“Do the students do anything besides folding?”
“They lend a hand at taking things back to the dorms. And that’s a big help to me. I’m having trouble with my feet, bunions. Doctor says I need an operation.”
“What did Arnie do?”
Ma looked pained. “Well, it was so much less than I hoped. I thought he could help me with everything, but that just wasn’t so. Simple jobs, that’s what he could do.”
“For example?”
“He’d sweep, and he’d mop. I’d find little things that he could do. But sheriff, I would have to give him so much help. He just couldn’t seem to keep focused on a task. He’d get lost. Like if he was sweeping, I’d have to stand right there and supervise. I didn’t mind; I’ve had to do the same thing with Bobby. But it was just so sad to see him that way. He was just such a smart kid before the accident.”
“Did you tell anyone about Arnie’s limitations?”
“No. I tried to make the best of it. And sheriff, he was beginning to pick things up, if ever so slow. But I think it was the girls complaining that finally did him in.”
“Complaining about what?”
“I don’t know. At first they were so kind to him, but the way he looks, it kinda got to them. And you know how kids are. First they complained to me, and then they talked to Tom Bates, he supervises this area.” She placed the folded clothes in the basket. “The panties was one thing. There was also this talk about him being a stalker. I mean, the kids don’t know what that is. It was so silly. But some of them got pretty hysterical, especially the younger ones. Then one day he didn’t come in. When I went to ask Tom where Arnie was, he told me he had been sacked. Like they didn’t ask me anything or tell me beforehand. It just wasn’t right, sheriff, it just wasn’t right.”
“Faculty, do they ever bring in their laundry?”
“No, if they live on campus they’ve got machines in their cottages. We don’t do their laundry. But sheriff, why all these questions about Arnie? You don’t think he’s connected in some way to the death of Ashleigh, do you?”
Ray shook his head no. “We’re just checking on anyone who might know something.” His tone changed. “Tell Pa I hope he gets a buck.”
“Just what he needs,” she laughed, “encouragement.”
However, Ray remembered Jason’s mother with great fondness. Jane Peters, that was her maiden name, was the prettiest girl in Ray’s high school class at Pioneer Consolidated High. Ray remembered the pert blond with the warm smile and wonderful laugh as being more social than academic. She was the homecoming queen, a cheerleader, but never made the honor society. She married Bob Zelke a few days after graduation and six or seven months later gave birth to her first child, three more would follow in the next few years. Zelke—close to ten years her senior, a mechanic at the farm implement dealer—was a steady, plodding fellow who worked hard to provide for his growing family.
The summer after their fourth child, Jason, was born, Jane was tending her flock on a Lake Michigan beach, and she struck up a conversation with a handsome young man, an engineer from Dearborn. He continued meeting her on the beach daily for the rest of his vacation. He returned a month later, loading Jane and one small suitcase into his silver Mustang convertible.
Bob Zelke returned from work to find a babysitter and a note from Jane saying that she had lost too much of her youth caring for toddlers she didn’t love, and she was going to live while there was still time. She ended her note with, “See you later, alligator.”
In the eight square blocks that constitute the village of Cedar Bay—even today—all the children are watched over by their neighbors, but the Zelke children received special attention and support. Bob Zelke was active in the PTO at the village elementary school, coached little league teams, and ran the cookie sales when his daughters were Scouts. His family settled back into normalcy when he married Joan Mixer, the third-grade teacher at the school.
Jason, the only boy in the family, was over six feet tall by his freshman year in high school. He had his mother’s social skills and her good looks—the freckled face and honey-colored hair. He also had his father’s work ethic and sense of duty. He was neither a brilliant student nor a gifted athlete, but he lettered in football, basketball, and track his sophomore, junior, and senior years, and his grade point average—boosted by outstanding work in vocational classes—enabled him to graduate as a member of the National Honor Society. He was voted by his classmates as the “most likely to succeed.” The townspeople referred to Jason as a “quality kid” who possessed “all the right stuff.”
