“My dog was stolen or just left me when I was injured some weeks back. I miss him. I hope he returns. So, I don’t know if I have a dog or not.”
“I hope he comes back. Everybody needs a dog.”
I wondered if God ever thought about cloning preachers.
Chapter 25
First, we stopped at the jail. Cliff went inside to see if Sammy was available. That was his word. He said it and laughed. I wondered if he laughed periodically while he preached. Laughter was as much a part of Cliff Hodgins as speech is to most of us.
I waited in the vehicle while Cliff went inside, no doubt laughing and networking with the local law enforcement. Ten minutes later he returned.
“Not here. They released him yesterday. So, our work is cut out for us. Finding him even in a small city is going to take some time. But I have a few places to start. Kind of like hedging our bets, if you know what I mean. If he’s not at any of those spots, then it gets harder.”
He backed up and pulled out. Off we went on our merry chase for Sammy Wagoner.
I did my best to recall some of the streets we traveled. Nothing clicked despite the fact that my family had traveled many of the streets frequently back when I was growing up in Clancyville. Dan River was a little closer to us than Lynchburg, so we came to this city a lot.
“My source didn’t know exactly what it was you wrote. She just said that you did,” I said, trying to discover more about my traveling companion.
“I write fiction and non-fiction. Westerns, mainly, for the fictional stuff. Now and then I put together some non-fiction essays about things I have learned in the ministry.”
“Been writing your westerns very long?” I asked.
“Close to twenty years, I guess. Give or take. Since I lived out west, I like to write about the Texas Rangers. I’ve had some other characters come along for stories. It’s an enjoyable pastime.”
“Published?”
“Self-published some works, but mainly I have my work on eBooks. Trying to stay current with the times, you know.”
“Well, the best to you in that endeavor.”
“Thanks. You have time to read?”
“Between cases. Yeah, I like mysteries and good stories.”
“You might try my eBook-westerns. Won’t cost you that much,” he said and laughed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever read a cowboy novel. I may have to try one.”
“Yeah, you should read one. I hope you read one of mine. There are a ton of western writers. You bound to find one or two you like.”
“I’ll check into it,” I said.
“Say, do you mind telling me what it is you need to tell Sammy about his daughter?”
Usually I would have said no to such an inquiry, but in Cliff’s case, I decided to make an exception. I figured he was one of those people who could guard secrets as needed.
“She was murdered. Out jogging in a park in Norfolk and was attacked by a man with a knife.”
“Robbery?”
“Not that we could discern. There’s a motive somewhere, just don’t know what it is as yet.”
“Those are hard, I’d say.”
“They’re all hard, even when you think you know the rhyme and reason.”
“I try to present that idea in my stories about the Texas Rangers. People are sort of complex, you know. And I have a keen sense of justice about me. Maybe that’s why I like to write my stories. Can’t really say. Just know that I do. At any rate, I hope you find whoever killed the girl. I mean that.”
“He killed two others as well,” I said.
“No!” he exclaimed. “At the same time?”
“No, different times, but the same general location.”
“Isn’t that what you folks call a serial killer, by definition?” he said.
“Yeah, it is.”
Cliff drove in silence. I had the feeling that the wheels were turning in his brain, but I had no idea what he was considering. After all, we had only met less than an hour earlier. Still, I recognized the look that told me he was considering something.
He stopped at a thrift store, a soup kitchen, and then a small corner grocery in an older part of Dan River. Some of the streets we traveled had a familiar feel to me. Probably for obvious reasons. It crossed my mind that he didn’t know I grew up just thirty miles north of the city. That trivial detail had little to do with my reason for being here on this occasion. Besides that, it had nothing to do with Cliff. It had nothing to do with Sammy Wagoner. I kept it to myself.
The first two stops provided no helpful information regarding the whereabouts of Sammy Wagoner. We headed toward his third option.
Cliff parked around the side of the small grocery store in what amounted to an alley.
“You want anything?” he said.
I shook my head.
Cliff walked into the store without another word. A few minutes later, Cliff came out to my side of the car. I couldn’t get the automatic window to lower, so I opened the door.
“Darn thing never has worked right, but it drives well,” he said while giving me a broad smile. “Okay, you can go in there.”
Cliff pointed to the door of the store that he had just entered and then left again.
“Sammy’s inside,” he gestured with his head. “I’ll wait out here for you.”
“You tell him I wanted to speak to him?” I said.
“Naw, I didn’t say a word. Just told ’im to hang loose for a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Cliff.”
“He’s in the back of the store, back where they stack the crates and the empty cardboard boxes. He’s alone and eating a sandwich.”
I walked into the store. I told the owner I wanted to speak with Sammy Wagoner and he pointed to the double metal doors straight down the aisle from the checkout counter.
