Vanished in the Night (7 page)

Zach picked up the phone and dialed, got a receptionist, and waited to be put through to someone who could actually help him.

Janice Lam, a deputy sheriff in the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office, picked up. Zach identified himself and told her what he wanted.

“You’re looking for a twenty-year-old missing persons report?” she asked when he finished. “How the hell is that going to help?”

He laughed. “I have no idea. I’m hoping there’s something in it that will give me a direction to go.”

“I’ll dig it up and fax it to you.”

“Thanks. You know anything about the school?”

“I know that it’s a pain in my butt. It’s been closed for
years and we constantly have problems with the property. Kids hang out there to drink and make out. There’s vandalism and parties. It’s off the beaten path enough that we don’t get too many complaints about noise and such, but it’s also far enough off the road that it’s out of my deputies’ way to patrol it very often. One of these days someone’s going to fall through a rotten floorboard, and everybody’s ass is going to get chewed out.”

“Who does the property belong to now?”

“Near as I can tell, the bank, and they don’t give a rat’s ass about the place. Aaron Joiner owned it before, but he died in ninety-eight and the place has been empty since then. He didn’t have any kids to leave the property to, and the school closed a year or two before he died.”

That wasn’t going to make it easy. “So what’s up there?”

“A bunch of empty, half-falling-down buildings. Well, except the stone ones. Those’ll still be standing when we’re dead and cockroaches are ruling the earth. Apparently they brought a bunch of Hopi Indians up from Arizona to build them back in the thirties. They’re gorgeous. Too bad the place is such a pain to get to. Someone could have probably made something of it. A resort or something.”

Lam said she’d give him a heads-up when she faxed the missing persons report, and they hung up. He figured he’d try to find out a little more about
the Sierra School. Maybe someone from there would know something. Even if all they knew was Shelden’s shoe size, it would be a damn sight more than he knew now.

Lyle Burton stared down at the newspaper. What the hell was going on?

He’d been expecting the article about himself; he’d written the press release publicizing his promotion to director of Child Protective Services. The agency had had some black eyes and he was going to come in and fix all that. He’d worked hard to get the job. He’d worked hard to make people recognize him. This was his time. His moment of glory.

And his picture was on the front of the Our Region section of the
Sacramento Chronicle,
with an article about his appointment.

But below the fold was another photo. Max Shelden at seventeen, smiling as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It didn’t make any sense. How in hell had Max Shelden’s body ended up in a construction pit in downtown Sac?

Burton threw the paper down on his desk. He would get to the bottom of this, one way or another.

*     *     *

Gary Havens pushed his big-wheeled trash bin into Mr. Osaka’s classroom. “Hey, Mr. O.”

The teacher looked up from his desk. “Hey, Gary, how’s it going?”

“Not bad. Not bad.” He liked his job at the school. Maybe being a custodian wasn’t prestigious, but he was making a contribution. He was helping. He grabbed the trash can by Mr. O.’s desk and emptied it into the big bin. “You finished with that paper?” He pointed to the newspaper on the edge of the desk.

“I am. You want it?” Mr. O. asked.

“Would it be okay?” He liked the comics and the sudoku, but a subscription was a lot of money for something that seemed to always come his way for free. He didn’t really care if he did the Monday sudoku on Tuesday or spent the whole week on the Sunday crossword puzzle. His life wasn’t like that. He wasn’t like that.

He was nothing if not patient. He knew how to wait. He’d learned that a long time ago, sitting as quiet as he could in the dark, waiting and praying for the morning light to come, waiting and praying that no one would notice him.

“No problem at all,” Mr. O. said, then glanced up at the clock. “Your mom should be here by now, Cedric.”

Gary hadn’t even noticed the little boy. “How’s it going, Cedric?” he asked. He liked Cedric. He was a nice little boy. Small for a fifth-grader, and Gary knew
how that felt. He’d been a scrawny little thing, too. A late bloomer. He wasn’t scrawny anymore. He was tall and strong, and he worked hard to stay that way.

“Okay.” Cedric smiled at him as he gathered up his books. He looked at the door and swallowed hard.

