Never Smile at Strangers (19 page)

A FEW MOMENTS after the girl climbed into the truck, the weather intensified from a light drizzle to billows of clean, cool rain. “You would have been stuck in that,” he said, as if nature had been his accomplice. He flashed the most trusting smile he could muster. He’d have to be very careful with this one.

She smiled at him and a dimple lit up her left cheek. Her teeth were the whitest he’d ever seen. She smelled like flowers. She disgusted him. It took all he had not to reach over and grab her by the neck. The Andersons. How could she? Did she know what she had done? Did she care?

She wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t because she was dressed in clothes that could have been painted on. She had other flaws. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, but her teeth were crooked and her bottom lip was thin and chapped. Even her nail beds were ragged. Her appearance was unlike his mother’s and sister’s, even Tiffany’s and the other females he’d ever known. Where they had been meticulous—or at least neat—she seemed to be careless.

“I’m Sarah,” she said, stretching out her legs, allowing the hems of her shorts to creep into the insides of her thighs.

Sarah. Sarah Greene. Oh yes, he knew. The teenager who was a threat to his Rachel. The Andersons’ former babysitter. And apparently her husband, Tom’s, lover.

It had taken four days for this opportunity to present itself and he hadn’t been certain she would be dumb enough to get into a truck with a stranger. He thought he’d be forced to take her on foot.

But now here she was. . . in his truck.

She raised her arms above her head in a stretch and he could see the generous profile of her chest. She was flirting, flaunting her body for a total stranger. Playing girlish games. . . If he hadn’t had plans for her, he’d be furious. But now he had to stay calm.

A streetlight flickered. He looked over and saw her staring at him.

“I’m Charles,” he said, rolling the stone in his palm. He thought about the real Charles.

She smiled at him. “Nice to meet you, Charles.”

“Where am I taking you?”

“Just a quarter of a mile. I live on Piney Branch.”

Yeah. . . he knew.

He glanced at the time on his dashboard. Nine o’clock. “Turning in this early?” he asked, pleasantly.

“I guess. My friend had to be home early tonight. Grounded or some shit. But it sucks because my parents aren’t home. They’re in Biloxi.”

“Yeah, that sucks. Hey, I’m headed to a party. You wouldn’t want to go, would you?”

“A party?!” she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. Then suddenly she seemed reluctant. She straightened in her seat and appeared to be mulling it over.

“Or not,” he said, careful to gain her trust. He was going to destroy her no matter what, but it would be much easier if she trusted him. . . at least in the beginning. “I should just take you home.”

“Is the party in town?”

“Yeah, just off Whiskey Road.”

Still looking straight ahead, she grinned. “Yeah, I’d love to go to a party. I would just need a ride home. If I knew that I had one, then. . .”

He squeezed the rock. She was falling for it. His plan would be easier than he had thought. “Sure, but I need to change my shirt first. Mind stopping at my house?”

“Um, where do you live?” she asked.

“Close.”

She nodded.

They drove in silence for a minute. “You know that it’s dangerous to be walking along the side of the road at night?” he said, pressing his foot against the brake for a stop sign. “To let strangers pick you up, bring you home?”

She snorted. “You’re not dangerous, are you? You don’t
look
dangerous. Besides, it’s not a long walk to my house from Maria’s. I do it all the time. And I never hitch. It’s just that with the rain comin’ and all.”

Her eyes were on him again and his flesh crawled. “How old are you anyway?” she asked, all hint of nervousness out the window. She was just a stupid animal.

An animal. A girl. An animal. A girl. A beast.

Gravel crunched beneath the tires. “Why? Do you like older guys?”

“Sometimes. If they’re cute.” She cut her eyes at him. “Hey, you have beer at your house?”

***

SHE SAT IN the dimly-lit living room, running her fingers through her long blonde hair.

Earlier, Allie had strolled out of the house with an overnight bag, so he knew he had the house to himself for the night.

He could take as long as he wanted to.

She took a sip of the Miller Lite he’d given her. “And Maria’s parents are such morons,” she said. “Really, if my parents were like hers, I’d be so much more miserable than I already am. And you won’t believe it. . . one time when we were driving home from the movies, her father put his hand on my thigh. I almost puked. . .”

He wished she’d drink more and quit babbling. Her words were carving a hole in his head. He pushed another beer at her, this one laced with his mother’s haloperidol, a sedative the doctor prescribed for her schizophrenia. Then he went to get some vodka from the cabinet. She had been too easy, she herself suggesting they stay at his house and drink beer after he’d changed his shirt.

