Snow Blind-J Collins 4 (33 page)

He wiped his greasy hands on an even greasier rag.

“Help ya?”

“I’m looking for BD.”

“You found him.”

Whoa. This guy had seduced the church secretary?

I didn’t offer my hand. “Hi, BD. I’m working in conjunction with the Bear Butte County Sheriff ’s Office regarding the Melvin Canter case. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Immediately he became suspicious. “Why din’t Deputy John ask ’em when I was there a few days ago?”

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“Because he’s busy with county business while Sheriff Richards is out of town and he outsourced the investigation.”

More squinty-eyed distrust.

Maybe I’d laid it on too thick.

“Don’t know how much I can help ya, but come on back. I jus’ made a fresh potta coffee.”

“That’d be great.” I followed him into a big open room, which was the garage/maintenance area. Concrete floors, gigantic garage doors, tires stacked in the corner, and belts hanging on the wall.

Six gleaming semitrucks with jewel-toned metallic cabs were parked in a straight line. Worth at least a million bucks each. Bright red rolling chests ringed the room, holding hundreds of thousands of dollars of ratchets, wrenches, and other tools. One truck was on a hydraulic lift. Heavy chains draped the steel rafters like industrial tinsel. The place smelled like oil and gas and for a second the distinctive scent brought me back to my childhood when my dad’d been a short-term truck driver. My visits to his place of employment had been rare, therefore memorable.

BD ducked through a doorway. I followed and entered a room filled with computer equipment and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Built-in cabinets and shelves took up one wall. A big glass window looked out into the shop; underneath it were two pad-ded folding chairs. The office area was spotless and no smoking signs were slapped up everywhere.

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There went that idea.

He wiggled a Styrofoam cup from a stack and poured. “Cream an’ sugar over here if you need it.”

“Black is fine.” I took the proffered cup.

BD gestured to one of the chairs. “Pull that up to the desk if ya want.”

“Thanks.”

“Now what can I do for ya?”

“I know you’re a busy man, so I’ll jump right in with my questions if you don’t mind.”

“Not a problem.”

“What can you tell me about Melvin Canter? I understand you attended the same church. He moved back here recently and was looking for work. Did he approach you for a job?”

“Yep. Turned him down flat. Made some folks in the church unhappy. But I gotta look out for the interests of my employees rather than just blindly follow the idea of Christian charity.”

Not the response I’d expected. “So you knew Melvin had done time?”

“Yeah.”

“Did everyone in the church know about the years he’d spent in jail?”

BD shook his head.

“Why didn’t you hire him?”

“He din’t have no mechanic experience. Plus, my best mechanic is a woman. Knowing what he’d done . . . well, I ain’t about to let him be around her at all, say nuthin’ of 344

bein’ around her unsupervised.”

I breathed deeply and evenly. If BD knew Melvin was a sexual predator, why hadn’t he shared that information with my father? “How did you know Melvin was a convicted and registered sex offender?”

His soft brown eyes met mine and something defiant flickered. “I din’t. But I’ve lived in this county my whole life. I knew Melvin growin’ up, and I was here when my dad and a buncha other guys run Melvin out of town the first time he got caught years ago.”

“What?”

He shifted in his chair. “I ain’t real comfortable talkin’ about this.”

Too fucking bad. “The sheriff isn’t gonna care about something that happened twenty years ago.

He’s looking for answers about this case.”

“I suspect the past cain’t be separated from the now. So that ain’t exactly true.”

“Maybe you should tell me what happened.”

BD stood and returned to the coffeepot. As he spoke, his loud voice reverberated off the wall, but he kept his back to me. “Twenty-odd years ago Melvin Canter supposedly raped a twelve-year-old girl. No one did nuthin’ because she was the daughter of a single mother who bartended at Dusty’s. People thought she had it comin’ or some dumb thing. A month later, another rumor floated around about Melvin and a young kid. Again, unconfirmed. No one paid attention until Melvin raped the preacher’s eleven-year-old 345

daughter.”

My heart started to pound.

“My ma was the head of the Sunday school program, and she found her. The girl told her what happened. Just after my ma called the police, the gal’s daddy showed up.”

My heart switched from a steady bass beat to the rapid fire of a snare drum solo.

“The preacher din’t want his daughter to hafta go to court, so she retracted the story as a lie. He said God would be the man’s final judge. No charges were ever filed and the preacher and his family moved out of town.

“But my dad and a bunch of the elders from the church knew the truth. They rode out to the Canters’ place and told Melvin to get outta town and not to come back. Even his brother left the immediate area ’cause he din’t wanna be associated with a child rapist.”

“Do you think the brother knows about Melvin using his address in Meade County to register his sex offender status?”

“No. Marvin’s a stand-up guy. Melvin stayed away for years ’til his mother started ailin’. When he came back a ‘changed man and born-again Christian’

. . . well, it’s been a trial for me, ’cause I know the SOB ain’t changed. I din’t know howta tell folks what kinda sick monster he was. The one person I trusted and took inta my confidence told me I oughta practice 346

Christian forgiveness.”

“None of the church members remembered him or what he’d done?”

“We couldn’t get no minister to take the call to our church after what happened. The church closed down. Coupla years later some teens were drinkin’ in there, set it on fire, and it burned to the ground. A lotta the members back then were old and they’ve since died. Lost track of the rest.”

So maybe my dad hadn’t known. At the time he’d been a hit-and-miss Catholic—hitting me and missing church services, mostly.

“But Melvin worked for Doug Collins. Doug attends your church and is your fellow elder. Did you try to talk to him about not hiring Melvin, especially since Doug has a young daughter?”

