Clean Burn (12 page)

“I don’t believe he did,” Mrs Bertram said. “He’s been gone two... No, three days now.”

Squeezing between the photinia and her porch rail, I held up the photos of Enrique and James. “Have you seen either of these two boys with him?”

She took the photos with a frail hand, held them an inch from her nose as she studied them. “My goodness, no. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen company at his house.”

Between the size of the hedge between them and Mrs Bertram’s failing vision, I wondered if she could see anything at all at Beck’s place. “So you’ve never seen any kids with Mr Beck?”

She shook her head. “He keeps talking about having his nephews come stay with him. He dotes on those two boys.”

My flesh crawled at the thought. I hoped Beck’s sister was well-informed about her brother’s predilections and kept her sons miles away from him.

Ken pulled out a business card. “I’d appreciate a call when Mr Beck returns.”

She took the card and peered at the tiny font. I hoped she had a pair of glasses somewhere inside.

We headed back to the Explorer. “I thought you kept tabs on these guys.”

“Can’t watch them every damn minute of the day.”

He was right, but frustration pushed me to goad him anyway. “Beck could have Enrique right now and be doing God knows what with him.”

Ken nearly took the door off the Explorer as he wrenched it open. “You don’t know if either one of those boys have been anywhere near Greenville.”

“I don’t.” Lifting my left leg in with my hands, I hauled myself into the truck. “But I have no other leads.”

My eardrums popped as he slammed the door. “They could both be dead.”

Weight settled in my belly. “They probably are.”

Ken’s cell rang as we pulled out. “Heinz,” he snapped into the phone. He listened, his scowl growing darker. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock. Why didn’t you call before now?” Another pause. “Damn it, Cassie–” He seemed to reel in his anger. “I’ll be there in ten.”

He clipped the phone back onto his belt. “I have to go home.”

Edginess rolled off Ken in waves as we drove into town. “Is Cassie okay?”

“She missed her bus. Again. Took her three damn hours to call and tell me.” He barely slowed at a stop sign. “She’s missed half her classes.”

“Just drop me off at Arnie’s. I’ll get Denning warmed up for you.”

No such luck he’d let me go off on my own. “It’ll take twenty minutes, tops.”

It took thirty, half of those spent with me bent over my laptop, pretending I couldn’t hear Cassie giving her uncle lip and Ken shouting at his niece in return. I’d never been keen to have children of my own. Those fifteen minutes of family disharmony in Ken’s Explorer didn’t do a damn thing to change my mind.

CHAPTER 9

James lay stretched out on his mattress, wriggling his toes in the beam of sunlight across his feet. He guessed it was close to lunchtime and his stomach rumbled at the thought. It would probably only be the same peanut butter sandwiches and juice that they always had, but sometimes there was an apple or some little carrots to go with it. Once there had even been jelly with the peanut butter.

Dragging his ratty old blanket, Sean returned from the toilet over on the other side of the stairs and snuggled up next to James. The baby sat up in her playpen, her thumb in her mouth, sad brown eyes staring at James. He’d changed her diaper a few minutes ago. The old one sat rolled up on the stairs where Mama had told him to leave it. He was tall for his age, so he could almost put it on the topmost step, right near the door. When Mama brought lunch, she’d take it and leave another clean one.

Sean turned to face him. “
Quiero jugar
.” The little boy thought a moment. “Want to play the game.”

James had made up a game to play with Sean using a plastic jar full of nails and some of the paper cups Mama brought their juice in. James would hold up his fingers, and tell Sean to put that many nails in the cup. At first, Sean didn’t understand what James wanted, but then he figured it out and could count out the nails up to six now.

They only played at night, when Mama went out. James had hidden a candle and matches so he could have light when Mama was gone. He’d found the candle and matches when he’d found the nails, stuck back behind the buckets of rags and cans of kerosene under the stairs. He kept the matches and candle stuffed under his mattress. The nails and paper cups just fit underneath the playpen, in a corner where the baby wouldn’t sit on them.

“Tonight,” James said. “I promise.”

Sean must have been tired, using Spanish that way. At the beginning, when the little boy would mix in Spanish words with English, Mama would scream at him, sometimes slap his face. Once James figured out why Mama was so mad, that she wanted Sean to speak only English, he helped the little boy remember.

