No One Left, page 7
Sunlight leaked into her kitchen—a corner of the third-floor apartment—and just as she was standing to pull the curtain closed, to give her aching head some peace, there was a knock at her door.
She stood still and waited. It was probably one of her neighbors. Edgar or Pearl. She didn’t have the stomach for either of them this morning. Complainers. Thieves. Addicts. Pathetic people all around her.
She quieted her breath. More knocks. Then a voice.
“Mrs. Morris? Are you home?”
She didn’t recognize this voice. A man, but not any of the neighbors she knew. Not the building’s superintendent. None of them would call her “Mrs. Morris,” anyway. She crept to the front door. Pressed her ear against it. She could hear two voices. One a man and one a woman. Who the hell were they? She flung the door open.
The woman was pretty. Much younger than Tammy. Probably around one of her children’s age. Sandra’s maybe. Tall and thin. The man, quite handsome in a rugged way. She liked the scar across his face. Too bad he was wearing a pig’s uniform.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice lower and raspier than she’d expected. She tried to clear it.
“Hi, Mrs. Morris. My name is Wayne Tully. And this is Kay Benally. We were hoping we could have just a few minutes of your time.”
Tammy chewed on the inside of her cheek and stared at the woman, who stared boldly back. She didn’t even know this bitch. Who did she think she was?
“For what?” Tammy asked. She felt it coming. The blinding anger.
“George? Your son? He’s missing. We were wondering if you’ve seen or heard from him.”
George. One of those ones in the middle. Not born early enough for her to have raw, crisp, brand-new memories from back when her brain still produced happy chemicals all on its own. And not born late enough that she’d been almost done with this kid stuff. She’d had more than enough of it by kid eight, nine, ten. Maybe the next one will kill me, she’d sometimes thought wistfully. Maybe this will be it.
But George was just another one. Another mouth to feed. Bottom to smack. Another one to get under her feet. Until he started going to that damn church and trying to tell her what to do and how to live her life. Trying to save her soul. Acting like he knew better than she did. Little brat.
“Good riddance, then,” she said.
The woman eyed Tammy more carefully now.
“What are you looking at?” Tammy spat.
She watched the woman swallow her words. Could see how hard that was for her, and it made Tammy laugh. A throaty laugh that always ended with a cough.
“Say it,” Tammy said, once she had gained control over herself. “Say what you want to say.”
The cop jumped in. “We need to find George. He has his little boy with him. He’s wanted for murder.”
Tammy squinted. “Murder?” she asked. “George?” She grinned. “He doesn’t have it in him. That little pussy. Cowardly little shit.”
“So you haven’t seen them?” the woman asked.
“Last time I saw George was a long time ago. He called me the devil, and I told him to get the hell out of here. Didn’t even know he had a son.”
“Let’s go, Wayne,” the woman muttered, as she turned slightly to leave. But the cop stayed where he was.
It was times like these that Tammy actually missed Samuel. If Samuel had been there, he would have told these people that George was a grown-ass man. He could take care of himself by now. Why the hell would they care where he was?
The man—the pig—was glancing over Tammy’s shoulder now, into her apartment. He couldn’t mind his own fuckin’ business, this guy. Typical.
“You see something in there?” she asked him. “You want to come in and pick through my things?”
His face reddened, and it pleased her. But then she looked back and saw what he would see. Stacks of bills. Ashtrays everywhere. Yellowing walls. Mouse shit. Why were these people still here? She told them she hadn’t seen George since she kicked him out.
“Get the fuck out,” she said, quietly.
“Told you,” the woman said to the cop.
“Told him what? That you’d find a crazy lady here? Wahoo! You were right! I’m a real cunt! But I didn’t show up at your doorstep judging your shit. Who do you think you are?”
Tammy felt hot fire down her arms, in her head, through her chest. She knew this was when things got bad.
“Okay, Mrs. Morris,” he said. “We’re leaving. Thank you for your time.”
“You’re not fuckin’ welcome!” she shouted. “Get the fuck out!” She watched them scurry off down the hall. She laughed again, her throaty laugh. Then she slammed the door behind her and raced to the window. She opened it and waited until she saw them below. They were walking through the parking lot, looking over their shoulders as they left. Tammy laughed at them there, too.
“And don’t fuckin’ come back!” she yelled. “I’ll kill you both for trespassing!”
She watched them get into a car. Tammy sat at that window and laughed at them until tears soaked her face.
19
WAYNE
Wayne and Kay sat silently in the parking lot of Tammy’s apartment complex. It wasn’t because he had nothing to say. He had plenty. Too much. He was sorting his thoughts. Organizing them. Deciding what he ought to tell Kay and what he ought to keep to himself. He watched a tiny lizard hop onto the light pole next to where they had parked.
Finally, Kay spoke. “Do you think he did it? Do you think he killed those people? If that’s his mother, then . . .” She didn’t have to finish the thought.
Wayne didn’t respond at first. Neither he nor James had told Kay about Sunny the Gila monster and how it had been logged into evidence with the state police. All Kay knew was that the case was “off.” That James had been hired because something wasn’t “right.” They didn’t want her to know that the stuffed lizard was no longer in Adriel’s possession. That he was no longer under its protection—something Kay probably didn’t truly believe, anyway. And yet, the reality of it would likely be too much for her to handle.
