Vanished in the Night (4 page)

“A little jumpy, isn’t she?” Rodriguez leaned against the kitchen counter while they waited for Veronica to bring back the picture of Max.

“She just got some heavy bad news. What do you want her to do? Go all Zen?” Even though she hadn’t seen her brother since she was little, she had obviously loved him. It sounded like she might have been the only one who had.

“I’m not talking about that. I meant about here in the kitchen. You see the way she backed up against the cabinets when we followed her in here?” Rodriguez asked.

“A woman alone with two men. She might have felt threatened.”

“Two
cops
—we’re the good guys. Chicks aren’t supposed to be afraid of us. They’re supposed to dig us.”

Not everyone would appreciate that. “You think she’s got a problem with cops? Maybe she thinks we’re picking on the father?”

Rodriguez shook his head. “Nah. I don’t think it’s cops. I think she’s got a problem with men.”

Zach allowed himself to remember Veronica’s backside as she’d walked away. It had been hard not to notice it, encased in well-fitting jeans, and he was not made of stone. “That would be a damn shame.”

Frank nodded his agreement. “I bet the father’s going to be a piece of work.”

“That would be a sucker bet.” Her defiant stand at the front door had told him plenty about her father, and her description of his record filled him in on the rest. He’d met dozens of men like George Osborne.

“Yeah, I think she was sugarcoating it. I bet he’s even worse than she made him sound. So, you ever heard of this Sierra School for Boys?”

Zach shook his head. “Can’t say as I have. You?”

“Nope, and I’ve heard of most of those kinds of schools. We bust enough of their graduates. I’m betting it’s not around anymore.”

Zach’s view of those schools wasn’t as jaded as Frank’s. Some of them really worked. He was living proof of that.

3

Veronica pulled the box out from underneath her bed, removed the lid, and unwrapped the album from the sweater she had wrapped around it. She didn’t need to hide it anymore, since she’d moved into the condo, but it was habit. She’d kept her treasures hidden for most of her life. It had been the only way to keep them safe. She doubted she’d ever stop hiding them now.

The cover was bubble-gum pink and was emblazoned with the words
YOU AND ME
in acid green. She ran her hand over the scratched cover and drew in a shaky breath. There was no time for this kind of stupid sentimentality now. There were cops in her kitchen. They were waiting. Still, she hesitated. What good would an old picture do them anyway?

She flipped the book open and found the picture she was looking for. Sixteen-year-old Max, all gangly arms and giant Adam’s apple, building a sand castle with her at Capitola. She would never forget that day. They’d played in the waves, built sand castles, and drunk chocolate milk shakes. It had been just her and Max and Mama. She couldn’t remember now where her father had been that day. If he’d been drunk and angry, it was with someone else. The photo had been taken three weeks before the men from the Sierra School came for Max in the middle of the night.

She peeled back the clear protective sheet and pulled the photo off the page. Then she rewrapped the album, tucked it back inside the box, and slid the box under the bed. It was too precious to leave out, especially now. It was all she had left of her brother. And whose fault was that anyway?

She bowed her head, laid it against the bed for a moment, and closed her eyes against the rush of tears. Max wasn’t coming home. Ever.

There would be no homecoming. No joyous reunion. No forgiveness. She was stuck with that rock in her chest forever.

When Veronica walked back into the kitchen, she was even paler than when she’d left. Wordlessly, she
handed Zach a photo. It showed a light-skinned African-American boy with a little blond girl on a beach.

“Is that you with him?” he asked.

She nodded. “It’s the last photo I have of him.”

“Thanks. This’ll help a lot.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the two kids, clearly having a great time. There were probably a dozen or so photos at his mom’s house of him and his sisters, looking just like this. Smiling up at the camera, enjoying the day, not thinking about anything else. Certainly not thinking that he would end up as a set of bones at a construction site. “Do you know why your parents sent him away?”

Everything about her went still. He’d touched some kind of nerve, that was for sure.

“They, uh, found marijuana in his room.” She looked down.

A residential school for a little bit of weed? That seemed harsh, especially in the early nineties. “That was it?”

