Chapter 8

November 15

Stacks of air-drying hardwood did little to mute the screech and whir of blades reducing logs to planks, chips, and sawdust, but at least they could speak without shouting.

"Stevie called in sick," said the displeased manager-owner.  "The backup isn't as good.  You'd think with most of the mill being automated that it wouldn't make a difference.  That's a high dollar rig, and I just feel better about it when Steve's running things."

He squinted against the bright sun toward a giant sawdust pile silhouetted against the cool bright sky.  "He ain't in any kind of trouble, is he?"

"I don't know," said Richard.

All good cops knew that the less one revealed during an investigation, the more one learned.  It was almost universal SOP.  Unfortunately the practice angered people.  Many took it as a sign of dishonesty.  When used with cops from another jurisdiction, it caused resentment because it was read as a sign of distrust, which was right on the button.  Cops, as a whole, didn't trust anyone to tell them the whole truth.  Richard was less that way than most.

"He's a good man---at least on the job," continued the boss.  "Real dependable."

"What excuse did he give you?"

"Stomach flu."  The man laughed.  "Tell you the truth, I think he took drunk instead of sick.  That's what it sounded like.  Don't happen much, leastwise not during the week.  I suspect you better not talk too loud when you go out there."

The man laughed again.

"What you want to see him about?"

"I don't think it would be fair to the man to say anything right now," said Richard.  "Not that you'd say anything, but you know how some people like to talk."

"Guess you're right.  Wouldn't have nothing to do with that Porter character, would it?"

"Why?  Have you heard something?"

"No, no.  Just talk, you know.  Has something happened to him?"

"What kind of talk?"

"Nothing really.  Stevie's just been upset ever since that guy came back.  Can't say as I blame him."

 

On the way to Preslar's Richard stopped for gas.  As he was going in to pay, he was almost run into by a tiny young woman coming through the door with her head down.  One look at her face explained why she hadn't seen him.  Her left eye was swollen shut, crusted blood matting the eyelashes together.  Her whole head was lopsided, the left side a deep mottled purple, looking as if it belonged to a different, much larger person.  Although there was no look of recognition as she glanced upward and veered away from a collision in the doorway, she looked familiar.

He was back on the highway before it came to him.  He had seen the girl with Guidry back in the summer.

"What's he doing running around with a teenager?" he said aloud.  "Like we don't have enough to worry about."

His thoughts didn't fully return to Preslar until he pulled into the gravel drive in front of the man's cabin.  He got out wondering if he'd find the man as hung over as his boss had predicted.  One look at Preslar's bloodshot eyes and unkempt appearance when he answered the door confirmed it.

"I didn't do nothing to him," blurted Preslar looking defiantly at Richard.  "I don't care what he says, I didn't touch him.  I got witnesses."

Richard covered his surprise at the unsolicited explanation.

"Maybe you should tell me your side of the story."

"I don't know what kind of lies he told you, but I didn't hit him."

"What did you do?"

"I just . . . kind of talked to him."

"Talked?"

"That's right, just talked . . . told him he had a lot of nerve coming back here after he killed Marie."

Richard nodded.  He let the silence build a moment while he scanned the room.  An empty twelve pack of Budweiser lay on the floor near a coffee table upon which empty cans were strewn, some crushed, some upright, some on their sides.  A few had fallen to the floor, and one lay in the corner near greasy boxes of take out pizza and fried chicken.  Through the doorway the kitchen table was visible, overflowing with dirty dishes and more fast food trash.

"So . . . and this is real important, Steve . . . what were the exact words you used when you threatened him?"

"I didn't threaten him!"

Richard gave him a disbelieving look.

"All I did was . . . I don't know . . . maybe I told him I'd kick his ass or something.  What the hell's he doing here anyway?"

"You sure that's all you said?"

"I don't remember," said Preslar, collapsing into a chair.  "Look.  You gonna arrest me?  ‘Cause I didn't do nothing to him, but if that's what you're gonna do, maybe I don't need to say nothing else."

Richard wanted to keep him talking. 

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, Steve.  Could you tell me exactly when you had your conversation with him?"

"About five-thirty yesterday afternoon."

"You're sure?"

"Well, I get off at four-thirty.  Me and Mouse and Randy was shootin' the bull over to the County Mart when he come out.  I know it was about then, because it was still a ways to dark."

"These friends of yours, they can verify your story that you didn't lay a hand on Porter?"

Preslar's shoulders slumped.  "I grabbed him and maybe I . . .might've threatened to hit him with---"

"With what?"

"A tire iron . . . but I didn't actually do anything."

"Threatening someone with a tire iron doesn't exactly fit the definition of not doing anything, Steve.  Could you give me the names of these friends of yours, Mouse and---"

"Randy.  Randy Wills and Mouse Harty."

"And Mouse's real name?"

"Wilburt.  No wonder he likes to be called Mouse, huh?" he said with a short laugh that caused him to put both hands to his head.  The action reminded Richard of a cartoon character stilling a head vibrating like a struck gong.

"What did you do afterwards?"

"We went down and shot nine ball ‘til around ten-thirty or so.  Had a few beers.  Then I come home . . . been here ever since."

