by Paula Boyd
"I heard Amy has a new friend."
"Yes."
"Are you okay with it?"
He shrugged. "I’m doing better. She’s keeping it very low key around the kids and I appreciate that."
"You know, I wish I could have your attitude about Danny." The thought of my ex-husband, Danny-the-cheating-cradle-robber, does not make me warm and tingly. "Seeing him with the little twit he left me for, who is only a couple of years older than my daughter, for god-sakes, tends to really piss me off."
Jerry grinned. "No different for me, Jolene."
"I know it," I said, thinking how much worse it had to be for him. "I also know it really isn’t about me, what I did or didn’t do. It’s about him. And it’s about Amy." Jerry nodded in agreement. "I’m just a little more emotional about things than you are."
Jerry nodded again--a little too emphatically, if you asked me--but I let it slide.
"Even so," he said, "I bet you handled things just fine when your kids were little. The kids have to come first. It doesn’t do anybody any good to fight about something that’s over and done with."
"You’re right. And believe it or not, I always made it a point to not talk bad about Danny in front of the kids. What I said to my friends was another matter. But, I don’t hate him anymore--or Bambi, or whatever her name is. In fact, I’m coming to appreciate what he did. If not for his mid-life crisis, I’d probably still be married to the fool."
"And you wouldn’t be here with me right now."
"Bingo." I smiled. "I’d pursue that issue with enthusiasm except that you told Rick you’d be somewhere in fifteen minutes."
Jerry glanced at his watch again. "I really did intend to make you stay here."
I grabbed my billfold from the dresser and bounced toward him. I wasn’t going to be stuck in the room after all. "Now, really, Jerry, in the whole scheme of things, what good would that do?"
I did not wait for him to answer, just grabbed his arm and ushered him to the door.
* * * *
When we got down to the parking garage, I discovered that we had our very own officer sitting in an unmarked car watching the place. He also followed us to the restaurant, a local Mexican variety. I felt bad that we got to go in out of the heat and he had to sit out there and swelter. He did find some shade so that helped ease my worries some.
Rick met us inside the door and led us to a back corner booth--dark and private. I scooted in on the side opposite a stack of folders and Jerry sat next to me.
Rick slid in the booth across from us, grinning. "I got some information back on a few of those questions you had, Jolene."
"Really?" I said, trying to sound pleased, but not really remembering what those really good questions had been. When I’m on a roll, I can come up with all sorts of ideas. The problem is, once I’ve played the hand, I tend to forget what the cards were or why they were important. "What did you find out?"
The waitress dropped off a basket of chips and salsa, then took our drink order--iced tea all around. I wasn’t all that hungry since we’d had breakfast a mere three and a half hours ago, but I knew better than to pass up a chance for food. Besides, I consider it my duty to sample a chile rellaño at every Mexican food establishment I enter. The best-flavored ones I ever had were in Denver at a place on Colfax. Since it went out of business, I’ve been on a mission to find something even close. I doubted I’d hit the jackpot in Redwater Falls, but stranger things have happened. The waitress was back in a flash with drinks and took our orders. We all munched on chips and salsa for a few minutes before Rick got back to business.
"Okay," Rick said, flipping open a folder. "Here’s what we know for sure. Rhonda Davenport did have a baby. In Abilene."
I glanced Jerry. "She wasn’t lying about that part." Wait a minute. I looked over at Rick. "How’d you get this information so fast? I thought getting adoption records took an act of God, or Congress, or at least a court order."
Detective Richard Rankin’s lips twitched, but he couldn’t stop the twinkle in his eyes. For the first time this trip, I saw the cute beach boy persona emerge. Surfer Dude was back and he was ready to strut. "I pulled a few strings." He grinned, just bursting with boyish charm. "I know a judge."
And in the biblical sense, no doubt. I couldn’t help but smile at him. "I bet you do."
Jerry chuckled a little. "I think I’d rather not know how you got the information, just what it is."
