The Circle of Blood

Chapter Fourteen

THE SILVERTON COUNTY jail was situated inside one of the town’s most beautiful buildings. The county courthouse, a square-faced, steep-roofed affair, had a large circular clock mounted in the middle of a three-tiered steeple. The stone was gray, Protestant-looking. Cement pillars and roof protected the front door from the elements. An ecclesiastical window had been carved from the stone, giving the mayor a bird’s-eye view of the town. But this morning, Cameryn didn’t notice any of that. It was who the building contained that mattered to her. Hannah had been cuffed and taken away to the one-room jail, and even though Cameryn pleaded to stay with her mother, Justin refused.

“Cammie, you’re not allowed to come with me,” he’d said as Hannah stood rigidly to one side. Justin’s face had flushed with agitation. “God knows I hate to do this, but I have to take her in.”

Cameryn grabbed his sleeve, wrenching it in her hand. “You can’t! ”

“I have no choice. She had the decedent’s property. She’s got a motive and she’s been off her meds.”

“Justin, no!”

“There’s an eyewitness who’s placed Hannah with the vic just moments before she was shot. And now I know she was with Esther after she died.”

“But there was an explanation. She told you why-”

Justin shook his head. “She’s also a flight risk. If I don’t take her in I could lose my job. Let me do this and then we’ll sort it all out.”

To that, Cameryn had cried, “Of course you have a choice.” But Justin didn’t seem to hear.

Now, as she walked down the polished wooden hallway, the heels of her boots reverberating in the empty hall, she rehearsed her strategy. Although she was angry with Justin, it was important not to let emotion show. Like it or not, she needed him. She took a breath and shook herself, trying to focus, trying to be strong. With her knuckle she rapped on the glass pane stenciled with a golden star and the words SHERIFF’S OFFICE in black letters.

Justin opened the door, not all the way, just a few inches. He looked rumpled, tired. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

“Our office doesn’t officially open for twenty minutes.”

“Len opened the courthouse early and I followed him inside,” she said. “I told him I was meeting you. Were you here all night?”

“I had to be,” he answered. “It’s against the law to leave a prisoner unattended. I semi-slept in the chair.”

“Can I come in?”

Justin sighed. “You can’t see her, Cammie. She’s in a holding cell. No visitors.”

“That’s okay.” Cameryn wedged her foot between the door and the door frame. “I want to talk to you.”

He studied her a moment. The stubble on his chin had grown, his hair was tousled, and his lids were hooded from lack of sleep. Reluctant, he opened the door and allowed her inside. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I’m taking a day off.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he croaked. “You’re cutting school?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“You never cut school.”

"Right.” Cameryn felt a pang of guilt. In all her years of education, she’d never once skipped school. But there was a first time for everything. Her mother needed her.

“You’re already in trouble with the sheriff, Cammie. Guess you’re going all the way. Have a seat.” The room was so crowded with filing cabinets and plants and Sheriff Jacobs’s big wooden desk, there was room only for two folding chairs for visitors. To the left, beside a painted radiator, was Justin’s chair, half the size of Jacobs’s. Everything for Justin seemed miniaturized-stacks of papers towered on a surface barely wide enough for his computer. He grabbed one of the folding chairs and placed it across from his desk, pointing for Cameryn to sit.

His own chair squeaked as he leaned forward. “So what’s up?”

“You seem tense,” she began.

“Well, you called me just about every name in the book last night. Maybe my ‘tenseness’”-he made quotation marks with his fingers-“has something to do with that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry. I was just upset.”

“Obviously.” Justin picked up a pen and hit the black plastic cap onto a clear spot on his desk, flipped it, then hit the pen again. “How did your pop and your grandma handle the news?”

“They said I should wait and see where your investigation leads before I panic. My dad’s really mad at me for withholding evidence. Really mad. But he said he understood why I did it. My mammaw went to church and said a rosary. She thinks I’m going to have a long stay in Purgatory if I don’t get my act together.”

Justin put down his pen and knit his fingers together. He leaned forward and spoke softly. “We’re holding her for seventy-two hours and she’s back on her meds, which is a very good thing. The district attorney will review the facts of the case. He’ll make the decision on whether to file charges or not.”

“Yeah, I know how it works.”

“I had to take her in, Cammie. I wish you’d understand.”

“I do,” she lied. Today she’d worn her hair in a ponytail and had on a blue Fort Lewis sweatshirt, along with her heavy winter parka. Unzipping her coat, she slipped it off and asked, choosing the words carefully, “But there are other leads, aren’t there? Like my theory about polygamy?”

He pulled back again. The wheels screeched against the tile. “What about it?”

“Are you going to research it or not?”

“There is nothing to research. The Childs family is from Arizona. Their hometown sheriff says they’re not polygamists and the entire family was there the day Esther was killed. The sheriff personally saw them.”

“But-but-” Cameryn stammered, “the ring…”

“Our vic could have picked it up anywhere.”

She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “We saw polygamists.”

“There are polygamists all over,” Justin said, his voice rising.

