by Wen Spencer
“If he’s not using his credit card, and he used up all his cash, what’s he living on?” Ukiah asked.
Sam shrugged. “It’s not showing up on normal credit reports, whatever it is.”
The grandfather clock struck noon.
Max sighed, standing up. “You’re right—he dropped off the face of the earth. We’ve got three hours before the ransom call. I want to hit the gun shop before then. I know that you keep saying that this Goodman is human.” This was to Ukiah. “But this all feels wrong. I want to pick up some heavy artillery if we end up going against the Ontongard again.”
Sam made a sound of disgust at the thought of fighting the Ontongard. “I’ll go back to digging, but I’m a little hampered. I have tons of West Coast contacts, but nothing here in Pittsburgh.”
“I can check to see if Goodman applied for welfare here,” Ukiah volunteered. “I’ll also see if he’s contacted the DMV, or any of the utilities.”
“Eat something first,” Max told him. “We need you in top condition. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Ukiah ate at his desk as he made his calls. At first Sam’s voice was a constant background murmur, and then she fell silent for so long that it drew his attention. He hung up on his fruitless call and focused on Sam.
She was pacing quietly in the keeping room. While he listened, she picked up the third line and punched in a long-distance call. She continued to pace, murmuring softly, “Come on, come on, answer the phone, you old fart.”
A moment later she said, “Dad?” in a tone that was leery and hard. “It’s me, Sam. I need a favor. What? No, that has nothing to do with it. How do you know about that anyhow? Shit! I should have known Peter would call you.” Peter was Sam’s ex-husband, and one of the main reasons she left Pendleton. “Yes, I’m in Pittsburgh, but it’s not like that; I drove the hiker’s car back to Pittsburgh. Look, I need a favor.” Sam let out a long exasperated sigh. “You’d sell Grandma if you thought you’d get a good price for her! That’s a crock of bullshit! She didn’t sell you to the circus, and we both know that. Okay, okay, I need information; if what you give me is good enough, I’ll send you money. There’s a guy who was in San Quentin the same time as you, his name is Adam Goodman.” Sam started to describe Goodman, but came to a halt partway through. “Yeah, that sounds like the man. I need to find him.”
Sam listened for several minutes, scratching notes down with a pencil. “But where is he now? Hell, no, I’m not sleeping with the Indian kid.” She paused. “If I was sleeping with his partner, do you think that’s something I’d talk to you about? Dad, I’m not going to answer that question.”
The last was a snarl worthy of a Pack member. There was a moment of silence, and then Sam continued in a quiet, but angry tone. “He’s not older than you; he’s forty. Dad, I’m nearly thirty, okay? No, Kendall Jane is twenty-two. 1976, Dad, I’m the bicentennial baby. Okay, twenty-eight and a half. He’s thirty-nine. He’s just over ten years—why am I having this discussion with you? You of all people should know that Peter lies!”
She stood and started to pace. “It’s not like that at all. Max could have anyone and he wants me; do you know how special that makes me—yes, anyone. That’s because Peter thinks with his dick. Max’s handsome, intelligent, witty, mature, responsible, reliable—what the fuck do you want from me, Dad? To go back to that asshole? Because if that’s what you want, that’s not going to happen! Just tell me where the hell Goodman is and I’ll mail you fifty dollars.
“He snatched a friend’s kid.” She paced for several minutes, listening with an occasional “yes.” Finally all movement and sound stopped. “Is there anyone that you can check with that might know?” The silence continued. “Okay, thanks. No. I haven’t decided what I want. I just don’t want—I just want to be sure it’s right, totally right, and just not the opposite of Peter.” She listened to a question, and laughed. “I’m not going to tell you that! Because! You’ll be always trying to borrow money from me if I told you! Yes, he’ll pay for me to move. Give me more credit than that, Dad. He has the money.
“I know. I know. Well, thanks for the info. I’ve got to go.” She said her good-bye with a stilted “I love you” as if the words came unnaturally for her, even for her father.
Ukiah got up and walked to the keeping room.
