Chapter 14

Seedy covered it.

The hole-in-the-wall that had been named, fairly realistically, Belly Up slouched between a porn shop where a variety of strap-ons were featured in the dingy display window, and what had been in its latest and now-defunct incarnation a place called Bill's Quik Loans.

Just across the street, the dying neon on a sex club stuttered NAKED—SEX—DANCERS in a migraine-inducing loop.

In its intermittent blue lights, Eve clearly saw the illegal deal being transacted by a bulky dealer in a heavy black coat, and his skinny, shivering customer.

"Is he shuddering because he's jonesing," Eve wondered, "or because he's freezing his junkie ass off in that trench coat?"

"Likely both. If you're going to bust them, I'll wait."

"Only take a minute." She stepped to the curb, shouted over the dented hood of an ancient Mini, "Hey!" And waved her badge in the air.

Both bulky dealer and skinny junkie pounded sidewalk in opposite directions.

"You know they'll both just deal elsewhere."

"Yeah, but it's fun to watch them run when I'm not going to chase them. Let's go Belly Up with Sebastian—if he shows."

It proved as seedy inside as out with a trio of shallow booths and a pair of scarred tables lining the sticky floor. The short black bar boasted three backless stools, and occupants who looked like they belonged there.

The flabby bartender didn't look thrilled with his work, and after a flick of a glance toward Eve and Roarke appeared pissed off at the prospect of more customers.

The air smelled of cheap brew and centuries-old sweat.

The bony guy at the end of the bar slid off his stool as Eve passed, and strolled, desperately nonchalant, to the door and out.

She supposed he'd smelled cop even in the bad air.

She ignored the LC trying to make a deal with the man on the other stool, and walked to the back booth, and Mavis's Sebastian.

He wore a suit—unexpected—of charcoal gray. It didn't reach the heights of Roarke's custom tailoring, but it was a decent fit. He'd paired it with a black turtleneck.

A silver pen peeked out of the breast pocket.

With his artfully shaggy mop of brown hair, the quiet, pale blue eyes, and neatly trimmed goatee, he might've been mistaken for a college professor. He even had his hands neatly folded over a ratty paperback book.

Long, graceful-looking fingers, she noted—certainly adept at lifting wallets, flicking off wrist units.

He rose as they approached. Eve managed to watch his eyes and his hands at the same time, just in case.

"Lieutenant Dallas." He offered a hand—empty—and a smile as quiet and professorial as the rest of him. "Such a pleasure to meet you at last. And you." He offered the same to Roarke. "Mavis has told me so much about you, and I follow news of you in the media, of course. I feel I already know you."

"We're not here to get chummy."

"In any case." He gestured toward the booth. "Let me buy you a drink. The safest here is beer in the bottle. Anything else is suspect."

"On duty," Eve said briefly.

"Yes, I understand. Still, the bartender looks askance when there's no order on the table. There's bottled water to be had. If that will suffice, just give me a moment."

"What's with this guy?" Eve asked, sliding into the booth as Sebastian stepped to the bar.

"He hopes to make a good impression." Roarke angled his head to read the title of the book. "Macbeth. It suits the educated voice, the well-presented demeanor."

"He's a thief and an enabler of delinquent girls."

"Yes, well, we all have our flaws."

Sebastian came back, set down three short bottles. "I wouldn't trust the glassware either. I'll apologize for asking you to meet me in such a place, but you'll understand I feel a bit more comfortable on my own turf, so to speak."

He sat, looking comfortable, a man in his middle forties who kept in shape—body and mind.

"Shelby Stubacker," Eve said.

He sighed, nudged his book to the side. "I heard the reports on the girls you found. It's painful to me, on a human level, to know there are those who'd prey on the young. And painful on a personal level as Mavis said three had been mine."

"Four."

Shock flicked in his eyes. "Four? Mavis said three. Shelby and Mikki and LaRue."

"Add Crystal Hugh, and possibly Merry Wolcovich."

"Crystal." He slumped a little. "I remember her very well. She was only nine when she came to me, still wearing the bruises her father had put on her."

"Then you should've called the police."

"Her father was the police," Sebastian said with a snap in his tone. "There are beasts in every walk of life. She was hurt, hungry, and alone, with nowhere to go but back to the man who took out his frustrations on a child and her spineless mother. She stayed with us until she was thirteen. It can be a difficult age."

He paused a moment. "Crystal. Yes, I remember Crystal. Soft brown eyes and the mouth of a longshoreman. I appreciated the first, discouraged the second. As I recall, she'd started considering boys, as girls will at that age, and straining against the rules."

