by W. H. Clark
“I’m fine, detective,” Cherry said, and Ward knew she wasn’t. Something in her voice. She sounded like she had a mouthful of food but didn’t sound like she was chewing. “Why’d you want to see me?”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Ward said. “I’m going to come and see you. You at home?”
“No,” Cherry said. “Yes. But I’ve got—I’m in the middle of something.”
“I’m coming.”
Cherry became quiet and then Ward thought he heard her choke back tears as she swallowed a couple of times. Maybe she was eating after all.
“Okay,” she said.
When Ward got there he saw her glance quickly through the window and she opened the door and walked into the house, Ward following. She had her back to him as she fussed over some dishes in the kitchen sink. Ward approached her slowly and he placed his hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” And Cherry burst into tears and turned and hugged him. He hugged her back but she winced with pain and he eased off a little. He gently held her there for a minute, maybe two, taking the time to calm himself and to prepare himself for what he knew he was about to see. Cherry let go and stepped back, her eyes cast down to Ward’s feet but he could see.
“Aw jeez,” Ward said when he saw her face, bruised and bloodied. “Aw jeez.” Her left eye was almost closed and was blue and she had a cut that crossed both lips and made it difficult for her to talk. The right-hand side of her face had a swollen blue grazed-up ridge where she had struck something hard, probably as she had fallen. He didn’t see what damage there was under her clothes and she wasn’t inclined to show him any more than he could already see.
“He came after you’d left,” she said. “I told you he would do anything to get a fix. Look what he did. Nice work, huh?”
Ward fought back rage. She noticed it in his eyes and she held his hand.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “This is what he does. He didn’t take much. I didn’t have much. Maybe that’s why” – and she gestured to her face – “this.”
Ward bit his bottom lip and when he finally spoke he spoke through gritted teeth, struggling to part his lips through the anger and the sorrow he felt inside. “I am so sorry,” he said. “I’ll call this in and get someone out here.”
“No,” Cherry cried, and again she winced against the pain in her middle. “I don’t want that. The cops don’t do anything.”
And Ward felt even worse at that. He was quiet for a few moments but he knew she wouldn’t back down. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
“I don’t like the sound of your voice. Don’t you do anything. Don’t you dare get involved in this… in this shit. It’s not your problem. I hardly even know you. Promise me.”
He nodded and said, “You have my number now. If he comes back you call me.” But he knew Troy wouldn’t come back.
Cherry nodded and closed her eyes. When she opened them Ward was gone.
34
Ward entered Bill Bear’s Mountain and River Outlet. He bought a pair of ski gloves. The sales assistant asked him, “Would you like a bag for that?”
Ward said, “No,” and then, “Actually I will take a bag,” and the assistant handed over the gloves in a large plastic bag.
“I’m sorry, it’s the only size we have.”
“That’s fine,” Ward said. He left and climbed into his car. He took the gloves out of the bag and stuffed them into his coat pocket. He scrunched up the bag and placed it behind his car seat.
It didn’t take Ward long to find the house where Troy was staying. A rundown 1920s house in the west side of town, it was ready for demolition but had had a stay of execution due to City Hall red tape. It had been taken over by squatters of various bad character and degrees of drug addiction. Two women who turned tricks for drug money were the first people he saw when he entered the house without knocking. One sat on the stairs in the hallway smoking a cigarette and the other was standing and she approached Ward and tried to touch his crotch. He knocked her arm away and the whip of his hand almost broke her wrist.
“Motherfucker,” said the whore. She was ready to take a swing at Ward but he shoved her away so that she sat on the stair next to her colleague. “Motherfucker,” she said again but this time quieter. She took the cigarette from her friend and took a long draw on it.
Ward opened the first door. There were three rooms off this ground-floor corridor. The first room was dark but there were no curtains. The windows had been boarded up on the outside and the only light came from a candle burning in an old jelly jar and the occasional glow of the red tip of a joint that indicated where a body was. He could make out three in the room, spread out on the floor, on old duvets and cardboard boxes. Someone was curled up on two sofa cushions laid end to end to almost make a mattress. The smell offended Ward and he didn’t want to stay in there longer than he needed to. He went around each body shape and knew quickly that none of them were Troy. So he left the room and took a deep breath outside. The two whores didn’t pay him any attention at all this time.
He made his way into the next room, which appeared to be empty, and then he saw a lump in the corner. He strode over and tore the thin bedsheet away and got a “whatthefuck” for his trouble. It wasn’t Troy but a man of about sixty who had no flesh on his bones and no clothes on his body save for an undershirt. Ward left the room and went into the next one, which had once been a kitchen. It was empty of people but full of other detritus which he could just make out as his eyes had adjusted to the gloom – empty beer cans, cigarette butts, empty food tins.
The whores parted, leaning away from each other at the shoulder to let Ward step past and on up the stairs. He reached the upper landing and stopped, reached into his pocket, pulled out the pair of ski gloves and put them on. There were four rooms off the landing, one being a bathroom. He ignored that and gently pushed at the door of the first room. There was somebody in this one. He could smell the rancid body odor and the marijuana smoke. Light entered through a small gap in the boarding on the window and he could make out two bodies, one sitting up but only half-awake and the other curled up in a fetal position.