By ten o’clock they were in his room.

“Eww, how many magazines do you have?” she asked, eyeing the collection he’d left out. He wanted to read her reaction. To see a little of himself through her shiny, blue eyes. To see if there was anything worth redeeming.
Or if there wasn’t
.

She opened one and flipped through it. “Why did you tear so many pages out?”

“You like magazines like that?” he asked, rubbing his chin. “Dirty pictures of other girls?”

She hesitated before answering. “I don’t know. I think they’re. . . kind of gross, I guess.”

“I do too,” he said, honestly.

She sat on his bed with the magazine on her lap. Her eyes kept flopping closed, and it looked as though she was struggling to keep her head up. But suddenly, she took in a deep breath and straightened. Setting the magazine aside, she looked up at the small bedroom window. “Is that your cat?” she asked.

He looked up at the window and grimaced. After feeding Ian, he had decided to hang out at the window even more, sometimes screaming his mangy head off in the early morning hours. The gifts to both his sister and the cat had been a very bad idea.

She lay back and rested her head on his pillow. Her blonde hair splayed out and her lips parted. “What did you say your name was?”

He told her his name again. But this time he told her the real one. Now there was really no going back. His heart kicked into high gear and his voice turned gravelly. “How long have you been sleeping with Tom Anderson?”

She blinked. “What?”

She started to sit up.

“Oh, you didn’t hear me? I said: How long have you been fucking a married man?”

Her expression quickly turned to disbelief.

Then fear.

She tried to get up from his bed. But she was weak from the alcohol and haloperidol. And he was
anything
but weak.

THE SUN WAS a sharp afterglow in the western sky when Haley returned home from her shift at Luke’s. When she turned onto her street, she was shocked to see the sheriff’s cruiser parked in her driveway.

Her heart sped up.

Her mother. Something was wrong.

Jumping out of the station wagon, she hurried to the carport. There, she found the sheriff sitting on one of the rocking chairs facing the bayou. The detective sat next to him.

The sheriff looked up from his coffee, fine beads of sweat coating his hairline. “Why hello, Miss Haley,” he said.

“My mother. Is she. . . okay?”

“Now, now, this isn’t about yore mother. I’m sure she’s fine,” he said, straightening in the chair. “Just need to ask you a few questions.”

Haley nodded.

“You know a little girl named Sarah Greene out of Truro?”

Haley shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Her parents have reported her missing. They returned home from a trip to Biloxi and she wasn’t there. She was with a friend until Sunday evening, but no one’s seen her since.”

Haley’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, my God.”

Another girl had disappeared.

The detective stood. “You said that you
don’t
know her?”

Haley shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I know an
Olivia
Greene. At least there’s an Olivia Greene who comes into Luke’s sometimes. I’ve seen the name on her credit card. Is Sarah her daughter?”

The detective nodded, thumping his notebook against a bent elbow.

“Do you think she could have run away?”

“No,” the detective said.

“Who is she?” Haley asked.

“She’s a sixteen-year-old junior at St. Theresa’s. On summer break like the rest of the kids. Does some babysitting for folks.”

The springs on the back screen door snapped and Haley’s mother stepped out.

“Mrs. Landry,” the sheriff exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were home. We knocked, but. . .”

Haley’s mother glanced at the two on her carport, then at her daughter. One eye was made up nicely with makeup. The other was bare as though she’d forgotten what she’d started. She was also wearing a sundress, but it was Becky’s and was a couple of sizes too small. “Another child went missing?” she asked. “Did I hear that right?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Oh, my, what’s the world comin’ to?” she asked of no one in particular. Then her gaze fixed on Hebert and his styrofoam cup. “Come on in for some
real
coffee. You can ask my daughter questions inside where it’s cooler.”

She held the screen door open.

“Now you’re talkin’” the detective said, splashing his coffee into a barren flowerbed.

The sheriff forced a thick fist into his front pocket and unfolded his handkerchief. “I need a damn cigarette, that’s what I need,” he said, red-faced, wiping the sweat from the sides of his big head. “If I’m gonna die, I might as well let one o’ them kill me.”

Haley followed the men in.

JUST HOURS AFTER the news broke about the missing girl, the media descended on Grand Trespass in a way it hadn’t when Tiffany disappeared. Camera vans, reporters, men with maps and radios congregated at public meeting places. Sarah Greene’s parents were driven into Lafayette in Sheriff Hebert’s police cruiser to make their tearful statements on television, then quickly driven out again, back to Truro. The sheriff told the community to keep an eye out, lock their doors and watch their children extra closely.

