The Children's Cop

by Sherry Lewis

  “Talk to anyone who’ll listen, but don’t expect much. The drivers are all over the country all the time, so there’s no guarantee that any of them have been here before.”

  Jackson nodded and turned away, and the somber expression on his face made a profound sadness open up inside her. Please, she begged silently, let us find something that will set his mind at ease.

  She watched him walk away, then turned resolutely toward the diner. Inside, the air conditioner cut the worst of the heat and the scents of hot beef and grease made her stomach growl. A waitress of about fifty with big blond hair and a bored smile looked up as she entered and jerked her head to motion Lucy inside. “Pick a spot, honey. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  Lucy passed a row of booths lining the wall, each of which came equipped with a bouquet of plastic yellow flowers and a telephone. Three of the booths were occupied by drivers who looked ready for a shower and a nap. The rest were empty and waiting.

  She chose a stool at the counter and hummed along with the Shania Twain song on the jukebox. Just as Shania fell silent, the waitress, whose name tag identified her as Margaret, slid a glass of ice water onto the counter in front of her.

  “You know what you want already?”

  Leaning forward, Lucy produced her badge. “Water’s fine. Food smells great, but I’m here on business.”

  Margaret’s boredom vanished, but wariness replaced it. “What’s wrong now?”

  “I’m looking for a woman who used to work here. Her name’s Patrice Beckett.”

  “Patrice? What do you want with her?”

  Lucy’s heart did a little tap dance in her chest. “I just need to ask her a few questions. Do you know where I can find her?”

  Margaret glanced over her shoulder and rested her elbows on the counter, exposing her ample bosom. “I haven’t seen her since she left here. What’s she done?”

  “I don’t know that she’s done anything. Do you have any idea where I can find her?”

  “Not really. She came in for her last check a couple of weeks after she left, but that’s the last I saw her.”

  “You haven’t talked to her on the phone? E-mailed? Maybe heard how she’s doing from a mutual friend?”

  Margaret shook her head slowly. “No, but we weren’t exactly close friends while she was here.”

  The answers were becoming predictable, and Lucy’s frustration level rose sharply. “Did she have any close friends?”

  “Not really. She barely spoke to the cooks. Course most of them hardly speak English. She was kind of friendly with Maya for a little while, but then they had a falling out.” Margaret dug at something on the counter with her fingernail. “Patrice had an attitude, if you want to know the truth. Thought she was too good to work here. So what’s she done?”

  Lucy hesitated to tell her, but maybe letting word get out would help find Angelina or bring Patrice home. “We have a report that her daughter is missing,” she said. “We’re trying to determine if that’s true, or if Angelina is with Patrice.”

  Margaret’s eyes widened slightly. “So she finally did it?”

  Lucy’s hand froze on her glass. “Did what?”

  “The kid finally ran off. Not that she hasn’t before, but…well, you know.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” Lucy said. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  Margaret pulled a piece of gum from her pocket and unwrapped it slowly. “I don’t know a whole lot,” she said with a shrug. “Just that Patrice was always complaining about having trouble with the kid. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Patrice was always upset with her. Always looking for her. Always calling around trying to find her. Truth to tell, I think that’s one of the reasons she lost her job. Her mind was always on that, not on what she was supposed to be doing.”

  Time seemed to slow as Lucy tried to wrap her mind around what she was hearing. Margaret’s claims were so different from what Hank and Mr. Smith had told them, she could hardly take it in, and she had no idea how Jackson would react. “Has Angel ever disappeared for several days at a time?”

  “Not that I know of,” Margaret admitted, “but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t. She gave Patrice plenty of trouble, that’s all I know. But Patrice wasn’t exactly a fountain of information, if you know what I mean. She kept to herself, mostly.”

  Lucy felt the familiar buzz of excitement. “What kind of trouble?”

  Margaret shrugged, seemed to realize she should be working, and began straightening straws in a glass container. “They were always arguing. I know that much. Patrice might not have liked the job, but she was a hard worker. Had to be, on her own that way. The girl didn’t like her being gone, I guess. She’d take off wherever and whenever she wanted to. Just how her mother was supposed to keep a roof over her head without leaving home is beyond me, but you know kids.”

  Lucy struggled to hold on to her patience. “Do you know where Patrice would go looking for her?”

  “Naw. Like I said, we didn’t really talk much.”

  “And you have no idea where Patrice might be now?”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  “What about men? Was Patrice dating anyone?”

  “Not that I know of. At least not anyone steady.”

  “And you don’t know if she had another job lined up?”

  Margaret shook her head. “She came in, got her check and left again.”

  And you don’t know where Angel used to go when she left home?”

  “Hung out with friends is all I know. Doing what kids do.” The bell over the door tinkled, announcing a new customer, and Margaret’s mood shifted abruptly. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. There just isn’t much I can say. Now, are you gonna order something or just stick with your water?”

  “The water’s plenty.” Lucy said. But as she watched the woman sashay across the room toward the heavyset trucker filling the entranceway, she wondered how two stories could differ so wildly. Hank was convinced Angel was a quiet, unassuming, respectful girl. To hear Margaret tell it, she was anything but. The truth probably lay somewhere in the middle. Lucy just hoped she could figure out soon.

