Steve interrupted her musing. “Can you think of anything else that might help us?” he asked.
Chevy chewed on her thumb cuticle for a couple of seconds, then shook her head.
Oliver and Bronwyn called out from the kitchen that they were fixing something to eat. This was welcome news to Tess, whose stomach was making a lot of noise.
Tess put a hand on Chevy’s shoulder. “Thanks for your help, Chevy. What you’ve told us will help a great deal.”
Chevy shot her a sheepish look. “Sorry I gave you such a bad time.”
“Forgiven and forgotten. Go get something to eat.”
Dr. Peel took Chevy into the kitchen.
With Chevy gone, Steve turned his attention to Harp, explaining to her the next steps she needed to take. A formal interview, fingerprints, etc. Tess tuned them out and, sipping her coffee, walked over to look at the items Steve had removed from the rental car. There were a couple of handguns, a MAC-10, an AK-47, a well-used pair of men’s boots, and a knapsack.
“Have you gone through this knapsack?” she asked.
Steve turned from his Harp notes. “Not yet. Go ahead.”
Tess pulled some gloves from her pocket, picked up the knapsack, and brought it to the counter where Steve and Harp sat. She busied herself with inventorying the bag’s contents.
The first few things she removed—a couple of T-shirts, a sweatshirt, and a sooty pair of pants—were not surprising. But toward the bottom, things got more interesting. There was a box of black hair dye for men, a box of Ben Nye theatrical stage makeup, and some .38 caliber ammunition. At the very bottom was the biggest surprise.
“Look at this.” She opened the backpack wide. “A .357 if I’m not mistaken.” With a gloved hand she held up the shiny chrome revolver. “It’s old and beat-up. It resembles the police special my dad used to carry.” She squinted, trying to read the serial number. “It looks like he tried to destroy the serial number, but I’m sure it still works. I’m surprised he left the weapon behind.”
Harp got up and stepped closer to Tess, peering at the gun. “Your dad is a cop?” she asked.
“He was. He was killed in the line of duty a long time ago. Back in the day, revolvers like this were standard issue.”
Briefly, Tess caught a strange expression crossing the woman’s face, but her attention was diverted to Steve.
“Dead guy had a .45 but never got off a shot,” Steve said. “As for the other guy, we recovered 9mm shell casings in the yard, so he had other weapons. And I don’t think he expected to be chased away from here by two armed women. Anything else?”
“Some clothing.” She held it up. “This has to belong to Ice. From what I saw of the dead guy, this would never fit him. There’s a lot of cash—” she held up a wad of hundred-dollar bills—“some hair dye and what looks like makeup . . .” She frowned. “And what I bet is a burner phone.”
“Hopefully we have all his makeup and he won’t be able to change his appearance too drastically. I’ll see that all of this gets sent to the lab.” He had evidence bags with him and packaged up the fake court order and the contents of the backpack.
Harp left the room, heading down the hall in the direction of the restroom.
Tess stood and stretched, the long day getting to her. “Thanks, Steve, I appreciate all your help.” He’d smoothed everything over with Sheriff Belcher, and Tess was grateful. In a small town it was important to nurture and maintain good relationships.
“Just glad everyone here is okay.” He looked down the hallway in the direction Harp had gone.
“Missing something?” Tess asked.
“Remind Livie for me about the formal interview and the fingerprinting. I’m heading out. I’ll get all this evidence sent to the lab. If we can make a connection, put this Ice character on the work crew, you have copies of all the driver’s licenses and IDs, correct?”
Livie. Briefly Tess wondered if Steve seemed a little too interested in Livie. Did it matter? Other than the fact that she was quite a bit older than him, Tess didn’t think so.
“I do. I have a file on my car computer. I’ll send it to you.”
“Thank you.”
Logan left, and Tess finished her coffee, trying to clear her thoughts. Fatigue meant jumbled, out-of-order, murky, and somewhat-random musings, and Tess needed clarity. The tension in her relationship with Oliver was one area she wanted to clarify.
