by Kit Frazier
“Sheriff Hollis had some suppositions we should probably check out,” I said, flipping the pages of my notepad, and checked my list. “Gangland payback: connection Puck’s murder on the courthouse steps or jealous suitors…”
At that, Ethan bristled.
“Or,” I went on, “and less likely, a random twist of fate from some homicidal jerk she’d met at Boners.”
I tapped the pen to my lips. “I wonder if she had life insurance or a will…” I scribbled on my list.
“Or that she’d run away on her own,” Mia said.
Marlowe sat at my feet and laid his head on my lap, ears twitching as we spoke.
“All right, smart guy,” I said to Marlowe. “Everyone says you’re the expert on this rescue stuff. Where do we start?”
Marlowe listened, the tip of his tongue sticking out. It was cute, but not very helpful.
“Hollis said he’d called Faith’s mother. He said there was no activity on credit cards, bank account, or cell phone. I found the stepbrother he was doing dangle patrol down at the strip club.”
“That is muy repugnante!” Mia’s face twisted with disgust. “Her stepbrother was at the place where she dances? That’s disgusting.”
I thought Ethan’s head was going to explode.
“Yeah, I thought it was weird and icky, too,” I said.
“So what’s next?” Mia said.
“When you get the flyers made, I’ll take some of the flyers with me to the search site this morning.” Tapping my lips with my pen, I said, “Where would I go if I were in trouble?”
“Me,” Mia said.
I smiled. “Suppose you weren’t available. And suppose for some reason I couldn’t go to Mama’s or Brynn’s.”
“Work?” Mia said, and I frowned.
“I spent an overlarge portion of the evening at Boners. She hasn’t been there.”
“Right,” Mia said, still annoyed I hadn’t called her for that little field trip.
“Ethan, could you double-check her bank and credit card stuff?”
“I could find pictures of Barbara Walters naked if you wanted,” he said.
“Well, let’s not go crazy.”
Mia and Ethan set about their tasks, and I said, “There’s new Pop-Tarts if you’re hungry,” and then headed to the back of the house where I washed my hair, shook it dry, then got dressed. I made two ham sandwiches, which I stowed in my SAR bag, grabbed a Pop-Tart and whistled for Marlowe.
“I really appreciate this. You two going to be okay? Y’all are taking a huge weight off my shoulders.”
Ethan looked at me like I’d asked him if he planned to breathe today. I handed him the box of Pop-Tarts.
Mia laid her small hand on his arm. “We got it under control. And hey, querida, what are friends for?”
I nodded, feeling the warm rush of friendship wrap around my heart.
“Come on, boy,” I said to Marlowe, breaking a Pop-Tart in half and giving the bigger half to the dog. “Let’s go find Faith.”
*
The search scene was a disaster. News crews were out bright and early, beaming a satellite beacon for every lunatic in the tri-county area. Four private dicks showed up soliciting business, about twenty public dicks showed up from Boners, and a psychic arrived to announce that she’d had a vision that Faith had traveled to the Himalayas to teach hip rolls to Tibetan monks.
A missing girl is always big news. The stripper with a family with big bank account was nearly irresistible.
And speaking of hip rolls, the girls from Boners were out bright and early, too. Dressed in jeans and tee shirts, not looking like strippers at all, they came to help search for their friend. Olivia had the base in full-out operating mode, checking in volunteers and issuing them IDs hooked on lanyards to wear around their necks.
I had expected the trailer to look like a rectangular-shaped skeleton; instead, it looked like half of it had been blown to smithereens. The fire was still sending off the acrid smell of burned aluminum and formaldehyde, but for the most part, Faith’s home was a big, black, wet mass of twisted metal.
There were no bird sounds, no late-summer insects chirring in the small, stale breeze. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear a heifer bawling for her calf.
Up the rutted, red road, I saw a familiar white Lincoln bumping along, bringing behind it a legion of boat-sized Caddies, Mercedes, Lexus, and several types of SUVs.
