Smart guy, this “Mac.” He’d kept an extra layer between him and his seller to safeguard his identity.
Stupid guy to continue doing business as usual after a child working for him was just killed.
Or was he simply that confident the law wouldn’t find him?
“I know exactly what it means,” Sam said over sloppy joes at the big, scarred table in Kyle’s kitchen later that evening. He’d just told her about the absence of missing funds in Bob’s account.
“It means either he had money stashed away that Viola didn’t know about—” she popped a chip in her mouth, looking more like the Sam he knew than the nearly broken woman who’d been delivered to him the week before “—or that Bob got the stuff for free.”
“For free? I didn’t figure anyone gave that stuff away.”
“They don’t. Unless the guy was a personal friend of Bob’s. Maybe Bob found out what the guy was doing. The guy sold him a bill of goods about how it wasn’t dangerous. It was just like moonshine. Would get him through a bad spot. He got Bob addicted to keep him quiet.”
Kyle hadn’t thought of that.
“Or he could have just been a good friend who was buying a bit of insurance. Bob had a lot of clout in the community and, if trouble arose, the cook would have someone with enough power and or money to return him the favor.”
Kyle ate—hungry all of a sudden—and listened. Really listened. Not just to Sam’s words, but to the way her mind worked.
“He could have been given the stuff with the hope that he’d get addicted so he could be blackmailed into doing something illegal if the need arose.”
Her thoughts didn’t stop or settle. They never did.
“It’s also possible that he didn’t pay for it because he had ample supply.”
“How would he manage that?”
“If he, or someone on his farm, was making it.”
Okay, that was… “Yale Conrad.”
“I’ve wondered.”
He put down the sandwich. “Viola is being understandably protective of Bob’s possessions and records right now, of the business, but I know she’d let me back into the shack Yale was using. I told her about it and we changed the locks, but I left everything inside just as it was.”
“You’ll search the place for me? You’d raise less suspicion than I would.”
“I don’t think Viola would let you on the farm without a warrant, anyway. Tell me what to look for.”
She did. He nodded. And they finished their dinner.
Chandler, Ohio
Monday, October 4, 2010
A message from Deb was waiting for me when I got home. Cole’s problem, which he’d finally admitted in counseling, was that he wanted a baby. He and Deb had been adamantly opposed to having kids and had agreed before they were married that they’d never ask the other to do so.
Turned out, after having been married to Cole for a while, Deb wanted his baby, too. My receptionist wasn’t going to be in the next day.
I was glad for the validation that there was good in the world.
But Sam’s words weren’t far away.
“Do something.” She basically wanted me to kidnap Maggie. And to lie to her mother. I couldn’t do either.
I compromised. As soon as I’d fed Camy and sat my butt in front of a frozen dinner that I eventually pushed away uneaten, I called Lori Winston.
“Is Maggie there?” I asked.
“No. She’s at home. I’m still at work.”
I took that as a sign that I was doing the right thing. Even though I didn’t believe in signs. They were excuses, justifications for a decision a person was not sure about.
I didn’t have time to get sure.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah. I can take a break.”
I waited while the woman told someone she was clocking out and then did so. “I’m back.”
“I don’t want to alarm you, Ms. Winston, but I know how much you love your daughter and are concerned for her well-being….”
“Is Maggie in some kind of trouble?”
“Nooo.” I was not good at subterfuge. But one thought of Maggie losing her virginity on a sleeping bag in a tent in the woods and I was refortified.
“But I think she’s going to be. Very soon. If we don’t intervene.”
“What kind of trouble?”
The only kind the woman seemed to care about where her daughter was concerned.
“Sexual trouble.”
“I knew it. Goddammit, I knew it.”
“Wait, Ms. Winston,” I said quickly. I couldn’t go too far or I’d blow everything. And if Sam was right, if lives were at stake, I’d be responsible.
I wished to God the deputy had given me a little more help in the “do something” department. I wasn’t a police officer. I didn’t think like she did.
“I’m not saying anything has happened. Only that Maggie came to see me after school today and I sense that she’s on the verge of making a major decision.”
“Great. On the verge. What am I supposed to do? Just sit around and wait for something to happen? And then have it be too late…”
I understood the sentiments so forgave the overly aggressive tone.
“Can’t you stop her? You’re supposed to be some kind of expert….”
An expert witness. I gave opinions for a living.
“I’ve talked to her, but Maggie needs more than that. She needs constant supervision. To be taken to school. Picked up from school. And not left alone.”
“I can’t do that. I have to work. I’m barely making my rent as it is. And I sure as hell can’t afford to hire someone.”
“Is there a friend who could help you?”
“Uh-uh. Not anyone I’d trust with Maggie. What about sending her somewhere? I’ve heard of places that take troubled kids. My brother had to go to one once. I hate to think of Maggie in a place like that, but they watch them closely there. And I’ll do anything to get her away from this guy. Whoever he is.”
Maggie did not belong in a group home. Not one like her mother was describing. She wasn’t an offender. She’d never last there.
