The Names of Our Tears (14 page)

“Three units, Sheriff. Four deputies.”

“OK, leave one unit there for Armbruster. Park it on the drive where it’ll be conspicuous. Then get everyone else back here.”

“What if she comes back looking for Fannie?” Ricky asked.

“If she sees that cruiser parked on the drive, she won’t come anywhere near the place.”

“I should stay, Sheriff,” Ricky offered.

“No, Ricky. Stan can handle things there, until I get more people called in for an extra shift. Otherwise, I’m putting out everyone we’ve got, patrolling for this Buick.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Come back to the jail, Ricky. I need you to go down to Florida.”

SHERIFF ROBERTSON was pacing again behind his cherry desk, frustrated by the tangled knot of his problems.

Ruth Zook in the morgue.

Fannie Helmuth in protective custody.

EPA on his turf.

Jodie Tapp, most at risk. Most exposed.

Ricky Niell to Florida.

The woman in the gray Buick.

Bobby Newell was sitting up in a straight-backed chair in front of the desk, hoping to calm the sheriff. He watched Robertson’s frustration mount and decided on a series of gentle questions. First he asked, “Is Cal Troyer still going to try to get those Ruth Zook letters for us?”

After a distracted pause, Robertson said, “Yes,” and dropped heavily onto his swivel rocker. “But I’ve got something in mind that Cal isn’t going to like very much.”

“Something concerning the letters?”

“Yes.”

“And is Ricky coming back from the Helmuths’, but he also talked again with Mervin Byler about finding the Zook body?”

“Yes to both questions,” Robertson muttered, struggling for a happier equilibrium.

“And Pat Lance is bringing Fannie Helmuth here, from her brother’s farm out near Charm?”

“Yes again,” Robertson said. Still frustrated, he popped out of his chair. “I need to call Mike Branden. Tell him Ricky’s coming down there.”

Newell stood and retreated to a west-facing window. Robertson advanced from behind his desk, stepped to the coffee credenza, and asked the captain, “Decaf?”

“No thanks,” Newell said, and let a moment pass before asking, “Is there anything other than Fannie that connects this woman to the Zook murder?”

Abandoning his pot of coffee, Robertson returned to stand behind his desk and said, “I had lunch with Missy. She was only halfway finished with her autopsy of Ruth Zook’s body. She says there’s nothing there that we can use. Ruth died of a gunshot wound to the forehead. So far, there’s nothing else in the autopsy that can help us. And there wasn’t anything on the exterior of her body.”

“You’d expect something to have been left there,” Newell said. “Fibers, prints, residues.”

“Well, there was cocaine on her hands and her knife. But Missy says the horse obliterated everything else that might have been usable. She also says it’d be unlikely that there was anything there, anyway. Zook just met someone in that clearing, and they shot her. End of story.”

“We still have the tire track moldings that Pat and Ricky made,” Newell said as Robertson sat again.

“A Humvee,” Robertson said, elbows forward on his desk. “Has to be about a thousand of those in Ohio.”

Ricky Niell had appeared at the sheriff’s open door. “Stan found some more tracks,” Ricky said, casting a glanced at Newell. “Before I left the Helmuths’ place. They said the woman pulled her car in and backed around. Stan found her tire tracks where she ran off the gravel. We made impressions.”

“We can use that,” Captain Newell said, returning to the front of the sheriff’s big desk.

“That’s good, Ricky,” Robertson agreed. “If it really was an older Buick, then maybe those are aftermarket tires. Not originals. So, we can trace that purchase.”

“I saw Rachel Ramsayer in the squad room,” Ricky led.

Robertson nodded and seemed to regain some focus. “She’s installing new desktop systems.”

“She could help develop a search strategy,” Ricky said. “We’ve got access to all the databases.”

“That’d be good,” Robertson said. “And you can get a better description of this Buick woman from Fannie Helmuth.”

“We also should send a sketch artist out to the Helmuth farm,” Newell said.

“Has Lance made it back here with Fannie Helmuth?” Robertson asked Ricky.

“They’re in the squad room, too,” Ricky said and sat in front of the desk.

Newell sat beside him, tenting his fingertips in front of his lips to say, “They probably don’t have electricity at the Helmuth farm.”

“They don’t,” Ricky said. “Just kerosene lamps.”

“OK,” Newell said. “We’ll just go old school out there. Send a sketch artist with a pad, pencil, and eraser.”

