Among the Missing (8 page)

"She was a beautiful woman, Millie. Before someone did a job on her."

"Was she married?"

Rusty nodded. He knew what was coming.

"The husband did it," Millie said.

"According to you, it's always the husband."

"It is always the husband."

"Not all the time," Rusty told her.

"Often enough so the rest hardly matters."

Rusty smiled and shook his head. "In this case, I don't think the guy did it. He was expecting her back. In fact, he looked like he thought I'd be her when he opened his door this morning."

"Maybe he's a good actor."

"Could be."

"I'll bet you he's involved. One way or another, every motive comes down to sex."

"Even greed?"

"Especially greed. A greedy man is after power. Why does he want power?"

"To improve his sex life?"

"Exactly," Millie said. "If you're rich and powerful, all the luscious young things throw themselves at you. It's always sex. Or the lack of it. So the husband has to be involved one way or another."

"You have a wonderful way of simplifying matters."

"Thank you. Most matters are simple once you cut through the malarky."

"But you're wrong about this. The husband didn't do it."

"Of course he did."

"Bass and Faye saw the killer. And I've met the husband. He doesn't even come close to the guy they described."

"Well then, maybe I'm wrong." She smiled over her shoulder at Rusty. "There's a first time for everything."

When Rusty left home half an hour later, he radioed Madge. "Anything on the Chevy pick-up?"

"It hasn't been spotted, but I ran the tag. The vehicle is registered to Blake Elwood White, three four two Muir Road. No wants or warrants."

"Thanks. Thank you very much."

The trip to Muir Road took him ten minutes. After driving past the small, weathered wooden house, he circled the block. No sign of the pick-up truck.

When he reached the house again, he pulled into its rough dirt driveway. He climbed out of the patrol car, eased its door shut, and started to climb the porch stairs. The climbing sent stabs of pain through his groin and made him wince.

The screen door of the house was off its hinges. The main door stood ajar. From inside came the television sound of a sports announcer. ". . . the two and two pitch. High and outside, ball three."

Rusty knocked on the door frame.

"It's the sheriff," he called.

"Come in if you want," called a woman's raspy voice. "I ain't gettin' up."

Rusty pushed open the door and entered the front room. The woman looked at him over the top of an upraised beer can. She took her time about emptying the can, then set it on the couch beside her. It tipped over. Rusty saw a few drops spill out, darkening the faded green fabric.

"What you up to, law man?" She grinned. Her teeth were crooked and yellow.

"I'm looking for Blake White."

"Come to the wrong place." She took a deep breath that made her T-shirt pull tight across her enormous breasts and belly.

"Where is he?"

"Working over by the wharf. At the boat rental? Want a cold beer?"

"Thanks, but I can't drink on the job."

"Don't say I didn't ask." She lifted her foot off the coffee table, stood, and bitched up her jeans. "Keep an eye on the game, law man."

When she walked to the kitchen, Rusty kept an eye on her. She jiggled as she walked, but she looked powerful. As if plenty of muscle might be hidden somewhere under the layers of fat.

He turned his eyes to the television screen. The Budweiser frogs were waiting to ambush a beer delivery truck.

"What'd Blake go and pull this time?" the woman asked. Her breasts swung and bounced as she walked back from the kitchen with a can of beer in one hand. She dropped onto the couch and fixed her eyes on the television.

"I'm not sure he pulled anything. What's your relationship to Blake?"

"He married me. Best move he ever made." She popped open her can and took a swig.

"Do you have children?"

She swallowed a few more times, then lowered the can and swiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Only just the four."

"Four kids?"

"Yep. Ya ask me, that's enough. How about you?"

"One son."

"Well, one ain't enough. Yer wife die on you?"

"No, she's fine."

"Better get yerselfs some more kids while ya got the chance. Just one, it ain't hardly worth the bother."

Enough of this, Rusty thought. "Is one of your children using the pick-up truck today?" he asked.

"Who knows? Who can keep track? All I know is, the baby's here."

"Who has the pick-up?"

