“You asked me to call the AP guys in Maine to see if they could dig up anything on her.”
“And then told you not to because the kidnappers we thought had Lyndzee were male.”
“Right. Well, turns out I’d already called the guy when you said that. Anyway, he’s been doing some digging and came up with some stuff you might want to see. There are protection orders out on Dr. Wiseman. She apparently broke every window in the home of Dr. Bertrand Winslow after he dumped her.”
“The TPO was issued after they broke up? It says that?”
“The protection order says the damage occurred following a, quote, failed romantic relationship, unquote, between the two of them. Said she also damaged his wife’s Volvo station wagon by scratching profanity into the paint, they think with a key.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” Addison sneered. “Anything in Indianapolis?”
“Yeah. Fortunately, that information was on line. She’s got a protection order there, too. She apparently did the window thing there, too, but also really harassed the Garnett family.”
“How?”
“Mostly phone calls late at night, showing up at the door trying to talk to the wife, that kind of thing. What caught my eye was when she tried to pick the daughter up at school one day.”
“What?” Addison’s jaw dropped.
“Wiseman apparently got to the school at the same time as Doctor Dad and he was able to get the daughter away from her.”
“So did the Indianapolis police charge her with attempted abduction or interference with custody?”
“No, but the information was included in the TPO. The cop I talked to said the good doctor didn’t want to pursue it. Apparently after she trashed his house, the TPO was served and she left town. She got this job here, where she’s been for the last couple years.”
Addison whistled low. “The police need to know that stuff, if they don’t already. I’ll be there in a minute. I want copies of whatever you’ve got to take over to the police. They need to know this.”
***
“Talley, what are they saying over there?” Lyndzee, clean from a cool bath and her stomach full from a hot meal, grasped the gaunt man’s hand and looked into his eyes. It was the morning after the men in the truck had carried them to their squatter’s camp, a circle of ratty shacks and trailers down a long dirt road.
The Mexican men in the truck were all related. The group of cousins, brothers and sons, were part of a four-family expedition into Ohio to work at one of the larger Plummer County farms. While everyone except the youngest children worked in the fields, the oldest woman, whom everyone called Tia Juanita, stayed at home and kept an eye on the younger ones, shooting out commands in rapid-fire Spanish, tapping her cane and spitting tobacco juice out for emphasis when the children disregarded her commands.
Talley told one of the younger men they were grandfather and granddaughter, indigent like themselves and working their way down to family in Louisiana. Lyndzee wasn’t sure anyone believed them, but Tia Juanita and another woman had heated water on the stove for Lyndzee to wash with and shared their meal of refried beans and rice wrapped in warm tortillas. Clucking like hens, they’d wiped her bruised eye and tied a clean piece of old white tee shirt around her raw, red ankle.
They’d let them stay the night, too.
She’d slept on one of three mattress on the floor along with other young children; a girl named Lupe, close to her age, shared her bed. They’d talked, until the adults had extinguished the oil lamp on the kitchen table, but not long before sleep crept in around the edges of the girls’ conversation and they’d fallen asleep. Lyndzee wanted to tell her that this stinky crazy man wasn’t her grandfather, but he had saved her and all she wanted was to go home to her mommy and daddy. Instead, in some sort of twisted sense of self-defense, she said as little as possible.
In the morning, under Tia Juanita’s wrinkled gaze, Lyndzee and Lupe had played with Lupe’s one-armed Barbie in the dust outside the little shack until the rest of the family along with Talley, came back from working the fields in the battered old truck. They’d stopped at a market for a quart of beer for the men, soda and a package of tortillas for the women and children. One of the young women, Lupe’s mother, clasped a newspaper tightly in her hand. She held the paper in front of Tia Juanita’s old eyes, pounding on the front page and chattering excitedly in Spanish.
“¡Oye– no seas tonta ! – Esta niña no es la nieta de este hombre. Mira, aquí en el periódico – esta photo es de ella. Ésta es la niña sequestrada hace unas dias,” Lupe’s said. “That little Anglo girl isn’t that man’s granddaughter! Look! Her picture is on the front page! This is little girl who was kidnapped a few days ago!”
