Believe No One (46 page)

Simms had got to her phone just as it switched to voicemail; if she'd seen it was Fennimore's number, she would have bounced the call, but cop's curiosity had made her check the message. When she heard Fennimore say that the trailer had been broken into and he was about to go in, she didn't hesitate. She woke Dunlap, Launer and Valance – even Ellis got the call to action.

Dunlap swung sharp left at the top of the hill and Simms reached for the overhead grip.

They slewed to a halt twenty yards down the track to avoid Fennimore's SUV, parked behind a grey Toyota Matrix.

Dunlap checked the straps of his body armour. ‘Stay well back,' he said. ‘If this is our Scottish friend, we know he's armed and will not hesitate to shoot. If you see him, your job is to get out of the way, and stay out of our line of fire.'

‘I'm an Authorized Firearms Officer,' Simms said. ‘I've enough common sense to know when to keep my head down.'

He seemed surprised at the sharpness of her reply.

‘Sorry,' she said. ‘I'll keep my head down, I promise. Just get Fennimore out of there safe, okay?'

A third SUV drew up and nine cops – detectives and deputies – including Deputy Hicks, spilled out. All wore body armour; they kept low, using their own vehicles for cover. Dunlap signalled for two to go inside the house and sent another two around the back. The rest split between the grey Matrix and Fennimore's SUV.

The rental-car windscreen and driver's windows were obscured. In the shade under the trees, it looked like the vehicle was fitted with tinted glass. But as they drew closer, they saw that it was misted with blood. Flies had already begun to gather inside.

On Dunlap's nod, Valance went around to the passenger side, weapon in hand. ‘Passenger window's open.' He ducked to take a look inside and recoiled immediately. ‘Got a body in here.' He cleared his throat. ‘Shot to the head.'

Simms's mouth filled with saliva.
Fennimore?

‘It's not Fennimore.'

Not Fennimore. Thank God.

Valance looked over the roof of the car. ‘There's a pistol in the passenger well.'

‘Leave it there,' Dunlap said. ‘The CSIs will take care of it.'

The officers checking the SUV declared it clear.

A shout went up from inside the trailer. ‘Got a body in here.'

Simms's heart stopped.

Ellis ducked his head out the door for a second. ‘What this asshole
means
is we got walking wounded. We need medical assistance.'

‘Jesus, Ellis.' Simms was already running for the trailer. ‘You're just as bad.
Who
needs medical assistance – what's their medical need?' Stupidly, superstitiously, it felt as if saying Fennimore's name would make the worst happen. A second later, a figure appeared in the shadows behind Ellis and Fennimore came through the door of the trailer, leaning on the deputy. He was bleeding from a cut to his head.

He took one step down and his legs gave way; he sagged and began to slip through the deputy's hands, but Simms was there in a second, easing Fennimore gently onto the steps.

‘Riley?' he said.

‘We've just arrived,' Simms said. ‘We're still looking.'

‘There was a man in the trailer,' he said. ‘Did he get away?'

‘We've got a body,' she said.

‘I want to see it.' He tried to stand, but she held him.

‘Just sit a minute and catch your breath.'

Sirens coming on the highway announced the arrival of backup. It would take a while longer to send an ambulance from County Hospital.

‘Does anyone have a first-aid kit in their car?' Simms asked, and Valance hurried off to fetch one from his vehicle. She crouched, peering up into Fennimore's face.

‘I'm sorry, Kate,' he said.

‘I'd slap you round the head if he hadn't got there first,' she said.

He groaned. ‘I know,' he said. ‘If I admit I'm an arse, will you let me see him?'

‘In a minute.'

Valance handed him a sterile pad to hold against the cut, and Simms made him take a sip of water.

CSI Roper was amongst the new arrivals. He got booted and suited and made his way to the grey rental car. A minute later, he straightened up from the vehicle. ‘Got an ID.' He held a bundle of documents in his gloved hand, on top of them, a booklet. The maroon cover was instantly recognizable to Simms.

‘UK passport,' Roper said. ‘Fergus Elliott. Scottish national.'

‘I want to see him,' Fennimore insisted.

