by Paul Bishop
Pagan remained silent, so I stayed quiet also. This was Pagan’s show.
“Come on,” Castano said. “We’ve still got two missing kids, now this meat bag explosion, and we got nada in the clues closet. Tell me you got something.”
“Maybe,” Pagan said.
“You want to share?”
Pagan shook his head. “Not yet. It’s too tenuous.”
Too crazy was more like it.
“Then go make it more tenuous,” Castano said, exaggerating the last word. The maroon and black intertwining ribbons on his words showed how frustrated he was. “Find the kids and solve this freaking case already.”
I thought I saw a split second smile flash across Pagan’s lips. It was there and gone. A micro expression. What had it been? Contempt or satisfaction. Was it Pagan’s ego showing a crack in his unflappable façade?
He turned and walked away without saying a word.
“What’s with him?” Castano asked me.
I pondered that micro expression for a moment longer. Not contempt or satisfaction. Not ego either. It had been guilt.
“He thinks he could have stopped this.”
“How?” Castano’s word ribbons matched the genuine look of shock on his face.
“Because he thinks he is responsible for everyone and everything.”
“That won’t kill him as quick as a bullet,” Castano said. “But it’s a slow poison and he’ll be just as dead in the end.”
Pagan honked the Escalade horn and I turned on my new cane and went to join the impatient bastard.
Chapter 26
“Fiction was invented the day Jonah
arrived home and told his wife that he was
three days late because he had been
swallowed by a whale…”
- Gabriel García Márquez
Climbing into the Escalade I asked, “Where first?”
“Sophie Martin,” Pagan said.
“That’s going to be a fun interview?” I asked.
“Has to be done,” Pagan said. “Her special needs son has disappeared. Her abusive, demanding uncle has just been killed. She’s the one who has been carrying the crushing load, which makes her a suspect.”
“But not our suspect,” I said, seeing the message in the color of Pagan’s words. “You think she knows Connor is alive, maybe even knows where he is?”
“No,” Pagan said. “But Smack Daddy might, although I doubt he knows him by the name Connor Martin.”
“What? I’m confused. How do you make that leap?”
“Fairies,” Pagan said.
“So you keep saying, but I’m still not getting it.”
“Do you know what a changeling is?”
“Something out of a horror film franchise or something, isn’t it. A good kid replaced by a bad kid.”
“A changeling is what’s left behind after a human child has been stolen by fairies.”
“Fairies again. And this applies how?”
“Remember, I come from a culture lumped together by the song as Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves. We are taught to lie to everyone except our own, and our history is full to the brim with folklore. We know all about fairies. As children we’re taught fairy women find birth a difficult experience. Many fairy children die before birth and those who do survive are often stunted or deformed creatures. The adult fairies, who are aesthetic beings, are repelled by these infants and have no wish to keep them.
“To make us behave, our parents told us the fairies will try to swap their ugly babies with healthy, but naughty, children who the fairies steal from the mortal world. The wizened, ill-tempered creature left in place of the human child is called a changeling and possesses the power to work evil in a household.
“It is their temperament, however, which most marks the changeling. Babies are generally supposed to be joyful and pleasant, but the fairy substitute is never happy, except when some calamity befalls the household. For the most part, it howls and screeches throughout the waking hours and the sound and frequency of its yells often transcend the bounds of mortal endurance.”
I shook my head trying to make sense of what Pagan was saying. “You want me to believe Chad and Gerrard are changelings left behind by fairies? Come on…”
“No. That’s not what I think.”
“Wait…” I made the mental leap. “You think Smack Daddy’s rap artist Changeling is actually Conner Martin? That he chose the name Changeling because of all the fairy tales he told Chad? That he thinks the child he became after the abuse was a changeling…that he became a changeling?”
“I can feel it when I think about him. He feels he was stolen away by what his adopted father did to him.”
“How can you feel something like that? We don’t even know for sure Conner is still alive.”
“I listened to a lot of Changeling’s music last night. It’s all there behind the poignant words. The tone and intonation of how he sings speaks volumes about the pain he has experienced, about how he feels.”
“But how can you feel that enough to be sure it’s what he’s feeling?” I still didn’t want to just roll over and submit to something that sounded so suspect.
“How do you see colored streamers tied to people’s words?”
That brought me up short. “But isn’t Changeling’s real name Benny White? And why would he take Gerrard and Unicorn?”
“One mystery at a time, Randall. But we’re going to have to hurry. I’m empathically aligned, and I know if we don’t unravel this fast, Gerrard and Unicorn are going to be beyond our reach. If we don’t get to Connor soon, something very bad is going to happen.”
Sophie Martin was not happy to see us, but then who is ever happy to see the cops? We only turn up when we’ve caught them doing something wrong, or when they’ve been the victim of something and want to blame us for not doing our job by stopping whatever it was from happening.
Sophie met us at the door to her house wearing a bright sundress in a blue paisley pattern. Perhaps she hadn’t had time to pull out her black mourning clothes. As the daughter and niece of funeral directors, she should have something more appropriate, but perhaps she had an aversion to black.
