Clean Burn Page 5

  “She could have moved anywhere.” He turned toward his computer and typed. I got to my feet stiffly to check out the display over his shoulder. “Over six hundred Lopezes in the Sacramento area.”

  Talk about chasing wild geese through haystacks. It would likely be fruitless, but I could have Sheri start down the Lopez listings, making calls in between legitimate work. It would serve her right for roping me into the search for James.

  Hoping to narrow down the legions of Lopezes, I asked, “Would the Stuarts’s daughter know Mrs. Lopez’s first name?”

  “I can call and ask her.” He flipped open a Greenville County phone book, then punched out a number on his desk phone. “Hey, Trish. It’s Sheriff Heinz.”

  I only half-listened to the conversation as I took a closer look at the photos on his wall. Somewhere between that eleven-year-old picture and the most recent, something had taken the smile off Ken’s niece’s face.

  Ken hung up. “Trish never knew the woman. She’ll ask her folks next time she calls them.”

  I nudged the soccer photo straighten “Is that really Cassie? How’d she get so grown up?”

  “She lives with me now.”

  “What happened to your sister?” For the life of me, I couldn’t remember her name.

  “Cassie got diagnosed with diabetes two years ago. Melinda... she’s just not equipped. She asked me to take Cassie for a couple of months, then never came back to get her.”

  “Where’s Melinda now?”

  “LA, last I heard. She doesn’t keep in touch.”

  That explained the anger in the thirteen-year-old’s eyes. Moms that didn’t hang around. We had that in common.

  Reading from the phone book, Ken scribbled on a piece of paper. “The Stuart place is out on Black Oak Road. Trish said you can drop by later today, but she doesn’t think she’ll be much help.”

  “I might be able to cross-correlate the former address. Use it to narrow down the Lopezes.” That is, if Mrs. Lopez used the address on another rental application. If she was running from someone or something, she might lie about a former residence to cover her tracks. “What about local sex offenders?”

  With more and more laws in place preventing molesters from living near schools and parks, the sickos got forced out of congested urban areas and into rural towns like Greenville. Offenders could live on the fringes, out of sight. More insulated from the kind of degenerate worms that populated big cities, small town kids tended to be less wary, more vulnerable when a molester crept out of hiding to make contact.

  “You already checked the Megan’s database for local offenders?” Ken asked.

  “Yeah. Are all four still in the area?”

  “Two of them moved. I can take you out to talk to the other two.” He typed at his keyboard and the printer spit out a sheet of paper.

  “I can handle it.” I tried to grab the paper.

  He held it out of my reach. “My jurisdiction. You go with me.”

  “I already looked those names up on my own computer. No reason I can’t go out on my own.”

  “But you won’t. Because I’ll be with you.”

  He didn’t seem in a mood to argue. He walked out of his office without so much as a look over his shoulder to see if I was following. When he did check on me as he reached the end of the hall, he took in my slow progress as my leg refused to unknot and waited until I caught up.

  “Need anything from your car?” he asked as we headed for the Explorer.

  “Let me grab my computer bag.”

  After a trip to my Escort, I settled in the front seat of the Explorer with my laptop balanced on my knees. I hadn’t entered my notes yet from my conversation with Emma at the Golden Arches. I could type what I knew into my database and keep my hands busy while we drove.

  “Who first?” I asked. “Paul Beck or Chuck Pickford?”

  Ken gunned out of the parking lot. “Paul Beck. He’s farthest out, at the Pine Hill Mobile Home Park.”

  As I pulled out the laptop, I found a stash of matches in a side pocket. Figuring it was fate that had put them there, I fished one out and tucked it into the corner of my mouth.

  Ken glanced at the matchstick then glued his eyes on the road ahead. When he didn’t seem inclined to make further conversation, I waded into the minefield on my own.

  “So how’s Tara adjusting to country life?” I asked as I waited for the computer to boot.

  I figured the man must have lockjaw, considering how stiff his face got. “She lasted a month. Moved to Reno to be near her folks.”

