Gone (26 page)

39

Wednesday, 11:52 a.m. PST

F
OR
Q
UINCY, TIME STOPPED
at precisely eleven fifty-two a.m. Wednesday morning. Up until that point, he thought he’d been doing fairly well. Poring over his notes in order to see what they might have missed. Working with Kincaid to analyze the whiteboard listing investigative tasks: They didn’t have Detective Grove’s official report of Rainie’s last twenty-four hours. They needed to press Sheriff Atkins for a completed assessment of local offenders. Then there was still the matter of following up with Laura Carpenter, of tracking down Andrew Bensen. In the past thirty-six hours, many things had gotten started, but too few had been finished. It happened in an investigation moving in this many directions at this kind of speed.

Candi offered her assistance. Apparently, anything was better than sitting around a conference table, twiddling her thumbs. Kincaid sent her off to Laura Carpenter’s house. A trained hostage negotiator shouldn’t have any problem interviewing a battered wife, and that would earn them at least one check mark on the whiteboard.

Quincy agreed to take over the search for Andrew Bensen, Army’s efforts be damned. With the clock still ticking, they didn’t have time to wait for official reports. Quincy booted up his laptop and started working his cell phone. Calling Bensen’s grandmother. Getting the name of the man’s former high school classmates, drinking buddies. What were his hobbies, interests? Did he take any prescription medication? Had he come to Bakersville often? How well might he know the area? Had anyone ever heard him express any particular anger over his father’s death, or any interest in contacting Lorraine Conner?

“Well, at least Lucas wasn’t shacking up with some whore, raising her bastards all these years,” Eleanor Bensen said with a snort, when Quincy asked what she’d thought upon hearing the news that her son Lucas had been shot.

And Andrew?

“Never told him. Boy hadn’t asked about his father in fifteen years. Why start now?”

“Did he learn the news from anyone else?”

“How the hell should I know? I’ll tell you one thing, though. That boy’s a moody S.O.B. Thinks the world owes him something just because he grew up without parents. What does he think I am, chopped liver?”

Quincy was still mulling over that particularly cheerful conversation when Kimberly called about the note taped to the bottom of the Wal-Mart pay phone.

And once more, Quincy and Kincaid shifted gears. No need to worry about coordinating complicated ransom drops. Now it was purely a matter of X marks the spot. Deposit the hidden treasure. Worry about what the subject would do to fuck with them next.

They needed another seven thou. Kincaid ordered Shelly and Kimberly to hit the road. Quincy whipped out the yellow pages. A branch of his bank was located in Garibaldi, on Kimberly and Shelly’s way north. He tried demanding money by phone. The bank manager hung up on him. Kincaid called back, rattled off enough legalese to make a lawyer proud, and secured the promise of seven thousand in cash to be handed over to a law enforcement officer in approximately eight minutes.

They were still feeling pleased with themselves, jazzed in the sort of way people who never dealt in matters of life and death would ever understand, when the other call came in.

And Quincy’s world stopped. Kincaid talked, but his words had no meaning. Quincy stared at the whiteboard, but couldn’t read the writing.

A local farm, owned by a suspected drug dealer. A county investigator, executing a search by poking through a pile of manure. The discovery of a woman’s pale white hand.

The ME was on her way. The DA was formally requesting a primary examiner from the Portland lab. All activity at the farm had ceased. Nobody wanted to make a mistake. They had one body. Now the question was: Did they have three?

“I’ll call Kimberly,” Kincaid said.

“No.”

“They might as well come back. Shelly was the one who arranged for the search. She’s going to want to be involved in what they found.”

“Not until we know for certain.”

Kincaid didn’t say anything.

“It might not be Rainie; we don’t want to blow the drop.”

Kincaid didn’t say anything.

Quincy finally turned around. “You don’t understand,” he said quietly. “I’m the one who’s supposed to die first.”

Kincaid had to go. Quincy sat alone in the conference room, staring at the whiteboard and thinking, for once in his life, of nothing at all.

