Dying Embers

by B. E. Sanderson

  He didn’t look like the type who would be willing to push chivalry past his general laziness, and her assumption was right. By the time she gathered Will into her small suitcase, he’d climbed back into the air-conditioned truck and was sucking down a beer. He threw the can into the road when she climbed into the cab beside him.

  “Want me to call anyone for ya?”

  “No thanks. I don’t think anyone will miss me between here and Barstow.” In reality, everyone would miss her, and that was just the way she wanted it.

  He took one long lingering look at the spot where her legs met in a delicious V and cranked up the radio. True to stereotype, the speakers blared twangy country music and the trucker belted out the words—almost in time but nowhere near in tune.

  If she could’ve driven a rig, she would’ve ended the whole horrible scene right there. Instead, she took the beer he offered and settled into the passenger seat to plot her encounter with Peter.

  #

  Peter Mitchell had been only a year older, but in so many ways, he seemed far more mature than her own sixteen. When he spoke, she sat mesmerized by his brilliance. When he moved, his fluid grace amazed her.

  And he didn’t know she existed.

  Every day after school, she lied to her mother about being in some club she never bothered to join, just so she could follow him to the tennis courts. Every day, she watched him practice with his teammates, and for what seemed like hours, he wiped the courts with them. At the time, she felt sure Andre Agassi or Pete Sampres would’ve been impressed. No one held a candle to her Peter.

  The gullibility of youth and the blindness of young love wouldn’t allow her to see a single fault in her perfect god.

  He didn’t see her at all. Not at first.

  At sixteen, she embodied gangly and awkward. Only time would see those faults fall away to reveal the woman underneath, but as a teenager, she didn’t have the time. She wanted Peter, and she wanted him now.

  Lowering her neckline and raising the hem of her skirts, she found a way to make him want her back. She wanted to love him; she wanted him to love her.

  At first, he seemed to want the same of her. Her feminine wiles may have been what brought her into his line of sight, but she knew love held her there.

  Laying in the backseat of his beat-up, old Chevy Nova, though, he didn’t offer her words of love. Instead, she got the sound of a zipper in the darkness, muffled grunts unintelligible as speech, and the faint chirrup of a thousand crickets outside the fogged windows.

  When he finished, the grunts stopped, and the zipper went back up. Beyond it all, the crickets still remained.

  A few minutes of lust left him happy. She found herself happy, too, because of his happiness. Until he didn’t call. Until he avoided her in school. Until she heard the whispered voices talking about what she and Peter did on their night in the fallow field.

  Still she believed he loved her. He’d been embarrassed by his silence that night perhaps. Maybe he felt a little ashamed because they weren’t married yet. The thought even occurred to her that he feared the outcome because neither had thought of protection against disease or worse—pregnancy.

  In her heart, she harbored the hoped she bore his child deep inside her. The hope died two weeks later, but she held the secret to herself. A new hope grew instead of a baby. If she could make him believe she might be carrying his child, he had to love her.

  And still he ignored her.

  Two more weeks passed, and as the prom approached, she waited every morning by her locker as he went to his own. He would ask her to accompany him. He had to. They were in love.

  Sex meant love, didn’t it?

  The morning she saw him with his arm around the little red-haired girl, she felt something snap inside her. The girl’s hair was like the embers of a fire, and Emma envisioned the flames engulfing them both.

  After all those years, she didn’t bother to find the girl. His infidelity was never her fault anyway. All the pain had been Peter’s doing, and she would repay him in kind. The fire that burned in her heart consumed her for years. Now it was his turn.

  #

  “Welcome to Barstow,” the trucker belted out into the cab. It took a moment for her to realize his words weren’t part of a song. “I know a real good mechanic in town. You want me to drop you off there?”

  “That won’t be necessary. Just leave me at the first gas station, and I’ll find my own way.”

  “Tell ya what. I like ya too much to leave you at the first gas station. I’ll leave ya someplace nice.”

