The Debt Collector (20 page)

Sonora looked up and down the road. Sam had picked his spot carefully. No one around to ask for directions.

On the left, an old cemetery, crumbling white headstones sagging tiredly against one another beneath the branches of a giant barren oak. It would be beautiful and peaceful come spring. Across the road, an old Baptist church, red brick. A tiny rural congregation. Trim green lawn, well-kept Kentucky bluegrass.

A small white sign said pisgah pike, historic district.

Sam pointed at the map and Sonora looked over his shoulder, pretending to make sense of the lines and splotches of color. They both knew better.

“We take a right here,” Sam said.

“Do we?”

“There should be a restaurant about a mile on the left. Some kind of barbecue place.”

Sonora looked up and down the road. On the right was an old stone fence, built, according to the sign, by Irish laborers before the Civil War and much appreciated by the clusters of cows eating the grass.

“Way the hell out here? Sam, who would go to it? The cows? This is screwed up. We're lost here, admit it.”

He frowned at the map, looked up, squinting. “The landmarks are right. Church, cemetery.”

“There's not going to be a barbecue place out in the middle of nowhere.”

“This isn't
nowhere
, Sonora. It's Woodford County.”

“I thought this place was in
Fayette
County.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we cross the county line somewhere around here.”

“Sam, we're lost.”

“We're not lost.”

“We should have met this guy, this Detective Whitmore, in Lexington, like he offered.”

“Why go all the way to town and then come all the way back out here? Don't you want a look at the place on our own, before we deal with those SWAT guys?”

“Yes, you know I do.”

Sam refolded the map, restarted the car.

“How do you do that, anyway?” Sonora asked, rooting in her purse for her cell phone. Martha Brooks's phone was on the seat. She took it everywhere.

“Do what?” Sam checked over his left shoulder and turned out onto Old Frankfort Pike, going right for the mythical restaurant that Sonora knew they would never find.

“Fold that map up just like it was.”

“It's a guy skill. Beats the hell out of wadding it into a huge ball and throwing it into the backseat.”

“I only did that one time.”

Sam drove slowly. The houses were smaller here, closer to the road. They passed a sagging, boarded-up cement-block building that had never been pretty, though it had once provided groceries, beer, and car parts. The faded sign said
FLOYD'S BARGAIN HOUSE
. She still didn't see any sign of a restaurant, but the road was leading them through an area that could pass for rural congestion if one were optimistic. But a restaurant? That was going to be stretching it.

“There we go.” Sam had that superior tone of voice. “Good Ole Days Barbecue Restaurant.”

Sonora squinted out the window. It was new-looking, a log-cabin air about it, but not a place she'd be afraid to walk into. A sign on the door said
CLOSED
. Good Ole Days looked like it had been closed for months, though it had the spruced-up air of a place that was reopening soon.

A beige Dodge Ram pickup was parked to the side. No driver. Sam pulled into the small square parking lot of a grocery store separated from the restaurant by a sagging wood fence. Two ancient gas pumps stood in front of the grocery store, one in use.

“Step two. The restaurant. The one you said doesn't exist. Only thing missing is Detective Whitmore.”

“That's his car?”

“Yeah, his personal ride. What, you think we should have a meeting of the Taurus and the Crown Victoria way the hell out here, stand around in suits, and talk into radios? Might as well send these guys a fax and let them know we're on the way.”

“So how come we didn't take your pickup?”

He paused. “Didn't think of it, that's why.”

Sonora looked around the rectangular parking lot, counted three pickup trucks and a '78 Mercury Cougar.

“I bet they make great sandwishes in that place,” Sam said, looking over his shoulder at the grocery.

“Sandwiches.”

“Not when you're this hungry.”

“It says they've got chicken salad on that sign in the window. Go on in, Sam.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Call home and see if I've got any messages.”

“Sonora. You've called every ten minutes since I picked you up this morning. Tim knows your cell number, doesn't he?”

“Yes, Tim knows my cell number.”

