The Snake Tattoo (11 page)

“Do you know why your daughter ran away?” I asked when he seemed to run out of chatter about his job and his wife and how hard this had been on her.

“No idea,” he said quickly. Then he hesitated, as if the first had been a knee-jerk response and not what the situation required. He said, “I don't know. Because she wants more attention, I guess. My wife, well, she has health problems. Sometimes, I don't know, I think she's almost jealous of the girls. And she's not strong. She has to rest a lot. I suppose she doesn't really take good care of any of us. Valerie had to take on a lot of responsibility early.”

“When did you see her last?”

“What's today? Thursday? A week ago Tuesday. At night. Watching TV in her room. My wife saw her the next morning.”

“And hasn't seen her since, Mr. Haslam—”

“Pres, call me Pres, okay?”

“Your daughter's been gone for over a week. Why did it take your wife so long to—”

“Look, she thought Valerie was with her friends, okay? Sherri, that's my little one, said Valerie was staying with a friend at school, and maybe she did for a few days. Maybe she's just with a different friend now.”

“Then there wasn't any argument at home, right before she took off?”

“Mathilde says there was no argument. She doesn't argue. And listen, what's important here is finding Valerie, making sure she doesn't get hurt out there. Later, when she's home, we'll deal with whatever upset her so much. You just find her. All this question-and-answer stuff isn't going to help—”

“Mr. Haslam,” I said very quietly, “if you want somebody to find your daughter and not ask questions, you'd better get yourself a bloodhound and give him a shoe to sniff. Investigators ask questions. I've already asked Jerry a few. He doesn't think Valerie ran away. If she didn't, then we have to consider other possibilities. Have you called the police?”

“No,” he said. “I, uh, I'd rather not—”

“Your daughter has been gone over a week—”

“I'd rather not,” he repeated.

“She's only fourteen years old, Mr. Haslam—”

“Listen,” he said flatly. “This isn't the first time.” He swallowed hard, avoiding my eyes, slicing his spring roll into tiny bits. “She's run away before.”

“But Jerry said—”

“Maybe Jerry doesn't know that much about Valerie,” he said. “She presents herself in different lights. She's a good little actress, my Valerie.”

“She's run away more than once?”

“Twice before,” he said. “The first time she came home on her own. Mathilde thought she might do it again. So she waited. She hoped. You can understand that.”

“And the other time—”

He pushed a piece of spring roll around his plate. “The police picked her up.”

“In the Combat Zone?”

“How did you—?”

Maybe Jerry knew more than Haslam gave him credit for.

“A lot of kids wind up there,” I said.

He rubbed his hand across his forehead like he was trying to ease a headache. The tic in his jaw was more pronounced. “Oh, Christ,” he muttered under his breath, “I should have pulled her out of that school.”

“The Emerson?”

“Everybody said to get her out of public school. I mean, to listen to people, public schools are hotbeds of drugs and sex and God knows what else. The Emerson is expensive, but they're supposed to take care of the kids. Good care, not expose them to weirdos and perverts.”

The waiter brought more food so we were forced into silence. As soon as he left, I prompted Haslam, repeating what he'd said. “Weirdos and perverts?” They weren't words I associated with the Emerson.

He started on the Kung Pao chicken with his knife and fork. I used chopsticks.

“The kids at the Emerson,” he said after a swallow, “they look okay. They dress well and they've got good teeth. Money. But they're a fast crowd. And Val tries to keep up. I mean, we're not that rich. We're well off, don't get me wrong. I'm not giving you some wrong-side-of-the-tracks story here. But my dad stocked shelves at a grocery store. I wasn't born to money. I had to work for what I got, and that's not exactly respected at the Emerson. Val always wants to show that she's as good as any of them. And by good, I mean rich.”

“You said ‘weirdos and perverts.' You have anybody in mind?”

“I should have yanked her out of there. But her mother likes the place. It's something, to say your kid's at the Emerson. I mean, even at the office—”

“Weirdos and perverts?” I repeated.