With a half smile, he lifted his bottle. "We do have them. She told me she was leaving and going with some friends. They were going to travel down to Florida. I gave her some money, wished her well, and told her she could come back whenever she wanted."

"You let a thirteen-year-old girl walk."

"They were only mine as long as they chose to stay. I'd hoped she'd gone to Florida, and sat on the beach. She deserved to. I remember Shelby as she was brash, rebellious—an interesting girl. A leader, but not always where others should be led. And Mikki because she would have followed Shelby into hell and back again. But the other you mentioned?"

"Merry Wolcovich."

"I don't recall right off. Fifteen years is a long time, and I've taken in a lot of girls over the years."

It put her back up, this taking in girls as if he were some selfless hero instead of an exploitive criminal. She leaned forward.

"Let's just lay this out. You train disenfranchised kids to steal, to break the law, to treat it like a game on one level, an avocation on another. So they run the streets, bilking people, taking money and possessions those people worked for, money they earned to pay the rent, to pay bills, or to blow at craps at a casino—because it's theirs. And you make a profit on your school of thieves and grifters. Mavis might see you as some sort of savior, but to me, you're just another criminal circumventing the law for his own gain."

Nodding, Sebastian sipped his water. "I understand your point of view. You've built your life around the law, have sworn to uphold it. And while you're neither naive nor rigid, your duty is your core. I'm a hard bite for you to chew and swallow, but you'll do it. On a personal level for Mavis, and on both a personal and professional level for twelve dead girls."

"Girls you might've killed. You helped Shelby get out of the new HPCCY, just as they were moving in."

"I don't remember doing anything of the kind. How did I help her leave there?"

"Forged documents. It's something you do."

"I may or may not forge documents. I'll tread softly there. But I never did so for Shelby. Not of any kind. She wouldn't have asked me."

"Why?"

"First, because she knew better than to offer her usual bartering system to me. I don't touch the girls sexually, despise any man who would, and she knew my line there. Second, it would have implied she needed me, and she was always out to prove she needed no one."

"Did you teach her how to forge official documents?"

"Not directly, as again, she'd have never asked me to teach her any skill. It's certainly possible she picked a few things up. She knew how to pay attention."

"Shelby planned to get her own place and had one in mind. A born leader, in your own words, she might've taken a big chunk of girls with her, threatening your operation, cutting into your profits."

He drank some water, watched her steadily. "I imagine you'll have to explore that possibility. I'm outside your lines for one, and connected to at least some of those poor girls. But you know, as I do, Mavis is a very sharp judge of people. She knows I've never hurt a child in my life, never could or would."

Now he leaned forward. "I don't have the inclination and you haven't the time to hear my long, sad story, Lieutenant. I'll just say that while we have different methods, even opposing methods, our goal is the same. To help those who've been hurt or discarded. Because of that, I'll do anything I'm capable of doing to help you find out who killed those girls."

He paused a moment, leaned back again, drank again. "Some of them were mine," he said quietly.

It pissed her off that she believed him. Saying nothing, she reached in her file bag, took out a photo, and set it on the table between them.

He nudged it closer and, brows drawing together, studied the face.

"Yes. Yes, I know this face. She came in—was brought in—by one of the others. With... give me a moment."

He frowned at the photo, then closed his eyes. "With DeLonna, of the siren's voice."

"DeLonna Jackson?"

"I don't know if I had DeLonna's full name as she wasn't really with us. Came and went, one of Shelby's friends. But it was DeLonna, I'm certain, who brought her to me, after she'd found the girl being hassled by some older boys. Some will always prey on the smaller and weaker—and though DeLonna was small, she was fierce." He laughed a little, at some memory. "In any case this girl... yes, Merry, but not the traditional spelling. She was very specific, M-e-r-r-y. Again, I don't know the last name. She only stayed a handful of days."

"Why?"

"I don't remember, right offhand, the particulars. I do remember her now. I remember her face. Do you have more? More photographs?"

"Not yet. What about girls who left during this time period. You said some came and went. Who went."

"Actually, there is one. After I spoke with Mavis, I thought of her. Iris Kirkwood. She'd been with us about a year. All too typical story. Father gone, abuse and neglect from the mother. In and out of foster homes, some of which were no better than the parental home, then back with the mother who simply walked out one day. Iris opted not to go back in the system, but went on the street. She was a terrible thief, clumsy fingers. I used her primarily as a pickup, or on the Lost and Found grift, something simple. She was... a little slow, if you understand me. A sweet smile when she used it, but far too eager to please. She liked to sit in church."

Eve's eyes sharpened. "What church?"

"None in particular. She said she liked them because they were quiet and pretty and smelled good. Is it important?"

