by J. C. Kenney
Her objection to my involvement wasn’t because she thought I was incapable or was at risk of getting myself hurt. She was worried about me getting in hot water with Matt. Whether she’d intended to or not, she’d let me know she believed in me.
She thought I could solve the case.
Darn right I can, Diane.
I dropped a twenty on the counter and headed for the door. It was time to make some not-quite social calls.
Chapter Eleven
I’d made progress on the case, but it had been around the edges. I often had to remind my less-experienced authors that their main character needed to initiate action. Take charge of the situation. Just being along for the ride as things happened wasn’t enough.
At the moment, I was in the same situation. If I was going to get to the heart of the matter, one thing couldn’t be denied. I had to confront the suspects.
Facing a suspect and looking them in the eye did two things. First, it let them know they were on my radar. Even if they denied involvement in the case I was investigating, after I met with them, any sudden bank withdrawals or vacation plans would look suspect. No suspect was sneaking out of town on my watch. Second, it put them under pressure. If they were innocent and had nothing to fear, the pressure would pass like a short summer shower. If they were guilty, odds were good they’d make a mistake, and I’d be ready to pounce.
The first suspect in my crosshairs was Bobcat.
As I pedaled west out of town, I formulated a list of questions I wanted to ask the reformed troublemaker. I didn’t know him, so it seemed best to approach him with caution. Between his military service, his story of second chances, and the efforts he made to help at-risk youth, people revered the man as much as mystery fans revered Agatha Christie. If I stepped on his toes, word would get back to Matt faster than I could ride back to town.
Any complaints wouldn’t come from Bobcat. He was above that, from what I’d heard. The criticisms would come from his employees. It was well known they didn’t take kindly to folks hassling their boss.
With the need to be wary in the forefront of my mind, I turned right at an oval-shaped green-and-brown sign that read BC Outdoor Adventures. The switch from Redbud Lane’s asphalt pavement to the adventure park’s drive was jarring, as I wasn’t the best at navigating gravel roads.
Fortunately, the challenging portion of the ride was short. After a bend in the lane, I arrived at a paved parking lot. A cabin painted the same colors as the sign, brown with green trim, stood sentry at the edge of the lot. The rustic vibe sold well in Brown County.
I locked my bike to a post and strode into the building. I was a woman on a mission. Evidently, the staff didn’t get the memo about my being on said mission because they showed zero urgency in tracking down Bobcat so I could talk to him.
After a half hour of waiting, I was about to give up. My patience was rewarded when the man finally arrived. His face and hands were as mud-covered as the overalls he was wearing. The work boots he kicked off may have been brown, but they, too, were so caked in mud it was impossible to tell.
The man’s smile lit up the room when he waved at me. Between that and his penetrating blue eyes, I could see how young women could have fallen under his spell back in the day.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Cobb. We had an ATV go off the trail and end up in a bog. Took some doing to get it out, but it’s done. And the rider is fine, which is the most important thing.”
He asked a young woman behind a counter to get me a cup of coffee and have me wait in his office while he got cleaned up. I had to hand it to the man. He sure seemed to be as good as advertised.
Bobcat’s office was the polar opposite of Ted’s. The only decorations were photos of smiling clients taking part in the park’s activities, like zip-lining and mountain biking. His honorable discharge hung in an oak frame on the wall behind a simple aluminum desk. The spartan theme was impossible to miss.
The door behind me opened and a different man entered. Well, it was still Bobcat, but he’d taken a quick shower and changed into a blue T-shirt with the park’s logo screen-printed across the chest, a pair of tan chinos, and running shoes.
He sat in the office chair next to me instead of behind his desk. It was a smooth move. A way to indicate he didn’t want any barriers between us. It remained to be seen if he still felt that way after our chat.
“What can I do for you? Are you wanting to plan a family reunion?” He snapped his fingers. “Not that. You’re looking to arrange a retreat for your authors, aren’t you? We can oversee team-building exercises, more traditional group discussions, and make sure you all have time for some good, clean, outdoor fun. What do you say?”
A laugh escaped me. “I say you’re quite the salesman. In a good way. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to put on a retreat for my clients. Yet.”
“Let me know when you are. You won’t regret it. So, how can I help you today?”
Here goes. “I wanted to talk to you about Valerie Briggs.”
Like a lightbulb going out, his disarming smile disappeared. He crossed his arms as he sat up straighter in his chair.
“Uh-huh. I heard you were playing detective for Connie Briggs. How do you think I can help?”
“You were one of her classmates. What can you tell me about her?”
He scratched his head. “To be honest, those days are pretty blurry, especially after I got kicked off the baseball team. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”
Despite his denial, his body language screamed he knew something. Since he didn’t know me, he probably didn’t appreciate how diligent I could be. There was no way I was leaving after one question.
“Valerie went missing Christmas Eve of your senior year in high school. People I’ve talked to tell me it was a pretty intense time. You sure you can’t remember anything? Even the smallest item might be helpful. Please try.”
