Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [112]
“You have my sympathies, Mr. Canter.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but you can demand the body be released and not autopsied on religious grounds.”
Heavy pause. “You don’t say?”
I wasn’t exactly sure how that scenario worked on a suspected homicide case. “It’d be worth a phone call to the sheriff to find out.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. What’d you say your name was again?”
“Kate Sawyer.” My computer beeped and I hung up. The search pulled up twenty names. I discarded the first ten and moved on to the next five. Something about number fourteen struck a chord in me. Elizabeth McClanahan. I clicked on the icon for a more in-depth search. Didn’t take long.
Elizabeth McClanahan, nee Newman. Born in
Alpena, South Dakota. Graduated from high school in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Graduated from secretarial school at Southeastern Vo-Tech in Sioux Falls. Married Michael McClanahan in Luverne, Minnesota. Divorced 399
three years later in the same county.
Wait a second. Newman. Wasn’t that the name of the preacher whose daughter retracted her accusation of being raped by Melvin Canter? What was the girl’s name? Lizzie?
There was that seesaw sensation in my belly again. I typed the name in and watched the working bar fill the screen. The information was identical. Beth McClanahan was Lizzie Newman.
So little Lizzie Newman had come back. To exact revenge? How long had she been tracking Melvin Canter? I wondered if she’d taken the secretarial job at the church after Melvin Canter returned to Bear Butte County. How could she look him in the eye and not give away her murderous rage? Or had she finally gotten her revenge?
How would I react if I came face to face with my rapist? Could I kill him? Now? Ten years ago? I didn’t know. Rape was a hideous experience I survived, but I’d been older than eleven when it’d happened. Painful as it had been, it’d changed my life but hadn’t ruined it.
Not like Elizabeth Newman McClanahan’s life. Her whole family had pulled up stakes, disappeared, and started over. I’d bet Lizzie dealt with the shame on her own—the shame of the act itself and the lie to cover it up. Did she hold resentment toward her father for turning tail and running? Instead of putting a monster like Melvin Canter behind bars when they’d 400
had the chance?
Could Elizabeth Newman have saved Melvin
Canter’s other victims if they’d done the right thing all those years ago?
Look who’s talking. How do you know the man who raped you didn’t rape again and again? Because you didn’t do the right thing and report him either. Jesus.
My feeling of contentment a memory, I shut down the computer, locked up the office, and hauled ass to BD’s.
This time I left my manners in the truck, grabbed my Sig, and stormed into the building. BD wasn’t alone. A dark-haired woman tapped away at the big desk behind a laptop computer.
“Lizzie Newman?”
They both looked up.
She froze; BD jumped to his feet. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you can’t just come bargin’ in here—”
“If you wanna keep people out, BD, lock the goddamn door.” I saw Lizzie’s fingers sliding across the desktop. I whipped out my gun and sited it on her forehead.
She whimpered.
“Don’t move. Hands on the desk, Elizabeth
Newman McClanahan.”
“Lord, have mercy, what are you doin’?”
“Sit down.”
401
He sat.
I asked her, “Do you have a gun in the drawer?”
She nodded.
Without taking my eyes from hers, I said to BD,
“You carrying?”
“No.”
“Good. Now, Miz McClanahan, come around
the desk slowly and sit next to him.”
She did. BD reached for her hand. I let him. I allowed the gun to dangle by my side. “I have a couple of questions.” I directed the first one to BD.
“How’d you find out Beth McClanahan was Lizzie Newman? Did you recognize her, since you lived here