Ruthless: The Faces of Evil Series: Book 6

by Debra Webb

  Keep your mind on the task at hand, Jess. After this interview, she and Lori would tackle the meter readers and see if Corlew had missed anything.

  “Mrs. Myers taught school until Dorie went missing,” Lori said. “After all these years of hoping she might be found, do you think she’ll be helpful under the circumstances?”

  “The survivors often withdraw.” Jess took the steps up onto the big shady porch. “Sometimes it’s easier to just stay someplace safe in your mind so you don’t have to touch the pain. For others it helps to touch the hurt often. To review every last detail time and time again until it’s bearable. We all have our own way of grieving.”

  “That was my way.”

  Jess wasn’t sure who jumped the highest, her or Lori, at the sound of the woman’s voice. She sat on the porch swing deep in the shadow cast by a large, flowing Lady Banks rose which had long ago overtaken the far end of the porch.

  “Mrs. Myers?” Jess waited for a response before introducing herself or moving toward where the woman waited.

  “I’m Rita Myers. My husband’s at the barn, but he’ll be along.”

  Since Rita seemed content to remain on the swing, Jess walked slowly in that direction. “I’m Deputy Chief Jess Harris and this is Detective Lori Wells.”

  “I thought we’d sit out here.” Rita looked around as if seeing her porch for the first time. “It’s still cool enough to enjoy the morning.” She gestured to the table nestled between two wicker chairs. A tall sweating pitcher and two glasses waited on a tray. “I made lemonade.”

  “Thank you.” Jess took the chair closest to the swing. Lori settled in the other. “Your home is so peaceful.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jess poured a glass of lemonade. “This summer has sure been a hot one. According to the weatherman there’s no relief in sight.”

  “Keeps folks looking for ways to cool off.” Rita gave a push with her bare toe, setting the swing in motion. “I’ve made a lot of lemonade this summer.”

  Jess sipped the cool drink. “Hmm. It’s delicious.”

  “My grandmother always said lemonade wasn’t lemonade if you didn’t leave the pulp in the lemon juice.”

  Jess smiled. “I think your grandmother was right.”

  Lori poured herself a glass as well. “I love your roses, Mrs. Myers.”

  The ghost of a smile touched the woman’s lips. “I planted that Lady Banks the year my son was born. The next year I planted a pink Angel Face climber on the east end of the house to celebrate my daughter’s birth. You’ll have to take a look before you leave. It’s more beautiful this year than ever.”

  “My mother loves roses.” Cradling her glass in both hands, Lori relaxed in her chair. “She planted roses when my sister and I were born as well. That’s a nice tradition.”

  Jess had no idea if her mother had planted anything for her and Lily. Both their parents had died when Jess was only ten. Unfortunately she and Lil didn’t know much at all about either side of their family. There was the aunt on their mother’s side, for what that was worth.

  Jess decided to start her questions with a good memory. “When did you and your husband buy this farm?”

  “He bought it as a wedding present for me. My parents were city dwellers, and I had all these fond memories of my grandmother and her little country home.” That tiny smile was back. “He wanted me to have my heart’s desire.”

  “He sounds like a keeper,” Jess suggested. “Those are few and far between.”

  “After twenty-five years I guess it would be kind of silly to decide he wasn’t.” Rita picked at the hem of her blouse. “Dale got our son through his teenage years alone. After what happened I couldn’t be there for him. I owe my husband a huge debt for picking up my slack.”

  “You wanted to find your daughter.” Jess had read the reports about how often Rita Myers had attempted to nudge the investigators along on the Man in the Moon case. She didn’t want to believe the children were dead. About five years ago she had stopped making queries. Maybe that was when she’d finally found that place she could bear.

  And now the pain was back.

  “It was my job,” she insisted, as if they should have known this. “I’m her mother. I couldn’t just sit back and wait for the police to find her. I had to do something.”

  “Rita,” Jess said, choosing her words carefully, “when your daughter went missing, you stated to the police that you had often felt like someone was watching you and Dorie. Can you tell me about that?”

