Little Girls Lost (6 page)

“Ryder, you got the weirdest friggin’ snitches.”

Ryder punched the line and snatched the phone. Sandhill said, “It’s me, Detective Ryder. I’ll come by and look at the files late this morning. Pro bono.”

Ryder’s shoulders slumped in relief.

“Thanks, Sandhill.”

“I’ve got one condition, Detective.”

“Which is?”

“I don’t want to see anyone above the rank of sergeant. Got that?”

Sandhill stood in his apartment tying his tie for the third time, scowling at the mirror, trying to get the wide end longer than the skinny end. He hated leaving the simmering gumbos, fearful they’d suffer in his absence. Each was an act of precision balance, the fulcrum shifting daily and dependent on such factors as whether the shrimp were from the bay or the bluewater, the freshness of the thyme and heat of the cayenne, the pungency of the onions. Gumbo, that sensory explosion of sight and smell and gustatory overload, was, at heart, one of the subtlest of the kitchen’s creations, a struggle for harmony.

He cursed and went at the tie a fourth time, grateful the gumbos would be under the watchful eyes of Marie Belfontaine. Fifty-two, dark as chocolate, able to set one-hundred-fifty pounds into motions that still pulled whistles from street corners, Marie was his kitchen confidante, his whisper-hoarder, his Richelieu. She’d appeared
three weeks before opening, sawdust on the floor, wires dangling from the ceiling, Sandhill wondering if the idea of opening a gumbo joint was divine inspiration or one of his darker urges gone hideously awry.

“You can tear this up,” she’d said, handing him the
HELP WANTED
sign from the door.

“Actually, I’ll probably need a few more people,” Sandhill said, a scarlet handkerchief wrapping the thumb he’d mistaken for a nail minutes earlier.

“You already thinking of expanding?” Marie said, looking at the space destined to become his dining area. “Your gumbo that good?”

“I’m planning sixteen four tops. To wait on them I’ll probably need—”

“To find me more work to do, if that’s all the piddling number of folks you gonna put in here.”

“I might need kitchen help, too,” Sandhill said, not really knowing what he was looking for, never having hired anyone before.

Marie narrowed an eye. “Cook?”

“Prep help, maybe. Pot-watching if I make a shopping run. But I do the main cooking.”

Marie smiled at Sandhill like he’d cleared a high-set hurdle. “Good. You gonna make gumbo, you got to have one cook. Gumbo may look like committee food, but good God Almighty it surely ain’t. Let me tell you…”

Marie’s five-minute discourse on gumbo was less science than theology and when she’d finished
Sandhill was uncertain whether to hire her or propose.

Sandhill tied his tie for the fifth time. Though the new windows were triple-paned for insulation, he heard voices from the street drifting up to his second-story digs. He lived above the restaurant in a failed dance studio, a box sixty feet long, thirty wide, fourteen high. The former dressing room was subdivided into a small bedroom and large bathroom. Cabinets and a counter, hanging implement rack and appliances turned a corner into a kitchen.

Before moving in, Sandhill had painted everything white: floor, walls, ceiling, trim. Then, like arranging thoughts in a clarified mind, he’d added furniture and decorated. His major furnishings were blond maple. The back wall held five twelve-foot-long bookshelves, sixty running feet with few inches to spare. A large Oriental carpet beneath a table and six chairs suggested the dining area. Posters from local events hung on the walls, the controlled chaos of a Jackson Pollock reproduction hovered above the sofa. Six ceiling fans, a legacy of the dance studio, spun lazily overhead. The only sense of disarray came from books and magazines scattered throughout the apartment, some open, some closed, most cluttered with bookmarks.

“Finally,” Sandhill growled, pulling the tie tight, it having acquiesced to near-evenness. He stepped back to put his head-to-toe image in the bathroom
mirror—the dark brown suit needing pressing he had neither the time nor skill for, white shirt, dark tie. His basic uniform for years. It felt tight and uncomfortable, an inch or two of gumbo new to his waist.

He sat on his bed to put on his shoes, instinctively reaching for the ankle-holstered .32 on the nightstand. The small Colt didn’t offer much fire-power, but it was light and, when he wore floppy jeans, invisible to the ordinary citizen.

