The road was blocked by a brown and tan county cruiser. Its strobe lights flashed, sending colors of the rainbow reaching into the gloom; the color faded quickly and offered no awe, just fear. A line of red road flares sizzled on the pavement in front of the car. Hud found it hard to breathe, even though Sloane had the defroster on high, pushing air directly into his face after it careened off the backside of the cold windshield.
Deputy Varner stood next to the county cruiser and waved Hud and Sloane on with a lazy flick of the hand and a grim frown. In the declining light, Varner’s face looked ashen and uncomfortable, like he wished he were somewhere else—anywhere but where he was. His breath hung in the air, turning into a thin cloud of ice crystals before it disappeared. The weight of the murders pushed the deputy’s shoulders down, and his eyes along with it. The grayness felt as if failure had become a toxic gas that everyone had digested.
This time they were on the north side of the lake, opposite Gee’s shop and the rental cottages. Most of the places on this side of the lake qualified as houses. Big houses. They were hidden from the road, either behind brick walls or thick lines of tall pine trees. It was hard to tell if the wealthy side of the lake had fallen into the same state of disrepair and neglect as the opposite side. A glimpse down the lanes, if the gates were open, gave a person a peek at what the good life was supposed to be on a summer day. All the gates were closed now, and most of the houses were winterized, left to rest for the season. They were all locked up as tight as burial vaults.
Beyond the cruiser, a nondescript beige sedan sat off the berm on the right side of the road. All four-door cars that Detroit manufactured looked alike to Hud these days; the days of fenders and hood ornaments were long past. The sedan was trapped inside a circle of yellow police tape. The tape flapped in the breeze.
Another cruiser sat about a hundred yards north of the car, preventing any traffic from disturbing the crime scene. The media was held at bay, too, but a long camera lens or a good set of binoculars was all that was necessary to see what was going on.
Burke had already arrived; his Crown Vic sat in the middle of the road with the engine still running. The exhaust pipe looked like a fog-making machine. A stream of vapor hit the ground, sending ghost snakes in search of tall grass to hide in. A siren moaned in the distance. It sounded slow, like an uninterested coyote in no hurry at all.
Burke was standing at the hood of the beige sedan staring at the interior.
“The chief seems confident the shooter’s not close by, don’t you think?” Hud said to Sloane, as she navigated her own vehicle confidently, but slowly, through the maze of the crime scene.
“Maybe he doesn’t care.” Sloane pulled up behind Burke’s Crown Vic and stopped.
It wasn’t the response Hud expected. Her hard edge took him by surprise, and he had to consider that she might be right. “This one looks different,” he said.
“Maybe,” Sloane said, as she popped the car into park. “Let’s go see.” It was as if it was another day at the office, instead of the fourth murder in less than a week. Hud flinched, then followed her lead.
“What took you so long?” Burke demanded, as they walked up to him.
“We were at the coroner’s office,” Sloane answered.
Burke glared at Hud but said nothing. Something told him that Burke had already heard from Bill Flowers. One more complaint. One more lecture about the past. He didn’t give a shit, though he knew he had to put his personal business aside, wait to ask about his mother and Burke’s father at the right time. A shiver ran down his spine as he peered inside the car and recognized the victim. If the distant siren was the ambulance, there was a reason that it was coming slowly. There was no saving the man inside the car. Half his head had been blown off.
Burke scrutinized every move Hud made as he spoke. “The car was stopped alongside the road, still running, with the window halfway rolled down. One shot to the side of the head.”
“Close range?” Hud asked.
“Yes,” Burke replied, glancing over to the car. “Looks like our victim knew the shooter. That he stopped for them for one reason or another. Different than the prior shootings, when the shooter shot from a distance. I’m not sure this is related.”
“It’s Tom Tucker,” Hud said. “I saw him earlier.”
Sloane had obviously decided to stay silent and walked to the rear of the sedan. She inspected the bumper, then the road and ground behind it.
“I know who he is,” Burke snapped. “But we need that confirmed. Where and when did you see him?”
“I stopped for lunch at the hotel bar. Tucker came in there looking for Goldie. She wasn’t there.”
“Why was he looking for Goldie, Hud?” There was a knowing tone in Burke’s voice, but there was no way the chief could have known that Goldie had spent the night in his bed. At least, he didn’t think Burke could know, but that wasn’t an absolute. Now it was Hud’s turn to scrutinize the chief.
“My guess is he couldn’t find her,” Hud said. “I think we need to talk to her.”
“Why’s that?”
“They had a fight last night.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw her.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just asking. I know how you’ve always felt about Goldie.”
“I had nothing to do with this. We need to find her, that’s all. I don’t know that anything happened to her or that she had anything to do with this, but we need to start there. We need to find her.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Burke said. He turned his attention to Sloane, who had her eyes glued to the ground. “Be careful of those tire tracks. We’re going to need to get them molded. The state police lab’s on the way.”
Sloane looked up and nodded. “There’s a cigarette butt here, too. White filter. Looks like a Virginia Slims with fresh lipstick on it. Might not be anything. Tossed out of a passing car, but it’s probably worth looking at.”