The bright dress accentuated what curves remained on her frail frame and her hair was brushed. Light makeup accentuated her eyes, but the effect was spoiled by the misaligned slash of too pink lipstick across her thin mouth.
“Why are you here and not looking for the person who murdered my uncle?” Her arms were crossed in front of her and she clearly wasn’t about to let us in.
“There is a whole team of detectives at the crime scene working this case,” I said.
This was apparently the wrong approach because Pagan somehow eased himself in front of me and waved at someone I couldn’t see.
“Hi, Chad,” he said.
“Hi, Ray.” The voice from behind Sophie was filled with the excitement of a child seeing a new friend. “Can they come in, sissy? Please.” Chad’s voice was now plaintiff. I didn’t need Ray’s skills to hear the underlying whine indicating an emotional storm if he didn’t get his way.
Sophie put her head down, but she moved out of the doorway.
Pagan and I stepped in. Ray moved immediately to Chad, giving him one of those bromance handshake and hug things, which I’ve never understood.
I looked at Sophie. There was going to be no sisterhood bonding with her, so I plunged right in.
“I’m sorry about your uncle.”
“I told you it was happening all over again. I told everyone, but nobody listens to me.” The streamers attached to her words were in colors indicating fear, not anger.
“I listen to you,” Chad said. The blue hue attached to his words was beautiful, the color of innocence.
Pagan had released him, but was still standing close to Chad as if offering security. Some people with mental disabilities can’t stand to have their space invaded, while others don’t understand normal social boundaries and seek out closeness. Pagan had
obviously read Chad correctly. I wasn’t surprised in the least.
Sophie’s face softened. “I know you do,” she said to her brother, older than her chronologically, but mentally years behind her.
“You did tell us,” I said to Sophie. “I’m sorry.” It was better to diffuse her with agreement, than arguing about what she had or hadn’t told us making sense at the time. “I need your help to figure this whole thing out.” Even though Pagan was with me, I was trying to get through to Sophie on a one to one level.
Something flashed across Sophie’s face and was gone. A micro expression, too fast to interpret. “What do you want?”
“Do you have any photos of Connor?”
“Surely the police were given a photo when my parents reported him missing.”
“I’m sure they did,” I said. “But that was ten years ago. The report was digitized, but the photo wasn’t added. We’ve requested the original file, but it hasn’t yet been retrieved from the bowels of the police archives.”
Sophie shook her head as if this incompetence was only to be expected. “I don’t think there are any photos of him after all these years.”
“Why not?” I asked gently. Most families would treasure photos of a missing or deceased child.
Sophie shrugged. “I was too young at the time to understand and everything was in such upheaval after Connor went missing. With father being killed and mother being sick, it’s all a blur.”
“What do you remember?”
The shrug came again as did the micro expression crossing her face. This time, I caught it – embarrassment. That was odd.
“There was a lot of drama over Connor being adopted. I heard my parents arguing one time. Father was furious. Connor’s birth mother was white, but as Connor grew, it became clear there was some mud in the water, as my father so crudely put it.”
“How old were you?”
“This was just before Connor went missing. I was nine, but just because you are young doesn’t mean you don’t hear and remember things.”
I agreed. “Words like that can leave a lasting impression. So, your father believed Connor was of mixed race?”
“Yes. He accused my mother of lying to him about Conner’s father because she wanted a baby so badly.”
“Do you think that was true?”
Sophie shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Clearly, this made your father very angry.”
Sophie nodded this time. Unfolding her arms then, not knowing what to do with them, refolded them. “The mortuary business has made my uncles very comfortable financially, but it has also made them very, very conservative in their view. My father was just like them. I don’t think he could abide the thought the son he adopted wasn’t pure. That’s what he said to my mother – Connor wasn’t pure.”
“Do you think he was abusing Connor?”
The tears rolling unashamedly down Sophie’s face were more of an answer than any words.
“Where is Gerrard?” She suddenly gulped for air. “What has happened to Gerrard? Uncle Harvey hated him because of his condition, just like my father hated Connor. Where is he? Please find him.” Sophie started to sag to the floor, but I caught her and guided her to a chair.
She was sobbing when Chad stepped forward and put his arms around her. “It’s okay, sissy. Ray will find Gerrard.” He looked over at Ray. “Won’t you?”
Pagan was obviously uncomfortable. It was a promise he couldn’t make. I knew it, Pagan knew it, and Sophie knew it.
But Chad didn’t. And he knew just what he could do to help.
He suddenly released Sophie and ran out of the room like a hyperactive five year-old. He was back in less than a minute holding the book of Irish fairy tales.
“I still have a picture of Connor,” he said. “I kept it.”
Opening the pages of the book, he reverently pulled out a four-by-six photo. He handed it to Pagan.
Standing next to Pagan, I could see the photo was of a seven or eight year-old Chad standing next to a slightly built boy, their arms linked across shoulders. Chad was smiling sweetly.
