MARLA HANDED Jeffrey a stack of pink messages before he even had time to take off his jacket. He felt as if he had been gone for three months instead of twenty-four hours.
“This one’s important,” Marla said, pointing to one of the slips. “And this one, too.” She kept going until she had identified all but one of the messages as important. Jeffrey glanced at the unimportant one. There was a man’s name he did not recognize, followed by a one–eight hundred number.
“What’s this about?”
Marla frowned as she obviously tried to remember. “Either vinyl siding or coffee service. I forget which one.” She shrugged apologetically. “He said he’d call back.”
Jeffrey balled up the message and tossed it into the trash, asking, “Is Lena around?”
“I’ll fetch her,” Marla said, backing out of the office.
Jeffrey sat at his desk and the first thing he saw was a missing poster of Lacey Patterson. She was a thin, boyish-looking girl with blonde hair like her mother. The photo was a school picture with an American flag in the background and a globe of the world in front. Her height and weight were under the photo, along with where she was last seen and a number people could call. The flyer had been faxed out to all the precincts in the area and put into the national database that tracked missing children. It would take time for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to put together a packet to send to law enforcement all around the Southeast. If today was like every other day in America, Lacey Patterson’s name had been keyed in along with a hundred other newly missing or abducted children.
Jeffrey picked up the phone and dialed Nick Shelton’s number. When Nick answered, Jeffrey was somewhat surprised. The field agent was seldom at his desk.
“Nick? Jeffrey Tolliver.”
“Hey, Chief,” Nick said, his twangy good-old-boy drawl a bit jarring to Jeffrey’s ears. Considering Jeffrey had spent the last twenty-four hours in central Alabama, this said a lot.
Jeffrey asked, “You riding a desk today?”
“Somebody’s gotta take care of all this paperwork,” Nick told him. “No word yet on your missing girl?”
“No,” Jeffrey told him. “Anything on the state-wide alert?”
“Not a peep,” Nick said. “It’d help if you had a license plate on that car.”
“It was too far away for anyone to see it.”
Nick sighed. “Well, I sent it over to the computer lab. Who knows how long it’ll take for them to get somebody on it? It’s not top priority until something happens one way or the other.”
“I know,” Jeffrey said. There would need to be a break in the case, some kind of clue to follow or angle to work, before the big guns could be called in. Right now, all they could do was stand around with their hands in their pockets.
Jeffrey asked, “There’s no way to move her up on this? Jesus, Nick. Sara and Lena saw the kid being snatched.”
“You know how many kids have gone missing in the last twelve hours?”
“Still—”
“Hey, now.” Nick lowered his voice. “I made it my business to talk to this old boy used to work in child crimes. He’s gonna make a couple of phone calls and see if they can put some kind of priority on it.”
“Thanks, Nick.”
“Meanwhile, it won’t hurt to have some of your boys follow up on those faxes you sent around.”
Jeffrey made a note of this, thinking Nick was right. So much trash came through the fax machines at the office that sometimes it took hours before somebody could sort through it.
Nick asked, “Any chance this is just a do-gooder, snatching her up to keep her safe?”
“Hell, Nick,” Jeffrey said. “I don’t know.”
“None of your primaries drives a black Thunderbird?”
“No,” Jeffrey said. They’d checked the vehicles of everyone even remotely involved in the case, then spread it out to include all of Grant. No one in the county had an old Ford Thunderbird registered to him.
“In the meantime,” Nick said. “What can I do ya for?”
“Purity,” Jeffrey said. “Tell me what that means in relation to pedophiles.”
“No idea,” Nick said. “I can beep it through the computers and let you know.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Your lady was on the phone with me earlier talking about purity,” Nick told him. “That castration case, right?”
“Right,” Jeffrey said.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” Nick began, “this castration has a religious angle to it most times. They do it to make sure the girl stays a virgin.”
“We know she wasn’t that.”
“Hell, no,” Nick agreed. “From what I heard, she’d been around the block more than a time or two.”
Jeffrey tried to let this slide off his back, but Nick’s characterization of the child was a little harsh even for him. Law enforcement people tended to be as tough as they could about this kind of thing, and Jeffrey was no exception. Had he not killed the little girl in question, Jeffrey might have laughed. As it was, he could only say, “I’ve got a name for you to run through the computer.”
