“You know, it hit me this morning that my two-year-old daughter will never remember her sister. She’s too young to realize that something terrible has happened. To her, the world is the same. It’s very hard for my wife. She doesn’t want to show the baby how upset she is, but it’s an impossible task. If you want, I can wake her, she went to take a nap with my daughter. She’s trying to keep the routine normal.”
He was rambling, and I let him. “No, that’s fine, Mr. Weston. I hope you can answer our questions. If not, we can speak to your wife later, when she’s feeling better.”
“Oh, sure, no problem…” His eyes drifted over to the pictures again.
“Do you know if Kimberly was having any problems with anyone? Did she mention that anyone was making her feel uncomfortable?” I asked him.
He shook his head. He was tall and rather good-looking, in a rough sort of way. When I noticed a tiny diamond stud in his left ear, I imagined him riding a Harley.
“No, nothing specific. My daughter was very competitive, and she was very pretty. She complained at times that some girls gave her a hard time. My wife told her they were just jealous and that she should just ignore them.”
“Did she mention any girls specifically, Mr. Weston?” Marty asked him.
Weston
thought for a second before he answered.
“She was always in competition with the Camp girl. Kimmy was very excited about running against Jamie in the homecoming queen contest. They were competitive, but friendly, until this boy Dylan came into the picture.”
My stomach did a somersault the moment he said Dylan’s name.
“I wasn’t privy to it, but my wife said that the girls would get into some pretty heated arguments about this kid. I think that’s when their friendship ended.”
Kimberly
’s brother came back into the room and put his hands on his dad’s shoulders in a show of comfort. I hadn’t noticed before how much he resembled his dead sister. He would be a constant reminder to his parents of the child they lost and the horror she endured before she died.
Mr.
Weston
put his hand up to his son’s and laid it atop of the young boy’s fingers, giving them a gentle squeeze. He lifted his head and looked at the boy.
“Ethan, did Kimmy ever mention that she was afraid of anyone? These people are trying to find the bas—.” He stopped short, considering his language, and found a different word to describe our perpetrator.
“They are trying to find the person responsible for what happened. Do you remember if there is anything that Kimmy may have said that could help them?”
Ethan
shook his head, his hazel eyes still red from crying.
“I don’t know, Daddy, a lot of girls were jealous of Kimmy, but she wasn’t afraid of anyone,” he said, raising his voice in anger as he fought back the tears. It was futile, and he began to cry.
As a tear reached his dad’s shoulder, the older man hugged the boy to his chest. Ethan could no longer control his emotions and sobbed quietly into his father’s shoulder.
I got up, and Marty followed suit.
“I appreciate your help, Mr. Weston. If there is anything that you feel may be important, please—no matter how inconsequential you believe it may be—please don’t hesitate to call.”
I handed him my business card and I smiled at Kimberly’s brother as he peeked up at me.
“When your wife is feeling better, please have her give me a call. I know how difficult this is for your family, but sometimes even the tiniest bit of information, or any uncomfortable feeling you may have about something, may be substantial in an investigation like this.”
We left the house. I felt as though I had learned nothing of significance. I had two dead girls, both beautiful in physical appearance, but neither of who was going to be a candidate to win a Miss Congeniality award.
Was it their personalities that got them killed, or their looks? Or, was I totally off base, and was there some stranger lurking in the woods? Could they both simply have had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Somehow, I doubted it. I had a gut instinct that both these girls were lured to their deaths by someone they knew well.
The big question… who?
Chapter Eighteen
One week later
Marty didn’t want to admit it to anyone, himself included, that he was still angry with Hope. As much as he had anticipated her reaction to his proposal, he wasn’t ready to accept her lack of a positive answer, much less no answer at all.
After the interview at the Weston’s,’ he dropped Jean off at home and headed to his father’s place. He was still staying there several days later. He hadn’t spoken to Hope or seen her since. She had tried to call him, but he always had an excuse as to why he couldn’t talk or see her. He was busy with the case and didn’t have any free time.
