Night Sins

by Tami Hoag

  That was everyone's hope, Megan thought as she went out into the hall and headed toward her office. The bulletin had to go over the teletype to BCA headquarters. From headquarters the information would go out immediately to every agency in Minnesota and to surrounding states.

  “What are you going to put in the bulletin?” Steiger asked, striding up alongside her. “Someone saw a kid get into a van a plumber might drive?”

  “It's more than we had an hour ago.”

  “It's shit.”

  Megan bristled. “You think so? I've already got a printout of recent incidents involving possible and known child predators in a hundred-mile area. If one of them was driving a light-colored, older, full-size van, we've got a suspect. What have you got, Sheriff?”

  Indigestion, if his expression was anything to go by. He scowled down at her, his face a weathered roadmap of lines, his nose so sharply aquiline, it was nearly a vertical blade protruding from his lean face. He caught hold of Megan's shoulder and stopped her. The overhead lighting gleamed against the oil slick in his dark hair.

  “You think you're pretty smart, don't you?” he rasped.

  “Is that a rhetorical question or would you care to see my diplomas?”

  “You can get by on that smart mouth in the Cities, but it won't fly out here, honey. We have our own way of doing things—”

  “Yes, I took note of your style in the conference room. Badgering a cooperative witness to tears. What do you do for an encore—take a rubber truncheon to Josh's playmates?”

  Heat flared in Steiger's eyes, and he raised a finger in warning. “Now, listen—”

  “No. You listen, Sheriff,” Megan said, stabbing him in the chest with a forefinger, backing him off a step. “We've all been working around the clock and tempers are wearing thin, but that's no excuse for the way you treated Helen Black. She gave us a lead, now you want to blow it off because it doesn't spell out the crook's name in big capital letters—”

  “And you're going to crack the case with it,” he sneered.

  “I'll damn well try, and you'd better, too. This investigation is a cooperative effort. I suggest you go look up cooperative in the dictionary, Sheriff. You don't seem to grasp the concept.”

  “You'll be out of here inside a month,” he growled.

  “Don't count on it. There are plenty of people who bet against me ever getting this job. I'm planning to feed them the crow myself. I'll be more than happy to add your name to the guest list.”

  She turned to go, knowing she was making an enemy of Steiger, too angry to care. But she whirled back toward him for a parting shot. “One other thing, Steiger—I'm not your honey.”

  10:58 P.M. 14°

  The image of Olie Swain's ugly pug face hovered at the back of Mitch's mind like a gremlin from a bad dream as he drove out of the parking lot. Olie Swain drove a beat-up, rusted-out 1983 Chevy van that had once been white. Olie, who was strange by anyone's standards. Olie, who had access to nearly every little boy in town. Olie, whom Mitch had sworn was harmless.

  “This must be especially hard for you,” Helen said softly.

  Mitch glanced at her sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, wrapped in a goofy-looking faux leopard jacket. The jacket suited her sense of humor, but there was no trace of that humor in her expression. There was pity, something Mitch had seen enough of to last him a lifetime.

  “It's hard on everybody,” he said. “You might want to give Hannah a call. She's really hurting. She blames herself.”

  “Poor kid.” Helen called anyone more than a month younger than her “kid,” a habit that made her seem world-weary. “Mothers aren't allowed to make mistakes anymore. A generation ago everyone just assumed they would screw up their kids. Now they've got to be Wonder Woman.” Her tone hardened and chilled as she said, “I don't suppose Paul is taking any of the burden of guilt.”

  “He was working. It was Hannah's night to pick up Josh.”

  “Uh-huh. There but for the grace of God goes Paul.”

  Mitch glanced at Helen again. Her mouth was pinched tight. “You and Paul don't get along?”

  “Paul is a horse's ass.”

  “For any particular reason?”

  Helen didn't answer. Mitch let it drop. “Helen, would you be willing to take a look at a couple of vans, tell me if any of them resemble the one you saw last night? Just so I can get an accurate description?”

  “Of course.”

