See Also Deadline

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Shep happily followed me to the truck. I’d considered leaving him behind, but I decided that I didn’t want to be on the road by myself. I didn’t think the dog could help find Tina Rinkerman. He wasn’t a bloodhound, but he was the smartest dog I’d ever known. Shep loved to ride in the truck no matter the reason, with his head stuck out the window. That wasn’t going to happen today. The windows were froze in place.

  “Wait,” I said, as I held the pie with one hand and opened the passenger door with the other. I slid the pie onto the floor then closed the door. “You stay here, Shep. I’m going to go get the other two pies.”

  He did exactly what I told him. I was sure he wouldn’t move until I released him. Shep was good at commands—unless something wandered by. Then all bets were off. His instinct to herd anything that moved was almost impossible to overcome.

  I looked like the abominable snowman when I stepped inside the house. I brushed off the snow, quickly gathered up the other two pies, hurried back to the Studebaker, and lodged them on the floor next to the other one. Then I ordered Shep up onto the passenger seat. “Don’t even think about taking a nip of that crust, buster,” I said, as he settled in and eyed the pies.

  The dog looked at me, back at the pies, then stared out the closed passenger window, sullen and rejected. His bushy tail trembled with restraint.

  “Good dog,” I said, putting the truck in gear. “Let’s go.”

  The bed of the truck was loaded with snow. The weight gave me plenty of traction so I wouldn’t fishtail or lose control on the icy, snow-packed roads. Thankfully, the Studebaker was good on winter roads—like any heavy-duty farm truck would be—but I still had to drive cautiously and slowly. Oncoming traffic would be hard to see, and the fact that my defroster only worked half the time made things worse. I had to wipe the windshield clear with my sleeve.

  The Rinkermans lived a good clip away, almost to South Heart, which was why I was surprised when Darlys had driven so far out of the way to get to my house for the Ladies Aid meeting. South Heart was west of Dickinson. She and Anna had driven from Dickinson, east, almost to Gladstone, to pick up Lene. From there, they drove back west, stopped at the Red Owl for cigarettes, then drove a good twenty miles farther west to drive by the Rinkermans. I still scratched my head at the thought of Darlys’s reasoning. Nils had told the women to keep an eye out for Tina. I guess that’s what they were doing.

  The sky was clear, but there was the promise of more snow on the puffy, gray horizon. Flakes that had already fallen raced across the flat, open fields, gathering speed and conspirators with no obvious destination. Spirals of snow danced across the road ahead of me, obscuring my vision. I felt like I was driving though a ghost tornado.

  The way finally cleared and the road forked. I knew I was getting close. “Almost there,” I said to Shep.

  The border collie sat in the passenger seat quietly, happy to be with me. He flicked his tail and looked back out the window. I followed Shep’s gaze, hoping to see something moving, something alive, but there was nothing but a field of white, an unmarked sheet of paper, for miles on end, to greet my eyes. I hadn’t spotted a single hawk, human, or jackrabbit since I’d left the house. I’d had nothing to keep track of, to categorize, or sort. My brain craved organization, a trait that contributed to my indexing skills. There was absolutely nothing to file in my memory other than loneliness. Shep and I might as well’ve been the only living creatures on the planet.

  That Rinkerman girl couldn’t survive twenty-four hours in this weather. It would be a miracle if she was still alive.

  There were fewer trucks parked in front of the Rinkermans’ house than I had expected. Nine to be exact, and that included two Sheriff’s Department vehicles and the volunteer ambulance from South Heart.

  The trucks sat alongside the road, most with their engines idling. Exhaust spiraled upward into thin vapor clouds that smelled of burnt oil and antifreeze fluid. There was no sign of Darlys Oddsdatter’s red Plymouth Fury, and there wasn’t anyone milling about. The air was too cold for that.

  I left Shep in the Studebaker and made my way to the house, juggling all three pies.

  The Rinkermans’ house was similar to mine; a small wood-frame box with a covered porch, two or three bedrooms, and a living room that most likely melded into the kitchen. Paint hadn’t touched the wind-worn clapboard siding in a decade. Snowdrifts skirted the buckling foundation. The door to the storm cellar stood open, free of snow, and I assumed that someone had recently gone down looking for Tina. An occasional puff of smoke choked out of the lone chimney, and the woodpile looked incapable of heating the house through the winter.