She thought about her brief relationship with Steve. One good thing about dating a cop was that he knew the job, the pressures, the demands, the responsibilities. Oliver would never fully understand her job as chief. He’d proved that by taking her to task about conducting the search.
Maybe if Tess were chief of hundreds instead of seven, she could take the easy way out, but she wasn’t. Would that be a rub in her relationship with Oliver forever?
On the other side of the coin, she would never fully understand his job demands and responsibilities.
On cue, Oliver walked in with a plate of sandwiches, Bronwyn on his heels with glasses of tea. He sat next to Tess. “You’re exhausted.”
Tess blew out a breath, so thankful for the food. “I am. And I’m concerned. There’s an armed killer out there somewhere and I need to find him.”
“You’ve done all you can for now. Eat. Try to recharge,” Oliver said.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” She picked up a ham sandwich and ate half of it before she spoke again.
Harp returned to the living room, walking slowly down the hallway. To Tess, it looked as if she’d been crying. Oliver picked up on it as well.
“Ms. Harp, are you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s been a long day.” She settled into an easy chair but sat stiffly, not relaxing. “How do you deal with this?”
Oliver frowned. “With what, exactly?”
“Evil men hurting innocent people. And evil that seems never-ending, that goes on for years. Evil men getting away with being evil. I still struggle with this and with God. Why does it just go on?”
“I wish I had a pat answer for you, but I don’t,” Oliver said. “If I understood God completely, then he wouldn’t be God. But if it is any comfort at all, I don’t believe that anyone gets away with anything. There will be a reckoning—we may not see it, but it will happen.”
“You’re just as certain of that as you are that the Bible is true?”
“I am.”
Tess watched Harp try to process this, even as she had to process her own thoughts on the matter. After about a minute, she said, “I hope you’re right, Pastor. I do. I’ve not stopped reading the Bible and trying to understand it. The only hope I have is that evil people won’t get away with their evil forever.” She got up and went into the kitchen.
Oliver turned to Tess. “I’m glad she’s still reading, still asking questions.”
“She’s asking good questions, you know, about evil going on and on, seemingly with impunity. The question of unredeemable—I struggle with that myself.”
“I know you do. It’s okay to struggle and to even go to God with the struggle. Asking questions will get you answers.”
Tess said nothing, wondering if she’d ever be as sure on this subject as he was.
He held Tess’s gaze, worry on his brow. “Tess, I—”
The crackle of her radio interrupted him. It was her call sign, Curtis Pounder calling. He’d stayed on duty after being called in early to help with the perimeter. She frowned, thinking perhaps he was calling about that duty, certain that the perimeter had been broken down since it was obvious the suspect had made it outside the boundaries they’d set.
“Edward-1, I copy. Go ahead.”
“Chief, we have a problem—another missing woman.”
“What?” Tess said, exhaustion fading.
“Yeah, it’s Janie Cooper. She’s not answering her phone, seems to have vanished. Gabe is with Garrett at the mobile park. Garrett called Walmart to see if she was there on her day off for some reason. They
said that she did have an appointment at the salon, the first one of the day, but she never showed up. But one of her coworkers said her truck is parked in the lot. I’m heading down to Walmart to check out her vehicle and review camera footage.”
37
Hearing the radio call made Oliver sick to his stomach. “Not again,” he said. A check of the clock said 5 p.m. Would this horrible day ever end?
Tess stood to leave. He could read the angst in her face, and he prayed this call was simply a misunderstanding.
“Wait.” Oliver put a hand on her arm. “I’ll go with you.” He hated the fatigue and tension on her face and wanted to insist that she let someone else handle this but knew she didn’t want to hear that.
She acknowledged that she heard him with a head tilt but said nothing.
