Little Girls Lost Read online

  Rose descended steel rungs to a chamber lit by a solitary 40-watt bulb. Two girls huddled like kittens on a cot at the far end of the cylinder. Maya Ledbetter, the one who’d been there a week, was mewing softly, LaShelle Shearing, the one picked up late last night, tried to burrow beneath the wadded blankets. The girls were restrained with lengths of clothesline knotted to the cot, the cot bolted to the floor.

  “Mister Breakfast’s here,” Rose sang in a wispy falsetto. “He’s got goodies for your bellies…”

  He crept forward. Maya’s eyes filled with fright. She retreated to the farthest corner of the cot. Rose set the sandwiches on a TV tray.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are, LaShelle,” he prompted the crying girl. “It’s peanut butter and jelly. Everybody likes PB&J, right?”

  The girl burrowed deeper beneath the covers.

  Rose traded the full pitcher of shake mix for the empty one in the cooler beside the bed, then bagged the leavings in the travel toilet and replaced the liner. He turned to leave, liner bag and empty pitcher in hand. Before ascending he turned to study the terrified girls.

  He wanted to stay and talk. But he’d been ordered to perform his tasks and get out. Rose willed himself to ascend the rungs. He returned to the house and set the full toilet bag on the floor in the shower, ignoring it through three sets of curls and two hundred crunches.

  Then he was back in the bathroom, peering into the bag, fascinated by all things female.

  4

  Four in the afternoon and seven cops plus Ryder surrounded the long table in the administrative conference room: Terrence Squill, the acting chief of police, Deputy Chief Carl Bidwell, and captains Roy Grady and Bobby Harlan.

  Lieutenant Tom Mason, Ryder’s immediate supervisor, was there, as was Roland Zemain. Coal black and the approximate build of a Humvee, Zemain had been the ranking uniform on the scene and his street sense was unquestioned. For years the department had tried to move him into plainclothes or administration and he’d been as unyielding as titanium rebar.

  “The street beats on me one day, kisses me the next,” Zemain had once explained to Ryder. “It’s a love-hate thing, and when the hate steps in front, I’ll get out.”

  The seat beside Squill went to Commander Ainsley Duckworth, who didn’t sit on the chair as much as absorb it, a man who looked fat from a block away, imposing at a half-block, with the last twenty feet making people wish they’d chosen the other side of the street. Part of it was the eyes, small and hard and tucked beneath a ponderous sheet of brow. Another was his mouth; too small to enclose his teeth, they seemed permanently bared.

  Beside Duckworth was Bobby Myers from Internal Affairs. Ryder figured the whippy, rat-faced Myers was there to run errands for Squill or Duckworth, taking orders being Myers’s sole talent. Myers was gnawing on his fingernails as if something tasty was stuck beneath them.

  When everyone was settled, coffee, pens and notepads on the table, Squill stopped studying his nails and trained eyes as blue as acetone flames on Ryder.

  “So, Ryder, when were you made spokesman for the department? I forget.”

  “I was hoping to calm the crowd. Explain that we were working on the abductions.”

  “I can tell how well they believed you. Especially with Turnbull making you sound like some mealy-mouth crossing guard.”

  “What gets me is, where did they come from?” Ryder said. “Turnbull, the crowd?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Zemain cleared his throat. “Detective Ryder was in my cruiser, Chief. I was giving him street skinny on that domestic last week—wife spread hubby’s brains across the kitchen with the skillet? The call about the gone girl came over the computer. We ran silent, didn’t park directly out front.”

  Ryder leaned forward. “No one was nearby on the sidewalk, Chief, nobody in the hall. If the mother told the neighbors, you couldn’t tell. I was under the impression she came home from a night of partying, found the empty bed, and called 911.”

  Squill rubbed the short salt-and-pepper hair at his temples and glared.

  “So the hell what?”

  Ryder said, “How’d Turnbull find out? The mother seemed too disoriented to think about calling a preacher; it doesn’t fit.”

