Satan’s Lambs
A Lena Padget Mystery
This book is dedicated
to my sister, Rebecca.
Acknowledgments
I am always grateful and surprised by the generosity of people who will share their time and expertise with writers.
My thanks to the multitalented Matt Bialer, a gifted photographer, as well as the world’s best agent and my particular friend.
And to my friend and editor, Peter Rubie, whose insight and flashes of brilliance helped make this a stronger book. I’m glad we didn’t kill each other.
To my good friends Jim and Becky Lyon, who answered my endless questions on criminal law, the legal system, and various matters of plot—usually while cooking me dinner and entertaining me with bagpipes. And most especially to Jim, who prepares me for the real world by disagreeing with everything I say.
Also to attorneys Jeff Darling and Sharon Hilborn of the legal firm Lyon Golibersuch & Darling, and to Lexington attorney C. Wayne Shepherd.
My thanks to Ron Balcom, of Balcom Investigative Services, for generously inviting me to his office and letting me bombard him with questions.
To Captain Dick Owen for advice and answered questions, and to Officer T. Jay Wilson, for letting me ride along, answering my questions, and sharing insights, even though I fell asleep during a suspected B&E.
1
We’re poor little lambs
Who’ve lost our way.…
We’re little black sheep
Who’ve gone astray.
—“Gentlemen Rankers,” Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads,
Rudyard Kipling
Lambs could not forgive … nor
worms forget.
—Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens
Lena knew the doorbell was going to ring. Mendez would come. He would tell her in person. She said “Thanks” softly to the woman on the other end of the phone, then hung up and waited.
She sat sideways, legs hanging over the arm of the chair, eating potato chips. Reddish brown crumbs had settled in the fur of the cat who slept in her lap when the doorbell rang.
Lena switched on the porch light and looked through the peephole.
The man on the steps wore a dark suit and tie, his shirt white and spotless despite the lateness of the hour. His hands were clasped in front of him in a steady formality that Lena secretly found endearing. He wore the ring—black stone, gold filigree markings. She had focused on that ring many times when she could not bear to see what was at hand—her sister, sprawled in the driveway, blood pooling across her belly.
The man was dark complected, his eyes brown and gentle. There was a scar on his left temple that disappeared under thick black hair. His face was drawn and tired.
“Sergeant Mendez—Joel, come in.”
He touched his mustache, smiled at the use of his first name. Sometimes she thought he liked her.
She was a striking woman, hair dark, coarse, and curly. Her eyes were brown and intense, almost feverish, the lines at the edges small and barely noticeable. She was pale enough that old ladies pinched her cheeks and told her to get a little sun.
Mendez scanned the living room—a roving, questing scrutiny. He had not been in the house for seven years, had not seen it without the ropes of yellow tape warning that the enclosed area was a crime scene.
Lena followed his gaze to the floor. The beige carpet, sporting a trail of bloody footprints, had been pulled up and lodged in a police warehouse. There was a new rug now, slate blue, pleasantly framed by the dark wood floors.
She spent a lot of time in this room now, and she kept it nice. If the rest of the house amounted to closed-off doors and rooms full of dust and memories, if outside the grass was weed choked and high, if chains flapped in the wind where a porch swing had once hung … at least there was one room that was pleasant.
Mendez walked past the rocking chair and settled on the edge of the couch.
“Get you something to drink?” She said it because it was the thing to say, and because it would irritate him. Polite chitchat was something he endured.
“No. Thanks.” Mendez picked up Lena’s book and read the back cover.
Lena passed him the bag of chips, knowing full well he didn’t like them. Her movements were slow and languid, and she gave the impression of one who does not lift a finger unless absolutely necessary. Mendez took a potato chip and crunched it solemnly, then wiped his hands on his knees.
“He got it, Lena.”
“I figured that much when I saw you at the door.” Her voice was husky at the best of times. Right now she sounded hoarse. “Good news and you’d have called.”
“I’m sorry.”
“How’d you find out so fast?”
“Called in a favor.”
“A shame it didn’t extend to keeping him in jail.”
Mendez was silent, and Lena sat down in the chair.
“Six years don’t seem like much.” She stared at the ceiling. “The baby would be in kindergarten now. And Kevin—he’d be eight. Third grade.”
A white paw slid out from under the couch and patted softly at the side of Mendez’s black leather shoe.
“I take it my statement didn’t make any difference,” Lena said.
“He had no priors, Lena. He has character references. He had the head sales manager of Finard’s Chevrolet promise him a job as a salesman. He wears a suit and tie like he was born in them. He professes to have a renewed faith in God, and his prison record is exemplary.”
“Six years. He gets two twenty-year sentences, and serves six years.” She shut her eyes tight, then opened them. “That judge was an ass. That judge should have given him the death penalty.”
“You can’t get the death penalty for first-degree manslaughter.”
“Manslaughter. It wasn’t manslaughter. It was womanslaughter. Childslaughter. It was murder, premeditated. He came with a gun. That Prozac business was bullshit. The Prozac made me do it, the devil made me do it—”
“Diminished capacity, Lena. The precedent is solid. The DA did what he could.”
“Saved the state some money with a guilty plea.”
Mendez leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Don’t do this, Lena.”
“Okay, you don’t like that subject, how about this? Jeff’s not the only one getting out. Archie Valetta is due out of Eddyville sometime in the next couple of months.”