The half-awake guy looked up at Ward and started to stand but Ward had seen something he recognized lying on the floor next to the other guy so he didn’t notice the first guy come over to him. The first thing he knew was the wind displacement caused by a fist flying past his head, just catching enough of his face to register a bit of pain, which cut through Ward’s adrenaline-fueled body. Ward waited till the punch had passed him and then he wrenched the arm out of the man’s shoulder socket and spun him towards the open door, the arm flopping behind him at an unnatural angle. The bum tumbled out onto the landing, his head crashing against the banister, and he stayed down.
The commotion had brought the other body awake, and it sat up and made a grab for its jacket that lay next to its makeshift bed, the jacket that Ward recognized from the diner. Ward rushed over and stomped on Troy’s wrist, and something crunched and Troy cried out. Ward kicked away the jacket and then kicked out behind him to close the door, and as he did so Troy rolled on the floor, sniffling and cursing and clutching his arm.
Ward took off a glove and reached into his own jacket and drew out his pistol. Troy saw it and he stopped crying and shrunk back into his corner of the room, kicking up dust and narcotic remainders with his scuttling heels. Ward placed the gun on top of an upturned cardboard box that was being used as a makeshift coffee table and placed his hat next to the gun. He slipped the glove back on and in two steps he reached Troy, and Troy whimpered as Ward loomed over him. The first punch struck Troy high on the head and knocked it to one side. The second one struck him full in the face, straightening him up, and the world suddenly became even dimmer for Troy as his brain fought unconsciousness.
Ward wanted him to remain awake, though, so he turned his attention to Troy’s body and
he let go with two, three, four solid hits to his ribs, feeling more than one bone break under his fists. Troy yelped and cried like a trapped animal and then started gasping for breath. And then Ward hit him once more in the face, this time snapping his nose and he stepped back and Troy lay there, blood spilling from his nose and from a cut below his left eye.
“If you go near her again…” Ward said but he didn’t finish the sentence. He took off his gloves, stuffed them into an evidence bag and then back in his pocket and straightened his jacket. He turned and picked up his hat from the cardboard box and put it on and then slowly made his way to the door, where he stopped. He heard Troy move behind him and when he turned around Troy had his gun. Ward could see blood coming from his mouth and right ear now and Troy held the gun shakily in his good hand, the other one hanging by his side. Ward just stared at Troy and then Troy pulled the trigger. An empty click broke the silence. Troy gaped at the gun for a second or two, struggling to draw breath, and then he pulled the trigger four more times, all giving him dull, ineffective clicks. Ward stepped toward him and Troy dropped the weapon and then sank to the floor, a piss stain spreading on the front of his jogging pants.
“If I had come with a loaded gun I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t have killed you. Next time be assured that the gun will be loaded.” He holstered the gun and left Troy with those words ringing in his already ringing ears.
35
A freezing wind blew into the station as Ward opened the door, and a few tiny ice crystals followed. He thought it wouldn’t be long before there was a serious snowfall. Since he had arrived from Texas he hadn’t really been much troubled by the cold but now he felt it seeping into his bones. He felt sick and his head throbbed in time with his heartbeat and he slumped into his chair and suddenly felt woozy. He closed his eyes for a few seconds and when he opened them he noticed that the middle knuckle on his right hand was showing signs of swelling and a dull ache spread up from it to his wrist. Shouldn’t be broken, but he would put something frozen on it later. He tried to recall what he had done to Troy but couldn’t. He remembered arriving at the house but everything after that was a blur. He vaguely remembered throwing the ski gloves in a dumpster.
He looked around the station and saw that Newton wasn’t around. McNeely was eating an apple and Ward wondered if she ever stopped eating. Poynter called her Big Mac, which was an ironic moniker as she was skinny and small but she could eat her way through a ten-course meal and still stop somewhere on the way home for a late bite.
He caught her eye and she gave him a long searching look. She came over and said, “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” Ward said.
“Things gone quiet around here,” she said.
“So I see.”
McNeely took a bite of her apple and her eyes lingered on Ward. “So, what’s the story?”
“Too long to tell.”
She nodded as if she understood. “Well, it’s quiet around here.” She took another bite of the apple and gave Ward space to come back. He didn’t. He took off his hat and massaged his temples.
“Hand looks kinda swollen,” she said. “You should get something cold on that.”
“I know,” Ward said, but he didn’t offer any more and McNeely retreated back to her desk.
On her way back she shouted, “So goddamn quiet around here. We should party!” and Ward struggled a smile.
Then he saw the note on his desk – a telephone message to call the reporter Pete Larsson. He screwed it up and tossed it in the direction of the trash can but it fell short. He picked it up on his way out and he slam-dunked it this time.
36
He’d brought in the three boxes of material related to the little boy’s disappearance and Jesús had watched him do it, following him around but never going out the door.
