Tough Love

  Forrest the Blue was the odd man out; so far his case wasn’t connected with the others, and they were all hoping he was alive. They had four days to find him, maybe fewer.

  “So if someone kidnapped him, who would it be?” Bobby asked.

  “Mrs. Moore talked about some estranged grandparents,” Grace said. “We’re looking for them.”

  “Patron saint of teenagers,” Ham said, snorting. “That’s so weird.”

  “We should have asked her who the patron saint of dealers was,” Grace said with a grin, tapping the whiteboard.

  And Ham grinned back; just like that, it was pretty much okay between them again. Grace didn’t understand how things like that worked—how broken things mended—but she was glad to feel the tension dissipate. See? Feelings were distracting.

  At that moment, Grace’s cell phone went off. She pulled it out and looked down at it. “Catletts,” she announced, and took the call. Listened as best she could to Mr. Catlett’s frantic announcement.

  “They’ve gotten a ransom note,” Grace told the gang.

  The squad rolled.

  Rhetta wasn’t back; a different criminalist met them there to process the scene, gloves on, and lab coat on. He put the note in a plastic bag. Grace sat with Mrs. Catlett, who was stoned on tranquilizers, while Ham and Butch talked to Mr. Catlett. Bobby, their resident expert on diabetes, was observing the forensics team. Crime scenes were noisy, busy places. And this was a new crime scene. The status quo had changed since Forrest’s disappearance, so they had to reprocess it. Camera flashes, dusting for prints. The creak of leather gun belts, boot heels thudding on deep carpets. A team was combing through Forrest’s room with minute precision. Grace was hoping for a receipt that would show what he’d spent his money on, or anything else that could help them.

  She looked at the note.

  WE HAVE FOREST. WE WANT SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS IN UNMARKED BILLS FOR HIS SAFE RETURN.

  “This is bullshit,” Ham murmured as he left Mr. Catlett with Butch and walked with Grace into the kitchen. A tech guy was bugging the Catletts’ landline in case the kidnappers called them. “They didn’t even spell his name right.”

  “So maybe the Sons of Oklahoma did take him,” Grace shot back. She looked around at all the business in the kitchen. “If it’s established that they’ve crossed state lines, then the feds will take it away from us.”

  Ham shook his head. “We have to find him. We’ve had too many bad kid cases. We’re due.”

  “Yeah, no shit.” She looked around. “I think I’ve gotten everything I’m going to get from Roberta Catlett. She said they haven’t heard from Eunice and Del in over a year.”

  “That jibes with what Stephen Catlett told me. He said his parents used to call his office now and then, but then there was this big blowup over the pump thing. He hasn’t spoken to them since.”

  “Do you think they’d take him?”

  Ham thought a moment. “No, I don’t like it. Why kidnap your own grandson for money?”

  “Let me go talk to Dad again,” Grace said.

  She left him and went to talk to Stephen Catlett. He was sitting forlornly on a couch, white shirt on, tie loosened, alone, while Roberta was nodding off in an overstuffed chair. His face was sheened with perspiration. When she sat down next to him, he jumped as if a bomb had gone off.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Mr. Catlett, we’re trying to decide why this happened now. Is there anything else going on in your lives, in his life, that you would care to share with me?”

  “No. I don’t know.” He ran his shaking hands through his hair. “We already lost one child. Oh, my God, this will kill us. It will kill us.”

  He buried his face in his hands. His shoulders heaved.

  “We want to dump your phones,” she said. “Your cell phone, and your wife’s. We can use the chips inside them to look at the incoming and outgoing calls. Is that okay with you?” She’d have to ask Roberta’s permission, too, of course.

  His hesitation intrigued her. Made her take a closer look at him as he lowered his head and covered his face with his hands.

  “Sir?” she pressed. “Is there a problem?”

  He began to weep. Then he got up and walked to the front door. Grace followed him. Glancing at his wife, he opened the door and went outside.

