‘Jesus, man, you knocked them out!’
‘I don’t care for people who make threats to me.’ I allowed my words to hang in the air and Scott finally figured them out.
‘I wasn’t really going to shoot.’ He slowly placed the shotgun down by the door to the trailer. ‘Even if I wanted. It doesn’t fire, and hasn’t done for years.’
Maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice that the barrels were plugged when he pointed them at my face. Things like that don’t go unnoticed by someone who’s been on both ends of guns for the past twenty years or so. I shoved my S&W away. ‘Come here, Scott.’
‘What are you planning to do?’
‘Don’t you think we’d best get your friends inside if we’re going to talk? It wouldn’t do to leave them lying here, not with those starving dogs around.’
Scott actually looked to where the mangy hounds were rooting through the garbage, as though they were a threat to the unconscious men. Then he came and helped me haul the older guy into the trailer. It was surprisingly spacious inside, and nothing like the caravans I’d holidayed in as a lad in North Wales. We laid him out on a bunk, made sure he was breathing, then went to wrestle the fat one inside as well. It wasn’t an easy task.
I was sweating by the time I sat down next to a counter in the kitchen area. ‘Could have saved us all a load of bother if you’d agreed to talk in the first place.’
Scott sat next to me, but his eyes were on the two sleeping beauties. ‘The boys ain’t gonna be happy when they wake up.’
‘The boys should thank me for not shooting them in the face,’ I said. ‘Good job I’m one of the good guys, eh?’
Scott glanced once more at his friends, then turned and rested his forearms on the counter. He clasped his hands. ‘What exactly was it you wanted to know?’
‘The circumstances behind Helena’s disappearance,’ I said.
‘You’re a detective, surely you’ve read all about it?’
I didn’t mention that I’d only learned about Helena last night, or that at the time I’d called him I’d been clutching at straws. ‘There’s a difference between what’s reported in the papers and what really happened.’
‘You think I had something to do with her going missing?’
‘No, Scott. If that was the case we wouldn’t be having this friendly chat.’
His gaze flicked back to his friends and I noticed his fingers entwine to stop them shaking. Good. I’d finally gained his full cooperation. I dropped the tough guy act, pulling from my pocket the various pieces I’d put together. I placed the photos of Jay and Nicole down, then the poster with Helena on it. Finally, I unfolded the clipping I’d taken from the newspaper last night and laid out Ellie Mansfield’s image beside the rest.
‘You notice anything about those pictures?’
Unfolding his hands, Scott touched the one of his wife, then his fingers did a slow dance over both Nicole and Ellie’s faces. ‘They look like they could be sisters,’ he admitted.
‘Not sisters,’ I corrected, ‘but the same woman at different ages.’
To prove my point, I lined them up: Ellie, Nicole and then Helena.
He pursed his lips, studied them again. ‘Yeah,’ he breathed quietly.
Then his gaze went to Jay Walker. He said, ‘I can see what conclusion you’re drawing from the disappearance of the others, but what about her?’
The term collateral damage went through my mind, but instead I said, ‘Wrong place, wrong time. I think she was taken because she just happened to be with Nicole.’
‘Who is the kid?’
‘Did you hear about the robbery-homicide a few days ago?’
‘The one at Peachy’s gas station? Yeah, but I thought everyone there died.’
‘So did everyone else. But then Ellie’s family came forward and said Ellie was accompanying the Corbin family. It looks like the girl was snatched by whoever murdered them.’
‘Jeez…’ Scott’s hands folded again, and there were tears in his eyes. I figured that with Nicole and now Ellie going missing it meant that Helena could have been used and discarded by her abductor, and I believed that Scott had came to the same conclusion.
I felt bad for forcing the idea on him, but the more I thought about it, the more weight it held.
‘Are you taking this idea to the cops?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘Not yet. It’s only a theory and I could be way off-track. The truth is I don’t know if any of it’s connected. That’s why I need to hear about how Helena disappeared.’
Scott surprised me by clicking his fingers. ‘Like that,’ he said. ‘One minute she was there, next she was gone.’
Our conversation, or perhaps the intrusion of the loud click, caused the stocky guy to stir. He groaned and placed a hand on his head, his blunt fingers measuring the egg on the side of his skull. He swore, but that was to be expected.
‘Gimme a minute, huh?’ Scott got up and went to his friend. ‘OK, Burt, take it easy. I had this guy all wrong.’
‘Son of a bitch got me with a sneaky punch…’ said Burt, struggling up to a seated position. ‘I see him again I’ll show him I’m not one to be fucked with.’
Then he noticed me sitting there and shut up. He looked at Scott, his eyes wide, then rolled his head to take in their other buddy who was still out for the count.
‘Rob’s fine. He’ll be OK when he’s slept it off,’ Scott said.
‘What the hell happened?’
‘Like I said, I had this guy all wrong. He’s not another parasite who’s after money.’
At Scott’s words I took a look around the trailer. Judging by the poor state of repair, the cheap TV and accoutrements, there wasn’t much in the way of cash in the Blackstock household. To think that some private dicks had tried to play on his grief and worm cash out of him made me feel a little sick.
Scott passed a mug of cold coffee to his pal. ‘When you’re done with that, check on Rob, OK? Me and Hunter are still talking business and don’t want him going off on one when he wakes up.’
When Scott returned to the counter and sat down, I prompted him. ‘You said that Helena just disappeared?’
‘Yeah, she was walking into Indian Wells to fetch some groceries. She never made it there. When she didn’t get back, I drove in and had a look around but no one had seen her.’
‘You drove in, but Helena walked?’
‘She couldn’t drive and I was sleeping off a hangover. The boys had been over and we’d been playing poker. You know how it is, man.’
‘Had you argued?’
‘First thing the cops asked. No. We didn’t argue. We were good together. Son of a bitch! You know what the cops suggested… that I was no good and Helena had finally seen the light and had upped and left me while she had the chance.’
‘They don’t seem to take missing persons reports very seriously,’ I said.
‘Same with your girls, is it? The cops just brushed it off?’
‘At first, but I spoke with a cop last night. Officer Lewin. He seemed OK.’
Burt, listening from his end of the trailer, chose then to intrude. ‘Lewin? He’s an asshole like all the other cops. He ran me in on a driving under the influence charge.’
‘Were you drunk?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, but…’
I didn’t say anything more and he finally got the message.
He lifted both palms. ‘Ignore me. I’m not here, OK?’
Just about then the other man, Rob, began to come round, and Burt helped coax him back to lucidity with a whispered warning not to try my patience again. Rob seemed content to sit cradling his head in his palms.
‘So… there was no reason you can think of for Helena to leave you? You were good together. No other guy? No other girl with you?’
Scott shook his head sadly. ‘People take a look at us, see poor white trash, and think we go round humping anything that moves. It wasn’t like that with me and Helena. We loved each other. I still love her.’