Precisely three hours later she reached Pike, Wisconsin, and pulled through the line of cedar trees that marked the edge of the cemetery. She parked the truck and walked to her mother’s grave that was in a section reserved for the Hurst family.
Once, they’d been a prominent family in town that had earned them an impressive marble mausoleum and large trees throwing shade over the entire area. Wynter wasn’t sure when the Hursts had lost their fortune, but the downward spiral was visible in the size and elegance of the various tombs scattered around the lot.
Over the years she determined that it had been her great-grandparents that had drained the last of the wealth. Their graves were marked with large marble angels that had been hand-carved, but there was no standing vault and no wrought-iron fence to protect it from vandals. Just two graves buried in the ground. Her grandparents’ graves were lacking even the angels. Just plain marble headstones, and her mother’s even more plain. If it wasn’t the lovely urn she carefully placed on the white slab and filled with fresh flowers, the grave would appear barren. As if the person beneath the ground wasn’t worth the time or expense of remembering.
When she was young, she’d asked her father why he’d chosen to bury her mother in Pike instead of Larkin where she could easily visit. He’d told her that her grandmother had insisted Laurel be placed with her family, but his words had that tight edge that revealed he wasn’t telling her the truth. At least not the full truth.
Once she finished wiping the year’s worth of dirt that had collected on the tombstone, Wynter spent some time telling her mother the latest events in her life. There wasn’t much to share. Just an update on the restaurant and the new muffler on the pickup. Her life wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute. In fact, she nearly put herself to sleep trying to find something interesting to say.
Maybe she should start thinking about adding some spice to her personal life, she ruefully acknowledged. The restaurant was stable now, and her apartment fully remodeled. It was time to put a little effort into refurbishing herself.
How she intended to do that was a question that had no answer.
Not yet.
A gust of wind swirled through the air, tugging at her parka and spinning her hair over her face. With a resigned sigh, Wynter rose to her feet and brushed the dirt from her hands. This year was colder than usual. Plus she had another stop before she could return to the protection of her truck.
Grabbing the strands of her hair, she tucked them under her coat and walked through the narrow paths that divided the cemetery into sections. It wasn’t a particularly large space, and the newer graves tended to be closer to the main road. She was hurrying toward a mound of earth that had recently been disturbed when she belatedly noticed the tall man standing next to the headstone. As she neared, he swiveled his head to study her, revealing his pale eyes that when combined with his short blond hair hinted at a Nordic ancestry. He was tall and lean and she guessed close to her own twenty-nine years of age.
“Can I help?” he inquired, his tone suggesting he was being more than polite. He prepared to offer whatever assistance she might need.
Wynter shoved her hands in the pockets of her parka, wishing she’d grabbed her gloves out of the truck.
“Sorry, I was looking for Sheriff Jansen’s grave,” she said.
“It’s here.” He nodded toward the plot that was covered with bare, frozen dirt. “I’m his son, Kir.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
He nodded, his gaze sweeping over her with blatant curiosity. “Did you know my dad?”
“Not personally. He investigated my mother’s murder.”
He frowned, as if trying to place her face. “Your mother was from Pike?”
“Originally. She was Laurel Hurst. At least until she married my father, Edgar Moore, and moved to Iowa.”
“Laurel Moore.” He repeated the name; then his eyes abruptly widened. “She was the woman shot at the old Shell station.”
Wynter flinched. “Yes.”
It was vaguely horrible that her mother’s life was now defined by her death. No one mentioned that she’d been a trained artist with a talent for watercolors. Or that she’d given up her career to care for her husband and young daughter. It was always “the woman who was brutally murdered.”
“I remember the night.” Kir slowly nodded his head. “My father brought you to the house.”
She glanced toward the headstone. “He was very kind. I was still in the car after . . .” The words died on her lips, but with an effort, she forced herself to continue. She couldn’t tell Rudolf Jansen how much he’d helped her that night, but she could share her gratitude with his son. She sensed he would appreciate knowing that his father had touched her life. “He found me and took me to your home so my grandmother could go to the hospital. They were still hoping my mother could be revived.” A sad smile touched her lips as she recalled being perched on the edge of a wooden kitchen chair with a heavy mug clutched in her tiny hands. “He gave me hot chocolate and wrapped me in a blanket until my grandmother could come to take me back to her house.” She shook her head, meeting Kir’s steady gaze with a rueful smile. “He stirred the hot chocolate with a peppermint stick. It’s weird the things that stick in your mind. I barely recall anything of that night, but the hot chocolate and peppermint stick are as vivid as if it happened yesterday.”
“You’re right.” The expression on his lean, handsome face was somber. “Trauma does very strange things to the mind.”
His voice was raw, as if he’d recently endured a shock, and she had a vague memory of hearing there’d been trouble in Pike.
She reached to lightly touch his arm. “Sheriff Jansen was a good man.”
“He was.” He frowned, tilting his head as if he was struck by a sudden thought. “You know . . .”
“What?”
“I’ve been slowly sorting through my father’s boxes. Slowly being the operative word,” he said. “I came across an envelope with your mother’s name on the front.”
Wynter dropped her hand, blinking in surprise. “What’s inside?”
“I don’t know, but it was in with his files that he brought home from the sheriff’s office after he retired so I have to assume it has something to do with the case.”
“The case was closed a long time ago,” she said. “It was a random mugging that went fatally wrong. Open and shut.”
Kir was shaking his head before she ever stopped talking. “If the criminal was never caught and tried, then the case was never closed, according to my father. He spent his vacations going over old reports in the hopes he might have missed something.”
“A man dedicated to his job.”
Kir’s lips twisted. “Until the very end,” he told her in pained tones. Then he gave a shake of his head, as if dismissing his bad memories. “Would you like to see the file?”
Wynter shivered as a blast of wind sent a chill down her spine. Or maybe it was the stark reminder of what had happened to her mother twenty-five years ago. After all, it was one thing to visit a grave and arrange fresh flowers. It was another to dig up the awful memories of being a terrified child in the back seat of a car as her mother was shot point-blank four times in the chest.