MacKinnon 02 Dead Copy

by Kit Frazier

  Pilar took a long swallow of lemonade. “When Tres came, the whole house changed. That child was like a light in a long darkness…”

  “And?”

  Pilar blew out a long breath. “He got into trouble.” She looked down at Marlowe, who was half out of his mind with the bliss of being petted to death.

  “At school,” she said. “He became el bruto.”

  I nodded. “He got into trouble?” “No,” she said. “Tres was the trouble.” “How do you mean?”

  Her fingers worked furiously at her rosary beads, as though if she could pray enough prayers she could erase whatever trouble Tres had caused.

  She sighed. “Tres was expelled from St. Francis and was sent to Dawes High School.” She shook her head. “And that is where he met Faith and Wylie and that Junior Hollis boy.”

  She said Hollis boy like she had a bad taste in her mouth.

  Pilar shook her head. “Faith did not always look the way she looks now. Tres had the Puckett children over for dinner often, and I cooked for them. Large meals because they were skinny children.”

  I nodded encouragingly.

  “But Faith, Tres was, how do you say over heels with love?”

  “Smitten?” I said, and she shook her head.

  “Yes, but more than that.” Pilar sat back. “And Faith had a boyfriend Josh Lambert from when she was a little girl.”

  I nodded and took a sip of lemonade. “Do you know Josh very well?”

  Pilar shook her head. “No, only that Tres hated him.

  “Why?”

  “Because I think the girl loved Josh in a way that she could never love anyone else. First love is powerful magia.”

  “So Josh and Tres had crushes on Faith?” I said, and Pilar shook her head.

  “Oh, everyone had a crush on Faith. She had the voice and face of an angel. But the troubles came when Junior Hollis began to bother her.”

  “You mean like annoy her?” I said, and Pilar shook her head. “No. There was a big alboroto at the school. Tres said the Hollis boy shoved Faith up against a locker. Put his hand up her skirt. Josh nearly killed him and the policia were called.”

  “Josh got in trouble?”

  “Both boys were in trouble, but both were, how do you say, reprimanded and let go.”

  “What did Tres do while all this was going on?” I said.

  “I don’t know. But I think it made Tres envious of Josh. Josh rescued Faith. I think Tres wanted to be the hero in Faith’s eyes.”

  “A hero,” I said, thinking of Tres and having to fend off a serious case of the icks. There is no parallel universe that would have Tres Ainsworth as a hero.

  “Yes,” Pilar said. “He wanted to be m*s macho. He started to be friends with the Hollis boy, brought him around all the time. Let him drive his father’s car, smoke good cigars, do the things boys like to do.”

  War buddies, I thought. “How did Wylie and Faith take that?

  “Not good. Junior Hollis was always a bad seed. Not regular bad, but ugly bad.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “You can see a lot about a family from the servant’s quarters. That boy used to shoot the barn cats down at the stables. He would lure them out with a bowl of chicken and just shoot them into pieces.”

  My stomach pitched, but I took a deep breath, pen poised over my pad. “And did he get in trouble for that?”

  “Not until he shot Missus Adele’s Persian cat. Do you know that cat cost more than a thousand dollars? For a cat…” She shook her head. “Missus Adele had him arrested, but Tres bailed him out. Said he could work off the cost of the cat.”

  I’d been scribbling like a woman possessed, but I stopped. “Pay it off? How?”

  “That was the surprising thing,” Pilar said. “Tres wanted Hollis to teach him how to hunt to shoot with a gun.”

  I wondered if Hollis taught him how to act like a fully armed asshole, too.

  “When Missus Adele got sick again, it was Tres who suggested Faith’s mother come to take care of her. When Missus Adele died, Mr. Cullen married her and Faith and Wylie came to live with us. But Tres didn’t like Wylie around. So he sent him away.”

  “So who sent Faith away to the girls’ ranch?” I said.

  “Mr. Cullen,” Pilar said. “I think he didn’t like the way Tres looked at the girl. I don’t know if he did it to keep his son out of trouble or to keep the girl safe.”