“Come on in with me, Sonora. The one who eats the last biscuit gets to kiss the cook.”

Only Sam said things like that. “No thanks.”

Sam shrugged, got out of the car. Hesitated. He walked around to her window and Sonora rolled it down, cell phone clutched in her left hand.

“What?”

“Honey, you called all the hospitals and the jail, right?”

“At least twice.”

“Okay, then. I was a teenage boy once. And I'm telling you, Tim is okay. He's holed up at a friend's house, in some kind of trouble that seems real big to him, like skipping school or something. Right now he's sleeping late instead of going to school, and when he wakes up he'll fool around trying to work up the courage to call you.”

“Sam, the kid has got to know I'm half out of my mind.”

“No, Sonora, he's hoping—stupidly, but kids live in La La Land, as you well know—he's hoping that you're so absorbed in this case you haven't had a chance to miss him.”

“Sam, I am not the kind of mother that gets so absorbed in her work she doesn't know when her kids don't come home! And I can't think of one good reason for him not to at least
call
me. Pick up the damn phone!” Her voice broke and she gritted her teeth.

“I know. He'll call, in his own good time. You just have to keep your sanity till then.” He leaned into the open window. “Sonora, do you want to go home? You don't have to do this.”

“No, Sam.”

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Some,” she lied. She didn't tell him that she didn't sleep under the best of circumstances. Teenage sons not coming home were not the best of circumstances.

“It's happened before, right?” Sam asked.

“Right.” In her ears, her voice sounded strangled and tight.

“And where was he last time?”

“Out with his buddies.”

“So—”

“That was a weekend, Sam. This is a school night.”

“Sonora, go home.”

“
Hell
, no.”

“Are you going to be able to keep your mind on the job? These guys aren't exactly a cake walk. You don't want to be worrying about Tim when we're bringing down a guy like Aruba.”

“Sam. Get your sandwich and let me make my call.” She hadn't meant to sound quite so brusque, but that's the way it came out.

“I hope it makes you feel better, taking everything out on me. I like to know when I suffer for a good cause.” But he smiled at her while he said it, and she would have felt better, if it had at all been possible.

38

When her cell phone rang, Sonora was sitting sideways in the driver's seat, door propped open, feet on the floorboards, elbows on her knees and chin in hand. Not exactly relaxed.

The phone was in her lap. She sat up, leaned against the seat cushion.

“Detective Blair?”

She was aware of a sinking disappointment. Her son called her Detective Mom, from time to time, but never Detective Blair.

“It's Jack Van Owen. We met—”

“Of course.” What the hell did he want? How had he gotten her number?

“Listen, I understand you've had one of your chicks go missing. He's okay, by the way.”

Sonora got out of the car, catching a glimpse of her face in the side-view mirror. She had gone very white. She walked back and forth along the driver's side of the Taurus, feet making crunching noises in the gravel.

“Let's hear it.” She amazed herself—the calm, worldly mom-voice flowed like melted butter over the thud of her pulse.

“He got caught up in some minor trouble in Boone County.”

“
Boone
County? Good Lord.”

“I know.” Van Owen's voice was kind and soothing. “I didn't get the impression it amounts to very much. But I don't think the bumper sticker on his car helped.”

“The one that says i'm driving this way to piss you off?”

Van Owen laughed. “No. The one that says
BRUNO'S PIZZA AND BLUES, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
.”

“That was on there when we bought the car. He bought the car.” She never liked people to know she helped.

“Yeah, but you know.”

She did. Interstate 75 between Cincinnati and Chicago was a major drug route, and the boys from Burlington drew a pretty tight net.

“Guy that arrested him is pretty decent. I think you'll be able to get things worked out okay.”

“God, Van Owen, I can't thank you enough.”

“Oh, hell no, I have a son. Been there, done that. When Crick called me—”

That answered that.

“—he said you were probably half a jump ahead of a fit, and he knows I know a few people. I think he wants your mind on the job right about now. Listen, I'm going to let you go. I have a feeling your son may be calling sometime in the next little while.”

