Burning Time

60

Newt Regis couldn’t really afford to send two men down to San Diego, but he did it anyway. The image of his own daughter, Clarissa, so happy with her husband and new baby, wouldn’t leave him alone. He thought about what it would mean to lose Clarissa, all the time he was talking with Jennifer Roane, the mother of the dead girl, who’d come from New York to get her.

Without any warning, she’d come in a rented car all the way to Newt’s office in Potoway Village, and Raymond had to lope across the street to get Newt at the café where he was having a late lunch.

“I thought I told her that wasn’t necessary.” Newt shook his head with disbelief.

Raymond looked at the half-eaten hamburger in Newt’s hand. “She wanted to see where it happened,” he muttered. “Said she needed it for closure.”

“Closure, huh.” Newt put down the hamburger and wiped his hands on the too-small paper napkin in his lap. He got up, shrugging. “I’ll be back,” he called over his shoulder to the surprised waitress.

Mrs. Roane was sitting stiffly on a chair outside the sheriff’s office. She was wearing a khaki bush jacket, as if she’d come to Africa, a wrinkled matching skirt, and huge sunglasses. She was working at the large wad of tissues balled up in her hands.

“Mrs. Roane? I’m Sheriff Regis.”

She stood up and held out the hand without the tissues. “You were the one who found her?”

Newt took the slender hand, nodding. “No one told me you were coming.”

“I didn’t tell anyone. The policewoman in New York said I didn’t have to.…”

“No,” Newt said gently. “You didn’t have to.” He held the hand sympathetically, taking a minute to assess the situation, then let it go.

The woman’s dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her white skin was puffy. She wore no makeup and sniffed back tears Newt guessed had been pouring out nonstop for days.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asked. Coffee was all he could think of to offer.

She shook her head. “Where is she? I want to see her.”

“We’ve—taken good care of her,” Newt said slowly, ushering the woman into his office.

“I want to see her.”

“I understand.”

She looked around the office, at the cheap furniture, the cluttered desk, the window with its dusty Venetian blinds that didn’t prevent the afternoon sun from streaming in between the slats. He couldn’t see her eyes behind her dark glasses.

“What was Ellen doing out here?” she asked.

Newt didn’t respond to that question.

“Tell me. I loved her so much.…” She let go and sobbed.

Newt never could bear to see a woman cry. He took a deep breath. Right under his fingertips was a folder that contained all the photos he had of the dead girl who was this woman’s child. Before a madman, the desert, and the vultures got to Ellen Roane, she had been a beautiful, healthy, much-loved college girl. If the suspect was ever apprehended and went to trial, Mrs. Roane might hear the testimony and see the photos of what happened to her daughter. As far as Newt was concerned, that would be too soon.

“Mrs. Roane,” he said, “if it were my daughter, I’d hold onto that love. I’d hold onto it real tight.”

She shook her head vehemently. “I need to see her … to say good-bye.”

“No. You got her whole in your heart. Keep her that way. Take her back home with you and say good-bye when you bury her.”

Since she didn’t want to do that, it took Newt a long time to convince her. It wasn’t until the next day that he could send Raymond and Jesse down to San Diego with the photos of Ellen and Troland Grebs that Sergeant Grove had supplied. They also had copies of the six credit card charges Ellen Roane had made, sent by the detective from New York. There was no hotel or motel charge, so Newt figured Ellen never checked out. He had the sheet on Troland Grebs. He couldn’t tell from the old arrests on it why the detective in New York was so sure it was Grebs. But one witness tying Grebs and Ellen Roane together would do it.

“Find out where she stayed first,” he told his officers. “They’re probably still holding her things at some hotel. Maybe they saw who she was with.”

• • •

The two men started early. They planned to cover the area around where she had shopped and eaten. There had been no car rental charge on her credit card. It seemed fairly clear that Ellen Roane hadn’t had a car. There were two hotels, three motels, and one bed-and-breakfast within walking distance of the places she had made the charges. The beach was only a few blocks away from the shopping area.

After an hour, they found Ellen’s possessions at the sixth place they tried. The Coral Reef Bed and Breakfast was one of those quaint places with no phones in the rooms. On the second floor, a large patio overlooked the ocean just across the street. They served breakfast there, and iced tea, wine, fruit, cheese, and crackers in the afternoon.

The owner, a tall, very thin, overtanned woman in her forties, took one look at the two deputy sheriffs in their khaki uniforms with their hats in their hands and asked them to sit down at one of the tables.

“Would you like a glass of iced tea?” she asked.

It was a hot day. Raymond, who thought he knew how to handle women, glanced quickly at Jesse, then nodded. Jesse was the elder, nearly fifty now, and looked tired. He sat.

