Believe No One (47 page)

‘He's looking at twenty years in Federal prison.'

‘Well, that's got to be a consolation.'

She nodded. ‘For the kids he molested.'

Mrs Tulk looked into Hicks's eyes, reading her in a way not many people could. ‘But … you don't believe Riley was one of them.'

‘No, ma'am. And while locking Goodman up will give me a deal of satisfaction, it doesn't bring Riley home, now, does it?'

‘What
do
you believe, Deputy?' Mrs Tulk said.

‘That someone took Riley out of the trunk of that car.'

‘
Riley,
you say, not
the body.
So, this “someone” rescued him?'

‘I believe that was their intention.'

‘Well, then, they did a Christian kindness to an orphan child.'

‘But it would be wrong to keep that child, when he should be under the protection of the State.'

Mrs Tulk smiled. ‘You think the State protected that child when he needed it?'

‘No, ma'am, I don't, but we already had that conversation. There's people out there need to know he's okay.'

‘Who?' Mrs Tulk said. ‘Sheriff Launer, so he can muss up that boy's hair in front of the cameras, maybe win a few more votes? Or the Interstate Task Force they been talking about so much on the TV news – that would be a feather in their cap, now, wouldn't it? Or Child Protection Services, 'cos they did
such a good job
when his momma was alive? Hm? You need to understand something, Deputy: all those people watching the news, clucking over their morning coffee and praying for that boy in church – in just a few weeks, they won't even remember his name.'

‘You're wrong, ma'am—'

But Mrs Tulk spoke over her: ‘Anyway, that kid wouldn'ta had a home to come back to; he would be cooling his heels in foster care right now.' She cocked her head. ‘Do you have any notion what foster care is like, Deputy?'

‘I was in State foster care five years before I was adopted, ma'am,' Hicks answered sharply. ‘I've got a pretty fair idea.'

Mrs Tulk's hard, small eyes reappraised her. ‘So, you got a dog in the hunt on this one.' She sniffed. ‘Explains a lot. But that being the case, seems you more than most would want to keep a child out of the hands of Child Protection Services.'

Hicks wasn't about to share her feelings about Child Protection Services with Mrs Tulk. She looked the older woman in the eye. ‘Maybe you're right. Maybe everyone else will give up. But I promise you, I won't. I
will
keep looking. I
won't
quit.'

‘Had a dog like that, once,' Mrs Tulk said pleasantly. ‘Would follow a spoor till it dropped. No matter what kind of enticement you offered, or punishment you dealt her, that bitch would
not
come to heel.' She paused. ‘Had to shoot the poor thing to put it out of its misery.'

Hicks smiled and tapped the butt of her gun in its holster. ‘Guess she couldn't shoot back, huh?'

Mrs Tulk ran her tongue around her teeth and sighed. She moved the plate of cookies to one side, brushed the crumbs from the tabletop and dusted her hands off.

‘What would ease your mind, child?' she said, at last.

‘Knowing that Riley is safe, well cared for, educated, given a chance in life.'

‘And if you were given an assurance to that effect?'

She answered Mrs Tulk with a look that was hard and ungiving. ‘I would say there is nothing so reassuring as the evidence of your own eyes.'

Mrs Tulk seemed to consider, lazily scratching one meaty elbow. Then she hauled her sizeable bulk up from the table and went to the back door.

‘Caleb!' she yelled, in a voice that tore a hole in the morning quiet and sent the dogs, chained up out of sight somewhere, on a howl.

She stood to one side, watching Hicks's reaction as a black-haired boy came tearing up the steps and slammed open the screen door, bursting into the kitchen like he was about to do battle.

‘Whassamatter?' he demanded.

He was nine or ten. He looked longer in the limb, less baby-featured than the pictures they had of Riley. There wasn't a hint of red in his hair, though Hicks noticed that it didn't reflect light the way you would expect naturally black hair to do.

He stopped dead, seeing her, and would have tore back out the way he'd come, but Mrs Tulk barred his way. For a moment, Hicks thought he would try to climb right over that mountain of a woman, but she frowned and bore down on him – just one step, but it was enough and he stood still.

She said, ‘Deputy Sheriff Hicks, meet Caleb. He's my sister's daughter's youngest.'

