Wade swayed and grabbed the edge of her desk for support. “What? How is that possible?”
Smoke waited a minute then shook his head. “The files. Please?”
Wade’s hands trembled as she pulled out two drawers, thumbed through them, retrieved the records, and handed them to Smoke and me. We laid them on the desk, and each flipped one open. I recorded the listed addresses for no good reason. Maybe to look official, maybe so I didn’t groan or roll my eyes. Jasmine Wiley, age 43, listed her address as the same one Rhoda Barnes had in Oak Lea. Melody Reed, 61, had an address that matched Dolly Corbin’s in Emerald Lake.
Smoke lined their photos side by side and pointed. One look confirmed what we believed. She was the suspect we were searching for. One person with two identities, working for the same agency. “Do you see the resemblance?” he said.
“I guess they do look like they could be mother and daughter. I’d never seen them together, of course, and didn’t notice it before. I see how they look alike in the photos, but they’re so different from each other in person. Melody has an Irish background and you can hear the lilt in her voice. Jasmine has a slight eastern accent, Boston maybe. Their mannerisms are not at all alike. Melody walks with heavy steps, Jasmine is graceful, light on her feet.”
“You’ve noticed details about both of them, sounds like,” Smoke said.
“I like to get to know my employees as best I can. I make occasional site visits at clients’ homes, check to see how things are. It’s important our clients have caregivers they like, that they trust . . .” She stopped, looked down, and shook her head. “This is awful.”
Smoke picked up the files. “Can we get copies of these? Or do we need to get a warrant?”
“I’ll make copies. You’re the law, as far as I’m concerned. If it turns out they’re not involved with any wrongdoing, will you either shred them or return them to me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Smoke said.
We were on the road, rolling again. “Phone Randolph, tell him we’re on our way, let him know about the same addresses situation,” Smoke said.
“Sure.” After the call, I said, “Randolph is asking Oak Lea PD to help surveille the Corwin/Wiley apartment here.” I checked my notes then closed my memo pad. “How in the world does she keep track of all her identities? She must have a big flow chart, maybe separate closets with clothes and accessories for each one.”
Smoke bopped the steering wheel. “That’s a thought. As far as we know, she uses up to two, possibly three, IDs at any given time. Different jobs. How does she juggle everything? No clue. She’s damn clever, that’s a scary fact, and has eluded the authorities way too long.
“I can’t wait to see the look on her face when we slap cuffs on her wrists. And when the judge sentences her. And when she gets hauled off to prison with no chance of parole. She’s been breaking bread and breathing air as a free person far too many years,” he said.
“As has her accomplice.”
“Yep. And if he’s not with her, she damn well better ˊfess up who he is and where he’s at.”
“We got a good look at the big guy who is likely the one working with her. And neither has shown up at either apartment, driving us all nuts,” I said.
“They’re hiding somewhere, that’s a given. We found their secret burying place, removed the bodies. Ruined their whole set up. They could be scouting out another burial site,” Smoke said.
“We have plenty of wetlands in Winnebago County to choose from.”
“Unfortunately.”
“We have to find Missus Edberg before they find a new spot,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I’ve thanked God over and over all week that our highway guys took on that project to fix the road over Coyote Bog. If they hadn’t done the clean out, those bodies might never have been found. Their families wouldn’t have found out what happened. For us, knowing the killer posed as a caregiver put us on a path to find her. Or, like Special Agent Erley said, she will keep on killing,” I said.
“The major stumbling block right now is we know she’s out there, but where? If we don’t find her a-sap, it’s a given she’ll end Missus Edberg’s life.”
Icy chills surged throughout my body. “As afraid as I am for Jaxson Kenner, I’m terrified for Bob’s mother. The seven victims recovered from the bog all lost their voices, couldn’t tell their stories. Except to the medical examiner. We can’t let Missus Edberg lose hers.”
Smoke blew out a breath of air. “No.”
36
Mama and Rufus
“Mama, the patient keeps asking where she is,” Rufus said.