Mendez opened his eyes. “Valetta? How did you find this out?”
“Mice behind the walls, Mendez.”
“One of your many informants?”
“They’re not informants, Mendez. Not in the sense you mean. We’re talking about a woman who’s raising her grandchildren and working twelve-hour days doing scrub work at the prison, so let’s not class her with the junkies you talk to, okay?”
Mendez sat forward. “Good to see you taking this so well.”
Lena rarely smiled, but when she did it made her seem hugely vulnerable. “Quit. Don’t make me laugh when I don’t want to.”
“Don’t you ever want to?”
She would not meet his eyes.
“Lena, I don’t think you need to worry about Valetta. He was in Eddyville before Jeff killed your sister. He was never part of that.”
“He was Jeff’s partner.”
The white paw shot sideways and batted the cuff of Mendez’s pants.
“They’re convicted felons, both on parole. Any association, and the parole will be revoked.”
“So you say.”
Mendez dropped a potato chip in front of the couch. The white paw shot out, cupped the chip, and dragged it out of sight.
Mendez frowned. “Hayes is another matter. He made a lot of threats. He was white hot about the insurance settlement.” Mendez met her eyes steadily. “I want to know if he calls, comes around, anything.”
“Worrying won’t keep Jeff from killing me, Joel. He told Whitney he’d kill her; he did it. He’ll come after me if he wants to.”
“Take steps.”
“You think a restraining order will stop the bullets?”
“It’s foolish not to accept help.”
“What’s foolish is depending on it.”
He glanced at her left hand. “Are you living alone?”
“I’m not married anymore. Rick didn’t want to come live here. He thought it would be bad for me.”
“He was right.”
“Funny, I don’t remember asking him or you for an opinion.”
“You shouldn’t stay here wallowing in memories.”
“God, Mendez, you make me sound like some kind of mournful Pig.”
“What’s your interest in Valetta?” Mendez waited. She was capable of great stillness.
Lena swung her legs over the side of the chair. “They made me look stupid, didn’t they? They dug into all that old stuff.”
“Who?”
“The parole board. They got into the case files and made me look dumb.”
“The subject matter makes anybody look bad, until the consequences become overwhelming. I told you that when you and your sister were in my office, that first day.”
Lena closed her eyes, and she was back in Mendez’s office, smelling stale cigarettes and scorched coffee. She could see the sun slanting in through white venetian blinds, making precise horizontal rows of light on the tile floor. Mendez had met her eyes steadily, hands flat on his desk. It was the image she remembered most, except for the bad ones.
“I told Whitney not to go in telling all that Satan stuff. She wouldn’t listen, she said somebody better know what’s going on. And it was all true. She never said he had power, or he sicced the devil on her. She just said he—”
“I know, Lena.”
She nodded. She had always wondered what would have happened if Mendez hadn’t been there—the only cop with any experience of occult crime, the only cop who had heard the ring of truth in Whitney’s complaints.
My husband is a Satan worshiper, officer, and he supplies drugs and dirty pictures to other Satan worshipers, and I think he maybe had something to do with a child that was missing. And he hits me, and my son, and claims the boy isn’t even his, which I assure you is patently untrue. I’m divorcing him, but he’s sending me seashells, and that means he’s going to kill me.
Maybe, the cop had said, he just wants to take you to the beach.
You don’t understand.
Lady, we can’t put a guy in jail for sending you a seashell.
And then Mendez was there, standing silently by the officer’s elbow, casting a shadow across the desk. Let me talk to them, he’d said. And Whitney had been so grateful. Grateful, though the restraining order didn’t keep Jeff from breaking in during the middle of the night. Didn’t keep him from nearly running her down with his new Chevrolet, dealer tags on the back. Didn’t keep the new puppy from winding up dead on the doorstep.
Lena looked at Joel.
“You told me you were involved in a lot of this stuff down in Miami. Occult crime. Some of the guys called you the ghostbuster.”
Mendez nodded.
Lena reached into the drawer of the side table. It was crammed full of small tools, pencils, pads of paper, sales flyers. She took out a white cardboard box. Inside, on a square of cotton, was a gray seashell, white on the belly. The shell was rough, unpolished, crumbs of sand spilling out.
“I got this in the mail. Remember? Jeff used to send these to Whitney. It always upset her when she got them.”
Mendez looked at the shell. He put the box in his jacket pocket and leaned forward, pressing his hands on Lena’s knees. “Jeffrey Hayes has no special power. No magic, no forces of evil, other than what comes from within. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m talking about in the middle of the night, when you hear a funny noise. When you hear that noise, do you believe that Hayes has the powers of Satan?”
“Hell, no.”
Mendez pulled back and smiled at her. “Good.”
“Joel, why did you leave Miami?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Such as?”
“What’s your interest in Archie Valetta? Are you representing a client?”
“You never heard of client confidentiality?”
“You’re a private investigator, not a priest.”
They stared at each other.
“I’ll let myself out.” Mendez tapped her shoulder. “Be sure to lock up behind me.”
“Leaving already? I haven’t finished giving you a hard time.”
He gave her one of his sad smiles, but she wasn’t buying. No sympathy.
“Joel?”
“Yes, Lena?”
“Don’t go buying any cars down at Finard’s.”
Mendez looked at her. “Cops can’t afford new cars.”
2
Eloise Valetta nudged the worn down nap of the carpet with the toe of her terry-cloth house shoe. The warm, sweet smell of baking was strong.