“Well, what about the name Gilbert, the name I found written in the backpack? I looked it up on the Internet, and there’s a Gilbert two doors down from the Loaf ‘N Jug, where that phone tip came from. Don’t you think that’s strange? That’s a lead.”

“Which I checked out yesterday. The woman’s name is Ruth Gilbert. She didn’t make the phone call and she didn’t know a thing about Esther. It’s a dead end.”

Cameryn tried to keep the panic from her voice. “But the backpack had the name Gilbert printed on it-”

“And Ruth said she gave a load to Goodwill. Esther could have picked it up there. It doesn’t prove anything. Cameryn, I know how hard this is for you, but you’ve got to let us handle it from here. We’re the law. You’re the slice-and-dice.”

Inside, there was a tremor, but like a magician perfecting the slight of hand she would not let him see it. “Can I take a look at the file?” she asked. “That one, right there.” A manila folder lay open on his desk and she could see it had her mother’s name on it. “I want to see it.”

“Cammie, this is police business.”

“Please. Justin, no one’ll know.”

Slowly, he turned the folder her way and pushed it toward her across his desk. She could feel him watch her as she scanned the pages, one after the other until she saw what she was looking for. Closing her eyes briefly, she committed the number to memory: 928- 555-6823.

“Hannah is my friend, too,” he told her as he pulled the folder back. Slowly, he closed it and set his hands on top, folded, as if in prayer. “I’ve called in Dr. Kearney and he’s going to do an evaluation. I got her to take her meds. She made me a list of books she’d like and I’m going to the library to pick them up. We’re doing the best we can.”

“But you still arrested her,” Cameryn stated, rising to her feet. Then, shrugging on her coat, she walked to the door, past the sheriff’s gun rack and his filing cabinet and his belt full of bullets curled on top. Her hand was on the doorknob when she heard Justin call out, “I could have lost my job.”

Cameryn turned to look at him, at his tousled hair and blue-green eyes and the way he was pleading with her to forgive him. “I get that, Justin. I really do. It’s just-it’s worse to lose a mother.”

She was barely inside her car before she fished out a pen and wrote the phone number onto her palm in ink. 928-555-6823. The sun struggled to break over the mountains as she sat, shivering, in the frosted light. The parking lot was already beginning to fill up with county workers. In an effort to be discreet, she had parked beneath a stand of bare aspens, hoping the sheriff wouldn’t recognize her car. Branches shifted in the winter breeze, creating an intricate, dancing pattern on the dashboard of her car. For a moment she watched the shadows, thinking.

There was no one to help her mother. Not the sheriff or Justin or her father or her mammaw-she, Cameryn, was the only one Hannah could count on. The wallet, the ring-it didn’t mean anything. Her mother stayed locked away, yet innocent, as only Cameryn believed. But belief was not enough. It was action she needed.

One tenuous thread remained for her to follow, a silver strand of chance that might connect the Gilbert family to Esther. Maybe. If God was with her.

With her BlackBerry freshly recharged, she crossed herself. First, she entered *67 in order to block her number in case the Childs home had caller ID. Then she punched in the digits, holding her breath, waiting.

“Hello?” a gruff man’s voice answered.

“This is Amy Green from the sheriff’s office,” Cameryn began, stealing the name of her father’s friend in Ouray. Craning her neck to make sure she was still alone, she said, “I have a question concerning Esther Childs. First, let me begin by saying I’m really sorry for your loss. Are you the father?”

“I am. We’re trying to cope the best we can. What’s your question?”

Cameryn swallowed. “I’m currently researching a possible link between Esther and polygamy. Esther had a ring on her finger that had the words “‘Keep Sweet.’ We’re trying to track that down.”

It took a moment for the man to answer, so long Cameryn wondered if they’d lost the connection. “I don’t know nothing about that,” he finally said. “We’re respectable people down here. If Esther had it, I don’t know where she got it from.”

“I’m investigating a possible source. There’s a woman in Durango named Ruth Gilbert-”

It was then she heard an audible intake of air as he gasped.

Blinking, she asked, “Do you know her? Mr. Childs, do you know a Ruth Gilbert?”

“No,” he said, and Cameryn could tell he was lying.

Pressing the BlackBerry closer to her ear, she said, “Perhaps Ruth Gilbert was the one who gave the ring to your daughter. Could that be possible?”

“How would I figure that? That’s somethin’ you’ll have to investigate. I already told you I’ve never heard of the woman. Our child is dead and you’re makin’ her out to be in some kind of cult. What’s your name again?”

“Um, the sheriff needs me right now. Good-bye, Mr. Childs, and thank you for your time. We’ll get back to you when we have more information,” she concluded the call at a gallop and tried to calm her racing thoughts. As the shadows played across her dashboard, she thought of the interconnection of the two lives and wondered what it could mean. Mr. Childs knew Ruth Gilbert. He could deny it all he wanted, but she’d heard it in his voice. What she had in mind would be crazy, could get her into even more trouble, maybe even fired from her job. She didn’t care. Shifting her car into reverse, she headed out once again, for Durango.

It was time to find answers.