Chasing The Dead

Chapter Twenty-Two

Alex would have preferred to spend more time at the scene, walking through the crime scene the way Rossi had laid it out, looking for anything that might contradict his report, but the little girl changed all that. She was getting away and the scene wasn’t going anywhere.

Unless the girl was a runaway, she had to live close by. Alex couldn’t see any houses from where she stood, but she knew there weren’t any on Truman Road or Twenty-Third Street. And Alex doubted the child had crossed eight lanes of interstate highway to get to the creek. That meant the child most likely lived to the east, somewhere on the other side of the cliff.

Alex ran for her car, gambling that the child would head for home rather than remain in the woods at the south end of Liberty Park. If she was right, she had a chance of finding the girl before she could hide behind a locked door and parents who would shield her from the lawyer for an accused murderer.

Back in her car, Alex followed the street where she’d parked up a hill and into an unfamiliar neighborhood. The streets were narrow, winding bands of asphalt, crumbling along the edges, bordered by drainage ditches thick with overgrown grass and weeds. She had to be quick without hurrying or risk losing control of her car on the serpentine roads.

Houses and trailers were scattered haphazardly along the streets, some bunched together, others standing alone, many of them so old and run-down that a stiff wind would blow them away. Pit bulls and Dobermans patrolled their turf, snarling and barking when she passed by. Signs saying Keep Out and Beware of Dog were plentiful enough to convince any door-to-door salesman-or lawyer-to try her luck elsewhere.

No one was working in their yard or sitting at a window or on their front porch. No children were playing on swing sets or in the street. There was no one at all, which wasn’t unusual on a weekday afternoon, when adults were likely at work and children in school, but there was something about the neighborhood that felt alone or abandoned. Maybe it was the dilapidated, neglected conditions, or maybe it was something missing in the lives of the people who lived there. Whatever the cause, it gave her a prickly uneasiness, making her anxious to find the little girl, talk to her, and get out of there.

Several times she thought she caught a glimpse of the girl darting among the trees, her long blond hair matted against her neck. But when she slowed for a closer look, no one was there, making Alex wonder if what she’d seen was just the sun reflecting off the leaves rustling in the breeze, the elusive images tantalizing enough for her to keep searching.

She wound her way through the neighborhood again and again before catching a woman parking a white Chevy Impala in a driveway she’d passed twice before. The car was missing its hubcaps and a rear brake light. A sheet of plastic was duct-taped over the missing passenger window on the driver’s side, and the left quarter panel was rusted out above the wheel well. The driveway belonged to a saltbox house with a roof that sagged in the middle and siding that was peeling in places and fading in others. A storage shed sat at the back of the driveway, its door padlocked with a heavy chain.

Alex stopped in front of the house, rolling her window down and calling to the woman when she got out of her car.

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

The woman had copper-red hair courtesy of a bad dye job and enough makeup for a drag queen, her glittering green eye shadow visible at a distance. She wore jeans that were too tight for the heft she carried and an even tighter shirt stretched over mountainous breasts subdivided by the strap of the purse slung between them.

“Yeah,” the woman said.

Alex got out of her car and crossed the yard to the driveway, glad that there was no dog in sight.

“I’m looking for a little girl, probably about ten. She’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt and has long blond hair.”

The woman blinked, glancing over her shoulder at the thicket of trees behind her. It was enough to make Alex think the woman not only knew the child but was also looking for her.

“She your kid?” the woman asked, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“No.”

“Relative of yours?”

“No.”

“You even know her name?”

“I don’t,” Alex said, not liking the way the conversation was going.

“What makes you think she lives around here?”

“I saw her playing in that creek that runs through the area. . I don’t know what to call it. . There’s a sign that says Liberty Park.”

The woman cocked her head at Alex, one eyebrow raised. “Uh-huh. What do you want with her?”

Alex smiled, trying to keep their conversation casual and friendly, knowing the more questions she was asked, the fewer answers she would get to her own questions.

“I just want to talk to her.”

“About what?”

“The other day, a woman’s body was found in the creek right where she was playing, and I thought maybe,” Alex said, holding up her palm, “and I know it’s probably a long shot-but maybe if that’s someplace she liked to play, if she was down there a lot, she might have seen somebody or something that would help me find out what happened.”

The woman squinted at her. “You a cop?”

Alex took a breath, shaking her head, knowing that this was the moment when things could go south. Most people didn’t like getting involved in anything outside their own lives, especially cops, courts, and crimes. It was a toss-up between whom they disliked more-the police who might one day arrest them or the lawyers who they suspected would get the guilty off on a technicality unless they happened to be the one who was guilty.

“No, I’m a lawyer and I’m representing a man whose been charged with murdering that woman.”

The woman crossed her arms over her chest, tightening her jaw. “Well, I don’t know nothing about no little girl or dead woman.”

Alex studied her for a moment, the woman returning the stare. Alex broke eye contact first, digging her wallet out of her jeans and removing a business card.

“If you happen to hear anything or run across that little girl, I’d appreciate it if you would give me a call,” she said, handing the card to the woman. “My client’s life could depend on it.”

The woman reluctantly took the card without looking at it, her downturned mouth sour proof that she was unmoved by Alex’s appeal.

“Sure,” the woman said.

Alex drove away, watching the woman in her rearview mirror, the woman crumpling her business card and dropping it on the ground. Just as Alex rounded a curve, she saw the little girl dash out from behind the storage shed, running to the woman’s side, ducking behind the woman and out of Alex’s sight.

She stopped in the middle of the street, debating whether to turn around. The woman was probably the child’s mother and had done what any mother would have done when a stranger tried to draw her daughter into a murder investigation. Confronting her now would only make the woman more protective, but Alex had to take that chance, because the longer she waited to talk to the girl, the more likely the mother was to make sure the girl told her nothing.

Alex spun the wheel and drove back to the house, slamming her hand on the steering wheel when she saw the empty driveway. The woman, the girl, and the Impala were gone.