Stay (22 page)

“Yes,” Luz said in English, and patted him on the head. He went back to playing. She resumed her tale. “Y la virgen reina escucha en caso que rezas. Y cuando mueras vas a su palacio en cielo, que tiene tantos colores lindas y lo huele a… a flores. Y cirios se quemarsen en grutes, y huelen bien también.”

And the virgin queen listens if you pray. And when you die you go to her palace in heaven, which is such pretty colors, and smells like flowers. And there are candles in grottoes, and they smell good too.

It was a six- or seven-year-old’s vocabulary, apart from
grotto
. Her native tongue. I couldn’t understand how she had retained so much. Adeline Carpenter would not approve of the Virgin Mary being called the queen of heaven, nor of any talk of cathedrals and incense and diamonds.

“El palacio es— Button, put that down.” She sounded so much older speaking English. Button had found something on the floor he liked. He stood up and carried it into the closest column of sunlight. It glittered. “That’s very pretty. Let me see.” She held out her hand. He handed it over reluctantly. A piece of old bottle glass. She sighed, just like Adeline. “Glass, Button. Glass. What did Aba tell you about glass? It might hurt you. If you see it on the floor, don’t pick it up.”

“Glass,” he muttered, unconvinced, but then something else caught his eye, and Luz sighed again.

“Fue un relate agradable,” I said—it was a nice story—and her head whipped round. “You don’t need to be afraid.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said in English.

“Yes you do,” I said, still in Spanish. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise. Not even Aba.”

She opened her mouth, then thought better of it and shut it again. Her eyes narrowed. I’d seen that look on a hundred suspects’ faces: I would get nothing from her.

She was still studying me. “You talk different when no one else is around.”

Careless again. The child was smart; pointless trying to lie to her now. “So do you.”

“Why?”

“Why do you?”

I watched her work out that we both had things to hide. She decided she wanted to keep it that way. “Button!” she called. “How about we go indoors for some milk?”

“Milk?”

“Milk,” she said firmly, with a look at me. I was briefly tempted to wring her neck.

“But I want to stay out here!” His face began to crumple. “Want to stay here!”

The next step would be a full-blown tantrum. I knew when I was beaten; there were other ways to get the information.

Jud and Adeline found me sitting on the front step. I stood, drained the last of the coffee, and handed the mug to Adeline. It would be washed and free of fingerprints in minutes. “Perfect timing,” I said. I put my gloves back on.

“Thank you again,” she said. “The gas station’s just two miles north on 10, then it’ll be a four-, five-mile drive back to the truck.”

Jud said nothing at all.

“Shall we?” I gestured at the truck. He nodded.

He sat as before, though this time his hands rested on dark blue denim, and his shoes were sturdy work boots. Perhaps it was my imagination but he seemed a little less stiff.

At the gas station, the attendant seemed to know who Jud was and filled a cheap plastic gas can without comment. I went in and bought myself coffee in a go cup. Jud settled his bill in cash. He counted his change so carefully that I felt guilty about the ten dollars’ worth of gas I’d siphoned off earlier. I shook my head as we walked separately back to the truck. These people were profiting from the abuse of a young child. I wasn’t here to feel sorry for them.

We drove to the stranded pickup without exchanging a word. He climbed out, then leaned forward to speak through the open window. “Wife tells me you’ve been sick.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll be in our prayers.” And he nodded once again, and walked away.

I parked in what was by now the familiar off-road spot behind the rise and took my mat, field glasses, receiver, and go cup to the top of the hill. No movement outside. I extended the receiver’s aerial, plugged in the headphones, and put them on. I had to take my gloves off for fine-tuning the receiver, but then I had it: running water, dishes banging, a drawer opening and shutting. From only three or four hundred yards, there was little distortion. I made a slow sweep with the field glasses. Inside the house a door opened, then closed. Then nothing.

I sipped at the coffee. All I had achieved with my visit so far was the discovery that the situation was complicated. I wondered what Tammy was doing, whether she had called Dornan yet, and what would happen then: to her, to Dornan. To me.

Adeline started to hum. It wasn’t a hymn but an old show tune. Fringed buckskin, white teeth, blond hair… and then I had it: Doris Day in
Calamity Jane
, singing about the windy city. When her husband wasn’t around, did Adeline dream of being transformed by a big-city suitor?

After a while I heard Jud’s pickup. I wondered what had taken him so long. Maybe he’d been giving thanks for the gas. He drove round the back of the house. Two minutes later, the back door slammed.

“Sit,” came Adeline’s voice, loud and tinny from the receiver. “We’ll eat.”