Simms looked at Dunlap. He nodded and they helped him to the Matrix.

There was a lot of blood and brain matter in the car, and Fennimore had to walk downwind and take a few breaths and another sip of water before he could take a good look.

‘That's him,' he said. ‘That's the Bug Man. He was hiding in the boy's bedroom. I thought it was Riley.' He straightened up from the car and snuffed air out through his nose. The body was already beginning to ripen. ‘Spatter pattern would suggest the bullet entered his skull from the right side, through the open passenger window, most likely.'

Simms glanced at Dunlap. ‘I think he's going to be okay.'

The corners of Dunlap's eyes crinkled.

A crowd had begun to gather behind the police cordon. The Sheriff sent Deputy Hicks to control them. She did, and managed not to shrug at the injustice of this petty exile. She recognized a couple of faces – Mr Goodman, Sharla Jane's nearest neighbour, was amongst them. Hicks had checked him out since she and Chief Simms had interviewed him. Goodman had no adult convictions, but did have a juvenile record; that was sealed, so she had not been able to confirm her suspicions. He waved her over.

‘Did you find the boy?' The way he said it made her think they should have.

‘Not yet. What can you tell me?' she said, falling back on an open question to encourage him to fill the holes in what she knew.

‘Saw him up on the fence line early this morning.'

This caused a stir amongst the onlookers.

‘When?'

‘Around dawn.' Goodman tugged at his little goatee, enjoying the attention. ‘He didn't see me, but I saw him all right, sneaking around back of the house.'

‘Well, why in hell didn't you call the helpline? You know that boy's been missing five days.'

He folded his arms, tried on a hard-man look that didn't fit his face. ‘What – you think I'm a snitch?'

‘No, sir, Mr Goodman. I think you're a nasty little paedophile, bears a grudge against a child won't play your sick games.' She shouldn't have said it, but she was pissed at being put on crowd control on her own case, her shoulder was giving her hell and she couldn't believe she had slept through the chance of bringing Riley in safe.

Goodman stared at her, shocked.

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' he said, but from the shuffling of feet and muttering that went on around him, his neighbours were beginning to make connections and understand what had previously only puzzled them about him.

Goodman licked his lips. ‘That boy's dangerous,' he yelled, his eyes wild. ‘He tells lies, and he steals, and, and he cut me. Look—'

She turned her back on him and walked back to the bunch of officers and deputies over at the house.

‘Riley was here?' Dunlap said, when she had finished.

She nodded, the muscles of her neck tight.

‘Then he's got to be close by.'

All eyes turned to the Toyota.

Dunlap spoke to CSI Roper. ‘Could you please pop the trunk?'

They gathered around the rear of the car with their hands on their holsters. A quilt covered most of what lay inside. Dunlap nodded to Valance and he edged forward, took a corner of the quilt between finger and thumb and gently tugged it clear.

A suitcase was rammed to one side with a laptop computer case and a collection of electrical goods piled on top of it; Hicks recognized them from the digital images Fennimore had recovered from McIntyre's camera. A small backpack lay next to them, a child's T-shirt spilling out of the top.

‘Uh, guys?' Valance said. ‘There's blood on the comforter.'

They searched the crawl space under Sharla Jane's house and the woods beyond the fence. There was no sign of the boy. The CSIs forensically examined Goodman's trailer and car, but there was no trace of Riley Patterson. Since Deputy Hicks's confrontation with Goodman, several complaints had been made against him by children on the park. A warrant was served to seize his computer and digital camera; the techs found 200 indecent images of children on his computer – enough to charge him with aggravated possession twice over.

News came through from Police Scotland that Fergus Elliott, the dead man in the rental car, had met McIntyre while studying for his Scottish Highers in Hawick. They were two years apart in age, and oceans apart in ability. One of the staff remembered McIntyre as a sad, lost, rather immature child, still struggling to come to terms with the death of his sister years after she passed away. Elliott was his pupil-mentor; they seemed to click, and staff noticed that McIntyre cheered up, became more social, developed a circle of friends under Elliott's guidance. He was particularly popular with the girls.

