Wink of an Eye

by Lynn Chandler Willis

  “But they ain’t paying you for this job, are they?”

  She had a point. I snatched the paper from her hand, then stuffed it in Ryce’s file. I then did a search on Averitt McCoy, the second deputy on the scene. He was a fifteen-year veteran with Winkler County, and had spent ten years before that—also with the Border Patrol. I went back and compared McCoy’s stint with the patrol to Peterson’s. There was a one-year overlap, so Peterson and McCoy did work for the patrol at the same time. They had left the patrol at different times and migrated to Winkler County.

  McCoy’s finances had been pitiful. Poor guy had been in debt up to his eyeballs. An ex-wife collecting alimony and child support for three little McCoys, a mortgage for a house he no longer lived in, and a car payment for a car he no longer drove. Up until two years ago, he ran thirty to sixty days late on rent and credit cards and paid his utilities by cutoff notices. Over the last year, McCoy had cleaned up his act—or come into more money. I checked his tax returns for a noticeable increase, but there was none. Standard cost of living, maybe a merit increase, a little overtime could easily explain the difference. But there was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Could this whole thing really be that simple? Two cops on the take. Two stupid cops. I needed to give these two a serious lesson in covering their asses. I hated to waste the paper for blatant stupidity but printed all the information I had found on Peterson and McCoy and added it to Ryce’s file.

  I then logged on to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Web site, keyed in my password, and did a search of each of the girls in Ryce’s file. Not a single girl was registered. It disappointed me but it didn’t surprise me. Peterson and McCoy had a nice little racket going and I wondered how much Gaylord Denny knew? Did he know and look the other way? Or was he the ringleader? The parents of these girls were terrified to press the issue, to demand an investigation, or to raise hell until they received proof someone was looking for their daughters.

  Had Ryce tapped into something others knew about but ignored? If so, it made them just as dirty as Peterson and McCoy, and Gaylord Denny.

  Denny had to know. If he didn’t, Peterson and McCoy were a lot smarter than I had originally thought.

  Rhonda padded into the kitchen. “Gram—what are you eating? You know your sugar’s going to get out of whack.” She grabbed up the cookie jar and returned it to the counter. Gram looked at me and rolled her eyes, then pretended to pout.

  “Do y’all want a sandwich?” Rhonda asked.

  “An old woman’s got to eat and since you took my cookies away, I guess I better eat a sandwich.”

  I grinned, then drove the balls of my hands deep into my eyes to combat the fatigue. I either needed glasses or a laptop with a larger screen. “I’m good, but thanks anyway.”

  Rhonda lifted the lid on the Crock-Pot and stabbed the mystery meat with a fork, then frowned. “Hmm. This thing’s still tough as nails.”

  I closed my eyes, wondering if I really wanted to get involved. Then I realized if I wanted something other than the special down at Dunbar’s, I probably needed to investigate. I walked over to the counter, then bit my lip to curtail the laughter. “You’ve got to cook it before you can simmer it.”

  “The instructions said to cook it slow,” she said pitifully.

  I turned the dial up. “Slow is normally six to eight hours, not three days.”

  I reconsidered the sandwich. Whatever was in that pot wouldn’t be done before midnight.

  “Maybe we should just order a pizza for dinner tonight,” she said, obviously understanding the situation. “We can save this for tomorrow night.”

  I nodded, in full agreement.

  I drug out the bread, mayo, and a pack of sliced turkey and was fixing the three of us a sandwich when the phone rang. Rhonda picked the phone up off the charger and stared at the caller ID, frowned, then set her jaw and tossed the phone at me. “I believe it’s for you,” she snipped, then pushed me out of the way to finish the sandwiches.

  “Yeah,” I answered on the fifth ring.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you were really here,” Claire said, her voice as sweet as a lullaby.

  I glanced at Rhonda, then quickly turned away, feeling the heat rise in my face.

  “I thought it might have been a dream,” Claire cooed.

  “Or a nightmare,” I quipped.