  Three work trucks sat in the drive, and a garage, in similar repair to everything else in sight, sat on the north side of the house. Toren Rinkerman kept his welding shop in the garage. There were no other buildings on the property, no barns, no sheds, not even a chicken coop. As far as I knew, the Rinkermans didn’t farm any of the land that surrounded them.

  I heard loud voices inside the house as I made my way up the stoop. I hesitated, then knocked on the door with my elbow. My hands were full, balancing the pies. I feared dropping them. I wasn’t going to leave a single pie in the truck or bring Shep with me. I didn’t know if the Rinkermans had any dogs of their own. Farm dogs could be territorial, and I wasn’t about to risk starting a fight.

  Heavy footsteps approached, the door swung open, and Toren Rinkerman glared at me. I stepped back and looked up. He was a towering man, dressed in thick, grease-stained overalls, along with a long frazzled gray beard that hung halfway down his chest. His face was hard and wrinkled. I had almost forgotten that Toren was older, probably in his early sixties, not my age or Hank’s.

  “Mrs. Trumaine,” he said, recognizing me immediately. “What are you doin’ out on a day like this?”

  “I brought you some of my blackberry pies.”

  Any anger or frustration in Toren Rinkerman’s dark gray eyes quickly faded away. “So you did. I expect you heard about our Tina?”

  I wasn’t sure what Toren thought I had heard. That Tina was dead? I only knew she had wandered off.

  “Come on in, then,” he said, opening the door. “You’re gonna freeze to death just standin’ there.”

  I forced a smile, gripped the pies tighter, sucked in a deep breath of frigid air, and made my way inside the small house, not sure what I was walking into.

  CHAPTER 4

  The interior of the Rinkermans’ house was as sparse and worn as the exterior. The family lived and breathed a utilitarian existence. That wasn’t so unusual. Money was hard to come by in the best of times.

  I couldn’t see one expression of happiness or pride. No pictures, trophies, or knickknacks cluttered the room. Rickety furniture sat haphazardly about the front room along with tattered rugs that looked like they’d been woven in the last century. Nervous perspiration beaded on my upper lip.

  I immediately searched for Tina but didn’t see her. There were no children in the house at all. The room was packed with men; three of them, I assumed, were Toren’s sons. All of them were dressed in overalls, thermals, and heavy boots, to endure long stretches of frigid weather.

  Most of the men were unfamiliar to me, though I spied Duke Parsons and Guy Reinhardt right away, huddled in a corner talking quietly to each other. Guy was hard to miss, standing almost a head taller than everyone else in the room. Both men, like everyone else, glanced my way when Toren ushered me inside the house.

  The house smelled of cigarette smoke, coffee, and dread. I could tell by the long faces and distant eyes that Tina Rinkerman had not returned home.

  “This way, Mrs. Trumaine,” Toren said, cutting a path to the kitchen.

  The collection of searchers stepped out of the way, allowing us to pass. I followed Toren, not directly acknowledging any of the men. I ignored Guy and Duke after my initial sighting, and they did the same. This wasn’t a social call for any of us.

  Toren led me into the kitchen,
where I found two women, one standing at a double sink and one sitting at the dining table, her face buried in a pair of wrinkled and drawn hands. She had recently finished crying or praying, I couldn’t tell which.

  “Mother,” Toren said. His head nearly scraped the ceiling as he stepped up into the kitchen. The small room was a late addition to the original house; the floor was six inches higher than the front room. I had to peer around the side of him to see the women clearly. “Mrs. Trumaine brought some pies for us,” he said.

  The woman at the table looked up at him. She couldn’t have been his mother but was most likely his wife. “She’s dead then?”

  “No, Mother. We don’t know where Tina is. The neighbor lady here brought us some pies. Tell her thank you.”

  I lived nearly twenty-five miles away and I was still a neighbor.

