I waited for the time to read eleven before grabbing my purse and notebook to approach the Price residence. Mrs. Price had been reluctant to commit to a meeting with me when I told her I was flying out to Toledo to investigate the death of Gerald Volkner, but after assuring her I’d take up no more than thirty minutes of her time—and promising to make a donation to the foundation she’d started in honor of her son—she’d finally relented.
The curtains drawn across the main front window fluttered as I made my way up the walkway. Before I finished climbing the last step, the front door pulled open.
“Mrs. Wolff, I’m Jean Price.” The waif of a woman stepped aside, barely forty in calendar years but twice that age in strife. “Please come in.”
“Call me Grace, and thank you again for taking the time to meet with me. I know talking about your son must be difficult.” I offered a restrained smile as I moved inside the home.
“Not talking about him is harder. Believe me, I tried, but all that does is cause the wound to fester.” Mrs. Price closed the door, motioning me toward the living room that mirrored the look of the outside of the home. Neat and barren, absent of any ornaments offering warmth.
“I have to admit I was a bit distracted during our conversation earlier this week.” She waited for me to take a seat on the couch before she settled into the high-back chair nearby. “But I do recall you mentioning you work for a privately funded group. The police stopped looking for Joshua eight years ago. Why is some private organization out of Seattle so interested in what happened to him all these years later?”
Taking a few moments to collect my answer while putting my notebook and pen at the ready, I made eye contact with her. “I assume you’ve heard about this vigilante they’ve branded the Huntsman?”
Mrs. Price’s pale hands wrung in her lap. “I have.”
“And you’ve heard the claims that this person is responsible for the deaths of dozens of convicted pedophiles, masking their murders as suicides?”
I made note of every nonverbal reaction coming from Mrs. Price: the tightening of her upper lip, the stiffening of her shoulders, the locking of her jaw. I was used to interviewing victims of abuse, experienced in dealing with parents of those victims as well, but something about this whole investigation was hitting closer to home than I liked. The Huntsman wasn’t just another perpetrator I was intent upon dealing justice to; he was an enigma who operated outside the parameters of society’s standards.
“A retired detective who investigated Joshua’s disappearance called me up a few weeks ago to tell me about all of that. A bunch of silly conjecture if you ask me.” Mrs. Price’s gaze moved across the room to the one photo on display—a school photo of her eight-year-old son, taken the same year as his kidnapping. Frozen in time, Joshua Price would remain eight years old forever, while the rest of us were enslaved by time’s march.
“What makes you say that?” I primed my pen on the first line of a fresh page.
“Because Gerald Volkner killed himself.”
An inkblot grew from where my pen remained posed on the notepad, unmoving. “New evidence has arisen that suggests otherwise.”
Mrs. Price looked at me straight-on. “Whether or not his hand or another slipped the noose around his neck, that demon signed his own death warrant when he laid his hand on a child for the first time.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss.” I leaned forward, resting my pen on the notepad. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”
“First Joshua, then my husband, then my friends. One by one, the losses never stop accumulating after something like that.” Her hands smoothed down her legs, her slacks starched and pressed, her nails chewed to jagged nubs. “I’m glad that man is dead. I don’t care how or who is responsible. All that matters is that he got what he deserved and won’t hurt another young boy again.”
My teeth worked at my lip as I debated how to phrase my next thought. There was an intricate balance between delicacy and abruptness when navigating these kinds of conversations.
“Your son was never found,” I said, more statement than question, but she nodded in confirmation. “Were you at all concerned that your son—alive or dead—would never be discovered when Gerald Volkner was found deceased?”
“My son’s been dead a long time, Mrs. Wolff,” she stated, her throat moving as she said it. “Wherever his body was taken or dumped or buried, it has been at rest for long years. The last thing I’d want would be to exhume his remains to transplant them to another resting place when his body, along with his spirit, has been at peace all this time.”
I glanced at the photo of Joshua Price, paying attention to details only a mother would notice, like the tuft of hair sticking out behind his ear, the crookedness of his tie, and the wide smile featuring a range of baby and adult teeth in varying degrees of growth and loss. It was those things—the imperfections—that the families of deceased loved ones held on to, cherishing like priceless artifacts. The imperfections reminded us that those loved ones were real and not some fragment of our dreams as time muddied reality with fiction.
“Forgive me,” I said slowly, “but how do you know Joshua is dead?”
“Do you have children, Mrs. Wolff?”
“One daughter.”
“Believe me when I tell you that you would know if she were dead or alive.” Mrs. Price’s eyes matched her voice, distant. “That child grew within you, was created from a part of you, bears half of your makeup . . . when that life is extinguished, you feel a part of yourself die with it.”
Every possible response to that felt feeble, so I remained quiet.
“I suspect you came here to ask about more than one mother’s tale of woe, so please do us both a favor and ask your questions so we can each move on with our day.” She sat up straighter, perched on the edge of the chair as though she wouldn’t flinch if someone slid it right out from beneath her.
“Is there anyone you have reason to suspect might kill Volkner?” I asked, retrieving my pen.
“He was convicted of molesting three boys in the nineties he served jail time for, but you and I both know there were more. So take into account anyone who cared for those boys, along with anyone who’s been abused themselves or loves someone who has been, plus those who view pedophiles as a sector of society that should be allowed to go extinct, and you’ll have a list to start with.”
I scratched out the potential suspect column on my sheet. “Anyone in particular outside of family and friends? Maybe a strange face you remember from the courtroom that you noticed walking down your block. Think of any individual who might have approached you, inquiring into the particulars of your son’s disappearance, who wasn’t tied to the standard authorities you were dealing with at the time.” I scooted down the couch, closer toward her. “Maybe there was a letter or note you received that stood out.”
Mrs. Price’s eyes lifted. “I’ve got a basement storage room full of boxes containing letters and postcards and mementos random strangers mailed us from all around the world when news of Joshua’s kidnapping broke.”
I finally had a reason to scratch down a few notes. “What about any letters you received after Volkner’s death?”