Just Leave, page 10
“She sounds like an amazing woman,” Michael said.
“She was,” Izzie agreed. “She was by far the best woman I ever laid eyes on.”
She smiled wistfully, and Faith's heart ached for her. She thought of David, hiding from a man who was possibly the most dangerous criminal she'd ever faced. She thought of Michael, lying next to that killer's ex-wife for the past year, never knowing how close to death he lurked.
“Izzie,” Michael began gently. “This is a tough question, but I have to ask…”
“You want to know where I was the night Izzie died.”
Michael nodded.
“Don’t feel bad about that. You have to ask. To be honest, I’m surprised it took you both so long to get around to me.”
Faith felt a stab of guilt at that. “We were following up on other leads.”
“Didn’t pan out, huh?”
Faith hesitated before answering. It was a serious breach of protocol to discuss details like that with anyone, but she felt bad for Izzie, and in any case, if Izzie had something useful to them, then Faith wanted to be as far in her good graces as possible.
“It didn’t yield the results we hoped for,” she finally answered.
Izzie nodded. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. Killing like this? That’s not something anyone can understand.”
I wish that were so, Faith thought.
“Your whereabouts, Izzie?” Michael reminded her.
“Right. I was at work. I’m a foreman for Daughtry Construction. We’re building a new gym for Sioux City High. We have some new kids on the night shift, so I worked a double the night Izzie died to make sure they understood what they were doing.”
“When did you leave work?”
“Nearly four in the morning. The kids really didn’t understand what they were doing.”
“And can anyone confirm that?”
"Sure. You can check the time clock, the security cameras, and talk to the boys. I was there."
Michael smiled with a touch of apology. “Thank you.”
“When did you realize Izzie was missing?” Faith asked. “From what I understand, it was several days before she was found.”
Izzie stiffened slightly, and Faith regretted her bluntness. "I realized she was missing when she didn't come home the following night. I didn't get home until four-fifteen. That's early for Gemma to be awake and out of the house, but she sometimes goes on runs that early before she gets ready for work. I went to bed, and when I woke up at eleven and she wasn't here, I assumed she was at work. When she didn't show up by eight, I called her. I called her a few more times, and then I tried to find my phone thing. It showed that her phone had powered off at nine after I had started calling her. That's when I called the police."
"Thank you," Faith said. "This next question's pretty tough, too, but can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill her?"
Izzie chuckled briefly. “She was a therapist, Faith. I lost count of the death threats she got from disturbed patients. I learned to ignore them. Guess that was my mistake.”
“None of this is your fault,” Michael said, “You understand that, right?”
"I do," Izzie replied. "I mean, my mistake was getting comfortable, believing that since Gemma and I were good people ,good things would happen to us. We weren't excessively wealthy, we were kind to others, we paid our taxes and our bills. We were living the American dream. I guess I forgot I'd have to wake up."
She laughed and said, “You know, it’s funny. I thought after that tornado hit, we had endured our close call already.”
“Tornado?”
“Yeah. About ten years back, there was a really bad tornado. F5. For whatever reason, this one didn’t get reported on the way the one in Waco did, maybe because there are fewer people out here. Anyway, for those of us that did live out here, it was pretty terrifying. I thought for sure that was it for us. I thought the silo was going to collapse.”
Faith’s ears perked up at that. “Silo?”
“Yeah. When I was a girl, my parents taught us to hide in a grain silo if there was a hurricane. Said something about it being more likely to survive because it was round, and air would flow around it instead of slamming through it. I have no idea if they were right, but that’s what I was taught to do, so I did it.”
“What silo?”
“Oh, we tore it down a few years ago when we built the basement. That’s safer than a silo anyway. But we had a big grain silo that came with the property. We never used it, obviously, but we kept it because we thought it was cool. And it was a nice spot for romantic dates. There was a big window at the top we could see the stars through and just lay there and talk about nothing.”
She paused, smiling softly as she recalled tender moments with her lover. “Anyway,” she continued after a moment. “I don’t know who for sure would want to kill her, but if I were you, I would start looking at her patients. I can’t think of anyone else who would want to hurt her in such a brutal fashion.”
Her face sank, and tears welled in her eyes. "Goddammit, Gemma," she whispered. "Why the hell’d you have to run off and die like that?”
She buried her face in her hands and wept softly. Turk immediately trotted over to her and pressed his head into her lap, looking up at her with the sad, strong brown eyes that had won Faith over two years ago. Faith felt a lump form in her throat and stood. “Izzie, thank you for your time. We’ll—”
Michael nudged her and gestured with his eyes toward Turk, who was now wrapped tightly in the weeping woman’s arms. The lump in Faith’s throat clenched tightly, and she turned abruptly and left the room.
