Dead Connection

by Charlie Price

  Robert was also familiar with that. His mom tolerated him, but she really didn’t want him staying anywhere near her home in Corning. She was embarrassed by him.

  “Which movie you want to see?” Bruce asked, thumbing through the paper’s sections.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to go to one at all. I was just … I just wanted to look at what’s on.”

  Bruce handed the Current Events section to Robert. “They’re in there.”

  Robert opened the pages and saw the boxed listings. None of it meant anything to him. Screw it! He handed the paper back and started to walk away.

  “How about Speed Demon?” Bruce asked him.

  Robert wheeled. “What?” Was this guy making fun of him?

  “Speed Demon.” Bruce was smiling. “It’s about some guys who fix up these really great cars. Hondas, Caddies, Maximas. They make them super fast and race them and pull robberies, and there’s supposed to be some really great chase scenes.”

  Oh.

  Robert shrugged to get his muscles to relax. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe. I got to go.” He turned again to head up the stairs to his room.

  “What’s your name?” Bruce called after him.

  Robert stopped and looked back. Bruce was still smiling. Like a nice guy.

  “Robert,” he said. And then he was up the stairs.

  HANDCUFFS AND PICKLES

  When Murray got home after his heart-to-heart with Pearl, the door was locked and nobody answered. He climbed over the short wall by the garage and went around back. As usual, the back door to the garage was open. The lock plate had been busted for the past couple of years, since one of his mom’s boyfriends got enraged when she wouldn’t let him in because she was entertaining another man. The guy, Murray had no idea what his name was, jumped the side fence and kicked in the back door. He barged inside and got in a fist-fight, first with the new visitor, and then with Murray’s mom when she started biting.

  The whole thing freaked Murray, who had been reading in his bedroom. He was afraid to call 911, afraid all three would turn on him. Luckily, a neighbor called and both men were escorted out in handcuffs. That was just before the County woman came for a visit. She was with a sheriff, and she called herself a child protection worker. Murray had been afraid they were going to remove him from his home. Sure, his mom had some problems, but so did everybody, and Murray didn’t want to live with anyone new. What if they didn’t even like him? Just took him in for the money.

  Murray was relieved to have the place to himself for a while. He put his pack in his room and went to the fridge. The top shelf held an open carton of orange juice. Smelled kind of sour. He put it back. He didn’t pick up the bottles of diet cola—they never tasted right to him. Nor did he bother with the flavored coffee creamers his mother liked so much. On the shelves below sat jar after jar of pickles and olives and maraschino cherries. The bins were empty except for a wilted head of iceberg lettuce and an unopened bag of carrots. He tore the bag, shook out several carrots, and headed to his room for dinner.

  The next morning, his mom’s bedroom door was still closed, so he didn’t know whether she had made it home. He didn’t try to find out. When he was showered and dressed, he took the carrot bag, rolled it closed, and put it in his backpack for lunch. He left the house and headed off for another day at school.

  SLEEPING IN PEE

  Billup woke up in his car. Lying in the front seat. The windows were steamed, and the salty, tangy smell of urine was everywhere. He sat up. He was wet. He was in his driveway. He looked around to see if any neighbors were out in their yards. When he didn’t see anyone, he pulled his keys out of the ignition, opened the car door, and hustled for his front porch.

  Inside, he closed the door quickly and leaned against it, breathing heavily. What the hell is the matter with me?

  Yesterday came back to him. The suspension. After that, he’d driven around by himself for a while and then gone to Shasta Lake to Delia’s for a pick-me-up. After that … he couldn’t recall. He knew he had to cut this shit out. He went to his bedroom, shed his clothes, and took a shower.

  God, his head hurt. A beer would help. He checked the refrigerator. There were some sodas, but no beer. He decided he’d better mostly stay home until he got a tighter handle on his drinking. Stay away from the hard stuff. Just have a little beer today to get on an even keel, and then limit his drinking to beer and wine, at least till this suspension was over. He’d like to get back at that Brenda bitch. He would, too. But that would have to wait. Meanwhile, the next order of business was to lay in some beer and pick up a burger for lunch.

