I paid for a paper and lifted it under the shop’s neon signs. The front page showed an image of a young girl called Ellie Mansfield and at first glance you would expect the girl to be one of the victims found dead at the scene. But though she was expected to have been amongst those found slaughtered in the station wagon, she wasn’t there. There should have been five corpses, but I recalled the original news releases only mentioned four. Ellie was a friend of the Corbin family, who had gone along as company for thirteen-year-old Tracey Corbin. It had taken this long for the police to identify the family, and for the horrifying news to leak back to Ellie’s parents who’d only this afternoon reported that their daughter had taken the road trip with the Corbins.
Perhaps I was jumping to conclusions, but there was only one thing I could come up with. The robbers had taken the girl.
That meant they could also have taken Jay and Nicole, particularly Nicole, because Ellie Mansfield too was petite with dark eyes and dark bobbed hair.
The earlier fluke of Helena Blackstock and Nicole Challinor being similar-looking may have been just that, but with Ellie added to the mix it went way beyond coincidence.
Someone out there was taking females of a particular physical type. That was bad enough, but it also begged another question. Jay Walker didn’t look like any of them, so what had happened to her? Had she been discarded like a worthless piece of trash?
8
At first light I was on my way, skirting Indian Wells and heading for the trailer park where Scott Blackstock lived. Up this far into Navajo County Scott would be in the minority, because approaching ninety-five per cent of the population were of Native American descent. I was assuming a lot: I hadn’t seen the man, had only talked with him on the phone, but during our short discourse he had come across as poor white trash and an arsehole to boot. Then again, what gave me the right to judge him? He was simply a man whose wife had gone missing, presumed dead, so how should he be expected to greet a stranger stirring things up again?
The trailer park was on a low plateau, static caravans set around a circular compound formed of a shoulder-high breeze-block wall. Within the compound was a collection of squat buildings with tin roofs, which I guessed housed washing machines and dryers and suchlike. The caravans were huge compared to those I was familiar with back home in the UK, some of them silver bullet-shaped affairs, others square and ugly with lean-tos and porches tacked on. There was little in the way of grass or flowers or anything that would offer any beauty, and dust devils whirled across the dirt roads. Cars and trucks with a coating of trail dust were parked outside each trailer.
As I drove in, I looked at the mailboxes on poles jammed in the grit to determine which Scott’s trailer was. There was no one up and about yet, other than a couple of skinny dogs rooting in the spillage from a trash can. They stopped and watched my approach, but soon went back to tussling over a choice morsel. I continued towards the far end of the park and finally found the caravan I was seeking.
Parked outside was a battered pick-up truck, alongside a newer jeep. A small lot at the front had once held a flower garden of sorts, but it appeared that Scott wasn’t into watering and weeding. Maybe the garden had been Helena’s way of making the place look more appealing, and now she was no longer around it had been left to return to its natural state.
I parked the GMC alongside the jeep, but didn’t immediately get out. Scott’s trailer was one of the older square type, with a porch and decking, and an annex had been tacked on at the far left corner making it an L-shaped structure. There were no tyres on the hubs, and it didn’t look like the caravan had moved in many a year, nor would it for many more to come. The windows were covered by Venetian blinds, one of them hanging askew. Through the gap, I could see a face peering back at me. Then it was gone, and I got out the GMC and kept my hands by my sides.
The door of the trailer slammed open and Scott Blackstock stamped on to the porch, his face twisted with rage. I had been correct in my assumption: he was no Native American. He was tall, with blond hair and green eyes, a spray of freckles across the bridge of his crooked nose. He had a shotgun broken over his left elbow and was in the process of feeding cartridges into both barrels.
‘You’re the fuck-shit that called me last night,’ he said, snapping shut the gun and lifting it my way. ‘What do they call you again? Hunter? Well, I’m telling you, get off my goddamn property or I’m gonna be doing myself some hunting. You’ve ten seconds and then I’m gonna give you two loadsa buckshot in the ass.’
I didn’t move, apart from to lift my empty hands higher. ‘Take it easy, Scott. I’m not here for trouble.’
‘Shame,’ he crowed. ‘’Cos if you ain’t outta here in ten seconds like I said, trouble’s coming your way.’ He leaned back towards the trailer door. ‘Boys, you want to come on out here?’
There was a rumble from within the caravan, and two more rednecks joined Scott on the decking. One was taller than Scott, an older man, while the second was short and stocky, bearded and with a prodigious gut poking out from the hem of his off-white shirt. The fat one had a liquor bottle in his hand, half empty; but perhaps that was just the pessimist in me. It looked like Scott had been keeping an all-night vigil, awaiting my arrival, and had called in his buddies just in case I did show up.
This could still end up reasonably, but I didn’t think so. The older guy was holding a baseball bat, whacking it into the leathery mitt of his palm. By the look of him, he was lining my head up for a swing. He didn’t worry me: I moved right up to the edge of the decking so that he couldn’t swing at me without first connecting with the uprights holding together the lean-to porch. The stocky one chugged another mouthful of whiskey. Scott made a big deal of pulling back the hammers on the antiquated shotgun.
‘I think if you let me explain myself, you’ll want to listen to what I have to say.’ I stood looking at him.
Scott glanced once at each of his friends. He’d promised them some fun, I guessed. ‘I’m starting to count now. Ten. Nine. Eight…’
‘Quit the melodramatics, Scott,’ I said. ‘We both know you’re not going to shoot.’
‘You don’t think so?’ Scott raised the stock to his shoulder.
I pulled out the S&W and aimed it at him. ‘No. You’re not.’
Scott licked his lips.
‘Neither are you, dick,’ said the fat guy. He took a cumbersome step down off the deck and stood in front of my gun. His grip had shifted on his bottle so that he now held it by the neck. ‘Now get the hell outta here before I kick your ass all the way back—’
Before he finished his threat I slapped the butt of my gun against his temple. The man dropped as though pole-axed, his knees folding under him so that he went down on his backside. Slowly he toppled sideways and I toed the bottle away, to avoid it ending up jammed in his open mouth.
‘Hey!’ The older guy came at me then. True to form he couldn’t get a good crack at me and had to weave past Scott to gain space. By the time he made room it was too late. I shot a sidekick into his front leg, straightening his knee, and as he jerked against the pain I snatched the bat out of his hand and threw it away. A slap of the gun butt to his head sent him down so he was lying across his fat buddy.
‘Are we all done now?’ I asked Scott.
He had taken a couple of steps back, the gun forgotten in his hands. Just as I thought, the weapon was all bluff. If he’d intended using a gun, he wouldn’t have brought the two so-called hard-asses in on the action.