"Your boss says you called in sick today."

"I am sick."

"You look hung over."  Richard gestured toward the beer cans littering the room.  "You drink all these last night?"

"And then some."

"Alone?"

"Yeah.  So what?  Ain't no crime to drink alone, is it?"

"Just wondering why you got drunk after you came in last night.  From what you boss says, that doesn't sound like something you would do when you have to work the next morning.  Did you have something on your mind last night . . . maybe something that wouldn't let you sleep?"

Preslar, who had become sullen, looked up quickly.  "Is Porter okay?  I mean, he's not dead or nothing?"

"He's fine."

"No.  You didn't come here just because of that little thing in the parking lot.  What else happened?"

"Someone burned up Porter's car last night.  You wouldn't know who did that, would you?"

"Not me.  But I'm glad it happened.  Shows I ain't the only one who wants him out of here."

"Mr. Preslar, I want you to understand something.  You had better hope that nothing else happens to Harold Porter, because as of right now you would be not only the prime suspect, you'd be the only suspect."

 

On his way back to the courthouse, Richard spotted Porter's trash truck at the drive-in where Jessie Stoddard had worked.  He pulled in intending to ask him why he hadn't mentioned the argument with Preslar when they had talked about the fire.  Both of Preslar's friends had corroborated his version of what had happened, but he wanted to hear what Harold had to say.  There was something else he wanted to ask him too, something Guidry had told him about earlier in the day.

He found Porter slumped into a corner booth.  After paying for coffee, he filled his cup from the decaf container and took it to the booth where Harold acknowledged him only after he sat down.

"Harold.  I've got a couple of questions for you.  Mind if I sit?"

"Sure, Mr. Carter.  Sit down."

"Must be tough without a car.  How did you get to work today?"

"Walked.  Boss said I could keep the truck at my place ‘til I get another one."

Richard sipped at his bitter coffee.  "I talked with Steve Preslar this morning."

Harold nodded.

"Mind telling me what happened between you two yesterday?"

"Nothing really.  Bumped into each other at the grocery store.  He still blames me for what happened to Marie.  Told me I should leave."

"What did you say?"

"What can you say to something like that?  I know how he feels.  If I was in his shoes I'd be pretty mad too.  What did he tell you?"

"A little more than you seem to want to, Harold.  What exactly happened when you bumped into each other."

Harold shrugged his shoulders.  "He threatened me."

"What did he say?"

"Can't remember exactly.  Like I told you, he was pretty mad."

"Did he have a weapon?"

"You mean like a gun or knife or something?  No."

"So he didn't threaten you with anything?"  Richard wondered why Porter wouldn't mention the tire tool while all three of the others had.

Harold shook his head.

"You think he burned up your car?"

"Maybe."

"And that doesn't make you angry?  You don't want us to arrest and charge him?"

"I'd just as soon not go into a court room again."

Richard considered it for a moment.  Maybe that's really all there was to it.  Maybe being in prison had made all dealings with the criminal justice system distasteful.  Maybe it really was just Harold's aversion to anything that reminded him of where he had spent the last twenty-three years of his life.

"There's something else I need to ask you, Mr. Porter.  Did you know that Marvin Hendrichs has disappeared?"

"I read about that."

"When we went through his records we found last month's cellular phone bill.  Were you aware that every phone number you call on a cellular phone is recorded and sent in with your bill?"

"No," said Harold, looking at him blankly.

"According to those records, he called you on three separate occasions.  Why did he do that?"

"It was trash service business . . . complaining ‘cause I wasn't putting his cans back just the way he wanted, or because I didn't completely empty them.  One day . . . I must've been daydreaming or something . . . I left one full.  Clean forgot to empty it.  He got really hot about that."

"You pick up out there . . . what?  Once a week?"

Harold nodded.

"Then why did he call on a Monday, then call you back only two days later?"

"Because I didn't come and get the garbage I'd left behind after I promised I would.  It just slipped my mind."

Richard considered the explanation plausible, especially considering the apparently obsessive fastidiousness of Hendrichs.  He watched Harold wrap and unwrap his burger nervously.  Something else was bothering the man.

"There's something else I got to tell you," he said suddenly.  "You'll probably find out and think I stole something from Mr. Hendrichs."

Richard waited, wanting to see how Porter would spin out his story.  A rehearsed story often revealed itself by the way in which the "facts" came out.

"See, one of the reasons Mr. Hendrichs was mad about me messing up the trash pick-up was because he done me a favor when I first started out there.  He bought himself a new compressor and a bunch of paint spraying attachments and stuff.  So he got no need for this other one he had, though it looked like it hadn't hardly been used.  So he tells me that if I need a few bucks, I should take it and sell it, or I could keep it if I could use it."

Richard remembered seeing a compressor stowed neatly in the equipment shed, so that much of the story could be true.

"I took him up on his offer.  I sold it over to Ferrel's."

"Sold it?"

"Well, I pawned it, but we both knew I wouldn't come back for it."

Richard nodded.  "Did Hendrichs maybe give you anything else that you sold or kept out at your house?"

"Exactly what I figured you'd think," said Harold bitterly.  "I didn't have to tell you about the compressor."