Or her innocence wouldn’t.
But if it would get her away from Mac…
“I can make some calls tomorrow, see what I can do, but the homes in Dayton are suffering from overcrowding as it is, and without a court order…”
“What about your place?” Lori Winston blurted into the silence that had fallen.
“My place?”
“We could tell Maggie that I have to work third shift for the next few weeks. And that I asked you to keep her for me. I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t desperate, Dr. Chapman. Or if I had money to send Maggie somewhere, or take her somewhere. If she was with you, you could take her to work. She could help out or do homework in your lobby. You could take her to school and pick her up and work with her one-on-one. You know what to say to her. All I do is piss her off….”
The woman had stepped way beyond her boundaries and right into a plan that would fit Sam’s edict.
“I can’t do that, Ms. Winston. Maggie’s my client. I—”
“Please, Dr. Chapman! I thought you cared about her! I thought—”
“I do care about her.”
“She talks about you a lot. She feels safe with you. And with Glenna dying and… If she’s with you I can still see her and…”
Sam had told me to do something. And the idea of being able to help Maggie myself, to have the right to keep her safe…
“Okay,” I finally said, hoping I wasn’t making a grave error. “She’ll need to cancel any babysitting she has set up.”
“That’s not a problem.”
“She wouldn’t be able to play tennis….”
“It doesn’t matter what she’s got planned, she’ll cancel it,” Lori Winston said. “How soon can you take her?”
Everything was happening so fast. But I couldn’t risk giving Mac a chance to get to Maggie.
&nbs
p; “I’ll go get her now, if you want to call and let her know I’m coming.”
It was finalized. I’d done something. Just like Sam had ordered.
Whether or not it was the right thing remained to be seen.
Maggie came without much fuss. She seemed kind of excited to be spending some time at my place while her mother worked nights. I wondered just how bad things had been at the Winston household.
The girl was already packed and waiting for me when I got to her place.
I picked up the duffel on the outside step by the one strap that wasn’t broken and loaded it in the back of the car. “Is that it?” I asked, nervous someone was watching us, but glad to be getting the girl away from there, as well.
“Yep.” She reached for something just inside the trailer—a lined denim jacket—and, wearing her backpack, locked the door behind her.
“Your mother told you you’d be staying with me for a while, right?”
“Yeah.”
So the girl packed light.
We got in the Nitro. Fastened our belts. “Did she tell you that you’d be missing your paper route?”
“Yeah. I’m probably going to quit, anyway. I can make more money babysitting.”
So Sam’s idea that Maggie was delivering drugs with her papers must be wrong. Unless Glenna was Maggie’s contact and Sam had been exactly right.
I drove toward my house. It wasn’t huge, but it was custom-built and had a hot tub on the back deck. Probably my reaction to my own poverty-stricken childhood.
But, like Maggie, I didn’t often invite people inside. No one had ever spent the night with us in the three years since Camy and I had moved in.
“Did your mom tell you why you were staying with me?”
“She thinks I need counseling and can’t afford for me to be in a real program. But she didn’t seem to know about Mac.” The girl looked at me. “Thank you for not telling.”
“I’ll have to tell her at some point. But I thought we could try changing your environment first and see how we do. How do you feel about that?”
“I’m okay with it. I mean, if it was anyone else but you, I’d be pissed, but this is okay, I guess. If it’ll make my mom feel better and get her off my back.”
“You won’t be going anywhere else while you’re with me, except for school. Just as if you were in an official program.”
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“It’s only for a few days.”
“And no computer, either.”
“I know.”
For someone who’d just been completely cut off, Maggie seemed unusually content.
I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“Did you tell Mac where you’d be?”
“I don’t have his number.”
I found that hard to believe. “You know, at the place in the city that your mom was talking about, the group home, they take the girls’ cell phones. I’ll need you to give me yours.”
Without a word, Maggie reached into her pocket, withdrew the phone and handed it to me.
If Mac had called the girl, or if Maggie had called him, I’d soon have his number.
Samantha was on duty the next morning and asked Jim to keep an eye on the locker. He called her at just past nine to tell her that there’d been a note left for her. If she still wanted help, she was to be at her locker at four-thirty that afternoon.
At least it was after school. And gave her time to get home and get changed. Showing up in uniform with a pistol in plain view would be a sure tip-off to a potential drug dealer to hightail it out of there.
At home she put on her tightest jeans. They were so low-cut the zipper measured about an inch. It was a pair she’d bought on sale without trying them on. She wasn’t fond of shopping, and even less fond of fitting rooms, but since the jeans episode, she’d been more careful. Adding a long-sleeved white T-shirt and blue hooded sweatshirt that zipped up the front, Sam put on a pair of real tennis shoes.
She took her hair down and combed it until it was shiny and full of static electricity. And she pulled out the bin of makeup she kept under her bathroom sink just in case she felt like looking girlie. It rarely happened. As a last touch, she added a pair of sunglasses her mother had given her for Christmas and that she’d never worn. They had jewels on the sides. Tucking her badge in the pocket of the hoodie and hooking her gun to her waist beneath the sweatshirt, she was on her way to pass as the new kid in town long enough to meet her contact.
