by Laurel Dewey
“God help her,” Jane said quietly. “She has no fucking clue how she’s being used by that asshole.”
“Maybe you could talk to her,” Kit offered. “Tell her that—”
“I can’t go anywhere near that woman. She’s got a well-oiled fortress around her. Jenny Walker has become a commodity. Besides, I’m sure Clinton knows who I am. If I’m gonna work this case, I’ve got to do it as low-profile as possible.”
“Well, you’re registered back at the Bonanza as Melody Clark. So our friend Barry won’t be barking Jane Perry’s arrival around town.”
Jane rubbed her face with anxiety. “God, this whole thing is getting too fucking complicated.” She pulled the Mustang closer to a satellite truck, turned off the ignition, and grabbed a pack of cigarettes. Squeezing her lithe body between the Mustang and truck, she ducked under a tree and lit the cigarette. Across the street, the director asked the crowd to be quiet. Like a trained seal, Clinton assumed his character of the concerned ally as he tenderly grasped Jenny’s arm and spoke to the camera.
It was too disgusting for Jane to watch. She pulled her jacket around her chest, took another deep drag on the cigarette, and sauntered twenty-five yards up the street. The farther away she got from the lights, the more Jane could blend into the wet darkness. Walking another twenty yards up the street, the pockets of onlookers started to diminish. That’s what made the car so easy to spot.
It was a jacked-up older model white Firebird, complete with crimson racing stripes that stretched the length of the vehicle. Fancy chrome hubcaps hugged the wheels and glistened against the falling rain. Suddenly, Jane spotted movement in the driver’s seat. Taking a step back, she slid behind a large oak tree. The driver—the lone person in the car—looked to be around eighteen years old. He flicked a cigarette lighter, caught a flame, and lit a cigarette. In that brief illumination, Jane saw his face. He was what girls call “cute,” in a country kind of way. His jaw was well defined, his cheeks ruddy, and his eyes pensive. An aura of tension engulfed him as he blew a plume of smoke out the window and into the cold night air. Running his nervous fingers through his brown locks, the boy stared at the Walker house. Another drag on his cigarette and more smoke billowed from the car. The sound of a cell phone rang from inside his car. He flicked his cigarette outside onto the puddle-filled pavement and anxiously grappled for the phone in the darkness. He turned on the interior light, located the phone, and answered. Jane could easily see the boy now. His face was a map of fear.
“Hi,” the boy answered with a familiar tone. “Yeah, I know. I’m at the pizza place getting somethin’ to eat....” He fumbled with a loose thread on the steering wheel. “Okay. I’m leaving now. Bye.” The boy turned off his phone and tossed it on the front seat. He sat back and let out a heavy sigh as he nervously bit his thumbnail.
Jane moved her foot ever so slightly, causing a crush of dead leaves to echo into the night. The boy instantly turned toward the sound. Jane stayed perfectly still as she watched the boy’s paranoia take hold. He flicked off the interior light and started the ignition. Gingerly, he edged out of the parking spot and drove up the street far away from the lights. As hard as Jane tried, she couldn’t make out the license number.
By the time Jane got back to the Mustang, there was no point in trying to tail the boy’s car. Looking around the area, she noted that most of the kids were under the age of thirteen and all of them were girls. That made sense—the missing girl was twelve. Twelve-year-olds attract twelve-year-olds, not eighteen-year-old boys who drive flashy Firebirds.
“Find anything interesting?” Kit asked as Jane got into the Mustang.
“No. Nothing,” Jane said off handedly, inching the Mustang past the media trucks and heading back to town.
If the sound of clattering dishes and the steady hum of conversation under the strains of Kenny Chesney singing “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” was an indication of a successful, small-town restaurant, then The Circle 9 Diner would have won the grand prize. Kit and Jane waited while a waitress in her late twenties dressed in jeans, a white western shirt with snap buttons, a name tag that read DIANE, a red handkerchief tied around her throat, and a straw cowboy hat with a black 9 burned into the front cleaned the grease off the only available table in the joint. She slid the salt and pepper shakers across the wet Formica and motioned for Kit and Jane to take a seat.