  Squill’s cold voice sank to sub-zero. “What does it matter? It happened. I’ll tell you what matters—a half-hour ago I had to report to the goddamn mayor. You ever have to stand in front of that sanctimonious bitch and explain not only why three girls are missing without a trace, but why our own detectives are creating—what’s the word she used?—‘discord’ in the black community?”

  “No, sir,” Ryder said, thinking, How come all the assholes fall up?

  “Of course not; that’s my job. Your job is creating confrontations.”

  “It wasn’t a confrontation, Chief,” Zemain said. “It was a difference of opinion with a couple rough edges.”

  Squill speared Zemain with a glance. “Guess what, Sergeant? It’s my ass that gets used to sand them down.”

  Ryder said, “I’m still trying to figure how Turnbull got there so fast.”

  “Christ, Ryder,” Squill said, shaking his head, “are you a detective or a parrot? Give it a rest.”

  The room fell silent. Squill said, “OK. Let’s move on to some real police work. Anybody have anything new? Somebody tell me yes.”

  Deputy Chief Bidwell, head of the uniformed division, sighed. “We’ve got guys rousting peds and working snitches, but nothing so far.”

  “Anything from Forensics? ME’s office?”

  Grady from Investigative cleared his throat and leaned forward. “The perp entered though the alley-side kitchen window, no easy job.”

  “Why?” Squill said.

  “The window was grated but the grate was popped off. The bars were stuck in concrete. Forensics says it probably took a heavy prybar and a lot of strength.”

  “A mechanical device? Hydraulic jack?” Squill asked.

  “There weren’t any scratch marks where it would have been anchored, but that doesn’t rule it out.”

  “Wouldn’t it have made a racket coming off?”

  Zemain said, “The apartment’s next to the Zanzibar Lounge. Jukebox always cranked to the max. You could fire a cannon in the alley and no one’d hear it.”

  Squill rolled his eyes. “I’ve got what…a hundred years’ experience in this room? And what’s this team of giants brought me? A prybar theory.”

  Grady said, “Something’s got to break soon, Chief. We’re going to—”

  Squill cut him off with an upraised palm. “Here’s the way it is, Captain. The blacks are pissing on the mayor’s shoes, the mayor’s pissing on my shoes. Guess whose shoes I’m getting ready to piss on?”

  When no one volunteered an answer, Squill stood, making no attempt to conceal his disgust. “That’s it, gentlemen; dismissed. How about you get out there and try some police work?”

  Pure Squill, Ryder thought as he watched the cops file out, police work as urination. In the two months Squill had been acting chief, Ryder had yet to hear him utter a single encouragement, a solitary well done. He led through intimidation and innuendo, put-downs and politics. “I don’t walk past Squill,” the generally fearless Zemain once confessed, “without some Kevlar over my back.”

  Will I be able to survive? Ryder wondered.

  5

  Truman Desmond fought to keep from smacking the kid upside the head. The boy was crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue as Truman tried to focus his camera.

  “That’s funny,” Truman said. “I can’t wait until your mama sees your school picture.”

  That did the trick, Truman noted in his eyepiece, the little monster sucking in his tongue and blinking moronically into the lens. Truman pressed the shutter release and the flash popped.

  “I think my eyes was closed,” the kid protested.

  “They were open,” Truman said. “You’re done.”

  “They felt close
d.”

  Truman looked toward the teacher, a portly woman with thick glasses. She was at the door on the far side of the room and looking down the hall.

  “Git,” Truman spat at the kid, who grudgingly slid from the stool and joined the others lining the outside hall. “That’s it,” Truman called to the teacher. “I’m finished with your class.”

  “Wait,” the teacher said. Truman heard running footsteps and a tiny, slender girl ran into the room, her arms stacked with books.

  “I was at the library,” the girl said. “I forgot the time.”

  Truman stared at the girl. The recognition was instant, like a bolt of clear lightning.

  She was a Keeper.

  Truman rolled his camera in his hands, pretending to study something. He pushed stringy blond hair from his forehead and looked at the teacher with apology in his eyes.