No, thought Richard, but you might have figured out that we'd find out about it.  Now, if it comes up in court, your lawyer can point out that you volunteered the information.  Maybe you're not as dumb as you want people to believe.

"Well I'm glad you told me about that, Harold."

Later that afternoon Richard confirmed Harold's story with the owner of the pawnshop.

 

November 16

In the morning Richard stopped by the clinic to pick up a prescription for Jill, and decided to ask Doc about the girl he had seen yesterday.

"Carl, did you treat a girl for a broken jaw recently?"

Hoag looked up as he handed him the prescription slip.

"I did," he said curtly, obviously not wishing to talk about her.

"Who is she?"

"Jennifer Cole."

"Regular patient?"

"More or less.  Had a corneal hemorrhage as well as the broken jaw."

 "What's the story?  Domestic violence?"

"Said her dog did it."

"Her dog?"

"That's right.  Said she was taking the dog out when he lunged.  Said she lost her balance and fell face forward onto the newel at the foot of the stairs."

"Did you believe her?"

"Didn't have to.  I just treated her."

"And that's all you're going to tell me?"

"I'm not covering up anything.  I just told you all I know about the incident or accident or whatever it was."

Richard had a bad feeling about it.  In fact, he wished he had never asked about the girl.

What's Doc's reticence all about? he wondered.

He hoped Guidry didn't have anything to do with the girl's injury.

 

When he got to work he found Betty shepherding two excited coeds.  One had the slender aquiline features and the stature of a model.  Her companion, a short-haired blonde no more than five even, had the immature looks he would term cute.  They continually interrupted each other with competing versions of what had transpired the previous evening.  So far all he had established, besides the obvious fact that they were excited, was that someone had been in their apartment between eight and midnight at which time the tall one, Jenine, had come home after closing at the restaurant where she worked part time.  Her roommate, chattering like a gerbil on crack, added that she arrived home from a date a half hour later.

"At first I thought Neenee had been in my stuff," said the tall one, seeming to want to tell him what happened before her friend had a chance.  "We borrow from each other all the time, being the same size and all---I mean that's natural, right?---what roommates do, though it's totally weird---some of the stuff she has---but this was just way weird, I thought, and I was going to stop it before it even got started---Sorry, Neenee, but I---well, I should have known that you wouldn't do something like that---"

"Like I'd be caught dead wearing your stuff---besides, Reesha, he doesn't want to hear that---"

"You wear it all the time."

"Ladies, please," he said, having had his fill of word salad.  "Let's just slow down."

He wondered how the roommates, one at least seven inches taller, could possibly wear each other's clothes, but wasn't about the ask. 

"Sorry.  Guess we're still cranked---It's just so totally weird," twittered the short one, widening her eyes.

"Let's take things in order," he said.  "Jenine, you got home around twelve, right?"

She nodded.

"Okay.  So, you first.  Tell me what you did up until Marissa came home."

"Mareesha, with two E's," corrected the short one.  "How can people screw that up?  Marissa, Melissa, even Melinda---you wouldn't believe the names I've been called."

"Mareesha," he said.

She nodded in satisfaction as she watched him spell it correctly on his pad.

"So, Miss Leach, you arrived home at around midnight," he prompted.

"I parked out front like always.  The first thing, the porch light was out.  It's one of those motion sensor ones, and it always comes on as soon as you step on the second step."

"Third step," chirped Mareesha, unable to remain silent.  "It's always the third step."

"Then I picked up the key and unlocked the door," continued Jenine, cutting her a look.

"You picked up the key?" said Richard.

"Sure," answered Mareesha.  "We only got one, so we keep it under the mat so we can both use it."

He closed his eyes thinking, Only small town girls.

"The detective is taking my statement first, Mareesha," said Jenine pointedly before turning back to him.  "Anyway, I went in and locked the door---I always remember to lock the door, unlike some people."

"One time I leave the door unlocked, and it's like reruns from then on," replied her friend.

Richard resigned himself to the duet.

"Then I went in and took a bath," continued the taller one.  "After that I sat down to study for my biology mid term when Mareesha came home.  I got up and let her in.  After that she takes a bath and just crashes---even though she has the same test in the morning," she said arching her eye brow at her roommate.

"I'm like ready for it," said her friend.

"Like you were like ready for the last one?"

"I was, but Black asks all this picky trivia---you can't study for that."

"You are so not going to pass a single class."

"Got my own system.  Like that last biology test---studied for four hours---bombed it.  Then I figured it out:  the more I study, the worse I do.  It's like overtraining or something."

"You're rationalizing."

"You're obsessing."

"Ladies, let's get back to last night," said Richard.

"Right," said Jenine.  "Anyway, I'm studying about this cell division thing, and she starts freaking.  Comes in waving this hideous pair of panties and accuses me of wearing them, like I'd do it dead."

"They're not hideous.  They're---intriguing."

"Good God, Mareesha, they like came from a porn movie yard sale.  Let's go get them and see what the detective thinks."

"We'll go out later," said Richard.  "And I'm a deputy, not a detective."

