The Green Children: A Sycamore Moon Novel (Sycamore Moon Series Book 3) (6 page)

 

 

 

 

Bellemont was the town closest to Sanctuary. On the south side of Interstate 40, Maxim passed it every time he went to Flagstaff. There wasn't usually much cause to actually stop in Bellemont, but Maxim knew it well enough. That was unfortunate because it allowed the detective to drive on autopilot, which left him brainpower to ruminate on the disastrous press conference.

Maxim was relieved when he finally pulled into the parking lot. He was confused, though, and even went so far as to double-check the address. He was in an old complex, three large building strips with connected condominiums. The paint was faded. The grass was brown. After seeing Olivia's cushy living situation, it was hard for Maxim to imagine her ex-husband somewhere like this.

But then, she'd intimated he was a deadbeat.

The detective had trouble finding the condo because the number had fallen off the door. Even after he decided he found the right one, he took a few minutes to check the neighbors to make sure. By the time he finally approached the door to knock, it opened by itself.

A man in jeans and a T-shirt eyed him with a smirk. "Knew you'd be coming this way," he said.

Maxim did a double-take. The man was in his forties, at least, and had a pocked face from years of smoking. He was balding but had thick brown hair on the sides of his head and a mustache to match.

"Sorry?"

"I saw you on the news. Bang-up job you did there. I'd be surprised if you could find your own asshole, much less my daughter."

The man's clothes must have been ten years old, but he wore a shiny green pair of cowboy boots. Maxim wasn't sure what he'd expected, but this couldn't have been Olivia's ex.

"Gulliver Hayes?"

"And they call you a detective," he said with a smirk. A baby cried in the background and Gulliver stepped outside and closed the door halfway. "What do you want?"

"Aren't you going to ask me how your daughter is?"

The man shrugged. "They said on the TV she was okay. They didn't lie, did they?"

Maxim shook his head. "They didn't lie, Mr. Hayes. You can visit your daughter if you like."

"Can't," the man answered. He leaned to the side and spat in the sorry excuse for bushes. "I've got a haul to Palm Springs today. She'll be here when I get back."

Maxim lifted an eyebrow but didn't say anything. He wasn't a family counselor. Obviously, this man's marriage had broken down for a reason.

"Can we step inside while I ask you a few questions about Annabelle?"

The baby inside cried louder. Gulliver turned inside. "Leta!" he screamed. "Shut that baby up!" Then he closed the door and returned his attention to Maxim. "In case you haven't noticed, I got my own baby to take care of."

"Yeah, you're father of the year."

Gulliver sneered. "It's a nice day. You can ask me your questions right here."

The baby inside quieted. Maxim peered through the window but couldn't see past the glare. "Okay then. First of all, can you tell me where your daughter was this weekend?"

"The question to end all questions," said the man. "According to the TV, she was camping with her friends."

"Well I want to hear what you know, Mr. Hayes."

"That
is
what I know. Annabelle wasn't here this weekend. I got six angry voicemails from my ex-wife before I woke up this morning and finally talked to her, so I turn on the TV and see you tripping over your own balls. Then I hear that reporter lady doing your job for you."

Maxim fought off a frown. He had no idea why Olivia would've married this guy, but he definitely knew why she'd left him.

"You're saying you never saw your daughter at all this weekend?"

"That's right."

"But Olivia claims she left her with you."

"That was on Friday. Friday's not the weekend."

Maxim fought off his urge to slap the man. "Fine, Mr. Hayes," he grumbled. "Let's talk about Friday then. That was the last time you spoke with Olivia before this morning, correct?"

"Well, let's see..." Gulliver squinted as if he were solving a differential equation. "Shit. I think it was over a year and a half ago that we actually talked. That's a pretty good streak for me."

Maxim took a breath. His patience was wearing thin. Maybe a slap wasn't enough. Just one well-placed head butt.

The man chuckled, softly at first, then exploded into laughter. "Detective," he said, shaking his head. "Let me tell you how it is. Annabelle was a good kid for a spell, but she's been poisoned. Turned against me by her mom. Now my own daughter hates me. She only talks to me when she needs something, and she definitely don't want to spend Easter weekend here. But none of that will stop her from using me as an excuse to get outta town."

Maxim stepped forward. "Out of town? For the weekend?"

"For good," he said. "Run away. She's done it before."

"Annabelle's tried to run away before? Olivia didn't—"

"That woman lives in a bubble," he said. "Always has. She thinks if she ignores problems long enough, they'll go away." Gulliver paused and lowered his voice. "What is Annabelle now, twelve? Where do you think that girl's gonna be by the time she's seventeen? I may not be a man of means, but I would've raised her right. All that black eyeliner and lipstick." Gulliver made a whooshing noise with his lips. "Discipline's important."