  “Doggone. I’ve got to recharge. How about I send her back when I’m done? Just take a sec.”

  “She knows the way,” the teacher said, and led the class from the small locker room hastily designated as photo studio.

  “Have a seat, little miss,” Truman said. “Do you need help getting up? The stool’s kind of high.”

  “I can get it.” The girl clambered up on the stool set before the dappled background.

  “What’s your name, dear?” Truman said, eyes moving between his camera and subject. You could fall into that smile, and those eyes are so huge.

  “Jacy. Jacy Charlane.”

  “How old are you, Jacy Charlane?”

  “Nine. Almost.”

  Truman held the camera at waist level and clicked off two shots without flash.

  “I didn’t get ready,” the girl said.

  “I’m not taking pictures, dear. This is part of recharging the camera.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Truman knelt on the floor and took two more up-angling pictures.

  “Still recharging?” Jacy asked.

  Truman smiled and stood. He slipped the camera into the tripod.

  “Say cheese, Miss Jacy Charlane.”

  “Everybody says cheese. Can I say something different?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. It says in the rule book everyone’s supposed to say cheese. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “No one will know but you and me.”

  Truman studied Jacy and tapped his chin. “I think you’re too much to one side. Tilt your head just the tiniest bit, dear. No, more. Wait, too much. Let me help.”

  Truman walked over and tilted Jacy’s head a few degrees. He leaned back and checked, then smoothed her hair, his fingers grazing her neck.

  Jacy said, “I’m telling.”

  Truman felt his throat tighten. “What did you say, dear?” he rasped.

  “I said I’m gonna tell everybody.”

  “Tell everybody…what?”

  Jacy giggled. “That you’re the best Picture Man ever. The old one was a sourpuss.”

  Truman closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. He looked out the door. No one there. He drew the door shut and jogged to his camera.

  “That’s a pretty dress, Jacy. Pull it up a teensy bit more and show those pretty knees. Maybe put your feet on the top rung.”

  “Isn’t it just faces in the pictures?”

  “It helps me focus. Do you always ask so many questions?” Truman zoomed the lens and snapped shots as he spoke.

  “Aunt Nike says question everything. I live with her.”

  “A smart woman. And with an interesting name, too. Is she named after—”

  “Everybody thinks she’s named after shoes. She’s named after a famous lady from a long time ago. Her name came from her papa, who drew pictures they make houses from. It means something like ‘always a winner’.”

  “Too cool. Do you live with Aunt Nike in a house or an apartment? Wait. Don’t move. These are practice shots.”

  “An apartment.”

  Truman said, “I don’t know if I’d feel as safe in an apartment as a house. Are you ever alone there? Like at night?”

  “Sometimes Aunt Nike has to be out. But she built cages over the windows and has big locks on the door. A board to jam it shut, too.”

  “Good for her. What kind of work does Aunt Nike do?”

  “She paints pictures when she feels good. Sometimes she’s…sick and can’t paint.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Does Aunt Nike work at home? That would be nice for you guys.”

  “When she works she’s always at home. In the room with her paint stuff.”

  “My mama used to work at home. Sometimes I wanted to get off and be all alone. Do you like to be alone now and then, Jacy?”

  “Sometimes I go to a special place.”

  Truman heard the squeak of sneakers and clickety-click of hard shoes, the next class walking down the hall.

  “Tell me about your special place, Jacy. And straighten your skirt. Hurry.”

  “The little park at the end of my street. There’s a bench in the shade and I like to read books there after school.”

  “A park bench in the afternoon? Cool.”

  The door opened to an ancient woman with a face like a prune, blue photography forms in her hand. She looked at Truman like he was a bug.

  “Room 130,” the woman snapped. “You’re ready for us, right?”

  Truman bent over his camera and turned on the flash. “One more shot. Here it comes, Miss Jacy. Say cheese.”

  “Pickle!”

  Jacy giggled and winked at Truman before jumping from the stool and skipping away into the hall. Truman giggled as well, but deep inside himself, where the prune-faced bitch couldn’t hear.

