He loped into the kitchen, came back out, and caught Cloister in the hallway.
“Here.” He shoved a dog-eared card into Cloister’s hand, the edges of it grubby from being shoved in a wallet. It saidStokes Investigationson the top in stark black lettering. “If you find anything out about Birdie, anything, let me know? I was a good detective. It never sat right with me, the way I let her down.”
Cloister’s chest was still tight with anger, but he knew what it was like to not get answers. He inclined his head in a tight nod, tucked the card into his back pocket, and followed Javi out the front door.
It was bright enough to make him squint, and the spaniel was still shouting at Bourneville from behind its fence. Javi stood next to the car. He was on the phone.
“…Tancredi,” he said as Cloister walked over, “where did Birdie and those kids used to hang out?”
Chapter Thirteen
IT MIGHThave been a Charger once. That would be down to the lab to confirm once they scraped off the char and rust and rebuilt the bits that had rotted away. It smelled like mildew and piss, layered over the particular rancid aroma of cooked vermin. The back seat was shredded, the stuffing gutted down to the springs, and the tires were naked, scuffed rims in pits of melted tarmac.
“You’d think someone would have towed it,” Cloister said as he wiped rust and sticky grease on his jeans.
“It’s on a private plot, not a public road. No one has to take responsibility, so no one will,” Javi said. He pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head. He narrowed his eyes, not quite squinting as he looked around. “It seems to be the general approach people take to the area. From the looks of it, there hasn’t been any work done here since Birdie disappeared.”
A block of houses had been chopped out of the neighborhood, caged off behind wire, and left to rot. Faded signs declared, under bars of blue and yellow graffiti, that Mallard Park was an urban regeneration project, bringing luxury residential accommodations and green space to revitalize the area. Suburbs with an urban edge. Instead there were empty buildings, half of them gutted and sagging like damp houses of cards, the others half-built and angular like an interrupted game of Tetris. The only green space was a field of broken bottles in front of a listing wall.
“Some of the local developers got overambitious,” Cloister said. “They thought there’d be a market for professional urban living. Turned out, if you’re commuting two hours so you don’t have to live in a one-bedroom box in San Diego—”
“You don’t want to live in a one-bedroom box somewhere less exciting,” Javi finished for him. “Who owns it?”
“The bank now, most of them,” Cloister said. It was the sort of common knowledge that you never really thought about. It was only after he said it that he remembered. “Kelly Hartley’s bank, I guess.”
Javi lifted his eyebrows toward his hairline, notching a row of four V-shaped wrinkles into his forehead. “The coincidences are starting to stack up.”
“When does it become evidence?” Cloister asked.
“I’ll let you know,” Javi said. He turned in a slow circle and searched the buildings. “I hoped there might be someone here we could talk to. A resident or one of Hector’s homeless friends.”
“Ten years,” Cloister said.
“Humans need homes,” Javi said. “Even if it isn’t ahouse, people want to stay someplace familiar. Usually.”
“Every now and again, the bank and the developers send people down to run them off,” Cloister said. “The sheriff’s department too, whenever someone sets up a meth lab or a grow house. It can’t hurt to look around, though.”
He ignored Javi’s skeptical grunt and headed back to the car. Bourneville was pancaked out in the backseat, looking bored. Her ears pricked up as Cloister popped the trunk, and she scrambled to her feet when he dragged her dress-up box out over the wheelwell.
“What are you doing?” Javi asked.
“There’s a lot of glass,” Cloister said. He whistled through his teeth and signaled for Bourneville to get out of the car. She jumped out, waited, and lifted her paw up like a furry Cinderella as he crouched down next to her. He slid the heavy-soled sock on and secured the Velcro around the top.
“Bootees?” Javi said.
Cloister twisted around and squinted one eye shut as he looked up at the lean silhouette. “You want to walk around here barefoot?”
“I’m not a dog,” Javi said.
“Neither is Bourneville,” Cloister said. “She’s a sheriff’s department deputy, and it costs more when she’s on sick leave than it does when you are.”
Javi snorted like he didn’t believe that. He’d obviously never seen a vet bill.
Cloister finished getting her booted up, and he stood. First couple of times he tried the shoes on her, she went stiff legged and reproachful like he’d strapped bees to her feet. Now she knew it meant they were going to be doing something interesting—either search and rescue or body retrieval.
And after ten years, Cloister didn’t think Birdie Utkin needed rescuing. Just finding.
Cloister grabbed the T-shirt bone out of the car, stuffed it into his back pocket, and tossed the keys to Javi.