James heard the rattle of the lock and quickly stood up as the door opened. “There’s the diaper, Mama.”

“Thank you, Junior.” She went down the two steps to retrieve it, then set a clean one in its place. She placed a cardboard box on the step, too. Their sandwiches and juice would be inside it, along with the baby’s bottle. “Mama has to go out.”

“But it’s daytime.” James glanced up at the window; the bright noontime sun still shone there. It was stupid, but for a second he thought maybe that beam of sunlight on his feet had been his imagination. Or maybe Mama had made the night-time come early. “You don’t go out during the day.”

Mama just stood there, quiet. James wondered if he’d said something wrong, something that Mama didn’t like. She’d only slapped him a few times since he’d been here, but he didn’t want her to do it again. Or make him hold the candle.

“I just want you all to go to heaven, Junior.” Her voice sounded dreamy and distracted. “Like you did before. You and your brothers and sisters.”

James felt a tug of fear, like he always did when Mama talked that way. “I’ll be good, Mama. I promise.”

“I know you will.” Now she sounded more normal, almost like his real mama. “Tell Mama you love her.”

He hated this the most. She asked him to say it at least once a day. The first time that she’d slapped him, it had been because he wouldn’t say it. Because he didn’t love her. He only loved his real mama.

But he’d learned to say the words as if he really meant them. It was much better to keep Mama happy. “I love you, Mama.” He forced himself to smile.

“And I love you, Junior. Even more than before.”

She swung the door shut. He heard the click of the lock, then her footsteps grew softer. He waited, listening to be sure she wasn’t coming back.

Then he dumped the rags from two of the buckets and set first one, then another on top of it below the window. He’d figured out he could reach the window standing on both buckets, even though one fit partway into the other. He wanted to look at the window, see if he could open it. He wouldn’t be able to fit through, but maybe Sean could.

First James peeked through to watch as Mama headed off away from the house. When he couldn’t see her anymore, he set his hands against the window frame and pushed up. It didn’t budge at all. He looked at the frame to see if maybe it was stuck with paint. Most of the paint had peeled off, so he knew it couldn’t be that.

Hiking himself up a little, he tried to see if there was a lock he’d missed. He had to really twist his neck around to spot the problem. The window had been nailed shut from the outside. He could only see two nails that had bent before being hammered all the way in, but he figured there were more than those two.

James dropped down to the mattress, then put the buckets back under the stairs, each with their pile of rags stuffed inside. He felt his throat get tight, and he knew if he wasn’t careful, he might start to cry. Mama wouldn’t like that.

Instead, he got their lunch and the diaper from the stairs where Mama had left them. He gave the baby her bottle and turned the cardboard box upside down to use it as a table for his and Sean’s lunches. Once they’d finished eating, he put the box back on the stairs and pulled out the cups and the nails.

“We can play now,” he told Sean as he set out the cups and spilled some nails onto the concrete floor. He held up four fingers. “How many is this?”

As Sean dropped four nails into a cup, all James could think of were those others, rusted and bent in the window, locking him in this room forever.

CHAPTER 10

By the time we pulled into Arnie’s Automotive, the air in the Ford was as explosive as a primed shotgun. I scanned the open repair bays as Ken angled into a parking slot, looking for a likely ex-con candidate.

I didn’t have to search very hard before I spotted the guy in the center bay. He stood under a pickup on a lift, prison tats flexing as he turned a wrench, his scruffy black hair pulled back in a ponytail.

He confirmed the ID when he turned our way. Denning took one look at Ken climbing out of the Explorer, threw his wrench and took off running.

The spectacle of me chasing after a suspect from a cold start isn’t a pretty sight. Without my usual stretch and warm-up, I launched into a pitiful, limping crab walk while Ken shot ahead of me after Denning. By the time my muscles had loosened up enough to look more like a human being than a crippled crustacean, Ken had caught up to the ex-con and had him spread-eagled over the hood of the truck he’d been making for.

With speed no longer of the essence, I slowed to a more dignified amble and tried to pretend that pain wasn’t screaming along every nerve in my left leg. Having searched Denning’s person for weaponry and other contraband, Ken had him upright again, one arm in a compliance hold. With everything hurting from my left hip down my leg to my toes, it took everything in me to keep from taking a swing at Denning.

