What the River Knows (7 page)

“You remember Margaret Stillman?”

There was a silence. “Not really. Was she a cheerleader?”

“No, salutatorian. Egghead-type.”

“Sorry, I still don’t remember her.”

“Remember the boy who tried out for cheerleader?”

“That I remember. Damn fag.”

“Well, Margaret was his friend. The one who stopped the fight.”

Another silence. “Now I remember her.” The voice sounded like it had a smile in it. “Feisty little broad.”

“I have some bad news about Margaret. She’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” The regret sounded genuine. “What happened?”

“She was murdered three days ago. Going by the name Delia Enfield now.”

“Really? That was her?” A pause. “Wow, I never knew someone that was murdered before. Kinda makes it seem a little too real.”

“Definitely. Anyway, we’re trying to piece together who she knew, now and from the past.” He took a deep breath. “Since you didn’t remember her, I doubt you’ve kept in touch with her or anyone else she hung with.”

“No, not really. We moved away from here for about five years, going to school. By the time we moved back, most everyone was gone. But I’ll ask Jan.” It sounded as if he tried to cover the receiver, but Scott could still hear the gruff bellow. “Honey, you remember Margaret Stillman, used to hang out with that fag?” Scott could tell there was an answer, but he couldn’t make it out. “She was the gal that got killed this week.” Another pause. “Yes, really. You know where any of her friends are anymore?” The voice boomed in Scott’s ear, as if Dean forgot he wasn’t yelling for his wife any more. “Jan doesn’t remember any of the kids Margaret hung out with, but I don’t think they are still in town.”

“I remember how we couldn’t wait to blow that place.”

“Yep.” The voice softened. “But it’s a nice place to come back to, especially with kids to raise.”

“Will you give me a call if you remember any one who might know what path she might have taken after high school?”

“Sure. But you might call the school. Maybe one of the teachers stayed in touch with her.”

“Good idea, Dean.” Scott paused. “What shift were you working Tuesday?”

“Days. Next week I go to graveyard.”

“Thanks, Dean. I’ll try to get back home for the next reunion.”

“No need to wait for reunion, boy. Any weekend will do. The beer’s always cold at the tavern on Fridays.”

“Maybe I’ll do that soon.” He hung up. The trip down memory lane had dug up more ghosts than he expected. And what he learned meant that Dean had a potential motive, but no opportunity.

Chapter 12

Scott took Dean’s advice and called the school. He cringed when they referred him to Ms. Frank, the algebra and calculus teacher whose class time so many of the jocks had made a three-ring circus. On one occasion, when she had been summoned to the office for a phone call, she returned to a classroom devoid of desks, with every student sitting in his or her place, books neatly stacked before them. The desks had been handed through the windows and lined up outside. The whole class got detention for that one. She seemed to have forgotten the incident when she answered his call to her home.

“Yes, Mr. Aylward. How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine, Ms. Frank.” He hesitated, the old habit of thinking of teachers as furniture and de-personalized nearly overcoming him. “And you?”

“Still teaching, Mr. Aylward.” He heard a faint chuckle. “Though the desks stay in the classroom more these days.”

He couldn’t resist a grin. “They must have sealed the windows or nailed the desks to the floor.”

“No, they got me an assistant, so the classroom is never unsupervised anymore.”

“That was probably a wise decision.”

“Mr. Aylward, I’m sure, from remembering your lack of enthusiasm for the finer points of algebra, that you didn’t call just to chat.”

He did recall her as being very direct. “No, Ms. Frank, I do have a reason for calling.” He paused. “Do you remember Margaret Stillman?”

“Of course, I do. Margaret was one of my finest students. I wrote letters of recommendation for her for a number of scholarships. As I recall, she got several.”

“Do you know where she went to college?”

“She started out at KU, but the last time I heard from her, she was considering a transfer to Wichita or Hays, or even laying out a semester.”

“Did she say why?”

“Not in so many words. May I ask why you are so interested, Mr. Aylward?”

He felt like the same inept boy he had been in her class. “I’m sorry, Ms. Frank. I’m afraid I’m asking in an official capacity.” He cleared his throat. “I’m with the City Police Department, and we’re investigating Margaret’s murder.”

