No Good Deed (16 page)

Eversley glanced at Sonora; he was wearing his solemn look. She nodded. He put the sheet carefully back over Joelle's face, and shut the curtains slowly and quietly.

‘Come on, Dixon,' Sam said, leading him away.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It had take only a hint that ‘he was needed' for Dixon Chauncey to agree to go back with them to the bull-pen.

He sat in Interview One, hands between his knees. Sonora studied him across the chipped brown Formica table. There was no indication, from his expression, attitude or body language, that they were intruding when he needed time to grieve, that they were asking too much of a man who had just identified his daughter at the morgue. Nor was there any indication of the crusader, the burning rage of the newly bereaved, robbed of someone they love by deliberate hands, ready to put grief on hold till they exercise their anger on the responsible parties.

Sonora reminded herself that it was unfair to harbor stereotypical expectations.

Chauncey could be in shock, or, more likely, denial. He could be a difficult man to read. She remembered herself at her mother's funeral, making arrangements, making jokes, grief like a storm at sea – you know it is coming and you do everything you can to prepare before it hits. But until it does hit, numb is a nice place to be.

Sam set a can of Mountain Dew in front of Chauncey, sat next to him, on the left, took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. Sonora turned on the recorder, stated the date, place and time. Chauncey had a straw in his Mountain Dew. Where had Sam come up with a straw? It was the kind with crinkles in the top, like they have in hospitals, so it made a little crook for easy sipping.

And while Sonora murmured into the recorder, Chauncey pulled the drink forward and sucked on the straw in a way that made her give him a second look. He was like a hungry baby taking a bottle.

She moved her chair a little further away.

‘Let's start with yesterday.' Sonora leaned forward, elbows on the desk. ‘Do you get the kids off to school, or do they get up on their own?' She thought of her own morning routine, a weird mix of both. Her intention was always to get up earlier than the kids, but the older they got, the less successful she was.

Chauncey met Sonora's eyes, then looked away. ‘I, uh, I get up early. Around six. Get them cereal and juice and pack lunch for all of us.'

‘Anything unusual about your routine yesterday morning?'

‘No.'

Silence settled. Chauncey sucked at the straw.

‘So you got them breakfast …' Sam prompted.

‘Joelle gets up first, then the little ones, Mary Claire and Kippie. Mary Claire helps Kippie get ready. Joelle's kind of slow. She won't eat breakfast any more, either, but I set her out a cereal bowl just in case. She worries … she was always worrying about her weight.'

The child wrapped in the blanket had seemed so small. But Sonora did not take issue. Even Heather, in the third grade and underweight for her height, was weirdly concerned with her thighs. Rare was the teenage girl who did not weigh in and worry.

Sonora glanced at Sam. He shrugged. Chauncey was not bubbling over with information. Maybe a tactical change?

‘Mr Chauncey …' Sonora licked her bottom lip. ‘Was Joelle dating yet?'

He was drinking when she asked, sucking that straw. He swallowed in a panic, choking a little, like people do when they're out to dinner and the waiter asks them if they need something when their mouths are full.

Chauncey shook his head. ‘No, ma'am, not that I know of.'

‘Would you know?' Sonora had a teenager. She knew there was a lot of stuff you might not know.

Chauncey leaned close. ‘I keep good track of my girls. As much as I can. I try not to work overtime or double shifts so I can head right home. But I am a single dad. It's kind of hard.'

His eyes were flinty, like hard little buttons. He did not look away, as Sonora expected, but returned her gaze as if he were hungry for the contact. She watched him, thinking that this was what a martyr looked like, in the actual flesh.

‘I think she liked one of the boys at school, but she wouldn't ever talk to me about those things.'

‘Were boys calling the house?'

‘Oh, no, ma'am.' He took an unopened packet of Wrigley's spearmint gum out of his left front pocket. He was wearing a maroon-and-green plaid shirt, and it looked new, the cotton-polyester blend stiff and uncomfortable.

‘Gum?' he asked.

Sonora looked at Sam. She shook her head, and Sam took a piece. Southern graciousness, she thought.

