County Line Read online

  After that, she grants me some uninterrupted sleep. I dream I’m swimming against a cold current, my arms frozen and useless. At some point the quality of the light changes and I kick to the surface and awake. Pete stands at the curtain. His shirt and pants are spattered with blood. A bandage wraps his right forearm from elbow to wrist. Patches of gauze bloom all over him, like he fought his way out of a briar patch.

  “Hey, Pete.” He watches me through a pair of raccoon’s eyes. “Did Ruby Jane ever tell you her mom or dad’s names?”

  “Good morning to you too, Skin.”

  “Sorry. Just wondering.”

  He thinks for a moment. “Dale and Bella.”

  “Was there a Dale or Bella on that list of Whittakers?”

  “You’re just thinking of this now?”

  “Pete, dammit—”

  “It was the first thing I checked. No Isabella either, assuming that’s her given name.”

  It was a long shot anyway. “What did she tell you about them?”

  “Barely their names. I don’t think she has good memories of her childhood.”

  What had Mrs. Parmelee told me? Abandoned by her father and accused by her mother. No good memories indeed. I can’t forget Ruby Jane’s hints just before the accident. If I hadn’t found Chase née Dale in her tub, I’d be ready to believe she’d buried her old man on Preble County Line Road.

  “What are you going to do now, Skin?”

  “Visit Mrs. Parmelee again.”

  “You don’t believe she’s still there, do you?”

  I’d shrug if it didn’t hurt so bad.

  “We have to start somewhere.”

  “I suppose.” He looks at his feet.

  “What’s on your mind, Pete?”

  “Ruby Jane stopped by while I was getting my stitches last night …” He pauses, and if groping for words. After a moment, he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to tell you I have a flight.”

  “A flight.”

  “Out of Dayton at noon. A cab is waiting for me.”

  No need to ask why. The last thing he’ll remember from before the crash is me declaring my love for Ruby Jane.

  “You were right. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “I’m sorry, Pete.”

  I wonder what she said to him, but he doesn’t enlighten me. He smiles, weary and scornful. “No, you’re not.” He doesn’t say goodbye.

  After he’s gone, I press the call button, desperate to take a piss. A nurse throws the curtain wide so the whole goddamn world can watch me struggle to my feet and drag the IV on a wheeled pole to the john. When I return, Doctor Lindoff is making her rounds, her eyes caffeine bright and her manner ephedrine crisp. She checks me over and declares me fit for release. Shirtless, I’m allowed to keep my gown. I wonder how hard it will be to claim my meager belongings from the wrecked rental car.

  A candy-striper younger than my last pair of shoes wheels me to the billing office, where I sign away what I presume are all my assets. When that’s finished, I find myself in the lobby gazing out at too bright sunlight. My sense of regional geography is so uncertain I don’t know if Farmersville is in cab range, or if I’ll have to catch a stage coach. For a moment I consider following Pete to the airport, then wonder if they’ll let a man dressed in a check-out-my-ass hospital gown through security.

  I pull out Chief Nash’s business card. My cell—and Ruby Jane’s—is somewhere between Preble County Line and the rental company’s tow lot; I have to use a pay phone. Collect. Nash accepts the charges and says he has something to show me.

  “I’ll send an officer to pick you up.”

  The least offensive t-shirt in the gift shop is a baby blue number with the words Here’s to Health! in yellow puff ink across the chest. I buy an overpriced packet of Advil and find a restroom, where swapping gown for shirt and wrestling back into the sling is an exercise in agony. I wash down the ibuprofen with a too-sweet vanilla latte from the cafeteria and return to the lobby as a Jackson Township patrol car pulls up in the traffic circle outside. Nash’s officer, a youngster named Mackenzie, is so ramrod straight I get exhausted looking at him. He lets me sit up front.

  “We’re meeting the chief in West Alex.”

