Chapter 16
When Colly knocked on the door of the trailer, Carmen Ortiz, the woman they’d met earlier, opened it almost immediately. She wore a pair of rubber gloves slick with suds, which she wiped nervously on her apron.
“This ain’t a good time, actually. Jolene don’t feel much like company.”
“I understand. But it’s important,” Colly said.
Carmen glanced over her shoulder, then shook her head. “Some other day.”
She started to close the door, but Avery pushed forward. “You do the housekeeping for the counseling center, right? I’d think twice about blowing off Brenda Newland’s sister-in-law.”
Colly laid a hand on Avery’s shoulder, pulling her back. “We know your family’s been through a lot, Ms. Ortiz. This won’t take long.”
Carmen hesitated, chewing her lip. Finally, she stepped aside.
The place was poorly lit and reeked of cat litter and stale cigarette smoke. Carmen waved them towards a shabby sofa, where two cats were curled on a blanket. Avery shoved them to one side and flopped down on the center cushion. Colly, who was allergic to cats, joined her more tentatively, her eyes itching. She looked around.
A frail-looking woman sat in a recliner on the other side of the room. She was staring down at her folded hands and seemed oblivious to the visitors. Like her sister, Jolene Hoyer appeared prematurely aged. She couldn’t be past forty, Colly thought, but her hair was dull and the skin of her neck was already beginning to slacken. She was dressed in a housecoat of the sort worn by elderly women, and an old-fashioned knitted throw covered her legs. On a nearby table sat a box of tissues next to a framed school photograph of a stocky, ginger-haired boy.
Carmen lowered herself into a rocking chair beside her sister. “Sorry, Jo. They said it couldn’t wait.” She removed the rubber gloves and laid them across her knees.
Colly leaned forward. “Mrs. Hoyer—”
“Useless bitch! You freakin’ psycho!” a voice shrieked.
Colly jumped, her pulse racing. In a corner of the room, a large gray parrot was watching them from a stand that Colly had taken for a floor lamp.
The woman in the recliner looked up. She wore bright pink lipstick; the effect in the haggard face was garish and macabre. “Don’t mind Fred,” she mumbled.
“Some mouth he’s got,” Avery said.
“He picks things up from TV.”
“From Jace, more like—”
Colly cut Avery off. “Mrs. Hoyer, I’m very sorry for your loss. Did Carmen explain why we’re here?”
The woman stared with unfocused eyes. “I already told the Rangers everything I know.”
“We’re reviewing their findings.”
“Shut your hole, freakin’ psycho!” Fred screamed.
The bird’s voice was piercing and toneless, like something mechanically generated. Forcing herself to ignore it, Colly sized up Jolene Hoyer. She was clearly distraught and possibly under the influence of some drug; a hard-hitting interview would probably backfire, though a soft touch might work—as long as Avery didn’t blow the whole thing up. We should’ve worked out a game plan beforehand , Colly thought, rubbing her watery eyes.
“What can you tell me about Denny, Mrs. Hoyer?” she asked. “The police file doesn’t give me a very rounded picture.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Jolene’s face. Her eyes drifted to the photograph on the table. “Handsome, wasn’t he? All them freckles. Denny looked like a boiled shrimp after ten minutes outside, but he was so stubborn about sunblock.”
“My grandson’s the same way.” Colly thought she saw a brief, responsive flicker in the other woman’s eyes. She pressed on. “I know you saw a side of Denny nobody else did.”
“He was a handful.” Jolene touched the frame with her fingertips.
“The more you can tell me, the better.”
The room grew silent except for the muttering and clucking of the parrot, who was now preening itself on its perch. Avery shifted impatiently. Finally, Jolene cleared her throat. When she spoke, her voice was flat and dull.
Denny had worried her from the start, she said. Even as an infant, he would fly into rages, screaming until he made himself sick. Later on, he struggled in school. He had trouble reading, and being big for his age, he took out his frustrations on the smaller kids. When she married, Jolene hoped that having a man in the house would help, but Jace and Denny never got along. In the last couple of years, he’d fallen in with a bad crowd—older boys who spent their days smoking pot and getting into trouble. She’d pushed him to sign up for baseball, thinking that a hobby might help.
“He liked it okay, but he felt out of place. Most of them kids been playing since the peewee leagues. Denny just wanted to belong somewhere. No one ever gave him a chance.”
“The Sandleford brothers did,” Avery said suddenly. “They hired him at the fireworks stand, but he trashed the place.”
The lines around Jolene’s eyes deepened. “Them boys thought ’cause their daddy’s on the town council they could call Denny ‘white trash’ to his face. What’d they expect?” She sighed. “The only place he fit in was the turbine plant.”
