Middle River Murders (24 page)

“You can stand there and yell at me all you want, Claire,” I
said. “But that’s not going to bring Mom back to us. I have to go. We’re
organizing a search party. Time is of the essence. If you want to help, come
on. Otherwise, I can’t waste time arguing with you. I have to go.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Claire said in between her
tears. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Jesse. I’m scared that’s all. I’ll pack
right now. Until I get there, I’ll keep my cell phone on so you can reach me.”

“If we hear anything before you get…”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she interrupted. “I’ll take
the kids over to Abigail’s house and get her to take care of them while I’m
gone.”

“If we’re gone when you get here, I’m sure that Sarah and
Geneva
will be here. They’re going to take
care of Ethan and Maisy. We can’t afford to wait for you. I’m sorry, Claire,
but as I said, time is critical.”

“I understand,” she said. “Go find our mama, Jesse.”

“I will, Claire. I promise I’ll…”

Claire broke the connection before I had a chance to finish.

As I put the phone back down in the cradle, I looked up at
Billy and said, “I guess I should call Jack. I’m sure he’d want to know.”

“Give us a few hours before you call him, Jesse,” Billy said.
“By then we might have your mother home. There’s no need to upset him, yet.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I replied, upset that I had to deal
with my sister at a time such as this. I was worried and couldn’t stop
imagining the worst. I didn’t need to have to fight with my sister over
something in which I had no control.

Sarah walked up to me and said, “You know you can count on me
to take care of the kids. You do whatever you need to do to bring Minnie back
to us.”

“You can count on us, too,”
Geneva
added. “We’ll stay here and help as long as you let us.”

“Thank you,” I said, tearfully. “Thank you all for being such
a wonderful family.”

My tears started and didn’t stop until Billy held me in his
arms.

“I promise we’ll find your mom, Jesse,” he said. “Nobody’s
going to take her from us.”

We decided that Eli and Chief Sam would stay and guard the
house and everyone in it just in case an unwanted visitor happened to show up.
Sarah and
Geneva
would take care of the kids. The
rest of us would go in search of my mother.

Before we left, everyone made preparations. Binoculars,
cameras and anything else we could think of to help in our search were stowed
in various automobiles. Guns were a high priority on our list. If it came down
to it, killing the culprit just wasn’t an option. It would be done.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would shoot the person
who held my mother captive if it came to that. Anyone standing in the way of
saving my mother from harm would be disposed of in a timely manner. This was a
matter of life and death.

Billy called the hospital to talk with Gabe. After what
seemed to be a long, drawn-out conversation, he hung up the receiver. He had a
defeated look on his face.

We stood waiting for Billy to tell us about his call.

“What’s the matter,” I asked, worried that there might be
more roadblocks in our way, and sure enough, there were.

“Gabe said the police posted a cop outside of Daisy’s door.”

“Why?” Sarah asked. “Is she under arrest, or is someone after
her?”

“While Gabe was walking us to the elevator, someone snuck
into Daisy’s room and tried to suffocate her with a pillow. Fortunately, a
nurse walked in just in time to scare off the attacker. It all happened so
quickly that neither Daisy nor the nurse could describe the attacker, except to
say they think it was a woman.”

“How could that have happened? He wasn’t gone more than five
minutes,” I said.

“It doesn’t take long to sneak into someone’s room if the
coast is clear,” Jonathan added.

I stood there as if I were frozen in time. Visions of the
woman in the hospital lobby and the woman in the green Mustang came flashing
back. It was the same woman! Her face was familiar. The woman was Sophie Kent!
I just knew it was!

“Let me see that picture again, Billy.”

He pulled the picture out of his shirt pocket and handed it
to me.

“Why do you want to see the picture again? Has something
sparked in that wild head of yours?”

“It sure has,” I said, looking at the photo. “I’m sure that
the woman I saw at the hospital is the same one who was driving the Mustang and
is the same one in the photo. Sophie Kent is still alive! Jonathan was right!
He did see…”

“Hold on, `ge ya,” Billy said. “I have some bad news for
you.”

“Don’t tell me that I didn’t see her, like I told Jonathan.
He was right all along and I tried to convince him he was…”

“The body they found floating in the lake was identified as
Sophie Kent.”

“I know what I saw, Billy! I’m telling you it was Sophie
Kent!”

