43. Ryder

43

"Now, tell me why I should give you people a thing."

Clyde Ganser, also known as the Saint Cloud Snatcher, leaned back in his seat on the other side of the glass, arms folded and a smug smile on his pockmarked face. The scar curving across his cheek looked new. He wore an orange T-shirt with tattooed biceps bulging in the too-tight sleeves, and the tattoos carried on to his wrists, a patchwork of ships and sea monsters and bare-breasted mermaids done by a second-rate artist. One meaty hand pressed an old-fashioned phone handset to his ear, a twin of the ones Dan and Ryder held.

Dan leaned forward an inch. "Tell us why you shouldn't."

Before they walked into the Oak Park Heights correctional facility on Tuesday morning, they'd agreed that Dan would be bad cop, although she couldn't be a real bitch because they didn't have much to bargain with. Only two things. They could add money to Clyde Ganser's commissary account, or in light of the circumstances and because he had a daughter himself, the warden had offered an extra hour per day in the yard for a total of five days, should Ganser give any valuable information. Pale had pulled strings to arrange the visit, but it had taken time they didn't have. Ryder had barely slept last night.

"Because if you don't talk to us, you can go back to your cell and talk to the wall."

Ganser had been moved to the Super-Seg section of the jail after assaulting two fellow inmates. He didn't play nicely with others, although he'd done a reasonable job of pretending in his younger years.

Then justice had caught up with him. His fifth victim had escaped, and they'd found the first four at a remote hunting cabin, battered, bruised, and strangled. He'd told the cops that Candy was still alive because she made a great mac and cheese as well as a good cover story. Nobody had suspected that the quiet truck driver who lived with his girlfriend and her teenage son was actually a serial killer.

Was it any wonder Anton Hebert had turned out the way he did?

Curiosity got the better of Ganser. "Who are you, anyway?"

Time for good cop. "We're private investigators. I'm Ryder, and this is Daniela."

"If this is about that Marigold girl, I already said it wasn't me."

"This isn't about a girl at all. It's about a boy."

Ganser looked surprised. Horrified, even. "Naw, man. No way. I ain't one of those homosexuals."

"I know, buddy. It's nothing like that. You dated his momma for a while, and we're trying to find him."

For a moment, Ganser looked puzzled. Then his expression cleared. "Ah, you mean the little misfit? Candy's kid?"

"Why do you call him a misfit?"

"Every other teenage boy in Elk River spent his spare time chasing girls or hunting." He gave a sickening grin. "Some of us grew up and combined the two. But Ant, he always had his nose stuck in a book. Go on, what did he do?"

"Why do you think he did anything?"

"Because I haven't seen that kid in more than a decade, so if you've come to talk to me, whatever it is must be big."

Dan took over. "The reason we're here isn't important, Clyde."

"It is if you want the information I have."

"We haven't yet established whether you have any relevant information. As you said, you're a long shot."

"Yeah, well, I'm not a snitch."

Dan held his gaze for ten long seconds. Then she dropped her phone and pushed back her chair.

"Too bad."

Ryder stared after her for a second before he rose to follow, hoping to fuck that she knew what she was doing.

"Wait!" Ganser shouted into the phone, loud enough to be heard through the glass.

Ryder sat down again. When Dan turned, she didn't mirror Ganser's smug expression. No, she just gave a nonchalant shrug. She was taking the lead here because she had more experience at interviewing difficult witnesses, including high-security prisoners, despite a tiny blip where she'd ended up dating one of them.

"Have you changed your mind about snitching? Or do you just want to tell me my ass looks great in these pants? Because the second one, I already know."

"Depends. I ain't tellin' tales on my friends. But the kid… I don't owe him nothin'. Things weren't even that serious between me and Candy. How old is he now? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?"

"Twenty-seven. Time flies when you're having fun. Now, here's how this is going to work. If you don't know any of the answers and you're upfront about that, you'll get an extra hour in the yard tomorrow. If you're able to provide useful information, you'll get five extra hours outside. But if you tell even a single lie, you get nothing. Understood?"

Ganser shrugged, which Ryder took to mean "yes."

"Did Anton spend much time at home?"

"Me and the boy, we didn't really see eye to eye. He stayed away most of the time. Why don't ya ask Candy where he is?"

"Candy died several years ago. Where did Anton go when he wasn't at home?"

Ganser stayed silent for a moment, processing. His expression didn't change. No sadness, no grief. But then again, what did Ryder expect from a man who'd stacked up his victims like firewood and covered them with a tarp?

"The library, mostly, or the park. On the weekends, he mowed people's lawns. Old ladies, mostly. He said they were better tippers, and they always brought him snacks."

Was one of those ladies Julia?

"Sounds like a smart kid."

"Never said he wasn't. He just had a bad attitude. Thought he was better than everyone else."

"So he hung out at the library, the park, and old ladies' houses. Do you remember who he hung out with?"

