Seventy-five minutes later, I stopped at a Quickee Mart just outside the town limits and bought a burrito, which I ate while filling the SUV with gas. When the tank was full, I drove to the address Whitney had given me.
The guy from the VFW hall lived in a double-wide trailer a couple blocks from the high school. His name was Delbert G. Littlejohn. DOB June 12, 1946. According to the local appraisal district, the owner of the trailer was Susan Marie Littlejohn, a daughter I guessed, since she was born in 1969.
The Littlejohn domicile appeared well tended. The lawn was mowed, the beds full of flowers. A late-model Kia was parked in the driveway, behind an elderly Ford pickup with two bumper stickers—Made in the USA and Vietnam Veteran.
I parked across the street in front of a vacant lot overgrown with weeds.
It was a little after noon, and the temperature gauge read ninety-nine degrees. I fastened the Peterson County sheriff’s badge to my belt, got out, and walked across the road.
On the porch, hand reaching out to knock, I heard raised voices from inside, a man and a woman shouting.
I knocked anyway.
Footsteps.
The door opened, and a woman in her midforties appeared. She wore blue medical scrubs and had shoulder-length hair dyed the color of wheat.
I introduced myself. “Is Delbert Littlejohn at home?”
She swore under her breath and turned to the interior of the trailer, yelling, “Are you happy now? The damn police are here.”
Unintelligible shouts in return.
The woman turned back to me. “What’s he done now?”
“Nothing. But I need to talk to him. May I come in?”
She sighed wearily and opened the door.
The interior of the home was tidy, the air smelling of pine disinfectant and bacon. Gray sculpted carpet that was freshly vacuumed, wood-paneled walls adorned with framed prints of mountain scenes. A leather sectional sofa in front of a flat-screen TV.
“I got a shift at the dialysis center in Waxahachie,” the woman said. “Starts in thirty minutes. I can’t stay.”
Waxahachie was a town on the interstate about twenty-five minutes away.
In the doorway on the other side of the room stood an old man in a bathrobe. He looked like death was knocking on his door, but he was too tired to answer. His face was blotchy where it wasn’t pale, his hair greasy. A swollen gut, broomstick legs.
“Don’t be conned into getting him something to drink.” The woman picked up her purse from the dining room table.
“Is he all right to be by himself?” I said.
“Hell no.” She walked to the door. “But we’re not exactly full up with options.”
“Is there anything I can—”
The door slammed shut. The old man and I looked at each other.
“What do you want?” he said.
“Yesterday at the VFW hall. You saw a car get stolen.”
“You got any beer?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Silence.
Delbert Littlejohn shuffled into the kitchen area. He turned on the tap at the sink, filled a glass, and sucked it down in one long gulp.
“You had anything to eat today?” I asked.
He shook his head. “There’s a bar in town that makes a good burger. How about you give me a ride? She hid the keys to my truck again.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“Then you can leave.” He drank another full glass of water.
“I can’t do that, Mr. Littlejohn.”
He wobbled over to the couch and sat down.
“Based on my observations,” I said, “you appear to be a danger to yourself.”
He looked up, his eyes forming slits.
“I’ll have to take you to the hospital for a seventy-two-hour psych hold.”
“You son of a bitch.” His face turned red. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
I smiled. “I’m the guy who’s gonna throw your ass into an alcohol-free environment for the next three days.”
He swore again and then turned on the TV with a remote. A daytime talk show appeared on the screen.
I walked over to the sofa. Pulled the remote from his hand. Turned off the TV.
“They’ll give you an IV full of vitamins and minerals,” I said. “It makes the detox a lot easier.”
A few moments passed.
“What do you want to know?” He slumped his shoulders, defeated.
“Everything you can remember about the woman who took the car.”
A long pause.
“I was pretty drunk,” he said.
“Yeah. I gathered that.”
“Charlie, he never loans his car out. She tried to tell me she was borrowing it.”
“What did she look like?”
“White girl. She was pretty.”
“How about her age? How tall was she?”
He licked his lips and frowned, clearly trying to dredge up the memories. “Maybe, uh, twenty. Average height.”
The woman I’d talked to for a few seconds behind the motel was in her thirties at least. I wondered if this had been a wasted trip. Thousands of cars got stolen every day in Texas, more than a few of them by women, some of whom no doubt wore ball caps.
“It was hard to tell what she looked like on account of she was wearing these big sunglasses and a hat.”
“What kind of hat?” I asked.
He rubbed his chin but didn’t answer.
“A Stetson? Or a sombrero?”
“A ball cap.” Delbert looked proud of himself. “A Washington Redskins ball cap.”
I tried not to look disappointed. It wasn’t the same person. Pretty hard to misidentify something like that. The Cowboys’ colors were blue and silver, Washington’s red and gold.
“She was good-looking. Did I tell you that?”