“You need to keep telling her she’s in a good place and is going to an even better one.”
“I told her that. But she keeps asking anyway.”
“That’s why she was chosen to be sent on her heavenly journey, Son,” Mama said.
“And she said she hurts.”
“I’ll give her medication to help take her pain away.”
“That’d be good, Mama. I don’t want her to hurt.”
“Neither do I, Son. Maybe you should drive to Maple Grove, or to the store you like in Waconia, and get some groceries. No one knows you there, do they?”
“No one knows me here, either.”
“That’s true. Would it make you feel better to get out of the house for a while? I will take loving care of our patient.”
Getting out would help Rufus. He didn’t like having patients around, even if it wouldn’t be for long. None of them had names and that made him sad. He had to help Mama send people on their heavenly journeys and never knew their names.
“I have a good idea. They have nice theaters we’ve been to in both of those towns. Why don’t you take in a movie, even two movies? It’ll get you out of here for hours and might help you sleep better tonight. How does that sound?”
“Go to a movie? I haven’t done that for a long time.”
“I know. We’ve been too busy with moving and everything. Don’t worry about groceries for tonight. We have plenty of food here.”
Rufus whistled as he headed out the door. Mama said he could see two movies. And it’d be late when he got home, so the patient would be sleeping by then.
37
Back at the sheriff’s office, Bob Edberg paced up and down the corridor, his head down, like he needed to keep watch a on his feet. He looked up when Smoke spoke his name.
“Chief’s in his office talking back and forth with the surveillance deputies and Communications. Last I heard our guys have found reasons to stop three gray Camrys in different parts of the county. None of the drivers fit Jasmine’s or Melody’s descriptions. A teenage boy, a fifty-something man, and a seventy-something woman. Neither the death angel nor her suspected accomplice have shown up anywhere,” Edberg told us.
“They’re out there. We’ll find them,” Smoke said.
“I don’t get it. She knows I work for the sheriff, that we’d be all over this. Does she look at taking my mother as some sort of coup? Some big achievement, like she’s the genius and we’re bumbling idiots and will never catch her?”
I stepped in front of him and put my hands on his shoulders to capture his attention. “She wouldn’t be the first criminal to think that. But eventually they either slip up or we uncover evidence of their crimes. And we track them down. She may think she’s untouchable, but she’s not. She did something incredibly stupid taking your mother. Like Smoke said, we will find her.”
As Edberg stared into my eyes, his own filled with tears. “Chief ordered me not to look for her on my own, but it’s been over four hours since Mom disappeared. I haven’t decided what to do.”
Smoke moved in beside me, and I dropped my arms. He laid a hand on Edberg’s bicep and gave it a little shake. “Bob, you need to listen to Randolph. You can’t be objective and might get yourself caught up in some vigilante justice before you knew what happened. If things went south, who would take care of your mother?”
Edberg shru
gged. “If I find out where that devil is, I’ll call for backup.”
That didn’t give me the least bit of reassurance. “Bob, you’re not the Lone Ranger here. Let the chief make the call. Maybe he’ll let you ride along with another deputy. Then he’d be the one to call for backup.”
Chief Deputy Randolph found us in the corridor. “Captain Armstrong and I have been working about a hundred miles an hour for the last thirty minutes. We called in sixteen off-duty deputies and are stationing them at points on the state highways and county roads. Half of them will be in unmarked squads and undercover vehicles. We got photos of the suspect and a facial composite of the man you two met outside the apartment building in Emerald Lake.”
Randolph gave a nod to Smoke and me, then continued, “Communications sent the photos to every deputy and they’re working on getting them posted on our Facebook page, asking the public for information. Plus, they’ll be contacting all the cities in the county, see if they’ll share the post on their pages. If they’ve got one.”
“How about Sherburne and Meeker?” I said.
“Yeah, forgot to mention they’re contacting them, too,” Randolph said.
“That’s gotta generate responses. The suspect’s worked with how many people over the years,” Smoke said.
