Daddy's Gone a Hunting

86

At ten o’clock on Thursday evening, after saying good night at Clyde’s wake to a close group of friends who still remembered her husband from his better days, Peggy and Skip went back to her home. Celia and the boys were driving down in the morning for the funeral. Together mother and son watched a replay of the press conference from earlier that day that was being repeated on the news. It included an update with part of an interview with a vagrant named Sammy.

Choking with rage, Peggy called Frank Ramsey on his cell phone.

“How could you?” she demanded. “How could you? I trusted you. You know I trusted you. Clyde told you as much as he knew about Jamie Gordon. He admitted he punched her.” Her voice rising, she shouted, “He told you what he knew! He told you on his deathbed! He said that Jamie jumped out of the van and he heard her scream for help. You know that Clyde was a heavy drinker. All he had wanted to do was sleep, but that Gordon girl kept pestering him. He just wanted to get rid of her. You know he didn’t kill her!”

“Mrs. Hotchkiss, I know how upset you are, but we don’t know that he didn’t kill her.”

“I know he didn’t kill her! Listen to what that creep had to say. Even he admitted that Clyde did not try to follow him! You betrayed me, Frank Ramsey! You asked me to persuade him to answer your questions on his deathbed. I’m sorry now that I asked Clyde about the Gordon girl. I’m sorry for her and I’m sorry for her parents. But you have practically announced that he was her killer, and without any idea of where Clyde was nearly thirty years ago, you have insinuated that maybe, just maybe, my husband, an injured war hero, was responsible for the Sloane girl’s death, too. I hope you’re happy, Mr. Ramsey! I hope you’re happy! And go to hell!”

Frank Ramsey had put in a very long week. He and Celia were just getting into bed when the call had come in from Peggy Hotchkiss. Celia could not hear what Peggy was saying but she could tell that a very angry woman was screaming at Frank.

When the call ended, she asked, “Frank, what was that all about?”

Frank Ramsey looked every minute of his forty-eight years and more when he answered, “Celia, I’m very much afraid I was listening to the voice of truth. I let Mrs. Clyde Hotchkiss down. I believed Clyde when he said he didn’t follow Jamie Gordon out of the van. We all agreed to put his name out as a possible suspect in the Tracey Sloane murder for a very specific reason. But it wasn’t a good enough reason and it’s my fault.”