Forgotten in Death(44)

He shook his head when she opened her mouth. “Don’t say it’s your job. Not to me. It’s your calling, your passion, your bloody destiny. And I’ve found another part of mine is doing what I can do to help you. It matters to me that I can.”

“It matters to me that you will.”

“Then over this fine dining and good bottle of red, I’ll tell you what I know of the sad story of Alva Quirk.”

He knew how to tell a story, Eve thought. Even now, when he related essentially a report, he wove it his way.

“I can tell you Alva Elliot, known as Quirk, was born forty-six years ago in Stillwater, Oklahoma. She was the first child of Mason Elliot and Deborah Reems. She had two younger siblings, a brother and a sister.”

“Any of her family living?”

“Both siblings. Mason, an electrician, and Deborah, an officer with the Stillwater police, separated when Alva was twelve. In reading the records, and between the lines thereof, it would appear Mason left Stillwater at that time. He joined the rodeo circuit.”

“The rodeo circuit? Like…” She mimed twirling a lasso.

“Yes, that. He had limited success in that area, but pursued it for three years until injuries forced him to retire. He died at the age of forty-eight from the effects of long-term drug and alcohol abuse.”

Eve considered as she ate. “So, though I’ll look closer, from those between-the-lines, Mason had a substance abuse problem, which probably made family life difficult. Plus, he wanted to be a cowboy, so he took off, couldn’t hack it, and drank and drugged himself to death.”

“It would appear so. Meanwhile, Deborah had three children to support and raise. Ages twelve, ten, and eight. There were grandparents on both sides, and the maternal grandparents also lived in Stillwater. Deborah’s father was a cop as well.”

“Probably got some help there.”

“As Deborah moved to a house on the same block as her parents after the separation, I would assume so. When Alva was nineteen, her mother was killed and her grandfather severely injured in what was called the Stillwater Riots.”

On a swallow of wine, Eve pointed. “Wait, I know about that. Militia types and what they called sovereign citizen nuts stormed the city where one of their own was being held—charged with murder. A cop killing.”

“Yes. They came heavily armed, drawing like-minded others or simply those who hungered for violence and chaos from across the state, across the region. What they claimed was a protest, a show of solidarity, sparked that violence and chaos.”

“Bring a thousand or so armed nutcase civilians who think they’re fucking soldiers together?” Almost viciously, Eve stabbed a bite of chop. “What could go wrong?”

“And everything did. By the time—it took three days—the violence was quelled, hundreds were dead, hundreds more wounded—those numbers included children, as businesses were burned out and looted, homes destroyed. Among the casualties, Deborah Reems, in the line of duty. Among the wounded, her father, who suffered a spinal injury that paralyzed him.”

“Alva was nineteen?”

“In college at Oklahoma State, studying to be a teacher. She came home, one assumes to mourn her mother, help her grandparents, tend to her younger brother and sister. Her grandfather only lived another two years, and her grandmother had a breakdown. Alva’s brother, then nineteen, studied criminal justice. Her sister went into nursing. Alva worked as a waitress.”

Yes, he knew how to tell a story, and she saw the picture he painted clearly. “She gave up what she wanted to take care of her family.”

“So it reads to me. At the age of twenty-four, with her brother now a rookie with the Stillwater cops, her sister getting her nursing degree, her grandmother living in a retirement community, Alva married Garrett Wicker, age thirty, and an officer with the Stillwater cops.”

Roarke studied his wife. “For a brief time, only one term, she picked up her education in night school. She and Wicker relocated to a small town on the Oklahoma/Kansas border, where he took a position as a deputy sheriff. There’s no record of her continuing her education or any employment during the eight years they lived there. During that time, five years in, her grandmother suffered a fall and died from her injuries. There were some local write-ups, as the woman had lost her daughter, and essentially her husband, during the riots. Alva was listed as too ill to attend.”

“Bullshit.” The fury of it, for it, pulsed in the back of her throat. “He’d isolated her. Wicker, the husband. Pulled her away from her family, her support network. Forced or badgered her into giving up any idea of a career in teaching. Knocked her around, that’s what he did, physically, emotionally, every way.”

As if to soothe, Roarke reached over, just brushed his hand over the back of hers. “I’m going to agree with that. From what I picked up on Wicker, he had a number of strikes in Stillwater for excessive force. He’s now chief of police in the little backwater town of Moses, where he took Alva.”

“She got away from him.” Hadn’t she thought something along those lines after seeing those old injuries? She got away, Eve thought. Ran.

“New York seems a stretch. She had a brother, a sister.”

“Not oddly, to my mind, the brother was brutally beaten only weeks after the grandmother died. Set upon, the reports read, by three men. That same night, after the sister left her brother’s bedside, she was also set upon, raped at knifepoint.”