•••
The address took me to an older, updated house on Panama Drive, in a well-established middle-class neighborhood. I whipped the wheel, turned off the lights and siren, put them away, reseated my weapon, and clipped my ID and badge in place as I looked the land over. It had likely been farmland once upon a time. Now it was detached housing with big lots, houses built in the seventies, older trees, outbuildings, trucks, manicured lawns, a news van, five police cars, and neighbors everywhere, milling around, some crying.
I studied the land, which looked tired, overfertilized, and underloved, showing a distinct lack of organic matter, companion plants, or complementary plantings. It was drab and not as green as it should have been this time of year. I shook my head at the sad state of the landscaping, and secured my hair in an elastic.
I drove back onto the street and up to the armed uniformed officer, showed him my ID, and parked where he pointed. Itwas after six and still hot as blue blazes when I exited the Chevy C10. The heat radiating off the blacktopped road, the stink of old tar, and the muggy temp still in the nineties slapped me in the face. The officer pointed at a two-story house. I lifted a hand in thanks and trudged beside the concrete drive, my field boots on the springy, too-long grass. It needed cutting and had browned slightly in the heat. The storm had missed this area and it needed rain. But it was okay. It was grass. It would survive. The oak trees in the yard were twenty-five or so years old and needed rain too, but there was nothing I could do about that.
Crime scene tape marked off the entire front yard and there was an additional square of tape about fifteen by fifteen near the mailbox. The place where the girl had been taken, I presumed. A crime scene tech was placing markers in the brittle grass.
“Ingram!”
The sound of my name shook me from my contemplation of the grass and trees and I spotted Margot on the porch. “What do we have?” I asked.
“FBI has lead on this one. A missing girl and a witness who gives me the creeps, the five minutes I spent with him in the victim’s house. I want you to check him out, see if your church-dar sets you off.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Church-dar. Like radar but for creepy old men.” She pointed at the house across the street. “His name is Jim Paton, fifty-six, white, single. Talk. Then find me.”
I was still confused, but maybe Margot wanted me that way. I had learned that probies were often sent into situations where they could see things with a fresh eye, or learn things the hard way. I went back across the too-hot asphalt and walked around the witness’s one-story house. The front plantings—aged boxwoods and thirsty azaleas—were dry and sere, if neatly trimmed. The back was enclosed with a six-foot brick wall and secured with a sturdy padlocked wood gate. I leaned into the gate and put an eye to a crack to see a wonderland of raised beds and lush plantings, masculine garden furniture, a small garden house, a lovely fountain of a naked nymph pouring water from a jar on her shoulder, and a waterfeature that mimicked a mountain stream. It looked like upscale commercial work, far too pretty for this neighborhood.
Back around front, a uniformed officer let me in and I chatted him up, taking in the front room. The house had been built in the seventies and not painted or updated since. The living room walls were a brownish gold, the trampled-down shag carpet a deeper version of the same shade. Matching couch and chairs were upholstered in floral fabric with big gold roses on each cushion. Matching vases of faded yellow roses rested beside matching lamps on matching end tables. A big-screen TV and a newish recliner sat front and center. A heavy layer of dust covered everything except the recliner. The place smelled of mold. There were cobwebs in the corners. Dry-rotted draperies covered the front windows, a paler gold than the walls, and were ruffled along all the seams and the hem. The room looked as if it had been decorated by two very different people, a woman who liked roses and, much later, a man who liked TV. I texted JoJo to see if Jim Paton was the original owner or if he was a newcomer, and if he’d been married or had a significant other in the past.
