by T. R. Ragan
Everything after that happened in a blur. As soon as they were married, Yuhasz’s wife insisted he help his new son-in-law get a job working investigation. She bugged him about it every day until he gave in and got Hofberg a job in Narcotics.
He pulled the metal handle under his seat and pushed the chair back to give himself more room. The weather wasn’t helping matters tonight. Rain and wind made it difficult to see through his windshield. For an hour now, calls had been coming over the radio. Uprooted trees and an old lady’s trellis had been knocked over. Some neighborhoods were hit harder than others. The weather was turning more and more sour by the minute. Downed trees and roads littered with branches and leaves. He didn’t care. Not tonight. One of the rookies could take care of that shit. He was too busy watching Hofberg.
Well, not exactly watching him, but waiting for him.
Yuhasz had talked to his brother that morning. Holly and the kids were having a good time. As far as he knew, Holly had listened to their advice and shut off her cell phone.
After sending Holly and the kids to stay with his brother, Yuhasz had kept a close eye on Hofberg and watched him escort a tall, voluptuous brunette into the Hilton on Twenty-Fourth Street. Last night it had been a Cameron Diaz look-alike, but younger.
Although his daughter had pleaded with him not to touch her husband, there was no way he would or could stand by and do nothing after seeing Holly covered in bruises. No way. It stopped tonight.
He’d sit here until morning if he had to, but just as the thought entered his mind, the door to the bar he was watching opened, and he realized he might be climbing into bed sooner than he thought. His son-in-law stumbled outside with a perky little redhead close to his side, helping him along.
Yuhasz turned on his windshield wipers so he could get a clearer view. He looked across the parking lot to the blue Honda and motioned at the two dark figures inside.
Phil was the first to exit the vehicle. In his right hand he carried a twelve-inch stick.
The other guy, the one climbing out of the passenger seat, was his old pal Ed.
Ed didn’t carry a stick. He preferred to use his knuckles. Brass knuckles. Yuhasz and Ed went way back. Ed had grown up with an abusive father. After too many beers one night, Ed had told him about the time his dad came home only to learn that his wife, Ed’s mom, had gone for coffee with friends. The problem was she wasn’t allowed out of the house. Ever. So his dad went to the garage, found the choker collar once used on their dog, the kind with the sharp prongs, and slipped it around his wife’s neck. She was forced to wear it for two months.
His mother was eighty-five years old now and still had deep scars around her neck. Less than a year after the dog collar incident, his dad died of unknown causes. Rumors that he’d been poisoned circulated for a while, but Ed’s mom had his body cremated, as were his wishes.
Needless to say, Ed wasn’t a fan of domestic violence.
Yuhasz kept his eye on his son-in-law as Phil walked up from behind him and looped his elbow around his left arm, leaving Ed to usher the redhead the other way, giving her the story they had rehearsed about David Hofberg being a wanted man and therefore she better hurry up and skedaddle before the police came. Without sparing Hofberg another glance, she jumped into her beat-up Corolla and sped off.
Ed looked Yuhasz’s way and gave him a quick salute.
Just before his friends dragged Hofberg into the dark alley, he saw Hofberg look frantically about until his gaze fell on him. Although it was too dark and rainy for Hofberg to see him clearly, he most likely recognized his car.
Knowing the asshole couldn’t see him, but not caring either way, Yuhasz smiled at the bastard right before Phil clunked him over the head with his big stick and dragged him off to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget.
TWENTY-ONE
A long row of patrol cars and emergency vehicles forced FBI Agent Elaine Burnett to park across the street from the trailer park. As far as she was concerned, a lot of people had the wrong idea about trailer parks. Her grandmother lived in a nice mobile home in Sacramento. She had plenty of space and a large kitchen. The plots were small, but she and her neighbors had enough outdoor space to grow a rosebush or two.
But this particular trailer park in Lodi was not anything like her grandmother’s. It was run-down, and it smelled like a dump. Broken windows were covered with plywood and patched with duct tape. Every other trailer had sheets for curtains. The entire park was littered with garbage, heaps of God knew what.
Elaine had gotten the call an hour ago telling her they’d located Eric Weaver and his wife, Trista.
Her first thought was, Bingo!
Eric Weaver had done a decent job covering his trail. His wife was another story, though. They were able to find Trista’s sister, Danielle Ferguson, which in turn led them to their mother, Alexia. Things picked up as soon as they subpoenaed records showing assets including bank accounts and property.
The first agent to arrive at the trailer home called Elaine directly to tell her both Eric and his wife were dead. Homicide. This led to Elaine’s second thought, which was one continuous string of muttered curse words.
As she approached the trailer home at the end of the park, the first thing she noticed was the blood on the pathway leading to the front door. The CSI unit had already arrived, and everyone was busy collecting evidence. It was getting dark, and industrial lights were being set up around the vicinity.
Agent Jensen greeted her at the entrance. He pointed at a bloody footprint. “Looks like one smaller bloody footprint on top of a larger one.”
She knelt down for a closer look. “Someone was here after the murder took place.”
He nodded.