“It was enough for Dad. He said we were doing Max a favor by getting him away from bad influences before it got any worse.” She turned away and began to restack some envelopes on the counter, her movements stiff and jerky.

“Do you have anybody you want us to call? Or
that you could call so you don’t have to be alone right now?”

She turned around and smiled at him and shook her head. “That’s okay. I have to go to work in a little while. Besides, it’s not like this is so terribly shocking. He’s been missing for twenty years. I knew it was possible that he was dead. I’d just always hoped . . .” Her voice trailed off.

The family always hoped. Everybody talked about giving the family closure when someone was missing, and finding a body did that, in a way. They could stop worrying. They could stop waiting. They could start grieving.

But it also killed all the hoping, and maybe having a shred of hope alive in your heart was worth the worrying.

“Where do you work?” Rodriguez asked.

“I’m a nurse in the emergency room over at St. E’s. I work the night shift.” She glanced up at the clock. It was close to eight o’clock now. “I have to be there in a few hours.”

“Okay, well, thanks again for this photo. We’ll make a copy and get your original back to you as soon as possible. We’ll also keep you posted when we learn anything concrete. In the meantime, feel free to call if you can think of anything.”

She nodded and showed them to the door.

As they walked to the car, Zach looked back at the condo, strewn with fake spiderwebs and strings of pumpkin lights.

“I say we go talk to the stepfather next,” Rodriguez said.

Zach got in the car. “Damn straight.”

They were gone. Veronica sat at the kitchen table and laid her hands flat against the wood, trying to soak up its stillness and stability. How much more horrible was this going to get? McKnight had said Max had been dead for a while. A year? Ten years? They probably didn’t know themselves yet. Had he been trying to get back to her when he’d somehow ended up in that construction site? Or had he still been running away?

Would she ever know?

If there wasn’t enough left of Max for her to ID, was there enough to start an investigation? Veronica didn’t even know what to hope for. Knowing he was dead was bad enough. Having to probe back into those days when he was still around? Pretty much the opposite of priceless.

Some kids learned to block traumatic memories, and she often wished she was one of those. It would be nice to settle a hazy curtain over her childhood.
She didn’t need it blocked out entirely; she’d learned some valuable, if unpleasant, lessons. How to calm an angry drunk. What to feed a person with the mother of all hangovers. When to duck and when to hide. She sure as hell didn’t need to remember it in the kind of detail that she did, though. She didn’t need to replay it in her dreams. She didn’t need to flash on it at work when things got crazy.

Most of the time, she kept the door shut tight on the past. At the moment, that wasn’t so easy. Images flooded back to her: Her father’s face distorted with rage, spittle flying from his lips as he roared at Max. Max’s head snapping to the side after a hard slap, his screams when his arm was twisted up behind his back. The racial slurs. The insults. Her mother’s tears. Her brother’s shame and quiet courage.

Things had calmed down some right after Max went away. Her father had seemed harder to set off. There’d actually been some family dinners where nothing had gotten thrown at anyone and no one had ended up in tears. It hadn’t lasted, though. Dad never went after Mama with the ferocity that he’d gone after Max, but Veronica understood now that the focus of the anger was really secondary to the anger itself. Something burned inside her father. Something hard and fetid and nasty.

She hadn’t understood that as an eight-year-old.
She’d been terrified that Dad might send Mama away next and the only target left in the house would be her. The slight nausea of shame crept up her throat. Her mother had been a human shield for her; could anyone blame her for dulling the pain with booze?

At first it was wine. Then Celeste had discovered vodka, which is not nearly as odorless as everyone says. By the time Veronica was thirteen, she could recognize when her mother was on a bender by the scent when she walked into the house.

Eventually the booze had killed Celeste—and it had probably killed Max, too. If she hadn’t been drinking, maybe Mama might have looked for Max. Maybe it wouldn’t have been too late. Maybe they would have found him before he ended up nearly unidentifiable and alone in a construction site.

Maybe he would have told Veronica that it was all okay—that he didn’t blame her for anything.

She finally laid her head down on the table and cried.