Tia Juanita squinted at Lyndzee, then looked at the newspaper and shook her head. “¡No es posible! Mira come el la quiere y la mima. Claro que es su abuelo. El va a llevarla hacia la casa de su hija, la madre de la niña.” She pounded her cane on the ground and spat emphatically. “That’s not possible! Look how the old grandfather really cares for her. He’s taking her to his daughter’s house. He said so.”
“¡Mira – es la misma niña!” (“Look! It’s the same girl!”) Lupe’s mother glared at Tia Juanita, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Oye, Juanita, no tenemos permiso de trabajo – no tenemos tarjeta verde. No tenemos nada. Si le llamamos la atención y a la policía y nos encuentra con esta niña --- nos va á prender las autoridades, no para mandarnos á Mexico, pero peor, mujer, nos van á meter en la cárcel.” (“Look, woman, we don’t have the green cards, work papers—none of us do! We get caught with her here and we don’t just go back to Mexico, we go to prison! If we call attention to her, and the police find us with the child, the authorities will arrest us. Not to send us to Mexico, old woman, they will put us in jail!”)
Lupe’s mother held the front page wide and flashed it at Lyndzee angrily, like one would flash a cross at a demon to keep it at bay. The headline was huge: “Second Thorn Suspect Dead in Suspicious Blaze.”
There was a picture of a barn on fire and Lyndzee’s fall school picture on the front page.
“Esta niña nos va a causar muchos problemas. Los dos va á estropearnos todo. ¡Hay que echarlos ahora mismo! ¡Los dos, el viejo y la niña!” (“She’s trouble! She’s going to ruin everything for us! The old man and the girl need to leave now!”)
Lyndzee left Lupe in the dirt and went to grasp the old hobo’s hand.
“Talley, I think they’ve figured out who we are. I think we need to go.”
Chapter 32
“OK, Penny. What do you have?” Gary indicated the chair in front of his desk. Their late meeting the night before left dark circles under the assistant chief’s eyes. He leaned forward on his elbows, tapping a pencil on his desk blotter.
“I have an idea who could be behind Lyndzee Thorn’s disappearance.”
“You and half of Jubilant Falls. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but odds are we’ve already looked at them, Penny.”
“So you already knew that the college doctor has a tendency of going ballistic when her married lovers dump her?”
Gary McGinnis sat up straighter. “No. How do you think that ties in with Lyndzee’s disappearance?”
“Look at this.” Addison pulled the protection orders from her purse and put them on his desk. “Rachel Wiseman trashed two men’s homes and one wife’s car.”
“OK.” His tone was polite, but reserved. Addison wasn’t sure if he believed her or not.
“Gary, listen to me! One of these married guys caught her just as she was trying to pick his daughter up at school!”
His curiosity aroused, McGinnis pulled the protection orders toward him.
“Tell me you’ve looked at everyone around Seaford Thorn.”
McGinnis sighed. “We spent a lot of time looking for those three initial suspects.”
“Two of whom are now dead.”
“Yes, Penny, I’m aware of that.” The assistant chief’s
voice was sarcastic. “Dr. Thorn was claiming he’d never had any affairs at that time. We didn’t get the truth until Mrs. Thorn received that letter.”
“You looked at Judy Lindeman.”
“Yes. Because she was the only one Thorn said he was involved with.”
“So you’ve never looked at Dr. Wiseman?”
“She was on our short list, I’ll admit that.”
“I also think you need to look at the maid who works for the Thorns, Tina Andersen. She claims she was assaulted in the dorm parking lot last night when some black guy tried to steal her car, the same night Roy Castlewheel was found dead in that burning barn.”
“I understand why I should look at Wiseman. Why should I look at some beat-up Golgotha student in Lyndzee’s disappearance?”
