See Also Deadline

by Larry D. Sweazy

  I followed Guy’s gaze north across the open, snow-covered field. “There’s nothing there. No reason that I can see for her to go that way. Or is there?” I said. I wasn’t as familiar with this part of Stark County as Guy was.

  “Interstate 94’s a good ten mile walk, as the crow flies. She’d end up in South Heart before that, though, and come across a few farmhouses on the way. Everybody’s keeping an eye out for her, on alert. I think she would have looked for warmth. I think somebody would have seen her if she would have come this way.”

  “You don’t think she could walk that far, do you?” We both knew we could be looking right at her, frozen, buried under the pristine snow. I was betting Tina Rinkerman’s body wouldn’t be found until the spring thaw.

  “No, not unless someone picked her up.”

  “They would have taken her home,” I said.

  “We would hope so, wouldn’t we?” Guy exhaled heavily, then tapped his gloved fingers on the steering wheel. The inside of the cab of the truck was warm. I wondered if he was telling me everything that he knew.

  “You’re uncomfortable,” I said.

  He looked at me stoically, with concern. “People talk, Marjorie.”

  I studied his face and took in his tone. “Oh, you’re uncomfortable that I’m here?”

  “Yes.” His admittance was weak, as if he wasn’t proud of what he’d said.

  “I don’t care what people think, Guy. We’re friends. I’m helping you look for Tina Rinkerman is all. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Word’ll get out that you came out on the search with me. You’re a widow, and I’m, well, I’m a divorced man. I was lucky to win the election with all of the family troubles I’ve had. You know how folks are. They see your home life as a reflection of your stability and trustworthiness. I’ve had my share of public failures, Marjorie. You know that. If I mess up bein’ the sheriff, I have nothing left.”

  I flinched. I didn’t like the word widow any more than Lene Harstaad liked new ideas. Beyond that, I didn’t want to admit that Guy was right. People gossiped. He was on thin ice until he proved himself, and maybe even then. “That’s silly,” I said. “I’m another set of eyes looking for that little girl. How can that be wrong?”

  Guy sighed again. “You have to realize things have changed for both of us, Marjorie. I have to care about how things look to people. You should, too.”

  “Why are we here then?”

  Guy hesitated, looked away, then back at me. “I didn’t want you out in these fields on your own.”

  “Do you want to take me back to the Rinkermans, back to my truck so I can go home?” I said.

  “No, I want you to help if that’s what you want to do, but I want you to see how other people might react.”

  “I think I’m starting to.”

  Shep’s coat looked like a blot of black ink spilled on a clean white sheet of paper. A crisp wind pushed at our back as we followed the dog into the field. Snow snaked around our feet, wiping out any sign of the dog’s tracks.

  Guy carried a Motorola walkie-talkie with him, at the ready to call for help. The radio screeched with occasional voices, offering a startling presence in the vacant fields. The noise carried on the wind, and I could only hope that Tina would hear us and scream for help. I really wanted to find her alive.

  Shep kept moving, sniffing one second, then running full out the next. We kept walking, putting one foot in front of the other. Moving was the only way to keep warm.

  A shelterbelt rose in the distance like an oasis in a desert. The gangly cottonwoods were planted as a windbreak years ago by an early pioneer. The trees offered no shade or cover like they did in summer. Come June and July the stand of trees became a draw for all kinds of life. I stopped and looked over my shoulder. We’d covered at least three-quarters of a mile.

  The sheriff’s truck sat idling distantly on the road. The light ball on top of the all-wheel drive vehicle spun steadily, sending streams of red and blue light across the white fields. A thin, continuous cloud rose up into the air from the Scout’s exhaust pipe, encasing the vehicle in a shimmering mirage that looked out of place.

  Falling snow and all of its clouds had pushed east, but now there was another worry as the sky cleared and the sun reflected off the white ground. Snow blindness—photokeratitis—was a real concern. Without saying a word, Guy and I both reached into our pockets and put our sunglasses on. His were Ray-Bans. Mine were the fifty-cent variety that I’d picked up at the Walgreens. They worked. That’s all that mattered. I wasn’t worried about looking like a movie star in my Carhartt overalls and snow boots. The last thing I needed was a sunburned cornea.

