by Rebecca Rane
“No. But let’s list what we know about the High Timbers body, the stuff we have without the crime lab.”
Shoop stood up and grabbed a stylus from the tray mounted to the bottom of their smart board. “Let’s hear it.”
“Location, we’re going to have to focus on the highway, not the entire state or county or whatever. Whoever dumped the body on the side of the highway, let’s assume they did that each time, since that’s how it is with the cases we’ve found.”
Kendra knew, especially in prior decades, when traffic cameras weren’t everywhere, that an isolated stretch of highway was a good place to do evil then leave it behind. But I-75 pierced through Ohio from its top at Toledo to its end at Cincinnati. It was a heck of a lot of ground to cover, even in their own state.
“We’ve got three, Linda Kay Ellis, 1978, Sincere Anderson, 1980, and the woman from High Timbers,” Shoop summarized. “Any guess on what year she was killed?” she added.
“There’s no way to know the exact timing for High Timbers, except we have some idea that it was about forty years ago. The tights, the decomposition—I’m not going to be surprised if it’s back in that same era as Linda Kay or Sincere.”
They both were in the habit of using the names of their podcast subjects. They weren’t bodies. They were people.
“We’re looking at the late 1970s, early 1980s?”
“I think so.”
Shoop wrote it on the board.
“Plus, there’s the tights. They were around her neck. And the bag. Those details should be something we can track,” Kendra pointed out.
They stared at the board. They had one unidentified woman and a list to check on to see if she was a tragic anomaly or a part of something else.
“I’m going to head back to the Port Lawrence OHP Post.”
“Meeting up with Omari?” Shoop asked.
“No, ambushing Sargeant Newkirk.”
“What do you want me to work on while your ambushing?”
“Let’s get a number, if we can, in that ten, fifteen-year period. Let’s see if there’s a pattern in what we can find.”
“On it.”
Kendra had selected her favorite summer bag for today, the Kate Spade Toulouse Canvas Satchel. It was lightweight. She opted for white blouses and cigarette pants as her summer work uniform, and always with her Chuck Taylors.
Kendra’s mother had recently come around to her footwear selection. Kendra had observed the slippers Stephanie Dillon hid in her limos and behind podiums these days. You can’t wear spiked heels for decades and not pay the price.
Kendra’s life experience thus far had demonstrated the need to be able to run like hell. Her mother’s experience was running for office. The right footwear for those two jobs was essential.
Kendra spent the car time driving out to the OHP post listening to WPLE. The station broadcast news and even some classic music at various stages of the broadcast day.
She turned it off about ten minutes out to focus on what she wanted to ask Sargeant Newkirk. She’d looked him up. He’d been around a long time. And his beat had always been this stretch of I-75. Kendra wanted to know what he knew. She didn’t want official channels. She didn’t want community affairs spokespersons. She didn’t even care if it was on the record. Something he said had stuck with her.
She parked her Jeep and waited so she could be there as he finished his shift. Kendra watched Newkirk exit the OHP building and walk to his car.
It was time. Kendra popped out of her Jeep and carefully selected her angle of interception.
She arrived at the door of his Chevy Malibu a second before he did.
“Ah, the podcaster lady,” Newkirk said. He was sweating. The parking lot was reflecting the heat back up to them. She hoped he was anxious to get in his air-conditioned car as fast as he could. That would be to her advantage.
“Yeah, hey, I have a question for you. Wondering if you could help me out?”
“I’m supposed to tell you to go to the PIO.”
“You know, and I know, he has no clue about anything.”
Kendra played to Newkirk’s need to be the expert.
“That’s the damn truth.”
“You have experience. You’ve been here longer than any of these new guys. I have a question about something, and I think only you can answer.”
“Ha, there’s probably a lot only I know around here. I’d have retired five years ago, but the ex-wife needs her alimony.”
“Right, so…that woman the other day, at High Timbers, you said it was familiar? Can you tell me what was familiar?”