I nodded. Glanced toward the door, thought about the long drive back to the office.
Delbert said, “And I bet she had a body underneath that rain jacket.”
I turned away from the door. “What rain jacket?”
“She wore this ugly raincoat kinda thing.”
“Like something you might buy at a dollar store?” I asked.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“And a Washington Redskins ball cap?”
“I remember the cap clearly.” He nodded. “Thanksgiving, 1974. Drew Pearson caught a fifty-yard pass with thirty seconds to go. Cowboys beat the Skins, twenty-four to twenty-three.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Never forget that day,” Delbert said. “Me and my little girl Susan. Her mama had just died.” He paused. “That’s how I remember the woman who stole Charlie’s car was wearing a Cowboys ball cap.”
I stared at his eyes. “I thought you said it was a Washington Redskins cap?”
“Did I?” He looked confused.
“Yeah.”
He shook his head, the expression on his weathered face that of a lost little boy.
“So what kind of cap do you think it was?” I kept my voice soft. “Think real carefully.”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Tears welled in his eyes.
“What else can you tell me about the woman? Anything at all.”
He shook his head and started to weep for reasons I couldn’t begin to fathom. Alcoholic mood swings, low blood sugar, a lifetime of bad choices?
I went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and found a box of leftover pizza that didn’t look very old. Pepperoni and sausage. I brought the box to the living area and set it down in front of Delbert. He jerked open the lid and devoured what was there like he’d just been released from the gulag.
When he was finished he closed t
he box and said, “It was definitely a Cowboys cap.”
I nodded. “Anything else you remember?”
He stared off into space. “She wasn’t a Monte Carlo kind of girl.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not sure why, but I didn’t get the impression she was boosting the car for the money.”
A set of disjointed images flickered through my head. The woman in the ball cap and shapeless coat. A narrow hallway in a motel on the interstate. The Buick LaCrosse, an inexpensive automobile.
After a moment, I realized the woman I had seen didn’t belong in that hallway or driving that car. She gave off a different vibe. Like she was used to better things.
“Did she seem like a rich girl?” I asked. “You know, playacting at being something else.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s a good way to put it, now that you mention it.”
We were both silent for a few moments.
I stood up to leave. “You gonna be all right if I go?”
He didn’t reply, brow furrowed.
I headed to the door.
“One more thing,” he said. “It was really strange.”
“What?”
“Seemed like she was talking to somebody who wasn’t there.” He shook his head. “Sounded like it was her . . . grandfather?”
- CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO -
Sarah wipes the Spyderco on Milky Eye’s shirt and tosses the knife into the Dumpster.
Then she plunges down the alley, heading away from the bodies of the two homeless men, trying to escape from all that she is and all that she will become.
She has no phone or weapon. She’s dressed like she’s going to the yacht club. Her only child is undergoing surgery at this very moment.
At the end of the alley, she stops. She’s sweating, breath coming in heaves.
Across the street is a decrepit strip mall housing a tattoo shop, a store that sells electronic cigarettes, and a medical supply company.
She has to get out of sight.
The two bodies will be found, sooner rather than later. Even though the victims were homeless, not usually a high priority for the authorities, there were two of them, both with their throats cut in broad daylight.
The police will have to investigate. Soon the alley will be full of ambulances and homicide detectives. The trail she’s left is too big, too many markers pointing back to her.
She waits until her breathing slows, then walks into the tattoo shop.
A woman in her twenties is behind the counter. The woman is wearing a tank top to better accentuate the ink covering her arms, a green-and-red floral pattern that gives the feeling of an album cover from the 1960s—peace and love and patchouli.
Sarah and the woman are the only people in the store. The walls are covered with silk screens showing various tattoo designs.
“Can I help you?” The woman lights some incense.
“I need to borrow a phone, if I could.”
The woman stares at Sarah, taking in her white blouse covered in alley grime and sweat.
“I’m happy to pay you.” Sarah reaches into her purse, pulls out a twenty.
“Are you okay?” A concerned look on the woman’s face.
“I had a flat tire,” Sarah says. “I tried to change it myself.”
The woman doesn’t speak.
“Of course I left my cell on the charger at home.” Sarah rolls her eyes. “I’m always doing that.”
“Here.” The woman slides a landline across the top of the counter. “You don’t need to pay me.”
“Thank you.” Sarah dials Elias’s number.
She could call the person she reached out to last night, or Walden, but with two dead bodies behind her, there’s a limit to how involved she wants a non-family-member to be.
After a long time, Elias answers the phone with a wary hello.
“It’s your sister,” Sarah says. “I have a flat tire. I need you to pick me up.”
Silence.
The woman behind the counter busies herself rearranging a cup of pens, obviously not wanting to eavesdrop but just as obviously not going to the other side of the room.
“I’m busy,” Elias says. “Call one of your boyfriends.”
