Parker 02 - The Guilty (31 page)

who had wished to keep it a secret, so would Henry Parker

discover it, as well. Two sides of a coin--one clean, one

dirty--both needed to create the whole. The same way Billy

the Kid had his chronicler in Pat Garrett, so would William

in Henry Parker.

William heard a groan. She was waking up.

He nudged the prone body on the floor, gave her a little

kick. She shifted, uttered a muffled cry through the rag soaked

through with saliva.

William knelt down to her, gently shook her until those

eyelids--crusty with eyeliner and mascara--fluttered open.

The pupils took a moment to register, but as soon as they did

fear came racing back to those pretty hazel eyes. The very eyes

that had once gazed upon Henry Parker with an intense love that

she still felt for him. Mya had made that clear in Paulina Cole's

article. Surely Henry still felt something for her, too. Perhaps

he could still feel her pain. They'd find out soon enough.

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Jason Pinter

The Boy smiled. He gently stroked Mya's cheek with the

back of his hand. Her face trembled, lips quivering, blubbering.

"Don't be scared, Mya." William's fingers traced soothing

circles over her forehead until her trembling lips began to

calm. "You have no idea how important you are."

41

Jack sat perched on the corner of my desk, swaying slightly,

like a column debating whether or not to tip over. It was

barely ten in the morning. After catching one whiff of his

butane-flavored breath, it was clear that Jack was either

coming off a night of wicked drinking, or that his wicked

night of drinking hadn't yet ended.

"What you need to do now," Jack said, "to follow up on

today's article, is start full court press into this Willian Henry

Roberts's background. What did his parents do? Are any of

his childhood friends willing to say he was 'the quiet type'

or pulled the wings off of insects? You need to prove beyond

a reasonable doubt that this psychopath is in fact the greatgrandson of Billy the Kid. You planted the seeds, Henry, now

you gotta water that sucker."

I leaned back in my chair, looked out across Rockefeller

Plaza. Tried to let my mind wander, because when it did it

usually ended up in the right place. The police had finally

pulled their surveillance off of myself and Amanda, convinced my injury was just a warning and the officers would

be better suited hunting than guarding a guy who sat at his

desk typing while his eyesight got progressively worse.

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And it was just as well. I needed to look into Roberts's

birth certificate, family history, anything that could prove

who he was and who he knew. He had parents--they would

know if their son showed early signs of violence. Or if he had

a preoccupation with family history. Perhaps a predilection

toward antique weaponry. Or maybe he just spent a few too

many hours with his Nintendo playing Duck Hunt.

I knew who William Henry Roberts was. Knew where he

was from. When he had committed his atrocities in this city.

What kind of monster he was.

"I need anything you can possibly help me with, Jack. I

want to talk to anyone who's ever been in contact with William Henry Roberts. Schoolteachers, classmates--"

"Neighbors, pets, yada yada, I know the drill." For a

moment Jack teetered on the edge of my desk before planting

an unsteady hand on my keyboard to steady himself. He

looked at me, a quick splash of embarrassment appearing

and then vanishing. Like it never happened.

"Jack?" I said.

"Yeah, kid?"

"Are you okay?"

Jack looked at me incredulously. "If by that statement

you're asking whether I am in perfect health for a man of my

age, with the virility of a tiger and countenance of a Viking--

then, yes, I am very much okay."

"No," I said, my voice pressing a little harder. "Are you

really
okay?"

This time Jack didn't answer so quickly. The veined hand

left my tabletop and mounted itself on my shoulder. Jack

gave a warm smile as though flattered that I cared so much

about his mental and physical state.

The Guilty

263

"I'm fine, Henry. People are full of bull. So don't believe

everything you hear."

I blinked when he said this.
Everything you hear?

My concern for Jack was based solely on what I could see

right in front of me. His too-sweet breath. His slightly offkilter equilibrium. His refusal to acknowledge any problems

whatsoever. Nobody had said a word to me otherwise, and I

had no clue if it was being discussed on the news floor. Obviously others were aware of the problem, as was Jack. Not

that he cared one way or another.

We both stood up. Jack began to walk back to his desk.

"So," I said, "did you go out last night?"

Jack barked a laugh. "Go out? Kid, when you're my age

going out means ordering in Chinese food and hoping they

remembered the sesame chicken."

"So you stayed inside."

"Same as I do every night."

"Any company?"

Jack's eyes closed as he tried to understand what I was

asking. "What's all this about?"

"I just want to know if anyone is there to, you know...

just in case."

"Just in case
what?
"

"In case you need any help...anyone to talk to. If anything,

you know, happened."

"Help?" Jack said. "What I hear, you need help more than I

do. Don't think I didn't hear about Frank Rourke and his

infamous crap-in-a-sack. You'd better work on
your
interpersonal relationships with the other reporters before you start

asking if
I'm
okay. Otherwise that won't be the last bag you get.

Help yourself, kid. There are only so many hours in the day."

As he left, I tried to think of something to say. Jack clearly

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Jason Pinter

had a problem, and if it were anyone else they would be confronted, put on leave, made to do
something
to right the ship.

But Jack O'Donnell was a living institution. You didn't take

the Michelangelo in for a cleaning until the marble was

covered with so much grime you couldn't tell its ass from its

elbow. Jack was still Jack, pumping out quality stories, but it

was only a matter of time. And from the look of things, this

wasn't an issue about to go away on its own.

