Painted Skins

by Matt Hilton

  Daryl claimed he made all the right decisions, but he was wrong.

  ‘You’d be nothing without me. Look at what I’ve given you: a job, a home, stability. Where would you be if I hadn’t given you all those things? Stacking goddamn shelves at Walmart!’

  He was so, soooo wrong; he was so blinded by his own self-importance that he couldn’t see it. But Trojak had a moment of epiphany. He realized that he owed Daryl nothing except for his enmity and it had been a struggle to play along as his obedient lapdog until he could leave.

  Daryl thought Trojak was stupid, and maybe he could make a poor argument to the contrary considering he’d allowed his conniving cousin to manipulate him all these years. Daryl had employed him, given him a regular pay cheque with which he supported his unappreciative wife, but it wasn’t from altruism. Daryl paid for his services, but more for his silence. Those right decisions Daryl was so proud of would be his undoing if they ever came to light, and more than anybody Trojak was the keeper of their secrets. Daryl paid him because without Trojak he’d be nothing. He’d be finished, his business would be finished, and the scumbag he was protecting would be finished too.

  He’d told Vero what happened all those years ago. In her madness she hadn’t realized that Trojak was opening his soul to her, hoping that she’d understand why he must help bring home Jasmine Reed unharmed and safe from persecution. He’d a job to do, one that was more honourable than any he’d ever completed for Daryl, but Vero hadn’t seen things his way. She was terrified of losing a regular income, had laughed scornfully when he said he’d happily stack shelves at a convenience store instead, and had gone for his eyes when he had dared reason with her. He’d made excuses for Daryl for too long, and it took this latest unprovoked attack to assure him he’d made excuses for Veronica for far too long as well. Her madness was self-induced and without paying to feed her alcohol and drugs dependencies he could get by on an honest wage. It was a time for epiphanies, he understood, and for a change he believed he’d made the right decisions. He’d walked out on Vero. Daryl would learn soon enough that he’d walked out on him too, though he owed his cousin for one pearl of wisdom from last night.

  ‘You have to make your own luck,’ Daryl had said. ‘Take the fucking initiative, why don’t you?’

  Well, Daryl, he thought, I’m taking the initiative by both hands, but I doubt it will make you happy.

  After driving away, he’d stopped a short distance up the road, watching as Tess joined her friends in the muscle car and took off in the opposite direction. He was tempted to follow, but knew he’d be spotted in no time. Po would come swinging, and he would respond with like mind. Instead he parked behind the Prius on the drive and went up the steps to Tess’s door. He knew nobody was home, but it paid to be cautious. He knocked and waited. The only sounds he heard were the dripping of water from the eaves. A quick glance around, and he dipped his hand in his pocket and withdrew his lock knife. He snicked it open, and inserted it between the jamb and lock. He levered, pushing his shoulder into the centre of the door. The lock popped open and he stepped inside. Before committing to the house-breaking, he leaned back out the door and checked he hadn’t alerted any noisy neighbour. The woman in the antiques shop could prove a problem. She didn’t show, which was good enough for him.

  He pushed the door shut with the tip of his knife, but the snib was in its locked position, so only sat against the slightly warped retainer. When Tess returned it would be obvious someone had forced entry, but he was confident that anyone glancing at the door from the bottom of the steps wouldn’t spot that the door was open.

  The rooms were neat, comfortable, and just barely large enough for one occupant. He went through the space quickly, unsure what he was seeking, but happy he’d know it if he found it. He took only cursory glances in the bedroom and bathroom, then went into the kitchen. An empty cereal bowl and spoon sat unwashed in the sink, and a cup containing the dregs of coffee had been placed on the table. Even if he hadn’t watched her leave, he could have deduced that she left in a hurry. He returned to the living room, instantly spotting Tess’s work station, and a fan of discarded notes and printed documents on the desk.

  He was careful not to touch anything; leaving fingerprints would be foolish. He lifted the ends of the papers on the edge of his blade, then slipped the full stack on to the palm of his hand, then decided juggling like that would be awkward, so decided he’d take the lot with him. First though he began flicking through, and saw that Tess had been making progress in her search for Jazz. There was a printed map, and at first he couldn’t decide where it showed, but a quick perusal of the town names told him he was looking at an area in Massachusetts. A small community called Amherst was circled in ink, and also a cross was noted on the western bank of a huge lake.

