Blood Runs Cold

51

Ren’s phone rang and Denis Lasco’s name flashed up on the screen.

‘Hello, Ren? I found something when I was going through Jean Transom’s pockets. It was in a pocket I missed first time around. You know these ski jackets — they have zips everywhere. It’s a photo of a woman. And I know who the woman is, because I was on the case. I’ll drop this by your office.’

‘Who is the woman?’

‘Her name was Ruth Sleight. She was thirty-nine years old, lived in Frisco.’

‘Ruth,’ said Ren. ‘I have a mystery RUTH folder belonging to Jean. In fact, I was just about to add a case to it. What happened to Ruth Sleight?’

‘Suicide. June last year. I mean, you can see by the photo that she wasn’t in great shape. She’d been an alcoholic half her life.’

‘There’s too much alcohol everywhere,’ said Ren.

‘All the better to party with.’

‘OK — anything else on this Ruth Sleight?’

‘Well, I think I have the reason for her alcoholism. Do you remember the Mayer-Sleight case in the late seventies?’

‘Vaguely,’ said Ren.

The Mayer-Sleight ‘abduction’ had been the lead news story on every network in 1979, the headline in every newspaper. Two eleven-year-old girls from Frisco, Jennifer Mayer and Ruth Sleight, disappeared on their way home from dance class, the first day their mothers had allowed them to walk home alone. Both families refused to speak to journalists. The girls showed up … three weeks later. The families released a statement saying, We would like to thank America for the thoughts and prayers that kept us hopeful during such a fearful time. Our beautiful girls have returned to us unharmed and we thank God for this blessing.

No one mentioned ‘abduction’. No one mentioned ‘runaways’. The police revealed nothing other than ‘happiness and relief’ at the outcome, and eventually the story went away.

‘So,’ said Lasco. ‘The media attention at the time, the whispers, the questions, whatever — must have become too much for her. Or something else went on in those three weeks.’

Ren nodded. ‘And we can all guess what the answer to that is.’

‘I’ll drop this by in a little while.’

* * *

Ren pulled out the RUTH file again, the thirty-year span of sexual offences against children, all within Summit and Garfield Counties. Ren wondered what more she could get from the latest little girl than what her mother had told her the day it had happened. She had called the Glenwood RA in a state of panic that just seemed to increase as the conversation went on. Ren read back her handwritten notes — she hadn’t had time to type them up, she hadn’t even had time to write them. Her writing was legible, but still scrawled across the page — real shorthand, mixed with improvised.

The daughter was changing out of her bathing costume, her mother had turned away to attend to her young son, when a man had exposed himself to the little girl and taken pictures of her. He had hair that was neither dark nor light. He was wearing navy blue track pants, a white T-shirt and sneakers. He had a big belly. She described him as ‘old’, but everyone is old to a seven-year-old. And he was ‘missing hair on his head’. Bald, fat and old. Surprise, surprise.

Ren read through the file to see was there a similar description from any of the other girls. It looked like Ren wasn’t the only one who had to rush through an interview. The page about Ruth Sleight had no case number. Under the heading WHERE? was circles … faded … dust … funny smell… bakery? Under the heading WHO? was musk … bony hips. Under WHY? she had just written why? why? why?

Why would Jean be asking why?” Why what?

Ren looked at the child’s drawing on the page stapled to it — the collection of shapes. Underneath it was adult writing that read: Love, Ruth XX.

Ren noticed the back of the first page. There was a phone number scrawled diagonally across it. Something about it looked familiar, a sequence of digits that had once been automatic to her — her only way to reach someone — untraced, a number she associated with laughter and secrecy and risk. It was Paul Louderback’s throwaway cellphone number. The man she’d believed when he said he didn’t know Jean Transom personally.

Ren jumped when she heard her name being called. She looked up as Denis Lasco walked in the door. He handed her the photo. It was in a Ziploc bag. Ruth Sleight did not look like a well woman. She had qualities you could use to describe a corpse — a red face that was bloated to bursting point, eyes that were swollen and vacant, skin that was almost gray. Her hair was brown, flat and greasy at the roots, red, dried and permed at the ends. She was heavily overweight, dressed in a sleeveless yellow T-shirt and white shorts. She held a cigarette in her hand.

‘Yikes,’ said Ren. ‘Poor woman.’

Lasco nodded.

‘Thanks for this,’ said Ren. ‘It has solved one mystery for me. Now, if I found Jennifer Mayer, that could help.’

‘I hope she has fared better in life than this poor lady.’

Ren pulled out a list of known sex offenders from Summit County and Garfield County. One name hopped out: Malcolm Wardwell. He wasn’t bald and fat, but Jean and Amber Transom had been in his store not long before she died. Ren read back through the older files to see if Malcolm Wardwell could have been relevant to any of those descriptions. But then, she didn’t know what Malcolm Wardwell might have looked like thirty years ago.

Ren couldn’t face supper that night. By five a. m., she was starving and staring blindly into the darkness of her bedroom. Her thoughts were on a loop. Why did Jean Transom have Paul Louderback’s number? Why did he request me on the case? Did he want to steer me? Toward something? Or away from something? What does any of this have to do with Jean’s murder? Have I been manipulated for years?

The theories continued, nauseating and paralysing, until she eventually fell asleep, half an hour before her alarm woke her.