Michael frowned questioningly at her as she stepped outside, but she didn’t stop. Once outside, she exhaled in a rush and breathed deeply of the cool, moist, fresh air. She gasped twice, gulping huge draughts before she grabbed the porch rail and steadied herself. A single tear trickled slowly out of each eye and she gripped the rail as tightly as she could with her injured hand and forced herself to take measured breaths until the lump in her throat eased.
She looked out across the twilight mist that slowly formed over the city and knew suddenly that she would never have what Izzie had. She had lost Michael already and now was losing him as a friend. David was halfway out of her life already and probably wouldn’t miss her much when she was gone.
Dr. West had already won. He had already taken everything she loved from her. In the cabin, he had shown her how easily he could take even Turk from her.
Except it wasn’t Dr. West who had beaten her. For all his grandiosity and arrogance, he owed all of his success, all of his identity, to an overgrown farmer with bad teeth who had effortlessly and completely robbed Faith of all of her strength and dignity and left behind nothing more than an angry, haunted shell who had no choice but to watch as she torpedoed her own life.
The Donkey Killer.
Jethro Trammell.
“Fuck you,” she whispered softly, no longer trying to stop her tears. “Fuck you, Trammell.”
“Hey,”
She turned to Michael and managed a half-hearted smile. “Sorry. I just needed a bit of air.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I get that. You’re worried about David.”
“Yeah,” she said, deciding it was easiest to allow him to believe that. “Yeah, I am.”
“Well, he’ll be all right,” Michael said with a compassionate smile. “Even Franklin West isn’t stupid enough to mess with Faith Bold’s boyfriend.”
She nodded. “God, I wish that were true.”
“It’ll be okay,” Michael said gently. “This is the suck. You’ll get through it.”
She laughed. “The suck? Where did you hear that?”
"From you. You told me that's what you guys called it in the Marine Corps."
“When did I tell you that.”
His smile faded a little, and he turned away. Then Faith remembered when she had told him that. It was the day of their first and only anniversary. More specifically, the night of their anniversary.
She colored a little. “Oh. I remember now.”
He nodded. “Well, come on. Let’s go say goodbye to our person of interest before we do something stupid like talk about the relationship.”
“Way to make it more awkward,” she said, coloring further.
“You know me.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Have you any idea yet who may have hurt my Patrick?”
Darlene Jeter was taking her husband’s death just about as hard as Isabel Montgomery was taking her wife’s death. She had made an attempt at putting herself together for the agent’s visit, but her puffy eyes and trembling hands belied her grief. She, like Izzie, insisted that the agents address her by her first name and invited them inside, although she offered tea rather than cocoa.
All things considered, she was doing an admirable job of keeping her voice even and her eyes dry.
“That’s what we hope this visit will help with,” Faith said.
“Well, I’m not sure how I can help you,” Darlene replied. “I have no idea who would want to hurt him. And so horribly, too. He was such a kind and generous man. He really cared about those kids. Who wants to hurt a schoolteacher?"
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Faith said. “It’s horrible what happened.”
“But you must be used to this,” Darlene replied. “You see horrible things every day as part of your job. It must be awful for you. I couldn’t handle seeing all of the terrible things you’ve had to see. I think it would drive me insane.”
You’re probably right, Faith thought. Aloud, she said, “I’m very sorry to ask, Darlene, but can you confirm your whereabouts the night of Patrick’s death?”
“I was here,” Darlene said. “I suppose you could talk to my friend Wendy Carmichael. She was on the phone with me for several hours. I often talked to her when Patrick was away.”
“Was Patrick often away?”
“Not so often, I suppose. He started to travel more when he accepted the superintendent position. He would travel to Des Moines for State Education Board advisory meetings and occasionally he would go to Austin or Boston for conferences. Odd places to hold educational conferences, but that’s where they were.” She laughed. “He hated traveling.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yes. He would complain constantly about the airports and buses and crowds. He was a homebody, Patrick was. That’s why it was so wonderful that he loved his kids so much. I’ve never seen a man change as completely as Patrick did when it came to teaching.”
“Do you have children of your own?”
"No," Darlene replied, shaking her head. "We wanted children, but Patrick wasn't fertile. That killed him, of course. I suppose that's why he poured himself into his work. It was his chance to be a father figure or as close to one as he could be."
“Did he ever have any trouble with any of his students?”
“With his students?” Darlene looked shocked at the very idea. “Absolutely not! They all loved him!”
Faith appreciated the desire to protect her husband’s reputation, but she needed the truth right now, no matter how painful it was. “Darlene, I know that this can be difficult, but it’s very important that you answer as truthfully as possible. Are you saying that there were no students ever in his decades as a teacher who he didn’t get along with?”
Darlene smiled patiently. “I know that you’re wondering if I’m just lying to myself, but I’m not. My husband fought fiercely for all of his students. Even the troublemakers knew that Mr. Jeter was off limits. He was the kind of man who would bring extra lunches to school so that he could eat with the kids on detention. He wouldn’t even try to influence them. He just wanted them to know he was there. That, of course, inspired most of them to try harder. But even the ones that slipped through the cracks never blamed my husband for it.”