It was well past dark by the time Zach and Frank got to Veronica’s father’s house. The porch light was off, but there was a light on inside and the blue flicker of a television set. The yard needed to be raked, but
Zach liked the smell of the leaves as they crunched underneath his feet.

Frank kicked the leaves aside as he marched up the steps and rang the doorbell. He jingled the change in his pocket and glanced over at Zach as they waited. “Takin’ him long enough.”

“It’s not like he’s expecting us,” Zach observed. They hadn’t called ahead because they’d wanted to see Osborne’s reaction to his stepson’s death up close and personal.

Frank rang a second time. This time Zach heard footsteps heading toward the door.

The porch light was flipped on and the door opened. According to his driver’s license, George Osborne was in his late fifties. He hadn’t exactly aged well. He still had a full head of hair, liberally sprinkled with gray, but it didn’t look clean. His face was slack and heavily lined and a lit cigarette dangled from his fingers. His paunch stretched the T-shirt he wore, and even in the dim light of the entryway, Zach could see the network of spiderlike veins across Osborne’s face. That might have to do with the beer bottle that dangled from his hand. Not exactly a poster child for clean living; more of a terrible warning than a shining example.

“What do you want?” Osborne leaned against the door frame and looked from Zach to Frank.

“We’d like to have a word with you, Mr. Osborne.” Zach flashed his badge. “May we come in?”

Osborne didn’t budge. “Not without a warrant.” He gave a little snort, as if the situation was funny.

Frank stepped up onto the top step so he was toe-to-toe with Osborne. “You got something to hide in there?”

Osborne didn’t move a muscle. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Either way, you’re not coming in.” He turned his head to the side and spat into the bushes.

“It’s about your stepson,” Zach said.

Osborne looked confused for a moment. “My what?”

“Your stepson,” Zach repeated. “Max Shelden.”

Osborne’s eyebrows went up a little and he stood up straighter. “I haven’t heard from that kid for twenty years at least. I got nothin’ to do with him.” He moved back into the house and started to shut the door.

Frank stuck his foot in the doorway. “That’s because he’s been dead about that long.”

Osborne froze for a second and then said, “That would explain it.”

“Can we come in and talk to you about it?” Zach asked again, stepping up behind Frank.

Osborne looked at Zach, narrowing his eyes a bit. “I still don’t see any warrant.”

“You really want us to come back with one?” Zach leaned in. He was tired of the crap.

Osborne was a tough guy—he got it. But if they all had to drop trou right now and pull out rulers, Zach would win because he had the badge and the gun. He knew it. Frank knew it and clearly Osborne knew it, too, because he decided to back off. Classic bully. Zach would bet his left nut that Osborne only picked on people he thought he could beat. People who were smaller and weaker. People who backed down in the face of confrontation or were bound by rules and regulations. Zach had seen Osborne’s kind before plenty of times. He didn’t like playing their games and he didn’t like them.

“All right already. You don’t have to make a federal case out of it.” Osborne stepped back from the door and walked inside. Zach and Frank followed.

It wasn’t a bad place. A little on the small side, but what wasn’t in California? It wasn’t much different from the house Zach had grown up in. Osborne walked directly into the living room. Zach could see the dining room and kitchen beyond it. He assumed that was where the faint sickly smell of garbage was coming from.

The place wasn’t immaculate, but it wasn’t trashed, either. There were some newspapers on the floor by a well-worn recliner, a plate on the end table next to it. But the dishes weren’t piled up.

“So the little shit’s been dead all this time?” Osborne
eased into the recliner, which sat directly in front of the television. He didn’t bother turning it off. The Kings were up for once.

“Where’d you think he was?” Frank asked.

Osborne shrugged. “The kid turned eighteen a month after he ran off. He wasn’t my responsibility anymore. The wife cried about him every now and then, mainly on his birthday, but that was about it. Truth was, it was more peaceful around here with him gone.” He turned away to look at the game.

Zach ground his teeth. “So when was the last time you saw Max?”

Osborne turned back toward him and blinked a few slow blinks, almost as if he’d forgotten they were there. Maybe the man was drunker than he looked. “You seriously expect me to remember something that happened twenty years ago?” He turned back to the TV as if the question wasn’t worth thinking about.