The holster had been two hundred bucks, but the leather was molded glove-tight to the revolver and the strap was lined with sheepskin for comfort. Sandhill had made only one modification, carefully peeling a small section of the sheepskin from the cowhide strap, creating a small pocket, like the coin pocket in a pair of jeans. The pocket held a simple wire lockpick. Two years back a state cop had been blindsided by a canny felon and restrained with his own cuffs until being shot to death. Sandhill modified his holster the next day.

He bent to Velcro-strap the holster to his ankle, caught himself.
I’m going to a cop shop, for crying out loud.
He slipped the weapon back in the night-stand, locked up the apartment, and stopped into the restaurant. Marie was in the kitchen with a stirring-spoon in one hand, romance novel in the other.

“I’m outta here for a few hours, Marie. We need anything from the market?”

She studied Sandhill and wrinkled her nose. “You going in dressed like that?”

“I thought about nudity, but clothes seemed more appropriate.”

“You look like a po-liceman.”

“I was, remember? They give you these clothes with your detective’s shield and you wear them for life. When you die they strip you and give the clothes to a new-made detective.”

“You not a cop any more.”

“And?”

“Look at you. Going to that place and you somebody different.”

“They’re just clothes, Marie.”

She
hmphed
and turned away.

Sandhill said, “Marie? Hello?”

She kept her back to him. “They owning you again and you not out the door of your own place.”

“Come on, Marie. Aren’t you being a bit sensitive? I mean—”

Marie spun and gaveled the spoon against the pot. “You ain’t no cop no more, Conner Sandhill. You the Gumbo King, right? Like you all the time preaching at everybody else: To thine own self…”

She let the words hang in the air.

“Be true,” Sandhill completed, stripping the tie from his neck.

“Late in the year for Mardi Gras, ain’t it, Carson?” Detective Roy Trent said, looking from a window to the parking lot.

“What are you talking about?” Ryder said.

“You won’t believe what fell off a float and’s heading this way,” Trent said, a grin bridging his outsized ears from lobe to lobe.

A minute later Sandhill strode into the room wearing a purple vest trimmed in gold brocade. His felt crown was high and crisply ironed. He wore a black tee shirt and jeans with black Converse hightops slapping the floor.

Mouths fell open. Ryder muttered, steering Sandhill away from the looks and down the hall to the meeting room.

“Is there a reason for the get-up?”

“Makes me feel regal.”

“I was hoping we might pull this off without fanfare.”

Sandhill said, “Ever read Castaneda?”

Ryder paused; raised an eyebrow. He opened the door to the meeting room. “It’s been years. Why?”

“Remember the sorcerer’s concept of controlled folly? Folly with a purpose?”

Ryder was about to make a flip comment but saw Sandhill’s face was deadly serious. Ryder displayed the
IN USE
sign on the door and closed it behind them.

“Would you like me to hang up your vest and crown?”

“I’ll wait until the brass has been and gone,” Sandhill said, wiggling chairs until finding one without a squeak. He sat and pulled close the pile of reports.

“I told them your condition,” Ryder said. “That they weren’t supposed to be here.”

“Precisely why they will be,” Sandhill said, picking up a file and starting to read.

Ryder sat quietly as Sandhill absorbed data, often grunting, occasionally asking questions. Some questions seemed penetrating, some childishly basic, others made no sense at all.

The door opened without a knock and Ryder glanced up in irritation. Bidwell pushed through just ahead of Squill. Ainsley Duckworth was in the acting chief’s wake, the wet marbles of the commander’s eyes peering from under the heavy brow. He showed Ryder his teeth. Zemain brought up the rear, embarrassment written across his face.

“Oh shit,” Squill said, counterbalancing feigned surprise with a smirk. “We didn’t know anyone was in here.”

“Hi, Roland,” Sandhill said to Zemain.

Ryder said, “Uh, we’re looking through some things here, Chief…”

Squill ignored Ryder and looked at Sandhill as if he’d suddenly materialized.

“Nice hat, Sandhill. Get it at a Halloween store?”

“It’s a crown,” Sandhill said. “I got it at Kings’R’Us.”

Zemain deftly turned a chuckle into a throat-clearing sound. Bidwell blanked his face and looked out the window.

“That’s right,” Squill said. “I heard you were
king of the fry cooks or something. How’s being a fry cook compare with being a detective?”

Sandhill thought a moment. “A cook only has to be there when the food goes in.”

Squill’s smile melted. “How long you planning on being here, Sandhill?”

