Darkness on the Edge of Town (7 page)

“No.  We’re not computer literate around here.  Excuse me.  I have to check the cookies.”

A dresser drawer screeched as Buddy opened it with latexed hands.

Laura looked up sharply.  Holland returned her look, eyes devoid of all expression.  She’d seen that look before, had used it herself.  Cops who detested each other still had to work together, so they did it with as few words possible, just enough to get the job done.  No one did cold as well as a cop.

Laura said, “No computer in the house, but she probably has access to one at school.  You really think crazy girl 12 has something to do with the Internet?”

“Could be.” Then he did something she didn’t expect: Volunteered.  “Let me check it out.  I know my way around the Net pretty well. If she’s  there, I can probably track her down.”

It was the longest speech she’d ever heard from him.  “What would you do?”

“Check out Internet Relay Chats, see if I can find her there.”

Laura seized on the one word of the three she understood.  “You mean chat rooms?”

“Uh-huh.”  He didn’t elaborate.  “You want me to or not?”

She nodded. “I think you should.”

A photograph on the dresser top caught her eye—Jessica and a young man she assumed was Cary Statler.  Jessica was pretty in a short denim skirt and halter top.  Statler was a skinny, sleepy-looking kid in a black t-shirt and dirty-looking jeans.  His hair looked like a pineapple top. 

Buddy had gone back to searching, rummaging through a make-up caddy, then moving on to a velvet-lined box holding her earrings, bracelets and anklets.  A tinny sound as an anklet hit the floor.  Doing it to annoy her.

“Buddy.”

“What?”

“Why don’t you interview Mr. Parris?”

Shrug. “Fine with me.”

He snapped off his gloves and left the room. 

The stillness contrasted with all his banging.  Now maybe she could get a feel for the girl.

Jessica had a thing for girly stuff: Flavored lip gloss; smiley-faced colognes with names like Cool Diva and Cha Cha Chica; and at least a dozen tubes of  Sungirl—sun care products with glitter.

Laura looked at the photo again, wondering what about it nagged her.   

It would come.

She looked through the dresser drawers and closet: Blue jeans, peasant blouses, halters, clogs.  Jessica’s underwear was neatly folded in her dresser drawers.  Bikini underwear in pastel colors, a couple of bras—Victoria’s Secret type stuff.  They looked sophisticated for a fourteen-year-old girl, at least the fourteen-year-old girl Laura had been.  A different era. She found a few homework assignments jammed into a bookshelf, most of the answer spaces blank.  Round handwriting with hearts to dot the ‘i’s.  No diary, unless Jessica kept it in a secret place.  No books other than schoolbooks and the Harry Potter series, which was lined up in the book case like those leather-bound classics people displayed for show.   Laura couldn’t say for sure, but she doubted that Jessica had cracked one of them.

Lots of
stuff
.   Laura had read somewhere that tweens—eight to fourteen-year-olds—had so much discretionary income and expensive tastes that they drove the whole economy.  Not just the U.S. economy, but the world’s.

She noticed a newspaper clipping from a modeling agency tucked into the frame of the dresser mirror.  Mrs. Parris had told her Jessica had wanted to be a model or a rock star. 

Now she would be neither.

Laura walked into the kitchen, where the smell of baking cookies was overwhelming.  Mrs. Parris fluttered back and forth through the sunny kitchen like a bird trapped indoors, her movements increasingly frantic.

“How are you doing?” Laura asked.

Mrs. Parris checked the heat on the oven.  “We’re okay.  I mean.  It’s horrible, but…”  She wiped a strand of red hair from her eyes. 

“I’m sorry, but I have some more questions.” Laura set her mini cassette recorder on the kitchen counter. 

“I know.  You have to ask your questions.  We want to find the guy who did this.” She said this last brightly.

“Mrs. Parris, do you know if she used a computer at school?”

 Her brow wrinkled. “I think so.”

 “She never talked about it?  You know, emailing her friends?”

“I wouldn’t know email from a hole in the wall. I’m not the least bit technical.” She stared at the oven.  “Jessica loved to bake cookies. That’s why I’m doing it today.  Kind of in her memory.” 

“Where’s Cary?”  

“Cary?”  Linda Parris looked stunned.

“Her boyfriend.  Doesn’t he live here?”

