Blood Runs Cold (23 page)

It was eleven p.m. when Ren reached the Brockton Filly. As she walked across the packed parking lot, she could feel the music throbbing. As she came closer to the building, she saw the sign on the door:
Open Mic night
. And when she opened the door to the bar, she realized that the music was trying to kill the singer.

She pushed through the rowdy crowd – a younger, crazier bunch than the quiet old alcoholics that were sucking the lifeblood out of her the last time. Billy Waites had turned the Filly around. It had customers. Ren took a slot at the bar where no one seemed to be serving. She leaned her elbow on it and turned away, drawn to the little lady on the bar stool with the giant guitar and the intuitive amp. She was winding down.

‘Thank God for that.’ Billy’s voice. Instant impact. Ren turned slowly. But he wasn’t talking to her. He was leaning into a blonde two people
away from her.
Oh
. Ren faltered. Her heart was letting her down; weighing too much, beating too fast. She had no drink to knock back, nothing to grip to stop her hand from shaking. Billy looked up. They locked eyes. He drew quickly back from the blonde and came toward her.

‘Hi.’ There was hurt and happiness in his eyes.

‘Hi,’ said Ren.

‘You look good with a tan.’ He smiled.

‘You too.’ She smiled back.

They stared at each other. People were shouting orders at Billy, but he didn’t move. People were trying to push Ren away from the bar, but she didn’t move.

‘So …’ said Billy.

‘This is weird.’

‘Yup.’

She looked around the bar. ‘I didn’t think it would be so –’

Billy laughed. ‘You thought the place would have been shut down.’

Ren laughed. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, asshole. I just thought it would be … how it was before.’

He smiled sadly. ‘Wouldn’t that be great?’

‘Get me a beer, mister,’ she said. ‘And we’ll talk when you’re finished?’

Billy checked his watch. ‘One hour to go. Can you handle it?’ He put two fingers in his ears.

Ren laughed. ‘Yes, I can.’

She got wired, chatted to random students, bought
them Jagershots, knocked some back with them, danced with a nerd. Every now and then, Billy passed by, caught her eye and smiled.

It was two hours and four rounds of nervous beer-drinking before everyone left and Billy closed up the bar. He sat down on a stool opposite her.

‘Is it like that every night?’ said Ren.

‘Thursday to Sunday – crazy. Or if there’s any big thing on, a festival or whatever.’

‘That’s great,’ said Ren.

‘New ownership,’ said Billy.

‘Really?’ said Ren. ‘What’s the boss like?’

‘Hot.’

‘What?’ said Ren.

Billy laughed. ‘I’m the new owner.’

Ren laughed out loud. ‘No way. Congratulations. Obviously bought with drug money.’

‘Obviously.’ He smiled.

She gestured to Jo’s corner. ‘So no more blowjobs for beer?’

‘It’s full of students,’ said Billy. ‘They give them out for free.’

Ren laughed. ‘So …’ She tried to avoid his eyes.

‘I thought I might see you some time soon,’ said Billy.

‘You heard about Jean.’

He nodded. ‘So is that good or bad for you?’

‘Well, here I am, back on the case. So to answer your question – I have no idea.’

He smiled. ‘I still can’t believe you were ever
off
the case. Why would they do that?’

Ren paused. ‘Well … I wasn’t getting very far, was I?’

‘That’s not true.’

‘I guess I’m getting a second shot,’ said Ren.

‘You weren’t alone in not solving the case,’ said Billy. ‘You can’t take the blame for everything.’

‘Yes, I can.’

‘You do, but you shouldn’t.’

‘Thanks,’ said Ren. She lowered her head on to the table. ‘I want it all to go away.’

‘Yes, but you only want it to go away by solving it …’

Ren looked up and smiled at him. ‘You’re right. So … go through it all with me – everything from that night.’

‘Did anything show up on the body?’ said Billy. ‘Any new evidence?’

‘Probably not … the autopsy will tell us more,’ said Ren. ‘Billy, I need you to give me more. I need you to think more.’

‘I’m not a retard.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was sounding that way. Can you go through again who was here that night?’

‘I gave you that list.
Look
at it.’

