Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

I said I would.

Standing in the shade of the Blue Marlin awning, I wondered where our fun five had gone after leaving here. Was Daley free to go her own way? Or was she a willing captive?

I called Howard Wilkin, one of my acquaintances at the San Diego Union-Tribune . I’d helped him out with a story last year because I trusted him. A big story, biggest of the year for San Diego, if you measure in terms of life and death. We made thirty seconds of small talk. One of the things I like about reporters is they’re always in a hurry. He thought about my request for a moment, then said he’d get back to me with Reggie Atlas’s home address.

I called Darrel Walker, disappointedly unable to confirm that Atlas was at the Blue Marlin with Daley Rideout that night. He told me maybe we had the good pastor all wrong. Which meant that Penelope Rideout was an even better liar than I’d thought. Darrel told me to keep up the good work.

Back home, Burt was glued to Clevenger’s wasp-cam feed from Paradise Date Farm — nothing unusual going on there.

Then I called Penelope. No answer, so I left a message.

On my way to the truck, my phone rang. I figured Wilkin or Penelope, but I was wrong. Didn’t recognize the caller number. Sometimes you catch a break.

“Ford Investigations.”

“Mr. Ford? This is Alanis Tervalua. We talked last week at school about Daley?”

“What’s up?”

“Daley still won’t answer calls. She’s on all the missing-children sites. We want to talk to you again.”

I signed in at the security desk in the Monarch Academy office and talked briefly with Wayne Cates, who eyed my battle scars suspiciously but said nothing about them.

“Good news from the Rideout family?” he asked.

“We’re working on it.”

The girls and I sat at the same picnic table under the coral tree in the same September heat. I told them Daley had been seen at a restaurant in La Jolla two nights ago. They looked at each other when I said that. Then back to me, disbelief on their faces, as if the stakes had been raised when they weren’t looking.

“Everything we told you last week was the truth,” said Alanis.

“But we didn’t tell you everything,” said Carrie.

I waited, looking at them in turn. Alanis with a one-eyed stare from behind her shiny black hair. Carrie with her wide, green, seldom-blinking eyes.

“Okay,” said Alanis. “Daley was kind of with Nick, like we told you. And Nick was... murdered the same day Daley left here. So we know it wasn’t Nick that abducted her. But there was a secret guy that Daley had also been talking to. For maybe, like, a couple of months. While Nick and her were, like, together, sort of.”

“No,” said Carrie. “They’d been talking for three months when she first told us. But Daley had known him for years. Off and on. They were like ghosts flying through each other, she said.” She shrugged. “That was how she described it — like ghosts flying through each other.”

“But she swore us not to say anything about him,” said Alanis. “Not to anybody. She wouldn’t even tell us his name. Like we’d know him. Or like he was important.”

“She wouldn’t tell us how they met, either,” said Carrie. “But it wasn’t online, because her sister wouldn’t let her use her phone for that. Right? So we don’t know his name and we don’t know how they met.”

“What do you know about him?” I asked.

“That he’s old enough to be her father,” said Alanis.

“No, grandfather !” said Carrie.

“And she thinks there’s something spiritual between her and him. Daley said that before she met him she felt like a puppet in the rain. That talking to him was like turning off the rain so she could turn into a girl instead of a puppet.”

“She actually said turn into a woman ,” said Carrie.

Alanis swept aside her hair and cut her friend a look. Then back to me. “And know what else? Daley said this secret old man was the first person she’d ever met who didn’t make Jesus Christ seem funny.”

“Like a joke,” said Carrie. “Who didn’t make Jesus Christ seem like a joke.”

“What ever . Why do you always miss my points?”

I said nothing for a moment. Watched Alanis Tervalua’s cyclopic stare collide with Carrie Calhoun’s wide green eyes.

“Sorry, Lana.”

“Always have to win.”

“I know. I just get excited.”

“So there you go again.”

“Sorry. I’ll be quiet.”

Thus, silence. Just the breeze in the coral tree leaves and the droning sound of a Cessna 182 lowering into Carlsbad Airport. I recognized the sound of that plane without even looking, the very plane in which Justine had met her terrifying, solitary, unnecessary end. This time I didn’t look up. Sometimes the throaty growl of that Lycoming engine brings joyful memories, and sometimes brute loss.

“Where is she, Mr. Ford?” asked Alanis.

“Two nights ago she was with Adam Revell, and Connor, and some others.”

“So she’s okay, then?” asked Alanis. “Is she going to go home soon?”

“I don’t think she’s okay,” I said. “We need to find her. Tell me about Adam and Connor.”

“We’re kind of friends,” said Carrie. “I mean, we all knew each other from Alchemy 101. Like we told you last week.”

“I was never kind of friends with those two,” said Alanis.

“But we haven’t been to Alchemy 101 much the last few weeks,” said Carrie. “There’s something kind of off about it. Daley thought so, too. But it’s hard to say what.”

“I can say what,” said Alanis. “They hate on you with their eyes.”

I stepped closer to what I thought was the deep end, touched my toe to the water. “Do you go to the Cathedral by the Sea?”

“Once,” said Alanis. “Same creep-out I got from Adam and Connor.”

“Twice,” said Carrie. “Both times with Daley.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Cool building. And — you know how churches are, everyone smiling and forgiving you ahead of time. For stuff you don’t even know you did. That cathedral has all these activities for teens. They want you at Surf Day and Snow Weekend and Mountain Camp, on and on.”

“But you’ve never done any of those?” I asked.

“Not my deal,” said Carrie.

“You were there twice with Daley?”

“She’s interested in activities because of her sister,” said Carrie. “Who’s even more stricter than my own mom. Taking away her Facebook and all that. I mean — you can’t ever say I told you — but Penelope locks Daley in her room sometimes. After nailing the window shut. I’ve seen the nails. And I’ve seen Daley’s foot marks on the door where she’s kicked it.”

“The more her sister wouldn’t let her do things, the more she felt trapped,” said Alanis. “So she’d hang out with Nick. And she’d sneak off to Alchemy 101 with Adam or Connor.”

I pictured Daley in all her teenage frustration, paying her five bucks, getting her hand stamped, and losing herself in Alchemy 101. Music, dancing, and plenty of other girls and boys to hang with. And I imagined her at the Cathedral by the Sea, being wooed by the youth minister — or maybe by Atlas himself, her own very, very secret father — hoping that her meddlesome sister wasn’t about to bust her.

“Did either of you ever meet the pastor, Reggie Atlas?”

“Once,” said Alanis. “He shook my hand with both of his. But I saw something in his eyes I didn’t trust.”

“Daley introduced me to him,” said Carrie. “He was nice and kind of reserved. Like older guys can be. I mean that as a compliment, you know?”

“So Daley knew him?” I asked.