She drank some more beer, then wiped her mouth again and asked, "It ain't out front?"

"No."

"Must be Trinket has it."

"Trinket?" He'd assumed the truck belonged to Bill's family, not Trinket's.

"One of my girls."

"I guess she's the one I'm looking for."

The woman narrowed her eyes. "What'd she go and do this time?"

"She might be able to identify a man I'm looking for."

And socked me in the nuts.

"Bawsh," the woman said.

Rusty wasn't quite sure what she meant by that. And he didn't quite care. "Do you have a recent picture of your daughter?" he asked.

"How recent like?"

"Within the past year or two."

"Not that I can lay my hands on." Her head snapped toward the television as the crowd exploded with cheers.

The announcer's voice was quick with excitement. "It's a hard line drive over second! Purnelle scoops it up, fires! Not in time! And the Yankees open the fifth inning with a man on first!"

Rusty waited while Trink's mother took a long pull at her beer and slid the back of her hand across her mouth.

"Who's the boy she goes with?" he asked.

"He see your man, too?"

"He may have. I need to talk to him. To both of them."

"That'd be Bill," she said.

"Bill what?"

"Mason. Snotty little so-and-so. Comes from over on the north end."

"Do you know where Trinket might be?"

"Right now?" she asked, not looking away from the television.

"Right now."

"You know Indian Point?"

Rusty nodded.

"Might try up there. They go up there a lot." She drank some more beer. "You a Yankee fan?"

"You bet," Rusty said.

Grinning at him, she said, "You're all right for a law man."

"Thank you."

"You gonna bust Trinket?"

"I might."

"What'd she do? Besides all this bawsh about seeing some fella?"

"She broke half a dozen laws from indecent exposure to battery. I'm the guy she battered."

"How come that don't surprise me?" she asked, and laughed. "My Trinket, she's a mean one. Mean as a snake. Takes after her father. You bust that child, don't let on I told you nothin' or she'll hurt me. She come at me once with a fork. Look here." Standing, she lifted her T-shirt over a roll of flesh as white and dimpled as biscuit dough. "Look here. Come and get a good look."

Rusty stepped closer. Her smell was sour, so he took shallow breaths through his mouth.

"See here? Got me with a fork." One of her stubby fingers poked the skin to the right of her navel and Rusty saw a neat row of four red marks. And another row, and another. "Five times. She stuck me five times, the little wad. Then I lambasted her in the breadbasket and she wasn't up and around for near a week."

"How'd she manage to stab you so many times?"

"I was trying to reason with the child. Can't reason with her. She bites, too, you know."

"Does she?" he asked, remembering the way she had nipped his shoulder.

"Hell, yes. Last spring she bit one of my lungs so hard she brought blood. I had to get it stitched up like an old sock. Still got scars to prove it. Look here." She started lifting her T-shirt higher.

"That's fine. I believe you." Rusty turned away.

"Don't you wanta see?"

"I have to get going."

"Look at you!" She laughed. "I made you red."

"Thanks for your help, Mrs. White." He went out the door. As he shut it, he heard her call out to him.

"Come back here some time, law man!"

He climbed into his car, trying to stifle a groan as pain radiated from his testicles. At least the girl had confined the biting to his shoulder.

Could've been worse, he thought. A lot worse.

Chapter Eleven

The Class of 1990

"Walter? Walter?" Sitting up in bed, Merton listened to footsteps coming up the hallway. They stopped outside his door. "Get it in here, Walter."

The door opened and the lanky man stepped inside. Though he still wore only a robe, he was clean shaven now, his black hair combed and shiny.

"Are you done washing my clothes?" Merton asked.

"If you don't require me to iron them."

"Bring them in here."

"Let's hear the magic word."

"Now?"

"Ha ha ha."

"All right, all right. Please."

"That's much better."

"Walter?"

He lifted his eyebrows. "Yes?"

"Let's not have any more of this 'magic word' shit. Know what I mean?"

"I won't be treated like a slave."

"That so?"

"Yes, that's so."

"I don't treat you like a slave." Merton grinned. "I treat you like the mother you are."