“Keep praying,” Edberg said.
“Chief, we need to assemble a list of all the elder care facilities and agencies in the county, get those photos to them, see if any have a current employee who matches up with one of the offender’s identities. And what address she’s using,” Smoke said.
“Yes. I’ll see if Dina is available to get on that right away.” Dina was a top-notch administrative assistant. But was she available? “Even so, there may not be the right people at those places who can answer our questions tonight.”
“There aren’t that many facilities county-wide. I’ve done a little research because Gramps will probably need more help than Mother can provide some day. I think there’s seven or eight nursing homes. Ten or so assisted living places. Maybe six home care agencies that provide service here,” I said.
“Good to know. Bob, you’ll be my partner. We’ll be in my unmarked at the intersection of County Road Thirty-seven and County Road Eight in Emerald Lake. We have as good a chance as anyone of catching her.”
Edberg sucked in a breath. “Copy.” Randolph had included him, after all.
“Sergeant, will you station at Thirty-five and Seven; Detective at Thirty-five and Six?”
“Sure. I’ll pick up Gramps’ car,” I said.
A puzzled look crossed Randolph’s face for an instant. “That’s right, you’re off for three days and would’ve turned your squad over to Holmes. One last thing, all radio communication will be on channel three. Any bases we didn’t cover?” When no one answered, he said, “I’ll call Dina and then we’ll head to our post, Bob. Good luck, team.”
Smoke dropped me off at Gramps’ house and I drove away in the old Buick about a minute later. The investigation that turned into a search for Mrs. Edberg took on a surreal feeling. It was closing in on 7:00 p.m. Less than two hours to sunset, when dusk would set in. Corbin/Wiley/Whoever may have planned to use the cover of night for traveling, transporting her victim to a location we needed to find. Randolph hadn’t indicated how long he wanted us to keep watch. It likely depended on what transpired before he made another call.
Five hours had passed since Edberg’s neighbor spotted the gray Toyota Camry leave his driveway. Every hour since, with no sign of the wicked ones and their captive, was torturous. Randolph, Smoke, and I tried our best to appear cautiously optimistic, but I doubted it gave Edberg an ounce of assurance.
The one bright spot for me was that Edberg hadn’t made it to the crime scene at Coyote Bog on Monday. He’d been dispatched to Oak Lea High School instead, when Jaxson Kenner punched Sawyer Harris in the parking lot. Had Edberg personally witnessed the markings on the victims’ bodies and thought his mother might face the same fate, he would be in far worse shape than he already was.
I shook the thought from my head and phoned my brother to check in. “Hey, John Carl.”
“Corky, what’s up?”
“I got assigned a detail and I’m not sure how late I may be working.”
“Since I moved back to Oak Lea I’ve noticed that happens a lot,” he said.
“We do our best to control criminal activity so I don’t go into overtime, but it still happens. You and Sara have a date tonight?”
“We do—she’s at my house. I’m guessing you need us to check on Queenie and Rex again?”
“Please. Let them run around for ten or so minutes, give them fresh food and water. I appreciate it, Brother and tell Sara ‘hi.’”
“Hi, Sara . . . She says ‘hey’ back. And we’ll take care of the pooches.”
“Thanks.” I phoned Smoke next.
“You’re at your post, Corinne?”
“I am. And you?”
“Yep. We got the roads covered on either side of Coyote, anyway. No one can sneak by us.”
“I wish they’d try so we could grab them,” I said.
“I hear ya. This turn of events with Bob’s mom is eating at me. Why didn’t we show him the personnel files when we first got them? He could have picked her right then and there. Missus Edberg would still be home and the angel of death would be locked up where she belongs, before she had a chance to take his mother.”
“Smoke, you’re talking twenty-twenty hindsight again. We got back to the office with the first of the records yesterday, at the end of Bob’s shift. Had he been the one to show up when we sorted through them, instead of Weber, we would have taken a different course. If we’d had the slightest clue what was about to happen, Bob would’ve been the first person to see the photos.”
