Pursuit (8 page)

B
ack in her
suite of private offices—or basement, as most people referred to it—Julie continued her dogged pursuit of past wrongs revisited. Three weeks into administrative duty, she so far she had spoken with one, and met with two of four missing girls' relatives—diminished capacity Beverly Preston and William Drew. The redneck woman on the phone seemed uninterested. Gut feelings couldn't always be trusted, but in the case of the factory boss, she was confident that he'd told her all he knew about niece Trudy.

Pastor Garthwait, the name being unusual, sounded familiar to Julie. His listing in the phone book came up the same as in the 1995 police file. After listening to eight bars of “Onward Christian Soldiers” on the phone before a human came on, Julie readied herself for a holier-than-thou pastor.

“We are blessed on this God-given crystal day. Would it be amenable to meet here at God's temple within the hour, Miss Ward?”

“It's Sergeant Worth, and let's say twenty minutes.”
Julie glanced at the grey muddled sky and thought it would be more likely to produce rivers and lakes than crystal.

On the way out of the building, she bumped into Walker leaving for lunch.

“Worth!” he called out over his shoulder. “Check with evidence, they've got something on the ring we picked up from your Preston gal, okay?”

Julie parked out front and let herself into the modest white frame building. “Reverend?”

Pastor Garthwait sat in the front pew of his church, a well-worn King James Bible open on his lap. He turned, stiff-necked, to Julie's greeting. “You are Sergeant Worth?” He continued, not waiting for a reply. “I've been sitting here contemplating”—he motioned for Julie to sit in the pew next to him—“why one covets. The Book states one should not covet our neighbor's wife nor his house nor—”

“Excuse me, all good thoughts, but could we speak of your daughter's 1995 disappearance?”

The man held the Bible to his forehead.

“Sir?”

“Sorry, I needed to give thanks for this message from Him, of our departed.”

“To be honest, there isn't any message as such.” She wasn't sure if any of this would be pertinent. “As I explained on the phone, this is just a follow-up on what we, in the department, refer to as a cold case.”

“She left as she lived, swiftly and without regard. There was a man, several times seen in the back of the church.” Once again the pastor stretched his neck toward the entrance of the gallery. “Just there, close to the choir loft steps. In thinking back upon it, I recall a smile, not
one of warmth but of knowing a vast hidden story—an enigmatic presence.”

“Did you at the time describe this man to the police?”

“Yes, I gave as his description ‘a Satan-like presence, diminutive in stature.' There seemed a glow surrounding him. Others who witnessed him were blinded by his aura.”

“Was there ever a composite drawn of this man?”

“I don't recall. But those who did attest to his presence now dwell in heaven. Gone the way of all flesh.”

Julie read several eyewitness observations in the reports of a stranger loitering in and around the church several Sundays preceding the young woman's disappearance, but the accounts were vague and contradictory. One report detailed the man as being middle-aged and white. Another described him as clean cut with slicked-back dark hair; a third said he was definitely Hispanic. But all described him as being of less than average size.

“Was there ever any word at all from your daughter?”

“I speak to her at night when the calm envelops the earth. Her image comes to me as a shivering child spending the dark night naked without clothing and without covering against the cold, driving her sainted mother to utter distraction. The last we knew of her, she snooped through her mother's jewelry box.”

“Was there anything of value missing?” Julie didn't recall any mention of jewelry in the report.

“Value, you mean as in worth? Monetary? One cannot measure what one holds dear. Did it have merit, what she took? Her great-grandmother's gift to her daughter and then passed on. Value, you ask?” His voice rose, agitated as if sermonizing. “Yes, a deep, painful keepsake; a treasured inheritance. My grandmother was an ancestor of the
American Revolution; she treasured her one true item of vanity.”

“And what was that, sir?”

