Mickey leaned back in his chair. He had an expression on his face that Sonora called ‘that back-pedaling look’, so she expected bad news.
‘So far, I’ve got nothing.’
‘No hair, no fiber, no—’
‘Nothing. Dirt in the carpet, driver’s side, but not too much of that. I figured that blanket she was wrapped in might leave some fibers on the front seat. But hey …’ He held up a hand. ‘It’s early days yet. I’m still looking. My opinion? She didn’t get transported in the truck.’
‘Killer could have put her in the trailer with the horse,’ Sam said.
Sonora pictured it. A horse one side of the divider, a green-blanketed bundle on the other.
‘Makes sense, in case he gets pulled over.’ This from Mickey. ‘Guy gets pulled over, it’s a lot better to have her in the back of the van than laid out in the back seat. You want a wish list, get me that trailer. I promise not to ask for anything else.’
‘Come to Santa,’ Sam said.
‘Nothing from the uniforms?’ Sonora asked, looking at Sam.
Crick shook his head. ‘We’ve concentrated on an area with a thirty-mile radius. Nobody’s found nothing. So far. Horse and trailer could be anywhere.’
‘He could have sent them over a cliff,’ Mickey said.
Sonora threw up her hands. ‘If you found a dead horse and trailer, wouldn’t you tell somebody?’
Mickey shrugged. ‘Unless I wanted the trailer?’
‘Somebody would talk,’ Sam said. ‘If they found it. Sonora’s got the best lead on the horse and the trailer.’
Crick folded his arms. ‘I’m glad something productive came out of yesterday afternoon.’
Sonora opened her mouth, closed it. Crick’s tone of voice implied dissatisfaction. The case was three days old, unsolved. A profile case at that. Had Crick found out that she’d bought a horse? Did he know she’d gone home to make meat loaf? Was he dissatisfied with her results, or did he think she wasn’t working it hard? She felt guilty about all of it – buying the horse, cooking the meat loaf, tracking the newt, wasting so much time at the auction.
Speaking of which. Sonora traced a finger on the table. ‘We went to an auction. There’s one every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at the Aquitane stockyards over past Lebanon.’
‘That’s where they filmed that movie. Milk Money,’ Crick said.
‘Tuesdays and Thursdays are their days for horses, tack, whatever. Low-end kind of stuff. Heavily worked by dealers who pick the horses up cheap and sell them to slaughter.’ Sonora could see the kid in jeans riding the gray quarter-horse down the dirt chute, patting the horse, telling him he’d be okay. ‘A man showed up at the auction last Tuesday afternoon when Joelle disappeared. Times work out, and he was seen by two or three different people, at least. Had a horse and a trailer he was trying to sell, package deal.’
‘Sold it to slaughter,’ Crick said, drumming a finger on the table-top.
‘No, that’s the weird part. From what I can tell he had two offers from dealers – I think they were more interested in the trailer than the horse. But he wouldn’t sell to them.’
‘Can’t be our boy. He’d be desperate to sell.’
‘There’s criminal precedent for stupidity,’ Sonora said.
Sam put a hand on the back of her chair. ‘Whoever it was, he sold the horse and trailer to a woman who runs a riding program pretty close to there, in Loomis. We were thinking maybe our man wants to keep track of the horse. Keep it under wraps, then return and buy it back later on, when things cool down. If the horse was worth going to all this trouble for, it’d be hard to send it off to the killers.’
Crick nodded, slowly. ‘Get up there, ASAP. I’ll talk to Rick Martin. He works that area. You’ll have a clear shot, no jurisdiction trouble. He’s a straight shooter.’
‘If the horse isn’t there, even if it is, Hal thinks we should get a warrant, go look through what they have at Bisky.’
‘Let him do his own legwork. We have our own priorities.’ Crick drummed his fingers. ‘Was the child sexually assaulted?’
Sonora shook her head. ‘No sign of that whatsoever.’
There was a moment as if all of them let out their breath.
‘So you don’t think we’re looking for Mr Stranger Danger?’ This from Mickey.
Sam waved a hand. ‘Mr Stranger Danger isn’t going to take a horse. This thing was set up. The guy had a trailer, he knew what he was doing.’
