He gathered his paperwork and organized his thoughts before heading inside. Donna Martin had agreed to talk to him, though she’d seemed hesitant. Her daughter passed away fourteen months ago, the sole victim in a four-car pileup on the interstate. No doubt the hurt was still fresh. Jeremy’s hopes hinged on the link between Roslyn and Barry Thornquist. There had to be something—anything—that might open up connections between other disappearances and victims.
He grabbed his suit jacket from the back seat, walked up the path, and rapped lightly on the aluminum screen door. Somewhere in the home a TV was on, blaring The Price is Right. Water beaded on his forehead and upper lip, the result of an assault by Kentucky’s late May humidity, and he wiped away the sweat before brushing his hand against his gray pants.
An older woman, barefoot and dressed in shorts and a clean blue T-shirt, opened the door. “You must be Mister Winter. I’m glad to meet you. If you don’t mind, we’ll sit on the porch. It’s a bit stuffy inside, and I can’t afford to run the air conditioning too much.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’ll be just fine.”
Miss Martin dragged a floor fan onto the porch, pointed it toward the chairs, and switched on its lowest setting. “Too noisy if I turn it all the way up. Now then. You just have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
“Is there something I can help you with?”
She squinted and looked him over. “For starters, you can take off that coat and tie. Too blamed hot for such foolishness. Now, wait right here.”
Jeremy obliged her request and seated himself in one of the rockers, shifting slightly to avoid a piece of wicker that poked into his back. After a moment, Miss Martin returned with two tall glasses of iced tea. She handed him one and eased into the other rocker.
He took a sip and let the sugary cool concoction flow through his body. Condensation dripped off the glass onto his pants, creating dark circles of chill. He raised the tea to eye level and nodded. “Nothing better on a hot day.”
“Mmm hmm. Some of my friends use that artificial stuff instead of sugar, but it just don’t taste right to me. Gives you cancer too.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They spent a few minutes rocking and drinking, commenting occasionally on the weather, a passing car, or a neighbor’s flowerbed.
“So Mister Winter, what can I do for you?”
“First off, you can call me Jeremy.”
“Well, that’ll be fine, Jeremy. And all the folks ’round here just call me Miss Donna.”
“Good enough. Miss Donna, as I said on the phone, I’m investigating a murder case, and I was hoping you might have some information that could help me. A man named Barry Thornquist went missing four years ago. We found his body at a wildlife refuge over in Indiana several months back. I started digging into the details and discovered that he’d been coming to the park for several years. And every time he was there, so was your daughter.”
Miss Donna’s lips turned down at the corners. “Roslyn passed away a bit over a year ago.”
“Yes, ma’am. I was real sorry to hear that.”
Her rocking stopped, and she took a long drink of the iced tea. “I don’t know what you think, but Roslyn was a good girl. She had her problems, but in this world, who doesn’t? She didn’t kill that man.”
“No, ma’am, she didn’t. I’m trying to fill in the blanks so I can find who did. There was some sort of, um, relationship between Thornquist and your daughter, wasn’t there?”
She nodded slowly. “Roslyn never said much about him till after that last visit. When he disappeared. She was real worried about what might have happened to him.”
Jeremy’s rocker creaked as he shifted his weight toward the left. “So, she did talk about him?”
“Bits and pieces.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Miss Donna reached over and placed a veiny hand on Jeremy’s arm. “Young man, there’s been enough hurtin’.”
“There has, and I’d like to keep any more from happening.”
Miss Donna’s rocking continued unabated, and she allowed the conversation’s pause to stretch to the point of being awkward.
Jeremy swatted at a fly circling his glass. “I know this must be painful for you.”
“She was always my baby girl. Made some mistakes. We both did. Didn’t matter, though. I loved her no matter what and made sure she knew it.”
“Miss Donna, I have one concern here, and that’s finding out who murdered Barry Thornquist. Whatever Roslyn was into, whatever she did, I’m only interested insofar as it can help me find a killer. Maybe stop more deaths.”
“Roslyn wasn’t into anything. She got up every day, went to work, and came home. I’d have lost this house a long time ago without her help.”
“Yes, ma’am. I didn’t mean to imply ... well, it’s just that after doing this job for so long, you start to assume the worst about people.”
“And are you usually right about that?”
Jeremy watched a large drop of condensation waver at the bottom of his glass before falling. “More often than not, I’m afraid.”
“Not much of a way to go through life. There’s enough real problems without going out of your way to find new ones.”
“I believe you’re right about that. So, ma’am, is there anything you can share with me that might help?”
The old woman sighed. “Nothing that’ll help with your investigation, I’m afraid. You see, Barry Thornquist was Roslyn’s son.”
