Chapter Thirty-Four

Stevenson called her as she was leaving the Long-Crowley residence to tell her that the video evidence was turning out to be a disappointment. Any evidence aside from the general direction the boys may have been taken was camouflaged behind a gray curtain of rain and obscured by the night. While BLPD worked to enhance the evidence, Raven decided to take up the chief’s challenge. She would see for herself if Breaker had indeed left town.

She called him using the cell number listed in the True files. He answered on the first ring. When Raven arrived at Breaker’s home, which was still in Byrd’s Landing, his wife led her to the backyard. He was sitting on a paint bucket while his daughters played Double Dutch. Even at home he was dressed like he was going out, in a green paisley button-up silk shirt and a pair of black slacks. He had a beer in one hand and a Newport in the other, but he smelled strongly of soap and expensive cologne. By the number of beer bottles lining the glass patio table, it looked like he had been at it for a while.

“If that motherfucker said that I left because I was scared, he’s a damn liar,” Breaker said once they had been sitting for a few moments.

Raven glanced at the girls. They didn’t appear to be paying attention to their father, and gave no indication that they heard him. They were too involved in their game. The two girls spinning the ropes in opposite directions looked to be maybe nine or ten. The jumper, tapping one foot in time with the ropes whipping against the concrete patio, looked younger but not by much.

“He said you were pretty burned out, that you ran.”

Breaker reared back as if she had smacked him.

Raven went on. “He said the case got to you because you had kids.”

“He’s a liar. You see that now, don’t you?”

“Then tell me why you quit.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. I didn’t quit. The chief put me on leave. Told Goldie that I was cracking up, right after he brought you in.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Now, you tell me. Why do you want to talk to me?”

“Ronnie True is dead.”

“Not surprised. Everybody knew he was headed that way.”

“You handled that case, right?”

“I did.”

“So, I’m sure you connected the dots between Judge Toulouse and Ronnie True?”

“That’s a bingo right there,” he said, holding his beer hand out to her.

“You follow up?” she asked.

“I tried to follow up, but the chief lost his mind. Didn’t want me going anywhere near Judge T.”

“I don’t understand,” Raven said. “Toulouse is just a family court judge. Where does he get that sort of pull from?”

“The mayor,” he said. “They’re friends, and as you know, any friend of the mayor is…”

“…a friend of the chief’s,” Raven finished for him.

Breaker knitted his brows as he examined the girls’ Double Dutch. “The chief knows that if he loses the mayor’s support, he might as well pack it in. He’s not ready to do that no matter how big he talks about not caring about the job.”

“I’ve known the chief for years,” Raven said. “He may be a son-of-a-robber, but I don’t think he would interfere in an investigation if he thought it was leading him to the perp. If he said you were wasting your time, he thought you were wasting your time.”

“Well, if he wanted to run the case, then he should’ve run it. He told me under no circumstances to continue going down the road I was on.”

“Did you?”

He gave her a bitter laugh. “Why you think I’m sitting here watching my daughters play jump rope?”

“Looks like a lot more than jump rope.”

“Competition Double Dutch,” he said. “Wife’s got them on a team. She competed when she was a kid growing up in Pittsburgh.”

“Why aren’t they in school?”

He took a long drag of his cigarette and looked at her through the smoke.

“You don’t think it’s safe.”

“I do not. Not until you catch the bastard.”

They sat in silence for a few moments listening to the soft, rhythmic tapping of the oldest girls’ tennis shoes on the concrete patio, the ropes whipping in the air.

“I see you brought the True casefile with you. You mind?” He set the beer on the table, put the cigarette in the ashtray. She handed the three-ring binder over to him, and he started going through pages.

“You want to know when he really flipped out?” he said conversationally. “When I found out why True represented Judge Toulouse.”

“You found out?”

“You bet your ass I did. It was a child porn charge. Can you imagine that? From a sitting family court judge.”

“Why wasn’t that splashed all over the news?”

“Because it was hushed up.”

“How did you find out?”

“June Darling,” he said. “She used to do some paralegal work for True, but you probably know that. Do you think that Toulouse is connected to her son’s death?”

“I don’t like coincidences,” Raven said.

“Yeah, I’m not too fond of them myself. You want to know what I think?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“I think that’s when the chief decided, really decided, that I needed to take time off for stress. The son-of-a-bitch didn’t even give me time to update the files before he kicked me to the curb.”

“You mean there’s more?”

“There is. I did some more digging on Judge T. Man doesn’t only like porn, he likes money. He and True had this shady adoption thing going on. If you had the money, you’d get the kid.”

Raven looked at him like he had lost his mind. Maybe the chief was right, maybe Breaker had wandered too far off the beaten path to be effective. Toulouse selling children appeared to be one big rabbit hole.

