by Tracy Sharp
I barely slept. My shoulder was killing me all night. I refused to take the painkillers the doctor had given me for fear of them knocking me out. I wanted sleep, but I didn’t want to sleep that deeply.
But none of us slept all that well. We were all a little grumpy the next morning, and even Buddy growled low in his throat when I bent down to pat him on the head. Jack accompanied me to take him outside. It was a clear, sunny morning, warm enough for just a T-shirt. Buddy did his business, ignored the squirrels he was usually obsessed with, and headed back for the house. I gave him his breakfast, which he promptly ate, then he headed back upstairs to his bed to catch up on some sleep. I think we all wanted to do the same thing, but there was work to be done.
Jesse went back to the shop and Jack and I headed out to pay a pedophile a visit.
Wayne Cross lived in a seedy motel off route nine in Ballston Spa, about ten minutes out of Saratoga Springs. The crazy thing was, come track season, wealthy people were willing to pay triple what a dingy little room in that motel was worth just to be close to the race track. A place they wouldn’t be caught dead in any other time, but scrambled to bid against other well-to-doers for the privilege of bedding down on the motel’s well-used beds. The place rented by the hour the rest of the year. It’s amazing what some people will put up with for their hobbies.
We already knew what room Cross was staying in. We’d called ahead of time. The voice on the phone had sounded rough and wheezy, like it had gone through thirty years of constant cigarette smoke. It had been difficult to figure out if the speaker was male or female.
It turned out that she was female, and her face matched her voice. She had bright orange hair that I was certain came from a hair color box, upon which the name of the shade was something like ‘Sahara Sunrise’. I’m sure the shade looked stunning on the picture of the model on the box. Not so stunning on this woman. She was about sixty years old, and not a young looking sixty, either.
“Hi, we’re here to see Wayne Cross, so we’ll just go on through if that’s okay. Room 112, right?”
She rolled her hooded blue eyes toward Jack, then to me. “You gotta go out and around. He’s in the building across the way out there. They have their own entrances.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
We went across to the building next door. The place was built in a kind of L shape that screamed nineteen-seventies to me. Somebody had tried to cheer the place up by slathering a coat of peacock blue over both buildings.
I glanced at Jack, who was walking beside me. “Lovely place.”
“Oh, yeah, the honeymooner’s dream.”
“Looks like they tried to brighten the place up with that obnoxious color. I wish I’d brought my sunglasses.”
“Well, you know, you can’t dress up a shit house, Kicks. No matter what you do to it, it’s still a shit house.”
“An appropriate analogy, Jack. Thanks.”
“Considering what lives here, yes it is.”
“They can’t all be skids. Maybe it’s just people down on their luck who can’t afford first and last month’s rent.”
“There are some of those, yes. But if one sex offender lives here, you can be sure that others do, too. Last year there was a piece on the news about a place just like this, not far from here. There were four level three sex offenders living there at the same time.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Yeah. And look around you, Kicks. What do you see?”
We had stopped walking and faced the street. There was a McDonald’s with a Play land. An ice cream place. A country dance hall and saloon. A mini-mall.
“I see a rich hunting ground.”
“Exactly.”
My stomach turned. “Let’s get this over with.”
We got to room 112 and Jack firmly tapped out a “shave and a haircut, two bits” beat. I grinned. There was no peephole and people almost always figure they know the person knocking when you do that.
The door cracked open and Jack shoved the door back hard. It bounced off what sounded like a forehead, making the person on the other end of the door take a few steps back. Jack took the opportunity to push his way into the room. I followed, closing the door behind me.
The man stood gaping up at Jack, who smiled widely at him.
“Hey, Wayne!” Jack said, his voice cheerful.
I couldn’t help but snicker.
Cross looked from Jack to me, then to Jack again. “Who the hell are you?”
“Well now, see, that’s none of your business, Wayne. What really matters here is that we know who the hell you are, and we’d like to ask you a question or two, if you don’t mind.” Jack made a fist with one hand and rubbed it slowly with the other.
I could see the wheels turning in Cross’s mind. He was going through all the possibilities of who we might be, and it was scaring the crap out of him. He was shivering.
“Uh ... okay.”
I snapped my gum and flashed him a bright smile. “Good choice, Wayne.”
“We know lots of things about you, Wayne.” Jack began. “Why don’t you just take a seat on the bed over there.”
Cross glanced back at the bed, took two steps back and almost fell on to it.
The place was dingy as hell. It was in serious need of a paint job, just to begin with. I shuddered to imagine what the bathroom looked like.
I took a step toward the bed. “Wayne, it seems you’ve been awfully friendly with a young, under-aged prostitute by the name of Tyler Pine.”
Cross’s eyes became panicked. “I know. I know.” He hung his head. “I’ve violated my parole. I’m trying to find a compromise.”
Jack lifted his eyebrows. “A compromise. Right.” He bobbed his head up and down. “So you could find a willing boy child to molest by giving him money.”