She was sitting with her head in her hands. She sensed him at the door and looked up. “I suppose you heard all of that.”
“Yes.”
She gave a soundless laugh. “I’d ask you not to tell Max about this, but if we’re going to work together, I don’t want to start things like that—taking sides and keeping secrets.”
“Not a good idea,” Ukiah agreed.
Max stepped through the back door at that moment. “What isn’t a good idea? What?”
“Sam has some information on Goodman.”
“Great! It is good, isn’t it?”
“Not really.” Sam scrubbed hands through hair, and then stood up. “There’s not much, but it might give us an angle to work with.” She took a defiant stance next to the window. “My father was in San Quentin same time as Goodman. One of the few redeeming qualities that my father has is that he’s a fairly good judge of character, when he wants to be, which is usually when he’s trying to con someone out of something,” Sam paused. “Well?”
“I’m not going to say anything,” Max said.
“But you’re thinking it.”
“I’m not sure what you think I’m thinking, but I’m not—I think.” Max paused, trying to keep a vaguely puzzled look off his face. “I’m not a man that judges a person by the sins of their fathers.”
“What did he say about Goodman?” Ukiah tried to distract them from whatever fight was forming on the horizon.
“Basically that if Goodman had true criminal tendencies, he’d be a master thief. He’s got great skills at working out a simple plan, and executing it with precision. Apparently while he was in San Quentin, if you wanted something from outside and didn’t mind dealing with a dangerous loon, you went to him.”
“Loon?”
“My father’s words.” Sam showed her notes, where she had written “loon” and then branched it out to: Mental disorder? Doctor? Drug controlled? Prescription?
“Rumor mill has it that his family were right-wing, fundamental survivalists. The thing is, Goodman’s sexual hang-ups usually cancel out any criminal ambitions he has. Apparently all his energy goes toward creating his perfect sexual fantasy.”
“This is where the sex with minors comes in?”
“My father says it’s some kind of survivalist wet dream, basically a stockpile of guns, a bomb shelter, and a doe-eyed teenager that can’t say no.”
“So he’s a gun bunny, pedophile schizophrenic.”
“Something like that.”
“And this makes it easier to find him?”
“It makes him dangerous to find,” Sam said. “It’s nearly a sure thing he’ll have guns coming out his whazoo.”
Max nodded. “Nothing else?”
“Two things. Dad suggested that we check reported runaways in the area. Apparently even in prison, he hooked on to some naive virgin, and did this weird whammy that the two of them were God’s gift to mankind, the virgin being one step behind him, of course. The fact that the girls were crazy in love with him were the only reasons he wasn’t slapped with kidnapping and rape whenever the girl’s parents caught up with them.”
“That’s one thing.”
“I’m getting to it,” Sam snapped. “The second is the kid he hooked up with in prison. Dad remembers he had some hick name like Billy Bob and was a serious Steelers fan. Word is that when Goodman got out of prison, he couldn’t get a job because of the child molesting conviction. Billy Bob, though, had gotten out of prison a couple of years ago, gone back East, and nailed down something with money; he wired money for Goodman to join him. It was like a thousand dollars. Goodman flashed the money around and ended up taking the bus, nearly broke.”<
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Max swore because an airplane ticket would have Goodman’s name on it, making it easy to track him. A car with state registration, insurance, and inspection would have made finding Goodman simple. “Indigo can check with Western Union on the wire transfer. When was this?”
“Six months ago, when Goodman dropped off the face of the earth.” Sam flipped through her notepad, tapping various notes with red checks beside them. “There haven’t been hits on his credit reports. None of his past employers or old landlords have had reference checks. I got hold of a temporary secretary at his most recent employer, so I managed to talk a fax of his employment application off of her.” She hunted through loose paper on her desk and showed it to them. Goodman had surprisingly neat handwriting, all the slots were filled in, and spelled correctly. It was the type of application that Max would have tapped for an interview just based on the attention to detail it showed. “I’ve tried all his emergency contacts, and if they’re telling the truth, haven’t heard from him since he came East.”
“He hooked into something shifty,” Max guessed.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was dead,” Sam said.