Sam tapped a finger on the edge of the desk. Chauncey swiveled his head in the direction of the small and irritating noise.

‘Mr Chauncey, what's going on out there at Donna Delaney's farm?'

Chauncey frowned. ‘Funny business. That's what you mean?'

‘That's what I mean.' Sam kept up the rhythm with the finger.

‘Sometimes … there are people out there that … How should I put this? I don't like the looks of 'em.' He leaned close. Ready to confide. ‘Ms Delaney does a lot of business she doesn't explain about. Horses come and go without warning. Sometimes she says she's bought them, but how could that be, if she doesn't even pay her bills?'

‘How do you know she doesn't pay her bills?' This from Sonora.

‘They're always cutting off the water or the electricity and she has to go down and make a deposit to get them to turn things back on. I myself would be embarrassed.' He retreated to the back of his chair. ‘That's only me, of course. I shouldn't judge.'

He'd actually dared to give an opinion, Sonora thought. Followed by immediate retreat and discomfort.

Sam leaned back in his chair. ‘Who's she do business with? You know any names?'

Chauncey looked at his feet. Looked sideways. ‘I know she does some kind of business with those people out at Bisky Farms.'

Sonora watched him. He had all the mannerisms of a man who is about to lie, but the business dealings with Bisky Farms had been suspected and confirmed by Hal McCarty. So Chauncey was telling the truth.

‘What do you know about Bisky Farms?' she asked.

‘Who, me? I'm a line worker at Procter & Gamble. These folks are too high up for a guy like me.' He shifted sideways in his chair. ‘'Course now, some of these types they hire to do the barn work, they look like rough types to me. Not that they've ever bothered me personally, I've just seen them out there. If I was Donna, you know, if it was my farm, and all those kids out there, I wouldn't let people like that come around.' He curled his fingertips on the edge of the table, leaned forward, shoulders hunched together.

‘Did any of “those people” bother you, Dixon? Come to your door? Talk to Joelle, maybe?'

Chauncey pressed his fingers deeper into the table, as if to bury them in wood. ‘No, never. We're far enough from the barn, we don't get bothered that way.'

‘You sure?'

‘Pretty sure. I can't be there every minute. A man's got to earn a living. But I don't know of anything. Not for sure.'

He looked down again, then off to the side. Sonora couldn't figure him out. Was there something he was afraid to talk about?

She remembered the envelope, full of the faces of missing children. What or who was Joelle looking for? Herself?

‘I noticed that she had an interest in missing children, kidnapping, children finding their birth mother.'

Chauncey blinked. Stared at her. Made no comment.

Sonora looked down at her nails. ‘Didn't she ever discuss this with you, Mr Chauncey? Was Joelle afraid of being kidnapped?'

‘Not that I know of. She never said anything about it that I heard.'

‘Where's Joelle's mother?'

He looked up, mouth sagging. ‘Her mama? She's not around. I mean, she died. She had cancer, breast cancer, when Joelle was just a toddler.'

‘So the other children—'

‘She made it through the first bout, but she was sick a lot. Chemo. We almost went under with the medical bills. She got a lot better, even went back to work. Then Mary Claire came along, and a couple years later Kippie. It came back, the cancer did, when Kippie was a baby. It took her real fast then.' His eyes turned red and watery, like he was grieving or smoking pot. ‘I don't know what I'd do without my girls, my three musketeers.'

It was not clear that it had dawned on him that the musketeers were now two.

‘How well do you know Donna Delaney?' Sam asked.

Chauncey wiped his eyes with a thick knuckle. ‘I guess pretty well, you know how you do. I've lived next door to the woman, her barn anyway, for a couple of years now. I'd say we're pretty close. Not
real
close, but tight, you know. We see each other every day, so I'd guess that we know each other pretty well.'

‘You're friends, then?'

‘Sure, we're friends. Donna doesn't talk to me a whole lot, but she's not all that talkative anyway. She lets my kids ride the horses. Joelle, anyway. Mary Claire's just nine, and Kippie is only seven. You can see how she'd have a problem with the little ones under her feet.'