“I ’predate you coming over—I got a cake going. I take orders, you know, weddings and all.”
She was growing out a perm, and thick black hair fell in limp wiggles to her shoulders. She wore navy blue polyester pants, snagged and frayed across her wide, loose backside. Her nose was big and crooked. Lena wondered how many times it had been broken. There were wide white scars on the inside of her right arm and across both wrists. Large red weals spotted her arms, neck, and face.
“I heard, at the shelter I think, how you quit school and some job you had, and started taking these cases, you know, where women need help. Some of the girls down there call you the equalizer. Like the TV show.”
Lena smiled. Ph.D. candidate to woman’s equalizer. It would make for an interesting résumé.
Eloise chewed her lip. “I wasn’t sure if you’d help me. Because of how I used to be married to Archie, and him working with Hayes. But then I figured, you more than anybody would know how serious it is to cross these boys.”
“I know.”
“And I didn’t figure you had any love lost on Archie. You might not mind getting back at him some.”
“Might not.”
“At least Hayes is locked up.”
“Not anymore. He just got parole.”
“But how can that be? He got forty years!”
“He got two twenty-year terms, to run concurrently.”
“Concurrently?”
“That’s both at the same time. He’s served twenty percent of his sentence. He’s out.”
“After what he did to your sister and her little boy, that was so awful. And her being pregnant.” Eloise shook her head. “I remember reading about it. He ought to have got the death penalty.”
“Wasn’t possible,” Lena said. “He had a solid out on diminished capacity. He was taking Prozac—that’s an antidepressant. Prescription drug with known side effects.”
“Like making a man kill his wife and little boy?”
Lena shrugged. “Says so in the warning on the side of the bottle.”
“Oh, now. Are you kidding me?”
“Some.”
“Maybe what I need is some Prozac. Seems like you can get away with anything in Kentucky except killing a white man or stealing his money.”
“That’s two of the big three.”
“What’s the other one?”
“Marijuana. Grow it or smoke it and they throw away the key.”
Eloise grinned.
Lena felt an ache in the small of her back. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
“Gosh, no. I got to check my cake and see if Charlie’s okay. I’ll be right back.”
The couch was dark green vinyl. Three Matchbox cars—a tiny dump truck, a police cycle, and a Thunderbird—were on the far right cushion. A TV Guide was open beside them. The television was going in the apartment next door.
“Now, Aint Bea,” a male voice said in an irritated tone. A woman’s voice rose and fell, followed by a ripple of laughter.
Lena heard the oven door open and close, and she went to the edge of the kitchen. A portable black radio was turned low, a male voice sputtering in barely audible tones. It was small room, warm and humid, the table and counters covered with bowls, spoons, cake pans. Batter dripped from a mixing bowl onto the edge of the sink. Two pans of sheet cake had been set on the table to cool, cushioned by worn plaid dishrags.
A small boy sat up on his knees at the table.
“Charlie, you watch them pans.”
The boy nodded and stared at Lena. Eloise turned around.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you in there so long. Just let me—”
“Go on and finish,” Lena said. “I’ll sit down and talk to you while you work. I’d like to see somebody make a cake that isn’t lopsided.”
“You want some coffee?”
“Wait till you get a free hand.”
“That’s my boy there, that’s Charlie. Charlie, say hi.”
Charlie ducked his head.
“Charlie, say hi.”
“Hi.”
He was tearing strips off magazines and gluing them to a sheet of newspaper. Lena watched for a while and saw the hint of a pattern. Charlie looked up at her.
“Looks good,” Lena said.
Charlie smiled briefly. He wore a Batman T-shirt and a thick diaper. He looked too old for the diaper, and too young for the precision of his work.
“How old are you?”
Charlie held up four fingers.
“Almost five,” Eloise said, not turning around.
“Do you want to talk in front of Charlie?” Lena asked.
“He always stays with me in the kitchen when I bake. It’s sort of our routine—since he was a baby. It’ll be okay.”
Charlie sucked his bottom lip and tried to reposition a strip of paper. He peeled it back up, but a layer stuck to the glue. He scraped at it with his fingernail.
“On the phone you said Archie was going to—”
“K-I-L-L me. I meant it, too.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“You know why he went to prison?”
Lena nodded. The year before Jeff had killed Whitney, Archie had robbed a savings and loan. He’d gotten away with three hundred thousand, give or take some change.
“He gave the m-o-n-e-y to me to h-i-d-e.”
“But I thought—isn’t that how he got plea-bargained down? He turned in his share, pleaded guilty, and testified against the guy with him. The security guard was killed, wasn’t she?”
Eloise nodded. “The money Archie turned in was the other guy’s. He had his stashed away with me.”
“How come he had you hide it?” Lena said. That much cash, and the woman hadn’t spent it? Lena looked around. It didn’t look like she’d spent it. Lena cocked her head sideways and looked at Eloise. “Why didn’t he hide it himself?”
“Thought he’d make bail, but he didn’t.”
“Why didn’t the other guy—what was his name, Nesbit?”