Cross kept his eyes on the carpet and shook his head slowly. “I’m staying away from all the places that present a ... temptation to me. I don’t go to malls. I stay away from schools and parks. I don’t go to McDonald’s Playland, even though it’s right outside my door.”
I snorted. “But you do cruise for little boys in Boy’s Town. Good, Wayne. Really good. I’m sure your parole officer would consider you a shining example of rehabilitation. Who is your parole officer, Wayne?”
His face was beet-red when he looked up at me, and tears squeezed from his eyes. “They should never have let me out. I told them. I tried to tell them.”
“For the last time before I beat it out of you,” Jack said, his tone deadly calm. “Who is your parole officer?”
“Jenna Garrity.”
“Ah, Jenna. I know her well. Thanks, Wayne. I’ll be contacting her post-haste.”
Cross shrugged helplessly.
“Tyler’s dead, Wayne.” My voice was devoid of emotion.
His eyes snapped open. “What? Oh, no. Oh, no.” He shook his head back and forth so hard I thought he was having some kind of fit.
“Oh, yes.” I nodded. “He is.”
“Did you happen to take Tyler for a ride on May fourteenth?” I continued. “Did it happen to go just a little too far?”
He was blubbering now. His voice high and screechy. “I don’t know what day I saw him last. It might’ve been that day. But I didn’t hurt him. I certainly didn’t kill him.”
Jack took out the list and pointed to it. “This list of license plate numbers says you were cruising Boy’s Town on May fourteenth, the day Tyler was murdered.”
“I might’ve been there.” His eyes got a faraway look as he frantically thought back. “The last time I was there was in May. I was looking for Tyler but he wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for awhile. I tried asking the other boys but they wouldn’t tell me anything.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, they try to keep the creeps away from their friends.”
“I swear to God I didn’t hurt him. Please believe me.” More tears ran down his chubby face. “I loved Tyler. He was a sweet boy.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Oh, God. I think I’m going to throw up. Look, Wayne, if we dig up any more evidence on you which points to you being with Tyler on the day he died, we’ll come back. And if you’re not here, we’ll find you.”
Wayne buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “I didn’t hurt him. Oh, God. Not Tyler. Not Tyler.” He looked up at us. “You’ve got to believe me.”
And as creepy and disgusting as this man was, for some reason I did.
Chapter Eleven
“I feel like I wanna go walk through a car wash now.” Jack shuddered.
“Yeah, amazing what passes for love for some people.”
My cell rang. I looked at the caller ID but didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Leah, it’s Phil.”
Holy shit. I’d forgotten all about him. “Phil. How ya doing?”
“I haven’t heard from you. Have you found out anything about where Chloe might be?”
I cringed. Now I had to tell him that it looked like his girlfriend is dead. “Where are you? I have some information I need to share with you.”
He gave me the name of a coffee shop downtown.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
I closed my cell and looked at Jackson. “Shit.”
“The old boyfriend?”
“Yeah. As in the guy who came to me for help in finding Chloe in the first place. Jesus. How could I forget about him?”
“You’ve had a lot on your plate, Kicks. It’s understandable.”
“I have to meet him downtown. You coming?”
“You want me to?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Getting used to having you around.”
“It’s wise having me around. It’ll save you from calling me the next time you’re getting your ass kicked by some hired thug.”
“Hey! You didn’t see him. He was not in good shape when he left me.”
“Yeah, yeah. You want me to drive?”
My shoulder ached something fierce, but I wasn’t about to give in to it. “I can drive.”
“Jesus.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Kicks. I know you’re tough.”
“Yeah, I am. And don’t you forget it.” I gave him a playful punch in the shoulder as we climbed back into the Jeep.
“Hey! Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“Oh, I can finish. I learned from the best.”
He grinned. “Yes, you did. And don’t you forget it.”
The coffee shop sat nestled between a smoke shop and a strip club. It seemed there were a lot of those in this town. With the sunshine at our backs when we entered the diner it was hard to see Phil in the dull yellow light of the place. But when my eyes adjusted I made him out in the back of the room, surrounded by a cloud of smoke swirling around him. The guy had kicked heroin. I couldn’t begrudge him his cigarettes.
The walls were a dark yellow, and I had no doubt they’d been white at one point. Like so many other businesses sitting at or in the fringes of the underbelly of the city, the owner of this joint didn’t give a fat rat’s ass about the no smoking law. And if I was honest, I knew that smoking was the least of the illegal activities that went on in the place.
I introduced Jack to Phil and we took our seats at the small table. Phil’s knee jerked up and down and there were dark rings under his eyes. Was somebody after him like they were after me? He had come to me, after all, to find Chloe. It was possible he was asking questions on his own around town.
“You all right?” I asked him.
He wiped the back of his hand under his nose, and I could see his nails had been bitten so far down that traces of dried blood rimmed them. He was acting suspiciously desperate. If I didn’t know better I’d suspect that he was jonesing. “You using again, Phil?”
