I was a little surprised that Smith could have gotten a California insurance broker’s license. Many types of licenses are unavailable to sex offenders-such as real estate, because the agents have access to keys. But then with insurance, if the person is registered and up-front about doing time, the state is more lenient. And Bud had apparently been honest about his record.
“Is Bud’s status common knowledge around here?” I asked Ivins.
“Not really. I suppose some people may have stumbled across it on the Internet. But Bud’s very civic-minded and well liked, so if they have they’ve kept it to themselves. I know only because he confided his past to me when he applied to become a mentor. Then I did some research on his case.”
“What happened to the brother, Davey?”
“I don’t know that, either. All I’m really sure of is that Bud has been good at mentoring our clients.”
“Does he tell them he was in prison, and why?”
“Whatever goes on between friends who help friends is strictly confidential.”
It seemed to me she didn’t know a hell of a lot of things she should know about what went on between her organization’s clients and their mentors.
“Is Bud aware you told me he might have been tutoring Amy Perez in math?”
“… I mentioned it to him. He called shortly after you left me that day.”
“Why did he call?”
She frowned. “I don’t really know. I told him about your visit, but then someone called on his other line. He said he’d get back to me, but he never did.”
“Is he still living on Aspen Lane?” It was the address listed for him on the registered sex offenders site.
“… Yes.”
“Do you have a phone number for him?”
“I can’t give out-”
“Never mind. I’ll get hold of him.”
Irresponsibility, I thought. Sheer irresponsibility. I’m all for giving sex offenders a second chance, but given the high rate of recidivism, that chance shouldn’t be in a sensitive area involving young people. And I wasn’t sure I bought the rumors of Bud Smith’s false confession-even if the Mineral County prosecutor had had his or her doubts.
I called Smith’s office, got a machine. Thumbed through the slim local directory; his home number wasn’t listed, under either Bud or Herbert. Better to speak with him in person anyway. I’d drive out to Aspen Lane and-
The phone rang. Glenn Solomon.
“I talked with Frank Brower. His instructions to represent Hayley Perez came from a Mount Kisco, New York, law firm-Carpenter and Bates.”
“You know anyone there?”
“No, but Frank was on the Harvard Law Review with Bates. He’ll get back to me later.”
“Thanks so much, Glenn. I’m leaving now and my cellular might not work where I’m going. If it doesn’t, please leave a message on the machine here at the ranch.”
“Certainly.” He paused, the silence full of meaning.
“What?” I asked.
“What I always tell you when you embark on one of your quests, my friend: be clever and careful.”
Aspen Lane was three miles out the road to Stone Valley-a place I hadn’t visited for years and didn’t even like to think about. The horrific events that had happened in the valley back then had ultimately brought Hy and me together, but I didn’t want to relive them, even in my head. The vision of the mountain exploding, our frantic flight-
So stop reliving them, all right?
The lane was well named: golden-leafed aspen spread out to either side and clustered around the small, mostly prefab homes. Bud Smith’s was at the very end, where the pavement stopped-a double-wide trailer with attractive plantings and a deck with an awning over it. A fishing boat was up on davits, ready to be prepped and tarped for the winter. Usually I think of child molesters as unsavory types who live in squalor and lurk in dark places seeking their prey, but I couldn’t reconcile either the man I’d met or his tidy home with such an image.
No one answered the doorbell. I walked around the structure calling out to Smith. No response, but I sensed a presence nearby. Finally I went back to the deck and saw what I hadn’t noticed before: the door was slightly ajar.
Not breaking and entering, just trespassing. And trespassing for a good reason: now I’m worried about the man.
The excuses I use to justify my actions…
I eased the door open, listening. Silence. Strong smell there, but it wasn’t sinister-cooked garlic and onions. Still, I drew Hy’s.45 from my bag before I went inside. The living room and galley kitchen were empty. The meal must have been cooked yesterday, since the stove and all the counter surfaces were clean.
I moved along the hallway. Three bedrooms and a bath opened off it, all of them deserted. In one of the smaller rooms, the bed had been left unmade. Otherwise everything was neat.
Why didn’t Bud Smith sleep in the larger room with the queen-sized bed? Perhaps he shared the trailer with someone who was tidier than he?
Well, that information could be had online. But while I was here…
The master bedroom’s closet contained a man’s clothing-mostly vintage and odd, as I’d seen Bud wear. So it was his room after all. The bathroom didn’t tell me much. A Water Pik and two electric toothbrushes, some first-aid supplies, aspirin, and sinus headache pills. No prescription drugs. A razor and shaving cream on a shelf below a mirror in the shower stall. Third bedroom, mostly empty-a guest room that hadn’t been used in quite a while, judging from the layer of dust.
Back to the room with the unmade bed. The closet held some newish-looking woman’s jeans. A couple of sweaters were draped across a chair, and there were a few tops hanging in the closet. Woman’s underwear in the bureau, and a flannel nightgown tossed on the bed. Makeup items and a pair of earrings on the bureau.
So Smith had a female roommate. She was probably at work.
I moved back to the living area, looking in drawers and cupboards, gave the whole trailer another once-over, then left and started back to the ranch.
I sat at my laptop, thinking about Bud Smith-a convicted child molester who may have been covering for his younger brother. Smith, who had told me he knew Amy Perez and, if Amy had followed Dana Ivins’ advice, may have tutored her in algebra. Who had sold a life-insurance policy to Hayley, with Amy as beneficiary. Had he known Hayley before she bought the policy? Probably not, given their age difference.
I logged on to Mono County property records and learned the land and the double-wide had belonged to Smith for seven years. When I went to the state insurance brokers’ registry, I found that he’d received his license the same year he’d purchased the land. The California Registry of Sex Offenders showed he’d contacted them within a day of his arrival in the state, and reregistered when required.
Which proved…? Not much.
The Mineral County Independent News in Hawthorne didn’t have online issues going back twenty-six years. I could drive over there and check their archives, but it was getting on toward five o’clock. Better to wait till morning.
Well, what about the paper in Reno? A controversial rape case would have warranted mention. I checked, found their online archives didn’t go back twenty-six years, either. Tomorrow I’d have to visit Mineral County.
But now I’d take a ride on King, who was probably waiting for me. Tonight I’d cut a path across open land where our small herd of sheep grazed. Hy had told me the sheep had something to do with a subsidy or lower taxes-I forget which-but I suspected he kept them out of sentiment. His stepfather, to whom he’d been considerably closer than to his birth father, had been a lifelong sheep rancher.
The ride was without event, and I felt a growing kinship with the horse. I’d been traumatized by the events of the night when he’d charged me, but so had he. Animals are essentially innocent, until we humans treat them badly and give them cause to fear. King needed my reassurance.