  She wondered what a man with a week’s worth of food on his t-shirt would think of as someplace nice, but she didn’t bother to ask. In the end, it didn’t matter where he left her. She wouldn’t be there very long anyway.

  “That’s very kind of you,” she said as she fingered the revolver in her purse. She ached to place the barrel against his head and squeeze the trigger, if only to silence him once and for all.

  Patience, Emma, Will said. If you kill this one, you might as well put a neon sign over your head saying ‘Shoot Me Now’. Then you’ll never see Peter.

  Letting her grip loosen on the weapon, she admitted her husband was right. Her goal had always been to kill Peter. Losing sight of that goal to rid the world of one obnoxious trucker was stupid. She let out a frustrated huff and pushed the image of the dead trucker out of her mind. First things first.

  She could always come back and get the trucker another time.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Frank stood on the sidewalk in front of a house whose paint had cracked and peeled from too many harsh winters. Above him the roof sagged in places. The gutter on one side hung pitifully from the eaves, like it couldn’t let itself fall but no longer had the strength to hold on.

  The sign on the mailbox said ‘Parkkonen’.

  “Are you going to stare all day, or are you going in?” Lynn said from behind him.

  “Give me a minute.”

  “You can take all day. If you ask me, I still can’t figure out why Jace sent us up here in the first place. It’s not like we’re field agents. I’m better off at a terminal somewhere, and you’re better off at a desk.”

  He gritted his teeth against her remark. Being at a desk for the past fifteen years didn’t mean he belonged at one. It just meant that was where he ended up. True, he was better at coordinating field agents than being one, but it didn’t stop his hope to work a case. After all, he and Jace had been in the same class at the academy. He knew his capabilities weren’t any less than hers; they were just different.

  Now he had the opportunity to prove how those differences made him a good candidate for the field, and prove the time had come for him to move out from behind that desk. If this case indicated anything, it told him Jace didn’t need him in the office any more. Besides, plenty of younger agents were ready to step in and fill his seat.

  “Convinced yourself yet?” she said. “Let’s just forget this and tell Jace to get someone else to do this. We aren’t field agents.”

  Her words were like a sharp stick in his ass. Without looking at her, he took one step after another up the overgrown walkway. She followed slowly behind him, as if the lure of life’s unchanging sameness held her back.

  The weathered, oaken door stood before them like a ninety-year-old sentry, preventing them from passing without having the strength to hold them if they dared push their way through. Frank raised his hand and broke the silence with three sharp raps. Within seconds, an old woman peered at them through the grimy window and then opened the door a mere crack.

  “Yes?”

  Frank held up his badge. “Good morning, ma’am. I’m Frank Carruso. We spoke on the phone?” The woman looked at him like he’d grown another head. “This is Lynn Meyers. We’re federal agents looking for information about Emma Sweet.”

  Opening the door wider, the woman squinted her eyes to read his identification. After satisfying herself they were who they claimed to be,
she said, “Emma’s not here.”

  “We’re aware of that, ma’am. We’re trying to find out information about her. Are you Mrs. Edith Parkkonen?”

  “I am, but I don’t know where Emma is. I haven’t seen her in…” She ticked off the time in her head until she smacked her lips and gave up counting. “Oh, heaven only knows how long. Not since she married that good-for-nothing and moved to the city. I don’t know that I could tell you anything about her anymore.” Old eyes narrowed into mean slits. “What’s she done?”

  “We don’t know that she did anything, ma’am. We’re just looking into her background—”

  “I spent more time worried about that girl of mine. Raising a daughter isn’t anything like raising sons, you know, and after three boys, finding yourself with a baby girl isn’t easy.”

  “Do you mind if we come in?” Lynn said as she moved from behind Frank.

  “Where are my manners? Come in, come in.” She stepped back, and the two agents followed her into the dim confines of a musty home. “Can I offer you something to drink? Water or coffee. I could maybe find a beer or two, if you want.”

  “Water, please,” Lynn said, but Frank just shook his head.