"Well," resumed Jenine.  "When Miss Freak chilled a little we looked around the bedroom and we realize someone's gone through our things.  I found my best nightie on the floor in the closet, but thought maybe it had like just fallen off the hanger.  Then it seems like all the stuff in my dresser was like disarranged."

"Mine too," chirped Mareesha.  "Is ‘disarranged' a real word?"

"Like you could tell!  About your clothes I mean."

"My panties were on the floor."

"Everything you own is on the floor."

"Was anything taken?" asked Richard, wishing he had separated the two until he had taken their statements.

"Yes.  That's why we're here," said Jenine.  "None of the expensive stuff like the TV or DVD or even jewelry, but he took a pair of my cotton briefs.  It's like way weird and scary.  The freak took a pair of my panties."

"You're sure?"

"Believe it," answered her friend.  "Little Miss Obsessive-Compulsive knows where every piece of clothing she has is.  If she says something's missing, believe me it is."

Mareesha's enthusiastic statement took twice as long because it included much more information, little of which was pertinent.  Then they went to the apartment where Richard found that the motion sensor light bulb had been loosened.

"Ladies whoever got into your apartment used your key.  You shouldn't leave it under a mat, or hidden anywhere out here.  Burglars know that people hide keys.  The first thing they do is look for an easy way in.  He could have even sat out there in a car and watched you pick it up."

Both girls nodded.

"What would have happened if such a person wanted to harm you?"

"We got that covered," said Mareesha.  "The first one home checks to see if the key is under the mat and the door is locked.  If not, she doesn't go in.  Or, if it is, she takes the key inside with her and locks the door again.  The second one always knocks---we got a code---and the other one let's her in.  So if the key is gone or the door is unlocked, then we know that---"

"This is her idea," said Jenine defensively.  "She's always losing her keys or leaving them in the house.  I say we need to buy a gun."

"That's probably not a good idea," he said.  "Here's what you need to do.  Make yourselves another key and each of you keep it in your purse.  Don't leave one outside.  Also, explain to your landlord what happened and have him change your lock."

"You think he might come back?" asked Mareesha.

What Richard thought was that the kid who did it probably lived not far away, maybe next door or across the street, and might even be watching right now.  The chances of him not coming back were slim, although he would probably cool it for a while, especially if he was watching them at the moment.

"You need to be careful.  Assume that he will try to come in again."

"Could he be like a rapist or something?" asked Mareesha.

"Don't be silly, Reesha.  He's probably just this little pathetic loser."

"Girls, I don't want to scare you, but someone who does this sort of thing, invading a young lady's home and going through her personal items . . . what do you think a man like that is thinking about?  What do you think he might want to do?  No matter what some people might tell you, this is not harmless.  Don't take any chances.  Make yourself some keys and keep them with you."

Richard spent the morning transferring his notes to official forms until the boss had him help serve summons, a task that almost made the tedium of paperwork pleasurable.  While on the road looking for people with no permanent addresses, he tried to see some sort of pattern connecting some of the burglaries and break-ins.  If there was one he couldn't see it.  The Swindel's Station robbery, the Holmon burglary turned homicide, the assault on Emily Steward, and last night's trophy burglary had nothing in common but unlawful entry, which was basically part of the definition of such cases.  The best bet for a link was that the Steward assault had been the by the voyeur who had entered coeds' house.

Jill heard the barrels.  Harold was picking up his trash late this morning.  She waited, expecting to hear the usual grinding of the ill synchronized gears as he pulled out the drive.  When the expected racket didn't occur, she went to the window to see what was going on.  Harold Porter stood, leaning against the truck, looking occasionally at the house, then down at the ground.  She wondered if perhaps he was having trouble with his truck, but when she opened the door, she heard the familiar grumbling of the worn out engine.

He looked toward her mutely.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Porter?" she called down.

"No, ma'am," he said after a moment.

She waited, but he just stood there, neither making a move to go nor looking her way again.

Finally he spoke.  "Do you . . . could we . . . never mind, ma'am.  I'll just be going."

Something in his manner called out to her, like the plaintive cry of a lost kitten.  Richard's warnings aside, she didn't have it in her to turn him away when she was obviously the only person the lonely little man could relate to.  A little kindness couldn't hurt.

"Come up to the house, Harold.  I have coffee that's going to waste.  You have time for a cup, don't you?"

"I suppose," he said hesitantly.

As he started up Jill went back inside the house for the coffee.  She stood near the sink, pouring the last of it.

"Real pretty linoleum.  Mr. Carter do that hisself?"

Jill flinched at the sound of his voice so close to her.  She hadn't heard him follow her inside, and had assumed he would wait on the porch.

"No.  I mean . . . sort of.  I helped him," she said as she pulled off a paper towel to wipe up the coffee she had spilled.  "I don't know if we could afford it, but I liked the pattern so much.  It makes the kitchen a lot cheerier, don't you think."

"It's real pretty," he repeated clumsily.

"I love it.  It just makes the kitchen my special place now.  Do you know what I mean?"

Harold's unease and clumsy conversation seemed to be contagious.

"Yes Ma'am.  It's real pretty."

"I never realized how difficult vinyl flooring is to lay."

"Your husband likes to do nice things for you, don't he?"

