by Tony Masero
Summersby shook his head. “Uhuh. Nothing that worked out.”
“Family?”
Stoeffel watched Summersby hand clench around the beer bottle until the knuckles whitened.
“They´re all dead now.”
Stoeffel watched the fingers relax slowly and thought to himself, that ain´t all is it, Mr. Summersby. There’s a story here.
Chapter Seven
The morning sky hung over them in slate grey with a slow moving ripple of low cloud as the night rain moved away. Thin sunlight struggled to get through and the three men stood outside Stoeffel´s single story on the driveway stamping their feet against a chill that promised winter was coming.
“I have some chores this morning,” said Stoeffel. “So, Jimmy Luke, I want you to take Mr. Summersby out to the burn site and scout around. Pick up the body and let Mr. Summersby here check it out, he has the qualifications, so it seems.”
Jimmy Luke nodded as he shook Summersby´s hand. “Please to meet you, and you´re welcome to dig around my stiffs anytime.”
Summersby´s laughed. “Okay, and its Alex.”
“Right, Alex, lets hit the road.”
Stoeffel called after them. “I´ll catch up with you when I´m through.”
His first port of call was the Lowell Store off Main Street.
Jenny Lowell was a Canadian girl who had married a local forestry employee. She had borne him two girls before a falling tree in a lumberjacking accident killed him. The girls were teenagers now and away at college, so Jenny minded the store alone. A slender, good-looking woman in her early forties, she kept herself trim and wore long auburn hair that she tied back in a ponytail. An outdoor girl who regularly hiked in the forests and cycled daily to her store.
“Morning Chief,” she called cheerfully from up a ladder, where she was stacking goods on a high shelf. “How can I help you?” Her voice had the rising and abrupt lilt of her Ontario origins.
“Hey, Jenny.” Stoeffel watched her climb down with agile grace. “I need some vittles.”
“Okay,” she smiled at the old term. “What do you need?”
Stoeffel shrugged and scratched his chin. “I don´t rightly know, maybe you can suggest something.”
“Chief,” she laughed, a full easy sound. “You don´t know what you want?”
“Well, it´s not for me exactly. What kind of thing do our older citizens take?”
Jenny leant across the counter, arms folded in front of her. Breasts swelling nicely under her man´s work shirt.
“Come on, Chief. Come clean. What’s this about?”
Stoeffel smiled awkwardly. “There´s an old lady out there,” he nodded vaguely towards the distant forested slopes. “She´s a game old girl but living all alone. I thought I might take her something. You know, some supplies....”
Jenny smiled back at him, her eyes registering him more fully.
“Why, Chief. I didn´t know there was a Good Samaritan lurking under that shield.”
She had a nice smile, Stoeffel noticed it again. Calm. Easy. He did not use the store much as he ate out usually. He just popped in now and again for the few essentials. Something kept him away. He had never quite understood it but now he felt glad he was here, the mission giving him a justifiable reason for being in her company.
“Ain´t nothing like that. Old girl´s in her nineties and things look pretty poor up there, just thought it might make her days easier.”
“That’s a nice thought, Chief.” She brushed aside the stray fringe hair falling over her eyes. “A real nice thought. Do I know this lady?”
“It´s Mother Jobin, maybe you do know her.”
“Sure do,” she said, pushing away from the counter. “Reverend Clitus picks up a box for her every week.”
“Oh right,” Stoeffel was embarrassed. “I didn´t know that. Well, maybe it’s all taken care of then.” He turned to leave.
“Now hold on, Chief.” Jenny came around from behind the counter and took his arm. Stoeffel found he liked the touch. “You come back here. If you´re going to do this then let’s do it right.”
He followed her back through a corridor of stacked shelves to the storeroom where she picked up a couple of cardboard cartons.
“Grab ahold,” she said, passing them to him.
He followed her feeling a little sheepish as she moved along the shelves taking down tins and packets and placing them in the boxes.
“She´s real partial to sweet things. I know that. Loves them chocolate Oreo cookies, and orange Moon Pies.”