“Oh.”  She floundered for a moment, as if she’d dropped a thought and had to consciously pick it up again.  “We’re kind of like his foster parents, even though there’s nothing official.  You must think that odd, but it really isn’t.  He needs us.  We love him as if he’s our own son.”

“He and Jessica were boyfriend and girlfriend, though?”

“I know what you’re thinking.  We had very strict rules, her father did.  Cary lives in our travel trailer out back.  Not in the house.  But he’s a nice boy.”

“Were they sexually active?”

Defiance.  “Yes.  I found out about that a couple of months ago.  And you know what I did?  I marched her down to Planned Parenthood and got her birth control pills.  You might think I’m a bad mother, but I did what I had to do, and I didn’t want our child
having
a child.”

“I’m not judging you, Mrs. Parris.”

“Please don’t say anything to her father.  He’d have a fit if he knew.”

Laura thought that he probably did know.  “I see no reason to tell him.  So you don’t know where Cary is?”

Mrs. Parris frowned.  “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him for awhile.”

“Since Jessica was missing?”

“I’m not…”  She didn’t finish her thought.

“You don’t know when he was here last?”

“He comes and goes.  He has an uncle in Tucson—sometimes he stays there weeks at a time, especially after—“ she stopped.  Her eyes widened slightly.

“After what?”

“After a fight.” Linda Parris looked past Laura, out the window. 

Laura took note of the present tense and decided to stick with it.  “With Jessica?  Do they fight a lot?”

“No, no, nothing like what you’re thinking. Just arguments.  Jessica can be—she could get dramatic.  Cary just stayed out of her way, let her cool down.  That’s all it was.”

“When was their last fight?”

“I know they weren’t talking earlier in the week.”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

“It’s not like that. David and I would never bring someone into our home that we thought would be dangerous to our daughter.”

“Mrs. Parris, I have to know.  When was the last time you saw him?”

“I think it was…two, three days ago.  But it’s not what you think. He keeps to himself a lot, likes to go for long walks.  Sometimes he stays with friends.  That’s what Jessica loves most about him, even though it drove her crazy sometimes.  She said he was a free spirit.  I know what you’re hinting at and you’re wrong.  We would never put our own daughter in danger.”

“I understand that, but it’s important I talk to him.  It’s very likely he doesn’t know Jessica is gone.  Don’t you agree he should know?”

She nodded reluctantly.  Laura asked for the uncle’s address and phone number, and Linda Parris found it in her address book and copied it on paper from the memo pad stuck to the refrigerator, a flag at the top above the phrase “United We Stand”. 

Linda moved back to the sink and carefully washed the mixing bowl and set it in the dishwasher.  She stared out the window again.  “We had so many good times.  Last Saturday we spent the morning weeding.  Jessie and her dad went to the Arctic Circle for hamburgers.  She got mine with mustard but not ketchup—she knew I didn’t like ketchup.  That was a great day.”

She continued to stare out the window.

Something brushed Laura’s ankles.  She looked down.  A Siamese cat rubbed against her trouser legs.

Laura was attracted to animals the way some people were attracted to babies.  She hunkered down and stroked the cat.

“That’s Princess, Jessie’s cat.”  Linda Parris’s voice broke.  “Jessie found her in a Dumpster at the school.  Half-starved, sick.  Her father told her Princess was her responsibility—she couldn’t keep her unless she did everything.  Feed her, clean the catbox, use her allowance to get her spayed…”  She was rambling.

The cat climbed up into Laura’s arms and onto her shoulder.  It felt natural to Laura; the small vibrating body, the warmth.  Comforting. 

Holding the cat, she thought of Jessica.  Jessica, who liked Josh Hartnett and Nelly. Jessica, who took such good care of her cat.  Something crumbled in her chest, and tears pricked the corner of her eyes.

She turned away so the mother couldn’t see and set the cat down.

As Laura left through the front door, she glanced up the street at the roped-off area where the turnouts were.  Officer Noone stood in the road, hands on his waist above his heavy duty belt, the yellow crime scene tape quivering behind him.  When he saw her he waved.  If he was bored by his new duty— waiting for the tire cast to dry—he didn’t show it.

Buddy appeared from around the corner of the house, where David Parris, Jessica’s father, was hammering away at something. 

Buddy nodded toward Noone.  “You about done up there?”

