Page 50 of Husband Missing

“But the ones involving children are always the hardest,” Josie said softly. “That never changes.”

If it did—at least for Josie—then it was time to turn in her badge.

“Yeah.” Trinity gave Trout a watery smile, followed by a few saccharine words, and he settled back down. “Okay, so we can agree that no matter where Roe Hoyt came from or when her ability to speak became impaired or when her tremor started or how she ended up in that shack, she was very likely there on her own. Given the condition of the supplies she had on hand, she didn’t make it out to civilization often.”

“If at all,” Josie interjected.

“Not sure I buy that. I mean, who got her pregnant? Six times? I get that she couldn’t just stroll out of the forest to go to the nearest grocery store whenever she wanted, but she could have hiked out of there from time to time. It’s possible that she did make the journey from the shack back to civilization—it would just be a hell of a long walk. What if this was one of those cases where a family member was abusing her and when she gave birth, she’d take the children to the shack to…dispose of them?”

“Lila was alive,” Josie said. “For years.”

It still baffled her that Roe had let Lila live. Why? Why her?

“What if…” Trinity shifted her legs under Trout’s weight, stretching them out in front of her and depositing him between them again. “What if the babies didn’t all have the same father? Let’s say this wasn’t a case of her being abused by a family member. Think about it. Whether she was having sex with someone she met in a nearby town or someone who came out to her shack, wouldn’t that guy wonder what happened to the baby?”

“Unless he was there so infrequently that she was able to hide her pregnancies and the remains,” Josie suggested.

“Bullshit,” Trinity argued. “That would involve a lot of luck.”

“Not if he only came out once a year. A lot of hunters only take one annual hunting trip to a specific area. Let’s say this guy was a hunter. Every year he hunts for…let’s say deer—antlered and unantlered, regular firearms—which is generally open near the end of November or beginning of December. He treks out to Roe’s shack. They have sex and then he leaves. She gets pregnant.”

“Huh,” Trinity said. “If she delivered full-term, she’d still have three months before he showed up again. So it’s possible that he never knew—if she was somehow able to hide the evidence of decomposition. But wait, what about Lila? We don’t know the birth order of Roe’s children. Lila could have been the baby number three or four. The father would have known about her.”

“Maybe Roe was able to hide her,” Josie suggested. How, was anyone’s guess.

“Why keep Lila?” Trinity asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What if she killed them because she thought he would get angry or something if he came back and found a baby.” Trinity paused. “Hmmm, that still doesn’t explain Lila.”

Josie didn’t think anything in the universe would ever explain Lila’s existence. Still, one thought had burrowed its way into her brain while they talked. “Maybe she let Lila live based on who fathered her.”

Trinity’s top lip curled in disgust. “If we’re still considering hunters as potential fathers, that actually makes a lot of sense.”

“We’re also assuming any sexual encounters Roe Hoyt had were consensual,” Josie said. “Even before her brain injury, they may not have been. That could have been a factor in what she did.”

“If that’s true, does that mean she consented to sex with Lila’s father? That’s why she got to live?” Trinity shuddered andrubbed her arms even though it wasn’t cold in the room. “All of this is so deeply disturbing. Not to excuse anything that Roe Hoyt did—at all—but there is not one damn thing in any of these reports that even raises the question of who the father or fathers were!”

“If I caught a case like this today,” Josie said, “we’d have the tools to find the father—or fathers—even if the mother wasn’t able to communicate their identity, but back then? It’s not an excuse but without witnesses or an ID from Roe Hoyt or someone coming forward to admit to paternity, that line of inquiry was dead in the water.”

Trinity huffed. “Well, after she was arrested for five murders, I’m sure there was no way anyone was going to admit paternity! This reminds me of something my grandmother used to say—shit—I mean,ourgrandmother.”

Josie smiled weakly. She’d been reunited with her birth family at the age of thirty. By that time, all of her biological grandparents had passed away. She’d never known any of them. “It’s fine. You can say your grandmother. That’s what she was. On Mom or Dad’s side?”

“Mom’s. When I was a teenager, she used to say, ‘A man can always pull up his pants and walk away.’ I used to think that was her way of telling me not to have sex, but it fits pretty well in this scenario, too. Probably in a lot of different situations.”

Josie laughed despite the gravity of their current situation and the heavy things they were talking about. “That’s a good one.”

“Mom used to say it, too. Seriously, they were trying hard to keep me away from boys. Not that they were lining up back then or anything.”

They lapsed into silence. One day, Josie would have to find out what other pearls of wisdom Shannon had frequently sharedwith her brother and sister. It was just another thing she’d missed out on because of Lila.

Trinity knew it. She squeezed Josie’s knee. “I’m sorry.”

“Lila had a saying. Not a half bad one, believe it or not.”

“Let’s hear it.”

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