‘Now who’s calling who a retard?’

‘Don’t take your work shit out on me. I’ve done what I can for you. Including being the invisible fucking man.’

They sat in silence.

‘I cannot think of any more people to add to that list, OK?’ said Billy. ‘They were strangers to me. It’s that kind of bar. Of the people you’ve met? Me, Salem and Jo da Ho.’

‘This is driving me nuts,’ said Ren. ‘Because I know, for certain, that this was Jean Transom’s last stop. I just know it.’ She shook her head. ‘And more than one person is responsible for what happened to her, because they took her car and we don’t know where it is. We’ll probably never find it. I can’t see how all that could have been done otherwise.’

And right now I’m discussing all this with a confidential
informant
.

Ren’s phone rang and Denis Lasco’s name flashed up on the screen.

‘Hello, Ren? I found something when I was going through Jean Transom’s pockets. It was in a pocket I missed first time around. You know these ski jackets – they have zips everywhere. It’s a photo of a woman. And I know who the woman is, because I was on the case. I’ll drop this by your office.’

‘Who is the woman?’

‘Her name was Ruth Sleight. She was thirty-nine years old, lived in Frisco.’

‘Ruth,’ said Ren. ‘I have a mystery RUTH folder belonging to Jean. In fact, I was just about to add a case to it. What happened to Ruth Sleight?’

‘Suicide. June last year. I mean, you can see by the photo that she wasn’t in great shape. She’d been an alcoholic half her life.’

‘There’s too much alcohol everywhere,’ said Ren.

‘All the better to party with.’

‘OK – anything else on this Ruth Sleight?’

‘Well, I think I have the reason for her alcoholism. Do you remember the Mayer–Sleight case in the late seventies?’

‘Vaguely,’ said Ren.

The Mayer–Sleight ‘abduction’ had been the lead news story on every network in 1979, the headline in every newspaper. Two eleven-year-old girls from Frisco, Jennifer Mayer and Ruth Sleight, disappeared on their way home from dance class, the first day their mothers had allowed them to walk home alone. Both families refused to speak to journalists. The girls showed up … three weeks later. The families released a statement saying,
We
would like to thank America for the thoughts and prayers
that kept us hopeful during such a fearful time. Our
beautiful girls have returned to us unharmed and we
thank God for this blessing
.

No one mentioned ‘abduction’. No one mentioned ‘runaways’. The police revealed nothing other than ‘happiness and relief’ at the outcome, and eventually the story went away.

‘So,’ said Lasco. ‘The media attention at the time, the whispers, the questions, whatever – must have become too much for her. Or something else went on in those three weeks.’

Ren nodded. ‘And we can all guess what the answer to that is.’

‘I’ll drop this by in a little while.’

* * *

Ren pulled out the RUTH file again, the thirty-year span of sexual offences against children, all within Summit and Garfield Counties. Ren wondered what more she could get from the latest little girl than what her mother had told her the day it had happened. She had called the Glenwood RA in a state of panic that just seemed to increase as the conversation went on. Ren read back her handwritten notes – she hadn’t had time to type them up, she hadn’t even had time to write them. Her writing was legible, but still scrawled across the page – real shorthand, mixed with improvised.

The daughter was changing out of her bathing costume, her mother had turned away to attend to her young son, when a man had exposed himself to the little girl and taken pictures of her. He had hair that was neither dark nor light. He was wearing navy blue track pants, a white T-shirt and sneakers. He had a big belly. She described him as ‘old’, but everyone is old to a seven-year-old. And he was ‘missing hair on his head’. Bald, fat and old.
Surprise, surprise
.

Ren read through the file to see was there a similar description from any of the other girls. It looked like Ren wasn’t the only one who had to rush through an interview. The page about Ruth Sleight had no case number. Under the heading
WHERE? was circles … faded … dust … funny smell
… bakery? Under the heading WHO? was musk …
bony hips
. Under
WHY?
she had just written
why?
why? why?

Why would Jean be asking why?”
Why what?

Ren looked at the child’s drawing on the page stapled to it – the collection of shapes. Underneath it was adult writing that read:
Love, Ruth XX
.