Ward sat on the bed and opened the first box of three – witness statements.
It was an hour later when he next looked up. Jesús was asleep with one eye that kept opening now and then to look at Ward.
Already he had two or three people he would like to talk to who had offered statements. Nothing really jumped out on a first read and he would take a second pass over it all but one thing that struck him was how the boy just happened to vanish into thin air. There were possible sightings here and there in the following days, all of which would have been followed up, but he knew from these kinds of cases that most sightings would prove to be fruitless. And numbers of sightings where a child was involved tended to be higher. People wanted to find him and they wanted to help. But every false sighting was a waste of resources and a distraction to the focus of the search. And it could result in the police being diverted away from the real location of the boy and sent on a wild goose chase across the county or even state. He’d seen it before.
But this case was different. Yes, there were sightings, and lots of them, but none of them convinced Ward on first reading. Apart from one. The boy had been seen talking to another boy the afternoon he’d disappeared. That boy turned out to be called Percy Mallory. Mallory had said he’d seen Ryan crying and had asked what was the matter but Ryan wasn’t in no mood to talk and that was that. He was probably the last person to see Ryan alive apart from his abductor. It wasn’t a lead. Just told Ward that this was a small town where everybody was connected with everybody. And he knew he couldn’t go talk to Mallory. Knew Mallory would probably go running straight to Gammond to tell him Ward was digging in areas he shouldn’t be.
Way he was feeling it, the boy had probably been abducted and murdered soon after. Probably picked up by a predator, a pedophile, and whisked away to his death. Probably buried somewhere in the woods and unlikely ever to be found save by worms. Best hope was that an animal would dig him up and uncover enough of him to be discovered by someone out hiking. But that hadn’t happened yet and was now an unlikely scenario.
So where had he gone? Who had taken him? Was it the old man Bill O’Donnell, his own grandfather? He’d suddenly found God just before Ryan was reported missing. On the same day as he was out searching for his missing truck. Newton was right. It did seem odd, but it wasn’t conclusive.
Was it someone else did it who then paid O’Donnell for his silence? The monthly payments to Alice White might be classed as suspicious. Was that where he was getting his money from? Maybe it was a guilty conscience made him hand money over to Alice for her work with children. Or the old man might just have been very generous. Nothing definite to say he’d received a payoff.
Ward decided he would investigate that angle anyway. It added up to a lot of money on a janitor’s salary. Up to now he hadn’t much else but he would carry on digging to see what was uncovered. He wrote a list out of people he would like to re-interview. A man who said he saw something weird on the night of his disappearance. The principal at the school where O’Donnell was janitor. Alice White again.
He wanted to interview O’Donnell himself but he would have to rely on the interview transcripts from Newton’s interrogations. Was there anything in there that Newton had missed? Anything he had said that maybe should have been followed up? Newton’s instinct had maybe been right after all and O’Donnell could possibly have had some involvement. But he remained unconvinced that O’Donnell had killed the boy. That still didn’t seem to fit.
He opened the next of the three boxes. Newton’s case notes and various reports in this one. Ward started to flick through them and one name was prominent throughout. William O’Donnell. He tracked Newton’s growing obsession with the man and seeming desperation as he turned page after page and his headache got worse and he felt cold and lifeless.
37
Newton’s SUV pulled into the parking lot of Sunny Glade. He cut his headlights and the world was an oppressive gloom. When he stepped out of the vehicle, he looked up at the sky and ice crystals fell onto his face and he shivered and hurried into the reception lobby. Jackie, the receptionist, greeted him with a smile. She knew him most recently from the photograph o
n the front of the Westmoreland Echo.
Newton picked up a brochure from the counter and flicked pages over and then put it back. He saw the yucca plant and the orchids but he didn’t know if they were real, they were so perfect.
“Is there anything I can help you with today, sir?” she asked.
Newton said, “I’m just going to have a look around. Mr. O’Donnell’s room.” And then he saw the look in Jackie’s eyes. The one that said you let one of our children be taken and you didn’t catch the son of a bitch that took him. But she continued to smile and Newton shrugged off the feeling he had. Maybe he was imagining it.
“No problem. If I could just get you to sign the guestbook,” she said.
“Of course,” Newton said, and then, “Say, would you mind if I took a look at that?” He signed the book and flicked back to the night the old man died. Was murdered. “Everybody who visits signs this, right?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“So this here is a record of everybody who visited on the night Mr. O’Donnell died?”
“Yes.”
“You were working that night, right?”
“That’s correct. I already spoke to that other police,” Jackie said.
“No, that’s fine. I just wanted to go over what we know just to be a hundred percent. Cross the t’s and dot the i’s.”
“I understand that,” she said.
“I don’t see Mr. Kenny’s signature on here. He said he was here that night. He always not sign in?”
“He’s the owner. He doesn’t need to sign in.”
“Okay, that’s fine,” Newton said. “What time did he arrive?”
“I didn’t see him arrive, but I saw him leave,” Jackie said, and Newton’s head snapped up.
“You didn’t see him arrive? He come through a back entrance?”
