Method 15 33 (6 page)

Whether the registrations were cancelled or current, revoked, or expired, we set out to visit each address associated with each registration. This effort took us around the entire state of Indiana, parts of Illinois and Milwaukee, and a sliver of Ohio, where people were either on vacation or to where they had moved to or sold the vehicle altogether. Each one of these registrants and current owners had to be cleared, which meant interviewing them, profiling them, checking their property, reading their body language, and verifying alibis.

One registrant had died.

One registrant had wrecked his van the month before when he collided head-on with a car carrier full of Porsche 911s. He showed us the newspaper clippings of the event and all, chuckling, “Damn Porsches. I hate those little bugs. How can you make any dump runs or buy gravel for your driveway in one of those dinky things anyway?”

One registrant would not submit to a voluntary inspection of his ranch home, but who, upon better reasoning and advice of counsel, complied. He scurried to move a couple of pot plants as we walked through his house.
I don’t give a shit about your Mary Jane. I’m here to find a kidnapped girl, idiot
.

Eight registrants were fairly normal, run-of-the-mill Chevy TransVista van owners, and by this I mean they were wholly unsuspicious and actually, were almost clones of each other. I suppose they each had their important distinctions, but in my
investigator’s mind, I lumped them all in one group: innocent, married retirees. Kind, too, nearly every one of the wives wept upon explanation of our mission, spanking or kicking the side of their van as if punishing it for being the brother of a kidnapper. During these interviews, Lola, who hung behind me and on the fringe, received sideways glances, which I took to mean, “Does she really have to glare at us?”

As is the case in most instances, we could not find one registrant. He didn’t appear to have a formal job anywhere, and not one of his neighbors knew where he’d gone off to. Small town, outside Notre Dame, that’s where he was supposed to be. He lived in a fairly large, white Cape at the end of a two-hundred-foot, pine-lined, dirt driveway. A towering red barn loomed behind his home in a flat, grassy field, a spot hidden from roadside inspection. Naturally, this guy peaked my interest. Neighbors confirmed they’d seen him with a maroon van at one point, but they couldn’t remember when. “Takes off a lot. We don’t know where he goes.”

I gave the neighbors my card and asked them to call me if he were to show up. Lola hunted down a local judge, knuckle-knocking on his country door while he ate his scrambled eggs. Although I wasn’t with her, I can picture the scene. She hulked over His Honor as he signed the search warrant, and then she grabbed a piece of his buttered toast as retribution for having to go to the trouble of seeking permissions from persons she felt were below
Her Law
. “We should be able to storm into whatever we damn well please to find these babies,” she said, and with this, I did agree. Right to privacy and due process of laws, my ass. Slowed us down. But leave the poor Judge’s toast alone.

And, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we got our warrant, a neighbor called. “He’s back. But he has a black pickup. No van as far as I can tell.”

We sped down single lanes with low ditches and long fields on each border to return to our suspect. Along the way, Lola and I kept the windows down, taking in the cleansing odor of dewed
grass and bubbling spring water. Indiana.
Indiana, Indiana, take me from her, leave me here, set me with the wheat and the moon and a wisp of a glimpse of her face. Indiana, Indiana
. Several vacant swing sets squeaked out this haunt-rocking song to the rhythm of a lonely country breeze.

We greeted our mystery man in his driveway, where he was waiting for us.
Tipped off. Tight community
. Appearing as Paul Bunyan, he wore faded jean overalls, steel-toed work boots, and dangled a pipe from his crooked mouth. “Name’s Boyd,” he corrected when I asked if he was Robert McGuire. “Robert’s my Christian name, but Mama always calls me Boyd.” Boyd was a chicken farmer.

After introductions and the showing of badges, Boyd invited us inside. As we entered, he snuffed out his pipe and laid it on a birchwood card table on the porch. “Only guests kin smoke in the house, so light her up, Mr. Lui, if you got any, as I said, Mama always say, only guests kin smoke in your house.”

I noted, as did my square-jawed apprentice, that so far, Boyd had not once addressed her directly, nor had he suggested she too might smoke in his house. But Boyd wasn’t being sexist, at least I didn’t think so. I just think he was put off by Lola’s no-blink stare and her regular intervals of spitting chewing tobacco beyond his bed of hostas. I didn’t tell her to stop or even shoot her any incredulous looks; I had already tried so many times to get her to quit and failed. Her response was always the same: “With what I got to see in basements and crawl spaces, Liu, spare me pleas about my packy. Now shut up and buy me a Guinness, boss.” I suppose she had a point, but let’s add her wanting-to-get-mouth-cancer and her addiction to mud beers to the long list of reasons making my fifteenth year with the FBI pure hell. And also add this tidbit: Lola doused herself in Old Spice, which she reeked of morning, noon, and past midnight on all night stake-outs.