"He's a very nice man."

"He's a smart man too.  Good woman . . . and uh . . . he appreciates that you're . . . uh . . . such a lady and all.  Right lucky man, I reckon."

"I'm very lucky too, Mr. Porter," she said, handing him his coffee and leading him back out onto the porch.  "We can talk out here.  Mirabelle is down for a nap and I don't want to wake her."

Jill felt uneasy.  Talking to Harold was like talking to four-year-old.  He seemed to have learned none of the conventions of casual conversation.  His comments were a mix of embarrassed reluctance to say ordinary things and embarrassing drifts into personal observations and questions.  She suddenly realized that it sprang from the egocentrism of adolescence.  Despite his shyness, Harold was completely self-absorbed.

Harold fidgeted uneasily.  Something was consuming the man.  Perhaps he was going to ask for an increase in his fee.

"What is it, Harold?  Is something wrong?"

"It's kind of a personal thing."

She waited for him to continue, but he only stared at his coffee cup.

"Go on," she said, ignoring the voice in her head that was repeating Richard's advice not to encourage him to get too close to her.

"I guess I need me some advice, and . . . you're the only person I can ask."

She nodded.  He seemed about to say what was on his mind, but then looked down toward the woods instead.  When she was sure that he'd changed his mind about asking her whatever was on his mind, he spoke in soft hurried words.

"I don't know how to ask you, Miss Carter.  You'll probably just think I'm being silly."

"I won't.  I promise."

"I know you won't laugh at me," he said earnestly, head still down.  "You might be the only one around here who won't, but I . . . well, you're a real lady, Ma'am."

He seemed suddenly overwhelmed by his own boldness, and neither of them knew how what to say.  The terrible thought occurred to Jill that the sad little man had misinterpreted her kindness.  If he expressed romantic feelings for her she didn't know what she would do.

"Do you think you could . . . give me some idea of . . . of how to . . .I want to talk to this . . . woman . . . and---I'm just no good with words, leastwise not with . . . with them . . . girls, I mean."

This woman! she thought with relief.  Not me, thank God.

"Look," he began again.  "I got this . . . I mean . . . I know this woman . . . or . . . would like to get to know her, only I don't know rightly how to do that.  I mean, I do . . . but I don't talk to her . . . I mean, I do, but I don't.  You know what I mean?"

"Not exactly."

"How do you do that?  I mean, get to know her?"

"You want to get to know her better.  Is that what you're trying to say, Harold?"

He reddened.  "Just kind of like to . . . get to know her better.  Yeah.  And then maybe ask her if she'd like to . . . uh . . . you know . . ."

"You want to ask her for a date?" she asked, feeling painful empathy with the man's obvious embarrassment along with her relief that she was not the object of his affection.

He nodded.

"Well, why not just ask her?"

He frowned as if she had just presented him with an unsolvable problem. 

"I can't.  I never even talked to her except to say Hi, or something like that.  I don't know her real good."

Poor Harold, she thought.  You would find any woman attractive and "nice" if she acted as if you important enough to talk to courteously.

"Well, you've really got to get to know her first," she said, wondering which of the unattached ladies on his route had caught Harold's eye.  "You should probably start by just conversing in general terms whenever you meet her.  These things take time."

"You mean just talk about the weather and stuff like that?"

"Sort of," she said.

She though of the likely futility of trying to instruct such a socially inept person in the art of easy conversation.  How could Harold, with his almost total lack of social skills, ever manage to make a prospective girlfriend comfortable in his presence?  How could he ever be comfortable talking to her.  He certainly wasn't comfortable now.

"How long do you reckon I'll have to do that?  I mean how long until we can talk about other stuff?"

Jill didn't know whether she felt like an advice columnist or just plain ridiculous.  Given Harold's personality, he wasn't asking for advice, he was asking for alchemy.

Is this what twenty-three years isolated from female companionship does to a man? she wondered.

"Harold, it's not that easy to tell someone about.  These things . . . building relationships . . . they take time . . . and when you start talking to someone . . . then, after a while, things either move along to the point where you feel comfortable together or you don't.  If the two of you . . . uh . . ."

"Hit it off?" he suggested.

"Right.  If the two of you hit it off, then, when the time is right, dating just becomes the natural thing to do."

He stood silently nodding his head as if her stumbling explanation were the most profound thing he'd ever heard.  Jill felt a chill at her duplicity.  She remembered well the uncertainties and little terrors of the dating game.  True, it did all fall into place when the right people came together, but was there really a right person for Harold?  Or was she encouraging a false hope that would only devastate him in the end.

She wished she hadn't asked him up for coffee.

"I hope you're right," he said after a long moment of reflection.  "I ain't never been no good at this sort of thing."

"Whatever you do, Harold, you need to go slowly."

He nodded.  "Yeah.  Don't scare her off."

Unwanted, an image came to her of Harold as a child, sneaking up on a bird with a salt shaker in his hand, having been led to believe that he could catch a bird if he put salt on its tail.  That was exactly what her advice sounded like now.  She felt ridiculous and somehow culpable.

"These things take time."  She repeated.  "First, people have got to get to know each other."

"Small talk then," he said with a nod as if it was now all making sense to him.

