some problems around the DuCaines’ household. Dogs disappearing in the neighborhood, found all chopped up in the woods. Then the kid got whipped up, started fights, big yellin’ and screamin’ things. One day he took off in one of the cars. He stayed gone for a few weeks. It gets real clouded here.”
I leaned forward. “I’m used to the weather.”
Aubusson shot a glance toward the door. Lowered his voice. “It was said he killed a woman who’d once done gardening work for the DuCaines. Guess he’d gotten an obsession on her or whatever. Went at her real bad with a knife, then burned down her trailer. Nothing ever came of it-if it happened-and Tree-house Boy was never arrested that anyone noticed. But he was never seen again. And nothing was ever tied to the DuCaines.”
“No publicity,” Harry said. “No nothing.”
“Like it never happened,” I said. “Money can do that.”
Harry turned to Aubusson. “All this happened over the span of what, in terms of years?”
“All during the time Buck was courting Maylene. No matter what’d happen around us, she’d get up to get us another drink, whatever, keep them melons dancing. She knew what she had, she knew how to work it-she melted him into something she could shape like she wanted. Buck was her key out of crazy town.”
“A happy marriage?”
“Buck needed someone to run him, but she flat ran over him. Do this, do that, talk like this, dress like that. Took over every second of his life. All their lives.”
“Turned an out-of-control youth into a life of absolute control,” I said.
Aubusson clenched a fist until his knuckles turned white, held it up. “Control like this,” he said. “She finally got to shape the world like she wanted. A closed place, ain’t many invited inside.”
I said, “Daddy Kincannon isn’t even there anymore.”
Aubusson took a long drink of his whiskey, his face hidden behind the glass.
“I think maybe he found his own way free.”
“Pardon me?” I said.
“I don’t think he got the Alzheimer’s like they say. I think he let hisself go crazy ’cause it was a better way to live than with her.”
Aubusson shook the ice in his glass, empty. He set it aside. I figured he was about talked out.
“Tell me more about Maylene’s children, Mr. Aubusson,” I said.
“Never held much hope for the kids, myself. I remember being over there one time. One of the kids’ birthdays was going on in the other room, kid was eleven or twelve. Racine, or maybe Nelson, took a bite of Buck’s cake when he wasn’t looking, grabbed a forkful. I see Maylene motion Buck to her side, whisper in his ear. He turns and sees the missing bite. A minute later he marches over and punches his brother in the mouth.”
Harry said, “Don’t let anyone take from you. Not even your brother. That was the lesson?”
Aubusson sipped from his glass. “Or maybe Maylene just liked winding him up and setting him loose, her little soldier. Wasn’t no favoritism. Next time around it might be Nelson set loose on Buck.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t get in trouble growing up,” Harry said.
“They got in scrapes, but nothing too bad. A little money cured the problems. Strange thing is, for all their weird-ass upbringing, the kids are boring. The older ones, that is. No spark. Put you to sleep just listenin’ to them a few minutes. But Lucas had sparkle from the git-go. A fire in him.”
“Lucas?” I said, shooting Harry a glance. “Who’s Lucas?”
“Miss Maylene’s last boy. Came as a surprise when she was in her forties. Strange kid. Born too late to be a hippie, but had that hippie thing, you know? Questioned everything, argued about everything, hated everything. Took streaks where he’d get pissed off, yell about having to live with a bunch of capt’list pigs, run off across the country. Got all the way to California when he was fifteen, Maylene had to send private investigator types to bring him back.”
“Lucas sounds like trouble,” I said. Or, perhaps, decompensating: falling apart mentally.
“He was ten handfuls of trouble when he wanted to be, but everybody agreed he was whip-smart. Had his granddaddy’s brains, but didn’t get the brittle. Helluva lot brighter than his puddinghead siblings.”
“Puddinghead?” Harry said. “I thought the Kincannon brothers were business geniuses, growing the empire and all.”
Aubusson grinned. “A lotta folks assume that, but like the old song says, it ain’t necessarily so. Take young Buck. Boy’s not an ignoramus, he just ain’t sharp. Buck knows things about business…number one being what phone numbers to call for advice. The Kincannons hire the best advisors, best financial consultants, best lawyers. It’s hard to make money, a lot easier to hang on to it.”
“Let’s get back to Lucas,” I said. “He had a destructive side?”
“I know he busted some stuff up around the house. But the boy could be a charmer if he wanted, sweet. Even when he was ten, twelve years old, he could carry on a conversation better’n most adults. I liked the little monster, myself, even though he onct called me a running dog lackey for the system, whatever that meant. At least he had a personality.”
“Where is Lucas now?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
Aubusson drank the liquid from melting ice, flung the ice into the yard.
“I’d heard he was calming down, but nope. When he turned eighteen, he up and left. Ran as far as he could and won’t have nothing to do with the family, hasn’t been heard from in-what’s it been? — about four years now. Got himself chopped clean out of the will, probably what he wanted. I hear he’s up in Canada or Alaska, living in the mountains, doing things with beads.”
“Or maybe not,” Harry said, so quietly only I heard.
CHAPTER 36
Harry and I entered the department through the back door. Vince Raines from Auto Theft was in the hall sipping coffee and tacking a page to the bulletin board. It was in-house stuff: folks selling a car or boat or had a litter of kittens to dispense.
Vince saw us, nodded. “You guys don’t need a jon boat, do you? Just put one on sale. Two years old. Cost thirty-five hundred with a ten-horse motor. Yours for twelve hundred even.”
“I got a kayak,” I said. “And an aversion to motors.”
“I got an aversion to seasickness,” Harry said.
“Just thought I’d…hey, I just got back from vacation. Mitch Burdon told me you two stopped by, were looking into something.”
“We were trying to track down some stolen cars,” Harry said.
“Find ’em?”
“Mitch checked by make and model,” Harry said. “Upscale machines that weren’t in the system. Mitch thought they might have been yanked from the airport, owners still out in Hawaii or whatever.”
“Like what?” Vince asked.
“Nineteen ninety-seven Porsche turbo, 1958 Mercedes roadster, a 2004 Beamer.”
Vince’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “I dunno. I got kind of a weird call last week. I was working alone. Got a call that some fancy cars were missing from a place off Highway 45. ‘Fancy,’ that was the word the caller used. Went to a Quonset-type warehouse, climate-controlled, a collection of cars in storage.”
“There’d been thefts?” Harry asked.
“That’s the strange part. The guy that called-a guard or something-was all worked up. Scared. He said to get there quick. I arrived about a half hour later. The guy, a big goofy hick, said it was all a mistake. His boss, the man who owns the vehicles, had sold some and the guy didn’t know. So that was that.”
Harry said, “I’d sure like to take a look at this place. Mind if Carson and me became vehicle-theft cowboys for an hour?”
“Saddle up, boys. Lemme draw you a map where this place is.”
The address led us to a defunct single-runway airfield between a melon field and scrubby woods. I think the KEEP OUT signs outnumbered the TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED signs, but not by much. The only action nearby was an old strip mall-cum-flea market about a half mile down the road. A twelve-foot cyclone fence
