Concealed in Death (10 page)

“Huh?”

“The Sanctuary, a shelter for youths in need.”

“Oh, the dump over on Ninth. Sure, we did some repairs and crap there. So what?”

“How many times did you go there without Mr. Fine?”

His face, sallow, soft—perhaps once reasonably attractive—pulled into really hard lines as he thought.

“Why would I do that?”

“To see the pretty young girls, Clip. Like Shelby, the thirteen-year-old you bartered brew for sex with?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If she said I did, she’s a liar.”

“Like Mook?”

“Yeah. Fuckin’ A.”

Eve leaned forward. “I’ve got witnesses, on both counts, Clip. Lying to me isn’t going to help, and with your record, I can send you away for a good, long stretch.”

“Wait a minute. Just wait. I told you Mook had her tits right out there. That was just a misunderstanding. That’s it.”

“And Shelby?”

“I don’t remember her name.”

“So there was more than one minor you traded brew for sex with.”

“No. Jesus. And it wasn’t sex. It was a bj. That’s not sex.”

“You’re stating that a minor female in residence at The Sanctuary fifteen years ago preformed fellatio on you in exchange for alcohol?”

“It was a blow job.” He looked momentarily and sincerely horrified. “We didn’t do nothing weird like that thing you said. It was a straight bj.”

“In exchange for alcohol.”

“It wasn’t alcohol. It was just a couple brews.”

She wondered why this go-round half amused her, but tried to shortcut it to the point. “Let’s put it this way. The minor female gave you a blow job in payment for a couple brews.”

“Yeah. That’s all it was.” He sat back, obviously relieved all was clear. Then jerked up again. “And wait. It was like all that time ago, right? So there’s like a statue of limits on that, yeah?”

“That would be statute of limitations.” She slid the ID shot of Shelby Stubacker across the table. “Is this the minor female?”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to remember—oh yeah! Yeah, this one. She was a steamer. And she asked
me
about the bj and brew.”

“She was thirteen.”

“Said she was fifteen.” Folding his arms over his thin chest, he nodded in satisfaction. “Told you she was a liar.”

“And that makes such a difference, that you solicited oral sex from a girl you assumed was fifteen.”

“She already had a nice little rack on her.”

Eve simply stared at him until he blinked.

“How many times did you trade her a couple brews for a blow job?”

“A couple. Maybe three.”

The way he cut his eyes away had Eve leaning in again. “How many other girls, Clip? She wasn’t the only one.”

“There was just the one more, and this one here brought her into it. Plus she wasn’t any good at it. Kinda fat girl—the hefty kind. Kept giggling, you know. I barely got off.”

“Where did these famous blow jobs take place?”

“Right there. I mean right outside the place. Kid knew how to get in and out, how to get around security. She was a steamer, like I said. And if she’s trying to come back at me for it now, that’s bullshit. She asked
me
, and there’s the statue.”

“Some things have no
statue
, Clip. Like being a revolting shit, such as yourself.”

“Hey!”

“And things like this.”

She shoved the photo of Shelby’s remains across the table.

“What the hell is that?”

“That’s Shelby Stubacker.”

“Uh-uh. This is.” He nodded toward the first photo. “That looks like some old skeleton, like for Halloween or something.”

“This is what Shelby looks like now, after being murdered, then rolled up in plastic, and hidden for fifteen years behind the wall you built.”

“You’re fucking with me, ’cause we didn’t build no walls in that place. Patched a few, painted some, but we didn’t build none. And if we did, and we didn’t, we sure as hell woulda seen that. You ask Brodie. We didn’t see nothing like that. Just ask him.”

“I didn’t say you and Brodie built the wall. I said you built it, after you killed this girl and eleven others.”

“You’re shitting me now.” His face died from sallow to pasty gray. “What the fuck? I never killed that girl. I never killed anybody. I just got a couple bjs, that’s it. Just a couple blows.”

“How many times did you go back to that building, meet this girl after they shut down that location?”