“We’re busier here than a one-legged man at a butt kickin’ contest!” Diane cheerfully announced as she slapped two menus on the table. “Soon as that news conference broke up, it got thick as thieves in this place! Hell, you can’t swing a dead cat in here without hittin’ somebody!”
Jane had never heard three consecutive country clichés fired off with such rapid precision. She took a seat with her back to the door and opened the beer-splattered menu. “Yes, you’re busy as a bee!”
“It’s been like this ever since December 26!” Diane replied as the busboy placed two glasses of ice water shaped like a cowboy boots on the table. “Part of it’s because we’re just two doors down from The Barbeque Shack. Hey, ‘Location, location, location!’”
“The Barbeque Shack?” Jane asked.
“Where Leann works?” Diane acted as if Jane was sadly uninformed. “Bein’ it’s the last place Charlotte was seen before gettin’ into that Fagin guy’s Chevy—”
“They matched Leann’s description of the car to what Fagin’s driving?” Jane asked.
“Well, yeah. A beat-up, four-door, Chevy—”
“How old is Leann?” Kit said, eyebrows furrowing.
“Gosh, ah, I don’t know. Sixteen, I guess. I’m sure we’ll learn more about her after we watch the interview tonight with Lesley Stahl.”
“You don’t know her?” Jane asked.
“Leann? No. I knew Charlotte.” The waitress put a finger to her mouth. “Whoops! Guess I shouldn’t say knew, huh? I know Charlotte and most all of the kids who live around here. The Circle 9 is the place to hang, ya know?”
“But you don’t know Leann?” Jane pursued.
The waitress’s back got a little stiff. “No. I don’t.”
“Why is that?” Jane said, treating the waitress like a suspect.
The waitress thought for a second and then shrugged her shoulders. “I guess she just sort of blends into the woodwork. If she were an inch taller, she’d be round,” Diane said with catty flair, and then on review, recoiled. “Gosh, that’s an awful thing to say about a kid, isn’t it?”
“Charlotte doesn’t blend into the woodwork, does she?” Jane stated.
Her mood quickly lightened “Hell, no! Charlotte likes to be seen and so...people see her.” She leaned across the table, speaking in a loud whisper. “Hey, want to know somethin’? Lesley Stahl didn’t actually come in here, but she had her people come in and get her a cola to go. Least that’s what I heard from the girl who was workin’ that shift. Isn’t that cool?”
Kit scanned the menu, never looking up from it. “So, Leann is sixteen. How many sixteen-year-old girls can remember the make of a beat-up car in only a few seconds?”
The waitress looked confused. “Huh?”
“I don’t know an old beat-up Chevy from an old beat-up Buick—”
“Well, you should,” Jane smugly interjected. “You’ve got an old, beat-up Buick.”
They ordered and Diane disappeared into the kitchen.
Kit leaned forward, speaking in a confidential tone. “Don’t you think it’s unusual for a sixteen-year-old girl to be able to properly identify the make of a car that she saw for, what? Less than half a minute? If she was so suspicious about the whole scenario, why didn’t she get the license plate number?”
Jane privately agreed with Kit, but she wasn’t about to give her any kudos. As far as Jane was concerned, she was going to remain skeptical for the time being. The front doors swung open. Every head in the place turned in unison, including Jane’s. It was the portly Sheriff Golden and his four-manned, pot-bellied entourage. Behind
them were two FBI suits. Like local rock stars, the group ambled to the back booths and squeezed into the seats.
Jane turned back to Kit. “Well, it’s Sheriff Golden and his ‘Yahoo Patrol.’”
“What is it with you tonight?” Kit asked, her voice edged with irritation.
“Oh, you know, I’ve just had a lot of time to think about my life and where I’m heading on my little journey.” Jane’s tone was sarcastic and somewhat self-abrasive.
“What are you? Thirty-four? Thirty-five?”
“I’ll be thirty-six on January 11.”
“January 11?” Kit said, slightly in awe. “Wow! One-one-one! It’s a numerological code.”
“Riiiiight....” Jane replied in a mocking manner.
Kit leaned across the table. “It’s a unique number code that serves as a gateway to seek your highest potential. It offers you a Divine opportunity to surpass any limitations you have unknowingly set up for yourself. You should embrace this gift!”