Oliver wondered what was running through Tess’s mind. He thought he saw a little guilt and prayed she didn’t blame herself for all that was going on at the moment. He hoped for a minute or two to speak to her privately, clear the air, as he followed Tess to the trailer park, where Bender was waiting with Garrett Cooper. The man was pacing with his youngest in his arms. He hurried toward Tess when she stepped out of her car.
“Janie’s gone! She just disappeared!”
Garrett was as agitated as Oliver had ever seen him. A thought crossed his mind. Had Janie finally given up on Garrett and left him? Almost as quickly as he thought it, Oliver dismissed the notion. Janie would never leave her kids.
“Garrett, tell me what happened,” Tess said.
“I don’t know what happened!” He stomped his foot like a little boy.
Oliver was ready to grab him and shake him. He was scaring the baby.
Tess must have read his mind because she stepped close and grabbed his arm. “Focus, Garrett. Tell me what happened to Janie.”
He tried to glare at her and then nearly collapsed into tears. “We had a fight this morning. She took the kids and left.”
Tess released his arm.
He switched the baby to the other side and then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I figured she’d come home when she cooled off. But then her friend in White City called me, asking when we were going to pick up the boys.”
“Why would she ask you that?”
“Janie asked her to pick them up from school and keep them for a couple of hours. I asked about Anna and her friend didn’t know anything about her. At first, I was mad, thinking Janie was trying to teach me a lesson. I figured she had Anna with her, and she’d go pick up the boys and come home after she’d let me stew long enough.”
He was on the verge of tears and Oliver could see that his small daughter was picking up on the stress and winding up to cry.
“Garrett, let me have little Anna while you speak to the chief.”
He handed the child to Oliver.
“The baby is here now—where was she?” Tess asked.
“That’s what freaked me out. Casey came over with Anna about an hour ago, told me that Janie dropped her off this morning, saying she was going to Walmart to have her hair done and she’d be back in a couple of hours.” The tears fell. “She never came back for her. Casey called her and got her voice mail. Janie is just plain gone!”
Juggling the little girl, Oliver stepped toward the mobile home, happy to see a smile appear on the baby’s face. He could still hear the conversation, and he listened with interest and not a little fear.
“Is there someone she would have gone out—?”
“No! She was mad, yeah, but she wouldn’t have left the baby so long with Casey with no explanation.” Garrett kicked the ground and pounded his fists into his thighs with a kind of whimper.
Oliver glanced at Tess, whose face was unreadable.
Then Tess pulled out her cell phone. She turned to Gabe. “I’m going to call Casey and see if she can tell me any more. Watch him?”
Bender nodded.
Tess stepped aside to make the call.
Garrett leaned back against the mobile and wiped his face with his sleeve.
“We’ll find her,” Gabe said in as soothing a voice as Oliver had ever heard from the man.
Henry Polk walked up, arms folded across his chest, a concerned expression on his face. Oliver nodded to him, but his thoughts were on Garrett.
Oliver remembered Garrett’s semi-confession to him earlier this week. He also remembered the numerous fights and the problems the Coopers had had. But would Janie really walk away from her children?
As he watched Tess on the phone, he knew the answer was no.
Tess finished the call and returned to Oliver’s side. “Casey said that Janie was quite agitated when she dropped the baby off. Casey told her she could watch Anna all day if she needed her to because it was her day off from the bookstore. She figured Janie needed some time to herself, thought she was doing her a favor. But when she’d heard nothing from Janie by three, she started calling her, getting voice mail.”
“She wouldn’t leave the kids.”
Tess looked away and said nothing, then walked over to Garrett. “Garrett, the last time I was here, your house was trashed, and you and Janie had a horrible fight. Now you admit that you fought again. Are you sure she didn’t just leave, maybe got tired of all the fighting?”
“She wouldn’t.” His voice broke and Oliver watched him struggle for control. “We fight, but she loves our kids. She’d kick me out before she’d leave them.”