‘I didn't see no cruiser out front,' he said, sounding defensive. ‘Just a junkyard Frankenstein.'

Hicks stood, folding her arms. ‘Did you just insult my vehicle?'

Mrs Tulk said, ‘Caleb, here, is sassy and rude, and he is about to apologize.'

He looked quickly from one woman to the other, puzzled at first, then his eyes widened and he seemed to realize he had a role to play in this story. ‘Yes, ma'am,' he said. ‘I do apologize for making out your car belonged in the junkyard.'

Hicks felt she should be mad for having been insulted twice, but that boy had the bluest, brightest eyes, and he used them to dazzle and charm. ‘Well … Caleb,' she said, her expression solemn. ‘I guess I can forgive you this once.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' He shot a look at Mrs Tulk, seemed to read in her face that he needed to say more. ‘Uh, thank you, Deputy. Ma'am. Can I go now? I got chores to do.'

‘They'll keep,' Mrs Tulk said. ‘Deputy Sheriff Hicks was just asking about that redhead kid – Riley Patterson. You knew him, didn't you?'

His face grew still. ‘Mighta seen him out in the woods.' He raked his hair across his forehead, and Hicks caught sight of a fading bruise. ‘That boy was always out there, making dens and lighting fires.'

‘Do you know what might've happened to him, Caleb?' Hicks said, watching him closely. ‘I mean, we're pretty sure he was in the trunk of that man's car, and we
know
he was hurt, 'cos his blood was on the comforter inside the trunk.'

‘Prob'ly just a nosebleed – something like that.'

‘Some people think he's dead.'

‘Nu-uh. See, he always carries a pocketknife. I figure he picked the lock of that trunk, run off. He told me he run off a
lot
of times.'

‘And where d'you think he would go?'

‘Most likely he went all the way to Oklahoma City.'

‘Well, now you're just making stuff up,' Mrs Tulk said.

‘No, ma'am – uh – Aunt Marsha. He always said that's where he would go when he was a grown-up.'

‘Well, he isn't grown up, yet,' Hicks said. ‘He's just nine years old.'

‘Nine and a half.' He flushed. ‘So he said.'

‘That's awful young to be out in the big world.'

‘Oh, he can take care of himself.' The boy put his head on one side and took a breath, like he'd decided to take her into his confidence. ‘Deputy, you shouldn't waste your time on him,' he said. ‘That redhead boy is just a pain in the ass. You know he cut that pervert?'

‘Is that right?'

‘Yes, ma'am.' He nodded, gazing at her with his blue, credulous eyes. ‘It was me, I'd just leave him be – there's no telling what a desperate character like that might do.'

‘Well … Caleb, thank you for the advice,' Hicks said. ‘But I can't sleep easy till I know that boy is safe.'

‘He
is.
He likes it just fine—' he stumbled over the next few words ‘—h—wh-where he … is.'

‘How do you know that?'

His eyes darted from the TV to Mrs Tulk, to the coffee table, finally lighting on the phone hanging on the wall. ‘He called me.'

‘Right here?' Hicks said, following his gaze like it was a revelation. ‘On
that
phone?' She drew her eyebrows down, tapped her chin, letting him know she was thinking it through. ‘We could maybe trace the number he called from, get a fix on him.'

‘
No-ooo
! He don't want
nobody
to come looking for him.'

Hicks looked the boy over and truly did not know what action to take. He didn't seem hurt or afraid – except of being taken away from here. He was well fed and healthy and bouncing around like a rubber ball, like a nine-year-old boy should be. She could tell someone – Kent Whitmore, maybe – let him make the rough decision. But she recalled the tall, soft-spoken Team Adam consultant at the Mountain Home Conference, last spring, telling her that after Hurricane Katrina, Team Adam reunited every ‘lost' child with family, and though nobody expressed regret, they did say some of those kids really didn't want to go back. In amongst all the happy reunions were kids who cried and held onto their foster parents and would not let go. Those Team Adam guys quoted the stats, because a hundred per cent success rate is something you
should
talk about, but she did wonder, if they had the chance over, would they choose to do such a good job? It would not be fair to ask that question, any more than it would be fair to ask Whitmore's advice, and much as she would like to have shared this burden with somebody, she had kept her suspicions to herself, not even talking to Fennimore about it.

