Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (14 page)

“I can see I’m going to have to up my game,” he said, and again let his eyes linger
too long.

Molly returned to top off our coffee. We were quiet until she was gone. “Sheriff,
I emailed a contact at the GBI last night because I had a question about the lab reports
on Tracy. He put me in touch via email with the forensic anthropologist who worked
Tracy’s case.” I pulled the lab reports out, found the one I wanted. “See these measurements
and notes right here? Women, and girls once they’ve been through puberty, are generally
wider and shallower than men in the pelvis area. It’s one way a scientist can determine
gender from bones. But I was curious about these notations.” I pointed them out on
the report.

“Cartilage damage,” Meltzer read.

“I wrote and asked for clarification,” I told him. “The scientist responded this morning.
That kind of soft bone damage around the pelvis joint most likely occurred during
childbirth.”

12

Sheriff Ken Meltzer glanced around, kept his voice low. His forearms were on the tabletop
and his hands were clasped. “There’s nothing in those old interviews with Tracy’s
friends or her family that says anything about her ever being pregnant.”

“There was nothing in her medical reports either,” I noted. “And I met Tracy’s mother
yesterday. She doesn’t believe Tracy ever had a boyfriend. I didn’t tell her about
any of this, naturally.”

“That little girl was only thirteen.” Meltzer took off the wire-rimmed glasses he’d
used to read the lab report and folded them back into his uniform shirt pocket, pushed
his longish hair off his forehead with both hands. He turned back to the windows and
the full parking lot. He was going to need a minute. I looked away, waited, drank
some bad coffee. “We didn’t find an infant out there,” he said finally. “And we used
trained dogs.”

“I know.”

“So what happened to the baby?”

“We can only speculate,” I said quietly.

“Could have died or been sold. Or he could have kept it,” Meltzer said. “That’s a
horrible thought. The child would be about ten now.”

“You’ll have to consider all those scenarios when you’re looking at
suspects,” I said. Breakfast had taken a decidedly dark turn. “Do you recognize the
names Logan Peele and Lewis Freeman?”

He nodded. “We interviewed most of our registered sex offenders when Melinda disappeared
and again when we found the bodies. You like one of them for this?”

“Peele and Freeman look interesting. We started with over a hundred offenders in the
general area and narrowed it down.” I talked to the sheriff about the criteria I’d
used to narrow the list. “Also, based on statements to the parole board before release
and to their parole officers after release, neither of these men seems capable of
comprehending the damage he’s done. I think they are highly likely to reoffend. If
they haven’t already. They’re listed as level-two offenders, which means the state
thinks there’s a thirty-four percent probability they will reoffend. I think it’s
much more likely than that. They haven’t taken any personal responsibility for their
actions and from their statements it doesn’t appear they’ve experienced remorse.”

“These men have never murdered. That we know of.”

“True,” I agreed. “And no one mentioned seeing them in the area around the time the
girls were abducted. But I think it’s important to exclude them before moving forward.
They’ve demonstrated predatory behaviors in the past. The MO fits. They’ve watched
and baited and conned their victims. The known victims are all female and close in
age to both your vics.”

Meltzer nodded. “We’ll circulate their photographs—family, friends, the schools. Registered
sex offenders have to submit to a warrantless search here, but the courts can be finicky
later. Think I’ll cross some
t
’s right now.” He punched a number in his phone, spoke with someone he called Dave.
He explained the circumstances, asked for search warrants, then made a date to go
fishing. He hung up, and looked at me. “Judge friend of mine,” he explained. “Lot
of friendships built over a fishing pole down here.”

“Two terms so far,” I said. “You must have made a few friends.”

He studied me for a second. I think he was trying to decide if it was a criticism.
I remembered Raymond calling him an ass-kisser. Perhaps his criminal investigators’
petty jealousies had made him sensitive.
He used his thumb to punch in another number. “Major Brolin, we’re going to execute
warrants on a couple of registered sex offenders this morning. Lewis Freeman and Logan
Peele. Meet me at Freeman’s in about half an hour. Bring a search team. I’m getting
warrants so we can confiscate and examine electronic devices.” He listened, answered
a couple of questions, hung up, and looked at me. “The major says Freeman isn’t allowed
to have a computer since it was the primary way he contacted kids and because he doesn’t
need it to make a living. He’s a grease monkey in maintenance at the Swedish chain
saw factory up the road. Peele is allowed a computer but he has to bring it in on
his quarterly check-ins for examination. Might be time to take a closer look at his
machine.” He paused. “Listen, Dr. Street … Keye, I’m not sure how it usually works
after you produce a profile. I assume that’s when your job is done?”

“Depends on the job,” I said.

“I was hoping you’d stick around. I’d like you to be there when we search these two
offenders. And, like I said when we talked on the phone the first time, I really could
use another pair of eyes and ears. Brolin and Raymond don’t have the luxury of focusing
on just these two cases.”

“They’re not going to like it,” I cautioned.

“Brolin’s a hater, but she makes up for it by being hard to get along with.” We both
laughed. “Honestly, neither of them is as bad as they seem. They’ve both helped develop
important programs at the jail. I don’t want to just store prisoners. I want to figure
out how to make honest-to-God good citizens out of these men. Brolin designed a family
program. The prisoners get a few hours without windows or cuffs with their families
once a month. Picnic kind of setting. Kids running everywhere. It reminds them what’s
at stake and makes them want to do better. We’ve had a lot of them tell us later it
was what made them want to turn it around. Brolin’s smart. She has ideas. I think
she wants to run this department.”