Walter frowned, looking puzzled. As if he couldn't make up his mind whether to be flattered or insulted. After a few moments, he said, "Up yours."

"You wish."

Whirling around, Walter left the room. When he came back, he was carrying jeans, a plaid shirt and white socks.

"Bring them here."

"A little politeness?"

"Bring them here, please."

"I'd think you might be a bit more appreciative," he said, walking toward the bed. "After all, I'm taking an awful chance by having you here in the house."

"How's that?"

"I could be arrested as an accessory. I could go to prison."

"Accessory to what?"

"Merton, there were bloodstains on your clothes. I do know bloodstains when I see them, you know. I'm not blind."

"That could be remedied."

"Oh, very funny. Pardon me while I forget to laugh."

"Did you get them out? The stains?"

"What did you do?"

Merton grinned. "Sit down."

Walter sat on the edge of the bed, holding the bundle of clothes on his lap.

"So you want to know what happened last night?"

"I most certainly do."

"All right," Merton said, and told him.

Walter stared with wide, horrified eyes as Merton explained, lingering on every detail. At the end, Merton reached up and massaged the back of Walter's neck. "You wanted to know."

Half an hour later, Merton said, "Get me your keys."

"You're not leaving?"

Merton gripped a handful of black hair and pulled, lifting the weight of Walter's head off his chest and looking into his eyes. "Get me your keys."

"Where are you going?"

"Home." He let go of the hair.

Walter sat up. "You can't go home. What if they've identified you? The sheriff might be there waiting."

"I'll just have to be careful, won't I?"

"You shouldn't take such chances."

"It's no big deal. I'll be in and out. Won't take me two minutes."

"I don't see why you have to go home at all."

"Just give me your keys."

"You're being so foolish."

"You're being a fucking nag. Get them."

Walter climbed out of bed. When he was gone, Merton got up and dressed. He was washing his face in the bathroom when Walter returned.

"I'll go with you," Walter said.

"No."

"I don't see why not."

"Because I don't want you with me, that's why not. If you give me any more trouble, I won't be back."

"You'll be back."

"Don't press your luck." Merton held out his hand and took the keys. Then, without another word, he left.

His one-room house was on Pine Street, less than five miles away. When he got there, he drove past it at the maximum thirty m.p.h. speed limit, watching both sides of the road. Long ago, he'd made a point to become familiar with the vehicles belonging to all his neighbors. With the exception of a U-Haul van in front of the Willis place across the street from his house, everything fit. The U-Haul worried him. It would provide a fine cover for a surveillance team.

At the end of the block, he made a left turn. Then he cruised down the unpaved alley behind his house. The alley checked out. He headed up Pine again. This time, he saw Frank and Irma Willis wrestling a sofa across their front yard. The U-Haul was safe.

He drove down the alley and parked, not directly behind his house but close to a twisted stockade fence two houses down.

No fence, but an overgrown hedge enclosed his own back yard. He pressed through it, hands raised to protect his face. A stray branch scratched the back of his hand. It left a white mark like chalk, but brought no blood. When he was free of the bushes, he ran to the back of his house.

He climbed four stairs to the rear porch. The screen door came open easily, silently. He unlocked the wooden door and stepped into his kitchen.

Nothing seemed out of place.

In the living room, he went to a book shelf above his television set. There were seven matching volumes, each dark green, twelve inches high and half an inch in thickness. The spines were embossed, Sierra Log. They spanned the years from 1984 to 1990. Merton pulled down the last four. Carrying them under his arm, he hurried into his bedroom.

His shotgun case lay across the shelf of his closet. He found its handle and pulled it down. He swung it onto the bed. Leaving the books beside the gun case, he knelt and pulled open the bottom drawer of his dresser. He took out a red and white cardboard box of Winchester and Western Super X shotgun shells. He flipped up the lid. The box was full. He carried it, the shotgun and the four yearbooks out the back door.

Not wanting to squeeze through the thick wall of bushes again, he ran to the end of the hedge and ducked through an open space.