Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (34 page)

“I’m a little rusty,” I admitted.

“Ah. Well, come to my study. It’s not very church-like.” We walked around the platform
with the lectern, and rows for a choir, and stepped through a doorway into a hall.
“Ken says you’ve been enormously valuable to him,” Hutchins told me as we walked.
“This community needs a break, Ms. Street. We’ve had too many tragedies. I hope you’re
here to tell me Skylar’s been found.”

We stepped into his office—heavy furniture, tall bookcases, no windows, but it was
lamp-lit and comfortable. I took one of two chairs on the other side of a wide antique
desk. He took the other chair and faced me. “Skylar’s still missing. That’s why I’m
here, to talk about her.” It wasn’t really lie number three. I
had
wanted to speak with him. I simply failed to mention that I’d shadowed the music
teacher here and eavesdropped while they prayed together. If lightning was going to
strike, it would be about now.

“Skylar and her parents are members of our congregation. But they’re more than that.
They’re part of a big family. I know you haven’t seen the best side of this community,
but believe me, there are a lot of good people. Skylar and her parents helped us build
the community garden. Hayley and Skylar worked every growing season and bagged produce
for hungry families. Several members of the community have shown up today to pray
for Skylar.”

“Is that why Daniel Tray was here?”

“All of them have the expectation of privacy. Including Dan Tray.”

“I spoke with him earlier. He seemed very troubled.”

Ethan Hutchins said nothing.

“Do you think he knows something about Skylar?” I asked.

“Heavens no. Daniel is an emotional man, but he’s not a bad man.”

“Would you tell me if you believed otherwise?”

He leaned forward a little, hands clasped, looked into my eyes. “Sometimes the ethical
goal of protecting the community clashes with the duties of the ministry, Dr. Street.
People have to trust this is a safe place to unburden themselves. It’s a responsibility
I take very seriously. But I can assure you that if someone was confessing to a crime
against a little girl—and I believe that’s what you’re alluding
to—that confidentiality would have to be broken. Not protecting my neighbors is inconsistent
with building a healthy faith-based community. Methodists don’t see confession as
sacramental.” He shrugged. “God doesn’t want us to protect murderers and child molesters.”

I always get nervous when men start to talk about what God wants. “I find it interesting
Daniel Tray would rush here immediately after our chat. One might think he had something
to get off his chest.”

I saw the tiniest crinkling at the corners of Minister Hutchins’s eyes. “Coming to
a house of God to pray or to be ministered to in times of grief and confusion is perfectly
normal to millions of people, Dr. Street.”

“Skylar liked coming here,” I said. “She wrote about it in her diary. I think she
liked the family atmosphere. Did she ever talk to you about something bothering her?
Or someone?”

He shook his head. “But I think she was lonely over the summer. She and my daughter,
Robin, played sometimes. And we all ate a lot of lunches together in the parsonage,
me, Bernadette, Sky, and Robin. I always called her Sky. It fit her.”

His mobile phone lit up and vibrated on his desk. “Pardon me.” He got up and looked
at it. “Bern has lunch ready. She was at the judicial center all morning. Apparently
she’s the only lip-reader in Hitchiti County. How about having lunch with us. We’d
love it.”

I stood. “I can’t. But thank you. Your wife is a lip-reader?”

He chuckled. “You have any idea what it’s like living with a lip-reader? I can’t get
away with anything. Yes—she’s deaf. As a result she has a superior understanding of
communication. Which means she reads your lips, your body language, and your facial
expressions. Bern’s my Geiger counter. Always steers me right.”

“Wow,” I said. “Can I borrow her for Vegas?”

He laughed again. “We don’t really do a lot of gambling. It’s a Methodist thing.”
We walked back through the sanctuary. “Change your mind about lunch?”

“I wish I could,” I told him. “Ken says it’s the best place in town.”

“Bachelors are easy to please.” We parted the long curtains, pushed through heavy
doors, and stepped out into the full blaze of Georgia’s
midday sun. “And here she is now. The head of our family,” Ethan Hutchins said with
a smile.