"I think so.  Who knows?  She may be the first one to suggest that the two of you do something together.  In fact, I think that would be best."

The most optimistic scenario she could think of now was that the woman would fail to suggest anything, and that Harold would simply lose patience and give up---better that than to have his heart broken by an almost certain rejection.

She looked toward his truck, wishing that he would decide to go.

"She's a real lady, Miss Carter.  Like you . . . except not the same age, of course."

"That's nice of you to say, Harold," she said, and then continued, wishing to direct the conversation away from herself.  "Does she have any children?"

"No.  She ain't never been married.  She don't look like most women . . . sort of different, you know?"

While she was trying to figure that one out, and wondering whether the woman was disfigured, or if the comment meant something else, he explained.

She's real modest . . . you know, don't dress trashy or nothing . . . but not weird, like them Pentecost women . . . real tasteful, but modest . . . like you . . . modest, I mean."

An awkward moment later Porter ended the conversation by placing his empty cup on the railing and going down the steps.  Jill watched him shamble toward his vehicle, thinking that she had never seen Harold do anything in an ordinary way.  The old truck coughed its way up the drive toward the highway, and she felt immensely relieved that he was gone.  She felt oddly guilty, but couldn't decide if it was because she had given him false hope, or because she had deliberately ignored Richard's wishes that she not get any more involved with Harold Porter than she already was.

"Good luck in you quest for female companionship, Harold Porter," she said.  "Which of the women on your route has managed to attract your attention?"

 

Later that afternoon, on her way to town, she spotted Harold Porter standing beside his trash truck talking to Emma Winslowe, a fifty year old woman who habitually dressed like a teenager, albeit a teenager of twenty years ago.  She had met the woman only once.  Considered eccentric by some, Jill thought that the woman was probably just mildly retarded.  Harold might be getting himself involved in something he had no idea how to handle.  Jill felt embarrassed as she imagined Harold following her instructions in a vain attempt to woo the poor woman.

"Why didn't I just keep my mouth shut?" she asked herself.

 

When he got back to the courthouse Richard pulled two years worth of unsolved burglaries and began a checklist of common elements.  An hour of file flipping and yielded nothing.  Some were undoubtedly the work of the same people, but was most likely the work of several individual petty criminals.  Some had the marks of experienced thieves, while others looked like kids taking their first steps toward prison.  There wasn't even a geographical pattern.

"Any luck on the panty raid?" asked Bob Johnson, a thirty year-old deputy.

Richard affected a good-natured smile. 

 "Not yet, but I'm working on it."

He hoped the incident was what everyone thought:  just the harmless fantasizing of a teenager going through the confusion of puberty without a girlfriend.  But trophy burglary was a common early marker for sexual predators.  There was nothing funny about it, but locker room etiquette required such remarks as Johnson's be answered with bonhomie.  Richard had given the minimum appropriate male response.

A couple years earlier Laurel Senter, a psychological consultant, (she disliked the term profiler) had run him through the progression of a sadistic misogynist.  The key was obsession coupled with frustration.  Unable to gratify sexual drive through normal relationships, such a man turned progressively more negative in his thinking about women while obsessing about them took more and more of his time.  Voyeurism and violent pornography only heightened his hunger without sating it.  Then over aggression began, although Senter claimed voyeurism itself was aggression.  Home invasions and trophy burglaries were the acting out the fantasies that were becoming the man's whole life.  Sooner or later, like voyeurism and pornography, the taking of fetish objects would cease to satisfy.  Then the physical attacks would begin.

Richard gathered up the folders.  There was just nothing to go on, and there probably wouldn't be until something else happened.  He smiled, thinking about Guidry's remark on the burglaries and the county's drug problem.  All you gotta do, Carter, is make a list of everyone spending money without a visible means of support and you got your "usual suspects."  It was no crime to be poor, but the remark was right on.  Wouldn't the ACLU have a heyday with that example of profiling?

Thinking of Guidry turned his thoughts to the disappearances.  The former New Orleans detective thought the Holman homicide was related, and so did Richard.  They also agreed that Gary Kinder was likely good for it mainly because the time frame was right.

People don't just disappear without a trace---not in real life, he said to himself.  He and the girl are running from something.

 

November 17

Jill had taken Mirabelle to town for a portrait sitting when Guidry's cruiser pulled into the drive.  He had taken the night shift of road deputy out with the stomach flu and had been thinking all night while patrolling the southern section of the county.  Now he came be for coffee and speculation before going home.  They sat at the kitchen table eating sweet rolls and finishing off the morning pot while Guidry filled him in on what he had learned about Gary Kinder and Marvin Hendrichs.

"Carter, how well do you know Hamilton Kinder?"

"Nodding acquaintance.  Why?"

"The burglary at his place doesn't smell right.  He's claiming a loss of jewelry and silverware of nearly fifteen thousand dollars, right?  You looked at the scene real careful, what did you see?"

Richard sipped thoughtfully.  "I noticed that they found the wall safe, but couldn't break in, and then made straight for the jewelry in the bedroom."

"He knew where everything was," agreed Guidry, taking out a cigarette and tamping it preparatory to lighting up.

