3

I wish Linda’s story was unique. I know firsthand it’s not. I don’t understand the vagaries of human sexuality although I wish I could grasp and forestall the grosser anomalies before they ruined and took lives. I know Linda to be a superficial person, a good person, but the depth of her mental acuity went no lower than the meningeal sheaths holding her brain together. Yet, she was as disturbed as her personality allowed. Theirs is not an uncommon story in our culture. The family had bought out and covered over Baxter’s proclivities as if they were nothing more than shooting out streetlights with a bee bee gun. The boy and man appear to have needed psychiatric help. I may not understand the urges that drive people, but I know that most obsessions are never cured. There are drugs and there are programs if one wanted to try them. Baxter Carlisle either failed or didn’t sign on.

I put my Bluetooth ear bud on and called Lake. “He’s been into nymphets since his teens.”

Lake almost choked. “Linda said that?”

“More or less.”

“With Linda, it would less. It’s the Junior League in her.”

“The incidents were paid for.”

“Rich people do that.”

“If he’s involved in Hansel’s disappearance, he jumped the shark, diving into a place where money gets wet and sharks drown.”

Lake said he had just spoken to an Athens cop. Nothing, no leads, no Hansel.

Hansel owned a Jeep that was still parked out back of his apartment. His bicycle was missing, but his Harley was parked in the garage. His father, Henry Hansel, was in Athens, going from hangout to hangout trying to find someone who might know something. Hansel’s father was an attorney and his mother was very ill and not with the father.

“I bet the Athens PD love him going from hangout to hangout asking questions,” I said.

“The sergeant didn’t sound happy. People like Henry Hansel mess with people’s memories, insert thoughts into their minds.”

“That makes him a good lawyer.”

“What’s next?”

“Dinner with you, get a good night’s sleep and then, tomorrow, Athens, G-A.”

“Ah, you’re on the case.”

“And without a fee.”

“Linda didn’t offer?”

“Linda hasn’t married her real estate tycoon yet. He’ll pony up for Saks’ slacks, but he doesn’t know about Baxter’s past is my bet.”

“Keep track of your expenses, I’ll see you get reimbursed.”

“I’ll see that you see.”

“Where’s dinner?”

“My place. Your heater is lame, thus your frozen wandering Jew and marginata.”

After sweet nothing byes, I called Portia Devon. Portia and I go back to second grade at Christ the King Catholic School. Portia’s clerk said she’d be right with me. While waiting, I drove onto lovely Peachtree Street, an asphalt ribbon with potholes covered by iron squares.

Portia is the Senior Presiding Judge of the Superior Court’s Juvenile Justice Division. When I was on the verge of leaving the Atlanta Police Department, she urged me to start a child finding agency, going so far as offering to fund the enterprise. Fortunately—or unfortunately—I got more clients than I could handle that first month, though half were courtesy of The Juvenile Justice Division.

Portia came on the line. “Moriah. Sorry about that scum Johnson. You keep up with that son-of-a-bitch. He’ll be selling to children by this weekend.”

“I’m assigning Pearly Sue to monitor him.”

“Poor bastard.”

With the help of master disguise artist, Sircher, he won’t be able to distinguish her from all the other junkie prostitutes that come seeking his wares,” I said, “Porsh, I’ve got a different kind of case.”

“You need something from me?”

“You’re clairvoyant.”

“You’re obvious.”

“A student is missing in Athens.”

“That! I heard it first from Lake, but now it’s hit the media.”

“Baxter Carlisle is Linda Lake’s half-brother; the restaurateur in Athens.”

“How could I forget? We spent enough money in his establishments to pay for his pony farm.”

“Linda’s upset.”

“I can see why.”

“She told me some things, and I wondered if ...”

“Moriah.”

“I know about confidential.” As many cases as I’ve handled for her, she never breaks confidentiality. Bends sometimes, but never shatters. “If I ask anything specific, you could not answer. That way ...”

“No.”

“What if I know he likes adolescent girls?”

“According to the cops and the reporters, he’s smitten with a girl of eighteen.”

“But his past ...”

“No.”

“If Damian Hansel doesn’t show by tomorrow, I go to Athens to talk to Carlisle, the Martine girl and anybody else I can find. First, I thought maybe you could give me some insight ...”

“Insight I can give you. Do not fall prey to anyone’s charms. Got that?”

I thought about Linda’s saying Carlisle was good-looking. Good-looking guys are usually charmers. “Got it,” I said.

Portia hung up. No insult. That’s how she ends conversations. You should have her walk out of the room when she’s finished talking to you. Turns, waves backhand and departs. And I love her to death.

My brain trotted down memory lane as I turned onto Peachtree Hills. After she graduated from the University of Georgia, Portia went to law school at Emory. I’m a different story. After a two-year course in police science, I went to the Atlanta Police Academy. That career choice had little to do with civic zeal and a lot to do with money, as in: I had none. Daddy was a marginal stockbroker turned insurance salesman. We lived on an edge carefully hidden by Southern gentility, and then one day I realized that Daddy wasn’t going to work any longer, and that he lay around the house nipping at a quart of Jim Beam or Old Crow. It didn’t stop me from loving him, though.

I pulled into my white gravel driveway and—What the hell?

My white fence had been flattened. I shifted into park and jumped from the car. Piles of trash started at the flattened fence and strewed over the back garden to the neighbor’s fence, even covering the birdbaths. Hanging bird feeders had been slashed or flung to the ground. I couldn’t move and felt something pressing against my ribs, making it impossible to breathe. I heard a shout and willed my feet to turn so I could look down the driveway.

