"I'm taking a sabbatical until this is over," said Richard once they were on the road. "I'd like you
to go with me down to Missouri and then maybe later out to West Virginia."
"I have already enrolled for the
second summer semester," Jill said. "And I must be back for the fall semester or I will lose my visa."
The Cougar shifted oddly, or perhaps it was just
the rough road.
"We shouldn't be gone that long," he said distractedly as he concentrated on the feel of the car.
Jill had her own preoccupation.
A couple
of more times he felt a slight hesitation when accelerating from stops, but they made it back to Cartier okay, so he passed
it off as nothing more than condensation in the fuel line. They had just stopped at a traffic light after having dropped
Marta at her apartment. When the light changed he gave it gas. The motor raced, but the car refused to move.
He shifted from drive into first gear and it lurched forward.
240.
"Just what I need," he said disgustedly.
"The transmission is going out."
"How
much will it cost to repair?" asked Jill.
"Too
much. Maybe I can get a loan until I reenroll and get my next check."
"I have money," she said. "You can pay me back."
"That's for your tuition," he said.
"I think I can work something out."
He drove home in first gear. While he made phone
calls Jill picked through his scant supply of canned foods to see what she could put together for the evening meal.
She found tuna and clam chowder. In the refrigerator she found a single kosher dill, packets of fast food mayonnaise,
and stale bread. Richard came into the kitchen surprised to see mugs of chowder and tuna salad on toast waiting for
him.
"That looks
good," he said
"I depleted
the entire food supply," she said as they sat.
He took a bite.
"Well
you did a heck of job. It's delicious."
In the light of what she had overheard, the contrast in
their moods bothered her. Danger had come from nowhere, and now nothing was as it should be. She was trapped,
but he seemed buoyant, almost happy with the turmoil because she was with him. Second thoughts were coming back with a vengeance.
Although he hadn't orchestrated it, her dreams were falling apart and his were coming true. Remembering that once back
from the island she could have rid herself of him but had chosen not to didn't do much to stem the resentment. Yet she
realized that it was the situation she resented, not Richard. He had turned her life upside down through desperation---at
least that was what he said, and now Mic's actions validated his concern. It all seemed like a convoluted dream, vivid
yet unreal.
"What
did you discover about your car?" she asked.
"I found a guy who quoted me a reasonable price. We'll see."
"I walked to campus
from my apartment. I can walk from here until the car is repaired."
"Too far. I'll see about a loaner, but the guy's moonlighting,
so I doubt it."
241.
"I will adapt," she said resolutely.
He jumped up from the table. "You may not have to."
"I've got an idea," he called over his
shoulder as he hurried into the living room.
She
heard him talking for several minutes, and then he came back in.
"We're set. Aunt Wanda said
she thinks Uncle Bill's old car still runs. They're going to bring it over tomorrow if it does. He's out fishing,
but she said she'd have him call back when he gets home. They've had it parked by the road for over a year with a for
sale sign, but haven't had any takers because Uncle Bill insists on cash."
When she didn't respond it brought him
up short. Thinking back on it, he realized that she had spoken very little on the way back from Covington. He
had been so preoccupied with the behavior of the Cougar that he hadn't noticed.
"Something's wrong," he said.
She stirred her soup absently.
"I . . . overheard you and Kevin last night."
"You mean when we were all out on the patio?"
"No.
Later," she said. "I went to the car for my purse and . . . you were talking about Mic and what you would
do."
He wondered
how much she had heard, and how much she had understood.
"He believes you."
Remembering some of the things they had said, he closed
his eyes. They had said things neither would have said had they not been alone.
"That was just talk---hypothetical."
She shook her head vehemently.
"No. He also believes
that . . . that Mic intends to kill me? But how can that be? And why? Why me?
What did I do?"
"I don't know why he's the way he is," he said. "All I know is that I'm not going to let anything happen
to you. If we can get an investigation going---I mean if we get the authorities interested in him, then he'll probably
forget about you and just run. He'll be out of here before you know it."
242.