“I was going to call Roger,” Sarah says. “But I figured I’d try you first.”
Heavy breathing from the other end. Roger is Elias’s probation officer.
“You’re a piece of work, sis.” His voice sounds tinny. “Where are you?”
Sarah reads him the address off one of the business cards by the incense.
“Ten minutes.” Elias hangs up.
Sarah slides the phone back across the counter. “He’s on his way. Thank you.”
“Would you like to sit down while you wait?” the woman asks. “Maybe have some tea?”
On the wall by the cash register is a silk screen with a pattern that looks vaguely familiar. An ornate rose over two interlocking circles with crosses protruding from the bottom, nearly identical to the tattoo on Cleo’s neck.
“That one.” Sarah points to the screen. “What does it mean?”
“The power of hope and love,” the woman says. “The crosses at the bottom, it’s a lesbian thing.”
“Hope and love.” Sarah nods. “Yes, I can see that.”
The flower bursts with color, petals seeming to reach out, yearning to touch the viewer, offering guidance and safe passage.
For some reason the springtime image makes her think of fall mornings at the house in Bowie County, frost on the grass, the smell of breakfast cooking. A time of peace. She’s a little girl. She doesn’t yet understand the emotional trauma adults are capable of inflicting on one another. Or on a child.
The woman, a confused expression on her face, stares at Sarah.
Hope and love, Sarah thinks. These are the important things in life. Hope, love, and family.
With a start, she realizes she won’t be able to see Dylan when her daughter comes back from surgery. She has to change clothes, get cleaned up from the mess she made in the alley.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” the woman asks.
A lump of emotion wells in Sarah’s throat. She needs to get a lawyer. Or leave Dallas for good.
If the police do their job, Sarah might not ever see Dylan again.
In her head, the voice of her grandfather. Get out of the damn tattoo parlor!
Sarah looks around the store like she’s seeing it for the first time.
“Who are you talking to?” the woman says.
“What?”
“Just now. You were mumbling something about Dylan.”
Sarah’s skin gets cold. In the far corner of the store she sees a tiny TV camera.
The woman squints at Sarah’s waist. “Is that blood on your shirt?”
Sarah looks down. Several red droplets stain the white material just above her hip. Two homeless men, throats cut, blood gushing. How could she have avoided being tainted by what she’s done?
“It wasn’t my fault.” Sarah doesn’t know if she’s thinking those words or saying them.
“Maybe I should call an ambulance.” The woman picks up the phone.
Sarah’s grandfather: GET OUT OF THERE!
The woman dials.
Sarah presses down on the receiver’s cradle. “No, that’s okay. I’ll wait on the street.”
The woman doesn’t speak. Her eyes are wide, taking in every detail, no doubt.
“Thanks for your help.” Sarah smiles and leaves the store.
Outside, the sky is cloudless, a merciless sun beating down on the cracked sidewalk. An ambulance, siren blaring, rushes by, headed toward the emergency room.
Sarah tries to get her head right, project an image of confidence. She imagines herself shopping in an expensiv
e part of town, strolling with friends, not a care in the world. With that in mind, she walks to the corner and waits.
Three minutes later, right as the first police car turns down the alley, Elias stops and Sarah gets into his pickup.
Elias is not alone, and Sarah realizes that once again she has made the wrong choice.
- CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE -
I arrived at the Black Valley Generating Station midafternoon. Figured that would be where the action was, so to speak, and I was right.
Vehicles and people swarmed across the entire site.
A news van from Waco was parked on the side of the road just outside the main entrance. A woman with puffy blond hair stood with the smokestacks in the background, holding a microphone and looking into a camera operated by a bearded guy wearing khaki shorts.
I pulled up to the gate, and an armed man wearing a blue T-shirt marked FEDERAL AGENT on the back waved me through.
Inside the perimeter were dozens of Sudamento repair trucks and almost that many black Suburbans, the latter sprouting antennas like weeds.
As I drove toward the main office, my phone dinged with a text message.
I slowed, picked up the cell.
A blocked number. The message: Eliz is fine.
Breath caught in my throat. Piper was telling me about our daughter, Elizabeth.
There was no place to park in the lot by the administration building, so I stopped on the side of the road behind another black Suburban.
I typed a reply: Where are you?
No answer.
I typed some more. Please come home.
Nothing. A helicopter flew overhead. Vehicles rattled down the gravel road.
I waited a moment longer and sent one last text. Tell E. her daddy loves her.
An enormous sense of loss settled on my shoulders. An empty spot inside me, like something had been cut away from deep within.
As much as possible, I tried not to think about the situation. I didn’t dwell on Piper’s foibles, the idiosyncrasies that made her who she was. Made her the woman I loved at one time.
You get involved with somebody like that—caring and beguiling and volatile all in the same breath—you have to understand that everything can change with a shift in the winds.
My cell dinged again, a short reply. OK.
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