  I don’t know where that is, but Mackenzie offers no clarification. We head west on Route 35, which passes through a number of fair-sized towns, then open countryside. He types on his computer and swerves through traffic. I squint against the high brassy glare outside, breathe conditioned air which smells of fried food and spilled coffee. After half an hour, we turn onto a narrow road lined with tract houses and steel pole barns. The road dead ends in a dirt lot. Behind a row of county maintenance trucks, Nash sits on the hood of his own patrol car, a Preble County Sheriff’s car parked next to him. Nash is talking to the deputy. Beyond them, I see a pickup truck. The windows are broken out and the cab scorched black. When I open the car door, I smell the burn on the warm, heavy air. Beyond the lot, grass fields extend out to a line of trees. The air is filled with the sound of insects.

  Nash eyes my t-shirt. “Nice get up.”

  “Be grateful I found the gift shop.”

  He points at the pickup, like I can’t guess why we’re here. “This the truck that hit you?”

  The front grill is shattered, the bumper a broken memory. The metal flake gold paint has a vague familiarity to it, though I have no recollection of seeing the approaching vehicle. Ruby Jane’s eyes were all I cared about.

  “Probably. You check it for paint transfer?”

  “Paint on the grill is a visual match to your rental. Got a tech coming out, but it’ll be six months before I see any results. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But we’re less than five miles from where you got nailed, and this truck was stolen from the short term lot at the Cincinnati airport yesterday morning.”

  My cheeks flush. “We were followed.” Nash doesn’t comment. We cross over to the truck, peer into the overcooked cab. The seats are nothing but springs and frame, the dashboard a vision out of Dali. I can smell kerosene and burned plastic.

  “How often is this lot used?”

  “Depends on the weather. It’s been nice for a while.”

  My idea of nice doesn’t include molten humidity. “So no one saw him.”

  “Preble County will canvas the houses up the road. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “We’re a long walk from anywhere. One of the neighbors has to be missing a car.”

  “It’s a fair bet.” Nash folds his arms across his chest. “So, Mister Kadash, you ready to tell me what’s going on?”

  Sweat gathers in the small of my back. All I can offer is a weak shrug.

  “This isn’t some jerk who doesn’t want to deal with insurance after a fender-bender. He tracked you from Cinci, and I’ll wager he followed you from San Francisco before that.”

  I look at him sharply. “You’ve been busy.”

  His mouth is hard. “I tracked down that lieutenant you mentioned yesterday. She told me about James. I also talked to an Inspector Eldridge in San Francisco. Quite the trail of interstate mayhem behind you.”

  I wrap my free hand across my sling and stare at the burned-out pickup.

  “I wish I had something to tell you, Chief.”

  “I bet you do.” He gestures toward his car. “Come with me. Mackenzie will wait for the tech with the deputy.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I got more to show you, and then we’re going for a visit.”

  “Mrs. Parmelee?”

  “I already talked to her. Ruby left Mrs. Parmelee’s house late yesterday afternoon. No one has seen her since.” He regards me as we walk back to his car. “Or have they?”

  I sigh. “I did try to stop her.”

  “Right.” He shakes his head. “Well, to answer your next question, Linda doesn’t know why Ruby came back either.”

  I’m not so sure. At his car, Nash pops his trunk and pulls ou
t the cheap nylon pack I bought at the Target in Walnut Creek. “You’ll need to do laundry.”

  The bag smells of radiator fluid. I find the two cell phones in the outer zipper pocket. Ruby Jane’s display is cracked, and the phone won’t power up. Mine is okay, but the battery is nearly dead. No calls, no messages. I open the passenger side door.

  There’s a folder on the seat. It’s old, the edges furred and the surface scuffed. Maybe a quarter inch thick. I glance at Nash across the roof of the car. “What’s this?”

  “Take a look.”

  Nash returns to the state highway while I juggle the folder one-handed on my lap. Name on the file: WHITTAKER, DALE, followed by a case number and a string of names on the check-out log, Nash’s last. The origination date is April 17, 1989.

  “There was an investigation into his disappearance?”

  “Read through it. Then we can talk.”