My neighbor across the street, Carol, ran up, glum-eyed, and said, “I didn’t know what it, the truck, was going to do. I thought maybe you ordered a load of white gravel, but you just redid it last month, so I ...” She stared at my unbelieving face. “I’m sorry, I should have called police.”

“That’s okay,” I said, rubbing my forehead to clear the daze. “Tell me about the truck, who drove it, all you can remember.”

She rushed into speech like she was guilty of something. “It was a dump truck, not like a city garbage truck. It was old and beat up. It was a dark color. A black man drove. There was two of them. I didn’t see the passenger. They didn’t get out. I couldn’t see them knock down your fence, what they did in the back. They left and I came over ... Oh Dru, I’m sorry. I was just going to call you and see if you wanted me to call the police. What with Lake and all ...”

“How long ago?”

“Half hour, twenty minutes. I didn’t know ...”

“That’s fine, Carol. I’ll call police.”

“Lake?”

“Patrol, then Lake,” I said, dashing to my car for my cell phone. I noticed the garage door was shut, the garage intact from what I could see.

The woman manning Dispatch said she was sending a car, so I went back to Carol, who watches my place when I’m away, waters my plants and fills the bird feeders. She said, “Don’t go inside.”

“I’m not,” I said, walking toward the back door with Carol on my heels. I heard her gasp at the same time I saw the writing on the wooden slats. WHITE TRASH.

I heard the squeal of tires and saw the unmarked squad car brake behind the Audi. “How did he get here so fast?” I asked, but not to Carol specifically.

She answered though. “He’s always looking out for you, Dru. You’re so lucky.” I held out my arm in case she swooned.

Lake sprinted the few yards toward us. Carol said, “He’s so handsome.”

He stopped in front of me, leaned to give a kiss to my forehead, and said, “Didn’t take long to get retribution.”

Twice.

“No,” I muttered.

Carol looked from Lake to me. “You know who?”

“Excuse us, Carol,” Lake said. “We’re going to check inside.”

“Oh,” she breathed out. “Yeah, well, if you need me for anything ...” She backed off and gave a small wave. We waved back.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Lake said, taking the Sig Sauer from its shoulder holster.

“DD didn’t do it,” I said, wishing I had my gun. It was locked inside my house. “He’d have sent one of the brothers.” I put my arm on Lake’s to hold him in place. “He sent two in an old Cadillac. One fired several shots. Into the trees.”

“Where?”

“West Wesley.”

Lake looked ready to explode. I hastily explained, “I didn’t go to Linda’s until the coast was clear.”

“Bastard.” He radioed Zone Two to send a car to check on Linda. Linda and Susanna spent a lot of time with her relatives in the north Georgia mountains until a case was resolved.

He looked at the WHITE TRASH scrawled on the side of my cottage.

I said, “I take exception to that. I drink fine wines and brush my teeth.”

Keying open the lock and deadbolt, I stepped aside to let Lake enter the little hall that held a small chest freezer, a coat stand, and a six-tier baker’s rack for household cleaning products, birdseed and a few tools. Nothing looked out of place. In the kitchen, nothing appeared disturbed until Lake went to a side window that had been broken, the screen torn away. Lake held up the weapon—a fist-size rock, painted blood red. “Son-of-a-bitch. We’ll see whose heart gets torn out first.”

I felt tears push against my eyelids and turned my head. But he knew. Gun ready, he led us through the rest of the cottage. Nothing else was amiss. Lake holstered the Sig. “Just threw the rock in the first handy window.”

“He must have used a sling shot,” I said, kneading the back of my neck to ease the tension. “It’s double paned.”

Two beat cops appeared at the door. “Saw you were here, Lieutenant,” one said. I knew him. “You okay, Dru?” he asked, eyes full of concern.

I mumbled, “You’re here. I’m okay.”

He smiled shyly. I love cops. He said, “We got someone at Linda Lake’s house now, Lieutenant.”

Lake nodded and indicated the window. “Painted rock through it. I’ll initiate Forensics.”

“Antique car in the garage untouched. A mess otherwise.”

“One he’ll wish he never made,” Lake said.

Devus Dontel Johnson, who came to Atlanta from Houston by way of New Orleans when Katrina hit, had been here long enough to know cops have their own special justice when it becomes personal. I didn’t envy Big DD.

“Let’s get out of here,” Lake said.

“Which hotel do you prefer,” I said, thinking of the below normal January temperature. “I’ll get the bill.”

“No need, lovely, rich girlfriend. The heater guy said he’d be by today sometime. Lou said he’d be home to let him in.” Lou was a photographer who lived in Lake’s warehouse building, one of the few near the railroad tracks in Atlanta that hadn’t been turned into expensive loft living condominiums.

From experience, I’ll always have doubts about repairmen arriving on the day and time specified, but I acquiesced with a shrug and said, “I’ll drive the Bentley in case they come back with more trash. If I go to Athens tomorrow, I’ll drive the Audi, but I want to leave the Bentley behind your security fence. Then I’m calling Webdog and get him researching.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

But first we stopped by Linda’s. The cop said she’d just left for her mother’s place in the north Georgia Mountains. And wasn’t happy about missing her morning tennis match. The kitten and the exotic fish were gone, too.