The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney by Susan Van Kirk

Author:Susan Van Kirk
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Prairie Lights Publishing
Published: 2016-04-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Driving to Louise Rollins’s home, TJ believed she was finally making progress with this case. The sun had appeared, the wind had died down, and it was in the low fifties today, a fact not lost upon her sinuses. Her cold was much better, and she could even breathe through her nose, a wonderful experience after the past week. The Rollins house was in an older neighborhood on the southwest side of town, with lots of ranch houses built in the 1950s. Some were kept up well, while others displayed the ravages of time and lack of money or effort. She pulled up in front of 937 and saw, with satisfaction, that this was a house that was loved. The yard had been raked in preparation for the winter, and the shrubs and hosta were surrounded by leaves to protect them. On the brown siding of the front porch was a white mailbox with a Thanksgiving wreath hanging next to it. As TJ got out of her car, she noticed a movement of the curtains in the front window of the house. Louise Rollins was expecting her.

That’s when it hit her. What was she going to say to this woman about a body that could possibly be her mother’s? It had been sixty-eight years since this five-year-old had waited for her mother to come home. How had that affected her life? Did Louise Rollins have children of her own? TJ took several deep breaths as she strode up the walk to the house. Finally, the detective was sure she would get answers to her questions and a DNA sample for comparison.

The front door opened—Louise Rollins had definitely been expecting her arrival. A silver-haired woman stood in the doorway, and TJ knew she must be the child from the file, but it seemed weird to read about her at age five, and now see her at seventy-three. Louise Rollins was short, probably only five-foot-three, and she was dressed for company—a skirt, blouse, and matching sweater, and a gold necklace and earrings. The lady smiled and ushered the detective into her house, closing the door and introducing herself.

“Please, Detective Sweeney, take a chair over here. Would you like some coffee?”

“Sure, if it’s not too much trouble,” TJ said. She glanced around the cozy living room and noticed family pictures on an upright piano and on the fireplace mantle. The floors were hardwood with area rugs, and the furniture appeared slightly threadbare, but comfortable. A pile of recent mail lay on the coffee table, along with several stacks of magazines.

Once they were seated and the coffee poured, Louise said, her voice barely concealing her excitement, “It’s my mother, isn’t it? You have somehow traced her. I knew this day would eventually come. People can’t just disappear off the face of the earth.” She looked expectantly at TJ’s face, examined it, and added in a quiet voice, “My mother’s dead, isn’t she? After all this time, she’d have to be. I always hoped she’d come home.

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