He knew he was being childish, but he didn’t care. If Hope was so unsure of their relationship that she couldn’t commit to him in marriage...
Well screw her,
he thought.
Let her see what life is like without me
.
The department set up a task force for the recent murders. Marty and Jean had spent the past few days following up phone tips and conducting interviews. They had learned nothing substantial, and he was wondering whether the killer was going to get away with murder.
After another day passed with the investigation at a complete standstill, Jean and Marty decided to call it an early day. He was able to get home early enough to have dinner with his father.
He smelled the sauce cooking on the stove before he set foot in the front room. His stomach began to gurgle, and he suddenly realized just how hungry he was. The cold Meatball Hero he’d had earlier hadn’t made a dent in his appetite.
He headed in the direction of the spicy aroma, making his way into the kitchen as he called out for his father.
“Pop, smells good…” He stopped and stood in the center of the empty room as he got an overwhelming feeling that something was wrong. The small television that sat on the kitchen bar was on, but the volume was muted. The sauce was making a bubbling sound. Marty lifted the lid and immediately turned off the flame under the pot when he saw that the liquid was within seconds of boiling over.
The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention when he realized that the back door was wide open and his father was nowhere in sight.
“Pop?” he called out again as he made his way over to the open door. He looked out, his eyes focusing on the short path that led past the unfenced back yard and into the woods behind the house.
The sun was sinking into the horizon and daylight was rapidly coming to an end. Off to the northeast, storm clouds were starting to roll in again and the shadows coming from the spruce trees behind the house were making it hard to see very far into the woods.
Starting to get a little more anxious, he raised his voice, this time shouting his father’s nickname.
“Captain!” and under his breath, “Where the hell are you, Pop?”
The landline telephone rang, startling him. Marty walked over to the ancient black phone that was hanging on the wall and lifted the receiver.
“Hello!” he barked anxiously into the phone.
“Marty, why are you yelling?” He immediately recognized his sister Mary’s voice.
“Sorry, Mar,” he apologized as he continued to scan the room, looking for clues to where his father may have gone. “I just got here and I don’t see the Captain. The back door was open and…”
Although he didn’t want to panic Mary, his eldest sibling, he knew the nervousness he was feeling was creeping into his voice.
“Let me call you back. No… call me back on my cell,” he told her as he tried to stretch the black cord as far as he could. He couldn’t get it long enough to be able to see out the back door and he didn’t want to break the connection with her.
She hung up immediately and his cell phone barely got out a note of his ring tone before he answered it.
He walked back out the open doorway and tapped the speaker icon as he explained to Mary what he had found when he came home a few minutes earlier.
As he was explaining, he thought he heard sounds off in the distance.
“Shh,” he told her, trying to get a feel for what it was he was hearing. His own footsteps sounded magnified as he stepped on small twigs and fallen tree branches.
“Marty, you’re scaring me.” He heard his sister’s voice through the cell phone.
“Mary, ssh!” he told her once again as he walked deeper into the cluster of trees. “Pop!” he hollered out for a third time, again getting no answer. This time he realized the sound he’d heard was nothing more than a family of squirrels playfully chasing each other around one of the larger trunks.
He was about to tell Mary to hang up so he could call 911 when he heard his neighbor’s familiar voice call out his name.
“Marty, it’s Peri.”
He kept the cell phone line open as he turned and walked back toward the house. Peri, the lady who had lived next door to his father for the last thirty years, was making her way through their yard.
“Your dad is at my house,” she went on to explain. “Al found him walking down the road. He looked disoriented, so my husband convinced him to come into my house. He’s okay now, but he is a little upset with himself.”
Marty spoke into his cell phone. “Mary, it’s okay, I’ll call you back,” he told his sister, breaking the connection without taking the time to say goodbye.
“Thanks, Mrs. Kolakowski,” he said, letting out a sigh of relief. Suddenly, his thoughts went to Jean as he realized exactly how she felt when she didn’t know where her daughter was.