  With the tip of his knife he touched the space bar on the keyboard, and was delighted when the screen of Tess’s computer flashed to life: for an ex-cop her security protocols were shockingly lax. To be fair, she’d left in a hurry, but he was surprised that the computer wasn’t password-protected at the very least. He wasn’t particularly tech-savvy, but he could still find his way around by trial and error. It didn’t take him long to bring up the most recent searches and he saw that Tess had been checking the details of sex offenders around the area of Springfield, Mass. One resided in a trailer park near Amherst.

  Who needed to follow close on their tail, when he knew now exactly where Tess and Po had gone?

  ‘You have to make your own luck.’

  He double-checked the photo of the creep on the screen, then shuffled through the stack of papers and found a corresponding image, plus the man’s details and address.

  ‘Ugly son of a gun, aren’t you?’ Trojak whispered at the photo, before he folded it over and jammed it in an inside jacket pocket.

  More of flicking through Tess’s recent searches highlighted that she’d been plotting the disappearances of several young women in the near vicinity of Springfield, and subsequently one of them, Carrie Mae Borger, had turned up dead near Quabbin Reservoir – the ‘X marks the spot’ indicator on the map. He smiled to himself. He recalled moaning at Daryl that he wasn’t a detective; well, perhaps he had an aptitude for this stuff after all. He folded the map and shoved it in his pocket alongside the creep’s image. The rest of the papers he rolled and stuffed into his trouser pocket. Those he’d dump once he was on the road. He sent the computer to sleep, then wiped down the mouse and keyboard with a tissue he returned to his pocket.

  He looked around.

  There was nothing else he could see that might prove helpful. Done with his snooping, he paced to the door and drew it open with his knife tip, turned and took one last lingering look over his shoulder. If not for his pilfering of the papers, and the slight damage to the lock, nobody would have another clue he’d been there. He smiled to himself, turned to leave.

  The barrel of a gun touched his forehead, and his smile flickered and dissolved as Daryl’s words trickled through his memory.

  ‘That sick-minded son of a bitch never could keep his dick in his pants. From what I hear he’s got a boner for Tess Grey. You watch her, he’ll turn up sooner or later for her.’

  THIRTY

  ‘Well, this sure ain’t Disney World, you ax me,’ Pinky said as he eyed the entrance to the trailer park disdainfully. ‘I guess poor white trash gotta vacation somewheres, though.’

  In the back, sitting crosswise, Tess rested an elbow on the back of his seat so she could see past him. On her knees she’d perched her iPad, using its GPS app to guide them into the residential site. There were many hiking trails around the nearby reservoir, and campsites to accommodate holidaymakers, but this wasn’t one of them. This was the kind of place people came to lose themselves, to hide from the rest of the world, and where nosy visitors weren’t welcomed with open arms. ‘I can’t be positive Randall’s even here, but we have to check.’

  Jesse Randall. As a requirement of his parole conditions he had
to register as a convicted sex offender, and to supply a current permanent address where his parole officer could pay him unscheduled visits. But Tess was under no illusion: parole violations occurred all the time, so there was a real possibility that he wouldn’t be home. Often, parolees registered transient addresses such as a trailer on a park such as this, enough to appease the rule makers, but it wasn’t where they actually spent any time. She guessed that many of the scruffy mobile homes clustered in the field supposedly housed criminals with no intention of going straight. Then there’d be other people who were simply down on their luck: she shouldn’t judge, though the fact she hadn’t commented on Pinky’s poor white trash comment said that subconsciously she already had.

  ‘Doesn’t look too bad to me,’ Po interjected. ‘They have a stunning view of the water-treatment works over there.’

  ‘Is that what the smell is?’ Pinky wafted a hand under his nose.

  On a plot on the opposite side of the road, hemmed in with tall wire fences, stood a series of circular pits and turbines. The atmosphere was redolent with the stench of stirred-up effluent.

  ‘Either the good folks here are used to the stench, or their trailers smell worse,’ Po suggested. ‘You sure you want to go visit?’

  ‘I need to get a sense of this guy,’ Tess replied.

  ‘The sense I get is he’s a sick motherfucker who’d be better living in that cesspit over there,’ growled Po.

