‘You do keep your ear to the ground, Jimmy. You also heard she took off fast?’
‘Don’t make it sound so sinister. Everybody at the Willow Tree knows she had a sick relative, just like they knew she’d become interested in Betty Jo. She agitated that interest on to you and now you’re obsessed. When Reed phoned to tell me you’d pestered Bella, I thought we’d best come right over and answer your questions – though you’d do better talking to Clamp – and be done with this nonsense.’
‘Clamp’s off today. I stopped by his house but no one came to the door.’
‘The case has been investigated, Mac.’
‘There were lots of leads, for sure,’ Mac said. He looked over at Reed Dean. The man’s face was impassive.
‘The killers are dead,’ Bales said. ‘There’s no way of bringing it to final justice.’
‘You know who killed Mr Dean’s sister, and you said nothing about it when I was in your office?’
Bales glanced at the man sitting next to him. ‘I’ve known Reed since he was a boy. When he called last night, asking if I’d go with him to get you to stop pestering his family, I had to finally admit I’ve known the identity of the killers for quite some time. Like I just said, they’re both dead, and what I don’t want is to punish their relatives, who are innocent of any wrongdoing.’
‘Who were they, Jimmy?’
‘Two brothers. One worked on a farm west of here. The other was visiting – no; make that staying away from – Iowa, where there was a warrant outstanding on him for battery. That terrible night, those two boys were hanging around the parking lot of Al’s Rustic Hacienda. When Pribilski and Reed’s sister left, they did too, coming down here to the Wren House as well. What’s for sure is that the Iowa brother got into a dice game and apparently lost a good bit of money to Pribilski. When Pribilski and Betty Jo left the premises, the brothers followed them.’
‘How long have you known this?’
‘I conducted my own investigation real quiet when I first became sheriff. I found a witness who saw both brothers drive onto Poor Farm Road, cut their lights and get out of the car. That same witness heard gunshots not two minutes later.’
‘They never reported it?’
‘Too scared.’
‘The motive was robbery?’
‘As I said, Pribilski won considerable money that night shooting dice. His wallet was never found.’
‘Your local farmer and his Iowa brother weren’t known to the investigators back then?’
‘Sure they were, along with other suspects, but the eyewitness was not. I was the one discovered him, upon becoming sheriff.’ He paused dramatically. ‘Remember, Mac, it had to be a pair of killers, since two cars had to be moved. That narrows the number of suspects down to a few.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Mac said.
Reed Dean, silent since he’d come in, sat up straighter in his chair.
Mac went to take an aerial photo of Grand Point from the wall. Using a pencil as a pointer, he put the tip at the intersection of Rural Route 4 and Big Pine Road. ‘We’re here. This is where Pribilski and Betty Jo were last seen.’
‘And the brothers, don’t forget,’ Jimmy Bales said.
Mac moved the pencil point south, to Poor Farm Road. ‘This is where Pribilski was shot. It’s less than a half-mile away.’
‘So?’ Bales said.
Reed Dean leaned forward. He understood.
‘That’s walking distance,’ Mac said.
Reed Dean nodded. ‘Walking distance, for sure.’
‘A lone killer could have followed Pribilski and Betty Jo down from the Hacienda,’ Mac went on. ‘He didn’t need to come in here and risk being seen; he could have waited outside for them to come out. If he was a local, which I’m guessing he was, he would have known where a young couple would be headed if they left here driving south. He could have left his car in the lot across the street and hoofed it down to Poor Farm Road. It wouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes. He could have snuck up on the car, killed Pribilski, dragged him to the ditch and driven Betty Jo back up here in Pribilski’s car, and then took her away in his own car.’
‘It explains why Pribilski’s car was moved,’ Reed said. ‘He needed it to bring Betty Jo back to the parking lot.’
‘And all the while, during the killing, during the driving back here, she’s quiet as pie?’ Bales said.
‘He had a gun,’ Mac said. ‘More important, I think Betty Jo stayed quiet because she knew her abductor. She could have been hoping to talk her way into being let go, or escaping. I think she knew her abductor loved her and was going to take her someplace to try and reason with her, to keep her mouth shut.’
‘He took her straight to the Devil’s Backbone, to kill her,’ Bales said.
‘No way in hell did she lay in that field for two days, decomposing, untouched by animals and unseen by searchers. She was alive those two days.’
Bales broke into a sweat. ‘You believe that false tip about an older man fighting with a younger woman, driving south on Route Four? That’s why you were checking deeds at the courthouse, to see who owned those cabins down there? Hell, Mac; those cabins were searched.’
Bringing up Ridl’s theory that the tip had been Milner’s ploy would only bring more knee-jerk denial. ‘Check the one crime scene photo, Sheriff. No decomp; no animal damage. She wasn’t lying there for two days, undisturbed under a blanket of leaves.’
A drop of sweat fell from his forehead as Bales turned to Reed Dean. ‘This is bullshit.’
‘You’re sure of that, how?’ Reed asked.
‘Because of that witness, damn it. And because it had to be two people, no matter what Mac says.’
Reed Dean picked up the old aerial photo. ‘One man could have done it, easy.’
‘Damn it, Reed,’ Jimmy Bales said.
Mac got up, saying he had to check on something in the kitchen. Reed Dean appeared willing to consider what Mac was suggesting. If Reed could influence Bales, a new investigation could be launched.
Mac dawdled for ten minutes, to allow Reed time to work on Bales, before coming back to the table.
Jimmy Bales was gone. Reed Dean sat alone, still staring at the aerial photo.
He looked up. His eyes were wet.
‘Will you help me?’ he asked.
FORTY
He didn’t have truths to tell Reed Dean. He couldn’t even mouth solid suspicions. ‘I don’t know how I can help,’ he said. ‘So much time has passed.’
‘I was only six when she died,’ Reed said. ‘For months after, anytime there was a knock on the door, my mother made me hide behind the sofa. Didn’t matter if it was only kids, come to see if I could play. Sometimes I stayed behind that couch for hours just because people were out in the neighborhood. And when that bad summer was over, my mother wouldn’t send me to school. She was terrified someone would come for me, too.’
‘Who did she think would come for you?’
‘She didn’t know. Nobody knew. All she could think was to keep me hid in the house until she got so bad they had to stop her.’
‘Stop her?’
‘I didn’t just lose my youngest sister – I lost my mother, too. She wasn’t right from the moment they found Betty Jo. Finally, my father, brother and oldest sister decided they had to institutionalize her in East Moline. I was sent to live with Bella, who was married and living down in Dixon. And you know what was strangest of all? When I came back, I saw that none of what we’d been through seemed to matter. We were still Pinktown.’
He spoke like he was shouldering the weight of a hundred hard years. ‘Pinktown. It’s a filthy old name but still whispered, painting you the same as the builder once painted the houses. The builder used the one color because he got it cheap; people use the one word because they’re mean. You know what? There isn’t a damned one of them places got a trace of pink left on it. If somebody did paint something pink over there, even if it’s just a red that looks a little pink, on a shutter or a birdhouse or some other damned thing, it wouldn’t be long before one of the neighbors marched up in broad daylight with a can of black or brown or green paint and a brush, to paint that pink away. No pink, no more, not anywhere in Pinktown. But people west of the river, Grand Point proper, will always see folks from east of the Royal as trash. Born pink, always pink.’