Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (30 page)

“We heard on the news that Skylar was taken by the same person who killed those girls,”
Hayley Barbour said, sitting in the interview room. Brolin and Raymond shifted in
the metal chairs across from Skylar’s parents. “Is it true?”

“The physical evidence left behind is very similar,” Raymond said carefully.

“But you know she was taken,” Brooks insisted. “You
know
.”

“I’m afraid it looks like that, Mr. Barbour. I’m very sorry,” Brolin said. “And that’s
why it’s so important for us to have your help. We believe Skylar knew this person,
trusted him. Or at the very least recognized him. We believe he pretended to be having
car trouble and she first saw him after she came off the walking trail.”

“So he was parked on our road
waiting
?” Brooks’s tone was disbelieving.

“We think so,” Raymond answered.

Hayley made a sound like a small puppy. Her eyes were swollen and red. How many tears
did she have left in her? The investigators questioned them about landscapers and
handymen and wrote down names. They asked about their automobiles and who made the
repairs. They inquired about their friends. They gathered leads and made lists. That’s
what detective work is. It’s the meticulous task of
sorting through lives and schedules, spending habits and half-truths. Because people
lie, even good people, for a million intimate reasons. Raymond and Brolin were thorough
and professional and empathetic, and I liked them a lot more when the interview concluded
than when it began.

I opened the observation room door and watched Skylar’s parents as they left. They
moved with the downtrodden posture of street people. I remembered Barbour’s words.
We won’t survive this, me and Hayley. Our marriage, I mean. Skylar’s our glue
. That was a lot of pressure for a kid. She felt it. She worried in her diary that
her blowups were causing the problems between her parents.

Brolin and Raymond stepped out of the interview room talking. Their conversation cut
off sharply when they saw me. “Well done,” I said.

Brolin’s top teeth pressed into the dent in her bottom lip. I thought she might smile.
Maybe that
was
a smile. I think I shivered a little. “You hear that, Rob?” she asked. “Dr. Street
thinks we did a good job.”

“Oh yeah? I guess we can retire now,” he said.

“Yeah, I feel all warm inside,” Brolin said.

They turned and headed toward the elevators. “You think she’ll put in a good word
for us?” Raymond asked, loud enough for me to hear. “With the sheriff, I mean.”

“I hear they have a
rapport
,” Brolin sneered.

“Hilarious,” I called out behind them. They didn’t stop. I checked the time. Eight
a.m. Skylar had been missing for seventeen hours and Meltzer’s team was still shutting
me out.

I sent a text message to the sheriff and asked when Peele was due. My phone rang nine
seconds later. “He’s in an interview room now,” Ken Meltzer told me. “Thinks he’s
waiting for his things to be released. Where are you?”

“Observation room two.”

“Stay put,” he told me. “He’s a couple of doors down. I need a few minutes. There’s
a little cubbyhole with espresso if you walk past the elevators. You have time. And
you look like the latte type. That’s what they drink in the city, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s the official drink. What type are you?”

“Latte,” he said, and I heard his smile.

I clicked off and pushed in Rauser’s number. I hadn’t even called to say good night
last night.

“Streeeet,” he answered. “Highlight of the morning right here. How’s it going down
there?”

“Another girl disappeared yesterday afternoon. It’s our guy. We caught a break on
some physical evidence, though,” I said. “The sheriff’s team is icing me out. Two
investigators. Total dicks. I may have to go rogue.”

“That’s your specialty,” he said, and we were quiet for a few seconds. I paced the
empty corridor with the phone to my ear. Light streamed in a row of windows lining
the corridor. I looked down at the asphalt parking lot and the newly planted saplings
that edged up against it. “Listen, Keye,” Rauser said. “I know we’re new at this.
Maybe you feel like you gotta report in or whatever. Maybe you’ve been with the kind
of guy who needs that. Me, I’m not an insecure man.”

“Where’s this coming from?” I asked.

