haircut. Just ought to whack it off herself. She could do that one-handed, right? Maybe she’d pass Sylvia D a pair of scissors when she got back into the office and say, “Have at it, please, before I go get the damn Celica and end this.”
The sky was Chicago Blues by Benjamin Moore. Piper had color samples in her desk drawer at home, had been entertaining the thought of painting her living room. Chicago Blues, or the lighter and gray-tinged Bracing Blue by Sherwin-Williams. She’d not yet decided. Then the carpet would get replaced because otherwise it would clash horribly. But if she moved, she didn’t have to worry about painting—and wouldn’t have to walk across old orange shag.
Not a cloud in the sky, one solid swipe of color. Definitely Chicago Blues.
The day warm, it felt like full-blown summer. Smelled like summer, too, a touch of the river, flowers, and still she could pick up the heady scent of the earth from where the park employees had filled in the hole. They’d seeded, straw thrown down. They’d tossed seeds in most of the bare spots across the entire bluff. The straw wasn’t doing a good job of keeping the birds from feasting.
9:05.
Mark was late. Maybe he was parking a block or so over because of the spies. He’d been right on that, hadn’t he? Someone in a metallic gray Celica had been keeping tabs on them—and probably was responsible for the spray paint. Had Mark’s place been vandalized, too?
She looked at the few cars nosed in at the edge of the park, stared at her loaned Hyundai, which had been a little tough maneuvering with one hand.
Wonder what the garage will think of that lovely spray paint?
No Celica. She wanted to get back to the office to see about that registration search, cursed herself for not getting up earlier.
Piper ticked off the items on her to-do list.
•Meet with Mark the Shark
•Check on the Celica registration
•Get an update on the Gretchen charges
•Call Nang and thank him for shopping and breakfast…because she hadn’t earlier, apologize for the paint on his truck
•Talk to Oren, learn what he had going with the bones
•Interview Zeke the Geek
•Wish that she could get a do-over on the past couple of days
Piper had been interested in seeing if Ezekiel Whitman would be a good fit for the dispatcher position—even though she was required to interview three candidates. But if he was as computer savvy as others claimed, she’d interview him about more than just the job opening and the threatening email she’d received. Ezekiel Whitman was connected to Mark the Shark through the old fart’s club and accompanying computer tutoring. Did he drive a Celica?
Was it possible Zeke the Geek had siphoned Mark’s accounts?
Could he be the one who sent her the threatening email? Spray painted last night?
Piper pulled out her phone and checked her texts and email. She’d had three texts from her dad, which she flipped through. He was still fuming about the vandalism and worried about her. She would call him when she got to the office.
She called Mark. He didn’t have a cell phone, but she thought maybe he was still at home. If he’d heard about the Gretchen incident, and that she’d been shot, he might have figured this meeting was off. No answer. If he’d been vandalized, Piper was certain he would have called her. She’d wait just a little longer to see if he showed up.
She tipped her head back again and closed her eyes.
Must’ve dozed off there.
Had to be the pain pills that warned “may cause drowsiness.” She’d stop taking them and suck it up.
9:40.
Definitely had dozed.
She called Mark again. Still no answer.
Called Sylvia D.
Oren was in Evansville, the bone case, and would be back after lunch. She wondered if he was meeting with Doc Natty. Maybe some test results had come back much earlier than expected.
JJ was in the office going through old case files.
Diego had not left any notes about his Celica search. And at the moment he was fielding a situation in Fulda involving Chris Hagee. Hagee’s neighbor had been a victim of January’s serial
killer, and Chris had been jumpy ever since, calling the department frequently.
Mark Thresher hadn’t called in.
“I’m going to Hatfield, out to Thresher’s,” Piper said.
With no traffic, and no sign of a Celica, it took her only fourteen minutes to reach Mark’s long gravel driveway. She parked the Hyundai even with his house, got out, and approached the front door, passing the motion-sensor lights, the ADT post by the walk, and the BEWARE OF DOG sign at the stoop.
When she pushed the doorbell, there was no thunderous “woof” this time. Piper waited, tapped her foot, and knocked.
Concerned and curious, she went to the garage, rose up on her toes, and peered in through a side window. The motorcycles and the vintage Franklin convertible in one double-bay, his Chevy in the other. He hadn’t driven anywhere.
Piper stopped at the side of the house, stood on the cement block planter, and looked in between the bars of a window and into the den. The old recliner she’d noticed from her previous trip—Mark sat slumped in it, an orange tabby curled in his lap, the old golden retriever lying across his feet. The dog picked up its head when Piper tapped on the window, but it didn’t budge. She tapped louder and looked closer.
It didn’t appear that the old man was breathing.
Piper called Sylvia D and hurried to the front door, gritted her teeth, and rammed her good shoulder at it. The door was oak and strong and held. She raised her leg and kicked just below the doorknob. One more kick and she forced it open. The ADT alarm went off. Ignoring it, she turned right down a short hallway, passed by a spare bedroom, and found the den.
“Do I need to send an ambulance?” Sylvia D asked.
“No.” Piper stepped into the den and stared at the old man, who had on his jacket despite the warmth of the day. His right hand looked like a claw that had grabbed at his shirt and froze that way. His car keys dangled from the fingers of his left hand. “No, I don’t need an ambulance. And ADT will be notifying you.”