“I got a bunch of reasons, Gary. It all just came to me while I was walking over here, so bear with me. I’m kind of rambling. Here’s why I think you need to look at Tina Andersen: I interviewed her just about an hour ago and her injuries aren’t consistent with being grabbed and dragged, like she claimed. Her nose was broken but she told me she never saw her attacker. She also didn’t call police first, she went to see Dr. Wiseman, who treated her at home for several hours and then took her to the hospital in different clothing than what she was wearing when she was assaulted.”
Gary began to take notes.
“When I asked her what happened, she first said the guy put a gun in her back. When I asked again, she said the guy put the gun in the back of her head.”
“Hmmm.”
“Where were both Harmon and Castlewheel shot?”
“In the back of the head. At close range.”
“You should have seen the look Wiseman and Andersen gave each other when I caught her little slip-up. Jaylynn Thorn just told me that Tina Andersen is a missionary’s daughter. She was raised in Africa and she’d often bragged about how good a shot she was.”
“Then what’s the connection between the two women?”
“That I’m not sure of. There’s no love lost between them, even though Wiseman treated Tina, took her to the hospital and she’s staying at the doctor’s home now.” Addison stopped to take a breath. “What if these two worked together to kidnap Lyndzee Thorn?”
Gary looked up and arched one eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m serious!” Addison answered. “Tina Andersen was the one who told Lyndzee she was old enough to walk across campus to spend a dollar she got from the tooth fairy. Rachel Wiseman has a history of being involved with married men and then going off the deep end when she gets dumped. Tina Andersen is also a religious wack job. When I asked Rachel if she had ever been involved with Seaford Thorn, Tina’s reaction was very strange, like she knew Rachel was lying and was calling her on that lie.”
Gary was silent for a moment as he digested what she had to say. “So where do you think Lyndzee is, then?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know, but I think she was at that house on Shellabarger Road. I don’t know how Roy Castlewheel comes into it, but I’ll bet you he stumbled onto them and threatened to expose her. They fought and one of those women killed him.”
“You’re right about Lyndzee—we found evidence to suggest that she was there. But, what about Harmon Ripsmatta? He had Lyndzee’s shoe in his hand when his body was found. How are Ripsmatta and Castlewheel connected to these women?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out.”
“The one loose thread here is Talley Lundgren. I don’t think Tina Andersen had anything to do with it. What if he and Castlewheel both worked together to kidnap Lyndzee Thorn, brought her to the abandoned Shellabarger Road house, got in an argument and then Talley killed Roy?”
“But Roy said he had an alibi for the night Lyndzee disappeared.”
“Talley didn’t. When we brought him in for questioning, he said he’d seen her when she came into his camp, and then she left after he went in search for food.”
“Yeah. I remember. You think he was lying?”
“You actually think we’d believe a crock like that? That some kid willingly wanders off into the woods and leaves her shoe behind?”
Addison shrugged. “I don’t know what you believe, Gary. I’m just asking questions.”
“There are some details you don’t know. The bullets that killed both men came from the same gun. Both fires were started with gasoline. We do know that much.”
“Jaylynn Thorn told me that Tina Andersen was bragging about what a good shot she was.”
“And my dad hunts deer every winter. Just because someone knows how to use a gun doesn’t make them a child-snatching killer.”
“What if Wiseman and Andersen subcontracted the kidnapping job out to these two?” Addison felt she was losing her argument, that Gary didn’t believe her.
“Subcontracting? That part just doesn’t make any sense, Penny. This isn’t a basement remodel job and these women are supposedly good Christians. How could they know these guys? These men were scumbags with records as long as your arm. Ripsmatta was a sexual predator, for God sake! Our guys ran him off from the Christian school Lyndzee attends.“ McGinnis stopped short. “Oh my God. He could have been stalking her specifically.”
“I got one more question, Gary. When Tina Andersen showed up at the emergency room, what kind of shape was her clothing in?”