  6

  Returning from a food delivery to Charity’s Hand Mission, the Gumbo King drove slowly through the streets, sipping a beer and watching people emerge from bars and apartments. Night was almost in charge, the western sky a pale and fading orange. Heat rose from the concrete with no breeze to move it away, the air syrupy thick. Though heat clung to his face like a mask, the Gumbo King drove with windows down, letting the sounds in and feeling the vibes from the street.

  He stopped at a light and saw Nike Charlane walking the street a half-block distant, moving away. She stumbled on broken pavement, then passed two males holding liquor bottles cloaked in brown bags. One man squeezed his genitals and jerked his hips at her. The other man laughed. Nike passed by as if in another dimension.

  The Gumbo King shook his head. He’d known Nike for years: she’d beat the dope for three or four months, then stumble hard for a couple weeks. But even when consumed by the demons, she looked good—just like now, trim in her red velvet jacket and white blouse, long legs scissoring the black slacks. Though she was thirty-four, he admired how she’d kept the loose-limbed strut of a teenager.

  Nike turned down a slender alley shortcutting to her street. The light changed and he started to drive. Something made him glance in the mirror. The two men moved toward the alley, glancing over their shoulders. The Gumbo King cut the wheels hard on his pickup and jabbed the accelerator, the truck reversing in the intersection. Horns blared.

  The Gumbo King pulled up on the sidewalk, slid the short-barreled .32 from the ankle holster and crept down the littered alley. A yellow streetlamp flickered and he saw three people in a shadowed recess behind a building, Nike in a corner, the younger man tight against her while the older one scrabbled through her purse. Sandhill pulled the small pistol against his palm to hide it and moved soundlessly until a few steps away.

  “Put the wallet back in the purse and the purse on the ground.”

  The men jerked around. Nike leaned against the building and he saw her blouse pushed up where the guy’d been pawing at her. The men waited for him to ID himself as a cop. When he didn’t, the fear in their eyes turned to confusion, then to hard amusement.

  “Get outta here, silly muthafucka,” the younger of them said, eighteen maybe, tight cornrows coiling over his head, a gold tooth gleaming in hi
s mouth. He wore knee-length shorts of some material resembling oiled silk, a white tee hanging down. The other man was taller, broader, and a decade older. He wore long, ballooning pants and a tight muscle shirt, and watched silently through dry, dead eyes.

  The Gumbo King kept the weapon cupped and hidden. “Come on, Nike. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “You know this bitch?” Gold Tooth said. “Tell you what, cracker boy, you pass over fifty bucks and she all yours.”

  “Fifty bucks? For what?”

  Gold Tooth leered and rubbed his crotch. “For getting her engine all warmed up for you.”

  “Fuck you,” Nike slurred, trying to push away from the wall. The silent man inched closer to the Gumbo King.

  “Yeah,” the Gumbo King said. “I got to agree with the lady.”

  The smile fell from Gold Tooth’s lips. “Now you disrespecting me.”

  The Gumbo King said, “You want my respect? Maybe. But first tell me what you’ve done to earn it.”

  Nike started laughing. “He’s got you there, nigga.”

  Gold Tooth’s eyes slitted like bunkers. “You a smart-ass muthafucka, ain’t you,” he hissed, starting to bob his shoulders, using motion as a distraction. The silent man crept still closer, fingertips sliding into a pocket. The Gumbo King shifted his weight to his rear leg, measuring the distance to the silent man. He saw Gold Tooth’s eyes flick and knew the pair had reached an agreement.

  The second man’s hand slid from the pocket to reveal a filleting knife. He fell into a crouch, his eyes alive now, electric. The Gumbo King debated revealing the pistol, kept it palmed, settling into his own crouch, weight on his rear leg. He pointed down the alley, past the knife wielder.

  “Martians!” he bellowed.

  The silent man’s eyes couldn’t help flicking that way. By the time they flicked back, the Gumbo King’s boot was through the man’s testicles and moving upward, slowing against cartilage. The knife skittered away as he crumbled to the pavement, clutching himself and grunting out small wet sounds.