Colly sat back in surprise. “Really?”
“Jace was the foreman there, till a year ago,” Jolene said. She’d goaded him into taking Denny along a few times during school vacations, hoping it might improve their relationship. The workers were sweet to Denny, letting him do odd jobs and calling him “Little Man,” even taking him on a few installation runs.
“It was the first time he found something he was good at. He’d come home grinning, wanting to tell me all about it. He was crushed when Jace was let go.”
Jolene had been crushed as well, she admitted. She’d hoped her son might have a future with the company.
“Jace says he was fired for a technicality,” Colly said. “What was it?”
Jolene picked with her fingers at the blanket on her lap. “Lowell said he breached protocols bringing Denny to the factory. No warning, no two weeks’ notice. Denny’d been going up there for months and Lowell never said nothin’ before. I know he’s a relative of yours, but Lowell Newland’s a bastard, and that’s the truth.”
“Bastard!” Fred shrieked. “Tan your hide, you little bastard!”
Avery stirred. “When exactly did that happen?”
“Last March, just before the Rattlesnake Rodeo.”
“Denny torched the school bathroom the next week, right?”
“He was upset.” She looked at Colly. “You know what kids are like.”
Jolene had begged the authorities for lenience. As the school counselor, Brenda had also argued on Denny’s behalf, since no one was hurt and only minor damage was done to the school. Nevertheless, the district had pressed charges, and Denny was convicted of arson. Rather than sending him to a juvenile detention center, the judge paroled him on the condition that he receive therapy. But with Jace unemployed, the Hoyers couldn’t afford it. Brenda must have spoken to Dr. Shaw about the situation, because a few days later he called Jolene and offered the clinic’s services to Denny, pro bono—if she’d allow him to conduct certain tests and use the data in his research.
“He’s writing a book about troubled kids,” Jolene explained. “He said Denny fit the profile.” She pressed her lips together. Her eyelids drooped. Carmen stood and seemed prepared to end the interview.
“That’s helpful, thanks,” Colly said. “Can we see Denny’s room before we go?”
Carmen frowned. Jolene opened her eyes. “Okay, but it’s nearly packed up.”
Clutching her sister’s arm for support, she led the way down the hall to a cramped bedroom cluttered with items of clothing, books, and toys, some packed into boxes and plastic bags, others sorted into piles on the floor. Blobs of blue sticky-tack pocked the walls where posters had once been.
Jolene hung back in the doorway. “Folks said it’d be comforting to keep his room like he left it. But I hate that idea. Makes it seem like he’s coming back. I thought if it was something different—a sewing room, maybe.” Her face was bleak.
Colly moved gingerly through the room, looking but touching little. Detective or not, it felt disrespectful to root through a dead child’s belongings while his mother and aunt looked on. Avery, who appeared to have no such qualms, began opening boxes and bags without waiting for permission. Jolene watched, chewing her cuticles.
On a bookcase next to an empty fish tank sat a colorful heap of plastic cigarette lighters. Jolene saw Colly looking at them, and reddened. “I found those under his bed. Denny’d steal mine. Don’t know why.”
“He liked playing with fire?”
“Since he was little. Nearly burned the house down a couple times—not on purpose, just messing around. Had burn scars all over his fingers.” Jolene hesitated. “It worried Brenda.”
Colly’s chest felt tight. “How so?”
“She didn’t say. But when I told her about the lighters, she asked if he ever wet the bed. Seemed like a funny question.”
“They’re both symptoms of juvenile psychopathy,” Avery said bluntly. She was digging through a cardboard box on the dresser. “So’s cruelty to animals. Jace said Denny liked to blow up frogs—maybe Brenda was concerned.”
Jolene looked horrified. She covered her mouth.
“Do you have a psychology degree I don’t know about?” Colly snapped. “And go easy with those things. We’re guests here.”
Flushing, Avery pulled a framed 8x10 photograph from the box and studied it before handing it to Colly.
It was a team photo—rows of boys in front of a dugout. All were dressed in blue caps and jerseys embossed with a cartoonish demon brandishing a baseball bat. Denny stood squinting into the sun beside Tom Gunnell, whose arm was draped over the boy’s shoulders.
“The Blue Devils.” Colly turned to Jolene. “Did he ever play on a team with a red uniform?”
“No. Why?”
“He was last seen in a red ballcap.”
“Denny didn’t have no red caps.”
“It’s all on video,” Avery said, moving towards the closet. “Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought.”
Jolene scowled. “What are you playin’ at? My boy’s the victim.”
