by Rose Beecham
Tonya prayed for the strength to pull herself together for Corban’s sake. Her voice shook and she felt light-headed as she said, “I’d like to thank all of you for covering this story. I have a message for the person who took Corban. Please, bring him back. I miss my baby. Please. I just want to hold him.”
Shouts erupted as Amberlee steered her back into the house, but only one of them penetrated the fog in her head. She turned at exactly the same time Amberlee did, and a fist connected with her face. Tonya reeled back against the door frame and lost her balance. As she fell in the center of the doorway, the scene around her turned instantly into chaos. It was like something from the Jerry Springer show. People shouting and grabbing one another. Amberlee screaming at the man who’d landed the punch, Dan Foley, Corban’s dad. He was yelling back at her and trying to reach Tonya.
A group of reporters struggled to hold him back. He looked past them to Tonya and hollered, “Satisfied now? You gave my son to a fucking killer, you stupid, lazy bitch.”
Tonya tried to block the words out, but they kept coming.
“Call yourself a mother? Fucking useless, that’s what you are.” He tore himself away from the reporters and lunged past Amberlee, who seemed frozen on the spot. Standing over Tonya, he screamed at her, “I’m going to destroy you. And I’m going to kill that animal for what he did.”
Tonya huddled against the door frame, sobbing and begging him to stop. As she peered out from beneath the arm protecting her face, she was stunned by a strange sight. The crowds of reporters were hard at work shooting the whole incident, some of them standing in front of cameras talking nonstop. Amberlee was smoothing her hairstyle and talking to the reporter with the extra-white teeth. No one was coming to help her. They were all just watching like this was happening on TV, not in real life.
Dan swung his foot like he was going to kick her, but instead said, “You’re not even worth it,” and spat in her face.
The crowd parted as he walked through them, then they were running after him, hurling questions and crowding around his car. Suzette Kelly had stayed behind. She hurried up the steps with her crew.
Crouching next to Tonya, she said to the camera, “I’m with Corban’s mom. She was just knocked to the ground by Corban’s enraged dad. Tonya, are you okay?”
Fluff from a microphone tickled Tonya’s mouth. Her face ached. She was freezing. All she could say was, “Yes.”
“Your ex-husband said some terrible things to you just then. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” Tonya whispered. She was too shocked to cry. All she could think was this had to be a dream, the worst dream of her life. Silently, she prayed, “Please God, let me wake up now.”
“It sounds like Corban’s dad blames you for what happened.”
Tonya stared at the spectacular white fur around Suzette’s neck. “Is that fox?” she asked.
“No.” Suzette looked affronted. “Channel Eight.”
Tonya laughed, and as the sound rose, so did a loud wailing sob.
Suzette positioned a comforting arm around her and glanced up at her cameraman. “Are you getting this?”
*
Jude marched into the interview room with Pete Koertig and placed a series of evidence bags on the table in front of Wade Miller. Each contained an item of baby clothing recovered by the searchers.
“Recognize these garments?”
Miller shrugged.
“Yes or no, Mr. Miller?”
“Corban might have had a top like that.”
“You talk like he’s dead,” Jude said coldly.
Koertig taunted, “Something you want to share with us?”
Miller was silent.
Jude lifted one of the bags. “His mother says these are the clothes Corban was wearing when she left him in your care.” She pointed to a stain around the neckline of the light blue sweatshirt. “This is Corban’s blood. How did it get there?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Don’t waste my time. Did his clothes get blood on them when he injured himself?”
“I didn’t see any.”
“This clothing was found on the banks of the Dolores not far from where your truck was sighted the night Corban disappeared. Can you explain that?”
“No, ma’am.”
“We’re combing that area right now with scent dogs,” Jude continued. “One of them is a specialist cadaver hound that can detect a body, even in water.”
Miller sipped from the can of Coke he was holding, apparently unmoved. “I appreciate everyone giving up their time. It’s mighty generous.”
He was one cool customer, Jude thought, an accomplished liar who cultivated a flaky, harmless demeanor because it suited him to be underestimated. If she was hoping to rattle him by producing hard evidence, she’d misjudged his nerve.
Looking for a way to get under his skin, she said, “Not everyone likes small children. It might surprise you how many people actually sympathize with a parent figure when an accident occurs. People know how easy it is to take your eyes off a kid at the wrong moment.”
He absorbed this with an expression of patient incomprehension, then replied, “I guess you guys see that kind of thing all the time.”
Jude gave Koertig a nod. Her colleague had already suggested that they consider aiming a shotgun at Miller’s balls to make him give up where he’d dumped the body. She’d brought him into the interview to frighten Miller, if that was even possible. The more she saw of this suspect, the more convinced she was that he had not just caused a child’s death accidentally and covered it up. He was a cold-blooded killer.
Koertig loosened his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves to reveal muscular, bronzed forearms that were a perfect foil for his sky blue eyes and straight blond buzz cut. Sixty years ago, he would have been recruited by Goebbels for master-race propaganda.
“We see plenty,” he responded to Miller’s disingenuous remark. “Wanna know something about these lowlife chickenshits that hurt little kids? They’re always the first to give it up in the pen. Real fucking sissies.”
