Chapter Fourteen

 

Radhauser rang the bell.

Thomas Baxter answered the door, wearing a tank top and a pair of navy blue sweat pants. He was about fifty, olive-skinned with a barrel chest, a hard belly, and arms that bulged as if they were stuffed with small cantaloupes. His feet were large and bare, and his toes had little tufts of black hair growing out of them. He looked like the kind of man who swaggered when he walked.

Radhauser silently cautioned himself not to judge too harshly. He and this man were in the same fraternity. I survived a dead kid.

“I’m not buying anything,” Baxter said. “I don’t care if you’re selling Girl Scout Cookies in drag.”

Radhauser showed him his badge. “I’m here about Crystal Reynolds.”

“Maybe you should offer that worthless bitch a job in the Sheriff’s office doing the donut run, because if she doesn’t show up again today, I plan to fire her ass.”

Radhauser studied Baxter’s face. Either he was a very good actor who’d practiced his script or he had no idea Crystal was dead.

“When did you last see Ms. Reynolds?”

“Is the bitch missing?”

“Answer the question, Mr. Baxter.”

“Go home, Detective Radhauser.”

“You can either answer my questions here or you can answer them at the Sheriff’s Department.”

Baxter stepped aside.

Radhauser entered. It was one of those modular homes, delivered to a site in two pieces—sparsely furnished, but neat and orderly. On the long bar between the living room and the kitchen, a nearly finished dollhouse occupied most of the available space. It looked like a replica of a southern plantation, with white wooden siding, six white pillars in front, an upstairs balcony, and black shutters at all the windows.

On an orange towel spread out beside the house, tools lined up as neat as surgical instruments. He’d used different wallpapers for each room and covered the floor with carpet. A miniature staircase, complete with a polished mahogany banister, led to the top floor.

“That’s a real work of art,” Radhauser said. “Is it for sale?”

Baxter shook his head. “It’s for my daughter.” He smiled then, as if the mere thought of his daughter made him happy. It was a warm and likeable smile.

Radhauser searched the room for evidence of another child. All the available wall space held enlarged and framed photographs of a smiling toddler with curly, raven-colored hair. In one of them, she rode a pink pony on wheels. In another, she sat, belted into a yellow plastic swing, Baxter behind her, his big hands grasping the chains on either side.

Radhauser looked away. Maybe Millie was right. Maybe Baxter had his own mental breakdown after his kid died. Pretty damn hard not to. Maybe it eased some of the grief to pretend she still lived. Radhauser shook his head. Hadn’t he used a similar coping mechanism this morning when he’d left the lariat on Lucas’ grave? If he told anyone, they’d think he was headed back to Palo Verde.

Baxter stood in front of the television. Phillies swamping the Dodgers. Mike Schmidt at bat.

As he picked up the remote and muted the sound, Radhauser thought about the posters on Travis’s bedroom walls.

“Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Baxter? This won’t take long.”

The springs creaked as Baxter dropped into his recliner.

Outside the sliding glass door, Radhauser spotted a patch of newly mown and edged grass—rare for Tucson. “Nice yard,” he said, trying to put Baxter at ease. “Do you have a sprinkler system?”

“Yeah, I do, and a gardener. You may think it’s faggy, but I like plants, especially flowering ones. Are you with the water police?”

“Just noticing, that’s all.”

“Well, I’m noticing you’re taking up my time on my day off. What do you want?”

“When was the last time you saw Crystal Reynolds?”

“Friday,” he said, without hesitation. “I shoulda seen her on Saturday, too, cause she was scheduled to work the late shift all weekend, but she didn’t show. After all I—” He stopped, started again. “Well, suffice it to say, I was pissed.”

“Does she miss work often?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Too often lately.”

Radhauser leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and focused his attention on Baxter’s eyes to see his reaction to the news. “I’m afraid she no longer needs your employment. Crystal Reynolds was found dead in her home last night.”

Baxter sat up straight and grimaced as if the news had physically hurt him. “Oh shit. I…I don’t know what to say. You must think I’m some kind of emotionless prick.”

Yeah, Radhauser thought, I do. But he gave Baxter a moment, watching him carefully for any sign Crystal’s death wasn’t news to him.

Baxter slapped his forehead. “You stupid fuck. She was dead. Now I know why she didn’t come to work. Oh God. How’s her kid doing? How’s Travis?”

“As good as anyone could be,” Radhauser said. “Given what he came home to last night.”

“How did she die?”

“A severed carotid artery.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, real shock on his face. “You mean Travis was the one who found her?” Baxter hung his head for a moment, and when he lifted it again his eyes filled with tears.

Radhauser gave him a moment before he asked, “Do you know if she had a boyfriend? Or dated anyone?”

Baxter hesitated and fiddled with the controls on the side of his chair, raised the footrest, then lowered it again. He lifted his hands, palms up, empty, as if holding no answers. “Women,” he said. “You know how it goes. I might as well tell you. Me and Crystal had an off-and-on thing. I was never all that serious about her. Good thing, I guess. For the last couple months, it’s been mostly off. That is unless she was lonely, horny or drunk. Or if she needed to borrow money. She’d get all lovey-dovey, promise me anything, and I looked real good to her then.”

“This is a routine question,” Radhauser said. “I’m asking everyone who knew Crystal. Where—”

“I was right here,” Baxter said. “I worked tables until about 10pm, then crashed in front of the tube. Never left the premises.”

“Can anyone confirm that?”

“Ask that nosey Millie. She watches my place like a hawk. I keep meaning to get rid of that motion light over my garage.”

“Have you ever seen Crystal with another man?”

Baxter laughed. “A guy waited for her in the Spur parking lot a few times. Fancy dresser. I suspected…but Crystal, she always denied anything romantic.”

“Do you know his name?”

Baxter shook his head. “Crystal may have introduced him once, but I’m not good with names.”

“Do you know what kind of car he drove?”

“Yeah. A gas-guzzler. Lincoln Mark V. Four years old but looked brand new. Pretty thing. White with a baby blue top.”

Radhauser’s gaze returned to the dollhouse. There was something about it that wouldn’t let him go. He nodded toward the wall of photographs. “That’s one beautiful little girl. She yours?”

“She was,” Baxter said, his face stripped of color. He stood, crossed the room, straightened one of the frames, took a step back to examine it, then straightened it again.

For a moment Radhauser felt as if this man had turned inside out in front of him, as if Radhauser were witness to something between a father and his child as intimate as a bedtime story.

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” Baxter asked.

“I don’t know much about it.”

Baxter’s dark eyes sparkled. “Sometimes, when a person dies young, they come back real quick because they didn’t get the things done they were supposed to. I just hope I recognize my Becka when she does.”

Radhauser nodded, thanked Baxter and left.

From the phone booth outside The Silver Spur, Radhauser called O’Donnell and asked him to do a check with the motor vehicle department and see if they could get a list of 1985 Lincoln Mark V owners. There probably wouldn’t be more than a few hundred in the metropolitan Tucson area. O’Donnell bitched about it, called it a needle in a haystack. But, what the hell, they had to start somewhere.