During his junior year, Jason started working for Old Oak Timber Frame, a one-man operation a couple of miles from the village. For forty years the core of Barney Johnson’s sawmill and building company business had been barns and storage buildings. Barney died suddenly of a heart attack the spring that Jason completed his associate’s degree at the community college. Barney’s widow asked Jason to stay on and complete the work already under contract. She hoped that one of her two sons would move back up north and take over their father’s business. When neither showed an interest, she offered to sell Jason the business that consisted of the dilapidated mill, a decade-old flatbed truck, a vintage crane, forty acres—thirty of which were covered with hardwoods—and a rundown farmhouse that stood on the property. She made the terms of sale very reasonable, hoping Jason would carry on her husband’s life work. He bought the business, and the direction of his life, at least for the near future, was established.
Ray, after parking in front of the main shed of the sawmill, followed the noise; he found Jason operating a large planer. Jason, noticing Ray’s presence, finished guiding a piece of oak through the machine and switched it off.
“Was wondering when you’d get around to talk to me,” Jason said, pulling the orange plastic hearing protectors off his ears.
“Why’s that?”
“You wouldn’t have to ask many people about Ashleigh before my name came up.” He hooked his right thumb in the suspender of his tan bib overalls. A black Lab appeared at his side, nuzzling against his leg.
“So, tell me about Ashleigh. When did you see her last?”
“It’s been six or eight weeks. Actually, we’d sort of broke things off last spring. Not that there was a lot to break off.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I met her, Ashleigh, a couple of years ago.” Jason stretched, raising his long, muscular arms over his head, lifting his cap, and pulling a blond ponytail back as he repositioned the hat. “It was one night at the Last Chance, after softball practice. She was with some of those Leiston people. We talked for a few minutes, nothing more. I met her again a week or two later. I was at the school doing some restoration work on one of their barns, dry rot in some timbers. I was sitting on the tailgate of my truck drinking coffee. She came up and asked me questions about what I was doing. I took her into the building and explained how the framing system worked. She seemed real interested and asked good questions.” Jason paused, thinking back to that first encounter. “She was a very pretty woman, know what I’m saying, and I was attracted to her, but I knew she was off limits. You know what I mean? Sort of like the summer people; they can be nice to you, pretend like they’re real interested in what you’re doing, but there’s always that difference.” He removed his safety glasses and started to clean the sawdust off them with a red bandana he had pulled from a rear pocket.
“I saw her a couple of weeks later,” he continued. “It was pretty late in the evening, probably a Saturday. She’d come into the Last Chance to buy a six-pack, one of those imported beers. I walked out with her. She told me she was going to the shore to watch a meteor shower. I asked if she wanted company. That was the beginning.”
“The beginning of what, Jason?”
“Well, our little romance, if you want to call it that.” Jason poured some steaming coffee from a battered green Thermos into a blue metal cup. “Want some coffee, sheriff? I can go to the house and get you a mug.”
“No thanks,” Ray said. “So, tell me about this romance.”
“Well, it wasn’t really much of anything, at least I don’t think it was for her,” Jason sipped his coffee. “It was about sex. She was more like a man than a woman, you know what I mean?”
Jason waited. Ray nodded, “I think so, but go ahead and explain.”
“She knew what she wanted, she set the terms. It was usually on Wednesday night—she called me her Wednesday night boy.”
“Was that to suggest that she had lovers on other nights of the week?”
Jason considered the question a long moment. “I’m sure she had other lovers while we were seeing each other, but that’s not what she really meant by her Wednesday night thing. I was just part of her schedule, the Wednesday night entertainment. She had tutorials at school on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and she was involved in lots of other commitments.” He paused and sipped his coffee again. “She made it clear that I shouldn’t look on our affair as an exclusive relationship. She had this obsession with being honest; she used that word a lot. I think I would have rather been deceived.”