Boyd’s place was moderately uncluttered but very dusty. Pans and plates were in the sink, and by the curdled milk smell and the
fat, roaming flies, I guessed they’d been dirty awhile. On top of an open aluminum trashcan in the kitchen, a pile of unopened mail spilled over the rim and onto the floor. A dozen or more wet rolls of newspapers littered the linoleum counter. On a rag rug in front of a blue refrigerator, a mammoth Old English Sheepdog lounged, lolling her lazy eyes when we entered.

“Don’t mind ol’ Nicky. She’s a farter, but a damn good dog to me,” Boyd informed, as he offered coffee by pantomiming drinking from a mug and pointing to a percolator. I declined. So did Lola.

Still within the kitchen, Boyd and I sat across from each other at a dandelion-yellow Formica table with thin chrome legs. Lola stood behind me like a sentry, staring Boyd into discomfort, her arms folded high atop the breasts she smashed down and in with who-knows-what—probably duct tape, I never asked.

Boyd bounced his furry eyebrows and pursed his lips, as if to say,
please begin, Mr. Liu, you have my full attention now
. And thus began the interview of Mr. Boyd L. McGuire. I memorized every word so as to later transcribe the exchange, which is what I did in motel rooms while Lola lurked around rural towns like a vampire, searching for loose-talking, drunk locals who “might have seen or heard something” or perhaps “suspect some pervert in town”; and so rumors and dark-alley whispers became her night-woman’s probable cause.

Actually, I admire Lola. She was, still is, a good detective for countless reasons, which is why we’ll have to obscure her identity. Many a child has been pulled from doom due to her questionable tactics. You never heard me ever once ask her to explain herself. Like a hungry dog, I took whatever intel she poured into my breakfast bowl. I had to feed a hole inside me, damage I’d carried within for decades.

“Boyd, you mind if my partner here looks around your barn while I ask you some questions?”

“Not at all. What ya’ll lookin for anyway?”

“Don’t know, Boyd. You got something to hide?”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to hide. Look evra-whar ya’ll want. I’m an open book.”

“Thanks, Boyd. We appreciate you helping us out.”

Lola had already banged back out through the front door, having turned and left upon the cue.

“I understand you had a maroon Chevy van?”

“Sure did. Sold her ‘bout three months ago.”

“That so? Who did you sell it to?”

“No idea, Mr. Liu.”

“Yeah?”

“I parked the van on the curb with a sign, ‘For Sale.’ Had an ad in tha paper too. Guy shows up. Said he’d hitched a ride from the train station. Gives me cash, twenty-two hund-erd. Tha’ end.”

“What about the registration? Did you talk to him about changing it?”

“Sure. He said he’d take care a ‘dat. Don’t know much about no paperwork since my Lucy died. She gone, three years ago come next month. God Rest Her Soul. She took care-a all that mumbo jumbo. What, I screw up bad with the law cuzathat, Mr. Liu. This why you here? Don’t the FBI got bigga fish ta’ fry and all is what I mean, but mean no trouble, Mr. Liu. Whatever you want. Like I said, I’m an open book, now.”

“No, no. Nothing like that, Boyd. What did the buyer look like?”

“Hard ta’ say. Sorta’ nondescript to me, yeah. Got himself a belly, as I rememba. Not real handsome, no. I think he probably had brown, yeah, brown hair. Hmmph. Whole transaction took about ten minutes. I showed him she could start and all, showed him the manual tucked up in her glove box. Said I’d throw in the stove as well. I had an old stove in the back a’ her. That was about it.”

“Did you have one of those specialty frames on the plate that says ‘Hoosier State’?”

“Sure as heck did. Cousin Bobby’s boy useta play on the
Indiana University basketball team. Proud of him. Proud of them. Proud of my state, Mr. Liu.”

“I don’t doubt you. This is real helpful, you confirming all this.”

“This guy who bought my van, he did something bad, didn’t he?”

“You could say so, Boyd. A girl’s gone missing. Trying to track him down as fast as possible to ask him about her. Anything else you can remember about him or the transaction?”

