The Last Child

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Officer Taylor went to Ken Holloway’s office first. She drove downtown and pulled into the big parking lot that framed Holloway’s building on two sides. She moved slowly, looking for a white Escalade with gold letters. Didn’t find it. Leaving her cruiser in front of the building, Taylor checked her belt, then walked to the big glass doors. She liked the way the belt rode on her hips. Serious metal. Heavy-duty gear. Taylor loved being a cop. The authority that came with the badge. The blue uniform that never wrinkled. She liked to drive fast. She liked to arrest bad people.

Her shoes made small, rubbery sounds on the waxed marble floor.

A woman sat behind a large reception counter, and Taylor felt her eyes all the way across the vaulted space. The woman was crisp and richly dressed, her gaze judgmental, her voice superior. “Yes?” she said, and Taylor disliked her at once.

“I’m here to speak with Ken Holloway.” She used her cop voice, the one that said, Don’t make me repeat myself.

The receptionist arched an eyebrow. Her lips barely moved. “To what is this pertaining?”

“It’s pertaining to my wanting to see him.”

“I see.” She pursed thin lips. “Mr. Holloway is not in today.”

Taylor pulled out a pad and pen. “And your name?” People hated the pad and pen. They disliked being on record with a cop. The receptionist reluctantly gave her name and Taylor wrote it down. “And you say Mr. Holloway is not in?”

“Yes. I mean, no. He is not in.”

The receptionist had paled into submission, but Taylor never smiled when she used her authority. She used minimal language and kept her face neutral. “When was the last time you saw or spoke with Mr. Holloway?”

“He’s not been in since sometime yesterday.”

“And others in this building would be willing to confirm that?”

“I believe so.”

Taylor made a slow perusal of the room: the art on the walls, the directory, the elevators. She placed a card on the counter. “Please have Mr. Holloway call that number when he comes in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Taylor held eye contact, then left the way she entered, slow and steady, one hand on the wide, vinyl belt. Back in the car, she keyed up the laptop and checked DMV records for all vehicles owned by Ken Holloway. In addition to the Escalade, he owned a Porsche 911, a Land Rover, and a Harley-Davidson. Taylor made one more sweep of the parking lot, but saw none of those vehicles. A note went in the pad, next to the receptionist’s name: probably telling the truth.

Holloway’s house was on one of the big golf courses on the rich side of town. The course was private, built around a palatial clubhouse of stone and ivy. No house on his street cost less than two million dollars, and Holloway’s was the biggest, a white monolith on four acres of manicured lawn. Halfway up the drive, Taylor passed a statue of a black liveryman holding a lantern and smiling broadly.

Taylor got out of the car and mounted broad steps to the long verandah. The front door stood open above a floor of lacquered slate. At first, there was only silence, the call of a bird; then Officer Taylor heard someone crying.

A woman.

Inside.

Taylor’s hand dropped to the butt of her weapon. She thumbed off the leather strap, stepped to the open door. She saw an ax on the floor by what remained of the piano. The top of it was splintered. Blows had shattered the keyboard and ivory teeth were strewn across the carpet. Everything else looked perfect.

Taylor keyed her radio, got dispatch. She gave her location and requested backup; then she drew her weapon, announced herself, and stepped over the threshold. She smelled liquor and saw open bottles on a coffee table. One of them was empty, the other halfway.

The crying came from someplace deeper in the house. Kitchen, maybe. Or a bedroom. Taylor stepped through the arched entry into the living room. Looking right, she saw a mirror on the sofa, rails of what looked like cocaine cut out in neat rows.

Wires were torn from the guts of the piano.

“Police,” she called again. “I’m armed.”

She found the woman in a short hall beyond the living room. She was young, maybe nineteen, with dark roots, bleached hair, and flawless skin. Her teeth were crooked but white, her hands rough and red. She sat on the floor, crying, and Taylor saw that her eyes were very blue. “He didn’t do nothing. I’m okay.” Her accent was from down east. Taylor had grown up poor in the sand hills and had known a dozen girls just like her, uneducated and pretty, desperate to find some better place.

“Can you stand?” Taylor held out a hand. The girl wore a maid’s uniform, shoulder torn on the right side, buttons burst on the blouse. One cheek glowed with a red heat, and she had angry finger marks on the soft part of her arm. “Are you alone?”

The girl didn’t answer.

“Did Ken Holloway do this to you?”

She nodded. “He called me Katherine. That’s not my name.”

“What’s your name?”

“Janee. With two E’s.”

“Okay, Janee. You’re going to be okay, but I need you to tell me what happened here.” Taylor looked at the ripped shirt, the sprung buttons. Her voice was kind. “Did he rape you?”

“No.”

There was something in the way she said it. The hesitation. A slyness. “Do you have a relationship with Mr. Holloway?”

“You mean?”

Taylor said nothing, and Janee nodded. “Sometimes. He can be nice, you know. And he’s, like, really rich.”

“You had sex with him?”

She nodded, started crying again.

“And he struck you?”

“After,” she said.

“Go on.”

“He gives me nice things, sometimes; and he’s got these real pretty words.” She sniffed. “You know what I mean? Like a gentleman.” She shook her head, wiped at an eye. “I shouldn’t have told him that he called me somebody else’s name. He said he didn’t believe me, but I think he just didn’t like me catching him like that. He didn’t want me knowing.”

“He called you Katherine. Did he use a last name?”

“Not that I heard. You saw the piano?”

“Yes.”

“That’s how mad he got. It’s like that name just set him off. He said if I told anybody, I’d be next.” She compressed her lips and bleached-blond hair fell over her eyes. “He gave me an iPod once.”

“Janee…”

“He is a very bad man.”