Redemption (37 page)

“The sheriff asked them not to talk about it in order to preserve the integrity of the scene.”

“Where is this spot?”

Weyler fished through his notes. “Right near mile-marker forty-four.”

Jane’s throat stung. She contemplated mentioning that she saw Shane Golden parked in that same spot during the early afternoon of that day, but she wasn’t ready to formulate any clear accusations of the boy yet.

“Now, this Lou Peters fellow?” Weyler continued. “Apparently, the sheriff’s deputies didn’t have to track him down. Peters showed up himself at the sheriff’s office to declare his whereabouts on December 26.”

Jane recalled Kit mentioning that Lou made a conscious point of following the stated rules. From checking in ahead of time with his bondsman to alerting the guards at Chino Prison that his cell door was not locking properly, Kit felt it was Lou’s premeditated way of endearing himself to those in power. Look honest and people will treat you as an honest man. “How can Lou prove his whereabouts?”

“Receipts,” Weyler stated. “One from a Shell gas station that is time coded and located about an hour north on Highway 41. The other two are receipts for later in the day from the dining room of a motel called....” Weyler shuffled his notes. “It’s called The Hummingbird Motor Lodge.”

“The
Hummingbird
?” Jane was stunned. “Holy shit.” As much as Jane didn’t want to believe it, the odd sequence of bird names
that had followed her these last few days and mirrored the legend of Pico Blanco was uncanny and downright frightening.

“Is that significant?” Weyler asked.

“I don’t know, Boss. Maybe it’s just a...strange coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” Weyler sounded intrigued. “You know how I feel about coincidences.”

“Yeah. A coincidence is two steps away from a lucky break that solves the case,” Jane said, repeating one of Weyler’s many pithy sayings. “So, does the sheriff’s office have a copy of these receipts?”

“Yes. And I just happen to have a fax copy of those receipts in my hand.”

Jane stood dumbfounded. “Who do you know in this tiny town?”

“Can’t tell you. I promised I’d keep their anonymity. You got a fax nearby?”

Jane remembered the business card she swiped from the front office and dug it out of her jacket. She rattled off the fax number to Weyler and told him to address it to “Melody Clark,” the pseudonym Kit made up.

“One more thing,” Weyler quickly added. “Charlotte went missing over Thanksgiving weekend. Friday to Saturday. Almost thirty-six hours.”

“They have a police report on it?” Jane took a nervous drag on her cigarette.

“No. Her mother was about to call it in when Charlotte came home. The reason I’m telling you is the media got hold of it and they’re going to report it tonight.”

“Where does that lead us? She’s a runaway?”

“Maybe. But she may be a dead runaway because of that bracelet Fagin’s got.”

“No, no, this is not adding up, Boss.”

“What’s your gut telling you?” Weyler asked respectfully.

“Layers. There are layers upon layers. It’s not a straight shot. I can’t say it any better way than that. All I know is Trace Fagin is innocent.”

“You better figure it out soon because the way they’re wearing Fagin down, he’s about to cop to something he didn’t do.”

Jane knew that would be a death sentence for Charlotte. The authorities would curb their search for the girl, plodding along for a few weeks, hoping to find her body buried somewhere in the woods. The magic window of time had long since passed—those first forty-eight hours after a kid went missing. Statistics showed that the odds of finding a child alive after that initial forty-eight hours decreased substantially with each passing day. Her mind flashed to Rachel Hartly. Jane gave Weyler the condensed version of what occurred at Hartly’s house that morning. The odd newspapers with the missing sections. The guesthouse. The rifle pointed at her head.

“You have to go back and check it out when she’s not there,” Weyler stressed.

“That’s easier said than done, Boss.”

“What if Rachel Hartly’s hiding someone?”

“Lou?”

“Yeah. Or Charlotte.” A chill went down Jane’s spine. “Just go back and check around so you can rule out Rachel.” Jane reluctantly agreed. That was going to be one tough assignment. “I don’t have anything for you on the DNA from that condom. The lab’s closed until January 2. But I got a good connection over there. The cousin of an ex-wife of a former desk sergeant heads the department.”

Jane let out a soft chuckle at Weyler’s convoluted connections.”You do get around, Boss.” It felt good to talk to him. It was like home.

