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After finishing night shifts in sub-zero temperatures the men were none too pleased to see him on their doorsteps early on a Saturday morning. It was the same at each house. The men answered each question with a curt “No.” It was as if they had turned into the three wise monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil—just to annoy him. By the time he left the postal worker’s house, he wondered if they all had something to hide.
He slid behind the wheel of his truck, glad to be inside in the warm, and checked his notes. His head hurt like a bitch but he decided to chase down one more lead before returning to the office. Jenna had arranged to interview Ella Tate after lunch and a quick glance at his watch told him time was running short. He turned and rubbed Duke’s ears in the back seat. Curled up asleep, wrapped in his blanket, the bloodhound opened one dark brown eye to look at him before sighing and burying his head in the soft blue covers. “I’ll get you into the office as soon as I can. Although, Maggie is spoiling you and by spring you’ll be too fat to keep up with the horses.”
His last stop would be about a call that came through the information line from the local mailman, John Wright. He punched the mail carrier’s address into the GPS and turned his truck onto the road. Ice crystals had formed around his windows even with the blast of hot air from the heater, and snow piled up on the wiper blades with each pass over the windshield. Saturday in Black Rock Falls was normally busy, with people milling around, but this morning the town was unusually quiet. Apart from the odd bundled up person walking a dog and the smoke from the chimneys, he would have thought the entire town had headed south for the winter. No doubt, the predicted blizzard was keeping everyone at home. He negotiated the blinding white streets and turned into a driveway. Leaving his engine running to keep Duke warm, he made his way with care along the partially cleared pathway to the front door.
His boots crunched on the small patches of ice as he ducked under the icicles hanging from the front porch to peer through the falling snow at the festive wreath hanging on the front door, looking for a bell or knocker. Finding neither, he rapped on the door with his knuckles. The sound of music drifted through the door and the blinking green and red lights of a Christmas tree reflected against the snow-covered windowsills.
The door opened a crack and a young girl looked up at him with big blue eyes, blonde curls tumbling over her shoulders. Her face broke into a wide smile. He smiled back, appreciating the ray of sunshine on a bleak day. “I’m Deputy Kane, is your dad home?”
“I’ll tell him.” She frowned. “But I have to shut the door. You stay there.”
The door closed and a few moments later opened again. A man in his thirties, tall and robust with thick brown hair, peered at him. “Mornin’, Deputy, what can I do for you?’
Kane pulled out his notebook. “John Wright? You called in on our hotline about the missing woman?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Wright looked at him expectantly.
Kane winced as a snowflake melted and slid down his neck. “I’d like some more information, if you have time?”
“Sure do.” Wright stepped back and glanced at his snow-covered coat. “Why don’t you leave your coat in the mudroom? We can talk in the kitchen. Jilly has just made a jug of hot chocolate.” He waved to a small room filled with coats and boots close to the front door.
“Thanks.” Kane kicked the snow from his boots and wiped them clean on the mat before stepping into the house. He removed his gloves, then shrugged out of his coat and found an empty peg on the wall in the mudroom to hang it.
The house smelled of hot chocolate, cinnamon and freshly baked cake. Kids peered at him from around corners. As he followed Wright along the hallway, he glanced into the family room complete with a deliciously warm log fire. A small woman with a mass of blonde curls and the same big blue eyes as her daughter welcomed him as if she had known him for years.
“Come on in, you look frozen.” She gestured to a seat. “Sit down. I have hot chocolate and fresh-baked cookies straight from the oven if you’re hungry?”
Kane smiled at her. “Thanks, that would be great.” He sat down in his appointed chair and Wright sat down opposite.
“This is my wife, Jilly.” Wright leaned forward in his seat, cradling a cup between his hands. “She convinced me to call. It sounds a bit trivial but the newsreader did say if we’d seen or heard anythin’ unusual to call in, so I did.”
Kane nodded in thanks as Mrs. Wright gave him a cup of hot chocolate and pushed a plate of cookies in front of him. As much as he wanted to devour them like the Cookie Monster, he laid his notepad on the table and lifted his pen, then looked at Wright. “What do you have for me?”
“Two things. One might not be much but the other might be important. Being a postal worker, I get to see the daily lives of people more than most.” Wright dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You heard of a man by the name of Jeff Knox? He is out of Blackwater, drives a pickup on a regular run a few times a week from Blackwater to here at night and has priors. The sheriff charged him with raping a hitchhiker. He never made it to court. I hear the Blackwater
DA didn’t find enough proof or somethin’?”
Kane made notes, then gave in to the temptation and helped himself to a cookie. “What makes you figure he’s involved?”
“I overheard someone talking in the line at Aunt Betty’s. They said someone saw Knox carrying a woman into the Blackwater Motel, same night that young woman went missin’. They mentioned his name.” Wright gave him a smug smile. “And I just happen to know who that was; his name is Ty Aitken and he opened that fancy bakery in Blackwater, last fall.”
The lead was hearsay at best but he wrote down the information. It wouldn’t hurt to shake down Aitken and see what fell out. He sipped the hot chocolate. “You mentioned two things?” He bit into a cookie. Not as good as Jenna’s chocolate chip, but very tasty.
“Yeah, it is probably nothin’ but I often see Doc Weaver on the road up in the industrial area. I pass her on Tuesdays as I’m heading out of town and she’s on her way back. I guess she has a patient out that way but yesterday she passed me on the highway heading way too fast and took the turn to the industrial area.” Wright shrugged. “Seemed strange considerin’ everywhere up there is closed.”
I need to dig a bit deeper on Doctor Weaver. A shiver slid across Kane’s neck and he lifted his gaze from his notes. “What time do you normally see her?”
“On Tuesdays, around four, but yesterday, I was held up by the snowplow, darn thing goes so slow, I didn’t get to my last stop until late, maybe four thirty, or it could have been later.” Wright scratched his chin. “I didn’t get back to the post office until way after five and my boss was none too pleased.”
Kane finished his hot chocolate and closed his notepad. “Thanks, you’ve been very helpful. If you hear or see anything else, give me a call.” He pulled a card from his pocket and slid it across the table, then stood. “Thanks for the drink and cookies.”
“Take a few more.” Mrs. Wright slipped a few into a paper bag and handed it to him. “You need to eat in this weather.”
Still overwhelmed by the generosity of the people of Black Rock Falls, Kane smiled at her. “That’s very kind of you, ma’am.” But his mind was not on cookies as he headed for the mudroom to collect his coat.
He made his way to his truck and climbed inside, then offered a cookie to Duke. He pulled out his cellphone and called Jenna to update her. “I’m on my way back to the office now.”
“Okay. I could send Rowley out to speak to Ty Aitken about Knox this afternoon. His driver’s license will be on file. It will be interesting to see if he is the same build as the Axman.” She paused a beat as if thinking. “I’ll call Wolfe and see if his FBI friends have discovered anything interesting about Doctor Weaver and if he has any blood test results for Ella.” He could hear her fingers tapping on the desk. “I don’t like this, Kane. She is involved in something, I just know it.”
