The Killer Vanished, But Her Husband Knows
Chapter 9: The Trail Goes Cold
What finally nailed Joe Barnes as the killer was his pair of canvas sneakers.
A plain old pair of black canvas sneakers, the kind you pick up at Walmart for ten bucks.
Most folks wore boots for work and flip-flops at home—hardly anyone wore those black sneakers.
Joe Barnes wore them all year round. They were his signature.
We followed a trail of bloody footprints to find those shoes.
The bloody prints led out the gate, into the maple grove, then down to the big river, where the shoes were left on the bank.
The footprints ended there.
Everyone figured Joe Barnes jumped in, swam across, and got away.
On the far bank was the main road, busy with cars and people. There were thousands of footprints there—the trail vanished.
At the time, we figured that was enough.
Only later did we realize how wrong we’d been.
Looking back, the river seemed so much wider, the current so much stronger, than we’d admitted. But sometimes, a story settles on a town, and folks are quick to fill in the blanks with what makes sense—at least at first.
