Winter's Child

by Margaret Maron

  He was more interested in talking about that tooth than any grudge he might have been carrying for Rouse, but he did furnish the full name of the woman—Darla Overholt.

  So where was he Thursday evening?

  “Driving back from High Point with my boss. We got in around seven. Here, I’ll give you his number.”

  The second suspect was helping a friend change the carburetor in his truck. He freely admitted he wasn’t sorry to hear Rouse was dead, and no, he didn’t have a real good alibi. “Darla Overholt? Yeah, she lives down near Makely. Comes up this way to do her playing. Too close to Fort Bragg the other way.”

  His friend came out from under the hood with a big grin on his face. “You say Rouse was shot? From how far away? Ol’ Ken here couldn’t hit an elephant less’n it was standing close enough to squirt him in the face. Ask anybody.”

  Jamison found their third suspect at a fund-raising fish fry outside the fellowship hall of a local church.

  Boiling grease bubbled in one of the portable vats as the man dropped in battered catfish fillets one by one, then scooped crisp hushpuppies from an adjacent vat into a large colander. The air was redolent with the smell of fish and hot cornbread.

  “I was at a planning session for today,” he told Jamison as he dumped the hushpuppies into a metal tray that one of the kitchen helpers took over to the serving line. An awed look spread over his face. “I never fried fish for a church before and I didn’t really want to do it this time, but my wife talked me into it. She said it would prove a blessing to me. Well, damned if it didn’t, right?”

  As they neared Rideout Road, Richards recognized the name on a street sign as being the same as the address for Orchard Range and quickly told McLamb to turn onto it.

  The development consisted of large boxy houses nearing completion. From a cursory drive through, it looked as if all that was lacking was the installation of appliances and the usual minimal landscaping. The berms that gave a semblance of privacy from passing traffic and the newly planted entranceway were both getting a thick mulch of pine straw from the Diaz y Garcia Landscaping crew. Indeed, Miguel Diaz himself had arrived and was standing by his truck when the two detectives got back to the entrance. He was talking to an older white man whose own truck bore the logo of the consortium that owned this development.

  When introduced, the man confirmed that he had indeed spoken with Garcia on Thursday, although he did not think it was as late as Diaz had led them to believe.

  “It was probably only around five because the sun was still up when I left,” he said. “I remember ’cause it was right in my eyes but too low for the visor to do any good.”

  Richards felt Diaz’s eyes on her, challenging her. Confused, she avoided his gaze and pointed to the woods that lay on the far end of the development. “What’s on the other side of those trees?”

  “Over yonder?” asked the man. “That would be Rideout Road.”

  Mrs. Harper had just given her corgi a bath when the two detectives rang her bell. She met them at the door with the wet dog wrapped in a towel and invited them to come in while she finished drying it off.

  They sat in the living room and she held the dog on her lap to dry between its toes.

  “Are you any nearer to learning who did that awful thing?” she asked, moving on to the little dog’s ears.

  “We have a few leads,” Richards told her, “but we were hoping you might have remembered something more that might help us. For instance, did any vehicles pass you going the other way just before he was shot?”

  Mrs. Harper shook her head. “Not that I noticed. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I get quite single-minded when I’m out there. I’m only looking for the next bottle or can or scrap of paper.”

  “It’s really nice of you to do the whole road all by yourself,” said McLamb.

  She shrugged away his praise. “It’s barely a mile and it’s the least I can do to honor my father.”

  “Is that him?” asked Richards, glancing at the portrait over the couch.

  The older woman nodded and her face softened as she, too, looked at the man in uniform. “The Colonel was such a good person. Kind and considerate of everyone.

  He was the one who actually started trying to keep the road clean. I never had his patience. ‘Why bother?’ I’d ask him. ‘You know some slob’s going to trash it again.’ He said it gave him something to do while I was at work.

  Said it was giving a little something back to the world.”

  “You must miss him a lot,” said Richards.