“I never went back there, not after Brodie pulled me offa the job. No reason to go back there. You can get a bj lots of places. Sometimes for free even.”

God, she thought, a genuine moron. But she pushed through. “It’s convenient though, just a couple blocks away.”

“I couldn’ta gotten in if I’da wanted. The kid’s the one came out to me. I didn’t even know they left that place, not for months until I went by it one night. It was all boarded up, and dark, and I thought, ‘Hell, the bj girl’s gone.’ I never went in, hand to God. I never saw that kid again after Brodie pulled me offa the job. I never killed nobody.”

Eve found Roarke in her office. She dumped the files on her desk, went straight to the AutoChef for coffee, then dropped down in her chair.

Waiting until she had, Roarke slid his PPC into his pocket. “Well then?”

“The best I could do was dump him in the tank on the D&D. He deserves a hell of a lot more, but I don’t think he killed those girls. He’s too damn stupid for one thing. I’m talking deeply and sincerely stupid.”

Roarke merely nodded. “Are you done here? At Central,” he continued. “Is there anything left to do you can’t do at home?”

“I guess not.”

“Then we’ll go home, and you can fill me in on the way.”

•   •   •

H
e listened. She’d grown used to having someone who listened and, even better, understood without every
i
dotted.

“Sick fuck. He actually believes there’s nothing wrong with getting his dick sucked by a goddamn child. Nothing wrong with paying a thirteen-year-old kid a couple of brews for going down on him—and, hey, her idea.”

“But you don’t believe the sick fuck killed her, or any of them?”

“No. He deserves to have his dick tied in a knot, covered with acid, then set on fire while thousands cheer, but—”

“You do have a way with imagery.”

“But he didn’t kill them. He’s a sucking boil on the ass of mankind, but he doesn’t have killer in him. And he’s a complete moron. A moron didn’t do this. I took him over, under, back, forth, pushed, shoved. He doesn’t know a damn thing. We’re going to keep an eye on him, not only in case I’m wrong on this, but eventually he’s going to put hands on someone else, potentially another minor. Then he can whine in a cage for a few years.”

She sat back, hissed. “I’ve got nothing.”

“You know that’s not true, you’re just disappointed you couldn’t set this one’s dick on fire. You’ve eliminated, or certainly bumped down several people on your suspect list. And more, you have the names of two girls.”

“I didn’t have a hell of a lot to do with that part.”

“Is that it?” He glanced at her as he turned through the gates that opened to home.

“I don’t know.” She shoved her fingers through her hair. “It’s not going to be,” she said. “It’s just not going to be. I’m not a scientist. I can’t look at bones and figure out who they were. It’s stupid to resent getting that data from another source. An expert.”

“And you’re not stupid, even shallowly and insincerely.”

That made her laugh a little. “I’m not stupid, and those girls deserve having every resource I can tap on this.”

She looked at the house, the wonderful sweep of it, the towers and turrets, the countless windows. And thought of young girls—herself among them—who lived or had lived in cramped dorms, shared dingy bathrooms, who yearned for freedom and dreamed of somehow making their own.

Too many never made it.

“Too many never made it,” she said out loud.

“Let me tell you about one who did.”

When he pulled to a stop, she looked over at him. “What? Who?”

“Leah Craine. Leah Lorenzo now. She married nineteen months ago—a firefighter with a large Italian family. They’re expecting their first child in the spring. She’s a teacher—elementary school level. They live in Queens.”

“You found her while I was dealing with the moron.”

“I did. She made it, and from all appearances, has built a solid and happy life. Will you interview her?”

She sat for a moment, just sat. “If I have to. Otherwise I’d like to leave her alone. But . . . you might send her information to Seraphim Brigham.”

“I already did.”

“Okay.” He’d waited, she realized, waited to tell her the good until after she’d finished her frustrated rant. Points for him. Big ones.

“Are you going to show me your plans for that dump you bought? How you’re going to turn it around?”

“I can, of course.”