“Yeah. George Nesbit. The shooter. He did tell, but nobody believed him. And he couldn’t say where Archie’s money was. So.” Eloise shrugged. “I hid it. Back then, when Archie said do something, I did it.” She turned around and pressed her back to the sink. “I’m not like that anymore. I used to drink, and I was snockered most of the time. But when I got caught with Charlie here …” The boy looked up and she smiled at him. “I don’t know, it was like getting religion or something. I quit drinking—haven’t had anything in almost six years. Maybe seeing what happened to your sister, or having a baby on the way. I don’t know. But I got my GED”—Eloise smiled broadly—“and next fall I’ll be taking classes at the community college.”
“Give Archie his money, then, and get rid of him.”
“That’s the trouble. I went to check on it—I started worrying, you know how you do? And it was gone.”
“Shi—” Lena glanced at Charlie. “Shoot.” She rubbed her eyes. “When was the last time, before now, that you checked it?”
“Not since I put it there. Seven, eight years, I guess.”
“You sure you looked in the right place?”
“God, yes. You think I wasn’t careful, knowing Archie’d be back? It’s in a special place I knew when I was a kid. In the woods. I can go straight to it.”
“Who else knew?”
“Nobody, I swear. That’s what’s driving me nuts.”
“Maybe somebody just found it.”
“Not where I hid it. And Archie is going to be on my doorstep in about two months, wanting it back. I could disappear, run away. But he’d find me. And I got things going okay now, it would be a problem for me to move.”
Charlie squirmed in his seat.
“Honey, you got to pee?”
The boy tore a corner off the cover of a Reader’s Digest.
Eloise sighed. “Four and a half and still won’t potty train. I’m ready to teach him to change himself. The last doctor I took him to said it may be physical, it may be allergies. She wants to run tests. But I got to be on a waiting list for those, and we’re still waiting. None of the kids around here will play with him. They call him diaper boy, the space piddler. Seems to me the last thing he needs is to move. Be all unsettled again.” She scratched her arms. “Hives. I get them every time I think about Archie getting out of jail.”
“I’ll say one thing for you, you do got a problem.”
Eloise leaned back against the stove and folded her arms.
Lena chewed her bottom lip. “I suppose the cops are out of the question?”
“Won’t they be mad about me hiding that money? It’s one of the big three, remember?”
“You might cut a deal. Possible jail term for accessory.”
“That’s no good.” She scratched the tops of her legs, her nails making scritching noises on the polyester. “I better tell you the even worse news. What I make from the cakes just barely keeps us. I do my best in June on the weddings, and I got more orders this year than I know what to do with. Could you wait till then for your money?”
“We’ll work something out.”
Lena frowned. If Eloise Valetta had taken the robbery money, she wouldn’t still be here, worrying about Archie. Unless she’d spent it all?
Eloise was chewing her lip. “I was thinking one way we could do it. Like with Janette Swan. You helped her out, so she makes you chili every week. And you helped that guy’s daughter, you know, the one that delivers Coke. And I bet you always have plenty of Coke. I was thinking that—you know I make these cakes? I could make you one once a week. They’re good, people come down from Louisville to get them. And they have good bakeries there.”
“Do me a favor and don’t bake me a cake every week.”
“You don’t like cake? I bet you’re allergic to eggs or something.”
“No, I love cake. That’s the problem. Look, when I need a favor you can help me with, I’ll call you.”
“Got to be something.” Eloise scratched the back of her neck, “Your oven self-cleaning?”
“No. It’s an old one.”
“You’re not one of those odd women likes to do housework? You hate to clean your oven, don’t you?”
“Usually I don’t bother.”
“Goodness, you shouldn’t let it go, you’ll get mice up under the burners. How about I clean your oven every six months? You help me get out of this trouble, and I’ll do it two times a year for the rest of your life.”
“That’s a long time to be grateful. How about just for the next two years?”
“Three years.”
“You haven’t seen my oven.”
“Three years.” Eloise shook her head. “Lord only knows how you make ends meet. And that’s just in return for waiting till June when I’ll pay you cash money. No, now look. I’m going to need your full attention here. Archie is pretty darn scary, and I got a baby to protect.”
Lena smiled at Charlie and thought, just for a moment, of her nephew. “We got a baby to protect.”
Eloise put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, and nodded.
3
That night Lena had the dream again.
It started with her parking the Cutlass by the curb out front. It was Friday and Rick was out of town. She and Whitney were going to eat chocolate cheesecake and talk.
The front of the house was dark, except for the glow of a nightlight in Kevin’s window. Whitney had said she’d be out on the swing, so come around to the back.
It was full dark. A lightning bug glowed, then faded. A grasshopper leapt from a forsythia bush and landed on Lena’s shoulder. She brushed it off and went to the back of the house. Warm wind rippled the blades of grass, and made the wind chimes sing.
“It’s me, Whitney.”
The chains on the porch swing creaked. Lena wondered why the back porch light wasn’t on—there was only a sliver of moon. She went up the porch steps slowly, feet thumping the wooden slats.
“Whitney?”
The swing creaked again; the wind had moved it. Whitney wasn’t out on the deck.
The sliding screen door stood open. A black moth flew in the house. Lena went to close the door, then stopped.
A line of thick black dots had soaked into the boards of the porch. Lena followed the drips to the swing—the top slat was stained and splintered. Lena put her finger out, then jerked it back, feeling the silky stickiness of a spider web across her wrist.
She stuck her head in the doorway and flicked on the porch light. The drops of blood led down the porch stairs to the yard, but she didn’t follow them. The back door was standing open. Little Kevin was inside.