“Shoot,” Nick said.
“Arthur Prynne,” Jeffrey said, then spelled out the name of the man he had almost beaten that morning behind Possum’s store.
Nick mumbled something, obviously writing down the name. “What is that, Polish, or something?”
“I’ve got no idea,” Jeffrey said. “He’s got a tattoo like the one I sent you.”
“What am I looking for?”
“He was cruising a day-care center when I happened upon him.”
“Can’t really arrest him for that,” Nick said, though they both knew this was obvious.
“He’s got a computer at home. Probably hooks up with other pedophiles that way,” Jeffrey said. “Said he was a girl-lover.”
“Man,” Nick sighed. “I really hate that phrase.”
“We could do a search here at the station, but to tell you the truth, Nick, I don’t think any of us knows how to find that kind of thing.”
“Feds have got a whole squad on it. Having a name makes it a priority. Maybe they can squeeze this guy and get him to flip?”
“Very possible,” Jeffrey said. “He didn’t have much of a spine when I interviewed him. I can see him turning in some of his friends to save his hide.”
“Interviewed him, huh?” Nick chuckled. “He know you were a cop at the time?”
Jeffrey smiled. Nick was a lot of things, but he was not stupid. “Let’s say we had a conversation and leave it at that.”
Nick laughed again. “How fast you want me to do this?”
“Really fast,” Jeffrey said, not wanting the responsibility if Prynne turned out to be less innocent than he seemed.
“I’ll put it through to the Alabama boys, pronto,” Nick said. Then, “We just caught something over in Augusta that might interest you.”
“What’s that?”
“Augusta cops busted this guy at his hotel on coke distribution. They kind of stumbled across a bunch of magazines that weren’t exactly legal.”
“Pornography?” Jeffrey guessed.
“Kiddy porn,” Nick confirmed. “There was some freaky shit.”
“In Augusta?” Jeffrey asked, surprised that he did not know about this. Augusta was pretty close to Grant, and they tended to swap information with the cops there just to keep everyone in the loop.
“We’re sitting on it,” Nick said. “Trying to pull down the big guys.”
“The perp’s turning state’s evidence?” Jeffrey asked.
“Flipped faster than a two-dollar whore,” Nick told him. “And, before you ask, he doesn’t know anything about a black Thunderbird or a missing little girl.”
“You sure?”
“Sure as two fists can be.”
Jeffrey frowned, though he was hardly in a position to feel superior. “Thanks for checking.”
“No offense, Chief, but you better hope she’s not with one of these guys. They trade kids like you and me used to trade baseball cards.”
“I know that,” Jeffrey said, but the truth was, he didn’t want to. Thinking about Lacey Patterson being trapped with someone like Prynne made Jeffrey sick.
“Anyway,” Nick sighed, “there’s supposed to be a delivery tonight or tomorrow. Evidently, Augusta is the distribution point for the Southeast.”
“I can’t believe they’re still printing that shit when you can get it for free on the Internet.”
“You can trace through the Internet if you know what you’re doing,” Nick reminded him. “You want me to give you a holler when it’s going down?”
“You’ve got my cell number, right?”
“Yep,” Nick said. “You think this Prynne freak is active?”
“No,” Jeffrey said, because his impression had been that Arthur Prynne was the kind of pedophile who was content to look at pictures and not act on his fantasies. “I don’t know how long that’ll last, though.”
Nick asked, “He gonna be expecting a knock on his door?”
“I think he has been all his life,” Jeffrey said, looking up to see Lena standing in the doorway. “I’ve gotta go, Nick. Call me back when you get something on that bust, okay?”
“Will do, Chief.”
They hung up, and Jeffrey motioned Lena in, surprised by the way she looked. Her eyes were bloodshot, the way people tend to get when they’ve been crying for long periods of time. Her nose was red and there were dark circles under her eyes.
“Wanna talk about it?” Jeffrey asked, indicating one of the chairs across from his desk.
She gave him a puzzled look, like she didn’t understand. She asked, “Any word on Lacey?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Have you set up that appointment we talked about?”
Lena bit her lower lip. “I didn’t have time.”
“Make time,” he told her.