“Murder?” she gasped. “Margaret’s dead?”

He should have tried to soften it a little. “Yes. She was using her middle name and married name of Delia Enfield—”

“The woman found a few days ago with her throat slashed?” Before he could respond, she went on. “Poor, poor Margaret. I was afraid that she was in with a bad crowd.”

His pulse sped up. “Can you fill me in, Ms. Frank?”

“I guess I wouldn’t be betraying a confidence, since the person who could be embarrassed is now dead.” He heard her pause, and her voice sounded distant, as if she were talking to herself. “It’s so hard to believe.” Then her voice resumed its professional briskness. “She did quite well at KU the first three semesters, but then in her fourth, she fell in with some students and teachers who believed they could learn more and open up the mind if they enhanced its performance with chemicals.”

“She got into the drug scene?” It didn’t jive with the Margaret he remembered.

“Not the sleazy kind you see on TV. Or in your work.” She stopped, then plunged ahead. “These were serious scientists, or so they seemed to think, trying to further work on the human mind and its capabilities. Then one of the professors took an interest in Margaret. She thought he was grooming her as a protégé, but I think he had ambitions that were more carnal for Margaret. She—” Ms. Frank stopped as if trying to gather her thoughts.

“Do you know the names of any of these people?”

“Margaret wrote me some letters that might have some of the names in them, but… It’s been nearly ten years, Mr. Aylward. I receive a lot of correspondence from former students.”

He bet all the letters were neatly filed according to a very orderly system. “I’m sure you do, Ms. Frank. Is there any chance you could find some of those letters from Margaret?”

“If I had a few days, I’m sure I could.”

“Why don’t I plan on coming to Homedale on Friday? Would that give you enough time?”

“I should think it would.” He could almost hear her mind finger through the files. “Do you want to just come by my house?”

“I can do that. About ten?”

“That would be fine.” She hesitated. “I really hope that some of this information will help you catch the brute that murdered her.” Another pause. “Such a waste. See you Friday at ten, Mr. Aylward.”

He hung up and tapped his pencil on the desk. With two people to interview and some promising leads, he could definitely justify a trip to Homedale. “Hey, Del, want to see where I grew up on Friday? It’s like traveling through a time warp, and we can spend a week or two there in an afternoon.”

“Friday?” Bates swiveled in his chair. “I can’t Friday. I have to go to Wichita for a checkup with the dermatologist.” Bates had had a small skin cancer removed two years ago; he never missed the precautionary checkup. “Sounds like I’ll be missing a hell of a trip.”

“If I can get enough leads on this trip, I may never have to go back.”

“Don’t you still have family there, boy?”

Scott shook his head. “No, my brothers never came back home after college. Dad died while I was still in high school, and mom has moved in with my oldest brother.” He shrugged. “No need to go home. ‘Home is where the heart is.’ At least that’s what they say.”

“They do, do they?” Bates glanced at his watch. “I think home is where your dinner waits, and mine is waiting there now.” He rose from his chair. “See you after lunch, rookie.”

“Sure.” Lunch didn’t sound good to Scott yet. He wandered into the break room to grab some peanut butter crackers from the vending machine, but a couple of the clerks had heated up something that left a foul odor wafting throughout the room, so he headed outside for some air. It wasn’t really fresh air, though. Humidity had moved in from an approaching storm front, forming an inversion layer that trapped the city’s exhaust fumes near the ground. Between the smog, the smell of the fresh asphalt being poured on the parking lot across the street, and the stench of the soybean meal being processed into food additives at a manufacturing plant upwind of the Law Enforcement Center, Scott almost lost his coffee.

Food of some sort might be the best solution for him. He headed for his truck. Spicy Thai food should either kill him or cure him. He checked his cell phone as he walked across the parking lot. No calls or texts from Rica. She was genuinely pissed this time. He thought about sending an “I love you” text, but on second thought, no news was good news. No sense interrupting a cool down. He unlocked his truck and turned on the air full-blast. Yes, food was the best idea at the moment.

Chapter 13

Though Scott got home on time Thursday night, a note from Rica told him she was at a movie with another nurse. She said good night and shut the bedroom door when the movie ended, so he spent another night on the couch.