  They drove out to the car dealerships on the east side of town, where flags and giant inflatable animals enticed people to turn off the interstate and buy a different car. At Dealin' Swede's Helen pointed out a gray Dodge utility van and said “sort of but not quite.” On the way back across town, Mitch slowed beside several parked vans, giving her a chance to look at a number of vehicles. On her own block he drove past her house and into the parking lot at the ice arena. He slowed to a stop thirty feet away from Olie's van, saying nothing.

  Helen's brows knitted. She nibbled her lower lip. Mitch's stomach twisted.

  “More like this one,” she said slowly.

  “But not just like this one?”

  She turned her head to one side and then the other as if a memory might shake loose. “I don't think so. Something's different—the color or the shape—but it's close. . . . I don't know.” She faced him, shaking her head, her expression apologetic. “I'm sorry, Mitch. I saw it for only a few seconds. I just got an impression, is all. I wish I could say it looked exactly like this one, but I can't.”

  “It's okay,” he murmured, swinging the Explorer around and driving back to Helen's house. “Did you have a good time at the play?” he asked as she picked her purse up off the floor.

  “Yeah,” she said with a small smile. “Wes is nice. Thanks for the introduction. You're a good guy, Mitch.”

  “That's me—the last of the good guys.”

  The tag struck him as ironic. Yeah, he was a great guy—deflecting the interest of women onto his friends so he wouldn't have to deal with them.

  You weren't exactly dodging Megan tonight, were you, Holt?

  A memory of heat and softness and the cool breath of night air stole into his consciousness. The taste of sweetness. Odd how someone with a tongue as tart as hers could taste sweet. She had been the one to pull back. He would have taken them past the point of no return.

  “Your timing stinks, Mitch,” he muttered, turning south. At the next corner he turned east and drove down the street that ran behind the ice arena.

  The case demanded all their energy. And he would be the one dodging when Megan found out Olie Swain drove a van, that he had been to Olie's house without her. She already had her suspicions about Olie. She would jump on this van connection like a she-wolf on a rabbit—and spook Olie in the process. Mitch knew even the most harmless of women made Olie uncomfortable. Mitch couldn't afford to have Olie bolt if he did have something to do with Josh's disappearance.

  Olie's house was a converted single-car garage that sat on the last property on the block. The main house on the lot was owned by old Oscar Rudd, who collected junker Saabs and parked them on every available inch of ground in the yard and on the street, in violation of three city ordinances, leaving no room for Olie to park his van. Olie left the van in the lot at the rink and walked back and forth, tramping through the snow, slush, mud—whatever the season left for him in the vacant lot between his home and the arena.

  Like the main house, the garage was covered with brown asphalt-coated tar paper designed to look like brick. It fooled no one. A stovepipe stuck up through the roof at a crooked angle, venting the smoke from the woodstove that was the main source of heat. Light glowed out through the single window in the side of the building. Mitch could hear the chatter of a television as he walked up the shoveled path toward the door. Letterman. He wouldn't have given Olie credit for having a sense of humor. He knocked and waited. The television went mute. He knocked again.

  “Olie? It's Chief Holt.”

  “W
hat'd you want?”

  “Just to talk. I have a couple of questions you might be able to answer.”

  The door cracked open and Olie's ugly face filled the space, his eyes round and wary. “Questions about what?”

  “Different things. Can I come in? It's freezing out here.”

  Olie backed away from the door, as much of an invitation as he was willing to give. He didn't like people coming into his place. This was his safe spot, like the old shed he had stumbled across as a kid. The shed sat on an abandoned piece of land, not far from his house out on the edge of town where the trashy people lived. The land backed onto a city park, but the paths in that part of the park were overgrown and so no one came near the shed. Olie had pretended the shed was his own, his place to hide to avoid a beating or to hole up after a bad one. In the shed he was safe.

  He had transferred that feeling of safety to this place. The garage was small and dark. A cubbyhole. He filled it with his books and the stuff he bought at junk shops. He invited no one inside, but he couldn't say no to the chief of police. He stepped back to his makeshift desk and absently stroked the top of his computer screen, petting it as if it were a cat.

