“Teresa—Tess—I’m sure your sisters are still angry with me, but tell them it wasn’t all my choice that I stayed away. A man more powerful than most folks in Cold Creek realize swore he’d make it bad for me if I came back.”
“Sheriff McCord or Reese Owens?”
“Owens, honey. I must have been his ace in the hole if the sheriff ever needed someone to blame for your abduction. Besides the mayor’s friend Dane Thompson.”
Or in case Vic or Gabe’s father suspected the mayor himself, Tess thought.
Her father went on, “Reese wanted the case solved and closed fast to get bad press away from his precious town.”
Tess couldn’t breathe for a minute. Gabe had said he intended to talk to Reese today, right after he came out of church. She looked at the time on her phone. The service would end in about ten minutes. She needed to let him know the things her dad had said. George and Marva Green might look bad right now, but Reese’s actions were suspicious for sure.
“Dad, I have to go, but can I call again?”
“I’ll call you. I’ve got your number here on caller ID. Ask your sisters if they’ll let me talk to them someday. Sorry about your losing your Mom, honey. She’s—she was—a good woman, just like you.”
The minute she hung up, she sucked in a huge breath to steady herself then dialed Gabe’s number.
“Hey, I’ve been trying to get you,” he said. “I’m walking down the street to catch Reese Owens when he—”
“Gabe, I just talked to my father, and I have to tell you what he said. George Green was at our house that afternoon just before I was taken.”
“I know, but he was questioned thoroughly. No go at that time. He had alibis from everybody on the road where he’d stopped to sell corn. Like with Dane, I can’t question the dead.”
“But there’s more about Reese Owens. Just listen to this.”
25
The Community Church bells rang out twelve times. Gabe spotted Mayor Owens shaking the hands of the congregation as they streamed out after the morning worship service. Reese seemed to be greeting as many people as the pastor he was upstaging. Always a politician, and, sadly, they weren’t to be trusted, Gabe thought. At least he didn’t see his wife with him as the mayor finally headed toward the parking lot. Lillian Montgomery Owens reeked wealth, social class and self-appointed power more than her husband.
Gabe cut through a line of cars and fell into step beside Reese, who spoke first. “So, you heard I wanted to see you. You’ll be doing security at the Kenton service and procession tonight?”
“I, and my deputy, and Agent Reingold, will be there. Are you expecting trouble?”
“Avoiding it. I called you yesterday to find out the details about Dane’s death. A shame. And more unwanted notoriety for Cold Creek.”
It annoyed Gabe that the mayor kept waving and calling out to others while they were talking. Did the man never stop campaigning? Gabe knew how to get his attention fast, but he didn’t want to spring everything on him in public.
“I need to talk to you too,” Gabe told him. “Let’s walk down to my office, where it’s private.”
“I’ll drive. Lily’s staying here to oversee the ladies planning dinner for the Kenton family before the service this evening. You want to ride with me?”
“Sure. Fine,” Gabe said, not wanting to let him get away.
“So, shoot,” Reese said once they were settled in the black Mercedes. Gabe saw Reese could hardly get the seat belt around his girth. “Oops, shouldn’t have used the word shoot when we’re talking about Dane’s death. I hear he left a note. Confessing, I hope, to the kidnappings. You’re pursuing Marva for information? I heard she lawyered up.”
“Word travels fast.”
“When did it not around here?” Reese said with a little laugh. “I’d hate to think they were both involved in these abductions, but it would be a relief to have everything solved. At least I hear we got Marian Bell off our backs with her good news. But tell me about the investigation of Dane.”
“He left a vague note, but there’s evidence he might have been shot, not shot himself.”
Reese pounded the steering wheel as he pulled into the police station. “What? You and those fancy BCI boys been sitting on that? You should have told me at once. It’s a miracle outside reporters aren’t swarming in here over that. That’s all I need! A high-profile man murdered in my town and still no definitive answer about who took those girls!”
“Let’s continue this in the conference room,” Gabe said. He got out fast enough to go around and open the mayor’s door for him. Why a man allowed himself to get so heavy he had trouble getting out of his car was beyond Gabe. He walked ahead and opened the police station door for the mayor. The office was deserted. Tess was going to help fill Ann’s daytime shift tomorrow until he could hire someone else, but that was the last thing on his list of things to do right now.
At least the fact that Jonas had fingered Hank McGuffey and his crew meant Tess didn’t have to spend her time going through mug shots, though she would eventually have to testify against McGuffey for trying to kill her and against the others as accessories. But that meant he’d see her then—if she really was moving back to Michigan when this was all over.
In the smaller conference room, which didn’t have all the kidnapping information on the walls, Gabe pulled out a chair for Reese.
“This is terrible, just terrible, about Dane,” the mayor said, wiping sweat off his brow. He’d gone red in the face. Surely not just from the effort of walking in here, Gabe thought. “It opens the door to the kidnapper being someone other than him, or at least someone he was working with, namely Marva. Poor dead George Green—at least for the first two kidnappings, he could be guilty too. Nothing’s been solved or going right around here, and I blame you.”