"You’re not going to believe who Rhonda listed as the father of her baby."
My heart dove into my stomach and flopped around rather sick-like. I tried to smile and keep my tone light as I said, "Our pal the sheriff?"
Jerry propped an arm on the table and leaned around to look me in the eye. "Now, Jolene, even if she did, we’d both know that was a lie, now wouldn’t we?"
"It wasn’t Jerry," Rick said, pulling a paper from the folder and turning it toward us. "It was Willard Pollock. The principal."
"What?" Jerry and I gasped in unison.
"Yeah," Rick said, pointing out a box on an official looking form. "Look right here. Willard Pollock. Can you believe that?"
I would have believed Rhonda had been with just about anybody--or everybody--including the entire football team. But the old guy principal? Eeeww. Rhonda and Willie? An image of the two together kept flashing in my mind, but it seemed unbelievable, not to mention gross. "Do you think it’s really true?"
"I guess only two people would know about that for sure," Jerry said.
I’d been staring at the birth certificate, but not really seeing it. I shook my head to clear my vision--but Pollock’s name refused to leave. Finally, I figured out why. The first thing I’d seen was the father’s name. Then Rhonda’s. Only now did I see the name of the baby: Willard James Pollock, Junior.
I felt my lip curl up in disgust. "Well, at least now we have a name for the kid."
Rick shifted in his seat. "Not exactly. I didn’t get the adoption records. This was the birth certificate Rhonda filled out. When the adoption was finalized, the adoptive parents would have gotten a new certificate with their names and the name they gave the child."
"So where’s that certificate?"
Rick did a little more squirming in his seat. "That’s going to take a little longer." He frowned a little. "I was lucky to get this."
"It probably doesn’t matter anyway," Jerry said. "It’s unlikely that adoptive parents ever met Rhonda. It’s fairly common practice now for the birth mother to choose the adoptive parents and involve them in the birth process, but I don’t think it was back then."
Rick nodded and pulled out another sheet of paper. "It wasn’t. But what’s important about this is that we know when Rhonda was in Abilene. She arrived at the school in May and left in November, a week after the baby was born."
I leaned back in the booth. "Do we know where she was from the time she gave birth to Willard Junior until she changed her name to Danvers?"
Rick shook his head. "Nothing for sure yet. Just that she was living in Redwater about twenty-three years ago."
"Odds are she came back to Redwater," Jerry added.
The waitress brought our food, refilled our tea glasses and left us alone with our thoughts.
I toyed with the chile rellaño. It was actually pretty darn good, but I was distracted. Somehow all this information felt important, although I didn’t see how it actually related to anything, other than creepy Pollock."Wonder if his wife knew," I muttered aloud. "Wow, that would have been really bad. Of course, maybe that’s why she divorced him, not that there weren’t plenty of reasons otherwise."
"It certainly explains why Rhonda didn’t want anyone to know," Jerry said.
Rick swallowed a bite, washed it down with a drink of tea then said, "Maybe he found out later. The Pollocks’ divorce was final a few months after Rhonda’s baby was born."
Jumbles of random thoughts and questions elbowed their way around in my brain but nothing clever was leaping up and saying, "This
is it." I played out Rick’s scenario. "Okay, say somebody found out about the baby and told, which led to the divorce. Maybe blackmail was involved."
"Maybe," Jerry said. "But who would do that, and why? Not Rhonda or she’d have done it before the baby was born."
I had to agree with that. "Knowing Rhonda…" I glanced at Jerry. "And I’m not being ugly here. I just find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t have gone to him, told him she was pregnant and demanded that he help her."
"I agree." Jerry paused for a moment, staring thoughtfully. "I remember her being scared, but who wouldn’t be under the circumstances? I assumed she was afraid of what her mother and stepfather would do when they found out she was pregnant. But why not tell Pollock?"