“Yes, sir.”
Jeffrey sat back in his chair, staring at her for a few beats. He said, “Tell me what happened when you snatched up Mark. Did he say anything?”
“He’s being real tight-lipped all the sudden,” she told him. “He won’t say anything.”
“He lawyer up?”
“Buddy Conford,” Lena told him. “Won’t that be a conflict of interest?”
Jeffrey considered this. Buddy was the lawyer representing the county if and when Dottie Weaver brought a case against Jeffrey. He asked, “Does Buddy know there’s a connection between Mark and what happened with Jenny Weaver?”
“He knows Mark’s the one Jenny wanted to shoot. Everybody knows that.”
“I mean,” Jeffrey said, “does he know we suspect Mark of being the father of the child?”
Lena’s eyebrows went up. “Do we?”
“Tell me why he wouldn’t be.”
“There could be another boy,” she suggested.
“With the mother around?”
“She’s been sick a lot,” Lena said, shrugging. “I get a vibe from the father. He likes to push people around.”
“I’ll give you that,” Jeffrey said, because Patterson had made a sport out of pushing Lena around in the trailer the other day. Jeffrey had been torn between stepping in and seeing if Lena could take care of it herself.
Lena said, “Maybe he molested Mark, and so Mark molested his sister? Kind of like a cause and effect?”
“That’s not how pedophiles work,” Jeffrey said.
“I don’t follow.”
“Not all pedophiles were abused as children. You can’t make that assumption.”
“We’re talking theory here, right?” Lena asked. “I mean, it could have happened that way. I don’t see Patterson being into boys, though.”
“The vibe again?”
“Yeah,” Lena nodded. “I don’t get that vibe.”
“What about Mark?” Jeffrey asked, remembering how Lena had behaved when they first interviewed the kid. “What kind of vibe do you get off of him?”
Lena had the grace to look down. “Well,” she began, “he’s hypersexual.”
“Go on.”
“He really seems to work off his appearance, his sexuality.” She looked back up. “I think he probably doesn’t know how to communicate any other way.”
“That tattoo,” Jeffrey began. “I found a guy in Alabama who had the same one.”
“The hearts?”
“He was watching a day care,” Jeffrey said, feeling the same disgust he had felt at Possum’s store. “Looking at the kids there.”
“Little kids?” Lena asked. “He’s a child molester?”
“More like a pedophile,” Jeffrey corrected. Sara had given him a lesson on the difference between these two a long time ago during another case, and he told Lena about it now. “Child molesters tend to hate children, and don’t want to be around them except to abuse them. Pedophiles think they’re doing the kid some good. They think they love them.”
“Uh-huh,” Lena said, skeptical.
“Pedophilia is considered a mental illness.”
“So was homosexuality until the early sixties. I still don’t see the difference.”
Jeffrey knew that Lena’s sister had been gay, so he was surprised to hear her say this. “I suppose the big difference would be that adult-to-adult sexual contact is healthy. Children aren’t prepared for that kind of thing.” She did not respond, so he continued, “With a child-adult relationship, the balance of power is always going to be on the adult’s side. It’s not a level playing field. The adult is always going to be the one in control of the kid.”
Lena gave him an incredulous look. “It sounds like you’re justifying it.”
“I’m not doing that at all,” Jeffrey said, feeling prickly at her accusation. “I’m just telling you what the mindset is.”
“The mindset is pretty fucking perverted.”
“I agree with that,” Jeffrey told her. “But you can’t let your disgust color how you approach this, Lena. If Mark has that tattoo because he’s a pedophile or a child molester, you can’t let him know that you disapprove. He’ll never open up to you.” Then, because he had taught her this before, he added, “You know that.”
“Well,” Lena said. “Which one do you think he is? He’s barely older than Lacey.”
“Three years at least.”
“That’s not a huge difference.”
“Maybe from thirty to thirty-three it’s not, but with kids, that’s a pretty big jump when you think about it. That’s the difference between being a child and being a young adult.”
She was silent, obviously thinking this through.
Jeffrey said, “Look at it this way: A pedophile is more comfortable around children because he’s scared of adult relationships. Adults scare him.”
“What about Jenny? How did she get sewn up like that? What’s the story?”
