Joel Goldman - Chasing The Dead

The woman looked at her, squinting. “You deaf?”

Alex had represented enough homeless people to know how unpredictable they could be, whether because of mental illness or substance abuse or both. She didn’t want to antagonize the woman, so she kept her tone even and neutral.

“No.”

“So why you askin’ me was her name Joanie when I just got done sayin’ ‘poor Joanie’?”

“I’m sorry.”

The woman dug into her sweatpants, pulling out a lighter. She put the flame to her cigarette and drew long and deep, hacking and sputtering as she spoke.

“You’re so sorry about everything and none of it’s got anythin’ to do with you.”

Alex nodded. “You’re right. Let’s start over. I’m Alex Stone. Who are you?”

“Gladys Knight. The Pips are around her somewhere.”

“Nice to meet you, Gladys. Tell me about Joanie. What was her last name?” Alex asked, happy to play along.

“How the hell should I know? Last names are the last thing anybody around here cares about.”

“Was Joanie staying in one of the tents that were here the night she was killed?”

The woman’s cigarette had burned down to her fingers. She flicked it onto the ground. “You think I keep track of who comes and goes?”

“I think you haven’t survived this long without paying attention to what’s going on around you.”

The woman squinted at her. “True that, and so’s stayin’ out of what don’t concern me. And that goes double for you and Joanie and that no good, cocksucking, murderin’ Jared whatever the hell his last name is.”

Alex narrowed her eyes, studying the woman, anxious to find out whether her accusation was based on Jared having been arrested or whether she knew something more. She pulled out another twenty-dollar bill.

“Even if it doesn’t concern you, I’d sure like to know why you think my client is a murderer.”

The woman snatched the twenty, wadding it up in the palm of her hand with the first one.

“Wouldn’t you, now?” she said, grinning.

Alex forced a half smile. “Yes, I would.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I told the cops. Go to hell and don’t call me when you get there.”

She turned and disappeared into her tent, zipping the flap closed.

Alex waited a few minutes to see if the woman would return, calling to her but giving up when there was no response, uncertain whether the woman knew anything or had just played her for forty bucks. Rossi’s report made no mention of witnesses who had seen or heard anything, giving credence to the woman’s claim that she had told him nothing. Convinced that she wouldn’t get any further, she walked to the creek to see where Joanie’s body had been found, glad to at least have a first name for the victim, hoping the woman hadn’t scammed her about that as well.

She reached the creek bank, looked down, and nearly fell in when she saw a young girl, no more than ten, with alabaster skin and long, corn-silk hair lying faceup, eyes closed, her head resting in the soft mud, her legs stretched out in the water, her arms spread like wings.

“Oh, my God!” Alex cried, her hand on her chest, terrified she’d found another murder victim.

The girl’s eyes popped open. Seeing Alex staring down at her, she scrambled to her feet and dashed through the water and up the other bank before Alex could say another word. Without uttering a sound or looking back, the girl ran alongside the creek, vanishing into the trees at the south end. All Alex could do was watch her go.

Alex bent over, hands on her knees, and took a series of deep breaths until her heart stopped pounding. Who was the little girl? Was she playing a harmless game or was she reenacting the murder scene, and if she was, how could she have known the details and what could have possessed her to do such a thing? Alex had no answers to any of her questions.

She turned back toward where Jared’s tent had been. The woman had come out of her tent again but went back inside as soon as Alex saw her. Hands on her hips, Alex did a slow turn, taking in the grounds and seeing a sign that had been planted in the ground, christening the area as Liberty Park. Alex thought about that name, imagining what it was like to live and die in this place, and decided that Janis Joplin had been right when she sang Me and Bobby McGee . Freedom was just another word for nothing left to lose.

Alex would have preferred to spend more time at the scene, walking through the crime scene the way Rossi had laid it out, looking for anything that might contradict his report, but the little girl changed all that. She was getting away and the scene wasn’t going anywhere.

Unless the girl was a runaway, she had to live close by. Alex couldn’t see any houses from where she stood, but she knew there weren’t any on Truman Road or Twenty-Third Street. And Alex doubted the child had crossed eight lanes of interstate highway to get to the creek. That meant the child most likely lived to the east, somewhere on the other side of the cliff.

Alex ran for her car, gambling that the child would head for home rather than remain in the woods at the south end of Liberty Park. If she was right, she had a chance of finding the girl before she could hide behind a locked door and parents who would shield her from the lawyer for an accused murderer.

Back in her car, Alex followed the street where she’d parked up a hill and into an unfamiliar neighborhood. The streets were narrow, winding bands of asphalt, crumbling along the edges, bordered by drainage ditches thick with overgrown grass and weeds. She had to be quick without hurrying or risk losing control of her car on the serpentine roads.

Houses and trailers were scattered haphazardly along the streets, some bunched together, others standing alone, many of them so old and run-down that a stiff wind would blow them away. Pit bulls and Dobermans patrolled their turf, snarling and barking when she passed by. Signs saying Keep Out and Beware of Dog were plentiful enough to convince any door-to-door salesman-or lawyer-to try her luck elsewhere.

No one was working in their yard or sitting at a window or on their front porch. No children were playing on swing sets or in the street. There was no one at all, which wasn’t unusual on a weekday afternoon, when adults were likely at work and children in school, but there was something about the neighborhood that felt alone or abandoned. Maybe it was the dilapidated, neglected conditions, or maybe it was something missing in the lives of the people who lived there. Whatever the cause, it gave her a prickly uneasiness, making her anxious to find the little girl, talk to her, and get out of there.

Several times she thought she caught a glimpse of the girl darting among the trees, her long blond hair matted against her neck. But when she slowed for a closer look, no one was there, making Alex wonder if what she’d seen was just the sun reflecting off the leaves rustling in the breeze, the elusive images tantalizing enough for her to keep searching.

She wound her way through the neighborhood again and again before catching a woman parking a white Chevy Impala in a driveway she’d passed twice before. The car was missing its hubcaps and a rear brake light. A sheet of plastic was duct-taped over the missing passenger window on the driver’s side, and the left quarter panel was rusted out above the wheel well. The driveway belonged to a saltbox house with a roof that sagged in the middle and siding that was peeling in places and fading in others. A storage shed sat at the back of the driveway, its door padlocked with a heavy chain.

Alex stopped in front of the house, rolling her window down and calling to the woman when she got out of her car.