He pushed his plate away. He'd eaten maybe two forkfuls. “Her drama teacher. That's what they call the son of a bitch, a drama teacher.”

“Geoffrey Reardon?”

“You know the name.”

“I went to the school yesterday.”

“I thought the man might be notorious in law-and-order circles,” he said.

“Not that I know.”

“She's always staying after school with him.”

“Just the two of them?”

“The drama club. She says.”

“That doesn't seem so bad.”

Haslam glanced at the man discussing auto insurance at the next table as if he might be an undercover FBI agent, and lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. “This may sound dumb—paranoid, even—but that man has got some kind of hold over his students, over my daughter at least. I don't know what he does with them, but it's, well, it's not normal. It's like she was a Hare Krishna or a Moonie or something. She can't come home. She's got rehearsals every day, but there never seems to be a goddamn performance. And she's got extra sessions and mood work and preening in front of mirrors and emoting and sensationalizing every tiny thing in her life.”

“Sounds like what a lot of teenagers do anyway,” I said.

“He encourages them. The girls. And the pretty boys. He takes photos.”

“And you suspect something a little more racy than your old-fashioned drama club?”

“I do.”

“But how can you blame Reardon when you say she's run off before?”

“There's always a trigger.”

“What was it last time?”

“A fight with a teacher. Valerie likes to be right.”

I pursued a slippery green bean around the plate with my chopsticks. “She sounds like a difficult child,” I said.

He grimaced. “You have kids?”

I thought of Paolina in Bogota. “No,” I said.

“Sometimes Valerie's difficult. Sometimes she's, well, terrific. Perfect. I hate the thought of her out there somewhere, alone.…” He lowered his eyes to the tabletop. He wasn't eating, but his hand stayed clenched around his fork.

“I went to see Reardon yesterday,” I said.

“What did he say?” Haslam asked sharply.

“He wasn't in.”

“The man's nothing but an actor.”

“You've met him.”

“The Emerson prides itself on close parent-teacher contact.” Haslam didn't try to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “Whenever I see him he gives me all this soothing bullshit about adolescent rebellion. I think the kids rebel just so he'll approve of them. The man is attractive. The girls chase him. They've all got crushes on him.”

“Valerie?”

“I think so. Yes.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

“Look, just find my daughter. Whatever you need, I'll cooperate. Mathilde reads the papers, all the sensational stuff about rapes and murders—and, well, she's hysterical. That's not too strong a word for it. She has a vivid imagination, and it's taking over—”

Haslam realized that his voice was getting louder. The insurance advocate was giving him the eye. He took a deep breath and straightened his tie.

“What did Valerie take with her?” I asked.

“I don't know.”

“Did you or your wife check her room? Is a suitcase missing?”

“She had her backpack when she left for school. She has so many clothes, I can't tell if anything's gone. I mean, she'd borrow things from other girls at school and lend things. She has an allowance, a generous allowance, so she can choose her own clothes.”

“Does she have money other than her allowance?”

“She has a savings account. I don't know if she took her passbook. I'll check on that. I should have done it this morning.”

“One more thing,” I said. “Your daughter—does she use drugs?”

“No,” he said loudly. Then he shook his head. “Hell,” he muttered, “not that I know. I don't know anymore. I don't know. I don't think so.”

“And if she ran out of money …” I checked my words, continued slowly. It was a hard question to ask a father. “I mean, the police found her in the Zone last time. Was she into prostitution?”

He finished his drink and stared at the empty glass regretfully. “No,” he said very softly. “I don't think so. I don't think so.” He kept on shaking his head, denying the possibility over and over.

“I'll do my best to find her,” I said softly.

“Keep me informed, okay? And let me know if I can do something. Anything. Besides pay you. Is five hundred okay?”

I went through my usual spiel. I charge a daily rate, but missing persons stuff is so dicey that I take something up front, charge expenses, and then it's cash on delivery. A lot.

Haslam passed over the check.