  “For about six months before she… disappeared every time we’d go into town to shop for groceries I’d feel like someone was following us around the store.” She shrugged, her fingers busy with that hem. “I tried to catch whoever it was, but I never could. Dale thought I was losing it. Dorie didn’t seem to notice, so I tried to ignore the feelings.” She shrugged. “But it was there every time. My grandmother used to say that some people felt things others didn’t. A sort of knowing. After Dorie went missing, I decided I must’ve been sensing what was coming.”

  “You could never pinpoint any one person who always seemed to be there when you got those feelings?” Jess knew exactly the feeling she meant. For weeks now she had felt as if someone was watching her. Unfortunately her feelings had nothing to do with a sixth sense. Spears had pals of his keeping an eye on her.

  Rita shook her head. “Never did. And after that night, Dale cried and cried because he hadn’t believed me. He felt like he’d failed our daughter. Failed me.”

  “Did Dorie ever mention anyone talking to her at school or at any time when she may have been out of your sight? A stranger or someone she didn’t know well?”

  Another defeated shake of her head. “There was nothing. For years after she was gone, I would play every moment of those last few weeks over and over in my mind. My friends stopped coming by or calling because that’s all I wanted to talk about.”

  “But you had to do what you had to do.” Jess understood. It was a coping mechanism she’d needed to survive an inconceivable tragedy.

  Rita nodded. “Some don’t understand. I hope they never have to.”

  “It’s routine procedure to consider anyone, whether friends of yours or Dorie’s or even family members, as suspects. Was there anyone who you felt could have been involved in her disappearance? Someone maybe the police overlooked or cleared too hastily?”

  “That part was extremely difficult.” She stared at her glass of lemonade for a long moment. “Even Dale was questioned so many times that he was sick of the whole process. I tried to explain that we didn’t know anyone who would do anything like that, but the detectives kept telling us they had a job to do. It just seemed like a waste of time to me.”

  Most people felt that way, and yet more often than not they knew the person who had taken their child. “May we see Dorie’s bedroom?”

  “Sure.” Rita pushed up from the swing. “I thought you might want to look around in there so I opened up the window to air it out.”

  The house wasn’t fancy by any means. Just large rooms with much-loved wood floors and walls covered with family photos and collections of cherished finds. The sofa and chairs wore slipcovers, and someone had taken a coat of paint to the old farm table. The place could have graced the pages of a chic decorating magazine.

  At the back of the house, there were two bedrooms separated by a bathroom. Rita led them to the one on the left.

  It wasn’t necessary to have visited the home before to know they had stepped back in time thirteen years. The daffodil yellow walls of the bedroom were adorned with Barbie posters and princess pictures cut from magazines. The covers on the bed were drawn back; the pillow was rumpled as if someone had slept there last night. But Jess instinctively knew no one had slept in this room since the night Dorie went missing.

  The once bright sunny rug next to the bed was a little dingy. A pair of little girls’ sneakers lay on the floor next to it.

  “You don’t mind if we look aro
und?”

  Rita looked surprised by Jess’s question but then she nodded. “Look all you want.” She glanced at the door. “I should go see what’s keeping my husband.”

  “We’ll be right here,” Jess promised.

  As soon as the mother was out of the room, Jess tugged on a pair of gloves and whispered, “Look inside and under everything.”

  “You got it.” Lori pulled a pair from her slacks pocket and snapped them on.

  Working quickly, they examined every doll, stuffed toy, drawer, the closet—top to bottom, even inside the pockets of clothing. Jess wiggled her head and shoulders under the twin-size bed and had a look. She checked between the mattress and the box springs and beneath the fitted sheet.

  “What about this?”

  Jess joined Lori at the rear window. The room had two windows, one to the left as you entered the room and one on the south side, at the back of the house that overlooked the big yard and the woods beyond.

  Striped floor-length curtain panels hung on each side of the large window. But it wasn’t the cheery curtains that had garnered Lori’s attention. It was the deep scratches in the window stool.

