Blue Heaven (32 page)

The man passed by a second window, then came back, filling it. Through the curtain, the points of his elbows stuck out like wings. He had pressed his face against the glass and was trying to look into the house through the slit in the curtain, using his hands to frame his eyes. Since she couldn’t see him, she assumed he couldn’t see her. But it took a few seconds of terror to realize it.

At last, he moved on. His heavy shoes clumped on the porch, then went silent. A few seconds later gravel crunched on the side of the house.

He was going to try the back door.

She tried to remember if it was locked. Mr. Rawlins had said something about locking the doors, but she hadn’t seen him go to the back of the house.

“William,” she whispered. “Get ready to run.”

The back door rattled but didn’t open. It was locked after all. Then, again, a heavy pounding. “Wake up in there,” the man shouted. “It’s the police!”

She wondered how easy it would be for the man to break down the door. Pretty easy, she thought. He was a big man, and the door didn’t seem to be very thick.

Then he was gone. There was no sound.

Had he left?

No, she thought. She hadn’t heard the engine start up.

His shadow again filled the window. There was a squeak, a cracking of paint. He was trying to open it.

After a few moments of pushing he gave up. He sighed heavily, and moved to the next window.

“I’m going to get a gun,” William said through tears.

“No,” she whispered back. “You don’t even know how to load it.”

“I’ve seen it on TV.”

She thought of all the boxes of cartridges they had seen in the gun cabinet. How would he know which bullets fit into which guns? He wouldn’t.

The man couldn’t open the second window, either. Thank God Mr. Rawlins had locked them.

She saw the man turn, and pat his jacket. Then, the chirp of a phone.

“Newkirk,” the man said, “where the fuck are you?”

F
OR TWENTY MINUTES, clutching the shopping list Annie had made, Jess pushed his cart down grocery aisles he had never been down before. Everything looked unfamiliar. Twice, he had to ask a stocker where to find items on the list. Frosted Flakes, juice boxes, frozen pizza rolls, string cheese, bagels. Things he had never seen, eaten, or purchased.

As he shopped, he was still reeling from the revelations of the morning, his chance encounters with Karen and J.J. If he thought he was unmoored from his foundation while he drove into town that morning, it was nothing like he felt now in a grocery store he thought he knew but that now seemed strange and foreign to him. The only thing in his cart he recognized was the can of Copenhagen chewing tobacco. That was for him.

He rolled his cart into the checkout line. There had never been so many colorful boxes in his cart before. He found himself looking forward to seeing the children again, cooking for them. He had always wanted grandchildren, and he had once looked forward to it. This was kind of like that, he thought. There was no reason, after all they’d gone through, that he couldn’t spoil them a little. Tonight, he’d read the packages
and figure out how to cook frozen pizza rolls—whatever they were—if that’s what they wanted.

Then he’d need to figure out just what in the hell he was going to do about them.

Someone bumped him gently in the back with a cart, and he looked over his shoulder to see a beaming Fiona Pritzle. “Hey, good-lookin’,” she said in her little-girl voice.

He nodded a greeting as his heart sank.

“Did you see the newspaper today, Jess? They interviewed me about the Taylor kids. There’s a picture, too.”

He looked in her cart and saw a dozen copies of the paper along with frozen pizzas, a case of Diet Coke, and little boxes of cosmetics.

“Would you like one of these?” she asked, handing him a copy of the paper.

“I’ve seen it.”

“What do you think of the picture? I think they could have shot me with better lighting, myself. I’ve got shadows on my face.”

“It’s fine,” he said, wishing the woman in front of him would quit fishing in her purse and find her checkbook. Why was it that some women were always unprepared to actually
pay
for their purchases at the register, as if it had never occurred to them before?

“It’s a pretty good story, though,” she said. “Amazingly accurate. I asked to see it before they put it in the paper, but they said they didn’t do that.

“I’ve got an interview scheduled tomorrow with CNN, and a request from Fox News. They’re fighting over me. They’re both on their way and should be here tonight some time. This is really turning into a big deal since they issued the Amber Alert,” she said, tossing her hair as if this information gave her validation as an insider. “I’m also expecting to hear from the Spokane television station. They’ve been covering this story pretty good, and I’m sure they want to talk to the last person who saw the kids alive. I need to get home and check my messages, although I did give them my cell phone number. My luck would be they will call me tomorrow, when I’m on television or on my route.”

As she spoke, she fished her phone out of her purse and looked at it. “No messages as of now,” she said.

Jess was thinking about how she said
the last person who saw the kids alive.

“So you don’t think the Taylor kids will be found?” he asked. The woman ahead of him had finally located her checkbook but was arguing about the price of a head of lettuce.

Fiona’s eyes got huge, and she shook her head in an exaggerated way. Then she shinnied around her cart so she could whisper into Jess’s ear.

“I don’t want to say too much because, you know, I’m now considered sort of an expert in this case,” she said, peering around the store as if looking for spies, “but I think a sexual predator has them. Or had them. I think it’s just a matter of time before the bodies show up. And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they find out those kids have been … violated.”

Jess leaned away from her as she talked, and squinted at her. “A sexual predator?”

“Don’t talk so loudly,” she said, wiggling a stubby finger in his face. “Somebody will overhear us.”

“Sir?”

Jess turned. The checkout clerk was ready for him, and he gratefully pushed his cart forward.

As he unloaded it onto the belt, he could feel Fiona Pritzle studying him.

“String cheese? Juice boxes? What are you doing with those?”

Jess felt his face flush. He couldn’t think of a way to explain it.

He looked up at her. “Wanted to try some new things,” he said. “I’m in a rut.” He was also a poor liar.

She stared back at him, her eyes narrow.