I followed voices to the kitchen, standing in the doorway, taking everything in before I was spotted. The kitchen was neat as a pin, gold-painted walls, gold-painted cabinets. No dust. No dirty dishes. Everything in its place, though way too much gold. Gold flooring, the kind that came in long rolls and was designed to remind people of tile but was really plasticized stuff. Gold stove and fridge. Gold tablecloth. At the small table was a uniformed officer and a man who did not fit the house. He was neither a decorator who liked roses nor a man who belonged in the comfortable recliner. Jim Paton was middle-aged, fit, with khakis and a dress shirt that had started out the day starched and pressed and still looked fresh. His hair was combed and neat, his shoes polished to a shine. Despite his athletic physique, he had plump cheeks, blue eyes, and what I mentally described as a benevolent face. When he smiled, his cheeks formed little cherubic balls of joy, his eyes twinkled, and the uniformed officer smiled with him. “Anything I can do,” Paton said. “Raynay is such a sweet child. This breaks my heart. The world is so full of horrible people and our young are no longer cherished and protected.”
I put a sweet look on my face and let my voice rise a little, more high-pitched than my normal tone, as I stepped in, interrupting the chitchat. “Mr. Paton, I’m probationary special agent Nell Ingram with PsyLED. I understand you saw the girl abducted?”
Paton turned to me, and I understood Margot’s church-dar comment. Paton surveyed me in one swift glance, evaluating and categorizing me, my voice, body type, hair, shoes, and gun. It was fast, so fast I’d have missed it had I not been focused so tightly on him.
“Probationary? Such a sweet young woman for such a dangerous job.” He shook his head. “I was just about to fix Officer Cobb a cup of coffee. Would you like one? Or maybe tea?”
“No, thank you,” I said, my voice going a little more girlish. “I know you’ve already told your story several times, but can you tell me what you saw?”
“I came in from work, got a cola from the fridge”—he pointed at the gold antique—“and sat in my recliner. I looked out the front window and saw Raynay walking to the mailbox. A black panel van rolled up, braked, and I saw several pairs of feet moving faster than a human possibly can. The van sped off. Raynay was gone. I raced across the street, banged on the door, and told Lonie what I had seen. Lonie Blalock. That’s Raynay’s mother. We called the police together. They got here fast and said it sounded like a vampire kidnapping. Do you know anything new?”
“Did you see a license plate? Get a look at the driver?”
“The van was between Raynay and me.” He put a hand over his heart, a gesture of commiseration, but... it looked off. Affected.Fake. My newly described church-dar for creepy old men was clanging loudly. “The windows were tinted,” he continued. “It happened so fast. I didn’t see anything else.”
“I see,” I said. “You were in the recliner? In the living room?”
Paton’s face altered just a hint. Barest tightening of the creases around his smiling blue eyes. “That’s what I said.”
“The recliner in theliving room?”
Paton said nothing.
“The recliner in the living room?” I repeated.
“Yes,” Paton said, and he pasted a happy, innocent smile on his face.
“Thank you.” I left the kitchen for the living room and stood near the recliner. The drapes were closed, but I couldn’t rule out that Paton had closed them. I opened the drapes. A puff of dust filtered out. I retook my position at the recliner, looking out the front windows. I bent to where Paton’s head would have been when he used the chair. Shifting back and forth, I considered his line of sight along the recline position. The draperies obscured most of the yard across the street. The area where the crime scene tech worked was hidden behind the trees. I opened the front door and studied Paton’s house. There was one window that gave a clear line of sight to the place where the girl supposedly had been abducted. I texted Margot and JoJo on the same thread.Witness lying. Margot, get over here. Jo, check databases for past domestic abuse or sexual assault allegations on Paton.
Margot strode across the street to me. Jo texted back,In process.Margot called out, “What do we have?”
I shut the door to give us privacy. “Witness says he was in his recliner when he saw the girl abducted. He saw several pairs of feet beneath a van. You can’t see the house from his chair. But there’s a bedroom window that might work.” I pointed. “And it’s low enough that he might see feet.”
Margot changed direction and walked to the window. She leaned in and made a circle of her hands against the screen, pressing her face close. “Gotcha, you lying son of a bitch.” She raced to the porch, past me, and inside, one hand on her weapon. She looked heated and cold all at once, focused and scary. I followed her more slowly. “Mr. Paton,” she said. “You’ve told us several times about seeing Raynay abducted. Tell me again. Starting with where you were when you saw the event. And this time? I want the truth.”