The woman came back in a moment with a fluffy blonde who was clearly her girlfriend. The blonde carried a pitcher.

“I’m Gena Howard. I’m the owner. And this is Roberta. Roberta cooks.”

“Hello.” Roberta poured out two glasses of dark tea with lots of frosty ice and handed them over.

“What can we do for you?” Gena Howard had clearly dealt with cops before.

“About two weeks ago, did you have a young woman staying with you?” Raymond asked. The iced tea was cold and strong and very sweet.

Roberta nodded. “Debby,” she said. “This is about Debby, isn’t it? Where is she? What happened to her?”

“Debby?” Raymond said.

“Shh, Bobbie. Let him ask the questions.”

Raymond took out the picture. “We’re looking for this girl. Her name is Ellen Roane.”

Bobbie and Gena took the photo of Ellen Roane in shorts with a tennis racket in her hand, and a big happy smile on her face. The two women held it together, their heads almost touching as they bent over it. The recognition was immediate, but they continued holding the photo as if they didn’t want to let it go.

“Debby,” Bobbie confirmed.

“Such a nice girl,” Gena Howard said, still studying the picture. “She wanted a room where she could see the water. We put her on the third floor. She was just crazy about the ocean.… You know, I was really worried when she took off without her things.… But sometimes they do that when they don’t want to pay—”

“You thought she left to avoid paying the bill?” Raymond asked incredulously.

Gena looked at Bobbie, then shook her head. “We didn’t want to think that of her. And she had expensive things, more than the room was worth. It didn’t seem likely.”

“We were afraid something happened to her,” Bobbie said softly. “But …”

“Don’t you read the newspapers?” Raymond interrupted.

Gena put her hand protectively on Bobbie’s shoulder and shook her head again. Bobbie kept her eyes on them, clearly frightened.

“It’s always such bad news,” Bobbie explained.

“We’ve got a lot of things to do to keep this place going,” Gena added defensively. “We have ten rooms, and it’s just us. We don’t really bother with the news.” She changed the subject. “We did keep her stuff in case she decided to come back. Like I said, it’s good stuff, worth more than the room. We hoped she’d come back.”

“What happened to her?” Bobbie’s face was very pale.

Raymond told her as gently as he could. “Somebody took her out into the desert and left her there.”

“Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth.

Jesse sat there drinking his iced tea. His expression hadn’t changed since they walked in. Raymond glanced at Jesse and wondered if he’d ever get to be that cool.

“She was a pretty girl,” Gena said, still studying the photo. “Real pretty.”

Raymond nodded. “Why don’t you tell us about her,” he suggested.

“What do you want to know?” Gena finally relinquished the picture. Raymond took it back and reached for his notebook.

It took some time to hear everything the two women had to say. They had never thought Debby was her real name, Bobbie said. She didn’t always answer to it. She kept pretty much to herself. Yes, they could see her on the beach from here, and they did see her, Gena supplied. But when they were looking, she was always alone.

Raymond handed over the two old photos of Troland Grebs. Gena laid them down side by side and studied them doubtfully for a long time.

“Those were taken a long time ago,” Raymond said helpfully. “He’s a lot older now.”

“I don’t know,” Gena said.

Bobbie lifted a shoulder diffidently. “Does he ride a motorcycle? There’s a guy hangs out at the beach that looks kinda like this. Same build, same blond hair.”

“Oh?” Jesse said. It was the first time he had spoken. His glass of iced tea was empty now, except for the ice, and he was smearing the circles of moisture the glass left on the table with his finger. “Where do you see him?”

“Around the beach. He hangs out,”

“Are you sure he’s the one?” Gena asked. “This guy’s so young.”

“Look, same mouth,” Bobbie insisted.

The two women thought the guy who looked like this lived somewhere around here because he liked to come to the beach in the evening and watch the sun go down. He had a motorcycle. He’d probably be out there tonight.

The deputies waited around until nine that night, but no one like Grebs showed up. They questioned some regulars who hung around the beach. A few of them thought the boy in the photo was someone they knew as Willy. One guy, an aging surfer who didn’t put on a shirt even though the temperature had dropped to the fifties, said he saw a girl who looked like Ellen get on Willy’s Harley-Davidson and drive off. He wasn’t sure when, thought maybe it was two weeks or so ago. As far as he knew, Willy hadn’t been around since.

After he got this information from Raymond and Jesse, Newt came down out of the hills himself to try to establish Troland’s whereabouts. Grebs wasn’t at his apartment. The manager of the building said he hadn’t seen him in days. His office said Grebs was on vacation.