I pushed opened the metal doors and entered the semi-darkened area. Sammy was chewing his sandwich vigorously. He appeared to be an old man, but I knew that he probably wasn’t more than fifty. He looked seventy, if he looked a day. He needed to shave, and his hair was long and matted. Shower would have aided him considerably. His clothes were on the dark side of an unwashed gray. I guessed that most of that gray was dried dirt. His coat had several rips and more holes than one would have liked to have had in a coat.
He stopped eating as I approached. He stared at me for a long time.
“You the law?” he said.
“No,” I said and sat down on the stack of crates next to the stack where he was sitting.
“You hustling work?”
“Hardly. I just need to tell you something.”
“Tell me what?”
“You remember your little girl, Candace?”
“Damn, I ain’t thought about her in…well, I guess it’s been too long. She’s all grown up, I reckon.”
“Yeah, she turned out to be a lovely young woman,” I said, not really knowing much else to say about her.
“What about her?” he said as he took another bite of his sandwich. “You didn’t come in here to tell me that she was good looking.”
I watched him chew for a few moments before I spoke again. I tried to formulate my words, structure my sentences, to say what I had to say without causing too much pain. I gave up after a few mental trial runs. Some things hurt no matter how you phrase them.
“Well, you’re the last of kin and…”
“What does that mean?” he said with a mouthful of sandwich.
“She died about a month ago,” I said.
“From what? She couldn’t have been…gosh, more than what, twenty-something?”
“She was thirty, I think.”
“Damn, that’s young. What’d she die from?”
“She was jogging in a park in Norfolk when she was attacked. She died from the stab wounds.”
“Sonofabitch. You get the guy who did that?”
“Not yet. I just…well, I was asked to find you and tell you. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“True.”
“So whattaya care about my loss?”
“Fair question. I guess I care because it’s my job to find out who killed her and the other two people. I care because you have a right to know that the child that was yours for a short while is no longer alive. I care because…well, you’re human and I know what it is to lose somebody.”
He stared in my direction. I couldn’t tell if he was actually looking directly at me. The dim light made it difficult for me to see the direction of his focus. He looked down at his unfinished sandwich. He dropped the remaining portion onto the floor and stared at it for a long time. Sometimes all you can do is to stare when the news you receive is bad or painful, or both.
“You okay, Sammy?” I said after a minute or so.
“I guess. I should’ve been there for her,” he said without raising his head.
I didn’t say anything. He didn’t need my judgmental attitude at the moment.
“I was too young back then. Too young and too stupid. I should’ve stayed with Melanie. Biggest mistake I ever made was leaving her and that baby. Damn.”
“Not your fault that she died,” I said.
“Maybe, maybe not. If she’d had a decent enough daddy…” his voice trailed off and left his sentence unfinished.
I left Sammy sitting on the stack of wooden crates in the back of that small store and staring at his partially eaten sandwich which lay on the floor at his feet. I don’t think he wanted to finish it. I left him without saying anything more. There was nothing else to be said.
Chapter 26
I had no idea what exactly Sammy Wagoner was feeling when I told him that Candace was dead. Since he had been out of her life for most of it, I had serious doubts about him feeling much of anything. And yet, my last visual of the man who had made too many bad choices and all but ruined his own life was that of one despairing and feeling some kind of sadness for a daughter now dead, a daughter he didn’t know, and a daughter he had never really had. Maybe he was simply feeling sorry for himself. I had no idea what was going on inside him, but it was something.
Something was going on inside me, but I couldn’t tell what.
The sight of him slumped over looking at the floor without looking at the floor was enough to cause me to find Hwy. 29 North and travel in that direction. I was going home to visit my mother. I regretted even more that Sam was not with me on this adventure. My mother was not a dog lover, but I had a hunch she might like Sam.
Rachel Evans had been a widow for several decades. She was the single parent who had raised me from the tender age of eleven until I left for college. I knew that we loved each other; however, we did have some strange ways of relating and showing that love. Ours was an adversarial love-relationship. She liked to tell me what I needed to do, and I liked to argue with her since I knew I was right in just about everything. Duh.
Stubbornness is a family trait likely enough passed on by genetics.
As I pulled into the drive behind the house, I called Rogers to report my location and my intentions. I gave her a shortened version of my experience with Reverend Cliff, Wineski’s brother, and Sammy Wagoner. I didn’t want to unload the entire kit and caboodle of recent events. Full disclosure was not necessary for Roger’s hard drives.
“Well,” Rogers interrupted me once more in my recollections. “That certainly explains a lot of the gaps I have in my information.”
“That was back then. I don’t do that now. You get it all, sister. Every jot and tittle.”
“I certainly hope so. You know I could never be at my optimal best if I don’t have all the facts you have and more.”
“Crossed that bridge already. May I get back to my story now?”
“I’ve got all of my inputs on high alert. Fire away,” Rogers said.
My mother was surprised at my showing up on her doorstep but showed no real enthusiastic joy at my being there. I retrieved my small canvas bag from the backseat of my Jeep as my mother stood on the other side of the screen door on her very small back porch.
