The Names of Our Tears (10 page)

“I can find out if she worked at the Miller’s place in Sarasota,” Ricky said. “I’ll ask her father, maybe her mother.”

“Yes,” Robertson said. “But Ruth wrote home to Emma, and Alvin Zook thinks Emma still has the letters. So ask if you can read them, Ricky. Maybe bring them here.”

“Anything else?” Ricky asked.

“Yes, go see Mervin Byler again,” Robertson said. “Missy thinks he might have seen something. Or that maybe he heard something, because he found the body so soon after Ruth was shot.”

As Ricky was leaving, Cal Troyer angled through Robertson’s
door. Dressed in jeans and a blue corduroy work shirt, Cal greeted Robertson and Newell and said, “You’re not going to believe what’s going on out at the Zooks’.”

Robertson held up a hand. “First, Cal, do you know a Fannie Helmuth?”

“No. Should I?”

“Probably not.”

“Does she know why Ruth Zook was killed?” Cal asked, sitting down next to the captain.

Keeping to his seat, Robertson said, “I think she does, Cal. At least she’s given us an approach to take. It ties in with the drugs.”

“That’s what I came here about,” Cal said. “You’re not going to believe it.”

Newell stood and moved to the door, saying, “Sheriff, I’ll follow up with Fannie Helmuth.”

Newell left, and Robertson came out from behind his desk. Walking to the windows overlooking the Civil War monument, he said, “Let me guess. The EPA is throwing its weight around?”

Cal joined the sheriff at the window. Together they looked out at half an inch of new snow on the courthouse lawn. “How’d you know about the EPA?” Cal asked.

“This morning, they faxed us a copy of their initial complaint against the Zooks. They consider the farm to have suffered a toxic spill. An
intentional
toxic release, to be precise.”

“It’s a disaster,” Cal said. “They’re quarantining the milk cows. They’ve roped off the bottoms, below the pond. Their scientists are crawling all over the place. Won’t let the Zooks go back into their own house.”

“There’ll be fines, Cal. Cleanup expenses.”

“Zooks can’t afford that, Bruce. It’ll wipe them out. If they can’t put water back in their pond, they’ll lose the herd. If they have to pay any fines, they’ll lose their farm.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“There has to be.”

“It’s both state and federal, Cal. They’re going to bring a
trailer with a lab. Test the soil, water. The Zooks will have to clean it all up.”

“This is a disaster. It’s an unmitigated disaster.”

Robertson shrugged. “I don’t like it, Cal, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“I want you to figure a way out of this, Sheriff. You need to fix this.”

“Cal…” Robertson started.

Troyer turned from the window to glower at Robertson. “You need to fix this, Bruce. There has got to be a way.”

“I’ll go out later today,” Robertson said. “I’ll see about it.”

“Good.”

“No promises.”

“Of course.”

“We’ve got our hands full, Cal. Fannie Helmuth has just opened this up to an outfit in Florida. I’ll need to send someone down there.”

“Mike and Caroline Branden are already there,” Cal said. “They’re at a policeman’s cottage on Longboat Key.”

“Didn’t know that,” Robertson said. “Last I heard, they were both at Duke.”

“They’re taking a vacation,” Cal said. “So you might not need to send anyone from here.”

“You don’t know about Fannie Helmuth,” Robertson said. “Her story changes everything about Ruth Zook’s murder.”

“Right now, I’m focused on helping the Zooks.”

“I know,” Robertson said, returning to his desk chair. “You know anything about Miller’s Restaurant and Clock Shoppe, in Pinecraft?”

“No. Why?”

“We need to know if Ruth Zook worked there as a waitress.”

“I can ask the Zooks,” Cal said, turning for the door.

“I’ve already sent Ricky to do that. I might need you to help us talk with Emma Wengerd. We want to read the letters that Ruth Zook sent up to her.”

“She’s fragile right now, Bruce.”

“We’d just make copies, Cal. Then give them right back to her. I’ve got Ricky going out to ask her, but if she’s reluctant to trust us, maybe you could help Ricky convince her.”

*   *   *

Once Cal had left, Robertson crossed the hall to the observation room where Ricky and the captain were watching through one-way glass as Pat Lance questioned Fannie Helmuth in Interview B.

Robertson turned up the volume on the intercom and stood in front of the glass to listen for a while. Then he pulled Newell off to the side and whispered, “Anything more about this Jodie Tapp?”

