from the time he had abducted her from a faraway parking lot to when he’d laid her in the shallow dirt behind his house.
HAVE YOU SEEN HER? the flyer asked, with MARCY ANN BALLEW written below the question. It gave the young woman’s statistics of age, description, height, and weight, and when she was last seen: leaving work at the Memorial Oaks Nursing Home in Deshay, Louisiana, September 30. Her car had been recovered from a nearby Wal-Mart.
He read on, his throat feeling coated with sand. Her wallet had been found two miles outside Port Leo, along FM Road 1223, a week ago. Anyone with information as to her whereabouts was requested to call the Encina County Sheriff’s Department or the Port Leo police. A reward was mentioned.
The Blade mentally replayed his time with his most troublesome Darling. When could her wallet have gotten out on the road? he wondered, and with a sick wrench he remembered. As he approached his enclave hidden away from the eyes of other men, she roused from the stupor he’d forced on her with the Valiums and she kicked open a window. He’d veered off the road, whirled to grab her, and belted her hard four times in the face, breaking her cheekbone and nose and knocking her unconscious. He was furious, having to hurt her before his fun; and the broken bones meant he’d never gotten to see her smile. He traced her smile on the paper with his finger: lovely. He missed her.
She must have thrown her wallet out the window before he punched her, trying to leave some clue of her passage. Now the police in Louisiana – and here – must know that she had come through off-the-path Port Leo, Texas.
He swallowed the swell of panic. The police would no doubt be questioning everyone who lived along FM 1223, between here to the county line. How hard would they look, and how hard would they look at him? Capture always lingered in the back of his mind, an unwelcome companion but one as steady as his shadow. Now it loomed as a distinct possibility, and he had not claimed his most precious Darling yet.
He could not take her now. The police would be watching her. But in a few days, especially if Pete was judged a suicide… then she would be ripe, a plum oozing with juice, to be plucked from the tree. Tonight was Monday. He could take her, he believed, by the end of the week. Friday or Saturday.
They could have a deliciously lost weekend together: movies if she were good, dinner, death. Then back to work on Monday.
The Blade began the somewhat arduous process of hatching a plan. What had he overheard Velvet call such contingencies in the grocery store? He remembered and smiled: Plan B.
8
The interview room at the Port Leo Police Department resembled a supply closet more than an interrogation facility. In one corner tottered a stack of old computer monitors. The department had upgraded their seven-year-old systems recently and no one wanted the old standbys. A box of shredded documents, ready to be recycled, was shoved against the wall. Two plastic containers of office supplies filled another corner. An old wooden table occupied the center of the room, marred with circles from water cups and soda cans.
Heather Farrell, the young woman who’d found Pete’s body, watched Claudia Salazar with mulish eyes. Police Chief Delford Spires sat next to Heather, quiet, letting Claudia take the lead in getting the statement. Claudia noticed, with affection, that there was a crumb of cake caught in his mustache, but she didn’t want to point that out with the tape rolling. He had just returned from telling the senator her son was dead. She turned to the witness.
‘Okay, Heather, this won’t take long,’ Claudia said. ‘For the record, do you have some identification?’
Heather Farrell dug in her dirty jeans and produced a tattered driver’s license, one that had expired. The birth date indicated that she was two weeks past eighteen. The address on the card indicated she was from Lubbock, in west Texas, far more than spitting distance from Port Leo. Claudia read the information off the driver’s license into the tape, then handed the laminated card back to Heather, who proceeded to tidy her nails with the edge of the plastic.
‘Your family still in Lubbock, Heather?’ Claudia asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Why did you leave Lubbock?’
‘Dirt sucks,’ Heather said.
‘That’s a good reason,’ Claudia said pleasantly. ‘Any others?’
‘I’m an artist. Lots of artists here.’ Heather shrugged. ‘I thought for sure those galleries would want to give me a big-ass fancy show. Strange it hasn’t happened yet.’
‘You haven’t updated your driver’s license,’ Spires said.
‘Don’t drive much these days.’ Heather gave Delford a caustic look. ‘Gunk’s in your mustache, mister.’
Delford groomed out the offending morsel. ‘Thank you, Heather.’
‘Where are you living now, Heather?’ Claudia asked.
The girl shrugged with a lazy roll of shoulders. A willfulness – either born of stupidity or of hard use – tugged her face into a constant, wary frown.
‘Here and there. I camp out at the park down by Little Mischief Beach sometimes.’
‘Do you have a permit to camp?’ Claudia already suspected the answer.
Heather shifted in her seat. ‘Darn, I lost it yesterday. I haven’t found a friendly ranger to give me a new one.’
Claudia nodded toward the backpack in the corner. ‘Those pretty much all your belongings?’
‘Yep. Travel light. I don’t believe in U-Hauls.’
‘So you brought everything you had in the world along with you to meet this guy on the boat.’
‘I guess,’ Heather said with no energy in her voice.
‘You moving in with him?’
‘No. I just don’t like leaving my stuff lying around.’
‘Did he tell you his name?’
‘Yeah. Pete Majors.’ Heather took a swig of the tepid cocoa Officer Fox had fetched for her. ‘He said he was from Los Angeles.’
Majors, not Hubble. Big Pete Majors was his nom de cinema, gleaned from the videotapes on the boat. Claudia saw a thin sheen of sweat on Delford’s brow, despite the cool of the room.
‘Did Mr Majors tell you why he was in Port Leo?’ Claudia asked.
‘He was writing a movie about his brother’s death. But he was awful depressed about it. I think that’s why he killed himself.’
‘Where did you meet Mr Majors?’ Claudia asked.
‘At Little Mischief Beach,’ Heather answered. Claudia jotted a note on the pad in front of her. Little Mischief was an aptly named, scrabbly beach north of Port Leo, a few miles from the Golden Gulf Marina, known as a kids’ hangout, with a small park attached, dense with live oaks and red bays. A good necking spot, but there were better around the county.
Heather brushed fingers through her hair. ‘The light’s good at Little Mischief. I like to sketch the birds, the waves, the old folks walking on the shore.’
‘Dopers love Little Mischief,’ Delford interjected. ‘Am I gonna find some weed in your knapsack, young lady?’
‘No,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘I don’t do drugs.’
Claudia steered them back on track. ‘What was Pete doing down at Little Mischief?’
‘He’d come down there with a notebook computer, to write or just chill out and throw pebbles in the surf.’ She wiped a hand across her lips. ‘Quiet but nice. He gave me money for food.’
Claudia made a note. ‘This money he gave you. Any strings attached?’
A flash of resentment crossed Heather’s face. ‘Of course not. What do you take me for?’
More to the point was what Pete Hubble had taken Heather for. Claudia remained silent for a full thirty seconds, and Heather began to fidget. ‘I’m not a whore, okay? He was just being nice.’ She paused. ‘Maybe he
