Chapter 26
Disturbing the Peace

Her intentions were good. Really, they were. She couldn’t help sympathizing with Dickie, who’d found himself in the middle of a bigger mess than he’d ever seen. Plus there was the element of fear. The cops might have captured Wesley King, the presumed murderer. But she didn’t have much confidence that King was the one who’d shot her bathroom door. It took more than one person to cook up a conspiracy, right?

She felt like ten miles of bad road as they headed home. Hawk was doing all he could to console her. “He can’t help what he’s doing, Mustang,” he said, holding her hand as he drove. “He’s an elected official. If guys with big bucks and a grudge decide to go after him, he’ll not only lose his job, he could end up being the target of a national smear campaign. They wouldn’t have a bit of trouble digging up a mountain of dirt on him. Imagine the headlines: ‘Alcoholic Coke Dealer Now Sheriff of Cowboy Town.’ They’d run him out of office, maybe drive his kids out of school, who knows? For all we know, they have the power to fuck up his credit rating, maybe even get him thrown in jail himself. When you think about it, they could do the same to any one of us.”

She’d always said that if she ever decided to run for president of the United States, she’d have to do so on the “Yes, I Did” ticket. You could start an agribusiness on the dirt they’d have on her. But she’d never seriously considered the idea that anyone would bother. For all her bravado, she’d felt safe in the academic cocoon. “I get the point. It’s incredibly depressing.”

Hawk drove slowly, as if he was afraid to disturb the peace of the quiet streets of Laramie, late on a Saturday night. Downtown, the bars might be hopping, but up by the university, there was almost no traffic. It was a cool night, but not cold. Even out on Ninth Street, there was nobody out, except one young couple walking a dog.

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Sally. “Is that who I think it is?”

Hawk pulled to the curb just ahead of the dog walkers. Sally rolled down the window. The little dog, recognizing her, yipped happily, tugging at his leash.

“Hey, Aggie,” she said. “Do your parents know where you are?”

Aggie Stark tossed her mane of hair, pouted, and said saucily, “Of course they do. I’m walking my dog.”

Beanie wagged his stumpy tail, still barking.

Billy Reno stood watching them, legs splayed apart, head cocked in wariness, or defiance. Hawk narrowed his eyes, measuring the boy. “You’re Billy,” he said.

“This is Hawk,” Sally told him. “He helped me with Charlie when she called me from the bus station.”

Billy remained silent.

“When’d you get out?” Hawk asked.

“This afternoon,” said Billy, giving nothing away.

“He made the evening news,” said Aggie, gaining steam. “That’s how I knew. So I called him up.”

“You called him up?”

“They took my cell phone when they busted me,” said Billy. “They gave it back when they let me out. Dave made sure of that.” He stuck his hand under his shirt, revealing a hard belly and several inches of striped boxer shorts above his sagging jeans. “My old man. He’s a goddamn prince.” Billy smiled bleakly, looking very young in his backward baseball cap.

“So where are you headed?” Sally inquired, as coolly as possible.

“We’re going to find Charlie,” Aggie told her, “even if it takes all night.”

Sally and Hawk shot a look at each other. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” said Sally.

“If you feel that way,” said Billy, “maybe it’s none of your fuckin’ business.”

Sally found herself granting his point. “What makes you think you have any chance of finding her, Billy?”

A long pause, while he considered his answer. “Put it this way,” he said finally. “I gotta figure that whoever’s got her has either killed her”—he hesitated, gulping, forging on—“or is keeping her close by, since they couldn’t take her to that so-called clinic. And if they’re keeping her alive, they must figure they’ll have to let her come out sometime, after they’ve got her so scared or doped up or hurt or whatever that she wouldn’t get in their way, at least for a little while.

“If they’ve killed her, shit, I can’t do anything about that. But if she’s around here somewhere, I gotta say that the assholes who have her are so fuckin’ arrogant, they’d make it easy on themselves. They’d want to be able to move her around if things got hot.”

“You probably haven’t heard,” Sally told them. “They got the guy who killed Brad Preston. The blond guy. His name is Wesley King.”

Billy looked at the sky, threw his hands out in a gesture of reverence. “Hallelujah,” he said, “and fuck that.”

“Why do you say that? You told me he was the one who beat up Charlie that last time. He worked at the Shelter Clinic. Bea helped them get him.”

Billy laughed without mirth. “I bet. I just fuckin’ bet. You know what? Old Wesley, he was one of their success stories at that clinic. I mean, he first went there just like Charlie did. She told me his parents put him in there because he was the kind of little kid who couldn’t help hitting other little kids. He was always bigger, so he had a tendency to really hurt the littler ones. I guess that made him useful to those bastards at the clinic. After a while, they told him his treatment was working, and they kind of made him a trusty of the other kids, kind of like they do in jail. He’s one sad, scary motherfucker.” Billy shook his head. “And you know how he finally got out? Bea got him out. She said she’d help ‘mainstream’ him—I love that word—kind of keep him close, keep him walkin’ on the Jesus road, all that. He’s her fuckin’ enforcer. And now she’s hung him out to dry. What would Jesus think?”