Scraping of a chair, chink of cutlery on crockery. Scrape of another chair. Moment’s silence. Then, “Dear Lord, we’re thankful for this food. Amen.” Jud’s voice. “Amen,” Adeline’s voice. Food sounds: lighter
tink
of spoons on bowls.

Adeline’s voice: “Truck all right?”

Pause, while I imagined Jud nodding. “Drove her to the gas station, had John put her up on the blocks. No leak as I could see.” Eating noises. Pause. “Gas come to near nineteen dollars.” Audible sigh: Adeline. “Children fine?” Jud asked.

“Out back. Right as rain.” Which was more than Adeline sounded. “Jud?” Eating noises. “Jud, why haven’t we heard?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“We should have heard by now. How can we manage without that money?”

“We’ll hear soon enough.” Definite tones in his voice of I-don’t-want-to-think-about-it-right-now.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have written to Miz Goulay, maybe it’ll make him mad. But that check should’ve come a week ago, more. He’s never missed before. We need that money.”

Chair scraping. “Tractor needs work,” Jud said. The door closed behind him. Adeline sighed and started collecting the dishes, then stopped, and it took me a moment to identify the strange sounds: she was crying.

I
had finished the coffee and refilled the cup
with lukewarm tea from my flask when I saw movement in my peripheral vision: a car moving down the road to the Carpenters’ house. I put down the cup and focused the field glasses. My adrenal system switched from standby to power mode. A dark gray Maxima, a man driving and a woman in the back. Not the configuration for a social call.

The Maxima parked three or four yards from the Carpenters’ front door, and the man took just long enough to remove the keys and open his door to tell me the car was probably a rental. He climbed out, looked around. Sloppy training. He should have looked around before he parked, and again before he left the car. He should have familiarized himself with his vehicle. He should have looked up. He closed his door, checked around one more time before opening the woman’s door.

The woman who got out of the car wore expensive, beautifully draped trousers, handmade boots, and a cashmere twinset under a camel-hair overcoat. Gold earrings gleamed below her short blond hair. Subtle cosmetics; a touch of color on a strong, straight mouth. No purse. One in the car? Even royalty must show ID to board a scheduled flight. Her clothes were good, but not private plane level.

They approached the door, him walking a yard ahead and a little to her left. Small steps, and slightly pigeon-toed, like an amateur weight lifter or college football player. Haircut from somewhere north and east of Arkansas. Gray suit, from one of the better department stores by its looks, and cleverly tailored around the shoulders and chest. The cleverness was wasted: the swing of his left arm was a little careful, a little self-conscious. Not a cop, though. Cops have to carry their guns all the time.

My heart began to hum like a turbine.

He knocked on the door, then stepped aside for the woman. I measured him against the doorframe: an inch or two taller than me and much, much wider. Not a good idea to get within closing distance of those arms. But maybe this had nothing to do with Luz. I finished my tea, crumpled the cup one-handed.

The door opened. From the expression on Adeline Carpenter’s face it was plain that her visitors were not strangers but that their arrival was a surprise, and worrying.

Adeline said something. The woman said something. Adeline stepped to one side and the woman, then the man, went in. The door closed. Muffled noise from the kitchen transmitter. Maybe they were talking in the hall. More noise. Definitely voices. I should have thought to put a bug in the hallway. Or the living room. It had seemed unused, not a good choice for my limited resources, but it was just the place Adeline would take guests, especially well-dressed ones. I flexed my knee, scanned the windows. Nothing.

But then the kitchen door creaked, and Adeline’s voice came clearly.

“—in the oven. Please, take a seat.”

“You don’t seem pleased to see us, Adeline.” The woman’s voice was smooth and light, but with the occasional metallic Boston vowel.

“I thought maybe you would write. Or call.”

“Yes, well, I have the kind of news best delivered in person. I’m sorry to tell you that Mr. Karp is dead.” My hands tightened on the field glasses and I lost the focus for a moment. “—sending any more checks.”

“Dead?”

“At least so far as the courts would see it. He’s in a coma that he won’t be coming back out of. A vegetable. I can make up this month’s arrears from my own account, that’s only fair. But I have to tell you there won’t be any more to come.”

“But I need…” The rest of Adeline’s soft voice was lost. Or maybe she just trailed off. She cleared her throat. “Hay prices were down this fall. With two children we depend on that money.”

“Which is why I’ve come to take Luz off your hands.”

Three hundred yards. With this knee it would take at least two minutes to get down there. Another two to disable the car. Two more to get back out of sight. I scanned for hiding places closer to the house.