“You give me room when I’m working. The favor extends both ways, that’s all. That’s
why we’re good together, you and me. So just, you know, find the kid. I’m good. White
Trash is being totally sadistic to Hank but I think he’s starting to like it.”

Rauser was not only a secure man, he was an instinctive one. He knows me. And he knows
what to do when he feels me slipping. He lets go. I leaned my back against the cold
marble wall, closed my eyes. “You have any idea how much I love you?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, and I heard the flint on his old Zippo catch on the third
strike. “You left me with your cat.”

He’d stopped smoking last Thanksgiving. And now it seemed he was again. I didn’t question
him. I understand all the ways addiction can rise up and pull you back under.

We said good-bye and less than ten minutes later, I was standing in an observation
room with Sheriff Meltzer, watching Logan Peele drum his fingers against a gray metal
tabletop in an interview room devoid of natural light. We were each holding a latte.
I’d bought three.
The third for Peele. Meltzer pulled the plastic cap off his cup and blew into steamed
milk and coffee. The judicial center didn’t know it was August outside. Icy air blasted
through new ductwork.

Peele got up and paced the room. He had the fluid movements of someone completely
at ease with his body, the gym body he’d probably developed in prison. But that body
had the coiled energy of a cheetah. Irritation was getting the best of him. He didn’t
seem to be aware of being watched, but I knew that he was certain he was.

Meltzer chuckled. “He doesn’t like waiting. Or is it confined spaces?”

“He doesn’t like anything he can’t control,” I answered. “How long’s he been there?”

“An hour. I wanted to wait for my deputies to give his property a good going-over
while he was gone.”

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Meltzer said. “And you don’t seem surprised.”

“Acquiring a victim right after your people left his property would have been brazen.
Bringing her back to that same property, even more so.”

Meltzer glanced at me. “He’s arrogant enough.”

“True.” I nodded. “But I don’t think he’s stupid enough. I guarantee he hasn’t stopped
the behaviors that put him in jail the first time. He’s just gotten smarter.”

“He could be holding Skylar somewhere else.”

“True again.”

He opened the door for me and we stepped into the corridor, then into the interview
room where Peele waited. “Welcome back to the Hitchiti County Judicial Center, Mr.
Peele,” Sheriff Meltzer said as we walked in carrying our coffees. “Have a seat.”
Meltzer set a cup down in front of Peele.

Peele eyed the coffee, took it in his hand, a coating of red hair on his knuckles.
He didn’t sit. “I should have known you were the reason I had to wait.”

“Just a couple of questions before you collect your things, then you’re free to go.”

“Where are my things?”

“Downstairs,” Meltzer told him. “Property room. You sign for them and you’re free
to go.”

Peele pried the top off the latte and sipped. “Not bad,” he remarked. “And since you
obviously didn’t find what you were looking for on my stuff, I’ll just enjoy this
on the way home.”

Meltzer’s hand closed down on Peele’s wrist, fast like a trap closing. “Sit,” he demanded.

Peele stared at him. Then he lowered himself back down and found his smirk.

“You didn’t fuck up my day enough yesterday?” Color was coming up in the fair skin
on his neck. “I have to make a living, Sheriff Meltzer. You’re not supposed to interfere
with that.”

“Tell us about yesterday,” I said. “After the sheriff’s team left your house. What
did you do?”

“Well, Dr. Street, I fucking cleaned my house. The
team
made a mess. I might as well have invited in a bunch of baboons.”

“After that,” I pressed. “Between three and four?”

“I drove to Conyers, where I could find a decent place to shop. And where nobody knows
me. God, I need to move out of this hick town.”

“What kind of store?”

“Food, Sheriff. A man’s got to eat.”

“You have your receipt?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Peele smirked. “Maybe.”

“A guy like you knows where his receipts are,” I said. “You know where everything
is.”

Peele showed me the straight row of small white teeth. “Perceptive,” he said.

“Where’s the receipt, Logan?” Meltzer asked. He wasn’t amused.

“I probably threw it away,” Peele answered. His index finger picked at the cardboard
sleeve on his latte.