Ken got into Denning’s face. “Why’d you run, Marty?”

Even inches away, the ex-con wouldn’t meet Ken’s gaze. “You caught me off-guard.”

Ken all but whispered into Denning’s ear. “Innocent people don’t run.”

I moved into the ex-con’s line of sight. “They say confession is good for the soul, Marty. Maybe you want to get it off your chest.”

He gave me an evil look. “Who the fuck are you?”

I stretched my mouth into a smile. “Just trying to give you a little friendly advice.”

Denning sneered. “I didn’t do nothing. I got nothing to confess.”

“Yeah, yeah. Miscarriage of justice.” Holding my breath to keep from inhaling the stench of stale perspiration, I took a closer look at his dilated pupils. “You on something, Marty?”

“I’m clean.” He said it too fast, with a quick glance to the left. Then, all bravado, he leered at me. “But I’m glad to piss in a cup if you hold it.”

Ken torqued Marty’s arm a little tighter until the ex-con sucked in a breath. I just kept on smiling. “If I hold it, lover boy, it won’t be attached to your body much longer.”

He smirked, but kept his trap shut. Ken eased his grip. “If you take off again, I pull out my Glock. Got that?”

Denning nodded and Ken let go. The ex-con shot me another dark look as he rubbed the circulation back into his arm. “If I don’t get back to work, Arnie will fire my ass.”

Ken tipped his head back toward the repair shop and we strolled on back. Ken twitched a little when Denning retrieved his wrench, but he stepped aside to let Marty resume tinkering with the underbelly of the Ram 1500.

“So what the hell do you want?” Denning asked, ever the charmer.

“Wondering if you’ve been playing with matches,” Ken said.

Marty’s grip on the wrench faltered and he nearly dropped it. Then he gave the bolt a hard twist. “That’s ancient history. I done my time, finished my parole a year ago.”

I grabbed the other end of the wrench. He didn’t let go. “It’s tough sometimes, quitting,” I told him. “Especially when you like it so much. Burning things. Watching the destruction. I bet you still get off on it.”

He yanked the wrench away, hefting it like he was going to take a swing at me. I hoped he would, relishing the opportunity to inflict some bodily damage on him in return.

Ken spoiled the fun. “Put it down, Marty.” His hand rested on his Glock.

A rattlesnake rendered in black ink coiled around Denning’s forearm, its teeth dripping black venom. The snake flexed as the ex-con considered his options. Denning dropped the wrench into his toolbox. “You got something to accuse me of, just say it.”

Ken edged in closer. “We’ve got a string of arsons, Marty. And here you are, with all that ancient history.”

He laughed, the twin lightning bolt tattooed on the back of his hand rippling as he worked. “You check my record, Sheriff Heinz. The charge was arson for profit. Who’s gonna hire me here in Podunk, California to burn down their shed?”

“Markowitz might have, for the insurance money,” I ventured.

“Sounds like a Jew name.” The letters “H-A-T-E”, tattooed in thick black, tightened on his knuckles. “I don’t work with no Jews.”

Ken’s hand closed over his baton and I suspected he was wishing for an excuse to smack Marty upside the head himself. Instead, he pulled out his notepad. “I need a home address.”

“I live out in the back of beyond.” Marty dropped his wrench in his tool box and swiped his hands with a greasy rag. “I got a PO box.”

“Then directions to your place,” Ken told him.

Marty stared at Ken, in silent hatred, for a good thirty seconds. Finally he rattled off a series of twists and turns to a southeast county locale. As familiar as I was with the back roads in Greenville County, I doubted I could have followed the complex route. I suspected the ex-con was making up the directions.

Ken scribbled on his pad. “You live alone?”

Another long delay before Denning answered. “I got a girlfriend.”

“Name?”

The response came out of Denning with all the ease of a molar extraction. “Sharon Peele.”

“She home?” Ken asked. “In case I want to go out and talk to her?”

Something flickered across Marty’s face. Not quite guilt, since this was a man who completely lacked a moral compass. But something that raised my antenna. Ken, his gaze on his notepad, missed it.