by Cameron Cain
“Nothing. Take some extra time and make sure you didn’t leave a trace.”
“Already done.”
“Do it again.”
He’s silent a second. “Are you okay?”
“For now. Scrub your trail again. No questions.”
“Understood.” He hangs up.
Chapter 8
I get on the freeway. It’s dark and empty and flat. I don’t mean to indulge the memory, but it sneaks up on me: bright road, hot car. My bare feet getting sunburned where they’re sitting on the dash, I smell sweat, panic. Perfume. Defunct farms and derelict barns pass by like pictures in a storybook about loss, but I don’t think of it that way. Why would I? I’m only eight years old. I still think life’s a storybook with a beginning that gives you all the details, a middle that makes you a little nervous, and an ending that assures you everything is okay. My fingernails are orange, from where I colored them in with a marker. I’m looking at them and thinking —
“Snap out of it.” I’m at my exit off the 605. Good thing I drove this route at two-thirty in the morning, or it would have taken me hours. I’m halfway to Barstow. The desert glows, bleached beneath the moon, and the storage facility sits like a sad, boxy oasis.
I park at the gate and ring the buzzer. The guard shed is predictably empty, but I whistle, seeing if I can wake an attendant. Nothing.
The fence is crowned in razor wire. I check my watch, cuss and climb, draping my jacket at the top so I can straddle it without making sweet love to a hundred stitches. I’m over, hopping down, taking out Gus’s key and running, even as the door to a miserable apartment unit opens and an old man comes out in his underwear. “Hey!”
I keep going.
“I’m calling the cops!”
Please do, I think, getting the gist of how the garages are numbered, following blind turns and tight corners. My instincts are howling at me to go faster, but practicality’s putting up a pretty good argument that I should pay attention. It would be a very simple thing to jump somebody in here.
I get to 709 without incident and fit the key in. I twist it, and the door starts to rise. I stand back, squinting into the light, checking my flanks. There’s nothing. The nightwatchman is busy calling for the back-up I’ll need in a second anyway.
Or not. I’m blinking in at a bunch of tiffany lamps. An old TV, piles of magazines, a mini-trampoline, a recliner with a wide butt groove worn into the seat.
I walk in, poke around. It’s the motley collection of useless trash you’d expect an idiot to hang on to. I’m blowing hair out of my eyes, power-annoyed that I’ll have to piss away an hour explaining this to the cops when my trade-off for it is a mini-fridge covered in a bear skin rug. I get out my phone to call somebody who can help smooth this over when I hear what sounds like a shuddering breath from the garage’s far corner.
It’s drowned out the next instant by sirens in the distance. But I’m tearing past two rusted bicycles, a sixties-era record player, a frickin’ sewing machine and a hundred other pointless pieces of life-flotsam to get to a mound in the way back that’s covered with a tarp.
I rip the tarp away. It’s a kennel. Terrified human eyes stare out at me from a slit in the plastic. Small, pale fingers grip the door of the cage.
As I bend to fight the door open, those fingers retreat, the eyes disappear, and a series of high-pitched screams begins inside.
“Polly, you’re safe,” I say, and keep saying it, once for every scream, which means I’m talking fast, nearly as fast as my hands are moving, squeezing at a lock that’s old and sticky and will not unfasten. “Hang on, Polly, hang on.” I get out my knife and flip it open, and that’s when she really loses it. Her voice never makes the shape of words. That’s not good. No “help” and no “please” — just the wounded animal response of pure terror.
“I’ve got it, Polly.” I’m slipping the blade under the part of the lock that’s gummed shut and using the knife like a crowbar, hammering it with my other hand until the door gives with a grating shriek. I get ready to try and coax her out.
But she slams into me, and by me. She’s bouncing off of Gus’s sad rummage sale like a pinball, still screaming, finding a route through as I’m jumping off the floor.