‘We’ve got some weird inconsistencies.’ Crick held up a thick finger. ‘If this killer is after the horse, why involve the kid? If the killer is after the kid, why involve the horse?’ Another finger. ‘Why the attack on Donna Delaney? Hours apart like that – it’s got to be connected. And why go back to the barn and mix it up with Blair when they got to know there’ll be cops all over? Why plant that finger in the riding glove?’
Mickey took the last gulp of his Jolt cola. ‘I myself think the kid had to be incidental. They couldn’t know she was going to fall off that horse and hit her head. Then when she does, the killer thinks she’s dead, or too much trouble dead or alive.’
Sonora was not sure why Crick was looking at her, and it made her nervous. She pushed her thumbs against the edge of the table. ‘Not to change the subject, but I’ll tell you what bothers me more than anything, and that’s the crime scene.’
‘Primary or secondary?’ Mickey asked.
‘Secondary. Halcyon Farm, where Joelle was buried.’
Crick leaned back in his chair. Folded his arms. ‘What’s bothering you?’
‘First off, she’s wrapped in a blanket. A blanket that can lead us right to the killer. Everybody watched O.J. The whole world knows about fibers. But there she is, bundled like a baby. Arms across her chest. Face wiped down with a wet wipe. We’re talking placement. Intimate insight. This is the most honest, direct piece of communication we’re going to get from this killer.’
Mickey tipped his chair backwards, scratched the back of his head with unbecoming vigor. If he’d been her child, Sonora would have told him to put his chair back down, before he fell backwards and got hurt.
‘You know what you’re saying, Sonora?’ The chair legs went down. Mickey must have read her mind. ‘Only two types of killer are that careful with placement. Stranger Danger fetish types, guys who want her found, because they have remorse.’
‘And parents.’ Sonora looked around the room. Hard faces, unreadable. ‘I think we ought to go with Dixon Chauncey.’
Chapter Forty-Four
The waitress set a platter down in front of Sonora, moving quickly, like it was hot. Sonora unrolled the white cloth napkin, glanced across the table at Sam.
‘Study the art,’ she told him. She stirred her coffee. Opened a tiny white bucket of cream.
She was having her favorite breakfast at Cracker Barrel – grilled sourdough toast, hash brown casserole, one egg, cooked medium, a large orange juice and coffee.
Sam used his fork to cut a wedge of pancakes, scooped up a strawberry and dipped it into a puff of cream. ‘Dixon Chauncey wouldn’t do something like this. He’s too squishy.’
For some reason the word squishy brought the attention of a young man and woman having what looked to Sonora like a power breakfast of cellphones and bran. The woman arched one well-plucked eyebrow.
‘Yes, he’s squishy. But that wouldn’t stop him. There are lots of squishy murderers out there.’ Sonora took a bite of sourdough toast. Sweet. Crunchy. Perfect.
Sam put a piece of bacon on her plate. ‘Name three.’
Sonora looked from her plate to his. The bacon was his, the strawberry pancakes were his, the platter of scrambled eggs was his. She had learned to accept that men could eat this way and not gain weight, while women could go up two jean sizes on lettuce. She put the bacon back on his plate, and he tossed it right back over.
‘Eat it.’ More a growl than anything.
‘Quit testing me. You know I love to eat.’
�
��It’s one of the things that makes you the light of my life. Quit worrying. What are you – a hundred? A hundred three?’
‘Oh, yeah, I’m sure.’ He was sweet-talking her. He was jealous of Hal McCarty, and he was sweet-talking her. And it was working. She was actually being charmed by bacon. Sonora took a sip of juice. She could resist bacon. ‘Study the art, Sam.’
‘Quit saying that, Sonora. You’re like Annie when she’s chanting.’
‘I hate it when they chant.’
‘So stop.’
‘But it does work.’ She smashed the egg yolk and it swirled over the fried whites. ‘Salt, Sam. Pass it over.’
‘Pepper?’
‘What would be the point?’ She sprinkled salt. ‘Think about the comfort level of the killer, Sam. It’s immense is what it is. You got Joelle taken right in sight of her mobile home, then dumped and buried a mile or two away. This is Dixon Chauncey’s territory. And it’s over-planned and clumsy – a neophyte murder, a squishy murder.’
