The Miraculous Plot of Leiter & Lott (30 page)

“Are you still shocked?”

Val tapped at the image, then ran her finger along the outline of the man in the sketch.
 
“There's not much facial detail here," she said. “This could be anybody.”

Even David?

“That's why you and Mr. Lomax hope to appeal to the man you met, to come into the station and clear all this up?”

“I don't know what Greg is planning, but I've never met anyone less influenced by pop culture, so I doubt he watches television. Although he did mention occasionally listening to the news on the radio.”

“Be honest with me here, Ms. Lott. Could you have been duped by this guy?”

“No, not at all. Like I said, he never told me he was blind or homeless, that was something I assumed.”

“Although he wouldn't tell you his name or his history.”

“I did call him David pretty early in the conversation.”

“And why is that?”

“It's my ex boyfriend's name. We'd just broken up.”

“Are you suggesting to me that you developed feelings for a stranger, there in the park?”

“No, I'm not suggesting anything, except that he really is innocent. I know it. I just do. It's hard to explain.”

“Can you try? You're a reporter, after all.”

“Okay, then, let me ask you. Do you judge people by how much money they have, or how popular you think they are? Because this man is not seeking anything like that. Not like someone on the City Council, or someone who thinks happiness is about owning the most fabulous house in the neighborhood, with a Lexus for their trips to the jewelry store. Such a man wouldn't kidnap a child, in any case, detective. Why would he? His values are different.”

“That's assuming you're seeing it the way it is, of course.”

“How do you mean?”

“Our kidnapper didn't have a dog, Ms. Lott, but he did have a beard.”

“What does that prove?”

Trent's eyes narrowed for a moment. His lips pursed. He cleared his throat.
 
“You implying here that he converted you? Opened your eyes to some kinda. . . new age truth?”

“Open your own eyes, detective. Ask yourself why Sarah Collins is not in the news. Or are you going to tell me that you're seeking her killer with just as much vigor?"

"That case is still open, I can tell you that. If you have any more to say about it, I'm all ears." Trent paused. The trace of a smile that played on his lips was an evanescent smirk, there and gone. Then he continued, "Now, say that you had to describe the philosophy and values you mentioned this man having in a nutshell, Ms. Lott. Could you do that?"

Val nodded.
 
"Of course. It's really no different than when an astronomer captures images in his telescope. Did you know each tiny spiral or smudge of light you see on those photographs is an island universe in itself?”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“You will?
 
So you believe specks of light are entire universes, but you don't believe what I'm saying about a man I met in the park?"

"Do
you?"
They had a little blinking contest, which Trent ultimately won. "I didn't say I believe you, Ms. Lott, but for the sake of discussion I'm willing to assume it's true."

"Thanks a whole bunch."
 
She smiled curtly. "Okay, then. Just like we know about other galaxies, we also know there's something at the center of ourselves, working at a similar scale. An infinite scale. Something we can't explain. Our soul, if you will.
 
I assume, for the sake of discussion, that you have one too?"
 
She paused significantly, then added in a somewhat condescending tone, "It's something we feel, detective, but it's also something we
know
, even if we can't really comprehend it. To avoid thinking about it much, we join country clubs, listen to iPods, watch cop shows, go bowling. Whatever. Anything to avoid facing our own reality.”

“I'd like you to face the reality we're talking about here, if you would, Ms. Lott.”

“I am. But what exactly is that reality, detective? For instance, have you ever seen a photograph in a magazine that asks you to add a caption to it? Because there are a hundred interpretations for any snapshot of so-called reality. And even if you're the one who takes the photo, you have to imagine someday looking at it. Right? That means you're not really seeing what you think you see through the viewfinder. You're looking at some future moment. And when that future moment arrives, and you look at the photo, you'll be trying to remember the past. Where's the present, in all this, is my question.”

“That's my question too.”

“Truth is, detective, it's ignored. Meaning nothing is ever what it seems.
 
Which is why nothing ever turns out the way we expect, either.”

Trent smiled thinly. “Maybe I should rest my case, here.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Of course, if he did kidnap a Hispanic kid, he wouldn't hurt her physically, just maybe, like, talk her to death?”

“That's not funny, detective.”

“I'm sorry, Ms. Lott.
 
It's just, I don't have time for games. Think about what you told me for a second, will you?
 
You'd just broken up with your boyfriend, something sure to produce an emotional state in anyone. Then you meet a man who talks philosophy to you. A handsome guy, I'm told, who you think is just the opposite of your ex. Maybe you want to believe him.
Need
to believe him. Am I wrong?”

“Yes, you are. You think too much. Like Greg. Like everyone.”

“What about little Melissa Melendez? Doesn't she deserve a second thought?”

“Of course she does. But this man is not the one who kidnapped her.”

“Although no one can prove it by you, because you haven't a clue about where he is or who he is.”

“I know who he is. He's not a felon or user of people. He's not a celebrity, either, or else you'd be giving him the benefit of the doubt too, even
without
having talked to him and listened to him! Am I wrong, detective?
 
I don't think so.
 
I've seen enough in this business to know that we only listen to people who share our politics, or support our delusions, or pay us a wage. . . people we envy or want to impress. Everyone else can go to hell.”

Trent sighed. “Okay, Ms. Lott. Let's pretend there's a good man out there who falls on hard times. Shall we? Maybe this man loses his job, his family.
 