  A flock of snow buntings jumped into the air at our intrusion. The little white birds looked like snowflakes with wings, rising into the air instead of falling. The world seemed upside down, all wrong. I was rarely out in the fields this time of year. There was no reason to be—unless there was an emergency of some kind.

  I started to breathe heavily, could feel the cold invading every cell of my body. Walking faster helped a little bit, but my lungs protested, and I coughed.

  Guy stopped, and so did I. “You all right?” he said.

  “I’m fine.” I had kept my focus on the shelterbelt. A streak of light caught my eye. “There’s something there,” I said.

  “Where?”

  When I blinked, and looked again, the light was gone. “I don’t see anything now. I saw a burst of light, like the sun hitting a mirror. My eyes could be playing tricks on me because of the angle of the sun.” I pointed to the clump of cottonwoods, and Guy followed my lead.

  “Let’s go take a look,” he said.

  We headed for the tree line with a renewed sense of purpose. The cold melted away as I pushed the limitations of my body. Shep noticed the change in our determination. He circled us and barked as I pointed to the trees. “Go, Shep,” I said. “Go see if anything’s there.”

  Before I could bring my hands together to clap, the border collie took off running.

  “He’s a good one, that Shep,” Guy said.

  I kept an eye on the dog, hoping to see the light again.

  I didn’t see anything until we got closer.

  Shep stopped about twenty-five yards from the first cottonwood, drew back into a crouch, and froze in position. He started growling, then barking. Something was amiss, something was wrong. I shivered and tried not to think the worst, but I knew deep down in my soul that I had no choice. Guy was right. We weren’t going to find anything good. My heart started to beat faster. My first layer of long johns was soaked with sweat, and I knew I had to catch my breath before moving on. I had to prepare myself to see Tina Rinkerman frozen to death.

  Guy hurried past me, raising his radio to his mouth. Shep waited for the sheriff, then followed after him, still barking. Something told me to stay where I was, that I didn’t want to see what he saw, but I couldn’t stand there. My feet moved on their own accord. Just because I didn’t have children of my own didn’t mean I didn’t have motherly instincts.

  I followed Guy and Shep into the shelterbelt, crossing a pair of deep ruts as I went. A farm path wide enough to accommodate a good-sized tractor cut through the trees, providing access to a deer stand that sat nailed in the tallest tree. The oasis of trees was a hunting spot.

  I saw the object of the reflection farther into the trees. A car sat at the back of the grove. The driver’s side was hidden, obscured by a sculptured snowdrift. The car itself, an older model Ford, was white to begin with, and would have been difficult to see from the road. A chrome-plated mirror jutted out of the snow, looking oddly foreign, but perfectly situated to reflect the sun. No one had tried to hide the car. Nature herself had rendered the Ford invisible.

  Guy ran to the car, stopped at the driver’s door, then turned to me and said, “Stop, Marjorie. I don’t want you to see this.”

  His warning came too late. I was already to the hood of the car. I couldn’t look away.


  The windshield was a spider web of cracks, not shattered, still whole, ready to collapse at the first touch. Three unusual holes penetrated the glass directly in front of where the driver sat. There was no mistaking that they were bullet holes. A body sat behind the steering wheel, slumped over, eyes closed, and blood, frozen bright red, covered a man’s face. I gasped at the sight, at the recognition. The man in the car was Nils Jacobsen, dead as dead could be.

  CHAPTER 6

  The presence of death provoked Shep into an unrelenting barking fit. His panicked voice pierced the purity of the winter silence, sounding an alarm that echoed miles away. The good thing was that the border collie’s agitated voice would keep the coyotes at bay, or at least keep them on a wide perimeter.

  “Down, Shep! Down! Be quiet!” I couldn’t hear myself think.

  Shep’s haunches quivered with disobedience. He had that pushy border collie look in his sparkling amber eyes, and he continued barking as if I hadn’t said a word. Once Shep became fixated on an object, there was almost nothing I could do to break his focus. He was Hank’s dog long before he was mine. Hank could stop the dog in his tracks with a stern look.