  Mitch had to duck a little to come in the door. He took in the state of Olie's domain with a seemingly casual glance. There was only one room. One dark, cold room with dirty blue indoor-outdoor carpet covering the concrete floor. The kitchen consisted of an ancient refrigerator and a cast-off olive green electric range. The bathroom was partitioned off by a pair of mismatched curtains hanging from a wire. The curtains gaped, offering a glimpse of a tin shower stall.

  “Cozy place you got here, Olie.”

  Olie said nothing. He wore the same green flight jacket, the same dark wool sweater, the same Ragg wool half-gloves he had worn the night before. Mitch wondered if he bothered to change clothes all winter. For that matter, he wondered if he ever bothered to use that shower stall. The place smelled like dirty feet.

  He looked for a place to sit, hoping to put Olie at ease, but settled for leaning against the back of a ratty old recliner. There were books everywhere. Shelves and shelves of books. Piles and piles of books. What furniture there was seemed to serve only as another place to pile books. What room wasn't taken up by books was taken up by computer equipment. Mitch counted five PCs.

  “Where'd you get all the computers, Olie?”

  “Different places. In the Cities. Businesses throw 'em out 'cause they're out of date. I didn't steal them.”

  “I didn't think you did. I'm just making conversation here, Olie.” Mitch offered him a smile. “Businesses throw them out? That's quite a deal. How'd you find out about that?”

  Olie eased down into his chair, his good eye darting from the computer screen to Mitch and back. The glass eye stayed on Mitch. “Professor Priest.” His hand darted over the keyboard to hit a button. “He lets me sit in on some classes.”

  “He's a nice guy.”

  Olie didn't comment. He hit another button and the screen before him went blank.

  “So what do you do with all these machines?”

  “Stuff.”

  Mitch forced another smile and let out a measured sigh between his teeth. That Olie, master of small talk. “So, Olie, did you work tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anything going on at the rink around five-thirty?”

  He shrugged. “Skating club.”

  “Practicing for the big show Sunday, I suppose.”

  Olie took it for a rhetorical statement.

  “I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about last night,” Mitch said.

  “You haven't found that boy.”

  It seemed more a statement than a question. Mitch watched him carefully, his own expression impassive. “Not yet, but we're looking real hard. We've got a couple of leads. Did you think of anything that might help us?”

  Olie's good eye looked down at his keyboard. He flicked a lint ball off one of the keys.

  “Someone thinks they saw Josh get into a van last night. A van that looked something like yours—older, light-colored. You didn't see a van like that, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You didn't loan your van to someone, did you?”

  “No.”

  “You leave the keys in it?”

  “No.”

  Mitch lifted a book from the pile on the seat of the recliner and studied the cover idly. Story of the Irish Race. He wondered if Olie was Irish or just curious. He'd never thought of Olie as being anything but weird.

  Olie popped up from his chair. His brows pulled low over his mismatched eyes, seeming to tug at the port wine birthmark on the left side of his face. “It wasn't my van.”

  “But you were inside the arena,” Mitch said. He set the book aside and slid his hands into his coat pockets. “Running the Zamboni, right? Maybe someone used your van without asking.”

  “No. They couldn't.”

  “Well . . .” Yawning hugely, Mitch pushed away from the decrepit recliner. “People do strange things, Olie. Just to be safe, we should probably take a look inside. Would you mind showing me?”

  “You don't have a warrant.” Olie immediately regretted the words. Mitch Holt's gaze sharpened like a gun scope coming into focus.

  “Should I get one, Olie?” His soft, silky voice raised the short hairs on the back of Olie's neck.

  “I don't know anything!” Olie shouted, shoving at a stack of books on a TV tray. They tumbled to the floor, sounding like bricks as they hit the concrete. “I didn't do anything!”

  Mitch watched the outburst stonefaced, his expression giving away nothing of the tension tightening inside him like a watch spring. “Then you don't have anything to hide.”

