Clean Burn (7 page)

“Not sure.” He stared at the picture. “But I’ve seen that face.” He fixed those bright green eyes on me. “I hope you’ll let me know when you find him.”

Not in any universe, real or imagined. I retrieved Enrique’s picture, tucking it into my back pocket. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

My queasiness persisted during my painful descent back down the stairs. Whatever the impetus that had brought me here to Greenville, it evaporated, drowned by impotence.

“Did you find anything in the bedroom?” I asked.

“Neat as a pin. No pictures, no toys or games, no suspect magazines. Certainly no sign that a boy’s been here recently.”

“What about a computer?”

“I can’t see this place wired for internet. In any case, not so much as an iPad.”

“The library have internet?”

Ken nodded. “I’ll check with the librarian. See if Pickford’s been in.”

As Ken started the engine, I shut my eyes, gritting my teeth against a serious jonesing for a lit match. “Damn,” I muttered. “I should just go back home.”

“I don’t know what you expected.”

I opened my eyes. Ken was about to make the last turn toward the sheriff’s office. A black impulse sank its teeth into me. “Go back,” I told him.

“What?”

“Go back to Pleasant Creek Road.”

He gave me a long look, then made a U-turn. We traveled in silence until I saw the familiar side road. “There,” I told him. “Make a right on Lime Kiln.”

He did, then slowed on the pothole pocked asphalt. Even though he crept along at twenty-five, I missed the marker and we rolled right past it.

I spotted the faded sign in the side view mirror. “Stop.”

He did, backing up as I craned my neck to see behind me. I pointed wordlessly at the weed-choked gravel drive. “Watkins” was spelled out in pallid gray letters that nearly matched the weathered wood of the sign.

As we jounced down the washboarded surface of the driveway, the past dropped over me, clinging like the sticky strands of black widow webs. Still, I slouched toward my past like Yeats’s rough beast, and with no better sense than that pitiless sphinx.

CHAPTER 5

The clearing was gone, choked by manzanita, the cabin itself overwhelmed by blackberry vines. Ken drove up to the wall of red, twisting branches as far as he could, then cut the engine. He angled his body toward me and watched as I stared out the windshield as keenly as a lookie-loo at a multi-car pile-up.

This was my legacy, the only thing tangible left to me by my father – except for the scars, that is. I owned this wreck of wood and nails and the acre of land it sat on. It was the first time I’d laid eyes on it in twenty years.

I grabbed the handle and wrenched the door open. My left leg had cramped up again, but I ignored the pain as I limped up to the tangle of manzanita. There was just enough space between clumps to pass through, although I’d have to do some fancy maneuvering to avoid the poison oak that wound its way up the thicket.

I dimly heard the ding-ding-ding as Ken opened his door, then the clunk as he shut it again. I was focused on the overgrown greenery, trying to make out the front porch under all those thorns. The blackberries hadn’t quite enveloped the front door, or maybe someone had been here recently and had pushed them aside, because the door yawned open. Maybe it was my father’s ghost coming and going, forging a path for me in anticipation of my return. Not a cheerful thought.

The front porch steps had rotted away. I had to pick my way along the supports, using blackberry vines for balance, jabbing my palms with the wicked thorns. With that pinprick pain, I was seven years old again gathering ripe berries in the stifling July heat. The sweet-tangy taste of blackberry juice settled on my tongue.

I’d torn my shirt once berry picking, giving my father justification for punishing me. Of course, he could find justification in the phase of the moon or the color of his morning piss. There was nothing I could do to please him, and far too many ways to incur his wrath.

I stood now in the center of the cabin’s main room, the late afternoon sunshine nearly obliterated by the dense vines shrouding the windows. Broken furniture littered the floor. Spiderwebs draped the remnants of the sofa. Blackberries intruded through holes punched in the walls, whether an act of my father or rowdy teens using the cabin to party I didn’t know.

The place shouldn’t have smelled the same, but somehow it did, stale, sour beer permeating the sofa, the reek of cigarettes still clinging to the walls. Like a key thrust into a rusty lock, the scents, whether real or imagined, opened the lid on old memories. I stood there, helpless, while they pulled me back in time.

Dimly, I heard my name called; Ken, I realized later. But in the throes of flashback, his voice morphed into my father’s. Thirty years vanished and I was that little girl again, as defenseless as a kitten.