“Mama,” I said, and grinned as the Colonel pulled up and offloaded my mother and Clairee and went to go park.
Behind him, the entire leadership committee from the Charity League drove around and around, looking for parking spaces.
Warmth spread from my scalp to my toes.
Mama had a Jell-O mold. “We brought reinforcements,” she said, handing me the dessert. “Where do we start?”
I looked at all the luncheon ladies jockeying for good parking and my cheeks hurt from smiling. Faith had told me she didn’t have any friends had no one to call when she was in trouble. And here they were, this unlikely lot. Neighbors, a cadre of strippers, and my mother and the Charity League.
“Every life touches someone,” I said, and Mama frowned.
“Is the sun gettin’ to you, darlin’?” She pressed her manicured fingers to my forehead.
“No,” I said. “But I do feel warm. I love you, Mama.”
“Of course you do, dear. Now go get that Jell-O mold out of the sun.”
Across the field behind the burned-out trailer, Hollis was posing his considerable ass off for Miranda when a Porsche rolled up and Tres climbed out.
He slipped off his sunglasses and squinted in the rising sun. His hair was mussed, his eyes bleary, and sheet marks dented his face. He watched as the foot searchers linked arms, preparing to do a grid search. I wasn’t sure if his demeanor was from grief or from a monster Boners hangover. Or both.
He wore expensive khaki pants, a blue button-down shirt, and a pair of brown loafers that probably cost the gross national profit of Bulgaria.
He rushed over, squinting in the Saturday morning sunlight with a big dose of Friday night regret.
“Is she all right? Did you find her?” he sputtered, staring around at the commotion.
“They’re sending out a new team now,” I said.
“She shoulda been home by now. She’s got studio time tomorrow.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“You hear from her?” I said, and Tres shook his head. I nodded. “When was the last time you saw her?”
Tres wracked his brain. “Right after the courthouse. I offered to let her stay with me but she didn’t want to leave the hospital.”
Well, that was news.
“So what happens now?” he said, watching as Olivia paired some new volunteers with some Six regulars.
“This is Junior Hollis’s operation, so a lot of it’s up to him. He’s practiced with Team Six so they’re here, but it’s his show.”
The show was getting more characters by the moment.
A white bus pulled up, offloading what looked like twenty Catholic school girls, bearing cookies and casseroles.
Tres hesitated, then squinted up at the sky, his skin tinged with a slight pallor of green, Adam’s apple bobbing. “What are the odds, you know, that you’ll find her?”
The real question was, alive or dead? I decided not to voice it. I shook my head. “Each passing hour, odds go down.”
He fidgeted, trying to take in the search site, trying to process the information. He shook his head. “I just didn’t think…I didn’t know…
I didn’t say anything.
Tres stood staring down at Marlowe, who was staring right back. “Money,” he said. “You think it would help to offer a reward?”
I shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt. Talk to Hollis, and then you can probably make a public plea on television.”
“How do I do that?” he said, and I pointed toward Miranda.
We needn’t have worried. Across the field, Mi
randa had apparently honed in on the hum of Tres’s Porsche, and her augmented breasts aimed toward it like a pair of smart bombs on a GPS-marked target.
Tres was about to get Mirandized.
Miranda picked her way through the cow patties, careful not to soil her Ferragamos, her camera and sound guy in tow. This morning she was doing a gray suit probably said “serious news” on the label. One of these days, I was going to have to get one of those. She pressed her fingers to her right ear, listening to her producer in her earbud.
“Well hello, Cauley,” she purred on approach. “What have we here?”
I scowled. “The stuff that dreams are made of.”
She aimed her million-watt smile at Tres, who lost some of his pallor. “Miranda, this is Tres Ainsworth Faith’s stepbrother. He’s offering a reward.”
As usual, Miranda was going to get her scoop, and I had just handed it to her on a silver platter.
Miranda tossed her big blond hair and put on her serious face. She cleared the satellite link and the red camera light clicked on. She addressed her viewers. “We’re talking to Tres Ainsworth, the missing girl’s brother, who has offered a reward for information leading to his sister.”