“Rachel’s good at this sort of thing,” Robertson said to Ricky. “I mean here at the jail, with facial recognition software. We could get a second description here from Fannie.”

“I’ll set it up,” Ricky said, rising to leave.

“Wait,” Robertson said, motioning for Ricky to reclaim his seat. “I want to call Ray Lee Orton while you’re still here.”

“Is this the Florida trip?” Ricky asked. “Because I’ll need help beyond what Orton can give me.”

“Mike Branden is already down there,” Robertson said. “I’ll call him first.”

While Niell and the captain listened, the sheriff punched in Mike Branden’s cell phone number, but got the professor’s voice mail.

Rolling his eyes, Robertson waited for the message announcement
to finish. To Ricky and the captain, he said, “They’re probably out on the beach.”

Ricky started, “You can just push…,” but Robertson cut him off with an outward palm. “OK, Mike!” he said into the phone. “Bruce. We need your help, if you can pull yourself back to the real world for five minutes. Fun, sun,—I know, all of that. But call me, OK?”

As Robertson set his phone on his desk, Newell quipped, “Cute, Bruce. You’re so good at sweet talk.”

“Give me a break!” Robertson barked. “It’s just Mike.”

“This Jodie Tapp,” Ricky said. “I’ll have to interview her and all of her friends down there. And all of her coworkers.”

The sheriff agreed and asked, “Did you talk with Emma Wengerd?”

“Tried to. She ran off when I tried to see her.”

“You scared her off?” Robertson shot.

“She ran off,” Niell bristled. “They said she doesn’t like to talk to people. Said it’d be useless to try to find her.”

“Then it’s up to Cal,” Robertson said. “Maybe he’ll do better.”

“What’d you want me to do, Sheriff? Chase her down?”

“No, sorry. She’s a strange girl is all. I just wanted the letters.”

“She’s adopted, right?” Newell interjected.

“Yes,” the sheriff said. “But I don’t like it that a young kid can stall us out like this.”

Calmly, Ricky said, “Cal will get the letters, if anybody can.”

“OK, what’d you get from Mervin Byler?” Robertson asked.

“He doesn’t remember anything more,” Ricky said. “He just found Zook and phoned us.”

While the three men were still seated, Cal Troyer appeared at Robertson’s door. The sheriff waved him in.

Stepping forward to Robertson’s desk, Cal said, “I’ve got Emma Wengerd out front. I told her she could watch while we made copies of her letters. Then she wants them back.”

“That’s going to be a bit of a problem,” Robertson said. “I want them tested for cocaine residue.”

“I told her she could keep those letters,” Cal said. “Do you really have to take them from her?”

Evenly, Robertson said, “They’re evidence, Cal. We need to test them.”

“I’d still like her to be able to keep her letters.”

Robertson started, “I don’t know…” but Newell interrupted. “We don’t have to harm the letters, Sheriff. Missy can run a damp swab over the paper. It might smear a little ink, but that’s about all.”

Cal nodded a degree of satisfaction. “But Emma has to stay with her letters. She won’t understand if we have to take her letters away from her.”

Robertson rolled his eyes. “If you want to babysit her in Missy’s labs, Cal, go right ahead. But Missy’s gonna test the paper. And the envelopes. That’s just how it is.”

Cal circled around behind Niell and the captain to stand by a window, saying, “Ruth Zook didn’t handle any cocaine until she got home with that suitcase, Bruce. There won’t be any residue on her letters.”

“That’s just what everyone is saying, Cal,” Robertson argued. “But it’s just one theory of this whole sorry mess. We have the letters, and I want them tested.”

“You’re fishing, Bruce,” Cal complained.

“I don’t think so,” Robertson said. “We’ve only gotten one version of this. It’s supposition and conjecture, nothing more. I just want to test another theory—that Ruth Zook knew what she was doing.”

“Well, it’s a bad theory,” Cal said, moving toward the door. “I think you should reconsider. You’re going to put Emma Wengerd through more heartache with this, and it’s just a bad theory.”

With his knuckles planted on his desk, Robertson said, “Look, Cal. I’m sending Ricky down to Florida. I’ve got a call in to Mike Branden. We’re guarding Fannie Helmuth because some woman in a Buick is searching for her, and I’ve got guards out at the Helmuth farm. Then the EPA is crawling all over the
bottoms, assessing damages ‘to our environment’ because they want to issue fines. Fines to an Amish family, for crying out loud! They’ve got a daughter to bury, and the EPA is pulling everything of hers out of their house. We’ve got Jodie Tapp to worry about down in Florida. Humvees and Black Talons, too. So, if I have to test a few pieces of paper to put my mind at ease, then that’s just how it’s got to be.”

