Believe No One (23 page)

Incident Command Post, Westfield, Oklahoma

By 6.30 a.m., it was 85 °F in the shade and 83 per cent humidity. The hotel's air conditioning took a direct hit in the storm and was out of action, and the conference room was stifling. Kate Simms's shirt clung to her, despite an electric fan blasting a miniature hurricane two feet from her, and when the hotel owner came up with pitchers of iced tea, she succumbed, grimacing at the tooth-rotting sweetness of the drink but grateful for the scoop of ice that came with it.

Dr Quint had left for the county airport ten minutes after the meeting broke up. The Sheriff was directing the search out in the field; Launer had a core of hunters and woodsmen he could call on for help in such circumstances, and so far they had twenty up at Cupke Lake, together with three deputies.

They had drawn a blank on Sharla Jane's last known address, a two-room mobile home rented in her name. Osage County Sheriff's Office reported that she and Riley had moved away three months before. Nobody had seen her with a man in all the time she lived there. She told a neighbour she was moving ‘somewhere nice', but did not specify where, or with whom.

‘Okay, where else do we look?' Dunlap said.

Kent Whitmore, the Team Adam consultant, spoke up. ‘You know, a lot of folks in Ms Patterson's situation will get some type of Department of Human Services assistance – food stamps, aid for dependent children, and so on. DHS can tell you where they're collecting their benefits.'

But Sharla Jane had not picked up her food stamps in three months. And the DHS had her old address.

The conference room had been rearranged, the tables now laid out in pairs; a makeshift office set-up, allowing teams of two to work face to face. The phone company had rigged up additional landlines, though many of the investigators used mobile phones. Four teams began the process of contacting every school in Williams County, but the summer recess was making it difficult to get hold of the right people, and so far they had turned up nothing. Others continued to trawl marine suppliers and haulage contractors, asking about the rope. They now knew it was used in tens of thousands of boat rigs from the Great Lakes to Florida Keys, but for now they were focusing on sailing-equipment stockists in Oklahoma and Missouri.

Detectives Ellis and Valance had hooked up with Williams County administrative staff to call every registered trailer park manager county-wide in the hope of tracing Sharla Jane to her new address. Valance was talking into his mobile phone. He glanced over at Simms; the frozen expression on his face said that something was wrong.

Simms mouthed ‘Problem?'

He frowned, gave a quick nod, still listening to the speaker at the other end of the line. Dunlap was talking to the British CSI on the far side of the room. He stopped, touched the man's arm and excused himself, moving towards Valance. Nick Fennimore, seated a few yards away, was on the phone; he finished his call quickly and followed the Detective. At the sight of the three converging on his table, Valance glanced to his left, where the Sheriff's people were at work. They diverted – Simms to the water cooler, Dunlap to the whiteboard nearby, Fennimore stopped at one of the tables and started a conversation with CSI Roper. All of them kept Valance in their line of sight.

He held up a finger, asking them to wait a moment longer while he spoke into the phone. ‘Sir, can I ask you to hold for just a second?' He hit the mute button, closed his hand over the phone and stood. He nodded towards the exit and they met in a huddle just outside the swing doors.

‘I'm talking to the manager of a trailer park twenty miles from here,' he told them. ‘I asked him if he had a Sharla Jane Patterson registered as a resident. He said, “I heard about that.” I asked could he be more specific, and he said, “The woman they found in Cupke Lake – her boy's missing, isn't he?”'

His expression grave, Dunlap said, ‘Put him on speaker.'

He warned the manager that there were others listening, and introduced himself as the lead detective from the St Louis Major Case Squad.

‘Oh,' the manager said. ‘She's from Missouri? They said she was from Oklahoma.'

‘
Who
said that, sir?' Dunlap asked.

‘Was on the radio news,' the manager said. ‘Sheriff's deputies got a call from a family camping out at the lake, found the body during the storm. Her son Riley's missing – the Sheriff wanted help with that.'

Dunlap looked at Simms.

‘Did you know Ms Patterson, sir?' Dunlap asked. ‘Was she registered with you?'

