“Do you know anything at all about my husband?” Linda Kimball asked. “About his history, I mean?”
Joanna considered for a moment. With only six thousand people in town, residents of Bisbee tended to have some knowledge of one another’s general histories, even for those people they didn’t necessarily know well.
“Some, I guess,” she answered. “Wasn’t he raised by the Pattersons? I seem to remember something about that.”
Linda nodded. “Harold Patterson was Burt’s uncle, his mother’s older brother. When Thornton, Burt’s dad, was discharged from the service after World War II, he and his wife, Bonnie, stayed out on the Rocking P for a while. When Bonnie turned up pregnant, Thornton left her with her brother while he went off to California looking for work. He was supposed to send for her as soon as he found a job and a place to live, but he never did. No one ever heard from him again, and Bonnie Patterson Kimball died in childbirth a few months later. Aunt Emily and Uncle Harold took care of Burton from the time he was born.” Linda broke off, as though just relating her husband’s painful history hurt her as well.
“It sounds like a pretty rough thing all the way around,” Joanna offered by way of encouragement. “He was lucky there was someone to look after him.”
Linda nodded and continued. “They were wonderful to him; treated him just like one of their own. All that ancient family history still bothers my husband, even though it isn’t something he talks about. I mean, being abandoned like that does some damage, leaves scars, although, since it happened before he was born, it isn’t something he personally remembers.”
Joanna was puzzled about where all this was going, but she knew enough to shut up and let Linda tell the story her way.
“It’s one of the reasons family is so important to him,” Linda continued. “And it’s why that terrible business between Uncle Harold and Holly upset him so. Burton would never say so, but he loved that crotchety old man just as much as if Uncle Harold had been his natural father. It tore him to pieces to think that Holly would come out of no where, armed with her high-priced lawyer and her therapist and all those horrendous stories.”
Linda paused and almost stopped, as though her talking engine were running low on steam. “That’s also why he’s always been so concerned about Ivy,” she added.
“Burton’s worried about Ivy?” Joanna asked
“Wouldn’t you be?” Linda countered. “It sounds to me as though she’s really gone off the deep end. The idea that she’s getting married within hours of her father’s death and without even mentioning it to Burton… It’s breaking his heart. Not that we would have gone, but she didn’t even bother to invite him to the wedding.”
“Why is Burton so upset?” Joanna asked. “I know Ivy’s timing is a little unorthodox and could raise a few eyebrows, but I’d think he’d be happy that she’s finally found someone after all this time.”
“You don’t understand,” Linda said. “Back when those three kids were growing up, Burton always considered Ivy his baby sister. All his life, he tried to look out for her best interests the way a big brother should. Maybe even more than he should.”
Linda paused as if uncertain what to say next. Stifling her inclination to rush her, Joanna kept quiet.
“Getting back to this family stuff. I knew from the beginning that family connections bothered him. I had both my parents still while his natural parents were both gone. For a long time, we didn’t even discuss the subject. Later on, though, when he finally could tell me about it, he admitted that he’d always hoped that someday he’d have a chance to meet his father. He said he wanted to ask Thornton Kimball why he left town. Why he ran away and never came back. Why he never even acknowledged his son’s birth. That dream of someday meeting his father is one he’s carried around in his heart from the time he was just a little kid. When he told me about it, I thought my heart would break just listening to him. It was so sad, so unfair.”
Linda took another breath. “I love him, you see, and I finally had to do something about it.”
“About what?”
“About making that dream come true. I decided to try finding Thornton Kimball on my own, with out telling Burt what I was up to. I wanted to surprise him. I thought that if he finally had the chance to meet and talk to his natural father, it might help him put some of his own personal demons to rest. He’s spent a lifetime blaming him self, you know, not only for his mother’s death but also for his father’s desertion.”
“Any luck finding his father?”
“No,” Linda answered. “None. I’ve checked everywhere. Salvation Army, the V.A the genealogical library up in Salt Lake. Everywhere I go, I keep running into blank walls. It was as though, Thornton Kimball left the Rocking P one day and vanished into thin air.”
Feeling like some dimwitted comic-strip character, Joanna felt the light bulb switch on over her head when she finally made the connection. “You believe the other body in the glory hole might be Thornton Kimball’s?”
Linda nodded. “As soon as Burt told me about the skeleton, this terrible feeling of certainty washed over me. I can’t explain it. I don’t know where it came from, but as far as I can tell, from the time he left here in 1945, no one ever heard a single word from Thornton Kimball. And maybe that’s why-because he never really left.”
Joanna felt a swift rush of rising excitement. Linda Kimball’s theory made good sense. She reached for the phone. “I’ll pass this information along to Ernie Carpenter right away.”
“Wait,” Linda said. “Don’t call him yet.”
“Why not?” Joanna said. “With this information maybe we can get some help from the state laboratory-utilize some of their new DNA technology.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to do that,” Linda Kimball said quietly.
Joanna put down the phone. “Why not?”
Linda shifted uneasily in her chair. “Promise me you won’t tell Burton how you found out. It’s embarrassing. He’d be so angry if he ever found out about it.”
Joanna thought she had been following all the nuances of the twisting story line, but now she was suddenly lost. “If he found out about what?” she asked.
Linda Kimball bit her lower lip while a pair of fat tears squeezed out of her eyes and ran down both cheeks,
