“Damn!” exclaimed Bogart, gazing around. “I guess I expected to see walls covered in index cards with strings attached, running to other cards, like a manual version of an air traffic control system.”
But there was nothing like that down here. In fact, there was nothing but what one would expect to see in a basement: junk.
“I was hoping for the same thing,” said Decker. He looked all around, taking everything in, and started nodding as though the answer had occurred to him.
“Ironically, I overlooked one obvious but significant point. Wyatt has hyperthymesia. She doesn’t need a wall of index cards. It’s all in her head, every detail. And we don’t know what Leopold is yet, except strange and a hell of an actor. He plays a clueless idiot better than anyone I’ve ever seen. But there’s something else about him that I can’t pinpoint.”
Bogart said, “You told us he was inexplicable.”
“He is inexplicable. Everyone has an agenda, whether altruistic or self-serving. So he has one too. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
Bogart said, “Should we call in the locals?”
Decker shook his head. “No.”
“Why not? They get ticked when we don’t at least inform them of what we’re doing.”
“Because it could be that the ‘locals’ are the reason behind this whole thing. So we’re going to process what little there is down here.”
He started poking around a plastic shelf with a few boxes of junk on them. Jamison started going through stuff in another corner. Lancaster and Bogart exchanged a glance and then did likewise.
* * *
Two hours later, Bogart said, “Okay, there is nothing here. Nothing!”
“No, there is,” said Jamison. She held up a newspaper clipping.
“Where’d you get that?” asked Lancaster.
“It was stuffed in a box and under that table over there with rags on top.”
“So what?” said Bogart. “It’s junk, just like everything else here.”
“No. When people save newspapers, they always save a stack of them. This was the only newspaper in this entire room. To a mind like Wyatt’s I bet it was a particle of disorder. Which made me wonder why it was here. There had to be a reason.”
Decker studied her curiously. “That’s a good deduction, Jamison.”
“Hey, I may not be a hyper-whatsis, but I have my moments. And I can smell newsprint from a mile away.”
“What does it say?” asked Lancaster.
She held up the front page of the newspaper and pointed to the large headline.
Lancaster read, “‘Giles Evers Gone Missing.’”
“Who the hell is Giles Evers?” said Bogart.
Jamison said, “He was a police officer. The news story also said he was the son of Mercy’s most prominent citizen, Clyde Evers. Former mayor, made a lot of money in mining, gave a lot of it to his hometown. Typical big fish in a small pond.”
“Why would Wyatt keep that clipping?” asked Bogart.
Decker answered. “Because Giles Evers raped her. And she made him disappear.”
“Whoa, that’s a helluva leap of logic, Amos,” said Lancaster.
“No it’s not. It would be the only reason this article would be here.”
“When was the article from?” asked Lancaster.
Jamison said, “Nineteen months ago. Right about the time the house was sold to the company we think Wyatt is behind.”
Bogart and Lancaster stared at Decker. “Okay, you’re saying she was attacked by a police officer?” said Bogart in a skeptical tone.
“By police officers,” said Decker. “It was a gang rape. And they did it because of her intersex condition, and Evers’s old man paid off the Wyatts to keep it hush-hush. He got his son in the clear and saved the police department a ton of embarrassment and the rolling of heads. I can’t imagine the Mercy Police Department is all that big. It might be that all the street cops were part of the rape. Hell of a hit for the men in blue to take. And the town. A town that maybe had no sympathy for someone like Belinda Wyatt.”
“But we can’t be sure of that,” said Lancaster. “You’re just speculating.”
“We can confirm it,” said Decker. “Let’s go talk to some folks who were around back then.”
Chapter
59
THE POLICE CHIEF from two decades ago had died six years before of a heart attack. There were two officers from that time who were still with the department. Neither of them knew anything about the Wyatt case, they had told Bogart when he and the others showed up at the single police station in town. The group was rapidly shown the door.
As they drove away Lancaster said, “They’re lying. I could see it in their faces.”
“Small town, small enough that everyone knows everyone else’s business,” said Decker. “I say we go to the top of the list.”
“You mean Giles Evers’s father?” said Jamison. “Clyde Evers?”
“If he’s still alive.”
Bogart was looking at his smartphone, on which he had been doing a search. “Apparently he is. And it looks like he still lives here.”
* * *
The address they drove to turned out to be a small house on the edge of town. As they pulled up they could see lights on in the front windows. A porch ran along the front of the plank-sided house. Smoke curled upward from a chimneystack. The snow had started to fall once more.