Tres didn’t correct the mistake in lineage.
The camera turned to Tres, and he cleared his throat. “We just want her back. We’re all extremely worried about Faith. This disappearance it’s not like her. If anyone has information that will help us find her, I’m prepared to offer a $250,000 reward. Our brother was murdered ,” he choked up, coughed twice, and cleared his throat, “Thursday morning on his way to testify against Selena Obregon and an organization called El Patron. If you have information leading to the arrest and conviction of members of that organization, there’ll be a $10,000 reward per person convicted.”
I stood there with my mouth open, hoping I wasn’t on camera. What the hell? I turned to Olivia and said, “Did he just put a contract out on El Patron?”
“Sounds like it.” Olivia shook her head, her lips pressed together. “Like we don’t have enough nuts to deal with,” she said, looking pointedly at the psychic, who was holding court with Alex “Live-at-Five” Salazar.
Near the periphery of the milling crowd, a rangy man in worn blue jeans wandered the fence line like he was lost.
“Josh?” I said, and he turned to look at me. His eyes were hollow and bloodshot. His tanned face pale. His breath smelled like undiluted lighter fluid and was probably just as flammable.
“She’s not here,” he said. “I tried to tell them but they won’t listen.”
“Who won’t listen?” I said.
“Cops. But she’s not here.”
“How do you know that, Josh?” I said, cringing away from his breath.
“Keates.”
The air around me stilled, and I followed his gaze to the burned-out trailer.
“The bird?” I said, and he nodded.
“I asked the firemen. They never found the cage.”
“Are you sure it didn’t just burn up?”
“Did you see that cage? It was wrought iron.” He blinked like there were more tears but no more moisture.
Suddenly, I was afraid for him.
“Have you had any sleep at all?” I said, and he shook his head. “Josh, is there somewhere you can go? Can I take you somewhere?”
He shook his head. “I just want to find her.”
I nodded, looking around as the crowd grew. All the usual suspects with one notable exception—Faith’s mother.
Kimmie Ray Puckett Ainsworth, the Kitty Litter Queen, was nowhere in sight. I had called her yesterday when Faith didn’t answer my call, but Mommy Dearest said she hadn’t seen or heard from her.
I thought about my own mother. When I don’t check in once a day, she’s circling the block and calling in reinforcements. Faith told me Puck was her only family.
I had felt bad for Faith before. I felt worse for her now.
My cell beeped, and my heart quickened, hoping it was good news. It was Tanner.
“Where in the hell are you?” he yelled, and I rolled my eyes.
“Here at Blackland Ranch, the Puckett family homestead. They’re getting the search teams out.”
“You’re not doing the search thing?” he said, and I wanted to pound the phone on something.
“No,” I said. “I’m still in training. I’m managing media.”
“Media?” he said. “You remember who you work for.”
I stared at the phone. “I can’t believe you said that!”
He was quiet. “You think they’re going to find the girl?”
“Team Six is the best in the region,” I said, and he grunted.
“That was a good web log you got in last night,” he said. “Get Mia out there and get pictures this morning. You see the paper today?”
“I’ve been kind of busy.”
“Yeah, well, you’re lead. Front of Metro, above the fold.”
“You know that’s not why I’m doing this, right?” I said. “I want City Desk because I earned it, not because I was in the right place at the right time.”
“Yeah, but it’s a nice byproduct.”
“I gotta get back I’ve got a lot to do today.”
“Keep me posted,” he said. “And Cauley?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
I shook my head, gazing out on the coming chaos. “I’ll be as careful as I can.”
As the new teams gathered and proceeded into the charred field behind the house, Marlowe’s fur bristled from nose to tail. He shifted from paw to paw, eager to join the hunt. “Settle down, Asta, we’ll find her.”
Marlowe fidgeted, suspects were running rampant, Faith’s brother was dead, the Dawes County Sheriff “s Department was running a sideshow, Faith’s stepbrother was holding an impromptu press conference, and her own mother was a no-show.