The boy looked desperately to Mrs Tulk for help; he was almost in tears now, and Mrs Tulk gave Hicks a stone-cold look. Maybe it was perverse to think it, but Hicks was cheered to know that Marsha Tulk's anger was because the boy was upset.

‘Did Riley say what kind of people he was living with now?' Mrs Tulk asked.

‘The kind don't take shit from nobody,' the boy said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

‘Don't you cuss in front o' me,' Mrs Tulk growled.

‘Excuse me, ma'am,' he said, instantly contrite. ‘I meant to say they don't take
crap
from nobody.' He concentrated, evidently knowing it was important he got this right. ‘He likes the family he is with. It's a big family, but he's got his own room. They got plenty of land, and places to fish, and woods to play in. Food's good.'

Mrs Tulk folded her big hands across her stomach and looked pleased.

‘And he gets to grow some of it, which he likes doing and he's good at. He has to do chores – some he likes, some he don't. The older brothers teach him stuff and nobody picks on him, 'cept sometimes the younger one, who's a bit of a snot-nose, but he just keeps out of his way.' He stole a sly glance at Mrs Tulk and her mouth twitched.

For a moment, the two women looked at each other over the boy's head.

‘There's food farming, and there's cash-crop farming,' Hicks said, letting Mrs Tulk know that she was fully aware what Marsha Tulk's boys grew out in the woods. ‘And then there's cooking. Now, I know cooking can be a lucrative trade, but if I thought that boy was being trained up as a
chef
…'

Something dark passed behind the hard, button eyes of the older woman. ‘You're new to Williams County, so I guess you don't know,' she said. ‘I been a widow coming up sixteen years. My husband was in town with Harlan, my eldest, buying supplies. They heard screams from the alley behind the store and went to see what the commotion was. They found a woman, screaming fit to raise Lazarus. The devil had come in her home and committed an abomination on her kids, she said.

‘She was obviously tweaking and he feared for her children, so him and Harlan Junior followed her into a crappy two-room rental off of the alley. What they found there was an abomination all right, but wasn't no devil in the case. She had stabbed her three babies – the oldest of 'em just four years old. The youngest was pinned to the floor with a steak knife.'

The boy's eyes widened, and Hicks said, ‘Mrs Tulk.'

‘Better he hears it than becomes it,' she said. ‘That goddamn crankster took out a gun, shot my man six times while he knelt beside her baby.' She didn't tear up, or choke on the words, but she had to stop a moment. ‘So, you tell me, Deputy, do you think that I would allow that damn
poison
near me or mine?'

‘No, ma'am, I don't believe you would,' Hicks said.

The boy fidgeted. ‘Are we done, Aunt Marsha?'

Marsha Tulk cocked an eyebrow at Hicks. ‘Are we?'

Hicks tilted her head. ‘Not entirely.'

Mrs Tulk rolled her eyes as if she just
knew
it would come to this. ‘What will it take?' she said, reaching for her pocketbook.

‘He will go to school,' Hicks said.

The older woman looked surprised, but she recovered fast, thrusting the pocketbook back inside her purse and rooting for a Kleenex instead. ‘All right.'

The boy looked horrified. ‘But, ma'am—'

Mrs Tulk fixed her gaze on him, and he fell silent. ‘My boys went to the Elementary up in Westfield.'

He relaxed a little.

‘I will drop by, once a month,' Hicks went on. ‘Ask how Riley is going on, talk about what he's learning in school. So, Caleb, you'd better keep up with him I will want a full report, and I expect the truth.' Now
she
fixed her eye on the boy and he squirmed. ‘If I
don't
get the truth, if I am concerned that Riley is not happy, or properly cared for, or finding it hard to stay out of the way of that snot-nose younger brother, I
will
talk to Child Protection Services.'

She saw fear in the boy's eyes for the first time.

Mrs Tulk put her hand on his black hair. ‘Don't you worry about that,' she said. ‘That's never going to happen. Because you
will
tell the truth about how Riley is going on.' She looked into Hicks's face. ‘And he will be properly cared for.'

Hicks handed him a business card. ‘My cell-phone number's on the back,' she said. ‘You can call me any time you think Riley needs my help.' He took it, nodded, and she put her finger under his chin and tilted it till they were eye to eye. ‘
Any time,
night or day. Do we understand each other?'