‘I didn’t say the killing was squishy, I said Chauncey was.’
The woman with the plucked eyebrows gave Sonora a sideways glance. But her attention was forestalled by a waitress bringing her a fruit cup.
‘Come on, Sam, look at the care involved in her placement. Blanketed, bundled, hands crossed over her chest, face wiped down. That’s remorse, Sam, admit it.’
He crunched bacon and a sprinkle of crumbs leaked on to his tie. He didn’t notice. Sonora decided to let him wear them for now. He could go around looking ridiculous until he admitted she was right.
‘Try this.’ Sam shoved a fork piled with pancake, strawberry and cream across the table.
A perfect bite. Not possible to resist.
Sonora went for it, Sam holding a hand under her chin to catch the inevitable spillage from the overloaded fork. Fed her the strawberry that landed in the egg yolk and left a pink swirl.
Wonderful. Sweet thick pancakes, the texture of the berry, the salty tang of egg. While she was chewing, Sam jumped in.
‘What’s the trigger, Sonora? Why live with a kid fifteen years, and then kill her?’
‘I have teenagers, I can explain.’
‘Serious. Why now? Why, when all that stuff is going on with Delaney, when your bud McCarty is all over the place?’
‘He’s not my bud.’
‘That’s not my point.’
‘Okay, Sam, but lookit. She wasn’t sexually assaulted, right?’
The woman at the next table set her fork down with an audible click. There was a banana on the tines of the fork. Sonora wondered how she made the click with the banana on there.
‘But where’s the horse? Tell me that. And how does Chauncey know Joelle’s going to fall off? And why doesn’t he finish her? Why bury her alive in a pile of manure?’
‘Maybe he thought she was dead.’
‘You’re reaching, Sonora.’ He threw the bacon back on her plate. ‘Finish your breakfast, we’ll be late for school. They’re probably halfway through lunch by now, anyway. You believe Annie’s lunch period is at ten forty-two a.m?’
‘I believe everything you tell me, except—’
‘Yeah, yeah, you made your point.’
Chapter Forty-Five
His name was Madrigan and he was not unattractive. Six two, at a guess, dark-haired, with big shoulders. He was the assistant principal at Joelle Chauncey’s high school, and he had the squinty-eyed apologetic look that a certain class of alcoholics take on – as if they’ve forgotten so many names, faces and promises that ‘I’m sorry’ comes as often as hello.
His eyes were bloodshot, face florid, nose thick and clown-like and shot through with broken blood vessels. His handshake was firm, and there was intelligence in his eyes.
He stood up from behind his desk, a large man, clothes loose and comfortable, flesh firm, as if he’d been eating healthy, working out, trimming down. A man with a past, on the upswing now.
‘Madrigan. Vice-principal.’
Sam introduced them, flipped the ID, but Madrigan waved it away.
‘Mrs Clarkson, out front. She told me who you are.’ He waved them toward the chairs.
Uncomfortable chairs unfortunately – plastic seats and metal legs. The office was stark, straight out of the concrete-block-walls-and-yellow-linoleum school of design that gave schools and other public buildings the cheerless look of prisons.
A framed photo on the right wall caught Sonora’s eye.
Madrigan, younger and lighter, sunburned and sweaty in a fishing boat that looked worn but competent, docked in a swampy inlet that said low country.
A long, hard way from Cincinnati.
The permanent tan that burnished Madrigan’s arms, neck and face belonged much further south. This man would get along well with Sam.
‘You’re here about the Chauncey girl. Joelle?’
Sam nodded.
‘I saw it on the news. I heard today that her … that her body had been found. What on earth happened?’
‘We’re still in the early stages of the investigation, Mr Madrigan.’ Sonora watched his face glaze over, knew exactly what was on his mind. It wouldn’t hurt to scotch the rumors, for Joelle’s sake, and her family’s. ‘We would guess, at this point, that she was not sexually molested. That’s unofficial.’
Madrigan took a deep breath, let it escape slowly. ‘I appreciate very much you telling me. One imagines the worst.’
Sonora did not comment. She could imagine worse. She did not want to.