“Do you want me to walk you to the curb?” Mr. O. asked Cedric.

Cedric shook his head. Gary glanced over at Mr. O.

“Cedric’s been having trouble with some of the junior high kids while he’s waiting for his mother to pick him up. She can’t get here before four, so I told him he could wait here in my classroom. That way he won’t cross paths with them so much,” Mr. O. explained.

Gary nodded. The teachers weren’t really supposed to do things like that. The school had an after-school program. It wasn’t cheap, though. And you paid the same whether your kid stayed for half an hour or for two hours. Gary also knew that Cedric’s mom was a single mother and probably didn’t have a lot of cash to spare.

He picked up his newspaper and said, “Come on, Cedric. I’ll walk you out to the curb. I have to dump this in the Dumpster.”

Cedric blinked furiously. “Yeah, okay,” he mumbled.

Gary felt a little clutch in his heart. Poor kid. Terrified of getting picked on. Terrified of asking for help.
Embarrassed. Ashamed. Praying for help, but not sure how to accept it. Gary had walked that walk. He pushed the trash bin toward the door and gave Mr. O. a wave.

They stepped out into the sunshine. Gary loved the way they’d set up the school, all the classrooms opening on to the outdoors. He didn’t like closed-in places. Cedric scuttled along next to him along the wall as they walked toward the Dumpsters.

“Can you open the gate for me?” Gary asked when they got there.

Cedric nodded and stood on his tiptoes to reach his skinny little arm over the top of the gate and unlatch it. It would take nothing to twist that arm up behind his back, shove him into the garbage enclosure, and do anything he wanted. No one would be there to stop him. The kid would probably be too scared to even cry, and certainly too scared and too ashamed to tell anyone. It could go on for a year or two, and no one would ever be the wiser. Gary’s breath started to come a little faster just thinking about it.

Despite the bullying he had already received, the kid was way too trusting.

Gary knew all about that, too. He knew how getting pushed around could make you look for someone bigger and stronger than your enemies to protect you. He knew how that could turn on a guy, too.

People who were bigger and stronger than your
enemies were bigger and stronger than you, too. Strength and size didn’t guarantee benevolence. People who were bigger than you just had an easier time pushing you around.

Cedric turned and smiled at him, and Gary pushed the trash bin on through. He dumped the garbage in the Dumpster and said, “Let’s go see if your mom is here.”

A gray Toyota Celica with a dent in the rear-passenger side pulled to the curb as Gary and Cedric came around the corner of the school. Cedric cried out “Mom!” and sprinted toward the car.

Before Cedric could get to the car, two older boys, jeans drooping halfway down their asses, dirty flannel shirts over T-shirts, came out from behind a tree. The smaller of the two bumped Cedric as he ran past, sending him flying.

Gary was moving away from the building in a split second. The first boy had turned to snicker with the larger boy, trying to impress him by picking on someone smaller than he was. Gary knew this dynamic all too well. And he was bigger than all of them. “Hey!” he yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

It was very satisfying to see the boy jump. “I . . . I . . . nothing. It was an accident.” He started to back away.

Gary took a few more steps toward him. “Then help him up.”

The boy froze. “What?”

“I said help him up. Now.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t have a coronary.” The boy walked over to where Cedric lay sprawled on the sidewalk and held out his hand.

Cedric glanced over at Gary, confused.

“Let him help you up, Cedric.”

Cedric swallowed hard, but took the kid’s hand. The kid hauled him to his feet.

Cedric’s mother got out of her car. “Hey, everything okay over there?”

“Just fine,” Gary called back to her in a friendly tone. “Cedric will be there in just a second.” He turned back to the bully. “Now tell him that you’re sorry,” he growled.

The kid shot him a defiant look.

“Now.” Gary crossed his arms over his chest.

The kid took a step back and turned to Cedric. “Sorry.”

“Now tell him it won’t happen again.”

The kid cast a disparaging look at Gary but said, “It won’t happen again.”

“Now get off the grade school property,” Gary said. “Is there something wrong with you that you’re hanging out with little kids? Can’t you make any friends your own age?” he taunted.

The kid picked up his backpack, and he and his friend slouched away.

