The aroma of cooking meat drifted across the park in a smoke haze. Laura glanced over at a large family group taking up two tables across the park. Kids, dogs, overweight adults in shorts and tent-like tees. She remembered Victor’s pictures from Lieutenant Galaz’s cookout. “When did she disappear?”
“2002. Early summer—June, I think. I’ve got the file back at the office. She was last seen hitchhiking on C30-A near the turnoff to Indian Pass. Telephone repairman up on a pole saw her go by.”
“You questioned him?”
“What do you think I do here? Trot myself out for the Fourth of July parade every year?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No offense taken. Man’s got to stand up for himself, especially when the big guns from Arizona come callin’.” He grinned, his expression saying no offense. “Humility is a southern trait, since we have so much to be humble about. You’re gonna choke, you scarf down that sandwich so fast.”
“It’s good.” She wiped her mouth with a wispy napkin from the deli. “Those times she ran away. Did she come back voluntarily?”
“Nope. Her brother found her both times.”
He nodded to the cold thermos at his elbow. “Sure you don’t want to try a little of the local brew?”
Sweet tea. “No thanks. What did she look like?”
“That’s the funny thing.” He balled up the butcher paper his sandwich came in and threw it into the garbage can nearby: three points. “Those photos you showed me of your victims? She looked a lot like both those girls. Pretty and blond.”
After lunch they took a tree-lined rural road, C-30A, out to Zebra Island Trading Post and Raw Bar at Indian Pass.
Laura glanced at Redbone. He drove in a desultory fashion, the seat back all the way and one freckled hand steering from the bottom of the wheel.
“Zebra Island Trading Post?” she asked.
“This is the turn-off for St. Vincent Island. St. Vincent was owned by a rich man who thought it would look good with a bunch of zebras on it.”
Before they left the park, the chief suggested that he take the lead, since he knew the owners and probably knew the clientele as well. Laura agreed; she was a fish out of water here.
Redbone swung the wheel and the patrol car slewed into a sandy parking lot, nose in to an old-fashioned country store. Under the pitched roof were a collection of weathered murals depicting an Indian chief’s head— complete with warbonnet—a pastoral scene of zebras grazing, and a giant oyster. A GONE FISHIN’ sign hung in the window.
“Well, that’s strange. I didn’t know Gary was going fishing,” Redbone said. “Guess we should’ve called first.”
They were still thinking what to do when a dull red Blazer of indeterminate age pulled into the lot. KC lights up top, jacked-up wheels. A sinewy man in a black T-shirt and camo pants emerged from the Blazer and went to the newspaper vending machines out front.
The chief buzzed down his window and cocked his elbow on the door. “Ronnie! How you doing?”
“Hey.” Ronnie came over and bent his head inside the driver’s door. “How’re you?”
Chief Redbone nodded Laura’s way. “This pretty lady here is Criminal Investigator Laura Cardinal from Arizona. You know Jimmy de Seroux, don’t you?”
“Jimmy? He photographed my sister’s wedding.”
Redbone turned to Laura. “Ron’s cousin owns this place. Where is Gary, anyway?”
“Went down to St. George for a couple of days of R and R. I’m keeping an eye on the place.”
“Was Jimmy a regular?”
“Sure was. Came in at least once a week.”
“He tell you he was going anywhere?”
Ron rubbed the bristles on his chin. “As a matter of fact, he did. Said he was taking a trip to see the country.”
“When was this?”
“Long time ago. It was still cold—I remember talkin’ to him outside, and as I recall, there was a hard frost from the night before.”
“He say anything else?”
Ron thought about it. “I don’t think so.”
“You know Jimmy very well?”
“Just, he likes his burgers. Every time he come in here he ordered a burger medium rare. Ron don’t cook medium rare anymore. They’d go round and round on that.”
“Jimmy have a girlfriend?”
“Never saw him with anybody. I don’t remember him socializing with anybody, male or female. Real quiet guy, kind of kept to himself.”
“How come he told you he was going on a trip?”
“I don’t remember how that came up. Is it important?” He peered in through the window again. “Did he do something in Arizona?”