“Polly, stop!” The nightmare scenario of losing her in this maze gives me some freak momentary ability to leap over a recliner, television, and most of the magazines in one insane bound. I slip on the last stack of glossy paper and wipe out, but I roll with it, get up, and catch the back of Polly’s shirt right as she’s crossing into the driveway. I pull her down, pin her, and notice that the shirt I’m holding is tacky with dried blood. So are her pants. So is her hair. “Where are you hurt? Polly, where are you bleeding from?” I’m filled with the horrible certainty that the way I’m restraining her is tearing the wound wide open again. Her screams would seem to corroborate that. They haven’t let up. If anything, they’ve gotten louder.
It’s a miracle I hear it when a male voice shouts, “Freeze! Hands in the air!”
Chapter 9
I comply, because this is LA and cops love their triggers even more than their donuts around here. I’ve still got my shin holding Polly down. She’s frantic underneath it.
“Listen,” I say. “I’m a freelance investigator with —”
“Get off the girl!” the cop says. He’s baby-faced, twenty-five at the outside. The muzzle of his glock is shaking.
“All right,” I say, complying again, because if he panic-squeezes and fires off a round, I want to be as far from Polly as possible when he does. As I stand, fully expecting her to make a run for it, another, older cop appears from the alley to my right.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he says to Polly.
She takes one look at him, darts her eyes to the other guy, and, with the options of two men or me, latches onto the back of my leg.
The older cop tries again. “Come here, honey, it’s okay.” He steps forward.
Polly resumes screaming, stuffing her face into my side, pulling at my jacket so hard it would rip if it were anything but Italian leather.
I lock eyes with the old guy. “Tell your trainee to lower his weapon before he blows a hole in somebody by accident.”
The senior cop is about to tell me where to stick it when he glances over. “Chad. Hey, go ahead and holster that. I’ve got her covered.”
“Good,” I say. “Now let me grab my ID.”
“Not necessary.” Dane strides up behind Chad and signals the older officer to lower his weapon. “She’s on our side.” He holds up his badge, coming toward us.
Polly’s wailing like she’s being pulled apart. I bend to check her over, but she grabs onto me, winding around my front like a spider. “Dane,” I say, “stay there and call for an ambulance. Bring Laughlin in, too. And get a female agent, somebody you know personally who’s good with kids.” Polly hides in my shoulder while I try to feel for any breaks in the skin.
“You’re not a doctor,” he says, nonetheless stopping in his tracks and taking out his phone.
“Neither are you, so stay back. I think it’s worth sparing her the heart attack.”
The young cop says, “Holy shit, is that Polly Turner?”
I’m patting her head with my left hand when I finally find blood. I try to peel her off me to get a better look, but she won’t let go. I’m thinking she seems pretty strong for a sixty-pound girl who’s lost at least two pints. That makes me check my left hand again.
“Great.”
“What?” Dane says, covering the mouthpiece on his cell.
I maneuver to get a pocket open and pull out a bandage, biting off the tape covering the adhesive and slapping it on my hand disinterestedly. My left palm has been cracked open like a coconut. I must have done it with my knife while I was working the lock. “Nothing,” I tell Dane. I put my mouth by Polly’s ear, asking softly, “Is this your blood all over you? Or no?”
Her head shakes fast in the crook of my neck.
&nb
sp; “Okay, good. That’s good.” It’s maybe the loosest interpretation of the word “good” ever used. Because that means it’s her grandmother’s blood she’s covered in. “Can you let go for a second? So I can put my jacket on you?”
Her head shakes again.
“Okay. Okay, that’s fine.” I eel out of the coat somehow and slip it over her. I’ve used it for this purpose before. All the stuff I keep in there almost makes it a weighted blanket. “All right. We’re just gonna sit. They’ll stay back and you and me will sit here, okay?” I keep my arms tight around her, and I make no sudden movements whatsoever. I can feel her heartbeat slowing down. “It was all a bad dream,” I say. “It was a bad dream, and you can wake up now.” Her right ear pastes to my chest so she can see all the males staring at us, keeping their distance. She puts her thumb in her mouth. I look away, wondering how the hell long it takes to marshal an ambulance around here. Then I look back at her left wrist, where her lips are fastened and working hard, drawing calm from the hard-wired memory of suckling as safety. I stare at it for a long time, long enough that the paramedics come wheeling up the row of garages in a swirl of red and white lights and I’ve worked my way out of denial. She cowers from the noise and the motion, and I bark at Dane that maybe we could spare her the fear of getting run over, too.