“And you know this for sure?”
“Well, I know they never showed any sign of resentment while they were in school, and when we would run into former students, they all had fond memories of him. I suppose it’s possible that a former student did this, but I can’t think of who that might be.”
“What about a rival teacher or another staff member?” Faith pressed. “Maybe a parent, someone else on the school board?”
Darlene smiled again, this time sadly. “Believe me, Special Agent, if I had any idea who might have wanted to hurt my husband, I would be on the phone with the police until they dragged whoever it was to jail. But I don’t know who. I can’t remember anyone ever hating him the way whoever killed him clearly hated him.”
Faith tried another tack. “Did you notice any changes in his behavior recently? Any mood swings, secretiveness, different habits?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing out of the ordinary. He was the same as always.”
Faith tried to hide her irritation. She had really been counting on interviewing the families to uncover something useful in the case. Maybe the mental patient angle would pan out, but Faith had her doubts about that. Unless there was a connection between Jeter’s students and Montgomery’s patients.
“Darlene, did Patrick ever connect with his students after they graduated?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Frequently.”
“Did he say anything about any of them needing therapy or having mental health issues?”
She shook her head. “No. Are you saying that a mental patient did this?”
“We’re just getting all the information we can,” Michael replied.
“Can you tell us what happened the night of his death?” Faith asked.
She nodded and took a deep breath. "Well, he had left for work earlier that morning. I made him a ham and cheese sandwich with an apple and a bag of potato chips for lunch, just like always. I swear that man ate the same lunch as his students. No extras since the school year is over. He called me on his lunch break, and he called me again when he was on his way home." Her lip trembled. “That was the last time I heard his voice.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her mouth. Faith felt a lump form in her throat again and moved on quickly, “When did you call the police?”
“I waited until nine,” she said, her voice quivering. “He was never home after seven-thirty unless he was traveling, and I waited until nine. I just… you don’t think about it, you know? I mean, you know it happens, but you never think it’ll happen to you. Not to your husband. There must be traffic, or he must have stopped for something on the way, or he must be having dinner with one of his teachers and forgot to call me, or his phone ran out of battery. You never think that some…"
She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut, breathing slowly and deeply to try to stifle her sobs. She shook her head and sighed with a mixture of grief and anger. She laughed bitterly and said, “This isn’t Christian of me to say, but I really think that it’s cruel of God to spare him from that tornado and then have him killed in a storm shelter by some maniac.”
Faith’s ears perked up again. “Tornado?”
"Oh yes. The super twister we had ten years ago. The Waco one happened three days later, and everyone talks about that one, but we had a bad one ourselves. There used to be a small town called Wakefield, a few minutes up the road. Just a few dozen people, a gas station and an old country diner we used to eat breakfast at when we were younger, me and Patrick. The tornado just wiped the entire town off the map. The residents couldn’t afford to rebuild, so they all moved away. Those that survived anyway.”
Faith leaned forward. “How did your husband survive the tornado?”
“Well, they have a storm shelter at the school. They all waited in there. Good thing too. The tornado completely destroyed the cafeteria. Tore the roof right off a four thousand square foot building. There’s a newspaper article about it. There was a journalist who interviewed all of the survivors of the tornado one by one. My husband was the second person he interviewed.”
“Any idea who the first was?” Faith asked.
“No, I’m not sure.”
Well, that would be easy enough to check. “Do you remember the name of the journalist?”
***
Emilio Franco lived in a nondescript home in a nondescript middle-class neighborhood in Sioux City. He drove a nine-year-old Toyota sedan and had a basic lawn in the front of his home, no flowers, no trees, just reasonably well-manicured grass. It was an oddly perfect home for a journalist.
Faith parked across the street, and the three agents made their way up to the house. The door opened a crack before they got to it, and a voice from the dark interior said, "Can I help you?"
“I’m Special Agent Faith Bold with the FBI. This is my partner, Michael Prince and our K9 Unit Turk. We’d like to ask you a few questions. May we come in?”
“About what?” he asked.
“The tornado ten years ago. You interviewed the survivors.”
“What does that have to do with the FBI?”
“I’d be happy to explain that if you could open the door,” Faith said patiently.
After a moment’s hesitation, Emilio Franco revealed himself to be a middle-aged, potbellied man of somewhat below average height with balding brown hair and a thin goatee and mustache. “Okay. So tell me why you’re here. Am I in trouble?”
“That depends,” Michael answered. “Can you verify your whereabouts three nights ago and twelve nights ago?”
“The nights of the murders? The one in the storm shelter and the one in the grain silo?”
“How do you know about those?” Faith asked.
“You should listen to local news when you’re on a case,” he replied. “This has been all over the news. We’re not a high-crime area. People don’t just get murdered. They definitely don’t get murdered and left for dead in abandoned buildings.”
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