Eve pushed past the question. "She was with you for a year, then she wasn't. You didn't think anything of it?"

"On the contrary, we looked for her. One of the girls told me Iris said she had a secret, but she couldn't tell or it wouldn't come true. Secrets are stock and trade for girls of that age, so I didn't think anything of it at the time. She had a stuffed dog she'd found somewhere. She called it Baby. She was very young for her age and circumstances. She took Baby with her when she left, and as she left during the night, after curfew—"

"Curfew?"

"There are some rules," he said again. "Since she left on her own, I had to believe she'd chosen to leave us. Still we looked."

"Back in a minute," Eve said to Roarke, and strode out of the bar.

"I believe I'll have that beer." Sebastian cocked an eyebrow at Roarke. "Are you sure you won't have one?"

"Yes, I'm sure, but thanks."

Sebastian went to the bar, came back with a bottle. "I admire your wife," he began.

"As do I."

"She's dedicated and ferocious, for all the right reasons. She'll find who did this."

"She won't stop until she does."

"It's an interesting life the two of you've made."

"I could say the same of yours."

"It's one that suits me. I think you understand the perspective of a certain fluidity of borders others, such as your lieutenant, must see as firm demarcations."

"I understand adjusting borders when needs must."

Sebastian looked down at his beer a moment, then just nodded to himself. "They have nowhere to go. Most will say they have to go into the system—the system will tend to them. It was created to tend to them. But we know, you and I and your lieutenant, that far too often the system fails. It fails, even with the dedication of ferocity of those who've sworn to protect, who do everything they can to fulfill that duty, it fails. When it does, the wounded, abused, and innocent among us suffer."

"I don't disagree. Neither would the lieutenant on the failure of the system, and the cost when it does. So she'll fight within the system to protect. And when she can't protect to work—ferociously—to see that justice is served for those who suffered."

"Even if it means dealing with me."

"Even that. Some of them, it seems, were yours for a time. All of them are hers now. They'll always be hers now."

She walked back in, eyes flat, stride brisk. And held out her PPC. "Iris Kirkwood."

Sebastian looked at the screen, at the image of the girl with straight, sandy blond hair, wide brown eyes, and lips curved in a small, sweet smile.

"Yes, that's Iris." He picked up the beer, took a slow swallow. "Is she one of them?"

"I don't know yet. Her mother's dead, beaten to death by the guy she lived with in North Carolina. April of 'forty-five."

"That would've been six or eight months after Iris came to me, and a few months before she left us."

"Any other girls who left about that time?"

"No, at least none who didn't go back to a parent or guardian. Which is encouraged—strongly—when they're spinning a tale as Merry did."

"As Merry did?"

"You've looked at her background by now, so you know—as I did—she came from an average family. No reports of abuse, no Double Ds—and yes, some of that often isn't reported. But I know when a girl's lying to me. And her claims of terror and misery at home were lies."

He paused to consider his beer again. "She paid far too high a price for it. If and when you have more photos, I'll look at them."

"He fished in your pool, and The Sanctuary's. Where was your flop during this period?"

"We had three on rotation that year, year and a half. As I assumed you'd ask, I've noted them down." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, handed it to her. "All three buildings have been renovated and are occupied now, but at the time they were useful."

"Where's your flop now?"

He smiled a little. "I won't tell you the truth, and find myself reluctant to lie to you. So." He gave a small, elegant shrug, sipped his beer. "If you need to talk to me again, Mavis knows how to contact me."

Eve sat back, considered. She wouldn't break her word to Mavis and run him in on the stream of charges that came to mind. And for now, he might be useful.

"The other two in Shelby's crew. What do you know about them?"

"The boy, nothing. DeLonna..." He hesitated. "She's alive and well."

"I need to talk to her."

"It's awkward. I'll contact her, ask her to contact you. I can't do more without betraying her."

"She's very likely a material witness in multiple homicides."

"I very much doubt that, or she'd have said or done something. She loved Shelby, and Mikki. But I give you my word I'll contact her tonight, and I'll convince her to talk to you."

"Your word."

"Is good, which is why I rarely give it. How did they die? How did he—"

"I can't tell you at this time." She slid out of the booth again, hated that she saw genuine grief on his face. "But when I can, I will."

"Thank you."

"If I find out you had anything to do with it, the wrath of God has nothing on mine."

"I hope that's true. I hope when you find him, the wrath of a thousand gods comes down on him."

She turned to go, scowled when Roarke held out a hand to him. "It was good to meet you."

"And you. Both of you."

Eve kept her silence until they were out in the cold and the wind. "You're freaking polite."

