Sinnerman (18 page)

I rubbed the bottom of the corner of the picture with my thumb and read the signature of the artist: L. Reids.

From the other end of the room Giovanni shouted that he’d found a cabinet housed with supplies.

“Come take a look at this,” he said.

I made my way over to him and pulled the cabinet door back until it was all the way open. There, on the second shelf in the center of the cabinet, was a wire basket and inside, a ream of white parchment paper. I pulled the basket toward me and lifted up the paper and took a look at it, and then I noticed another type of paper on the bottom of the stack. It was pink.

“What would you like to do now?” Giovanni said.

I shrugged and looked at the pink paper I’d taken from the art house.

“I suppose we need to let your brother know about this.”

He nodded.

“That would be wise.”

“I’d like to have some time first before I make the call—I want to dig around a little bit on the internet and see what I can find. I’m sure your brother wishes I wasn’t involved in this, but I am, and this is the only way I can stay a step ahead of everyone. Otherwise, they would leave me out, I’m sure of it.”

“No need to explain,” he said. “I understand.”

Was there anything about this guy that wasn’t perfect?

***

We stopped by my place so I could grab my laptop and some clothes and then drove back to Giovanni’s place for dinner.

My internet search proved profitable, and with a few keywords I was able to find some additional information on Laurel Reids. Ms. Reids was the wife of a wealthy oil tycoon by the name of Decklan Reids, until she bailed on their relationship. She left behind not only a thriving art institute, but her husband and son, and just like the old woman said earlier, I found no indication that she ever returned. I wondered why.

From what I could tell, Decklan Reids stayed in the area and still lived in the same house in Park Meadows. I jotted down the address. I wasn’t sure where all of this would lead, but something stirred inside me that had been unmoved since Gabrielle’s death, and I felt my whole body burn in unison at the prospect of one thing: achieving my goal.

After an unforgettable dinner with Giovanni and his sister which included Lord Berkeley eating out of a marble dog bowl that seemed to be purchased just for the occasion, I set out to see whether Decklan Reids still occupied the house on 3873 Pinedale Street. A part of me wanted to go it alone. I did my best PI work in solitary, but I knew even a person like Giovanni couldn’t grant me that, even with all the leniency I’d already been given.

***

The lights were on when we arrived at Decklan Reids’ house. We approached the front door and knocked. A thin woman with short white curly hair in a crisp sundress with an apron over the top that was tied in a bow opened the door.

“Can I help you?”

“Is this the home of Decklan Reids?” I said.

“It is.”

“I hoped I could speak with him,” I said. “Is he here?”

She wiped her hands on her apron and said, “Just a moment. Let me see if he is available.”

She left us at the doorway and a minute later a man arrived at the door. He was taller than most men I’d met and had the body of a runner. His hair was grey and it blended well with his sleek frame. He glanced at me and then Giovanni but did not speak—he just stood there, like he waited for one of us to say something first. So I did.

“Mr. Reids, I hoped I could speak to you for a moment.”

“About?”

“Can we come in? I’d rather discuss it inside if you don’t mind,” I said.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

I brandished my card and gave it to him.

He held it about four inches away from his face and squashed his eyes together while he gazed at it.

“What are you investigating?”

Giovanni and I exchanged glances. I didn’t want to blurt out that I was investigating the Sinnerman murders, but I had to compel him enough to let me through the front door.

“I’m looking for Laurel Reids. I believe she was your wife,” I said.

“Ex-wife.”

“I’m sorry, yes. That’s what I meant.”

“That was a long time ago. And I can’t see what use I would be. Why?”

“One of her art students is trying to reach her,” I said.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

“After so long?”

I nodded.

“Any help you can give us would be appreciated.”

He pondered it for a bit and then backed away a few steps.

“Come in.”

We followed him through the parlor and into the living room. It was decorated in rich tones of navy blue and tan with deep brown accents. My first impression was that the guy was still a bachelor. The furniture was rustic and reminded me of something I would see in a log cabin. In the center of the room a knotty log hearth was placed over an unlit fire and above it on the wall was the biggest moose head I’d ever seen in my life.

Decklan beamed and said to Giovanni, “Shot that one myself.” Giovanni didn’t seem the least bit interested, but he nodded and smiled.

“It’s umm…”

For once he couldn’t think of what to say and looked to me for some words of encouragement.

“Do you hunt often?” I said.

“Every chance I get. Been on every continent and hunted everything from elephants to javelinas. Care to see my trophy room?”

I was certain Giovanni lacked interest in a room full of stuffed dead animals, but he also seemed aware of the fact that I would seize any opportunity to snoop, so he nodded a reluctant yes.

“And you?” Decklan said, and turned to me.

“I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind.”

Decklan shrugged his shoulders.

“Suit yourself.”

Once they were out of sight, I made my move. Ever since we’d arrived I had my eye on a room down the hall. While we stood in the living room and chatted, I could see the entrance of what appeared to be a boy’s room, and that’s all it took for my curiosity to be piqued. With no one in sight, I booked it down the hall. I passed a bathroom on the left which I made note of; it could serve me well if Giovanni and Decklan decided to hike back up the stairs early, although I was certain Giovanni would keep him at bay. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to flex his persuasive muscle if needed.

The door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar when I reached it. I nudged it with my arm just enough that I could slide in and out with ease. Once inside, I glanced around. The blue and green plaid twin comforter had been made up to perfection, and it matched the tab-topped curtains that hung over the two oversized windows in the room. There was a single wood dresser that was brown with black metal circular knobs that lined the front, two on each drawer. The walls were sparse with little adornment, but there were holes to indicate things had been hung on them at some point in the past. Some of the holes were spaced apart in a square pattern, the exact size of a poster. It made me curious about what hung there at one time.