  That lent a new perspective on his reaction to my apology. I bent to my keyboard, and mumbled out, “Sorry to hear it.”

  He narrowed his gaze on me. “Are you?”

  “It’s not as if you and I were going anywhere.” I put just the right cavalier tone in my voice.

  “But we sure shot the hell out of my marriage.” He might not have cared about me, but matrimony meant something to him.

  Still, I had to wonder just how strong his marriage had been, considering everything Ken had done to fix his short-lived mistake. Privately, I doubted anything would have satisfied Tara.

  As we climbed a bit into a more alpine elevation, the foothill oaks gave way to ponderosas and white fir. I rolled down a window, took in the fragrance of pine. For a long time, the slightest whiff of that thick scent in a car air freshener or kitchen cleaner and I’d be back in the cabin with my father.

  I rolled up the window again, refocusing on what Emma had told me. “Pretty ironic. Of all the places you could have gone.”

  “I needed a change. So, what happened to your father?”

  “I understand he left Greenville six or seven years ago. Died in his sleep a couple of years after that. A real shame.” I banged a little harder on the keyboard. “He should have suffered.”

  As he slowed to turn left, he took in the display on my screen. It was the start page of ProSpy, the profiling software I’d used in days of yore. This version was souped up and far superior to what I’d used at SFPD, but familiar enough that Ken recognized it.

  “I thought you weren’t profiling missing kids anymore.”

  “ProSpy is useful for more than missing kids.” Although despite keeping up with upgrades, I’d had no use for the software since I’d quit SFPD. “I’m just trying to get some information on James and Enrique.”

  “And just how’s that different?”

  I was saved from having to formulate an answer by our arrival at the mobile home park. I shut my laptop and slid it back into the black bag as we slowed for a speed bump just inside the entrance. It seemed far too idyllic a place for a molester to call home, with the tidy little mobile homes tucked between tall green pines.

  Beck’s place was in the back corner of the park, a single-wide crammed between two double-wides on a cul de sac. Unlike the well kept homes bookending it, Beck’s mobile screamed neglect from its peeling exterior to its weedy little plot to the rusted out carport that ran alongside.

  A rusted out empty carport. Ken parked across the driveway and we got out of the Explorer. “Is he at work?” I asked.

  “He works nights at the Hangman’s Tavern.”

  Ken climbed the stairs and pounded on the door. “Paul Beck! Open up, it’s the sheriff.”

  The mailbox at the street was overflowing with junk mail. “Is he out of town? Or is he gone?”

  Ken peered into the window. “If he moved, he left everything behind.”

  My hands in my back pockets, I perused the circulars and loan offers jutting from the mailbox. “Maybe because he had something that meant more to him than his crappy furniture. Something he had to hide.”

  Ken tromped through the weeds to the nearest neighbor and pounded on the door. I did the same at the mobile on the other side. No answer at either one.

  We met back at the Explorer, Ken looking none-too pleased. “I’ll give the tavern a call. See if they know where he is.”

  The bartender at the Hangman’
s Tavern didn’t know much other than that Beck had told the owner he would be gone for a few days. As we made our way back toward town and our second quarry, Chuck Pickford, Ken called Miss Sweet-as-pie at the county sheriff for a lead on Beck’s next of kin. If Greenville had actually entered the 21st century and had reliable wireless, I could have documented the molester’s entire family tree on my laptop before the admin put fingertip to keyboard.

  “Damned system’s down,” Ken said as he dropped his cell in the center console. “She’ll call when she has the information.”

  * * * *

  Chuck Pickford had put down slimy roots in one of those three-story Victorian monstrosities that Greenvillians had been so fond of constructing around the turn of the last century. This one was a little worse for wear, the blue paint faded and peeling off the clapboards, the dirty white gingerbread trim ravaged by age and dry rot. The steps of the front porch looked pretty iffy and I took care to test each tread before I put my full weight on them.