  “It’ll be three years on Monday since he died,” she said simply. “As soon as I took early retirement, I knew this is what he would want me to do.”

  “Getting back to Thursday night,” said McLamb, “did you happen to notice the time of the shot?”

  Again the woman shook her head. “I wasn’t wearing a watch.”

  The dog yawned and curled up on the towel and fell asleep in her lap. “Poor Dixie! Baths just wear her out.”

  “But the sun was still up, right?” Richards persisted.

  “Just barely. I could see pretty good, but it was almost completely dark when I got home, and I started back as soon as I knew you people were on the way.”

  On the return drive to Dobbs, Raeford McLamb said,

  “What time is sunset these days anyhow?”

  Mayleen Richards logged onto the Internet and in less than a minute was able to say, “Sunset for Thursday in this area was five-twenty-nine. And twilight till five-fifty-six.”

  “Wouldn’t take a person but maybe ten or fifteen minutes at the most to walk through the woods from Orchard Range to Rideout Road.”

  “True,” Richards agreed. “But it’s not like Rouse was keeping to a split-second timetable. If it was Garcia, how would he know for sure that Rouse would be driving past in that short window of time?”

  They were still batting scenarios back and forth when they got back to the office. Jamison came in right behind them, waving a fragrant brown bag with grease stains.

  “I brought lunch,” he said. “Catfish.”

  They were munching on hushpuppies and sharing their findings when one of the uniforms stuck his head in the door. “They just posted a new Amber Alert from Virginia. Eight-year-old white male. Calvin Shay Bryant.

  Isn’t that Major Bryant’s boy?”

  C H A P T E R

  13

  I have to go, whether the north wind sweeps the earth orwinter shortens the snowy day.

  —Horace

  I got home a little before one and was trying to decide which I least wanted to do: fold laundry or get started on an ED for a divorce I was supposed to hear next week. Equitable distributions are the most time-consuming part of modern divorces. Everything has to be evaluated, from the family silver to the family Tup-perware. Each party makes its own evaluation and then it’s up to the judge to reconcile the two. If the values are close, I can just split the difference, but sometimes they’ll vary by hundreds of dollars. That’s when I go browsing on eBay to get an idea of what’s fair and equitable.

  I decided that the laundry could wait and was heading for my laptop when the house phone rang.

  “Mrs. Bryant? Judge Knott?” asked the vaguely familiar voice of someone who wasn’t sure if I was still using my maiden name.

  “Speaking,” I said.

  “This is Deputy Richards, ma’am. We were wondering if you could tell us what’s happening? I mean, we didn’t 12 think we should call Major Bryant directly, but we’re all worried for him and his son.”

  “Worried?” I parried, wondering how she had heard about Jonna jerking Dwight’s chain.

  “Yes, ma’am. That Code Amber just came across our computer screen, but all it says is that he was taken yesterday afternoon by an unknown white woman in a blue parka and sunglasses and not by his mother as they first thought.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, gosh,” she groaned, instantly realizing that I didn’t have a clue what she was t
alking about. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I’m so, so sorry!”

  I knew she was referring to a piece of confidential information that she had blurted out at a dinner the sheriff’s department had given Dwight and me right before Christmas. Dwight had roasted her over the coals for that, but what was this?

  Before I could respond, my cell phone rang and I grabbed it. Dwight’s number was there on the screen. I promised Richards that I’d call her right back and pressed the talk button.

  “What’s going on up there?” I asked, not quite sure whether I was angry at being left in ignorance while all hell seemed to be breaking loose in Virginia. “I thought you said it was Jonna that took Cal.”

  “How do you know about that?” he asked.

  “You do an Amber Alert and you don’t expect me to hear about it? I’m your wife, Dwight. Why am I hearing about this from somebody else?”

  “It just went out and this is the first real chance I’ve had to call you.”

  “Where’s Jonna?” I said, ready to go rip her eyes out.