“We know there are holes in the case. Things that don’t add up. Inconsistencies that both Sanchez and Isaiah Winters have reported,” Wayne finally said.
Kay nodded. “Why did he take Adriel? Why couldn’t he have left him with us?”
Wayne didn’t respond to that at first, either.
“It’s because he believes exactly what the pastor told him. That we’re all evil,” Kay said, answering her own question. Her voice was strained and quiet, and for the first time since they had gotten back in the car, Wayne looked at her face. There were tears.
What Wayne didn’t say was that it was awfully generous for Kay to assume that George’s intentions were good. If he had done what Kay was accusing him of, it meant he loved Adriel. It meant that wherever they had gone, maybe he could take good care of Adriel. Maybe he would. It was a thought that reassured Wayne. The same thought was causing tears in Kay, though, and he could understand that, too. Kay had no children. It was her responsibility to pass on what her father had taught her. And now, maybe, George was refusing to let her do that. Because George thought it was all evil.
“I’m not sure I even blame him after seeing that woman,” Kay said. Wayne sighed.
Tammy Morris was clearly a troubled woman and most likely not fit to be a mother, but Wayne had seen worse. Tammy wasn’t unique. Neither was George.
Wayne didn’t know if Kay was still crying, because she had turned away from him. A moment later, she huffed a little and pointed to the corner of the lot, where a group of people huddled together, passing something around. “A needle,” Kay said. “Real nice.”
But Wayne wasn’t looking at the needle. He was looking at something else. He didn’t even shut off the cruiser as he got out and walked past the group. Didn’t notice as they all pulled down their sleeves and shoved their belongings under their legs.
He heard Kay slam her door and scamper up behind him.
In the back of the lot, past the pavement, a truck was parked. A truck with no license plate. A truck that had been spray-painted. A half-assed cover-up.
“Shit,” Kay hissed. “It’s George’s.”
20
JAMES
Flowers had grown past the windows of the Winters’ historic Victorian home. Flowers James had never seen in New Mexico. Molly cupped one in her hand and sniffed it.
The inside of the house was cold and musty. Molly looked creeped out—shoulders raised, arms crossed. Her Polaroid was slung around her neck, notebook clutched in her hand. The kitchen was still blood-stained. James needed to put her to work before she started to shut down. Crime scenes could be tricky places, even though this one was long abandoned.
“Medicine cabinets,” he said.
“What?” Molly asked.
“Go find all the bathrooms and take photos of what’s in the medicine cabinets. Underneath the sinks. In towel closets. They’re intimate places. They can tell us more than you would think.”
Molly nodded, heading off through the house like it was a minefield.
James started in the kitchen. Emptied out drawers. Took bills and grocery lists and notes left next to the phone and bagged them.
Next was the home study. It looked barely used. Serious, leather-bound law books lined the walls, but James found little in the drawers and cabinets other than notepads and letterhead and a bottle of whiskey with dusty glasses. Probably more of a social room than a workroom. It sounded like the judge had spent his work hours at the office.
He went down to the finished basement. Laundry, a guest room, an exercise room with a treadmill. Very tidy. He heard Molly sifting around upstairs and guessed she was at the half bath on the main level. He wasn’t finished with his search yet but went up to meet her anyway.
“Anything good?” he asked, standing in the doorframe, arms crossed.
“I have no idea,” Molly said, crouching in front of the sink cabinets. “Some prescription medication upstairs. But it didn’t seem like too much. A normal amount, maybe, for people their age.”
“Anything else?”
“Regular stuff. First aid. Aspirin.”
She stood now, shook out each leg.
“So.” James leaned against the frame. “Maybe you can help with this woman question I’ve got.”
Molly put her hands on her hips. Cocked her head to the side. A little Dorothy. It made James smile. When he thought about it, he did miss Dorothy. Their good times, at least.
“We’re kinda just like you guys, you know. Human beings?” Molly said.
“Sure. But women have foresight, for example. Which one could argue would make them better criminals.”
Molly kept her hands on her hips, but her scowl softened. Her eyes widened a little. “You think Mrs. Winters was a criminal?”
James shrugged. “Isaiah said she had secrets.”
“You’re right. He did,” Molly said. “So, what do you need my expert opinion on?”
“If you were Cathy Winters, where would you hide things from your husband?”
“Makeup kit?” Molly asked. “A box of tampons? Nothing there, though.”
“Bigger things,” James clarified.
Molly nodded and chewed her lip. “I don’t know. A closet he didn’t really use? Or the attic?”
“Let’s check the attic, then,” James said.
They went upstairs and then went from room to room, studying the ceiling for a hatch. Finally, in the big bedroom’s closet, they found it.
The attic was smaller than James had expected but still big enough that they both could stand upright. James powered up his flashlight. Boxes of clothing were pushed against the walls. Isaiah’s old school things. Report cards. Awards. A photo of him grinning with a baseball bat over his shoulder, ready to swing. A chest of old quilts. Family photo albums—a few of which James took.