  What might once have been a gracious front parlor now served as entryway, mail center and last resting place for cast-offs. A bicycle missing its seat and both pedals, an inverted umbrella and the remains of innumerable emptied six-packs littered the space. Obviously not a place for recovering alcoholics.

  Six of the twelve postal boxes on the wall hung open and vacant, the curling strips of paper identifying former occupants barely readable. Pickford must have been a fairly recent arrival, since the black ink on his tag was still vivid. Room number eleven. On the effing third floor.

  Up to now, I’d been doing a credible job of gimping along in a way that wasn’t completely pathetic, and Ken had been polite enough to pretend my left leg wasn’t useless meat. But those two narrow flights of stairs would strip away any dignity I might have hoped to retain.

  There wasn’t a trace of pity in Ken’s expression. “I could carry you up.”

  “I could rip your face off and make it into a purse.” I waved at the stairs. “After you.”

  He started up. He didn’t wait for me at the landings, didn’t look back over his shoulder to check my progress. He didn’t say a word when I finally dragged myself next to him outside room eleven, sweat soaking my long- sleeved T-shirt. Although my leg still whined, the exercise had actually loosened it up a smidgen. The easing of the pain didn’t do a damn thing for my mood.

  Ken pounded on the door. Muffled footsteps from inside, then the door swung open. With his gentle green eyes and thinning hair, Pickford looked like everyone’s favorite uncle, the one who gives you a dollar every time you see him. Of course, that wasn’t all Chuck Pickford would give a kid.

  He smiled, those guileless eyes widening. “Sheriff Heinz, what a pleasure.” If I hadn’t read his entry on the Megan’s law database—lewd or lascivious acts with child under 14 years—and if I wasn’t such an inveterate skeptic, I might have believed the man was as harmless as he looked.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Pickford.” Despite Ken’s courteous tone, the corner of his mouth twitched down. I guessed that beneath the polite sheriff’s veneer, in his heart of hearts, Ken harbored a secret wish for an excuse to pound Pickford.

  I longed to flatten the slimeball myself, just because. The satisfaction would be worth the possible assault charge.

  Pickford glanced over at me, nothing but soft innocence in his green gaze. I did my best to transmit into Pickford’s warped mind my hopes for his demise.

  Still smiling, he stepped aside, opening the door wider. “Come on in, Sheriff.” I hobbled in after Ken.

  The room had a similar decorating scheme as the lobby downstairs. All the furnishings looked as if they’d been diverted from a dump run to the local landfill. Chips and cigarette burns marred the aged Formica countertop in the postage-stamp kitchen. Beside the kitchen island, a scarred dinette table featured a single ladder-back chair with a rung missing. A sprung easy chair with a mismatched ottoman and a hideously ugly coffee table comprised the living room set.

  “How may I be of assistance, Sheriff Heinz?” Pickford’s soft voice matched his pleasant smile, a civilized facade papered over his depraved soul.

  “This is Janelle Watkins, a private investigator. She has some pictures to show you. A few questions to ask.”

  As I pulled out the photos, Ken’s attention fixed on the doorway that led, no doubt, to the bedroom and bathroom. He moved toward the opening like a labrador scenting a bird. “Mind if I take a look around?”

  I watched Pickford closely for a reaction. Only the faintest flicker of concern, gone so quickly, I might have persuaded myself I’d been mistaken.

  His smile broadened again. “Go right ahead, Sheriff. Look anywhere you like. Now, how can I help you, little lady?”

  My skin crawled as I held out the photo of James. “Have you seen him?”

  He briefly studied the picture, then shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”

  I traded James’s image for Enrique’s. Fascination kindled in Pickford’s eyes, although he immediately squelched it. With a wistful smile, he stroked a blunt fingertip across the boy’s sweet face.

  I snatched the photo out of his reach. “Did I say you could touch?”

  His sweet smile didn’t waver. “I hope those two youngsters aren’t in any trouble.”

  “They’re missing.”

  “Did they wander off?” he asked, those vivid green eyes generous and kind.

  “Someone took them.” Maybe someone like you, you sick bastard.

