Thread of Innocence (Joe Tyler Mystery #4)

by Jeff Shelby

  “She's in the shower again,” Lauren said. “Sorry. I always call when she's in there because I feel like that's the only time I can really talk.”

  “It's fine.”

  “I can have her call you when she gets out, if you want.”

  “If she wants to, that's fine. If not, it's okay, too.”

  “I have no idea what she'll want,” Lauren said.

  “So what are you thinking then? Tomorrow?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “She still has some stuff over there and I know she wants to pack it up. So maybe day after tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Just let me know then, I guess.”

  “I will.” She paused. “I'm sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For not doing a better job at this,” she said. “I feel like it's just getting worse and I'm not doing anything to help.”

  “There's no rulebook, Lauren,” I said, frowning. “And there's no report card. No one's grading how this goes. It's just one day at a time.”

  “I feel like she's grading me,” she said. “I'll tell her you'd like her to call when she gets out.”

  We hung up. I poured a glass of water, turned off the kitchen light and made my way to the living room. I sat down on the couch and picked up a magazine. But my eyes glazed over as I stared at the pages. I glanced at my phone every so often, checking to see if Elizabeth was calling.

  Nothing.

  It stung. I knew Lauren wouldn't forget to ask her about calling me. So I imagined Elizabeth acting disinterested, bothered by the task of having to call me or just flat-out not wanting to. I knew that some of that might be residual stubbornness from not getting along with Lauren, but there was probably some genuine disconnect at play, as well. She didn't really see me as her father yet or someone she missed.

  I paged through the magazine, trying to focus, knowing it was pointless. Frustrated, I tossed it on the sofa cushion next to me and stood up. There was nothing for me to do but turn off the lights and head for bed. The house was quiet, empty, and I felt like a stranger in the house. I missed Lauren and I missed Elizabeth. I missed knowing that they were tucked away in their bedrooms.

  I stripped off my clothes and didn't even bother turning the TV on for company. I grabbed the phone again.

  Nothing.

  I hesitated for a moment, then scrolled through the contacts. I found Elizabeth's name and the number for the phone we'd purchased for her earlier in the week. We figured it was the one thing we could give her that might make her feel like a semi-normal teenager. She'd been grateful for it and it had been one of those moments where it felt like everything might fall into place.

  I clicked on her name and opened the field to send her a text, then tapped the screen.

  I miss you. I love you. Can't wait for you to come home.

  Fifteen minutes later, I laid the phone on the pillow next to me and turned out the light, deciding that trying to find sleep was far less painful than waiting for her to respond.

  THIRTY

  “I have an address,” Paul Lasko said.

  I'd barely slept, wrestling with the covers, eventually turning the TV on and staring at it for hours until I'd finally drifted off. But I woke as soon as the sun came up, took off for my early run and heard the doorbell ring just as I stepped out of the shower. I'd pulled on my clothes and found Lasko at the front door.

  We were sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of each of us, and he slid a piece of paper across the table to me. I reached for it and flipped it over.

  “Brawley,” he said. “Took me awhile to go through all of the desert cities here and in Arizona, but I finally found one.”

  I nodded, looking at the address. Brawley was a desert outpost, just south of the Salton Sea, about two hours away.

  “I doubt it's Brawley proper,” he said. “Probably outskirts. I didn't have time to map it. I came over as soon as I had it.”

  I picked up the mug in front of me and took a sip. “Brawley's small, anyway,” I said. “Shouldn't have a hard time finding it.”

  “You wanna go this morning?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You got the time?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I'm good.” He hesitated, rolled his shoulders a little, like they were kinked up. “One thing, though.”

  “What's that?”

  “Word's definitely out that I'm poking around,” Lasko said, scratching at his temple. “My sergeant checked on me yesterday. Wanted to know what case I was working extra on. Told him it wasn't anything in our department. He didn't much care for that, asked if I was moonlighting or whatever. I told him I was helping a friend.” He shrugged. “My point is that if he found out, someone told him. So people know I'm working on something and chances are they've either listened or looked and have an idea of what I'm doing.”