The bullet that killed Elliott came from Deputy Howard's gun – the one found at the scene. Howie's prints were on it, and so were Elliott's. For Sheriff Launer it was a triumph, although the disappearance of Riley's body remained a mystery and – so he said – a source of great sorrow to him. Launer told the press that he believed Elliott drove Riley's body somewhere, dumped it, then came back to finish the clean-up. He was disturbed when Fennimore went back to the trailer and attacked the Professor. Hearing the sirens as Williams County deputies raced to the scene, he shot himself rather than surrender. The St Louis detectives did not feature in his version of events.

Two days later, Nick Fennimore stopped by Abigail Hicks's place before he left for Tulsa airport. His head was mending, but he was still limping from the knee injury. He was due to lecture at the International Homicide Investigators Association symposium in St Louis on the weekend, and said he thought his work in Williams County was done, anyway. Hicks was still on sick leave, but she planned to attend the first lecture on Saturday. He said they could drive to the airport together, and even offered to pay her air fare, but she declined.

‘Something I said?' he asked.

‘No, nothing like that.' But she had seen how Chief Simms looked at him when he came out of that trailer with blood on him. Hicks liked to be candid on such matters, so she told him what she had seen, and what she thought it meant. He seemed surprised that Simms had feelings for him, but didn't deny that those feelings went both ways. It was enough.

Hicks thanked him for his offer, but there was something she needed to do before she could attend the symposium with a clear conscience.

Since Goodman said he had seen Riley Patterson on the fence line the day they found Elliott, she had not been able to sit still for thinking about the boy. But there was that other face she recognized at the edge of the crowd that day. That face kept coming back to her whenever she thought about Riley Patterson. It was Waylon, Marsha Tulk's youngest.

Mrs Tulk came out on the porch as Hicks struggled to open the door of her SUV

‘Deputy Sheriff Hicks,' she said, smiling. ‘I hope you're healing well.'

‘Tolerably, thank you, ma'am.'

‘Not in uniform?' she said, taking in the sorry harlequin colours of her Suzuki SUV.

‘I'm off duty.' Hicks smiled. ‘This is a friendly call.'

‘I'll be the judge of that.' After a moment, Mrs Tulk chuckled, taking the harsh edge off of her words. ‘Well, come on inside out of the heat.'

She served Hicks iced water and invited her to sit at her kitchen table. The room was clean and homey, the table big enough to seat eight. Mrs Tulk set a plate of cookies between them and sat down opposite, leaning her ham-hock forearms on the scrubbed wood.

‘Now. Why are you here, Deputy?'

‘I wondered if I might speak to your youngest – Waylon, is it?'

‘He's not here right now,' Mrs Tulk said. ‘Might I enquire why you want to speak to my son?'

‘He was at the Patterson residence when we found the man shot in the car. I wondered why.'

‘Lambert Hill is Tulk land,' she said with an incredulous smile. ‘He don't need a reason to be walking on family property.'

‘I thought maybe he had seen something.'

‘Police interviewed him on the day – he would've said.'

‘Sometimes it can take a few days for events to make sense – 'specially when it involves a violent death.'

Mrs Tulk's eyes turned stone cold. ‘What are you implying?'

‘Nothing, ma'am,' Hicks said, but she remembered the burning, half-scared, half-fierce look in Waylon's eyes. ‘I'm just saying he looked troubled.'

‘It was a troubling incident.' They watched each other and, after a time, Mrs Tulk said, ‘A man taking his own life.'

‘I should say it was – if that's what happened,' Hicks said. ‘But he would have to've brained Professor Fennimore, dragged him inside the house, gathered every item of incriminating evidence, put it in the trunk of his car, then got behind the wheel and shot himself.' She paused. ‘Now, that doesn't make sense.'

Mrs Tulk grunted. ‘Well, do you believe justice was served that day?'

Hicks sucked her teeth, reluctant to admit it, but eventually she said, ‘I do.'

The older woman nodded, approving.

‘But I can't sleep worrying about what happened to Riley Patterson.'

‘Sheriff thinks Elliott dumped his body—'

‘The Sheriff can think what he likes.'

Mrs Tulk watched her like a fox watches a chicken. ‘I heard you arrested that pervert, Goodman.'