"No reason for me to be otherwise."

"You liked him."

"I didn't dislike him," Roarke qualified, as he grabbed her hand and walked toward the car.

"He conceals girls from the authorities, teaches them to distrust, disrespect, and break the law, cheat people, steal from people when they should be..." She waved her free hand. "In school and whatever."

"They should be in school and whatever," he agreed. "They shouldn't be used as a punching bag, or worse, by a parent. They shouldn't be neglected and left to fend for themselves or exposed to violence, illegals, indiscriminate sex, and everything else they'd be exposed to in a bloody awful home."

He opened the car door for her. After one fulminating glare, she got inside.

"And just how many of the girls who've run through his system," she began the minute Roarke slid behind the wheel, "are in a cage, or dead, or working the streets because of the lifestyle he promoted?"

"I expect some are, and likely would have been with or without him. I also know at least one who's happy, successful, has a family, and a very fine life."

"Just because Mavis—"

"Where do you think she'd be, given how she was, where she was, her age, if he hadn't given her a place?"

"I think she'd have been scooped up, the cops and CPS would've interviewed and examined her, would've tossed her worthless, bat-shit mother in a padded cage, and put Mavis in foster care."

"That's possible," he said as he drove. "As it's possible someone prone to taking young girls would have raped her at the least, sold her, killed her. Many possibles, but the fact is she wouldn't be who she is, you wouldn't be more than sisters if not for Sebastian. Change something by a hair, darling, change it all."

"It's not right, what he's doing. I let it go because I needed her to get him to talk to me. And because—"

"You gave her your word you wouldn't arrest him."

"It's different now."

"You don't think he killed those girls."

Damn it, no, she didn't—and hoped to hell she wasn't being conned. "Thinking isn't proof, and he's connected. Liar, thief, con man."

"Are you speaking of him or me?"

She slumped down in her seat with a fresh scowl. "Stop it."

"Well now, I didn't run a gang of girls, but I ran with a gang. I lied, I stole, and certainly ran the occasional scam. You've learned to live with that, but it niggles now and then."

"You gave it up."

"Some for myself before I met you. The rest for you. For what I wanted for us. I had Summerset, or else the old man would've beat me bloody time and again until he did me in. You know, better than most, that the system does fail, however much those in it try. And that not all who take children in, within that system, do so with open hearts. You have your lines, Lieutenant, and I've my own. I don't think we're too far apart in this case. More a bit of a lean in two directions, but not far. Not with Mavis in the middle of it."

He reached over, rubbed her thigh. "Where's her mother? You'd have looked into that."

"In a facility for the bat-shit who carve an equally bat-shit up with a butcher knife. She's been in for about eight years now—before that she moved around, joined a cult, left it, did some time for trading sex for Zeus. Got out, got on the funk. She was wasted on it when she sliced up the woman she ran with—and was sleeping with by that point. Mavis was right. She just fried her own brain over time. She's mostly sedated."

"You haven't told her."

"I will if and when she needs to know. If and when she ever wants to know. She's pushed it all out, or had until tonight. Really pushed it out. She had some moments tying herself up in knots that she wouldn't be a good mother, but she figured out how to set it away, and be happy. Telling her just throws it back at her."

Eve leaned her head back. "And she was right. If her mother wasn't shit-house crazy, she'd never recognize the kid she knocked around in Mavis Freestone, music star and fashion... wonder. I often wonder about her fashion."

"That's part of the point, isn't it? Forced to wear dull clothes, having her hair whacked off. It's not just shoving it out, it's beating it with sticks and setting it on fire."

The image surprised a laugh out of Eve. "Yeah, it is. I wonder if she knows it."

"I suspect she did when she started experimenting with hair color, eye color, the clothes. Now? It's who she is."

He turned in the gates, toward the big, handsome house. "She didn't recognize Iris from The Club?"

"I didn't have an ID photo to show her. No Missing Persons ever filed on Iris Kirkwood, no alerts, not here, not where the mother died. She slipped through the cracks. Yes, the system fails sometimes, some of the worst times, but teaching adolescent girls how to run Take the Candy isn't the solution."

"I've never heard of that con."

"I made it up. I want some candy."

He parked in front of the entrance, smiled at her. "Let's go get some."

She went in with him, tossed her coat over the newel post.

"What do you intend to do with the addresses Sebastian gave you?"

"Send out some uniforms to canvass and dig up residents and merchants who were around when the girls went missing, show them photos. Poke, prod, pry. It only takes one person," she continued as they went upstairs, "just one to have seen one or more of the vics with someone. They'll have been friendly with him, trusted him. She had a secret," Eve murmured. "Iris."

