“But she loved him?”
Lineberry nodded. “She told me one night. He was her age. He was handsome and funny and just a good person. I could see why she loved him. At least now I can. But I was hurt—devastated, really.”
“If that was the case, why did you break things off with Linda? Why did you go to Andersonville? Because it was your job?”
“No, because you were my flesh and blood.” He finished his water and slowly put the glass down. “And despite what I told you earlier and how I reacted when you just now told me about Linda…I had suspected that the leak might well be coming from her. I knew she was smart and resourceful. I knew she might have found out about Amanda. It made me angry. And my suspicions caused me to care even less for her. And I needed to get away from her and take Amanda and her family with me, so I could watch over them. But I swear to you that I never knew Linda had found out about Andersonville.”
Pine rose and looked down at him. “I believe you, Jack.”
“Are you going to see the Atkinses?”
“We are. I have no idea if they’re still there or not. It’s been over two decades since that picture was taken. I called the police in Taliaferro, but I’ve heard nothing back.”
“Do you have the address?” asked Lineberry.
“I have the letters that Atkins sent Ito. The envelopes had a return address on them. I did a Google map search. It’s…remote.”
“What will you do if they are still there? And…Mercy is with them?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But if Mercy is there, and depending on what condition she’s in, I will find a way to tell her the truth, and I will bring her home.”
“Will you let me know what you find?”
“Of course I will.”
“I hope that…that she’s alive and well.”
“From your lips to God’s ears, Jack,” said Pine before walking out.
Chapter 71
THEY PULLED ONTO A GRAVEL ROAD and continued down it until the gravel disappeared and the road turned to dirt. And then the dirt turned to wild grass and weeds, and then some young trees blocked their way.
“This doesn’t seem promising,” said Blum.
Pine added, “Looks like the forest is reclaiming its land.”
They got out of the car and threaded their way through this maze, finally emerging into an open area. Next, they came upon a rusted mailbox perched on a rotted, leaning post. Pine looked inside, but it was empty. She examined the faded metal numbers someone had hammered onto the post.
“Matches the number address on the letters the Atkinses sent,” said Pine.
They cleared a small bend in the path, and in front of them was the mobile home trailer that they had seen in the photo. It had not aged well. One part of the front wall had fallen off, exposing ratty, filthy insulation. The door was off its hinges, and a section of the roof had collapsed. A large cinder block provided the steps up to the door.
“Clearly no one has lived here in a while,” noted Pine. She stepped up to the door and looked through the opening. “Shit!”
She jumped back and her feet hit dirt. She pulled her weapon but didn’t fire.
“What is it?” asked an alarmed Blum.
“Snakes,” said Pine as she slowly backed away. “Copperheads. A whole nest of them in there, all over the place.” She holstered her gun. “Well, we’re not going to search in there, not that we’d be able to find much.”
“What did Atkins do after he came back from the war?” asked Blum as they walked back to the car.
“I couldn’t find out much about him or his family. We need to check in with the local cops. They never did get back to me.”
“I wonder why,” said Blum.
“Let’s go ask them.”
They drove to the county seat in Crawfordville and entered the sheriff’s office located there. They told the woman at the front desk who they were and what they wanted. She directed them to an office down the hall, where a uniformed man in his thirties sat behind a desk. He was short and wide, his hair was neatly parted on the side, and he was freshly shaved.
Pine again explained who they were and why they were there.
“Go ahead and grab a seat,” said the man. “I’m Deputy Sheriff Tyler Wilcox, by the way. You say you contacted us?”
“I left a voice mail and sent an email.”
“Huh. Never heard it or saw the email. But we got some glitches in our system.”
“I hear you all are the biggest employer in the county,” said Pine.
Wilcox chuckled. “We’re one of the only employers in the county. I’m born and bred here. I love the place, but it’s not for everybody. Probably why our population keeps going down.”
He shuffled some papers on his desk and then leaned back in his chair. “So you want to find this fellow Leonard Atkins?”
“Yes. We went by his last known address, but it’s obviously been abandoned for a very long time. Full of snakes now, in fact.”
“Lotta places like that around here,” noted Wilcox. “I don’t know the name, Agent Pine. But I’ve only been with the sheriff’s office for ten years. From what you’re saying this goes back a lot further than that.”
“Yes, it does. The photo I have is from 1999.” She took it from her pocket and passed it over to him.
He looked it over before passing it back.
“Don’t recognize them. So the husband and his wife, and, what, their daughter, Becky?”
“We think so, yes.”
Wilcox adopted a cautious look. “Can I ask why the FBI is interested in them? I mean, is there anything I need to know from a local cop’s perspective?”
“The FBI isn’t interested in them. I am.” She added, “It’s a personal matter.”
Wilcox glanced at Blum and then directed his gaze back at Pine. “Well, okay. Look, the man you might want to talk to is Dick Roberts. He was the sheriff way back. Retired now. But Dick knew pretty much everybody back then.”
“Is he still around here?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ll give you his address and then phone him to make sure he’s okay with talking to you.”
“Can you do that now?”
“I can see this ‘personal’ matter is important to you.”
“It is. Very important.”
He wrote an address on a piece of paper, slid it across to her, and then picked up the phone.
It rang twice and then Wilcox said, “Hey, Dick, it’s Tyler Wilcox, how you doing? Right, good, good. Well, I ain’t had a chance to do much fishing, and last time I went only thing I caught was the flu.” Wilcox chuckled at his joke as Pine watched him impatiently.
“Look, I got an agent from the FBI here, an Atlee Pine and her associate. They want to talk to you about a family that used to live around here a long time ago. Yeah, a Leonard Atkins and his wife. And his daughter. Right, okay. That sounds good. Thanks, Dick.”
Wilcox hung up and looked at Pine. “He’d be glad to see you. Lives about ten miles from here. Put that address in your GPS and you’ll get there.”
“Did he say anything else?” asked Pine.