Jude Devine Mystery Series (44 page)

Jude steered Pratt outside the interview room. “Why in hell make up a story like that in the first place? And why tell the mother?”

“Not the sharpest crayon,” Pratt suggested.

“Something obviously happened,” Jude thought aloud. “And he was trying to tell her, but he chickened out. The guy seems to make everything up as he goes along, so maybe he started down the track toward telling the truth, then realized he’d be in trouble and backed off.”

“Wanted to make it seem like things were under control…but it’s a psychological slip,” Pratt suggested. “I’m guessing the baby was injured by then and Miller was looking to cover his ass so she wouldn’t think he was negligent when she got home.”

“But something went wrong with his plan…something else happened, and he had to hide what he’d done.”

“Highly likely.” Pratt sounded keyed up. He could smell a big arrest, Jude thought. One that would involve saturation media.

“Do we have results back for the clothes yet?” she asked.

“I’ll chase it,” Pratt said. “Want us to take another run at him while you work on the mother?”

Jude shook her head. “He’ll keep. But turn up the pressure.” She glanced around until she spotted the meanest-looking simian-built deputy in the department. “Deputy Linebacker over there…send him in. Tell him to make Miller nervous.”

“Gotcha.”

“Miller’s truck. What kind of state is it in?”

“Looks like your Dakota,” Pratt replied. “Packed with fresh snow underneath.”

“So he took it out of town around eleven, then didn’t do much driving once he got back—not enough to shake off the new snow.”

A drive in the mountains during a big snow fall packed heavy but relatively clean snow in every hollow beneath a vehicle. Around town, the roads were shoveled and the pack was dirtier and wetter, spraying up beneath a vehicle in layers over days.

Pratt’s cell phone rang and he took the call. Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he told Jude, “Gotta go.”

She took a moment to gather her thoughts. If Miller had lied about taking Corban to the hospital, what did that mean? Did Tonya know something she wasn’t saying? Had the two of them come up with a story to hide a crime?

Jude stalked back into the interview room and summoned Koertig. In a low, rapid murmur, she told him, “The boyfriend definitely lied about the hospital. Let’s see if she knows more than she’s letting on.”

“Want me to take over for a bit?”

“Have at it.”

Predictably, Koertig marched up, banged on the table, and leaned over Tonya. “Your shithead boyfriend lied about taking your kid to the hospital. Did you know that?”

Tonya’s head jerked up. “What are you talking about? He phoned me when he got back. Corban saw the doctor.”

“So what you’re saying is, the doctors and nurses at the hospital got it all wrong. They said they never saw Corban, but they’re lying. Why do you suppose they’d do that?”

“I don’t know.” Tonya’s voice wobbled. “Maybe there’s been a mistake.”

“You bet there’s been a mistake. You made a huge mistake when you went out drinking and left your baby with a violent man.”

Tonya’s eyes widened with dismay. “You’re wrong. Wade would never hurt Corban. He took him to the hospital. Maybe it’s another hospital. I don’t know.”

“Listen, Ms. Perkins. Every hospital in this state has surveillance cameras and fancy computer systems with records of every single person a doctor breathes on so they can ring up those charges. Do you seriously think anyone walks in there they don’t know about?”

“But why would he say he took him if he didn’t?” Tonya cast a pleading look toward the door where Jude leaned casually against the frame.

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Koertig said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Tonya answered meekly.

Wanting to capitalize on her uncertainty, Jude moved toward the table and asked, “Tell me something, Tonya. How does Wade discipline your son?”

Tonya’s rapid blinks gave her away. “He doesn’t hit him, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just spanking when he’s naughty.”

“When he’s naughty?” Koertig maintained his intimidating proximity. “How often would that be?”

“I don’t know.” Tonya fought a losing battle with her tears. The mascara applied for the TV cameras coursed down her cheeks. “He’s good with Corban. You can ask anyone.”

“Oh, we will,” Koertig promised darkly.