“You’d have to expect that.” Jude directed her remark to Koertig. “It’s a certain type of coward who hurts a child. I read somewhere a lot of them are impotent or they have other sexual performance problems.”
Koertig sneered. “They can’t satisfy a woman so they take it out on a kid?”
“That’s one theory. Shrinks say they’re basically immature, so they get jealous of their girlfriend’s kids and bully them.”
“You mean like sibling rivalry?”
“Pretty pathetic, huh? A grown man acting like he has to compete with a baby.”
Koertig jerked a thumb at Miller. “Looks like our friend here can relate.”
Miller’s face didn’t register a flicker of emotion, but Jude could hear a soft rapping beneath the table and knew the barbs had struck home. Miller was aggravated but concealing it well. She pushed a little harder.
“Your ex, Brittany Kemple, had some pretty unkind things to say about your bedroom skills.”
Koertig started laughing, then made a show of smothering it. The table tapping grew louder and more erratic. Miller was on the brink of losing it and Jude wanted to see him go there, so they’d have something to show a jury. Miller wouldn’t fool anyone in a courtroom with his laid-back halfwit act if they had video of him out of control.
Jude grinned up at Koertig. “Nothing like a disappointed woman to spill the beans.”
“Oh, she was harsh. The size issue.” Koertig’s attempt at sympathy was undermined by the snicker he choked back. “That must be hard on you, pal.”
“I don’t know what lies that fucking little tramp told you.” Miller’s voice rose. “But I measure up okay and I can prove it.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Jude smirked. “We believe you, Mr. Miller.”
Koertig adopted a conciliatory tone. “Yeah, women make up stories to explain why they dump a guy. That stuff about not even feeling i
t…we thought that was pretty far-fetched. I mean even if it is just four inches and the girth is what she said…well she’d feel it. Probably.” He looked at Jude as if seeking confirmation.
She shrugged. “I can’t honestly say. I’ve never seen one that sm…of those dimensions.”
Miller was red in the face. He’d stopped tapping. Jude guessed he had his fists clenched so he wouldn’t throw a punch. “You think you’re so fucking smart,” he ground out. “I know what this is. Cop tricks to get me all riled up so I make myself look bad.”
“I think we hurt his feelings,” Koertig said.
Miller’s eyes glittered with venom. “You got nothing on me.”
It was not a response they heard too often from an innocent man. Watching him intently, Jude realized he was not going to reveal himself. They’d come close, but he was self-aware enough not to blow it. Miller had a temper, but self-preservation came first. Along the track, when they had more against him than his own constantly changing stories, she would find a way to take advantage of that.
She said, “We have a warrant to search your home, Mr. Miller.”
“Be my guest.”
“Is there anything you want to mention before we begin?”
“Such as?”
She wanted to backhand the arrogant half-grin off his face and yell don’t fuck with me, you murdering piece of shit. Instead she delivered a routine answer. “The presence of illegal substances. Any bloodstains you might care to explain.”
Miller shrugged. “No.”
Cautioning herself again to keep her temper in check, Jude opened the case file she’d brought in and flipped through the typed sheets of notes. “Mr. Miller. In your last statement you described finding the goat’s head on Ms. Perkins’s front yard. According to the physical evidence in the house and the statement of the individual who confessed to the vandalism, the head was originally thrown into the living room. What can you tell us about that?”
Miller took a moment, then his face crumpled and he was suddenly outpouring, “It was dumb. I know that. You gotta understand something. She’d have gone hysterical on me. So I took it outside and made it look like a joke. I did it for her.”
“So, you lied in your earlier statement?”
“Only about finding it in the yard. Everything else was true.” He had the passionate self-righteousness of a man who believed his own fiction.
Unimpressed, Jude said, “It doesn’t look good, Mr. Miller. The lies. The baby clothes we found exactly where you admitted you drove that night. Who knows what we’ll discover when the divers start work in the reservoir. I think it’s time we heard the whole story, don’t you?”
Wade buried his head in his hands, the personality change complete. His shoulders shook convincingly. He said, “I fucked it all up. I should have told you, but I knew what she’d think.”
“Of you?”
“What the fuck do you think? I was supposed to be looking after him, and there’s bricks through the windows and blood everywhere and a fucking goat’s head. And he’s disappeared. Jesus.”
“Is there anything else you’d like to change about your last statement?”
“I didn’t go out to get diapers. The crying was making me nuts.”
“Corban was awake and crying when you left to drive in the direction of Dove Creek?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t shut him up. I gave him Jim Beam and then some pills I found, and then I went out.”
“Pills.” Jude repeated this new information. “What pills?”
“I dunno. I thought they were for her headaches or something.”
“I see.”
“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. He was there when I left, and the next time I looked he was gone.”
“I’m still not clear how his clothes ended up in the middle of nowhere a few miles from where your truck was seen,” Jude said.
Miller shrugged. “You’re the detective, not me.”