‘Mr Madrigan, what’s your enrollment here?’ Sam asked.
‘Eleven hundred forty is our intended capacity. We’ve got more like fourteen hundred, give or take.’
‘So you probably didn’t know Joelle.’
Madrigan laid his palms on the top of the orderly desk. There were piles, files, and computer print-outs, but all were stacked with a method, and there was no slop.
‘I try to know all my students. But Joelle in particular. She was one of my projects, one of the ones I watched.’
Sonora glanced at Sam, who was flipping the tape over in the small black mini-recorder. ‘Why Joelle?’ she asked.
Madrigan frowned. ‘She’s the kind of child I try and look out for.’
‘And what kind is that?’ Sonora got a look from Sam. Time to shut up and be patient. The man would get to the point in his own good time, please God.
‘She’s the kind of kid that comes around, seems to need the attention. One of the ones who usually slips through the cracks. Held back at least one grade, schoolwork mediocre to poor, not a whole lot of friends or motivation. Her test scores would surprise you – they’re very high. Definitely a low achiever. Sort of dreamy and unfocused, just getting by.
‘Some of these kids, you know, they move around a lot, one school system after another. They get behind, and if they do catch up and get settled in, they move again. It’s hard, I know, from my own experiences when I was a kid.’
Something in his voice, in his eyes, caught Sonora’s attention. She had the feeling that this man had led an interesting life. She would bet that he’d served in Vietnam, that at night he lay awake worrying about exposure to Agent Orange. She wondered about the journey that had led this man to the assistant principal’s office in a small high school on the outskirts of Cincinnati.
That he was sincere and caring was clear. That he was different, never a square peg, was equally clear. She was surprised he’d survived the administrative prejudice and narrow-mindedness of the Central Office.
Madrigan looked up at the ceiling, thinking. ‘Joelle just didn’t seem to click, to tune into school. She was preoccupied, there were other things on her mind. She couldn’t seem to concentrate, didn’t seem to join in. She seemed very much apart.’
Sam crossed his right foot over his left thigh. ‘You think it was a phase? Discovered boys, maybe?’
Madrigan’s face was hard to read. ‘Possibly. She was at that age.’
‘But you don’t think so?�
�� Sonora said.
Madrigan shrugged.
Sonora leaned forward, made eye contact. ‘Mr Madrigan, this is a murder investigation into the death – the brutal death – of a child at your school. Speak candidly. Tell me what’s really on your mind. Your instincts, your theories, your gut feel. If it doesn’t pertain, it’ll go no further than this room.’
Madrigan glanced at the recorder. Sonora hoped he was not going to ask them to turn it off. She guessed that he wouldn’t. That if he talked, he would stand behind what he said.
‘Some children seem to live … the way I think of it is children under a shadow. They worry. They fall asleep in class. Their minds are on other things.’
‘Are you talking about abuse?’ Sam asked.
Same old tune, Sonora thought. Different lyrics.
But Madrigan was shaking his head. ‘With Joelle, no, I don’t think so. Some of the kids have genuine worries. A sibling pregnancy, family money problems. Illness, impending divorce. I admit there were times with Joelle when I wondered. She made a lot more trips to the emergency room or the clinic than is normal.
‘But I checked it out, decided the ER trips were more because her father was overprotective. I guess … you’ve met the guy, I’m sure.’
Sam was nodding.
‘Normal childhood things – most parents would let them go, or treat at home. Joelle’s dad would haul her off to the ER, get upset. He usually took it worse than she did.’
Sonora glanced at Sam.
Madrigan waved a hand. ‘I always got the feeling that Mr Chauncey was trying to be an absolutely perfect parent. He was very hard on himself, very intense. We had conferences, a couple of times, and I usually spent most of the time reassuring him, instead of talking about Joelle.’
‘What was he worried about?’
Madrigan raised both hands. ‘Everything. Nothing. I tried just talking to Joelle a couple of times. She’s always happy to talk to me, but she was shy about personal things. I didn’t want to push.’
‘Any teachers she was close to?’ Sonora asked.
Madrigan’s face settled back into the apology. ‘Not that I could tell. Like I said, she was slipping through.’
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