by N. M. Brown
‘Yeah, fairly good.’ Lisa took a sip from her cup. ‘Not exactly the most exciting first week. A couple of drugs busts, and a missing kid.’
‘They still haven’t found her then?’ Leighton sounded concerned.
‘Nope, her mom calls every few hours for an update too. Poor woman must be hurting pretty bad.’
‘What’s the story with it? Nobody seems to be saying much.’ Leighton tried to sound casual.
‘Not much,’ Lisa said, ‘a team were dispatched to the last known location and interviewed the witnesses. Apparently the girl was playing with a friend near her house when she vanished. It’s a case of she’s a single mom, absent father has been gone for a years or so. Kid may be a runaway – in any case the woman must be going through hell. I hate the ones with kids the most.’
‘Me too,’ Leighton sounded casual, but he had already decided that there was somebody he probably needed to speak to, if only to gain approval.
He drained the last of his coffee, then stood up.
‘Listen, it was nice to meet you, Lisa. I best be moving. I’ve got a bunch of DUIs who need to be notified of a change to next week’s driver awareness class. I don’t want them showing up at the wrong place then getting hit with a bunch of warrants for non-attendance. You take it easy, especially on those night shifts.’
‘I will,’ she said.
After the older officer had left, Lisa Martinez finished her coffee and considered her encounter. Leighton seemed nice enough; friendly and not as arrogant as some of the more experienced cops she had encountered. She therefore wondered why the first person she had met that morning – Teddy Leach – had told her to stay clear of him. When she had asked why, Teddy had said because he was on his way out of Oceanside P.D.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
When Leighton pulled up in his car on the street outside the Blanchette home, the blonde-haired woman who had been sitting on a plastic lawn chair on the porch of the house stood up. Holding up her hand to shield her eyes, she peered expectantly at the unfamiliar red car.
In the hour previous to that, Leighton had quickly delivered six letters notifying the convicted individuals of a change of venue for their scheduled DUI classes to various addresses around the city. His efficiency meant that he had created some free time to visit Fallbrook without appearing to be neglecting his traffic duties.
The Blanchette house looked tired, as if it, too, was feeling the heat of the day – or perhaps the weight of the emotional situation. Leighton knew that the cool ocean breeze rarely reached this far inland where the city started to fade into the sweltering countryside. Whilst a house out in Fallbrook may have seemed like an attractive option in winter, the rest of the year was too hot to bear. This made property in the area at least a third cheaper than the city.
As he got out of the car, Leighton took out his badge and walked along the hot gravel path toward the woman.
‘Mrs Blanchette?’ he asked as he narrowed his eyes against the glare.
The woman nodded, but only her head moved – as if the rest of her was momentarily frozen.
‘My name is Leighton Jones; I’m a police officer. Can I speak to you for a couple of moments?’
Leighton noticed absently that in one of her hands the woman was holding a small crushed ball of pink fabric. Initially, he thought it might be a flannel but a splash of colour suggested it was a small T-shirt. He figured that it was probably the one Tina had been wearing the day before she vanished – it probably still smelled of her.
‘Has something happened, have you found her?’ Angela Blanchette asked. For a moment, the woman’s grey eyes lit up with a visible sense of hope.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Leighton said, ‘not as far as I know.’
‘Oh.’ Angela Blanchette sighed and lowered herself back down into the chair. Her fingers twisted together with the knot of fabric locked in her hands.
‘Look.’ Leighton rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. ‘I want to be honest with you, Mrs Blanchette. I’m not out here as part of the official investigation. I guess I’m here unofficially.’
‘What?’ Angela Blanchette frowned. ‘I don’t understand. You’re not part of the investigation?’
Leighton crouched down to meet her eyes. ‘I’m just a traffic cop, but I wanted to ask you a few questions.’
‘Why? This has nothing to do with traffic.’
‘You’re right.’ Leighton nodded. ‘I’m just not convinced that my colleagues have been looking for Tina in the right place.’
‘What?’ Angela Blanchette frowned. ‘They told me they were following evidence. Why wouldn’t they be looking in the right place?’
‘Look, this is just my own personal view. I’m no expert. Like I said, I just work traffic, nothing else, but I think I could help.’
‘Mr, with all due respect, my daughter is missing, I don’t care you’re a goddamn circus clown, if you know something that could help, tell me!’
Leighton took a deep breath, then crouched down so that his eyes were level with Angela’s.
‘On the day your daughter vanished, I was driving home from work and I saw a kid who looked like Tina.’
‘Where?’ Angela looked as if someone had just thrown a bucket of water over her.
‘Out by Old Mill Way. I was driving back from work and a girl just ran across the road right in front of me. Would Tina ever have been out in that area of the city before?’
‘No, she’s seven years old for God’s sake. Have you told the other cops about this?’
‘Yeah,’ Leighton shrugged his shoulders, but they think that I was mistaken and it couldn’t be her.’
‘So, nobody has checked this place out?’