  I nodded.

  Pilar took a long swallow of lemonade. “It wasn’t long after that that Mr. Cullen died.”

  I stared down at my notes, wondering how it all fit together. Here was a connection between Tres and Hollis. A connection between Hollis and Faith. But how did Puck fit in, and how did he go straight from the buckle of the Bible belt to the heart of El Patron?

  I took a sip of lemonade, gathering my thoughts. “So where did Wylie go when Tres sent him away?”

  “He always had a head for numbers. For a while, he helped Missus Adele keep the books. When Tres wanted him gone, he found him bookwork at some private business in East Austin. Soon after that, Mr. Ainsworth died.”

  “Is that when Tres decided to build a recording company?”

  Pilar nodded. “So Faith would want to come to his house. But Wylie had saved his money and bought her a little trailer on the edge of the Puckett property. After that, we didn’t see much of Wylie or Faith.”

  I thought about Josh, lost and confused, drowning in the bottom of a whiskey bottle.

  We were quiet, and after a time, I said, “Do you know anything about the school Faith went to?”

  Pilar shook her head. “I know it’s at the western edge of the county. I know the Ainsworths set up some sort of endowment for the school because Tres seemed interested in it.”

  I looked down at my notes. “There are some people who think Josh is obsessed with Faith,” I said.

  Pilar stared at me and said, “I think maybe there is more than just Josh who is obsessed with her.”

  “Did you know that Josh had a restraining order on him?”

  “Yes,” Pilar said. “Tres took her down to Sheriff Hollis to fill it out.”

  I nodded. “Do you have any idea where Faith could be?” I said, and Pilar shook her head.

  “Do you think Josh could have done something with her?”

  Pilar looked out over her roses. “I think if he thought he could save her, he would.”

  “Even to kidnap her?”

  “If he thought it would help her, I think he might.”

  I frowned. “Can you think of where he would keep her?” Pilar shook her head.

  I stared down at my notebook, making a little flow chart, trying to find a pattern see how things fit together.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything else I’ve forgotten to ask?”

  Pilar shook her head.

  Nodding, I rose. “Thank you very much, Pilar. I hope you don’t get in trouble with Mrs. Ainsworth for talking to me.”

  Pilar frowned. “Oh, no. It’s not Missus Kim I’m worried about. Mi padre used to say that a boy is a boy, two boys are half a boy, and three boys are no boy at all.” She shook her head. “With Tres and Hollis, there is no need for another boy to make more trouble.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Junior Hollis,” I told Mia on my cell. She was annoyed I hadn’t called her to go with me to talk to Pilar, but Mia had bigger fish to fry.

  “You ever do anything about that dog of his?” she said. ““Cause I got some friends “

  Marlowe laid his head in my lap and accepted some skritching under his chin. “I called the Animal League in Dawes County, and they said they’d look into it.”

  “I don’t like that Hollis man,” Mia said, fuming after I told her about the cat killings.

  “I don’t like him much either,” I said. “And I think killing small animals is one of the signs of being a sociopath.”

  “Like a serial killer?”

  “I know it’s not good. I wonder how a juvenile delinque
nt wound up being sheriff?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Mia said.

  I thought about that. “Hey,” I said, “can you hold on a sec?”

  I switched over, dialed Information, and connected with the Dawes County Jail.

  When a woman answered, I put on my sweet voice and said, “With whom do I need to speak to see Josh Lambert?”

  “Sheriff,” she said, smacking her lips like she was eating something delicious and messy.

  “May I speak to the sheriff?”

  “He ain’t here right now.”

  “And I can’t make an appointment to see Josh without speaking to the sheriff?”

  “That’s what I said.” Again with the lip smacking.

  “Is there a way to get in touch with Sheriff Hollis?”

  “If there is, I don’t know it,” she said, making a sound like sucking on her fingers.

  “May I please leave him a message?” I said, not happy about the odds of the message getting to the sheriff.

  “Sure,” she said.

  I waited. “Do you have a pen?

  “Don’t need one,” she said. “Got a mind like a steel trap.”

