WE TOOK HELEN’S county car, a plain-wrapped Chevy Malibu, blue with stock rims. The whole package screamed cop. She used the GPS to navigate us to Norwalk. Without traffic, the device said it’d take forty minutes. But not really, not the way Helen drove. Maniac came to mind as a sound description.
My foot bounced on the floorboard, a nervous condition caused by the time and distance needed to put this to rest. In my mind, I fought over calling Chulack and telling him. Maybe he or one of his crack investigators had already spotted this lead, investigated it, and it had turned out to be nothing. Or maybe they had not looked that hard because this entire time they had the criminals from the ransom demand in their sights. If I called Chulack, told him, and this turned out to be nothing, it would only cause him more turmoil and grief. He’d had enough of that in the last two weeks to last three lifetimes.
“Well, you going to tell me?” Helen said as she whipped the wheel in and out of traffic, only stopping at red signals long enough to clear the intersection before blasting on through.
“Pull over, let me drive. You’re going to kill us both.”
She scowled at me and ran another signal.
I held up the photo with the receipt from the hardware store. “This was found in the field where Lilian Morales was dumped.”
She didn’t look, couldn’t without risking a crash. “I saw that, but my friend … and I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news … that sales receipt could’ve come from anyone at any time and most likely did. There’s nothing to link that receipt to Lilian.”
I held up the other photo of the refrigerator in the Mosley home. “This is a to-do list.”
“Bruno, I got all of that. Tell me something I don’t know or I’m going to drive us over to Augustus Hawkins and get you fitted for a straitjacket. ’Cause this is a little beyond crazy. It’s the same as buying a lotto ticket, thinking-you’re-going-to-win kind of crazy.”
“That’s right. It is just like a lotto ticket. This all comes down to three simple numbers. This is what everyone missed, and Marie spotted the numbers. Marie’s mind must have taken in the information and mulled it around and around until her subconscious, all on its own, locked in on it. We saw it the moment that happened for her.”
“Three numbers?” Helen braked hard. The front end of the Malibu surged down and stopped inches from the crosswalk where a homeless man pushed a shopping cart. She didn’t wait for him to clear the crosswalk and blew through the red signal. The homeless man kicked out trying to dent the Malibu but missed. He spun around and almost fell.
“Three numbers.” I held up the photo of the receipt again and pointed to them.
She pulled her eyes away from her mad dash through LA, but not long enough to see. “What is it. Tell me—Wait,” she said. “It’s the date, right? That’s what you’re pointing at? It’s the date on the receipt.” She paused. I let her think it through.
Realization crossed her expression. “It has to be the date Emily disappeared.”
“That’s right.”
“Son of a bitch. And your wife … I mean, Marie, figured it out. That’s really something. I’m not kidding, Bruno, that’s really something.” Helen drove a little faster, if that were possible.
Twenty-seven minutes later, we pulled into the A to Z Handyman Store parking lot. The place shared parking with the You Mail It postal annex store, a Hole in One Donuts shop, and the Advanced PayCheck business, where people could get money advanced on their paychecks. The donut shop had one person sitting inside nursing a large Styrofoam cup of coffee and nibbling on a cake donut with pink frosting.
Most of the cars in the parking lot were clustered close to the Advanced PayCheck business, which tended to draw sketchy people. It was the kind of place that preys on obsessive-compulsive folks who find it difficult to hold down a regular job and spend their hard-earned cash on drugs, gambling, or sex.
Fat cracks ran throughout the neglected parking lot’s asphalt, along with litter that migrated with each new breeze.
“You want to watch the Handyman for a while before we make contact?” Helen asked.
“Pull up in front. This lead’s been on the back burner too long already.”
She did. We got out. Posters for sale items covered the window to the Handyman so we couldn’t easily see inside from the parking lot. As I approached the double glass doors, I tried to peek through the posters. One employee tended the shelves while one manned the checkout counter. Both wore red aprons and looked to be in their late seventies with gray, untended mops of hair. I didn’t know what I expected, maybe some sinister-looking thugs with angry tattoos who worked behind the counter and used the place as a money laundry. Anything but a regular hardware store barely hanging on and run by mom and pop.
I pulled the door open and let Helen go in first. The white-haired man at the counter smiled at us. I got ahead of Helen and flipped out the FBI credentials. The man with HERB embroidered on his red apron said, “Oh my.”
I put the photo of the smoothed-out receipt down on the counter. “Herb, I need help with this receipt,” I said. “What can you tell me about it?”
He stared up at me for a long second, fear in his eyes. Not fear from being caught doing something illicit but more intimidation by a large black FBI agent who’d been rude and had skipped the introductory pleasantries, getting right down to business.
He put on the readers that hung from a chain around his neck as the last vestiges of hope bled out of me. This was going to be a dead end. What had I been thinking? Of course, it wasn’t this easy. It would have taken a miracle for it to have worked out. The angels were not looking down on us today.
The old woman who’d been tending the shelves came over. “Herb, what’s going on?” The name MAY was embroidered on her apron.
He took off his cheaters. “These folks are from the FBI and want to know about one of our sales receipts.” He held up the photo. She grabbed it from his hand. “Well, hells, bells, he can’t remember what he had for breakfast this morning.”
“I do, too; it was eggs and sourdough toast and some Little Smokies.”
She smiled and gently knocked on his head with her knuckle. “Hello? You had oatmeal with wheat toast.”
“I did?”
She turned her attention to the photo and put on her own cheaters, which hung from a decorative chain around her neck. Her eyes were occluded with cataracts. May scanned the receipt for just a second. “Sure, nice-looking Mexican gal with a little girl.”
I sucked in a breath, a hesitation long enough for Helen to say, “That’s great. What can you tell me about her? About what happened that day. Did anyone come into the store with her? Did she leave with anyone?” Helen came off too brusque with her rapid-fire questions.
May put a hand to her chest. “Oh, my land.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just that this is real important.”
She looked again at the photo and pointed to the date. “Herb, that was the day they had that flea market across the street.”
“Oatmeal? You sure you’re telling me straight? She tends to mess with me, if you know what I mean.”
“Flea market?” I asked.
“Yes, and everyone that shops there loads up our parking lot with their cars and walks over. Drives all of our customers away. That’s how I remember—we hardly had any business that day. Can’t say that I remember anything special with this young gal, though. Other than she was real nice. Real polite.”
“May?” Herb said. “What about the computer?”
“The computer?” I said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, sure. Come on, follow me.”
We followed her into the back, my feet too clumsy, wanting to move faster, held up by their slow pace.
The computer?