“Jack, I mean it. Thank you.”

“Hey, they're the children of our heart, aren't they? Good-bye, Sonora.”

39

A ratty pickup truck, much dented and minus a working muffler, passed slowly on the road, coming to a crawl as it approached the grocery-store parking lot. The front seat was stuffed with four men, short, dark-skinned, black-haired. In the back of the truck were hay bales and a rusted-out wheelbarrow. The truck slowed and the driver stared at Sonora, who stood with her back resting on the dirty bumper of the Taurus.

The front door of the grocery store opened, and the driver of the truck changed his mind about whatever it was he'd been going to say. Sonora looked over her shoulder.

She would have sworn, if she hadn't known better, that the two men coming out the front door had grown up together as friends, if not brothers, so easily did the conversation flow, both with that relaxed air of men who know each other well enough to tell dirty jokes, complain about their jobs, and—a huge sign of trust—take each other's recommendations on mechanics. They had the matched stride of tall, broad-shouldered men who support the same football team.

Detective Whitmore, Sonora had no doubt. A tall black man, skin the color of midnight, seemingly oblivious to the casual dress that was the new trend in police work. He seemed as comfortable in his wrinkled suit as Sonora was in her oldest, most worn-out Reeboks.

He turned sideways, answering a question from Sam. The suit, creased along the backside, could not quite disguise the man's broad pear shape, and the suit coat swayed from large, rounded shoulders. The lines down the side of his cheek and the sloping, tired shoulders said salesman after one too many meetings—or an overworked cop.

Whitmore inserted the last bite of a hot dog in his mouth, wadding a catsup-stained piece of white tissue into a tight ball. He looked over at the Taurus, raised a hand at Sonora. Sam saluted her with an Ale-8-1. She knew, from past experience, that he would have bought a packet of peanuts and funneled them into the bottle, a bizarre Southern custom Sonora did not understand. She always expected him to choke.

“Police Specialist Blair, meet Detective Ron Whitmore.”

“How cha do?” Whitmore had a coarse, gray-streaked mustache, and an understanding face. He was taller even than Sam; and his large, square hand dwarfed Sonora's.

“How's it going?” she said.

“Pretty well. I was telling your partner here we're in shape, almost anyway. Still a little paperwork, but I've got Mai working on it downtown. Been watching your boys for the last twenty-four hours, got a man out there right now.” He glanced over his shoulder at the grocery store, flexed his right shoulder like a man who ached, and leaned sideways on the back of the Taurus.

“The older guy, the blond. Aruba?”

Sonora nodded.

Whitmore scratched his cheek. “Far as we know, he's still in there.”

“Where's there?” Sonora said.

“Two miles down, on the right, just past the Woodford-Fayette County line. About five or six little white row houses.”

“Row houses? Out here?”

Whitmore shrugged. “Whatever you call 'em. Built cheap out of concrete block and shingle, whitewashed, no more than one or two rooms inside. Tiny little places, built maybe thirty years ago. The car's out back, the Monte Carlo, paint primer on the right fender. Registered to Aruba's sister, Belinda Kinkle.”

“She there?” Sam said.

“She's there, and so are her three children. Baby, a toddler, and a five-year-old boy. We've been watching and hoping the sister will bring the kids on out of there, but except for taking the dog to the bathroom, they've all stayed inside.”

“They've got a dog?” Sonora said.

“Rottweiler, from the looks of it.”

Sam sighed. “Why is it always a rottweiler?”

Whitmore shrugged. “Your other boy got sent out to do the marketing. Went to the Meadowthorpe Bread Co-op, last I heard he was at Kroger's.”

“Buying milk,” Sonora said, making a mental note that she needed some herself.

“Or beer.” This from Sam.

“He's got the car,” Whitmore told them. “I got a guy on him. Soon as we get our paperwork through, we'll pick him up.”

“I'd like to grab him before he goes back home,” Sonora said.

Whitmore nodded. “Mai will give me a call soon as Judge Hooper signs the order. Paperwork straight on your end?”