Someone shifted noisily in their chair. Probably the man. “Take Luz?” Adeline sounded bewildered.

“It’s for the best,” the woman said. “Her sponsor can’t help her anymore, and there’s no provision in his will for her maintenance.” She couldn’t know that; he wasn’t dead yet.

“But what—”

“We’ve found another sponsor.”

The hum in my chest climbed a note.

“We could—”

“He wants Luz to be fostered closer to his residence. Now, Adeline, I know you and Jud have done a fine job, and I’m prepared to offer you a bonus, something to help you redecorate her room, perhaps, after she’s gone. Where is the child?”

“She’s out back.” Her voice got stronger. “On the land. Might not be back till suppertime.”

“Then you’d better start looking for her now. Mike here would be glad to help. These things are best done quickly.”

“But her things…”

“Not necessary. Her new sponsor will see to it that she has everything she—”

A crash. The stew dishes? The hum in my chest rose to a whine. Someone was saying something quietly, over and over again, softly at first, but then loud enough for me to hear. “… not right. That’s not right.” Adeline. Her voice grew thick and stubborn. “We’ve cared for that child for close on two years, me and Jud. She’s like our—”

The woman talked right over her. “But she’s not. She’s your paying guest, no more. And now I think we’ve wasted enough time on this. Any more argument and you won’t get that check I mentioned. Mike, go find the girl.”

Scrape of chair. Creak and soft slam of door. I waited, but there was no shriek of pain as Adeline threw her boiling stew in the woman’s face, no solid crack of plate on self-satisfied Boston skull, nothing but silence. Adeline would do nothing to stop this woman bundling Luz into the rented Maxima and driving away. Because I don’t know how, Tammy had said.

My breath poured in and out, in and out.

Choose, Julia had said.

I swore viciously, rolled up the mat around my gear, picked it up with one hand, and ran for the truck.

I drove fast, yanking the truck through the turns. The man and woman would be leaving soon, with the girl. The man had a gun and I did not. I would need a diversion. On the way to the trailer I watched for turnoffs and side roads, looking for hedges or trees or other potential screens for a roadblock. Nothing big enough.

I slammed into the campground in a cloud of dust. The trailer wasn’t hooked up to power or sewage, but it still took precious minutes to get it hitched to the truck. There was no time for precautions; anything loose would just have to break. Halfway down the dirt road, I braked hard, found the thermos, and got out. I kicked a hole in the dirt with my heel, poured in the tea, and scrabbled it about with a stick until it was mud. I picked up a double handful: one went on the truck’s front license plate, the other on the trailer’s. It would dry on the way.

Driving more than sixty on a narrow Arkansas road while pulling six and a half tons of trailer behind you is not fun but I was all out of options. When the familiar rise came into view I didn’t slow: six hundred yards, five hundred, four, and at three hundred yards I stood on the brakes and pulled a long, curving skid, fighting the wheel, feeling the trailer begin to catch up with the truck, easing the brakes and goosing the engine just enough to stay ahead of a disastrous jackknife, hanging on, braking again, until I heard a sharp crack and the rig juddered to a halt, slewed right across both lanes, blocking them. I jumped down from the cab, swore at the spike of pain in my knee The rubber burn was long, and stank of danger only just averted. It looked convincing, at least at first glance, which was all I’d need.

But that crack had not been part of the plan. A quick look under the chassis showed no ominous leaking of fluid. I couldn’t see anything when I walked around the trailer and truck. Could be the hitch. But this wasn’t the time to find out. I got back in the cab, made sure the truck would still start, turned it off, and climbed out again with the field glasses. I hurried, but with my knee it took nearly two minutes to work myself around the rise without the possibility of being seen from the house. The car was still there. I lay on my belly and focused on the front door.

The door opened. Mike came out first, carrying a child’s suitcase—Luz’s. She’d get to take some of her things after all. It looked ridiculously small and light, or perhaps Mike just made it seem so. He put the case in the trunk of the car. He turned, and even from this distance I saw his surprise. I pulled back on the focus: Jud stood immobile and as far as I could see unspeaking on the far right of the house. Then he walked off around the back. Mike shrugged to himself, then leaned against the car, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded, lifting his face to the weak afternoon sunlight. I focused back in. He stood up and unfolded his arms when the woman stepped through the door, her hand on Luz’s shoulder. Luz’s face was very pale. She kept twisting her head to look back, and now Adeline appeared in the doorway. Adult and child stretched their hands to each other. I couldn’t imagine what Adeline was saying. They didn’t touch. Adeline followed Luz and the woman to the Maxima. Mike lifted his hands and spread them as though he was about to step in front of Adeline and take her by the arms, stop her from going any further, when suddenly everything changed. They were all looking to the right. I pulled out again: Jud stood by the side of the house, a shotgun at his shoulder. His cheeks glittered in the sun.

