19

 

Thursday evening

Wes eased the brown Malibu to the curb across the street from the address they had for Lane Woodard. If he had to guess, the house, like all of them in the area, dated back to the fifties. Red brick extended to the eaves of a nearly flat, hot-mopped tar and graveled roof. Fixed narrow windows along the front of the house reached from the foundation to the eaves. Instead of a garage, the roof extended across a narrow slab of concrete to form a carport on the left side of the structure where a blue station wagon sat. The yard consisted of natural, no-maintenance desert, like the southern Nevada and Arizona countryside. Every plant looked like a pincushion or a chainsaw.

He glanced at his watch. “It’s five ten. We’re cutting it close, but this needs doing.”

“Looks empty,” Jess said.

“Let’s find out.” Wes opened the door and stepped out.

Jess exited and came around the car. They crossed the street.

Jess pointed toward the side of the house. “Look. What are they?”

Four birds sprinted for the backyard, like trailers tied together. Follow the leader. “Look like quail. I forget what kind. Not bobwhites or blues, but like blues. We’ll have to ask someone who lives here.”

The place looked empty, but not vacant. A clay pot full of red flowers on the porch looked healthy. The Chevy wagon under the carport was old but in good shape, like the house. It had been washed recently. Someone lived in the home.

He rapped on the jamb of the white storm door.

Seconds passed. Jess smoothed her red blouse with a swipe of her hands. She glanced at Wes. “I’m nervous.”

“Don’t be. You’re lovely. You’ll put them at ease.” He squeezed her elbow. “I’ll start. Just be yourself.”

The deadbolt clicked and the main wooden door opened. If the lady who answered stood five feet tall, he’d be surprised. Gray, short hair hung loose around her face. She was petite, frail even. She opened the storm door a crack. “Can I help you?” she asked in a weak voice.

“Ma’am, I’m Wes Hansen, a private investigator. This is my associate, Jessica Wahl. We hoped we might speak to Mr. and Mrs. Woodard, Lane’s mother and father.”

It was then Wes noticed the assorted bouquets and vases of yellow, white, and red roses scattered around the living room behind the woman. The type of flowers friends and family would send after a tragedy. They were at the right house, but the woman looked too old to have a son twenty-five.

“I’m Miss Woodard. I’ve already talked to the police. A detective from New Orleans came here this morning and asked a bunch of questions. I had few answers for him, and he didn’t have a one for me. He didn’t even know when they’re going to send my son home to me.”

The title struck Wes. She didn’t say Miss with emphasis like a feminist trying to make a point. Divorced? Widowed? She was spent. She looked like she hadn’t slept or showered in a couple of days. Her voice was low, resigned to whatever. He regretted the visit in the first place, but especially so soon. “Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry, but could you spare a moment for us? We’d like to see if you recognize the description of a man we suspect of involvement.”

She inched the door open and turned away. Wes took the move as an invitation and held the door for Jess.

The woman walked to a green chair, next to a well-used upright piano, and plopped down. “Please, have a seat.” She indicated a matching green couch against the wall to their right. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’d offer you something to drink, but frankly, I just can’t go anymore.”

“That’s OK,” Jess said, sitting closest to the lady and folding her hands in her lap. Wes sat next to Jess.

Pictures of young and old, couples, groups and singles covered the walls. A music book titled Songs for the Ages sat in the holder on top of the piano. The interior of the house took him back to his childhood. Wall-to-wall shag carpet in a greenish-yellow he couldn’t describe without using the word hideous and a textured ceiling flecked with glitter.

The place looked clean. For a family man in the nineteen-sixties the house would have been a move up.

She leaned over and offered her hand. “I’m Elizabeth. Call me Liz.”

Wes didn’t reach for her but nodded.

Jess took the shaking hand in hers. “Very nice to meet you. We’re so sorry for your loss.”

