Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

“I believe you.”

“Do you think that something bad has happened to the girl?”

“Disappearing at fourteen is bad.”

“Are the police looking for her?”

“They are. Do you know Nick Moreno?”

Reggie Atlas sat back, placed his hands flat on the desk. “Yes. He was almost a regular here. I heard what happened to him from my singles minister. Ugly and sad.”

“Do you know Alanis Tervalua or Carrie Calhoun?”

He shook his head.

“Daley’s age,” I said. “Friends.”

“No. But you should talk to our youth minister, Danella. She’s out of town now, but she’ll be back on Friday.”

“What about Penelope Rideout?”

Reggie shook his head again, then spread his hands in a gesture of mild surrender. “I’m sorry. Related to the girl?”

“Sister and guardian. Richard Hauser?”

“No again, sorry again.”

A moment of near silence. Distant seagulls and murmurs from outside. Through the window I watched a man tidying up the courtyard. He was young and muscular, with a white buzz cut, a sun-flushed face, and pointed ears. No aloha shirt and cargo shorts for this deacon. Chinos and a black golf shirt and shiny black duty boots. Clean cut, All-American, and doing good deeds for fellow man.

“You’ve come a long way from the hollers of Georgia,” I said.

A thoughtful look from Atlas. “I did the first years of my preaching from that VW van and a series of recreational vehicles. All through the South. I was too young to know any better. To know what a challenge it would be. As in my message today. I was absolutely consumed by the word of God. I got my first real brick-and-mortar chapel many years ago in a town so small you could blink and miss it. Now here — the cathedral of my dreams. Bills to pay, though. Leave it to Pastor Reggie to covet some of the most valuable real estate in the country.”

“I see you have an online program.”

“Four Wheels for Jesus. It does very well.”

“And you’ve got quite a following on the social networks,” I said.

He opened his palms and shrugged, a humble gesture. “‘The word of God is quick, and powerful... and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart’.”

“Hebrews,” I guessed.

A full smile then, and a knowing nod. There was something intimate about Pastor Atlas, something you-and-me about him. I’d noted the same quality in many successful salesmen.

“I feel powerless sometimes,” he said. “There are moments, though. With the Lord. With my wife and children and my believers. When I feel the power of the word coming through me. Not from, but through. He commands my body and soul. Are you strong in Jesus, Mr. Ford?”

“I read the Bible when I was in college. It took me a year, but I was glad I did. That seems like a long time ago. So we’ve met.”

“Well, that’s quite an acceptable start, I’d say. Please, come worship with us whenever you’d like. Bring your friends and family. Jesus will change your life.”

He raised his shirt cuff for a look at his watch.

“Who handles church security?” I asked.

“Security? I don’t know which company, but I can find out for you. Why?”

“It’s not important,” I said.

He nodded slowly, taking me in with steady blue eyes. For a moment he looked every one of his forty-nine years, if not more. Then, through some personal light and magic, his youth reappeared. He sighed and stood.

“Well, please, if I can help in any way...”

“You’ve been generous, Pastor. Thank you for your time, and for the good sermon. I’m glad you kept preaching.”

“I hope you’re sincere.”

“I’m usually too sincere.”

“Should I be worried? Nick? The missing girl? This alleged car accident that happened to you? This violence in the air?”

“Just keep your eyes open. And call me if you learn anything that might point me to Daley Rideout.”

“Yes, I’ll do that. But, Mr. Ford, do you think my family and I are safe?”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just looked at him.

“I know,” he said. “You can’t answer that. In a world like this.”

Later that Sunday, Burt and I tracked down the San Clemente 7-Eleven clerk who had seen Daley Rideout early Thursday morning. Yash Chowdhury lived on West Escalones, a few blocks from the store.

He squinted at Daley’s pictures on my phone, nodding. “She was upset. I felt bad for her. I thought of calling the police, but she seemed to know the people she was arguing with. So I decided not to. I see things all the time. There was nothing physical, no forcing. Her sister called the police, but they got here after the girl left. The sister got so angry, they almost arrested her.”

Yash was early twenties, short and slim, with a head of black curls and a mustache. His wife, Riya, was studying medicine at UC Irvine. Their house was small and neat and smelled of incense and laundry detergent. Riya retreated to the bedroom to study while we talked. Burt and I sat across from Yash in the living room.

“The girl came to the store at three ten,” he said. “I checked the time because I was bored. She was in a white van. It was a commercial van with no windows, not a minivan. Old. The driver was hard to see. A middle-aged white man. She got out and he rolled his window down and said something, but she didn’t turn around. She came inside and went down the household aisle and watched the van leave. Then she went outside and used the pay phone.”

According to Yash, Daley had been wearing skinny jeans with high cuffs, flip-flops, and a black hoodie that read “I’m not as stupid as I look” on the front. She had had a black backpack slung over one shoulder.

Yash said that Daley bought an energy drink and three candy bars — the same ones I’d seen evidence of in her home wastebasket.

“When she paid, she was distracted,” said Yash. “And maybe angry. I asked her if she was having a good morning and she said it was none of my business. She paid and put the drink and candy in her backpack and zipped it up quickly. I had been reading a fantasy novel because the graveyard shift is slow, and she saw it and said, ‘Why read that? Real life is weird enough, isn’t it?’”

Then Daley walked out, and that was when Yash had seen the punchline of the joke on the back of her hoodie: “Are you?” Daley was halfway across the parking lot when a silver SUV pulled in and a man got out and started arguing with her. He was approximately thirty years old, an Anglo, dressed in chinos and a white dress shirt. He seemed to be ridiculing her, and she “got in his face” and defended herself. There was no physical contact, just words and gesturing. Then he opened a back door and she took the backpack off her shoulder and climbed in.

Yash said that the vehicle had writing on the driver’s-side door, but he couldn’t read it with the headlight beams coming through the store windows. The SUV pulled onto El Camino Real and headed south.

The police arrived five minutes later, asking Yash if he’d seen a girl who matched Daley’s description. They described her accurately. It was three thirty-five. The officers didn’t seem particularly concerned about the girl, and they bought coffee before they left.

They were sitting in their car when a yellow Volkswagen Beetle skidded into the 7-Eleven parking lot, went straight into the handicapped-only slot, and a “curly-haired woman came flying into the store. She was maybe twenty-five. Small and pretty.”

Then the officers came back in and got into a three-way argument with the woman, and she broke away from them and started asking Yash questions about the girl. She said her sister was in trouble and she criticized him for not helping her, then she “verbally attacked” the officers for not getting there sooner, and they physically escorted her to their car and locked her in the back seat. Yash could see her, her face a blur behind the glass and the metal screen inside. Two more police cars arrived shortly. Their lights were flashing but no sirens.