“That I don’t know,” Jeffrey said. “Maybe Mark will give it up?”
“He’s not talking,” Lena told him. “Frank was in with him, and he just stared off into space.”
“Is he high?”
She shook her head no. “He was before, but it’s worn off by now.”
“Is he looking for a fix?”
“He seems okay,” she said. “He’s not twitching, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“What about his physical state? Sara said he looked like someone had worked him over.”
“Yeah,” Lena said. She took some Polaroids out of her breast pocket. “We took some pictures to document it. Dr. Linton said the cut on his belly looks like it was done with a sharp knife. It wasn’t deep enough for stitches, though. He’s got a bruise coming out on his eye.”
Jeffrey looked at the pictures one by one. Mark stared at the camera with a dead look in his eyes. There was one shot where he had his shirt off, and there were grass stains on the waist of his jeans as well as superficial scrapes on his lower abdomen.
“We didn’t do any of this?” Jeffrey asked, just to make certain.
“Of course not,” Lena said, which was odd, because he had asked her this question on other cases and gotten a straightforward answer with none of the attitude. As if to get a jab in, she said, “Ask your girlfriend. She saw him before I did.”
“Someone chased him?” Jeffrey asked, moving along. “Or was he chasing someone else?”
“One or the other,” she said. “Defensive wounds on his arms, too.”
Jeffrey thought about Arthur Prynne, and how he had covered himself with his arms to keep Jeffrey from hitting his face.
Lena said, “We bagged his clothes. I think Dr. Linton’s gonna run the blood on his shirt for the DNA match.”
“Did you ask him about his sister?”
“If he cares, he’s not showing it. Like I said, he’s not talking about anything.”
Jeffrey’s phone beeped, and he pressed the intercom button.
Marla said, “Pastor Fine is here to see Mark.”
Jeffrey and Lena exchanged a look. “In what capacity?”
“He says the parents asked him to act as proxy during your interview.” Marla lowered her voice. “Buddy Conford is here with him.”
“Thanks,” Jeffrey said, pressing the button again. He sat back in his chair, staring at Lena.
She finally asked, “What?”
“You’ve got this connection with Mark. I don’t know what it is, but you need to be careful in there.”
“I don’t have a connection with him,” Lena said, obviously uncomfortable with the thought.
“Maybe he’s transferring some emotions on to you because his mother’s sick.”
Lena gave a half-assed shrug. “Whatever,” she said. “Can we just get this over with?”
BUDDY Conford had lived a hell of a life. At seventeen, he had lost his right leg from the knee down in a car accident. Later, he lost his left eye to cancer and a kidney to a dissatisfied client with a gun. These losses seemed to have made Buddy stronger rather than weaker. He could fight like a dog with a bone when he put his mind to it. On the other side of that, Buddy was a logical man, and, unlike most lawyers, he was able to recognize right from wrong. He had helped Jeffrey on more than one occasion. Jeffrey approached Mark Patterson’s interview hoping this would be such an occasion.
“Chief,” Dave Fine said, “I wanted to thank you for letting me be present during this. Mark’s mother has taken a turn for the worse, and they wanted me to be here in their stead.”
Jeffrey nodded, trying not to point out that he did not really have a choice. Whatever crimes he had committed, Mark was technically still a child. It would be up to the courts to change that designation, if it ever came to that.
Fine asked, “Is there any word on his sister?”
“No,” Jeffrey said, staring at Mark, trying to figure out what was going on with the sixteen year old. He looked horrible, and the bruise on his eye was turning blacker by the minute. His lip was cut down the center and his eyes were as bloodshot at Lena’s. The orange prison jumpsuit they had given him made the boy look even more pale than he already was. He seemed smaller, too, somehow reduced by his circumstances. His shoulders slouched and he looked slight, even compared to Buddy Conford, who was not exactly tall.
“Mark?” Jeffrey asked.
Mark’s lips moved silently, and he kept his gaze on the table, as if he did not want to look up and recognize the situation he was in. There was something pathetic about the boy that made Jeffrey feel something like compassion. Sara was right. No matter what Mark had done, he was still just a kid.
Buddy shuffled through Mark’s paperwork. “What are the charges here, Chief?”