Wednesday, 11:56 a.m. PST

C
ANDI
’
S FIRST IMPRESSION OF
the Carpenters’ house was there was no way she would ever live here. Not that she’d grown up on Park Avenue, but her Grandma Rosa had prided herself on her home. Every morning she swept the front steps. Afternoons found her polishing her furniture with lemon-scented Pledge. Heaven help you if you came into her kitchen with mud on your shoes. Candi and her cousins would be handed a rag and sentenced to spend the next hour scrubbing floors on their hands and knees.

Rosa’s Portland bungalow may have contained seven kids under the age of ten, but for as long as Candi could remember, that little house had glowed. Starched lace curtains on the windows. Strands of green ivy cascading from the window seat, the mantel, even curling around the cross of crucifixion. All the neighborhood kids preferred coming over to Rosa’s house to play. They would drink Kool-Aid in a lemon-scented kitchen, then play in the tiny backyard, overgrown with Rosa’s carefully cultivated wisteria vines.

The Carpenters’ house, on the other hand. Dark, Candi thought. Too many tall trees towering over a tiny house. The giant firs blocked the sun, sucked the moisture from the grass, and left only the moss alive on the dilapidated roof. Definitely no wild cascades of purple flowers here.

Candi parked on the muddy drive. She followed an uneven brick path, picking her way carefully over the heaving stones, interspersed with giant clumps of crabgrass. The front of the house was painted mud brown, with the door to match. She knocked, waited, but no one answered.

Candi thought she heard the sound of voices, however. She cocked her ears, then realized it was the radio, coming from around back. She followed the noise.

She found Laura Carpenter standing on a cement patio that was pretty much in the same state as the brick walk, inhaling a cigarette. Minute she saw Candi, Laura dropped the Marlboro to the ground and stepped on it. The woman shifted her balance forward, as if trying to cover the motion as a random step.

Candi thought she’d seen twelve-year-olds better at disguising their habit.

She held out her hand. “Candi Rodriguez, Oregon State Police.”

Laura Carpenter didn’t scowl, but she didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat either. She ignored Candi’s extended arm, shrugging instead.

“So what d’you want to search now?” the woman asked. She had her arms crossed over her chest. Baggy purple sweatshirt. Stringy brown hair. Hollow brown eyes. She spoke with a voice of practiced indifference.

“Actually, I was wondering if Stanley was home.”

“Nope.”

“Is he running some errands?”

Laura jerked her head toward the encroaching woods. “He’s out there. Still looking for the boy. Stanley,” she added derisively, “thinks he’s Knute Rockne. Quitters never win. Winners never quit. Just because a bunch of police officers have declared the boy kidnapped doesn’t mean Stanley’s gonna hang up his hat. Not Stanley.”

Laura’s hands were trembling. Candi decided to make it easy on both of them. She made a show of patting down her jacket. “Ah shit, I must’ve left them in the car.”

Laura looked at her.

“My cigarettes,” Candi explained. “Don’t suppose you happen to have one . . .”

The woman finally smiled. She wasn’t fooled, just grateful. “Don’t suppose I do.” She whipped out the red -and-white pack. Banged one out for herself, then handed the pack to Candi. There was a book of matches by the grill. They both lit up, Laura exhaling smoothly, Candi managing not to cough. It’d been years since her last cigarette. Ah man, though, it did taste nice.

“I’m supposed to have quit,” Laura volunteered finally, waving away the gathering smoke. “We were trying to have a baby. Can’t smoke while you’re pregnant. Can’t smoke, can’t drink, can’t eat fish. Kind of funny when you think about it—all the rules they have now. I got a picture of my mom, seven months pregnant with me, with a beer in one hand and cigarette in the other. Then again, some days I look in the mirror and I think I’m a walking advertisement for the surgeon general.”

“Take it it didn’t work,” Candi commented neutrally.

“Five years of in vitro,” Laura said. “Gotta love the unions. Give the workers such great insurance, they’d be crazy not to burn it up.”

“Five years? That’s hard.”

Laura didn’t say anything, just pursed her lips. Candi thought of her earlier statement about her husband—quitters never win, winners never quit. Maybe that worked on the football field, but when it came to matters of the bedroom . . .

She could understand why Laura Carpenter looked so tired. Like the life had been drained out of her, and now she was just a human shell, hanging out till it all came to an end.

“Is that when you decided to adopt?”

Laura looked at Candi, eyes sharp, not fooled. “Maybe you should ask Stanley.”