“Janelle!” Daddy shouted, cigarette bobbing in his mouth. “Where’s my damn beer?”

“Right here, Daddy,” I told him, the can clutched in my hand. I’d torn off the tab just the way he liked me to, had kept it very still so it wouldn’t fizz over.

I made my way toward him, the room an obstacle course of upended ashtrays and discarded wine bottles. I had to be very, very careful, because Daddy liked his beer just so.

I nearly made it to the sofa, was just about to reach out to hand Daddy the open can. I didn’t see Daddy’s feet near mine. He might have moved them into my way; sometimes he did that just because. I tried to keep the beer from spilling, would have turned myself inside out if it would have helped. But a fountain of foamy wet spurted from the can, landing on Daddy’s lap.

With a roar, he jumped up, a dark avenging monster. I screamed and dropped the beer, tried to run as it rolled across the floor, emptying its contents. I didn’t get more than a few feet away before Daddy grabbed my arm.

Even though I knew it would make it worse, I screamed and struggled to get away. Daddy pinned me against the sofa. He took his cigarette from his mouth.

“Daddy, no. No!”

He lowered the glowing tip toward my arm. I screamed again as I felt the pressure of it against my skin...

“Damn it, Janelle!”

Ken’s voice finally registered. His hand was wrapped around my arm; it was his gripping fingertips, not a burning cigarette I felt digging into my skin. I wrenched myself free of him, and stumbled from the cabin.

On the porch, thorns hooked my T-shirt, catching me up short. Panic flooded me – it was my father reaching out, digging in to keep me from escaping the cabin. His clawed fingers raked an old burn scar on my belly, the one he’d given me for tearing my shirt as a seven year-old.

All sanity lost, I fought back, a scream as corrosive as acid at the back of my throat, barely contained. I would have wriggled free of the shirt, abandoned it, but I knew that would enrage Daddy even more.

I finally pulled free, blind from pain real and imagined. Tripped on a broken step, went down to my knees in the dirt. It felt as if someone had staked my left leg to the ground.

One breath, two, then I pushed to my feet, woozy and sick. Became aware of reality again, bit by bit. The ramshackle cabin, the thickets of twisted manzanita surrounding it, the Explorer parked nearby. Ken standing beside me, a witness to my disintegration.

I wouldn’t think about that. Angling away from him, I tugged up the hem of the T-shirt to check for damage. Red streaks criss-crossed my stomach. I wondered vaguely if my father’s poison had infected them.

I tried to cover up again, but Ken hooked his fingers in the knit. “Maybe you ought to have a doctor look at that.”

“A little Neosporin and a bandage and I’ll be fine.” My voice shook. “I’ve patched up worse than this after Daddy got finished with me. He wasn’t much on doctors.” Heal or die was his unspoken motto.

Ken tugged on the shirt again, pulling me closer, wrapping his arms around me. I grit my teeth so tightly my jaw ached, trying to fight back the weakness I felt lapping at me. If my father truly rose from the dead in that moment and flayed me alive, it wouldn’t have hurt as much as it did accepting Ken’s comfort.

I thought I could hold it inside, could keep the agony at bay. But it erupted like the worst kind of nausea, when you’re empty inside but your body still convulses. My eyes were dry and I didn’t make a sound, but I thought my sobs would break me apart.

And he just held me. Matched my silence, kept his large hands spread across my back while emotions gushed from me like blood from an open wound. I just wanted to die, to be seared to ashes on the spot. Anything but feel the pain burning inside me.

When it was finally finished, I pushed away from him, keeping my head down as I headed back toward the Explorer. My hands shook as I swiped at my cheeks, the dampness telling me a few tears had escaped after all. Ken kept his distance as he followed me and I almost hated him for that kindness.

Once I’d fumbled the seatbelt around me, I opened my laptop again. “We ought to check Greenville Hospital and the local doctors. Could be James or Enrique were brought in to be seen.”

He stared at me. “The cabin... that was where–”

“My own personal hell.” I’d tried for a light tone, but my throat was in shreds. “Could we just not...”

Quiet ticked away for several long seconds. I squeezed my eyes shut, imagining myself suspended by a thread over a pit of excrement. If I stayed motionless, I wouldn’t fall. But one word, one touch from Ken would sever the thin support. I’d have to count on him to catch me. I wasn’t sure he’d even try.