Ren noticed the back of the first page. There was a phone number scrawled diagonally across it. Something about it looked familiar, a sequence of digits that had once been automatic to her – her only way to reach someone – untraced, a number she associated with laughter and secrecy and risk. It was Paul Louderback’s throwaway cellphone number. The man she’d believed when he said he didn’t know Jean Transom personally.

Ren jumped when she heard her name being called. She looked up as Denis Lasco walked in the door. He handed her the photo. It was in a Ziploc bag. Ruth Sleight did not look like a well woman. She had qualities you could use to describe a corpse – a red face that was bloated to bursting point, eyes that were swollen and vacant, skin that was almost gray. Her hair was brown, flat and greasy at the roots, red, dried and permed at the ends. She was heavily overweight, dressed in a sleeveless yellow T-shirt and white shorts. She held a cigarette in her hand.

‘Yikes,’ said Ren. ‘Poor woman.’

Lasco nodded.

‘Thanks for this,’ said Ren. ‘It has solved one
mystery for me. Now, if I found Jennifer Mayer, that could help.’

‘I hope she has fared better in life than this poor lady.’

Ren pulled out a list of known sex offenders from Summit County and Garfield County. One name hopped out: Malcolm Wardwell. He wasn’t bald and fat, but Jean and Amber Transom had been in his store not long before she died. Ren read back through the older files to see if Malcolm Wardwell could have been relevant to any of those descriptions. But then, she didn’t know what Malcolm Wardwell might have looked like thirty years ago.

Ren couldn’t face supper that night. By five a. m., she was starving and staring blindly into the darkness of her bedroom. Her thoughts were on a loop.
Why did Jean Transom have Paul Louderback’s number? Why did he request me on the case? Did he
want to steer me? Toward something? Or away from
something? What does any of this have to do with Jean’s
murder? Have I been manipulated for years?

The theories continued, nauseating and paralysing, until she eventually fell asleep, half an hour before her alarm woke her.

Ren sat in her room at the inn. She got up and made coffee. She sat back down. She got up and made her bed. She adjusted the blinds. She laid out files on the sofa. And ultimately, she came back to Paul Louderback’s number, scribbled in what was clearly Jean Transom’s hand-writing. Her stomach was barely able to keep the coffee down. She sat down and dialed Paul’s regular number. And stopped before she had finished.
He
will know
. She was about to ask him something strange, but he was the only one who could answer it.
But he will know why I am asking. Or maybe
not. Maybe he has no idea Jean Transom had that
number. Maybe he really didn’t know Jean Transom
.

She dialed his number again. He answered. ‘Paul? Hi, it’s me.’

‘Let me call you back in five minutes.’

Shit. Shit. Shit. I was ready now. I won’t be ready
when you call back
. ‘Oh … OK. Sure.’

She could feel her momentum draining. She looked at the bright shiny icons on her cellphone screen, moving over them into the menu for Divert All Calls. Her thumb hovered over the Select button.
Jesus – just take his call
. She clutched the phone tight, but let her hand fall down by her side. She stood up and did a tour of the three rooms. She picked up magazines and put them down. She threw clean clothes in the laundry basket. She read the spines on the bookshelf. She squeezed hand-wash on to a paper towel and rubbed it around the sink.
Jesus Christ
.

When the phone rang – twenty minutes later – her heart nearly blew.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi.’

‘How’s it going down there?’

‘I’m just letting everything go where it takes me. I mean, so far? Finding the body hasn’t changed a whole lot. We do have a photo of Ruth Sleight – the young girl from that 1979 Mayer–Sleight case.’

‘And how do you think it ties in?’

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘So, that’s it?’ he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘No one has “suddenly remembered” anything?’

‘In a town where Mind Erasers are the shot of choice …’

Paul laughed. ‘What’s in them again?’

‘I couldn’t tell you.’

‘I see.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So basically no one in Breck ever remembers anything?’ said Paul.

‘Well, no one under twenty-five. And one person who is thirty-six.’

Paul laughed. ‘We need to go out drinking again.’

‘Yeah, screw this whole investigation thing.’

They were silent for a few beats. ‘Poor Jean Transom,’ they both said at the same time.