‘I'm a little unclear about your arrangements with Donna. Do you work for her, or pay her rent, or how does that go?' Sonora glanced at the recorder. Plenty of tape.

Chauncey scrubbed his knees with his fists. ‘She likes having somebody out there, living out there. It's just better for the horses. So I only pay her a little bit of rent. I pay my own utilities, of course, that would only be fair. And what I do in return is I get up early and do the stalls before I go on shift at P&G. Help out if she's got a fence board down, a loose post or something. You know horses, they chew the wood or even kick.'

Sam nodded, man to man. ‘Keeping that fence from falling down's about a full-time job in itself.'

Chauncey laughed, too hard, sounding forced, with something very like gratitude.

Sonora folded her arms. ‘Mr Chauncey, do you have any personal theories about what happened to your daughter?'

The smile faded. That it had ever been there surprised Sonora a little. But not a lot. Grief took time to absorb. Sometimes the mind and body resist. She had seen months pass before the enormity of a loss hit home. Had it happen to her in exactly the same way.

Chauncey hung his head, and Sam and Sonora had to lean close to hear him. ‘No, ma'am, I do not.'

‘Nothing at all? No gut instincts? Nothing?'

He shook his head, staring at the table-top.

‘You haven't had any indication at all that things might not be right? Strange phone calls, hang-ups, calls from school?'

‘No. No, ma'am.'

‘Was Joelle worried a lot? Depressed?'

Chauncey mumbled something.

‘What?' Sonora asked.

‘Maybe a little depressed.'

She could barely hear him. ‘Mr Chauncey, are you saying that Joelle seemed depressed?'

His head bobbed. ‘Yes, she did. She didn't kill herself?' He looked up at her, eyes full of fat, pearly glycerine tears. He had a hopeful air, like a puppy in a cage at the pound.

She knew that he wanted her to pat his back, to comfort him. What she really wanted to do was leave the room.

Sonora glanced at Sam. No help there.

‘Your daughter was murdered, Mr Chauncey.'

‘I know.'

‘You know?'

‘I know.'

‘How do you know?'

‘You told me.' He was crying now, head down, eyes on the floor, quiet, steady sobs.

Sonora looked at Sam. His hands went up, waist level.

Time to stop.

Sonora came out of the women's bathroom, droplets of water glistening on her face, just in time to see Sam heading down the hallway. Chauncey, a puppy at his heels, did not see her.

She had bailed out and left Sam alone with the sobbing man.

She hadn't meant to make Chauncey cry, and it made her feel unclean. His breakdown had disturbed her in a way she could not quite explain. It came too pat, like a habit, a familiar groove. The harder she was on him the more he put that head down and groveled. She had the uneasy suspicion that he liked it, that he wanted to be dominated.

She did not like the way he looked at her – eyes so bright and needy. He had wanted her to look at him, to notice him, to feel sorry for him. She did not like being in the same room with him. He was like bruised fruit – soft and whangy. When he opened his mouth, she could see the metal fillings in his teeth.

She could not get the faces of Mary Claire and Kippie out of her mind. She told herself that they would be okay, that Chauncey kept an immaculate house, cooked nutritious dinners, worked hard for hearth and home.

She watched him follow Sam down the hallway, heard Sam's voice, tones soothing, promising Chauncey a short wait in the lobby until a uniform would come to give him a ride home.

Chauncey walked like a little bird, arms clamped against his sides like wings, hands balled into fists. Even when he moved his arms, they were never more than six inches from his hips, as if they were under restraint.

Sonora leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. The bullpen was night crew silent, Crick was God knew where, and her head ached. She had not called the kids or bought groceries, and at the time when a good mother would have been home supervising dinner and homework, she'd been parading Dixon Chauncey through the morgue.

Time to call it quits. In her mind she spun the fast food roulette, thinking that Wendy's was close.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sonora was in at seven the next morning, an hour before her shift. She had gone home the night before to a hot shower and five Advil, falling hard asleep on the couch where she had curled up to read her horoscope and be in the same room with the kids, who had immediately left.

She was awake before daylight, thinking about Joelle Chauncey's collection of missing children.