I started up the few back steps. “What’s the occasion for your visit?” she asked.
That would be tantamount to my mother asking, “What are you doing here?”
Before I could answer, my phone rang. It was Wineski. I stopped my ascent and flipped open my antiquated phone.
“Any luck finding Wagoner?” he said jumping into the conversation without any pleasantries. Business first, pleasantries seldom.
“The deed is done,” I said and looked up in time to see my mother open the screen door. She held it open as if suggesting strongly that I come on inside even as I was talking on my phone. I complied.
“Any trouble locating him?” Wineski asked.
“The contact you provided was of immeasurable help.”
“You headed back?”
“When were you going to tell me that Clifton Hodgins was your brother?”
“Never.”
“Dark secret?”
“Need to know. You didn’t need to know.”
“You didn’t think it might come out when I met him and solicited his help?”
“Incidental information. Not pertinent to the case. He probably talks too much. When are you coming back?”
“I stopped to see my mother,” I said. “I’ll provide you with relevant details when I return.”
“Should I send some reinforcements?”
“I’ll stay in touch if need be.”
“Oh, by the way, your friend Mister Roosevelt Washington called to inform me that he has your dog,” Wineski said.
“Rosey has Sam?”
“My understanding. Straight from the horse’s mouth,” he paused, before continuing. “Strange, huh?”
“Not even close to strange. How did he come by Sam?”
“No details, just has the dog and all is well.”
“Wow.”
“Wow? Is that all you got?” he asked.
“Yeah, wow. Didn’t think he’d come back.”
“Some companion you are,” Wineski said. “You need to have more faith in your partners, Evans.”
“That include dogs?” I asked.
“That includes old police captains as well,” he said. “Have a nice short stay with Mama. Get back here ASAP. I need someone as a buffer between McGrady and me.”
“He tracking anything that resembles a lead?”
“You jest. The man couldn’t follow tracks in a four-foot snowfall,” Wineski said.
“I’ll be back in a day or so. Need to visit with my mother a bit.”
“No to reinforcements. How about a referee?”
“You offering?”
“Depends on how agitated McGrady makes me. I’ll call if things worsen here.”
“I’ll try to be civil. You might suggest to McGrady that he sniff around Drew Sizemore and his world in New Jersey. That’d be my next foray in search of a clue.”
“You have something that might entice him?”
“Other than early retirement?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
“Nothing substantive, just a hunch.”
“I’ll pass along your hunch, for all the good it’ll do.”
“Don’t tell him that it’s my hunch. He’ll just grunt and roll his eyes. Tell him it’s your hunch,” I said.
“You’re asking me to deceive one of my fellow officers.”
“Mild deception. Just take some credit for my idea. It might motivate him to take a road trip. And if you give him some cash, it might get him out of your hair for several days.”
“Can’t say I trust the guy in another state by himself. Maybe the two of you could go to Jersey when you get back,” he sounded as if he might be pleading. I dismissed it altogether. I had never known Wineski to plead with anyone about anything. Especially with me.
“Like that’s gonna happen,” I said and closed my flip phone taking a page out of Wineski’s book on teleph
one etiquette.
When I entered the kitchen, Mom was seated at the table.
“Evening, mother. Hope you’re well.”
“Like you would care,” she snapped.
“Wow, why don’t we hit the ground running.”
“You could’ve called me to tell me that you were in the hospital,” she said.
Oh. Now I knew the source of her disposition. I was sick and she wanted to comfort me. Right.
“One of your friends called here to ask how you were doing. I had no idea what they were talking about, not until they told me. My god, Clancy, you were mugged. Stabbed even. Could’ve been killed.”
I started to tell her that it wasn’t a mugging. Then when I realized what I would have to say next, I decided to forget that idea. No point in explaining. It could worse.
“I’m fine, mother. Thanks for your concern. It was not that big a deal.”
“You say so, but I don’t believe you. Why didn’t you call me?”
“You would just worry about me.”
“I’m already worrying about you, and that job of yours. I swear, you’ll be the death of me yet. Knives, guns, muggers…being a detective is the pits. Always has been.”
Her last point was a historical one. Ever since the death of my father. Local sheriff murdered in his own driveway. Since then my mother has hated all things connected with law enforcement. No, that’s not exactly true. My mother hated law enforcement before I was born. She hated it the day my father became the Pitt County Sheriff. She just hated it more when he was killed. More still when I became a policewoman. Then when I went into the investigative profession, I was standing at the plate with two strikes against me. From my mother’s perspective, it was simply a matter of time before strike three would come.
“I’m good at what I do. And, I have a partner now.”
“A partner? Like another stupid person out protecting the public is going to keep you alive,” she snarled.
“It helps, believe that or not.”
“I will choose not to believe it. It didn’t help your father any.”
Jewel of a Murderer Page 15