A woman came up the steps, smiling. She had honey-brown skin, the kind of striking
face that said
Southern Asia
. I saw his navy tie swing forward when he leaned to kiss her cheek. Using sign language,
he spoke the introductions.

“Keye Street, meet my wife, Bernadette. Sweetheart, Dr. Street came to talk about
Skylar.”

“It’s terrible,” she signed while Hutchins spoke for her. “I can’t even imagine what
Hayley and Brooks are going through. If something ever happened to Robin …”

I was invited again to have lunch and when I declined, Bernadette invited me to dinner
on Sunday. I watched them walk across the lush lawn between the church and their home.
She reached for his waist. He draped his arm over her shoulder. They moved with the
kind of rhythm that told you they’d done some walking together. It shouldn’t be surprising
to see a married couple still in love, but I stood there, watching them. Meltzer liked
to hang out in the Hutchinses’ home. Skylar, too, was drawn to them. Was it because
of the love missing in their own homes?

31

My phone vibrated with a 706 area code, a local number I didn’t recognize. “Keye Street.”

“This is Heather,” a young voice said. “ ’Member me? Melinda Cochran’s friend.”

“Of course,” I said. “What’s up?”

“That lady officer called us all today. Me, Briana, and Shannon. The one that interviewed
us before. The bitchy one. You know who I mean?”

“I think I know the one.”

“She was asking if we’d seen anyone with a broken-down car or something. And then
we heard about the stuff on the news at school. And you were nice so we thought we
could ask you if you know who did it yet, because Melinda was our friend.”

“The awkward friend,” I said, a little cruelly. “Bad with boys, right?” She was silent.
“I know that’s not who Melinda was. Look, Heather, if there’s something I should know,
it’s time to let me help. There’s another girl missing from the middle school. You
won’t get in trouble. All anyone cares about is getting Skylar home so she doesn’t
end up where Melinda did.”

I could hear her breathing. I pressed harder. “Why did you deliberately mislead me
about Melinda?”

“Our parents don’t want us talking to you or anyone. They think something bad will
happen.”

“Did you see anyone that day, Heather? Was there someone with car trouble you saw
on your way home from school?”

“I’m going to get in trouble. I gotta go.”

I heard the click and headed to Meltzer’s new war room. “Good afternoon,” I said.
Brolin, Raymond, and Meltzer were lined up like birds on a clothesline looking at
the board they’d created—columns labeled
VICTIMS
,
SUSPECTS
,
EVIDENCE
,
WITNESSES
. Magnetic binder clips were stuck to the board under the appropriate columns, each
headed with a photo of victim or suspect. Everything was movable, erasable, as changeable
as a fledging investigation.

“Afternoon, Doc,” Meltzer nodded. “Okay, here’s where I am. I’ve pulled Deputy Ferrell
into Criminal Investigations. She applied a while back, as you know, Tina,” he said
to Major Brolin. “And it is abundantly clear to me that we need more bodies in this
unit right away. For now, Ferrell is home base. This is to ensure we have a steady
flow of information available to us all. You’ll contact Ferrell by mobile phone. No
radios. We have media in town now. Let’s assume they have scanners. Ferrell will relay
new information via group text message. And I’m encouraged to see we have four names
in the suspect column. Let’s start there.”

I glanced at the board. Logan Peele’s icy gaze locked on me from the suspect column.
Reg offender no alibi
. Below his photo was Daniel Tray’s.
Middle school teacher for Cochran/Barbour—No alibi
. Below Tray’s photo was the sex offender who hadn’t showed up for his group treatment
program. The note next to Lamar Bailey’s picture said
Reg offender—unexcused absence—AWOL
. Below that was a face I recognized from the diner. It was the man who had served
me the first night I was in town, the one who’d withdrawn once he learned who I was.
Gene Johnson—reg offender—tipped Peele
.