  When he was dressed, he went out to his car and rolled down all the windows so it would air out. He took his pickup to the Liquor Barn. Once he was inside, looking at the rows of wooden wine cases, the aisles of high-proof spirits, the standing refrigerators stacked with beer, he realized this would be an ideal time to stock up. Especially since he was on a two-week vacation.

  STAKEOUT

  Gates parked in the front of the small teacher’s lot by the metal and wood shops, where he could watch the entire street that ran through the middle of campus. He was right across the street from the gym. He had brought his own car so he wouldn’t be so obvious. People would probably think he was a parent waiting for his kid to finish an activity.

  The afternoon sky was mostly gray with fish-scale clouds that usually ushered in colder weather. A few gold leaves were left on the sycamores, the oaks were getting bare, but the juniper and spruce on both sides of the gym were deep green and motionless.

  Gates loved this country. Not the heat! Not the heat, but the peaks, the foliage, the lakes, the icy black Sacramento River, which ran the length of the town. He scanned the tallest trees for nests and the utility poles for hawks that would perch and wait for a meal to emerge. Last weekend, he saw that an eagle had built a nest in a big orange industrial crane that was sitting in a field out by the freeway south of town. An eagle in a crane. Birds of a feather!

  At 5:47, he saw the school bus driver, Nostrum, drive by, heading in the direction of his home. Gates jotted it down with an asterisk. Tomorrow he’d call the man’s supervisor and check what time Nostrum had put on his time card. If the school was right about him padding his hours, maybe he left work earlier on the day Nikki disappeared and had time to set something up. Gates wondered about Nostrum. Was he dissatisfied, pent up? Had he seen an opportunity, been rebuffed, and hurt the Parker girl to keep her from talking? Gates didn’t think Nikki would have gotten into the car with him, but he wasn’t going to rule anything out.

  Gates stayed, listening to the radio and watching the road, until 7:00. He had made a note on a three-by-five card of every car license-plate number and every pedestrian passerby during that time. There hadn’t been many, and nothing seemed in any way remarkable or unusual.

  * * *

  By Wednesday, Gates was reluctant to have the radio on. He was feeling tired, and he was concerned that he might space out listening and possibly miss something. After an hour or so, there had been nothing to miss, except some jays that screeched constantly while they patrolled the small stand of spruce to the left of the gym. They screeched and flapped and generally intimidated every robin and thrush that came to those branches to rest for a minute.

  He logged the bus driver again, driving by after work a little before 6:00. The supervisor had told Gates that Nostrum had padded his time card by ten minutes yesterday, but it was too small an infraction to write up. Gates asked the supe not to mention his tracking. He wanted Nostrum unalarmed, doing business as usual. As Gates watched him drive by, he felt his hope and his interest in the man slide away. The guy was a lump. Gates didn’t think Nostrum had the energy to do anything bigger than cheat on his time card, or had the acting ability to fool the investigating officers.

  Shortly after, Gates noticed a boy walking up the hill toward the gym. Skinny kid. Looked a little too old for high school. Black ski jacket, dark jeans, moto
rcycle boots. The kid didn’t seem to see Gates. He walked on past the gym and over the crest of the hill, and down toward Eighth. Gates made a mental bet with himself that the young man had lost his license to a DWI, was attending the county alcohol and drug program nearby on Pioneer Street, and was now walking home.

  During the rest of the hour, Gates saw some cars he had logged yesterday—parents picking up their kids, nothing out of the ordinary. He began to have doubts that his surveillance of the kidnap area would pay off. Still, he was going to give it another two days.