A low-watt bulb burned over the sink in the kitchen. The counters were clear; the dishwasher hummed. The room was hot and smelled like baked potatos. A bottle of Flintstones Chewable Vitamins sat on the counter next to a child’s yellow plastic mug.
Lena ran her tongue across her bottom lip. Her mouth was dry.
The hallway was dark, except for the faint glow of the night-light. Lena paused in the doorway of Kevin’s bedroom, listening for his childish exhalation of breath.
The room was quiet.
She went in, squinting in the dim light. He was in his big-boy bed now—she had forgotten, expecting the crib. She could see his hair on the pillow.
She turned on the light.
There was a hole in the blanket over the small chest—a hole too big for this baby. The face was unmarked, sweet, tears still glistening in the thick black lashes. In his fist, he clutched the tail of a battered blue bunny, its whiskers dotted with blood.
There was blood on Lena’s hands, so she must have touched him. Her footsteps were heavy now, slow. She turned lights on all over the house. She went to the kitchen and looked at the phone. A note was taped on the wall. Detective Mendez, it said, by a number. Lena had to dial it twice.
Mendez answered on the second ring; sane, safe, alert. Her own voice was low and sleepy, oddly slurred. She told him about the boy, the blood, the bunny. He told her what to do. She said no, and hung up the phone. She couldn’t stay put until she found Whitney.
Lena went back on the porch and followed the blood trail down the steps.
The light from the kitchen and the back bedroom helped, but it was too dark to see if there was blood in the grass. Lena walked along the back of the house, then around to the side.
Whitney sprawled at the top of the driveway, her ankle touching the left front tire of her car.
The smooth sensitive flesh above the inside of her right elbow flapped open and bloody. A heavy-caliber bullet had torn her belly and killed the child within. Her left eye socket was a congealed mass of blood and tissue. The exiting bullet had ripped the back of her head in half. Blood pooled and ran under the car, soaking into the asphalt drive.
The next part, Lena knew, was the sirens. Tonight, in this dream, the phone rang instead.
Lena opened her eyes and rolled sideways, pushing hair out of her eyes and wiping sweat off her face. The phone rang again.
“Hello?”
“Caught you.” The voice was male and pleasant—no particular accent. A voice you might hear on the radio. “Lena?”
She took a breath.
“Lena?” the man said. “You know who this is?”
“What do you want, Jeff?”
“Unfinished business, my sister-by-law. Just want to let you know, I’ll be around again soon, to see you.”
Lena hung the phone up gently. Her wrist grazed something cool, and there seemed to be grit on the sheet. She sat up and fumbled with the switch on the lamp. Light pooled over the top of the bed.
There was a seashell on the pillow—a yellow one, with swirls of pink, and grains of sand inside.
4
Calling Mendez went against the grain.
These days she called him when she needed cop favors—running an NCIC records check, the occasional peek at a file, a piece of backdoor information. No PI could function without access to a cop.
She liked calling him—a jab to her favorite target. Mendez never turned her down. Whitney was long buried, but between them the corpse was fresh.
This time felt different. This time was like asking for real help. The kind of help Whitney had needed, before Hayes shot her down. The kind of help a woman couldn’t get.
There was a time in her life, long past now, when Mendez would have been the first and most natural step, but she was way beyond that now. Policemen, husbands, sisters—they always let you down. If Hayes wanted to start something, she would handle it.
Still, there was Eloise Valetta to think about, and Charlie. She pictured the boy, bent over the newspaper, arranging scraps of paper. He reminded her of her nephew. Both had that same air of knowing what they were about. She remembered Kevin sitting in front of the TV with a bowl of dry Cheerios, ignoring the cartoons and watching the commercials. She could see his chubby fingers lining up the Cheerios across the coffee table before he ate them one by one.
Maynard squirmed out from under the couch and sat at her feet.
“Yes?” Lena said.
The cat strolled into the kitchen and Lena followed. Maynard looked up at her, his tail high. He miaowed.
“Okay,” Lena said. “I’m doing it.”
She set a plate of food on the floor. Maynard hunkered forward and purred. Lena stroked the silky back, feeling the skin ripple under her hand.
“Did you see Hayes last night, Maynard?” She looked down at the cat. “If you see him again, you hide.”
Lena realized, when she got to the outer office, that she ought to have called and made sure Mendez was there. It was just on 8:15. He might not even be in yet.
The woman behind the front desk was pudgy in her uniform, the style unflattering to the female figure. Lena wondered how many decades it would be before women cops got their own uniform.
“Is Sergeant Mendez in?”
Lena smelled coffee, cigarette smoke, floor wax. A tired-looking woman in blue jeans was cleaning the bathroom. The door was propped open with a big metal mop bucket. Lena heard water running and smelled the acrid odor of cleaning fluid.
The woman behind the desk was eyeing Lena’s earrings. Lena pushed her hair back off her shoulders. The woman chewed the eraser on the back of her pencil.
“Those what they call shoulder dusters?”
Lena fingered the left earring. “No. Shoulder dusters come all the way down to here.”
“I been thinking about getting my ears pierced. Everybody says you don’t even feel it. Tell me now, does it hurt?”
“Bravest thing I ever did was get the second ear pierced.”
“I knew it.” The woman nodded her head and jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the elevator. “Mendez is up there. I think I saw him come in about an hour ago.”
“Thanks.”