If Sam hadn’t winged Goodman, Ukiah would say that he might have been made a Get. Ukiah walked back through the conversation. The girl was key. If she was a local runaway, then she might have talked to friends or family after meeting Goodman.
“I think I should go see Vic.”
“Vic?” Sam asked as Max said it was a good idea.
“Victor Danforth is head of missing persons for Allegheny County. We’ve worked with him a couple of times, a good guy.”
Max wanted to stay by the phone, in case the kidnappers called early. He urged Sam to go with Ukiah to see Vic. “If you’re going to stay, you should get to know your way around.”
“Wolf Boy!” Vic clasped Ukiah’s hand in a surprisingly warm greeting. “I heard about your kid. I’m really sorry. If there’s anything I can do?”
“Thanks, Vic.” Ukiah indicated Sam beside him. “This is Sam Killington. She helped us out in finding Alicia in Oregon. She might be working with us.” Sam and Vic shook hands. Ukiah took out the artist sketch of the girl and explained about Goodman and his young female partner. “Sam’s . . . source . . . in California suggested we check local runaways.”
Vic studied the paper. “She looks familiar. Maybe.” He handed back the sketch and walked to a filing cabinet. “You’re talking the proverbial needle in a haystack, you know. We get a couple thousand runaways reported every year, and that’s just us, not counting Butler or Westmoreland County. We don’t have fingerprints for these kids. Heck, we often don’t have recent photographs, and you know how much kids can change in appearance in a year. And the hell of it, most of them aren’t runaways.”
“What are they? Kidnappings?”
“They’re walkaways. Driftaways.” Vic shuffled through the files. “We call them couch kids; they sleep on the couches of friends and relatives—anywhere but home. These kids hit twelve or thirteen, and they think they’ve got the whole world figured out.”
“I thought that was a definition of a teenager,” Sam said.
“Some of them have good cause; they’ve been abused. A lot of them, though, just don’t want to go to school, clean their rooms, or eat their peas. They’re selfish little brats.”
“Are they so bad for just wanting control of their own lives?” Sam asked.
“If we lived in a perfect world, no. But the problem is that they willfully jump into the cracks and never come back out. Sooner or later, they move out of my files and into someone else’s. Burglary. Vice. Homicide.” He pulled out a thick file and held it out. “This year’s missing children. If she’s one of ours, she’s in here. You’re welcome to look through it.”
Vic gave them use of a desk. They split the file between them and started to flip through them. Ukiah studied the pictures, growing dismayed at the number and ages of the missing children. He thought of Pittsburgh as a safe place; he and Max were part of a system that kept kids from disappearing. Apparently for every child that triggered a massive manhunt, dozens quietly vanished. Couch kids. Runaways. Children snatched by noncustodial parents. Just plain missing.
And Kittanning was now one of them.
While in Oregon, Max had chanted, “You’re nearly indestructible.” Ukiah understood now how much comfort it provided.
Keeping in mind that the pictures might not be recent ones, and that children sometimes changed dramatically, he moved carefully through his pile. Sam occasionally handed him sheets on blond, teenage girls, saying, “What about her?” The last one, he stared at several minutes, before nodding. “Yeah, that’s her.”
The girl in the picture verged on heavyset, and looked sullen and angry. Life with Goodman had thinned her down. Made her scared. Made her nearly unrecognizable.
“Eve Linden,” Vic read the name. “Yeah, she moved from a mild annoyance to a real concern. She’s been drifting for like two years, but her aunt gave her a cell phone and paid the bill to keep it connected, so the family kept tabs on her until last month. She hit her aunt up for money, saying she wanted to buy school clothes, promising that she was going to buckle down this year. No one has heard from her since then. Her phone was discovered in a Dumpster near the mall a day later and that’s when her family reported her missing.”
Ukiah flipped through the file, taking in names and addresses in a glance. “We were hoping that someone had talked to her, give us a lead on Goodman.”
“If she’s gotten in touch with anyone, they haven’t let us know that she’s alive,” Vic said. “I’ll fax this over to the FBI and let them know you’ve IDed the girl.”