  “My offer still stands,” I said.

  He waved a hand in the air. “I'm fine. I've told you that. But I just figured you needed to know that other cops are probably aware. So if you're right about your guys and word gets back to them...they could blow the whole thing up.”

  I nodded. He was right. If word filtered out, tracks that I hadn't found could be covered and destroyed and I might never be able to figure out what happened. I also knew there might be retribution.

  “I'm fine,” I said. “I just want answers.”

  He stood from the table. “Then I guess we're going to Brawley.”

  THIRTY ONE

  Brawley was located in the Imperial Valley, a narrow strip of desert land near the California and Arizona border that extended from the southern edge of the Salton Sea all the way down to El Centro. Originally a desert wasteland of trailers and weekend fun-seekers on ATV's, the area had grown into a full-blown, if less well-to-do, suburb of El Centro. Middle class families could find affordable housing if they didn't mind the heat and the original inhabitants, who didn't look fondly upon those looking to recreate suburbia in the California desert.

  Lasko drove. It took us about two hours to make the drive. We didn't talk much, the radio filling the silence. I half-listened to the sports channel as I gazed out the window at the changing landscape, from city to agriculture to desert. I let my thoughts drift back to Lauren and Elizabeth and I wondered how they were getting along that morning. If Elizabeth had read my text. And I wondered exactly what we were going to find in Brawley.

  Strip malls popped up on the side of road as we left the barren desert area and came into the city. Pick-up trucks were the favored choice of transportation on the dusty roads and people drove slowly, aimlessly, as if they had nowhere to go. Fast food joints, gas stations, check cashers and liquor stores dominated the retail stores I saw and no one looked happy to be there.

  “You know they spell it wrong?” Lasko said, glancing at me. We were stopped at a red light.

  “Who spells what wrong?”

  “Brawley. The guy who donated a bunch of the land, his last name was Braly,” he explained. “City planners wanted to name it after him, to thank him. But he refused to let them use his name.” He smiled. “So they just added a couple letters and basically used it, anyway.”

  I shook my head. “That's funny. And weird.”

  Lasko nodded in agreement. “The desert is full of funny and weird.”

  He punched an address into the GPS on the dash and it routed us out to the east of town, through several newer sub-divisions of homes and away from the center of the city. The further east we went, the more rugged everything got—the stores, the homes, even the road itself—and it felt like we were heading back into the desert. Lasko guided the truck into a cul-de-sac of two single-story, stucco homes that looked like they might've been the first two homes ever constructed in Brawley. The one to our left had boarded-up windows, a screen door that hung crooked from one hinge and notices taped to the front door. Its partner on the other side of the cul-de-sac didn't have paper tacked on the front door and there was no screen door to hide the battered entryway. The windows
weren't boarded up, but the curtains were drawn from the inside. The front yard was a mess of gravel and weeds and an old motorcycle lay on its side in the heavily cracked driveway.

  Lasko nodded toward the one that wasn't boarded up. “That's it.”

  “We need to be worried about knocking on his door?” I asked.

  “Probably,” he said with a short laugh. “He's a piece of shit, by every account.”

  I opened the car door. “Great.”

  The air was warm, almost humid, thick with desert heat. The breeze kicked up and an old, fast food bag drifted through the cul-de-sac. Our feet crunched on the gravel covered asphalt as we crossed the street and went up the walk to the door. A television blared from inside.

  “Hang back and cover,” I said to Lasko. “I'll knock.”

  Lasko nodded and shifted to the opposite side of the walk, just outside of view from anyone who might open the door.

  I knocked twice on the door and took a step back.

  The volume died inside and footsteps shuffled behind the door for a moment before it opened.