“Assault,” Jeffrey told him, still staring at Mark. “He hit Sara in the face.”
Buddy frowned at his client. “Sara Linton?” he asked, surprise making his voice go up. Buddy had grown up in Grant, and like most natives he considered Sara sort of sacred for the work she did at the clinic.
A jangling noise came from under the table. Mark was handcuffed, and Jeffrey guessed the sound was the cuffs bouncing up and down on his thigh. Jeffrey had heard this sound before in several interviews.
“In front of about ten witnesses,” Jeffrey said, talking over the noise. “He was also threatening his sister with bodily harm.”
“Uh-huh,” Buddy said, stacking the papers. “He get those bruises on his face before or after he was arrested?”
Lena snapped, “Before,” with a silent but understood, “…you idiot.”
Buddy gave her a chastising look. “Witnesses back that up?”
“We took photos,” Jeffrey said, pulling the Polaroids Lena had given him out of a folder. He slid them across the table to Buddy. Mark flinched a bit at the movement, and again Jeffrey was struck at how fragile the boy seemed.
Buddy thumbed through them, not looking at Mark until he was finished. “Who did this to him?” he asked Jeffrey.
“You tell us,” Jeffrey said.
Mark kept staring down, the cuffs jangling like a metronome.
Buddy slid the photos back to Jeffrey. “Don’t look like he wants to talk.”
Lena said, “What’s going on, Mark?”
Mark looked up, seemingly surprised that Lena was speaking to him. The noise stopped, and he appeared frozen in time, waiting for Lena to say more.
Lena’s voice was softer than Jeffrey had ever heard it, and it felt like Lena and Mark were the only two people in the room when she said, “Tell me what’s wrong, Mark.”
He continued to stare, and his breathing became more pronounced.
“Who hit you?” she asked, using the same concerned tone. She reached across the table to him, and Mark lifted his hands so that she could touch him. A small sob escaped from his lips when her hand covered his.
Buddy shot Jeffrey a look, and Jeffrey shook his head once, willing the lawyer to stay silent. Dave Fine was silent without prompting, staring at Mark and Lena’s hands.
Lena used her thumb to smooth Mark’s tattoo. Jeffrey did not need to look at the other men in the room to know that they were a bit uncomfortable with the gesture. The air seemed charged with something unspeakable.
Lena said, “What’s going on, Mark? Tell me.”
Tears came to his eyes. “You’ve got to find Lacey.”
“We will,” Lena told him.
“You’ve got to find her before something bad happens to her.”
“What will happen to her, Mark?”
He shook his head, sobbing, “It’s too late. No one can help her now.”
“Do you know who could have taken her? Did you recognize the car?”
He shook his head again. “I want to see my mama.”
Lena swallowed visibly, and Jeffrey could see that Mark’s frailty was getting to her, too.
“I just want to see my mama,” Mark repeated, his voice soft.
Dave Fine reached out to the boy, and Mark jerked away so hard that Buddy had to hold his chair to keep Mark from toppling over.
“Don’t touch me!” Mark screamed, standing.
Lena stood, too, and half ran around to the other side of the table. She tried to touch Mark’s arm, but he jumped away, nearly slamming into the wall. He backed into the corner of the room, putting his head into the angle of the walls. Lena put her hand on his shoulder, whispering something to him.
“Mark,” Dave Fine said, holding up his hands. “Settle down, son.”
“Why aren’t you with my mother?” Mark demanded. “Where’s your fucking God when my mother’s dying?”
“I’ll see her later tonight,” Fine said, his voice shaking. “She wanted me to be here for you.”
“Who was there for Lacey?” Mark demanded. “Who was there when some freak snatched her off the street?”
Fine looked down, and Jeffrey guessed the man was feeling the same guilt they all did about Lacey Patterson.
“I don’t need you,” Mark screamed. “Mama does. She needs you, and you’re here with me like you can do something.”
“Mark—”
“Go help my mother!” Mark screamed.
Fine opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to change his mind.
Mark shook his head, looking away. Lena put her hands on his shoulders and led him back to his chair.
Buddy rapped his knuckles on the table to get Jeffrey’s attention, then indicated the door.
Jeffrey stood, indicating that Fine should stand as well. The preacher hesitated, then did as he was told, following Buddy out into the hallway.