  “Be quiet, Shep, that’s enough!” I yelled, then I stomped my foot, sending a cloud of dry snow into the air.

  The border collie’s eyes widened at the eruption. He whimpered and ceased barking straight away. I rarely admonished Shep. I think my deep, demanding tone caught him off guard.

  Shep circled around me, jittery and unsure, focusing on me instead of the body in the car. He finally came to rest next to my left ankle, relenting to an obedient stance. His bushy black and white tail swished nervously in the snow like a single angel’s wing. I know he was waiting for me to tell him that he was a good boy, but I wasn’t about to reward the dog. Praise was hard to fake standing there staring at Nils Jacobsen, dead, riddled with bullets.

  “Don’t touch anything, Marjorie,” Guy said. He stood next to the driver’s door. With his height, he could look down into the car and see clearly. The radio was still in his hand, up to his mouth. He hadn’t called for help yet. He looked like he was still figuring out what he needed to do.

  “Holy buckets, Guy, that’s Nils Jacobsen,” I said.

  “Sure does look like him, Marjorie,” Guy said. “His car, too.”

  I didn’t say anything else. I wasn’t sure what kind of car the Jacobsens drove. Anna rode with Darlys when they had Ladies Aid business, and I never paid attention to the cars in the parking lot at the Red Owl. There was no reason to.

  I was shocked to see Nils dead. I was expecting to find Tina Rinkerman stiff as a board, collapsed in the snow, not the manager of the Red Owl grocery store shot in the head. There was no sign of the girl. I was numb from the cold, grief, and confusion.

  Instead of mourning a disabled girl, I would have to watch a friend enter into an early widowhood. There was no way to defer membership to that group like there was the Ladies Aid. Anna. Poor Anna, left with three children. What was she going to do now?

  Guy looked at the ground and searched for something unknown, then turned his attention back to Nils. “Looks like he drove in here for some reason, then someone shot him from the deer stand. The bullet holes came from a high angle. I’m guessing, but that’s how this looks to me.” A puzzled look had found its way to Guy’s face and stayed there. He was a statue of curiosity. I liked that about him.

  “He was ambushed?” I asked, wiping my eyes, taking in the empty deer stand.

  Depending on the time of day and the state of the weather, it was possible that someone could have lain in wait for Nils, sitting in the deer stand. Why was Nils Jacobsen out in the middle of nowhere in the first place? Was he looking for Tina Rinkerman, or was something else going on? My indexer mind was at work, cataloging what I saw and thought. I couldn’t help myself.

  Guy shrugged off my ambush question then tried to open the car door. He pulled too hard and the frozen door handle snapped off in his hand. “Son-of-a-bitch! I should know better than to do something so goddamned stupid.” He eyed me, then bit his lip, looking like a little boy, holding back any other colorful expletives that he might have been tempted to use. I appreciated his restraint, but Hank Trumaine had a foul mouth, too. I’d heard every bad word there was to hear. I was a farmer’s wife, not a prude.

  Guy dropped the door handle, then stomped to the other side of the Ford. I couldn’t tell if his red face was from the cold or from embarrassment. This time he pulled up on the handle gently. The door opened, to his obvious relief.

  I didn’t move. Shep didn’t budge, either. He hadn’t barked once since he’d sat next to my ankle.

  Guy climbed into the car, took his right glove off, and pressed against Nils’s carotid artery, searching for any sign of life. He exited the car a few minutes later. “Come on, Marjorie. Let’s get you back to the truck so you can warm up. I knew there was no saving him from the first look, but I had to check.”

  Nils Jacobsen was dead. Guy’s pronouncement made the tragedy final. I had known the truth before he’d said a word. No one could have survived three bullets to the head.

  I started to protest about going back to the truck, but a stern look crossed Guy’s face. This is police business.

  “Try and stay in the tracks you made comin’ up here, Marjorie,” Guy said. “I didn’t see any other footprints, but we’ll have to verify everything we find.”