“So, if Corban was naughty and burnt his hand,” Jude conjectured, “he must have been in pain and crying. Maybe even screaming. That would have been stressful. Is Wade the patient type?”

Tonya fell silent, staring into space, her expression a painful testimony to the direction of her thoughts.

“That would be a ‘no,’” Koertig surmised.

“If Wade didn’t take Corban to the hospital, what do you think happened?” Jude asked.

Tonya seemed to grapple with the question, then her focus sharpened. “He put a Band-Aid on Corban’s hand. He told me about that. Maybe he just made up a story about the hospital so I wouldn’t worry. That’s typical. He’s really considerate. Not like most guys.”

Chapter Four

“What were you thinking?” Heather Roache cuffed her brother Matthew around the ear. “If you took that little kid and did anything to him, so help me I’ll—”

“I didn’t, I swear.” Matthew seized her wrist before she could strike him again. “I don’t know anything about it. Jesus Christ, what do you think I am?”

“An idiot. A fucking unbelievable idiot.” Heather stared at the television as the cameras zoomed in on Tonya Perkins’s house. “That goat is wearing your baseball cap. Think no one’s going to remember seeing him in our yard with that same cap on all summer?”

Matthew dropped her arm and studied the screen, slack-jawed. “What the fuck…It’s in the yard? Oh, man, what are we going to do?”

“
We
?” Heather picked up her purse from the coffee table and fished out her car keys. “
You
are coming with me to see the sheriff.”

Matthew shook his head rapidly. “Nah-uh. No way. I’m not getting involved in this shit.”

“You
are
involved, and if you don’t tell the cops first, they’re going to hear it from someone else. How’s that going to look?” Heather watched
Law & Order
; she knew her brother’s only chance was to come forward and help with inquiries. If they waited for the detectives to find him, he’d be a suspect. “Go take a shower and shave that fuzz off your face,” she ordered. “I’m not taking you in there looking like America’s Most Wanted.”

“I didn’t do anything to that kid,” Matthew reiterated as Heather dragged him to his feet. “You gotta believe me.”

“It’s not me you need to convince.” Heather shook him hard, furious that he’d been so stupid and that their family name was about to be dragged through the mud all over again. Like it wasn’t bad enough that their mom ran off with a high school kid and their dad made a public spectacle of himself by dying in the act with a hooker.

Heather was eighteen when that happened, so she could handle it. But Matthew was four years younger. He’d had a rough time of it. Heather often thought that was why he’d flunked out of high school and ended up parked on her sofa, watching reruns of
Friends
.

Well, she wasn’t ready to write him off yet, and she believed him about the missing toddler. If Matthew had taken a baby, it would be here in her home, waiting for her to feed it; Heather had no doubt about that. No—her little brother might be many things, but he wasn’t a child kidnapper. People like that wanted ransoms or were filthy perverts. Heather had seen the porno magazines Matthew kept under his mattress. They were the normal kind with naked women in crude poses.

Close to tears herself, she marched him along the hallway and deposited him outside his bedroom. He was crying, repeating over and over that he was sorry and he never touched that little boy.

In the end, she took pity and hugged him, saying just like she did when they were younger, “Everything’s going to be okay. You made a stupid mistake, that’s all.”

Sniffling into her shoulder, he mumbled, “It wasn’t my idea.”

Heather suspected as much. It was impossible to imagine Matthew coming up with anything as creative, or nasty, as killing his pet goat, smashing up an ex’s house, then leaving the goat’s head in the yard like a Satanic symbol.

“Then whose bright idea was it?” Not that she needed to ask. She already knew exactly which of her brother’s loser buddies would come up with a crazy scheme like this one.

Matthew confirmed her suspicions. “Gums said I needed to teach her a lesson.”

“You know better than to pay attention to Gu…Hank Thompson. He’s crazy, or did you forget that?”

Matthew stared at the TV screen. “Maybe people will think a biker gang did it.”