BD still hadn’t turned around.

I gave him a minute before I said, “Mr. Hoffman?”

He spun and glared at me. “Who do you think told me I oughta practice Christian forgiveness?”

My stomach plummeted like I’d swallowed a length of log chain. “Doug did?”

“No. His wife, Trish, did. She told me spreadin’

rumors was the devil’s work. That everyone deserved a second chance no matter what they’d done in the past.”

Jesus. Trish couldn’t be that fucking stupid, could she?

“Did Doug Collins know? I mean, as far as you know, did Trish ever tell him that you’d warned her 347

about Melvin?”

BD returned to his chair and picked at his grease-stained fingernails. “I don’t know if I should . . .”

“Should what?”

“Is all this gonna go in your report?”

I shrugged. He’d tell me or he wouldn’t. Cajoling him would only make me look suspect.

“Around that time, something else happened at our church with me and someone else. I tried to explain it wadn’t what it looked like. Doug wouldn’t listen. He lashed out and made a stupid decision. I guess I wanted to prove to him how damn dumb that decision was, so I tried to tell him what I’d told Trish about Canter. Then he accused me of tryin’ to retaliate by comin’ between him and his wife. Big mess din’t need to be made bigger. I let it go.”

“I’m strictly looking for facts, but I did talk to someone and they’d made mention of a rumor about you and the church secretary? What was her name again?”

BD’s face flushed red as his toolboxes. “Beth McClanahan. We wadn’t doin’ what folks said we was.

She was cryin’ and on her knees prayin’. I was helpin’

her.”

Right. The old
on-the-knees
excuse.

“Beth lost her job in the most humiliatin’ way. I tried to quit the elders’ council and leave the church, after they fired her. ’Course they wadn’t gonna let me do that since I give ’em so much money every year.

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Sweet Lord Jesus, if anyone knew why she’d been cryin’ . . .”

“Why?”

He cut me a dark look. “Keep her out of this.

She’s a good woman. Been through a lotta bad stuff in her life and she don’t need no more.”

Perfect example of how fourth- and fifth-hand information turned into personal speculation. Dale told me BD begged for forgiveness, but I’d bet Sunday’s collection plate it wasn’t for himself but for Beth McClanahan.

I figured she wouldn’t talk to me since my father canned her biscuits, but maybe if BD was a buffer she’d consider it. “Would Beth talk to me?”

“Why?”

“To see if she had any dealings with Melvin Canter.”

BD’s gaze fell back to his coffee cup.

“She does have a job someplace around here?”

A moment of quiet, then he asked, “How’d you know Beth’s been workin’ here for me?”

I blinked. I hadn’t known.

“She’s a good secretary and I needed office help.”

Getting off track, Julie.

“What did you and Doug Collins fight about at Bevel’s Hardware?”

His mouth went hard and flat.

“Deputy John said you didn’t file charges.

Why?”

“To prove to Doug I can turn the other cheek.”

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Great. One-upmanship Jesus-style. “Did you overhear the fights Doug and Melvin were purported to have at Chaska’s?”

BD shook his head.

“So you don’t know what they were fighting about?”

Another head shake.

“BD, do you have any idea why Melvin Canter is dead?”

“No.” His head hung so low I strained to hear him and he was a mere three feet from me. “And may Christ our Lord and Savior have mercy on my sinner’s soul, because I can’t find sorrow in my heart that he is.”

A chill rolled through me. I stood and offered my hand. “Thank you for the coffee. If I think of anything else I’ll be in touch.”

As I drove home I wondered if he realized I’d never given him my name.

Something weird was going on with Beth

McClanahan. Probably be worth it to run a background check on her.

I called Trish. I hadn’t talked to her since Martinez’s shooting.

If my luck held we could have the whole damn 350

conversation on the phone. My energy started to lag and I knew I’d crash on the couch soon as the last cup of coffee wore off.

Trish insisted on coming to my place. I didn’t bother to pick up because I could give a crap about what she thought of my housekeeping skills; she wasn’t my mother.

I was smoking and cleaning my gun when she barged in.

“I can’t stay.”

I bit back my response of
good
.

“I tried to call you for a couple of days. Where’ve you been?”

None of your business.
I was punchy and I just needed to crawl in bed. “Out of town. Why? Did something happen?”

“No. Thank goodness. Did you find out anything?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure you wanna hear it.”

“What?”

“The background check on Melvin Canter.”

She frowned but didn’t argue why I’d taken that tack.

“Why in the hell would you insist on hiring him?”

The question threw her. “He needed money to help care for his mother. Doug needed a hired hand.

And it was the Christian thing to do.”

“Doesn’t my father know when he needs help?

Wasn’t he livid when you announced you’d just hired Canter on his behalf out of the blue?”

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“I resent—”

“—someone trying to tell you the truth?”

“What truth? Showing human kindness and com-passion? The man needed a break.”

“Jesus, Trish, the man is a fucking
pedophile
. How in the world could you ever justify having him around your children?”

Trish’s face turned ashen. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. Melvin Canter is a convicted felon. Sexual assault. Three cases in three different states. He’s done thirteen of the last twenty years in various jails. He is a convicted sex offender.”

She leapt to her feet and stumbled to the bathroom. She didn’t manage to shut the door, so I heard her retching. I didn’t check on her simply because I couldn’t stand to be in the room when she looked at herself in the mirror.

After a while Trish shuffled into the living room.

I handed her a glass of water.

“Thanks.”

I waited. Smoked. Watched her.

Finally she said, “How did you find out?”

“Like I said. Background check. But you could’ve known what kind of man he was if you’d only listened to the warnings.”