The elevator was slow. Lena slipped into the bullpen through a side door, avoiding the secretaries behind the fortresslike counter out front. Rows of desks were butted side by side like a schoolroom for adults. It was cold in the room and she shivered. She smelled overheated coffee.
Mendez had taken off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. His shirt was white, cuff links gleamed at the sleeves, and his thin dark tie was neatly knotted. He was making notes on a yellow legal pad and he wrote quickly, never lifting the pen from the paper. He stopped for a minute and took a sip from a Styrofoam cup. Lena crossed the room, ignoring the stares from other cops behind other desks. Twice she nodded at familiar faces.
“Hello, Mendez.”
He looked surprised. He pulled a chair from behind an empty desk and set it beside his.
“Coffee?”
“No, I’m swimming in it.”
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. He sat in his chair and looked at her. His lack of polite patter used to unnerve Whitney.
Lena fished the seashell out of her shirt pocket.
“Found this on my pillow last night.”
Mendez leaned forward and took the shell. He looked it over and frowned, lips tight, then set it on the legal pad in the center of his desk.
“When do you think he got in?” Mendez sat very still in the chair. His voice was harsh.
“It wasn’t there when I went to bed.” Lena frowned. “The phone rang, around three this morning. It was Jeff. After I hung up, I turned on the light and found the shell.”
Mendez picked up his pen, and put it down again.
Lena made a conscious effort not to grind her teeth. “He came in while I was asleep. Came up to my bedroom, and left that on the pillow. I never knew he was there.”
“What did he say?”
“I told you, I didn’t know he was there.”
“On the phone.”
“Oh. Something like he’d see me soon.”
“Did he threaten you?”
Lena shrugged. “He said we had unfinished business.”
Mendez picked the seashell back up.
“Which you think is worse, Mendez? Sand and shells in the sheets, or cracker crumbs?”
“How did he get in?”
“I think he came in through the basement. There’s a ground-level window there, and it was unlocked this morning when I checked it.”
“Did you lock it before you went to bed?”
“Usually I keep it locked. But I don’t check it every night.”
Mendez eased back in his chair and closed his eyes.
Lena smiled. “This is the part where you pat my back and tell me he just wants to take me to the seashore.”
Mendez glared at her. Not, she decided, the best way to go about asking for favors. “I need your help.”
He nodded. “We’ll tap your phone. I want a look at the window. They won’t assign protection. They’ll send a patrol car up and down your street now and then, but it would be best—”
“That’s not the favor. You asked me before about Archie Valetta. How I knew he was due to be out of prison.”
Mendez cocked his head sideways.
“You probably already figured out that Eloise Valetta came to me for help.”
“What does she need help with?”
Lena shrugged. “It’s not police business. She’s got a little boy, and she’s having trouble arranging tests and stuff at the free clinic. Anyway, Archie getting out of prison is one of the things that’s got her worried.”
“Is Hayes bothering her?”
“Hayes? No.”
“Does this connect to Hayes in any way?”
“Not that I know of. But they’re partners, Mendez, so who knows? They may get back together.”
“What’s the favor?”
“I want to see the file. Valetta’s file. Particularly concerning the last arrest, known companions, that kind of thing.”
She wished she knew what he was thinking while he looked at her so steadily.
“Why?” he asked.
“Why? How about because.”
“What’s the robbery got to do with anything?”
“I study my adversaries from every angle, Joel. I like to know all the players.”
He narrowed his eyes. He always paid attention when she called him Joel.
“How does this connect to the free clinic?”
“You said yourself, Archie is dangerous. Eloise is uneasy. I’m just keeping an eye out.”
Mendez touched his mustache and frowned. Lena tapped her foot. Words never seemed to hurry or prod this man. She fingered the hem of her jacket, then looked up. “Help me or don’t, Mendez. I was up most the night, and I’m tired.”
“Okay.” He picked up a folder from a neat stack on the right-hand corner of his desk.
“You got it right there? What’s your interest, Mendez?”
“Hayes is out. Valetta’s on his way. That’s my interest.” He studied her for a long moment. “The robbery money wasn’t recovered.”
“I thought it was.”
“Not all of it.” Mendez picked up his pen, tapping it lightly on the metal desk top. “Lena. How much do you know about Archie Valetta?”
She shrugged.
“He used to ride with the Grits,” Mendez said. “You know them?”
“Southern fried motorcycle gang.”
“Very low profile, and fairly new, but they’ve dug in all across the South—Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas. They’re moving very cautiously now, in Florida and Texas.”
“You said used to ride?”
“Kicked out, we don’t know why. We got a hint from an informant that it was some kind of blackmail scam—but we don’t really know any details. Don’t know why they didn’t kill him, either. Happened before he hooked up with Hayes. This isn’t your usual perp, Lena. Valetta plays rough and dirty. He’s a hardcore case, and an opportunist like everybody else these days. If something dirty comes up, he’ll go for it.” He leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “Did you ever stop to think that Eloise Valetta may be using you? That she may not be leveling with you?”
“About the medical clinic?”
He frowned. “The little boy looks a bit like your nephew. Don’t let that cloud your judgment. Don’t get sentimental about the Valettas.”
“Are you telling me to turn my back on the kid, Mendez?”
Mendez sighed and handed her the file. “You have a way of putting things. Come to me, Lena, when it gets to be police business.”
5
Maynard was curled up peacefully in the rocking chair.