  She laughed and I could see her tossing her head back, her eyes sparkling with amusement. After a moment, she asked, “Still want to get together tonight for dinner?”

  My head was telling me every reason why I shouldn’t; my heart was telling me every reason why I should. “Uh, sure.” I glanced at Rhonda, then slowly migrated toward the living room. “Where and when?”

  “There’s a roadhouse called Grigg’s near Monahans. Around seven good with you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good. I can’t wait to see you again.”

  I stared up at the living room ceiling wondering what in the hell I was doing. “Me too.”

  “I’ll see you at seven.”

  “Yeah … I’ll see you then.” I clicked the phone off and stood there a minute before going back into the kitchen. I returned the phone to the charger without saying anything to Rhonda.

  She slammed my and Gram’s sandwiches on the table, then stuffed the bread back in the bin, shoved the mayo and turkey back in the fridge, and slammed the refrigerator door. “I guess you’re seeing her tonight?”

  “Oh hell,” Gram mumbled.

  “We’re having dinner. I won’t come home crying, I promise. No tears, see?” I moved in front of her, grinning, pointing at my eyes.

  Rhonda wasn’t amused. She turned away and pulled three glasses from the cabinet and slammed them on the counter.

  “Rhonda—it’s just dinner, for crying out loud.” I was a grown man—I could handle whatever Claire Kinley dished out.

  With her back to me, Rhonda said, “You do know she’s married?”

  That I couldn’t handle.

  “Oh hell,” Gram said again.

  Rhonda spun around and glared at me. “She did tell you that she’s married, didn’t she?”

  “Of course she did,” I lied. “As a matter of fact, he’s joining us for dinner.”

  She stared at me with a growing fury, then laughed sarcastically. “He’s joining you for dinner. Really? He’s coming all the way from Austin just for dinner?”

  I thought it best not to invent anything else at the moment since it was obvious I had no idea what I was talking about. “Rhonda—it’s just dinner.”

  She laughed a laugh that was birthed from Satan. “Yeah. Just dinner. Tell me that again in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Okay, so she didn’t tell me she was married. I was sure there was a logical explanation to that little omission. For one, we didn’t talk that long. It was hi, how are you, whap on the cheek, we ought to get together for dinner. Total conversation, ten minutes. Twelve tops. It wasn’t like she purposely forgot to tell me. I hoped.

  I’d done enough cheating-spouse investigations to know the hurt cheating caused. Infidelity was one fault a significant other would never be able to pin on me. There was only one case I was involved in where I felt sympathy for the cheater. And sympathy cost Gina Gilleni her life and tossed my life into cardboard boxes stacked in my sister’s spare bedroom.

  I supposed I could consider dinner with Claire a business appointment. After all, I did need to talk with her about Alvedia’s dad, Rogelio Esconderia. I wondered how many other illegals worked at the K-Bar Ranch?

  I had a couple hours before dinner so I headed into Kermit and over to the Winkler Weekly to stir up a little trouble. The paper was published every Thursday so I figured with it being Tuesday, the staff would be at the office giving their computers a workout.

  The Winkler Weekly was housed in an old clapboard building with dirty windows and a gravel parking lot. Inside wasn’t faring much better. It reeked of cigarette sm
oke and stale coffee. It was a throwback to the old newspaper days of deadline-induced chain-smoking reporters frantically searching for a new, creative way to describe the latest 4-H competition. I had a hard time imagining the delightful Sophia Ortez hunkered down over one of the ancient computers. The Odessa Record suited her much better.

  The office, on one side, was crudely divided into cubicles with dingy cloth-covered walls. On the other side was an old light table with a mock-up of the paper about to go to print. A man in his late fifties in polyester pants and a white short-sleeved button-down shirt was pasting ad slicks into designated holes in the grid-lined flats. At the front desk, an older woman with a beaklike nose greeted me with a scowl. “Can I help you?” she asked, obviously annoyed at my presence.

  “I’d like to see the editor in chief.” I smiled just to annoy her more.

  “And you are?”