  And a mouth like an open pit. I gave her my info and asked that the sheriff call me as soon as possible. She said she’d get right on it.

  I clicked back over to Mia, who was scolding her cat. “I got nothing,” I said. “You know what else is bothering me?”

  “Peace in the Middle East?”

  “What about the girl Tiffany? Why was she at Faith’s that night?” Mia paused. “A coincidence?”

  “My daddy used to say there’s no such thing as coincidence. Want to go on a field trip?”

  Mia popped her gum. “Is this going to involve breaking and entering?” she said, and I smiled.

  Mia said, “Point me to the field.”

  I dialed Information and got Tiffany Parker’s address, and I looped back to pick up Mia. We headed east toward Sunny Hollow apartments, which turned out to be not sunny at all.

  “Have the cops been here?” Mia wanted to know, and I said, “Yes. I just want to see for myself.”

  As we approached the wrought-iron security gate, Marlowe sat up in the seat and growled.

  “Yikes,” Mia said as we pulled up to the gate, which was off the tracks and provided almost as much security as a Lego castle.

  Leaking, old cars crowded the cracked and pitted parking lot, and small groups of young toughs leaned on the cars that could take the weight, scowling at us as we cruised by. The buildings were red brick, three-story affairs that seemed to be rotting from the inside out.

  “Manager’s office?” Mia said, and I shrugged.

  “Doesn’t look like a whole lot of managing goes on here.”

  I was right. No one was in the office. Information had given me Tiffany’s address but not the apartment number, so we cruised by the small, cloudy swimming pool toward the community mailboxes to search for a number.

  Marlowe’s neck bristled as he and I climbed out of the car. His eyes narrowed, gaze searching the parking lot, and I would have laughed because he reminded me of Logan if I weren’t so scared my jaws felt wired shut. I studied the mailboxes as Marlowe studied the group of teenage toughs. He growled low in his throat.

  “Tiffany Parker,” I read. “Box 219.”

  I looked toward the nearest group of buildings. Apartment 219 was close enough for a brisk walk, but the toughs were leering at Mia and me like we were hamsters at a snake farm.

  Probably better to drive.

  Tiffany’s apartment window was broken, but it was on a second floor terrace, and I didn’t feel like climbing, so I tried the door. It was locked. I looked in the crack of the jamb. No deadbolt.

  Mia and I leaned against the door. The lock slipped from the socket and gave.

  “Some security,” Mia said, and I nodded. “Some maintenance, too.”

  As we opened the door, roaches scattered like a small explosion, avoiding the dim shaft of light that preceded. Some of the tenants probably had the same aversion to daylight.

  “Oh, ick,” Mia said, and I agreed.

  Even Marlowe balked in the doorway.

  The three of us edged into the apartment, careful to avoid any unseen critters that might make us scream, thus calling attention to our breaking-and-entering selves. Inside, the ceiling was streaked with ugly brown water stains and the carpet reeked of mold and neglect, but Tiffany had done her best with what she had. Cast-off lace curtains lined the windows, including the broken pane with the cardboard patch. Someone, probably Tiffany, had used magic markers on the cardboard, creating a picture of a small white house with a fence and a dog, with happy puffs of smoke churning out of the chimney. In the forefront, a cartoon man and woman held a cartoon child.

  The drawing was pretty good in a cartoony way, but it made my heart tilt, this imaginary view Tiffany had created from her broken window.

  A collection of small pewter animals in whimsical poses lined the sills.

  “Looks like a little girl decorated,” Mia said, and I nodded, an image of Faith’s little-girl decor drifting through the back of my brain.

  “I thought strippers made a lot of money,” Mia said, her cute little nose wrinkling at the disreputable-looking room.

  I shrugged. “If they do, they don’t spend it on decor.”

  Mia and I moved through the living room, careful not to step on a cockroach that darted across the carpet. “What are we looking for?” Mia said.

  “A clue as to why Tiffany was at Faith’s the night the trailer blew up.”