I
dunno
. . . maybe medical bills bankrupt him. Anyway, he ends up at the park when he's not at some shelter, laying his head on a bench in one of those
ramadas
that companies use for picnics. That's his home for a while, his ‘
ramada
inn,' if you like. Checkout time is whenever some soccer mom shows up to evict him from the table she's rented for her spoiled kid's birthday party. He's got no one who cares, and people think he's just drifted into homelessness due to alcohol or laziness or apathy. Now ask yourself, here. Wouldn't this man become desperate and lonely, and then maybe even opportunistic, over time?
 
If he has so little hope, and so little money, wouldn't he try to con his way out of his misery? Maybe pretend to be someone he's not?
 
Can you give me that, at least?”

In defiance and frustration Val left her cell phone off as she drove through the neighborhoods surrounding Reid Park. Glancing repeatedly down at the phone, which lay dormant on the seat beside her, she pondered Trent's theory of guilt.
 
Was it even remotely possible? Although the police would love to grill David as their prime suspect, it seemed absurd at best.

No, she decided. A kidnapper was out there somewhere, that much was certain. Perhaps a faceless killer, too. Maybe even a homeless man like the one she'd seen, but hadn't really observed. Yet neither of these could be the gentle man she'd talked to. Curiously, though, she did wonder how likely it was that a criminal owned one of David's dogs. Because no dog had been seen with the kidnapper, either. No one had even noticed him, much less made eye contact. And then someone had only seen him from a distance.
 

In any event, if she didn't find David soon, she had to report what she'd neglected to mention about the van, the trailer, and the airport connection. Because Trent definitely needed help to track whoever it was, for the little girl's sake. It felt like a mistake to protect someone who didn't need protection, too, although this reflex was probably because she wanted to feel sorry for him, which would subconsciously make it easier to dismiss what he'd suggested about her own career path. If only she could imagine him vulnerable and homeless, similar to someone living in an empty castle, with a wide moat of silence around it. If only he fit the profile of some lonely retiree whose dog took up its owner's hostility by barking at everything that moved. Yet this description didn't fit David either, she knew.

And where
was
he now, anyway? Already she'd begun to circle through the same area, seeing the same familiar streets she'd driven before. She thought about calling Cliff White for advice on her dilemma, but rejected the idea, knowing it would be more futile than calling her mother. Cliff might even mistake it for an invitation to make a pass at her, as he had after the last company picnic, two years prior. Plus Cliff, like anyone at the station, couldn't be expected to keep a confidence if revealing it earned them brownie points with Claire. Considering her other friends, Val wondered if she could even call them friends anymore, considering she'd spent so little time with them while in pursuit of her career. As married women, Denise and Joyce and Diane now lived in cookie-cutter subdivisions beyond the city limits, where they drove hybrid mini-vans, and had kids in school. What little free time they had was cherished with their busy husbands, who were manufacturing consultants or teachers or electrical engineers. So they probably couldn't relate to her any better than Faye had. If they thought of her at all after burping their babies, it was probably with a wistful approbation, culminating with a sigh and a whispered, “Have fun dating, Val. You go, girl!” Little did they know how dating was hell at her age, with time running out on her own dream of settling down.

~ * ~

After 6 PM, Val pulled her aging Taurus over. From the west edge of the twilit park, she looked past a tall row of motionless palm trees toward a particular expanse of grass tinged an unearthly gold by a sliver of dying sunlight. There was no wind at sunset, only the distant, intermittent howl of a siren. Like the anguish of a homesick coyote in despair of finding its way, the howl disturbed a pigeon, high up in one of the palms. The bird struggled half heartedly to regain the balance of its perch, and even flapped its wings once in a
gameful
effort, yet it remained unwilling to expend the energy needed to let go and find another tree.
 

Val closed her eyes briefly, feeling similarly tired and overwhelmed. Her brooding mood, fueled earlier by frustration, had already begun to lose its edge.
 
Soon she might feel nothing at all except emptiness and loss. Unless she could somehow take David's advice to focus on the moment, old thought patterns would snare her once more, looping through her head like an old movie reel.
 
Augmenting her problems, then, would flash regrets over the subtle ways she'd been taught to go after bold, rich men who ultimately possessed little depth or interest in art or philosophy or religion, and so acted their own part in the absurd mating dance of life, following a ritual choreography that foretold the inevitable death of fidelity, honesty, charity, even sanity.

The wasted effort of it all seemed so ludicrous to her, now. If only she could just sleep. And then, if she never woke up, so much the better. Or if she did awaken, if only David could be there. So she could ask him one burning question. One about starting over. With a clean slate.
 

How do I become blank again, like a child?
 

If it was possible to achieve that, then maybe, after this worrisome drama was done with, she might discover the courage to pursue a truer calling than seeking out celebrities to interview, as Mrs. Robinson had evidently decreed for her. And maybe this new career would partly involve helping organize David's dog placement service. Call it
Dogs Without Borders
, or something. A more meaningful endeavor, for sure, than covering trivial society events, or reporting on petty crimes that enabled bored viewers rubber-necking time before their favorite game show.
 

With time running out, and more questions than answers, Val opened her car door, and stepped out with determination. She would search the area on foot. Of course the police were probably still searching too, but they didn't have what she had. All they possessed, besides biased profiling methods, was a sketch made with the help of the witness who'd been in the park. They didn't have her intuition, or anything like a clue.

She walked purposefully toward the ball field with the same bench where she'd first encountered David. Almost like a force field, though, the fetid odor of stale garbage blocked her path, permeating the space surrounding a large green plastic trash container with a missing lid. Repulsed, she backed away. But then plastic spray nozzles suddenly popped up out of hiding, and on cue high arcs of water pulsed at her in ambush. One nozzle soaked her neck before she could turn her back to the programmed watering, and step the opposite way.