  * * *

  By Thursday, Gates was using his whole bag of tools to stay alert. The log helped. He set his wristwatch timer to go off every two to three minutes to remind him to keep sharp. He now recognized the parent and staff automobiles and when to expect them. The chattering of the jays had fallen below his attention threshold. He was having trouble forcing himself to stay there. You’d have done this for your son, you can do this for Nikki, he was telling himself, like a mantra, when his peripheral vision picked up movement down the hill toward the right. He turned his head. That young man again.

  Gates thought he had come from the east side of Pioneer Street, not the west end, where the drug program was located. The kid was passing in front of the gym and, by God, if it wasn’t a little after 6:00 again. Gates didn’t believe in that kind of coincidence. He got out of his car.

  “Excuse me.”

  The kid had been watching Gates approach.

  “Get away from me!” he told Gates, breathing fast, nostrils flaring. He seemed to be fighting the urge to run.

  Gates had his sheriff picture I.D. and badge in his left hand and he held that out for the young man’s inspection.

  “I’m not bothering anybody! I’m taking my medication!” The kid was actually yelling.

  Gates recognized him now. He had seen him at County Mental Health on one of the days when it was his turn to be the sergeant at arms for the competency court. Gates took a step back and held out both hands to show the young man that he had no weapon.

  “Easy. Easy … I am not going to hurt you in any way. I’m not going to touch you or bother you, but I do have to ask you a question.”

  Mr. Robert Barry Compton got a cynical look that said he had heard that before and he knew that government people would say anything they needed to.

  “No way! No way. I’m just walking. I’m not doing a thing and you can’t bother me.”

  The young man was having a very fearful reaction to being approached. Gates imagined that in the past, officers may have mistaken this kid’s mental symptoms for resistence, may have rousted him pretty hard, may have lied to him so they could subdue him.

  Gates took another step back and put his badge holder in his pocket. He put both hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  “Please listen,” he said, speaking a little more slowly, hoping to relieve some of the young man’s anxiety. “I need your help. I sincerely need your help. That’s all.”

  The young man was still breathing hard, but he no longer seemed ready to flee.

  Gates thought about the best way to phrase his request. He did not want to upset this fragile truce.

  “My name is Deputy Roman Gates. We’ve met before, down at the County. I am trying to find a person who’s been missing for about six weeks, and I am asking everyone I can think of to help me find her.”

  “Her?”

  “Yes. Her name is Nikki Parker, and she is a cheerleader here at this school.”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “No. I didn’t think you did. But you still might be able to help.”

  “How?”

  “I think maybe she got into a car right about where we’re standing.”

  Gates was acutely aware that he might, at this moment, be talking to the perpetrator. His senses were on full dial. Maybe the young man had something to hide.

  Gates knew lawmen could treat people pretty rough if they happened to mistake mental symptoms for resistance or even drug use. He made an effort to relax himself and communicate a sense of safety.

  The young man repeated, “I didn’t do anything.”

  Gates reassured him. “I know you didn’t. I just need your help. Just for a minute. You’d be willing to help a missing person, wouldn’t you? Help a person so they wouldn’t get hurt?”

  The young man remained very wary, but his breathing was slowing by degrees.

  “Just take a second and help me figure something out. Just a second.”

  The kid waited.

  “Do you take this walk every day?” Gates asked.

  “No.”

  “How often?”

  “Whenever I don’t work. I got to go.”

  “Please, just a second to try and help this girl.”

  The young man held his position.

  “So, you come by here, how often? Every couple of days or so?”

  A barely perceptible nod.

  “For the past few weeks?”

  Again a nod.

  “Okay. This is the really important part. About a month ago, did you maybe see a school cheerleader in a white-and-blue uniform come out those gym doors and get in a car? Or walk a little bit and then get in a car that pulled up in the street? Or maybe get pushed into a van? Did you ever see anything like that a month or so ago? It’s really, really important.”

  The young man seemed to drift off when Gates mentioned a car. His face showed strain. He looked like he was making an effort to think, trying to remember something.