  Grace stayed with him, shutting the door, watching as he leaned against the wall and looked up at the darkening sky. It was probably going to rain some more.

  “Sir, is there a reason you are uncomfortable giving me your phone?”

  “Oh, dear God, forgive me.” He touched his forehead. Grace waited. Waited. Clamped her mouth shut so she wouldn’t screw it up by saying the wrong thing. By saying anything.

  “When Alex—that was the baby—when he died, Roberta asked me if I thought God was punishing us. If we’d done something wrong. Catholic guilt is unlike—”

  “I was raised Catholic,” she interjected quietly.

  “Then you know what I’m talking about. I told her God would never do anything like that. Roberta was so sweet when we got married. Such a kind, warm woman. But then Alex died. You don’t think that’s going to happen. That someone you love, someone younger than you—”

  Grace thought of Clay. And then, to her mild surprise, of Paige.

  “—your child. Oh, my God, what have I done?”

  Her heart pounded. Was she about to hear his confession about what he had done? Was she going to break the case, then and there?

  “Houston,” he said, and then she knew.

  “You’re having an affair. With someone in Texas.”

  “Sue. I called her from the bathroom,” he said. “I’ve been calling her practically nonstop since all this started happening.” Tears streamed down his face. “It’s going to come out, isn’t it? You’re checking our phones. You’ll interview people we know. Roberta will find out. So … so maybe God is punishing me.”

  “Have you told Father James about your affair?” she asked.

  “No. It’s been eating me up.” His voice broke. “Adultery. I can’t get divorced. I do believe.” His breath came out ragged. “I did this to us.”

  “Did Forrest know?”

  “God.” He grabbed on to his hair and yanked. “If that’s why he ran away …”

  “Do you think he ran away? Do you know anything that can help us?” She gripped his forearm, forcing him to stop trying to pull his own hair out by the roots. “Did he run away from home because he found out you’re having an affair?”

  “I don’t know. I was so careful …”

  She thought about her lost phone, and all the potentially incriminating messages and phone numbers that were on it. If he’d so much as left it out, and his bright, curious son had taken it, maybe thinking to play video games or look at movies or something … and heard …

  “Forrest was unhappy,” he said. “Bobbi—Roberta, his mother … he’s fourteen, for God’s sake. I remember when I was fourteen. I hardly ever saw my parents. I had so much freedom.”

  “Kids today are a little more protected,” she ventured.

  “A little? He was practically a prisoner. And she made him that way.” He doubled his fists and pressed them against his forehead.

  “I was going to get him that pump. I promised him. And Bobbi was punishing me for it. She said I’d be the death of him.”

  Grace was taking mental notes. In capital letters. Let’s try this one out: Say the mom actually knows the dad is having an affair. So she figures she’ll show that cheating bastard. She’ll scare him half to death … and punish him for his adultery, all in one fell swoop. The only bargaining chip she has is their kid. She makes the kid weak and dependent not just on herself, but on his dad. So the dad, who is a good guilt-ridden Catholic, won’t leave his neurotic mother.

  But it looks like it’s gonna happen anyway. So she ups the stakes. Arranges to have him taken …

  “He wanted that pump more than anything,” Mr. Catlett said.

&
nbsp; “More than going to California to learn how to surf?”

  He wiped his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  No, Grace thought. She’d never do anything so whacked.

  Or would she?

  “What do you think he bought with his debit card?” she asked him. “We’re going to check, but if you have an idea, it might help us.”

  “I don’t know.” He was starting to lose it. “Oh, God, forgive me. God, forgive me.”

  “What about that note?” she asked him, relentless. “Can you think of anyone who would try to extort money from you? Is Sue married? Maybe she has a jealous ex-boyfriend?”

  Maybe she took him herself? Maybe she was some felon looking for an easy mark; you gave her information—your address, showed her pictures of your kid, and her confederate grabbed him while you two were rolling around in Houston?