“I remember trying to hook up with her around Thanksgiving. She’d had a fight with Dak. I thought I might get some rebound action.” He shook his head. “I was such a scumbag back then. Anyway, she turned me down. Said she was done with guys. Then she punched me.”
“For someone who doesn’t remember much from that time, that’s a pretty clear memory.”
“Well, I didn’t get turned down very often. And she had a serious right hook.” He rubbed his bicep. It was all I could do to refrain from rolling my eyes.
Since Bobcat didn’t appear to have any sincere interest in helping me, I wasn’t going to waste my time getting evasive non-answers from the man.
“I’ve heard you assaulted Star Rockwell when you were freshmen. Is there any truth to that?”
“What?” His eyes grew wide. “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter. What does matter is whether it’s true. Is it?”
“No. Of course not. I’m not proud of the person I was back then. Ever since that car crash, I’ve tried to make amends for my past. Accusations like the one you just made are, frankly, offensive.” He went to the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to check on that ATV.”
“Thank you for your time.” I held my head high as I left the office.
Bobcat could get as angry with me as he wanted. I didn’t buy his denial. I’d read a lot of research over the years about sexual assault. Perpetrators of sexual assault often used coercion, violence, and threats of force to abuse people on a repeated basis.
It was a stretch to conclude that since Bobcat may have assaulted Star, he murdered Valerie. It wasn’t a stretch to assume he had convenient selective memory lapses. The main conclusion was I needed to uncover what he was hiding.
Since I was in the area, I decided to swing by Connie’s home. If she was there, I could give her an update.
She lived in a mobile home park known officially as Riverside Acres. It was a pleasant enough name. It was also a deceptive name. Unofficially, it was known as, among other things, the Shallows and Rundown Acres. In short, the place Brown County residen
ts went when they had nowhere else to go.
I turned onto the trailer park’s main drive and pulled over to take in the scene. The metal sign welcoming me was faded from vibrant greens, yellows, and blues to dull shades of gray. The road, while paved, was strewn with cracked asphalt and too many filled-in potholes to count.
There were trailers of all shapes and in all conditions. Some had satellite dishes attached to the corners of the roofs. Over-the-air antennae rose above others, like long-legged spiders struggling to touch the clouds above. A few dwellings looked abandoned, with cracked windows held in place with duct tape. It was a sad place, one filled with broken promises and shattered dreams.
Connie’s home was at the end of a cul de sac of single-wide dwellings. A concrete pad that served as a parking spot for her compact four-door was to the left of the structure. A white picket fence outlined the perimeter of the property. A concrete walkway led from the street to the trailer. The lawn, though small, had been recently mowed and was free of weeds.
Cobalt blue shutters provided a pleasing accent to the beige vinyl siding. Connie took pride in her home. She may have been battered, but she wasn’t broken.
I knocked on the front door, which had been painted the same shade as the shutters.
After I knocked a second time, an unfamiliar voice asked, “Who is it?”
“Allie Cobb. I’m a . . .” What exactly was my relationship with Connie? Friend? Consultant? “I’m working on a project for Connie.” It was a boring response, but without any idea who was on the other side of the door, I didn’t want to be too specific.
Especially if the voice turned out to belong to someone with the Rushing Creek Police Department.
Seconds ticked by. The humidity of the August afternoon began to wrap its damp tentacles around me as I waited.
Maybe Connie wasn’t home. I hadn’t called ahead to confirm she was available to chat. Given the current circumstances, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she had a friend stay at the trailer when she was gone. It seemed like a good way to ward off a nosy reporter looking for a story.
Or someone with a twenty-year-old secret.
Eventually, Connie opened the door. There was some color in her cheeks and her hair had regained some luster. She still had dark circles under her eyes, though.
“Sorry for the rude welcome, Allie.” She waved me inside. “I’ve been getting calls and visits from every reporter within five hundred miles. Delilah’s my official visitor screener.”
Delilah introduced herself. She lived next door to Connie. In that time, they’d become close friends.
“It’s horrible what some of these people have tried to do. All supposedly in the name of news. The other day, I caught one of them going through Connie’s trash. That’s when I decided enough’s enough.”
“That’s very kind of you.” I meant it. These days, it seemed like people didn’t get to know their neighbors like they did when I was young. It made me glad I knew my neighbors, even the guys who ran the sock store across the hall from the bookshop.
To be able to count on somebody nearby in times of trouble was a gift. I had that relationship with Renee. One couldn’t put a price on something like that.
I gave Connie a rundown of my progress on the case. She gave Delilah a fist bump when I told her I had a few suspects. It was gratifying to give her some good news.
“I have some questions. Is there someplace we can talk?”
Delilah, bless her, picked up on the hint. “I’m gonna have a smoke. I’ll be outside if you need anything, Connie.”
While we got settled at a small Formica-topped dining table, I gave the trailer a quick scan. The décor was dated, with dark wood paneling on the walls and threadbare carpet on the floor. A boxy television from the days before flat screens stood atop a wooden stand filled with VHS tapes.