Sally knew that Dickie was right. Billy wasn’t the kind of reliable source you could take to the bank. But despite his bad mouth, his tattoos, his rap sheet, his tough pose, and his lifelong intimacy with lying, she felt certain that everything he was telling them was true.

She looked at Aggie. Aggie shrugged. “I don’t know this Wesley King guy. Charlie never told me about him. But she did say that one of the worst things about the clinic was that they didn’t protect the little kids from the big kids.”

What made it all plausible, Sally was sure, was the real estate connection. Brad had been a landlord. The evictions had started after he’d died, and the only heir who’d have been interested in evicting was Bea. Her actions exactly matched those of whoever else was buying up houses, evicting tenants, and flipping the properties at a huge profit. The transactions seemed to go through a Fort Collins management firm with the name of WWJS. Why not believe that Bea and her well-heeled, well-connected Traditional Family Fund were in the middle of it all, especially now, with plans seemingly going forward for an evangelical college in Laramie?

What would Jesus think?

Or do?

Or sell?!

“It stands for ‘What Would Jesus Sell’!” she exclaimed.

“What?” said Hawk.

“That Fort Collins real estate firm, WWJS. Get it? What Would Jesus Sell!”

Hawk’s eyes grew wide. “I had the impression that it was Jesus who drove the moneylenders out of the temple.”

“That’s the beauty of the Bible,” said Billy. “You can pick and choose what parts you feel like ignoring.”

Hawk went on. “There are a lot of empty houses around here, right about now. Former party houses, where people coming and going are pretty much par for the course.”

Billy inspected his fingernails. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“I bet you know all those places,” Hawk observed. Billy hesitated again, nodded.

Hawk put his hand on Sally’s arm. “Maybe we’d better go with you,” he said. “And Aggie’d better go on home.”

Aggie stuck out her lower lip. “I’m the one who came up with this idea,” she said. “You can’t make me go home.”

“No?” said Sally, pulling out her cell phone. “Why don’t I just call your parents and see about that?”

“You can’t reach them. They’re in Denver at the symphony with my aunt Maude,” Aggie tossed back. “They said they might stay over if they didn’t feel like driving back.”

“So...they don’t exactly know where you are?” Hawk said, eyes boring a hole in the girl. “And they left you alone overnight? That seems a little hard to believe.”

Aggie realized she’d been caught. She squatted down and got busy petting Beanie, for comfort, and to avoid Hawk’s gaze. “I’m supposed to be at a sleepover. It got canceled.”

“I bet,” said Hawk.

Billy grinned cynically. “Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter, Aggie,” he advised.

Sally knelt beside her, letting the dog lick one hand, patting Aggie’s back with the other. “You can come home with us. Both of you,” she added, looking up at Billy.

“Um, no thanks,” he said. “Sorry.”

What would a parent do at this moment? Sally looked at Hawk. He looked back. Neither of them had a clue.

“Come on, Billy,” said Hawk. “You’re not going to do Charlie any good, and you’re just going to get yourself in a big heaping pile of trouble.”

“I been in trouble my whole fuckin’ life. It don’t mean shit to me. If I don’t try to find my girl, all’s I am is a fuckin’ ten-time loser with nothin’ to show. So don’t think you can change my mind. And just in case you want to try, I’d advise you not to.”

He reached into the pocket of his baggy pants, pulling out a small handgun with a short, large-bore barrel, and pointing it at Hawk.

“What the fuck would you want to shoot me for?” Hawk said, unconsciously adopting Billy’s manner of speaking.

“He wouldn’t.” Sally turned to Billy. “You wouldn’t, would you? You don’t shoot people. That’s not your thing.”

“It’s my thing with anybody who wants to fuck with me tonight, when it comes to Charlie Preston. Don’t call the cops. Don’t do a fuckin’ thing. I’ll see you later,” said Billy.

“Wait! We’re coming with you!” Aggie said, rushing to his side.

If they called the police, Billy would probably end up back in jail. Aggie Stark might even find herself in trouble for the first time. And when the system got hold of a kid, that was never a good thing.

They probably wouldn’t find Charlie anyway.

“You’re rationalizing, Sal,” said Hawk, reading her mind.

“We’d better go with them,” she told him.

“I know,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

He got the Smith & Wesson.

Sally forced down the panic in the pit of her stomach, made an effort to convince herself that what they were doing wasn’t asinine, dangerous, illegal, futile at best. She failed miserably. But when Billy turned to start walking, she said, “Wait a minute. We might as well take my car.”

