'What do you think, Jack?' Rachel said. 'Did the Poet just park in the driveway, knock on the door and pop Orsulak after being invited in?'
'I don't know. I doubt it.'
'I do, too. No, he watched him. Maybe for days. But the locals canvassed the neighborhood and no neighbor saw a car that didn't belong. Nobody saw anything out of the routine.'
'So you think he came in through here?'
'It's a possibility.'
She studied the ground as we walked. She was looking for anything. A footprint in the mud, a broken twig. She stopped a few times to bend and look at pieces of debris alongside the trail. A cigarette box, an empty soft drink bottle. She didn't touch any of it. It could be collected later if necessary.
The trail took us under a stanchion holding up high-tension power lines and into a stand of heavy brush at the back end of a trailer park. We reached a high point and looked down into the park. It was not well kept and many of the units had crudely fashioned add-ons like porches and toolsheds. On some of the units the porches had been enclosed with plastic sheeting and were being used as additional bedrooms and living spaces. An aura of crowded poverty emanated from the thirty or so dwellings jammed together on the lot like toothpicks in a box.
'Well, shall we?' Rachel asked, as if we were going for high tea.
'Ladies first,' Thompson said.
Several of the inhabitants of the park were sitting on door stoops and old couches set in front of their units. They were mostly Latinos and a few blacks. Maybe some Indians. They watched us emerge from the brush with no real interest, which showed they recognized us as cops. We showed the same lack of interest in them as we started walking along the narrow lane between rows of trailers.
'What are we doing?' I asked.
'Just having a look,' Rachel answered. 'We can ask questions later. If we take it slow and calm, they'll know we're not here to kick ass. It might help.'
Her eyes never stopped scanning the park and every trailer we passed as we walked. I realized that it was the first time I had seen her at work in the field. This wasn't sitting around a table trying to interpret facts. This was the gathering time. I found myself watching her more than anything else.
'He watched Orsulak,' Rachel said, more to herself than to either Thompson or me. 'And once he knew where he lived, he started planning. How to get in and how to get out. He had to have a getaway route and a getaway car, and it would not have been smart to park it anywhere on Orsulak's street.'
We were coming down the main street, as narrow as it was, to the front of the park and the entrance off a city street.
'So he parked somewhere over here and walked through.'
The first trailer at the entrance had a sign on the door that said OFFICE. A larger sign, attached to an iron framework on top of the trailer said SUNSHINE ACRES MOBILE HOME PARK.
'Sunshine Acres?' Thompson asked. 'More like Sunshine Half Acre.'
'Not much of a park, either,' I added.
Rachel was off on her own, not listening. She walked past the steps to the office door and out to the city street. It was four lanes and we were in an industrial area. Directly across from the trailer park was a U-Store-It and on either side of that were warehouses. I watched Rachel look around and take in the surroundings. Her eyes held on the one streetlight, which was a half block away. I knew what she was thinking. That it would be dark here at night.
She walked alongside the curb, her eyes scanning the asphalt, looking for something, anything, maybe a cigarette butt or a piece of luck. Thompson stood with me, kicking at the ground with one foot. I couldn't take my eyes off Rachel. I saw her stop and look down and bite her lip for a moment. I walked over.
Glimmering like a cache of diamonds against the curb was a pile of shattered safety glass. She toed her shoe through the glass stones.
The trailer park's manager was already about three shots into the day when we opened the door and stepped into the cramped space advertised outside as an office. It was clear the place was also the man's home. He was sitting in a green corduroy La-Z-Boy chair with the feet extension up. Its sides were scarred by cat scratches but it was still the nicest piece of furniture he had. Other than the television. That was a new-looking Panasonic with a built-in VCR. He was watching a home-shopping show and it took him a long time to pull his eyes off the tube to have a look at us. The device being sold sliced and chopped vegetables without all the mess and setup time of a food processor.
'You the manager?' Rachel asked.
'That should be obvious, shouldn't it, Officer?'
A wise guy, I thought. He was about sixty and he wore green fatigues and a white sleeveless T-shirt with burn holes on the chest through which a crop of gray chest hair protruded. He was balding and had a drinker's red face. He was white, the only white person I had seen so far in the park.
'It's Agent,' she said, showing him the inside of her badge wallet.
'FBI? What's the G care about a little car break-in? See, I read a lot. I know you people call yourselves the G. I like that.'
Rachel looked at me and Thompson and then back at the man. I felt the small tingling of anxiousness.
'How do you know about the car break-in?' Rachel asked.
'I seen you out there. I got eyes. You was lookin' at the glass. I swept it up into a pile. Street cleaners only come 'round here maybe once a month. More in the summer when it's dusty out.'
'No. I mean, how did you even know there was a car burglary?'
' 'Cause I sleep back there in the back room. I heard 'em break the window. I saw them messing about inside that car.'
'When was this?'
'Let's see, that'd be Thursday last. I was wondering when the guy'd report it. But I didn't think no FBI agent would be coming out. How 'bout you two, you with the G, too?'
'Never mind that, Mr.-what is your name, sir?'
'Adkins.'
'Okay, Mr. Adkins, do you know whose car got broken into?'
'Nope, never saw him. I just heard the window and saw the kids.'
'What about a plate?'
'Nope.'
'You didn't call the police?'
'Don't have no phone. I could see Thibedoux's over to lot three but it was the middle of the night and I knew those cops wouldn't come running on a car rob'ry. Not here. They got too much to do.'
'So you never at any point saw the owner of the car and he never knocked on the door to see if maybe you heard the break-in or saw anybody?'
'That's right.'
'What about the kids who broke in?' Thompson asked, robbing Rachel of the payoff question. 'You know them, Mr. Atkins?'
'Adkins. With a D, no T, Mr. G.'
Adkins laughed at his command of the alphabet.
'Mr. Adkins,' Thompson said, correcting himself. 'Well, do you?'
'Do I what?'
'Know who the kids were.'
'No, I don't know who they were.'
His eyes strayed past us to the television. On the program they were now selling a glove with small rubber bristles on the palm for grooming pets.
'I know what else you could use that for,' Adkins said. He made a masturbation motion with his hand and winked and smiled at Thompson. 'That's what they're really selling that for, you know.'
Rachel stepped over to the TV and turned it off. Adkins didn't protest. She straightened up and looked at him.
'We're investigating the murder of a police officer. We'd like your attention. We have reason to believe the car