  A guy in an Oakland Raiders T-shirt and long denim shorts squinted at me. He was taller than me, well-built, maybe a little younger. His hair was buzzed short, but there was a scar on his forehead that gave the buzz a weird part just left of center. Almond-shaped eyes that almost looked like they were of Asian descent. A short, fat nose. Skin the color of coffee with too much creamer in it.

  “What?” he asked

  “Are you Mosaic Farvar?” I asked.

  He leaned against the doorframe, more amused than bothered. “Yeah. Who the fuck are you?”

  “My name's Joe,” I said, then pointed my thumb over my shoulder. “This is Paul. We wanna talk to you about a girl that went missing a few years ago.”

  He lifted his fingers to his mouth. They were covered in what looked like barbecue sauce and he sucked hard on the index finger, examined the now clean finger, then looked at me. “I don't know anything about no missing girl.”

  “We'd still like to talk to you.”

  He sucked on the pinky finger and laughed as he did it. “Man, I don't have to talk to no cops.”

  “I'm not a cop,” I said.

  He squinted harder at me. “You're something.” He lifted his chin in Lasko's direction. “So's he. You both stink like cops.”

  “Used to be,” I said. “I'm not anymore.”

  He nodded, like he was expecting that answer. “Can't wash the stink off of ya, even if you're telling the truth.”

  “You don't like cops?” I asked.

  “Made my life nothing but shit, dude,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Fuck 'em.”

  I felt Lasko just behind me, but I figured he wouldn't react. It wasn't anything either of us hadn't heard before.

  “A girl in San Diego,” I said. “Taken from a front yard in Coronado.”

  He examined his fingers again. “And why exactly are you knocking on my fucking door?”

  “Because your name was the only one that kept popping up when I asked about missing kids,” Lasko said from behind me. “And I'm betting if I make a few more calls, I can find out you're on probation and probably violating it in at least three different ways. So knock off the bullshit.”

  Farver stared at him for a moment, then grinned, shaking his head. He swept his hand dramatically into the house. “Right this way, gentlemen.”

  I stepped past him into a small living room that smelled like body odor and french fries. The wide screen TV on the wall was on mute, talking heads moving their mouths next to a football field. There were two large paper cups from McDonald's on the glass coffee table, one ringed with water, as if it had been sitting there awhile. CDs were scattered on the floor beneath the TV, along with video games to plug into the player beneath the TV. The remotes were strewn across the worn gray carpeting.

  Farver walked over and sat down on the black leather sofa. He didn't offer us a seat.

  “So talk,” he said. “Ask what you wanna ask.” He smiled at Lasko. “So I don't get in trouble and shit.”

  “Little less than a decade ago, a girl was taken from her home in Coronado,” I said. “You know where that is?”

  He shrugged and I took that as a yes.

  “From there, I'm not exactly sure what happened,” I continued. “Think she went to Arizona, where a woman then moved her to Minnesota.”

  He stared at me, a blank expression in his weird eyes, then shrugged again. “Sucks for her, I guess.”

  I looked at Lasko, standing across from me.

  He nodded.

  I took two steps forward, lifted my leg and jammed the bottom of my foot into Farver's chest. He flew back into the sofa, his mouth wide open, the air quickly exiting his lungs in a loud gasp.

  “It did suck for her,” I said, watching him. “So answer the fucking questions without your comments.”

  His hands clutched at his chest and his eyes were shut tight with pain.

  “She's been found,” I said. “She's back. But we're trying to figure out exactly what happened to her. And I wanna know what you know.”

  He opened one eye and rocked back and forth, waiting for his breath to return. He glanced at Lasko.

  Lasko smiled at him.

  Farver finally dropped his hands from his chest and took a deep breath. “I don't talk for free.”

  “We forgot our wallets,” Lasko said.

  Farver looked at him, then me. “Kick me again, then. I don't care, man. You want shit from me, it's gonna cost you.”

  “Do you know the girl we're talking about?” I asked.

