The first page was of a teenage Adriana Betts with a boy her age. Bubbly cursive read:
Dwayne Hightower had been a huge kid, easily six six, three hundred, with a side-of-beef upper body and thick, short, hairless limbs. His face was a pink pie under coppery curls, his smile wide and open as the prairie. He and Adriana had posed in front of hay bales, barns, a brick-faced building, and a green John Deere tractor with wheels as tall as Adriana. In each shot, Hightower’s heavy arm rested lightly on Adriana’s shoulder. Her head reached his elbow. She clung to his biceps.
Their smiles were a match in terms of innocence and wattage.
The following page began with more of the same but ended with shots from Dwayne Hightower’s funeral. Adriana in a black dress, her hair tied back severely. Wearing the cheap sunglasses from the wardrobe.
The final page was all group shots: Adriana and several other young adults in front of a red-brick church. The edifice that had backdropped her and Dwayne. Had they planned to wed there?
Not a single tattoo, body pierce, or edgy hairdo in sight. These pictures could’ve dated from the fifties. Heartland America, unaffected by fad or fashion.
In some of the shots, a portly white-haired man in his sixties wearing a suit and tie stood to the left of the group.
In most of the pictures, Adriana, though not particularly tall, had positioned herself at the back. Not so in the last three, where she posed front-center, next to the same person.
Young black woman with short, straightened hair and a heart-shaped face. Extremely pretty and graceful despite a drab smock that could’ve come out of Adriana’s closet.
A single chocolate dot in a sea of vanilla.
The bones in the park had yielded African American maternal DNA.
I didn’t need to say anything. Milo muttered, “Maybe.” Then he pointed to the older man in the suit. “Got to be the pastor, whatever his name is.”
“Reverend Goleman,” I said. “Life Tabernacle Church of the Fields.”
He turned to me. “You memorize everything?”
“Just what I think might be important.”
“You figured the church might be important? Why didn’t you say so?”
“There’s
“You and that party wine from when we were kids-the Orson Welles thing.”
“Paul Masson.”
“Now you’re showing off.”
I reexamined the photos that included the black woman. “Adriana stands nearer to her than she does to anyone else. So let’s assume a close relationship.”
“The pal in the red car?”
“What we’ve heard about Adriana says she had a moral compass, would never have bailed on the Changs without a good reason. Helping a good friend might qualify.”
“If she was murdered because she knew too much, why dump the bones near her and risk the association?”
“He’s a confident guy.”
“Talk about a poor choice for your baby’s daddy. And that leads me back to the problem I had before. Child abuse, even murder, something rage-related, happens all the time. But I’m still having trouble seeing anyone, even a psychopath, taking the time to clean and wax his own offspring’s bones then tossing them like trash.”
I have no trouble seeing anything and that turns some nights hellish. I said, “You’re probably right. The first step is I.D.’ing this woman.”
He looked at his watch. Close to three a.m. “Too early to rouse Reverend Goleman in Idaho.” Separating the photo album from the cartons, he dropped it into an evidence bag. We carried both boxes to the big D-room, where he secured them in a locker. Returning to his office, he wrote an email to the crime lab. Leaning back in his chair, he yawned. “Go home, sleep late, kiss Robin and pet the pooch. Have a nice breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“You’re not going home.”
“There’s a sleeping room near the holding cells. I may just bunk out so I can be ready to phone Boise in four hours. Hopefully a devout fellow like the Rev will be cooperative.”
“Speaking of devout,” I said, “where will you be attending Sunday Mass?”
“What? Oh, that. I said evidentiary, not suggestive.”
“Driving a tough bargain with the Almighty?”
“He wouldn’t respect me otherwise.”
CHAPTER 23
I slipped into bed just after three thirty a.m., careful not to rouse Robin.
She rolled toward me, wrapped her arms around my neck, murmured, “Morning.”
“Not enough morning. Go back to sleep.”
One of her eyes opened. “Anything new?”
“I’ll tell you about it when we wake up.”
“We’re awake now.” She propped herself up.
I gave her a rundown.
She said, “Mothers and babies,” sighed and slid away from me, was breathing evenly within seconds. Sometimes she talks in her sleep when she’s upset. This time she remained silent until daybreak. I knew because I watched her for a long time.
An internal prompt woke me at seven a.m. I should’ve been wiped out; instead I was hyped, eager to know what Milo had learned from the Right Reverend Goleman. I waited for him to call and when he hadn’t by seven thirty, I took a robotic run, showered, shaved, brought coffee out to Robin in her studio.
No saw buzz or hammer percussion as I approached. Maybe she’d dozed less soundly than I’d thought, didn’t trust herself with sharp things.
She was sitting on her couch, Blanche a little blond pillow under her arm, studying a beautiful book showcasing a collection of vintage guitars. One man’s monomania. I’d bought it for her last Christmas.
I said, “Inspiration?”
“Aesthetics. You get any decent sleep?”
“Sure,” I lied.
“Hear from Big Guy?”
“Not yet.”
I held out the mug. She said, “Let’s go outside,” and we sat near the pond, tossing pellets to the koi and drinking coffee and not saying a thing.
Eleven minutes of uneasy serenity before I heard from Big Guy.
For someone who hadn’t slept at all, Milo sounded chipper.
“The bad news: Reverend Goleman is away from the office. The good news: He’s right here in SoCal, attending a convention in Fullerton. We’re meeting at my office at noon.”
“He give you the name of Adriana’s friend?”
“Yes,” he said, “but it’s complicated. See you when the sun’s high?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
I arrived a few minutes early, encountered Milo as he was locking up his office. “According to Goleman, the friend is Qeesha D’Embo. Unfortunately, that doesn’t match anything in the databases.”
“Alias? She was hiding something?”
“Maybe-this looks like our clergy-type.”
