“How could he know? He told me once that he had no idea what happened, and he doesn’t know anything about it.”
“And that’s important too,” Kate said, sitting back on her heels.
Just then, Simon stepped out of the house with a glass of water. He walked over and gave it to her.
The older woman took it gratefully and took several sips. And then she inhaled a deep breath. “What happened to my daughter was the most horrifying thing,” she told Kate. “I could never have imagined that my son would have done that to her. There was no way.”
“What was their relationship like?”
“Feisty,” she admitted. “He wasn’t the easiest person to live with. He was always in some trouble, but, at the same time, they didn’t hate each other. And what was done to her? That was just…” She shook her head and took another sip.
“I get it. I do. You know what was done to her. You also need to understand that I now have another woman, another daughter of another mother, who’s facing the exact same thing right now.”
The woman nodded slowly. “Dear God, I’m so sorry for her.”
“Exactly, and I need to see what’s happening, so we don’t end up with a third.”
“Oh dear God,” she whispered, her hand shaking.
Once again Simon reached over and gripped the woman’s fingers.
“We need to find Rick. We need to talk to him. We’ll have more questions for you and for your husband, as well,” Kate relayed quietly. “I don’t want to rake up all the coals, but I’m coming at it from a very different angle now. And we can’t have another body show up.”
The woman started to shake. “I don’t know where Rick’s gone. He should be home. He’s off work now, and normally he would come straight home.”
“Yes, but once he identified me at his job,” Kate noted, “he took off running.”
His mother nodded. “But I don’t know where he went.”
“Can you find him?”
She looked at her in surprise. “Well, I can. But he might get angry at me.”
“Would he ever hurt you?”
“Oh, no,” she stated. “You don’t understand. He’s very gentle.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Kate replied. “I need you to phone him then and to tell him that he needs to talk to me.”
The woman nodded. “Okay.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and picked a number and called it. Almost immediately it was answered. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You need to come talk to the police.”
Shocked silence continued on the other end, until he said, “I can’t. I just can’t. You know that I can’t.”
“You have to. We have to talk to them and to sort it out.”
Kate held out her hand.
The woman looked at her phone and at Kate’s hand and then slowly handed it over.
“Rick, I need to talk to you. So either come home where we can talk here, or we’ll send somebody to pick you up and take you down to the station.”
“No, no, no,” he replied, “you don’t understand.”
“No, I don’t, and it’s up to you to tell me.”
“That’s not fair,” he cried out. “I didn’t do anything.”
“So why did you run?”