Tears flowed from the woman’s eyes. She fell back in the chair, her head down, arms on the cushioned rests to each side. She cried. Not a sound. Just tears. A flood of them poured down her cheeks.

Jess matched her tear for silent tear.

An oak grandfather clock in the corner of the room next to the doorway into the kitchen ticked with the rhythm of its pendulum. It clicked off seconds but seemed too slow and grew louder in the silence. Despite his efforts, Wes couldn’t keep his tears in check.

He didn’t know Lane, but he knew death. He knew what it felt like to have a broken heart and to cry until the well dried. No words could ease the pain.

After a minute, Liz stood. As she rounded the corner into the hallway out of sight, Wes put his hand on Jess’s shoulder and gave it one light squeeze. She leaned her head and raised her shoulder to press his hand between the two. Her tears wet the back of his hand. She straightened and removed a tissue from her purse to wipe her eyes and nose.

The big clock chimed on the half hour, eight minutes fast.

Liz returned and sat, clutching a white tissue. “I lost Lane’s daddy to colon cancer fifteen years ago. Lane had just turned ten.” She held her hands out as if to say help me. “Lane was my life. He still lived here, with me. He was going to marry this August. I don’t know what I’ll do now.”

“Miss Woodard…Liz,” Wes said. “I am sorry for the intrusion. I know there’s no good time to ask questions, but we wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was important. What we find out from you, about your son, his friends, may save lives.”

The woman seemed to rein in her emotions and focus. She sat up and inched forward onto the edge of the chair. “Please, what can I do to help?”

Starting was the hard part. No place like the beginning. “I was hired to find a man who assaulted a woman in Lubbock, Texas. My investigation led me, us, my team, to New Orleans. I think our guy and your son’s murderer is the same man. I think a chance meeting got Lane killed. I believe he knew his assailant.”

“You said you had a description. No name?”

“Tall,” Jess said. “Around six-two, dark hair. Very attractive, masculine and strong, but with one distinguished flaw, we think he’s blind in one eye. He wears sunglasses day and night. The eye or the area around it could be damaged enough to put people off at first glance.”

Liz looked between them, then at the ceiling and shook her head. “I can think of a couple of Lane’s friends who are tall, but no one who has one eye. Everyone is tall to me, young lady.” A faint smile crossed her lips.

He didn’t want to say it, but they weren’t looking for a friend. A friend doesn’t cut his friend’s throat. “Meshach is the only name we have.”

Liz looked between them again. “Really, like the man from the fire? Strange name for this day and time anyway. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that name outside of the Scriptures.”

“Was your son in the armed services? Law enforcement? Did his current job have security risks he might have mentioned?” Wes said.

She shook her head at each question. “He worked on slot machines.”

Wes went through the info in his mind. “Does the name Marlin Sands ring a bell? Lane sent him a text just before, well, that evening.”

“Yes, Lane went to school with Marlin. The detective mentioned Marlin this morning, but he didn’t say anything about a text. Like I told him, I believe Marlin runs a pawnshop for his father, off the strip, or casino alley if you will, on the north side. What kind of text?”

“He typed ‘never guess who I saw?’ That’s why I think Lane knew the man in question.”

“Where did Lane go to high school?” Jess said.

“Canyon Springs. Not far from here.”

“Could we look at yearbooks, old photos, baseball and football team pictures? That type of thing,” Wes asked.

“Well,” Liz stood. “Lane didn’t play sports because of me, or his dad, actually. He took a job working for a local landscaping company when he got old enough to drive. As you can see, we don’t have much. I never remarried and would have never made it without Lane. Come on. You’re welcome to look at anything I’ve got if it will help catch the man who murdered my son.”

They followed the woman down a short hallway into a small bedroom. A single bed covered with a blue comforter sat under the only window opposite of the door. A six-drawer chest made of oak stood to the left. On top of the chest, closest to the head of the bed, sat a small wooden box full of change, two Titleist golf balls, and one red tee. In the corner, a metal desk held an older model computer with a huge, bulky monitor. The floor was tiled in brown linoleum. An area rug with a bright southwest theme covered the center of the room.

