Snow Signs. Jennifer Seet

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      Libby was reported missing the next day by someone at Glenco. She had not come to work that morning and she always called in.

      She used a relay operator to call and everyone in the office was familiar with the procedure and how to take a message.

      One of the staff in personnel called Libby’s home through the operator and did not get an answer. They waited quite some time before hanging up. Both knew you needed to give a deaf person time to see the flashing light and answer the phone, but after twenty rings, they suspended their efforts.

      They tried calling an hour later thinking Libby might have overslept. This sequence was repeated throughout the day with no luck.

      When the relay operator and staff failed to reach Libby, the employee in the personnel office expressed her concerns to the office manager, Ron Adams. He knew where she lived because he had taken her home a few times and he agreed to stop there on his way home.

      “That’s where we came in,” Claire whispered to herself.

      When Mr. Adams could not get an answer by ringing the doorbell, he decided to check further.

      Libby had an alarm hooked up to the front door so when someone pushed the doorbell, flashing lights would alert her that someone was at the door.

      He observed that the front porch light was still on, like someone had left it on from the night before.

      He also noted the front door was unlocked, so he went in and looked around.

      He saw nothing out of the ordinary but was bothered by the fact that Libby’s purse was on the dining room table. He sensed that she would have taken it with her if she had gone anywhere.

      He also knew that she usually kept her door locked, even before the divorce, because she never felt completely safe living out in the country alone.

      He checked the garage. Her car was still parked there, further alarming him.

      Altogether this concerned him enough to call the sheriff from his cell phone and report her missing.

      Sheriff Carson, in turn, called us when he realized it might involve a wider search area, Claire remembered.

      Ron Adams also gave the name and phone number of Libby’s mother, which he had found next to her phone.

      When we called her, Claire remembered, she was concerned too. She had seen Libby the day before when she stopped by her mom’s house for a surprise visit.

      Libby left around 6:00 p.m. and did not seem distressed or sick at the time. She told her mother she was going home to have supper and watch some television. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing indicating she was in danger.

      Or, maybe she was planning something and didn’t want her mother to know?

      That was the question no one could answer except Libby, and she hadn’t been around to let anyone know what really happened...not in the last four years…not since she vanished.

       Chapter Seven

      The next day Claire spent most of her time fine-tuning the speech and getting ready for the retirement dinner. She checked outside earlier in the morning and was relieved to see that nothing new appeared in the snow, but she chose to leave the blood and shoeprints there in case she decided to call Jim Hoppes and have him take a look at it. She had not had the time to do that since then, but made a mental note to call him first thing the next morning, providing the mystery had not been resolved by then.

      There has to be a logical explanation, she thought. I don’t want to discuss it with the guys tonight, even though they might be able to shed some light on the whole matter.

      She grinned. They would tease me unmercifully if they knew how I was connecting it to the Libby Newman case.

      No, best to keep it to myself, Claire decided.

      But, she couldn’t help thinking about Libby. Such an innocent victim!

      During the investigation, Libby’s friends and family painted a picture of a pretty, sweet young woman who was trying to do something with her life in spite of her deafness.

      It sounded like she had a lot of the same characteristics as a young Claire Dungarven. She was ambitious, stubborn, determined to make the most out of her life.

      When Libby finally found love, she embraced it with all her heart, giving in to the one weakness she possessed—her desire to be loved by another and have the kind of lifestyle she had always dreamt about. She wanted the husband, family, and home--everything women are groomed to expect from an early age.

      Unfortunately that dream dissolved quickly, and it must have been heartbreaking for her to experience.

      Some members in her family had a hunch that she wasn’t happy, even though her pride would have kept her from sharing it, and her lifelong habit of not sharing her innermost feelings with anyone could have played a role in her unwillingness to inform them.

      “And that’s why I can’t get her out of my mind. She reminds me so much of myself.”

      Tears started to form in Claire’s eyes but she quickly swiped them away. She thought back to Doug Walling, her first love and a fellow state trooper at the time.

      She bowed her head in sadness when she remembered the night he was killed three years ago.

      * * * * *

      He had been issuing a speeding ticket out on the interstate. No one, except people in law enforcement maybe, could imagine how treacherous it would be to stand beside a car, checking license and insurance information. Police officers do it all the time, but it is particularly dangerous when out on the interstate.

      As Doug stepped back from the speeder’s car and shone his flashlight on the papers in his hand, a truck came careening out of nowhere.

      The driver hit Doug so hard that it threw his body up into the air, landing twenty feet away.

      When Claire arrived, the paramedics told her there was nothing they could do; he was already gone. The driver who caused the accident never stopped. The speeder was in shock and couldn’t offer any help. Since it happened in the middle of the night, no witnesses were close enough to observe any distinguishing characteristics about the truck, just that it was a semi. And, unfortunately, Doug’s in-car video camera was not working at the time of the accident.

      Officers did a thorough investigation of truckers in the area, but the driver was never found. If he had reported damage to his truck, no company reported it to the police.

      Claire was so overcome with grief that she had to take a week off from work. No, to be honest, Marvin and George ordered me to take the week off!

      She attended the funeral but it was one of the hardest things she ever had to do.

      Doug’s parents were especially distraught. He was their youngest son and the only one to follow in his father’s footsteps.

      Herb Walling had been a sheriff’s deputy in Jenson County, just south of Indianapolis, for twenty years.

      The one positive outcome was that the Indiana state legislature put a new law into effect that made it mandatory for drivers on the interstate to move over into the middle lane when passing a site where an emergency vehicle was parked or a patrol officer had a car pulled over on the shoulder. Since then, the number of fatalities had decreased significantly.

      “Too late to help Doug though.”

      Claire thought back to all the regrets she felt after the tragedy.

      He wanted the same things Libby Newman wanted—loving spouse, home, family—and neither had the opportunity to fulfill their dreams.

      If I hadn’t been so selfish!