Bitter Waters (19 page)

The guard at the receptionist desk reported that a bin on the front desk saw a constant traffic of packages left for bike messengers, UPS, and Federal Express. He merely made sure no one walked off with the wrong one. He remembered the package being left, puzzled by the return address. He had been trying to find out if the suite had been rented without security being notified when the messenger arrived to take the package away.

Indigo showed the guard the two artist sketches. “Did you see either of these people?”

The guard studied the artist sketches. “Oh, yes, it was the girl. I guess they played me for a sucker. If this creep had left the package, I probably would have called the bomb squad. I let it ride so long because she was young and sweet. She was dressed like a temp, you know, a dress cut a little too high and a little too low for a regular secretary. I cut her slack, thinking she got the address wrong.”

 

Max and Ukiah were back at the office before noon.

Sam had set up in the keeping room office just off the kitchen. She was on the phone when they came through the back door. She nodded a greeting but stayed focused on the voice on the other end of the line.

Whatever the voice was saying to her wasn't good. She sighed and shook her head. “No, it was a long shot. Hang loose. I'll get back to you. Thanks, Chino.”

“How's it going?” Max kept the tension off his face, but not out of his voice.

“Not well.” Sam hung up the phone. “This is what we've got so far.”

Sam kept careful notes on a flip tablet, something that probably would change if she joined the agency. “Adam Rudolph Goodman, born 1970. Father dead. Mother dead. I just put Chino on trying to find distant relations. Graduated from high school in California in 1987 and held down security guard positions into the nineties.”

“Ouch,” Ukiah said. Security training was never good in a felon.

Sam acknowledged that by nodding her head. “Yeah, basic
knowledge of how cops catch thieves, and thus how to be avoid being caught.” Sam flipped over the sheet on her notebook. “The first job was at Disneyland, then next at an amusement park, and then a mall. I called them on the guise of needing job references. They all indicated that he quit before they could fire him, but wouldn't say why.”

“Worried about civil suits from both sides,” Max commented.

“Basically.” Sam flipped to the next page. “He then got a job as a janitor at a high school.”

“Wait,” Max said. “Didn't Indigo say this guy was in jail for sex with minors? Amusement parks, mall, high school; work hell, they're all hunting grounds.”

“It's possible,” Sam said. “In 1994 he was arrested and convicted for multiple counts of sex with a minor, sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin. He served out the sentence and was released six months ago. That's where he disappears; he just drops off the face of the earth.”

 

“Drops off?” Max echoed, sounding leery. It wasn't the kind of comment that sat well with Max, especially in his present mood. From Janey or Chino, it would mean they hadn't known where to take the search after the obvious failed. The madness in Oregon aside, Sam was an unknown quantity. Had they credited her with more ability than she actually had?

Sam sighed, scrubbing her fingers through her short blond hair. “Goodman was released April second. No one picked him up. He took the transit bus into San Francisco and checked into the YMCA. He started up a bank account, applied for welfare, and began looking for a job. He even got a library card. Two weeks later, he checked out, wrote out checks that took his bank balance down to zero, and disappeared. He could have stolen a car, but he didn't buy one or rent one, nor did he fly out of California anytime in April.”

Sam obviously had covered a lot of ground while they had been at the bank; it was not her fault that she lost the trail.

Max relaxed, settling on the edge of Sam's desk. “There's the girl. She might have supplied the car.”

Sam bobbed her head as if she was considering the girl. “She wasn't there to meet him at the prison. He was in the dorms at the YMCA, not a private room.” She squinted, crinkling up her nose. “It's—it's the Pittsburgh thing that gets me. He laid out all the foundations of settling into San Francisco and then pulled up roots to come here.”

“You don't like Pittsburgh?” Ukiah beat Max to the question.

“It's not that. It's just to leave
San Francisco
—for Pittsburgh? Or anyplace else in the Midwest. Cincinnati. Cleveland.” She dismissed the steel cities with a wave of her hand. “You've got to have a good reason to go to that extreme, but I can't find any connection between Goodman and here. All his family was from the West Coast.”

“He's been here for six months,” Ukiah said. “Unless he's staying with the girl, he got someplace to live.”

“Working on the assumption that he's here in Pittsburgh, I had Chino go to the”—she paused to search her memory—“Northside with the sketch of Goodman to see if he checked into the YMCA there under an assumed name.” Northside was a seedier neighborhood across the rivers from downtown. “No luck there or in the Hill District.”

That was the call Ukiah and Max had walked in on.

“When he opened his bank account”—Sam checked a number written on her desk pad—“he only had like seven hundred dollars. I picked up the info on the YMCA in California via his MasterCard. He used it extensively in the two weeks before he vanished, running up about five hundred dollars. The last check of his bank account that cleared paid off its balance. He hasn't used it since.”

“If he's not using his credit card, and he used up all his cash, what's he living on?” Ukiah asked.

Sam shrugged. “It's not showing up on normal credit reports, whatever it is.”

The grandfather clock struck noon.

Max sighed, standing up. “You're right—he dropped off the face of the earth. We've got three hours before the ransom call. I want to hit the gun shop before then. I know that you keep saying that this Goodman is human.” This was to Ukiah.
“But this all feels wrong. I want to pick up some heavy artillery if we end up going against the Ontongard again.”

Sam made a sound of disgust at the thought of fighting the Ontongard. “I'll go back to digging, but I'm a little hampered. I have tons of West Coast contacts, but nothing here in Pittsburgh.”

“I can check to see if Goodman applied for welfare here,” Ukiah volunteered. “I'll also see if he's contacted the DMV, or any of the utilities.”

“Eat something first,” Max told him. “We need you in top condition. I'll be back in an hour.”