Maxim couldn't believe what he was hearing. If Gulliver was telling the truth then Olivia definitely withheld important information from him.

"I'm gonna need you to be clearer about your interaction with your ex-wife and daughter on Friday, Mr. Hayes."

Gulliver shrugged. "This is the way it works, Detective. What happens is, Annabelle tells her mom she has plans with me. Olivia wants the girl outta her hair, so she drops Annabelle off by the street." Gulliver pointed past the other buildings to remind Maxim where the road was. "I open my door, she sees Annabelle walk inside, and she drives off without so much as a wave in my direction. The whole thing happens without me and her ever talking, and to be honest, it suits me fine. 'Course, what Annabelle says to me is different than what she tells her mom. She told me she was going to a concert in Flagstaff that night. She has a friend, Bryan, that lives here in Bellemont. So she wanted to have lunch with me until the boy and his parents picked her up for the night. She was never supposed to sleep over. She was never supposed to spend the weekend with me. For all I knew, she was back at home with her mother by the end of the night. I never knew she wasn't supposed to be there, so I couldn't rightly know she was missing. But I'm sure that didn't stop Olivia from putting the whole escapade on my shoulders."

Gulliver huffed after his long speech. He wasn't a likable person, but it seemed to Maxim he was being truthful. As with the media this morning, Maxim's focus was on the parents, and it was swinging back towards the mother. Olivia Hayes should have mentioned her daughter's attempt to run away before.

"I worked hard for that woman," said Gulliver with a touch of sentiment. "As soon as her aunt died and left the whole estate to her, she wanted a divorce. Suddenly a truck driving salary wasn't good enough for her. I had to start over with a new family, and excuse me if I can't give everything I have to my ungrateful daughter. But I'm happier now that I'm away from that woman. Annabelle probably would be too. You've got to ask yourself, why does she keep trying to run away?"

"I don't know," said Maxim, before he realized he'd answered a rhetorical question. "So, just to follow up, did you see Bryan's parents?"

"Huh?"

"Bryan's parents. When Annabelle was dropped off with you, you said Olivia watched the hand off. So when you handed off Annabelle to Bryan's parents, did you watch?"

Gulliver scratched the back of his head. "Musta been busy. That girl gets excited and runs off. Not my fault. And speaking of which..." The man retreated into his house and left Maxim at the step for a minute. He returned with a heavy key chain and handed it to the detective. "That's hers. She musta left it here on Friday."

Maxim studied the jumble of interconnected key chains. There were only three keys—the key rings and ornaments made up the majority of the bulky item. It clanged and jingled against itself as he turned it in his hand. There was a car alarm or garage opener fob, a mini flashlight, and some kind of skeleton face pendant.

"You didn't think she'd need these to get home?"

The man shrugged. "Just found 'em yesterday. I did think it was weird that I hadn't heard about it. Then again, Annabelle's a weird girl."

Maxim was starting to think they were a weird family.

 

 

 

 

Jason Bower was a deadbeat. Perennially out of work and associated with bad company, he was always either on the giving or receiving end of various hardships and criminal enterprises. The forty-something led a sad life, alone, and had been jailed for multiple drug offenses. He'd inherited his mother's modest house when she died of lung cancer, which was just as well, because her son was the biggest disappointment of her living days.

You can learn a lot by talking to the neighbors.

Not a single one liked him. They didn't know him, not really, but they all knew he was a blight on the neighborhood. Williams was an industrial community, an enduring ghetto that wouldn't exist without the Interstate. A crossroads of sorts where travelers and industry passed through. Those who actually lived here were not of great means, but many were good people who strived for fulfilling lives.

Jason wasn't in that category. He'd allowed his mother's house to fall into disrepair. He was responsible for recent car break-ins. Police had visited his house three times over the last year. Every neighbor had a lot to say. But none could tell Diego where Jason was.

They hadn't seen him in days, they said. Which made sense, given that the man had been at Quiet Pines. But he'd left the campgrounds in a hurry Monday morning—he couldn't have disappeared into thin air. Yet there was no activity in the house. No car in the driveway. The only thing for Diego to do was wait.

The outlaw-turned-tow-truck-driver sat beside his Scrambler a couple of houses down. He knew the shiny bike stuck out in the old neighborhood so kept it positioned behind a parked van and hoped people wouldn't see it. When the waiting became unbearable, he walked to a market down the block, picked up some cigarettes, and headed back. He was on his third when he spotted Jason Bower.

He didn't know what Jason looked like—Diego didn't have a photograph—but the man slinking along the street was definitely him. Scraggly tan hair, a wrinkled plaid shirt over faded jeans, and his head on a swivel looking for danger. Diego de la Torre watched as the man crept towards his house, in broad daylight, and snuck into the backyard.

Jason was hiding from someone, and doing a poor job of it. Diego wondered if the police were already searching for him.