Yeah, why? "I can’t believe that Rhonda would sacrifice herself for Pollock. I really don’t think this had anything to do with love. Okay, maybe I just don’t want to believe it."
"Actually, Jolene," Jerry said. "There would probably have been about the same age difference between Pollock and Rhonda than as there is between your ex and his new wife now. It’s not unheard of."
Gasp, choke, gasp. Oh, that did not set well, not well at all. "Why, Jerry, dear," I said, in the sweetest little voice you can imagine. "How very nice of you to bring that up. Danny and Bambi are about twenty years apart in age. Wonder why I didn’t think of it?"
"I didn’t say it to be mean." He tried to slide his arm around my shoulders but I shrugged it off.
"The fact that my husband left me for a twenty-year-old doesn’t bother me a bit. Never even crosses my mind." Actually, that was almost true. "Ever."
"I was just trying to put things into perspective, Jolene. If Pollock hadn’t been the principal and Rhonda his student, or even in another three or four years, it wouldn’t have been that outrageous."
"I get your point, and I still don’t agree with it. I don’t for a minute believe that Rhonda was in love with Willie or vice versa."
"Actually," Jerry said. "I don’t either. But who seduced who? You know Pollock’s history."
I cocked my head and blinked my eyes very innocently. "And you know Rhonda’s."
"Touché."
Okay, I’d call a cease fire--for now. But if he brought up anything else about Danny and the bimbo, we were going to war. Being dumped by your husband for a girl half your age can have some unpleasant side effects if you let it, not that I let it, of course."The way I see it," I said, scooting over toward the wall just a little, "there are about a hundred scenarios for a seduction between those two, and probably just as many motivations." I glanced at Rick. "Does any of this even matter?"
Detective Rick shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t want to focus solely on this aspect because it disregards our first victim, at least as far as we know. I don’t want to ignore it either."
"Speaking of ignoring things," I said, pointing to Rick’s stack of papers. "What about Calvin? What have you come up with on him?"
Rick fiddled with his files. "Calvin Holt never married," he said, finding what he was looking for. "He ran an appliance repair shop over on Tenth Street, owned a nice three-bedroom house with a two-car garage. According to his neighbors, he kept pretty much to himself."
"Where did he live?" I held my hand up to stop Rick before he answered. "The address probably wouldn’t mean anything to me anyway. What I really want to know is did he live anywhere near Rhonda?"
Rick nodded. "In the same general part of town, yes, maybe ten or twelve blocks away."
This news got Jerry’s attention. It got mine too, for obvious reasons, but Jerry got the words out first. "You think they kept in touch?"
"I’m sure of it," Rick said. "The last number dialed from Calvin’s phone was Rhonda’s."
Chapter 14
We left the restaurant and drove back to the hotel. Rick apparently had other interesting tidbits that he wanted to discuss with Jerry back at the police station, and neither of them invited me to come along. Didn’t hurt my feelings. I had better things to do anyway.
Ever since I’d learned that Calvin had called Rhonda, I had been speculating at a rapid, if erratic, pace and the last thing I needed were more facts and details to interfere. What I did need was some time alone to assimilate what all I knew for sure, what I’d just learned and what I was willing to guess about.
When we walked into my room, Jerry informed me that he had assigned--to use his word--a "Jolene-proof" deputy to be my keeper and he expected me not to cause trouble. When I learned the name of the special Jolene keeper, I felt plenty of trouble coming on. Granted, I'd forgotten to tell him a couple of things and had participated in an unauthorized road trip or two, but did that really justify punishing me with Deputy Leroy Harper?
Yes, I voiced my complaints. Loudly. And no, it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. Leroy was on his way and would be at the hotel in less than ten minutes. Yippee.
Sheriff Parker stayed at the hotel only long enough to usher Leroy’s hulking form through the door and rattle some terse instructions that included "Watch her" and "Don’t let her out of your sight," which I noted was both repetitive and redundant, although he seemed not to care. Adding insult to injury, just before Sheriff Parker slammed the door, he glared directly at me and barked, "Don’t leave this room."