“A biker gang is going to ride their Harleys into town in the middle of a snowstorm, come here, kill your goat, then go vandalize Tonya’s house, and leave the goat’s head as a warning like with the horse in the
Godfather
?”

Matthew nodded as if the cops might actually buy this ridiculous story. “We can say someone stole him from out back.”

Right out of patience, Heather shoved him in his bedroom door. “You are going to tell the sheriff the truth. And you’re going to tell him it was all Hank’s idea and you just went along with it.”

“Fuck. He’ll kill me with his bare hands.”

“You should have thought about that before you left a whole mess of evidence on that slut’s property.”

*

Wade Miller took out his comb and ran his thumb slowly along the prongs. “You gotta understand. I couldn’t tell Tonya. She’d go nuts.”

“So there never was a hospital visit?”

“It was her sister’s party. I didn’t want to spoil it.”

“How did Corban burn his hand?”

“I was cooking his dinner. Had him up next to me on a stool. He goes and touches the skillet. Dunno how many times I told him not to do that, but he always has to learn the hard way.”

Jude remained silent, just to see if he was going to embellish this account any further. So far, it was the longest answer they’d had from him.

“What time did that happen?”

He picked a pimple on his chin as he contemplated the question. “Maybe nine.”

“You were cooking a baby’s dinner at nine o’clock?”

“Could have been eight, I suppose. Don’t wear a watch.” Miller flashed his hands as evidence.

“And what happened then?”

“He cried some but I fixed him up. Put on a bandage.”

“Did he stop crying?”

Miller hesitated. “Not for a while.”

“You must have been worried,” Jude said sympathetically. “In charge of your girlfriend’s baby and he hurts himself. How big was the burn area? Can you draw it for us?”

She slid a sheet of paper and pen across the desk, and Miller sketched out an image about an inch long and quarter of an inch wide.

Jude gave a low whistle. “Pretty nasty on a little hand like his. It would have stretched right across his palm.”

Miller’s mouth tightened, and for a split second a flash of anger displaced the dopey solemnity of his manner. He said, “Yeah, well, it wasn’t deep. Nothing serious.”

“It didn’t bleed?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s puzzling,” Jude said. “Because I was just told that our lab found blood on your clothing. Is it Corban’s?”

He blinked. “Guess it could be. He’s always getting nose bleeds and shit.”

Jude stared at him. As the seconds passed, he grew restless and picked up the comb he’d dropped on the table a few minutes earlier. His stringy black mullet didn’t need the extra attention, but he worked on it anyway.

In a town like Cortez, Wade Miller was what passed for tall, dark, and handsome, Jude supposed. Lean and well built, he wore boot-cut jeans, a flashy belt buckle, and a flannel shirt. A dark stubble shadowed his jaw; clearly he hadn’t shaved that morning. He dealt with a surefire unibrow, probably by plucking, and he seemed self-conscious of both his balding head and his teeth, which were uneven and slightly discolored. Jude figured his mumbling speech pattern was a habit he’d cultivated to avoid displaying them.

Looking uneasy, he wiped his comb on his pants, then dropped it on the table. “So, you guys through with me now?”

Jude smiled pleasantly. “Actually, I was wondering why you didn’t take Corban to the hospital? You must have thought about it or you wouldn’t have made up that story for Tonya.”

Miller avoided looking at her. “I was going to. But they were parked outside. I heard them. Tonya’s ex and his buddies. They’re always pulling stunts like that.”

“Like what?”

“They follow me sometimes, like they’re trying to get into something. You know, to make me mad. Road rage. Shit like that. And they’ve done stuff to my place. Painted obscenities on the wall, left dog turds on my doorstep… Matt Roache was real pissed that Tonya dumped him. They were engaged.”

“I’ll need some names,” Jude said. Obviously Miller was expecting her to construe from these subtle hints that this ex and his pal were principal suspects in the window smashing and goat’s head symbolism, and, by inference, Corban’s disappearance. “What time did you notice them out there?”