  “A car. A cheerleader and a car. A car…” The young man didn’t appear to be aware he was speaking. Gates watched the fellow struggle, but in the end, he looked defeated. Gates felt sad for the kid and disappointed for himself. Still, Gates knew from past experience that he could be fooled.

  “I don’t know,” the young man said.

  “You don’t remember?” Gates attempted to clarify.

  Gates could see that this question triggered annoyance in the young man. He had expected fear. Gates couldn’t read this person. At one level, he seemed too socially awkward to approach anyone on his own, unless he had to. On another level, he seemed unpredictable and quick to anger.

  “Look,” Gates said, in what he hoped was his most engaging voice, “I know that today you’re just kicking back and getting a little exercise. I don’t want to bother you any further right now. Why don’t you think about what I’ve asked you, and I’ll look you up tomorrow and see if anything came to mind.”

  “I work tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “TacoBurger, but you can’t come there.” The man grimaced.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t want to interfere with your work in any way.” Gates quickly took out his pen and a note card and asked, “Tell me your name and where you live, and I’ll come by and visit sometime tomorrow after you’re done working. Buy you a donut or a cup of coffee or some cigarettes and see what you’ve remembered.”

  The man was looking past Gates, as if seeking an escape route. “No! No. You can’t do that.”

  Roman was very calm and reassuring. “I have to. I have to help this girl. You don’t want anything to happen to her, do you?”

  Gates got the name: Robert Barry Compton. Gates got the hotel: the Sadler House. The young man appeared to grow more agitated with each question. When Gates told him that was all, Compton sighed audibly and part of the frown left his face.

  “Is there anything else you want to add before you go?” Gates asked him, putting his pen back in his shirt pocket.

  Robert hesitated, then said, “Mister.”

  “Mister?” Gates was confused.

  “Mister Robert Barry Compton,” Robert said.

  “Oh. Oh, yeah, sure. Well, okay, Mr. Compton, see you tomorrow.”

  Robert walked on past him without further acknowledgment.

  Gates was energized as he pulled away from the parking lot. He tailed Compton from a distance while he used his cell phone to call the dispatche
r and ask for juvenile sheets and arrest records on a Compton, Robert Barry.

  She called back shortly. Twenty-two-year-old Caucasian male. Born: Red Bluff. Juvenile had two arrests for drunk and disorderly and one for selling crank to fellow students at Corning High. Disorderly charges dismissed for time served. No fines. Compton pleaded guilty to selling and was assigned six months’ community service. Judge tagged the record with a stipulation stating next offense was to be prosecuted as an adult. As an adult, one “resisting” in Chico last year, dropped to misdemeanor “disturbing,” and then dropped altogether when Compton was remanded to the local psychiatric hospital.

  That fit with Gates’s final impression of Compton as walking wounded, not dangerous unless pushed into a confrontation. Still, Gates followed him to the hotel and checked by phone to make sure Compton was registered under his own name. He was going to keep close tabs on Mr. Compton. Gates thought Compton had become some sort of victim himself. But Gates believed that, if he could establish a little bit of a relationship, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he would learn something. Had Mr. Robert Barry Compton been returning to the scene of his crime?

  CONFIDENTIALITY

  The following morning, Gates’s first assignment was to measure and photograph the latest vandalism at the county’s new softball stadium: “jay loves doris” spray-painted three times around the ticket booth. Jay had been pretty busy, six prior incidents of the same message in the past two weeks. Later in the day, Gates would triangulate the incidents and see whether he could establish the probable neighborhood of Jay’s residence. Plus, how many couples of Jay and Doris could there be in a town of ninety thousand? He’d nail this jerkoff before Christmas.

  Afterward, he parked the patrol car in the front lot at Mental Health. At the reception desk, he asked when he might speak briefly with Peggy Duheen. The staff person recognized him by his face and uniform and said she would call Peggy.