Paul Cleave - Collecting Cooper

When he drives past her house he slows enough to look at the cars parked outside. He doesn’t think any of them belong to the police because they’re too nice. Most likely she has friends over to comfort her because she can’t find Cooper. In the future those cars won’t be there.

Now his stomach is rumbling. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast. He hates missing meals. He could drive back out to the new home and fix something to eat, but he doesn’t know where things are in the kitchen or how to use them and he needs time if he’s going to do that.

He pulls away from the curb. He’ll go to a drive-through and get some fast food. He’s never used a drive-through before and the thought makes him anxious, but then again, a few years ago he’d never used an ATM card and now he knows how. Experiences like this are good for him. They are character building. He can pull over somewhere and eat the food while it’s still warm. Then he’ll drive out to the Grove and watch to see if any police come looking around.

It will feel nice watching the Grove.

In a way it will be like being back home but not really being there.

It takes an hour for the tow truck to arrive. It’s a nervous wait in case the guys with the dog come back, forcing me to shoot them and their dog and then spending twenty years in jail before getting back onto the case. It’s also a frustrating hour because I want to push forward. The tow-truck driver arrives and steps out of the truck and walks around the rental. He has his arms out of his overalls so the top half of his outfit is hanging down past his legs. His white T-shirt is drenched with sweat and has become see-through. His hands are stained with oil and grease.

“You must have really pissed somebody off,” he says, looking down at the wheels.

“Sometimes I’m misunderstood,” I tell him.

He connects a hook and chain under the car then stands next to the back of the truck as he holds a button, a pulley winding the car forward and up onto the deck. He makes sure it’s secure and we climb up into the cab. The cab is full of so many hamburger wrappers that my cholesterol level spikes when I inhale. We make the kind of small talk that small talk was invented for-the weather, traffic, sports news. He drives me to the tire shop the rental agency told me to take the car to. The people there have been advised about the problem but tell me it’s going to take another hour before they even take a look at it because they’re busy. I sit on a bench outside in the fading heat, spending five minutes staring at a tree, five at the side of the wall, bunches of other five-minute intervals staring at whatever else is around. The air smells of rubber. I call Donovan Green and update him on the case. I tell him I have a few names that I’m following up tonight and that he should keep his cell phone nearby in case I need more money. He tells me money isn’t an issue. He asks me if I’m still carrying the photograph of Emma he gave me, and I tell him that it’s in my wallet. He asks me to take it out and take a look at it, and I do. He tells me that her life is in my hands, that she’s alive somewhere, that money isn’t an issue, and reminds me that I’m doing this for Emma and for him, not for the police. He reminds me that when I find Cooper Riley that I’m to go to him first, that I’m to give him a few hours alone with Cooper Riley.

“Okay,” I tell him.

“Promise me,” he tells me. “Promise me Riley will pay for what he’s done.”

“I promise.”

I hang up and call Schroder. “Any hits on the fingerprints from my house?” I ask him.

“Nothing. There were some good ones too. So it wasn’t Melissa and it wasn’t somebody with a record. .” he says, then trails off. “Hang on a second,” he says, and he takes the phone away. I can hear muffled voices but not what they’re saying. He comes back a moment later. “Listen, I have to go.”

“Wait a second. Maybe this guy we’re looking for was young and didn’t get a criminal record, but got a medical one instead.”

“What are you getting at, Tate?”

“I got something for you,” I tell him. “This is important. I know who took Cooper Riley.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“An ex-patient from Grover Hills. His name is Adrian Loaner. If he was just a kid when he went there, there’d be no criminal record.”

“Uh huh. Good job, Tate. We’ll look into it.”

“Hang on,” I say, his lack of enthusiasm telling me what I need to know. “You already knew?”

“Of course we knew. What, you think we can’t function without you?”

“How long have you known?”

“Listen, Tate, I have to go.”

“Can you meet me?”

“What?”

“With some corpse dogs.”

“Oh man, are you shitting me?”

“Grover Hills.”

“Look, Tate, we know what we’re doing.”

“Grover Hills. .”

“We’re already out there.”

“You find anything?”

“We sure as hell found a lot more than you did.”

“You found Cooper Riley?”

“Not yet.”

“But you found somebody.”

“A couple of bodies.”

I break out in a cold sweat. “Emma Green?”

“No,” he says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “Listen, Tate, don’t even think of coming out here.”

“I’ll be there soon,” I tell him, and I hang up.

It’s closing in on seven o’clock by the time my car is hoisted up on a hydraulic lift. It’s an anxious wait, and I end up pacing the footpath outside, looking at the other cars parked around the shop wondering how hard it’d be to steal one. Each of the wheels are taken off. It takes ten minutes per tire to replace, then the car is lowered and I’m back on the road.

I still get somewhat lost on the drive back to Grover Hills even though I was there earlier today. The sun is in my eyes for most of it, creeping under the angle of the sun visor, so when I do turn corners and head in different directions I have bright lights dancing in my vision. I pull in behind one of the patrol cars at Grover Hills. One side of the building is lit up with the sun reflecting in all the windows, the other sides are dim in the shade. I have to shield my eyes as I look for Schroder. The building hasn’t been cordoned off because there’s nobody out here to protect it from. There are around thirty people working the scene and about half of them watch me get out of the car, but nobody comes over. They seem to know who I am, and Schroder must have told them to let me though. He’s standing next to a man with a beard and a comb-over. He breaks off the conversation and comes over. His shirtsleeves are rolled up and dust and dirt has settled into the folds.

“Jesus, Tate,” he says, shaking his head.

“Why don’t you just give up on the indignation, Carl, and accept I’m part of this. Let me help you. That’s what you wanted from me when you picked me up from jail, remember? My help? Stop bullshitting me by pretending you want me out of here when you need all the help you can get.”

He seems about to argue, and he already has his hands ready to form the angry gestures that go along with it, but then they drop to his sides and he smiles. “You’ve got a point,” he says, “and cutting out the bullshit you put me through would save me a lot of time, and is probably good for my heart too.”

“What have you got?”

“So far we’ve got two bodies.”

“So far?”

“Yeah. We’re looking for more. One of the two we have is fresh.”

“How fresh?”

“First body we’re talking about years. Second body the medical examiner says around twenty-four hours. We think her name is Karen Ford. We’re still waiting to confirm an ID, but everything matches. She was a street worker reported missing this morning. She’s twenty years old,” he says. “Twenty years old. Jesus.”