Sally Alder had done plenty of creepy things in her picaresque life, but driving slowly down Laramie’s empty streets, stopping at empty, dilapidated houses, getting out, prowling around, and getting back in the car ranked among the creepiest. Billy, of course, knew where every party house in Laramie was. To Sally and Hawk’s dismay, Aggie seemed familiar with a good many of those places. The girl was clearly too much of an athlete to be disabling herself with drugs and alcohol, but it seemed to Sally that if even such an all-American girl knew so much about how to sneak out, and where to go to get wasted and raise hell and meet the most disreputable punks in town, parents these days had the hardest job in the world.

Billy had a plan. At each dark, rickety house, Hawk, Sally, Aggie, and Beanie would stay well clear of the building, but walk around looking for signs of recent disturbance. “I’ve done my share of B&E,” he told them. “If anyone goes in, it’s me.”

Aggie protested, but Billy held his ground. “This ain’t for you, kid. Just hangin’ around won’t get you busted. I got a lot less to lose.”

He didn’t bother with the first three places. “Nobody’s been here,” he said, inspecting dusty doors, windows, basement dormers. “No footprints in the dust. No smears anywhere on the windows.”

“You’re a regular Inspector Columbo,” said Hawk.

“I know my business,” said Billy, flashing a grin that was gone, replaced by a grim expression, in an instant.

And so it went. House after house. Some had once been solid two-story buildings, now subdivided into scummy apartments. Others were not much more than clapboard and shingles slapped together into boxes, now falling apart, but in good campus neighborhoods. Future tear-downs, Sally bet. By the time they’d visited seven places, Sally and Hawk were more than ready to give up and try to convince the kids that it was time to call it a night.

“One more,” Billy insisted. He looked hard at Aggie. “Maybe you better not come. You never been to this place. Ain’t nobody there now, but it used to be a little rougher than anything you’ve seen. A real hellhole. It’s out in West Laramie.”

Hawk was puzzled. “I can’t imagine that real estate speculators would be buying up West Laramie hellholes.”

Billy just looked at them, grim-faced. Clearly he was debating with himself, wondering whether he owed them an explanation. Finally he reached his decision. “Yeah, okay. I doubt your land grabbers would give a fuck about this place. But Alvin the Chipmunk used to live there. He did a lot of business there. Put it this way. It wasn’t a very safe place to be.”

“Aggie,” Hawk began.

“Forget it,” she insisted.

“I’ve had enough of putting you in danger,” Hawk shot back.

Billy snorted. “She’s in a lot less danger tonight than just about any other Saturday night I can remember,” he said. “You never been to some of those parties. And it’s not just the kids. One time, I remember, the cops came in with their guns drawn, yelling and screaming, and made everybody get down on the floor. They were freakin’.”

Aggie bit her lip. “Well, I guess I could see why. I mean, how do you think the police feel about walking into a place where half the people are sixteen years old, toasted out of their heads and packing heat?”

“You were at that party?” Sally asked her, aghast.

“I’m going to tell my parents everything tomorrow,” she told Sally. “So don’t worry.”

Great. That would take care of everything. Clearly they couldn’t turn the girl loose, knowing that her parents were out of town. Who knew where she’d go, or what she’d do? If she went out on her own and stumbled across Charlie Preston, Sally didn’t want to think about what might happen.

“We’ll stay in the car,” Sally said. “We’ll call the police the minute things get weird.”

Hawk drove. Billy rode in front, giving directions. Sally, Aggie, and the dog sat silent in the backseat. Laramie had been quiet. West Laramie felt ghostly. The moon was out, and the night had turned cold. Sally wished she was wearing a sweater and jeans. She was shivering in her leather skirt and fishnets, and her boots pinched. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the tension. Hawk reached over the seat, grabbed her hand, felt her trembling. He might have smiled reassuringly. But he didn’t.

They turned off on a dusty side street, pulling up in front of an aluminum siding–clad ranch house, surrounded by a sagging chain-link fence. Sally was paying attention, noting the name of the street, Blueberry Lane, and the number, 66. Wasn’t that cheery? The siding had once been painted Rust-Oleum red, but most of the paint had peeled off. The yard was littered with smashed cans and broken bottles. Party-house landscaping. It didn’t strike Sally as evidence of great merrymaking.

Beanie the schnauzer, who’d been more or less quiet all night and was now half dozing in Aggie’s lap, suddenly jerked to attention, ears cocked, and set up a racket barking.

“Shhh, Beanie,” Aggie said, to no effect. The dog was bred for barking at trouble.

“Something’s definitely fucked up here. I’m going in there,” said Billy, opening the car door and reaching in his pocket for his gun.

“Hold on, kid. I’m going with you,” said Hawk, getting his own weapon out of the Mustang’s glove compartment and opening his own door.