“It was his idea?”

“A man wants a son. That’s what he told me.”

“What does a woman want?”

Laura laughed; the sound hurt Candi’s ears. “I can get pregnant. That was never the problem; I just can’t seem to carry ’em to term. First time, you blame nature. Second time, you blame yourself. Third time, you blame God. Four, five, six times later, I think a smart woman stops blaming anyone and simply takes the hint.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ever think of having children? Maybe it doesn’t mix well with the career. Then again, you’re young, you have plenty of time left.”

“I don’t know,” Candi told her honestly. “I grew up the oldest of seven cousins. Some days, I think I’ve spent enough time changing diapers. Other days, I’m not so sure.”

“Got a husband?”

“Haven’t met anyone who could keep up with me yet.”

Laura smiled, finished off her cigarette. “Why don’t you come inside, Miss Rodriguez. Ask me what you really want to know.”

She picked up her cigarette stubs, deposited them in a plastic bag she had in the back pocket of her jeans. The pack of cigarettes went up high, tucked behind the downspout of the gutter. The matches she returned to the grill.

Laura had spent some time perfecting her deceit. Inside, she whipped out the Lysol spray. Then she excused herself.

“These are my smoking clothes,” she said by way of explanation before retreating to her bedroom.

Left alone, Candi wandered the small space. Nineteen seventies kitchen with dark stained cabinets and gold Formica countertop. Eat-in kitchen with round pedestal table and four solid wood chairs. An oversized TV, easily the most expensive item in the room, wedged on top of a rickety microwave stand. Surround-sound speakers were plunked in every corner. Candi wasn’t sure why anyone needed surround sound in a space this tiny, but she supposed boys wanted their toys.

The walls were covered in dark wood paneling and dotted with pictures of the high school’s football teams, spanning ten years. Two mounted shelves displayed the decade’s bounty—various trophies in metallic shades of red and green and gold.

Candi ducked her head into one small room, discovered a bathroom. Pushed back a second door to find a tiny office. Third time was the charm: She saw a bare mattress topped by a single white sheet. So this was Dougie’s room.

No pictures on the walls, but three impressive holes. No clothes in the closet, but a two-quart bucket. No toys of any kind. The room reminded Candi of a prison cell.

“Got a good enough look?” Laura asked from behind her. She had changed into another pair of jeans and a fresh baggy sweatshirt—this one dark green. She’d done something to her hair—probably splashed it with water—then wrapped it in a turban to disguise the cigarette smell. She really was pretty good, if you didn’t consider the nicotine stains on her fingers or the state of her teeth.

“Where’s his stuff?”

“Dougie doesn’t have any stuff. It’s part of the program. Kid starts with nothing, then earns things back bit by bit.”

“He doesn’t even get clothes?”

“He has clothes. They’re in our room. I provide him with one outfit a day, my choosing. If he wants his own clothes, again, he’s gotta behave.”

Candi arched a brow. Laura merely shrugged.

“With a boy like Dougie, what else are you gonna do?”

“Do you like Dougie, Mrs. Carpenter?”

“Not really.”

“Have you ever hit him?”

Laura’s gaze remained level. “My mama whacked me most days of my life. I don’t feel a need to return that favor.”

“And Stanley?”

“I’ve never seen him raise a hand to the boy.”

“What about to you?”

Laura raised a brow. “Stanley has his faults; that’s not one of them.”

“So what are his faults?”

“He’s a man. What are all men’s faults? Pigheadedness, self-centeredness. He wants what he wants, no matter what anyone else says.”

“Like he wanted Dougie.”

“Like he wanted Dougie.”

“So you just go along with it?”

Laura cocked her head to the side. She studied Candi for a full minute. “I know what you think, Miss Rodriguez. I know what you all think when you traipse through here. Look at that poor woman, with her face like a hundred miles of bad road. Look at that ugly little house with its ugly gold carpet and cheap Wal-Mart furniture. How can she live like that? How can she keep any man happy?

“You want to know the truth? I don’t always keep my man happy, but I always keep him. We’re no Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, but we understand each other. We’ve known each other since we were five. And compared to the trailer park where we grew up, we are living in a fucking mansion and this is our slice of paradise. Maybe no one else wants it, but for us, our life is doing just fine.”