“Oh, well, yeah, it’s sweet that you’re hitching your wagon to her, but I’m sure that’s going to be a waste of your time.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to find out that she’s a prostitute no one knew, or a junkie, or something like that. If we ever find out who she is.”
“You called her something, uh nothing?”
“Nobody Girls.” Newkirk sniffed. It was a throwaway term to him. And yet, it hit Kendra hard.
“What does that really mean?”
“We had a rash of them along here, back in the day. Women who aren’t important to anyone, no families, no connections. I mean, it’s sad. But it’s the truth.”
“What do you mean a rash of them?”
“I don’t remember the number, but like three or four along I-75.”
Three or four? It was so unremarkable to Newkirk that it wasn’t worth it to remember how many dead women were found on his stretch of I-75.
“When?”
“Probably right when this High Timbers chick was offed, ’78 to around, uh, I think 1982 maybe. About five years.”
That tracked with what Kendra and Shoop were trying to find.
“Was there a pattern? What did you look for?”
“The pattern was they got themselves into this mess if you ask me.”
“What?”
“Turn tricks at a truck stop or hitch hike. You’re going to be killed. It’s not rocket science.”
Kendra didn’t flinch. She wanted Newkirk to think she was on his wavelength and not horrified. He was saying they asked for it. She was sickened and prayed that his world view was disappearing like dinosaurs. She wished he could retire soon too, as much as he did.
“Did you investigate this as a serial killer?”
“Well, that’s above my pay grade. We found the bodies, rerouted the traffic, cleaned up the mess, and kicked it up the flagpole.”
“So, you didn’t have some named killer, hunting, uh, nowhere girls?”
“Nobody Girls, get the lingo.”
“Right, so, other than being Nobody Girls, were their other similarities?”
“Something wrapped around the neck and dumped out in the boondocks. Black girls, white girls, whatever color, the neck thing was the tell, the bag too. When we saw that, we kicked it up the food chain to the feds.”
“Is there an FBI agent you remember that handled the cases?”
“Cases? Yeah, well, I think a guy named, uh, Branson? He was out of the Port Lawrence Field Office. So, your neck of the woods, missy.”
“Yep, okay. Well, thank you for your time.”
“This is all off the record?”
“Actually, I do have this recorded. I’d like to use it. You have an important perspective.” Kendra waived her clearly visible recording device at Newkirk.
“If you screw up my retirement—” Newkirk went from congenial to menacing in half a second.
Kendra stood her ground. “I promise to disguise your voice and even disguise what arm of law enforcement helped with this story.”
“You didn’t say you were recording.”
Kendra looked from Newkirk to her hand, in which she held her digital recorder. “Uh, well, what did you think this was?” Kendra waved it in front of Newkirk again. Wasn’t he a trained officer?
“Fine. But this is it. If I see you again, I’m walking the other way.”
The pretense of Newkirk and Kendra being buddies was over. He got into his vehicle and got away from Kendra as fast as he could.
That was fine. She had gotten what she came for. She had a lead, an FBI agent’s name.
And she had a title for this season of The Cold Trail.
She was going to show everyone that The Nobody Girls mattered to her. Even if they didn’t matter to Newkirk or anyone else.
But if she was going to pitch it to Art or even be sure they could craft a whole season, she’d need more. A lot more.
Chapter 8
Kendra was on the way back to the office. She’d disguise Newkirk’s voice, she’d protect him, but the idea that the women were throwaways to him infuriated her.
In the way of interviews, she didn’t really have much to base an entire season of the podcast, but that was the next step.
Kendra called Shoop.
“How’d it go?”
“It’s a thing. We’re doing this. The Nobody Girls deserve our best effort.”
“Okay, okay, did you get anything else from Newkirk?”
“I did. We’re looking for victims who had a scarf or some type of clothing tied around their throats. That’s really what prompted Newkirk to call the High Timbers victim a Nobody Girl.”