“Let me check.” Gary slipped out the door. In a few minutes, he was back, his eyes hard and alert. Addison knew he believed her now. “The patrol who took the report said she wasn’t wearing the clothes she had on when she was assaulted. Dr. Wiseman had her change into a sweat suit,” McGinnis said. “I still don’t understand. Why would these two women want these two suspects dead?”
“I don’t know either, but I’ll bet you that if you look at Tina Andersen, I’ll bet you’d find that weapon and I’ll bet you won’t be too far from finding Lyndzee Thorn.”
***
Back at the newsroom, Dennis Herrick followed Addison back into her office, a stack of opened mail in his hand. “Are you ever going to look at these résumés?”
Addison dropped her purse onto her desk and took the stack from him. “Jesus Christ, Dennis, I haven’t got time for this.” She wanted to get back to Wiseman’s townhouse, to see if Gary was over there questioning both women.
“You need to look at these. The ad has been running for about a week and we keep getting résumés and phone calls and I’m sick of telling these people you haven’t made your decision yet.”
“Have you looked at any of them?” Addison opened a desk drawer and pulled out a cigarette, holding it loosely between the first two fingers of her left hand. Her foot tapped impatiently on the plastic chair mat beneath her desk. She wanted to go back and question Andersen and Wiseman, not sit here bogged down in administrative details.
“There are a few who look good. Most of them are kids without a whole hell of a lot of real-world experience.”
“And the rest?”
“A bunch of broken down has-beens, never-weres or wannabes, looking for a place where they can retire, start or self-implode. Including John Porter.”
“You’re shitting me.” She stopped tapping her foot and flipped through the stack of résumés till she found Porter’s curriculum vitae. Smirking, she scanned the single sheet of paper. “He’s already left Florida—or he’s already been fired. Can you believe that? I’ll have to tell Suzanne tonight.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t consider Porter for the job if he came back and asked for it.”
“You’re right. I just wanted to see how much he’s begging to come back.” She crumpled the paper and tossed it into her trash can behind her desk.
Chapter 33
That night after dinner, Addison called Suzanne with the news.
“Yeah, I know he’s in town.” Through the phone, Suzanne’s voice was warm and soft, less harried than she’d sounded the last time she and Addison talked. A man’s voice whispered softly i
n the background.
Sitting at the kitchen table, one hand clasped against her forehead, Addison shook her head and rolled her eyes. “He’s there, isn’t he?”
“Uh huh.”
A wet, slurpy kiss echoed in Addison’s ear and she made a gagging face as she reached for the cigarette glowing red in the ashtray in front of her. Porter was obviously working his magic on his wife and Addison couldn’t believe Suzanne was falling for it. “Where are the boys?” she finally asked after sucking the calming nicotine into her lungs.
Suzanne giggled at something Porter said in the background. “At my mother’s. I didn’t think it would be a good thing for them to see their Dad just yet, until we had some things worked out.”
“Or John gets his itch scratched. I can’t believe you fell for this.”
“Fell for what?”
“Oh, come on, Suzanne! You let him back into your bed without any questions asked!”
“Penny, you don’t understand!”
“Well, I guess I don’t and I guess that’s between you and him. What concerns me is that he’s applied for his old job back.”
“I know. Will you talk to him about it?”
“Now? While you two are in the middle of some hormonal tidal wave? I don’t think so.”
“Penny, please. Just so he knows where he stands.”
Before Addison could object, the sound of rustling sheets and Porter’s tentative “Hello?” came from the other end of the phone line.
She sighed. “Hello, Porter.”
“Hey, Addison. You get my résumé?”
“What happened in Florida?”
“It didn’t work out.”
“Did you get canned at that paper or did you decide to leave? Which one was it?”
He was silent for a moment. “Um, the first one.” His voice was soft and contrite. His short, subdued answers confirmed to Addison that he hadn’t told Suzanne exactly what happened.
“And what about your little chickee-poo?”
Another uncomfortable silence. “Still in Florida.”
Barn Burner (Jubilant Falls series Book 1) Page 23