“You must have thrown it away somewhere other than home,” Meltzer said. “Because we’ve
been through everything in that house, including the trash, while you were sitting
here.”

Peele didn’t blink.

“What’s the name of the store?” Meltzer asked.

Peele was silent.

“Did you use a credit or debit card?”

“Cash,” Peele said.

“I don’t think you fully understand the situation you’re in.” The sheriff leaned forward
and looked into Peele’s blue eyes. “We just searched everything you own. In fact,
my deputies probably spilled trash all over your shiny floors. You know, because they’re
baboons
.”

Peele smiled.

“A very serious crime has been committed,” Meltzer pushed. “And you don’t seem to
have an alibi.”

Our coffee jumped. The flat of Peele’s hand had slammed the tabletop. The dam had
broken. “And you don’t seem to have a missing fucking girl. Or anything else. So fuck
off.”

Meltzer sat back, glanced at me. “Did I mention a girl, Dr. Street?”

“No, Sheriff. I don’t think you did,” I replied.

He’d stumbled for the first time. “I’m speaking in generalities.” His eyes blazed
at us. “I figure it’s something like that or you wouldn’t be fucking with me.”

Posters had not even begun to hit telephone poles and bulletin boards, neighborhood
searches hadn’t even had time to organize. “How does a man who says he has no friends
in town and who doesn’t have devices to monitor the Whisper gossip feed hear about
a missing girl?” I asked.

“I never said I didn’t have a television,” Peele’s blue eyes danced with energy and
nerves and the delight of confrontation. “Look, I had a meeting here at seven last
night. That should be easy enough to check.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“Sex offender treatment program. Sheriff, you should keep up with these things. I
was right downstairs. It’s a lot of fun. Guys like to relive their freaky shit on
the pretense of expressing remorse. Remorse is a big theme. You should drop in sometime,
Dr. Street. Everyone leaves with a hard-on.”

The hand Meltzer had on the table closed into a fist. His forearm flexed. I shot him
a look.
Chill
. Interview rooms have cameras.

Peele had seen what I had seen. He’d have learned to read aggression in jail. He rocked
back in his chair, folded arms over his chest.
Meltzer put Skylar’s picture on his phone and pushed it across the table. Peele didn’t
look at it. “She lives about a mile from you,” Meltzer said.

“It’s Whisper,” Peele said. “Everyone lives a mile from me.”

“She attends the junior high,” Meltzer continued. “She didn’t come home yesterday
afternoon.”

“I’m not allowed to hang out around schools, Sheriff. Remember?”

“You have another piece of property somewhere, Logan? A little getaway maybe?”

“I’m sure you’ve already double-checked those records and found out I do not.” Peele
looked down at Meltzer’s phone, touched the screen with a manicured fingertip to bring
it back to life. “Nice-looking kid. Never had the pleasure.”

“If anything happens to this girl because of something you’ve done or withheld, everything
you’ve built since you got out, that clean house, all your nice electronics, all the
things you control, it’s all gone,” Meltzer threatened. “Have a great day.”

Peele stood up, put one finger on the top of the coffee cup we’d brought him, and
pushed. It tipped over. Coffee slowly gurgled out the plastic spout onto the table.
He walked out.

“Great guy,” Meltzer grumbled when the door slammed behind Peele. It felt like the
air had been sucked out of the room. He righted the cup and we stared at the milky
pool on the table.

“Three dollars in latte right there,” I remarked.

“So how do I cover this bastard?” Meltzer wanted to know. “I can’t afford to lose
him.”

“Give him room,” I said. “Because if he’s the one, he’s hidden Skylar somewhere else.”

“She’ll need food and water—”

“He wouldn’t care what she’d need, Ken. If he supplies her with anything it’s to use
it as a bargaining chip. Not because he cares if she’s hungry and thirsty. He’d let
her die to keep from exposing himself. And the only regret he’d have is that he didn’t
get enough time with her. Never forget that.”

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