  The file starts with fading faxed copies of Dayton Police Department reports going back to March 1988. A Mae Whittaker reported a stolen emerald ring and accused Dale, her son, of taking it. There’s a description of the ring and a handful of field contact reports—pawn shop visits mostly. The investigation went nowhere. Doesn’t look like anyone tried too hard, but I doubt I would have either. Who’s to say the ring wasn’t simply lost? I don’t believe that, based on the little I know of Dale Whittaker, but for a cop sitting on a stack of property crime files a foot thick, one missing ring wouldn’t have rated much attention.

  “Ruby Jane’s dad was a thief. So what? I hear he was a lot of things.”

  “Keep reading.” After the FCRs, there’s a slew of financials: Mae Whittaker’s bank statements. This kind of crap makes me cross-eyed, but I can’t miss the series of large withdrawals during the early part of 1988. By the end, the account is zeroed out. A handwritten note mentions her death in April of the same year. On the same note, the words “Dale Whittaker scammed withdrawals?” is underlined three times. The note is dated April 17, 1989, signed by a Sergeant C. Grabel.

  “Who’s Grabel?”

  Nash grunts. “He was a member of the Farmersville P.D. for a year or so back before the town contracted police services out to Jackson township.”

  “What was his interest in Dale Whittaker?”

  No response.

  Next is a handwritten statement in a round, curly script which at first seems to have nothing to do with Dale Whittaker. It’s Clarice’s description of a fight between her and Ruby Jane. I skim, until the second to last paragraph.

  She was a little drunk, but it’s not like she was out of it or anything. She said if anyone ever found out what happened to her father she didn’t know what she’d do. Go to jail, probably.

  I have to concentrate not to tremble. Nash notices my reaction. “Keep reading, Mister Kadash.”

  “Christ. Where is this going?”

  “Keep reading.”

  There’s nothing more about the fight, no charging document or follow-up report. I see a DMV report, title transfer of a truck belonging to Dale, and handwritten notes of an interview with Bella Denlinger. According to the notes, Bella refused to state unequivocally that her daughter was not involved in her father’s disappearance, saying, “Who can tell with that girl?” I can almost feel the ice in her words projected across the decades. But the real zinger follows: a single page summary interview report dated April 18, 1989. Officers present: Sergeant Coby Grabel and Officer Werth Nash.

  Subject: Ruby Jane Whittaker.

  “Jesus.”

  “Yep.”

  We’re slowing, pulling up to the house where we found Ruby Jane the day before. A wide scar cuts across the ditch beside the road, the final resting place of my rental car. The fence is broken, and a set of dual tire tracks gouge the grass of the front lawn—from the tow truck, I assume. The house remains its pristine self, gleaming columns and brick, fresh off the assembly line. Nash pulls into the driveway. The gravel crunches under his tires, the sound heightening the tension in the chill air inside the car. He stops, but I’m still reading. The summary is thin, an acknowledgment the subject was picked up to respond to statements made in another report (reference: Moody) and questioned with the permission of her mother from 8:30 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. Nothing about the line of questioning itself, nothing about what was learned. After the summary, the file ends.

  “You guys interviewed her for over five hours?”

  “Thereabouts, yes.”

  “About the fight?”

  “The fight was a way in for Grabel. He was on a fishing expedition. A lot of money went missing the year before and he thought she knew something—”

  “That was a Dayton case, not Farmersville. If there even was a case to begin with.”

  “Grabel came to us from Dayton. I believe we were a retirement present to himself. Thought he’d get paid for easy duty in the sticks.”

  “And then he goes after Ruby Jane because some nitwit girl made a statement in what was probably an act of revenge? That makes no sense.”

  “You had to be there.”

  “Someone should have been there. What were you doing while all this was going on?”

  “Doing my best to look out for her, as a matter of fact.”

  “Sure.” Tension thrums through me like a vibrating wire. “Why aren’t there any transcripts?”

  “Mister Kadash, you’re not the only one who felt the interview was an overreach. In the end, the chief shut the whole thing down and refused to sign a voucher to have the tapes transcribed. They were in storage with the file, but after all this time, the oxide is flaking off the tape surface.”