I studied Boyd’s reaction and body language, as I was trained to do. Since I had just confirmed his vehicle played a part in a serious crime involving a child and this was no joke and we at the FBI were hot on the trail, if Boyd had something to hide, he likely would have crossed his arms, scrunched his eyes, averted mine, and looked up and to the left when he spoke again, all of which being the tell-tale signs of a liar
creating
answers. Boyd did none of this. He set his palms gently on the table, rounded his shoulders sad, and peeked into my eyes like a tired, old bear.

“I can’t thinka one thing, Mr. Liu. I’m real sorry. I want to help this girl. Ain’t there ina-thang you can ask me ‘bout I shoulda noticed? Maybe something will spark some kinda memry.”

I surveyed the log of prior cases filed in my mind, thinking of past clues that led to past clues. I’d been in this situation before.

“How much gas was in the van? Do you remember?”

“Sure as heck I remember. Damn thing was damn near bone dry. I had just enuff gas in my shed to get her started.”

“What’s the closest gas station?”

“R&K’s Gas & Suds. End of the street. Matter a’ fact, he asked the same thing, and I said the same thing to him, R&K’s Gas & Suds. End of the street.”

Bingo
.

“Did he sign anything? Touch anything in your home? Was he only ever outside or did he come in?”

Boyd turned to look behind him, swiveled back to face me, smiled, rocked his head, and pointed a finger in my direction,
proud of me, his child-detective. “Oh, you’re good, Mr. Liu, you’re good. I never woulda thought of it, but you know what? You know damn what. He used my bathroom.”

Bingo, again
.

“I don’t mean to be rude, here, Boyd, but I have to ask. Have you cleaned the bathroom at all since then?”

Boyd laughed. “Mr. Liu, look at me, I’m a widower. Hell no, I ain’t cleaned no bathroom. Don’t even use ‘er neither. I use ‘er upstairs. Plus I been gone, visitin’ my brother and Mama down in Lou-c-ana, where this Boyd was born, now. In fact, took off the night I sold the van. Jus’ back ta-day.”

“Anyone used the bathroom since he did?”

“Not a soul.”

Bingo, bingo, bingo. Buyer used bathroom, hasn’t been cleaned, no one else used it since
.

“A couple of requests, Boyd. First, I’d like your permission to seal off the bathroom and dust the whole thing for fingerprints. Second, I’d like the name and addresses of your brother and mother down in Louisiana. Okay with you?”

“Sure as hell is, sir. But am I in trouble here?”

“Boyd, as long as your story checks out and my partner doesn’t find anything suspicious in your barn, you are not in trouble. In fact, we really appreciate your cooperation. Incidentally, do you own any property anywhere other than this house?”

“No, sir. This here all I got.”

“You ever go by any aliases?”

“Boyd L. McGuire is what my mama calls me, and I don’t have no right ta’ go changin’ it, now do I? Mama, she mad enuff I came to live by my Daddy’s side of the family in this here Indiana all those years ago. Can’t be changin’ my name now, can I, Mr. Liu?”

“I suppose not, Boyd. I suppose not.”

I rose and walked to the bathroom and sized “er” up. With Boyd’s help, I roughly calculated the square footage for
the forensics team, who would later in the afternoon dust for fingerprints. I sealed the entrance with the yellow tape we had in our field car.

In order to generate a thorough report, I inspected every micro-meter of Boyd’s house, gun drawn, and with Boyd agreeably outside, leaning against a tree that I could check from nearly each one of Boyd’s twelve, curtain-less windows. This guy wasn’t hiding a damn thing, except maybe the piles of laundry, which I assumed had been abandoned since his wife died.
This chicken-farming bachelor is as innocent as Land O’ Lakes butter
.

My partner returned, sloshing through Boyd’s side yard in her gait of choice: cowboy. She advised me—outside of Boyd’s earshot—how she had walked the whole property, looked everywhere, high and low, and even pressed on walls in the red barn to make sure none were false. “Nothing,” she reported. Nothing to indicate a crime within. “Smells like endless whorehouse ass in his barn though—the cheap whore smell, the ones you find on the outskirts of Pittsburgh,” she complained, much like the man-woman she was and as if I would know whatever the hell she meant.

I didn’t give one shit about the smell of Boyd’s barn unless it was the odor of death, which I knew wasn’t there because Lola’s nose was trained to ferret out corpses upon even minor whiffs of rotting flesh. Despite my unwillingness to care, however, she complained for the next two days about chickens knee-deep in their own crap. “I can’t get the stench of those chubby, clucking, shitty chickens out of my damn nose,” she said, at least one hundred times. She even took to our emergency smelling salts to erase the malodorous memory. “Better not harm my hunter nose,” she warned.