  The empathy in his face looked so genuine. “Their parents must be heartbroken.”

  Like the ones whose kids’ lives you tore apart? That I saw none of Pickford’s vileness in his face made me feel sick. The exterior ought to match the black corruption of the interior, ought to mark his flesh with oozing, gaping sores, a warning to the innocent.

  Swallowing back the acid in the back of my throat, I waved the photos in his face again. “Take another look. Are you sure you haven’t seen them?”

  His gaze slid from the photos to my arm and before I could stop him, he took my hand. “You’ve hurt yourself.” He took my arm. His gentle touch on the red, puckered scars dotting my inner wrist roiled the contents of my stomach to a crisis point. I tried to tug my hand away, but he wouldn’t let go.

  “An accident,” I said. He clearly didn’t believe me, and I was horrified by the urge to justify myself to Pickford the way I used to with my father.

  He patted my hand. “When I sense someone in pain, I feel I have to reach out.”

  My skin crawled. “Is that what you tell the kids?”

  “I love children.” He gave me a sad, wounded look. “I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise.”

  Pickford’s touch, like an echo of my father’s few tender moments, made me so sick I was about to lose my lunch on his cross trainers. Desperate, I balanced on my gimpy leg and stomped on his instep. Pickford jumped back in surprise, setting me free.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” I could hear myself say to my father. I managed to bite back an apology to Pickford.

  Ken returned from his foray, meeting my gaze with a slight shake of his head. In that moment of distraction, Pickford plucked Enrique’s photo from my fingers. “I know him.”

  I tugged my sleeve back down, my jaw clenched and aching. “From where?”

  “Not sure.” He stared at the picture. “But I’ve seen that face.” He fixed those bright green eyes on me. “I hope you’ll let me know when you find him.”

  Not in any universe, real or imagined. I retrieved Enrique’s picture, tucking it into my back pocket. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

  My queasiness persisted during my painful descent back down the stairs. Whatever the impetus that had brought me here to Greenville, it evaporated, drowned by impotence.

  “Did you find anything in the bedroom?” I asked.

  “Neat as a pin. No pictures, no toys or games, no suspect magazines. Certainly no sign that a boy’s been here re
cently.”

  “What about a computer?”

  “I can’t see this place wired for internet. In any case, not so much as an iPad.”

  “The library have internet?”

  Ken nodded. “I’ll check with the librarian. See if Pickford’s been in.”

  As Ken started the engine, I shut my eyes, gritting my teeth against a serious jonesing for a lit match. “Damn,” I muttered. “I should just go back home.”

  “I don’t know what you expected.”

  I opened my eyes. Ken was about to make the last turn toward the sheriff’s office. A black impulse sank its teeth into me. “Go back,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “Go back to Pleasant Creek Road.”

  He gave me a long look, then made a U-turn. We traveled in silence until I saw the familiar side road. “There,” I told him. “Make a right on Lime Kiln.”

  He did, then slowed on the pothole pocked asphalt. Even though he crept along at twenty-five, I missed the marker and we rolled right past it.

  I spotted the faded sign in the side view mirror. “Stop.”

  He did, backing up as I craned my neck to see behind me. I pointed wordlessly at the weed-choked gravel drive. “Watkins” was spelled out in pallid gray letters that nearly matched the weathered wood of the sign.

  As we jounced down the washboarded surface of the driveway, the past dropped over me, clinging like the sticky strands of black widow webs. Still, I slouched toward my past like Yeats’s rough beast, and with no better sense than that pitiless sphinx.

  CHAPTER 5

  The clearing was gone, choked by manzanita, the cabin itself overwhelmed by blackberry vines. Ken drove up to the wall of red, twisting branches as far as he could, then cut the engine. He angled his body toward me and watched as I stared out the windshield as keenly as a lookie-loo at a multi-car pile-up.

  This was my legacy, the only thing tangible left to me by my father. Except for the scars, that is. I owned this wreck of wood and nails and the acre of land it sat on. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on it in twenty years.