“Nothing.” Hunt stood in the low basement at David Wilson’s house. John Yoakum slouched beside him. Two bulbs hung from rust-stained sockets screwed into bare floor joists; a black furnace sat cold and still in the far corner. Hunt scuffed one foot on the floor and a puff of mold and dust rose and then settled. The room smelled of earth and damp concrete.
“What did you expect?” Yoakum asked.
Hunt looked into the crawl space that ran under the living room at the back of the house. “A lucky break. For once.”
“No such thing as luck, good or bad.”
“Tell that to Tiffany.”
Fifteen hours had now passed since some unknown individual had jerked the girl into his car, and they were no closer to finding her. They’d been over every inch of the house and grounds with nothing to show for it. Hunt beat one palm on the bare wood of the basement stairs, and dust drifted down. “I have to check on my son,” Hunt said. “I forgot to tell him I’d be late.”
“Just call him.”
Hunt shook his head. “He won’t answer.”
“That bad?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What do you want me to do?” Yoakum asked.
Hunt gestured up the stairs. “Clean it up. Close it down. I’ll meet you at the station in half an hour.”
“And when we’re there?”
“We work the angles. We pray for some luck.” Hunt put a finger in Yoakum’s face. “And don’t you say it.”
Yoakum raised his hands. “What?”
“Not one damn word.”
Outside, Hunt found a crowd of neighbors gathered on the sidewalk. Two uniformed officers kept them at bay, but he had to push through to get to his car. He was almost there when a thin, angry-looking man asked: “Is this about Tiffany Shore?” He raised his voice. “No one will tell us anything.” Hunt moved past him, and the man pointed at Wilson ’s house, spoke even louder. “Is that man involved?”
Hunt almost stopped, then didn’t.
Nothing he could say would make it better.
In the car, he turned the air on high and eased away from the crowd. He needed to go home, check on his son, throw some water on his face, but he found himself skirting the edge of town, then looking down the long, fast drop to Katherine Merrimon’s house. Officer Taylor opened the door before he could knock. Her features were drawn, lips pressed tight. Hunt noticed that her hand rested on the holstered weapon. She relaxed when she saw who it was, then stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her.
Hunt nodded. “Any sign?”
“Of the kid? No. Of that asshole, Ken Holloway, yes.”
“Problem?”
“He showed up looking for Johnny. He was so pissed, he was red, kept going on about a ruined piano. A Steinman, Steinbeck.”
“Steinway.”
“Yeah, that’s it. The rock that went through the window hit the piano, too.” Taylor smiled. “I think maybe it’s expensive.”
Something tugged at Hunt’s mouth. “Maybe. Did he give you any trouble?”
“Oh, yeah. Starts screaming for the kid’s mother when I refuse to let him inside. I tell him to calm down, he starts telling me that he can get me fired.” Hunt sensed her anger. “I’ll tell you, if that boy had been here, I think he’d have been hurt.”
“How long ago?” Hunt glanced at the street.
“An hour, maybe. He said he’d be back with his lawyer.”
“Are you serious?”
She shrugged. “He wanted in the house and he wanted in bad.”
“If he comes back,” Hunt said, “and if he gives you any excuse, lock him up.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going to have him scaring off my witness or messing up my investigation.”
“And that’s the only reason?”
Hunt bit down, looked at the house behind him. He smelled rot from the soffits and low clapboards, saw tears in the screens, cracks in the windowpanes. He remembered the house that Katherine lived in when Alyssa was torn from her, saw her dark eyes and heart-wrenching faith that God would return her child to her. She often prayed by a south-facing window, the light so pure on her perfect skin that she’d looked like an angel herself. And Ken Holloway had been there all along, offering a smile, money, support. That lasted a month. Once she was ground to dust, he’d dropped on her like a vulture. Now, she was strung out. Hunt was pretty sure he knew who was doing the stringing.
“I hate the guy,” Hunt said, and his gaze went distant. “I hate him like I could kill him.”
Taylor glanced away. “No way did I just hear that.”
Hunt felt his shoulders rise, the blood in his face. “Forget it.”
Taylor stared at him. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re solid?”
“Yeah. Solid.”
