Jude Devine Mystery Series (43 page)

“Size nine. Male,” Simmons noted with impressive accuracy. Jude guessed the same, and she’d had years of practice. “I’ll confirm that once we have exact measurements.”

“Do you have a Hexagon OBTI kit nearby?” Jude asked, taking notes. “There’s one in my truck if you don’t.”

“As a matter of fact, that was one thing I did remember to pack.” Simmons slipped out of the room and returned with the test cassette and reagent bottle, which she passed to Jude.

“Can’t beat instant gratification,” Jude remarked heartily. She lifted some blood with the collection stick, then returned it to the bottle.

Simmons administered the test, slowly shaking the contents before depositing a couple of drops into the small cassette. A few minutes later a single blue bar showed in the result window.

“It’s not human.” Simmons sounded both relieved and puzzled.

They would have to wait for a full lab analysis to determine the origins of the sample, but Jude had a species in mind. “
Capra hircus
,” she murmured.

Both Simmons and Pratt stared at her blankly.

“Goat.” Jude swung her attention to the shattered windows. “That head was in here before it was ever out there.”

Chapter Three

Seven hours had elapsed since Corban was reported missing by the primary suspects in his disappearance. That was a problem. Three-quarters of the children murdered in stranger abductions were killed in the first three hours.

Tonya Perkins, sober at last and a credit to the TV makeup people, was all set to plead for her son’s life. Fluffy booms hovered like so many drunken moths around her big hair. For the occasion she wore tight low-rise jeans and a white knit crop top she kept pulling down over her navel. That was the good news. The bad news was sitting in the chair next to her, combing a jet black mullet that was teased over the balding center of his head. The rest of his hair was growing out mouse brown at the roots. Wade Miller. The boyfriend.

Miller had a gift for crying on cue when the reporters asked him how he felt about little Corban. At least that’s how every law officer in the room saw it, if their hard eyes and locked jaws were anything to go by. Jude was no exception. She’d interviewed Miller for two hours, so far. The guy couldn’t give a straight answer. And his feet were size nine.

On first impression, he seemed dim as a ten-watt bulb, but after a while, when he got impatient waiting to be taken to the bathroom, he’d dropped the ingenuous routine and revealed flashes of a more aggressive, cunning personality. He seemed conscious of these lapses and would immediately take cover behind a whiny, apologetic outburst. During such melodramatic interludes, he would invariably proclaim his love of little kids, Corban especially. Jude wasn’t the only interviewing detective who thought an innocent man would not need to make the point so emphatically.

Miller’s story had already changed. He’d signed an initial statement saying he was looking after the baby while his girlfriend was at her sister’s party. Around ten that night he’d phoned Tonya to tell her Corban had accidentally burned himself but was okay. Later, Corban was in his bed asleep when Wade went out to pick up Tonya. That was the last time he saw him.

The trip there and back to Amberlee Foley’s house took thirty minutes. Wade’s theory was that whoever abducted Corban must have been watching the place and they struck while he was out. When he returned, he was so busy getting the drunk Tonya into the house that he didn’t notice the broken windows or the goat’s head in the front yard. After he’d got her settled, he had a quick look in Corban’s door and saw he wasn’t in his bed. But Corban often went into the living room in the middle of the night and fell asleep in front of the fireplace, so Wade was not concerned.

That was version one.

In version two, after Jude read aloud Tonya’s statement about Wade taking Corban to the hospital, Wade acted like the stress of the moment had made him forget all about that journey to Southwest Memorial through heavy snow in the dead of night not long before he made the call to Tonya. He amended his statement, saying the doctor just took a quick look at Corban and said there was nothing to worry about. The burn was minor. Wade stuck a Band-Aid on it when they got back home and gave Corban a few teaspoons of Jim Beam to help him get to sleep.