“Now you looking at me like he did. But I’m telling you that somebody needs to follow that lead until it runs out. If it’s not connected, fine, it’s not. But it needs looking into.”

Raven kept silent. She didn’t know about that, but didn’t want to upset him. She needed him talking.

“Did you find connections to any of the other boys’ families?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything. The Double Dutch ropes beat steadily against the concrete.

“No,” he said. It sounded like an admission.

“Anything from the Memorial site?” she asked.

“No. As you know, the boot print looks interesting. Did a grid search like you suggested, but that’s it. We were able to match the garbage that was left to the workers. Even that bottle of Perrier.”

He was handing the casefile back to her, his eyes lingering on his girls. The look on his face said that he would do everything in his power to keep them safe. Next to the beer bottles was a .45 automatic.

* * *

Sitting in the car, Raven watched the girls through the chain-link fence surrounding the Breaker residence. They made jumping between the two ropes fast as cyclones spinning in the opposite direction look as easy as breathing. They did it while chanting, no less, in time with the ropes while their father watched over them with a .45 on the patio table. Perhaps the man had gone crazy.

Before she left, she had a conversation with Breaker’s wife, who told her not to worry. The beer was lite, and the firearm wasn’t loaded. His wife unloaded the weapon when he went to the bathroom. He would sit there drinking until six or seven. She’d cajole him into dinner, and then to bed. And after, she’d retrieve the unloaded weapon, load it and put it in the gun safe. And then the same scenario would play out the following day. She told Raven to catch the killer soon so she could have her husband back.

Raven picked up the True binder from the passenger seat. Breaker had included the True crime scene photos. True’s office looked as if someone had driven a wrecking ball through it. Blood was everywhere. Even some of the pictures had been knocked off the walls. The meticulous Breaker had also included pictures of True’s office before the crime took place. There was True standing in front of his big desk with his arm around the mayor’s shoulder. She was about to flip the page when something caught her eye. She stared at it, scanning up and down and left and right before comparing it with pictures from the crime scene.

The half shoulder mount bear taxidermy in the office’s before picture was nowhere to be found in the crime scene photos. She took her cell phone out and dialed Breaker’s number. It was a long shot but she was hoping that Breaker was as detailed as she thought he was.

He answered before she heard the ring back. “Yeah. What else you need?”

He didn’t sound like the relatively young man that he was. Relocations to Byrd’s Landing came with caveats. Houses were cheap, jobs were plenty if you weren’t picky, but you better be ready to protect your soul.

“Who cleaned up the True crime scene? Do you know?”

“Yeah,” he said. “TSC. Trauma Scene Cleaners. Good people. They do good work.”

“Not The Clean-up Man?”

“Hell no. That guy’s a dick. True’s family had enough money to make sure they did the cleanup right.”

“Do you know if anything was stolen from True’s office?”

Silence, and then, “Why do you ask?”

“There’s a half shoulder mount bear missing from the crime scene photos.”

“My head hurts too bad to ask why you care about that, but if it’s missing, maybe he got rid of it before he was assaulted.”

Raven ran her hand over the crime scene photo. “The area where it hung is still pretty light. If he got rid of it, it was recent. But I don’t see a man like True giving something like that away. The thing was hanging right behind his desk.”

“What are you saying?”

“Maybe the perp took it.”

Breaker laughed harshly. “Careful. You’ll catch my disease. Rabbit holes are contagious. Just ask the chief.”

He hung up before she could reply. She sat in the car with the Android pressed to her chin, thinking. Something about the taxidermy looked familiar. Then she remembered. She thought she saw a bear claw in the back of Ozy’s VW truck when she went to meet Speck about helping her clean up Oral’s place. The same Ozy who followed Speck around in search of treasure from the dead. She needed to know if one of those treasures was from the half shoulder mount of a snarling bear with its claws out. If the gift did come from Willie Lee, he had risen to the top of Raven’s suspect list. She wasn’t worried about motive, not yet, but Speck needed another look.

She hadn’t eaten. The only thing she had put into her body was that cup of black coffee in the early morning hours. And with waking up every minute fearing the sound of a soft rattle and cold scales slithering over her bare legs, sleep had been elusive as a cloud last night. Still, she drove the streets of Byrd’s Landing, looking for that raggedy VW truck, her tired mind imagining the Floyd stalker look-alike in every darkened doorway, watching, waiting. It was late when her Android rang, and Buckwheat Zydeco filled the cabin of her car.

“Yeah, Billy Ray.”

“You better go get your boy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Cameron,” he said. “He’s at a memorial service for the victims. At Gold’s Park. Imogene also told me that he’s going around telling everybody that Noe’s dead, and all he wants is his body so he can bury him. I’m thinking that him giving up on Noe, and then going to a memorial service before they find the body is like a cat licking himself at a dog festival.”