“It can’t be, Jesse. The woman is dead. They found her body.”

I thought for a second and then asked, “Who did you say
identified the body?”

“I think we discussed this before,” Billy answered. “Gabe
said Sophie’s mother identified the body. Sophie’s father is deceased.”

My spirits fell to the floor. As far as I was concerned,
Sophie was the only suspect we had and now she had been eliminated… literally.
Now we’d have to start from scratch—and the pickings were slim. We had one
person whose profile might put her on our suspect list, but even that
personality trait was a thin reason to suspect her of multiple murders,
abduction, and attempted murder. A person with a flaw in her character such as
hers couldn’t possible pull off something as complicated and messy as a murder,
could she?

“Did she have a twin?” Sarah asked.

“I’m sure if she did, Gabe would’ve mentioned that fact.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sarah agreed.

“I do have some good news.”

I looked at Billy with high hopes and waited for his answer.

Billy looked around at all of us and then said, “Gabe gave us
permission to search his house. He said there was a club roster in the top
drawer of Daisy’s desk. We should start there. Maybe we can find something in
their house that will help us out.”

“I guess we’ll have to take what we can get,” Robert said.

“They share an office in the basement. He asked that we not
make a mess because Daisy would have a fit.”

“I bet.”

“He says there’s a key under the doormat on the back porch.”

“I can’t believe people still hide their house key under the
mat. That’s the first place a crook looks,” Chief Sam said.

“What can I say?” Billy asked. “You try to warn people about
not doing stuff like that and they still do it anyway.”

“I’m bummed out,” I whined. “I thought for sure Sophie was
the woman I saw. I was certain.”

“Let’s not dwell on it. We have our work cut out for us. Come
on, let’s go to Daisy’s house and have a look around.”

“So does everyone know what they’re going to do?” Daniel
asked.

“Yes,” Billy replied. “Jonathan’s going to go to the widow’s
house, while you drive around Stanardsville and Ruckersville looking for the
brown cop car. Keep your eye open for a green, new model, Mustang. Robert will
cover the
Charlottesville
area. We’ll head on over to Gabe and
Daisy’s house. We’ll communicate by cell phone. If anybody comes up with
anything, call the rest of us.”

“We need a checkin time,” Sarah suggested. “I don’t want to
sit around for hours and worry.”

“That’s a good idea,” Chief Sam said. “It’s
four o’clock
now. At seven, everybody needs to call here. If
someone doesn’t checkin by then, I’ll start calling the rest of you and let
you know.”

“What about dinner?”
Geneva
asked. “Shall we cook something and refrigerate it until everyone returns?”

“That sounds good to me,” I said. “But don’t wait on us to
eat. Y’all go ahead and eat.”

“Yeah, go ahead and eat,” Billy agreed. “There’s no telling
when we’ll be back.”

Athena and Thor howled as we walked out onto the front porch,
and by the time we’d gathered by the cars for one last briefing, their barking
had begun to get outrageous.

“If I didn’t think they’d give us away at the most
inopportune time, I’d say we bring them with us,” I stated.

“That might not be a bad idea,” Jonathan said. “I think Thor
and I could work well together. Athena doesn’t quite trust me yet.”

“That’s because she’s a girl and she knows better,” Daniel
joked.

Jonathan laughed. “You might be right. I think Thor and I
have a lot in common because we have that alpha dog thing going on.”

“You might have something there,” I said. “Thor wants to be
the lead dog and he seems to have a natural instinct for the hunt, but Athena
has the killer instinct. She appears gentle, but was anything but gentle when
she came down those stairs in attack mode that time the Westovers busted down
the door and tried to kill us. She distracted that guy just long enough for me
to get a shot off. She helped save our lives.”

We looked at each other.

“Let’s take them,” Billy said. “If anyone can sniff out
Jesse’s mother, it’s those two.”

Jonathan turned around and went back up on the porch and then
opened the front door. As soon as he opened the door, both dogs came running
out. Thor immediately went over to Jonathan’s truck and peed on the tire, while
Athena came over to me and sat by my feet.

“I guess that settles it,” I said. “Athena goes with us and
Thor goes with Jonathan.”

Chief Sam, Eli, Sarah and
Geneva
stood at the front door and watched as we crawled into our trucks and headed
down the driveway.

