What were you thinking, Marjorie?
The Studebaker wasn’t equipped with safety belts like the newer cars were. I doubt I would’ve worn a belt anyway. Wearing one of those things would be like binding yourself to a horse. Who would do that? Though, as I was rocketing down Villard Street, using a harness of some kind to keep myself from tumbling over to the passenger side of the bench seat would’ve been helpful. The truck didn’t have power steering or power brakes, either. The truck was for work, not pleasure. This was no joyride. I was afraid and out of control.
I wrestled the truck, keeping an eye out for anything coming my way. With one more pump of the brakes, and a hard turn of the wheel with all of my might, I forced the Studebaker back under my control. Somehow, I’d managed to keep the truck in the middle of the street, though I now faced the opposite direction. I was looking back at the Red Owl. I had spun completely around—more than once. I was panting and my heart raced, but my vision was clear, on a mission.
Where are you, Tina?
There were three or four pairs of red taillights glowing in the distance. I couldn’t tell which, if any of them, was the car that the girl was in. As soon as the truck had come to a complete stop, the windshield started to collect snow. My breath quickly fogged the glass, making things even worse. I turned the wipers on and cleared the condensation with the sleeve of my coat. No matter how hard I strained my eyes, no matter how hard I tried to see through the blowing snow with the help of streetlights, I couldn’t make out any of the cars for sure. I was a hunting dog with too many rabbits to chase.
I’d lost her. Damn it, I lost her.
I found the closest phone booth and called the Sheriff’s Department. I knew the number by heart. George Lardner, the dispatcher, answered on the second ring. I recognized his voice right away. “George, this Marjorie Trumaine. I need to speak to the sheriff,” I said, talking as fast as my New York editor, Richard Rothstein, ever had.
“Oh, hey there, Mrs. Trumaine, what can I do for you?” George said casually, as if we were going to chat away the evening.
“I need to speak to the sheriff.” I had to restrain myself. I wanted to scream that I needed to talk to Guy, but I knew better than to get personal. I had to respect the office Guy occupied as much as everyone else did. George had made himself clear earlier in the day that he didn’t trust the shift in power from Duke to Guy, and I certainly didn’t want to call in any special favors—or to appear like I was. Word would get around to Duke and his sister and anybody else who didn’t like Guy, quicker than I could bat an eye.
“Oh, he doesn’t take calls from folks. That’s my job. Is this a personal call, Mrs. Trumaine?” George said, validating my concern.
“No, this is not a personal call.”
“Is something the matter?”
Finally . . . I gripped the cold receiver so hard I thought I was going to break the plastic thing in half. “Yes, I think . . .” I stopped and caught my breath, then restarted. “I saw Tina Rinkerman, George. I’m sure I saw her.”
“You’re sure you saw that girl?” He sounded like he’d sat up straight in his chair, didn’t miss a beat.
“That’s what I said, George.”
“No sense in gettin’ snippy with me, Mrs. Trumaine. I gotta ask these things, you know? Where’d you see her?”
“At Second and Villard. I’m in the phone booth right down from there.”
“And she was out walkin’ in this weather? Why didn’t you bring her here? Sure would have saved people a whole lot of trouble.”
“No, no, she was in a car. In the backseat.”
“Oh, well, that’s different. Who was drivin’?”
“I don’t know.”
George cleared his throat. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“It’s dark and snowing out. I didn’t get a good look.”
“More snow comin’ tonight, too. I sure do hope the roads are clear for church in the mornin’.”
I rolled my eyes. All I had to do was look out of the phone booth to see that the snow wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. “I didn’t get a good look at the driver,” I said. “I’m not even sure it was a man that was driving.”
“You’re sure you saw a man driving, you say?”
“No, maybe, yes, I think I saw a man.”
“You don’t sound so certain, Mrs. Trumaine.”
I sighed, frustrated. “Can I talk to the sheriff?”
“I told you, he’s not taking calls. Got his hands full. You know that. He’s tryin’ to figure out what happened to poor Nils Jacobsen. That’s all I can say. I’m the one that takes phone calls, not the sheriff.”
“Maybe a man was driving that car, George.” I wasn’t frustrated. I was exasperated. Even though I was freezing cold, I was sweating. “I’m certain that I saw Tina Rinkerman sitting in the backseat of that car.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
“What color was the car?”
“Black, I think.”
I heard George groan. “You don’t know the model and make of this possible black car, do you?”
“No, I, uh . . .”
“How about a license plate number?”
“No, of course not.”
George cleared his throat again, then said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Trumaine, but how can you be sure that the girl you saw was Tina Rinkerman? Nobody’s seen hide nor hair of that girl since she walked out of her house. And then you see her joyridin’ down Villard on a Saturday night like she doesn’t have a care in the world, in a car that might be black, driven by a man or a woman?”
“I didn’t say that she was joyriding, George. I know what I saw.”
“You didn’t answer my question. How do you know for sure that the girl you saw was Tina Rinkerman?”