Stoeffel watched her form as she moved easily, dipping here and there to make her selection. He liked what he saw and in spite of himself felt a long forgotten stirring. With an irritable snort and a shake of his head he crushed the thought guiltily.
“What’s that?” she said, turning.
“Uh, nothing really. I was wondering, could I take you out to dinner one night?” There he had said it, even before he realized it. The words tumbling like some teenager’s from his lips. Stoeffel was aghast at his own forthrightness. “I mean,” he fumbled. “You know ... if you don´t have anything better to do,” he finished lamely.
She looked at him, leaning one shoulder back against the shelves, arms folded.
“Why, I do believe I would like that. Thank you, Chief.”
“Can I call you later then? It´s kind of hard to exactly know when I´m free.”
She held his gaze steadily. “No, you can´t call me later. You tell me right here and now.”
Stoeffel was momentarily taken aback by her brusqueness. “I ... er ... didn´t mean....”
“That’s right, Chief. Make your mind up. I´m not one for hemming and hawing, don´t have time for it in my life.”
“Okay,” said Stoeffel, swallowing. “Tonight then. Whenever you say.”
“Uhuh,” she shook her head, the ponytail flowing out behind her. “You say.”
Lord, he had never known such a confrontational woman.
“Okay, eight o´clock here at the store.”
“Right on, Chief. There, that wasn´t so hard was it? Now come on, let’s get these boxes filled and maybe you´d like to put some flowers in there too. I just had some potted plants imported in from down south.”
“That´ll be fine,” answered Stoeffel numbly. He felt a little shell-shocked.
“Tell me Chief,” she said finally, a small smile playing on her lips as she worked the cash register. “What took you so long?”
Chapter Eight
Feeling slightly uncomfortable, Stoeffel loaded the cartons into the trunk of his cruiser. He wondered at the insanity of his spontaneous dating of Jenny. Did he really need such a take-charge kind of woman in his life? Leonora had been so different. She had led him along, oh yes, she certainly had. But she had done it in such a way that he barely noticed and that was her skill. There was never any abrasiveness in their relationship; she had been a woman who had not felt the need to prove herself to anyone. Yet, she had used all her female wiles to get from Stoeffel exactly what she wanted. And she always did, but Stoeffel never felt diminished by it. And he had loved her for that.
But he had to move on. He knew it. He also knew the world was never a perfect place.
Laying there pushed to the back of the trunk, Stoeffel noticed the plastic wrapped shepherd´s crook he had placed in there after having Jimmy Luke dust it for prints. They had found only one other set as well as Epsie´s on the stick. A broad fingered hand. A man´s hand. It was time to visit the Links family.
Stoeffel found Reason Links alone in his workshop out back of the house. A pleasant white painted two-story building on the hillside overlooking Lodrun. The driveway was full of parked cars and Stoeffel avoided going directly up to the house, but instead followed the signs that led around back. Links was a carpenter and inside the workshop it smelled of fresh pine shavings and the sharp resinous scent of a glue pot smoking on a small gas stove. Links turned from his workbench as Stoeffel’s frame filled the open doorw
ay.
A haunted black man. Tall and thin as a rake with close cut crinkly hair. His eyes showed the night had been a trying affair. Deep and racked by sleeplessness he looked gloomily at the figure at his door. He saw Stoeffel´s badge flash in the shadows.
“Come in, Chief. I been expecting you.”
“Thank you, sir. I´m sorry to trouble you right now, it must be a hard time.”
The man shook his head, he was speechless.
“Did you make this, Mr. Links?” Stoeffel held up the shepherd’s crook and Links grimaced when he saw it. He looked quickly away; back to the half-finished chair leg he had fixed in a clamp on his bench.
“I did. Carpinus Caroliniana.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Hornbeam. I cut it from a branch of Hornbeam. Made it special for Epsie´s Nativity play.”
Stoeffel noticed the large, veined hands play along the wood in the clamp. A tender touch. An unconscious stroking as if it were the head of his child.