“I had a bunch of coupons,” he said. That one crashed, too.

He paid in cash and left her standing there. As he pushed his cart toward the door, blood rushing in his ears, his face hot, he heard her ask the checkout clerk if she had seen the newspaper today.

AS HE DROVE out of Kootenai Bay, Jess surveyed the northwestern sky and saw the blunt shapes of thunderheads nosing over the mountains. It had been clear and warm all day, but rain was coming again. The barometric pressure would change, and it was likely at least two of
the cows would calve tonight. He still had a fence line to check. These thoughts were hardwired into him, the result of routine and experience. The fence could wait, but there was nothing he could do to postpone the calves. He hoped he could get some sleep before they came, though.

And he prayed the children would be at his house, where they should be, and that everything was okay. He pushed aside a mild panic at the thought of them being gone or harmed.

He stopped at his gate as he always did before realizing that someone had left it open. He quickly got back in his truck, drove over the cattle guard, and shut the gate behind him. Who had come onto his ranch? His immediate thought was that the trespasser wasn’t local. Locals closed gates. When he topped the hill and cleared the trees, he could see his home below and he felt a rush of anxiety and ice-cold fear. A vehicle he didn’t recognize, a black pickup, was parked at a rakish angle on the circular drive. A dark man he had never seen before stood on his porch with his hand to his face—talking on a cell phone?—with his other arm gesturing in the air. Jess recognized him from the drawing Annie had made. It was the big one, with the mustache.

The rancher accelerated, and his fear was replaced by anger. The house looked to be as he left it: locked up tight. The doors were closed and the curtains drawn. The children must still be inside, he thought, probably scared out of their minds. Who was this man, this trespasser, who strode along his porch with such contempt and familiarity?

Jess slowed and parked behind the black pickup. The man on the porch had now seen him, and he was closing his phone and glowering. The man stopped, his arms folded across his massive chest, waiting for Jess.

He spoke before Jess could. “Is this your place?”

Jess shut his door, leaving the groceries inside. The man on the porch exuded menace. He outweighed Jess by at least forty pounds, and he was younger. The rancher stopped and leaned forward on the hood of his truck. The motor ticked as it cooled. Jess usually had his Winchester in his gun rack for coyotes, but he had taken it out to clean it several days before and had forgotten to put it back in.

“This is my ranch,” Jess said. “The question is what
you’re
doing on it.”

The man snorted. “I’m with the sheriff’s department. If you haven’t heard, there are a couple of local kids missing.”

“I’ve never seen you before.”

“Ah,” the man said. “I’m sure you haven’t. I’m helping out the department as a volunteer. Several of us are assisting Sheriff Carey with the investigation.”

As he spoke, Jess looked at the man’s reflection in the living room window. He could see the butt of a pistol poking out from his belt behind his back.

“You’re one of the cops, then,” Jess said. “Do you have a name?”

“Dennis Gonzalez. Sergeant Dennis Gonzalez. LAPD.”

“Not anymore.”

Gonzalez smirked and rolled his eyes. He showed his teeth under his bushy mustache. “No, not anymore. But that don’t matter. We’re working with your sheriff.”

“I heard. So what are you doing trespassing here?”

“Trespassing?” he said, the smile growing wider. But his eyes remained black and hard. “You need to watch that language, mister. We’re going house to house looking for any sign of those kids. This place is on my list.”

To Jess’s horror, he saw the curtain part behind Gonzalez, and William’s blue eyes in the window. William was looking at Gonzalez’s gun. To William, Jess wanted to shout:
“Get away from there.”
To Gonzalez, Jess wanted to plead,
“Don’t turn around.”

Jess sighed. “All right, then. I’m back. You can go now.”

“Not so fast. I heard activity inside when I drove up. I’d like to have a look around.”

“It’s just me here,” Jess said, hoping his face didn’t reflect his anxiety. “My foreman left a few days ago. I’m running the place by myself.”

“No wife inside?”

“Divorced.”

“You and me both, brother,” Gonzalez said. “So if nobody is in there, why not invite me in for a cup of coffee or something?”

“I’ve got work to do.”

“On a Sunday?”

Jess nodded. “Yup. Couple of cows about to calve.”

Gonzalez studied his face. “I’d really like to take a look around this
place so I can scratch it off my list. I’d like to take a look in your barn, and in that house across the lot there. I want to make sure I wasn’t hearing things when I drove up.”

“You were,” Jess said.

For a moment, a tense silence hung in the air. Jess shot a glance at the window. Gonzalez noticed it, and looked behind him. Thank God, William was gone.

“Let me get this straight,” Gonzalez said, turning back around. “Are you denying me the opportunity to look around here? I’m here to clear you off my list as a kidnapper. Do you understand how suspicious this sounds?”

The word
kidnapper
hit Jess hard, and he tried not to flinch. Could he let Gonzalez look around? The man would find nothing in the barn because he probably didn’t know what to look for—the missing hay hook and horse blanket, the arrangement of bales on the top of the stack—but how could he let him inside of his house? Even if the kids were hiding, there would be telltale signs: shoes in the mudroom, too many dishes in the sink, unmade beds.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Jess said. “You’re trespassing on my ranch without a warrant. I didn’t even get a call from the sheriff saying you were coming out. This is my place, and my family’s had it for three generations. Nobody has the right to trespass on my ranch.”

Gonzalez laughed harshly. “You’re a fucking piece of work, old man. If we were in L.A….”

“We aren’t,” Jess interrupted. “We’re on my ranch. Now get off, and don’t come back without the sheriff and a piece of paper that says you can search here.”

The wide, insincere smile faded. “You could make your life a lot easier if you let me look around,
compadre.
”