Page 150 of Secrets Along the Shore

“…He’s stable, and we’ve moved him upstairs for surgery. There’s some internal bleeding of concern in his abdomen…” The doctor barely looks old enough to be out of college, much less medical school. Parry’s wife listens stoically, while a sob wracks his teenage daughter. “Youcan move to the surgical wing waiting room, if you like. His surgeon, Dr. Tillman, will update you as soon as she has more information.”

When the doctor moves on, I gently slide into their personal space. “Excuse me. I’m Sophie Walsh, an investigator working with the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Department.”

They nod silently with vacant stares, echoing the numbness that’s overtaken them. It’s a common reaction in the aftermath of a shocking event, one I’ve seen all too often doing what I do.

One I’ve felt too.

“I’m so sorry for what’s happened to your husband,” I say to his wife. Her bottom lip trembles and his daughter sniffles, her body shaking. “I wonder if I could speak to you for a moment about something you mentioned to the officer.” I tilt my head toward Deputy Valesco.

“We need to move upstairs.” Parry’s father steps behind the women and slips a protective arm around each of them.

“I understand. Mr. Parry, is it?”

He nods.

“I can join you, if that’s easier. I promise I won’t take much of your time.” Doubt darkens Mr. Parry’s gaze. “It’ll help us find the driver who caused the accident.”

Mr. Parry inhales a long drag through his nose. “Do what you have to do to get ’em. Come on,” he says, ushering his family toward the elevators with me and Deputy Valesco in tow.

The surgical waiting room is much more hospitable than the one in the ER. Rather than the vending machines, a complimentary offering of snack items, water, and soda is set out on a counter. A couple dozen people are already keeping vigil. Parry’s family selects an unoccupied row of chairs and sits. I take a chair opposite them.

“Can I get you anything?” I ask first, hoping to put them at ease. When they shake their heads, I press on. “Mrs. Parry, Deputy Valesco said you made a comment to him about how ‘it must take an accident to get you people to pay attention.’”

She nods.

“And when he asked what you meant, you said your husbandreached out to the sheriff’s department over the weekend about something he’d seen, but no one got back in touch?”

Mrs. Parry tucks a loose strand of highlighted brown hair behind her ear. “That’s right. John saw the report on the news identifying the woman found the day before. He thought he might know something and called up there Sunday morning. He left a message, but nobody got back with him. He was planning on going to the sheriff’s department tomorrow—his day off—because he was so sure it was important.”

The sheriff’s department maintains an informational number—a tip-line—that would have been given in the news segment about Kamden’s identification. In a larger county, a tip-line might be staffed around the clock, but ours isn’t. Instead, it’s a messaging system that’s supposed to be regularly checked by rotating deputies who filter out genuine tips from the useless ones and pass them along.

It’s now late Monday afternoon. If John Parry left his message on Sunday morning, I don’t know why it hasn’t been passed up the chain to me by now—even if whoever was on the schedule forgot to check the messages over the weekend.

“I’m not sure what happened with his message. I’ll follow up on it, but in the meantime, do you have any idea what he said in it?”

She sniffs. “John works at a plant in Decatur and comes home by way of I-65 South. Sometimes he stops to get gas at the WilCo right off the exit for Highway 174.”

I’m very familiar with that exit, having taken it hundreds of times.

Just like Kurt Fogerty did.

“I won’t get this exactly right, but when that woman’s photo came up on the news, John said he thought he’d seen her. That she had been fighting with someone, a man—they weren’t getting gas, they were parked off to the side of the pumps. She had gotten out and was yelling at him. He was still in the driver’s seat, yelling for her to get back in the car.

“I think John said when she started to walk away, the man got out and pulled her back to the car. Eventually, they drove off. At the time, he didn’t think much of it—just a couple arguing. But then he saw that photo and thought it could be her.”

“Did he give you any description of the man?”

“No. But I didn’t ask him, either. I don’t know if he can tell you anything about him or not.”

“What about the date? You said this happened sometime in October. Any chance he was more specific than that?” I was already planning to pull whatever footage the WilCo had for October. Unfortunately, often places like that don’t keep surveillance video for more than six months, and we were beyond that.

“No. He didn’t mention a date to me.”

“Okay. Thank you for talking to me. I know it’s an extremely difficult time. Are you sure I can’t do anything for you before I go?”

She assures me that I can’t, so I excuse myself, leaving the Parry family to manage their crisis. Once I’m in the hospital’s main lobby, headed for the exit, I dial the sheriff’s department. Deputy Carlisle answers.

“Hey, yeah, Deputy. It’s Sophie Walsh again. Can you tell me who was on the tip-line this weekend?” I push through the glass doors into the parking lot, the clamor of city traffic colliding with my ears. I stride to my Jeep, parked in one of the forward spots reserved for law enforcement.