“Might be another half hour.  How’s Mr. Parris?”

“Wouldn’t talk to me.  We put up three sections of rain gutter, though.”

“Wouldn’t talk at all?”

“The only thing he said was, if Cary Statler ever showed his face around here again, he’d kill him.”

As Laura reached the turn-out, Noone said, “They’re almost dry.”

Beside the metal-framed cast lay a couple of sticks, all that was left of a sampling of twigs, grass and debris Laura had instructed Noone to collect from around the site.  These Laura had used to reinforce the plaster.  Not only would it make the cast stronger, but it would also supply a soil and debris sample for the crime lab.  Laura picked up a stout twig and wrote her initials onto the cast, along with the case number. 

“I never saw anyone take a tire cast before. It’s pretty interesting,” Noone offered.  “Too bad there weren’t any footprints.”

It was clear Officer Noone had made the leap from the motorhome sighting on Brewery Gulch to the abduction of Jessica Parris on West Boulevard, concluding that the killer had used a motorhome. 

“These tracks could belong to anyone.  I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

“But it could be his.”

“Could be.” Emphasis on the
could
.  

To business. 

Musicman wrote: “D—  Your shipment has come in.”

Immediately , a reply popped up.  DARK MOONDANCER:  Hello, friend.

Musicman’s fingers flew over the keys. 

MUSICMAN:  I have that special order you requested.

DARK MOONDANCER: Same price?

MUSICMAN: Two thousand more.

DARK MOONDANCER: Verification?

MUSICMAN:  Turn on the local news.

DARK MOONDANCER: That one?  You’re in my jurisdiction! Let’s meet.

MUSICMAN: I never meet my clientele. It’s not good to mix business with pleasure.

DARK MOONDANCER: You do it all the time, mix business with pleasure LOL. But seriously, we are an exclusive club, you and I. Please come visit.  Bring a friend. 

MUSICMAN: My plans are fluid at the moment.  

DARK MOONDANCER: Fluid? There’s a pun.  So you are still here. I would have thought you’d be a thousand miles away by now.

MUSICMAN: Parting is such sweet sorrow.

DARK MOONDANCER: Don’t be cryptic.  I’d love to know what’s going on in your mind.

MUSICMAN: Shall I make the shipment or not?

DARK MOONDANCER: By all means.  As before, payment is forthcoming.  But if you’re planning an extended stay, do give serious thought to my invitation. You might not come this way again.

Musicman thought:
We have less in common than you think
. 

Dark Moondancer’s desires were base, his enthusiasm clumsy.  He didn’t get the subtle distinctions; he was just another cretin saturated with blood lust, looking for a vicarious thrill. The guy reminded him of a comic book character—way over the top. 

Still, he paid the bills.

Musicman pulled up the photograph he intended to use: baby ducks following their mother across a lawn.  Beautiful, the play of sunlight and shadow on their soft yellow down.  So innocent.  And yet beneath the surface resided a dark secret. 

A secret that, truth to tell, shamed him. 

He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t need the money.  So far he’d ignored Dark Moondancer’s hints about escalating the violence—it just wasn’t his way.  Even with this one—who’d made him so fucking angry!—he’d stopped short of fulfilling Dark Moondancer’s requests.  Partly because he didn’t like the sight of blood (although he’d proven that he
could
deal with it if he had to), and partly because he didn’t like Dark Moondancer or anybody else calling the shots.

This was
his
show.

Musicman knew, though, that Dark Moondancer was getting impatient.  The gravy train wouldn’t last forever. 

Utilizing a user-friendly software program he had downloaded from the Internet, Musicman embedded the first photo into the picture of the baby ducks.  He pulled up another scenic from his photo library—boats in a marina. 

He would send four pics in all.  Each pic would be encrypted and require a password to open.  Dark Moondancer would have the baby ducks, but he would not have the real picture underneath until Musicman got his payment.  Only then would he send back the encrypted password. 

He pictured Dark Moondancer looking at the little duckies, wishing he could see what was underneath. 

“Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink,” Musicman intoned.  He hit the SEND button, consigning the ducklings and their invisible cargo into the ether.

“Her hyoid was broken,” Cochise County ME Carmen Sotomayor said as she snapped off her gloves and dropped them into a BIO HAZARD container.