*   *   *

After leaving the sheriff’s office, Ricky stepped down to Ellie’s front counter. Ellie came out from her consoles and embraced him, saying, “You have to go to Florida?”

“Yes,” Ricky said, pulling her close. “But Mike Branden is already down there, and he can help.”

“The last time you two were down there, he had to fish you out of Sarasota Bay.”

“I know,” Ricky said, releasing her. “But if we can’t find this Buick woman here in Ohio, we’ll have to figure this all out down in Florida. It’s the right move. Bruce is just being thorough.”

“I don’t like it, Ricky.”

“It’s what I’d do, Ellie. If I were sheriff.”

“And what, Ricky? You’ll be back before I know it?”

“Something like that. I’ll call each night, but will you be OK in the mornings?”

“Yes, but don’t tell Bruce anything. I’m not yet ready to deal with him.”

*   *   *

In the squad room at the other end of the first-floor hallway, Rachel Ramsayer was finishing her late-afternoon installation of a new desktop system for the deputies. As Ricky crossed the room to her, she pushed off her chair and said, “A woman in a gray Buick? That’s all I’ve got to work with?”

Ricky pulled a chair out for her and sat down at a long roster table. She climbed up onto the chair beside him, and he said, “We have more now. Stan found her tire tracks at the Helmuths’ farm.”

“So, that gives us a tread pattern for the Buick,” Rachel said.

“Yes,” Ricky said, “and it’s an old car. So there’s a good chance that they’re not the original tires.”

“Aftermarket treads,” Rachel said. “That’d be good. Easier to identify and trace. Or at least there won’t be as many matches as there would be with originals. Originals would all be the same tire.”

“Also,” Ricky said, “Fannie Helmuth can give us a description for the facial recognition software.”

“Even better.”

“And we’re sending a sketch artist to the Helmuth farm. They’ll give us a description, too.”

“Also, I’ve been thinking,” Rachel said. “There ought to be some connection between this Buick woman and the owner of that Humvee. She’s likely involved with whoever killed Ruth Zook.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Ricky said. “Maybe this woman owns both an old Buick and a Humvee.”

Scooting off her chair, Rachel said, “Pat Lance told me to tell you that Fannie’s in the captain’s office.”

“Where’s Lance?”

“She went to get Fannie some supper. We asked her what she wanted, and she piped right up, ‘McDonald’s!’”

*   *   *

Ricky walked into Captain Newell’s office on the second floor of the jail. Fannie Helmuth wasn’t there. He used Newell’s desk phone to call Ellie first, and then Rachel, and neither one of them had seen Fannie.

Lance stepped into the office carrying bags of take-out food, and Ricky asked, “Where’s Fannie?”

“I left her here,” Lance said, and dropped the food on the captain’s desk.

“Check the women’s bathrooms,” Ricky said, and Lance left to do that.

Next, Ricky called the sheriff’s desk. “Sheriff, we’re looking for Fannie Helmuth.”

“Well, she’s not here, Detective,” Robertson said.

Lance came back shaking her head.

Ricky thought, and then said into the phone, “Sheriff, let’s lock it down right now. Search the building.”

“Done,” Robertson said.

A determined forty-minute search of the jail, the courthouse, and the square did not produce Fannie Helmuth.

Outside the sheriff’s west-facing windows, a sudden, heavy pelting of rain began an insistent thudding against the glass.

CHIEF DEPUTY Dan Wilsher paced in front of Ellie’s counter at the front entrance of the jail. He had been giving her radio calls to make, placing checkpoints on the major roads leading out of Millersburg. They set cruisers first on Route 39, eastbound at Walnut Creek and westbound at Nashville, and on Route 62, northeastbound at Wilmot and southwestbound at Killbuck. While Ellie dispatched units on her radio, Wilsher pulled off his gray suit coat, threw it across the countertop, and called the Wayne County sheriff to the north, to ask for cooperation on Route 83 northbound, at Moreland, and on US 250 between Wooster and Mount Eaton.

Wilsher finished his call, switched off, pulled his tie loose at the neck, and asked Ellie, “What else? We’ve got every unit out looking, but what are we forgetting?”

Ellie kept her seat at her consoles and thought. “What about 83 south?”