The glass slipped in his hand and he rested it on his thigh. “Her son? I’m not sure I—”
“She was only seventeen. In love, she said. ’Course her boyfriend disappeared right away, and there wasn’t any way we could afford to raise a baby. Roslyn did the right thing, though. Gave that little boy up for adoption. Hardest thing either one of us had gone through, but I was so proud of her. Lots of girls her age would’ve made a different decision. A worse one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Part of the deal was we didn’t know who adopted him. Where they lived or nothin’. And then a few years ago, out of the blue, Roslyn gets a phone call from him. Says he wants to meet her. Well, you can imagine how excited and scared she was. They decided to meet over at that wildlife refuge since it was about halfway. He was real particular about keeping everything all hush-hush. Said he didn’t want his folks to know. Didn’t want to hurt their feelings.”
Jeremy’s body felt as if gravity had intensified in the space around the rocking chair, dragging him down to another dead end. “That’s it? That’s all there was to it?”
“All there was to it? Young man, it may not mean anything to you, but to my Roslyn, it was everything.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean ...”
She leaned away from him. “I believe you did. There’s plenty more in this world besides your investigation. Roslyn was thrilled to get to see her boy once or twice a year. I’m sorry if that doesn’t help you, but there it is all the same.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry for my frustration. I’m kind of on my own here, and I was sure I was on the right trail. Did Roslyn say anything about the last time she saw her son? Anything that might help me figure out what happened?”
“Oh, we talked about it, of course. She was real worried. Said after they met at the park, she headed home like always but didn’t feel right. Later on, she called it her mother’s intuition. She said she didn’t get more than a few miles away from the park before she turned around and went back. Wanted to give him one more hug.”
“And did she?”
“Couldn’t. He wasn’t there no more. She drove around a little but never saw him again. Figured he’d headed on back to his home. She didn’t try to call him since that was against their rules. He always contacted her, and always from a pay phone so it wouldn’t show up on his cell.”
“And she never told any of this to the police, correct?”
Miss Donna shrugged. “What was to tell? She didn’t know anything, and there
was no point in Barry’s folks finding out he’d gone looking for his birth mother. He wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Jeremy’s head tilted forward and his shoulders sagged. “Of course not. I understand.”
“A couple days after they last met, she saw on the news that he’d gone missing. She spent her last years worried and wonderin’ what happened. Racking her brain for anything else that might help. We didn’t talk about it too much.”
“Sure. Too painful.”
“Yes, it was. She thought if she’d stayed at the park a little longer, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Course, there’s no way to know if that’s true, but you couldn’t tell her that. And she passed just a month before they found him. They’re together now, though. Will be for all eternity. She made sure her boy knew about Jesus.”
Jeremy squished his eyebrows together and scratched his forehead. “Yes, ma’am. Miss Donna, you said anything else that might help. What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t enough, she said. Even talked about going to one of those hypnotists to see if they could help her remember. Got killed in the car wreck before that happened, but she’d seen on TV some of the stuff they could do. She thought maybe if she could see a license number ...”
“A license number?”
“On the pickup truck. She didn’t think much about it until years later. Said the park wasn’t crowded at all that day, but this same pickup truck passed them three or four times while they visited. Didn’t get a bad feeling or nothin’, and some other cars passed them too. But the truck stuck with her. Couldn’t say why.”
Jeremy rubbed his hand across his mouth. “Did she give any details about the pickup?”
Miss Donna shook her head and poked out her lips. “Just an old beat up white truck. Had a farm on the license plate.”
“A farm?”
“That’s what she said. A picture of a barn with the sun coming up behind it.”
“Did she see what state it was from?”
“She looked it up on the Internet a couple of years ago and thought it was Tennessee, best she could remember. I’m sorry, but that’s all she said. Never told anybody ’cause she figured it wouldn’t help any. An old pickup truck with maybe Tennessee tags, and probably didn’t have anything to do with Barry’s death anyway. She was so frustrated. Reconnecting with her son after all those years, only to lose him again. You can imagine.”
Jeremy handed her a business card. “Yes, ma’am. I appreciate your time this morning. You’ve given me something to consider. That’s more than I had yesterday. And thanks for the tea.”
“Good luck to you, young man. I hope you find whoever did it.”
“Yes, ma’am. So do I.”
.......
Tennessee. The thinnest of leads, assuming the pickup truck even had anything to do with Barry Thornquist’s death. Jeremy drove to a local diner, opened his laptop, and accessed the FBI database through his secure connection. In less than two weeks, he’d have to turn in the computer and, more importantly, his access to the NCIC. He could always call in favors, and certainly Maggie would help if he asked, but that’s not what he wanted. Cut ties and start over. A little help from the Bureau now and then might be fine, but not so much that he felt he owed them.
The search confirmed his fear. Thousands of plates with the image, their funds supporting agriculture education, had been distributed in Tennessee over the last few years. Narrowing the list down to only those that were registered to pickup truck owners was pointless. A quick guesstimate put the number at over ninety percent of the plates sold. This probably wasn’t the puzzle piece that was going to break open the case, but at least it was a piece. That’s more than he had before.
What now? He stared at the screen until it blurred into a hazy blue blob.
Two weeks to find a serial killer. With what he had now, it would be nearly impossible without a major break and, the way this case had gone so far, that wasn’t likely. He needed help. Someone from outside the Bureau.