  “Michael Clark. I’m here to talk to him about the missing teenagers.”

  She raised her painted on brows, staring at me hard. “The what?”

  “The missing teenagers.”

  The man at the light board stopped pasting and turned to size me up. He hiked his pants up over a protruding belly, then sauntered over to Miss Congeniality’s desk.

  “I’m the editor in chief. Can I help you?”

  I smiled and offered my hand. “Michael Clark. I’d like to ask you a couple questions about a teenager who recently went missing.”

  Reluctantly, he shook my hand. “Ed Rankin. You say a kid went missing? From Winkler County?”

  I couldn’t gauge his reaction. I couldn’t tell if he was playing stupid or honestly didn’t know anything about it. “Could we possibly talk in your office?”

  Miss Congeniality huffed, then went back to doing whatever she was doing before I interrupted.

  Rankin made a poor attempt to shrug off my request. “Look, I’d like to help you but we haven’t heard anything on it, so I really don’t think we’d be much help.”

  “Ed—mind if I call you Ed? You haven’t heard anything on it because it, like several others, was swept under the rug. We can either discuss why your paper doesn’t see it as newsworthy right here or in your office.”

  He cleared his throat with a loud grumble, hiked up his pants again, and motioned for me to follow him. He led me by the makeshift cubicles, down a short hallway, and into a cluttered office. Old flats were stacked haphazardly in a corner of the office. His desk was a salvage-store, metal-topped monster strewn with files, papers, and cigarette butts that had spilled out of an ashtray. The only decoration was a Dallas Cowboys wall clock with dead batteries. Either that, or it was still noon.

  Rankin cleared a stack of papers from a guest chair. “Have a seat, Mr. Clark. I can give you about ten minutes. We are under a deadline and I’ve got one out with a stomach bug and another one that didn’t even bother to call in.”

  “I understand.”

  Rankin sat behind his desk, shoved a stack of files aside, and propped his arms in the cleared space. “First off … if you don’t mind me asking, who are you and what interest is it of yours what stories I choose to run?” He frowned.

  “I’m a private investigator hired by the family of one of the missing teenagers.”

  He nodded curtly. “Great. A private dick,” he mumbled.

  I smiled at him.

  He clasped his hands together, lacing his fingers. “Like I said, I haven’t heard anything about any missing persons.”

  “You do get police reports, I assume?”

  “Sure. But like I said, there haven’t been any reports of anyone missing.”

  “Eight teenagers have gone missing in the last three years. You don’t think that’s the least bit odd?”

  He shrugged, unwound his fingers, and spread his hands in apology. “Probably runaways. I try not to publish domestic issues, out of respect for the families. I figure they’ve got enough to deal with. The last thing they need is to see their troubles splashed across the front page.”

  An admirable position, I supposed. If we were dealing with runaways. “But even if they were runaways, there should be a police report about it. The parents reported it to the authorities, those officers in turn should have filed a report. Those reports have to be somewhere.”

  “Then maybe you should check with the sheriff’s department. They can probably help you a lot more than I can.” He shifted his weight.

  “Well, see, that’s where the problem starts. The sheriff’s department doesn’t have any records of these disappearances, either.”

  Rankin cracked his knuckles then twisted his mouth. “Look, Mr. Clark—if the sheriff’s department doesn’t have it in their records, then we’re certainly not going to have it, either. The parents of these missing girls aren’t going to come to us before they go to the authorities. Now if you don’t mind, I really need to get back to the paper.” He stood, reached across the desk, and offered his sweaty hand. “Sorry I couldn’t be any help.”

  I smiled and shook his hand. He’d been more help than he realized. “Thanks for your time, Ed.”

  “Let me know if you find out anything,” he said as he walked me to the front door.

  “Oh, I will.” I smiled at Miss Congeniality and treated her to a devilish wink. She blushed and hurriedly turned away.

  I climbed in the van and turned the air on full blast. So Ed Rankin knew more than he was telling. I purposely never said anything about the missing teens being girls. And if I were a betting man, I’d bet a paycheck, if I were being paid, Rankin was already on the phone with the sheriff. I grinned, satisfied I’d played that one pretty well.

