“It might not have. But it’s been months.”
“And the investigation into his death is closed.”
“With his death deemed an accident, which you know damn well it wasn’t. They don’t even know his real name,” Eric points out.
“So, we’re on level grounds there,” I tell him.
“He might have a family. People who would want to know he’s gone.”
“Eric, if he has a family, they already know. Just like every time my father walked out of the house, there was a part of me that thought he might not come back. If he hadn’t, I would have known.”
Eric looks at me, his eyes a mixture of softness and anger.
“Listen to what you’re saying, Emma.”
I realize it without him having to point it out to me. My father did walk out of the house and not come back. And I haven’t just accepted him being gone. I’ve fought for years, never stopping my search for him. But I can’t bring myself to think of this man, the one who I can only call Ron Murdock because I haven’t found anything else to give me another name, has anyone wondering the same thing about him.
“He had no identification, no legitimate address, no luggage. They didn’t even find a car that could have been his. If he does have a family out there and they are wondering where he is, I’m sorry. I feel horrible for them because I know what they’re going through. But I’m not going to regret holding this back. This piece of paper proves there’s more. I’m not just searching for ghosts.”
Chapter Six
“This is why you had me research him. You knew I was going to find something that had to do with your parents.”
His voice sounds almost accusatory, and I know there’s a part of him that feels betrayed. I should have included him in this from the beginning. But I couldn’t. Eric does things by the book. Like all of us, he has occasionally drifted off the path of the straight and narrow when the situation warranted it. There are always extenuating circumstances and situations that don’t fit into the mold. But this wouldn’t have been one of them. Concealing evidence was something he never would have gone along with. He would have made sure it got into the hands of investigators, and now I can already tell he feels like everything has gone off track. It might not have been the safest choice or the most ethical choice, but it was what I had to do.
“I didn’t know that for sure. How could I? All I knew was this man had my name on a piece of paper, and nobody knew who he was. But now I know he did have something to do with my parents. Not that that did me a lot of good chasing him to Iowa.”
“What did you do while you were there?”
“I went to the address he put on the registration card. It really was the Field of Dreams. I looked around there for a while, but there wasn’t anything. I showed his picture around to everyone that I found. People who were there, people in all the hotels and restaurants and gas stations within a fifty-mile radius. Nobody recognized him. Of course, I was showing them a picture of him from twenty years ago, but they didn’t even seem like they thought they might recognize him. I did as much research as I could. I looked through town records, but they were only available for the last few years. The rest are kept in archives, and I had to request access to them. I won’t know if there’s anything to find out until I can go through them, but if I don’t even know the man’s name, I’m not going to know if I found out anything.”
Eric holds up the note.
“Why are you showing me this now? I know you’re saying you had some sort of fit of conscience and wanted to come clean, but come on, Emma. I know you. You’re not just going to have a confessional moment because it makes you feel better. You’ve hung onto this and not said anything about it for months. There’s a reason you decided now was the time for you to take it out and show me. What is it?” he asks.
I let out a sigh. I adore this man and kind of hate him sometimes, too. But he’s brilliant and extremely good at his job, so I’ll put up with the rest for now.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I admit.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“The note,” I explain, taking it from him and looking down at it. “The picture you sent me had this man looking very friendly with my parents. They looked like they were friends for years and knew each other extremely well. Why would someone who knew me as a child need to have my name written on a piece of paper when he came to find me?”
“He didn’t necessarily know you,” Eric says.
“I was eight years old when that picture was taken,” I point out.
“Right. But just because he knew your parents doesn’t mean he knew you. There are probably a lot of people who think they knew your father, and many of them would have different stories about who he is and what they know about him. He was always protective of you. You’ve always told me that. It wasn’t lost on him how dangerous his life was. He was a smart man, Emma. He knew who he was and what he was doing. He wouldn’t want to put you at risk. It’s possible this man knew your parents but didn’t meet you,” Eric offers.
“Okay. So, if he didn’t know me, why come after me? How did he know who I was? And where I was undercover?” I ask.
“There’s something else we haven’t considered. He might have known you, even if you didn’t know him. We are working under the assumption that he wrote your name on that piece of paper. Think about it. It’s just your name. Nothing else. Not where you are staying, a description of you, your phone number. Nothing but your name. He might not have written it. He might have taken it from someone else.”
“I can’t believe I never thought of that,” I tell him. I open my computer and pull up a folder of archived pictures. From it, I select the image of the registration card the man filled out at the hotel. Enlarging the picture, I hold the note up beside it and compare the handwriting.
“They aren’t the same. The note doesn’t look like just natural handwriting. It’s almost like someone who’s used to writing in cursive forced themselves to write in print. The registration card is in print, too, but it’s more relaxed. The same person could have written both of them. He could have consciously tried to make his writing different, but I don’t know what the point of that would be.”
Eric shakes his head in agreement. “I don’t know. But it’s something to keep in mind.”
“I still don’t understand the address. There are plenty of other cards that didn’t have the address filled out,” I say. “And even if he didn’t realize that and was going to put down a fake address, which I can get, why wouldn’t he just make something up? Why choose the Field of Dreams?”
Eric shrugs. “If you build it, they will come.”
I look at him. “What?”
“If you build it, they will come,” he repeats. “The movie?”
I shake my head. “I never saw it.”
“You never saw Field of Dreams?” he asks.
“Baseball wasn’t exactly one of my passions growing up. The only reason I knew that’s what the address was is because it popped up in the results.” Eric looks even more confused, and I search his face. “What?”
“It just makes the whole situation make even less sense,” he explains. “If the movie meant something to you or to your parents, or if your father loved baseball, or… anything, it would make sense.”
“Why would that make sense? Why would he think I’d ever find the address?”