  Pinky concurred with a snake-like hiss. Convicts’ hatred of sex offenders was legendary, and they’d just proven their point. Tess couldn’t find an iota of argument to fire back at them: cops equally despised rapists.

  ‘Remember, I’ve no proof that Randall is our man. He could be totally innocent of any involvement, so tread easy on this one.’ She tapped Po on his ear for emphasis. ‘Now, seeing as there’s been the body of a woman found nearby, the cops will have spoken to Randall already – or he’s on their list to speak to. We can’t spook him in any way.’

  ‘I vote we waterboard him, using some of that crap from the sewage plant,’ Po muttered. ‘He’ll give us the answers you’re looking for then.’

  ‘He served his time. He shouldn’t automatically be treated as if he’s going to reoffend.’ Tess paused. She recalled a conversation where Po had posed a question regarding ex-cons and ex-cops: were they ever anything but? ‘But if he is our man, you have my permission to bury him headfirst in that crud. I’ll help.’

  Po drove the Mustang between the gateposts. An asphalt strip led towards the central hub of the site. It was potholed, crumbling at its edges, and in more than one place the parched grass of the verges was rutted with deep tyre troughs. The storm that had raged over New England had touched this area of Massachusetts too, and most of the ruts were full of muddy water. Po stayed to the middle of the road.

  ‘There has to be a site manager’s office,’ he said, as he peered for a likely structure.

  ‘There.’ Tess pointed at a huge square trailer, permanently parked against an adjoining raised deck made of planks. Some attempt had been made at making the place look homely with a few potted plants, but the windows were almost opaque with orange dust, and the roof and one corner were decorated with a montage of bird droppings. The thing that singled this trailer out from dozens of similarly dilapidated mobile homes was the hand-painted sign driven into the earth at the bottom of the steps to the deck. OFFICE. PLEASE RING BELL. A poorly drawn diagram of a pointing finger aimed at a post on the opposite side of the steps on which was a cheap battery powered doorbell.

  Po brought the car to a stop.

  ‘Going to step out and stretch my legs, me,’ Pinky announced. ‘Now as much as I love the throb of American muscle, it does chafe my butt.’

  Tess slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

  ‘I only meant sitting in this teeny seat all this way,’ Pinky croaked.

  ‘I know exactly what you meant, you shameless creature,’ Tess said in a mock-scalding tone.

  Pinky eased out, stood knuckling the small of his back. It allowed Tess to clamber out from behind him. Po stayed behind the wheel. Tess hit the buzzer.

  From nearby there was a shout followed by raucous alcohol-fuelled laughter. A dog barked. An engine started with a throaty roar and belch of diesel fumes. But there was no reply from the trailer. Tess hadn’t heard the bell ring either; the battery had probably died with the pot plants. She went up the steps and rapped the back of her knuckles alongside the door.

  ‘Sorry, we ain’t got no vacancies,’ a voice hollered from somewhere behind her. Tess turned and peered over the Mustang at an old man emerging from between two caravans. He reminded Tess of an old-time miner, bent and bow-legged from shuffling through cramped tunnels. His hair was long at the sides, non-existent on top, and stained yellow over both ears; the hand-rolled cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth hinted how it had got its tint. He wore dungarees with suspenders, over a plaid shirt. The sleeves were rolled to his bony elbows, and he wore dirt-crusted gardening gloves. They’d disturbed him doing some much-needed grounds maintenance, but he didn’t look sorely disappointed. ‘But that isn’t what you’re looking for. What can I do fer you, ma’am?’

  Tess considered lying, telling him they were friends of Jesse Randall, but the old guy was no fool. He’d flicked a glance over the Mustang, deemed it a chariot of the likes none of his usual customers could afford, and made up his mind about them. Not from these parts, and up to no good.

  Tess came down the steps and round the car, watched by Pinky, who was dying to make a flippant comment about the old manager’s appearance.

  ‘We intend causing you no inconvenience, sir,’ Tess said as she approached. ‘We’re looking for Jesse Randall. Can you show us which is his trailer?’

  ‘Randall, huh?’ The manager scratched his chin with a muck-encrusted glove finger. ‘What do you want with him?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is that right? Then I might not be at liberty to point you in the right direction.’