The house was run-down. The lawn was lumpy, the trees and bushes diseased and mangled, and the single car in the driveway was an ancient Ford truck.
Lancaster muttered, “The town’s patriarch, huh? Must’ve fallen on hard times.”
“There might be a good reason for that,” said Decker.
At their knock the front door opened and an old man, bloated and bent, stood there. His white beard reached to his chest, and his frayed pants were held up by knotted rope suspenders.
Bogart identified himself, flashed his badge, and said they needed to speak to him about his son. Evers nodded dumbly and led the four of them into a tiny room where a fire crackled in a soot-smeared stone-faced fireplace.
The inside of the house was dark and smelled both of mildew and mothballs and of whatever meal the man had microwaved that night.
Decker’s gaze shot everywhere before coming to rest on the old man, who fell back into a recliner, his shoeless feet off the floor. He scratched his cheek and looked at each of them in turn before his gaze returned to Decker.
“You don’t look like FBI.”
“That’s because I’m not.”
“Uh-huh,” Evers said absently, as his gaze settled onto the fire. “So you’re here to find my boy?” he said to the flames. “Didn’t think they’d get the Federals involved. But so be it. All I got left is that boy. Not much, but that’s it.”
“You sacrificed a lot for him, didn’t you?” said Decker. He looked around again. “Pretty much everything, right?”
Evers shot him a glance before looking back at the fire. “What the hell do you know about anything?”
“So you don’t know where he is?” said Decker.
Evers turned a fierce gaze on him. “What are you saying? That I took my own damn son? Are you simple or what?”
“I’m saying that Belinda Wyatt took him. But you already knew that.”
For a moment Evers looked like he might collapse to the floor. But then he regained his composure and even flung his flabby hand out dismissively. “Belinda Wyatt! Ghosts-of-the-past bullshit. What’s she got to do with anything?”
Decker said, “She has to do with everything. She took Giles. And if we do find him, it’ll just be his body, there can be no doubt of that. Something you also know, Mr. Evers. Your son is dead.”
Bogart, Jamison, and Lancaster all stared in alarm at Decker because of this provocative statement. But Decker never took his gaze off Evers.
The old man’s lips trembled and his breathing accelerated. He reached to a side table, picked up a cigarette
“You got his damn body?” he asked, blowing smoke out his nostrils. “Is that why you’re really here?”
“I doubt we’ll find it. Unless she wants us to.”
Evers exploded, “Then why don’t you go arrest that queer-ass bitch!”
Decker said, “That’s why we’re here. To get your help so we can do that.”
Evers sat up straighter. “Why my help? I don’t know anything. It’s been over twenty years.”
Decker continued. “And we came to you because your son and the other police officers who raped and nearly beat her to death apparently aren’t around anymore. But you are.”
Evers sat up straighter. “Nothing was ever proved. Hell, no case was ever even brought. My boy, not a mark on him. God’s honest truth.”
“Because you paid off the Wyatts and worked with the police chief back then to cover up the whole thing, including not filing a police report. They left her for dead. But she didn’t die. She identified each one of them. Mercy may be extraordinarily misnamed, but it’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody else. She knew who her assailants were. You’re a prominent citizen here. She would have known your son. She would know he was with the police. But she was only sixteen. She would have believed that the police would protect her even from other cops. She was probably always told that if you have a problem or feel threatened in any way, go to the police.” He paused. “Because they’ll help you.” He paused again, keeping his gaze steady on the old man. “Well, they didn’t help her. They raped her, nearly killed her, and then covered it up.”
“No proof.”
Bogart said, “We’ll trace the money that was paid to the Wyatts by you, Mr. Evers.”
“And we talked to the Wyatts,” Decker added, drawing a quick glance from Bogart and Jamison. “They told us what you did. So you can stop with the denials. We’re on a tight time frame. I’m actually surprised you’re still alive. I would have thought they would have taken you at the same time they took your son.”
The matter-of-fact tone employed by Decker seemed to deflate all the remaining fight in the old man. He jerked forward in the recliner so his feet touched the floor.
He pointed a stubby nicotine-stained finger at Decker. “Damned statute of limitations has run on all this.”
“It probably has,” conceded Decker. “So you can tell us everything without fear that you will go to prison for any of it, no matter how much you should go to prison for what you did. But murder has no statute of limitations, so we can still find and punish Wyatt. You can help us do that.”