Nobody moved for two or three seconds, then Mike lifted both hands as if to say, Hey, I’m harmless, and Adeline stepped in front of her husband. She touched Jud’s cheek, said something. Not this way, maybe. Or perhaps, It’s not worth it. Or even, I don’t want to lose you, too. Whatever it was, it worked. He lowered the gun. Mike started forward, but the woman said something and he stopped. The woman spoke again, and he opened the back door of the car. The woman put one hand on the handle and gestured to Luz with the other: Get in. Luz shook her head, and looked at Adeline. Adeline tried to smile, tried to blow a kiss to Luz, but her mouth wouldn’t shape it properly. Instead she nodded. Luz climbed in. The woman slammed the door. She smiled pleasantly at the Carpenters, then walked around to the other side of the car. Mike started the engine. The woman got in the back and closed the door, and the car pulled onto the road.

Watching in dumb show and from a distance made the whole thing look like some strange puppet performance, utterly divorced from me and my life.

When the car came over the rise, I was standing between truck and trailer, looking in fake feminine annoyance at the hitch. Mike braked, and I prayed that Luz was either too smart or too much in shock to speak. I waved in that awkward, wind-screen wiper way people with no physical coordination do, and smiled, and then threw my hands up as if to say, It just broke! Mike looked back at the woman and said something. She nodded. He climbed out of the car, already wearing that tolerant, capable-urban-man-approaching-silly-rural-woman expression I had counted on.

“I am so glad to see you!” I said. “If this just doesn’t beat all. I had to put the brake on so hard I thought that was it, time to visit Jesus. You’re just the man I want to see. See here? Around this side?” I walked around the truck so that the hitch was between us. He followed. We were now out of the woman’s line of sight. “I’m just not strong enough to lift this thingie back on.”

I pointed, and when he leaned forward I stepped behind him, shoved him against the side of the truck bed, and yanked his belt up with my right hand so his pants crushed his scrotum. While he concentrated on not fainting I slipped my left hand inside his jacket and slid out the gun. A Glock with the seventeen-shot magazine. Oversize, like his muscles. I thumbed off the safety and pressed the snout under his left ear. “Take out your wallet.”

“I don’t have much—”

A hard upward yank cut him off mid-sentence. “Now.” Didn’t he understand it would be easier to just shoot him, then shoot the woman and drive away?

He reached behind him and lifted it from his back right-hand pocket. He didn’t try to drop it. Good. Still in the first phase of shock.

I’d left my gloves in the truck.

“Open it.”

His hands shook as he unfolded it.

“Not the money. Your driver’s license and insurance card. Put them on the bed so I can see them.” He did. It had been about fifteen seconds. He would start to recover his wits very soon. “Don't even think about trying anything.”

I scanned the cards over his shoulder. Michael Turner, a White Plains, New York, address. Social security number on the insurance card.

“Tip out the rest of the wallet. Spread it all apart.”

American Express, MasterCard, debit card, frequent flyer cards, AAA card, an emergency contact number card.

His muscles tensed but I dropped his belt, punched him irritably over the right kidney, and had hold of the leather again before he could translate thought to action. He went limp and the rhythm of his breathing broke. No concealed weapons permit for this or any other state. No private investigator license.

“I know your name, address, and social security number.” I glanced at the emergency contact card: the name Nicki Taormino, the designation fiancée and a phone number in the person-to-be-contacted slot. “And I have your girlfriend’s number. Do exactly as I tell you and I won’t ever have to use any of that information. Upset me and I’ll shoot you in the gut. Walk two paces to your left and kneel down.”

I let go of his belt and he did as he was told.

I made sure he could see the gun trained on him. “Do you have a handkerchief? Good. Throw it to me.” He tossed me a clean, folded square, still warm from his pocket. “And your tie.” He obeyed silently. I put the tie and hankie on the truck bed with his wallet. “Now take off your belt.” He took off the belt. “Make a big loop.” It took him a moment to understand that I wanted him to thread the tongue through the buckle. The brain does not work well when the system is adrenaline-charged. “Hold it in your left hand, put that hand behind you.” His reaction time was getting slower as his system began to shut down. In three or four minutes it would rev back up, but by then he’d be helpless. “Now the right hand. Wrists together.”