I needed to focus. I still had a job to do, and there was still

a killer out there. Maybe if I could uncover more information

about William Henry Roberts, I could save more lives than

just Jack's.

I logged into LexisNexis and performed a search for

William's parents, John and Meryl Roberts. I found records

of them owning two homes--one in Hico, Texas, and another

in Pecos Valley, New Mexico. Pecos Valley, if I remembered,

was where John Chisum ended his famous cattle drive which

began in Paris, Texas, and where Billy the Kid wreaked havoc

during the Lincoln County Wars. Hico was where Brushy Bill

Roberts had died.

I searched for all newspaper articles in the state of Texas

containing references to either John or Meryl Roberts. Aside

from previous known addresses, there were half a dozen other

clippings. I clicked on the first piece.

It was from the
Pecos Valley News,
a local paper from a

town sleepy enough that high-school football was front-page

material. The article had run in the Church Briefs section of

the paper, and was about the baptism of the Roberts's newborn

son, William Henry. A photo accompanied the article, a robed

priest holding an infant, nestled in between folds of cloth. I

could just make out William Henry's eyes, which were

peaceful, closed.

The Guilty

265

It was hard to imagine that this child, renouncing evil,

would eventually become a servant of the devil.

The second article was also from the
Pecos Valley News,
and

it was written in 1995. The article was titled "Roberts Family

Sells Home, Wish Them Luck in Texas!" An accompanying

photo showed John and Meryl with their young children

standing in front of a For Sale sign in their yard. The parents

looked young, vibrant, like they were about to start a new

chapter of their lives. An eight-year-old William stood to the

side with an expression on his face that showed neither happiness nor sorrow. It was a blank slate, as though he was simply

going along because there was nothing he could do to stop it.

I clicked on the third article. It was from the
Hamilton

Herald-News
out of Hamilton County, Texas. It was dated

August 23, 2004. The headline read Five Dead in Deadly Hico

Blaze: Family Of Four Trapped Inside Their Home, Die

Along With Beloved Chaplain.

The accompanying photo showed the charred embers

where a house once stood. There were police cars, ambulances and fire trucks spread out with abandon. Men and

women in white jackets with filters over their mouths combed

through the wreckage.

I could see at least one body draped with cloth and another,

uncovered, lying among the timber.

My stomach clenched. I read further, my pulse quickening as I read the awful details.

Late last night John Roberts, his wife Meryl, their

two children William and Martha, and beloved Pastor

Mark C. Rheingold died in a four-alarm fire at the Roberts ranch in Hico, Texas.

...bodies were burned beyond recognition...

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...unknown how the fire began...

...Rheingold had just returned from a thirty-city tour

for his latest book and was set to break ground on a new

15,000-seat church in Houston...

...the Roberts family had just moved to Hico three

years ago...

...joined John Henry Roberts's father, Oliver...

...William Henry and Martha James had recently

graduated from Hamilton High...

...police have not ruled out arson...

I read the rest of the article, stunned. It was impossible.

Either I'd made a huge mistake, or something was terribly

wrong. Because according to the newspapers, William Henry

Roberts had died in Hico, Texas, nearly four years ago.

42

The next three articles were all follow-ups to the story of the

tragic fire that had claimed the lives of four of Hico's newest

residents, as well as the life of one of the state's most beloved

religious servants.

According to Sheriff Chip Youngblood, experts determined

that the fire was electrical, and may have been exacerbated

when one of the Roberts children foolishly attempted to extinguish it with water. According to the local energy supplier,

there was a small spike in the Roberts family's electrical

usage around the time the fire was believed to have started.

The county held a small, private ceremony for the burial

of John Henry Roberts, his wife and their children. A photo

ran of the burial. There were about twenty people in attendance, including several reporters from local papers.

The funeral service held for Pastor Mark Rheingold,

however, was a very different story. The proceedings were

held in Rheingold's old church in Houston, a ten-thousand

seater that was filled to capacity for the ceremony. Ushers

were needed to corral the crowds. At least four people were

confirmed to have fainted. Another tried to drown himself in

the hopes of meeting Mark Rheingold in heaven.

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I came upon hundreds of photos of Mark Rheingold taken

during his various pilgrimages in various newspapers, pamphlets and photo-ops. Rheingold was a thin man, not skinny

but lean, with the lithe physique and stretched facial muscles

of a jogger. His jet-black hair was always slicked back in a neat

coif and his suits, like his wife's jewelry, were decent but not

gaudy. Every photograph bore the pastor's thousand-watt

smile. Though I did wonder why a man of God needed veneers.

Cards and flowers arrived from all fifty states and thirty

foreign countries. Numerous politicians paid their condolences

in person. Rheingold's closest friends and pastorial acquaintances read passages from his bestselling books. Rheingold's

wife and young son remained stoic in the front row. The

governor of Texas declared the day one of statewide mourning.

The following year, Rheingold's wife was given her own

daytime talk show. His ten-year-old son published a book

called
Never Too Young to Follow the Lord,
containing prayers

and motivation for grade-schoolers.

There was very little reporting on the burial of the

Roberts family. A grainy photo showed the four caskets

being lowered. Two larger ones, for John and William. Two

smaller ones for Meryl and Martha. John was noted as the

grandson of Oliver P. "Brushy Bill" Roberts. Everything

else was journalism-by-the-numbers.

One line from the article, though, threw me for a loop.