*
In tourist literature Cortez was described as the “gateway to the Mesa Verde National Park.” Visitors passing through thought the place looked like a quaint Southwestern backwater. Its olde worlde charm was enhanced by historic signage and the careful preservation of the original bank buildings and trading posts. People from back East tended to get excited when they saw horses tethered in the main street, so the city council offered incentives for this, and the local dude ranches routinely drove a few head of cattle along the roads out of town so their clients, in full cowboy getup, could add to the general vibe.
Wade Miller lived in a part of town no visitor saw unless they were dealing drugs. His was a low-rent mobile home, one of a cluster crammed on a small dusty lot. There wasn’t a blade of grass to be seen. The area reverberated with nerve-shattering barking.
“He’s got dogs,” the supervisor noted. Speech barely budged the cigarette that hung off his lower lip. He seemed smug about unlocking Miller’s door so the police could execute a search warrant. “Guy’s a real fuckwad.”
Pete Koertig engaged him in discussion about this observation while Jude escorted a couple of animal control officers in to remove the dogs while the search was conducted. Their water bowls still had puddles in the bottom. Wade Miller hadn’t been home since early Sunday morning, when he’d arrived at the police station, but the dogs seemed fine so they must have been fed before he went to Tonya’s on Saturday evening.
“When did you last see Mr. Miller?” Jude asked the smoke-shrouded super.
He scrunched his eyebrows and scratched his freckled head, destroying a glued-down comb-over. “Saturday night.”
“At what time?”
“I wanna say twelve thirty midnight.”
“Midnight,” she repeated.
“Fucking dogs start carrying on soon as they hear his truck. I was awake anyways. Can’t sleep more than five hours on account of my prostate.”
Jude offered the appropriate sympathetic nod. Koertig was chafing his hands together behind his back, keeping a lid on the high-five impulse. Yet again, they’d caught Wade Miller out in a lie, and this one was important. He had come back to his apartment after his supposed diaper quest, a piece of information he hadn’t volunteered. There had to be a reason he stopped by. He would cite the dogs, of course, and from all accounts he treated them better than his girlfriends. But Jude had a hard time believing that a guy who was only planning to be away for one night would have to check on his pets after only a few hours.
“Did you actually see Mr. Miller arrive?” she asked blandly.
“Oh, yeah.” The super was rearranging his stringy hair. “I got a door scope. The deluxe model. That’s a security measure. You can see who’s coming and going in the parking lot.”
Jude asked one of the detectives on the search team to accompany the guy to his trailer, photograph the door scope, and take a statement. Animal control had the three dogs on leashes, and Jude waited for them to be led out before motioning to the search team.
They didn’t have a lot of area to cover. The trailer was your basic single man’s sty, the kind that only saw a vacuum cleaner when female company was anticipated. They examined every square inch, progressively taking the place apart, looking for a hair, smudge of blood, a child’s fingerprint. They got into the plumbing, lifted the carpets, emptied every cupboard. Eventually they reached Miller’s bed and inspected it with the same methodical deliberation, collecting yet more trace.
So far, there was no murder weapon, no bloodstained clothing conveniently piled in the laundry basket, no sign of a methodical cleanup. If this place had ever seen bleach Jude would be surprised. She lifted the mattress, ignoring Koertig’s half-hearted offer to do it for her.
“Anything?” She was about to lower it when she realized her companions were not silent because they hadn’t heard her. They were staring at the box base, completely transfixed. She craned down. Wade Miller kept his money under his mattress. Laid out flat, in row after orderly row.
“T
here must be five hundred bucks here,” Koertig said.
Jude handed the mattress on to him and took several photographs of the cash, then she picked up a twenty-dollar bill by one corner. There was something odd about the way it hung. She peeled a glove away with her teeth and cautiously felt the bill.
“It’s wet.”
Koertig moved the mattress away and propped it against the wall. They inspected Miller’s cache more closely. Every bill was wet.
“It can’t have been under the mattress for long,” Jude said. “In this weather it could take three or four days to dry out, I guess.”
“He’s going to say his wallet fell in the toilet,” Koertig said.
“And we’re going to say every body of water has its own special diatom profile.”
For the first time ever, Koertig stared at her like he was impressed. With a wry smirk, he said, “This is why they pay you the big bucks.”
Jude grinned. “Nope. It’s because I’m good-looking.”
This raised howls of laughter from the entire search team, not exactly a vote of confidence for her feminine charms.
Feigning chagrin, she muttered, “You think I’m kidding.”
“Not at all,” Koertig gallantly announced. “What we think—and I hesitate to use the word ‘think’—is that you are surrounded by dickbrains who are not fully evolved. Let me put that another way. We lack the sophistication to appreciate a woman of your Amazonian attributes.”
“You’re saying I could beat you at arm wrestling?”
Koertig’s big pink face was doleful. “No comment.”
*
“What do you think?” Pratt asked as they headed for the meeting room.
“It’s too soon to charge him.”
“What if he tries to skip town?”
“We’ll be waiting.”
“Twenty-four-hour surveillance.” Pratt was the picture of gloom. Jude could hear him calculating the resource commitment in his head.
She said, “We need to build a case against him. He’s not going to confess, and everything we have right now is circumstantial.”