  BY EIGHT O’CLOCK THAT NIGHT, Rollerworld was jumping. A steady stream of cars pulled into the parking lot, paused near the front of the building long enough to disgorge groups of noisy kids and disappeared again. Still trying to digest what Lucy had told him after their visit to Truck Haven, Jackson followed her through the gathering darkness toward the building. Muffled music pulsed through the air, and each time the front doors opened, voices and laughter floated out to meet them.

  Movement near the corner of the building caught Jackson’s eye and he turned slightly just in time to see two kids, lips locked, shifting deeper into the shadows and away from curious eyes. Four boys, none of them much older than Angelina, came out from behind a parked car. Each of them held a lit cigarette between their fingers and walked with the calculated air of someone trying to look tough, no doubt to impress the clusters of girls who were all dressed in clothes too skimpy for their age.

  The noise, the lights, the confusion all made his shoulders tense painfully. Or maybe it was the strain of realizing that Angel really may have run away. He tried to imagine Angel here. Had she been one of the young, innocent kids here just to skate with friends? Or was she one of the others?

  So many questions remained unanswered. Had Angel run away? If so, why? How did Wayne Fitzgerald figure in to her disappearance, or did he figure in at all? Some days, Jackson was almost certain they were on the brink of finding her. Tonight, he wasn’t feeling so optimistic.

  When they reached the door, he took a deep breath, steeled himself for what they’d find inside, and held the door while Lucy passed through. Now that the ice between them had been broken, he was more aware of her than ever. Of the color of her hair, the clean scent of her shampoo. The curve of her cheek, the gleam of intelligence in her eyes, and the soft musk sce
nt she wore that filled the space between them each time she moved.

  It was wrong to let his mind wander from finding Angel and tracking down Patrice, even for that split second, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He wasn’t proud of that, but he did wonder what might have happened if they’d met in another time, another way.

  Luckily, the noise inside Rollerworld wiped the question right out of his mind. Hordes of young teenagers waited in line to pay their admission fee. Music blared out into the entryway, and through an open door he could see strobe lights flashing into the darkness.

  Lucy watched everything intently, as she always did. She had her game face on, ready to divide and conquer just the way they’d planned. Once inside, he’d move to the right and she’d move to the left, showing Angel’s picture to kids and employees, searching for anyone who might know her, keeping one eye open all the time in case she was here tonight.

  But would he even recognize her if she was? He hated knowing that he might not.

  It took only a few minutes to work their way up in line and for Lucy to explain to the young man behind the window what they needed. And then they were inside, enveloped in the darkness, surrounded by the overwhelming noise, ready to begin the endless round of questions he’d asked so many times already.

  He wasn’t a bit surprised when the first few kids he approached gave the picture of Angel just a cursory glance before claiming not to know her. If he’d learned nothing else from Holden’s frequent brushes with trouble, he’d learned that most people would rather not get involved. Even teenagers came equipped with that self-protective instinct.

  Moving from table to table, he tried to look approachable, even friendly. Like someone the kids could trust. Someone they might want to confide in. After more than an hour of music, lights and kids who claimed not to know anything, Jackson was battling weariness and the growing belief that coming here had been a colossal waste of time.

  Just when he thought he’d talked to everyone on his side of the room, he noticed a couple of girls he hadn’t seen before and followed them past the snack bar and up a short ramp into a room lit with rows of black lights. The instant the girls hit the room, their white T-shirts became fluorescent and they blended in with dozens of other kids, most of whom were dancing in groups of two, three, four or more. There was no skating here, and some of the kids were curled up in couples, hidden from view of the employees who were doing their best to maintain order amid the chaos.

  Slowly, Jackson made the rounds again, stopping to talk with anyone who would give him the time of day. Just as before, most of the kids either didn’t know Angel or didn’t know where to find her. But one young man, a kid of about fifteen whose dark hair fell in lank locks around his face and whose cheeks were flushed with red, did a double-take before handing back the picture.

  “Sorry man,” he shouted. “Don’t know her.”

  Jackson might have believed him if not for the sly look on his face as he turned away. He caught the kid by the arm and held out the picture. “Why don’t you take another look? Maybe it’ll jog your memory.”

  “I said I don’t know her. What do you want from me?”

  “How about the truth?” Suddenly fed up with shouting to make himself heard, Jackson jerked his head toward the slash of light that marked the doorway. “Give me five minutes out there where I can hear you. I’ll buy you a Coke or something.”

  The kid smirked unpleasantly. “Wow. Gee, mister, that’d be swell.”

  Smart-ass. “Maybe it’s escaped your notice, but you’re not old enough for anything else.”

  “That hasn’t stopped me before.”

  “Yeah? Well it stops me.” Jackson urged him forward, and though the kid looked unhappy, he didn’t put up much of an argument. Jackson found a quiet corner—relatively speaking—and held up the picture again. “You know her, don’t you?”

  The boy very carefully avoided looking at the photograph. “I thought you were going to buy me a Coke.”

  “I will in a minute. How well do you know her?”