The paramedics try to tear her off of me, but she won’t let go until the female agent arrives. Dane did good: she’s in her fifties, dowdy and soft. Polly leaps at her and I sit up, my spine crackling. I retrieve my jacket and stand on numb legs. This place has turned into a real party, but I barely noticed. My head’s been its own party for the past twenty or so minutes.
“You should get that checked,” Dane says.
“Get what checked?”
He smiles, sort of. “Your hand, Fell.”
The bandage is soaked through but not dripping. “I’ll wait my turn.”
Laughlin’s here. He’s shouting orders as he rounds the mouth of the street, a quintet of cops behind him running to do what he says. Tuttle’s among them, looking tired and underwhelmed at Laughlin’s show of authority.
I lean in to Dane, peeking at Laughlin on purpose. Let him see we’re sharing secrets. “Listen to me. This is important. That girl? It’s not Polly.”
“Beth, you’re losing it.”
“No, listen. The first thing I do when I get a dossier is memorize every bit of physical description the client can get me. They sent me her medical records going all the way back. Polly Turner has a birthmark on her left wrist. It’s a big one — goes to the middle of her hand and tapers to a tail that almost reaches her ring finger. I thought it looked like a diagonal Idaho.”
“Goddamn it. You’re sure?”
“Like I said, it’s the first thing I do. I don’t want to be running around scaring random kids because I keep mistaking them for the one I’m looking for. Dane, there’s an office rented in Gus’s name out in Riverside.”
“We know. We’re searching it today.”
“I’m going to search it now. Keep everybody else away.”
“Why?”
I talk fast. Laughlin’s coming in hot — or as hot as his crutches will allow. “This is bigger than Gus. The third blood type at the crime scene, it’s not his. I need the information at that office before I take a run at interrogating Fake Hattie. She might be the only shot we have.”
“The only shot at what?” Dane’s saying, as Laughlin lumbers right between us.
“Anything I should know?” he says, breathing hard. The lines on his face seem deeper than they did a day ago. The moon highlights them, putting shadows in their depths. “Is it time to compare notes?”
“Fell was just telling me she wants her knife.” Dane produces it from the pocket of his blazer. The blade’s bloody. “Protocol says we process it first, but I figure why not.”
I snatch it and flip it shut, losing interest in the conversation — it’s turning to matters of jurisdiction and authority, Dane and Laughlin breaking out the yardsticks to see whose rig is bigger. The medics and the female agent are trying to persuade Fake Polly onto a stretcher. She’s resisting, not screaming but getting there, her legs starting to flail. The female agent hunkers down, getting very close, holding Fake Polly’s hand and whispering in her ear. Whatever she says is working. Fake Polly’s looking in all directions at once, moaning, but her limbs are going still. As the medics load her, I catch the agent by the sleeve.
“Don’t leave her for a second,” I say. “Not one second.”
“I didn’t plan to,” she tells me, her voice sassy in a way I find reassuring.
“Do you have a partner? Preferably a big, mean one?”
“Do you?”
We trade non-smiles and she jumps in. The doors slam and speed away.
I hear a pattering sound and look down. My bandage is leaking now, quite a bit. There’s a trash can ahead. I pull the cotton off, toss it in and take out a fresh bandage, plus gauze. I wrap it while walking, passing police, agents, and the manager of the storage facility. He’s put on a bathrobe, but it’s hanging open. His belly’s the ghost of a thousand cheeseburgers.
Someone’s standing by my Ducati. My hand hovers by my knife pocket before I realize: a) I’m at a crowded crime scene, and b) it’s Tuttle. He’s got a paper bag and a lidded cup, and I smell bacon as I get closer. I could tackle him for it, so it’s a good thing he hands it to me.
“Shouldn’t you be guarding something?” I say, practically biting through the wrapper.
“I think Laughlin’s got it covered. And I figured you were hungry.” He points up the highway. “There’s a great truck stop about a mile east. Sometimes if I can’t sleep, I’ll make the drive just for the breakfast sandwich.”