“Mr. Mayor, the blame game won’t help here. Jonas Simons has been arrested for working with a local meth drug ring, who were picked up this morning by the State Highway Patrol since they live over by Athens. But I provided them with all the information to make the arrests. Sorry to say that Ann Simons was also aiding and abetting the meth gang by passing on info she overheard from me. She’s written a statement, been released on her own recognizance and hired a lawyer for herself and Jonas. Oh, by the way, the so-called gas explosion at the old Green place was really a meth explosion. The gang I just mentioned tried to kill Tess Lockwood, who had stumbled on them. So, how about you do your job and I’ll do mine?”
“Tried to kill her? Then maybe they’re the ones you and your father failed to find.”
“You don’t let up, do you? They’re young. They’ve been cooking meth all over the county, not abducting little girls.”
“So that’s small potatoes compared to the kidnappings. You need to concentrate on that.”
“As a matter of fact, Agent Reingold and I have worked together to run down a very vocal, very involved local man who has a criminal record of child molestation. The man didn’t live here at the time he committed that crime, but there was a large, ongoing attempt to cover it up.”
The mayor’s eyes narrowed and his upper lip went slick with sweat. “Such as Jack Lockwood, Tess’s father?”
“He was thoroughly checked out years ago and was clean, although I understand you’ve been keeping him under your thumb. No, it’s a man with a past criminal record, Mr. Mayor, although most of the information on that was expunged. But we have one record of it left and at least one Chillicothe civilian who remembers the details and the ensuing cover-up, including bribes.”
Despite his satisfaction in seeing this man cornered and speechless, Gabe hoped Reese wasn’t going to have a heart attack right in front of him.
“You can’t be serious about that—that wrongful, old charge. A b-b-boyhood indiscretion. You—you’re b-blackmailing me?”
“Hardly. I’m keeping you informed, just the way you like. And don’t try to pull Jack Lockwood out of the hat again. Now,” he said, trying not to revel in the moment and wondering if this long shot would ever lead to something useful about the abductions, “although we have a court record, I’d appreciate it if you’d just write out your recollection of the incident between you and the minor named Ginger Pickett, so we can clear you of—”
“Damn you, boy!” he cried, banging his fist on the table between them. “I don’t have anything to do with this, and it’s a big mistake for you to be dragging up erroneous information from another place and time! These kidnappings are a whole different bag from that boyhood infraction. And Tess wasn’t sexually molested, was she? So I bet the others weren’t either, just taken for some other sick, warped reason. But since you’re grasping at straws and you and your daddy never managed to solve this terrible case, I’m going to get a lawyer, one from Columbus, not these parts! You want to read me my rights?”
“You’re not under arrest. You’ve merely been asked to help clear up a possibility, which an innocent man and the longtime leader of his constituency should want to do.”
“Nice try. I’m getting a lawyer. One who will help me have your head for this outrage.”
“Good idea to retain a well-known and well-connected Columbus lawyer,” Gabe said, trying to keep from losing his temper too. “Marva, Jonas and Ann have already retained Lake Azure attorneys. Besides, a lawyer from the state capital will be within better reach of the national media you’ll want to use for interviews. Nice working with you, sir,” Gabe said as Reese rolled out of his chair and, pulling himself up by the table edge, rose to his feet. “I’ll see you at the church service this evening.”
“And you just keep your mouth shut. A couple of words from me and you’ll get thrown right out of office!” Reese shouted.
“It could happen to the best of us up for election next month,” Gabe countered. “I know you’ve been rubber-stamped as mayor for years, but I’ll bet I can find someone to oppose you, especially if you run on your record—your real record.”
He didn’t open the door for Reese this time as the man stormed out of the room. Gabe kept thinking about how those pit bulls at Jonas’s place had rattled their cages. He was like a pit bull now. And he was going to sink his teeth into whoever had hurt those little girls.
* * *
The town turned out in droves for the church service that evening. Sitting in the second row, Tess stared at the big, hand-painted banner with the words Sandy Kenton: Bring Her Home hanging below the screen with projected photos of the girl. She had now been missing for five days. Tess studied the images, memorizing Sandy’s face, but it almost blended with her own early photos, despite their slightly different coloring. Sandy had blond hair and brown eyes. A wide space between her two front teeth made them look even larger in her small mouth. A shy smile, pert nose. There were pictures of her with her family, at a picnic, at a wedding, at a petting zoo with a fawn, being read to by her mother, playing in a princess costume with a magic wand.
Jill Stillwell’s family sat in the front row along with Pastor Snell and his wife, Jeanie. Tess had spoken with them briefly. And she’d spent a lot of time on the phone with Lindell Kenton, Sandy’s mother. Lindell had asked Tess to say a few words this evening, but they’d compromised that she would do a Bible reading instead. She had to admit she was a bit nervous about it, but she wanted to help—anything to help!
She’d read in one of Miss Etta’s library books that Freud, no less, had defined mental health as the ability “to love and to work.” Tess figured she was doing both, not just in longing to have her own preschool where she could care for kids, but in working on the investigation. She was going to help Gabe by answering his dispatch and office phone during the day for a while. And as fast as everything had happened here in Cold Creek, she was very sure she was falling in love with him.