Two FBI agents, Special Agent Denise Jones and Special Agent Leon Adashek, were called in from the New Orleans bureau to work with the local law on the case. The agents showed up at all of the residents’ homes for statements, made certain the woods were combed thoroughly and Grand Trespass Bayou was dragged.

The two were working the case much differently than Guitreaux had. They weren’t interested in wasting any time. They were out to find someone and quick, no matter what it took. And they seemed particularly interested in one Grand Trespass local.

Haley, Erica and Austin were on the clock and Chris was reading the
Daily Advocate
at the counter on Wednesday when the two FBI agents showed up. They both sat at the counter and ordered pastries and coffees.

Erica found the female agent, Jones, riveting. She looked pulled together and polished in her starched khakis and a lavender polo shirt. A thick black belt with a gun holster was cinched against her small waist. She was forty-something and very beautiful. She was another woman who reminded her of her mother. Calm, cool, collected, self-possessed with a type of toughness that was uncommon in most women—at least the ones Erica had known.

Odd as it was, Jones even reminded Erica a little of Pamela. Though her father’s live-in was simple and uneducated, she, too, had an air of self possession. She knew who she was, something that puzzled Erica.

“How long did you say you’ve lived in these parts, Chris?” Jones asked, bringing her cup to her lips and blowing on the steaming coffee.

“Twenty years, ma’am,” Chris said, looking up from his newspaper. One eye was fixed on Jones, the lazy one on the front door of the diner.

Jones nodded.

“In a small town like this, you’re bound to know nearly everyone. Isn’t that right?” Agent Adashek asked.

Erica saw the muscles in Chris’s face constrict. He shot a quick glance at the portrait of his dead daughter. “That ain’t so,” he said, his weary eyes focusing again on the agent. “Like I’ve told you before, several times actually, people ‘round here are scattered. Spread out. We go to other towns to do our shopping mostly. Just cuz you own land in Grand Trespass don’t mean that you know all the other town folk.”

“You saying you don’t know many people here, Chris?” Jones asked, feigning surprise.

Chris scratched his head. “Yore puttin’ words in my mouth. Of course I know people. Didn’t say I didn’t.”

“Well, that’s what it sounded like you said,” Jones said.

Chris gazed out at the family of four who were seated closest to them. A boy in a WWE t-shirt was picking apart a ham and cheese sandwich while a smaller boy in a NASCAR shirt was pleading with his mother for another milk shake.

Haley shuffled toward them with customers’ orders, her face blank. She pushed open the door to the kitchen trailer and disappeared in the back.

Jones interjected. “Okay, well let’s try this, how well did you know Tiffany Perron?” she asked Chris.

His shoulders sagged and his voice was as low as a whisper. “How many times are you goin’ to ask me the same dang questions? Seems as though you think I have somethin’ to hide and I don’t.”

Jones smiled. And when she spoke it wasn’t a whisper. “Nothing? You call a record for peeping in innocent folks’ windows and invading their privacy
nothing
?”

Chris’s face went red. He stole a quick glance at Erica to see if she was listening. Then he looked down at his hands.

Erica
was
listening. . . intently. . . and she knew she should busy herself somewhere else in the diner, but she wasn’t about to go anywhere. Chris? Peeping? She pretended to wipe down the counter.

“How about Sarah Greene?” Adashek asked.

“I don’t know nothin’ about a girl named Sarah Greene.”

Jones flashed a photo of Sarah, and Chris looked away. “You already showed me that. Look, Tiffany Perron worked for me. She came in, she worked, and she went home. That was it. This Sarah Greene? I haven’t a clue who the girl is.”

Jones spoke this time. “Would you say the rumors are true? That you had a crush on Tiffany Perron?”

Chris’s grip tightened on the paper. “The kid was nineteen for God’s sake.”

“And that you were a little too touchy-feely with her? Probably creeped her out?”

Erica’s eyes narrowed. Chris was touchy-feely alright, but he was like that with everyone, including men. It was just his way of being personable. And yes, it was a little creepy if you were like her and didn’t like to be touched, but he didn’t mean any harm.

And him having a crush on Tiffany? What man who knew her didn’t at some point in time? Did that make every man a suspect?

“I don’t know what yore talkin’ about,” Chris snapped.

The door to the trailer opened and Haley walked back in. She smiled tiredly at the group and poured herself a cup of coffee.

The sun had become harsh outside and its rays coursed through the diner. Chris scooted his stool back loudly and got up to adjust the blinds.