  “A clue like what?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll luck out and find a little yellow arrow that blinks clue.”

  Mia bumped me with her hip and took Marlowe’s leash. He panted, his pink tongue lolling just past his teeth, and I could appreciate the sentiment. It was hot inside the apartment, which made the mold that much worse.

  “Let’s look so we can get out of here,” Mia said. “My lungs are starting to burn.

  I nodded, and we began our snoop.

  The kitchen was clean, if you didn’t mind the dead rat by the stove. The refrigerator was full of just-expired yogurt, milk, and some kind of organic cheese.

  Down the hall and in the bedroom, the neatly made bed was home to about twenty stuffed animals. None looked like old friends from childhood, worn and bedraggled from years of love and other mishandlings. Used paperbacks crowded cheap bookcases that stretched all the way around the room.

  Pink baby tees, cute little capris, and flirty dresses hung neatly in a row it looked like the closet of a pop princess. Three suitcases sat along the back wall, behind shoes that were arranged by color. My mother would have cried tears of joy.

  The bathroom was tidy. Razor on the tub rim, makeup orderly on the counter. No drugs or other contraband, just a bottle of NyQuil and some aspirin.

  “You see anything?” Mia said, and I shook my head. I peeked into the toilet tank and went through the toes of shoes. Nothing.

  No signs of violence. Bags, makeup, and clothing all in place, like she’d just stepped out for an afternoon. A small life interrupted.

  Back in the living room, I hit the play button on the old answering machine and listened. Two messages from the club one from a man wanting to know what she was doing and another from Deke, asking her to check in. He sounded worried.

  No ransom messages. No one calling to claim responsibility. No messages from Faith.

  I popped the tape out of the machine and stuck it in my pocket, just in case.

  “Hey,” Mia called from the bedroom. “Come look at this.”

  Mia held up a BlackBerry. Marlowe stood beside her, looking pleased.

  “I found it in the zipper of the Tweety Bird doll,” she said.

  “I thought the cops searched this place,” Mia said, staring at the small, purple device.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I guess they missed it.”

  Mia shrugged. “Now can we get o
ut of here?” she said. “I think one of those stuffed animals is staring back.”

  Animal lover extraordinaire, even Mia has her limits.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  “It’s kinda old style,” Ethan said, looking at the device.

  “I know that. We need a username and password. Can you get into it?”

  Ethan looked at me like I’d just asked him if he could breathe.

  He twisted his upper lip and went into the worst Bogart I’ve ever heard. “A little time, a little shpace, and we’ll have this thing shinging like a canary, shweetheart.”

  “I’ve been up all night looking for connections,” I said. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention canaries.”

  It was nearly ten in the morning, and Ethan was spinning my interview chair, jittering over the possibility of a new puzzle. Marlowe had found a sunny spot in Tanner’s office suspiciously close to the dog-treat drawer, while Tanner went over reports, his swivel chair angled so that he could skritch Marlowe between his ears.

  “You get an appointment to see Josh?” E said, his voice noncommittal, but his thin chest puffed up like a banty rooster protecting a hen.

  I scowled. “Left another message.”

  Ethan toed the chair some more, nodding his head, choosing his words carefully. “You think he did it?”

  I shook my head. “No, I really don’t.” He stopped swiveling. “Me either.” My eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

  Ethan sighed. “It doesn’t make sense. For one thing, he’s been drunk for how long now?”

  “There’s that,” I said, trying not to smile. Ethan was a bit of a sore loser, a natural-born gamer, and the word defeat has never been programmed into his hard drive.

  “Kind of big of you not to blame Josh for Faith’s disappearance,” I said.

  E shrugged. “And,” he said, “I think he really does love her.” “That going to cause a problem?”

  His eyes narrowed, but he swallowed hard. “I just want to find her.”

  I smiled. “Me too.”

  “So what are we going to do next?”

  “You’re going to find out what’s on that BlackBerry, and I’m going to try to weasel a way in to see Josh.”

  “You need help? He is in jail, you know.”

  “It’s the handler I’m worried about, not the handlee.”