“Jordan!” Mr. Kendall said, frowning. “Lexie-”
“He’s okay, but he’s Gabe’s friend. You should ask Gabe.”
“Thanks, I will. Can you name any of his other friends?”
Jordan shrugged. “He’s kind of shy. Ask Gabe.” He looked to his father. “Can I go now? I have a bunch of stuff I gotta do.”
Kendall looked to Frank. “Sure,” Frank said.
Frank watched the teenager speculatively as he hurried out of the house. He turned back to Kendall. “Did you know Mr. Toller’s wife?”
“Oh, gosh, that’s been what-three, four years ago now? Barely knew her then-just to nod to. Skinny blonde. Didn’t come out of the house much. Guess she was sick most the time.” Kendall shifted on his feet, then said, “I’m sorry about Jordy being so-abrupt, I guess you’d call it. Teenagers, you know, sometimes they’re scared and don’t want to show it. I know he didn’t seem upset, but-”
“Oh, no need to apologize. People take that kind of news in different ways. I think Jordan was upset.” He wasn’t sure it was about Toller, but he kept that to himself.
Kendall smiled. “Well, yes. I’m glad you understand.”
Ben Sheridan heard a tapping sound on the driver’s side window of his pickup truck, just a few inches away from his head. His neighbor’s fake fingernails, drumming on the glass. For a moment he was tempted to pretend that he didn’t hear it. With luck, he’d kill her as he backed out, and get a reduced sentence based on the testimony of his other neighbors. He could claim the camper shell blocked his view, or that the dogs distracted him…
Tap-tap-tap. What the hell were those fingernails made of-iron?
He sighed and rolled down the window. She grinned and leaned in, folding her arms over the sill, thrusting her breasts toward him. Despite the fact that the mid-September weather was a little too cool for it, she was wearing her usual ensemble, a skimpy black swimsuit top and pair of tight faded denim shorts that barely covered her ass. It was probably an appealing outfit the first time she wore something like it forty or fifty years ago. She was still slender, but Ben figured she must have spent most of those decades in the sun, because as far as he was concerned, these days she just looked like beef jerky in a bikini.
“I’m in a real hurry, Alice,” he said brusquely, leaning away from her. “Mind stepping back from the truck?”
“Hello, Professor!” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. She flipped her straight, shoulder-length hair-with a slight green tinge from the chlorine in her pool-away from her face and looked back at the bloodhound and the German Shepherd. “Hi, Bingle! Hi, Bool! Going on a search?” He knew where her own searching eyes would look next, and felt himself tense. Someone unaware of her particular proclivities might have mistaken the direction of her gaze. But Ben knew she wasn’t staring at his crotch. She was staring at his lower left leg.
He was grateful that he had jeans on today, not because they hid the prosthesis he wore, but because he knew that Alice was hoping to catch a glimpse of the point where his left leg had been amputated below the knee.
“Ben, why don’t you come over for a swim?” she said, still not looking at his face.
“Alice!” he shouted.
She blinked and shook her head, as if he had awakened her from a trance.
“I have to leave right now,” he gritted out. “Immediately. I’m in a hurry.”
“Okay. Well, come on by later.” She took one step back.
He wasn’t going to waste this chance. He put the truck in reverse, glanced behind him and backed out. He drove off, not looking in the rearview mirror until he was sure he was too far away for her to run after him. She stood motionless in his driveway.
He noticed Bingle watching him from his crate. The dark, longhaired shepherd (shepherd and some other breed-no one was quite certain of the mix) was cocking his head to one side.
“I don’t know what to do about her, either, Bingle,” Ben said.
Bingle-whose first of three owners had named him Bocazo, Spanish for “big mouth,”-began to answer at length with a series of sounds that Ben was convinced were an attempt to imitate human vocal tones.
Bool thumped his tail against his own crate. The bloodhound was an amiable fellow, not half as bright as Bingle, but nevertheless excellent at his work. Together, there were few search situations they couldn’t cover.
That was thanks to David, he knew. Ben had taken over the handling and training of the dogs after his close friend and colleague, David Niles, had been murdered by the same man who had left Ben an amputee. Ben was adjusting to life with a prosthesis -he had returned to work, was active, was in a great relationship with a woman who also trained search dogs. But David’s death still haunted him.
No day passed without a reminder of him. The dogs were the strongest reminder, of course. David had survived a childhood of physical abuse-in part, he had told Ben, because the aunt who raised him after his abusive father’s death had interested David in training dogs. David used his knowledge of dog training and anthropology for volunteer search and rescue work, and for cadaver dog work-to search for the missing, or their remains.
Ben never started a search without thinking of David, and of all the work David had put into these dogs, all the affection he had given them. Ben didn’t believe he had David’s capacity for forgiveness, but continuing David’s work was important to him, a way of saying David’s work had mattered. And despite the inherent stress in trying to find missing persons before they came to harm, Ben found he enjoyed the search and rescue work.
He glanced at the directions Frank Harriman had given him and forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand. Frank Harriman and his wife-Irene Kelly-were among Ben’s closest friends. Frank had called a few minutes ago to ask Ben if he would bring his search dogs to a neighborhood about seven miles from Ben’s home.
“We’ve got a homicide, a male in his late thirties,” Frank had said. “Turns out he was a widower, raising a kid on his own. We’re just starting to work here, but we can’t locate the boy. There are some indications that he might have been taken from the home, maybe even injured. We want to find him as soon as possible, of course, and I thought you might be able to help out.”
“You said his name is Alex?” Ben asked, studying the boy’s photograph.
“No,” Frank said. “Lexington. Neighbors call him Lex or Lexie. Think you’ll be able to help us out here?”
“Hope so,” Ben said absently, not looking up from the photo. A skinny kid with straight blonde hair, a crooked smile, and dark circles beneath his blue eyes looked back at him. “You have anything more recent? In this photo, he looks as if he’s younger than eight-five or so, maybe.”
Frank shrugged. “Neighbors say he looks like that one, that he’s small for his age. You know how it is with searches for kids-they change quickly, but the parents don’t take as many photos once the kids are school age. And it doesn’t look as if Toller was exactly staying on top of things here, does it?”
Ben looked toward the body of Victor Toller, which lay face down on the living room carpet, in a north-south position, so that his head was not far from the front door. Toller was a little over six feet tall, big-boned, with thick arms and broad shoulders. And a skull that had taken several crushing blows during a struggle that had left its mark on the living room.
Ben noticed a shotgun propped near the front door. “I take it the gun hasn’t been fired?”
“No, not recently. It’s loaded, though. Neighbors say that was always there.”
“Christ, with a kid that young in the house?”
“He wasn’t anybody’s idea of Mr. Responsible, it seems.”
Ben glanced around the room. He doubted it had been orderly even before Toller met his fate. It reeked of booze and cigarette smoke, mixed with the rancid scent of cold greasy food. Empty bottles could be found on almost every flat surface. A quick glance at their labels showed that Toller’s tastes seemed to have varied from vodka to beer and cheap red wine. Crumpled paper wrappers, plastic foam hamburger boxes, and other scattered “to go” containers made up a monument to meals purchased at drive-up windows. A chair not far from the body had been knocked over. There were blood stains on it.