“Anyone can find a message or a hidden meaning in any number to suit their private agenda—”
“One-one-one is real! It’s a sign!”
“Sign? You sound like Dr. Bartosh!”
“January 11,” Kit whispered, unaffected by Jane’s comment. “What is the shamanic totem for number 11?” Kit titled her head toward the ceiling, searching for the answer. “Ah! Yes! The hummingbird!”
Jane felt her gut clench. In the Native American allegory of Pico Blanco, the hummingbird followed the raven.
“Hummingbird people are very powerful healers. They touch many people in their lifetime and leave indelible imprints on their souls—”
Jane leaned forward. “Are you making this up as you go along?”
“Listen to me, Jane! People with hummingbird medicine should learn to take note and back out of touchy situations before they get out of hand! Do I need to remind you that you didn’t exactly heed that warning at The Red Tail Hawk Bar?”
“I think backing out of touchy situations before they get out of hand is good advice for anybody.”
“Yes, but hummingbird people must—”
“Kit, how many criminals have used signs, symbols, or numbers to support their actions? You had the alphabet killer, the guy who always left the same color on his victims, another guy who carved symbols into his victims’ backs....” Jane let out a tired sigh. “Bartosh told me he found the Lord at age thirty-three...the same age when Jesus was crucified. And let’s not forget Lou’s ‘Power of Fourteen’ theory! God! A person could go crazy with this shit!”
“Symbols are powerful motivators,” Kit urged. “Look at the cross. Or the pentagram. We act and react according to what we viscerally associate with a symbol and then we give those symbols life. Play the Devil’s advocate all you want! I know what I’m saying is true!”
Jane was purposely playing the Devil’s advocate. Right now, it was the only way she knew how to operate with Kit. If Kit said the menu was dark blue, Jane would call it black, just to prove that she wasn’t going to be anybody’s patsy. She sat back in the vinyl booth and stared out the window. She half-hoped the kid in the Firebird would drive up so she could get a better look at him and grab his license plate number.
“So,” Kit said with enthusiasm, “what’s the first thing we do to find Lou?”
Jane turned back to Kit. There was a jagged impatience in the way Kit spoke that fueled Jane’s mistrust. “We?”
“I hired you to find Lou, but I certainly want to be a part of the search as much as my energy allows—”
“I don’t work that way.” Her statement fell across the table with an abrupt echo.
“Jane, I have to do something!” Kit declared with authority.
“Read your books. Take a nap. Chat with Barry. Learn how to use the TiVo—”
“What in the hell is going on with you?” Kit whispered loudly with growing anger. “Suddenly I’m being discarded?”
Jane held her own. “You paid me to work this case and that’s what I intend to do. If that doesn’t set well with you, I’ll refund half your money and let you sort it all out.” She regarded Kit with a nonchalant glance, waiting to see if Kit would take the bait. Instead, she stared at Jane with a penetrating glare.
“Fine,” Kit said tersely, but the underlying tone rang loudly that all was not fine.
Just then, the door to The Circle 9 Diner swung open with great gusto.
“Well, hello darlin’!” the booming voice rang out so that everybody in the place would hear him.
Jane didn’t have to turn around. She knew that voice and the ass it belonged to. Diane appeared with the plates of food and Jane asked for “to go” boxes. Jane stole a glance behind her. Clinton had worked his way to where Sheriff Golden and his posse sat. Standing with one hand leaning on the wall and the other hand propped against his trademark camouflage pants, Clinton loudly complimented the men on nabbing Trace Fagin. He dragged a chair up to the booth and sat down and, as all good leeches do, launched into his real purpose for the impromptu tête-à-tête: information . Surprisingly, it seemed from Jane’s vantage point that the sheriff, his deputies, and the FBI suits were starstruck enough to get hooked on Clinton’s line.
“Jesus,” Jane murmured under her breath. She turned back to Kit. “Meet me in the car. I can’t risk him seeing me here.” Jane successfully slipped out of the restaurant and secured herself in the shadows as she lit a cigarette.
She looked up just in time to see the red-striped Firebird speed up Main Street and disappear into the cold night air.
CHAPTER 18
“The show’s going to start in less than a minute!” Kit alerted Jane.
