The Debt Collector (2 page)

Some cops made fun of John Q. Public for his naïveté, scorned parents who did not see a pedophile on every corner (fewer and fewer every day), people who could not fully comprehend the concept of two-legged evil. Sonora knew this copper's disdain was nothing less than envy.

She never told anyone, not even Sam, how routinely she hit that book of mug shots, known child molesters who stalked the streets of Cincinnati. There were times of great private embarrassment when she saw a familiar face, say, in Dairy Mart, or taking the kids to Graeters. And she'd be unable to remember if the familiarity of that face came from a chance meeting at a PTA Open Parent Night or a mug shot of a guy in and out of jail for raping eight-year-olds.

She glanced over her shoulder at her own house, curtains still open in the living-room window, Heather curled up on the couch, Tim pacing the hallway, talking on the phone. It seemed so bright inside, cozy, as sunlight drained away and motes of darkness grew thick in the air.

She felt off, somehow. Maybe it was just the sense she had, looking into that living-room window, that her babies were growing up and away, that dawning knowledge you gain as you get older that life cannot be static, that everything changes just as you manage to take hold, and you have to let go, whether you want to or not.

She had a peculiar feeling, like homesickness, only she didn't know where home was. She pressed into the warm scratchy brick front of her house, looked down the road. The gold Taurus crept around the street corner and turned into her driveway, car lights milky in the dusk. She could barely make Sam out, there behind the wheel of the car.

She did not move. She had a bad feeling, like if she didn't turn around and go back inside the house, make some kind of excuse—she was sick, something, anything—that if she didn't she would go and come back and things would be different. Nothing would ever be the same.

She sensed, rather than saw, Sam looking at her. Listened to the engine idling. Knew Sam was wondering why she did not leave the hard comfort of faded red brick against her back. Sonora slung her purse over her left shoulder, the weight of the Beretta soft on her hip, and went to work.

3

“It's in Olden,” Sam told her, something like regret in his voice. His clothes looked tired—khakis wrinkled at the waist and knee, tie knot slipping, blue cotton shirt billowing from the waistband, collar unbuttoned and loose. He had run a comb through his hair, straight, brown, and baby fine, parted to one side, slipping over one eye. He was past the need for a shave.

Sonora frowned, mind suddenly flooded with dream images from the night before. Peculiar things, dreams, wild animals of the mind. Try to force them and they would hide and disappear. But relax, let them come forward on their own, and your conscious thoughts would be inundated with images, feelings, and memories, as if dreams had to be coaxed out when you were not looking, as if they had to choose the time and place.

She had dreamed of her brother, Stuart, dead now these last four years—had it been so long? He had died at the hand of a small blond sociopath who had been playing games of death with Sonora. Hazard of the profession, but it was not supposed to spill over on the family, inept evil that would not stay in the lines, and it had taken her brother.

The grief thing. Business as usual.

“Sonora? You okay over there?”

It was not normal for the two of them to be so quiet. Sonora gave him a sideways look, wondered if he was fighting with his wife again or just tired.

“Sam, do you dream much?”

He looked at her. “Do I dream?”

“Yeah. Dream.”

That he was not surprised or perturbed by her question was a sure sign that they had been working together too long.

“Only when I have hot peppers on my pizza. Or if I eat chili.”

“Chili makes you dream?”

“Among other things.” He turned the Taurus into the entrance of a new subdivision, passing a small pond. “This is it. This is Olden.”

So many things Sonora saw here, senses raw, hair stirring on the back of her neck, that cop instinct and edginess keeping her alert. “Pretty here” was all she said.

Sam nodded. “I got a cousin lives two streets over.”

“Really?” Sonora said.

“No, I made it up.”

“Like you're going to make up a cousin?”

“Lives two streets over, on Canasta.” Sam eased his foot over the brakes, bringing the Taurus almost to a stop, to let five ducks cross the road to the water. Sonora had never noticed before how they scrambled over curbs, pulling themselves up with their neck muscles.

Sam checked his rearview mirror. Turned on his left indicator. “You know this area?”

“Nope.”

“You will.”