What he didn’t mention in any of his statements was that he had left the house some time after his phone call to Tonya. His truck had been spotted by the state patrol slightly after 11:00 p.m. about fifteen miles north of Cortez on the Devil’s Highway near Cahone. Things were so quiet, they’d run the registration for something to do. So far, Jude hadn’t confronted Miller with this information.

“What do you think?” Pratt murmured in her ear as Tonya outpoured to the cameras.

“He’s got to be the worst liar I’ve ever interviewed.”

“Look at him. All that weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Pratt sounded disgusted. “Who does he think he’s kidding? He’s only known the kid for a couple of months.”

“Most people are going to buy it,” Jude said. “The media’s eating it up. Just watch—this is going to be a big story.”

They’d agonized over the TV plea, but even with Miller’s suspicious behavior, they could not afford to make assumptions. He could simply be feeling guilty because his girlfriend’s child had vanished while in his care. If a stranger had, in fact, taken Corban, there was no time to be lost.

Tonya swept a cluster of brassy blond ringlets back from her face and leaned forward just enough so that the viewer’s eye would be riveted to her fulsome cleavage.

“So please,” she begged with every sign of genuine distress. “My baby needs his mom. It’s real cold out there and I’m afraid for him. Please, if you know anything at all or if you have Corban. Please. Phone the number on the screen.”

As she broke down, Wade took her in his arms and they sobbed on each other’s shoulders. Reporters immediately started shouting questions, and Pratt moved away from Jude’s side to take the microphone. A deputy walked them backstage and Jude followed, wanting to resume her interviews before the two of them got a chance to compare their stories. Wade was mumbling into Tonya’s ear while they were embracing. Jude took his arm and propelled him a few steps away toward a stern-faced deputy.

“I need to speak to Ms. Perkins,” she said firmly. “The deputy will take you back to the interview room and bring you some lunch, Mr. Miller.”

Tonya pointlessly wiped mascara from around her eyes and protested over shaky sobs. “I’ve told you all I can tell you. I want to go and look for him like everyone else. He’s
my
baby.”

“I understand,” Jude said gently. “I know you’re worried sick. But I need to go over your statement again to be sure we didn’t miss any important details. You were intoxicated during the first interview, so some things might have been kind of fuzzy.”

Tonya flushed and lifted both hands to her face. “Why is this happening to me? I haven’t been out in weeks, and the first time I have some fun…”

Jude walked her back to an interview room. “Would you like something to eat? Coffee?”

“Just a Diet Pepsi. Oh, God. Where is he?”

Jude asked a deputy to bring the soda and showed Tonya into the room. “I’m going to read you your rights again,” she said as a second detective set up the interview to record. The woman had been virtually catatonic the first time they spoke and didn’t seem to understand her son was really missing until she saw the first television reports.

“I don’t know why you’re wasting time talking to me.” Tonya sniffled. “I wasn’t even there. You should be out looking for Corban. It’s freezing. What chance does he have—he’s so little.”

Before she could work herself into another emotional free fall, Jude touched her arm and said, “Ms. Perkins. The best way you can help Corban is to answer my questions as fully as you can.”

Tonya blinked at her. “I don’t understand how he got hurt anyway.” Her puzzled frown suggested she was starting to fret over Miller’s account of events. “He can’t even reach the burners. How’d it happen?”

Good question. Jude Mirandized her and reminded her the interview was being filmed on video, then asked, “What was Wade talking about with you back there?”

“He said he loves me and he didn’t mean for anything like this to happen. He thinks I blame him.”

“What does he think you blame him for?”

“Not being there when they took Corban.” She sobbed anew. “It wasn’t his fault he had to pick me up from Amberlee’s.”

“What time was that again?”

Jude gestured for Detective Pete Koertig to join her at the table as he had during her first interview with Tonya. Koertig had recently been promoted to detective and was very much one of the boys. He seemed mystified that Sheriff Pratt had chosen Jude to lead the interviews. When he sat down, he shuffled in his seat and ran a hand over his sandy buzz cut, making it clear he thought it was time for a real investigator to take over.

