“Kid’s sick,” Lemoyne said. But not as if he was concerned about it. Flat voice, no feeling in it at all. “She puked out there in the woods.”
“I told you, man.”
“Put the water on the step there. Then take her inside, put her to bed.”
“She needs a doctor.”
“No doctor. The hell with that.”
“You want her to get worse, maybe catch pneumonia?”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t care? Your own daughter?”
“She’s not Angie,” he said in that same flat voice.
“What?”
“She’s not my little girl. I don’t know who she is.”
Tamara set the bottles down, scooped Lauren into her arms. Inside the trailer, as Lemoyne locked the door again, she took a closer look at the girl. No visible marks on her, no sign that her clothes had been messed with.
“What’d you do out there in the woods, honey?”
“Nothing. He wanted to play a game.”
“What kind of game?”
“Angie’s game. Naming things. Trees and things.”
“He didn’t touch you or anything?”
“Uh-uh. But he didn’t like it when I threw up. He yelled at me. I couldn’t help it, Tamara. I was dizzy, I couldn’t help it.”
“I know you couldn’t.”
“He yelled at me another time too, ‘cause I couldn’t play Angie’s game. I’m not Angie, I don’t how to play her game.”
Tamara carried her into the smaller bedroom, put her down on the bed, and covered her. Cool enough in there now with the window open, air coming in.
“I feel awful,” Lauren said. “Awful hot.”
“Try to sleep, okay? You’ll feel better after you wake up.”
“Can I go home then? I miss Mama and Daddy.”
“I know, baby, I know.”
All afternoon, Lemoyne left them alone. He spent a few minutes in the barn, the rest of the time on his ass under a shade tree on the creek bank, drinking bottled water and smoking and staring off into space. The tree was too close to the trailer, fifty yards or so, for Tamara to mount another attack on the window screen. She couldn’t use the frying pan without making some noise, and in the country quiet noise carried; the one time she tried, it brought him over quick. But all he did was stand out front for a few seconds and yell at her to knock off whatever the hell she was doing. Didn’t seem to be worried, or even to care much.
That was bad. Another bad was him sitting over there like that, brooding. Third and worst was him not wanting anything more to do with Lauren, saying, She’s not Angie, I don’t know who she is, in that flat voice. Long as he’d believed she was his daughter, she’d been safe enough-they both had. But she couldn’t be what she wasn’t, and she’d gotten sick, and now his fantasy was busted and he’d lost interest, didn’t care about her anymore.
A liability, that was all she was now. Same as Tamara Corbin, the Dark Chocolate Dick, had been all along. Two liabilities on his hands, and only one thing he could do about them.
Question was, how long would it take for him to juice himself up to it?
Bigger question than that, girclass="underline" Is there any damn thing you can do to stop him?
20
The 1100 block of Willard Street had more life to it at this hour, just past dusk. Lights in most of the houses, a guy watering his front lawn, a Hispanic couple walking a dog, a kid doing tricks on a skateboard. Number 1122, the house Tamara had been staking out, still appeared deserted-windows all dark, driveway empty. I parked in front, checked again to make sure my cell phone was on and functioning, then went up and thumbed the doorbell anyway. No answer.
When I came back to the sidewalk, the Hispanic couple was standing nearby, watching their pooch take a leak on a curbside tree with all the rapt attention of a pair of scientists studying a laboratory phenomenon. I tried them first, but their English wasn’t good and my Spanish even worse and I had trouble getting across what I was after. The kid on the skateboard didn’t want any part of me or any adult; all I got out of him was a sneer and some slang phrases that were even less comprehensible than the Hispanic couple’s English. The guy watering his lawn was on the same side of the street, a couple of houses removed from 1122. I went on down there to see if he had anything to tell me.
A little, it turned out. There were nightlights along the front walk and two more on a pair of gateposts, so when he came over I got a good look at him. In his upper seventies, lean, energetic, with a full head of wavy hair that didn’t seem to have much gray in it. And the friendly, gregarious type; before I was able to start unloading my questions, I knew that we shared a first name and that his last name was Powers, he was a retired production manager for Sikorsky Aircraft in Connecticut, and that he’d moved out here some years ago to be near his married daughter.
“Oh, sure,” he said when I managed to steer the conversation to Tamara, “I noticed her. Parked across the street the past couple of nights. ‘Ninety-six Toyota Camry, probably red. Cars are a hobby of mine.”
“Saw her as well as the car, is that right?”
“Yep. I like to take walks around the neighborhood after supper. Helps me digest. She was crossing the street when I came out, on the way to her car. Passed under the streetlight up there, so I got a pretty good look at her. Nice-looking young black woman.”
“When was this?”
“Last night, around eight or so.”
“And she was alone at the time?”
“All alone. Nobody else around.”
“How did she seem to you? Nervous, upset, anything like that?”
“Nope,” Powers said. “Just walking across the street to her car.”
“Coming from where?”
“Didn’t see. Someplace on this side.”
“What did you think? I mean, a young black woman, a stranger, sitting in a parked car two nights in a row.”
“Figured she was waiting for somebody. Which is just what she was doing, so you told me.”
“Didn’t make you suspicious?”
“Nope. Why should it?”
“Some people might’ve been.”
“On account of her being black? Not me. I notice things, but I mind my own business unless there’s a good reason to mind somebody else’s. And I don’t judge a person by what color he is or what he looks like. Ethnic diversity’s one of the reasons I like living here-three black families on this block, Hispanic couple, Asian family in the next.”
“Too bad more folks don’t feel that way.”
He showed his teeth again-good teeth to go with the engaging grin. “Won’t get any argument from me on that score.”
“Three black families on this block, you said. Any of them mixed race?”
“Don’t think so, no.”
“Could any of the men be half Caucasian?”
“Well… a couple are light-skinned, but a lot of African-Americans are. Why?”
“Just checking possibilities,” I said. “Did you see the young woman again after eight o’clock?”
Powers shook his head. “But her car was still there when I went to bed.”
“What time was that?”
“Oh, around ten-thirty. Can’t stay up as late as I used to.”
“And she was in it at that time?”
“Can’t swear that she was, no. Pretty dark at night where she was parked.”
“Which was where?”
“Under that bay tree over there, just up the block.”
“The car was gone this morning?”
“Yep. No sign of it then or since.”
Ten-thirty was late for Tamara to be maintaining a surveillance. As much of a Type A as she was, she’d have had trouble sitting still that long. Still, if there’d been some reason for her to continue the stakeout, she’d have done it. One thing she’d never been was a quitter.
I said, “The house she was watching is number eleven twenty-two. The white frame with hedges and Cyclone fence. Supposed to have been vacant the past three months.”