An hour of searching and nothing obviously suspicious. He and Molly sat cross-legged on the floor, old coats strewn across their laps. Molly held up an old photo of a couple with a baby.
“Maybe she was squeaky clean,” she said. “Maybe they were just a sweet couple. Good people. In love still after all these years. Maybe Isaiah is wrong.”
There was a wistfulness to her voice. James sighed. He would visit the judge’s office later with Isaiah. But the wife didn’t have an office. If she had skeletons, they would be here. Not in the attic, clearly. But in the house. He guessed he ought to resume his basement search, maybe even pop open the ceiling tiles. It was then that Molly gasped.
“The shed!”
“There’s a shed?” James asked. They had quickly peeked into the backyard before entering the house. He hadn’t seen a shed, but they hadn’t exactly been looking for one, either.
“I don’t know, but we should check. She was a gardener. You saw the flowers.”
“Excellent point,” James said. He stood and brushed off his jeans. Offered Molly a hand. “To the backyard.”
There was no freestanding shed, but one had been built under the deck. It had white doors that opened out.
It was locked, of course, and the front door key didn’t open it, but the doors were weak enough that when James pulled harder, they popped open.
It was nice inside. For a shed. A roof had been built under the deck slats to keep everything dry. Shelves lined the walls, and wood panels were under their feet. It was neat, too. Labeled jars and bags of mulch or seed. A few binders, and when he opened one up, he saw they’d been used to keep track of weather and temperature.
Seemed like they’d struck out. James was about to tell Molly that this had been smart thinking nevertheless, when he noticed a floorboard in the far corner sticking up just a hair. He grabbed a trowel, got down on his knees, and started to pry the board up.
It creaked and resisted at first, but as he slid the trowel along the wall, the board popped right off. The next three were easy to remove, and buried underneath them were shoeboxes.
James pulled each one out of the dirt, and Molly ripped off the tops. James suspected more photos. Maybe even love letters. Maybe the woman was having an affair. But rather, there were memos. Financial statements. Handwritten math problems and vague notes along the edges. Things like, State fund 223 and Federal grant money. It looked like a woman’s handwriting.
“Why would she hide these from her husband?” Molly asked, squinting at the papers.
“I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t,” James said. “Maybe she was hiding them from someone else.”
21
MOLLY
Even though James had been adamant that Molly needed to be back at school by Monday morning, here they still were, in Albuquerque, three and a half hours away from home. They were waiting in the dark before the sun rose halfway down a street that ended in a cul-de-sac.
They sipped their coffees. The car lights were off. Their bags packed. The shoeboxes and photo albums and other randoms items from the Winters’ house loaded into the trunk, along with the court cases Molly had copied. They weren’t staying another night. They were only staying long enough to follow Janice Stone to wherever she went on Monday mornings.
Molly watched a man a few houses down roll his trash can to the curb. He wore a robe and slippers. Farther down the street, a car roared to life in a driveaway, and what Molly guessed was a skunk scurried across the road.
James had said stakeouts normally required binoculars but that he stupidly hadn’t brought any. He hadn’t been expecting a stakeout. She assured him they’d get a pair to leave in the car for next time.
Last night, as they packed their bags after Molly’s shower, James had finally told her about his oddly eventful meeting with Janice Stone. While her hair was still damp on her back, he said, “We’ve got one more thing to do before heading home.”
Molly wanted to stay in Albuquerque longer. She had begged James to let her miss just a few days of school. And then, when he wouldn’t relent, she begged for just one. If they were going to follow Janice, they probably wouldn’t make it back in time for any of Monday’s school day, anyway. They could go to Judge Winter’s office in the afternoon. Make it back home late that night.
She’d had him almost convinced. Watched his certainty waver. But then he shook his head.
“I can’t get into that habit. We’ve got to make this work with school. School is important.” He swore he’d have her back at school by fifth period. Algebra. He told her algebra was important for investigators. Molly groaned. She had lost.
Now, they waited silently. James unwrapped his blueberry muffin, and Molly let herself think about what had happened that morning when they’d left the hotel.
They’d found a piece of paper tucked under their windshield wipers, fluttering in the wind. There was nothing on the cars to either side of theirs.
James read the paper in deep concentration, and then Molly thought she saw some surprise.
“Huh,” he said, folding it up and slipping it in his back pocket.
“What did it say?” she asked, loading up the trunk and wishing she’d gotten to the paper first.
“A warning,” James said. “Someone isn’t too keen on us bein’ here.’”
“Can I read it?”
But James didn’t answer that. He just said, “Where to for coffee?”
Molly was a little annoyed, but she figured she could probably get it out of him once they were back on the reservation. Far away from Albuquerque.
Still, the thought sat in her stomach like a sticky piece of chewed-up bubble gum. Who was threatening them?
The taillights of Janice’s car flashed on. The engine started up, and Molly sat up straighter. “Janice,” she said. James blew on his coffee as he watched, even though it must have been cool enough by now.
He didn’t turn his head when she drove past, and so Molly didn’t, either—though she was very curious to see the woman. James waited until Janice reached the end of the street before he switched on their own headlights and turned the car around.