“That’s good.” She nodded.
Hunt looked up the road and said, “You have to be kidding me.”
Ken Holloway’s white Escalade slowed on the street, then dropped a tire into the ditch as it turned into the drive. For a second, the car stalled; then the engine gunned and the tire clawed free. A raw gash gleamed black at the edge of the ditch. Clumps of mud and grass hung from the chassis on the right side. Through the window, Hunt could see Holloway’s face: jaw set, flushed. Next to him sat a resigned-looking man that Hunt remembered seeing around the courthouse once or twice, a lawyer of some skill. His face shone pale and damp. He levered the door open, then looked with distaste at everything outside the vehicle: the house, the mud, the cops. His exit from the vehicle was the most dainty that Hunt had ever witnessed.
Hunt stepped down into the yard and Officer Taylor moved down with him. Holloway wore a pink shirt tucked into new jeans, boots that cost more than Hunt’s service weapon. He was big, well over two hundred pounds. In his anger, he looked tall and threatening as he dragged his attorney through the mud. “Tell them.” He aimed a finger, copper bracelet dancing on his wrist. “Tell them how it works.”
The lawyer straightened his jacket. He had polished skin, perfect nails, and a voice to match. “I’m not even sure why I’m here,” the lawyer said. “I’ve already explained to you-”
Holloway cut him off. “You’re my attorney. You’re on retainer. Now, tell them.”
The lawyer looked from Holloway to the cops. He shot his cuffs as if he were in court. “Mr. Holloway is the owner of these premises. He wants access to his property.”
“Demands access,” Holloway interrupted. “It’s my house.”
Hunt kept his voice calm. “When I was here before, you said that you were a guest in the house.”
“Semantics. I own the property.”
“But Katherine Merrimon is the legal tenant.”
“Mr. Holloway charges her a dollar a month,” the lawyer said. “That hardly makes her a tenant.”
“Rent is rent,” Hunt said, and eyed the lawyer. “You know that.”
“Nevertheless, he has the right to inspect the premises.”
“At a reasonable time and with notice provided,” Officer Taylor corrected. “Not in the middle of the night. If he wishes to call Mrs. Merrimon, he’s welcome to do so.”
“She is not answering the phone,” the lawyer said.
Holloway stepped forward. “I want to see that child. He’s damaged a valuable piece of private property and needs to be held accountable for that. I just want to speak with him.”
“Is that right?” Hunt could hide neither the dislike nor the disgust.
“Of course. What else?”
“And if I told you that he’s not here?” Hunt asked, stepping forward until a bare six inches separated the two men. He knew that Holloway had a temper. Knew it. Now he wanted to see it.
Begged to see it.
Holloway’s eyes tightened, and Hunt recognized the first crack in the facade. The man didn’t like being crowded, didn’t like the challenge, so Hunt leaned even closer. He showed Holloway the contempt in his eyes, and saw him take the bait. At the last second, the lawyer realized, too, what was about to happen. He opened his mouth: “Mr. Holloway-”
“Do you have any idea who I am?” Holloway raised a finger and planted it square in Hunt’s chest. And that was all it took. In one smooth, economical movement, Hunt gripped Holloway’s wrist, spun the man in place and shoved his hand all the way to his shoulder blades. Holloway stepped forward to relieve the pressure, and Hunt kept the momentum going. He walked him to the Escalade and slammed him facedown across the hood.
“You just assaulted a police officer, Mr. Holloway. In front of witnesses.”
“That’s not assault.”
“Ask your lawyer.”
Holloway flattened one palm on the car and tried to push himself up. Hunt had to lean into him, and spoke again as he did. “And that’s resisting an officer.” The cuffs came out. He cinched the manacle around one thick wrist, clamping the steel as tight as he could, squeezing hard for that last click. Holloway cried out, and Hunt jerked the other hand behind his back. He put all of his weight on Holloway to keep him on the car, then ratcheted down the cuff. “Those are serious charges, Mr. Holloway. Your lawyer can explain them to you later.”
Hunt hauled Holloway upright. The arrogance had vanished, but the anger was alive in his face. “You can’t touch me,” he said.
