“I waited until nine,” she said, her voice quivering. “He was never home after seven-thirty unless he was traveling, and I waited until nine. I just… you don’t think about it, you know? I mean, you know it happens, but you never think it’ll happen to you. Not toyourhusband. There must be traffic, or he must have stopped for something on the way, or he must be having dinner with one of his teachers and forgot to call me, or his phone ran out of battery. You never think that some…"
She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut, breathing slowly and deeply to try to stifle her sobs. She shook her head and sighed with a mixture of grief and anger. She laughed bitterly and said, “This isn’t Christian of me to say, but I really think that it’s cruel of God to spare him from that tornado and then have him killed in a storm shelter by some maniac.”
Faith’s ears perked up again. “Tornado?”
"Oh yes. The super twister we had ten years ago. The Waco one happened three days later, and everyone talks about that one, but we had a bad one ourselves. There used to be a small town called Wakefield, a few minutes up the road. Just a few dozen people, a gas station and an old country diner we used to eat breakfast at when we were younger, me and Patrick. The tornado just wiped the entire town off the map. The residents couldn’t afford to rebuild, so they all moved away. Those that survived anyway.”
Faith leaned forward. “How did your husband survive the tornado?”
“Well, they have a storm shelter at the school. They all waited in there. Good thing too. The tornado completely destroyed the cafeteria. Tore the roof right off a four thousand square foot building. There’s a newspaper article about it. There was a journalist who interviewed all of the survivors of the tornado one by one. My husband was the second person he interviewed.”
“Any idea who the first was?” Faith asked.
“No, I’m not sure.”
Well, that would be easy enough to check. “Do you remember the name of the journalist?”
***
Emilio Franco lived in a nondescript home in a nondescript middle-class neighborhood in Sioux City. He drove a nine-year-old Toyota sedan and had a basic lawn in the front of his home, no flowers, no trees, just reasonably well-manicured grass. It was an oddly perfect home for a journalist.
Faith parked across the street, and the three agents made their way up to the house. The door opened a crack before they got to it, and a voice from the dark interior said, "Can I help you?"
“I’m Special Agent Faith Bold with the FBI. This is my partner, Michael Prince and our K9 Unit Turk. We’d like to ask you a few questions. May we come in?”
“About what?” he asked.
“The tornado ten years ago. You interviewed the survivors.”
“What does that have to do with the FBI?”
“I’d be happy to explain that if you could open the door,” Faith said patiently.
After a moment’s hesitation, Emilio Franco revealed himself to be a middle-aged, potbellied man of somewhat below average height with balding brown hair and a thin goatee and mustache. “Okay. So tell me why you’re here. Am I in trouble?”
“That depends,” Michael answered. “Can you verify your whereabouts three nights ago and twelve nights ago?”
“The nights of the murders? The one in the storm shelter and the one in the grain silo?”
“How do you know about those?” Faith asked.
“You should listen to local news when you’re on a case,” he replied. “This has been all over the news. We’re not a high-crime area. People don’t just get murdered. Theydefinitelydon’t get murdered and left for dead in abandoned buildings.”
“Well, we’re hoping you can help us put a stop to it,” Faith said.
“Me? How?” His eyes widened hopefully. “You want me on the case, huh? You want me to investigate and see what I can dig up.”
“No,” she said. “Thank you. I want to talk to you about the survivors you interviewed after the tornado ten years ago.”
“Oh,” he said, deflating slightly. He frowned. “What does the tornado have to do with the murders?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” Faith replied. “But I really do need to talk to you about the people you interviewed.”
His eyes shifted between the agents. “Give me an exclusive after you solve this case, and I’ll talk.”
“We’ll consider it,” Faith replied impatiently. “Can we come inside, please?”
“What’s there to consider? We each have something the other wants.”