  “No. But you said there were pieces of rope on the windowsill. So doesn’t that mean that someone maybe drugged him, tied him up … ?”

  She had the weirdest feeling that he wanted the ransom note to be real. She translated: If someone had kidnapped Forrest for money, that meant that Forrest hadn’t run away because his dad was cheating on his mom. It was sick, and it was base, but it was there. Stephen Catlett had money. He could afford a ransom better than a scandal.

  Only now, she was going to dump his phone. Well, shit, maybe Roberta had some nasty secrets, too.

  The ransom note had arrived in a sealed envelope. There was no stamp, so it wasn’t postmarked, but whoever had put it in the Catletts’ mailbox had written the note on a pad of paper from a motel in Edmond. Ordinarily, that would have been just a possible clue, joining its friends on the whiteboard in the conference room; but the fact that the author had scratched out the name and the address of the motel bumped it up to red-flag status. Unless they were dealing with a twisted member of Mensa, it was likely that their kidnapper had decided to hide his or her location by simply crossing it out. As if the Crime Lab didn’t have ways of dealing with that. Of course they would check for DNA on the glue strip.

  Butch was driving the note up to Edmond so the authorities there could scrutinize it. Local law was already inspecting the motel on the notepad. The criminalist had found one print on the envelope, and he was running it through.

  In their spare time—ha—the squad started checking out the bazillions of leads that had come in. It had always seemed so bizarre to Grace that people would just pick up the phone, call the cops, and make shit up—shit that sometimes they actually believed—but there it was. Now it was their shit to deal with.

  No one’s first batch of leads panned out, and the captain made them promise to take some downtime, eat some food, get some rest. You couldn’t do a good job if you were running on empty.

  So Grace went to the hospital.

  Now she sat in Jedidiah Briscombe’s hospital room with her photograph of Malcolm and Jamal in her lap. The old man looked grayer and more sunken than the last time she’d checked on him. The doctors wouldn’t say much except that time would tell and Mr. Briscombe was in God’s hands. Yeah, so had God’s fingers wrapped themselves around the old man’s heart and squeezed?

  She turned out the light and sat in the dark, fingers crossed that Jamal might come to pay a visit. Chief had probably queered that with the taking of Hellhole 1, 2, 3.

  Asshole.

  Had that been Jamal, sneaking down the fire escape? Would he have shot her?

  Setting the photograph beside the old man’s bed, Grace crossed her hands on her lap and tried to stop thinking, stop feeling. Just to be. It was too tall an order: She wanted a cigarette or a drink, something to slow herself down, catch her breath. She could sense her mind pushing the puzzle pieces around. Trouble was, she was low on pieces.

  “Hey, Earl,” she said, turning her head. He was sitting next to her, hands folded like hers. “So is that true? God kills little babies to punish bad parents? Causes floods because He loses His patience?”

  “What do you want me to say?” he asked her.

  “I want you to tell me the truth. If you even know.”

  He clicked his teeth. “I know He’s got a plan. And that He loves you. All of you. And that He’s not about punishing y’all. He’s about trying to help you grow up.”

  “Grow up?” Her laugh was short and derisive.

  “Yeah. So He uses a divine form of tough love. He lets you scrape your knees—”

  “Murder kids. He lets us do that? Drive over little kids like roadkill?”

  He pulled in his chin. “You’re being awfully harsh.”

  “No. God is.”

  “Rough day?”

  “Tough times.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “There, I said it. Now are you happy?”

  “No.” She opened one eye and looked at him. “I’m never happy when you’re in pain, Grace. But I am hopeful.”

  “Hopeful? When I feel hopeless?”

  His smile was gentle. “If you felt hopeless, you’d crawl in bed and pull the covers over your head. But you just come out swinging. And brawling. And having lots of sex.” He looked at her. “You got your AIDS test, right?”

  She froze.