‘Whoa. That was very serious,’ said Ren. ‘And simultaneous. Time to go. Too much emotion zaps my superpowers.’

‘OK. Look, you take care.’

‘I will,’ said Ren.

‘And remember, Superwoman – you can’t actually fly.’

‘If I ever think I can, I won’t go straight to the rooftop/window thing. I’ll be smart enough to start on the ground first, see if it works.’

Paul laughed. ‘Bill Hicks.’

‘An homage, yes.’ She paused. ‘Shit. One thing. Can you
talk
talk?’

‘Sure, go ahead.’

‘Did you keep anything I sent you when … you know … over those six months …’ said Ren.
When we nearly had an affair
.

He paused. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I’m just asking.’

‘OK. You gave me one CD. Celine Dion –’

‘Shut up.’

‘OK. One CD – Dropkick Murphys, which I loved; two DVDs – that Swedish one I had to
read
, thank you very much.
And The Station Agent
. And whatever that book was. And yeah, of course I kept them. I thought they were all great. Apart from the book. Why do you ask? Do you want them back?’

‘I guess I was talking about the phone.’

‘The piece-of-shit throwaway? Well, it lived up to its name. I threw it away.’

If I ask him when, he will know
.

‘You didn’t write down the texts I sent you or anything before you got rid of it?’ said Ren.

‘Because I’m not a fourteen-year-old girl, no. I did not. You ain’t all that.’

Ren laughed. ‘I know they were all just bullshitty and non-… whatever, but …’

‘But what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘OK, then.’

‘Are your emails, like –’

‘If you’re going to ask me are my emails secure, I will now think you are crazy. What is your –’

‘Nothing! I just …’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. G’bye.’

‘You’re nuts. You know that. G’bye.’

Ren sat back down and threw the phone on the bed beside her. She only had Paul’s word that he had gotten rid of that cellphone. But it had come from the mouth of the same man who’d told her he didn’t know Jean Transom. Ren held a hand across her stomach and inhaled deeply. If anyone had asked, she would have said that she trusted Paul Louderback one hundred per cent. She couldn’t say that about everyone. And now she was worried that she couldn’t even say it about him.

And where does that leave me?

Malcolm Wardwell sat at the edge of his seat in the interview room of the Sheriff’s Office. Ren opened the door and closed the distance between them as quickly as possible. She was sitting down before Gressett had closed the door behind him.

‘Hello, Mr Wardwell. As you know, I’m Special Agent Ren Bryce, this is Special Agent Gressett from Glenwood Springs. And we’re investigating the murder of Jean Transom.’

Wardwell nodded.

She slid the news clipping toward him.

He blinked slowly. ‘Why are you showing me this?’ His tone was tired, resigned.

‘What do you know about Jennifer Mayer and Ruth Sleight?’

‘Same as everyone else,’ he said. ‘The same as everyone else.’

Ren waited.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Malcolm. ‘I turned on my TV set every night for three weeks and saw those beauti— those …’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t even call them two beautiful little girls without everyone looking crooked at me. All I know is that they may have been abducted and that they came home. And that they were OK.’

‘Do you believe that they were OK?’ said Ren.

‘No, I don’t. Sadly, I don’t.’

‘Since I last spoke with you,’ said Ren, ‘I’ve discovered your name was on a list that Jean Transom had in connection with the case.’

‘What?’

Ren nodded.

He paused. ‘Can you show me the photo of Jean Transom again?’

‘Yes.’ Ren handed it to him.

‘Like I said, she was in my store,’ said Malcolm, ‘I do not recall ever seeing her before that. The facts, as far as I’m concerned, is that once – once – I was arrested because of … the … child porn charges. Not for laying a finger on an actual child. Not for harming a hair on a child’s head …’ Tears welled in his eyes. He swiped them away. ‘That arrest was one year before these girls disappeared. And yes, I was brought in after those girls disappeared – by Frisco PD, as I am sure you know. But not by the FBI and not by Jean Transom. Yes, I watched the progress of that case on television,
but it was from a rented house my wife and I were staying at in Florida. All of this I proved, and the record is there.’

I have those records, but I wanted to see your face
.