“I don’t know,” Tonya said. “About two.”

“How did he seem when he arrived?”

Tonya shrugged. “He was wet and dirty from being out in the snow. He had to park the truck down the road some.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What happened then?”

“Next thing I woke up in bed. He was taking off my shoes and everything.” She smiled. “He’s good like that. Sensitive.”

Koertig rolled his eyes.

“You don’t remember arriving home?” Jude asked. “Pulling into the driveway? Seeing the house?”

Tonya shook her head. “I was out of it.”

“You didn’t go check on Corban?”

“No.”

“Even though you knew he’d been burned and Wade had taken him to the hospital, you didn’t look in on him?”

“I didn’t think about it. I mean, Wade said he was okay.”

“So you went to sleep right away, without going anywhere else in the house?”

“I went to the bathroom is all.”

“Your bathroom is directly across the hall from Corban’s bedroom, isn’t it? You didn’t just open his door a crack and look in on him?”

Tonya’s cheeks bloomed dark red, and she stared at Jude as if it had just dawned on her that most mothers would have wanted to reassure themselves that their injured toddler was really all right.

Defensively, she said, “I was drunk, okay? I couldn’t even stand up. Wade had to hold me on the toilet seat. Anyway, everything was quiet. I didn’t want to wake Corban up.”

“So it
did
cross your mind to wonder how he was?” Jude asked softly.

“What kind of a mother do you think I am?”

Jude refrained from giving an opinion; she also tried hard to resist a rush to judgment. Tonya Foley had a well-equipped bedroom for her son, with inexpensive but carefully thought-out nursery décor, plenty of toys, a musical mobile of angels suspended from the ceiling, and a clean, comfortable bed. Pictures of the little boy around the house showed a smiling baby who looked healthy. He was a beautiful child with a mischievous Cupid’s smile, big dark blue eyes, and a mop of white-blond curls. There was no question a certain type of pedophile would consider him a prize, certainly enough to have targeted him.

It was too soon in the interview to make Tonya defensive; Jude didn’t want her to clam up or suddenly demand a lawyer. So, in a soothing tone, she said, “I know this is a nightmare for you, Tonya. Please understand, we’re only asking you all these questions in case there’s something in the back of your mind that might give us a vital clue, something you might have forgotten all about. We want to find Corban, just as much as you do.”

Tonya nodded and wiped her eyes. The door opened and a deputy brought in a couple of cans of Diet Pepsi and a sub. Tonya took one of the cans and cracked it open.

As she gulped down the contents, Jude said, “Tell me about your relationship with Corban’s dad.” She referred to her notes. “Dan Foley—correct?”

“Yes.”

“And Mr. Foley was previously married to your older sister Amberlee?”

“They’re divorced now.” Tonya pushed the sub aside without inspecting it.

“When did Dan and Amberlee separate?”

“They weren’t happy from the start. Ambam…that’s what I call her from when we were kids. She was only sixteen when they got married. ”

Jude did some quick math. Corban was nineteen months old. Tonya was only twenty-one. She would have been pregnant at eighteen with the child of her sister’s husband.

“I understand Dan is suing you for custody of Corban.”

Tonya gasped. “Do you think he took him?”

“Do you?”

Tonya concentrated on her Pepsi can. “He would never hurt Corban. If he’s got him, that means my baby’s okay.” Hope could not quite displace the doubt in her tone.

“We’re still trying to contact Mr. Foley using the number you gave us,” Jude said.

Tonya’s mouth shook. “He doesn’t have him. He’d never do that to him…break windows… and that goat’s head. Dan’s a vegetarian. ”

She fell silent and glanced sideways as Sheriff Pratt knocked and entered the room. He signaled Jude and she strode over, leaning close so they could speak quietly.

“Just finished interviewing the rest of the night shift at Southwest Memorial,” he said grimly. “Miller’s story is bullshit. No one remembers him bringing Corban in, and he’s not on any of the security tapes.”