“Goddamn,” Buddy said, then apologized. “Sorry, Preacher.”
Fine nodded, tucking his hands into his pockets. He looked through the small window in the door, watching Lena talk to Mark. He mumbled, “I’ll pray for his soul.”
Buddy leaned heavily onto his crutch, asking Jeffrey, “What the hell is going on here, Chief?”
Jeffrey did not know how to answer. He asked, “Dave, can you make any sense of this?”
“Me?” Fine asked, surprised. “I have no idea. The last time I saw Mark, he seemed okay. Upset about his mama, but okay.”
“When was this?” Jeffrey asked.
“The other night at the hospital. I was praying with Grace.”
Jeffrey said, “What happened between you and Jenny Weaver?”
“Jenny Weaver?” Fine asked, genuinely puzzled.
Jeffrey reminded him, “You said you dropped by a couple of times to see her around Christmas.”
“Oh, right,” Fine agreed. “Brad asked me to see her. She had stopped coming to church and he was worried something was wrong.”
“Was there?”
“Yes. At least I think so,” Fine answered, frowning. “She wouldn’t talk to me. None of them would talk to me about anything.”
“None of them meaning who?” Jeffrey asked.
Fine indicated the door. “Mark and Lacey. I talked to Grace about it, but she couldn’t do anything with them at that point. Put it down to teenage rebellion, I guess.” He shook his head sadly. “A lot of kids drop out of church at that age, but they usually come back when they get older. Grace was worried, though, so I talked to him.”
“What did he say?” Jeffrey asked.
Fine colored. “Let’s just say he used some words I wouldn’t want his mama to hear and leave it at that.”
Jeffrey nodded, letting it go. He had heard Mark enough times to know what the boy was capable of. He asked, “What about Grace? How is she doing?”
“She’s very sick. I don’t think she’ll make it to the weekend.”
Jeffrey thought about Mark wanting to see his mother. “It’s that bad?” he asked.
“Yes,” Fine answered. “There’s nothing more that they can do for her at this point except try to make her comfortable.” He glanced back through the window. “I don’t know what this family is going to do without her. It’s tearing them apart.”
“You weren’t on the youth retreat last Christmas, is that right?”
Fine shook his head. “I stayed here. I’m not really involved in the retreats; that’s more the youth minister’s job. Brad Stephens.”
“I’ve talked to him already.”
“He’s a fine young man,” Fine told them. “I hoped he’d serve as an example for some of the boys.”
Jeffrey said, “You counseled Mark some, is that right?”
“A bit,” Fine answered. “He didn’t really open up. I can look over my notes and let you know if anything came up.”
“Do that,” Jeffrey told the pastor. “Where will you be tomorrow morning?”
“I suppose at the hospital,” Fine told him, glancing at his watch. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to get back over there tonight, unless you have any more questions for me.”
“You can go,” Jeffrey said. “I’ll be at the hospital around ten tomorrow morning. Have your notes.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been much help,” Fine apologized. He shook Jeffrey’s hand, then Buddy’s, before leaving.
Buddy watched the preacher go, then turned back to Jeffrey. “I don’t much like whatever is going on between your detective and my client.”
Jeffrey thought about feigning ignorance, but decided they were past that. “I’ll put him on suicide watch tonight.”
Buddy didn’t buy it. “You still haven’t addressed my concern.”
Jeffrey looked back into the room. Lena had managed to get Mark to sit down, and she rubbed his back as he cried.
Jeffrey said, “This is connected somehow to the Weaver shooting.”
“Aw, shit,” Buddy cursed, stamping the floor with his crutch. “Thanks a lot for telling me that, Chief.”
“I wasn’t sure,” Jeffrey lied. “You know he’s the kid Weaver wanted to shoot.”
“This seemed like a simple assault.”
“It is,” Jeffrey said. “I mean, it was.”
“Wanna speak English with me here?”
Jeffrey looked back into the room. Lena still had her hand on Mark’s back, comforting him.
“Honestly, Buddy, I’ve got no idea what’s going on.”
“Start from the beginning.”
Jeffrey tucked his hands into his pockets. “The baby we found at the skating rink,” he said, and Buddy nodded. “We think Mark is the father.”