The door closed behind Jerry, leaving me and Deputy Harper staring warily at each other. Leroy looked suspiciously likely to say something stupid, so I took immediate evasive action. "Have a seat, Leroy. I’ve got to make a few calls." Meaning we aren't going to chat. "You can watch TV if you want."
"Oh, okay." He looked around the room for a place to sit, but the best viewing was obviously from the beds.
I walked over to the bed I hadn’t been sleeping in and propped up the pillows. "Here, make yourself at home. No telling how long Jerry will be gone, might as well be comfortable. Not too often you get paid for sitting in bed and watching TV."
He lumbered over and plopped himself down as directed. The bed creaked and sagged, but fortunately nothing broke. I’m not that good at guessing ages or weight, but Leroy probably spins the scale up to maybe two hundred eighty pounds. Leroy heaved himself around a little, his face blossoming into a lovely shade of red. "You sure it’s okay? You aren’t just telling me to come sit over here so you can make fun of me or something, are you?"
Seriously? Did he really think my every thought revolved around making him look stupid? He acted like I'd spent my whole life tormenting him. I hadn’t. Back when we were in high school, all I ever said to him was "No, I won’t go out with you" or some variation thereof. I might not have been very nice about it toward the end of his senior year, but it was probably less what I did, than what I didn’t do--go out with him--that made me his enemy. He was, after all, a big football star--emphasis on big.
I grabbed the remote from the table and tossed it on the bed beside him. "Leroy, we’re past all that stuff, remember?"
He nodded and picked up the remote. "It just seems weird being in a hotel room with you alone. Just don’t seem right."
At least we agreed on that. "Listen, I swear I won’t attack you, but you’re welcome to stay in Jerry’s room if it’d make you feel better."
"Huh-uh, no, ma’am. Jerry Don said I’m not to let you out of my sight. I’ve got my orders."
"Fine, then turn on the TV and let me do what I need to do."
Leroy punched the power button then clicked until he found a wrestling match. He settled himself in with no further trouble and I tried to block him and the tag team grappling from my mind.
I sat down at the desk and smoothed out the paper I’d drawn my little diagram on. Calvin’s name was still stuck out there by itself. I drew a line from Calvin to Rhonda. I added Pollock’s name and connected him to Rhonda as well. Below that mess, I drew a circle and wrote Kickapoo, then drew more lines. Once again, I wound up with nothing. I tapped my pen on the paper for a few seconds, wondering what to do next. I could call the appliance shop and quiz somebody about
Calvin. Ditto for the bank and Rhonda. But what would I ask, and what were the odds of anybody telling me anything? Not good all the way around.
"What do you know about Calvin Holt?"
Leroy dragged his eyes from the television reluctantly then rubbed his pudgy hand over his chins. "Nothing much, I guess. He was in your class, not mine. I knew who he was, but I didn’t ever talk to him."
No surprise there. "Have you heard anything about any family coming forward for him or Rhonda?"
He shook his head. "Nah, haven’t heard a thing. But even if somebody had showed up, I wouldn’t necessarily know about it. Redwater’s handling the cases. I just help out when they ask or when Jerry tells me to."
I tapped the paper some more. "Do you ever remember Rhonda dating Calvin?"
He wagged his head again. "Rhonda went out with a lot of guys, but I don’t know whether he was one of them or not."
"She was in the photography club with him. Know anything about that?"
Leroy laced his fingers together and propped them on his belly. "She probably just joined so she’d have another listing in the yearbook."
Simple enough reason. But was it right? Then, the oddest of thoughts struck me. "Leroy, did you ever date her?"
He sucked in a quick gulp and his face turned a guilty reddish purple. "Uh, Rhonda? Well, um, yeah, seems like I went out with her a time or two."
Oh, boy, hit the bull’s eye there. "You were a senior and she was a junior?"