She wasn’t following procedure. At all. No one knew what she was doing. She wasn’t under assignment. Didn’t have approval for an undercover job at the high school.
But they wouldn’t have given her the approval. They’d have sent her out to Siberia to work a crosswalk. If she was lucky.
Kyle went through every inch of Yale’s place. He found a couple of plastic bags in the trash that looked as though they’d contained crystals. There was a white powdery film on the inside of the bags. Kyle didn’t open them.
Nothing else stood out. A picture of some woman. A girlfriend? Sister? He didn’t know. Didn’t care.
Yale had left a few other things lying around. Some clothes. A small wooden box with mementos. A cross on a chain. An old driver’s license.
Kyle looked out the back window of Yale’s makeshift home. He saw nothing but weeds.
And something else. A piece of plywood? With a handle? He leaned in for a better view. Was that a door? It was some kind of storage on the side of the shack. Maybe it gave access to the bathroom plumbing—the new shower.
Heading outside, Kyle pulled open the unlocked door—and verified his plumbing theory. About to close the rickety wooden panel before a rat appeared, he noticed a glint of metal in the corner where the setting sun shone. All thoughts of rats fled as Kyle stepped into the small space to see what was there besides pipes.
He reached into the corner and his hand met the cool metal of a small tank.
Grabbing the handle, he pulled it out.
And was looking at one of his own portable storage tanks for anhydrous ammonia. He recognized it instantly because of the line of rust along the bottom edge. Rust meant the possibility of leakage. He’d set it out at the back of his barn, planning to dispose of it, then forgotten to do so.
Probably because it hadn’t been there to remind him.
Reaching for his phone, Kyle dialed Sam’s number.
And cursed when she didn’t pick up.
30
Sam didn’t recognize the young woman waiting by locker two-twelve until she was almost face-to-face with her.
“Ariel?” It had been a couple of years since she’d seen Chuck Sewell’s daughter. Hadn’t even known the girl was back in town.
“I thought you were living with your mom in Michigan.”
“I was. I just moved here over the weekend. My mom and I aren’t getting along so well.”
Odd that Chuck hadn’t mentioned his daughter had arrived. But then, they’d been preoccupied with a sixteen-year-old’s death.
Odder still that Chuck’s daughter was here…making a drug deal?
Sam’s head felt a little cottony. As though there was something she was missing here.
Did Chuck know his daughter was in trouble? Was that why she’d come to Chandler to live? Because she’d been using drugs in Michigan and her mother couldn’t control her?
But… If she’d only arrived that weekend, how had she gotten hooked up so quickly?
“My dad asked me to meet you here. To give you a message.”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah. He said to tell you that he just saved your, uh, backside and that if this had been a real call you could have lost your job.”
That hurt. It was much worse coming from a teenager. As Chuck would have known.
She’d considered the idea of a setup, of course. Had been pretty certain the flyer was delivered to Daniel to get to her. But she’d figured since she knew what was goi
ng on, she’d be able to protect herself. She’d gone rogue. Acted alone. Just like her father had.
“My dad cares about you a lot.”
Sam wasn’t all that fond of herself at the moment, though. She’d been working practically around the clock and was no closer to finding a superlab. Or even a distributor.
And Maggie Winston had just had sex with a pedophile.
“You know Daniel Hatch?”
“No, my dad just asked me to look him up and give him some flyer about homework help or something. What’s going on? Are you in trouble?”
“No, but I could have been, which is what your dad just showed me.”
“Well, anyway…” Ariel moved back a couple more steps, obviously embarrassed. “My dad said that he’s got something that will help you, and if you want to talk, to meet him out at Bob Branson’s farm ’cause that’s where he is tonight. He said you’d know where it is.”
“He’s right. I do,” Sam said. “Did he happen to mention where on the farm?”
“Oh, yeah. He said there’s a building behind the barns that used to be used for egg processing, but now it’s used for storage. It’s white like the rest but has a door big enough to drive a truck in. I hope I got that right.”
“Thanks, Ariel. I’ll find it.”
“Well, I gotta go. Dad said I have to be home by five or I’m grounded. He’s got some neighbor lady checking on me. He’s worse than Mom.”
Sam nodded. “Thanks for giving me the message. Welcome back to town,” she said, and received an uneasy grin in return.
Kyle tried Sam a second time as he drove the truck with his rusty anhydrous ammonia container in the bed up to the farmhouse at the front of Bob’s property. Viola wasn’t there. She’d been staying at Shauna’s the past couple of days, but planned to move back to the farm with Shauna and her family.
She’d given him free access to search everything and Kyle wanted to do it while he had the house to himself. For Viola’s sake. Besides, poking into his friend’s personal effects made him damned uncomfortable. He wasn’t a cop. How would he even know what he was looking for? But he had to go through every room, every drawer, every closet and shelf, anyway. He needed to find something that might lead Sam to Bob’s killer.
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