“Wait a second!” Sally said, stroking the dog. Between her and Aggie, he’d quieted down a little, but was still growling low, barking intermittently. “You’ve got your phone, right, Billy?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Aggie’s got hers, right?”

The girl nodded.

“Give it to me.” She punched in the menu for calls, selected the “outgoing,” and said, “Which number is Billy’s?”

Aggie told her.

Sally scrolled to the number and hit “send.”

Billy’s other pants pocket exploded in a tinny version of the William Tell Overture.

“Answer it,” said Sally, “and leave the connection open. I’ve got my phone too. If there’s trouble, we’ll hear it, and we’ll call the cops.” She dug in her bag, pulled out her own phone, turned it on, and set it in her lap.

Billy looked skeptical, but stuck the phone back in his pocket, leaving it connected. Then he and Hawk slipped through the unlatched gate of the chain-link fence, disappeared around the side of the house.

The dog whimpered, making it plain that he wanted to get out of the car. Aggie held him tight. At least he’d stopped barking. Sally held Aggie’s phone to one ear and plugged her other ear with a finger. She was having a hard time hearing what was on the other end of the line, getting a lot of interfering noise from the rustle of Billy’s saggy trousers. She heard what sounded like footsteps. Then a hushed voice. “There,” the voice whispered. “That basement window. It’s open. I think I see light.”

“Let me go,” said a voice she knew almost as well as her own.

“Fuck that,” came an adamant whisper. “Stay out here and watch my back. Get help if you need to.” Followed by a scraping sound and a thump. Sally imagined Billy crawling in the window, jumping down.

Footsteps.

And then, “Okay, Munk. Drop it. I mean it. Right fuckin’ now.”

“You’re shitting me, Reno. You just go ahead and drop that piece of shit. I’ll shoot her in the head, you know I will.”

Now Hawk ran around the front of the house, yelling to Sally. “Call nine-one-one! They’ve got her in there. Call the police, now!” he said, running in the front door of the house, Smith & Wesson drawn.

Before Sally knew it, Aggie sprang out of the car, the dog leaping out and sprinting ahead of her.

Sally was hot on Aggie’s heels, hanging on to both phones, dialing 911 on her own. “Tell the sheriff to get out here right now!” she told the dispatcher, giving the address. “They’ve got Charlie Preston!”

Aggie was halfway down the basement steps by the time Sally caught up with her, nearly ran into her. The dog was barking hysterically, while Aggie struggled to hold the leash, breathing hard. Sally could see why.

They were all staring at the sight of Charlie Preston, bound and gagged on a filthy mattress, eyes wide with terror. The basement stank of cat piss and mildew. Alvin the Chipmunk, jeweled cross glinting bloodred in the beam of a tiny reading light, was holding a gun to Charlie’s head. In his other hand, he held Billy Reno’s nearly identical weapon, aimed at Billy himself.

Hawk stood by helplessly, his own gun useless.

“Welcome to the party,” said the Chipmunk, smiling nastily. “Say your prayers.”

“The cops are on the way,” Sally said.

That stopped him for a moment, but the hand holding the gun to Charlie’s head and the other one aiming at Billy remained steady. “We’ll be gone before they get here. Don’t mess with me, Reno. I got the Lord’s work to do.”

“If I know you, Munk, it’s the Lord and a whole fuckin’ lotta green. What’s the bitch paying you, anyway?” Billy yelled over Beanie’s barking.

“Watch your language, Reno. Mrs. Preston’s saved a whole lot of souls, including your own mother. She’s practically a saint, and she’s just trying to clean up this town. What’s a loser like you know about anything?”

“I know I’m not a murderer, Munk. Or did you give that up when you gave your life to the Savior?” Billy asked.

“Sometimes you have to take one for the Lord. But you wouldn’t know about that. You’re nothing but a second-rate thief. Too bad for you, Reno. Breaks my heart to think of you burning in hell for eternity.”

“But you’ll be singing in the heavenly choir, right, Alvin?” Sally said, taking a chance. “After all the help you’ve given Bea. Like when you put the bomb in that car at the doctor’s office. Like when you shot at me through my bathroom door. You’re a real angel, you know that?”

The Chipmunk scowled. “You’ve got nothin’ on me. Can’t you shut that dog up?” he asked, fury rising in his voice.

The dog was beyond human intervention, all his instincts kicking in, snarling, snapping, bellowing shrilly, a schnauzer recognizing a rodent, his natural enemy.

The Chipmunk swung Billy’s gun toward Beanie, taking aim.

“No!” Aggie screamed, lunging toward her dog.

“Aggie!” Sally yelled. “Don’t!” She dived at the girl and dog.

The Chipmunk grimaced, tensed, pulled the trigger.

And blew his own hand off.