“They went back over that before you came in,” Newell said. “I think she’s more worried about Jodie than she is about herself.”

“OK, Bobby, Jodie lives in a trailer park in Cortez. That’s right across the bridge from the Bradenton Beach Police Department. I’m gonna ask Ray Lee Orton who the players are down there. On both sides of the drug war. If Amish girls are getting trapped in the crossfire, I’ll want to send someone down.”

“This the sergeant that Ricky worked with last year?”

“Yes, and Jodie Tapp works at one of the restaurants in Pinecraft. So, maybe there’s a connection between Fannie Helmuth and Ruth Zook.”

“It’s worth a try,” Newell acknowledged.

“OK, Lance or Niell? Who do we send?”

“Niell knows the layout down there,” the captain said. “And maybe Mike Branden will help.”

*   *   *

Robertson called the number for the Bradenton Beach Police Department and asked for Sergeant Orton. The dispatcher put his phone down to place a radio call to Orton and then picked back up to say to Robertson, “It’ll be a few minutes, Sheriff. We’ve got a capsized boat out in Longboat Pass.”

“Can you give me his cell number?” Robertson asked, and the dispatcher read out the digits.

Robertson switched off and redialed, and the sergeant answered with a curt “Orton.”

“Bruce Robertson, Holmes County. Got a minute, Sergeant?”

Orton said a few muffled words to a colleague, and Robertson waited. Then Orton came back on the call. “We’re about done here, Sheriff. What do you need?”

“We’ve got a murdered Amish girl up here, Ray Lee. And another girl is involved. I think they both knew a Mennonite waitress from Cortez who works at Miller’s Restaurant in Pinecraft. A Jodie Tapp.”

“I know Jodie,” Orton said back over the call, sounding distracted.

“Why?” Robertson asked. “I mean why do you know her?”

“She’s a windsurfer, Sheriff. And I’m a kite surfer. We all know each other at the beaches. It’s a community.”

“She’s Mennonite—right, Orton? So, here’s the deal. We’ve got a drug outfit preying on young Amish girls up here in Ohio, and your surfer friend down there is probably in danger, too.”

“Right, yes,” Orton mumbled.

“You working on something, Ray Lee?”

“No, yes—sorry. We’re fishing a capsized boat out of the water at Longboat Pass, and I’m not sure what it means.”

“I don’t follow,” Robertson said. “I’m worried about a murdered Amish girl up here, and another Amish girl who’s in danger here. Also your Mennonite friend in Cortez. I think a drug ring is sending junk up from Florida.”

“This boat might be part of that,” Orton said. “We’ve been trying to take down a drug conduit here, running cocaine into the beaches on stolen boats from the Keys. And I think we just found one of the boats, capsized off Coquina Beach. This might be our first really good lead.”

“OK, Ray Lee, who’s leading the investigation down there?” Robertson asked. “Who are your drug enforcement people?”

Orton held a beat and said, sounding distracted again, “I can send you a file attached to an e-mail.”

“Can you do that today, Sergeant? Like right now?”

“What? OK. I’ll send it when I get back to the station.”

After a pause, Orton said, “Jodie is a nice girl, Sheriff. A little withdrawn, but still a nice girl. If she were to be hurt, well, it’d be a personal problem for me. I like her.”

“Are you two in a relationship?”

“No, I just like her. She’s just a young girl, really, but older, if you know what I mean. No bigger than a middle-schooler, but scrappy out on the surf. I like the way she tears it up out there. So, if she’s in danger, I need to know it.”

“We’ve got one of those nice girls too, Orton. Up here in Ohio. She’s dead. So, yes, Jodie Tapp is in danger, and I’m gonna send Ricky Niell down there, if you can set up the introductions for him.”

*   *   *

Robertson waved Lance out of Interview B, and Lance asked Fannie to wait while she spoke with the sheriff.

In the hall, Robertson told Lance about Orton’s hunt for a Florida drug outfit using stolen boats and added, “But don’t tell Fannie that’s she’s mixed up with an organized drug ring. Not yet, because it’ll rattle her more than she already is. Wait until you have gotten everything she can remember. Even then, maybe she doesn’t need to know any particulars.”

“She likes Jodie, Sheriff. It’d hit her hard if she were harmed.”

“I can’t help that,” Robertson said. “Truth is, I’m not sure about anyone, now. Ruth Zook, Fannie Helmuth, even Mervin Byler. Not sure about any of them, at all. So, do what you can to keep Fannie here, Lance, and ask her every question you can think of. Buy her lunch if you have to, but keep her here.”