  “I don’t remember seeing anything about this in the reports from this scene.” Jess had read them all. There was no tampering whatsoever listed. She peeled off her gloves and stuffed them in her bag.

  “It was Samson.”

  Jess turned to the man who’d spoken from the doorway. Dale Myers lingered there, his wife at his side.

  “Samson?” Jess asked as she moved toward the couple.

  “Our Labrador retriever,” he explained. “We got him as a pup the Christmas… before. He was supposed to be for both the kids but he loved Dorie the most.” He motioned to the window. “Dorie knew the dog wasn’t supposed to come in the bedrooms. He was supposed to sleep outside at night and be a guard dog. But she’d sneak him in after we all went to bed. She’d keep urging him until he’d jump in through the window. He left a few marks.”

  The reports had mentioned a dog, which Jess found odd. Dogs usually barked. A guard dog who didn’t bark was like having a car that didn’t start. “Samson didn’t bark that night?”

  “That’s the part I’ll never figure out,” Dale admitted. “He’s a good dog. To this day he barks when a stranger comes around. But he didn’t bark that night. The only reason he didn’t rush to meet your car and bark like crazy when you drove up was because I had him in the barn with me. He growled and whined to let me know you were here.”

  That answered what would have been her next question. “Was he in Dorie’s room that night?”

  “We’re pretty sure he wasn’t.” Rita looked to her husband as if wanting to confirm her answer.

  “We don’t think he was,” Dale explained. “He was missing the next morning. That’s why we thought at first that Dorie had gone looking for him in the woods and gotten lost.”

  “He was missing that morning,” Jess repeated. Why hadn’t that information been in the official reports? “When did he come home? Or did you have to search for him?”

  Dale and Rita looked at each other again. “He was gone for about two days,” Dale finally said. “We told the police but they didn’t seem to think it was all that important.” The lingering fury burned in his tone.

  “One of our neighbors spotted him down by the creek,” Rita picked up where he left off. There was no anger in her voice, just defeat. “Every once in a while since she… left us… he’d be gone all day and we’d find him there. He and Dorie liked to play in that creek. We figured he was missing her, too. Since she wasn’t here anymore, he kept looking for her at their other favorite place.”

  “They dragged the creek,” Dale said, his voice thick with emotion. “Didn’t find anything, of course. We don’t really know how he ended up down there that night. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with… anything.”

  As if he’d sensed they were talking about him, Samson poked his head in the room. He eyed Jess and Lori suspiciously.

  “Hey, Samson.” Jess decided Samson had been a pretty big fellow even at only eight months old back when Dorie went missing. His sleek black hair was peppered with gray now. Somehow seeing him made Dorie all the more real. She had lived in this room and loved that big old dog.

  It took all the willpower Jess possessed to hold back the tears. What in the world was happening to her?

  “He sleeps in here every night, even now.” Rita scratched him behind the ears. “I think he spent all these years hoping she’d come back the same way we did.”

  Dale’s arms went around his wife and he held her close as she regathered her composure. He brushed his lips across her temple and whispered soothing words to her. Watching him comfort her was the most tender yet the most painful thing Jess had ever witnessed. She blinked back the renewed sting of tears. Lately she was having a heck of a time controlling her emotions.

  Rita managed a watery smile. “Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize,” Jess assured her. She took a deep breath to loosen the knot in her chest. “Was there anyone who came around the house that Samson wouldn’t bark at? Besides family, I mean?”

  The detectives’ reports confirmed how thoroughly the family, neighbors, and friends had been investigated. Deputy Chief Black and his team had gone above and beyond to rule out each person who might have had access to the child.

  “I’m telling you he barks at most everyone. He did then and he does now,” Dale maintained. “If you weren’t a part of the family or a friend who came over pretty regularly he was gonna bark at you.”