“A circled bangle, my child.” Once again he raised the Bible to his forehead, this time with his left hand, his right reaching into Julie's lap to clasp her folded hands. He held them for just a moment, and then excused himself, walked past the pulpit, and through a paneled door.

Julie made her way to her unmarked Charger, her hands damp from the reverend's unexpected pawing.
What in the hell is a bangle encircled?
she thought. A piece of jewelry with a band around it? A bauble with a band? Baubles, bangles, bright shiny beads.
Ah, Kismet
, she mused. Truly a stranger in paradise. Considering the business she was in, “paradise” was too strong a word.

The one constant in the eyewitness accounts, a “less than average size” description. Cold cases should be left just that. Cold.

The woman in charge of the evidence locker was of a different sexual persuasion. Being rebuffed by Julie several years earlier had made her less than cooperative ever since. Rather than a “What's up?” or a “How's it going?” greeting, she met Julie with a below-freezing attitude.

“I'd like to take a peek at the evidence in that missing-child case. The name was Preston, I think.”

“You think? No evidence number? You believe we catalogue evidence under ‘I think'?”

Julie examined her shoes, smoothed out her belt, and sipped in air. “Check under ‘Preston,' and if it's not there, give Captain Walker a call on his cell. He told me to take a look at this case. He didn't have an evidence number, but
I'm sure if you disturb him at lunch, he'd be glad to give it to you. Okay, Maddy baby?”

The woman went into the back of the cage and returned holding a file box with an envelope attached. “Sign the register.”

Julie did so, noting time and date. “You might want to put this in your memory bank—one little word for the future, Madeline.”

“What's that, Juliette?”

“The word is ‘Sergeant.' Don't forget it.”

The woman gave a halfhearted salute and returned to a table piled with bagged and tagged evidence.

The ring sat nestled in a layer of cotton. Julie used tweezers to lift and turn the piece in the light. The lab's exam hadn't taken much of the caked debris from the object. Here and there a bit of shiny metal but, all in all, much the same. In the envelope, a description of the article.

1. item 5205. Preston estate.

2. one gold ring. Size 6

3. age of item. Undetermined.

4. missing jewels on left side.

5. blurred insignia. Possible “delta” letter in ring's center

It continued on for almost a full page. Most of the information, routine.

“Do you have a magnifying glass, Madeline?”

The property clerk reached into a drawer and handed a rectangular magnifying glass to Julie. “Sign, please.”

Julie looked closer at the ring and spoke to Madeline at the same time. “If I have to sign for this glass while standing at this counter for thirty seconds, I'm going to make
your fucking life miserable.” She lowered the glass and tossed it back to Madeline.

“Why you giving me shit?”

“I think you're aware of why. A simple ‘no' doesn't seem good enough for you. I have nothing against your lifestyle, but it's not for me, and you seem to have taken offense. Get over it. That's the last I'll say on the subject. Give me an evidence withdrawal form.” Julie signed it and went to her file room on the same level.

In the strong light above her worktable and with her own high-powered magnifier, she discerned an embossed, damaged
B
or
D
for the first and third letters, and in the center of the ring, a triangular shape that looked like the letter
A
, or Greek symbol for alpha.

Julie continued to consider the ring and once again scanned the item with the magnifying glass. The third letter might also have been an
R
without the bottom stem of the letter. On closer examination, she saw a spot where glue could have held the diagonal leg of the letter. But it didn't make sense, a fraternity or sorority ring with an
R
.

A
full moon
lit the sky in a blue-grey wash, and trees and bushes cast dark shadows against gently rolling hills.

The lone figure stood on what local hikers referred to as Cameltop, the large, rocky hump being a challenge even to the best outdoorsmen. The night climber had a series of steps that only he knew. It had been, over the years, a simple matter of moving a few rocks at the bottom of the escarpment. When he was finished with his nocturnal ascent, he would place them back, sometimes sprinkling a little dirt into the cracks. He liked the idea that his vantage point was secluded and, for the most part, inaccessible.