  Tess squeezed him a touché smile.

  ‘I just need to ask him a couple of questions. Once he clears up a few points we’ll hopefully be on our way.’

  ‘No mess and no fuss, huh?’ asked the old man, and nodded to himself. ‘This about his old problems?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say.’ Tess’s smile this time was more open, and she forced a similar response from the manager. ‘Have you been following the news, sir?’

  ‘Don’t have much time for the news these days. There’s only me to look after this place, and as you can probably tell there ain’t enough hours in the day fer one man to keep on top of it.’

  ‘And I don’t intend taking up any more of it than necessary. Can you save us both some time, and just point out where he lives?’

  ‘I can show you, but he ain’t home.’

  ‘You know that for certain?’

  ‘He used to work, only came back here to sleep now an’ again. But then he got laid off his job. Hung around here, mostly pumpin’ weights, ’til he got himself a truck. Spends as little time here as he can these days. I know he’s not home, ’cause his truck’s not here.’ The manager thumbed behind him. ‘That’s Randall’s trailer right there. Now, I’m guessing you want to take a look inside.’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Not without a warrant, ma’am.’ The manager’s eyelids crinkled.

  ‘I’m not a cop.’

  ‘I’m not stupid.’

  Pinky, who’d been following their conversation, bristled. ‘Yo, you sayin’ I look like freakin’ Five-O, too?’

  ‘Son,’ answered the manager with a brief sniff, ‘I couldn’t rightly say what the hell you look like.’

  ‘String-bean-Ebenezer-Scrooge-looking fool!’ Pinky called him. ‘I don’t care how long you been drawing a pension, you could be Methuselah and I’ll still kick your ass for that wise mouth of yours!’

  ‘Chill, Pinky,’ Po drawled from in
side the car. ‘The guy’s got responsibilities he has to protect.’

  ‘I have a responsibility to protect my honour, me. What, Old Timer? You don’t get many black gay boys roun’ this goddamn shanty town?’

  The manager didn’t appear ruffled by Pinky’s bluster. He cackled out rough laughter. ‘All I meant was I can’t see to spit beyond the length of my arm.’

  ‘You blind?’

  ‘As near as dammit,’ said the old man.

  ‘Yet, you don’t seem to miss much,’ said Tess, getting things back on track. ‘When was Randall last home?’

  ‘That’s the thing – he was back fer a coupla nights. But then he lit outta here again yesterday.’

  ‘No idea where he went?’

  ‘He doesn’t say much, least of all about his business.’

  ‘He didn’t return last night?’

  ‘Nope. I’d’a heard that ol’ truck of his if he had. Nothin’ wrong with my ears,’ he added for Pinky’s benefit.

  ‘Do you know what kind of truck he drives?’ Tess prompted.

  ‘Flatbed, old Ford,’ said the manager. ‘Bottle green I’d say. Has one of them rigid canopies he can put on the back. If it ain’t lying there by his weight bench, then it’s on the truck now.’

  Pinky angled for a look. ‘I see a bench and some free weights, but no canopy, me.’

  The manager raised his eyebrows, and plucked out his cigarette. It was unfiltered, unlit and damp where his lips had worked on it. ‘Can’t let you inside his trailer,’ he said, with a wink, ‘but there’ll be no harm done if you happen to take a peek in through the windows. I’m blind enough I won’t notice if you snoop around for a bit. Got no love of reformed rapists, y’know what I mean?’

  Tess was about to decline the offer. She doubted she’d find any abducted women secreted in the trailer when it was so close to the manager’s office, and there was no hint that Randall had dug a secret bunker beneath it either, similar to the one where he was known to have sexually abused his sister and aunt seventeen years earlier. If he was responsible for snatching women, he was keeping them elsewhere. A look inside might have turned up a clue or two as to where, but the blinds were dropped. Right now she’d rather check out the flatbed of Randall’s truck, under that rigid canopy. She wondered if it only got erected when he was transporting his latest abductee. But she’d be a fool to pass up the opportunity. She thanked the old man, then nodded at Pinky to get back in the car. Tess headed for Randall’s trailer, but ignored the front. She went around the back, and saw where the manager had been digging a drainage trench. If she’d arrived later and found it back-filled she might have jumped to the wrong conclusion.