“I was busy, remember?”
She had been working the most disturbing case of her career. A Safford man had shot his wife, his mother, and four children. At first they thought he had taken the youngest—a little girl—with him. But it turned out she had crawled under the house and died of her wounds. The little girl had been alive for at least a day.
“How did the notification go?” she asked Victor, not wanting to think about that case.
“You know it’s never good. On a scale from one to ten, maybe a seven. No hysterics.” He took a drink of his Chivas Regal. “The mother was pretty weird. Too busy kowtowing to her husband, making sure his dinner was still hot—can you believe it? When I did get her attention she seemed embarrassed. Like the kid made her look bad. Could be just shock. She kept saying stuff like, ‘I told her something like this would happen,’ and ‘that’s what happens when you don’t listen,’ as if the kid skipped school or something. Almost like she expected her daughter to turn up dead.”
“They’ve been living with it since yesterday afternoon,” Laura said. “If they’ve been watching cable at all they know the drill.” Hungry for filler, the cable news channels had blown stranger abductions up into epidemic proportions, the experts drilling it into the American psyche that children abducted by strangers were killed within three to five hours after being taken.
One cable TV network had labeled this “The Summer of Fear.” The spotlight had moved on in recent months to three separate grizzly bear attacks, and a reasonable person might assume that the child abductions had ceased altogether.
“Did you meet the boyfriend?” she asked.
“Boyfriend?”
“According to the tattoo artist next door to the doll place, Jessica’s boyfriend lived with her family. His name is Cary Statler.”
“Nobody mentioned him, and I didn’t see anyone matching a boy her age.” He took out his notebook and wrote the name down. “He lives with them?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Cozy—just another modern American family.” Victor sipped his Chivas. “There’s someone else we should look at, just in case Sherlock Holmes in there is right and it was a local. A neighbor—a friend of the family. Chuck Lehman. Guy was over there in the role of concerned friend, but there was something … I dunno, avid, about the way he was tuning in. So I checked him out. Two DUIs in the past three and a half years—one in Colorado and one here. Also, he broke into his ex-wife’s house, tore up some of her dainties. Felony trespass and criminal damage, both DVs. They pled the felony down.”
“How old is he?”
“Early forties. I know, I know. He skews old for this.” He lit a cigarette, even though he knew Laura didn’t like it.
Victor turned his head and blew out the smoke, and also held his hand away—his try at meeting her halfway. “It’s a lead. Don’t worry, we’ll get a match on this creep somewhere, you’ll see. Jesus. Dressing her up like it’s her first fucking Communion.”
The pianist had finished Rhapsody in Blue. Even though they were outside, Laura applauded with the rest of the bar patrons, Victor following suit. The door was open and it was possible the pianist might hear.
“With Lehman, there are some serious stressors,” Victor said. “Guy’s divorce was finalized a month or so ago, just around the time he got laid off from work.” He saw the question in her eyes. “He worked at the mine—well, what’s left of the mining operation out here.”
“Where’d you hear this?”
“I asked around. Danehill was the one popped him for the DUI and the DV. I’ve got the number for his probation officer if you want it.”
“Sure. We have to look at everything.” The story depressed Laura. “How’s Elena doing?”
“Fine now. At least she’s not cursing my name anymore. There was about eight hours there where she seemed a little pissed off at me.”
“No kidding.”
“Come on, it’s not all my fault.” Victor showed her his most irresistible grin, no doubt the one that had snagged Elena into motherhood five times. “She was the one who wanted another one.” He took a sip of Chivas. “Some women actually want kids. It’s the maternal instinct, something you’d appreciate if you ever grew up, found a nice man, got married—”
“Hey, I put in my time.”
He laughed. “Seven months? That’s a slap on the wrist.”
“I got time off for good behavior.” Laura realized that she’d never told Victor the whole story about her marriage. Maybe because, logic to the contrary, she still felt embarrassed.
“One of these days you’ll find the right guy and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I got the impression you didn’t agree with Buddy back there, about the guy being a local.”
Laura sighed. It didn’t feel local to her, but her gut could be wrong. “Who knows? Maybe there’s an Internet connection, like the chief said. In that case, it could be someone from anywhere. Buddy Holland says the guy wouldn’t know Bisbee, but it’s not that big. It wouldn’t take much to figure this place out.”
“But why here?”
Laura shook her head.
Why anywhere?
Victor left for Tucson soon afterward, wanting to get home to his new baby. Laura would stay here and go directly to the autopsy in Sierra Vista tomorrow afternoon. The Copper Queen Hotel was full up, but after calling around, she found a place on the main drag through town.
