Survival Clause, стр. 57
“Good night,” I told him sleepily.
“Night, darlin’.” The last thing I remember is the feeling of his lips against my forehead.
Sixteen
David must either be OK with the status quo, or else all the activity—Pearl walking around, Carrie waking up in the middle of the night, me getting up to feed her—dissuaded him from making a break for it during the late hours. He was up at one point, and stuck his head through the nursery door when I called out to him, to tell me he was thirsty and was going downstairs for something to drink. I told him to be careful of the dog, and three minutes later he was back upstairs. Of all of us, Rafe was the only one who spent a quiet night. He bounded out of bed bright and early, and headed down to the kitchen for his first shot of caffeine. I stayed in bed until I heard Carrie wake up, and by then David had gone downstairs, too. The two of them brought me pancakes—a little burnt, but otherwise not bad—in bed while I fed Carrie.
It’s family tradition to meet for Sunday Brunch at the Wayside Inn after church. Some of the time we’re all there—and there have become a lot of us over time—while sometimes just a few of us show up. Today, Dix was there with his girls, and Catherine, but Jonathan had taken their kids home, since Cole, the youngest, had a stomach ache. Audrey and Mrs. Jenkins graced us with their presence sometimes, but not today, so I suggested that Rafe could take David and Carrie to Audrey’s house while I headed to my open house later. Mother was there, though, with the sheriff, and she lit up when she saw David. The two of them had bonded over that experience with the serial killer last June, and she’s always delighted to see him.
Rafe and I sat down with Bob while Mother interrogated David about his life and school this year.
“Any progress on the investigation?” I wanted to know.
Bob shrugged. He’s a tall, rawboned man who looks like the sheriff in an old Western. “We’re whittling it down. Tracking down trucking companies and drivers and finding out who and what they saw, and when. So far, nobody’s seen anybody who looked like they didn’t belong at that truck stop.”
“Were you part of the investigation into Laura Lee Matlock’s murder way back when?” I asked, while Catherine descended on the baby, took her out of the car seat, and bounced her. Carrie gurgled.
Bob grinned. “It ain’t that long ago, darlin’. Sixteen years? Maybe seventeen?”
Something like that. More than half my life. But maybe it didn’t seem that long ago for him. “So you remember it.”
He nodded. “Sure. We don’t get so many locals murdered that any of them get forgotten. But she disappeared from here, remember, and was found somewhere else. The police there did all of the work on the body and dump site.”
Right. “What did you think had happened?”
“The same thing we still think happened,” Bob said promptly. “She went out to somebody’s truck with him, and ended up dead. At that time, we just didn’t see the pattern.”
“There wasn’t a pattern at that time.”
Bob nodded. “Took a couple more victims for that.”
“So at the time you just thought it was random.”
“At first we didn’t know what it was,” Bob said. “We checked on her husband, and anyone else she might have gotten involved with while Frankie was inside—”
“Was she involved with anyone else while Frankie was inside?”
“Not like that,” Bob said. “Her mama told us that sometimes she went outside with a trucker for a little extra money…”
Mrs. Drimmel had told Grimaldi and me the same thing.
“—but other than that, there was nobody in particular. So we figured she’d gone outside with the wrong guy. That’s still what I think.”
I nodded.
“You and Tamara getting any closer to figuring anything out?”
I guess she must have run her own investigation by him, to get permission or just to let him know she was asking questions. “Not much,” I admitted, as Dix shifted closer, maybe attracted by the mention of Grimaldi’s name. “We got off on a tangent about the Latin teacher and the kid he molested.”
“Because of the numerals.” Bob nodded.
“Grimaldi thinks Jurgensson is buried somewhere on Daffodil Hill Farm.”
Bob’s eyebrows rose. “What gave her that idea?”
“She didn’t tell me. I didn’t notice anything suspicious, so it might just be instinct on her part. Or imagination.”
“Instinct,” Dix said. I glanced at him, but he didn’t say anything else.
I turned back to Bob. “I don’t imagine there’s any reason to think he’s dead at all, really, other than the social security business. But if he is…”
“Daffodil Hill Farm’s a better place to look than many others,” Bob concluded. “Plenty of land up there to hide a body. And Art Mullinax has had plenty of offers to sell off parts of the woods in the past few years, but he’s always said no.”
“Could be he just wants to keep urban sprawl from creeping in,” Dix suggested.
Bob spared him a glance. “Could be. No reason to think otherwise. Except…”
He went into thinking mode, his gray eyes distant. I glanced at Rafe. “What do you think?”
My husband shrugged. “If Tammy says so, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was right.”
Sure. But… “Surely she isn’t in the habit of accusing totally unrelated people of murder? I mean, I get why she might think that Jurgensson is dead. Nobody’s heard from him in years, other than Mullinax. Or at least nobody admits to having heard from him. But to go from there to thinking that some random guy murdered him and buried him in the pasture…”
I ran out of breath and had to stop for a moment. Bob shook his head. “He’s not just some random guy, Savannah.”
“I know he and Jurgensson played golf together. Uncle Sid told me.”
“He’s Judy