Blood Men

chapter fifty-two

Tyler’s screams stop around the same time we reach the car. The gunshot tore through him and the seat of the chair and made it collapse into a splintery heap. His genitals and lower intestines are splashed out all over the floor. The arteries in his thighs are all torn up and coating the room in squirts of blood.

Could be this is the kind of neighborhood where nobody would even call the police, but we’re not hanging about to take a poll. We reach the car and pick a direction and stick with it.

“Holy shit, Dad, you just killed an innocent man.”

“No I didn’t.”

“What? You just-”

“You said innocent, Jack. Tyler was far from innocent. You could see that right off, right? It’s why you gave me the gun.”

“I gave you the gun to speed things along, that’s all,” I say. “Sam is out there somewhere, and you’re turning all of this into you. You won’t help me until I get you out of hospital. Then we go and see somebody who has nothing to do with what we’re trying to do. All you’re doing is proving we are absolutely nothing alike.”

“He had it coming,” Dad says. “And the darkness-it needed to be fed.”

“To be fed? He said he hadn’t seen you in four years. How’d you know where to go? No way you would have been keeping tabs on where he lived, not unless you were planning on making a visit. How’d you know you’d be getting the chance?”

“I didn’t know,” he says. “But before you showed up at the hospital, I was able to find out.”

“How?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why though? Why’d you want to find out?”

“You just sermonized about me making all of this about myself,” he says, “now you’re the one doing it. I thought you only cared about finding Sam.”

“And it’s obvious that’s not your priority at all,” I answer. “Because it all doesn’t fit properly.”

“You want my help or not?”

“That depends on whether you’re going to actually start helping me, and I’m thinking you have no idea who to speak to next.”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “Bracken was the parole officer, right?”

“Right. But he took the money from Kingsly and didn’t tell the others. Everybody thinks I have it.”

“You do have it.”

“Yeah, I have it now, but I didn’t have it earlier, and now I don’t know how to get hold of any of them.”

“Maybe they know how to get hold of you? You took his phone, right?”

“Yeah-but nobody’s called.”

“He give you anything, anything at all?” Dad asks.

“Bracken? No. Nothing.”

“You search his house?”

“Yeah. And his office. There was a cell number in his phone but it doesn’t connect.”

“You went to his office?”

“I didn’t find much. Just some files that didn’t lead anywhere.”

“Where are they?”

I nod toward the backseat. Dad reaches over for the bag and grunts when he tries to lift it.

“They’re on top,” I say, and a moment later he has them in his hands.

“Who the hell are these people?” he asks, opening the first couple of folders.

“Nobody,” I say. “Just files the probation officer had in his drawer.”

“So they’re clients he has. You went to his office and found his current work and nothing else.”

“I didn’t have time to keep looking.”

“You should have made the time. These are useless,” he says. “Some of these people don’t even have a record for armed robbery. What have we got here,” he says, thumbing through them, “we’ve got half a dozen armed holdups, an arson, a couple of rapists, a couple of drug traffickers, a kidnapper, a compulsive shoplifter-any of them could be part of this thing.”

“I know, Dad, I already know. Two men took Sam tonight, one of them I killed, the other one has her. Nat and Diana, they saw the other guy.”

“Have you showed the folders to them?”

“I can’t. The police are with them. Schroder was going to get them to check out some mug shots.”

“So maybe they have a name already. Maybe the police have already found Sam.”

“And maybe they haven’t.”

“Call them.”

“The police?”

“No, your in-laws. Maybe they’ve made an ID and can give us a name.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“Well, try again.”

I pull over. After ten rings I’m about to hang up when suddenly it’s picked up.

“Hello?”

“Nat?”

“Jesus, Eddie, where the hell are you?”

“I’m looking for Sam. Where the hell else would I be?”

“With your father? The police say you broke him out.”

“He’s helping.”

“He’s a monster.”

“So is the man who took Sam. Were you able to make an ID?”

“Not at first. The cops know who the bank robbers are but none of them took Sam. The detective who showed them to us brought back a new batch of photos. We picked him out right away, Edward. The police know who took Sam.”

“They have the name, but that’s not the same as having Sam, is it?”

“Well, no.”

“Then give me the name of the man who took her.”

“I don’t know, Eddie. I think the police are better equipped.”

“The police, if they find her, will put the man who took her in jail for five or ten years and then let him go. That what you want? Remember when you said you wished you could have time alone with the people who killed Jodie?”

“We only want Sam back safely.”

“Give me the name. I swear to you, Nat, I’m not going to do anything that puts her at risk.”

“I don’t know. .”

“I deserve to know the name of the man who kidnapped my daughter, Nat. Jesus-she’s my daughter. My daughter!”

“Oliver Church,” he says, and I recognize the name. “That’s all I know. I don’t know any addresses or anything else.”

“Thank you,” I say, and I hang up.

“See, I knew they’d answer the phone,” Dad says. “I’m your good-luck charm.”

“Give me the folders.”

He hands them over. The fourth one in belongs to Oliver Church. Out of the list of crimes in the files, Oliver Church is the only one who has kidnapping and manslaughter next to his name, but there are no details of the crimes.

“Address won’t be current,” Dad says, “so no point in going to his house, and even if it is current he sure as hell won’t have taken Sam there.”

“You ever hear of him?”

“Never. Can’t your in-laws go online and find out about him?”

“They barely know what online means.”

“Well, there has to somebody you can ask.”

“Not really. What we need is a computer,” I say, looking out the windows, knowing that nine out of every ten houses out there has one. I think about all my conversations with Schroder, about my dad in jail, about the stabbing, about the ex-cop working for Schroder trying to solve part of the case.

The ex-cop.

Because Christchurch is clinging to the past, it’s still possible to pass an occasional phone booth, and I drive back toward town to find one. The Yellow Pages have been torn out, and so has the phone receiver, but the White Pages are still there and I use them to look up a name and address.