I thought about Raymond going off on me in the woods about track records and elections.
“You’re not planning on running again?”

He picked up the recorder and switched it off. “Not for sheriff.”

“Ah.” I smiled. “Political aspirations.”

“There may be a seat opening up. I’ve been approached.”

“How are you, Ken?” I looked up to see a slim, dark-haired man in jeans and an untucked
buttondown.

“Morning,” the sheriff replied. “Ethan, this is Dr. Keye Street. Keye, this is Reverend
Ethan Hutchins.”

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Street.” Hutchins’s hand was warm and dry when he shook mine.

“Nice to meet you, Reverend. Care to join us?” I asked, and made one of those moves
that lets people know you’re willing to slide over.

“I’m meeting someone this morning, but if you’re still in Whisper on Sunday have the
sheriff bring you along to Sunday sermon.”

I had visions of lightning striking the church and burning it to the ground. “Couldn’t
keep me away,” I answered.

Ethan Hutchins smiled down at me. He had a gentle face, the kind that made you feel
approved of, accepted. Whether it was natural or practiced, it was calming. I had
the feeling I could have told him anything.

“Dinner at our place after church, Ken,” he said. “You’re invited too, Dr. Street.
My wife makes the best buttermilk fried chicken in the state and I’m not a bad baker
if you like warm biscuits.” He smiled again. “See you Sunday, Ken. God bless, Ms.
Street.”

I watched him being greeted by several people as he passed through the diner. “I hang
around their house Sunday afternoons when I can,” Ken Meltzer told me. “They love
to cook. Nice family. And the pastor’s not opposed to a beer and a ball game now and
then. They’ve been good friends to me. And a lot of support to the community through
this. Especially Molly and Bryant. They have a daughter too. They understand how difficult
it is.”

I remembered when Rauser was shot, when he’d gone limp in my arms and I’d watched
his blood soaking into the red earth. He’d just said he loved me for the first time.
And then a bullet ripped into him. Life can give just that sweetly and in the very
next instant take away just that ruthlessly. I think I’d cried out to God that afternoon,
maybe for the first time since I was a child. “I guess faith comes in handy when there’s
a tragedy,” I said quietly.

“Yes, it does.”

“You a regular at church, Sheriff?”

“My father was Jewish. My mother is a Christian. They decided to educate me in as
many religions as they could and let me decide. Naturally, this was not popular with
either set of grandparents, but I think it saved their marriage. I never had a desire
to go to synagogue or church, though.” He paused, thought it over, said, “Then I moved
here. Mom was getting worse. I guess I was pretty lonely. And I began to believe in
something outside myself. It filled the void. They say faith is the evidence of things
unseen. It’s not logical. It’s something that happens in your heart.”

“Actually it happens in your brain,” I said. “Like déjà vu. You think you’re re-experiencing
an event when in fact it’s just a neuron misfiring.”

A loud laugh came rolling out of him and surprised me. More heads turned. “That’s
a very clinical view of spirituality. Is that why you’re okay with lying to a man
of God about coming to church?”

“That obvious?”

“It was to me. But then I’m a trained law enforcement professional.” He winked, tossed
a tip on the table, and picked up the breakfast tab I’d won fair and square. “Ride
with me. Judge’s office is in the old courthouse. I’ll grab those warrants and we
can shake up some sex offenders just for fun.”

13

The Hitchiti County courthouse was an ancient granite building with thick mortar between
giant, square slabs. Elaborate masonry work curled around windows and doors. A raised
goldletter sign out front announced its spot on the National Register of Historic
Places. The lawn was as tended as the golf courses in the tourist areas, and cement
pathways led to alcoves with garden benches. I waited in the Ford Police Interceptor,
the sheriff’s roomy V6 utility. While he went inside, I checked out the driver’s cockpit,
the equipment on the dash, the controls on the steering wheel, all the bells and whistles
a cop needs to do almost everything hands-free except actually drive. The sheriff’s
department must be doing okay, I decided. I leaned over and checked the mileage. Four
thousand. Whatever Raymond’s beef with Ken Meltzer, it couldn’t have been that the
sheriff failed at getting major expenditures approved for the department. I was pretty
sure that required a board of supervisors somewhere. I thought again about what Detective
Raymond had said in the woods.
You think Meltzer is in a second term because he’s a good lawman? It’s because he’s
a charming sonofabitch who knows what asses to kiss
.

I thought about Rauser and his leggy six-foot-two frame in the Crown Vic he loved.
He wanted a police car that looked like a police
car. He liked it when someone spotted him in the rearview and tapped the brakes.

I sat there a minute, thinking, looking absently at the glove compartment. I glanced
up at the courthouse steps. No sheriff. I popped open the glove box. Okay, so I wanted
to know a little more about Mr. Clean who’d given up his work in Colorado to come
to his mother’s rescue, who went to church on Sundays, who looked more like a park
ranger than a county sheriff, and who had flirted with me this morning at the Silver
Spoon diner.

The glove compartment was neat. The usual stuff—a phone charger, registration, a pair
of leather driving gloves, eyedrops, and a small stack of business cards. Local stuff
mostly—the hardware store, a landscaper, an auto repair shop, a couple of take-out
joints, the Silver Spoon.