I see why. It’s a slick, greasy heart attack on hot ciabatta. I collapse onto my bike seat and inhale, pausing only to sip the coffee.
“Can’t vouch for the joe,” he says. “I didn’t make it. Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re about to hemorrhage all over the bread there.”
I put Lefty in my lap and eat one-handed. “S’fine.”
“Yeah, no, looks great. Can I —” He reaches for it.
I whip the hand behind my back. “I’ll deal with it. Thanks.”
Anybody else would hear my tone as an invitation to hit the road. Maybe Tuttle hears it, but he doesn’t accept the invitation. He surveys the desert, his eyes far off and sad. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, as I wolf the sandwich and progress from wishing he’d scram to being relieved I’m not sitting in this silence by myself.
“I don’t know how you do this,” he says.
I’m disappointed. I hear it every time, from anyone who works a disappearance with me and has more than five minutes to share my air.
But I’ve never seen a cop cry after saying it. Tuttle’s eyes are shiny. He wipes them and sniffs, showing no shame. “I’ve got a nephew. My sister’s divorced, so I try and help out where I can, taking care of him. I knew I’d love him. That’s what family is, it’s the people you love. But I didn’t know how much I’d like him. That’s the surprise with kids, how they’re human beings. They’re not blank slates you fill in; they’ve got writing on them, right from the start. They like this, they don’t like that. They believe this, but they think this other thing is a lie.” He nods at the horizon, where Fake Polly’s ambulance is slowly disappearing. “That girl, getting used like a poker chip. Like she’s not anything else, she’s not a person.” He looks at me and shrugs. “Why would you do this? Why would you want to?”
Amazingly, I’m about to answer. I’m about to explain how bad a sunburn hurts when it’s on the bottoms of your feet, how insidiously it happens when you’re making miles down a long, flat highway. I’m about to fill him in on the effectiveness of marker manicures, how your options for colors blow wide open, how orange doesn’t look as weird as you’d think. I’m about to say I do it because of perfume, because of disintegrating barns you pass like storyb
ook illustrations.
Because sometimes you learn too young that the stories are stories, and then there’s no happy ending for you. So you make a home in the horror instead.
I don’t know what I’m about to say, but I’ve swallowed my last bite to say it, and I’m opening my mouth when Dane comes out of the gate.
“Fell, you got a minute?”
“Not really,” I say.
Dane dismisses Tuttle by signaling shoo. Only Tuttle could see that and remain unoffended. He tells me, “Take care, okay?”
“Sure.” I make room for Dane on the seat because he sits without my permission. I could gut-punch him, but I’m suddenly very tired. “What?”
“I wanted to clear the air.”
“This should be good.” My hand seriously needs some attention. The second bandage is soaking fast. “Clear away, then. Hurry up.”
He jumps right in, sounding business-like. “I understand, in retrospect, how my decision probably seemed personal to you. How you could have misinterpreted it as a personal — could you quit laughing, please?”
I can’t. There’s no possibility whatsoever. It’s necessary, delicious, and such a welcome relief. Dane seems to accept this, letting me laugh so loudly that any second coyotes are going to join in.
I wind down, kill off the coffee, and side-arm it into another trashcan. I decide I’m not getting out of here without either hashing this out or beating him up, and I don’t want to rip my hand open any more than it already is.
But I prefer to state facts. “I knew that asshole had him.”
“We didn’t —”
“Yeah, Dane, I did. It might not have been official, articulable probable cause, but I knew. You’ll sit here and look me full in the eye and tell me you had your doubts, but you didn’t. You’d been my partner long enough by then to know better.”
He’s not interrupting. Maybe it’s how I’m speaking — with the patience and forbearance a parent might use when their child has let them down.
“I chased a lead after hours, after everybody else had gone home. I called you and told you that the man who had that little boy was somebody we’d already interviewed, was the little boy’s mother’s boss, who’d hired her as a cleaning lady, who saw that little boy every day. I told you he had the kid at his lake house, and there wasn’t much time.” My words are rock-steady now. Facts are nice like that, especially the ones you’ve gone over and over in your head. “And I get to your place to pick you up, and what do you do?” I leave a space so he can answer.