“I can leave right now if you want.” Sandhill stood.

Bidwell, ever the arbiter, jumped in, patting Sandhill’s shoulder, easing him back to the chair. “Sit, Conner. Take all the time you need.” Bidwell shot Squill a sidelong glance saying,
We got him, let’s use him.

Squill turned away, muscles working in his clenched jaw. Sandhill picked up a photo, and began studying it.

“Sure would be nice to have a little privacy,” he said.

After three hours of studying every scrap of paper and photo associated with the girls’ disappearances and asking Ryder a stream of questions, Sandhill began jamming material into a manila folio.

“It’s a jumble. I’ve got some ideas, but I want to think a little more. I’ll take some stuff with me.”

Ryder raised a dark eyebrow. “I’ll have to clear it. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to take things home.”

“Never ask, Detective Ryder. Just do. You get a lot more accomplished that way.”

“The world according to Conner Sandhill?”

“It’s a kingly principle, Detective. Ever read
The Golden Bough
? Frazer asserts that a monarchy can develop much faster than a democracy. Picture a group of hunters on a hill deciding which direction to go. In a democracy everyone has an opinion to be argued and dissected and voted on. In a monarchy the king points his finger and says, ‘We’re going there.’”

“For better or worse.”

“It depends on the king. If he moves from reason and the proper accumulation of kingly wisdom, the journey stands a solid chance of success.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

Sandhill tied the folio shut, walked to the door. “At least it’s motion. Henry Moore bores me, but I purely love Calder.”

Sandhill was at the back entrance when Squill slipped from a side hall, eyes slitted at the folio under Sandhill’s arm.

“You’re leaving everything right here, Sandhill. I figured you’d try and take something on the sly. That’s a habit of yours, isn’t it?”

“I don’t work well from memory, Terrence.”

Squill bristled at the use of his first name. “Case information is for cops only. It stays.”

Sandhill threw the folio in the air and Squill made a clumsy catch. “It’s all yours, Terrence. I was going to look a little more, but if you don’t want me to, that’s fine. Our deal’s done. I expect to find my doorway clear of inspectors when I get back.”

“Inspectors?” Squill said, a smile ghosting his thin lips. “What inspectors?”

“You’re bush league, Terrence. Harassing me with pissant bureaucrats is as bush as it gets.”

“You dishonored the badge, Sandhill. You owe us.”

“You dream that in your sleep, too?”

“Listen to me, you smug bastard—”

“I don’t have to any more, Terrence. And I like the quiet.”

Sandhill started to the door, but stopped as pictures in his mind began aligning. He watched the pictures for a moment, then turned to Squill.

“Just one thing, Terrence. I don’t think LaShelle Shearing was killed in the house that burned. I think she was murdered somewhere else and taken there.”

Squill’s face froze for an instant, then resumed its sneer.

“None of the Forensics techs said that. What makes you so sure?”

Sandhill nodded at the files in Squill’s hand. “It’s right there, Terrence. You figure it out.”

Sandhill stepped through the door. It was raining but he was focused on the pictures in his head and didn’t notice.

Four p.m. and the restaurant was empty of customers. Marie was at the market, Sandhill at a table struggling with bookkeeping when the health inspector, Wentz, slunk through the door carrying a thick brown envelope. Wentz raised his hand like a white flag and nodded at the envelope.

“Easy, Sandhill. I’m just here to bring you this.”

“A running record of my infractions?”

Holding the envelope in front of him, Wentz edged closer, a man trying to feed a grizzly while keeping his arm. “I don’t know what the hell it is. I was over by Seven Hills when I got a call saying drive all the way back in town, pick it up, deliver it to you. Like I ain’t got enough to do, I got to be messenger boy for the goddamn—”

Sandhill snatched the envelope. He looked inside and saw copies of the files on the abductions.

“Is this everything?”

“No,” Wentz said, retreating to the door.
“I’m supposed to tell you that taking the folder buys probation on the inspections.”

Sandhill stared at the door after it closed, then pushed aside his pencils and calculator and tapped the package slowly with his forefinger. That Wentz himself had been detailed to deliver the files and message was a diplomatic maneuver, a small gesture of truce. But the inspections had been suspended, not stopped, keeping alive the threat of being closed down.

Sandhill figured the handshake was from Bidwell and a couple other brass hats, the squeeze at the end coming from Squill.