  The other woman stopped what she was doing, washing and drying dishes, and stared at me. I recognized her. She was Theda Parsons. Duke’s sister, another member of the Ladies Aid. She had never visited my house. I wondered if Darlys had called and told her I was coming. I wondered if Darlys had already been there. There was no sign of her typical hot dish made with tater tots and Vienna sausages. I was really starting to worry.

  I eased by Toren, bobbling the pies as I did, and sat them down safely on the dinner table.

  Theda Parsons, tall and brittle as an October cornstalk, dried her hands on a dingy dishtowel, and said, “Adaline, you remember Marjorie Trumaine. Her husband, Hank, would come by to have Toren sharpen his mower blades from time to time. Their place is south of Dickinson off Duncan Road, you know?”

  The woman, Adaline, looked at Theda, then at me. “The one that stepped in the gopher hole and broke his neck?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Well, I was sorry to hear he passed away.” Adaline Rinkerman looked to be in her early sixties, near the age of her husband. Her face was as wrinkled as her hands, and her hair was the color of the gray dishtowel. A hint of blue still held in her eyes, but any vibrancy of the color had faded long ago. She must’ve had Tina late in life after bearing the three boys; a surprise baby that had brought heartache and joy. I was speculating on the joy part.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I hope you can use the pies.”

  Adaline forced a smile and looked past me to Toren. “You go find her, Father. You go find our Tina now. If I have to live another minute not knowin’ where she is, I’m gonna go mad. Do you understand? I’m gonna go mad.”

  “I understand, Mother.” Toren’s words were soft, but they were heavy with fear.

  What was he going to tell her when he found her? I wondered silently.

  Toren sighed, then lumbered out of the room taking care not to knock his head on the ceiling.

  “All right, fellas, let’s go back out there,” Toren announced, drawing my attention away from the kitchen. His voice boomed inside the small house so loudly that the walls seemed to shake. My guess was that they’d already been out searching once, starting at sun up.

  The group of men rustled into action with soft grumbles. I glanced over my shoulder to see Guy Reinhardt, the sheriff, all decked out in his brown and tan winter gear, lead the way out the front door.

  A cold gust of wind entered the house as the men marched out dutifully. I was in no mood for visiting, either. I said my goodbyes, then fell into the line of men and headed toward the door. I wanted to get as far away from the sadness inside that house as I could. I had indexing work to do, a reason to leave, but I had something else on my mind. I wasn’t going home yet.

  The wind hadn’t let up, and I tightened my scarf across my face, leaving my vision clear. My eyes watered as they adjusted to the cold. I almost couldn’t bear Adaline’s heartbreak.

  The revving of an engine caught my attention. I looked up, relieved to see Darlys in her red Fury. She parked carefully on the berm, making sure to give the dispersing searchers plenty of leeway. Most of the long-faced men headed back to their trucks, while a few others broke out toward the field across from the Rinkermans’ house, their heads down, searching for a clue or fending off the wind, I wasn’t sure which.

  Guy Reinhardt held back from the group. I quickly realized that he was waiting to speak to me. I wanted to talk to him, too.

  “I was surprised to see you here, Marjorie,” he said, as I walked over to him.

  “I figured the Rinkermans had more mouths to feed than usual and could use some comfort and support,” I said.

  Guy flicked a half smile of approval. “Your blackberry pies are topnotch, Marjorie. Everybody in the county says so.”

  I had to look up to meet Guy’s familiar brown eyes. We had known each other most of our lives. Guy had grown up nearby, in South Heart, which meant he’d attended a different high school than I had. Our sports events overlapped and our rivalries were fierce. He was an athlete in his younger days, had a good talent for basketball. There was talk of him going pro early on. After high school, Guy went on to play ball at the university and found success there, too. The sheriff was a golden boy back in those days, had everything going for him, but a week before the pro draft a bad car accident left him lame. The wreck killed any chance he had of playing basketball ever again. He walked with a Gary Cooper limp, and carried the burden of living with what might have been etched across his disappointed face. After the wreck, Guy slipped into obscurity as a deputy for the Stark County Sheriff’s Department. Recently, though, he’d found enough confidence in himself to run for sheriff. The win looked to have done him some good. I was sure that he stood an inch or two taller, and his shoulders were squarer than I’d seen them in a long time.

