Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

“Perfect,” Joe said. “I’ll email you the photo with the beard drawn on. I’d forgotten about the LISTSERV. The good news is, Rooney probably won’t come near the Murmuring Surf. Too many people know him here. Still, it’d be best if you don’t leave again without letting one of us know where you’re going.”

Ava emerged from the back office area with her car keys in hand. “Yes, please. I don’t need another panic like we experienced this morning. I’m off for now.”

Isabelle and Maya pushed through the office door. “Letty, Letty!” Maya cried. “We found Midnight’s kittens.”

“Where were they?” Ava asked.

“You know that big concrete pipe, at the edge of the parking lot?” Isabelle asked.

“That old drainage culvert?” Joe asked.

“Whatever you call it. Yeah. It’s full of a lot of old weeds and trash and stuff, and she made herself like a little nest in there. Maya heard them mewing just now when we were getting my book bag out of my car and we followed the sound to that pipe.”

“Four little kitties,” Maya reported, holding up four fingers. “I want a kitten, Letty.”

Letty knelt down beside her niece. “Those kittens need their mama right now. Midnight is feeding them and taking care of them, so we can’t take them away from her. They’re her kittens, not ours.”

“I would feed my kitten,” Maya protested. “And I would take care of it and it could sleep in my bed with me.”

“I’m afraid not,” Letty said, shaking her head. “It’s Midnight’s job to take care of her babies. Just like it’s my job to take care of you. Besides, Miss Ava doesn’t allow pets in the motel, do you, Miss Ava?”

“She doesn’t,” Isabelle volunteered. “My whole life I’ve wanted a dog, and my whole life she’s said pets don’t belong at motels.” She glared at Ava. “Super unfair.”

Maya’s lower lip began to tremble. “But I waaaaaant a kitten!”

Letty tried to put her arms around her niece, but Maya pushed her away. “No! I don’t like you, Letty. I want my mama to take care of me. Not you.”

“Maya!” Ava said. “That’s not very nice.”

Isabelle sat down on the floor and pulled Maya onto her lap. “Letty’s right, Maya Papaya. We can’t take those kittens away from Midnight, or they might die.”

Letty winced at the teenager’s reasoning, but Maya’s deep blue eyes widened at the mention of death. “Do kittens go to heaven when they die? Like my mama?”

“I don’t know,” Isabelle replied. “But if heaven is where everyone is happy, then yeah, I bet there are kittens and puppies and all kinds of animals in heaven with the people we love.”

“Oh. But I still want a kitten now.”

“Someday,” Letty said. As soon as she made the vague promise she recognized it as the same lame response her own mother gave over the years whenever she and Tanya begged for a pet, or a house with a real yard, or a trip to the beach. “Someday.”

She stood up and dusted off the seat of her shorts. “Someday,” she said, “I promise we will have a house of our own and you will have a pet. But in the meantime, you and Isabelle could help Midnight by putting out some extra cat food for her, couldn’t they, Miss Ava?”

Ava sighed. “That cat’s supposed to be earning her keep chasing rats away from the dumpster. But I guess I could pick up a bag of food when I go to the store.”

The Publix bag “boy” leaning against the shopping-cart corral and taking a smoke break was a wizened seventy-something white man dressed in a green apron and wrinkled khaki pants. His name badge said TOMMY. He looked down at the photo Joe offered and nodded.

“I think he’s been in here a couple times lately. He kinda stands out, ya know, dressed like that?”

“Like what?”

“Black shirt and black pants and the ball cap and beard. He reminded me of Zorro.”

“Did you ever see what kind of car he was driving?”

“Nope.” Tommy dropped the cigarette butt into the Styrofoam coffee cup he’d been holding. “He don’t buy much. Maybe a sub sandwich, chips.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Joe asked.

“He come in here this morning.” The bagger tossed the coffee cup into a nearby trash can. “Sorry. Gotta get back to work.”

“Wait,” Joe said. “How long ago did you see him?”

“Hmmm. We open at eight, it was right after that. You know what? I think he’s using our men’s room to wash up in.”

“What makes you say that?”

“That bathroom gets cleaned and restocked last thing at night. But this morning, right after that guy was in there, a customer complained it was a mess. I went in there, and it looked like someone had taken a shower in the sink. Soap and paper towels all over the place.”

“So maybe he’s living in his car or something,” Joe mused. “No access to a bathroom.”

“Or he sleeps on the beach,” Tommy said. “Until the cops run him off. But that’s mostly young kids doing that around here.”

“Hey, thanks. That’s really helpful,” Joe said. He pulled some bills from his pocket and tried to press them into the bagger’s hand, but the old man shook him off. “Not allowed,” he said.

After he left the shopping center, Joe drove to the Treasure Island police station. He went inside and tapped on the glass separating the desk officer from the lobby.

Serafina Suarez looked up from her computer monitor and smiled. “DeCurtis! Where’ve you been? We missed you.”

“Just taking some comp time,” Joe said. “Can you do me a favor, Fina? I’m interested in recent arrests or citations for public vagrancy. My suspect is white male, late thirties to forties.”

“How recent?” she asked.

“The past week.”

Suarez started typing. “How are things at the motel? Your mom doing okay?”

“She’s fine, thanks,” Joe said.

“My aunt and uncle loved staying there this past fall. They want to come back next year too. And they really appreciated the friends and family discount.”

“Tell ’em to book early,” Joe said.

She nodded and tabbed down through the incident reports for the past week. “I’m not seeing any vagrancy reports for white males,” she said, and then laughed. “Oh, here’s something you’ll love. You know Driscoll? The new recruit? He caught Sweaty Betty sleeping on one of the benches at Sunset Vista Park Friday morning.”

“Bet I know where this is going,” Joe said. Elizabeth Schockle, whose street name was Sweaty Betty, was a mostly harmless, if smelly alcoholic who drifted in and out of local homeless shelters. He himself had transported her, more than once, to the emergency room after she’d been found unconscious behind a convenience store or on the beach.

“Driscoll, being Driscoll, woke her up to tell her to move along, and of course she cussed him out, so he slapped cuffs on her and put her in his cruiser to take her to lockup.”

Joe raised one eyebrow. “And?”

“Betty, being Betty, took a dump and pissed all over the back seat of his unit,” Fina said, chuckling. “He had to spend half the morning hosing it down and disinfecting it.”

“No fun,” Joe commented. “Hey, are there any new hobo camps around the beaches where I might look for my guy?”

“Not since the local chamber started pressuring us to close down the camps,” Fina said. “Homelessness is bad for tourism, in case you haven’t heard. It’s mostly a case of solo guys sleeping on a park bench or in the bushes a night here or there, and then moving along. You want me to check if your guy’s been arrested? What’s his name?”

“Might as well,” Joe said. “Declan Rooney.”

“Really?” Suarez looked startled. “I remember his name coming up in that gold-and-jewelry-buying scam at the Surf a few years ago. You’re still looking for him?”