Streetlights, halogens, cast a muted aura over fledgling trees, concrete curbs that were white and crisp, houses trim with new paint and shiny siding—all the chirp and promise of raw wood and new construction.

Today was the third in a trio of sweet-summery days, winter hopefully no more than memory. The novelty of sunshine brought people out of their houses. A man in loose green scrubs walked a chesty golden retriever beside a woman pushing a dark blue stroller. The lawn of the house on the corner of Trevillain and Olong had been mowed for the first time of the season, and a spray of freshly clipped grass fanned up and down the edges of the sidewalk. The front-porch light was on, though it was sandy-dusk out and light enough to see. Three children in corduroys and sweatshirts rolled over the newly trimmed grass down the small hill. The air was just going crisp and chill. Tomorrow the children would wake up with raw throats.

Sam turned right and the neighborhood changed, houses smaller, trees larger, providing actual shade, everything well kept, lawns edged, landscaping minimal but precise. The cars in these driveways ranged in age from three years to twelve, not so many four-wheel drives and imports, just solid Ford Probes and Crown Victorias, with the occasional Firebird or Trans Am that bespoke a teenage population.

Someone had called the fire department. People were heading down the sidewalk, a few clutching the hands of children, looks of easy curiosity that made Sonora sure they were drawn by the crowd and ignorant of realities.

Two paramedic units flanked the fire truck, lights flashing, crews standing close together, talking, smoking.

“No survivors,” Sonora said.

4

The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac—436 Edrington Court. The dormant grass had stirred and grown and was ready for its first trim. It was not yet out of hand. It could wait a week, unless they got a lot of rain.

Sonora paused at the front walk, barely aware of the crowds on the circle of asphalt, the fire truck, men in blue shirtsleeves. She made note of the cars in the driveway—an older-model Saturn, much dented, wedged next to a maroon Chrysler LeBaron.

She looked over her shoulder, counted three patrol cars, parked out of the way of the ambulances. Uniformed officers kept everyone a few feet from the curb, their voices on the edge of polite.

She moved ahead slowly, concentration wrapping her like cotton. The noise dimmed, in her ears, anyway, and she moved with a methodical, unhurried precision like a diver at the bottom of the sea—it was the working mode, a rare stance for her, usually type A and manic about the small things of life.

She paused at the bottom of the driveway, looking at the mailbox. The flag was up.
The Stinnets
was painted in white letters on matte black, and there was a decal of a redbird with a yellow beak.

Sonora slipped a pair of latex gloves out of her purse, turned her back discreetly to put them on, and opened the mailbox. Nothing inside. She heard the thrum of an engine and heavy tires. The Crime Scene Unit van crept into the cul-de-sac, driver wary of the ambulance and the children running amok.

She glanced back at the upright red flag on the mailbox, looked inside one more time. Something—a rock or a small gray pebble. Sonora slipped it into an evidence bag and left it. Crooked her finger at a crew-cut boy in uniform. He glanced at the ID on her tie, the gloves on her hands, and moved out smartly.

“Yes, ma'am?”

She checked his name tag. “Officer Byrd? Stay by the mailbox, will you, and ask one of the techs to give it a good dusting.”

He nodded, did precisely as told. Recruitment training was a wonderful thing. Sonora wondered if she could send her son through just for the experience.

My children, she told herself, are safe at home.

Her hair was in her eyes. She pushed it away with the back of her wrist and headed up the driveway.

The LeBaron had the startled look of a car stopped suddenly, tires at an odd angle, driver's door hanging open. It gave off an aura of wrongness. As Sonora got closer she could see a set of car keys on the driveway, just under the open door. She bent closer. The keys, ten of them, hung from a brass ring with a leather tab that said
Jeep
.

Jeep? Couldn't they find a key ring that said LeBaron?

The LeBaron's interior was black. A red and white Super-America coffee cup was stuffed with empty Reese's Cups papers in a holder next to the console. There was mud on the nubby floor mats, which were brick red and did not match the gray carpet. The backseat was littered with papers, pink invoices, a ball cap that said
Glidden
, and an overstuffed black vinyl case that had a swatch of yellow legal paper sticking out from the center like a tongue. In the back left corner of the seat was a baby carrier turned backward.