  As Mrs. Parkkonen shuffled deeper into the house, the two of them found themselves in what had to have been a grand old sitting room—now littered with the remnants of a family grown and gone. One whole wall was filled with pictures of those relatives—the older ones of three boys and a little girl, the newer ones of those same three boys and their own children laid out in a pattern around the old.

  Emma’s most recent picture showed her in a cap and gown, the honors ribbons embroidered with a crimson NWU.

  “Ah, I see you’re looking at my wall of fame.”

  “You have a beautiful family, Mrs. Parkkonen.”

  “The best is the babies. My boys provided for me real good with all those babies.”

  “But none for Emma?”

  The woman’s face dropped, and Frank feared she would break down. “I… I don’t know. Emma could have a dozen babies, but she… It’s that husband of hers, you know. If it was just my Emmie, I would’ve heard from her years ago. She’s my baby.”

  “Ma’am?” Frank said before the old lady could take a trip down memory lane that would only end in tears. “We have some questions about your daughter’s life before she got married.”

  “Then you came to the right place. If your questions were about her married life, I guess you’d have to ask that Will.” She lowered herself into a worn rocking chair. “What’s all this about anyway? Has that Will done something to my baby?”

  More like the other way around, but he stifled his reaction. “Not that we know of.” If the old lady didn’t know what had happened to her son-in-law, he wasn’t the right person to tell her. Besides, telling her she didn’t have to worry about Will Sweet would lead to questions he couldn’t answer without jeopardizing the case. Even without being an experienced field agent, he knew better. “If you don’t mind… What I’d really like to know about are her old boyfriends.”

  “Her old boyfriends? Well, that’ll be a long talk. My Emmie was a popular one with the boys. Always one or the other, right up until she met that Will. If you ask me, she should’ve kept the Thatcher boy. He wasn’t good enough for her, but he would’ve made a damn sight better husband than Will could ever be.”

  “The Thatcher boy?” Frank asked, even though the stats for Devin Thatcher sat in a file outside.

  “Tall, strapping young man. Woodsy type, but I could still tell he’d be going places. I wasn’t too keen on him at first, but considering what came after him, he was the best of the lot.”

  “Tell me,” Lynn inserted, “Do remember anyone by the name of Arthur Fleming?”

  “Arthur?” She scratched at the thin hairs on her chin. “Sure, I remember Arthur, but I don’t see how that has anything to do with Emma. He used to come into my husband’s place and sell him supplies. Chemicals, I think.”

  “Did she know him? Maybe when she was a little girl and would go into your husband’s store?”

  “Emma wasn’t a little girl when Arthur sold stuff to her father. She had to be… when was that... Oh, yes. I think she was probably eighteen or nineteen. She worked in my husband’s store, keeping the books and stocking inventory. Pretty thing back then, but Arthur was married, and even if he wasn’t, he was way too old for her anyways.”

  “And Fleming never knew her back when she was a child?”

  “Nope. He didn’t even get the route until… Let me see… Nope, Emma was out of high school and working for the store on summer break. They would’ve met then. Why?”

  Ignoring the old woman’s question, Frank asked one of his own. “Does the name Tom White mean anything to you?”

  Mrs. Parkkonen’s face reddened. “Don’t you mention that name in my house. He was a bad boy. My Emma never would’ve consented to—I told them she was too young to know a woman’s ways—but she said it wasn’t that boy’s fault. She got talked out of pressing charges. If it’d been just me, that boy would’ve paid for taking my Emmie’s flower.” She shook her head sadly. “So they let the boy go, and the whole town punished my little girl for something she couldn’t help. It was never her fault. It was all that boy.”

  Sensing the woman’s distress, Frank tried another tactic. “I’m sure it wasn’t Emma’s fault, ma’am.”