When they got out of the car, he took her hand. “I asked myself today what might have happened if I hadn’t bought that place. Those girls might have been there years yet. Then I thought, no, not at all. It was meant to be now, and me, and you.”

“You’re awfully damn Irish sometimes.”

“Meant to be,” he said with a shrug. “We know those children, and aren’t so far from being them once. So we’ll neither of us stop until we find who they are, what happened to them, and who took the rest of their lives from them.”

“Whoever did it walked away from it for fifteen years.”

“And now?”

“We’re going to take the rest of his life away from him by putting him in a cage.”

She stepped inside where Summerset, the scarecrow in a black suit, and their fat cat, Galahad, waited.

She’d walked out of the big, airy foyer that morning. Now she walked into Christmas. The scent of pine and cinnamon, the pretty dazzle of little lights roping up the banister, the clever arrangement of those big plants—what were they?—poinsettias into a pretty white tree.

And the twinkle, now that she paid attention, from the front parlor where a quick peek showed her the massive tree stood fully dressed in lights and sparkle.

“Where are the elves?”

“Gone for the day, I expect,” Roarke told her. “They’ll be back tomorrow to do the exterior.”

“You might have seen some of them if you’d arrived home in anywhere near a timely fashion.”

Eve gave Summerset a stony stare. “We’ve been out sledding and drinking brandy and discussing what not to get you for Christmas. Nothing but fun for us.”

“Yet all that fun has done little to improve your mood or manner.”

“Ah, the warmth of homecomings.” Roarke shook his head, started to shrug out of his coat as the cat pranced over to rub against his legs and Eve’s. “Always such a pleasure.”

“I didn’t start—” Eve broke off, yanked out her signaling ’link. “They have another face,” she said, dashing up the stairs as she called for the image.

“Twelve, the media said.”

Roarke nodded at Summerset. “Yes. No more than children.”

“There are ugly pieces to the puzzle of the world.”

“She’ll find them, put them where they belong.”

“I’ve no doubt. It’s a cold night. There’s beef bourguignonne on the menu. Some red meat would do both of you more good than the pizza she’ll think of first.”

“I’ll see to it. Thanks.”

When he got to Eve’s office Roarke found she already had the reconstruction image on screen.

Younger, he thought. This girl seemed younger than the other two.

“I’m going to run her against the list I have from Higher Power. If she was registered there, it’ll be quicker than a broad Missing Persons search.”

“Go ahead. I can set up your board for you. I know how you prefer it,” he said before she could object.

“Okay, thanks. It’ll save time.”

He went to work as did she. Dinner, he thought, would wait a bit longer.

They’d put the little tree by her window, he noted. The one he’d ordered as it was simple and traditional, and his wife often thought herself both. Though she was far from either on most levels.

A simple, traditional woman wouldn’t spend her evening searching for the names of dead girls. She wouldn’t work herself to exhaustion—body, mind, heart—to find who’d killed them.

As difficult, as frustrating, as painful as it sometimes was, he thanked God he hadn’t fallen for a simple, traditional woman.

“I’ve got her.”

He stopped what he was doing to look at the wall screen. She’d split it, putting the images of the reconstruction and the ID photo of a minor female side by side.

“Yes, you found her. Only twelve years old?”

“That’s according to her ID. I’m checking background and Missing Persons.”

Lupa Dison, he read. It listed a New York address several blocks north of the building where she’d been found, and her guardian as her aunt, Rosetta Vega.

Tragic eyes, he thought. How did someone so young earn such tragic eyes?

“Missing Persons filed by the aunt. It’s looking like her parents were both killed in an accident, the mother’s sister—the only living relative in the States—named as guardian.

“A scatter of maternal relatives in Mexico.”

As she continued to scan data, Roarke went to the wall unit for a bottle of wine.

“Okay, okay, the aunt worked as a maid for the Faremont Hotel, West Side. She was mugged on the way home from work, badly beaten, sliced up some, too. Had to spend a few weeks in the hospital and in rehab. She requested the kid be registered at The Sanctuary; she knew someone who’d had a kid in there. Court granted the temporary stay. She goes in, comes out, goes back home. And three weeks later, goes missing. Missing on September seventeenth. Five days after Linh Penbroke.”