Conner was taller, but he could have been taken for the same age or even younger if it wasn’t for the haunted almost feral look of a stray cat in his eyes. If it wasn’t a trick of the camera, or the light, this was a child either possessed or wise beyond his years. Even in the faded colors, it was clear the slighter built boy had a darker skin tone. His head was buzzed, nothing but a fine covering of black fuzz.
“That’s Conner,” Chad said proudly. “My brother.”
I looked beyond the figures to the background of the picture. “Where was this taken?” I asked.
“At the cemetery,” Chad said.
“The cemetery?”
“Valley of Olives,” Sophie said. “We played there all the time as kids. It was part of the first Martin Mortuary owned by our father.”
“This is the one your uncles sold?”
“Yes. I found out in later years they sold it because complying with all the state regulations of having a private cemetery attached to a mortuary was cutting into the profits. Uncle Harvey and Uncle Dave never really got along, so it made sense to sell and invest the proceeds into their own mortuaries. The businesses are completely separate except for the shared names.”
“Do you know who bought Valley of Olives?” Pagan asked.
“The Krugers. They were employees of our father. They were caretakers for the cemetery and lived on site.”
“They would give us cake and lemonade,” Chad said. His smile was soft, but the memory clearly gave him pleasure. “Connor was the best at hiding.”
I looked at Sophie. She took the photograph from Pagan and looked at it. “We always played hide and seek in the cemetery after it was closed when we were waiting for father. We could never find Connor. It drove my father mad because sometimes Connor wouldn’t come out when called, and he would never tell where he’d hidden.”
“I assume Valley of Olives is still in existence,” I said.
Sophie shrugged. “Sure. I don’t know how full the cemetery is, but the mortuary still operates. Uncle Harvey often complains about them stealing business from him. He hated the Krugers because they were German Jews and he thinks Uncle Dave, who was our father’s executor because our mother was too sick with cancer, sold the business to them too cheaply.”
“Do you know anything about Connor’s birth parents?” Pagan asked.
“I don’t think even the mother really knew who the father was, that’s why his being bi-racial was a surprise.”
“What about the mother?”
“I came across some papers a few years ago amongst some other legal things my mother had set aside. They adopted Conner when he was still an infant through a lawyer who the mother hired to find a home for her baby.”
“For a price?” I said.
“No doubt,” Sophie agreed. “The mother’s name was Gretchen White and she’d originally named her baby Benny, but father had it legally changed to Connor Martin as part of the adoption.”
Chapter 27
“When truth is replaced by silence,
the silence is a lie.”
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko
I was driving the Escalade with Pagan lying back in the passenger seat. My head was a whirl of colliding information. Even though his eyes were shut, I could tell by the tense lines of his body that Pagan was having the same mental experience.
Before we’d left the Martin residence, Pagan used the department radio to contact the uniformed officers still outside Smack Daddy’s house. After verifying the record executive was still at home, Pagan told them to ask Smack Daddy to meet us at Hollywood Area station.
“Ask him politely,” Pagan had told them. “I want him there voluntarily. If he gives you a bad time, tell him I have information on his daughter.”
“You want the wife?”
“Not if you can get him there without her.”
Next Pagan called Arlo while I’d jabbered a
t Chris Lancaster – RHD’s resident computer geek. We asked both of them to find anything solid on Benny White, a.k.a. Conner Martin, a.k.a. Changeling.
Arlo was the first to call back. Pagan sat up and punched the Escalade’s phone button to accept the call.
“We have a mystery here,” Arlo said without preamble.
“Meaning?” Pagan asked.
“There are a ton of articles about this guy, but no personal interviews. Everything says the same things, which looked to have been coordinated by Smack Records.”
“What about before he was signed by Smack Records while his videos were going viral on the web?” I asked.
“Everybody and his mother have viral videos these days. Nobody really pays any attention until something like an actual record deal comes through.”
“Does he have an agent, a lawyer, some kind of representative?” I asked.
“I checked with Davenport at TMZ again,” Arlo said. “He found out a couple of the television singing contests tried to track him down to get him to audition, but got turned down. He’s making more calls to find out who turned them down.”
“This guy is a freaking ghost,” I said, after Arlo disconnected. My adrenaline was pumping, rubbing against the endorphins in my system. I felt I was heating up from the inside out.
“Not too many people can fly under the radar like this,” Pagan agreed. “He had to have help.”
“He’s not a superspy. He was a ten year-old boy when this started. Where does he get that kind of help?”
“Clearly he’s a street survivor. Sophie Martin said he was a wild child. No telling how the connections in his brain worked after everything he’d been put through.”
“Still, he was ten. Somebody had to take him in.”
The phone went again. It was Chris Lancaster calling from RHD.
“I’ve been able to track one juvenile arrest for a Benny White from nine years ago. I can’t say for sure if it’s the guy we’re looking for, but from the circumstances I’d say it is.”
“Tell me,” Pagan said.
“I put a fire under the clerk working the report archives and he faxed me the original paperwork. White was spotted at two o’clock in the morning walking on the street a block over from the Martin residence. He took off running and the officers went into pursuit. He got away for a while, but another unit called into the area spotted him again and cornered him.”