“How are you doing, in spite of all this?” Weyler asked, sounding paternal.

Jane opted to not mention the strange phone call she received with the whispered
“Let me help you.”
She took a drag on her
cigarette. A rare swell of vulnerability washed over her. In a sudden wave, the impact of her whiskey binge forty-eight hours ago grabbed at her throat. Tears unexpectedly welled and fell down her face. Jane tried to choke back the emotion, but it was useless. “I went out, Boss.”

Weyler took a breath. “It happens. You’re human. You keep forgetting that.”

“I had six months,” Jane softly said, tears still flowing.

“You’ll get another six months. Then a year. Then a decade. And then a life.”

“I’m a failure, Boss. I’ll be thirty-six in twelve days. What do I have to show for it?”

“There’s people alive today because of you.”

“People are dead because of me, too.”

“What do you want me to tell you, Jane? That you’re a good person going through a bad patch? That there’s a light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t an oncoming train? That from this moment on you’re never going to go out again? Maybe you will go out again. And if you do, you’ll start over.”

Jane winced at the thought. “I don’t have the energy to keep that up, Boss.”

“Then figure it out.” Weyler’s voice was hard for the first time. He knew that suffocating Jane in a sympathetic blanket would serve no purpose.

His tone worked. Jane drew in the rest of her resolve. She thought back on the trigger for her binge. “Boss? Do you believe that a person can be two polar opposites in the same life? A perpetrator
and
a victim?”

“A sinner and a saint? Of course.”

“Does it make a difference if they were the saint first?”

“Yes. Because then their ending is tragic.” There was a meaningful pause.

They ended their conversation just as the rain began to fall with greater fervor. Jane sprinted to the front office to retrieve Weyler’s fax of Lou’s receipts. One of the cable news channels
played loudly in the foreground as Barry retrieved the fax. It was the same, worn-out loop of tape from Charlotte’s birthday bash. Jane had the damn thing memorized. The kid’s rainbow wig. The self-conscious giggle. The red leather jacket. The snake emblem on her tank top. Jane reached into her pocket and rubbed the snakestone totem against the single sobriety chip. Clues, Jane thought as she stared blankly at the TV screen. What was she missing? Barry handed her the fax and insisted on ten minutes of idle gossip before Jane was able to duck out of the office.

The rain poured outside as she secured the fax under her jacket and ran back to the cabin. When she got to the door, it was slightly ajar. Jane poked her head inside and found the room empty. She turned and scanned the parking lot. Sheets of rain pelted the asphalt. Between the streetlights and shadows, Jane spotted Kit standing still near the far wall of the parking lot. She seemed to be staring intently at someone or something that Jane could not see. She yelled at Kit, but Kit remained unmoved. Jane raced across the parking lot, the deep puddles of rainwater splashing up to her knees. She yelled Kit’s name again. Still no reaction. Jane was within twenty-five feet of Kit when she yelled at her once again. This time, Kit turned to Jane with an otherworldly expression accompanied by generous tears rolling down her face.

“What is it?” Jane asked Kit, out of breath and sopping wet.

Kit turned back to where her attention had been focused. She bent her head, defeated. “I need to get inside,” Kit quietly replied as she walked back to the cabin.

Jane squinted into the shadows and the relentless rain in the direction Kit had been fixated. She saw nothing. But that didn’t stop the icy shudder that raced up her spine.

CHAPTER 24

JANUARY 1

Sleep came hard for Jane. Every forty-five minutes, she woke with a restless jerk, her mind racing. As she watched the New Year’s rising sun slip through the crack in the drapes, Jane felt old. Her lower back ached; partly from stress and partly from the cheap mattresses Barry had bought for the cabins. It had been her first sober New Year’s Eve. But if her head was any indication, she might as well have drained a bottle of Jim Beam. A dull stupor overwhelmed her senses, mixed with a rock-tired throbbing behind her eyes. Even two cups of her special gourmet coffee did little to assuage the pain. Kit had gotten up early to walk outside and greet the rising sun, an apparent New Year’s Day tradition. Fortunately, the storm clouds had abated overnight, transforming Oakhurst into a drier, yet still damp around the edges town.