  His mind was racing. If Olie consented to a search of the vehicle now and something turned up, would a judge later toss out the evidence on the argument of no warrant, consent given under duress? Without a positive ID on the vehicle, Mitch didn't have enough cause to obtain a warrant, and he doubted he could get Olie to sign a consent form. Goddamn technicalities. What he had was a missing child and a need to find him that far outstripped the needs of the courts.

  If Olie let him take a look and he saw something in the van, he could have the vehicle towed in on the grounds that overnight parking was technically not permitted in the Gordie Knutson Memorial Arena lot. Upon impounding the vehicle, they would be able to inventory the contents, and anything suspicious listed on the inventory would give them probable cause to ask for a warrant authorizing seizure of it as evidence of a crime.

  Okay. He had a plan. His ass was covered. The next move was Olie's.

  Olie glared at him, his small mouth puckered into an angry knot. The birthmark that spilled down his forehead seemed to darken, and the rest of his face paled. His hand was trembling as he raised it and pointed a finger at Mitch.

  “I don't have anything to hide,” he said.

  The eye staring defiantly at Mitch was made of glass. The other one slid away.

  * * *

  JOURNAL ENTRY

  DAY 2

  Round and round and round they go. Will they find Josh? We don't think so.

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  DAY 3

  5:51 A.M. 11°

  Megan overslept, dreaming dark, sensuous dreams about Harrison Ford. As she slowly blinked her eyes open, the feelings lingered—forbidden needs and a lush, heavy sense of pleasure; guilt and gratification; the taste of Mitch Holt's kiss, the feel of his hands on her body, the feel of his mouth on her breast . . .

  She stared at the hairline cracks in the ceiling plaster. The predawn light seeped into the room through sheer curtains, casting everything in shades of gray, like a dream. She lay beneath the tangled sheets and quilt, her heart beating slowly, strongly, her body warm, nerve endings humming. She could feel Gannon curled against her, the cat tucked into his favorite spot behind her knees. Friday would be in the kitchen, prowling for breakfast.

  Megan's mind wandered in
to forbidden territory, and she wondered if Mitch might have dreamed about their kiss, wondered if the sensations hung around him like a heavy, sultry cloud as he lay in his bed.

  Not a smart thing to wonder. He should have been just another cop, just someone she had to work with. But she had the feeling there was nothing simple about Mitch Holt. The Everyman façade hid a complex core of anger and need and pain. She had glimpsed those things in his eyes, tasted them in his kiss, and the hidden mysteries drew her in. She could have resisted mere sex appeal, but a mystery . . . Her mind was naturally geared to solving mysteries.

  There was a more pressing mystery to solve. The reminder was a poke in the conscience that drove Megan out of bed and into the shower. She let the water beat down on her in an attempt to pound out the numbness of sleep. Her head seemed as heavy and dense as an anvil. Her eyes felt as if they had grown a coat of fur. Five hours of sleep in forty-seven was not enough. She could have slept for a day, but she didn't have that luxury and wouldn't until this case was over. Even then she would be behind in her duties. All appointments with the other chiefs and sheriffs of her territory had been put on hold, but crime in those other counties and towns didn't stop just because Deer Lake had been hit with a big one. There was no balance maintained at the courtesy of lowlifes.

  Friday jumped up on the edge of the old clawfoot tub and stuck his head inside the shower curtain. He wore a disgruntled expression on his round black face, golden eyes glowering at Megan, white whiskers twitching in annoyance as water droplets pelted him. He yowled at her in his complaining voice and swiped at his whiskers with his paw.

  “Yeah, yeah, you want breakfast. You want, you want—what about what I want, huh?”

  As he hopped down from the tub, he made a sound that indicated he was patently disinterested in her needs. A typical male attitude, Megan thought, cranking the faucet off and reaching for a towel.

  After pulling on sweats, she fed the cats, then fed herself an English muffin. Sitting at the table, she stared unseeing at the depressing mess in her living room, the unpacked and half-unpacked boxes. She didn't let herself think about the need to build herself a nest and surround herself with the things she had collected—other people's heirlooms and memories, the false sense of belonging and family she had attached to her flea-market finds.