“Gene from the diner is a sex offender?” I asked. He was not on the list Neil had
given me, which meant he didn’t fit the original criteria we’d used to narrow the
suspect pool.

“Level one,” Raymond said. A clock with three hands ticked off seconds loudly at the
end of the room. “He got too drunk one night
and flashed some people in the park. Gene thought it was funny as hell. Turned out
to be a bunch of high school kids.”

“So why is he on the board?” I wanted to know.

“He’s in Dr. Pope’s treatment program,” Brolin answered. I put my things down and
stepped closer to the board. “And he imparted some real interesting information to
Peele last night after their group session. We have it from the surveillance cameras.
We enhanced the video. Let’s see it, Rob.”

“This was gathered from five different cameras last night around the time Victoria
Pope was having her group session,” Raymond told us. The security footage showed the
F-150 pulling up, Logan Peele getting out and walking the same walkway I’d just used
to get to the judicial center. Next we saw him inside at the elevator, then getting
off the elevator and disappearing into the office Dr. Pope used for group. “Now watch
this.”

The door opened and the corridor filled with men, men in jeans, men in business suits,
average-looking men, men who might have been leaving a sales meeting. Twelve of them.
Raymond reached for the mouse as we watched Logan Peele come through the door. Behind
him, Gene Johnson put a hand on Peele’s arm, stopped him. Raymond slowed the video.
Johnson’s lips moved.
“Somebody took a girl.”
Raymond spoke the words for him. Now I understood why the minister’s lip-reading
wife had been asked to come to the complex. Brolin and Raymond had aggressively followed
up. It was good work.

“He might have also said somebody took
the
girl.” Raymond froze the image on the screen. “It’s kinda hard to distinguish that
one word, but we’re solid on the rest of it.”

“You know how Peele responded?” I asked.

“Couldn’t get it.” Meltzer was frowning. “He never turned toward the camera.”

“As if he knew it was there. What time did your deputies take the first call from
Skylar’s parents?” I asked.

“That’s the problem,” Brolin told me. “This was recorded half an hour before. That’s
how Peele knew about a missing girl in your interview this morning. Not because he’d
seen the news.”

“We know Peele went home after this. We had eyes on him. And we
checked his financials. Debit card charge to Pizza Hut for sixteen dollars,” Raymond
said.

“Alibi Hut,” Brolin muttered, miserably. “How many creeps have we had alibi out with
a pizza delivery?”

“Have we picked up Gene Johnson yet?” Meltzer asked.

“Got him,” Raymond said. “Set up a temporary interview room next door.”

“We have audio and video in the room,” Brolin added. “No window, obviously.”

Raymond pulled up the feed on the monitor and we saw the old server sitting at a bare
table, probably smelling, as the diner smelled, of bacon and caramelized onions and
oil. “Go find out how he knew about Skylar before we did,” Meltzer told them.

Brolin walked into the interview room with a manila folder. Raymond lumbered in behind
her. He put his phone on the table. They sat and faced Gene Johnson. Johnson straightened
in his metal chair. The sheriff sat next to me.

Raymond spoke first. “How you doing, Gene? Do you know why you’re here?”

“No. I don’t. You know me, Rob. I don’t get into trouble. Not since I quit drinking.”

“Logan Peele your buddy or something?” Raymond asked.

“He’s in that program they make us go to. That’s all. I toe the line, Rob. I don’t
hang around with those guys.”

Brolin opened the folder and looked down at it, a tactic meant to imply she had information
she wasn’t sharing. She lifted her eyes to him. “That’s curious, Gene. Because we
have you on video telling him, and I quote, ‘Somebody took a girl.’ ”

“Yeah,” Raymond said roughly. “Curious.” He clicked his phone on and slid it across
the table to Johnson.

Johnson stared miserably at Raymond’s phone screen. “There’s no sound,” he said finally.

“We have it on the house security,” Brolin lied effortlessly. “Want to tell us how
you knew Skylar Barbour was missing?”