Lance thought and said, “She’s scared, Sheriff. If I offered to stay with her here, I’m sure she’d agree. She doesn’t want to go home.”

“Then you’re on the Fannie Helmuth project, Lance. Protecting and interviewing her. Find out everything she knows about this woman who threatened her. Get a sketch of her if you can. And find out everything Fannie knows about Jodie Tapp.”

“More than what she’s told us?”

“Everything, Lance. Pinecraft and the restaurant. Maybe that boat she was on. Get it all as fast as you can, because there are just too many weird connections here to suit me. And I’m guessing this woman who threatened her up here is the key to all of this.”

“If you’re right about that,” Lance said, “she’s looking for Fannie and Jodie, both.”

“If I’m right, Lance, she’s on the phone right now to Sarasota.”

REALIZING THAT she risked changing Fannie’s understanding of everything she had been through in Florida, Pat Lance went back into Interview B and sat down next to her. One more pass at this, Lance thought, before Fannie learns the truth about how big a scheme she’s mixed up in. About how much danger there really is, now, for Jodie Tapp.

Lance flipped pages in her notebook, found Fannie’s account of the beating, and decided to probe harder for details about the sunset boat ride with Jim and John.

“Fannie,” she said, “do you remember where you went to see the sunset? Was it out to the ocean, or did you stay on the bay?”

Fannie closed her eyes and remembered. “We went out through a channel and under a bridge, and they said we were on the Gulf of Mexico.” Remembering a detail, Fannie opened her eyes and said, “There was a sailboat in front of us, and the bridge had to lift up.”

“You didn’t mention that before,” Lance said.

“I didn’t remember the sailboat until just now.”

“Was it a drawbridge, then?”

“Yes. To let the sailboat go through, it had to lift apart in the middle.”

“And their names were Jim and John?”

“That’s what Jodie told me.”

“Do you remember if they actually called each other Jim and John, or do you just remember that Jodie introduced them that way?”

Fannie closed her eyes again. “When we got on the boat, Jodie introduced me to them.” She opened her eyes and added, “Jim was the skinny one. John was heavier.”

“Where did you get on the boat?”

“At the far end of the big white bridge. There’s a little lot beside the water there, where Jodie parked her car.”

“Is this the big Sarasota bridge? The arching one you described?”

“Yes. It runs up very high, from right downtown. When you drive over the arch of it, you can see all around Sarasota Bay.”

“How did Jodie know to meet the boat there?”

“I guess she arranged it like that. She said she knew people who would take us out to see the sunset. Jim and John. That’s all we were supposed to do. Take a boat ride to see the sunset.”

“How long did it take them to get through the channel and out to the Gulf?”

“Maybe twenty minutes, but I wasn’t watching a clock.”

“Were there other boats that evening? I mean besides the sailboat.”

“Oh, there were dozens. Maybe more. Going out through the channel.”

“Then they brought you back to the park? The one where Jodie had parked?”

“Yes,” Fannie said, growing agitated again. “It was dark by then. There were some streetlights at the little park to the right. I could see them when they stopped the boat. And the city was all lit up at the left end of the bridge.”

“That was after the sunset?”

“Yes,” she moaned, handkerchief up to her eyes again. “They didn’t take us over to the shore right away. And that’s when they beat Jodie up so bad.”

“After they brought you back through the channel?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember getting back to the car.” To Linda Hart, Fannie said, “Why can’t I remember getting off the boat?”

“Did they hurt you, Fannie?” Hart asked.

“No. They just hurt Jodie!” Fannie cried, standing abruptly to pace a long circuit around the table. “They stopped the boat in the dark and turned off the lights. I remember seeing the bridge all lit up at night. And the orange lights at that little park, over at the far end of the bridge. That’s when they dragged Jodie into the cabin and beat her.”

“Did you actually see them hit her?” Lance asked, standing too.

“No, but I heard it. Oh, I heard it! And I wanted so bad to jump in the water and hide.”

“But you didn’t?”

“I can’t swim.”

“Did they just bring her out on deck and threaten you?”

“Yes! Oh. She was bruised. Had a bloody lip. She was crying, and they said they’d kill her if I didn’t do what they asked!”

Lance embraced Fannie and then guided her back into a chair beside her lawyer. “Fannie, did they tell you right then what they wanted you to do?”