"Nobody. Boy was a loner. Candy said some kid used to push him around back in Alexandria, so Ant stopped going to school. She was meant to be home-schooling him." Ganser snorted. "Candy couldn'ta schooled a goldfish."

"She wasn't the smartest cookie?"

"Never found out who the boy's old man was, but he musta took after him and not his momma."

"So if Candy didn't teach him, and he didn't go to school, how did he learn?"

"Outta books. And one of the lawn ladies, she was a teacher or somethin'."

A spark flared in Ryder's veins, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Dan's hands grip her thighs. She thought they had something too. Candice had left Anton behind in Elk River when she returned to Alexandria, and who better to leave him with than a teacher?

"A school teacher? Or a private tutor?"

"Who knows? Candy said she was educatin' him. She borrowed him books and filled his head with nonsense. History, languages… A man can't use that to feed his family."

That was her. That was the woman.

"Do you recall her name?"

Ganser sniffed loudly and wetly, as if he was getting ready to hock a loogie at the glass. "June? Julie? Something with a J."

Julia.

"A surname?" Ryder asked.

"Who the fuck knows? I spoke to her once, twice maybe. Uptight old woman, looked down her nose at everyone. Guess that's why her and the boy got along. She needed a man to knock some manners into her."

Ryder gritted his teeth. Ganser was the one who needed manners knocked into him.

"How about an address?"

A shrug. "A big house by Lake Geneva. Had a three-stall garage in the front yard."

It wasn't much, but it was something. Maybe Julia had moved to New York, or maybe she hadn't. At least they'd narrowed down the location of her old home in Minnesota. Ryder, Dan, and Knox could drive around the area while Mack or Echo searched old property records. If Julia was the woman who'd died a year ago, and if she'd left the property to Hebert, then Luna could be there right now.

They needed to leave.

"One floor or two floors?" Dan asked.

Ganser thought for a moment. "Two. Had a big stone chimney at one end. Do I get my hours?"

The man didn't deserve them, but Dan said you couldn't double-cross a prisoner. Word would spread, and you never knew when you might need help from one of his buddies.

"If the information checks out."

The Saint Cloud Snatcher sat back with a self-satisfied smile on his face. "Go on, tell me what the boy did."

Dan's turn to shrug. "He's more like you than you think. He abducted a young woman."

For the second time, they got surprise, but this time there was no horror. Ganser gave a low whistle. "You're serious? Man, I didn't think he had that in him."

"No, I'm sorry, Julia doesn't live here anymore."

The new owner of the house by Lake Geneva was a tiny blonde woman with a toddler on her hip and spaghetti sauce on her yoga top. A Mercedes was parked crookedly in front of the three-stall garage, and play equipment filled the yard.

Dan offered a sympathetic smile. "We understand she passed away last year."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."

The blonde snuck another glance at Ryder. She seemed to be a fan of abs. Too bad Knox was at the other end of the street—he'd have been better to look at today. The lack of sleep was catching up with Ryder, he'd forgotten to shave, and he both looked and felt ragged.

"We're actually hoping to trace a friend of hers, but we keep running into dead ends," Dan said. "Can you tell us her surname?"

"I'm not sure I ever knew it."

"It wasn't on any of the paperwork?"

"No, I don't think so. The house was owned by a company. What exactly is this about?"

"A young woman is missing, and we believe she could be with the current owner of Julia's company."

The blonde opened her mouth. Closed it again. "Well, uh, shouldn't the police be looking into it?"

"They are, but they haven't gotten very far."

"Maybe I should speak with my husband about this."

Ryder decided to put the truth out there. "The young woman is my girlfriend. She went missing from her hotel room, and I'm desperate to find her. If your husband was missing, wouldn't you try everything you could?"

The blonde's expression morphed into pity. "Really? That's awful. But we moved here ten years ago, and I honestly don't remember anything about her. The realtor showed us around this place, and our lawyer dealt with the paperwork. I only met Julia once. We were hoping to measure the windows for drapes, and we dropped by in case someone was home, and she said she'd just leave the drapes because they wouldn't fit her new place anyway."

"Who was your realtor?"

"Donna Jeffries, but she retired to Florida three years ago, and I don't have a number for her anymore."

Dead end after dead end.

"Did Julia happen to say where she was moving to?"

The blonde brightened. "Why, yes. Yes, she did. She moved to Berkeley. I remember because my husband went to college there, and we talked about the botanical garden. Does that help?"

Berkeley? Emmy was also in Berkeley, looking for Anton Hebert's baby mama. The cyber team had traced the email Carole-Ann sent to an address in La Loma Park.

"It might help," Dan told her. "We actually have a team in Berkeley already, following up another lead. If you could find the name of the company, it would help even more."

The blonde turned back to Ryder. "You think your girlfriend is in trouble?"

He'd avoided saying the words out loud, but he couldn't deny the truth. "Yes, I do."

"So, uh, if you want to wait, I could take a look for the paperwork. My husband keeps everything in the study."

The clock was ticking. Luna was strong, but was she strong enough?

"We'll wait."