Ten minutes later, Jason peeked out from his backyard, checking up and down the street before emerging. He held a large plastic shopping bag, stretched into a massive ball, stuffed with items that resembled laundry. As Jason scanned the block, his eyes passed over Diego, who immediately turned away.

The biker acted casually and tinkered with the engine of his Triumph. Jason didn't seem to think much of him because he moved on at a normal pace. Diego flicked the ashes of his smoke and watched his target make his way towards the same market Diego had come from. The biker decided to follow him on foot.

Jason Bower was obviously concerned about being seen, so Diego kept a good distance between them. The man turned the corner without looking back. When the biker arrived at the cross street, he spotted Jason further down the block, past the small strip mall. Diego continued through an empty lot until he saw where the man was headed: a tattered husk of a building with an unlit cocktails sign. A dive bar.

Knowing Jason might take another quick look around before entering, Diego ducked behind a bus stop advertisement. Next time he checked, Jason was gone.

The man hadn't been home all morning. Something had happened at the campsite that caused him to leave in a hurry, but he obviously didn't have anywhere to go. While trying to avoid his home, the best he came up with was a local bar down the block.

Jason was certainly being evasive. He had something to hide, no doubt. The fact that he'd been in Hazel's vicinity before she vanished gave Diego confidence he was onto something.

As the biker approached the entryway, he imagined what could be within. It was unlikely Hazel was inside—while the bar was probably empty this early in the afternoon, an eight-year-old would readily stand out. That meant the girl would be at another location.

If Jason didn't have her, who did?

Diego realized he didn't know where Jason's car was. His driveway was empty, likely to convince anyone interested that he was out of town. The biker wondered if Jason was stupid enough to park in the bar's corner lot. Diego passed the building and checked. There were only two vehicles, a pickup truck and an old Volkswagen Beetle. Both were clearly empty.

To the bar, then.

Diego stepped inside. A large Samoan man frowned at him. Defensive line, thought Diego. Maybe made it to college, maybe didn't, but he had to have been a hell of a high school player. Now all his frame was good for was intimidation, and it worked on Diego.

The biker pressed passed the obstacle. The bartender squinted against the sunlight that invaded his lair. He was an older man with a brittle demeanor. Surprisingly, the small space had several patrons: two tables' worth and a few at the bar, all men of course.

Jason Bower was at the bar alone.

The man picked himself up and headed into the back hallway, leaving his shopping bag and a backpack on the floor. Jason didn't look his way. It was perfect. Diego went for the back.

"The bathroom's fer payin' customers," said the bartender in a voice that held more weight than he did.

"That's fine," answered Diego, barely slowing his stride.

"What'll you have then?" he barked.

Diego stopped when he realized the bouncer had taken notice. He pulled a couple of bucks from his wallet and slapped them on the counter. "Get me a root beer with a straw." Then he continued into the back.

The hallway made the dingy bar area feel like a hospital. It was darker, dirtier, and smelled like a sewer. Diego held his breath and pushed open the door to the men's room. It was a single, tiny stall. Diego didn't even think there was enough square footage to accommodate the Samoan. A dirty urinal was tucked beside an even dirtier sink, and the toilet was empty save for being covered in piss.

Diego skipped out and went to the women's room next. It was locked. Diego checked up and down the hall and didn't see anywhere else to go besides the emergency exit, which a sign warned would alarm on opening. The biker pounded on the bathroom door.

"Occupied," grumbled a man.

"Open up," commanded Diego, banging harder.

The door swung inward to reveal an angry, bald man missing half his ear. Behind him, a trashy woman with torn stockings sat on the toilet seat. She didn't even bother looking up. Instead her attention was fixed on the line of coke on the sink.

"What the fuck?" demanded the man.

Diego just put his arms up and backed away.

The exit. Jason Bower had used the exit.

Diego bounded through the exterior door. No alarm sounded. The harsh sun blinded him. At the last second he noticed a quick movement to his side. Something smashed him on the head and his vision changed from white to black. Diego slammed to the floor and threw his arm up to block the following blow, but it never came. Jason Bower retreated back into the bar.

The biker reeled on the asphalt. The padded arm of his riding jacket supported him, shards of glass embedded in the leather. Half of a jagged Miller bottle rolled to a stop next to his head.

Diego shook his head and came to his senses. He picked himself up and lurched back inside.

His senses were being put through the ringer. Light, dark, light, dark. He was disoriented and still not fully in command of his balance. But he saw Jason leaving the bar with his bags slung over his shoulder.

"Stop," commanded Diego.

Jason broke into a sprint, and Diego lunged ahead. The biker picked up an empty barstool and spun his body around, sending it flying into the man's back. Jason tumbled to the floor and Diego pounced on him.

Everything was going according to plan, more or less, until the bouncer got involved.