asked, “When did you retire?”
“Nineteen eighty-six. I was sixty-seven and getting a little nervous about the hour’s drive to Boston during the winters. After those first few years, I commuted back and forth every single day.” She frowned, and then her expression cleared. “After I retired, I taught kindergarten at St. Francis down on High Street, and I remember your young man helping me carry my trash down one morning when I had my hands full. You remember St. Francis, don’t you? It burned down a few years ago… .”
Fifteen years ago, before Ramsey had moved to Comfort Cove. Even before he’d met Tom Cook and introduced the citified Greer boy to his older sister.
“Was this young man still living here when St. Francis burned down?” he asked.
Frowning again, Amelia shook her head. “No, you know, I don’t think he was. I’m sure he wasn’t. Because we were all gathered out on the stoop that night. We could see the flames from here. And the nice young woman who married that teacher from the high school in town was talking to me. She moved into Jack’s apartment not long after he left. Cheryl, her name was. I can’t remember her last name. Doesn’t matter, though, since she’s married now. I don’t remember her husband’s name, either. Dirk, I think.”
“Do you remember Jack’s last name?” Ramsey asked. Had Colton been living under an assumed name?
“No,” Amelia frowned, shaking her head. And then her brow cleared. “It started with a C, though. Jack C. I know that because of his mailbox. Our mailboxes are all lined up together in the laundry room. He was the only person who put just their last initial instead of their whole last name on the box. He’d written his first name too large and couldn’t fit the whole last name on the little tab. Funny the things that stick with you, huh?”
And not funny at all the things that you couldn’t get rid of. Claire Sanderson’s case was one that was haunting Ramsey. He’d been on it for months and couldn’t get a break.
Or get rid of it, either, physically or mentally.
It stuck with him day and night. And it wasn’t funny at all.
CHAPTER SIX
J ack C olton had been a delivery truck driver twenty-five years earlier. A house on his regular weekly route was two doors down from the home where two-year-old Claire Sanderson had been abducted. Jack’s truck had been seen on Claire’s street the morning she went missing—a piece of information Ramsey had only just uncovered, when he’d reopened the cold case over the summer, to find out if Claire Sanderson was one of Walters’s victims.
“What else do you remember about Jack?” he asked now, his voice as kind as it got.
“Nice young man,” Amelia said. “Polite. Hard worker. He drove a truck. He was always so punctual, and when I asked him about it he said because time meant money. He delivered meat, which couldn’t just be left at someone’s door. The customer had to be present to take delivery. He had a set route with regular customers and he got paid per stop. The more timely he was, the more customers he’d be given. He had his schedule down almost to the minute.”
Jack hadn’t told Ramsey about being compensated per job, or about the schedule he’d kept, when the now forty-eightyear-old semitruck driver came in for an interview over the summer. But what Amelia said made sense.
“Did you ever see the truck?”
Shaking her head, Amelia said, “He never brought it home. It was against policy. He caught the bus down at the corner and rode it to the warehouse where he picked up his truck.”
Colton had been delivering meat to a home two doors down from Claire’s every Wednesday morning, at the very same time, which was partially what had helped him pinpoint more accurately the window of time in which Claire disappeared. Amelia’s insight into the driver’s schedule fit squarely with what Ramsey already knew.
Colton’s presence near the scene had never come up in the initial
“Nineteen eighty-six. I was sixty-seven and getting a little nervous about the hour’s drive to Boston during the winters. After those first few years, I commuted back and forth every single day.” She frowned, and then her expression cleared. “After I retired, I taught kindergarten at St. Francis down on High Street, and I remember your young man helping me carry my trash down one morning when I had my hands full. You remember St. Francis, don’t you? It burned down a few years ago… .”
Fifteen years ago, before Ramsey had moved to Comfort Cove. Even before he’d met Tom Cook and introduced the citified Greer boy to his older sister.
“Was this young man still living here when St. Francis burned down?” he asked.
Frowning again, Amelia shook her head. “No, you know, I don’t think he was. I’m sure he wasn’t. Because we were all gathered out on the stoop that night. We could see the flames from here. And the nice young woman who married that teacher from the high school in town was talking to me. She moved into Jack’s apartment not long after he left. Cheryl, her name was. I can’t remember her last name. Doesn’t matter, though, since she’s married now. I don’t remember her husband’s name, either. Dirk, I think.”
“Do you remember Jack’s last name?” Ramsey asked. Had Colton been living under an assumed name?
“No,” Amelia frowned, shaking her head. And then her brow cleared. “It started with a C, though. Jack C. I know that because of his mailbox. Our mailboxes are all lined up together in the laundry room. He was the only person who put just their last initial instead of their whole last name on the box. He’d written his first name too large and couldn’t fit the whole last name on the little tab. Funny the things that stick with you, huh?”
And not funny at all the things that you couldn’t get rid of. Claire Sanderson’s case was one that was haunting Ramsey. He’d been on it for months and couldn’t get a break.
Or get rid of it, either, physically or mentally.
It stuck with him day and night. And it wasn’t funny at all.
CHAPTER SIX
J ack C olton had been a delivery truck driver twenty-five years earlier. A house on his regular weekly route was two doors down from the home where two-year-old Claire Sanderson had been abducted. Jack’s truck had been seen on Claire’s street the morning she went missing—a piece of information Ramsey had only just uncovered, when he’d reopened the cold case over the summer, to find out if Claire Sanderson was one of Walters’s victims.
“What else do you remember about Jack?” he asked now, his voice as kind as it got.
“Nice young man,” Amelia said. “Polite. Hard worker. He drove a truck. He was always so punctual, and when I asked him about it he said because time meant money. He delivered meat, which couldn’t just be left at someone’s door. The customer had to be present to take delivery. He had a set route with regular customers and he got paid per stop. The more timely he was, the more customers he’d be given. He had his schedule down almost to the minute.”
Jack hadn’t told Ramsey about being compensated per job, or about the schedule he’d kept, when the now forty-eightyear-old semitruck driver came in for an interview over the summer. But what Amelia said made sense.
“Did you ever see the truck?”
Shaking her head, Amelia said, “He never brought it home. It was against policy. He caught the bus down at the corner and rode it to the warehouse where he picked up his truck.”
Colton had been delivering meat to a home two doors down from Claire’s every Wednesday morning, at the very same time, which was partially what had helped him pinpoint more accurately the window of time in which Claire disappeared. Amelia’s insight into the driver’s schedule fit squarely with what Ramsey already knew.
Colton’s presence near the scene had never come up in the initial
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