"You believe she's one of them."

"She sneaks out of the place that's been her home, where she feels safe, takes her stuffed dog, and never comes back? They never find her, because I believe him when he said they looked. Somebody snatched her or lured her, and/or killed her."

Eve looked at the board as they walked into her office. "So she goes up. The question mark comes off Merry, and onto Iris. But it won't be a question mark for long."

"You've only two more."

"Yeah, maybe one of the last two hold the key. Or DeLonna. She poofed, too, but not until she was about sixteen and pretty clear of the system. But she's alive according to Sebastian."

"And well."

"I'll judge that when I talk to her—and I will talk to her," Eve said as she hunkered down beside her desk chair. "If he doesn't come through by tomorrow, I'll have to squeeze him."

"Which you wouldn't mind doing just on principle." She took a candy bar out of the desk drawer.

"In here? Really? I didn't know you kept a stash at home."

"It's not hidden from you. and I'll even share this time." She broke the bar neatly in two.

"Here's to that," he said and tapped his half to hers.

···

The chocolate gave her a boost—especially with the coffee she pumped in after it—so she worked until midnight.

Spinning wheels, mostly, she admitted. Covering and recovering the same ground. But sometimes you spotted something when you backtracked.

Someone they knew. And most if not all of them knew each other. Some lived together, or ran together. Same basic turf.

If Sebastian was to be believed, he hadn't forged Shelby's docs. Say he told that straight, Eve thought as she propped up her feet to study the board.

Could she have done them herself, catching on to how Sebastian did forgeries? Picking it up, as he'd said, because she knew how to pay attention?

Possible. Possible.

Eve brought Shelby's picture on screen, studied it.

Smart girl, tough girl, hard girl. But loyal. A born leader—and I bet you liked being in charge—who didn't like the rules. Not with the do-gooders, not with the grifters. Wanted your own.

"And didn't the place, the perfect place, drop into your lap when The Sanctuary pulled up stakes? That's what plays. It plays. It's familiar. It's empty. You know it top to bottom."

She rose, walked closer to the screen as Roarke stepped back in.

"I half expected to find you snoring at your desk."

"Caffeine works. I don't snore." Eve pointed at the screen. "She's the key."

He turned to study the screen with her. "Which is she?"

"Shelby."

"Ah, the leader, the one who walked out of the new facility with forged documents."

"Exactly. She knew the ropes, had an agenda. And she had a connection with somebody who knew how to forge."

"I don't see why Sebastian would deny doing so, at this stage."

"She could've done them herself, picked up the basics from him, just like he said. That would explain the misspellings, and the really bad attempt at forging Jones's signature. That data came through from the analysis," she added. "It's way off from Nashville Jones's signature.

"So..." Turning from the screen, she circled the board. "She's learning, planning, and Bittmore drops the bountiful in The Sanctuary's lap. Hey, kids, we're moving to big, pretty new digs! Pack it up."

"And she realized it's just the right time."

"Perfect time. Everybody's going to be busy, running around, distracted. More, she's smart enough to know what goes on, and what goes on is the old building's going to be empty. At least for a bit while the bank gets its act together, and that's already been hanging for months."

"A lifetime at thirteen. Would she even think about that really?" Roarke wondered. "Opportunity's there, grab it?"

"Yeah. Foreclosures, mortgages. Adult stuff. For her, it's just perfect time, perfect place. She'll get out, get in, set things up for her friends until she can get them out. Nice and tidy, with documentation so nobody comes hunting for them."

"It worked for her—the getting out."

"Yeah, it did. Did she have somebody inside, or outside? Did she use somebody? She'd have seen it that way, just another mark. And the mark turns. Maybe she lured him in, trading sex for whatever she needed or wanted. But that didn't work out for her, because she was the mark all along."

"Why kill her?"

"Need, desire, or a dozen more reasons. Iris had a secret, but I don't see somebody like Shelby taking somebody like Iris into her confidence."

"The killer?"

"Maybe, just maybe. She's no leader, but can be led. Iris went to church, like Lupa, like Carlie. Lots of churchy talk with Jones and Jones. Where does that fit in? Does it?"

When she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, Roarke took her arm. "Let it sit for now. Get some sleep."

"I feel like I'm circling it, like I'm close, but not close enough to see it clearly."

"In the morning you might."

She shot him a look when he led her out. "You could find Sebastian's flops. You could," she pressed when he said nothing.

"I imagine I could."

"Just keep that on tap, okay? I won't ask unless I have to ask."

"Agreed, if I agree with the ‘have to ask.'"

That had to be swallowed, though it was hard going down. "Good enough."