“You’re right. My brain must be fried.”
“We’re all in the same boat—”
“That feels more like a sinking ship,” he interrupted.
“We may get a lead from the care facilities and agencies in this county if anyone worked there who fits the deadly chameleon’s description.”
“But we’re a day late and a dollar short.”
“Not if we get her current address,” I said.
“Hold on to that hope.”
“Smoke, back to the bad and the ugly, I’ve been thinking about the chameleon and her captives, wondering how long she holds them.” I flipped open my memo pad. “Looking at the dates the victims went missing, there isn’t a common day. The ninth, seventeenth, fourteenth, eleventh, thirteenth, fifteenth. Today is the nineteenth. That’s a range of ten days.”
“Erley said she had a psychotic break in May. We don’t know what day of the month that was. Since the people disappeared different days, she likely abducts them when it’s most convenient for her. And then she holds them until the fateful date when she kills, brands, and buries them.”
“Smoke . . .” My voice cracked.
“I know. I’m scared, too.”
“Maybe you should take a swing up Floyd Myren’s driveway. The deputies haven’t had any luck so far catching either the caretaker or the owner himself, when they’ve checked,” I said.
“Sure. Wait, did you say the caretaker drives a gray car?”
“Oh, you mean like the one Jasmine Wiley’s? No, I think the caretaker’s car was silver, and I couldn’t tell the make or model from this distance the last time I sat at this intersection.”
“It looks damn quiet at the house, but I’ll run up there and have a look.” He hung up and called back a few minutes later. “No sign of life there, and no sighting of a gray car, or any other vehicle.”
The sun set at 8:47 p.m. and darkness closed in around us by 9:15. I’d spoken with Smoke a few times while we watched traffic travel the county roads to the detour and head either west from County Road 6, or east from County Road 7. No one drove around the barriers, braving the rough single lane that was marginally passable. My eyes were continually beckoned back
to the house on the hill that overlooked Coyote. I was frustrated deputies hadn’t been able to get an answer at the door. Floyd Myren must be among the winter snowbirds that waited until summer to return to Minnesota. Why was he so elusive? When I started my next rotation, I’d run another check on him, send him an email to see if I could locate him.
Radio traffic on channel 3 was light and none of the deputies’ stops brought us closer to finding Mrs. Edberg. I phoned her son to see how he was holding up.
“Hi, Sergeant.” Edberg’s voice was flat.
“Bob, you want to crash in my spare bedroom or den tonight? I’ll make sure Detective Dawes is there to protect your reputation.”
He made a “ha” sound. “Thanks, but I’d rather wear out the carpets at home.”
“That’s why I have hardwood floors on the main level. Even after years of my pacing/thinking sessions, they still look pretty good,” I said.
“Thanks, though.”
I tried not to obsessively check the time, but it had gone into ultra-slow motion. At 9:29, I tried to stifle a yawn. Unsuccessfully. When my mouth opened wide and didn’t want to close again, it set off a series of yawns that alerted me I was at a low ebb. Sitting in Gramps’ car in the dark, spotting bats swooping in and out from the treed area to my right, it was starting to feel like a surveillance from hell. Traffic had been a minimum over the past hour.
When my phone buzzed, I got startled, and my shoulders shot up a couple of inches.
“Did I wake you?” Smoke said.
“Pretty near. I wish Randolph would tell us how long he wants us out here. Or if he’s sending relief.”
“I’m the messenger letting you know he’s calling it at ten. He didn’t want it over the radio, even on channel three. He’ll keep deputies on the main roads until midnight. The unspoken message I got from Randolph is he thinks the deadly chameleon has landed somewhere by now. I do, too.”
“Yeah. As much as I hate to admit it. Meet you at my house? Rex and Queenie are probably settled in for the night, wondering where the heck we’ve been since seven this morning. Thank goodness for John Carl,” I said.
Remains In Coyote Bog Page 21