  He studied me for a long moment. “Probably.”

  I looked at Lasko.

  He nodded again, his mouth set in a thin, tight line.

  I pulled my gun from my waistband, kicked the table out of the way and jammed the barrel against Farver's forehead. “Be more specific.”

  “You think that's really gonna scare me?” Farver asked. “Gimme a fucking break, bitch. You want information, you're gonna pay.”

  I pressed the barrel harder into his head.

  “You ain't gonna do shit,” Farver said. “One, your butt buddy over there is a cop and you're probably lying about not being one. So you ain't gonna shoot nobody. And, two. If you think I really know something about this kid and you drove out here to find me, then you must be smart enough to know that I can't talk with a fucking hole in my head.”

  He was exactly right. I wasn't prepared to shoot him. I'd brought the gun out just to apply pressure, which he was either used to or unafraid of. Either way, he'd nailed the situation perfectly. But I also wasn't going to pay him. For anything. There was a difference between paying someone you thought you could trust for information and paying someone you had no idea about. I had no idea about Farver, but I didn't think I'd trust him for a second.

  “Why are you so interested in this kid anyway?” Farver asked, still unaffected by the gun attached to his skull. “She yours? A friend's?” He pulled his hand up and examined his fingers again, like he was looking for more barbecue sauce. “Kids are a pain in the ass, you ask me.”

  “No one asked you,” Lasko said. His voice had an edge I hadn't heard before and I knew he was ready to kick Farver's teeth in.

  “What kind of name is Mosaic?” I asked. “Or is that just some bullshit name you gave yourself to sound important?”

  “My mama laid it on me,” he said, grinning. “Said it was because I was made of whole bunch of different good things. Or some shit like that.”

  “Your mama must've been blind,” I said.

  “Go fuck yourself, ex-cop,” Farver said. “And either shoot me or get the fuck out of here.”

  I pulled the gun away and dropped it to my side.

  “That's what I thought,” he said, nodding. “Couple of fucking pussies.”

  Lasko's shoulders twitched.

  “Next time I come back, it's gonna be different,” I said.

  “You ain't coming back,” Fa
rver said, shaking his head. “You too busy looking for ghosts.”

  “I'll be back,” I said.

  Farver cackled. “Now you sound like the Terminator. That's fucking funny.”

  I nodded at Lasko and we headed for the door.

  “Most kids, they don't come back, you know,” Farver said.

  I stopped and turned around. “I know.”

  Farver stood. “So you're pretty fucking lucky if this is someone you know. That that girl came back. 'Cause most of the time?” He shrugged, a small, ugly smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “They don't come back.”

  THIRTY TWO

  “Sorry, I didn't call,” Elizabeth said. “I was tired.”

  I was back home in Coronado. Lasko and I had driven back, mostly in silence, because there really wasn't much to say. Going to see Farvar had been a bust. I could've paid him, but I doubted he would've told me the truth. My gut told me he was involved somehow, but I didn't think he was going to admit anything. So Lasko dropped me off and I told him I'd call him the next day. I'd showered, more to wash the stench of Farvar's home off of me than for any other reason, and my phone was buzzing as I pulled my clothes on.

  “That's okay,” I said, stretching out on the bed, happy to hear her voice. “I know it's been pretty tiring.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It has.”

  “How was your day?” I asked. “What did you guys do?”

  “Was okay,” she answered. “Just kinda more of the same, I guess.”

  “What's more of the same?”

  “I packed up some more of my stuff. I think Mom made our plane reservations to come back, but I'm not sure when.”

  It was the first time she'd referred to Lauren as Mom and it stopped me for a second. I wondered what caused it to happen, but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it.

  “Okay,” I said. “I'll get the info from her.”

  “What did you do today?” Elizabeth asked. “Did you run?”

  Her question again stopped me. Because she was asking about me, what I did, like she had an interest in how I was spending my time.