What the River Knows (24 page)

“Saw you on the news bringin’ in the Quick Shop killer.” He grinned. “Our local boy is a hero.”

Scott moved toward the soda fountain. “Just doin’ my job, Mac.”

“Well, doin’ it right well, as far as we’re concerned.” He finished the donut and groomed his goatee with a napkin. “Any progress on finding the killer of the Stillman girl?”

Scott had filled a cup with iced tea. “Workin’ on it now, Mac.”

Mac studied him a moment while he paid for the tea. “Well, I won’t get between a man and his work.” He moved away from the counter and toward his office at the back of the complex. “Unless it’s me and my work. See ya around, Scott.”

Scott nodded and headed back out to the car. He had downed nearly half the iced tea before he pulled up in front of the high school.

“Good day, Mr. Aylward.” Ms. Hefferman greeted him with familiarity as he walked into the office.

“Morning, Ms. Hefferman.” He stopped before her counter. “Got the subpoena to look at the records.” He pulled the papers from his pocket.

“Good.” She studied them. “I hope it brings some answers in poor Margaret’s death.” She pulled the clipboard from under the counter. “If you’ll just sign in, I’ll take you into the records room and help you find what you need.”

“Thanks.” He signed in and clipped on the “Visitor” badge she gave him.

“What specifically are you looking for?” She led him behind the counter down a narrow corridor to an office far from the door. With no window and rows of water pipes in the ceiling, it looked like it had been the office no one wanted, now converted into storage for student files. Outfitted with just one small table and a chair, the room contained racks and racks of files. The district had had a high school since 1910.

“Last known addresses of Kyle Dane and the foster girls Margaret’s mother had in her home.” He stared at the volumes of information. “And anyone who might have gone to the same university Margaret did.”

Ms. Hefferman smiled. “A daunting task, Mr. Aylward.” She pulled a file from the second shelf on the row nearest the outside wall. “Here’s the file on Kyle Dane.” She turned to leave the room. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with the names of the foster girls and anyone I remember who may have gone to KU from Margaret’s class.”

“Thanks, Ms. Hefferman.” Scott loosened his tie and sat at the table, opening the file that he hoped would give him answers about what had happened to Kyle Dane. The photo in the file revealed the slight, sad boy Scott remembered. Numerous notes from doctors excusing him from PE. Transcript of grades, mostly B’s and C’s, except for A’s in art and literature. A records transfer request from a high school in Nevada. Scott wrote down the name and address. Precious little else to describe the hell this boy’s life had been at Homedale High. He swallowed the guilt that he hadn’t done more to stop it when it was happening.

The foster girls’ files provided more interesting reading. Four girls had spent time in Margaret’s home from the time Margaret was in middle school through high school. The records of one girl indicated that she was in the home for a year after Margaret graduated. Each girl had records of several transfers and requests for transcripts both before and after leaving Homedale High. He dutifully took down all the names and details, so he could follow up to see if any of them could provide leads. Ms. Hefferman came back to the office a couple of times with names of students who went to KU at the same time Margaret did.

Finally, he closed the last of the records. The subpoena was not specific, so he could come back to look through more if any of his follow up indicated a need. He looked at his watch. Two hours he had been prisoner in the tiny cell of a room. He stood and stretched to get blood flowing to his muscles again.

As Ms. Hefferman had instructed, he left the files in a tidy stack on the table. He wound his way through the corridor to the front counter. Ms. Hefferman looked up at him.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Mr. Aylward?”

“I found some information that may lead to more info.” He shrugged. “That’s all I can ask for.” Yet, somehow he knew that the morning’s work had provided vital information, if he could just ask the right questions, follow the right trail, and recognize the information when it presented itself.

“Well, I hope it leads to a killer’s conviction.”

“Me, too.” He laid the visitor’s badge on the counter. “Thank you for your help, Ms. Hefferman.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Aylward.”

