The Debt Collector (36 page)

Authors: Lynn S. Hightower

BOOK: The Debt Collector

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He nudged her with an elbow. “Mom, do you mind if I go sit withâ”

“No, go on ahead.”

After her talk with Crick she had spent the rest of the day on the phone, researching, not caring who overheard, though it was very damn clear they were listening. No death certificate had been issued for Angelo Van Owen in Arlington, Texas, no death certificate for anybody of that name five years before or after. No record of an interment of Angelo Van Owen in any cemetery in Arlington, Texas.

Sonora realized she was chewing her bottom lip. She stopped. A bent man in khakis rolled a white piano to the left side of the gym, and children filed onto the three-tiered level of risers. A program that consisted of a piece of red construction paper folded in the middle listed the musical numbers that would be performed by the sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade chorus, with individual names listed on the back. Like all the other mothers, Sonora looked for Heather's name, saw that it was spelled correctly, and put her hands in her lap to wait.

The kids were at the most awkward time of their lives, and it showed in strange haircuts, tense faces, and a certain wariness. Some of them still had that untouched baby air, some were overly made up and knowing. More than a few had the look of embarrassment kids that age get just to be alive, much less to stand up in front of their peers and their parents and sing.

The chorus teacher and the pianist were both female, both dressed in severe and formal black, which pleased Sonora. She looked at the faces of her co-parents. Everyone looked tired. She recognized the interesting seating arrangements that occur at school events attended by divorced spouses and their significant others, strung together in the middle by shared children.

The chorus teacher introduced the performers, the pianist, and the man who fiddled with the microphone and speakers. She then faced the children, held up her hands, and the concert began.

The voices were young and sweet, timid at first but more enthusiastic with the director's kind and practiced encouragement. Heather looked way too grown up in a black skirt, white shirt, and red vest. She stood carefully on the middle riser in the two-inch heels, and Sonora prayed her daughter would not slip and fall, like she herself had at a concert years and years ago. She clutched the single rose she would give her daughter after the performance, a family tradition. She had been to the florist that afternoon, with two missions.

It came to Sonora that she had been much too close to the dark things. That she had come very near to something she did not even want to name.

People were smiling, the room grew warm beneath fluorescent lights. The first song stopped, everyone applauded, and Heather, looking through the audience for Mom, gave Sonora a knowing smile before her attention was gathered by the director and the next song began.

Sonora stood alone in the cemetery. It was here, in a grave site next to Jack Van Owen's wife, that she found her last trace of Angelo Van Owen. Though there was no record, no death certificate, her request for exhumation had been denied.

Her palms left sweat marks on a square cardboard box that enclosed a small white orchid, nestled in lavender tissue. She stood for a while, thinking the older she got, the harder it was to figure shit out.

She could not hate him. He had been right all along, they were very much alike, in ways that were hard to admit. What would have happened if he hadn't been shot in the line of duty, if his wife's car hadn't run into the path of that coal truck, if his son hadn't grabbed the wheel of that car?

If she had taken his hand that night at the edge of the world.

The department had finally and reluctantly abandoned Jack Van Owen. The murders of Aruba and Kinkle and the assault on Detective Sam Delarosa were still officially open.

There were those who said that she pushed Jack Van Owen over the edge of that building. People who whispered about her as she went by, men who looked at her with a weird sort of respect and a hard-edged admiration mixed with resentment. She had taken out a home invader, people had seen the crime-scene photos. She had taken out a fellow cop, and people felt ashamed.

Rumors.

Crick had been careful. Documenting the lack of scratches on her arms, making sure there were no Sonora Blair skin fragments and DNA under Jack Van Owen's fingernails, no sign of a struggle.

It didn't matter. There were those who said that Sonora had done it for expediency, that she had been pressured from higher-ups, pressured by Crick. An ex-cop going bad was an embarrassment the department did not need, not in the wake of a case that had given them warmth, approval, the spotlight.

Sonora read the gravestones. Lacy Van Owen, beloved wife and mother, 1953 to 1987. In the middle, the mystery, Angelo “Angel” Van Owen, beloved son, 1972 to 1989.

And Jack. Buried just days ago, the ground raw, no headstone yet. She left the orchid for him.

People would believe what they wanted to believe. It was how legends were born.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful for the assistance of Captain Kevin Sutton, Commander of the Emergency Response Unit, LexingtonâFayette Urban County Government, Division of Police.

My sincere thanks to Detective Maria Neal also of the Lexington Police Department, and to Detective Jim Murray, of the Cincinnati Police Department, for answering my endless questions. To attorneys John O. Morgan and James D. Lyon for information on credit collection and check cashing services, and attorney C. William Swinford for his stories. To retired FBI agent Charles Lewis for insights and answered questions, and to air traffic controller Duff Ortman for his information and stories. To Lynn Hanna, Physician Assistant, and Philip Wagner, Emergency Room Director, Georgetown Community Hospital, for all things medical, and to Pat Hanna, for the music.

To George Smock, my favorite Kentucky horseman.

To Amy Matthews, who let me borrow her candy business, Kentucky Seasons. To Benjamin, for a million reasons. To Matt and Phil and Stewart, for support above and beyond the call of duty. To Rebecca and Jay. And, as always, to my kids, Alan and Laurel and Rachel. My team.

About the Author

Lynn Hightower grew up in the South and graduated from the University of Kentucky, where she studied creative writing with Wendell Berry and earned a journalism degree. She is the author of ten novels, including two mystery series, one featuring homicide detective Sonora Blair and the other featuring private investigator Lena Padgett.
Flashpoint
, the first Sonora Blair mystery, was a New York Times Notable Book.
Satan's Lambs
, the first Lena Padget mystery, won the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. Hightower has also written the Elaki series of futuristic police procedurals, which begins with
Alien Blues
.

Hightower's novels, which have been translated into seven foreign languages, have appeared on the
Times
(London) bestseller list and have been nominated for the Kentucky Literary Award, the Kentucky Librarians First Choice Award, and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, where she was named Creative Writing Instructor of the Year in 2012. The author lives with her husband in Kentucky.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Michel Vrana

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2235-4

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com