“How many moon-faced teenage girls live in this town, George? I know what I saw. It was Tina Rinkerman in that car as sure as I’m standing here freezing to death talking to you. And the longer we talk, the farther away she gets, you hear me? We need to find that car, George.”
“You’re gettin’ snippy again, Mrs. Trumaine.”
He was right. My fuse was short. I exhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. I’m cold, tired, and upset.”
“Tina Rinkerman’s not the only retard who lives in Dickinson, Mrs. Trumaine. There’s more than one. You want it to be that girl is all. Nothing the matter with that.”
“That’s not very nice, George.”
“Well, that’s the truth.”
I didn’t know what to say. George Lardner didn’t believe me. I guess I would’ve had some questions, too, if I were on the other end of the line. I had no proof that the girl in the black car was Tina Rinkerman. I wanted all of this madness to end. Maybe I wanted to believe that she wasn’t dead, that I could take her home to her mother where she belonged. All I wanted was a happy ending. I wanted Tina Rinkerman to be alive. That’s all. I wanted her to be alive. I didn’t even know if the car was really black.
“Can you tell the sheriff that I called,” I finally said. “And have him call me if he’s got any questions for me?”
“Do you want me to send a deputy over?” George said.
“No, I don’t see the point. The car’s long gone. You might tell everyone to be on the lookout for a black car with a girl in the backseat.” Even that sounded crazy, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Sure, Mrs. Trumaine, I’ll do that.”
I didn’t believe him any more than he believed me. “All right, George. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
“You be careful going home, Mrs. Trumaine.”
“I will. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
We both hung up. I felt like an idiot. I was sure of what I saw. When I closed my eyes, I could see Tina Rinkerman’s face pressed against the window, looking out of it like she’d never seen the town all lit up at night. I didn’t see fear. I saw wonder. Maybe George was right. Maybe I was seeing things that I wanted to see.
Once I arrived at the house, I hurried inside to free Shep from his prison. I’d put him in the bathroom before I left. I hated to do such a thing, but with him being an outside dog, locking him up was the only thing I knew to do. There was nothing for him to destroy in the bathroom. Not that I thought that he would tear anything up. But he hadn’t been able to contain himself. There was a mess in the corner. I wasn’t angry. I knew right then and there that confining the dog in the bathroom while I was away wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to ask Jaeger to look after Shep while I was away from the house for long stretches at a time. I’d call him first thing in the morning.
After calming Shep down—he was really happy to see me—I put him outside and cleaned up the bathroom. I couldn’t get Tina Rinkerman and Anna Jacobsen off my mind. Both were lost in ways I couldn’t imagine.
I’d settled in at my desk when the phone rang. Two shorts, one long. It wasn’t for me. The call was for the Standishes, Mills and Burlene. The butcher and the eavesdropper. I listened closer as the phone continued to ring. I put both of my hands on the desk, tempting myself again to launch to the phone and do a bit of eavesdropping myself.
Thinking about listening in on the conversation was as far as I got. I hated it when Burlene hid on the line and listened in on my business, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to do the same thing. What if Mills knew something that could help Guy find the killer? Would discovering a clue to what had happened be worth breaking my own vow not to ever eavesdrop? Maybe. Maybe not. The phone stopped ringing before I could move another muscle. Thankfully, I was relieved of any temptation I might have had.
I shrugged off any more notions of deceit and went back to what I was doing—trying to make up for being gone all day, doing some work. I had to work at indexing every day regardless of what other things I had gotten myself into or I was going to miss my deadline, simple as that. I couldn’t afford to lose my job, no matter what.
I stared at the page proof before me, and all of the letters looked jumbled. I was tired and I couldn’t focus, but I had to move forward. I didn’t want to get behind on my daily page count, no matter what time of the night it was. I was beginning to regret telling Darlys that I would sit with Anna in the morning.
I looked at the page again. I was beyond the summary of John J. Audubon’s life, and I was now working in a section of the book titled “What Is Migration?”
The heading seemed basic to me, but sometimes the simplest information was where the most important index entries were found. Those were the questions I could assure myself a reader would want to look up.
Migration is the seasonal movement of animals or birds from one region to another. Primary reasons for migration are related to food resources and nesting opportunities.
I sat back and thought about what I’d read and found three or four index entries in two sentences. Food. Migration: reasons for. Nesting. Seasonal movement: See migration. I was about to reach for an index card but was stopped again by the intrusion of sound. The phone rang again. Two longs, two shorts. This time the call was for me.
I hurried to the phone, hoping Guy was finally calling me back.
“Trumaine residence,” I said.
I expected a voice, but none came.
Silence. No words. No sound except the hum of the line.
“Hello,” I said, then strained my ear, listening closer. No one else had picked up, but I could hear someone breathing on the other end of the line.
I waited a few seconds for a response. “Hello,” I repeated.
The breathing got louder.
I was starting to get uncomfortable. “Hello, who’s there?” I said, almost yelling.
The breathing got even louder, then whoever was on the line cleared their throat and slammed down the phone.
I almost threw the receiver back in the hook. I wanted to get the blasted thing out of my hand. As soon as I’d settled the phone on the hook, it rang again. One time. Then stopped. Was the caller mocking me, taunting me?