  I understood. The soles of my boots were like fingerprints. “Okay,” I said, plotting my path back to the Scout. Snow had covered most of our tracks. “Come on, Shep, let’s go.” I clapped my hands together, releasing the dog from his stay position. He barked once, then ran in a few circles, and took off toward the Scout.

  As Guy escorted me back to the truck, he called for help on the radio. He gave directions to George Lardner, the dispatcher, and told the ambulance driver that there was no need to hurry, “the victim was 10-45D.” I assumed that was police talk for dead.

  I kept my eyes fixed on the ground, looking for any sign the killer might have left behind, or a prairie dog town. The underground communities were usually near rivers and streams. Gophers didn’t really hibernate in the winter. They slept a lot during the cold days, went dormant, but they still had to eat, still had to move around. My fear of stepping in a gopher hole wasn’t unfounded.

  “What do you think Nils was doing all the way out here?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Guy said, keeping his eyes forward. “I’ve got some investigating to do. I’ll need to talk to his wife, and then to the people at the store. Frank Aberle might know something. Those two have worked together for as long as I can remember.”

  Frank was the assistant manager at the store. He and Nils were about the same age. They went to school together and were best friends as kids.

  “Or Mills Standish,” Guy added.

  Mills was the butcher at the Red Owl and husband to my party-line eavesdropper neighbor, Burlene. Mills worked a lot of hours, too. Like Nils, he seemed to be at the store every time I went in to get something.

  “I saw Anna yesterday,” I said. “She came out to the house with Darlys Oddsdatter and Lene Harstaad. Pastor thought my joining the Ladies Aid would be a good idea. They’ve been coming once a week for a little while.” I thought briefly about the box of Hank’s clothes, that Anna would have to face the chore of packing away Nils’s things, too. My whole body tightened and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.

  The snow crunched underneath Guy’s feet, but beyond that silence had returned to the world. The wind had finally died down and there wasn’t a house or barn in view. “Did she say anything about Nils?” he asked.

  I was determined to maintain my composure, not show Guy that I was upset, even though I had every right to be. “No, not really,” I said. “She said they stopped at the store to get Darlys a pack of Winstons, and Nils told them that Tina Rinkerman had gone missing. They left me around suppertime, then Darlys drove out past here and stopped at the R
inkermans and talked to Duke on the way home. If Nils was missing when Anna got home, she would have sounded an alarm, don’t you think? Called the police if she thought something was wrong?”

  “I would assume so. I’ll talk to her.”

  “She’s gonna be awfully upset.”

  “And Mrs. Jacobsen seemed all right when she was at your house?”

  Guy’s question prompted an image to flash through my mind: Anna standing at the window, peering out into the snowy void with a worried look on her face, her stomach a little rounder than I had previously remembered. “We were all worried about Tina Rinkerman, and Anna’s always a little frazzled chasing after three kids on her own. Nils doesn’t help much around the house.” I caught the tail end of my words as they left my mouth. I felt bad for gossiping about the Jacobsens’ home life, even though my answers to Guy’s questions were police business.

  “Well, that helps, Marjorie. At least I know Nils was alive yesterday. He was cold as a Popsicle. I think he’s been sittin’ in that car for a good while.”

  The radio crackled with voices, and I heard the first distant moan of a siren heading our way. Once we’d found Nils, we’d had little time to consider Tina Rinkerman and her whereabouts. I was relieved that Tina wasn’t in the car, but seeing Nils Jacobsen dead like that was a worse shock. Now Guy had two big things to tackle. I worried whether he could handle both investigations. This was going to be his first big test as sheriff.

  CHAPTER 7

  Warm, crispy air greeted me when I opened the passenger door to Guy’s Scout. “Get in, Shep,” I said.

  The dog jumped up onto the bench seat eagerly. I followed, settling in quickly, pulling the door closed with a slam, keeping as much warmth inside as possible. I expected Guy to do the same thing, get in and warm up while he could, but he remained outside. He stood next to the passenger door like a sentry guarding some unseen treasure.