  A momentary sense of loss floods through me as I wonder what would it be like to hear Ruby Jane’s voice, so many years past. Would I recognize the earlier incarnation of the woman I’ve come to love? Or would I find myself eavesdropping on a stranger? I put my hand over my eyes.

  “She is more to you than just a friend, isn’t she?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “I’m trying to make sense of things here.”

  “The matter is in negotiations.”

  “Okay.”

  “Glad I have your permission, Chief.”

  Nash draws air through his nose. “Mister Kadash, you came to me. No one asked you and Ruby to drag your crap back here after all these years. We were doing just fine without you.”

  I put my elbow on the door frame, rest my forehead in my hand. My shoulder is pulsing and my mind is a confused jumble. Dank air seems to hang in the dead space behind my eyes. But I can sense something in Nash, a desire to help, perhaps to right a wrong he’s carried with him for two decades. He didn’t have to share this file with me. I take a moment, try to calm my racing heart, then turn back to him.

  “I’m sorry, Chief.”

  He flexes his hands on the steering wheel. After a moment, he lets out a long breath.

  “Ruby’s home life was hell. Her mother was a fearsome mess, and after the fight with Clarice Nielson—”

  “Clarice Moody?”

  “Yeah, she was Moody then. After the fight, Ruby left town.”

  “And now you think she’s returned because of …” I tap the file in my lap. “… this?”

  He takes a moment to answer. “Here’s the thing, Mister Kadash. I don’t know all the specifics of what went on between Ruby and her folks. I know it was bad, and I know it was volatile. Dale was always hardest on Jimmie, but I do believe something serious happened between Ruby and her father. Something big.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “I’m working on old memories here, so bear with me. Right about the time Dale disappeared, I came across Ruby out here on Preble County Line Road.”

  “Here?”

  “Close enough, yes. It was the middle of a rainy night, storms all evening throughout the area. I found her covered in mud, walking down the road. She was a wreck.”

  “What did you do about it?”

  “We got a lot of calls to
the Whittaker house. I figured she’d had a fight with her mom or dad. She’d taken her mother’s car, she didn’t have her license yet. I’d seen Dale’s truck out this way earlier. So I got her home again, told her to call if anything happened.”

  “What about Children’s Protective Services?”

  “I was a young officer. Too young, maybe. I did my best.”

  He’s been carrying this with him. I have a feeling he’s been second guessing his choices for a long time.

  “How did she do? … in the interview.”

  Nash gets a look in his eye. The memory brings a rush of color to his cheeks. “Coby made a mistake a lot of people make when they come out here. He thought he’d got hold of some dumb country girl he could push around.” He turns to me, his expression prideful. “She kicked his ass.”

  My Ruby Jane. No, not my Ruby Jane. No one have I ever known is so utterly her own person as Ruby Jane Whittaker. I feel suddenly a little less troubled.

  “Now what, Chief?”

  “We talk to Ray Malo.” He points through the back window, and I twist, my shoulder complaining. A van is pulling into the driveway behind me. “He built this house. Yesterday afternoon, he talked to Ruby right here—not long before you showed up. Told me he showed her something he found during construction. He’s going to show it to us now.”

  - 44 -

  New Construction

  Malo is a big, rough-looking fellow, with the red skin and short, faded hair of a man who works outside. He shakes my hand, returns it bloodless and misshapen. Nash accepts Malo’s grip like he’s grabbing a cold beer on a hot day.

  “Glad you could meet us, Ray.”

  “Lucky you caught me. I’m heading back to Columbus tonight.”

  “How much longer you working up there?”

  “Long as they’ll have me. You know how it is. Take what you can get these days.”

  “I hear ya.”

  Malo turns to me. “You must be the guy looking for that girl was out here yesterday.”

  “This is Mister Kadash, from Portland.”

  “She mentioned Portland.”

  “So you talked to her.” My voice is pitched like a boy’s anxious to find out what’s under the Christmas tree.