John Hart - The Last Child

“As opposed to what?”

“As opposed to giving him to a dumb-shit, security-guard relative that can’t run his own life. Damn it, Clyde, don’t you see? There is nothing that will make your decisions appear reasonable if something bad happens to that kid. Ken Holloway will make sure of that. So will the Chief, the press, the attorney general.” Yoakum raised a rough, callused finger. “You’d better pray that boy turns up unharmed.”

Hunt studied his friend. He looked old, creased. “Worry doesn’t suit you, John.”

“I expect the worst and the worst rarely disappoints. You know that. That’s why thirty years of this crap has never touched me.”

“And this case?” Hunt sensed the difference in his friend, the coiled anger.

A pause. “This case is different.”

“Because they’re kids?”

“Because all of them together don’t add up to one of me. And because it has been going on for years in our own backyard. I’ll tell you, Clyde. I’ve never felt this way.”

“What way is that?”

“Somebody should die. For this-.” Yoakum’s features drew down and he stabbed a finger against the surface of the desk, raised his voice. “Somebody should die.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“It’s true.”

“As far as I know, they still have the death penalty in North Carolina.”

“Defense lawyers.” Yoakum made it sound dirty.

A silence fell between them, and when Hunt spoke, he kept his voice low. “What if Johnny is right? What if a cop was involved with Burton Jarvis? What if a cop has been protecting him? Helping him?”

“No way.”

“Seven kids…”

“I just can’t see it.”

“Somebody’s talking to the media, John. If I was a dirty cop and wanted to derail an investigation, that’d be a good way to start: Spread rumors and kick up dust, distract the people that were looking for me.”

Yoakum thought about it. “Let’s say there’s a second perp, somebody involved with Jarvis, with these kids. Could Johnny make an identification?”

“Maybe. He won’t talk to me.”

“What about Tiffany Shore?”

“No reason to think a second person was involved with her abduction, but one could have been. Right now, she’s sedated, more or less catatonic. Doctor’s hopeful, though. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Is she under guard?”

“No.”

“Maybe she should be. If it’s a cop.”

“Maybe she should.”

Hunt looked down at his desk. Alyssa’s file still sat on the corner of it, right next to the Tiffany Shore file. He flipped open the first file and saw Alyssa’s photograph, the dark eyes and hair, the face that looked so much like her twin brother’s. “Is it possible? One of our own?”

“Darkness is a cancer of the human heart, Clyde. You know I believe that.”

Hunt lifted the second cover and studied Tiffany Shore’s fine-boned features. He touched one photograph, then the other. “I can’t just sit around.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to be involved.”

“With what?” Yoakum asked, but Hunt ignored him. He left the office and turned for the narrow hall that led to the back of the building. People stared, looked away, and then he had the hall to himself. Pushing through a fire door, Hunt took the stairs down two at a time. The basement level had a poured concrete floor and metal doors off the main hallway. Storage. The evidence room. A small room at the back held the department’s personnel files. Cops. Support staff. Maintenance. The records were kept in locked cabinets behind an unlocked door.

Moving fast, Hunt stopped once to pull a fire extinguisher from its bracket on the wall. The records room was nine feet by eleven, concrete scrubbed and white under fluorescent light. The cabinet he wanted was dead center at the back wall. Hunt eyed the lock on the top drawer. It was cheap. It would give.

Hunt hefted the extinguisher, but stopped when Yoakum stepped into the room behind him. “I told you not to get involved.”

“No.” Yoakum eased the door closed. “That’s not what you said.”

Hunt looked back at the locked drawer, hesitated.

“Do it,” Yoakum said.

Hunt turned his head a fraction, put a single eye on his partner. A hot flush colored Yoakum’s face and the fluorescent lights put pinpricks in his eyes.

“Do it,” Yoakum said again. “Screw the Chief. Screw the chain of command.” Hunt lowered the extinguisher, and Yoakum crowded behind him. “Do it for Alyssa.”

“Are you pushing me?” Hunt asked.

“Do it for Johnny. Do it for his mother.”

“What are you doing, John?”

Yoakum stepped even closer. “Reminding you that there’s a difference between doing the job and doing personal.”

“Sometimes the job is personal.” Hunt stared at his partner until Yoakum took a step back. “Don’t try to manipulate me.”

Before Yoakum could respond, the door to the hallway opened and a desk officer, young and female, entered, then stopped when she saw them. Her eyes registered the extinguisher in Hunt’s hands, the tension between the two men. “I’ll come back later,” she said, then left.

In the sudden silence, Yoakum held up a finger and thumb, less than an inch between them. “Sometimes it’s that fucking close.”

“What?”

“Getting fired over something stupid.”

The stare held for long seconds, then Hunt, still angry, turned for the hall. He snapped the fire extinguisher back into its holder, and when he turned, Yoakum was waiting.

“Don’t hate me ’cause I’m beautiful,” Yoakum said, and Hunt felt weight come off his shoulders.

“Why would Johnny think it was a cop?” Hunt asked.

“Because it was?”

“Why would a kid think someone is a cop? What would make a thirteen-year-old boy believe that? A badge? Something the guy said? Something he did?” Hunt fingered the cuffs on his belt. “Handcuffs? A gun?”

“A uniform?”

They stood in the damp concrete smell, thinking about it. Johnny was a strange kid, but he had good instincts, and he was smart. That’s what no one else seemed to get. If Johnny thought a cop was involved, there had to be a reason. Hunt tried to picture it: dark of night, two men in a dump house, Johnny at the window…

“Did you read the reports on the stolen plates?” Hunt asked.

“What?”

“License plates.”

“I read it. So?”

“Whoever Johnny saw at Jarvis’s house used stolen plates on his car. Three of them that we know about. Of the three that were stolen, one owner had no idea when or where he’d lost it. The other two were fairly confident.”

Something shifted at the back of Hunt’s mind and Yoakum saw it.

“What?”

“Two of the plates were stolen from cars parked at the mall.”

“It’s a good place to steal plates.”

“So is the airport, the hospital, or a dozen different strip malls.”

Their eyes met, and both had the same thought at the same time. Cuffs. Guns. Uniform.

Security guard.

Johnny dug in the dirt. He felt his stitches pull, but he ignored the pain. He was doing this for a reason. He told himself that. Repeated it. Levi Freemantle sat slack-lipped, with one hand spread on the raw pine coffin, his eyes intent on Johnny, and on every scoop of dirt that came out of the ground. He nodded as the boy struck a rock, then pried it out and heaved it up.

“Thank you.”

Johnny barely heard it, but that didn’t matter. He’d heard it twenty times already, small offerings that came as he worked. He nodded and dug. The sun beat down as thunderclouds stacked up in the south. Johnny looked at Jack and offered the shovel. “You want to take a turn?”