‘I have spent a few hours out there, and I’m going back out there again this afternoon.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Just this.’ Leighton reached into his pocket and produced the small plastic dog. He carefully held it out for the woman to inspect. ‘Does it look familiar?’
‘I guess. She has a tub full of these sorts of things in her bedroom.’
‘I just thought that if she had been playing with dolls when she vanished…’
Angela sighed, and it sounded like it came from her soul. ‘Everybody has a theory. The cops are trying to say that my ex-husband might have taken her up to Alaska. My sister thinks she’s possibly being held for ransom. I even got a telephone call from a wacko psychic late last night telling me that Tina had been abducted by a bus full of killers. The psychic said they could give me a little more information but only for a hundred bucks.’
‘Parasites,’ Leighton said.
‘So, I have to ask – what exactly is it you want from me? I’ve got nothing left.’
‘I Just want your permission to look for Tina in the place I saw her. Everybody thinks that I’m out of line, but I want to do this. I just don’t want to interfere, or for you to think I’m messing with things.’
‘Do the other cops know what you’re doing?’
‘Yeah, but my boss has pretty much told me to leave the case alone.’
‘So why do you even care?’ Angela asked.
‘I have a daughter – Annie – the same age as Tina. I know how I would feel if she was out there and nobody was looking in the right place.’
‘Look, forgive me for not believing that you’re onto something. But I don’t care what oddball theories you have, Mr Jones. If you can do anything that could help find her I’d appreciate it.’
‘Thank you.’ Leighton nodded. ‘I will. Listen, is there somebody here with you? Somebody who can support you?’
Angela shook her head. ‘There was once, but he’s gone. My parents are both dead, and I have a sister who lives on the other side of the country. But I’ll be okay if I can just get my daughter back.’
‘Then I’ll get on to it,’ Leighton said with small self-conscious smile.
He turned to go but Angela Blanchette wasn’t quite finished with him.
‘Can I
ask you something – and I want you to be honest with me? Nobody else seems to be.’
‘Sure,’ Leighton shrugged.
‘How much experience do you have as a cop?’
‘Nineteen years.’
‘Do you think my daughter is still alive?’
‘Yes,’ Leighton said, softly, ‘I think she might be.’
‘Then you get the hell out of here and go to wherever you think my baby might be.’ Leighton nodded and felt a renewed sense of purpose. He recognised the pain in this woman’s eyes – it was the same as the one he often saw in the mirror.
‘I’ll let you know if I find anything,’ Leighton said as he turned to go. ‘Don’t lose hope, Mrs Blanchette.’
‘Angela,’ she said, softly.
‘Okay, Angela. I’ll be in touch,’ Leighton said as walked to his car with a renewed sense of purpose.
‘Hang on!’
He had almost reached the car when she called after him, and then came running barefoot along the path to the car. She came up to Leighton and handed him a small yellow note. ‘It’s my phone number.’ As she passed the note she gripped Leighton’s hand. ‘Thank you for doing this,’ she said, and then let him go.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The arm of the hiker snagged on a tree root. The stranger had to pull on his legs even harder to free it. He grunted with the effort, which was intensified by the scorching sun. Dragging the body through the sparse woods wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. He was hoping to find a place to conceal it.
Although the deserted old farm wasn’t likely to be visited soon, the fact that the hiker had not been holding a map or compass suggested that he knew the route, and if he knew it then maybe others did too. That raised a more alarming possibility for the stranger – that the hiker wasn’t alone. These walkers travelled in little clusters. Perhaps this one had been with others who would then show up half an hour later, looking for their friend at the agreed meeting place – such as the faucet on the old farm. If they found a body, the cops would arrive, and the hidden girl would go to them. He couldn’t let that happen.
The other concern would be that any passing helicopters looking for a missing child, might just notice a dead guy lying in the grass – then the previous scenario would play again.
That was why he had to get the body out of there.
Then he would have to get out the area for a little while. If the kid saw the attack, she wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Either she would view the rest of the world as dangerous, or she would view him as dangerous; both of these would keep her cowering in the shadows until he returned.
Chapter Forty
After driving south east for an hour, Leighton left the highway, taking the exit for Old Mill Way. As he passed by the various homes dotted across the landscape he glanced at them and wondered about the lives of their inhabitants. He stared at one place where a young woman was sitting on the steps drinking a beer, whilst a young man in shorts painted the eaves of their home. Leighton quietly envied them – starting out in life together, enjoying the excitement of creating their nest. He hoped they could make it last.
The afternoon was hot and the AC unit was struggling to keep the temperature bearable.
After what seemed like an eternity, Leighton finally pulled up on the edge of the road where he had first seen Tina. It seemed like that sighting had been weeks earlier not just days.
Climbing out of the car, he reached into the back and pulled out a small black rucksack, which he tossed over his shoulder and then locked up the vehicle. He gazed around for a moment, feeling that time was somehow folding back on itself. The quality of air, the temperature and the sound of the insects, was eerily familiar. It almost seemed possible that, if he waited there long enough, time would shift and a small girl in an orange T-shirt would burst from the grass and race across the road before vanishing on the other side.
