Joanna stopped and stared in utter horror and disbelief at the place where he had disappeared. The train rumbled on and on, not even slowing. By then the lead engine had almost reached the next crossing. Totally unaware of the terrible carnage behind him, the engineer sounded his whistle.
To Joanna’s ear, that terrible screech sounded like the gates of hell swinging open to swallow her alive. She dropped to her knees. “Please, God,” she prayed. “Don’t let him be dead.”
But of course, he was.
Moments later, before the last car clattered by,
Joanna felt a steadying hand on her shoulder. “A , you all right?” Carol Strong asked.
Joanna nodded. “But . . “
“I know,” Carol said. “I saw it happen. Let me have your weapon. You’ll get it back after the investigation.”
Without a word Joanna handed over the Colt, Carol helped her up. “Stay here,” she ordered. Joanna nodded numbly and made no effort to follow when Carol walked away.
Standing there alone, Joanna dusted off the knees of her pants. She didn’t look at the track. Whatever was left of Larry Dysart, she didn’t need to see it. Behind her, she heard sirens as emergency vehicles left the hotel and screamed across the intersection to reach the northbound lanes of Grand Avenue. They pulled up on the shoulder, lights flashing, feet thumping on the dirt as a group of uniformed officers followed by an intent aid crew jogged down the embankment. They came to an abrupt stop when they reached the spot by the fence where Joanna was standing.
While the emergency crew milled around her, Joanna was only vaguely aware of them. Larry Dysart was dead. By his own hand. Crushed to pieces beneath the iron wheels of an onrushing train.
All Joanna Brady could hear right then, in both her head and her heart, was his voice—his chilling, humorless voice—saying the awful words over and over, repeating them again and again like a horrific: broken record.
“If anything happens to me, the girls will die . . . the girls will die . . . the girls will die.”
A uniformed man appeared at Joanna’s side.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She neither heard nor comprehended the question until the second time he asked. Only then did she realize that he was a medic worried about her condition.
“I’m fine,” she said, brushing him aside. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not,” Carol said, coming back to Joanna. “Come on. I’ll get you a ride back to the hotel. We’ll have officers there for the next several hours taking statements, yours included. And
“What are you going to do?” Joanna asked.
“As soon as I get you back to the hotel, I’m going to go search Dysart’s house on Monroe,” Carol Strong answered. “Somebody should have the search warrant in hand by now. I told Detective Hansen I’d meet him there. And I’ve already called for Search and Rescue. They’ll be bringing dogs. When I go, I’ll need to take along something that belongs to Jenny, and to Ceci, too, if you have anything available.”
Barely aware of her legs moving, Joanna allowed herself to be led to a patrol car and driven back to the hotel. Blindly, she made her way through the lobby without even pausing long enough to talk to Jim Bob and Eva Lou. In the room on the eighth floor, it was easy for Joanna to find something of Jenny’s—her well-worn denim jacket. But once the piece of faded but precious material was in Joanna’s hand, it was almost impossible for her to hand it over to Carol Strong. After that, a careful search of the room revealed absolutely nothing that belonged to Ceci Grijalva.
“That’s all right,” Carol said. “We’ll make do with the jacket for right now. I’ll send someone out to Wittmann to pick up something of Ceci’s from her grandparents’ house.”
“I should do that,” Joanna said. “If anyone goes to talk to the Duffys, it should be me. After all, I’m the one who picked her up this morning. They en-trusted her to my care.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Carol Strong returned. “I’ll send an officer out to notify them. You’re going to go back down to the lobby and give your statement to the sergeant I’ve left in charge. That way you’ll be right here so I can find you at a moment’s notice once we locate the girls.”
Joanna could see there was no sense in arguing. “All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “All right.”
At Carol’s insistence, Joanna returned to the lobby. She had no idea how many officers worked for the Peoria Police Department, but the place was alive with cops, both in and out of uniform. A young uniformed officer was huddled with Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady. A plainclothes detective was questioning the waitress.
While Carol consulted with her sergeant, Joanna went over to the lobby bar and sat down. “What can I get you?” the bartender asked solicitously.
“A glass of water, please,” Joanna said. “That’s all I want.”
Carol came back. “I’ve told the sergeant where you are,” she said. “As soon as someone is ready to talk to you, he’ll send them here.”
Joanna nodded. “Thanks,” she said. “Can you tell me anything Dysart said that might help us know where to look?”
Joanna shook her head. “Just that if anything happened to him, the girls would die. As though he had rigged some kind of timer or maybe left them with someone else.”
“Okay.” Carol nodded. “We’ll go to work.”
She left then. Desolate, Joanna sat at the bar. Jim Bob stopped by when the officer finished questioning him. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Joanna nodded. “How about you?”
“I’m all right. Eva Lou went up to lay down. She was feelin’ a trifle light-headed. As for me, I’m just all bent out of shape that I’m not as young as I used to be,” he said disconsolately. “If I’da been ten years younger, he wouldn’t of made it past me.”
“It was a good try,” Joanna said. “It was a very good try.”
“We’ll be up in the room,” Jim Bob said. “You let us know if you need anything.”
“Right,” Joanna said.
An hour and a half later, Joanna had finished giving her statement to both a Peoria police officer named Sergeant Rodriquez and a female FBI agent named LaDonna Bright. She was still sitting at the bar and still sipping her water when Butch Dixon sauntered into the room. Uninvited, he hoisted himself up on the stool beside her.
“I heard,” he said. “When it comes to bad news, Peoria’s still a very small town.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Joanna asked. “Go away. Leave me alone.”
“Wait a minute,” Butch said. “The last thing I knew, you and I were pals. You came into my place and had a drink. Now you’re treating me like I have a communicable disease.”
“You are a communicable disease,” Joanna returned pointedly. “I don’t know what you had to do with all this, but—”
“Me?” he asked. “What makes you think I had anything at all to do with anything?”
“Larry Dysart walks in here, he takes my daughter God knows where, and then the next thing I know, he’s buying me a drink. ‘Diet Coke,’ he says. ‘The lady will have a diet Coke.’ Where would he have picked that up, if not from you?”
“Sure he got it from me,” Butch Dixon said. “So what?”
“Why were you talking to him about me?”
“Damn Larry Dysart anyway. Why shouldn’t I talk about you?” Butch returned. “Pretty girl walks into my bar and walks right back out again with my heart on her sleeve. I’ve been doing what any red-blooded American male would do—bragging like crazy. Telling everybody who’ll hold still long enough to listen all about her. You think I put in private reserve drinks for everybody?” He sounded highly offended.