I fished a business card out of my bag and gave it to Josh. “If you think of anything or if you need help, will you call me?”
He took the card and looked down at it like he wasn’t sure what it was.
I sighed and headed back to base.
“This is why God invented antacid,” I told Marlowe, handing fresh photos to Olivia, who looked like she wanted to introduce Junior Hollis’s head to the inside of his lower intestines.
Marlowe stared at me with his dark almond eyes, then looked over the horizon.
“You’re right,” I told the dog. “The hunt isn’t here.”
Since we weren’t actually on the search team, Marlowe and I hopped into the Jeep and headed out for other hunting grounds. We right-turned, making the slow, winding climb up Westshore Drive toward Westlake, where elaborate foliage softened the gargantuan limestone walls and all was right with the world. Westlake is an enclave that used to be west of Austin, but the city sprawled westward and surrounded it with similar high-dollar homes in a lower tax bracket.
A stranger driving through the western edge of town wouldn’t notice the change in the city limits, but the zip code is the golden key to an award-winning school district, a low crime rate, and a better seat at the Charity League.
Along the neatly trimmed curbs, the buzz of Weedwackers and the hum of leaf blowers vibrated in the Saturday morning silence. Yardmen dutifully tended the bright green lawns rioting with brilliant pink hibiscus and fluffy white hydrangeas like there was no drought at all.
I’d thought about calling Information and giving Kimmie a ring, but based on what Faith had said about her relationship with her mother, I thought it best to just show up. I stared up at the Tuscan-style house that rose from the limestone cliff, looking down its wide porticos over downtown Austin. The whole affair was surrounded by a wrought-iron and limestone fence, with security cameras positioned on each pillar. An all-weather keypad was posted in front of an imposing gate.
“Well, Marlowe, some reporter I’m going to be. I had not anticipated a gate.”
The dog didn’t say anything.
Down the street, a small, battered white Toyota pickup pulled up to the gate. It was loaded with Weedwackers and men who looked as excited about trimming the lawn as the Colonel looks when he goes shoe shopping with Mama.
I waved at the driver. Like many immigrants, he didn’t make eye contact.
I stared through the fence at the Ainsworth’s lawn, which was not freshly mown and watered. “Well,” I told Marlowe, “I suppose if we sit here long enough, we might stumble upon the Ainsworth gardener?”
Marlowe looked at me expectantly, probably thinking about the ham sandwiches I’d packed.
“Right. If we’re going to sit here, we should have some sustenance.” I revved the engine and headed back into Westlake for some iced tea.
Luckily, Marlowe is trained to search, and we quickly found a Starbucks within snooping distance.
Armed with a venti iced tea, a slice of sugar-free banana nut loaf, and a bowl of water, we returned to our designated spy spot. I know that sugar-free does not mean it’s any healthier, but delusions are easier to keep when they’re chock-full of carbohydrates.
Marlowe and I sat, sharing the banana nut loaf and watching the house. When we tired of that, we watched the grass grow. Then we watched me search my face in the rearview mirror to check for new lines or wrinkles. My birthday was looming on the horizon, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t looming on my face.
I was about to call my mother and ask her if she’d noticed a tiny line near my left eye when a small, blue Nissan pickup with a wide-faced, dark-skinned man with a thin mustache turned into the driveway.
I flipped my phone shut and climbed out of the Jeep, smiling winsomely.
“Hello,” I said, bright and sunny as a kitchen garden after a spring rain. I motioned to him to roll down his window.
He sat behind the wheel, staring at me.
“I work here this is my first day,” I shouted through the window. “I totally forgot the keycode.”
I smiled some more and stopped just short of batting my eyelashes. He looked back at the Jeep, then cranked the window. It took some effort, considering his elbow kept hitting his considerable stomach.
When the window was half down, he said, “What’s with the dog?” His voice had a strong Spanish accent, and I smiled brighter.