  “Sad thing, that girl wanderin’ off like that,” Guy continued. “It’s hard waitin’ for an answer when you know it’s going to be bad news knockin’ at the door.” The color drained from his face as soon as the words left his mouth. “Oh, sorry about that, Marjorie, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories for you.”

  “I know you meant no harm, Guy.” I lowered my head. Guy knew my troubles and I knew some of his. “I want to help,” I said, looking him in the eye. Instead of going home and finding a reason not to start indexing the Flyway book, I needed to ward off my own sadness. I needed to contribute something to help ease Adaline Rinkerman’s suffering. I knew the look in her fading eyes, how she felt: helpless, lost, her world crumbling around her with nothing to do but wait for the other shoe to drop.

  “What do you mean, help?” Guy said.

  “I mean go out and search with the rest of you. I’m dressed for the weather. I know this land as well as any of those fellas. Maybe better’n some. I’d rather do that than head home.”

  “You brought your pies.”

  “That’s not enough,” I said. “I want to help find that little girl.”

  Guy watched Darlys get out of the Fury and walk toward the Rinkermans’ front door. She carried a hot dish and looked stunning in a red coat that I’d never seen before. “I don’t think we’re gonna find anything good, Marjorie. Wouldn’t it be better if you . . .”

  “Better than what?” I interrupted. “Stay here with the Ladies Aid now that Darlys Oddsdatter showed up? You know me better than that, Guy Reinhardt. Besides, are you going to be the one to break the news to that grieving mother in there? I think she’d take the worst thing imaginable a little better if another woman told her. No offense, but I’m a bit gentler with such things.”

  “Geez, Marjorie, I don’t know. That’d be police business.”

  “This is neighbor business,” I said. “The day that Hilo came walking up to me to give me the news about Hank was the worst day of my life. He gave me the details as gently as he could, but what he had to say was still hard to hear, hard to bear. They probably heard me wail all the way up to Saskatchewan. I can help, Guy. I can ease Adaline Rinkerman’s pain. That is, if there’s bad news to tell at all.”

  “That girl can’t survive in weather like this, Marjorie, you know that. My toes are about to fall
off, and I’m prepared to be out in the snow. She’s not.”

  “You don’t know what happened to her. All you know is that she’s missing. She could be anywhere. She could be warm and safe somewhere for all you know. Besides, if Hank Trumaine were alive he’d be halfway across that field by now, looking for that girl. You wouldn’t tell Hank no, now would you?”

  Guy put his hat back on and sighed heavily. “Well, I guess you’re right, Marjorie. If you’re comin’, I want you to stay with me. That’s the only way I’ll agree to such a thing.”

  “Shep’s coming with me,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything else, didn’t wait for me to argue or agree. He turned and walked toward his truck. I followed without objecting.

  I waved to Darlys as she knocked on the Rinkermans’ front door. She waved back with a smile on her face. If anybody could bring some sunshine to that house, Darlys Oddsdatter could.

  I kept my eyes focused on Guy, relieved that I didn’t have to go home to an empty house, left to wonder and worry about things that on the surface had nothing to do with me. But, like Toren said, we were neighbors, and no matter the distance or lack of relationship, what happened to one of us, happened to us all.

  CHAPTER 5

  Guy pulled his truck, an International Harvester Scout, off the road about two miles west of the Rinkermans’ house. A small flock of horned larks lit into the air. Larks often mingled alongside the road with snow buntings, foraging for any seed they could find. I wasn’t sure of the birds’ migration patterns, which encouraged me about indexing the new book. At least I was curious about the topic.

  Guy shifted his weight behind the steering wheel, and said, “Toren said him and one of the boys found some footprints over by that fence post late last night. He was sure they were Tina’s tracks. The prints headed north, then disappeared, so he gave up. Snow covered ’em, most likely. He came back here this morning at first light but didn’t see a thing. There was no sign of any human presence at all. Toren’s starting to doubt himself, hoping they belonged to Tina, not knowing for sure. I told him I’d have a look, to double check.”