We were barely out to the main road when Athena started
panting.

“Oh, no!” I said. “I forgot that she hates to ride in cars.
She’ll probably get sick and throw up all over the seat.”

“She’ll be fine,” Billy said as he reached over and rubbed
her head.

Athena jumped across my lap and took up residence between us.
She sat up tall, leaned over to lick Billy’s face and then stopped panting.

“See,” Billy said. “She’s going to be fine.”

Much to my amazement, Athena didn’t get sick. We made it all
the way from
Charlottesville
to
Middle River Road
in Stanardsville, a forty-five minute ride, and not once did
she even gag. I rubbed her head as we pulled up into Gabe and Daisy’s driveway.

“I hope we’re at the right house,” I said as we crawled out
of the truck. “I’ve never been here before. Check the address again. I don’t
want to get shot for trespassing.”

“It’s the right house,” Billy said. “Gabe said they were the
only ones who have a water fountain in the front yard.”

“It’s terrific,” I said. “I feel like I could jump in and go
for a swim.”

The words were barely out of my mouth when Athena did just
that. Before we had a chance to stop her, Athena was in the fountain up to her
neck in water. When she started to drink the water, Billy grabbed her collar
and commanded her to jump out.

“You can’t drink the water, girl. It’s probably got some kind
of chemical in it.”

She obeyed. With Billy’s help, she jumped out of the
fountain. She shook the water from her thick coat, spraying both of us.

“Well, that was fun,” I said, trying to dodge her spray.

All Billy did was laugh.

The house was a split-level, old style Colonial. The black
shutters stood out boldly against the painted white exterior. A large black top
driveway with a separate entrance and exit curved around the water fountain.
Well-maintained flower beds lined the front of the house. The lawn was
perfectly manicured.

We slipped around to the back of the house, and found the key
under the doormat. Billy picked it up and stuck it into the lock. When the door
opened, a gush of cool air swept across our faces.

“Stay here, Athena,” Billy commanded.

“If she runs off, I’m going to be pi…”

“She won’t,” he promised.

“Oh, my goodness,” I said as I stepped inside and looked
around. “They sure have the air-conditioner cool enough. Wow, this sure is a
nice kitchen.”

“It’s like an icebox in here,” Billy agreed. “Perhaps Gabe
forgot to change the settings. I doubt very seriously they would want it to be
this cold in the house.”

“Who knows, maybe they like it like this. I’ve heard that
when you get older, your body changes and you are either hot or cold all the
time. Perhaps they’re in their hot stage.”

“I can believe it. The body goes through many changes in a
lifetime.”

Billy’s words faded into the background as I became more and
more consumed with the house. The room we were in was a very large kitchen and
dining room combined. Through a cased opening we could see another room which I
figured was obviously their den. The room looked comfortable and well-used.

When I walked through the dining room to the den, I noticed a
hallway on the left leading to the rest of the house. In the den, newspapers
were piled off to the side of an overstuffed chair and a sewing kit sat next to
the coffee table. The furniture was lightly worn, but still in good condition.
An old-fashioned console television sat in front of the double window. On top
of the TV were several framed pictures.

I walked up closer and looked at the pictures, picking them
up one at a time. They were photos of Gabe and Daisy together, and then one of
the two of them with
Kansas
. Another photo showed a woman and a
man with two children. I guessed the people in the photo to be their daughter
and her family. I remembered that Mom said they moved here to be close to their
daughter.

I turned and looked at Billy. He was going through the
drawers of the end tables when I said, “There doesn’t seem to be anything here.
Let’s go check the other rooms.”

We walked down the hall. Billy went off to the left to look
through a bedroom as I went to the right and searched the formal living room.
We both came up empty-handed.

After searching two other bedrooms, we went downstairs to the
basement. The room was tidy, but had so much stuff in it, I thought for sure it
would take us hours to do a thorough search.

“This room reminds me of
Kansas
’
house, except that it’s not messy,” Billy said as he searched through a large,
mahogany desk.

I searched the smaller desk. I was sure this was Daisy’s
because of the size and the fact that there was a stack of Good Housekeeping
magazines on the top off to the side. I pulled open the drawer and came across
a ledger with Stanardsville Social Club written on the front. I sat down in the
chair and started going through the book.