  Gaylord Denny would soon know someone was snooping around, digging up information on the eight missing girls from his county. Denny and his two idiot deputies didn’t appear to be the brightest bulbs in the lamp and stupid people have a tendency to make sloppy mistakes when they’re under a little pressure.

  Tomorrow, I’d head back over to Odessa and see if Sophia Ortez was up to scooping her old boss.

  I drove back to the house, grabbed a shower, then slipped into a clean pair of shorts and a clean shirt. After that, I headed out to Grigg’s Roadhouse. Rhonda mumbled something and shook her head when I told her good-bye.

  * * *

  Monahans was about thirty miles south and more in the middle of nowhere than Wink. As a town, it wasn’t Dallas, but it was larger and more populated than Wink. The lingering question of why Monahans kept tickling the gray matter in my head but I kept pushing it toward the brain cells Johnnie Walker had already killed. There were plenty of restaurants in Kermit. I could think of several reasons why she probably chose Monahans, and I didn’t like any of them.

  Grigg’s Roadhouse was about two miles outside the city limit on TX-18 across the street from a strip shopping center and next door to a truck stop that shared a massive parking lot with a motel that charged by the hour.

  The roadhouse was a large, wood-sided building with barn-door shutters and hitching posts out front. The parking lot was dominated by pickups of every make and model. I spotted the Silverado right off and parked beside it. A George Strait tune greeted me at the door.

  My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat as Claire two-stepped her way over to me. Part of me wanted to turn around, climb back in the van, and head back to Wink where it was safe; the other part wanted to do things to her right there that I’d probably get arrested for.

  She smiled softly, then took my hand and led me out to the nearly empty dance floor. A few couples glided their way around the floor, two-stepping in time to George Strait. Some were decked out in tight jeans, western shirts, and boots; others, like me, were in shorts, sandals, and T-shirts and were probably more comfortable in a ball cap than a Stetson. Claire, of course, didn’t fit into either category. She made her own rules, wearing a simple white sundress with a halter top and open back that showed off her bronze-colored tan. We stumbled over one another for the first few chords, silently fig
hting over who was going to lead. After a moment, she gave in, and we once again found our old rhythm. Whether on the dance floor, or in a bed, our bodies had always moved together like a well-oiled machine.

  “Well, this is certainly nicer than our last meeting,” I whispered in her ear, and smiled.

  She laughed and gently stroked my cheek where she had landed the blistering slap. “Sorry about that.”

  The jukebox slowed down with one of George’s ballads. I hesitated before pulling her closer. She wrapped her arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder. I breathed her in, my hands finding joy in the curve of her back. I was walking headfirst into dangerous territory and no matter how much that little voice inside my head was telling me to walk away, I couldn’t do it. I pulled her even closer, feeling her heart beat in rhythm with my own.

  After the song ended, we continued to stand there a moment gently swaying to a melody only we could hear, lost in our own little world of memories and what-could-have-beens.

  Finally, Claire lifted her head from my shoulder and smiled. “I guess I need to feed you since I did invite you to dinner.”

  I grinned and shrugged slightly. Food was the last thing on my mind at the moment.

  She pulled away, took my hand, and led me to a booth in the far corner of the restaurant area. “This okay? It’s a little bit quieter back here.” She slid into the booth and I sat down across from her. There were a few couples scattered around the dining area, far enough apart to ensure privacy.

  A waitress in jeans and a T-shirt and with more hair than some wildlife came over and handed us two menus. We ordered two Lone Star beers and a plate of smothered cheese fries to get started.

  “So, how long are you staying?” Claire asked after the waitress had left.

  “Until I piss Rhonda off or Gram drives me crazy.”

  She burst out laughing, her blue eyes dancing like tiny sparkling stars. “So you’re leaving tomorrow.”

  After tonight, that might be a possibility. I laughed with her then shook my head slightly. “I don’t know. Maybe a couple weeks.”