"We'll need to take that outside," said Richard.

Guidry smiled wryly and put the cigarette back in its pack.  "What you notice about the damage?"

"Limited to the front room and den."

"Right.  Except for the mattress pushed aside and a few drawers pulled open, the bedroom wasn't really searched.  The jewelry box was left open, but placed back on the dresser.  Real respectful thief---one in a million, you might say."

"So the jewelry and safe were the targets from the beginning," said Richard.

Guidry went to the stove for another cup of coffee, but found the pot empty.  "Kinder is in crapper financially."

Kinder owned the town's most successful car dealership, and, as far as Richard knew, lived a rather unspectacular life, devoted to family, business and civic duty such as his work with the New Life Learning Center.

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

"A credit check shows several late payments and the occasional double payment.  He's playing three-card monte with his credit cards and he's got two mortgages on his house.  I haven't got anything on his business yet.

"Why are you looking into him?  Because of the disappearance of his son?"

"Try this out:  Junior is into the local drug trade---minor player with big ideas.  The old man, in a deep financial hole---maybe about to lose everything---decides to bankroll Junior maybe just this one time in order to get out."

"He's a legitimate businessman, Ron."

Guidry plunged on.  "Stick with me.  Don't matter what business you're in, legal or illegal, you still need money to make money.  So, if the old man has squandered a lot of money after years of living high on the hog---which, by the way he has been---maybe he gets desperate.  The kid is connected with, or tells his old man that he's connected with some people who can turn a chunk of change into a real big chunk of change.  The old man goes for it.  They stage a burglary so they can pawn the old lady's jewelry and get reimbursed by the insurance company."

"And the disappearances?"

"Afterwards something goes wrong.  Maybe some guys that are too big for them, or someone who just gets greedy, takes the money and does away with Junior, the minor connection and our neat freak friend, Marvin Hendrichs, who is the major connection.  The girl?  Collateral damage.  Wrong place at the wrong time."

Richard tried to keep an open mind.  What Guidry suggested was possible, but there were other more plausible explanations.

"Don't you think it's more likely that Gary Kinder pulled off the burglary by himself.  He knows the house---probably still had a key.  That would explain the staging and the lack of damage.  Forced door, place inexpertly and superficially rifled.  There was a pistol in the drawer directly below where we found the jewelry box, but he didn't take it."

"To me the main thing pointing at the old man is the fact that wife's jewelry wasn't in the safe," insisted Guidry.  "Whoever did this didn't know how to get into it without using the combination and was smart enough to know that safe cracking went out with black and white movies.  By the way did, you noticed the damage done to the wall safe?"

"Could have been just frustration," suggested Richard.

"Cosmetic," said Guidry, shaking his head dismissively.  "He wasn't serious about trying to get in because he knew the wife's jewelry wasn't in there.  That's another thing.  When the old lady went away, why didn't she either take it with her or lock it away?"

"No need, Ron.  Her husband was going to be home."

"Yeah.  That's another interesting little thing.  Hamilton Kinder took three separate trips out of town while she was gone.  Could have been fencing the jewels one piece at a time."

"Problem.  How would a man like him know who to contact to do something like that?"

"He could have used Marvin Hendrichs, but he wouldn't have to.  He had another contact, a certain ex-con who could have made all kinds of contacts."

"Porter?"

"Our old buddy," confirmed Guidry with a nod.  "You know it was Kinder who got him his job when he got out?"

"Riding a garbage truck," said Richard in amusement.

"He got that Christian academy he runs to hire him.  The uproar when we found Marie Preslar's body left him no choice but to cut him loose."

"So?"

"He also put the money down for Porter's apartment.  Wouldn't surprise me to find out he's been helping him out with cash ever since.  I'm still trying to figure the angle on that.  I mean, why's he so tight with a guy most people would just as soon see drop dead?"

"Maybe it was Christian charity or social conscience, Ron."

"Give me a break, Carter."

"You've got a lot of supposition, Ron.  Any proof?"

"Hey, I'm just thinking out loud here.  A guy has to have a working hypothesis.  I still got an open mind.  I've found several interesting things here, but I can't pull them together yet.  For example, there's the girl.  Now there are a couple of things interesting about her too."

"Like?"

"You remember an assault last summer out at the lake?  Some slimeball cold cocks a chick putting on her swimsuit in the john.  Her boyfriend comes along just in time to run the guy off?"

Richard nodded

"Guess who our girl was?"

"Jessie Stoddard?"

"And the boyfriend was none other than Junior."

"Oh, I see.  You think he got rough with her and then the two of them made up a story to cover for him?"

The girl Doc had treated for a broken jaw flashed into his mind.

"It happens," said Guidry.  "I've seen before.  Abused women cover it up all the time.  But there's something else---another connection with our man, Porter.  Seems about a month ago old Harold and Junior get into it over Jessie.  Couple of girls saw some kind of altercation in the parking lot of Barber's Cash.  They say it didn't come to an actual exchange of blows, but they thought it was gonna go down."

"Where are you going with all this?"