“Lured back.”

“Could be. She went missing fifteen days after The Sanctuary changed locations. The place was empty. She’d never been in any trouble, neither had the aunt. Running the aunt for current data now.”

“She wasn’t a runaway,” Roarke said. “Troubled, yes, but by the loss of her parents.” There, he thought, the reason for the tragic eyes.

“The aunt’s married. Ten years to a Juan Delagio. She’s now head housekeeper, day shift, at the Antoine Hotel, tony East Side employment now. She’s on the East Side, too, not an especially tony area, but a decent one.”

“That’s one of mine—the hotel.”

“Well, we couldn’t get around that for long.” Eve glanced up. “Do you know her?”

“I don’t, but I can get a full employment record from the manager.”

“Not yet anyway. She and Juan have three kids. He’s on the job, out of the two-two-six.” She swung to her ’link, then frowned at the glass of wine Roarke set in front of her.

“I’ll see about dinner,” he said.

“But I—”

“We’ll eat, and we’ll sort through all this while we do.”

“Fine, okay. Fine. This is Lieutenant Dallas out of Central,” she began as Roarke walked back down to the kitchen and the AutoChef.

When he came back in she was talking to someone—he assumed whoever had caught the Missing Persons case—taking notes.

He left her to it, used the little table to set down the meal.

“Appreciate it,” she said. “And yeah, I’ll keep you in the loop on her.”

She clicked off, frowned at the wine again. But this time she picked it up, sampled.

“I caught the detective who headed the investigation. She’s got a solid memory. She said she remembered this one especially as her daughter was the same age at the time.”

“Come eat, and tell me.”

She thought how much easier a slice of pizza would’ve been since she could’ve kept working while she chowed it down. But still, reviewing what she had with him couldn’t be considered a waste of time.

She went over, sat across from him. “Another reason she remembers is she and the aunt keep in touch. At least once a year one of them contacts the other, just to touch base. What I get is the kid was pretty shattered when her parents were killed, but it helped some she was tight with the aunt. They got counseling, and the kid seemed to be coming along.”

“It must be crushing, even with a close family member able and willing to care for you, to lose both parents that way.”

“Had to go to a new school, too, as the aunt didn’t have enough money to move and keep her where she’d been. But according to the aunt, and the detective believed her, still does, the kid was doing better. Then about a week or so before she went missing, she started coming home late from school. The aunt had to work, but she had a neighbor keep an eye out for Lupa, and she started coming in just before her aunt was due home.

“This is really good,” she said after another bite.

“Thanks. I slaved over the AutoChef for minutes.”

Grinning, she ate some more. “When the aunt called her on it, the kid claimed she was just hanging with her new friends, doing her homework with them. But she was evasive, and the aunt didn’t push. Felt she needed some room. Then one day she didn’t come home at all.”

“From all you said, she doesn’t sound like a runaway.”

“I don’t think she ran away. I think she was lured or enticed into that building, killed there. I think, most likely, those few days before she poofed, she met the killer, or someone who connected her to him. She—the kid—started asking a lot of God questions.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, how come God this, or why doesn’t God that. They’re pretty serious Catholics, according to the primary, but during the investigation, they found she’d been reading about alternative religions and—what would you call them? Philosophies? Using the house comp, as they could only afford the one, late at night after the aunt was in bed.”

“It doesn’t seem unusual behavior for a young girl, especially one who’d suffered a major loss.”

“No, but I think about that higher power stuff, and I wonder. It’s another possible connection to HPCCY.”

She gestured with her spoon, then used it to dig back into the stew. “Say the kid was meeting somebody from The Sanctuary—resident or staff. Someone she knew from her time there, had a connection with. They’ve never been able to track down where she spent that time, after school, before getting home. Could be someone used that spiritual angle to hook her. Why did God do such a shitty thing? Here are some answers.”