“Marty, he’s okay, but…” She hesitated as she tried to find the right words.
Marty, being so tall, had to look down at the woman, for the top of her head barely reached his chest. Although the woman had no children of her own, she had become something of a surrogate mother to Marty and his family when his own mother passed away.
The now gray-haired Mrs. Kolakowski had fulfilled the feminine role that the family needed desperately at the time. It was especially a godsend for Mary, the only girl, who was still just a teenager living in a house full of testosterone.
Mrs.
Kolakowski
carefully gathered her thoughts before she continued.
“Marty, he was really angry there for a while. It was scary. What’s going on? This isn’t like your dad at all.”
As he continued to walk with her toward the Kolakowski’s house, Marty tried to find something to say.
“He has an appointment with the neurologist in a week. I’m going to try and move it up. I’m really sorry, Mrs. K…”
“Please, Marty, don’t apologize. Your dad has been a saint to us. If it wasn’t for him…” She stopped when she saw her husband and the Captain walking toward them.
Marty could tell by the expression on his dad’s face that he was angry and humiliated. The Captain continued to walk past Marty, saying nothing, and made his way into his own home, leaving Marty to apologize once again and thank his neighbors for their help.
By the time Marty got back to the house, the sauce was back on the burner and his father was setting the table.
“Pop…”
“Look, I don’t want to talk about it… just get cleaned up and get ready for dinner,” the Captain said sharply as he opened and then slammed the refrigerator door.
“I have to call Mary back, she’s worried,” Marty said, glaring at him.
“Fine, call her back. Tell her I’m fine,” he hissed.
“Dad, you’re not fine. Something is definitely wrong.” He turned and shut the back door that was still wide open.
Marty walked over to his father and gently prompted him to sit down. He sat himself down opposite the older man and scanned his father’s face. Once again, he was alarmed at the changes that he was seeing. The Captain’s blue eyes, which were once his most prominent feature, were now cloudy and almost void of all color. Deep crevices had formed around his lips and they, too, were pale. Taking a few moments, Marty carefully formed his words.
“Pop, I know you’re scared, I am, too.”
His father started to say something in protest, but Marty interrupted him. “I think it would be a good idea if we had someone stay with you while I’m working.”
“Look, I don’t need no damn babysitter, I…”
Suddenly the older man’s words gave way to his emotions. He sat there, saying nothing further, letting Marty know that he wasn’t going to argue with him. The last episode had frightened him enough that he was ready to relinquish some control to his son.
Marty thought for a second, trying to think of who would be the best candidate, who his father would be less likely to balk about.
“How about if I get Uncle Brian to come visit for a while? I’ll bet he needs a good, long vacation, being surrounded by all those girls. He’s probably overloaded on estrogen,” he said, referring to the fact that his father’s younger brother had recently moved in with his youngest daughter and her five daughters.
His father stood up and walked back to the stove to throw some pasta in the boiling water.
“Fine, just until I see that damn doctor,” he said, deliberately avoiding looking at his son’s face.
“We’ll see…” Marty was about to ask his father for Brian’s telephone number when his own cell went off.
“Damn it!” he said aloud as soon as he recognized the number. His father turned and glared at him.
“Keal,” he barked into the phone.
He listened intently for a few moments before saying anything.
“I’m on my way.” He put his phone back in his pocket and grabbed his coat.
“Sorry, Pop, can you keep that warm for me?” he said, motioning to the dish his father had filled for him.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on, Marty?” the Captain asked.
“We have another missing girl. Katie Hepburn, the mayor’s stepdaughter,” Marty told him. “Knox called in, frantic, said they haven’t heard from her in hours. I hope it’s nothing. I gotta go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He wondered whether leaving his dad alone was a good idea. Frustrated, he felt he had no other choice.
He had a sick feeling that this was not good. Another teenage girl missing was not good. Not good at all.