She sat between Deputy Miller’s wife, Carolyn, and Miss Etta. Mayor Owens and his wife sat with the families of the kidnapped girls. Although Vic was to be her bodyguard this evening, he and Gabe sat at the back to keep an eye on everything.
Lindell Kenton had given Tess a Bible with the short passage to be read clearly marked. Tess held it in her lap, stroking the pebbled leather cover.
“That’s a book people don’t read enough anymore,” Miss Etta whispered to her, reaching over to tap the Bible. Her hand smelled of that sanitizer she always used. “They think the Good Book is in an old, hard language, but there are plenty of modern versions.”
“I thought you might bring your mother tonight,” Tess said.
Miss Etta looked surprised at first, then said with a smile, “Speaking of old versions, you mean? No, I used to bring her to church but not anymore. It’s too hard to get her around. By the way, Sheriff McCord said he wanted to talk to me tomorrow about my antique gun collection. I’m going to look up the very gun that Dane must have used to do himself in. Also, I have a library book for Gabe to read.”
“He’s pretty busy.”
“Yes, of course he is, and should be. But a book about stress on the job, that’s what I’ll recommend to him.”
The muted buzz in the church quieted as Pastor Snell rose and went to the podium. He spoke a few opening words, said a lovely prayer, and then the organ led them, standing, through the hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”
How well Tess recalled going to Sunday school downstairs and sometimes coming up to “big church” with Mom and Dad. How had everything gone so bad?
“O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.”
Tess knew Sandy Kenton must be thinking about home, longing for home, feeling frightened and abandoned right now. Thank God the child had not been hidden where Tess had been kept, which she was convinced had burned to the ground last night. The firemen and a BCI arson consultant were still sifting through the debris for bones, but Tess was sure there was some other place Dane and Marva—or someone—had been keeping Sandy.
During the next prayer, she thanked God for letting her escape her captor or captors and asked for more memories, however terrible, to help Gabe arrest the monster.
When her turn came, Pastor Snell introduced her as “our ray of hope for both Sandy and Jill.” He explained that Amanda Bell had been found alive in South America and that was an answer to prayer. “And now the greatest gift in all this grief,” he announced from the pulpit, “our own Teresa Lockwood, who now goes by Tess, who came home to us years ago and is back with us again. Though she still bears the mental scars of her captivity, she is here with us today to read words to encourage our hearts. Tess.”
As she walked up the three steps to the elevated platform, she was amazed that the audience broke into applause. It was too much. She teared up and sniffed hard. Even Vic was clapping. Gabe too, standing by the back door—her Gabe, who had been there at the time and was now her guard while these troubles lasted. She was surprised to see Sam Jeffers and John Hillman sitting together in the back left corner. It was wrong of her to judge them, of course, but she hadn’t expected them to be in church.
She put the open Bible down on the podium and held up a hand to still the applause. When it quieted, though she’d meant to say nothing personal, she shared her thoughts. “It means a lot to me to be home. We have to face and recall the past to face the present and the future. And I’m trying, getting better and stronger. Now, Mrs. Kenton has asked me to read to you from Luke 15:4 about a lost sheep who was found.”
Her voice caught several times as she read the passage. “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he comes home, he la
ys it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’”
As soon as she sat down, Win Kenton got up behind the podium and explained that tomorrow at noon they were going to have another search for Sandy, through bare fields and even those still filled with corn. He explained that Aaron Kurtz needed prayers while bedridden with a dangerous blood clot and that others would soon be cutting his cornfields for him, but that they wanted to search them now.
“Also,” he said, his voice breaking, “we need to search the cornfields now so that when the big reapers come through, no one is in the way, no evidence Sheriff McCord or his assistants need to trace—to find Sandy...”
He meant, of course, her body could be out there. He choked up, just standing mute for a moment. “We need to find traces of her, not have them destroyed. Our family thanks you for your help and prayers.” He hurried back to his seat beside his wife.
Again, Tess visualized the cornfield, the big reaper. Then someone had leaped at her, put a needle right in her neck—she was sure of it. She jerked at the memory, and Miss Etta put a steadying hand on her arm. At least, Tess thought, she was remembering more and more, like the waterfall of memories. And, strangely, she kept seeing a mounted deer head—a stag—with its glassy eyes looking down at her, as if to say, “Bad things can happen to you if you don’t behave.” She would have Gabe ask Marva if her house had once had a deer head on the wall. But she might lie. And what if Tess was just recalling how creepy John Hillman’s taxidermy shop had been?
After they sang a final hymn and the pastor made an announcement about signing up for the new search, Tess stood to go. It was getting dark; people at each door were passing out pink candles with white paper drip guards. “Are you going to the ceremony at the gift store?” Miss Etta asked.
“Yes. Are you?”
“I think I’d best get home to Mother. She spends enough time alone as is. I just hope everyone’s careful with those candles. The gift store isn’t so far from the library with all those books. I know I’m a worrywart and a perfectionist, but I just hope everyone’s careful.”
Shattered Secrets Page 24