Of course that was just a fantasy. If time could be reversed, he would find a way to go back into his past and make things somehow right again.
He shook this thought from his mind and stepped from the road into the sea of dry grass. As he left the road behind him, Leighton felt increasingly pessimistic about the scale of the landscape in front. But he had a promise to keep to Angela Blanchette, and so he kept on moving through the long grass.
By 2pm Leighton had wandered around the site for almost an hour. Occasionally, he became excited when he found what appeared to be a track, only to find it to vanish after only ten or twenty feet.
He stopped once or twice and used a pair of old field binoculars to survey the area. The ground was tough, and Leighton figured it would be near impossible for a kid to cross on foot. Leighton estimated that the easiest route the young girl could have taken would to be south-west. The landscape ran on a downward elevation and would have looked like it was leading to the ocean, which was about ten miles away. The ground on either side was much higher, meaning Tina could be in one long, narrow valley. That may have provided her a sense of security as she hurried away from danger. It would be impossible to search on foot, but a sweep from the air would easily cover such a definite route.
When he finally emerged from the grass back at the location of his car, Leighton found a large camper van was parked next to his vehicle on the edge of the road. An elderly couple were sitting in the front seats, peering at a map. They both glanced up in surprise at the dusty police officer emerging from the long stalks of grass. The man wearing a white cap leaned out of his open window and called across to Leighton.
‘Is everything okay, officer?’ He waved a hand, gesturing toward the field.
‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’ Leighton called back, but he kept on moving.
When he reached his car, he unlocked the door and climbed inside. He had only taken a couple of deep breaths when he was startled by a knocking on his driver-side window. He turned to find the man from the camper standing by his car. Leighton sighed and rolled down his window.
‘May I help you, sir?’
‘What was going on in the field?’ the old man asked.
‘Nothing,’ Leighton said, ‘I was taking a pee. That’s all.’
‘With a backpack, I don’t think so. I think we have a right to know.’
‘Sir, you can think whatever you want,’ Leighton said and, having started the engine, drove off.
Returning back to his small house, Leighton felt both physically and emotionally exhausted. The house was cold and without Annie in it the place seemed like an empty shell. He wandered through to the kitchen and made himself a microwave meal. Whilst it was humming away in the kitchen, Leighton walked to the phone and picked it up. He dialled his mother-in-law’s number, held the handset to his ear, waited. It rang a couple of times then switched automatically to voicemail.
‘Hey, it’s Leighton, just checking in with my baby. Hope you’re having fun, pumpkin. I’m looking forward to see you on Saturday. Love you, dad.’
After replacing the handset, he walked into Annie’s room where a selection of brightly coloured, wide-eyed toys gazed at him from the bed. After wandering over to it, he slowly sat on the small mattress and picked up the purple pillow printed with pink clouds. Holding the fabric to his face, he breathed in the faint scent of his daughter’s watermelon shampoo. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine she was sitting there beside him.
‘I miss you,’ he said to the empty space, his voice sounding small and quiet.
Eventually, he slumped forward on his daughter’s empty bed and wept. Leighton’s head was facing downwards and hot tears ran down his nose to splash on the tiled floor.
‘I miss you so much,’ he said to the air.
Chapter Forty-One
Tina had remained crouched on the small wooden platform of the barn for hours. The sudden killing of the hiker had left her petrified, but now, as the sky darkened, she had come to the realisation that remaining in this part of the building was perhaps even more dangerous than being out in the op
en. The stranger certainly knew that she was somewhere in the area. It would therefore only be a matter of time before he eventually found her.
In her increasingly exhausted state, it seemed likely that he could easily creep up on Tina while she was sleeping on that small ledge. And yet, if she tried to leave the barn the stranger might still be in the area, hidden like some overgrown spider ready to pounce at the first sign of movement. At least in the open she had a chance of hiding among the trees and bushes.
Consequently, Tina made her escape from the barn incrementally. Having silently lowered herself down from the raised platform she stood at the edge of the deep pit and listened. There was nothing but the sound of insects chatting to each other in the fading light. But the silence was not enough to reassure Tina; she was aware of how silent and patient the stranger could be.
After ten minutes, Tina found enough confidence to creep to the doorway of the barn and looked out at the crumpled checked cloth and scattered packets of food. Her shrunken stomach rumbled at the sight of the packet of Oreos, but she forced her eyes to look away. That was a trap, and she wouldn’t let herself be drawn toward it. Instead, she crept back over to the huge pit in the floor of the barn. The sunken machinery looked large and dangerous, but perhaps it might help her. A metal ladder bolted to the side of the pit wall led down twelve feet into the cavity where the two machines sat. The larger one reminded Tina of the one they used to empty her school swimming pool but that was much newer and safer looking than the one in the pit. The smaller machine looked unfamiliar. Both machines were jagged and rusty.
Tina gazed into the sunken shadows. She knew if she could get the stranger to go down into the pit, she would have a greater chance of escape. While he was down in that space, he would be unable to see where she was. That made climbing back up the hill and returning the way she had first come less of a risk.