I stood there staring at the phone, hoping I was wrong, hoping that someone had dialed a wrong number. But I couldn’t stop my mind that easily. Bad things had happened to me before. My thoughts wandered to dark places a lot faster than they used to.
What if the driver of the black car saw me looking at him?
He didn’t know that I didn’t recognize him.
He had to know that I saw Tina Rinkerman.
What if he knew who I was?
CHAPTER 17
The snow had subsided overnight, but the wind continued to roar dutifully from the west. I found no surprises in the morning view from my window. More of the same. A blank white world with no sign of life at all. Even a stray Hereford cow would have been a welcome sight. Brown to offset white, a sure sign that I had not become blind to color.
I had expected winter to be difficult after Hank’s death, but not this difficult.
The phone had remained quiet, and any threat that I might have imagined stayed on the edge of my frayed mind. I flinched at every creak and moan of the house as the wood and nails protested against the unrelenting attack from the wind. Shep had laid unfazed at my feet as I worked deep into the night. I’d quit indexing when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I was proud of myself. I’d indexed twenty pages of the Central Flyway book. I only had a few hundred pages more to go, but a start was a start, and I knew I would have to remain persistent with my work schedule if I was going to meet my deadline.
I pulled away from the window, assured that the roads were in worse shape than they had been the day before. The drive to the Knudsen farm would take more time than I’d counted on. I had to drop off Shep, then make my way into town to Anna’s house.
I was more concerned about Tina Rinkerman. If there was any solace in the events of the last twenty-four hours, it was the sighting of that girl in the car. At least I knew she was warm. I didn’t know if she was safe, but I did know that her body wasn’t buried under the snow waiting to be discovered in the spring.
Last night I was sure the girl I saw was Tina, but after a bit of sleep I wasn’t so sure. Maybe George was right. Maybe there were more girls like Tina in Dickinson. I had no idea. I’d never had reason to notice. Mongoloid was an overlooked index entry in the text of my personal life. My memory was as blank as the view out my front window. I couldn’t recall ever seeing a girl like Tina except Tina, and she was as rare a sighting as an albino meadowlark.
First thing I did was call Jaeger, who, of course, said he’d be happy to watch Shep for the day. From there, all I had to do was eat some breakfast, bathe, dress, and head into town. I sat and decided to have a Salem with my cup of coffee instead of eating anything. There would be plenty of food at Anna’s house. I really wasn’t hungry and didn’t expect to be anytime soon.
I stood back up, changed my mind about smoking a cigarette, and made my way back to the window. There was nothing to see, nothing different from the last time I’d looked outside. My reflection stared back at me in the cold glass, reminding me that I was alone, on my own. In the recent past, I would go into Hank’s closet, pull out one of his shirts, smell the flannel cloth for reassurance and comfort, then burst into a round of angry tears. I wasn’t going to do that this time. I was afraid and lonely, but I had things to do and ways to protect myself. There was nothing for me to do but get on with my l
ife.
The lane up to the Knudsen farm was freshly plowed, and Jaeger stood waiting for me on the porch. Shep sat up straight in the seat. He knew where he was. I was glad to see a wag of the tail. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the dog locked up in the bathroom two days in a row. I assumed my day would be filled with Ladies Aid duties.
I pulled the truck up to the house and let Shep out the door before he leapt through the window. He loved Jaeger. I think the oldest Knudsen boy reminded the dog of Hank. The two men were a lot alike—stubborn, hardworking, short on words, and long on love for the land and its creatures.
Shep barked and circled Jaeger, a tall stick of a young man, with unruly black hair and a permanent frown etched on his face from the unfortunate pull of the forceps when he was born. Jaeger had his own grieving to do, and I wasn’t the one to tell him that he should be eating better than he was, but I would.
“Good to see you, boy. Good to see you.” Jaeger bent over, ruffled Shep’s black and white coat, then stood and faced me. “Good to see you, too, Mrs. Trumaine. Come on inside. Lester’s put some coffee on. You don’t look like you’re dressed to be out in the cold.”
“Going back to the Jacobsens’ today,” I said. I had on a dark blue Sunday dress, and the rest of the black accoutrements I could cobble together. None of my clothes were flashy. Most were homemade. And I didn’t have a deep enough closet, like Darlys Oddsdatter, to wear a new outfit every day. There’d be wash to do soon.
“That’s bad business, what happened to Nils Jacobsen,” Jaeger said. “You’d think we’d had enough of that kind of thing around here to last us a lifetime.”
There was nothing for me to add. Jaeger’s shoulders slumped, and a heavy shadow crossed his eyes. Sadness had settled on the blank white slate of his face a long time ago. We both knew his mother would be visiting the Jacobsens if she were still alive. Lida had tried to get me to join the Ladies Aid for years. I’d neglected to consider her failed insistence. There was no way I was going to leave Hank any more than I had to. I knew from the time he stepped in that damn gopher hole that our time together was short.
See Also Deadline Page 11