  “Who does she think has Cal?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Dwight?”

  “Jonna’s dead,” he said, and I listened in stunned silence as he told me all that had happened since we talked earlier that morning.

  I was aghast and wanted to go over every detail, but that wasn’t going to happen. “Sorry, Deb’rah. I’ve got to be in Paul’s office in about three minutes or the state guys will probably have a warrant out for my arrest.”

  “What?”

  “Bad joke. But they do want to talk to me.”

  The pain in his voice decided me. “I’m coming up,” I said. “I’ll be there before dark.”

  He started to protest, but I wasn’t about to listen.

  “For better or worse,” I reminded him. “Besides, you probably need fresh underwear and socks.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Anything special you want me to bring?”

  “No, but call my mother, would you? She needs to be told before she hears about it like you did.”

  “I’ll tell her,” I said. “You go to your meeting and I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  I called Mayleen Richards back and told her the bare minimum, then I called Miss Emily.

  As soon as she heard my voice, she said, “Oh, Deborah, I was just fixing to call you and Dwight.” She bubbled with happy anticipation. “Rob called. He and Kate are on their way to the hospital. The baby could be here anytime now!”

  I hated to lick the red off her candy, but I couldn’t not tell her. She listened with small murmurs of dismay.

  “Poor Jonna,” she said when I’d finished. Cal’s disappearance terrified her, too, but she wasn’t going to think the worst before she had to.

  “Dwight will find him,” she said, even though a slight quaver in her voice betrayed her surface calm.

  Minnie was shocked when I phoned but instantly volunteered to tell Daddy and the others. “You sure you don’t want someone to ride up with you?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Promise you won’t speed,” she said. “I just saw the Weather Channel. It’s snowing up there and I want to be able to truthfully tell Mr. Kezzie you promised not to speed.”

  “I promise,” I lied.

  Finally, I called Roger Longmire, my chief judge, and explained why I needed to take a week of personal leave.

  After that, I packed enough clean clothes to get us through the week, and at the last minute tucked a dark suit for Dwight and a black dress for me into a garment bag even though it was too soon to know when, or even if, there was to be a formal funeral.

  I was on the road within an hour after Dwight’s call.

  C H A P T E R

  14

  The wounds and blows inflicted by men . . . render them lessable to bear the afflictions of heat and cold.

  —Theophrastus

  Saturday afternoon, 22 January

  For all the times he had sat in the burn box while defense attorneys nitpicked his testimony—

  “How can you possibly say, Major Bryant, that this wrench, sold by the thousands at hardware stores throughout the country, is the exact same wrench pur-portedly owned by my client before his girlfriend’s tragic death?”—and despite the many suspects he had cross-questioned himself, Dwight was not looking forward to this session. Paul might call it a formality, but these men were here to find Jonna’s killer, and as the ex-spouse, he was a ready-made natural suspect. He told himself to just suck it up. Pointless to get their hackles up by a show of impatience or hostility. The sooner this was over, the quicker he could get back to the search for Cal.

  Yet, for all that, it began pleasantly enough. When he arrived at the police station a minute or two before one o’clock, the others were settled in Paul Radcliff’s office 13 and they made no move to take it down the hall to the interrogation room, for which he supposed he should be grateful. At the moment, the two state police officers were acting as if this were nothing more than a pro forma meeting of professionals.

  Dwight smiled when Paul introduced him to Special Agents Nick Lewes and Ed Clark of Virginia’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation. “I guess y’all’ve heard all the jokes.”

  “Jokes?” Lewes asked blankly. He looked at his partner, who shrugged.

  “Never mind,” said Dwight. If they were putting him on, then let it ride. He shucked his jacket and hung it on the back of the remaining empty chair.

  Lewes was probably his age, mid-forties, and Clark looked to be a couple of years younger. Both were muscular six-footers, although Lewes was somewhat heavier.

  Both wore leather shoulder holsters over casual civvies.