Time to make a phone call.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jeremy perched himself on the edge of the examination table while the doctor studied his left leg. It had only been two days since he’d seen Maggie, but she’d already called half a dozen times to see if he’d scheduled an appointment. He had planned to hold off until his remaining two weeks with the Bureau were up, but time worked against him, and the pain had steadily grown, popping up at random intervals. Enough was enough. “Probably just getting old, huh?”
“Straighten your leg, please.” The doctor held Jeremy’s foot and pushed the toes backward.
Jeremy gasped and gripped the edge of the bed as a bolt of lightning shot from his calf to his hip. “That’s a little painful.”
“We need to get an ultrasound on that leg as soon as possible. Could be a blood clot.”
“Can’t I get a prescription for some blood thinners or something? Not really a good time for me to be away from work, even for a couple of hours.”
The doctor tapped a few notes into his tablet computer. “If it is a blood clot, it could break loose and end up anywhere in your body. Maybe cause a heart attack or stroke. You need to get it checked out. I’ve already transferred the orders over to the hospital. Head on over there now. Stop at the front desk and they’ll give you a note for work.”
He chuckled and slid off the table. “I don’t need a note. I need more hours in the day.”
“Can’t help you there. I need them too. But the sooner you get the ultrasound done, the sooner you can cross that off your list and get back to work.”
Jeremy exhaled loudly. “It never ends. Okay. I’ll go on over and let them check out the leg. You think it’s serious?”
The doctor peered over his glasses. “No way to know until we see the test results, but if I were you, I’d already be halfway to the hospital.”
Jeremy dressed quickly and made the ten-minute drive to the medical complex. The waiting room was semi-crowded, and the woman at triage said she had no idea how long he’d be there. The guy sitting next to him began hacking up a lung, and Jeremy walked to the vending machines, pretending he wanted a snack. After a moment, he shook his head and found a new seat far away from the cougher. Best place in the world to go if you want to get sick.
He pulled out his cell phone and debated calling Maggie. Best not until he knew for sure what was going on. No sense worrying her. Instead, he hit the speed dial for his new sort-of-partner. Huntingburg, Indiana, police officer Troy Obion answered after one ring.
“Hey, Jeremy. What’s up?”
“Hi, Troy. Not much. Just wanted to check in and see if you’d had any luck with that information I sent you.”
“No, sir. Not yet. I’ll be honest. Doesn’t seem like much to go on so far.”
“Nothing on the Tennessee license plates?”
“No other state has a specialty tag with a barn and sun, so I think Roslyn got that right, assuming that’s what she saw. The database you sent over is massive. Without more factors to sort by, not much chance of identifying a suspect. Do you know how many white pickup trucks have the agriculture license plate?”
“Don’t tell me. My day’s going bad enough as it is. We really need to—”
“Winter. Jeremy Winter.” A male nurse in green scrubs stood at the entrance to the imaging department and peered over the waiting room.
“Got to run, Troy. I’ll talk to you later. Appreciate all your help on this.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket and walked to the nurse. Finally. Another half hour or so and he’d be headed back to the office. He nodded to the nurse. “Let’s get this over with.”
.......
Jeremy clenched his fingers into fists repeatedly. He couldn’t take much more. The constant beep-beep-beep. The faintly nauseous scent of filtered air and sickness and bleach. The hard mattress under him, the thin sheet over him, and a pillow shoved under his left leg. An IV running into his right arm. A sensor clipped to his finger. Too muc
h. The blue contraption next to the bed sounded a steady alarm as his blood pressure rose. Third time this hour.
The nurse entered the room, silenced the alarm, and left without speaking. Nothing new to say. She’d vented the last time and threatened to talk to the doctor about sedating him if he didn’t calm down. Jeremy had promised he would. That had been nearly twenty minutes ago.
“Knock knock.”
He pushed himself up in the bed and grinned. “Hey, Maggie.”
She walked to the bed and kissed him. “Hey, yourself. Feeling okay?”
“I’m so tired of this bed. Just give me a pill and let me out of here. I’m no good to anybody laid up like this.”
She grabbed his hand. “You’re no good to anybody if you’re dead, either. Which, according to the nurse at the desk, could happen soon if you don’t behave. Nurses know how to make it look like an accident, Jeremy. They have ways.”
He massaged Maggie’s hand with his thumb. “You didn’t have to come, but I’m glad you did.”
Her lips turned up the tiniest bit. “Of course I did. Old guy like you in the hospital, well, you never know.”
“Old guy? I’m what, eight years older than you? Plus, they say forty- seven is the new forty.”
She smiled and pulled his hand to her lips. “Umm, nope. Pretty sure nobody says that. But if it makes you feel better ...”
“Getting out of here would make me feel better. I don’t understand why I still—” The machine’s alarm sounded again.
Maggie rolled her eyes. “I swear. You’re worse than Rebecca sometimes. They want to watch you for another couple of days. Make sure there are no more problems. Why can’t you just accept that?”
Jeremy sighed. “Because there’s—”
“Because there might be a serial killer out there that nobody’s looking for except you.”
Coming of Winter Page 14