I pulled Valerie's picture out of my wallet. “Is this a good likeness?” I asked.

He looked at it for a long time. “Yes and no,” he said. “The last time, when I went to get her, she had gunk all over her face, lipstick, eye stuff.” He tapped his finger on the photo's surface. “But most of the time, she looks like this. She was such a beautiful child.” He stared hard at the picture, like he might be able to see beneath its surface, read something in his daughter's unresponsive eyes.

He glanced at his watch and hurriedly called for the check. He handed me a business card from a downtown brokerage firm with a familiar name and, apologizing, left before me.

I stayed to drink tea, collect the leftovers in their white goldfish boxes, and investigate the fortune cookies.

One said: “You'll be rich and famous in a far-out profession.” The other: “A sense of humor is your greatest asset.”

I got to take my choice.

CHAPTER 12

If you think parking in Chinatown is impossible, try the streets around 40 New Sudbury Street, home of the Area A cops, patrolling Downtown, Chinatown, Charlestown, and East Boston. After cruising a few blocks, competing with the Faneuil Hall tourist brigade, I decided to risk a spot marked
POLICE BUSINESS ONLY, FIFTEEN MINUTES MAXIMUM
. There is nothing you can get done at the Area A station in less than fifteen minutes.

Up the steps, turn right, turn left. I could have walked the pattern in my sleep, did sleepwalk it often enough during my two-year stint at Area A. The smell—a blend of bad coffee and fear that seems to have soaked into the beige walls and checkered linoleum—brought the memories back, made my shoulders stiffen as though I was wearing the uniform again.

I don't miss it, most of the time.

I didn't recognize the desk sergeant. I almost said “Lieutenant Mooney” when he asked me who I wanted to see. That's how far I'd repressed his suspension. I caught myself and asked for Joanne Triola instead. Joanne came up with me from the Academy. She's better at putting up with guff than I ever was or will be, and as a result she is still a cop, a rising star. The desk sergeant said Detective Bureau, Second Floor.

He gave me a clip-on visitor's pass, and I headed up the stairs. The fifth step was still missing its rubber retread, and the eighth step still creaked if you hit it dead center.

The rookies who'd responded to last night's accident had been strangers from Area D, and matter-of-fact to the point of boredom. The gist of their chat was: What the hell did I expect driving at night in Franklin Park? And couldn't I keep my damn cab on the road?

I don't take kindly to aspersions cast on my driving skills. The three of us did not hit it off.

They'd listened to my forced-off-the-road story with such undisguised skepticism that I'd gone no further. If they didn't believe in the car that shoved me into the tree, how were they going to grasp the news that I'd been tailing yet another car complete with missing witness inside?

I should have told them, I suppose, should have demanded they call in an accident team to check my rear bumper for paint chips, but just as I opened my mouth, the two of them exchanged The Look. You know, the why-do-they-let-these-crazy-broads-out-at-night look. And I'd decided to save my breath.

Joanne, I could talk to.

She was slouched in a chair in the bullpen, a warren of desks that serves as combination typing pool and doughnut dispensary. Every once in a while somebody shrieks about privacy and efficiency and tries to install dividers, but most of the time there aren't that many cops around. They're on the beat, or talking to snitches, or tracking down leads, or growing old in courtrooms waiting to testify about crimes that occurred three and a half years ago.

Today, the bullpen was graced by one old cop named Foley, a desk jockey who'd retired in all but name a couple years back, and a young Hispanic guy who looked eighteen max, but was acting like a cop, pounding away on his typewriter and shooting questions at a young woman in his guest chair. The lady wore black—blouse, skirt, tights, and boots—and handcuffs. I don't know much Spanish but I recognized several words Paolina would not have used in polite conversation.

Joanne was gabbing on the phone, speaking loudly, gesturing freely. She must be almost fifty and she's energetic enough for three normal people. She has a round, gentle face, a puff of graying hair, a ready smile, and one of those laughs that makes people turn around in a restaurant.