He walked out of the office, turning left down the corridor toward the exit door. He was still rolling his shoulders to loosen up his muscles when he opened the door. Immediately, the scent hit him—that rusty, wet bird smell that meant rain had fallen nearby. Then he heard the low rumble that could be thunder, could be a train, and could be almost anything, so quiet and unthreatening. For an instant, he was a boy back in his alcove of the upstairs bedroom in his parents’ house, awakened first by the smell of coming rain and then the comforting grumble of clouds about to give it up, all rolling in through the open window. Except for harvest and haying, a farmer always welcomed rain. There was still a lot of farm boy in him yet. His older brothers, on bunk beds at the other side of the room, never stirred at the storm, tired from long school days and helping their dad with the manual labor. He shrugged and stretched, then hurried to the car parked at the edge of the school parking lot.

Chapter 52

The car’s air conditioner hadn’t even caught up with the outdoor temperature by the time he pulled up in front of Debbie’s Diner for his lunch meeting with Al. He hurried into the cool sanctuary of the Diner at 11:20. Debbie greeted him as he laid his briefcase on the seat in the window booth furthest from the door. “What’ll ya have to drink, Scott?”

He looked up, surprised that she already remembered his name. “Iced tea, please.” He hesitated only a moment before he left his briefcase there and went into the restroom. When he returned, not only was his briefcase still there, untouched, but a glass of iced tea set sweating on a napkin. He settled into the seat facing the door and downed a third of the tea in one gulp. Debbie refilled it before he could get his laptop out of its case. He flipped open his cell phone to call Al while his laptop booted up, when the diner door opened and Al strolled to the seat facing him. Scott turned the phone toward Al to show him the cursor on his number.

“I guess great minds think alike,” Al said. “Lunch is always a priority.”

“Has been since I was born. What info do you have?”

“Well—” Al hesitated while Debbie placed a glass of water and a cup of coffee in front of him. “I’ll have a hamburger with fried onions and fries, Debbie.”

“Me, too.” Scott nodded at her. “Sounded good.”

“It is good, trust me.” Al leaned toward him as Debbie left their table. “I found out that one of those foster girls you were trying to track down moved back to Homedale.”

“Really?” That surprised Scott. All of the girls had been from urban areas, mostly Wichita. Provincial Homedale should have been the last place any of them would want to live. Outside, the blinding sunlight had dimmed. Gray clouds roiled overhead.

“Yep.” Al pulled a reporter’s notebook, nearly identical to the police one Scott used, from his back pocket. He flipped back a couple of pages. “Brandi Smith back then.” He looked up at Scott. “Brandi Obermann now. Seems that Homedale itself didn’t change her much, but a certain football player named Brad Obermann did. After she left here, she got back with her mom, cleaned up her act, stayed in touch with Brad, went to the same college he did, married him, and now helps him run the family farm.”

“I’m impressed.” Scott leaned back. “How did you come by this tidbit of information?”

Al grinned. “Well, a good newsman never reveals his source, but you’d be surprised what you hear when you spend a couple hours a day eating donuts at the local co-op.”

“The sacrifices you make for your craft.” Al shrugged. Not only was this useful information, he felt very comfortable with the retired reporter. In fact, he was more content at this moment than any time since Rica walked out. Until Debbie set his burger in front of him, done just the way he liked it, a thin patty cooked till it was just crispy at the edges, bun toasted on the grill, onions soft and brown. The fries were cut from a real potato with the skin on, thick and liberally sprinkled with salt and just a dash of seasoning. Neither he nor Al spoke again until Scott’s plate was empty.

Scott crumpled his napkin and pushed his plate toward the edge of the table, where Debbie could pick it up more easily. “So what about young Brad turned our girl Brandi around?”

Al finished his last bite of burger and dipped the remaining two fries in ketchup. “Dunno. Could have been his good looks, or the full ride scholarship he had, or the successful corporate family farm.” He savored his fries. “Could have been time in Margaret’s house, as all I’ve been hearing tells me she was the quiet, unassuming, lead-by-example type. But whatever it was, Miss Brandi pulled her grades up and stopped causing trouble the rest of her school year here.”

Scott looked down at his notebook. He hadn’t thought to look at grades beyond Kyle’s, only forwarding addresses. “And would she be available to talk to me?”

“Yup.” Al tore a half sheet out of his notebook and pushed it toward Scott. “Don’t call her between three and four, because that’s when she picks up her kids from pre-school.”