Guidry shrugged.  "Maybe nowhere, but take a look at what we got.  Three people are missing.  Drugs are involved.  We got us a supposedly upstanding businessman in financial trouble with a suspicious burglary while he has a convenient alibi, the house is conveniently empty, and expensive jewelry is conveniently left accessible.  Throw in an ex-con who has done time for theft and murder, and he's connected to all three of the missing persons and said upstanding, financially distressed businessman."

"I suppose you're connecting him to Hendrichs because of the trash service?"

"The phone calls, remember?  You ain't really buying that crap about complaints over how Porter arranged the trash cans, are you?"

"Ron, do you know Harold Porter?"

"Can't say as I've had the pleasure of meeting the scumbag, but I'm going to.  I intend to find out where he was when the burglary went down.  Don't tell me you feel sorry for him because someone's trying to run him off."

"Feel sorry for him?  No," said Richard, thinking of Jill's entanglement with the man.  "You know he won't have an alibi.  Fact is, no matter what happens, he never will have one.  He has no friends, no family.  Lives like a hermit.  The guy's more of a sad sack than anything else.  From what I understand he was an almost, well, not innocent, but a naive kid who got sucked into going along when his cousin's robbery went bad.  Spends over twenty years in prison and now that he just wants a normal life, though I doubt he even knows what that is."

"Stop.  You're making me cry.  How come you know so much about him anyway?"

"Jill feels sorry for him.  She's wants me to have him do some odd jobs down at the canoe rental."

"Don't do it, Carter.  He helped kill that girl way back when.  After that he lived in prison.  Hell, that's where he grew up.  You know the kind of lessons a guy learns in there?  Don't give me that rehabilitation bullshit.  If he wasn't a complete scumbag when he went in, he came out one.  You better tell your wife stay the hell away from him."

Guidry's remark irritated because it confirmed his own opinion as to what he should do.  Of course he could never order Jill to do anything.

"You have to pull road duty again tonight?" he asked just to change the subject.

"No.  You do," laughed Guidry.  "That's the other reason I came over to see you.  Good news is, Shug told me to tell you that you get the afternoon off."

 

November 17

Dawn lit the side view mirror pale orange as Richard came around the sharp curve of U highway leading down out of Mark Twain forest toward Kaleville and Blue Springs beyond on his way back to town and home after a long night of rural road duty.  He yawned, thankful that the uneventful night was ending.  If not for the fact that Shug liked to maintain high visibility in the rural areas during the lead up to deer season he wouldn't have been pulled for the duty.  Myron, the ailing deputy, would have been rescheduled to make up his quota of hours later in the month.

Around the next curve an old truck turned onto the highway, flipped on its lights, and then dimmed them.  As it passed its laboring engine sounded like six cylinders trying to do the work of eight.  It was Harold Porter.  He supposed the man was already beginning his trash run, but the truck had come from a graveled drive rather than a road, the one up to Safe Haven Methodist Church, and the small rural churches seldom had parsonages.

He glanced at his dash.  He had forty-five minutes before he could call in to say he was going home.  He slowed and turned up the narrow lane, and maneuvered through a series of mud wallows like running a slalom course until he topped a rise and saw the church house, its white vinyl siding glowing softly, nestled within a copse of cedar trees surrounded by a troop of stone sentinels, the graveyard that occupied both of the flanking slopes.  He saw no sign of a dumpster or other trash receptacle, which didn't surprise him.  The congregation would have taken away their own trash.

So what brought you out this way? he wondered.

He parked beside a weathered sign informing visitors that the pastor was Reverend John P. Norton and the times of Sunday services and Wednesday prayer meeting.  He poured the last of his thermos coffee into his travel cup and got out into the pre-dawn chill that a freshening breeze that always seemed to come with the dawn drove the temperature lower before giving way to the morning sun.  He walked over to examine soft ground where a vehicle had turned around.  Standing water from a low spot off the drive was still running in to fill the ruts where Porter had parked.  Footprints led east toward the graveyard.

Curious, he stepped across the ruts and skirted the standing water to see if he could pick up the tracks beyond.  Away from the overhanging trees and further down the hill, where the colder air settled, the ground was gray white with frost.  Here and there hoarfrost twisted up from the soggy ground around weed stems giving the appearance that someone had spread the cemetery with cotton candy.  Briefly he studied the spirals of delicate ice.  The older folks called it rabbit butter.  It was probably best not to ask where that name originated.

The soggy earth beneath the frost cover made it easy to retrace Porter's shuffling path into the graveyard.  Richard saw no returning footprints and wondered why the man had taken a different path back.  Half way down the slope, the obvious occurred to him.  Harold had to search for the family plot, not having visited it in over twenty years.  Having found it, he had simply taken the shortest path back.  As if to confirm his guess, the footsteps stopped at a stone marked "Pamela Sue Porter."  She had died in 1999, while her only son was still in prison.  Next to her marker was that of her husband Harold Roosevelt Porter.  He died the year before Harold junior had gone to prison.  He wondered if the man had the man been alive when his son had gone to trial.

The footsteps led on past the Porter family plot to another grave.  In Loving Memory of Marie Anne Preslar, read the stone.  Richard bent to examine a silk flower arrangement propped against the marker.  They were cold to the touch but free of frost.