Buddy kept nodding. “Makes sense.”
“We think his sister might be the mother.”
“One that’s been taken?”
Jeffrey nodded. His gut clenched as he thought about Lacey Patterson and what might be happening to her.
Buddy said, “I thought Weaver was the mother.”
“No,” Jeffrey said. “Sara did the autopsy. Jenny wasn’t the mother.” He left out what else Sara had found.
“I still haven’t heard from Dottie Weaver,” Buddy told him. “The mayor’s sweating like a whore in church.”
“She’ll probably wait until the funeral’s over,” Jeffrey said, wondering when the funeral would be held. He doubted seriously that Sara would be invited, and she had not mentioned anything about it.
“I need to get your deposition in the next day or so, regardless,” Buddy ordered. “We need to get it down on paper while it’s fresh in your mind.”
“I don’t think it’ll ever not be fresh in my mind, Buddy,” Jeffrey said, thinking that he would carry Jenny Weaver’s death around with him for the rest of his life.
“What else is going on here?” Buddy asked. “Don’t hold back on me.”
Jeffrey tucked his hands into his pockets. “Mark has this tattoo on his hand.”
“The heart thing?” Buddy asked.
“Yeah,” Jeffrey confirmed. “It’s a symbol for something.”
“Kiddy porn,” Buddy supplied, much to Jeffrey’s shock.
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve got another client who has the same tattoo,” Buddy said. “Some guy a couple of weeks ago over in Augusta. I took the case as a favor to a friend.”
“What was the case?”
Buddy glanced around, obviously debating whether or not to answer the question.
Jeffrey pointed out, “I’ve been more than forthcoming here, Buddy.”
Buddy agreed. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “He got nailed for coke. Not a lot, but enough to push distribution. He had some information to make the charge go away.”
“I’ve heard this already,” Jeffrey said. “He’s a distributor, right? For the porn?”
Buddy nodded.
“And he turned state’s evidence to keep his ass out of jail.”
“Bingo,” Buddy said. “How’d you hear about it?”
“The usual way,” Jeffrey said, not wanting to give any more information.
“What usual way?” Buddy asked.
Jeffrey tried to divert him. “Where’s your leg?” he said, indicating the empty space below Buddy’s right knee.
“Shit,” Buddy sighed. “My girlfriend took it. Won’t give it back.”
“What’d you do?”
“That’s a cop for you,” Buddy said, leaning on his crutch. “Always blame the victim.”
Jeffrey laughed. “You want me to talk to her?”
Buddy furrowed his eyebrows. “I’ll handle it,” he said. “You gonna answer my question about how you know?”
“Nope,” Jeffrey said. He looked back into the room. Mark had his head on the table, and Lena sat beside him, holding his hand.
Jeffrey opened the door. “Lena,” he said, indicating she should come out into the hall.
Lena opened her mouth, probably to ask him to let her stay, but seemed to think better of it. She stood, not looking at Mark, not touching him, and walked out of the room.
“What did he say?” Jeffrey asked her.
“Nothing,” Lena answered. “He wants to go to the hospital and see his mother.”
“Go home,” Jeffrey told her, and without waiting for her to acknowledge him, he stepped back into the room with Buddy right behind him.
“Mark,” Jeffrey began, sitting in the chair Lena had vacated. “We know about the tattoo.”
Mark kept his head down. The table shook as he cried.
“We know what it means.”
Buddy leaned against the table on the other side of Mark. “Son, it’s in your best interest to tell us what’s going on here.”
Jeffrey said, “Mark, do you have any idea who might have taken your sister?” When there was no answer, he tried, “Mark, we think some bad people have got her. Some people who might hurt her. You need to help us here.”
Still, he did not answer.
“Mark,” Jeffrey tried again. “Dr. Linton said Lacey seemed sick when she saw her.”
Mark sat up, wiping his eyes with his hands. He stared straight ahead at the wall, his body rocking back and forth.
Jeffrey asked, “Was Lacey pregnant? Was that the baby in the skating rink?”
Mark kept rocking back and forth, almost like he was being hypnotized by the wall.
Jeffrey asked, “Were you the father of that baby, Mark?”