“Bag it,” Burke said. “Let’s get this scene documented and dispersed before we lose any more daylight.”
“Where’s Lancet?” Hud asked, not moving, not jumping at the command.
“Looking for Goldie Flowers. You have a problem with that?”
Hud packed away the camera and eyed Bill Flowers as he oversaw the moving of Tom Tucker’s body. It was all that remained to do, other than having the sedan towed away. Then it would look like nothing had happened there at all. The coroner had been more glum than usual, quiet and distantly removed. Hud had heard him tell Burke that he hadn’t seen or heard from Goldie in a week. That was that. No show of emotion, no outward concern as he went about his work at the crime scene. It wasn’t like Flowers could recuse himself. The coroner’s office was on a tight budget, just like the rest of the county services, but Hud had expected something else. A sense of urgency, concern. Something. He felt it himself. To hell with the darkness. He wanted to find Goldie.
Sloane walked up to Hud as he closed the trunk of her Crown Vic. “Lancet’s visited Goldie’s apartment and a few of her other haunts and didn’t find anything. Any idea where we might go from there?”
“Why do you think I’d know?”
“I’m just asking. What’s up with you?”
“Nothing. I’m just frustrated. No witnesses, no leads, nothing.”
“We might know a little more once we get Tucker’s phone records.”
“I hope so,” Hud said. He watched Bill Flowers close the door on the ambulance, then walk over to his black Cadillac and get inside. “Yeah, I got a couple places we can check, but I need a second to talk to Burke.”
“Are you sure? He’s in a mood.”
“When isn’t he?”
“You seem to bring out the best in him,” Sloane said with a feigned smile.
“Give me just a minute,” Hud said.
“Sure.”
He sighed and walke
d away from Sloane as Bill Flowers drove off slowly. The red taillights seemed to linger in the cold night like two disappearing stars never to be seen again.
“You have a second?” Hud said, walking up to Burke.
The chief exhaled a vapor cloud of disdain. “What do you think?”
“I think you have a lot going on. We all do.”
Burke looked more disheveled than Hud could ever remember seeing him. The chief had inhaled the toxic gas of failure, too, and it was showing on him. “You realize that Bill Flowers thinks I should fire you once this is all over with, don’t you?” he said.
“I’m not surprised. But what power does he have?”
“That’s your problem, right there. That chip on your shoulder. It’s always been there.”
Hud drew back, surprised by the proclamation. “So you agree with Flowers, that I shouldn’t be here?”
“Did I say that?”
“No, but . . .”
“Look, Hud, you have to stop searching, stop asking people questions about the past, especially with everything that’s going on. I know I can’t make you. Hell, I don’t think you can make yourself. But, damn it, the last thing I need is Bill Flowers on my case, too. I think you’re one of best detectives I’ve ever met. You’ve been asking questions all of your life. You’re good at it. You can’t help yourself. If I wanted to fire you, I would have already done that, you idiot. I’ve deflected all of the criticism off you. I’ve defended your presence, not for my own sake, but for yours. I know that you need to be here.”
Hud saw a moment of fear pass behind Burke’s eyes. It was a rare sighting. Bill Flowers had something on the chief, had some real power of some kind. A nerve had been touched, and now that recognition of fear fueled Hud’s curiosity even more. But more than that, there was a glimpse of the old friend that Hud had known as a boy. The gruffness and hard edge had fallen away for just a second. “Look, thanks. It’s felt like I’ve been fighting the current since I landed here. I know these crimes have nothing to do with the past. Pam Sizemore, the Shermans, and now Tom Tucker, they weren’t around when my mother disappeared, but I’m surrounded by her presence. She’s everywhere I look, but I can’t touch her. You’re right. I can’t help myself. I wish I could. Somebody knows something, and I won’t be able to stop until I find it. Her. You had to know that.”
“Drop it. Can you just drop it for now?” Burke said, then turned to walk away.
“I saw a picture today at the hotel. It was of my mother. She was with your father.” There was no way Hud was going to let it go. Not now.
Burke stopped. His body tensed, as a cloud of breath erupted from his mouth and nose. He didn’t turn around to speak. He talked into the darkness. “That has nothing to do with this, Hud. They are both gone.”
“You knew,” Hud whispered.
Burke turned around slowly. “I knew you’d find out sooner or later.” He took a step forward. “But he had nothing to do with her disappearance, I can promise you that. My father would have never hurt your mother. Never. If you think about it, you know that’s true. He protected us all the best he could.”
“I want to see his files. I want access to everything.”
“When the time is right.”
“And you get to decide when that is?”
“Yes, I do.” With that said, Burke spun around and walked off into the night.
Hud didn’t do anything to stop him. He just watched until he was sure Burke was completely out of sight.
“Did you really believe that you would find the truth? The whole truth? That people would tell you what they thought they remembered, or what they wanted to remember?”
“Time has a way of getting to people. You’ve seen it before just like I have. The truth always comes out. I had faith in that, if nothing else.”
“A version of the truth.”
“It was important. But there was something more that I wanted. You know that, too.”