The phone
rang. When he went to answer it, Jill stared after him, wondering how things could have gotten so crazy so quickly.
Looking at it objectively, it was insane that she should trust Richard, but she did. For the first time in her life
she felt the need for protection. Being introspective by nature, she wondered if having grown up without male relatives
had something to do with it.
Nothing I have done is irrevocable, she thought. I can commit myself to this arrangement without committing
myself to him. This is only temporary.
She decided to worry about severing ties with Richard when the
time came. For now, she needed him. That seemed manipulative, but she hadn't orchestrated the relationship.
He had.
"Uncle Bill says the car runs fine. They're bringing it over right now. I'll introduce you."
"No,"
she said. "It is . . . awkward letting everyone think that we are . . . together. I know that no one thinks
like that anymore, but I don't like it."
"You're right. No use making things more complicated than they are."
Jill watched through the curtains as
Richard gestured toward the Cougar, explaining the problem to an elderly man emerging from an overly large sedan. Richard
went to a silver SUV next to it and leaned in to hug the woman at the wheel. A few minutes later, she got out and came
around to the passenger side. The old man took the wheel. Richard stayed at the street waving until they turned
the corner.
When he came
back in he held the car keys up triumphantly.
"Great
to have family you can . . ."
He stopped in mid-sentence, remembering that Jill had only a frail old aunt that she could call family.
"They seem to care a great deal about you."
"Yeah.
Uncle Bill was my buddy when I was growing up. They wanted me to come out for dinner, but I put them off. I don't
want Mic to know about them. Uncle Bill is my mother's brother, so he's not named Carter. I doubt that Mic will
learn about them as long as I stay away."
"Did you buy the car?"
243.
"No. They're just lending it until
mine is fixed."
"What
if Mic looks up the license plate numbers? Can he discover who the owner is?"
"Yeah, but why would he do that?"
"I do not know, but I think he might."
A Body Beside the Road
June
16
Norman Ginoccio threw out the crust of his breakfast sandwich while waiting for the slow-moving train to clear the intersection.
He still had nearly twenty minutes to get to work. Stifling a yawn, he glanced down into the weeds, and knew immediately
what it was. He popped the door and ran down the bank to make sure. A dozen feet was close enough. He scrambled
back up to his truck for the phone. He punched it in incorrectly the first two times, but finally got the 911 operator.
They were on the way out the door when JR called.
"Can you come down to the coroner's office?
I need you to identify a body."
Immediately he thought that it might be his Uncle Bill or his Aunt
Wanda. Then he thought of Kevin, but dismissed it because he was in Covington. Jill saw his reaction.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Who?" he asked.
He straightened and frowned at the answer.
"Why me? She's got family."
Jill grasped his arm.
"Is it Marta?" she asked.
244.
He put his hand over the phone.
"No. It's Rose Ford."
"JR, how's she . . . identifiable after all this time?"
He nodded as JR explained the situation.
"I'll be there as soon as I drop Jill off
at the college."
He turned off
the phone.
"JR says that her sister refuses to do it. He compared her to a photograph and he's pretty sure though. The
body's been frozen."
Shocked, Jill neither commented nor asked questions, which left him to guess at the impact of the news.
On the way to college she finally spoke.
"Frozen?"
"That's what he said. I don't know the details."
"That's her," said Richard. "I
remember the mole like at the corner of her eye."
"I can't understand the sister," growled JR.
"Since you're only a casual acquaintance, we'll have to confirm it with dental records."
"Do you have a cause of death?"
"Not
official. But look at the discoloration. That's ligature strangulation. There's some on her wrists too,
and a big bruise on the small of her back. He kept her in a freezer, of course, but then just dumped her by the road
for some reason. Makes establishing a time of death impossible, but the coroner tells me they can estimate how long
before she was put in the freezer if any decomp had begun, and he can give a very rough estimate of how long she was kept
frozen, like a topside number. The only thing he'll say right now is that it appears she was dumped sometime last night."
"Well at least we know who did it,"
murmured Richard.
245.
"Boyd?" asked JR, shaking his head.