Mark continued to stare. Jeffrey waved his hand in front of the boy’s eyes, but Mark did not move.
“Mark?” Jeffrey asked, then louder, “Mark?”
Mark did not flinch.
“Mark?” Jeffrey repeated, snapping his fingers.
Buddy put his hand on Mark’s shoulder, but the boy did not acknowledge him. Buddy said, “I think we should get him a doctor.”
“Sara can—”
“No,” Buddy interrupted. “I think he’s seen enough of Sara for one day.”
IT was ten o’clock by the time Jeffrey left the station. Nearly two hours of his time had been spent calling around the state, making sure other police departments had gotten the flyer on Lacey and knew to be on the lookout for the black Thunderbird. A lot of the cops he spoke with wanted to give him details on open cases they were working. While Jeffrey didn’t think he could help some of them, he made all the right noises, hoping the cops on the other end didn’t feel like he was giving them lip service. It was more likely some patrol car in Griffin would run across the black Thunderbird than it was for Jeffrey to find a missing wide-screen television that had been stolen out of a police sergeant’s mother’s house, but he wrote down and repeated back the serial number anyway.
Despite what he had told Nick, Jeffrey wanted to see what he could find on the Internet on his own. With Brad’s help, they had found thousands of sites under the general heading of “girl-lovers.” Brad’s face had turned completely white by the third site they visited, and Jeffrey had dismissed the young patrolman and tried to navigate the Web on his own.
Even with Jeffrey’s rudimentary knowledge of the Internet, he was able to find links to site after site containing images of children posed in various compromising positions. By the time he signed off, Jeffrey had felt the need to take a shower just to clean some of the images from his mind. Sara was right. Maybe some distance from the case would give him some perspective. As it stood, Jeffrey did not know where to look next.
Jeffrey tried not to think about what he had seen on the computer as he drove to Sara’s house. He had called Sara before he’d left the station to tell her there was still no word on Lacey and that he was on his way over if she still wanted to see him. Thankfully, she did. He pulled into the driveway, noticing that she had left the lights on for him. When he got out of the car he could hear a soft, jazzy song playing in the house. Sara must have been looking out for him, because she opened the door before he had a chance to knock. Everything that had been troubling him for the last few days left his mind when he saw her standing there.
“Hi,” Sara said, a sly smile at her lips.
Jeffrey was speechless, and all he could do was look at her. Sara’s hair was down around her shoulders, the curls softer than usual. She was wearing a silky black dress that wrapped around her body, showing her curves to their best advantage. A long slit up the side showed a hint of leg. She was wearing high heels, and they flexed her calf in a way that made him want to lick it.
She took his hand and led him inside. Jeffrey stopped her in the hallway, and pulled her close to him. The high heels added about three inches to her height, and Sara leaned her hand on his shoulder while she slipped off the shoes so that she would be back at eye level.
“Better?” she asked. When he did not answer, she leaned in, brushing her lips across his. He kept his eyes open as long as he could, watching her kiss him. Her mouth was sweet, and he tasted wine and a bit of chocolate on her tongue.
Jeffrey closed the door behind him still watching her. He could not remember a time when she looked more beautiful, even with the Band-Aid on her forehead.
She said, “I don’t want to talk about my day, or your day, or what’s going on.”
All he could do was nod.
Sara leaned her arm against the wall, giving him a quizzical look. “Cat got your tongue?”
Jeffrey put his hand to his chest, trying to articulate how he felt. “Sometimes,” he began, “I forget how beautiful you are, and then I see you…” He let his voice trail off, trying to find the right words. “It just takes my breath away.”
She raised an eyebrow, as if to ask if he was feeding her some kind of line or not.
“I love you, Sara,” he said, taking a step closer to her. “I love you so much.”
She seemed to be fighting a smile, and he loved her even more for that. As long as Jeffrey had known her, Sara had never been able to take a compliment.
She said, “I guess this means you like the dress.”
“I’d like it even better on the floor.”
She stood away from the wall, and he watched as she reached behind her and did something with her hands. She wasn’t wearing anything under the dress, so when it fell to the floor she stood completely nude in front of him.
Jeffrey drank her in, craving her in a way that frightened him. He went down on his knees and kissed her until she could not stand anymore.