  “What about the meter readers and telephone repairmen, folks like that?” No matter what Corlew said, Jess intended to follow that lead. Something may have been missed. A fresh look never hurt. As much as she didn’t want to believe he would purposely botch an investigation involving a missing child, she couldn’t risk that she was wrong.

  Dale looked to his wife again. “Most of them are scared of him, wouldn’t you say?”

  She nodded. “They don’t get out of their vehicles until they see that one of us is home.”

  Taking into consideration the couple’s absolute certainty, there was only one explanation for why Samson didn’t bark that night.

  Either Dorie was taken by someone she knew—someone Samson knew—or she and the dog had been lured away from the house so no one would hear a sound.

  Jess leaned forward in her seat. “That’s it. Turn right after the speed limit sign.”

  Dale Myers had given clear directions to the creek where they had found Samson after Dorie’s abduction. Still, they would have missed the turn if not for the speed limit sign he’d mentioned in his directions.

  The car bumped off the highway onto the narrow gravel road.

  Jess cursed under her breath. “Why don’t we park here and walk down to the creek? He said it’s not far. I don’t want to damage your car.”

  Lori surveyed the woods that had already engulfed them only a few yards from the paved road. “I don’t know if we should get out of the car. There’s a whole lot of opportunities for someone to hide in these woods.”

  Good God, Burnett had drilled Lori and Harper about protecting her until they could scarcely do their jobs. With a big sigh for emphasis, Jess powered her window down. “Do you hear that?”

  Lori frowned. “Hear what?”

  “Exactly. I think we’ll be able to hear anyone coming once they turn onto this gravel road.”

  Lori removed the weapon holstered at her waist. “Well, alrighty then.”

  Jess palmed her Glock and shouldered her bag then climbed out of the car. She moved carefully down the gravel road. It was a bit slow going at first, since the road dipped steeply downward before leveling off and cutting toward the creek. Dale Myers had said they went fishing here. Lots of folks who lived along this road did. It was walking distance from the Myers farm, not more than a mile and a half or two.

  “I think I’ll start keeping a pair of sneakers in the trunk,
” Lori grumbled.

  “Keep two,” Jess suggested. High heels, no matter how stylish or what designer label they sported, just didn’t go with gravel roads.

  The bubbling and trickling of the water revived her determination. Jess moved more quickly toward the sound. As she got closer, the road widened into an area good for parking two or three vehicles. Nearer the water the thick shade canopy blocked most of the sun and weeds grew along the paths leading to the water’s edge.

  “If you like to swim, this would be the place to be on a hot summer day.” Lori surveyed the creek from a safe distance. “Wide and deep enough for a paddle canoe or a flat-bottomed boat.”

  Lori was terrified of water. Jess hadn’t talked to her about it, but obviously she had no desire to get too close to the water’s edge. Jess turned around and studied the road that led to this spot. The main road wasn’t visible from here. The Mustang, either. Once a vehicle pulled down into this flat area, no one passing on the road would know it was here.

  The story Myers had told about their dog and how he’d been found here two days after Dorie went missing kept niggling at Jess That dog had come here and then waited for a reason.

  “This is where he parked,” Jess decided.

  Lori’s gaze collided with hers as if the same epiphany had just struck her. “He walked through the woods and approached the Myers home from the rear. He walked straight up to Dorie’s window.”

  “But Samson didn’t bark,” Jess countered.

  “He used one of those training whistles or whatever,” Lori suggested. “Called the pup to him and gave him a treat. He’d probably done it before just to be sure Samson would go for it. Then they went to the house together.”

  “He used the dog to lure Dorie out through the window and he brought her here.” Jess’s heart pounded so hard she could no longer hear the trickling water or the whisper of the breeze shifting the leaves of the trees.

  “Only he hadn’t counted on Samson following them this far or refusing to go back to the house.”

  “Poor thing probably tried to follow the bastard’s vehicle but ended up back here when he couldn’t keep up.” Jess played the scenario over and over in her head. “Or the perp could have left him the treats or a pile of dog food then drove away while Samson was occupied with an unexpected windfall.”