  Maybe the kid figured out that Jackson meant business, or maybe the surly attitude just stopped being fun. He shrugged and raked hair out of his face with his fingers. “Pretty well, I guess. Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m her uncle. I’m trying to find her.”

  “Her uncle?” The kid drew back slightly and looked Jackson over. “I didn’t know she had an uncle.”

  Jackson slipped the picture back into his pocket. “Where is she?”

  “What do you want her for?”

  “I want to make sure she’s all right.”

  The kid brushed back another lock of limp black hair and lifted one shoulder. “Sorry. I don’t know where she is. I haven’t heard from her for a while.”

  Jackson should have been used to disappointment by now, but every new failure still got to him. “Do you know anyone who might know?”

  The boy shook his head. “Not for sure. She was talking a lot of trash about her mom last time I saw her, saying she was going to do this and that, but I didn’t take her serious.”

  “What kinds of things did she say?”

  “Oh, you know. She was going to leave home. Find somebody who cared about her. But she said it so often, nobody paid much attention anymore.”

  Find someone who cared about her. Was that how she’d learned about the ranch? If that’s what she wanted, why hadn’t she ever come to them? Was she on her way there now, or had she chosen to look for affection from someone else? There were so many possibilities, how could Jackson hope to cover them all? He had to force himself to stay focused on the boy in front of him and the questions he might be able to answer. “Do you think she finally did it?”

  The boy shrugged again. “Who knows?”

  That seemed to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “Does she have a best friend? Someone she might have confided in?”

  “She has lots of friends, man. That’s why nobody wants to talk to you. Everybody knows how her mom screwed her over, and nobody wants to help somebody else do it.”

  Jackson tried to keep his voice even. “How did her mom screw her over?”

  “About her dad, man. You don’t know anything, do you?”

  He didn’t need the reminder. “So tell me.”

  “I don’t know everything,” the kid said, backpedaling quickly. “I just know that Angel wanted to find out about her dad, but her mom wouldn’t tell her. Said she didn’t need to know. Like, you know, it was none of her business or something. It was rotten, man. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  Jackson’s heart flopped. “You think she’s gone looking for her dad?”

  “Could be. She was going to get that one guy to help her since he had a car.”

  Everything inside Jackson turned to ice. “What one guy?”

  “Wayne, I think. He’s Toby’s big brother.”

  “Wayne Fitzgerald?”

  “I guess. All I know is he has a car and she was going to ask him to drive her if she could find her dad.”

  Jackson didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried. The news alleviated some of his worries over her relationship with Wayne. Angel might have gone to Wayne for help, but if Wayne was the person Hank thought he was, it hadn’t been a smart choice, or even a safe one.

  And if Angel had found Holden? That possibility made him a little sick. Their meeting might start out well. Holden might even be able to play the part of caring father for a few days. But sooner or later, Holden would grow tired of the responsibility and what would happen then? He had a nasty habit of hurting people who stood in his way. “Do you know where we can find Wayne?”

  The boy shook his head. “Not me, but Toby probably does.”

  “Is Toby here tonight?”

  “Sure. He’s outside, probably.”

  Getting information from people was like pulling teeth. “How will I know him when I see him?”

  “He’s about my size, I guess. Hair like mine. He’
s probably wearing a black sweatshirt. He usually does.”

  He’d just described more than half of the boys inside the skating rink, and probably all of them lurking outside. “Can you give me something more?”

  The boy smirked again. “Yeah. He smokes Kools.” A couple of kids came out of the dance room and the boy’s demeanor underwent a dramatic change. Suddenly sullen again, he pushed away from the wall and swaggered past Jackson. “You gotta feel sorry for a girl like Angel,” he said, his voice low. “I kinda hope she gets what she wants.”

  Turning his back on Jackson, he jogged over to join his friends, said something under his breath and smirked back at Jackson when his friends burst into laughter. It was almost enough to make him wonder if the boy had just played him for a fool.

  Chapter Ten

  READY TO PUT THE NOISE and confusion of Rollerworld behind him, Jackson met Lucy near the skate-rental counter. “Anything?” he shouted over the deafening music.

  “Nothing useful. What about you?”

  “I think I found something,” he shouted back. Grimacing, he jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. I can’t hear myself think anymore.”

  With her lips so close to his ear and that scent filling the space between them, Jackson felt that now-familiar heat stir deep inside him. He would have given almost anything for just ten minutes to call his own. Without the worry that someone in his family had done something stupid. Ten short minutes to think about himself and his future. But this was the wrong time and the wrong place for that.

  The music segued from one unbearably loud song to another. The strident guitar drove his headache up another notch, but the beat of the bass and drums filled the air with an almost sexual quality. No wonder kids were making out everywhere he looked. No damn wonder he was reacting to the soft swell of Lucy’s breasts beneath her T-shirt and the nip of waist barely visible under her jacket.

  “Come on,” he said again. He could use some fresh air. Some space to think. A chance to get his head screwed on straight. Without waiting to see if she would follow, he headed for the door and plowed outside into the night, relieved to discover that the temperature had actually dropped by a few degrees.