He shook his head. “Not that I don’t think about it every second of every damned day.” He gave a humorless chuckle. “The counselors at rehab said I should find another place to live. Stay away from anyone or any place that reminds me of using. But it’s not like I have a lot of choices, you know?”
Jack spoke up. “There are places better than this one that aren’t that expensive to live in, brother.”
Phil’s eyes flicked to Jack, then back to me. “Just want to know if you’ve got anything on what happened to Chloe.”
Got anything on what happened to Chloe. For some reason that sounded off to me. I became guarded. “I’m still looking. Her father hired me to find her. It hasn’t been easy. It’s like she disappeared into thin air.”
Jack said nothing, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye watching Phil. He’d caught it too. Something wasn’t right.
Phil’s mouth became a thin line and his eyes squinted. He sat back and started tapping out a beat on the table, his angry agitation telling a story other than worried boyfriend.
“So nobody knows if anything happened to her?” He beat his hand on the table louder, faster, then suddenly stopped. The room was quiet except for a radio playing oldies somewhere in the back of the place. He lifted his eyes to me. “She just kind of vanished?”
Jack snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”
He stared at us.
We stared back at him.
In the quiet space between us there was a recognition that he knew we knew there was something he wasn’t telling us.
“Well, okay then. Let me know when you do. Right?”
I winked. “You’ll be the first to know, Phil. Stay tight.”
He grinned, his lips tight around his teeth. “Always.”
I felt Phil’s eyes on my back as we walked out.
“Well, that was a cheerful experience.” I lifted my face to the sun and breathed the warm breeze into me, glad for smoke-free air. My eyes burned.
We stood in the street, not knowing where to go next.
Jack glanced back at the coffee shop. “That’s more of a greasy spoon than a coffee shop.”
“Yeah, greasy walls, greasy floors, greasy tables, greasy chairs...”
“Greasy people.” His eyes narrowed as he stared back at the place. “That little creep was either involved in Chloe’s disappearance or he knows who was.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty apparent. He’s losing it, too. He’s scared.” I chewed my lower lip, thinking. “Maybe Chloe had something that was his. Or something he wanted.”
Jack ran his hand over his jaw. “Something he’d kill her for?”
“Or for not having to give to him.”
Jack looked into the street, looking at the cars but not seeing them. “Something that somebody else wanted, and now they’re after him for it.”
“Drugs?”
“Most likely. Seems she was just getting deeper and deeper over her head. Who would know?”
I blew out a long breath. “The dancers she worked with. But I’m not asking them any more questions. I already got one killed.”
“It wasn’t you, Kicks. It was some psycho who didn’t want you knowing anything, and who wanted to send a message to the other girls to keep their mouths shut. So they probably wouldn’t talk to you anyway. I think she was involved in some pretty heavy shit.”
I shook my head. “How do you go from a sheltered, innocent girl aspiring to be an actress or model to becoming a stripper involved in drugs and God knows what else?”
“Easy,” Jack said. “You just have to trust the wrong people.”
On our way back to my place Mitch called me on my cell.
“I’ve got some very interesting information for you.”
“When can I see you?” I blinked at my choice of words. I saw Jack’s face turn toward me out of the corner of my eye. I modified the wording of my question. “When can you give me the new information?”
“I can be at your place any time.”
It was still early on a Friday. “I figured you’d be chasing down stories. Taking the day off?”
“I am chasing down stories. It’
s not unusual for me to stop for lunch now and then.”
“Is that a lunch request? You want me to feed you in return for information?”
“I think it’s a fair exchange. I could be asking for...”
“Don’t even say it. I’ll throw some burgers on the grill. See you in a few.”
I closed my cell and glanced at Jack.
He lifted his eyebrows and waggled them.
“Oh, stop already, would you please?”
“What? I love burgers.”
“Good. Eat as many as you like if it’ll keep you quiet.”
“Let’s stop at the store.”
“What for?”
“’Cuz I like sausages, too.”
“You’re just like a little kid, you know that?”
“You’re gonna have the grill on anyway.”
I sighed. “All right. But make it fast.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t want to keep Mitchy boy waiting?”
“Mitchy boy?”
“I didn’t really think he was your type. But he is kind of a pretty boy like Callahan. Your taste is definitely getting prettier. I’m wondering when you’re going to bring home a hot chick. At least I’d respect you for it.”
I glared at him.
“Come on, Kicks. Neither of those guys ever have a hair out of place.”
“Since when is good hygiene a bad thing?”
“Since never. All I’m saying is if you want boys that pretty, you might as well go for a girl.”
I pulled into a Price Chopper parking lot. “Get out. Make it fast. I’m hungry.”
I have an older model barbecue that requires coals. I love the smell of them. It’s the biggest reason I don’t want a newer barbecue. The smell of burning coals is comforting. It reminds me of people on my street barbequing in the summer time when I was a kid. Just like the smell of burning leaves in the fall. I love that smell. But it’s rare to smell burning leaves anymore.
* * *