Finally, he started the engine. “We’ll stop by the hospital, make some calls from there.”

Once he had his driving to focus on, I grabbed my cell and nearly dropped it when my fingers refused to work. With slow, deliberate stabs, I dialed my office.

Sheri didn’t pick up, and my mangled brain recalled she was in class. She’d be pissed if I called her mobile. That anger would throw her off the scent, keep her from sensing my current fragility.

I dialed her cell number. She picked up after four rings. “Hello?” she whispered.

“I need some info,” I told her.

“It couldn’t wait?” I heard muffled voices in the background, then footsteps and a slamming door. “What?” Sheri spat out.

“Find everything you can on Paul Beck and Chuck Pickford. And start checking Lopezes in the Sacramento area, see if you can find someone who’ll claim Enrique.” I felt steadier now, almost myself again. “Anything on the eight month-old?”

“I left for Hastings a few minutes after you called. When have I had time to check?”

“Thanks anyway.” I said it politely as I could just to tweak her some more, then pressed the disconnect.

“Is Fred Sykes still running that arcade in town?” I asked Ken as I stuffed away the cell.

He gave me a once-over, maybe to assess whether my sanity had returned. “Fred filed for bankruptcy a few years ago. Then about a month after he died, the place burned down.”

“Where do the kids go now?”

“Greenville Electronics. They sell TVs, cell phones, home electronics. Owned by an out-of-towner. A guy named Rich McPherson runs it.”

“What’s the attraction for the kids?”

“They stock all the latest phones and tablets and run demo versions of the latest apps and computer games. The junior high set congregates there after school.” He pulled up to a stop sign and waved the cross traffic on. “Hospital first? Or the electronics store?”

“The hospital can wait. Tell me about McPherson.”

As we made our way back to town, the Explorer exceeded the speed limit by a good twenty miles an hour. “He’s from somewhere in Southern Cal. I think he’s married, but I’ve never met his wife. No children, but the kids seem to like him.”

I narrowed my gaze on Ken. “Could he be a member of Pickford’s club?”

Braking at the stop where Pleasant Creek crossed Main, he turned to me. “If McPherson was taking anyone into a back room, I’d know about it.”

“Things could slip under your radar. You can’t be everywhere at once.”

“I’d know,” he said again, goosing the accelerator and turning onto Main. “Cassie hangs out there in the afternoons.”

“But would she tell you?”

“Of course she would,” he said with all the confidence of the completely clueless.

“How old is she?”

He parked the Explorer in front of the electronics store. “Thirteen last month.”

I managed not to laugh, although he may have caught my smirk. I scanned the length of Main Street as I climbed from the Explorer. The Greenville Pharmacy still shared space with the post office and Greenville Gazette. Mel’s barber shop had survived the passage of time, although it looked as if Mel hadn’t. A Korean woman swept the sidewalk out front while her husband snipped hair inside. Emil’s Café still promised the Biggest Burgers in the West, the neon hamburger in the window sputtering as it always had. And the National Hotel, a Gold Rush-era holdout, had a new coat of brick red paint.

Greenville Electronics had taken the place of the hardware store, a town icon that had no doubt been erased out of existence by the big box home improvement store just twenty minutes down Highway 50. The front window displays of shovels, pickaxes and gold panning pans had given way to smartphones, iPads and Android tablets. Posters hawked cellular service and equipment.

Five boys and one girl – Cassie – clustered around two giant HD TVs and the massive display of a computer, zapping space aliens or kung fu fighters or whatever video-game demons they battled. Cassie had commandeered the computer, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, a small black box strapped to her waist.

The man behind the glass sales counter – Rich McPherson, I presumed – looked to be about my age. He was a clean-cut Everyman with neat brown hair and a red “Greenville Electronics” polo shirt. When a kid went over to ask for change for the soda machine in the back, McPherson smiled at him and looked him in the eyes.

Ken headed toward his niece. McPherson likely wasn’t going anywhere, so I figured I’d talk to the kids first. I zeroed in on a skinny, pimply-faced boy on the Xbox to Cassie’s right. “Do you know either of these boys?” I asked, waving the pictures in his field of view.