Once they stepped inside, they both slipped into coveralls and slid cloth booties over their shoes. A young man was scraping dried blood from the wall without smearing the print. When he saw her, he told her Johnston was waiting for her in the bedroom to the right.
She left Jensen and followed the covered path across the carpeted floor.
Sam Johnston, a serious crime scene technician and full-blown workaholic, stopped working long enough to gesture toward the bed. “Thought you might be interested in a particular item I saw under the bed.”
Elaine had known Sam for a while now. With years of field experience, Sam was considered to be one of the best crime scene technicians there was.
Elaine slid on her latex gloves and got down on all fours. Beneath the bed, out of reach, she saw a shoe—an ankle boot—pink and child-size. It was a tight squeeze, but she inched her way beneath the bed until she touched the boot with the tip of her finger. Another inch allowed her to grab it with two fingers.
On her feet again, she held up the ankle boot with fringe on one side, examined it carefully, and then slid it into an evidence bag. “I was told on my way over here that there was no sign of the girl.”
“That’s correct.”
“She was obviously here at one time.” There was a pause before Elaine raised an eyebrow at Sam and said, “Why would they go to so much trouble to move the girl around? First the farmhouse and now this.”
Sam shrugged. “I collect the evidence. It’s up to you to figure out the rest.”
“It looks to me as if this case has somehow become personal,” Elaine said, thinking aloud. “Or maybe it was always personal. Maybe the money Craig McMann’s partner stole was just a front to throw everyone off track.”
“You do realize,” Sam said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Elaine nodded, although she wasn’t listening to a word Sam said. The idea that maybe she and Jensen had been looking at this case all wrong caused her insides to thrum, something that happened whenever a case she was working on took a possible turn in a different direction. She made a mental note to talk to Jensen and then pay Faith McMann a visit.
“The good news,” Sam said, breaking into her thoughts, “there’s no evidence here that would lead us to believe
Lara McMann was harmed, which means there’s a chance she’s still alive.”
“True,” Elaine said. They might not have found Lara McMann, but the pink ankle boot, described in detail by Faith McMann as the shoes her daughter was wearing when she was taken, was their first clue that the ten-year-old had indeed spent time inside the trailer home.
Through open blinds, she squinted at all the bright fluorescent lights surrounding the area. Now if only the weather would cooperate. The wind and rain were never helpful in homicide investigations, but her team members were doing the best they could under the circumstances.
She left Sam to go in search of Jensen. In the living area, a vacuum sweeper was being used on the couch. Soncie Lyles, a rookie, was searching for footprints and palm prints. Residue lifters were used to collect fibers, hairs, and stains. All this action made for a tight squeeze. Prior to her arrival, she’d instructed two of her team members to talk to neighbors.
Based on footprints she and Jensen had seen within congealed blood outside the door, someone had entered the crime scene prior to their arrival and then left without reporting to authorities that a double murder had taken place. Who had been here, and why hadn’t he or she called the police?
It irked her that it had taken her team this long to locate the trailer. Diane Weaver’s brother had been living only an hour from Sacramento, and yet it had taken them days to track him down. She wasn’t happy about this turn of events. If they had located the trailer twenty-four hours earlier, they might have been able to prevent two deaths and perhaps found the McMann girl before she was swept off to another location.
She spotted Agent Jensen standing inside the other bedroom, where Eric Weaver and his wife, Trista, had been killed. Eric had been found propped in a chair in the corner of the room, his throat slit wide-open. Eric’s wife was on the bed, raped and tortured from the looks of it. When they turned her over, they found bite marks on her backside. Bite marks, like fingerprints, were unique. If all went well, a forensic dentist would be able to make a cast to help them determine who the assailant might be.
Agent Jensen gestured for her to come forward. The ME’s had finished collecting evidence and were packing up. The guy in the jumpsuit gave her the go-ahead to walk across the room using the pathway made out of plastic stepping plates.
“Did you see this?” Jensen asked. He used a wooden tongue depressor to lift a clump of Eric Weaver’s hair.
Elaine leaned closer to get a better look. “What the hell?”
Jensen nodded. “Yep. Cut his ear clean off.”
“Why would anyone go to all the trouble to cut off his ear?”
He shrugged. “Back in the day, it was called cropping.”
She looked at Jensen as if he’d lost his mind.
“Just telling you what I know. Cutting off a person’s ear used to be a form of punishment.”
“It makes no sense,” she said. “If this guy”—she motioned around the room with a wave of a hand—“came here for the girl, why would he take the time to torture these people and cut off an ear?”
“Maybe he didn’t come here for the girl. Maybe he had a bone to pick with these people and the girl was an extra.”
Her gaze made a clean sweep around the room. “Where is it?”
“The ear?”
“Yes, the ear,” she said with less patience than before.
“No idea. Must have taken it with him.”
She let out a frustrated breath. “We can’t let this little tidbit get out of this room. If the guy who made this mess has the McMann kid, I don’t want the media speculating as to what the maniac might be doing with the girl.”
Jensen acknowledged what she was saying with a nod.