The dome lights were dull but shining, and a red glow from the dash warned that the battery was low.

Sonora stepped away from the car, glanced over her shoulder at the front of the house. Saw, next to the porch, a purple and lime-green tricycle—well-used plastic wheels battered and specked with old mud and black tar. A patrolman stood white-faced at the edge of the concrete porch, averting his eyes from the ambulance and the tricycle. He could have been made of stone. The front door, hunter green with a brass kick plate on the bottom, stood halfway open to the night.

Sonora glanced into the Saturn, parked neatly on the right-hand side of the drive. A pot of cotton-candy-pink lip gloss was stuck to the front dash on the passenger's side, and a Beanie Baby turtle hung from the rearview mirror. A sweatshirt, buttercup yellow, was crumpled inside out on the passenger's seat, a bright red pair of Keds stacked on top.

Sonora made the first entry in her mental catalog. Female between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Toddler, three to six. She opened her notebook. Wrote quickly. Her handwriting had never been good, but years of police work had trained her to write legibly, if nothing else.

Someone had planted bulbs alongside the sidewalk that led in a direct line to the porch. Crocuses, purple and yellow and white.

Sonora stepped up on the porch, right behind Sam, who had stopped to talk to the uniform at the door—another youngster, with black hair, sweat sliding from his temple.

“You okay?” she heard Sam say in a low private tone.

The boy nodded.

Sam waited. Sighed. “What are we looking at?”

“We canvassed the neighbors. Family of five is supposed to live here.”

“Supposed?” Sonora said.

Sam gave her his annoyed look.

“Supposed?” she said again.

“Yes, ma'am.” The Patrol Boy nodded. He cleared his throat, eyes lowered, attention riveted on his notepad. “Adult male, mid thirties, the father, Carl Stinnet, accounted for, his body is in the living room. Female, adolescent, sixteen, Tammy Stinnet, in a bedroom. Willis Stinnet, nicknamed Wee-One, two years old, in the living room with the father. Female adult, the mother, Joy Stinnet, missing. Female infant, two months, Chloe, nicknamed Baby-Bee, missing.”

“Anybody see anything? Hear anything?” Sam asked.

The officer nodded. “A car, parked out front during the afternoon. An old Monte Carlo, four-door, paint primer on right fender and under the door, '87 or '88.”

“Pretty specific,” Sonora said.

“We caught a break.” Patrol Boy inclined his head. “Teenage boy down the street. Noticed it this afternoon when he came home from school.”

“He see anybody?” Sonora asked.

“Not that he recalled. But one of the family cars, a white Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, '97. It's missing.”

“Put out an APB?” Sam asked.

Patrol Boy nodded. “Done, sir.”

Sam slapped the boy on the shoulder and disappeared inside. Sonora looked back at the crocuses, then followed. Sam had stopped in the doorway, and she ran into him, nose bumping the center of his back.

“Oh Jesus God,” he said.

She would remember that. The way he said it. Oh Jesus God.

5

They had killed the family dog. It had died bravely, leaving a fan of blood spray waist high along the wall, a snarl on its face, a bullet in its gut, another wound in the left shoulder blade. The father had died about eight feet from the dog and had been left still tied to a maple-wood chair that had gone sideways under his weight, caught partway down by the edge of the couch. It had been one hell of a fight.

The chair, a stained, red-checked cushion tied to the seat, looked out of place, as if it had been dragged in from the kitchen. One of the legs had splintered, a bullet, Sonora guessed. Bits of tasseled cord, drenched with dark dried blood and knotted around the man's wrists, hung from the back slats of the chair.

Sonora glanced at the dog, thinking the shoulder wound had come first. The animal had run around for a while from the looks of the blood patterns. She was well-versed in splatter, and she wondered if all the blood on the walls was from the dog. She thought not.

She flashed for a moment on Clampett, protective of herself and the children, face white-flecked with age and doggie wisdom. Then she shut down inside, felt the shivery iciness wash over her—familiar, this, something between shock and resignation.