Jane finished unpacking her toothbrush and blow-dryer in the bathroom. She took a troubled glance around the tiny, rust-painted room. Some idiot—possibly Barry—apparently didn’t know that pastel colors make a small space look bigger. And you don’t paint a bathroom all rust, including the door. Even with the door slightly ajar, Jane felt as if she were trapped in a clay tomb.
She walked into the cramped main room that held two twin beds with mattresses that groaned at the slightest touch. They were covered with paisley spreads, featuring more rust in the natty pattern. A teetering table sat between the beds with an old clock that told the time by flapping a new number down like a slowmoving card deck. Jane shook her head at that, figuring the clock was almost as old as she was. A cheap mirror hung above a threedrawer bureau opposite the beds. Atop the bureau sat a color TV that Jane gauged was over ten years old. The log cabin walls were painted with brown lacquer, forcing even more darkness into the sparse room. The only window was a mere six feet from Jane’s bed and draped with heavy beige curtains rimmed with dust, grime, and cigarette burns. Jane sat on her bed, generating a painful squeak from the mattress springs. Punching her fist into the yellowed pillows to prop them upright, she took solace in the fact that at least she wasn’t plugging down $125 a night for this shithole.
Kit fiddled with the remote control—the only thing in the room that smelled fresh and new. “There’s too many buttons on this thing,” Kit said, befuddled. “What’s this TiVo, anyway?”
Jane reached over and took the remote from Kit, explaining as briefly as she could that TiVo was God’s answer to instant recording while you watched television. If one missed what someone said or wanted to repeat a specific portion of a TV show, one simply pressed the REVERSE button and the program sped backward. Pressing the PLAY button, the show resumed. The handy PAUSE button allowed the viewer to freeze-frame the video. This came in handy, Jane explained, when the phone rang or one needed a bathroom break and didn’t want to miss a moment of their show. Jane resumed playback of the news program.
The announcer’s booming voice set the stage. “Tonight, see Lesley Stahl’s exclusive interview with Leann Hamilton, the sole witness to the kidnapping of twelve-year-old Charlotte Walker.” Leann’s chubby face filled the screen as the picture dissolved into the angelic portrait of Charlotte Walker.
Jane remembered the school photo from the Denver Post. She knew all too well how the media slants and creates bias based on camera angles, lighting, and careful editing. Her brief sortie into the limelight that past summer had confirmed how the media makes or breaks you by how they photograph your story. In Jane’s case, they tended to shoot her with a harder, less forgiving light that made her look road-ravaged. The photo used to depict Charlotte Walker was one of innocence and prepubescent beauty. It looked especially softer in comparison to the more full-bodied shot of Leann Hamilton.
Lesley Stahl appeared on the screen, walking near the command post at the grammar school. A soft lens diffused the scene, giving it a comforting texture. The lens also did wonders for masking lines on the face—something most TV anchors demanded. “Oakhurst, California,” Lesley stated with her trademark incisive tone. “A small town known as the ‘Gateway to Yosemite.’ But the day after Christmas, this tight-knit community was rocked by the brash, daylight kidnapping of one of their own, twelve-year-old Charlotte Walker. What made this crime so brazen is that it was done under the watchful eye of at least one person. Her name is Leann Hamilton, and at age sixteen, she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders....” The screen dissolved to The Barbeque Shack. As Stahl narrated, the camera followed a painfully aware Leann as she went about taking orders at the take-out window over her headset. Leann made frequent furtive glances toward the moving camera. Jane quickly noted a pervasive insecurity around Leann. She moved with hesitancy. Her actions were deliberate, as if she were terrified of making a mistake. The scene cut to Leann standing outside The Barbeque Shack with Lesley. Leann wore her uniform, a bright yellow shirt and striped hat that displayed the name of the fast-food joint in red embroidery. Leann pointed her fleshy hand toward the curb, acknowledging to Lesley that this was where she witnessed Charlotte getting into the car. A crowd of people could be seen gathered around the two of them, partly gawking, but mostly intrigued by the kid in the yellow shirt and striped hat talking to Lesley Stahl. Jane noticed that Leann stole a shy glance at the crowd surrounding them. She smiled a genuine grin at them and then turned back to Lesley.