Hunt caught the chain of the cuffs and manhandled Holloway to Officer Taylor’s car and opened the door. He put a hand on Holloway’s head. “Nothing personal,” he said, and stuffed him into the back. When he caught Taylor’s eyes, there was no smile or irony in his voice. “Officer Taylor, would you please drive Mr. Holloway to the station and process him?”
Taylor kept her face straight, but could not hide her feelings. “Yes, sir.
Hunt watched them go: the squad car with Holloway’s florid face pinned in the window, the big Cadillac with the girlish attorney behind the leather wheel. They rose on the hill and dropped from view, tomorrow’s problem. The anger drained away, the hot spark of satisfaction. He stood alone in the yard, thinking of Katherine, and then he turned. Inside the house, he pressed an ear against her door. He spread his fingers on the sandpaper wood and for one second pictured himself walking into her room. She would be small and pale, very still on the bed, but she would smile, and her hand would rise.
Hunt felt that moment roll out like a mile of warm sand, but that’s all that it was, a moment. An illusion. He was the cop who’d failed to bring her daughter home. He could no more change that fact than she could forget it. It would be unfair to even ask.
His hand fell away and he stepped to Johnny’s door. It stood open and a small lamp pressed a yellow circle on the neatly made bed. The room was so different from the rooms of other boys. So empty. Hunt saw no toys or games, no posters on the wall. An open book lay facedown on the bed. More stood on the dresser, a long row pressed between two bricks. There was a photograph of Johnny’s mother, three of Alyssa. Hunt lifted the nearest photo of the girl. Her smile was secretive and small. Dark hair dipped across her left eye, but the right one carried such a light; she looked as if she knew something special, as if she were waiting for someone to ask and might burst from the expectation of it. Her energy made Johnny seem stark and compressed, and Hunt wondered if he’d always been like that. Or had he merely changed?
Merely.
Hunt shook his head at the absurdity of the word. There was nothing mere about the boy Johnny had become. The evidence was everywhere: in his actions and his attitudes, in this bare-walled room and even in the books he kept. They were not a boy’s books. Johnny had books on history and ancient religions, vision quests, and the hunting rituals of the Plains Indians. There was one on druid lore that weighed three pounds. Two more on Cherokee religion. They were library books, stamped with square white placards on the spines. Hunt picked up the one that lay open on the bed and saw that Johnny had checked it out fourteen consecutive times. Never overdue. Not once. Hunt pictured Johnny on his bike, pedaling eight miles each way to present his card and sign where they told him.
He examined the title-An Illustrated History of Raven County-then looked at the page to which it had been opened. On the right side was a black-and-white lithograph of an older man in a perfectly creased suit. A whitish beard covered the front of his collar and his eyes were specks of flint. The caption beneath read: “John Pendleton Merrimon, Surgeon and Abolitionist. 1858.” Johnny’s ancestor, Hunt realized. He looked a bit like Johnny’s father, and nothing like the boy.
He flipped a few more pages, put the book back on the bed, and did not know that Johnny’s mother was in the hall until he turned. Her legs descended from a shirt that barely covered her, and she was loose on her feet, one hand pressed flat to the wall as her shoulders cut small ellipses in the air. Her eyes were undressed wounds, her voice shockingly calm. “Do me a favor, Johnny.” One palm turned to catch the yellow light. “Tell Alyssa I need to speak to her when she gets home.”
“Katherine…” Hunt stopped, uncertain.
“Don’t argue with me, Johnny. She should be home by now.”
She turned, slid one hand along the wall and closed her door behind her. Bedsprings crunched and silence rippled through the house.
Before Hunt left, he turned on lights and checked the doors. In the yard, he tried to focus. There was still Tiffany Shore and the ruin of her parents; a wax-faced giant who might or might not be gone by now. There was Ken Holloway, Hunt’s need to see his own son, and Johnny, out there somewhere doing God knows what. Hunt felt it all, a swirl, a massive weight, but he pushed it aside and stole one more moment. That’s all it would ever be, and so he took it selfishly. He stood beneath a blanket of ink, and he thought of Katherine Merrimon, of her bruised eyes and her emptiness.
Nothing else seemed to matter.