Connie’s things may have been old, but that didn’t mean she didn’t care about them. A small curio cabinet held precious figurines that were breathtaking in their beauty. The kitchen appliances sparkled in the sunlight. There wasn’t a dust mote to be seen.
Her refusal to give up was inspiring, Even more reason to help her find the answers she deserved. And hopefully, some peace with those answers.
“About the rope fibers the police found, does that ring any sort of bell?”
“I’ve dried laundry on a line all my life. At the old house, we hung things on a rope. I don’t remember what kind it was, though. Since moving here, I’ve used a plastic-coated wire.”
“And just to make sure I’ve got my time line correct, you were living here at the time of Valerie’s disappearance.”
“Yeah.” She looked away for a moment. “Annette’s medical bills kept piling up. To keep us out of bankruptcy, we had to sell the house, then we had to sell one of the two cars we had. We moved here the summer before Valerie’s junior year.”
She went on to tell me how the family, which had started to come apart at the seams in the aftermath of Annette’s accident, completely fell to pieces after moving into the trailer. The girls resented having to move into bedrooms a fraction of the size of what they were accustomed to. The close quarters magnified the daily strife that had existed between Phil and Valerie. Annette became withdrawn and sullen, spending as much time with friends as possible.
And Valerie rebelled.
“We knew she was running with the wrong crowd, but what could we do? She barely talked to Phil. When they did talk, it always ended in a shouting match. It was all I could do to keep a little bit of peace around here.” She chuckled. “You know what? She never missed school and never missed a shift at the hardware store. She was going to move out as soon as she graduated. She never got the chance.”
It was a tragic story in every sense of the word, one the Ancient Greeks would have been proud of.
And then a thought hit me. Valerie’s attendance at work and school indicated a young woman who understood responsibility. If she was going to run away, it would have made more sense to wait until she graduated. That way, she’d have her diploma and whatever additional money she’d been able to save up between December and June.
I made a note in my phone to look for Valerie’s bank records. If she’d been putting money into a savings account, I needed to find out what happened to it.
“What can you tell me about Cecil Burgess?”
Connie adjusted the collar of her shirt. “I never liked him when he was a kid. Nothing but trouble. Valerie couldn’t stand the sight of him.”
“Why is that?”
“He treated girls bad. Like they were property, not people. He’s a changed man now. A good example for the kids.”
“Do you think he could have had something to do with Valerie’s disappearance?” The police had barely looked at Bobcat at the time. My conversation with him made me suspicious of him.
“To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe? Valerie and the girls weren’t angels, but they steered clear of him.”
“What about Ronald Spade? Has anything come to mind that you haven’t mentioned before?” Since his name had come up repeatedly already in my investigation, I wanted to know every detail about the man, regardless of how insignificant it seemed.
“The fact that he lives in this trailer park makes me want to throw up.”
Really. This was interesting. “How long has he lived here?”
“Don’t know for certain.” She went to the window over the kitchen sink. “It’s his mom’s place. He came here after he got out of prison.”
Butterflies started flapping their wings in my belly. I was getting close to putting a couple of puzzle pieces together.
“Do you know where his mom lived back then?”
Connie turned to face me. “Same place she lives now.”
The puzzle pieces came together with a satisfying click. Spade’s mother was living nearby when Valerie disappeared. Despite the claims to the contrary that I’d read, maybe the man had been in the vicinity on the day in
question.
It was Christmas Eve, after all. It didn’t take much to imagine Ronald paying his mother a holiday visit. What if, at some point before or after hanging out with dear old Mom, he crossed paths with Valerie?
Playing out the scenario in my head, I could see her asking him to make a liquor run for her. In response, he may have asked her to join him for the ride. And once she was in the car, the unthinkable happened.
It was a plausible scenario. The thing I needed next was going to be way more difficult to obtain. I needed proof. That would be hard to unearth. If it still existed, it had remained hidden for two decades.
Well, as the old saying went, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
All I had to do was figure out in which direction my next step would lead me. And hope it didn’t take me off a cliff.
Chapter Twelve
I left Connie’s feeling a lot better than when I’d arrived. Sure, I had more questions now, but for the first time I had one suspect I could prioritize over others.
Talking to people was a reliable first step in gathering information. The problem was that it was like dumping the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on a table, spreading them out, and making sure they were all right-side up. It was preliminary work. It needed to be done but wasn’t part of the actual assembly of pieces into the complete picture.
My conversation with Connie had brought a few pieces together. I had a long way to go and things still made little sense, but it was progress.
I wanted to get home and put my thoughts down on paper, but Delilah brought my momentum to a screeching halt.
She was hovering over my bike, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. Something on the handlebars had caught her attention, probably the computer. When I cleared my throat, she turned her head toward me.
“Do you really use this thing to get around town?” When I nodded, she let out a humph and tapped the ashes from her cigarette so they floated in the direction of my saddle bags. “If you ask me, a car makes a whole lot more sense.”
Was the woman trying to send me a message of some sort? Intimidation, perhaps? If so, it was a waste of energy on her part. I didn’t have time or the inclination for games.