Cedric had already run over to his mother’s car. Gary followed.

“I hung out with Mr. O. and then Gary walked me over here,” Cedric told his mother.

Cedric’s mother looked up at Gary, her brow creased. “We don’t mean to be a bother.”

Gary waved her concerns away. “I needed help getting the Dumpster gate open. It’s hard to do when you’re wheeling the bin at the same time. Cedric was a big help.”

She shot him a look of gratitude. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem.” Gary leaned down and looked in the car window. “See you tomorrow, Cedric.”

“Yeah, Gary. See you tomorrow.”

They pulled away from the curb and Gary shook the paper out from under his arm. Then the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

The picture of a boy stared up at him from the printed page. A boy with café-au-lait skin and light brown eyes. Gary knew that face. He hadn’t thought he’d ever see it again. Not after the way it looked the last time he’d seen it. Bile rose in his throat as he remembered the blood, the head tilted at such an unnatural angle.

He shook the paper open more. There had to be a reason for the photo being there. There had to be
a story that would explain it. He saw the headline:
BODY DUMPED IN DOWNTOWN CONSTRUCTION SITE
.

How could that be? It was all so long ago. What had happened? Why would it be there now?

He opened the paper up fully and saw the second photo.

He knew
that
face, too, and felt even sicker. He would have recognized that face anywhere. The jaw was thicker, the eyebrows heavier, but there was no mistaking it.

He stared from one picture to the other. What bizarre twist of fate had brought those two pictures together on the same day? Was there anyone else in Sacramento who would see this and know it was significant? A chill ran down his spine. Maybe that was the point. Maybe it was a message for him. Maybe
he
was supposed to do something.

There would be no more bullying on his watch. He had stood by once before and done nothing, and someone had died. Someone good. Back then Gary had been small and weak, but he was a man now. He would act like a man, not like a child.

Max was whispering for help, just like Cedric had been silently praying for someone to help him. Gary could do that. He could be the one who helped. Pride swelled in his chest. He could be that person. He would be that person. He would do it for Max.

*     *     *

Coach Jackson lived in the 300 block of Parkshore Court, in a house he’d either bought in the 1980s or with money he’d inherited. No way had he purchased a two-story sweetheart in Greenhaven on a teacher’s salary these days. Same with the Lexus in the driveway.

Maybe his wife made piles of money. Zach had met plenty of women who made more money than he did as a cop; his youngest sister was constantly fixing him up with women from the bank where she worked. They all had fatter wallets than he did. They all also had perfectly done hair, flawless makeup, and designer clothes. None of them made his heart hammer.

Frank rang the bell of the coach’s house. “Pretty nice place for a teacher,” he observed.

“I was thinking the same thing.” There was a reason he loved working with Frank. “Guy’s a source of information, though, not a suspect. Old information, to boot.”

Frank gazed at the trees in the front yard. “A yard like this takes some time to cultivate. I checked and he’s been here since the late eighties.”

Zach looked around the yard. The trees and bushes looked like they’d been planted at least that long ago.

The man who answered the door looked like a former basketball player. Derrick Jackson was tall, lanky
and loose limbed, with a full head of graying hair. Otherwise, he didn’t look much different than he had in the yearbook photos. A few more wrinkles around his eyes, and his jowls hung a little lower, but he’d obviously kept in shape.

“Derrick Jackson?” Frank unclipped the badge from his belt and held it up.

The man nodded. “That’s me. You must be the officer who called earlier. Come on in. Both of you.”

Two teenage boys sat on the couch in the living room, game controllers in hand and a combat scene playing out in front of them. One of them looked as if he’d had the entirety of his last growth spurt in his neck. The other was a little more solid looking.

“These are my sons, Danny and Rusty,” Jackson said as he walked past.

The boys didn’t even look up, but gave an acknowledging grunt. It was about as communicative as a lot of teenage boys got.

“Come on into the kitchen.” Jackson continued to lead the way. “I’m getting dinner ready.”

It smelled good; Zach’s stomach growled. The kitchen was nice. Really nice. Lots of brick and wrought iron. It had the look of a kitchen that got a lot of use, too.