“You’ve got some scrapes on your forearms,” Adashek called to Chris. “You like the woods? Spend much time in them?”

Chris’s snakeskin boots clicked against the tile as he went to the front doors. He flipped the sign on the door that read
Open
to read
Closed.
Then he turned to face the agents.

“I don’t appreciate this line of questioning. Especially in public. . . and in my place of business with my employees in earshot. There has to be a law against this shit,” he spat, anger flashing in his eyes. “I’ve been an upstanding member of this community for years now,” he barked, a ray of sun bouncing off the side of his crimson face.

The family stopped eating.

“Upstanding?” laughed Adashek, the edges of his lips curled into a grin. “So peeping is considered
upstanding
in this town?”

Chris’s eyes flickered. “Someone’s probably out there killin’ girls but the law keeps hasslin’ me. Have I made mistakes in the past? Yes sir, I have. But I’ve paid for them. Yore wastin’ your time here tryin’ to drag my name through the mud.” He pointed in the direction of Main Street. “Wastin’ precious time that you could be using tryin’ to find out what’s happenin’ out
there
.”

Chris’s neck was as red as a crawfish, and with his face creased the way it was, he looked about ten years older than he actually was.

His eyes landed on Haley and Erica. “We’re closin’ early for the day. I’ll have Kim come out to help close up, so after these customers are done, you gals can go on home. But business as usual tomorrow.” His eyes went back to the agents. “And if you two are through, I’m leavin’.” He waited for a response but got none. “So, am I excused?”

“Have a good day,” Adashek said, pleasantly. “If we have more questions, we’ll just swing by.”

***

“HOW LONG AGO did they leave?” Detective Guitreaux asked, his voice too even not to be perturbed. Erica could tell from the first time she’d seen Guitreaux with the FBI agents that he wasn’t crazy about the fact they were there. However, his face was now a blank slate, no emotion registering across his features. He looked as political, hard-to-read, and inept as always.

“About ten minutes ago.”

Guitreaux scratched his neck.

“They’re really getting around, those FBI guys,” Erica said, hoping to elicit a reaction. Just one
small
reaction from Guitreaux. If she knew anything about men, she knew they couldn’t stand being outdone by another man. Especially when it came to their jobs. The fact that a man
and
a woman might outdo Guitreaux was probably even worse.

The Detective looked toward the window. “I’d like a coffee and one of those chocolate danishes, if you don’t mind,” he said, scratching his neck some more.

“They were questioning Chris,” Erica added.

“Is that so?”

She set a cup and saucer in front of Guitreaux. She filled the cup with coffee. “Made him so upset, we’re closing early for the day. You’re the only one I’ve let in since he left.”

She pulled a danish from the pastry bin and served it to him. “Seems like they know something they’re not sharing,” she prompted. “Think they do?”

Guitreaux dipped the pastry into his coffee then took a big bite.

“Chris. . . a peeping tom. Really. Now how weird is that?” she said.

Guitreaux almost choked.

“Where’d you hear that?” he spat, wiping his mouth.

“From the agents. They talked about it here at the counter like it wasn’t a secret or anything. Is it?”

“Now don’t go spreading that around,” Guitreaux warned. “That’s not information the sheriff wants out there.”

“You know anything about this Sarah Greene girl?” Erica asked. “I mean, have any clues turned up that
you
know about?”

He quietly chewed.

“She take anything with her when she disappeared? Like a runaway would? Clothes? A toothbrush?”

Guitreaux took a long drink of his coffee. He set the cup down. “You’re full of questions. Thought you didn’t know the kid.”

“I don’t. I just want to, you know. . . learn about what ya’ll do. Investigations stuff.”

“You’re kiddin’ me. A pretty little girl like you?”

Erica tried hard not to glare at him. She needed something from him. Something important.

“Just doesn’t seem like the kind of work that pretty ladies like you would be interested in is all,” he added.

Erica lowered her voice. “I’m writing a book. A mystery. So I’m, you know, doing some research.”

For a second, his eyes filled with what looked to be curiosity. “No shit? School project or the real thing?”

“The real thing,” Erica said between clenched teeth. The guy turned her stomach with his incompetence. But she knew the sheriff wouldn’t give her the time of day, much less the FBI, so her hands were tied.

“What about?”

“Can’t really say,” she said. “Anyway, think I could tag along with you a little? Watch how you investigate?”

Guitreaux shook his head. “Oh, I don’t know about that. You may be a little distracting, honey. . . if you know what I mean.”

“No. I don’t. What do you mean?”

He looked her over for a long moment. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Hmm. . . yeah, I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”