 

Ukiah ate at his desk as he made his calls. At first Sam's voice was a constant background murmur, and then she fell silent for so long that it drew his attention. He hung up on his fruitless call and focused on Sam.

She was pacing quietly in the keeping room. While he listened, she picked up the third line and punched in a long-distance call. She continued to pace, murmuring softly, “Come on, come on, answer the phone, you old fart.”

A moment later she said, “Dad?” in a tone that was leery and hard. “It's me, Sam. I need a favor. What? No, that has nothing to do with it. How do you know about that anyhow? Shit! I should have known Peter would call you.” Peter was Sam's ex-husband, and one of the main reasons she left Pendleton. “Yes, I'm in Pittsburgh, but it's not like that; I drove the hiker's car back to Pittsburgh. Look, I need a favor.” Sam let out a long exasperated sigh. “You'd sell Grandma if you thought you'd get a good price for her! That's a crock of bullshit! She didn't sell you to the circus, and we both know that. Okay, okay, I need information; if what you give me is good enough, I'll send you money. There's a guy who was in San Quentin the same time as you, his name is Adam Goodman.” Sam started to describe Goodman, but came to a halt partway through. “Yeah, that sounds like the man. I need to find him.”

Sam listened for several minutes, scratching notes down with a pencil. “But where is he now? Hell, no, I'm not sleeping with the Indian kid.” She paused. “If I was sleeping with
his partner, do you think that's something I'd talk to you about?
Dad, I'm not going to answer that question.
”

The last was a snarl worthy of a Pack member. There was a moment of silence, and then Sam continued in a quiet, but angry tone. “He's not older than you; he's forty. Dad, I'm nearly thirty, okay? No, Kendall Jane is twenty-two. 1976, Dad, I'm the bicentennial baby. Okay, twenty-eight and a half. He's thirty-nine. He's just over ten years—
why am I having this discussion with you? You of all people should know that Peter lies!”

She stood and started to pace. “It's not like that at all. Max could have anyone and he wants me; do you know how special that makes me—
yes, anyone.
That's because Peter thinks with his dick. Max's handsome, intelligent, witty, mature, responsible, reliable—what the fuck do you want from me, Dad? To go back to that asshole? Because if that's what you want, that's not going to happen! Just tell me where the hell Goodman is and I'll mail you fifty dollars.

“He snatched a friend's kid.” She paced for several minutes, listening with an occasional “yes.” Finally all movement and sound stopped. “Is there anyone that you can check with that might know?” The silence continued. “Okay, thanks. No. I haven't decided what I want. I just don't want—I just want to be sure it's right, totally right, and just not the opposite of Peter.” She listened to a question, and laughed. “I'm not going to tell you that! Because! You'll be always trying to borrow money from me if I told you! Yes, he'll pay for me to move. Give me more credit than that, Dad. He has the money.

“I know. I know. Well, thanks for the info. I've got to go.” She said her good-bye with a stilted “I love you” as if the words came unnaturally for her, even for her father.

Ukiah got up and walked to the keeping room.

She was sitting with her head in her hands. She sensed him at the door and looked up. “I suppose you heard all of that.”

“Yes.”

She gave a soundless laugh. “I'd ask you not to tell Max about this, but if we're going to work together, I don't want to start things like that—taking sides and keeping secrets.”

“Not a good idea,” Ukiah agreed.

Max stepped through the back door at that moment. “What isn't a good idea? What?”

“Sam has some information on Goodman.”

“Great! It is good, isn't it?”

“Not really.” Sam scrubbed hands through hair, and then stood up. “There's not much, but it might give us an angle to work with.” She took a defiant stance next to the window. “My father was in San Quentin same time as Goodman. One of the few redeeming qualities that my father has is that he's a fairly good judge of character, when he wants to be, which is usually when he's trying to con someone out of something,” Sam paused. “Well?”

“I'm not going to say anything,” Max said.

“But you're thinking it.”

“I'm not sure what you think I'm thinking, but I'm not—I think.” Max paused, trying to keep a vaguely puzzled look off his face. “I'm not a man that judges a person by the sins of their fathers.”

“What did he say about Goodman?” Ukiah tried to distract them from whatever fight was forming on the horizon.

“Basically that if Goodman had true criminal tendencies, he'd be a master thief. He's got great skills at working out a simple plan, and executing it with precision. Apparently while he was in San Quentin, if you wanted something from outside and didn't mind dealing with a dangerous loon, you went to him.”

“Loon?”

“My father's words.” Sam showed her notes, where she had written “loon” and then branched it out to: Mental disorder? Doctor? Drug controlled? Prescription?

“Rumor mill has it that his family were right-wing, fundamental survivalists. The thing is, Goodman's sexual hang-ups usually cancel out any criminal ambitions he has. Apparently all his energy goes toward creating his perfect sexual fantasy.”

“This is where the sex with minors comes in?”

“My father says it's some kind of survivalist wet dream, basically a stockpile of guns, a bomb shelter, and a doe-eyed teenager that can't say no.”

“So he's a gun bunny, pedophile schizophrenic.”

“Something like that.”

“And this makes it easier to find him?”

“It makes him dangerous to find,” Sam said. “It's nearly a sure thing he'll have guns coming out his whazoo.”

Max nodded. “Nothing else?”

“Two things. Dad suggested that we check reported runaways in the area. Apparently even in prison, he hooked on to some naive virgin, and did this weird whammy that the two of them were God's gift to mankind, the virgin being one step behind him, of course. The fact that the girls were crazy in love with him were the only reasons he wasn't slapped with kidnapping and rape whenever the girl's parents caught up with them.”