On top of the dresser there were several framed photos of a child at various stages of life. In one, he looked to be about four. He held up a giant fish attached to a long rod. A much younger Decklan stood next to him with the proud parent smile plastered across his face. And there had been a third person in the photo, but it had been ripped, and all that remained was a hand from the person on the boy’s arm. His eyes were darted downward and fixed on the fish with an innate fascination, but he didn’t express a smile like his father. His face was stolid and emotionless.

In another photo the boy was older. He posed with a deer of some kind, or maybe it was an elk. I’d never been around anyone that hunted before, and I couldn’t tell the difference. From the look of it, the animal was dead and the boy was covered in blood. But that wasn’t what stood out to me the most. My eyes were drawn to the boy’s hands, his left one in particular. In the photo at four years of age, his hands were perfect. But something happened between the first photo and the second. A few of his fingers were bent over in such a way they appeared to have been mangled, almost like he’d contracted some sort of disease that caused them to degenerate. The only problem with that theory was, his other hand looked just fine.

Behind the photo of the boy and the animal was an album. I grabbed it and flipped through its pages. It was a timeline of photos at every age in school that started with Kindergarten. In the first three his hand was visible and looked fine, but once I got to his second grade picture it was obvious that great effort had been made to conceal it. And there was something else. The boy no longer smiled as he had in the first couple of pictures. He looked solemn and detached. I turned a few more pages and immediately recognized the photo before me. I’d seen it at the art institute earlier that day. Thoughts flooded my mind, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. The girl in the painting hadn’t been a girl at all, it was a boy.

“What are you really doing here?” a voice said from behind me.

The woman who first greeted me at the front door stood in the doorway. She’d been so quiet, I hadn’t heard her approach.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just—”

She shook her head at me and entered the room.

“There’s no need for excuses, dear. But I would like to know the real reason you’re here.”

“What’s your relationship to Decklan?” I said. “I can tell you’re related in some way.”

“I’m his mother. And,” she said and pointed to the album I still clutched in my hand, “I’m that boy’s grandmother.”

“He always could hit every target he aimed at,” the old woman said about the photo of the boy with the dead animal. “Won his first award when he was ten. I’ve never seen anyone who could hit a bull’s eye the way he could.”

“What’s his name?” I said.

“What’s yours?”

“Sloane.”

“And you’re a PI?”

I nodded.

She sat down on the bed and placed one hand behind her to brace herself.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t stand for long periods of time anymore. My back isn’t what it used to be. Let’s sit a minute and have a little chat woman to woman while the boys run around being boys.”

I sat a couple feet away from her on the bed.

“Do you know why I question the real reason you’re here?” she said.

I shook my head.

“No one has ever come looking for Laurel. Not a single person. Since the day she walked out the door, she hasn’t been missed by anyone in this town.”

“What happened?” I said.

“She up and left with another man when the boy was only seven. Now you tell me, what kind of mother does that to her child? Leaves him without so much as a note, a phone call, a visit? I’ll tell you—the trampy kind. That woman was only interested in one thing since the day she set eyes on my son—herself. And she only cared about one thing—money.”

“If that’s true, why’d she leave all this?” I said.

“She found money somewhere else.”

“What about her son?”

“She never wanted that boy from the moment she found out she was pregnant with him. She told Decklan kids weren’t part of their deal, like a child was some sort of business transaction two people make with each other. It sickens me to think about it, even now. I was surprised she lasted seven years.”

I’d never had children, but the notion that a mother could abandon her child seemed callous. I wondered what kind of world we lived in where so many women who were desperate to have babies were denied that right while others who were undeserving pumped them out like balls in a paintball gun, one right after the other. It didn’t seem fair.

“That must have been a difficult time for your grandson,” I said.

“It was hard on them both. My son gave that woman everything her heart desired. He built her that art studio downtown and gave her whatever she asked for. But, it’s like I told him. Women like that are never happy. They wrestle with themselves their whole life, and in the end after all he’d done, I was right, and she still walked out.”

“How did he take it when she left?”

“He didn’t want to talk about it. He just focused on his work.”

“And your grandson?” I said.

“He was never the same after she left. Poor boy.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You need to understand, my grandson was a quiet boy to begin with. And when that poor example of a woman up and left, it got worse. He’d lock himself in his room for hours. Turned out he was writing her letters. He’d write her every day and beg her to come back. Decklan told him we had no place to send them, but he wrote the letters anyway. He’d created this fantasy, maybe it was his way to cope so he didn’t have to face reality. When I could get him out of his room, he planted himself on the front porch and waited for her to drive up. He’d convinced himself she would come back, and no one could make him believe any different. It amazed me how much he loved that loony woman. He didn’t seem to notice that she didn’t give a damn about him.”

I took out the note Sinnerman left for me in the park and folded it so she couldn’t see the words.

“By any chance did the paper he wrote on look like this?”

Her eyes scanned it and then expanded to the point that I no longer needed a verbal answer.

“Where did you get that? Do you know my grandson—do you know where he is?”

I pressed harder.

“Is this the paper?” I said.

“Yes.”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen your grandson?”

She tapped one of her fingers over her lips and then said, “I don’t know. He left.”

“How long ago?” I said.

“It’s been years now, about two decades.”

“Do you have any idea where he went?”

A tear oozed from her eye and splashed down on her wrist. She took her index finger and cocked her head to the side and dabbed the wet spot with it.

“Decklan set aside a big chunk of money for my grandson that he was entitled to when he turned eighteen. The day after he took out his inheritance, he left town, and I’ve never seen him since.”