***

The following day a strange car arrived at my house. The white Crown Victoria with double antennae slowly rolled into our driveway. Peeking from behind the drapes from my front window, I could see Jeffrey’s brother Tom exit the rear passenger seat. Two other men in suits accompanied him as they approached our step. I closed the drapes and ran to the door before they could ring the bell. My throat was completely dry as I opened the door.  “Hey,” was all I could manage to greet my visitors.  “Good afternoon young man,” said the one stranger. “Tom has been telling us a bit about a car you wanted to buy.”  Tom joined the conversation to put me at ease. “Rick, I did the lab work on the scrapings you and my brother brought me.” I’d never seen Jeffrey’s brother so serious before. “Turns out it’s not only blood. But we ran some additional tests and found that it matched a missing woman from ten years ago. Her name was Tammy Narby. She lived here for a short time. Then she just disappeared.”

“We talked to the farmer about her in the past,” added one of the detectives. “He’d been seen with her on several occasions. But he couldn’t, or didn’t, give us any information at that time. We’ve got a team over to the farmhouse right now talking with him again.”  Just about a mile away, the old man was sitting at his kitchen table, speaking softly to two investigators. He stared blankly at his folded hands talking continuosly about the young woman. He had fallen in love with her in the hardest way. He was consumed by her. But the farmer had very few relationships and was a very shy man. He was hoping to make her his wife. He was so sure that she would accept his proposal, that he bought her a new car. It was the pink Cadillac.  “I proposed to her while she was sitting in the drivers seat,” said the farmer staring into the past with eyes wide open. But the woman did not return the farmers affections. “She just looked at me and laughed,” said the farmer his eyes searching for an answer. “How could she do that?” He continued speaking with the detectives and tried to explain how his love disassembled and became rage. He told how he stabbed her repeatedly with a clawed tool. His moments of furious anger had haunted him for years. He was happy to ease the burden he had carried with him for so long.

“The tool is in the barn, wrapped in cloth. It’s in a wooden tool box.” “Why didn’t you get rid of the car, the evidence,” said the detective. The farmer’s eyes became glassy, then wet. “I knew I’d done wrong,” he said. “All along I thought she cared for me. I was just so upset she’d made a fool of me. I couldn’t keep it inside any longer. She was the one out of all of them that I really loved,” said the farmer with a blank stare on his face.  The detective felt ill at ease as he turned to his partner. He looked back at the farmer and begged to ask the questions, “What do you mean all of them,” he said?  “Look under the car,” sighed the farmer.