"I don't see how. His place consisted of two rooms and a bath. There wasn't any freezer, and he sure didn't
rent space in a meat locker."
Richard
didn't remember seeing one either.
"Maybe
you missed it," he suggested.
"We'll
look if our main suspect doesn't pan out."
"You've
got another suspect?"
"A registered sex offender lives a half mile up Bonham Road from the dump site. We're trying for a warrant, but
I doubt we have probable cause. Guess what one of deputies spotted on his carport? A freezer."
"You've got to be kidding."
"Sometimes
you get lucky," said JR, pointing at a spot on the forehead of the corpse. "See that? When he took her
out a piece of skin stuck to something in the freezer. We recover that and it's a DNA lock."
The collapse of his theory
hit him hard. It wasn't just that if Mic hadn't killed Rose Ford then the authorities had no reason to look into Mic's
activities. Richard had been so sure that now he wondered what else he could have been wrong about. Most alarmingly,
Jill might return to thinking that he had made everything up.
"Get your warrant and nail him, JR."
He dreaded telling her. Rose's disappearance was
probably the only thing making her believe that he knew what he was doing. While waiting for her, he went to the library
and got on the Internet. By law, convicted sex offenders had to register with the police, and their addresses were a
matter of public record, but many localities were loathe to publish addresses because of the obvious trouble it could engender.
A simple search for "sex criminal addresses," however, led him immediately to a local who made it his (or her) business
to keep and publish tabs on "perverts in our midst."
Choosing Michigan, he selected the appropriate quadrant
of a state map and scrolled down until he found an address on Bonham Road. The offender was one Terrence Holmes.
A summary of his crimes informed the wary that he had been convicted of using his position as a "youth counselor"
to take advantage of underage girls and engaging in illicit consensual sex. He also had been convicted for the attempted
abduction of an underage girl. The details were damning, but Richard found himself reading between the obviously slanted
lines. Holmes was, no doubt, despicable, but there was no mention of violent assault.
246.
Look what
you're doing, he told himself in disgust. You're trying to find a way to defend the guy so that you can continue
to say that Mic did it.
"Was
it her?" asked Jill, coming up behind him.
"Yes.
But that's not all," he said as he logged off.
"What else?"
"Wait
until we get in the car and I'll fill you in."
Jill saw that he was distraught and imagined that he had
something graphic to tell her about the body. She hoped he would spare her that, but nevertheless asked as soon as they
were in the car.
"They're
making an arrest," he said. "But it's not Mic."
"Someone else? I thought . . . I mean you were so sure. If he didn't then . . ."
"It looks like I was wrong."
"Yes,"
she said. "He is violent, but perhaps not as violent as you imagine. Maybe he is just mean and . . . "
"Likes
to push women around and scare the hell out of them? Maybe he isn't really dangerous? No. I was sure about
him even before Rose disappeared. Maybe this guy did kill her, but it doesn't change what I think about Mic. I
can understand why you would change your mind though."
What Jill couldn't understand was her own feelings.
That Mic wasn't a murderer should relieve her, and it did to an extent, but she realized that the news of an imminent arrest
also troubled her because of Richard. She wanted him to be right.
"Who is this new suspect?" she asked.
"A registered sex offender
by the name of Holmes. He served time for statutory rape and the attempted kidnapping."
"He was an acquaintance?"
"I
don't know, but he lives out where they found the body and has a record of sex crimes," he said. "She'd been
frozen and he has a freezer on his carport."
"Is that not what is called ‘circumstantial evidence?'"
247.
"Yes.
I'm sure they'll find more if they get the search warrant they're trying for. A piece of her skin is probably in there."
"I must know more about this," she said,
rushing inside.
As soon as
they were inside, she went to the computer.
"What
is this suspect's name?"
"Terrence
Holmes. Why? I already looked him up on a sex-offender watch site."
"Those are very subjective.
Let us check news stories first," she said as she began her search.
Half an hour later Jill finally finished
her thorough examination of each site mentioning the correct Terrence Holmes.