“This ain´t the time, I know,” said Stoeffel. “But I have to ask you some things.”
“It´s your job, Chief. I understand.”
“There´s a set of prints on here as well as Epsie´s. Now they are probably yours but I need to be sure. You mind if I take yours to see if there is a match?”
Links shook his head. “Not a problem.”
“Okay, I have a kit here. Might we do this on your bench there?”
Without a word, Links brushed shavings aside with a swoop of his hand and placed a handful of smooth handled chisels to one side. Stoeffel laid the crook down and spread the inkpad and fingerprint card on the cleared space.
“You have any information as to why this happened?” Links asked in a deadpan voice, as Stoeffel rolled his index finger on the pad.
“Can´t say we have much, Mr. Links. But we have some leads we´re following down. Be assured we will do all we can to find out who did this thing.”
Links snorted quietly. “Don´t matter much either way now, does it? My child is gone.”
Stoeffel had no answer to that and he continued with the man´s fingers. When they were done, Links wiped his hands on a rag and asked if that was it.
“Not quite. I need information about Epsie´s movements.”
Links spread both hands on the bench and hung his head.
“I’ve been a God fearing man all my life, Chief. Alright, I was a mite wild in my younger days but that all changed when I met Ruthy. Attended Church regular. Seen that my kids did the same. Made sure they behaved like decent folk. Then this. Before my little girl even had a chance to grow. Where´s the charity in it?” With a sudden violent twist he jerked the unfinished chair leg from the clamp and threw it across the workshop. “Reverend Clitus says the Lord moves in mysterious ways, well, I don´t see no wonders to behold here.”
He turned to face Stoeffel with eyes that burned, the whites red ringed. “They tell me not to want vengeance, Chief. Say it’s all wrong. But I want your word that you will let me have the beast that did this. Give him to me, Chief. Before the lawyers get to making him free or comfortable in prison. I need to see him go down, before God, I need to see it.”
Stoeffel waited until the rage had subdued.
“You know I can´t do that, Mr. Links,” he said calmly. “That ain´t the way of it. If I don´t uphold the law who will?”
Links hissed through bared teeth. There was another man here, Stoeffel realized. One hidden deep inside that was being resurrected by the man´s grief. He filed away the display of ominous violence that was being exposed and promised himself to check on Reason Links´ past.
“Right now, sir. I don´t give one goddamn about the law, either heavenly or earthly.” Links glared at Stoeffel. “They took my child. Took her with a knife and one way or the other I will have their blood for that. You hear me?”
“I hear you. But it’s no way to talk. We have to be calm now, sir. I need you cool. Get a grip and hold it. If you don´t have a clear head you can´t tell me what I need to know.”
Links breathed deeply and wiped beads of sweat that jumped like dew drops from his brow. Glaring at Stoeffel he sagged, gulping air.
“It ain´t me, Chief,” he said quietly, almost sobbing. “It´s my wife. Ruthy. In there,” he pointed in the direction of the house. “This thing is like to kill her. It twists me up inside.”
Stoeffel knew he had to get the man thinking, to distract him away from his grief.
“When did you last see Epsie?” he asked.
Links paused thoughtfully.
“I was working. She came by, I don´t know, maybe midday before lunch. Came here into the workshop. Said she needed her shepherd´s crook and was it ready. She looked a picture. All in that white dress that Ruthy ran up for her. Man, I swear I never seen anything so pretty.” He paused, biting his lower lip. “Well I give her the stick and she was so happy. Said she looked like the real thing. Was going to be the best looking girl on the stage. And, my, I had to agree.”
“She left then?”
“Uhuh. She was going to see her brother Brian. He had something for her. Some present. I don´t know what it was.”
“You have just the two children?”
“That’s right. Brian is going on nineteen. Little Epsie was a kind of late surprise.”
“Where´s your boy at? Maybe he was the last person to see Epsie.”
“Well he works down at Bubba Rose´s place. Epsie must have gone down there to see him.”