Jane tiredly dressed in her running outfit, checking Kit’s whereabouts outside every few minutes. Kit was finishing her second of five turns around the parking lot, walking backward and humming “Bobby McGee.” From what Jane could decipher, Kit was back to her old, albeit eccentric, self. Nothing was said regarding Kit’s strange journey across the parking lot the previous night. As much as Jane wanted to question her, she figured she’d already caused Kit enough grief by pulling a gun on the woman and accusing her of disreputable actions.

Jane grabbed her pack of Marlboros and then spied the American Spirits Kit bought for her. “What the hell,” she thought as Jane tossed the Marlboros to the side and withdrew a cigarette from the all-natural tobacco pack. Outside, she lit the cigarette and sucked the smoke into her lungs. It was surprisingly strong and satisfying. After two more hard drags, Jane carefully extinguished the ember and rested the cigarette on the window ledge.
She waved to Kit and pantomimed that she was setting off on her run. Two days ago, Jane would have just taken off. But now she resolved to do whatever it took to reconnect with Kit and, hopefully, regain their old sense of camaraderie and shared purpose.

As Jane rounded the front office, she stopped to see the headline of the
Fresno Bee
. The reward fund for finding Charlotte Walker had jumped to $85,000. Jane knew that Clinton Fredericks was already planning how to spend the money. The night before, Kit and Jane had watched Clinton interview Leann Hamilton in front of the Walker’s house. But Leann wasn’t acting in the same manner as when she talked to Lesley Stahl. Her nerves were frayed. Dark circles lay under her eyes like ebony stains of smeared mascara. There was also a disturbing shell-shocked look that worried Jane. Leann spoke so quietly at times that Clinton had to repeatedly ask her to talk louder. She peppered too many “um’s” and “ah’s” throughout her answers. When Leann wasn’t studying the ground with her eyes, she was biting the flesh off her thumbnail. Leann looked like a trapped rabbit right before the slaughter. It was god-awful, Jane decided. Just god-awful.

As an act of good faith to Kit, Jane tipped her off that Trace Fagin had Charlotte’s bracelet in his possession. She also let Kit know that Clinton was shadowing her. Jane capped off the information dump with the fact that Charlotte had gone missing for thirty-six hours over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and that the media planned to make it their New Year’s Eve top story. When she revealed that Sergeant Weyler was her source for the inside information, Kit exclaimed, “How did you get your Sergeant Weyler to get involved in our good cause?”

“I promised I’d return to DH in the sergeant’s position he offered.”

Kit was clearly taken aback. “That’s quite a compromise for you to make.”

“I needed his help. Like you said, time is ticking away. I had no choice.”

“You made that deal for me?” Kit asked.

“I made it for us,” Jane said with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Thank you,” Kit said, her opinion of Jane rising quickly.

Jane let out a long sigh, tracing the carpet with her eyes. “I watch over people, Kit. I protect them. I rescue them. That’s my job.” Jane’s voice was detached. “That’s
always
been my job. My mother died of cancer when I was ten. I was the only one with her when it happened. Right before she died, she told me to watch over Mike. I hated her for giving up on us. And I blamed her for making me responsible for Mike’s safety. But after a while, I didn’t do it because she asked me to. I did it because it’s who I became.” Jane looked Kit in the eye. “I may be a drunk. I may have a ‘fuck you’ attitude. I may jump to wild conclusions when I shouldn’t. But no one can ever say I’m not responsible. When people ask me to help them, I do it. I knew you couldn’t find Lou all alone. And I knew that if I didn’t go with you and I found out later that something awful had happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

Kit looked at Jane with deep compassion. “Jane, when you spend your life taking care of other people, you never get a chance to know yourself. The other people become convenient distractions because, deep down, examining who you are is too frightening.”

“Knowing oneself is a luxury.”

“Knowing oneself is freedom. Do you think we all need to be rescued by you, Jane?”

“Charlotte needs to be rescued.”

“Yes, she does. But
I
don’t. When you’re told as a child that you must rescue others, you believe that everyone you come in contact with wants or needs
you
to liberate them. That’s not always true. Some people just need to do what they have to do in order to make their lives right.”