Iceman

South Blytheville, Arkansas

Mrs. Alvarez, distraught and shaking, proved to be totally worthless. They had ended up meeting at the cop shop at eight a.m., and she sat in a small interview room, hugging herself and always appearing to be on the verge of shivering, as she numbly took Eichord over the ground she'd trod a dozen times in the past seventy-two hours. She was not going to go back to work until she found the kids.

Angela and María were, by all evidence, sweet, adorable kids without enemies. She never let either of them go out alone on the streets, even in the neighborhood, “so they'd never get into trouble.” Why couldn't the police find them? Juanita Alvarez kept asking. It was a question nobody could answer.

He tried to take her down fresh avenues, doing what he always did, watching as much as listening. Because this was not about the kids, this interview. It was about Juanita Alvarez. And as he probed about school, church, and other affiliations, subtly moving the questions into more intimate areas, Eichord's sensors were picking up the mother's vibes. Unless she was one of those rare types of total sociopaths, or an extremely capable actress, this was a worried mother who didn't know where her missing children were.

An hour and a half later he'd also had just about all he could take of one Pam Bailey, the fourteen-year-old who'd popped off to a pair of investigating officers about “that mean old coot who lives next door, bragging about getting even with rowdy brats.” She was a sullen, olive-skinned couch potato of a kid in an Elvis Is Still Alive sweatshirt. The neighbor, Mr. Hillfloen, had apparently complained to the manager about her dog, which they let run, and this was the girl's idea of payback.

It turned out that the Bailey girl hadn't really seen anything—it was clearly a kid trying to run a shuck on the cops. By nine-thirty Eichord had cut her loose, and was going through the motions of finding 1458 1/2 South Utica.

Eichord found the trailer court with some difficulty, tucked away off a low-rent side street in South Blytheville. It would be a long time before he ceased to be haunted by the image of his first impression, each time he saw a yellow dead end sign peppered with good ole country-boy buckshot.

Each yard was filled with cultural castaways: cars on blocks; a three-wheeler with For Sale sign; a trio of plaster leprechauns, one headless, peering out over a domain of plastic herbicide buckets and empty milk jugs strung together with wire; a rusting import towed into someone's yard, now put to work as a rubiginous garbage can.

The last driveway on the left of the field with its ventilated Dead End sign, a gravel slope running up between two rows of sad tin boxes, announced the presence of The Sunshine Trailer Court.

Eichord was reminded of the obligatory trailer-park TV-news shot, the one you saw after every major tornado, cyclone, hurricane, or earthquake. He doubted if even acts of God could tip these rustbuckets over. Rip the roofs off? Sure. But the aged, rectangular, and bullet-shaped living quarters that squatted here appeared to be growing out of the earth. Surely not even a force majeure could make these mobile homes.

He got out of the car and was moving toward what appeared to be the manager's office, according to a mailbox adorned with the peeling decal OFFI E, but he saw the old man and changed direction.

“How-doo,” the man said, his voice loud and startling.

“Howdy,” Eichord said. “Would you know where I might find Mr. Hillfloen?"

“If you're seeking Owen Hillfloen, I might."

“He's the one.” Eichord smiled.

“I be he.” The old guy smiled back, friendly as all get-out. He could have been anywhere from forty-eight to seventy-eight, with one of those weather-whipped, windburnt country faces you can never picture in your mind when they're out of sight.

When Eichord thought of the man's image, later, his memory would conjure up the sign, then the head first, as he scanned—top to bottom—for something that set him apart.

The hair: wind-touseled, midlength. Mr. Hillfloen looked like the kind of man who awoke, plunged his face under icy water, pushed his wet hair back with his hands in a single push, and left it that way. No brush or comb had touched it. He would not indulge his vanities in a mirror.

The face: wrinkle city. But the hard work and toughness wasn't all that was there. Something else showed. A gaunt, indefinable harshness that one could see on the faces of derelicts, on some of the elderly forgotten in nursing homes, and—sometimes—in the faces of the insane. Eyes deep-set in the outdoor face. A couple of teeth missing in the easy smile. The look all the more unsettling for its inexplicability.

The body: slim and sinewy in an old-fashioned barber's work shirt buttoned at the throat.

“And I know you."

“Is that so?” Eichord had his ID case in hand but hadn't flashed it yet.

“Dollars to donuts."

“Hmm?” The oddity of his words, the loud, booming voice, and his appearance gave off disconcerting vibes, and it was this image that would stay with him. That was the instant Eichord thought the man Owen Hillfloen might not be sane.

“Dollars to donuts either you are the tax man or you are the law. Which is it, pray tell?"

“Yes, sir,” Eichord said, showing his identification. “We're investigating the death of two children.” He pulled the police circular out and handed it to the man. “Do you recognize them?"

“Lordy. Well...” He took the photo circular and made a show of getting glasses out of his shirt pocket and putting them on the tip of his nose, holding his head back a little and studying the pictures and descriptions. “Mmmm."

“These are the Alvarez girls. They were killed sometime in the last seventy-two hours. Killed and raped. Do you recognize them?” He watched the old man carefully.

“Lordy, Lordy. I don't know as I can say for sure. These foreigners"—he shrugged and looked up at Eichord—"they're so hard to tell apart. Are these the ones that lived down the block here?"

Eichord nodded. “Yeah. Did you know them?"

“No, sir. I can't say as I did."

“How did you know who they were?"

“It says the names on there."

“I mean, how did you know they lived down the block?"

“Oh, we been seeing the story on the television and in the papers over the weekend. Tragic thing."

“Um hmm."

“Kids running around unsupervised and all."

“How do you mean unsupervised?"

“Why, I hear tell their mother never knew where they were after school and so forth. Just let them run loose, you see? Unsupervised. That's the way these third-worlders are. They don't have the same values as we do.” He shook his head.

“Third-worlders,” Eichord repeated easily, drawing the old guy out.

“Hispanics, La-TEE-nos, Chicanos, I don't know all the different names they go by now. Your Latin types from down under. Your drug-country people. Brown-skin types. Your Mexes and your boat people. LORdeeee!"

“You realize we're talking about mutilated children, Mr. Hillfloen?"

“That's what I'm talking about.” He shook his head. “Unstructured, unsupervised third-worlders. Running loose. Mother and father Lord knows where. THAT'S how they get into trouble."

“Some sicko grabbed these girls in front of their home and tortured and killed them. Mutilated the bodies. Decapitated the kids. We're talking about somebody who REALLY had it in for these little girls. Do you hate people of color that much, Mr. Hillfloen?” Eichord's eyes bored into the old man.

“ME?” He laughed mirthlessly, drawing himself up and returning Eichord's glare. “'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for such is the kingdom of Heaven ...’ Matthew nineteen:fourteen."

But you do not lock a man up for giving off bad vibes, looking vaguely strange, or for having a voice like a loudspeaker. Nor is it against the law to be a bigot, so long as you keep your feelings to yourself. And that was the thing about Owen Hillfloen: whatever else he might have been, he was a private man.