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Devine looked back at the house as he sat in the SUV, his spirits as bleak as the weather.
The case had its difficulties, but so did every other challenge he’d confronted. No, it wasn’t the case that bothered him so much. It was knowing that no matter what he did he could not make people who were not whole, whole. Not Alex. Not Curtis Silkwell. Not his ex-wife. Not Earl or Annie Palmer. Not anyone whose life had been touched by Jenny Silkwell.
Including me, and I never even knew the woman.
He drove to the police station and found that neither Fuss nor Harper was there. But there was a woman he had been introduced to before. Her name was Mildred James, and she handled the dispatch and all the admin work for the department.
“I’m not sure when they’ll be back,” said James. “Can I do anything for you?”
He sat down across from her. “You lived here long?”
“I was born here fifty-nine years ago next week.”
“Happy early birthday, then. So you know the Silkwells?”
“Oh sure. Wonderful family. It’s so awful what happened to Jenny. I’m sure her parents are very upset. Well, I heard Senator Silkwell is not well, so he may not...be aware.”
“You like working here?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t. There’s never too much to do, I mean nothing that you’d call exciting. And that’s not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. But with more people moving into the area, we are getting more calls and such. There’s even talk of hiring another officer or two.”
“Were you working here when Alex was assaulted?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve been working here over twenty years. Thank God whoever attacked her didn’t kill her.”
I think they killed part of her, Devine thought.
“What can you tell me about the incident?” he asked.
“Well, I was on duty and got the call that a woman had been attacked. I took the information and dispatched the response.”
“Wait a minute, who called it in?”
“The people who found her.”
“Howdidthey find her?”
“Let me think. Yes, they said they were driving past a spot along the coast and they happened to look out and see something lying there. The husband got out to see what it was while the wife waited in the car. He recognized that it was Alex. He ran back to the car and told his wife to call the police, which she did.”
“And then Alex was taken to a hospital where she awoke but couldn’t remember anything?”
“That’s right. That hospital has since closed, it was only ten minutes from here, thank God, or Alex might not have made it. Now, she couldn’t give a statement or help in any way. She was clearly in shock and she had a skull fracture. Her life was in danger until they got things under control. The officers searched the area where she was found, but didn’t find any evidence worth anything. And they canvassed for witnesses, but no one saw anything.”
“Were her parents in town when it happened?”
“Mrs. Silkwell was, and she rushed right over to the hospital when we notified her. Stayed there all through the night. Jenny came up from Washington to help, too.”
“And Dak was out of the country in the Army?”
“I believe that’s right.”
“And Senator Silkwell?”
“He flew up straightaway on a chartered plane a friend of his arranged. I actually picked him up at the airport and drove him to the hospital. He was beside himself with rage, guilt, you name it and that man was feeling it.”
“I understand she had been raped?” Devine said in a low voice.
James assumed a pained expression. “Yes. I’m not sure Alex remembered that part or any part. The mind is funny like that. But her examination clearly showed that she had been raped. We still have the rape kit after all this time, but we never had a suspect to match it to. We ran it through the usual databases and such but never got a hit. We were all hoping that Alex would regain her memory and identify her attacker if she knew him, or at least give a description, but she never did. Now it’s a very cold case.”