Wes stroked the top of the oak chest. Smooth. Well-built.

“Lane made that in shop when he was a senior. He loved woodworking.” Liz turned and pointed at a corkboard on the wall between the door and the computer. “That’s a picture of Lane and his girl, Olivia. She sure loved my son. Poor thing is a wreck.”

Lane looked his youth, blond hair and lots of it, high cheekbones and green eyes. The girl looked of Spanish descent, eyes as black as her long hair. The picture caught a great moment. Her chin was raised, eyes bright and fixed upon the man she obviously loved.

What would it be like to have a woman look at him like that?

Liz opened the bi-fold door to the closet. The usual line of shirts and pants hung from the bar. A set of golf clubs rested against the wall to one side. An assortment of shoes and boots lined the wall on the floor. She pointed to the shelf. “I can’t reach them, but help yourself.”

Wes grabbed a stack of three yearbooks and one photo album.

Liz tapped Wes’s elbow and pointed again. “Grab that shoebox too. It’s full of old pictures. You can take any or all if you must, but I want them back.”

Wes complied, grabbing the items, and placed everything on the bed. “No, ma’am, all we need to do is take pictures. These new iPhones have great lenses.”

“Well, you help yourself then. I’m going to sit this out if you don’t mind.” She walked to the doorway and stopped. “I wonder why the New Orleans detective didn’t ask to look at pictures?”

“Well,” Wes said, “I don’t think they’ve put all the pieces together yet. I promise you we’ll be communicating anything we find with them when the time comes.”

Jess watched her walk away then turned to Wes. “Poor woman is heart-broken.”

“I know. Let’s get this done and go.”

Jess scanned through the yearbooks.

Wes sorted the pictures. Lane on a tricycle, holding a small catfish, standing next to a black and white pony, on the golf course leaning on a driver next to another kid. Most of the pictures included the man who had to be his father. They looked alike.

The photos could be stacked, thumbed like a deck of cards, and the sequence would take the viewer through Lane’s life, from toddler into manhood. About halfway through, the poses with fish, ponies, and dad abruptly stopped. Cancer took the male influence.

Not a dozen pictures depicted kids other than Lane. Two were poor snaps of a Cub Scout or Webelo Troop on an outing in the desert.

Wes wrapped up his end of the project and placed the shoebox back on the shelf. “Not much here.”

Jess used her iPhone and took pictures, turning pages in a yearbook one by one. “Not in these either. No one stands out at first glance. Meshach is over six feet tall and could have been full-grown or close to it by the time he was a senior, but none of the athletes in any sport fit his description. I’m just taking pictures of groups of kids. I had an idea too. Several websites exist where you can search for old school mates. Might be a good place for Tony’s skills. Look in the yearbooks of other local schools.”

“Yes, you’re correct. We’ll give him a call tonight. You done?”

“I am.” She closed the last book and handed it to Wes. “Lane was typical. Not many pictures of him. Looked like a happy kid, though. He wasn’t a jock or a nerd. Just there.”

Wes replaced the books and turned off the light on the way out. He remembered kids he went to school with who were there, in the background. He talked to them, liked them, but outside of class, if they didn’t have something to do with sports, they didn’t hang out. Just the way it was.

They found Liz in the green chair, sitting in silence, legs pulled up and arms wrapped around her knees.

“Liz, we’ve got what we need. I’m going to leave my card for you, in case you remember something. I’ll call if I have news. Anything we find we’ll turn over to the authorities of course.” He held his business card so she could see it and placed it on the piano top.

The evening sun shone bright, but the room sat in a pall of unlit gloom. The poor woman was on the edge of losing it.

Jess knelt in front of her. “Can we do something for you? Do you have someone who can stay with you?”

When she didn’t reply, Jess looked at Wes. “I’m not leaving. I’ll call you in the morning.”