“That infuriates me.”
“Same, that’s exactly my reaction. They aren’t nobody.”
“No, they’re people. We can tell their stories.”
“Yep, we might not be able to solve these things. In fact, I don’t think we will be able to. But we can make sure they aren’t forgotten.”
“Except they have been forgotten. It’s been decades and not a peep.”
“There are people out there who knew them, miss them, there just have to be.”
“Okay, I’m going to rehash the files and see if we have the fabric around the neck detail—and what was the time frame?”
“1978 to around 1982 or ’83. Though you could probably push the year in both directions. Newkirk didn’t have it down precisely.”
“Okay, on it.”
Kendra’s phone buzzed. “I have another call.”
“Bye.”
Kendra clicked over; her Dad’s housekeeper was on the phone. “What’s up, Pam?”
“I think you need to get here quick. There’s something wrong with your dad.”
“Wrong?”
“Yeah, he won’t let me help him, and he’s confused.”
“Crap, I’m about ten minutes away. I’ll come right over. Do you need to call 911?”
“I don’t think so. He’s just, well—” Kendra could hear her dad yelling in the background of the call.
“What’s his issue?”
“Right now? He says I threw away some bowling team shirt he wants. He’s trying to climb into the attic for a bowling shirt emergency.”
Big Don only had one foot. The other had to be amputated due to complications from diabetes.
“How can he climb into the attic with one foot?” Kendra said to Pam.
“You better stop tattling on me. I’m a grown man!” Big Don’s voice boomed.
Kendra was concerned that Pam would up and quit, right now, if her dad kept treating her like this. What on earth is happening there?
“I’m on my way.”
“If you call 911, you’re fired! And if you threw away that bowling shirt, you’re fired. That team came in second in the league. It’s historical!”
“God, he’s lost his marbles.”
Pam was a saint, Kendra decided. She continued to hear Big Don yell about bowling and then about some circular saw he wanted to find. It was a bunch of nonsense as far as Kendra could determine.
She skirted a few traffic laws and pulled into the driveway of the family home in less than the ten minutes she’d predicted. Big Don lived in the “Old Neighborhood,” and Big Don refused to hear about moving out of it.
Kendra ran inside and found Pam in the kitchen. Big Don, leaning heavily on his cane, was yelling at the top of his lungs.
“I think she’s stealing,” he said when he saw Kendra. “You’re stealing,” he added, turning to Pam.
“Dad, Pam isn’t stealing. She’s been with us for decades.”
“Stealing your smelly socks? Yeah, that’s right, there’s a huge black market for those,” Pam retorted. She raised her eyebrows at Kendra and handed off Don.
“When was the last time you checked your blood sugar?”
Big Don was diabetic.
“I asked him that, but then, well, he accused me of stealing and of setting his bowling shirt on fire,” Pam explained.
“Poke! Your solution to thievery is to poke me!”
“Dad, you’re not yourself. If we could check your blood sugar, then we’ll know what’s going on.”
“What’s going on? I’m sure what’s going on.”
Big Don shrank a bit, and Kendra’s heart turned over in her chest. She could see clearly, in that second, a future without him.
“Not today, Dad, you’re not checking out today.”
Kendra dialed 911.
“I don’t want to go to the ambulance. I’m the boss of you, of you, of both of you, and I’m not going to go in the ambulance.”
Her dad was altered. He was unreasonable. This wasn’t the affable mover and shaker of Port Lawrence; this was a man in distress. He just didn’t know it.
If she could check his blood sugar, maybe.
“I think he’s been forgetting to take his medication,” Pam muttered.
“Quit whispering, or you’re both fired.”
“Got it, we’re both fired. But you’re going to fall. Why don’t you fire us while sitting down? We won’t be any less fired if you’re comfortable.”
Big Don put a hand on the kitchen table. He put all his weight on it, and the entire table gave way. Apples from a fruit bowl went flying.