Lena took a breath. She hadn’t realized she was worried till she saw the cat, safe and sound and asleep.
Hayes had a definite track record with animals.
There were two messages on the answering machine. Lena hit the Play button and picked up the cat. Maynard purred and Lena scratched him behind the ears. The machine whirred as the tape rewound.
“Ms. Padget? This is Elwin Newcomb, from Paris Road Cemetery? Need you to give me a call, if you will. Extension 232. Um, thanks.”
Lena pulled Maynard’s tail. The cat miaowed.
The answering machine beeped, and a piano played. “‘We’re poor little lambs, who’ve lost our way.…’” Lena frowned and sat down, and the familiar words poured from the tape.
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray.…
Gentlemen rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we.…
Maynard squirmed out of Lena’s arms, hind claws catching her left wrist and leaving a livid, bleeding scratch. Lena did not notice.
She saw Whitney, as clearly as if she’d been on the couch beside her, standing on the darkened stage, hair soft and silky on her shoulders. Lena had sat in the audience, fists clenched, nervous.
Whitney had hated auditions. She’d thrown up twice the night before. The play she’d been auditioning for was a musical; Lena could not remember what. Whitney had wanted to do something different, had wanted to stand out from the rows of pretty girls doing a number from South Pacific. She was going to put Kipling to music, and she’d sung a medley of Kipling ballads, starting with the little lost lambs. Lena had cut her Econ class to be there so she’d be able to answer Whitney’s endless round of questions afterward—the tedious postmortem that made theater majors such a pain in the ass.
Did you notice I flubbed that second line? Could you tell my knees were shaking? I was sweating like a pig—could you see that?
It was the first time Lena had met Whitney’s pal, the effervescent Rick Savese—a tap-dancing, piano-playing aspiring actor. He’d played piano for Whitney—his hair slicked back, a Camel cigarette dangling from his lips. He swore afterward it was his back-up that had made the difference, and gotten Whitney the part.
Whitney had introduced him to her little sister Lena, the up-and-coming economics major. He’d immediately asked Lena to lunch, and then dinner.
Jeffrey Hayes had been there too, hanging out with one of the backstage girls, the one who spent an inordinate amount of time at the student center playing Dungeons & Dragons. They’d been dating for more than a year, but it was over as soon as he heard Whitney sing. Jeff Hayes had fallen in love.
Or so it seemed.
Lena pushed the Save button, and played the message back.
He was getting to her, definitely getting to her. Lena walked through every room in the house. Her bedroom was as she’d left it, bed unmade, T-shirt thrown across the pillow. In the bathroom a wet towel was slung over the towel bar, a dripping washrag wadded over the soap dish in the tub, a bottle of shampoo open on the counter. No one had been in Kevin’s old room. A mobile with a stuffed giraffe, a hippo, and a lion hung forlorn and dusty in the corner. The red-and-yellow wallpaper was still bright.
Lena closed the door and went to the basement.
Daylight streamed through the small ground-floor window, giving the room a murky illumination. Lena dodged the boxes and Kevin’s old crib, and pulled the cord that hung from the light bulb in the middle of the ceiling.
Shadows, spiders, dust.
She sat on the bottom step of the rough wooden staircase. The basement was cool and humid, like a cave with a sour smell. She ought to have gotten rid of it all—the old clothes, the storybooks, the fuzzy brown pony on yellow rollers. She opened the box that was lodged near the bottom stair and found a pair of worn blue Osh-Kosh overalls. She remembered how Kevin had stashed toys down the front of the overalls till he could barely walk. She glanced at the third row of boxes, in particular the second box from the top. Hayes’s stuff. Undisturbed. He’d hardly know what box to look in, if he even remembered that Whitney had those old things.
Lena stood on her tiptoes and stretched. No sooner did she have hold of the box than it slipped out of her hands and landed hard. She peeled back the cardboard flaps, and a cloud of fine-grained dust made her sneeze.
From the looks of things, Whitney had upended drawers and dumped them straight in the box. Lena burrowed through old bank statements, a ripped pair of Jockey shorts—size 34—and a copy of The Nightmare Years, by William L. Shirer. There were candle stubs, black and white, a thin dusty book with a black cover titled Miniatore’s Grimoire, and a few wrinkled sheets of parchment.
And that was all. Except for a small tan spider.
Lena picked up the copy of Miniatore’s Grimoire. It had an ancient, musty smell, and the cover was warped, as if it had been left in the rain. The words were in Italian, the print tiny and ornate.
She picked up the Shirer. It felt oddly light and lumpy. She flipped the book open, and smiled thinly.
Hayes had hollowed it out, cutting the pages away with jagged, laborious trouble, leaving an inch of margin all the way around. Inside was a hardbound notebook. Across the black cover, Book of Shadows had been written in calligraphy with blood red ink.
Jeffrey Hayes had been lettered on the inside cover. 1971. Lena did a quick calculation. In 1971, Jeffrey Hayes would have been about fifteen years old.
Hail Satan was the opening salutation. The writing was spiky and slanted, the t crossed so hard the pen had scarred the paper. A goat’s head had been sketched in the margin.
In only three days it will be Lammas Day. I can’t sleep now because I think about it a lot. When I was little I did not like the altar. I did not like taking my clothes off, and that M saw everthing I had because I was naked. I liked seeing her though.
When we were little it was just watch and learn this and KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. We were lambs then. But then they saw I was special.