"He was only eighteen at the time
of the statutory rape," she said. "I know that is legally an adult, but it seems that what he did was to convince
his girlfriend to run away with him. And, of course, they had a sexual relationship."
"An illegal sexual relationship,
Jill. She was only fifteen."
"There is no mention of violence, only of an illicit relationship.
I do not defend him, but he has no history of misogyny."
"They suppressed the details to protect the girl,"
he said dispiritedly. "That's the way it's done with juveniles. His lawyer probably plea bargained it down
to statutory rape."
"He does not fit, Richard. Perhaps he did this, but perhaps not. Even if he did kill Rose Ford, you are not
wrong about Mic. He has great hared for women."
"I was wrong."
"I do not understand you, Richard.
You do all these things because you are so sure, and then this happens and suddenly it is as if you do not know anything.
Let me tell you what I know. The potential is there. He may not have killed this poor woman, or that
girl in Missouri, or anyone, but I believe that he could. He made me believe that, Richard, not you."
"I
know he could," he said. "But now they're going to close the case on Rose and forget about him. I've
ruined what little credibility I had even with JR."
247.
A Person of Interest
"We
cut him loose, Richard," said JR. "That freezer wasn't operable. Would you believe he had rigged the
thing up as a smoker?"
"A
what?"
"He cured meat in it. It didn't even have a compressor, and he doesn't have another freezer."
"Has he ever been picked up on anything but
the initial charge with that girl?"
"No. I guess we were just overoptimistic. Right
now, we don't have a clue as to who killed the Ford woman and dumped her out there. I went to Boyd's place again.
Used the line that I came to tell him that we had found the her body. Guess what?"
"Still no freezer."
"Not even out back,
and no sign that there ever was one. So we're back to square one."
Richard was slightly encouraged that Mic was apparently still on the
suspect list.
"Thanks for telling
me, JR."
"It's not the
only reason I called. The boss wants a statement from you."
"About Rose Ford? Don't tell me that I'm a suspect."
"I
think the correct term is person of interest. Don't get ticked off at me. You did it to yourself when
you came forward with the story that she and Boyd were a thing."
"They were."
"We confirmed that, but you're a
person of interest anyway. We can either do it there tonight, or down at the office tomorrow. How do you want
it?"
Jill tried to cut the statement short as soon
as JR arrived.
"Richard was with me when the Ford woman disappeared. We returned from our trip on the ninth of this month."
248.
"And you've been together all the time since?"
"We
went to a friend's house in Indiana. His name is Kevin Lucas. We were there from Saturday morning until yesterday
afternoon. My friend Marta Florez was with us also. We also had difficulty with the car. Richard's aunt
and uncle brought another one here for him late yesterday. Then we were here together last night, so he could have had
nothing to do with that poor woman."
JR looked at Richard for confirmation. Richard nodded.
"Okay," he said.
"You two each write that out, date and sign it, and I'm on my way. Oh. I'll need names and addresses of your
friend, Richard, and yours too, ma'am."
"I'd just as soon you don't bother my aunt and uncle, JR."
"I can't promise that, Richard. I do need to have a look at your car.
Where is it?"
Richard gave him
the name of his shade tree mechanic.
"Why
did he want to see your car?" Jill asked as soon as JR was gone.
"He has to check out my explanation
for its absence, and make sure it isn't just being cleaned up. Someone transported a body and dumped it. I'm a
person of interest."
The
phone rang, and Richard answered.
"Richard, this is JR. When I get to your mechanic's place, I'm going to need to take your trunk liner. They
may decide to process it for evidence and they may not, but I think it would be best for everyone concerned if I took it now
rather than later. You got a problem with that?"
"No. Just don't lose it."
"It'll be safe in the evidence locker as soon as I can get it bagged and tagged."
Over the next two months they settled
into a routine, both taking summer classes. At first Jill constantly wondered which of them Mic was stalking, but when
the summer ended without further incident, she nearly became convinced that Mic had lost interest and moved on to something
or someone else. Richard was edgy. He knew Mic. But then again, no one really knew Mic.