“Dad!” Kendra rushed forward.
Big Don had a gash above his fluffy white eyebrow. He’d hit his head on the table’s edge on the way down.
Kendra heard a siren. Thank goodness. Big Don needed more help than she and Pam could provide.
“Go waive them down,” Kendra told Pam. She kneeled down next to her dad. “Dad, you’re bleeding.” He put a hand up to his forehead, which was now leaking an epic amount of blood.
“Eh, it’s nothing, heads bleed. Did I ever tell you about the time I caught shrapnel when that machine exploded in the paint shop?”
This was a story Kendra had heard, quite possibly a thousand times. And paint shop didn’t mean a store where they sold paint, but rather the plant that painted the vehicles. The incident was what motivated Big Don to get into union leadership.
But Kendra decided the best plan was to humor her dad, not argue with him.
“What happened?” Kendra said.
The EMTs entered the kitchen, and Big Don passed out.
“Dad!”
Kendra sat in the hospital waiting room.
“I called Mom. She’s overseas, so won’t be able to get back right now,” Gillian Dillon said.
“Overseas? What now?” Kendra said.
“Something about a trade visit, trying to get Port Lawrence and Bilbao to be economic partners. You know Mom, always a deal to make.”
Kendra did know. She also knew if she looked her mother up in the Columbus Dispatch, there’d be an article about this trip. Which if Kendra was a more attentive daughter, maybe she’d already have known about it. It was just hard to keep up with her mother sometimes.
Kendra reminded herself that it was because Stephanie was in Bilbao that Pam had called Big Don’s daughters, not his absentee wife.
Now, Kendra and Gillian couldn’t do much but wait.
“He was about to climb the attic stairs,” Kendra explained as they sat there.
“Great trick on one foot. Pam needs to be awarded a metal,” Gillian replied.
A doctor came out of the exam room and found the Dillon sisters.
>
“Your dad is stable now, resting. We had to put a few stitches in above his eye. He may want a plastic surgery consult.”
“I’m sure mom has one on speed dial,” Gillian quipped.
“So, he was disoriented and totally altered. It was scary,” Kendra said to the doctor.
“Your dad’s blood sugar was in the 400 range. That likely caused confusion and agitation. Any higher, and I’m worried about a diabetic coma.”
Kendra inhaled in shock at that pronouncement.
“Can we alter his medication? Make sure this doesn’t happen again?” Gillian asked.
“The thing is, I don’t think he’s been taking it consistently,” Kendra admitted.
“And his weight is up. He doesn’t appear to be adhering to any of the dietary guidelines a man in his condition should,” the doctor informed them.
“No kidding, he thinks cutting back from three meals at Franzy’s a week to two is a diet,” Kendra said. They’d both tried to harp on their dad about diet, but clearly, that wasn’t working.
“Since he can’t seem to manage his diet and medication and he has the eye injury, I’m suggesting we do a few days at River Park Rehabilitation to get him stable.”
“Oh, he’s not going to like that,” Gillian replied.
Kendra could hear him now, demanding to be let out and insisting he needed to go home.
“How long?” Kendra asked.
“Let’s see if we can get his blood sugar in a better range, improve some mobility. I think he could be more agile if we did some PT. Maybe strengthen his good leg?”
“He’s going to want to go right home, now,” said Gillian.
“I’m against that. But technically, since he’s not in any immediate danger, I can’t hold him here.”
“Fine, get the River Park Rehab paperwork for Dad started. I’m going in.”
Kendra was going to make her dad see that he had no choice but some rehab time. He had to know how serious his situation was.
“Good luck,” Gillian said.
Kendra walked to Big Don’s hospital room.
“Kendy! Good, you need to tell them I’m all set.” Her dad fiddled with the I.V. in his arm.
“Are you feeling better?”
“Overreaction, you shouldn’t have called 911.”