Tess looked at Oliver. The cop face was gone, and he could see worry there. Then she turned to Bender. “Curtis should be at Walmart by now. Talk to him for me; ask if there’s anything at all out of order there.”
Bender nodded and stepped aside, pulling out his phone.
There was a slight shift in Garrett’s body language, a tiny bit of tension gone. “Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Find her. Please.”
As Oliver watched Tess, he could tell something was bugging her. He knew that most of the time when women disappeared and foul play was suspected, the husband was the prime suspect. But Oliver knew Garrett, and while he was a lazy lout, Oliver doubted the man had it in him to hurt Janie. What was Tess thinking?
“Garrett, I get the distinct impression that you’re not telling me something,” she said finally.
Oliver did a double take, continually amazed at the sixth sense Tess seemed to have when talking to people. Garrett’s semi-confession came to mind again. If Garrett didn’t come clean now, Oliver knew he would have to tell Tess what Garrett had told him.
“I’m just worried, Chief—worried that something bad has happened to her.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why? Was she having a problem with someone at work?”
“No.”
“Then why are you so certain something bad happened?”
“Random stuff happens! Look at what just happened to Tami.”
“There’s more to it than that—I can tell. She’s been gone all day. And now you call the police? I’ve been at this too long not to sense that you’re hiding something. Did you hurt Janie?”
“No!” Tears rolled down Garrett’s face. “I thought she was just staying away to make me suffer.”
Oliver interrupted. “Garrett, tell the chief what you told me.”
Garrett shot him a frightened look, wiping his face with the palms of his hands. “That was private.”
“But it might concern Janie’s disappearance. If you want the chief to help, she needs to know everything.” Oliver didn’t miss the sharp glance Tess shot him.
“If you’re withholding something that could help me find your wife, you’d better tell me now.”
“I, uh . . .” He looked everywhere but at Tess. “You might arrest me.”
“What are you more concerned about, your wife or yourself?”
He closed his eyes and folded his arms, looking for all the world as if he just wanted to withdraw.
Tess turned to Oliver. “What did he tell you?”
�
��It was after the mobile was trashed. He said he’d hidden something for someone and that it had burned up. Now the person wanted to be paid back for the loss.”
“Garrett, tell me what you hid.”
“Ah, Chief, if it’s him, he’d kill me before Janie.” Tears fell freely now. To Oliver, Garrett looked more like a child than the one he held in his arms.
“Who?”
“I hid some stuff for a guy. It was in the cellar of the old house. It all burned up and he blamed me. Wanted me to pay him back and I didn’t have the money.”
“Who was it?”
“It might not have anything to do with Janie being gone.”
“Let me decide that.”
Oliver tried to help. “Garrett, the time for secrets is long past.”
“Did he tell you who?” Tess asked Oliver.
“No, he never gave me a name.”
A long moment passed before Garrett replied. “It was Ken Blakely. . . . I hid three hunting rifles, his laptop, some stuff that he poached, and some cash that he wanted hidden—a lot of cash.” He sighed. “He paid me for hiding the stuff; the extra money helped the family. But after it all burned up, he wanted me to pay him back. I had to take some insurance money and buy him a new rifle. But he wants more—$25,000 he says. I don’t have that kind of money.”
Oliver sucked in a breath. Ken Blakely was a problem, a mean man with no respect for women. If he was responsible for Janie’s disappearance, this would not be good.
–––
Ken Blakely.
The name had occurred to Tess, so when Garrett finally said it, she wasn’t surprised. She remembered the day she’d thought she’d seen Blakely at the trailer park.
“Is he the one who trashed your mobile?” she asked Garrett.
He nodded. “He thought I was holding out on him. He wanted his money. I don’t have it.”
“Has he threatened you?”
“Yeah, he has. Me. Not Janie. He wants his money. He says he’ll take my truck and sell it for parts. But I don’t think he’d do anything to Janie. At least I hope he wouldn’t.”
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