Now, as Scott rolled into Homedale at 9:30 Friday morning after an hour’s drive, old elms, with the occasional cottonwood or maple, made a cool tunnel of the town’s main street. The day promised to be a real July scorcher, but he rolled down the window of the unmarked Taurus anyway, only to be hit in the face by a ninety-degree blast. Determined to soak up the ambiance that he swore he didn’t miss, he left the window down, but turned the air up high. He adjusted the vents to pour cool on his face.

There was the old Vencel place, once the fanciest house in town, now a fading apartment building, missing a couple of iron picket panels along one side of the yard, with a motorcycle parked on the expansive porch. Then came the “hacienda,” a Spanish-style home that didn’t fit the Midwest-gothic of the town’s beginnings when it went up in the Forties. Restored to near-new splendor, the house didn’t look so out of place now, with sprawling ranch-style houses tucked in among the two-story homes. He slowed as he came to Delia’s house, more a story and a half than a full-fledged two-story home. If he recalled correctly from high school, and he hadn’t paid her much attention then, it was neat, white-painted with beds of colorful flowers. Now, though it was still white, it needed a coat of paint, and no flowers grew in the yard.

The trees gave way to big brick buildings as he entered the two blocks of the business district. Attempts to refurbish the downtown led to small trees surrounded by brick footings planted in the sidewalks. At least a fourth of the buildings stared at him with empty windows, and there was a gap where two buildings had burned down the year he graduated. A gazebo and some flowers anchored that space, as if to say it was planned. On the corner of Main and Elm, the drugstore/mercantile appeared to be in operation, though a sign in the door stated “Closed.” He turned right on Elm, heading north toward the “suburbs” where Ms. Frank lived. The door to the newspaper office next to the mercantile stood open. He stared at it a minute; the last he remembered, an eight-county conglomerate printed the local paper two counties away, adding local school sports and club information with the regional ads and obituaries. Maybe someone was turning the paper office into a trendy restaurant or antique store.

Two blocks before he hit the new section of town, he slowed again past his old home. He purposely kept his heart still as a rock in his chest as he surveyed the lines of the house. It had a two-story center section, holding the living and dining room on the first floor and two bedrooms on the second. An addition to the south housed the kitchen, while a smaller one to the north joined the house with a partially enclosed carport and held what used to be a utility room of sorts. His mother’s favorite rose bush near the mailbox showed a few faded blooms. By the garage, the tree where he had built himself a swing and a fort still stood. The yard needed mowing, and he suppressed a surge of defiance as his memory heard his oldest brother berating him for needing a reminder of his duty to mow it. He pressed the accelerator and the peninsula of a plowed wheat field interceded between his memories and his mission. A couple of acres of farm ground, and he entered the “suburbs,” a few blocks of homes built at various times during the past forty years.

He turned left on Rosewood and, five houses down, pulled into the driveway of a tidy rambler. A tangle of cottonwoods behind the houses indicated that a stream meandered where an alley might have been and was the reason for the cul-de-sac another half-block down. The front door opened as he stepped from the car. He didn’t have time for the stretch his muscles wanted; he grabbed his notebook and strolled up the curving, edged sidewalk to the porch.

“Good morning, Mr. Aylward,” Ms. Frank greeted him.

“Good morning, Ms. Frank.” He paused to click the lock on the city car, though he knew it would be safe here. “Looks like it’s gonna be a hot one.”

“Yes, it does.” She closed the door behind him. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

“That would be nice,” he soaked up the dark cool of the house. “Ms. Frank, you haven’t aged much since I graduated.” Though her auburn hair showed more gray now that she had cut it shorter, otherwise, she looked like he remembered.

She laughed, something he never recalled hearing in school. “There wasn’t much to make me age after your class graduated, Mr. Aylward.”

He hunched his shoulders. “I guess we were pretty rowdy.”

She laughed again as he followed her to a dining table set before an expanse of windows that looked out over the lush yard rolling out to the undergrowth next to the stream. She poured iced tea from a pitcher on the table into glasses that were already waiting there. She handed him a glass and then sat in the chair facing the kitchen. “You really weren’t that bad, Mr. Aylward.” She looked out over the yard. “Actually, the newer classes make me think every year of retiring.”