Evers stubbed out his cigarette and seemed to gather his thoughts for a few moments. “I think what you got to understand is that the girl was weird, asking for it, yes sir.”
“Asking to be gang-raped and nearly beaten to death?” said Jamison, her mouth curved in disgust. “What woman would ask for that?”
“Well, not that, of course. But those boys got carried away is all. Boys being boys. Hell, you know.”
“No, I really don’t,” said Lancaster, with even more disgust in her voice than Jamison’s.
“And the ‘boys’ would include your son?” interjected Bogart.
Evers nodded curtly. “He was always in trouble. Got him to join the police force. Chief was a longtime buddy of mine. Owed me. Hell, the whole town owed me. Thought that would get him straight. Swear to God I did. Shows how wrong I was. Just gave him a gun and a chip on his shoulder and an attitude that what he wanted he just took.”
“How did his attention get drawn to Wyatt?” asked Bogart.
“Well, see, there was talk over at the school about her. Like I said, weird shit. Never acted normal. Hell, like I said, she was queer-like. Disgusting crap. My boy’s a red-blooded American man. He wasn’t gonna brook none of that vileness. It’s a sin.”
“Actually, it’s not,” said Lancaster. “But keep going.”
Evers lit another cigarette and puffed as he talked. “Well, he and some others decided to go teach her a lesson.”
“How’d they do that?” asked Decker.
Evers pointed a finger at Decker. “You don’t have it exactly right. It wasn’t a bunch of police officers. Just my boy. He was the only cop.”
“I don’t understand,” said Decker, looking taken aback. “Belinda was gang-raped.”
“She was. But my boy was the only one in uniform.”
“Who were the others?” asked Lancaster.
“Oh, just some punks from the high school football team and—”
Decker interrupted, “And the coach?”
Lancaster hurriedly added, “And the assistant principal?”
Evers looked amazed. “That’s right. How’d you know that?”
Lancaster looked at Decker. “Amos, that’s how she chose her targets at Mansfield. That’s how she chose the location.”
Decker said, “How many football players were involved?”
Evers shrugged. “I don’t know. Four, five.”
“Try six.”
“Hell, man, come on, how do you know that?” said Evers. “Even I can’t remember. And I was here.”
“Belinda Wyatt told us.”
“But you said—”
“Just keep going. Where did the rape take place?”
“In the cafeteria, my son told me. Don’t know why they picked that place. But that’s where he said it happened. Did her up on a table, I believe,” he added nonchalantly.
Bogart, Jamison, and Lancaster all exchanged glances.
“How did your son get a hold of Belinda?” asked Decker.
“He picked her up in his patrol car when he saw her walking on the street one night. Apparently she walked at night a lot. He’d seen her before. He told her he was going to look after her.”
“What did he mean by that?” asked Bogart sharply.
“Like I said, she was a freak, and folks here made a point of telling her so to her face. No, they were none too kind. Me, I say the Lord makes ’em in lots of different ways. What will be will be. But not some others ’round here. So her life was pretty bad in Mercy. Giles knew that. So he used that to sort of lure her in.”
“Why would he even care about her?” asked Decker.
“Hey, he played football at the high school. Went there with the coach, Howard Clarke, and Conner Wise, the assistant principal, when they were all younger, o’course.” He lowered his voice, “And word at the school was that Wyatt was part man, part woman. Girls in gym class said she had balls. My God, can you believe that? I bet the Wyatts were into drugs and such. Maybe they were hippies. Get that in your body and have a kid, shit like that happens. A girl with balls.”
“That is absolutely ridiculous,” blurted out Bogart.
“So you say, don’t make it true,” countered Evers. “Anyway, some fellers on the football team, they dated some of these girls. So they got wind of it. They told Howard and my son and Conner. They all got together and figured they’d teach her a little lesson.”
“By nearly killing her?” snapped Lancaster.
Evers got a thoughtful look on his face. “You know what? I think they were maybe trying to help her. You know, let the girl feel what it was like to have a man doing things to her. Get her back to normal. Make her see she was really a gal and all. And how good it was to be with a man.”
Bogart said, “Don’t try to spin this into something positive. Mr. Evers. The statute of limitations might have run out on the rape and assault, but if you try to obstruct justice, I’ll have your ass in a prison cell faster than you can take another puff on that cigarette.”
Evers stared at him for a moment and then hurried on with his story. “Well, I guess things got outta hand. She fought back real hard. So they had to, well, beat her up some. I guess one of ’em -->