Someone called out to Elaine, letting her know that the next-door neighbor was available to talk.
She went back to the entryway, peeled off her coveralls and cloth booties, and stepped outside. The wind felt ice cold against her face as she walked to the trailer next door. Barry, a homicide detective she’d met many times before said, “Good luck,” before he opened the door for her.
The woman’s name was Ginger Thompson. She stood less than five feet tall, slightly hunched, with lots of thick silver hair that swept past her shoulders. “I had to call three times,” she complained as Elaine followed her into the main room, which consisted of a couch, two end tables, and a large television on a tiny wooden stand. “Nobody would take me seriously.”
Elaine had already been told on her way to the trailer park that Ginger had a tendency to call the police a couple of times a week. For that reason, authorities gave her a nonemergency number to call. She was likened to the boy who cried wolf, and therefore nobody had taken her seriously. “I’m sorry,” Elaine said, loud enough to be heard over the television. “I’ll look into the matter.”
The woman scowled and took a seat on the couch.
“Mind if I turn the volume down while we talk?”
Ginger lifted her remote and lowered the volume.
Elaine then asked for permission to take a seat next to her.
“Sure.”
Elaine had to stop herself from reaching into her bag and pulling out a face mask or some Vicks VapoRub at the very least. The woman’s trailer didn’t smell much better than the one next door with two decaying corpses inside. Instead she looked at her notes. “Can you tell me who lives next door?”
“Of course I can.” Ginger used a fingernail to pick some food from her front tooth. “I might be old, but I’m not stupid. Eric Weaver and his wife, Trista, have lived next door for as long as I can remember.”
“Did they have children?”
“No. Trista didn’t want kids. They made her nervous.”
“So, you never saw them with children?”
“Who said that? Trista might have been a twitchy, nervous little thing, but she was a good Christian woman, which is why she and Eric recently took in a little girl named Jean after the girl’s mother was thrown in jail.” She waved a hand through the air. “Drugs or something like that.”
Stunned, Elaine leaned closer to Ginger and looked her squarely in the eyes. “Are you sure about that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Ginger looked at the television, and her mouth dropped open. “Hold on a minute. Oh, my God, I think that actress, Alaina Bowers, is going to call off her wedding.” She turned up the volume and listened. “Holy smokes. I was right!” When a commercial came on, she turned down the volume again. “Now, what is it you want to know?”
“I’m surprised by what you told me about seeing a little girl next door because you told the investigator who was here earlier that your neighbors didn’t have any children.”
“That’s because they don’t.” She pulled a face. “You people don’t know how to ask the right questions. Do you want to know what she looked like? Because I can tell you.”
“You met the little girl?”
“More than a few times,” she said with growing frustration. “Every chance they got, those two tossed the kid into my trailer so they could run off to do errands. Not once did they offer to get me groceries or take me with them. In fact, they said they were going to pay me. They owe me a lot of money, especially since the girl wasn’t easy to watch. A bit strange, I must say.”
“How so?”
“She kept telling me she needed to find a telephone to call her parents. I tried explaining to her that her mom knew where she was but couldn’t get to her right now, but she didn’t seem convinced. The last time I babysat, I caught the kid trying to sneak out through that window over there.”
Elaine reached into her bag, pulled out a picture of Lara McMann, and held it in front of Ginger. “Was this the little girl you watched over?”
Her eyes widened. “That’s her, all right. Why do you have a picture of the kid?”
“Did she look OK to you?” Agent Burnett asked, ignoring her question. “I mean, did you notice any bruises, anything like that?”
“No bruises that I
can remember. She was a scrawny thing—I can tell you that. And she sure likes to eat. I figured she might be trouble, though.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. She couldn’t seem to sit still, and she was sort of suspicious-looking. I thought she might try to steal my things if I didn’t keep an eye on her. Is she wanted by the police?”
“I take it you don’t watch the news.”
“No. Never. It’s too damn depressing. I like all the housewife shows, and sometimes I like to watch that popular dance show with all the celebrities.”
“Dancing with the Stars?”
“That’s the one. You watch it, too?”
“When I have time,” she lied, hoping to get on the woman’s good side. “When was the last time you saw Eric or Trista?”
She shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
“This is important, Ginger, so I need your full attention. Try to think. When the little girl tried to sneak out your window, could that have been the last time you saw her?”
“Yeah, yeah. That was the last time I saw any of them.”
“Any of them, meaning the little girl, Eric, and Trista?”
“Yes.”
“And that was when?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know, two days ago, maybe three. All the days seem to run together. Bet you can’t guess how old I am?”
Elaine sighed and tossed out a lowball guess. “Seventy-nine?”
Ginger got a chuckle out of that. “I’m ninety years old. Hard to believe, I know.”
Agent Burnett forced a smile. “If I think of any more questions, would you mind if I stopped by again?”
“Sure, yeah.” Ginger picked up the remote and turned up the volume. “You can stay and watch TV with me if you want,” she said loud enough to be heard. “I taped a few episodes of Hoarders. It’s about crazy people who keep all sorts of junk, even trash, until their house is so full they can hardly get through the door.”