That altar is heavy, it takes four fat men to get it out of the pickup. And the side by the fire is warm. Almost HOT. But that first time, boy did it feel cold on my back. And I didn’t like drinking all that stuff. I love it now!!! Give me more!!!!
I close my eyes and think what it will be like. The smoke and all. That sweet stuff we burn up in bowls. It used to kind of make me sick. But I like it now.
Use to be HE would chant and put that oily stuff on me. And EVERWHERE on me. Thats what I do now to M. I like that so much, no wonder I can’t sleep. The other kids are always scared of me because HE says I’m special. I never get cut. I DO the cut. In thee days I will pore oil on M. And then talk about kissing cousinas! And then the cuts. They give her lots of stuff so she won’t scream. I wonder if they didn’t give it??? We could hold her down.
666 666
666
Lena closed the book. Maybe later she would read the rest of it. Maybe never.
6
The gloom of early morning had thickened, and the skies were muddy. The smell of rain wafted in through the open car window, and the wind blew Lena’s hair in her eyes. Maynard huddled in the cat carrier, emitting a full throaty cry at regular intervals.
Lena poked a finger through the mesh of the carrier, feeling the downlike softness of the cat’s fur.
Burial space in the Paris Road Cemetery had been expensive. The grounds were circled by an eight-foot wall of gray fieldstone, every inch in excellent condition. The black wrought-iron gate, spiked at the top, was freshly painted and hung open across the blacktop drive. Lena parked in front of the office next to a hunter green Volvo. She glanced back at the two cars. Hers was green too, around the rust spots.
The woman behind the desk huddled over a typewriter as if she were cold and the typewriter might warm her.
“Is Elwin Newcomb in?” Lena asked.
The woman frowned and looked up. Black cat glasses hung from a chain around her neck. She wore thick Pan-Cake makeup over her fragile wrinkled skin, red rouge on her cheekbones. Her hair was white, teased and sprayed in place, and it sat like meringue, on the top of her head.
“Are you Lena Padget?”
Lena nodded.
“Go on in, honey.” The woman buzzed the intercom. “Elwin, it’s Miz Padget.”
The office door opened before Lena got to it. Newcomb was a big man, tall and broad, with gray-flecked brown hair that was clipped short, and a complexion ravaged by acne scars. He was frowning, his movements jerky and restless, unlike the smooth calm Lena remembered from their past associations.
“Please.” He pointed to a chair upholstered in blue plaid. “Have a seat.”
Lena sat. She crossed her legs. “What’s up, Mr. Newcomb?”
He rubbed a finger across the blotter on his desk. “As I mentioned when you called, we, uh, had some trouble last night.”
Lena pulled her left earring. It was loose, and she tightened it.
“What kind of trouble?” she said finally.
“Well. Vandalism, I guess.”
“My sister’s grave?”
He nodded.
Lena bit her lip.
“Your nephew, too. I’m sorry.”
“A child’s grave? What kind of vandalism we talking about?”
“Spray paint, that kind of thing.”
“Are the graves … disturbed in any way?”
“Oh, no, no, no. I’m sorry, I should have told you that off the bat. We don’t … This kind of thing is unusual on our grounds. We’re very careful, very security conscious. I can’t tell you how sorry I am this has happened. We’ll get it fixed up for you, no charge, of course. But I did want to let you know, in case you were to come out here, and see the gravestones missing.”
“Missing?”
“We’ll be sending them off for cleaning—sanding, actually.”
Lena nodded. “Let’s go take a look.”
Newcomb grimaced. “Naturally, you’re curious. It’s not necessary, though, if you don’t want to go see. Might be best not to. We’ll get it fixed up for you, just like it was.”
“I want to see it.”
“Sure.” Newcomb stood up. “I guess I don’t blame you. Probably feel the same way myself.” He opened the door. “We’ll be back, Carol. Going out to take a look.”
The white-haired woman nodded and stared at Lena’s face.
“I’ll drive you out,” Newcomb said. He opened the passenger door of the green Volvo.
He drove slowly along the narrow blacktop lane that wound through the cemetery. Whitney and Kevin were way out, in the newer section. There weren’t as many trees in that area, and the grass was not as lush. But it was well kept, and nearly full. Newcomb pulled the Volvo to the side of the road, and Lena followed him up a small hill, past the deep, green-scummed pond, past the cottonwood tree.
Whitney’s small headstone had been turned over on its side, the lamb over Kevin’s grave turned upside down. Rough crosses made from sticks banded together had been inverted and thrust deep in the ground. There were letters painted in red in the grass over the graves.
SIH CINATAS YTSEJAM
Lena looked at the letters, then back at Newcomb. “You know what it means?”
He shook his head. “It’s just nonsense, Ms. Padget. Nonsense. Idle hands make the devil’s work.”
Lena looked at him. He blushed.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Any other grave sites disturbed?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Lena looked at Whitney’s headstone. Live had been painted across the side.
“Live?” she said.
Newcomb shrugged.
“You ever had any kind of problem like this before?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“You reported this to the police?”
“Yeah, I called this morning. They haven’t been out yet.”
Lena chewed her bottom lip. She didn’t like it, didn’t like thinking about unfriendly hands on the little marble lamb she had selected so carefully.
Lena looked at Newcomb. “There’s somebody I’d like to have see this. He’s a cop. Will you leave it be till I can get him out here?”