Ray noted the sadness in Jason’s voice, the pained eyes in his youthful face. “So, being the Wednesday boy, was that okay with you? Was that enough?”
“At first it was. But then I really fell hard for her. I think the last time I fell in love like that was when I was in ninth grade. I wanted more, a lot more. I thought about things I had never thought about before. I wanted to live with her, marry her, make babies with her, whatever she wanted. But she was honest, told me she really liked… sex with me. That she wasn’t ready to settle down, and she wasn’t into exclusive relationships.” He stopped and took a couple of deep breaths. “I was sorta her toy boy, nothing more.”
“So, how long did this go on?”
“About two years, off and on. Sometimes I was optimistic, thinking that she was starting to care about me as much as I cared about her. But I was just a fool. She really liked Bo here,” he reached down and patted the dog’s flank, “more than she liked me.”
“So, were you ever a couple?” It looked to Ray as if Jason’s youthful frame sagged as he considered the question.
“I think I deluded myself into thinking we were. But now I realize it only had to do with sex. If the weather was good, we’d end up screwing our brains out on some beach; she really got off on that. The rest of the time she’d come over here. She liked to… ” He stopped and looked at Ray.
“What, Jason?”
“Can’t run me in for history, can you?” he asked, giving Ray a weak smile, his tone lightening for the first time since the conversation began.
“Depends on the history, but probably not for what you’re going to tell me.”
“She liked to smoke, you know, weed. It just made her even crazier,” he said. Then he added quickly, “It was her stuff, not mine. She brought it.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Like I said, it’s been about five or six weeks, maybe more. Ashleigh came around one evening in early September. I was surprised to see her; I thought we had ended it. We drank a couple of beers and talked. She wanted to know if we could get together occasionally. I finally got strong enough to tell her I wasn’t into it anymore. I didn’t hear from her again.”
“And you didn’t contact her again?” Ray asked, watching Jason’s face closely.
“No,” he paused, lifted his gaze, and looked directly at Ray. “I must have reached for the phone a number of times, but I held myself back.”
“If it was so painful, why did you hang in there for, what did you say, two years?” Ray asked.
“Yeah, about two.” Jason answered. “Truth is, I’ve never been with anyone like Ashleigh. When she was here, it was like I was the only man on earth. I really loved her and,” he looked chagrined, “she was an addiction. The best lay I’ve ever had. That was enough to keep me around for a long time. In spite of the pain.”
“That last evening she was here, did you have an argument that evening?”
“Argument?” Jason asked, his manner suddenly wary.
“It sounds like you were very hurt, Jason. Anger and hurt often keep company.”
“Yes, but I was beyond anger by that point. I had accepted the situation.” He stopped and looked straight into Ray’s eyes. “You can’t make someone love you who doesn’t.” A long pause followed. “I’m sorry she’s dead. God, am I sorry.” He stopped, looked at the sawdust-covered floor in front of him, and then back up at Ray. “You do believe me, sheriff, don’t you?”
“Yes, Jason, I do. But just for the record. Where were you Saturday night?”
“I was over at the house with Bo. We watched some football and the news on CNN and fell asleep thinking how fucked up the world was.”
“Anyone with you?”
“No,” said Jason sadly, “just us guys. Bo’s my alibi.”
“Jason, one more thing and I’ll let you get back to work. Did Ashleigh say anything to suggest that she thought she might be in some kind of danger?”
“Never. And I don’t think she would have kept that kind of thing a secret. She was a very open person.”
“If anything comes to mind that you think might be helpful, will you give me a call?” Ray handed Jason a business card.
Jason took it with a gloved hand, looked at it, and slid the card into the breast pocket of his coveralls. “Sure will, sheriff.”
Sue held a flashlight as Ray removed the police seal from Ashleigh’s door and unlocked it, using a master key from Gary Zatanski, the director of security. Ray pulled on rubber gloves, and putting two fingers behind the handle and turning it gingerly, opened the door. Sue followed him in.