Stoeffel knew the big warehouse on Main Street well. Rose´s Moving and Storage Company, just a few blocks up from the police station. There were a lot of people that needed Bubba Rose´s services in these parts. Holiday homeowners moving stuff into the area from the city or out of state and a lock-up storage space for long or short-term rentals. Bubba had done well and was now considered one of the town´s more influential fathers.
“Okay, Mr. Links, I´ll go see him. He at work today?”
“No, he´s up at the house with his mother.”
“Alright then. I see you got a houseful of mourners at present and I don´t want to cause your wife any more distress than is necessary. You think I could talk to Brian alone, won´t take but a minute?”
Links nodded. “Yessir, I´ll go fetch him for you. The house is full of people from the Church. They´re very kind and supportive but I just had to get out here for a while and be on my own.”
“I understand.”
“I´ll go get Brian then. You be okay for a moment?”
“I´ll be fine. By the way, there´s an old housebound lady, Mother Jobin. Lives on the ridge above Dead Fall Back, she said to send her consolation on to you.”
Links nodded. “Yes, I know the lady, I´m obliged to her for her consideration, thank you, Chief.”
While he waited Stoeffel called up Jason Legrand on his two-way and told him to get over to Bubba Rose´s and see if the boy, Brian had filled his shift. When had he clocked in and out and if anybody else there had seen the little girl. Stoeffel knew that statistics showed that a close relative committed a high percentage of family murders. He hoped this was not the case here.
Brian Links was a clean-shaven upright young man. A handsome boy with light colored skin. Dressed in a black tie and pressed white shirt with his best go-to-church trousers. Links introduced them and waited outside in the garden while they talked.
“Brian,” Stoeffel began. “First, I´m real sorry about your sister.”
The boy watched Stoeffel with a distant, almost glazed look and nodded slowly, pressing his lips together tightly.
“Now, your father tells me that Epsie came to see you at work yesterday afternoon. That right?”
The boy nodded silently, rocking slowly on his heels.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
“Sure,” he said, continuing to move backwards and forwards in small motions. “She came down to meet me at the warehouse,” he spoke with a slow precision, careful with his words. “ I
had a small gift for her. We went to get a sandwich, it was my lunchtime. Then I had to get back to work and she left, it was maybe one thirty.”
“What was it you had for her?”
“A little toy lamb. You know, she was a shepherdess; she needed a lamb for her part in the play. So I bought her one at a store in town.”
“Which store did you get it from?”
“I don’t remember, Chief. A lot of stores stock those fluffy things.”
“I see. Do you know where she went after leaving you?”
Brian shook his head slowly from side to side with an almost zombie-like vagueness. “Can´t say. I guessed she was going on home.”
Stoeffel could see the boy was living in some zone of shock that enabled him to function well enough but kept the total reality of the situation at bay. He had seen it often enough before. A kind of self-protective mechanism that the mind raised to allow the body to continue in times of stress.
“You liked your sister, Brian?”
A tear rolled unbidden down the boy´s cheek. “Sure, Chief. I loved my little sister.”
“Anything you want to tell me, son?”
Brian shook his head with that slow side-to-side movement.
“Okay, that’s all for now. I may need to ask you more later but that´ll do for today.”
Back in his car Stoeffel made his notes then called up the station on the radio. Ayleen was off and he spoke to Leroy, who was filling in on day-desk duty.
“Leroy, I want you to run a check for me. Reason Links. Check the database and see if there´s a sheet on him, will you?”
Leroy Banks and George were close buddies, both being of similar ages, although of the two Leroy had a slightly higher IQ. Leroy was also a local boy, a slightly built somewhat vague character who usually wore a discouragingly vapid expression on his face. He had been a deputy with Stoeffel for two years and took instruction well but was slow in coming up with any ideas of his own. Stoeffel had to rely on the older Jason Legrand for that.
“I´ve got that, Chief.”
“Any word from Jimmy Luke?”
“Nothing yet but I seen his panel van come back in `bout fifteen minutes ago.”