  Their heavy navy blue utility jackets with insignia and shoulder patches were draped over their chairs. Lewes had a receding hairline and pouches under his eyes like a sleepy bloodhound, while Clark’s pointed face and bright button eyes reminded Dwight of a poodle he had once known.

  “Sorry about your boy,” Lewes said. “Hell of a situation you got here.”

  “We understand he went with his abductor willingly?”

  asked Clark.

  “Sounds like it,” said Dwight. “That’s why we thought she was Jonna.”

  As they finished with the small talk, Clark set a tiny tape recorder on the desk corner nearest him. “You don’t have a problem with us taping this, do you, Major?”

  “Fine,” said Dwight.

  Clark recorded the time and place and the names of those present, then asked, “When was the last time you spoke to Mrs. Bryant?”

  “The twenty-ninth of December, when I brought our son back from North Carolina.”

  “Not since then? Not even on the phone?”

  “No.”

  The two looked at him expectantly, as if he were a nice fresh bone to gnaw on, but seeing no reason to elaborate, Dwight gazed back, maintaining a relaxed posture.

  “How would you characterize your relationship with the victim? Good, bad, antagonistic?”

  He hesitated. “I didn’t think of it as a relationship. She was the mother of my son, so we kept it polite. He was the only thing we had in common.”

  “Why’d y’all split up?”

  “That was almost eight years ago and it’s not relevant to this situation,” he said, willing himself to maintain his composure. If he were sitting in their seats, he would certainly think his questions were hitting home if the suspect suddenly crossed his arms protectively over his chest.

  “A little cheating on the side, maybe?”

  “No cheating on either side and I didn’t remarry till this past Christmas,” Dwight said, sidestepping the spirit of Clark’s question, because yes, when you got right down to it, wasn’t wanting Deborah the whole time he was married the same as cheating on Jonna? (“Whosoeverlooketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adul-tery with her already in his heart.”) 1 Not that these men would suspect that he’d had to wa
it seven years after the divorce to do anything about it.

  (“And Jacob served seven years for Rachel . . . for the love hehad for her.”)

  “She got custody,” said Clark. “Did you resent that?”

  Dwight shook his head. “Cal was a baby. It made sense for her to have him.”

  “I’m talking about recently, now that he’s older.”

  “He’s only eight. He still needs his mother.”

  Saying the words drove the truth of it home like the blow of a sledgehammer.

  How’s Cal going to deal with this? Or does he alreadyknow that Jonna’s dead? Dear God, was he there? Was heused as a bargaining chip in a game Jonna had alreadylost? Forced to watch while someone put a gun to hismother’s head? And what about Deborah? She loves Cal,but she’s not Jonna. She can’t be for him what Jonna—

  “Major Bryant?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Look, could we do this later? My son—”

  “Every law agency in a five-state area has your son on their computer screens,” Clark said mildly, “and I believe Chief Radcliff has officers out questioning neighbors and friends?”

  Paul Radcliff nodded.

  “So unless you know where he’s likely to be, it’ll help him more if you finish bringing us up to speed. Now, we understand you got into town yesterday morning and your wife—sorry, your ex-wife—was already missing?”

  Dwight nodded. “Cal said he hadn’t seen her since she dropped him off at school Thursday morning.”

  With the tape recorder running, he repeated every- thing Cal had told him, from their breakfast of bacon and pecan waffles and the drive to school, to his coming home to an empty house and how she hadn’t answered her cell phone.

  “And you spent yesterday looking for her?”

  “I tried.” He told of his visits to Jonna’s mother and to the Morrow House and how he had come up colder than the slushy rain pounding on the skylight above them.

  “Her mother said she planned to go in to work that morning, and that jibes with what one of the trustees—”

  He glanced at Radcliff, who helpfully supplied the name. “Betty Ramos.”

  “Yeah. Mrs. Ramos said she saw Jonna briefly when she stopped by the Morrow House Thursday morning.”