‘No, sir,' the manager said, ‘she was not. And we got no redhead boys here on the park, just now.'

Dunlap thanked the manager and finished the call. ‘Sheriff Launer broadcast a description of the boy,' he said.

‘Damn right I did.' Sheriff Launer's voice echoed up the concrete stairwell. He came up the stairs at a pace, slowing on the landing and turning on his politician's smile.

‘We agreed not to announce that we were looking for Riley until we checked their residence,' Dunlap said.

‘I remember you
saying
that,' Launer said. ‘I don't recall
agreeing
.'

‘Fantastic,' Fennimore said.

‘Nick,' Simms warned.

He ignored her. ‘Have you checked your ratings, yet?'

Launer narrowed his eyes. ‘What the hell does that mean?'

‘I just hope your campaign promo was worth a boy's life.'

Launer made a move, but Dunlap stepped in his path. He wasn't especially tall, but he was solidly built, and it gave Sheriff Launer pause.

‘The cruel statistical truth is that Riley Patterson was probably dead long before Sheriff Launer spoke on the radio.'

Dunlap spoke calmly, and although he was looking at Launer, he was making his case to Fennimore, using his language, asking him to set aside his personal feelings.

The detective was almost certainly right – the boy was probably dead. Simms knew it, and so did Fennimore. He relaxed a little, accepting the truth of it.

‘Sharla Jane moved, just like the others,' Dunlap went on. ‘The difference is, this time we aren't six months behind the curve. This time, we're right on his ass, and her home will be loaded with forensic evidence. We need to find it and process it.'

A whoop went up in the conference room and, a moment later, Ellis burst onto the landing, a slip of paper in his hand, a fierce grin on his face. ‘We got an address,' he said.

You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.

A. C. D
OYLE
,
T
HE
C
OPPER
B
EECHES

Incident Command Post, Westfield, Oklahoma
8.15 a.m.

‘Sharla Jane enrolled her son at the elementary school in Hays, about thirty miles from here,' Ellis said. ‘The school principal turned on the radio news at breakfast. She called the emergency number, said Riley Patterson was on the school roll.'

The principal had sent a photograph of a small, freckled child with flame-red hair and a toothy grin.

‘Sometimes,' Launer said, with a complacent smile, ‘you got to be ready to
make
things happen.'

Fennimore stared hard at a cobweb high in the rafters over Sheriff Launer's head and kept his mouth shut.

‘Well, let's go round up the posse,' Launer said. ‘We got a scene to process.'

A cavalcade of law-enforcement vehicles drove through the gates of Lambert Woods Mobile Home Park forty minutes later. The properties were a mix of standard twelve-foot mobile homes and double-wides, with a few RVs on the outer rim.

Sheriff Launer rode point in his marked car. Second in line was a black SUV driven by Detective Dunlap. His passengers were Ellis, Fennimore and Valance. Kate Simms, the two Task Force CSIs, Dr Detmeyer, a number of Missouri cops and the Team Adam consultants followed in four more vehicles. Sheriff Launer had called in two of his deputies, still out at Cupke Lake searching for Riley, but they hadn't yet arrived.

Dunlap pulled up in front of the manager's office beside Launer's car. The air throbbed with the deep-throated sound of a souped-up engine being revved. Radio music blared from a couple of rows down. A woman screamed at two children playing under the window of her trailer. But their arrival, fanning out from the office like a blast wave, prompted the sudden retreat of families and individuals indoors; in under a minute, the place was deserted.

Launer stayed in the driving seat, angling his rear-view mirror to look back down the curve of the road.

Dunlap kept the engine running for the air con, but seemed to be waiting for his cue from Launer. Fennimore looked at Ellis, raising his eyebrows in question, and Ellis's impatience got the better of him.

‘What in hell is he waiting for – a gold-plate invitation?'

‘His deputies, maybe,' Dunlap said, always the diplomat.

‘Best guess?' Fennimore said. ‘Cougar 108's radio car. “Sometimes you got to be ready to
make
things happen”,' he drawled.

Moments later, a reporter from Cougar 108 showed up in an outside-broadcast van.

