“Who knew about that?”
“We’re not sure. Mayhew thought Mrs. Bryant might not know, but Nathan Benton—he’s chair of the trustees —says someone in the Historical Society told him. On the other hand, Mrs. Ramos says she never heard it before today.”
Lewes started to ask another question but Clark had 13 moved on to a different subject. “How did you feel about your ex-wife’s affair?”
“What affair?” asked Dwight.
“The one she wrote about in that suicide note.”
“There was no affair and she didn’t kill herself.”
“You don’t think it’s her handwriting?”
“Oh, it’s her handwriting, but this whole phony suicide was staged by whoever shot her.”
“Phony?” said Clark.
“You guys are joking, right?”
“Why would we joke?” asked Lewes.
“You saw the setup. No blood spatter where you’d expect it? Besides, if there’s one thing I know about Jonna, it’s that she’d never kill herself over any man and she certainly wouldn’t do it without making sure Cal was taken care of.”
“Maybe she did make sure. Maybe that’s who took your son,” said Clark. “She knew you’d remarried, right?
Could be she resented it. Or did you resent the idea of your boy having a new stepfather?”
His shiny black eyes reminded Dwight even more of that poodle he had once known.
Known and, as he now remembered, hadn’t particularly liked.
He felt his jaws tighten.
“Tell you what,” he said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Why don’t y’all go talk to people who know what her life was like up here? If she really was having an affair with a married man, somebody will know. Shaysville’s not that big.”
“He wants us to explore other routes,” Lewes told his partner.
“Map out a different expedition,” Clark agreed with a slight smirk on his poodle face.
“Jesus H!” said Dwight, slapping his hand down so hard on the desk that Clark had to grab for the tape recorder to keep it from bouncing off. “My son’s missing, his mother’s dead, and you’re playing games with me?”
“Sorry,” said Clark, “but hey, you did ask, and yeah, we’ve heard all the jokes.”
“Fine,” said Dwight. “Glad I could give you some more laughs.” He stood up angrily and reached for his jacket.
Lewes put out a placating hand. “Just a minute, Major.
Chief Radcliff tells us you’re staying at Mrs. Bryant’s house. We’re going to want to take a look.”
“When?” he asked, still frosted.
“Now works for me.”
“It’s been contaminated since Jonna disappeared,”
Dwight warned him grudgingly. “I slept there last night and someone came back for Cal’s sweater.”
“Huh?”
This was clearly something Radcliff had not told them, so Dwight gave a quick recap.
“Anything missing besides the sweater?”
“Maybe something from the medicine cabinet. And that reminds me.” He pulled out the bottle of antihistamine tablets that had been prescribed for Jonna late last summer and turned to Radcliff. “This Dr. Brookfield.
Where can I find him?”
“How about you let us handle that?” said Clark and held out his hand for the bottle. “And how ’bout you re-13 member that you’re a couple of hundred miles out of your jurisdiction?”
“Oh, I don’t think we need to get too official,” said Nick Lewes, playing the ameliorating good guy as he, too, stood and put on his jacket. “We’re all on the same team here. I’ll go on out to the house with him and maybe you could see what’s happening with the wagon.
Oh, and Chief. Didn’t you say your people lifted the abductor’s fingerprints at the house yesterday? Maybe Ed could take what you have back for our lab to process.”
“Sure,” Radcliff said sourly.
Rain mixed with snow continued to fall as they left the station. Special Agent Lewes borrowed one of Radcliff’s squad cars and followed Dwight’s truck over to Jonna’s house. They stood on the porch out of the icy wet and Dwight pointed to the stone that had hid the now missing key. “When Cal and I came back yesterday, whoever was in the house could have watched from behind the blinds as Cal got it and then put it back.”
He unlocked the door and held it open for the other officer. “We didn’t search the house when we came in, so she could have been hiding anywhere downstairs here.”