“Assuming you’ve got that all memorized, do we start calling her little friends? See if any of them have heard from her and not told the police.”
Ukiah shook his head. “I think Goodman tossed the phone to cut her connection with her family and friends.”
“Can’t hurt to check though.”
“Goodman’s from California,” Ukiah said. “He’s been in Pittsburgh six months or less. He might be using her as a native guide. What we should ask her friends about is any secret hangouts that she might know about.”
They got back to the offices by two. Max shook his head as they came in, saying, “No call.”
Indigo arrived minutes after them and settled beside Ukiah on the living-room couch, leaning against his strength. As if they had been following her, the Pack gathered close to the house, waiting patiently for news.
They watched the hands of the grandfather clock creep around to three, then onto four, with only the clock chimes breaking the silence.
Max checked his wristwatch for the hundredth time. “He’s not going to call.”
Indigo’s phone rang and she answered it with a tense, “Special Agent Zheng.” As she listened, she reached out and caught Ukiah’s hand, crushing it tight. “Yes. Yes. Yes. I’ll be right there.”
He swallowed hard against his fear. “What is it?”
“They found another baby dead,” she whispered.
CHAPTER TEN
Bennett Detective Agency, Shadyside, Pennsylvania
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
The dead baby was Isaiah, the black boy infant taken from the Homestead supermarket. His body was found in a Dumpster behind a South Hills restaurant, thrown away like so much trash. Indigo excused herself to the bathroom, where she apparently meditated, coming out calm and focused. Under the composed surface, though, was a mountain of icy rage.
“If you come with me,” Indigo said, “I’m not going to be able to let you disturb the crime scene.”
“I’m going to take in Kittanning’s memory and try to use it to find him. I’m not sure it will work; it depends on what memories it’s holding.”
She clasped his hand briefly as if touching him more would break her carefully built control. “Keep me up-to-date.”
They readied for war, donning their
new body armor that had just arrived and loading their guns with care: pistols for humans, shotguns for Ontongard. Max and Sam packed the Hummer with everything short of C4, and the Pack brought that.
Ukiah spilled the caterpillar into his hand, stroked the prickly bristles, feeling its shimmer of joy at being so close to its progenitor. He hated the idea of absorbing it, taking in what might be the only thing left of Kittanning, of obliterating his son from the world. He tried to keep forefront in his mind that it would be more merciful to welcome back these few cells instead of leaving them alone and afraid. Surely if he found Kittanning intact, his son would be better without these horrific memories.
“Come to me,” he whispered, still feeling as if he were betraying Kittanning. “Give me your secrets.”
It vanished into his hand, a tiny pool of blood quickly gone.
. . . light played on the ceiling of Kittanning’s bedroom. It was at once both wonderful and irritating. Grammy had strung crystals in the window and they broke the light into dancing colors. Still, the room was so small when compared to the universe he knew existed beyond the ceiling, represented by the rarely glimpsed night sky. Those memories of brilliant stars, harsh blue whites and deep bloodreds, were winking out, disappearing before he had a chance to call them up and lock them away. His world, with all its joyful assault upon his senses of things, distracted him constantly. A sudden stirring in the bedroom above his reminded him that his daddy was home, and all else was forgotten. Impatient now for Daddy, he squawked, demanding attention.
“Good morning, dumpling.” Grammy eclipsed the dancing lights.
Normally he’d be pleased to see her, but Daddy was just upstairs, stretching in bed and gazing at slants of sunlight across his own ceiling . . .
Ukiah pressed on through the fragments of memory, trying not to think about how in doing so he might be erasing the last living traces of his son. He immersed himself in the recall, and thus noticed that while Kittanning had an integrated personality, just like he did, the thousand-fold chorus of his individual cells lay close to the surface, busily relocating fuel reserves at a maddening pace. The cells fretted at Kittanning’s limitations, and with alien-borne efficiency, pushed him toward mobility and the ability to protect himself. Normally Ukiah would have found this distressing, but now he found comfort in it—Kittanning’s body could protect him through dangers that would kill any normal child.