“Wow.” Scott stared at the paper. “And all this cost you was some donuts?”

“Actually, all it cost me was some time and calories. I asked a couple questions of Mac while I was pouring the coffee, and he comped the coffee and had the donuts in his office.” Al tapped the notebook. “It’s all about relationships, Scott.”

Yeah, relationships. I’m not so good at those
. “Most detectives would say it’s about facts and evidence.”

“In the long run, yes, but the relationships are what get you access to the facts.”

“That and a good warrant.”

Al laughed. “Well, if you can get people to voluntarily give you the info without a warrant, isn’t that better and faster?”

“Yeah, I see your point.” He looked around the diner, filled with people he didn’t know. “But I don’t have relationships here anymore. You do.”

“You’re the homeboy. You have more relationships here than you think.”

Scott stared out the window. Thunder rolled again, and the clouds opened to dump rain in buckets on the street outside. People ducked and ran for their cars or storefronts, but otherwise paid it no mind. The thunder and rain matched his emotions.

“Something’s bothering you, isn’t it, Scott?” Al picked up his coffee cup. “Something more than this case?”

Scott glanced into Al’s blue eyes. Beyond the sharpness of the reporter, not missing a detail, those eyes bespoke understanding. He looked down at his notebook and began to doodle around the spirals. “My wife—” Al simply nodded, and Scott found himself going on. “She wants a divorce.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Four years. Met in college. She’s four years younger than me. A nurse—surgical nurse. Ambitious.” Scott stopped. Random facts just seemed to tumble out of his mouth.

Al tipped his head to the side and sipped more coffee. “And she doesn’t think you’re moving up the ladder fast enough?”

He studied the notebook, while his thoughts yelled at the back of his mind. “Or she decided to hop to a ladder already at the top rung.”

Scott didn’t realize until he heard Al’s quiet, “I see,” that he had actually said the words.

Al set down his cup. “I have a small print job to get done by five this evening.” He stood up. “Why don’t you come to the print shop with me to make sure I can get that old press to cooperate.”

Scott hesitated, “I really should call Brandi—”

“You can call her from my shop.” Something about the way Al said the words and the kind look in his eyes said that he wanted Scott to be free to talk without fear of anyone overhearing their conversation.

“I guess there would be a lot of background noise if I called her from here.” The place was practically packed now, filled with the sounds of diners conversing, silverware clanking against plates, tables being cleared. “I’ll take you up on the offer.”

Chapter 53

“Sure, I’ll be there at 3:45.” Scott flipped his cell phone shut. “Guess I’m yours for two hours, Al.” He moved closer to the press. “Her littlest kid is down for a nap, and I can’t come till after she picks up the older two at school.”

“So your wife—” Al turned the rollers on the old press to pre-load the ink. “What is her name, Scott?”

“Rica.” Scott chewed on the straw in the “to-go” tea he had purchased with lunch. “She’s half-Mexican. Her grandmother was illegal, but her mother was born in Oklahoma. Met her in a psychology class while we were both taking courses for our Masters.”

“Smart girl, then.”

“So smart.” He looked out the window, where the downpour had settled into a slow soaking rain. “She figures things out so much faster than I can. She’d have figured out how to put something together while I was still studying the parts.” He closed his eyes, realizing just how big a gap she would leave in his life. Though he had lived on his own for a long time before he met Rica, he didn’t think he’d make it now. “So neat, so organized, so together.”

Al looked up from his alignments. “And she complained that you were always just a dreamer?”

Scott nodded. “How’d you know?”

Al flipped on the press. “Seen it many times.” The machine groaned, but then lumbered into action. Slowly paper fed into the press, and then printed pages fluttered into a tray at the other end. “People are attracted to those who have the qualities they think they lack. Then sometimes the very habits that attracted them become the ones they can’t stand.” He stepped toward Scott with some of the finished pages in his hand. “I was married, and then divorced, before I met Sarah.”

“Oh.”

“And I’ve covered some nasty divorce stories.” Al paused in front of the window, to hold the pages up to the light. “And some nasty murders as well.” He studied the print job for a long time, and finally turned back toward Scott. “Some of which were a direct result of the divorces.”