  “She was an angel. It was always those boys. That Bower boy in college… Why you should’ve seen how she cried after he ran home... Mama’s boy if I ever saw one. She was heartbroken. And that other one… I don’t see how any boy could love my Emma one day and just dump her the next. In my day, when a boy said he loved you, he married you. He didn’t just run off to see the world.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  “Owen something or other. I never liked him. He wasn’t a good one for my Emmie.”

  “And Kyle Delisky?”

  “The Polack? I knew he’d hurt my baby the moment I laid eyes on him.”

  “Dane Flaherty?” asked Lynn.

  The old woman sighed. “Emma went through this phase of collecting strays. She brought home two dogs, four cats, and Dane. His family owned a couple dozen dairy cows outside of Menominee. I think Emmie met him when she was counseling other students for a while. A nothing boy with no future except raising cows. And he always smelled funny.”

  “Did he hurt Emma, too?”

  “Well, don’t men always hurt a woman in some way? First they steal our hearts, then they fill our bellies up with babies, then they go and die on us. If that ain’t hurt, I don’t know what is.”

  Frank knew the list of victims like the inside of his eyelids, and Emma’s mother had already mentioned every victim, but not one other name to go on. “Is there anyone else?”

  “Not that I recall. Just Will. I wish she’d never met that man. I told her he’d be the death of—”

  “Maybe someone before college?” Lynn said, cutting the old woman off. “A boy from her high school or maybe someone she knew around town?”

  Mrs. Parkkonen scratched the side of her chin. “Except for that Tom White, I don’t remember any boys when she was in school. She was a straight A student, you know. She didn’t really have time for dates… Wait. I do remember one year Emma had a crush on this boy, but he was a year older than her, and she was too young to date anyway. Pete something or other. Such a nice young man. I think he went on to become a lawyer or something out west.”

  “Excuse me, but if Emma didn’t date him, how did you meet him?”

  “He picked her up once for a school project a bunch of kids were doing at the library. Come to think of it, it must’ve been close to finished because they were only gone a couple hours. I bet they all got an A on it because of her. Emma’s such a smart girl.”

  Frank jotted notes as Lynn delved deeper into this unknown man in Emma’s past, all the while thinking Emma certainly was a smart girl. Her smarts had not only gotten h
er through the defenses of so many men, they’d kept her alive and out of jail. But her intelligence couldn’t get her out of what was coming. Not this time.

  When Mrs. Parkkonen had finally talked herself out, and the sky had begun to darken, the two agents said their goodbyes. Many times, the old woman asked whether her daughter was in trouble, or whether Emma was hurt. Each time, they coaxed the woman onto another subject or distracted her with more questions.

  Over the hours, they learned that, in her mother’s eyes, Emma had never been the one responsible for anything. Every time something bad happened, someone else could always be blamed. Usually that someone ended up being a man. From the father who died when she was in middle school, to each boy who—for one reason or another—didn’t see the perfection surrounding Emma.

  After they left the old woman to her musings and her misery, Frank sat in the car while Lynn navigated them to their next stop. Even though he wasn’t the profiler Jace was, the picture became clear once the pieces fell into place.

  “We need to find out who that Pete something or other is,” Lynn said, breaking into his thoughts.

  “Tomorrow. The library should have old yearbooks.”

  “Why not tonight? There are at least a dozen sites devoted to finding old classmates. In a town this size, it should be a piece of cake finding someone named Peter.”

  “I hope it’ll be that easy, but the way this case has gone, I’m not hoping too hard.”

  Lynn shook her head. “It won’t be hard. Unless… God, Frank, please tell me you booked us into a room with WiFi.”

  #

  Despite Lynn’s fears, Frank had indeed booked them into rooms with internet access sufficient for her needs. Within minutes of flopping her suitcase onto one of the beds, she had her laptop set-up and a program she’d written scanning every school database she could get her fingers on. While she hunched over the keys, he checked in with Jace, then with Graham, and finally with his own answering service. The call to Jace sounded strictly informational, but Lynn only listened with half an ear. Graham’s call barely registered, and Frank’s personal business she ignored as a matter of courtesy.