The investigators stood in clusters by the side of the road, Simms amongst them, while the Sheriff gave his statement. Simms was talking quietly with Ellis and Valance, exchanging a few words with the CSIs. She seemed relaxed, at ease with them, accepted by them as part of the team, and Fennimore was pleased for her – she'd spent far too many years as an outsider, and that was largely down to her loyalty to him. He switched his attention to Launer, who gave a few non-committal answers to questions from the radio reporter. This done, he turned to the park manager.

‘We're about to process the scene,' he said, loud enough for the reporter to hear. ‘But I need to check inside the property first. Just to be sure the boy – uh, Little Riley – isn't at the house.'

Fennimore noted the correction: giving the boy a name was better PR.

‘Sheriff, I could give you the keys,' the manager said. ‘But better if I show you. That trailer is out of the way, five minutes on foot from the main block.'

Launer nodded to the manager and headed towards his cruiser. ‘Let's go.'

Fennimore turned to Dunlap: ‘Is he
really
proposing a convoy?'

Dunlap said, ‘Sheriff Launer, a word?' He edged the Sheriff away from the manager and turned his back on the reporter, lowering his voice. ‘We could have tyre tracks out at the property, Sheriff. Maybe we should go in on foot.'

‘We?' Launer said, his tone amused. ‘This is
my
crime scene, Detective. You want,
you
can tag along.' He glanced at Fennimore. ‘But he stays here.'

Launer and Dunlap returned fifteen minutes later, leaving two Missouri cops to stand guard over the property until his deputies got there.

The news was not good.

‘There's photographs of Sharla Jane and Riley on the walls,' Launer said. ‘But none of the guy she was shacked up with. No clothing, no razor – not even a toothbrush. And no sign of Riley.' He raised an arm, gesturing for someone to come forward. The Sheriff's deputies had finally arrived, one of them lugging a metal scene-kit case.

‘Let's blitz that trailer, see what we can find,' Launer said, heading back down the slope towards Sharla Jane's trailer, his deputies in tow.

Fennimore and Dunlap exchanged a look.

‘If we ever catch this killer, his defence lawyers will tear Launer's scene work to shreds,' Fennimore said.

Dunlap nodded in agreement. ‘We need to stop him.'

‘Launer does like to save the county money.' This was from Paul Roper, the St Louis CSI. ‘We could process the scene at no cost to the sheriff's office.'

‘Perfect.' Fennimore hesitated. ‘I'm just not sure I'm the best person to point out the deficiencies of Sheriff Launer's crew.'

‘We're not going to find Riley Patterson out at Cupke Lake,' the Team Adam consultant said. ‘We should think about moving the search party to those woods.' He nodded in the direction of the wooded hill behind the trailer. ‘And now we're sure Riley really is gone, I need to talk to the Sheriff about putting out an Amber Alert.' Whitmore furrowed his brow. ‘You want, I could speak to him about the CSIs, too.'

‘Mr Whitmore,' Fennimore said, ‘you're the soul of tact.'

The backwoods, Williams County, Oklahoma
Morning

Red listens. The car has slowed down.

The two men came back early in the morning. One of them got out of the SUV and climbed in the car, backed up the trail all the way to the highway. They motored for a half-hour on a pitted road, vehicle jolting and jarring so badly he had to brace himself like a starfish against the walls of the trunk to save himself from getting his brains bashed in.

Now they are on a dirt track. The driver has slowed up, and the clay is more forgiving than the concrete of the road, so Red has an easier time of it. The swoosh and crackle of the tyres on the unmade surface almost lulls him to sleep, but a sudden buzz has him wide awake. They are crossing a wood bridge. Minutes later, he hears dogs bark; they must be getting close to journey's end. He flexes his legs, getting ready.

The engine cuts out and the car hitches forward a bit, then settles. Red lies on his side, faking unconsciousness; the knife is under him, gripped in both hands. He doesn't know what to do. He feels hot and sick. He is afraid, and wants to cry. He wants his momma. He knows he's never going to see her again. He swears to God he'll never do anything bad ever again if He will only deliver him from this awful place.