“Hey, Sophie,” Ryder said into his desk phone, “I can’t get Harry on his cell. All I get is his voice-mail. Could you tell him to call me?”

“Harry’s back at the hospital.”

“My God. Is he—”

“Easy, Ryder. His temperature went up to 103° last night. An infection, not uncommon. It’s safer to hospitalize him for a day or two. He’ll receive high doses of antibiotics, be monitored around the clock.”

“Are you sure he’s—”

“Harry was fretting and moaning all the way there. Asked if he could leave his head at the desk and they could mail it to him when they got everything fixed. That tell you anything?”

Ryder exhaled. If Harry was well enough to bitch, he wasn’t at death’s door.

“I’ll run over to the hospital.”

“Don’t you dare. Harry needs medicine and quiet, emphasis on the quiet. You got that?”

“I hear you loud and clear, Soph.”

Which was the truth; Ryder’s phone volume was set on high, the signal crisp and sharp.

The trip to the hospital took fifteen minutes. Finagling Harry’s room number from a pretty young nurse took thirty seconds. He slipped up a back stairwell to avoid the nurses’ station on Harry’s floor. It was suppertime and food carts were being wheeled from room to room. He waited until the hall was free of staff, then fast-walked to room 307.

Ryder took a deep breath and stepped through the open door. The air tasted cold and sharp, like it had been rinsed in alcohol. Harry Nautilus was flat on his back, appearing to be asleep. His eyes blinked open at Ryder’s footsteps.

Nautilus chuckled. “Ain’t no hiding from you, is there?”

“I thought I was going to have to get my dog to track you down.”

“How’s that fifty-species mutt doing?”

Ryder smiled. “Mr Mix-up’s at camp, basically. My neighbour is watching him for a couple of weeks, until things settle down.”

“The animal shelter lady?”

“Yep. Mix-up gets fed and walked and spends the day playing with kindred spirits.” Ryder’s face went serious. “You OK, bro?”

“They’re bombing me with industrial-strength antibiotics. It’s strong shit; my ass is flat wore out.”

“I stopped by to ask a couple questions. I’m outta here in two minutes, I swear.”

“I admire your persistence, Cars, but I still haven’t remembered anything about the attack. Sometimes it feels like something’s there—like I can hear words—but when I try and listen closer, they disappear. I’m trying.”

Ryder shot a glance outside the door; no one coming to haul him away. He pulled a chair to the bedside and sat.

“I’m not here about that. I need to know more about Sandhill.”

Nautilus sighed and rolled his eyes. “Six foot three or four, maybe two-forty pounds, brown eyes and brown—”

“Come on, what did he do, Harry? Insubordination, right? I figure this Sandhill as the type of guy who’d walk right up and spit in—”

“Committed his resignation.”

“What?”

“Here’s all I know, Carson: Sandhill was there one day, gone the next. The brass sent out a one-paragraph memo saying Sandhill had ‘committed his resignation’.”

“Instead of ‘submitted his resignation’? A Freudian slip? Maybe meaning he’d committed something illegal?”

“I figure whoever dashed out the memo—Squill, I’d guess—was in too much of a hurry to proofread.”

Ryder leaned back into the chair and mulled it
over. Sandhill’d been thirty-seven or so at the time, a sex crimes and cold-case hotshot. Didn’t seem a time to resign from the department.

“Sandhill was forced out, maybe? Pissing too many people off?”

Nautilus shook his head. “You want to push a guy off the force, you re-assign him to work he hates, or a subordinate position. But if you cut him loose, he’ll come swinging back with a police-union lawyer. Neither happened with Sandhill.”

“So Sandhill really did resign?”

“Or knew it was the best offer he’d get.”

Ryder leaned forward in the chair and lowered his voice. “What was the scuttlebutt, Harry? There’s always scuttlebutt.”

Nautilus yawned and settled his head into the pillow. “I heard a dozen theories. I’m gonna let you work with him, decide for yourself.”

“Come on, Harry. Give me just a little somethi—”

“Sorry,” Nautilus yawned again. “Sandhill’s all yours, Carson.”

Ryder nodded and stood. His partner was falling asleep. Ryder scooted the chair against the wall.

“Anything else you can add, bro?”

Nautilus pursed his lips and stared at the inside of his eyelids, finally nodding to himself. “Watch Sandhill, Carson,” he said, his voice whispering toward sleep. “Watch him real close.”