“A body.”
“Yes. I needed to see something. I thought it would make all of my pain go away.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Hud sat comfortably in the passenger seat of Sloane’s Crown Vic. He stared out the window as she drove into the night, trying his best not to look at her. It wasn’t hard to imagine that he was just a boy, riding along with Gee as they searched the lonely winter roads around the lake for his mother.
Gee had been the pilot, and he had been the copilot, eyes peeled, looking for a sign of his mother’s existence. Something. Anything. A shoe along the road, a battered suitcase, a fluttering piece of paper with her name on it. They stopped and looked at it all. Without knowing it, Gee taught Hud how to search, how to ask questions, how to be a detective. Or maybe she had known all along that Hud would outlive her, be left with the questions about his mother. All she could give him were the tools to look. If she failed, if she died before his mother was found, it was all she could do for him.
Hud didn’t say anything for a long time, and Sloane responded in kind.
Darkness had fallen completely on the world, and, with the vacation season over, the tiki torches, colored strings of lights, and campfires were just a memory. Trailers and cottages flashed by in the headlights. Occasionally a pair of eyes would reflect from the berm: a possum or a skunk starting out on their nocturnal jaunts. Both were vagabonds, creatures of the night, kin to the search, the need to keep moving. Hud was glad to see something alive, stirring. He was stuck in between the past and the present, a prisoner of grief, memory, and fear. Now he was searching for Goldie instead of his mother. He needed a sign that Goldie was still alive, that she had existed. He wasn’t sure that she wasn’t just part of a bad dream, too.
“You warned me about Burke, about how protective he was of father’s legacy. Did you know?” Hud finally said.
Sloane stiffened, kept her eyes on the road. “It wasn’t my place to tell you. Burke was agitated. You knew that. I wasn’t sure what he’d do, considering the pressure he’s been under. I was worried for both of you.”
“How did you know? I tried to access my mother’s file and I was locked out. I figured everyone was.”
Sloane exhaled and dropped her head briefly. Voices from the police radio filled the car with requests. Ten codes. Nothing to do with the murders. A traffic stop. A taillight out. A call for a wrecker. And then silence again. Just the hum of the wheels underneath him, finding their way in the dark.
“Oh,” Hud said, reading the look on Sloane’s face. There was no way he was wrong. “You and Burke have a thing? I thought I felt something, saw something, but wasn’t sure. Still? Or is it over?”
Sloane glanced over at Hud. Her eyes were glassy, reflecting the light off the dashboard, the computer screen mounted on the console, the radio, enough to see turmoil and shame. Her pain glowed like an Open sign on a lonely road. “Still,” she whispered.
Hud didn’t know what to say. What Burke and Sloane did in their own time was none of his business, just like what he did in his time was no business of Burke’s, but the relationship with Sloane bothered him. He restrained himself from making a comment about the apple not falling far from the tree. Like father, like son? He didn’t know anything about Burke’s married life, or Sloane’s life for that matter. Once he thought about it, though, Hud wasn’t surprised. Burke always did have more than one girlfriend, always had more than one place to lay his head. It hadn’t occurred to him to wonder if anything had changed. Obviously, nothing had.
“You have to tell me what you know about my mother and Burke’s father,” Hud said.
“I’d rather stay out of it. It feels like family business.”
“It’s old business.”
“It’s Burke’s place.”
“It depends on what he knows and how he came to know it.”
“It wasn’t in the report, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m just asking how you know.”
Sloane nodded, sighed, and said, “His mo
ther told him.”
“Sometimes in the summer it would be too hot to sleep. We didn’t have air-conditioning. Nobody did back then; that’s why they came to the lake, for the cool breezes. Fans hummed in every room, and I wouldn’t be able to get comfortable, so I’d climb up on the roof. Gee didn’t like it when I did, went out there, especially when she caught me smoking one of her cigarettes, but that didn’t stop me.
“I could see down into the dip, hear the lion pacing back and forth in its cage, or a boat out on the lake puttering home with the radio on. The water amplifies voices, sounds at night. I was always up there on the nights when the Flowerses had their big parties, hoping to hear Goldie’s laugh. It was as close as I could get.
“The sky seemed wider then, too, full of stars, and on nights when the moon was full, I wondered and hoped that my mother was looking at it too, that we were sharing something, even though deep down, I knew that wasn’t possible. By then, I knew if she hadn’t come back it was because she couldn’t. I could never imagine her making the choice to stay away, even though that’s what everyone wanted me to believe.”
“That she’d run off with the new man?”
“Yes. But you know I didn’t believe that. She wouldn’t have left me, us, not without a fight. I never gave up on that, on her. I believed that she would fight to get back to me, because I would have fought to get back to her.
“A few times I would go up on the roof and a car would pull across the lot and stop just prior to coming in. I’d get hopeful, you know, until I realized that it was a police car, that it was Burke’s dad. I thought he was stopping to watch over us. It made me feel a little better to know he was out there.”
“That was then. How about now?”
“Now I have to wonder what he was really looking for.”
Where I Can See You Page 20