  “Don’t worry. It’s negative. You’re fine. But you shouldn’t take chances like that.”

  “Why not? They’re mine to take.” She heard herself, how childish she sounded, speaking of growing up, and exhaled. “Is God going to yank me out of the picture in a blaze of glory? Is dying of AIDS the wrong way to go?”

  “Here’s the thing, Grace. God has a plan for your life. But that don’t mean you have to follow it. It doesn’t mean your future is planned or your fate is sealed. It just means He’d like your help on a few things.”

  That brought her up short. She’d never heard Earl talk like this.

  “Things like what?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s between you and Him.” He leaned toward her. “And you have too heard me talk like this before. Or maybe you haven’t. Maybe you weren’t ready to hear what I had to say.”

  Mr. Briscombe stirred. He made a high-pitched whimpering sound. Grace flicked on the light. Earl was gone.

  “Mr. Briscombe?” she said, leaning over him. “Sir?”

  He thrashed, hard. His face was turning blue.

  She rang for the nurse.

  Rhetta returned from the shelter and went into the lab for a while. The print on the envelope had yielded results: three possible matches. One suspect was dead. Another was in a nursing home in Calabasas, California. But the third print was a low-life criminal named Bo Halliford whose last known residence was in—ta-da!—Edmond.

  Rhetta smiled. A data point for the detectives. She loved her job, collecting evidence, running tests, providing solid, factual information. Helping. There was no DNA on the envelope seal—a sponge had been used, and the ersatz blackmailer had worn gloves. But the print was a thing of beauty.

  She went to tell Grace, and ran into Captain Perry. Captain Perry told her that Grace was on the street, looking for Jamal, because his grandfather wasn’t doing well. Actually, he was going downhill fast and might not make it through the night.

  Rhetta called Grace on her new phone and told her that if she wanted to come over later, she was welcome, and she and Ronnie promised not to fight in front of her.

  “Come if … something happens,” Rhetta urged her. “Even if it’s late.”

  “You’ve had enough excitement,” Grace argued.

  “If you want to come, come,” Rhetta ordered her.

  Then she drove home, making supper and helping with homework, smiling to herself when Ronnie did the dishes. Mae asked if she could go to the mall with a couple of her friends tomorrow, promising just to look. It was a planned day off—something about staff development—long anticipated. Rhetta gave her ten dollars to spend and Mae’s excitement cut her to the quick. She couldn’t even go to the movies for ten bucks.

  We’re so poor. We’re actually poor.
I hate it.

  Listening to the night birds, she went to the barn, sipping a glass of wine, checking on Speckles. Ronnie had done a thorough job of cleaning the stalls, and he’d replaced the funky latch on the feed shed. He worked so hard.

  So do I, she thought, but her heart wasn’t in her anger anymore. She finished her glass, savoring the warming sensation, and headed back to her house. The wind was whipping up again—she looked up at the sky, the stars muted by clouds, and went in through the kitchen. The good smells of dinner—chicken-and-cheese casserole-still permeated the house.

  Ronnie was taking a shower. Smiling to herself, she went into the laundry room and unfolded a towel from the load she had folded while her chicken casserole baked in the oven. She put it in the dryer and set it on high, leaning against the dryer door and uncoiling her hair. She got another wineglass off the shelf and filled both it and hers. Savoring the scent of fresh cotton, she plucked the warm towel out of the dryer and sailed into the bathroom just as Ronnie turned off the shower.

  He slid open the shower door and blinked at her. She smiled and handed him the towel, showing him the wine.

  “Hi,” she said.

  With a quizzical smile, he took the wine with one hand and started toweling off with the other. There were dark smudges under his eyes, and his cheeks were thin.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You fixed the latch.” She raised her glass to him.

  He took a tiny sip, then set down the glass. She walked over, took the towel, and dried off his back. He was muscular from all the mucking and lifting and baling. And he was her husband.

  “Hey,” he said. “This is nice.”