“No one’s implying otherwise, Mrs. Hoyer.” Colly tapped the picture. “What did you think of his coach?”
Jolene shrugged. “Tom never screamed at the boys, like some of them coaches do. Used to take them for ice cream after the games.”
“Did you ever worry—”
“He ain’t no pervert, if that’s what you mean.” Jolene pulled the photograph from Colly’s hands, then stopped, distracted. “What are you doing?”
Avery had opened the closet door and was on her knees, rummaging through a pile of shoes. “Did Denny have foot problems, wear corrective inserts in his shoes, anything like that?”
“’Course not.”
Avery picked up a grubby sneaker and peered inside. “What about you and Jace?”
Jolene was growing agitated. “N-no. Now, put that down—I didn’t let you back here so you could go making insinuations and pawing through Denny’s things.”
“Avery, that’s enough,” Colly said.
To her relief, Avery rose without protest, dusting off her hands. “Mind if I wash?” she asked, and left the room before anyone answered.
“Sorry about that,” Colly said.
Jolene was still frowning, but the energy of her outburst had left her. She stared bleakly at the pile of shoes. “The Rangers were the same—tearing up the place, showing no respect.”
“We didn’t mean to offend.”
“Denny was a good boy.” Jolene sat down on the edge of the bed, still clutching the photograph.
Carmen turned to Colly. “My sister’s tired.”
“We won’t keep you much longer.” Colly’s phone chimed with a text. She switched it off without reading the message. “While I’m waiting for my partner, let me ask—did you notice anything unusual the day Denny disappeared? Sometimes people don’t mention critical details because they think they’re irrelevant.”
“I’ve thought about it a million times,” Jolene murmured. “It was a normal Friday.”
“Brenda told me Denny’s regular appointment was on Thursdays.” Colly shut the closet door. “Why’d you change it?”
Jolene looked up. “I didn’t. The clinic called, asked if we’d mind switching the schedule that week ’cause Brenda had a conflict.”
“Did that happen often?”
“A few times. I didn’t think nothin’ of it.”
She’d been picking up extra shifts on Friday afternoons that month, Jolene explained, working days as well as nights to cover for a fellow aide on maternity leave. That morning, she told Denny he’d have to ride his bike to his counseling appointment at noon and asked if he’d return some library books while he was out.
Jace and Denny had argued all week; so when Jolene got back from work shortly after seven the next morning and learned that Denny hadn’t been home, she wasn’t overly concerned. “I figured he was coolin’ off somewhere, probably at Tom’s.”
“Tom Gunnell?”
“He used to let Denny crash at his place when things got bad.”
Colly approached the bed and knelt so that she was eye-level with the grieving mother. “This is a tough question, but I have to ask: is it possible Jace—”
“No.” Jolene leaned in so that Colly smelled her breath, a sour mixture of coffee and toothpaste. “Jace has a temper and drinks too much. But if he hurt Denny, he woulda told me.”
“Jace was here when you got home Saturday morning?”
Jolene nodded. “Asleep on the couch. We talked a few minutes, then I made some eggs. We was finishing our coffee when Russ Newland knocked. I couldn’t make no sense of what he said, at first. I told him it must be some other boy by the pond.” She looked away.
Watching her, Colly had a brief, vivid memory of standing at her own living room door, clutching her handgun and staring without comprehension at the scene in front of her.
She pushed the thought aside and turned to Carmen. “Did you see Denny at the clinic when you cleaned it that day?”
Carmen shook her head. “I didn’t get there till after dark. I do it last on Fridays, ’cause the counselors stay late sometimes, finishing their weekly reports. No one was there. I went in the back door—”
Colly looked up. “Was it unlocked?”
“I have a key. I remember thinking it’d be a quick job with Dr. Shaw out of town. His office wouldn’t need much. But there was play-therapy toys all over Brenda’s office. She keeps them in a suitcase in her office closet, but the closet was locked, so it took me a while to find a box to put them in.” Carmen had finished by ten o’clock and, a half-hour later, was home, watching TV in bed, unaware of her nephew’s death until the next morning.
Colly heard a sound and looked up. Avery was leaning against the doorjamb, her hands in her pockets. She met Colly’s eyes and jerked her chin towards the exit. She seemed excited. Colly stood, her knees cracking.
Back in the living room, they thanked their hosts. As she started to follow Avery out the door, Colly paused. “Mrs. Hoyer, can you tell me where you and Jace were yesterday evening?”
Jolene blinked. “Right here, watchin’ the basketball game. Why?”
A sudden, shrill scream and a whir of beating wings cut off Colly’s response. She felt a rush of air as the parrot shot past her face and landed on Jolene’s shoulder.
“That thing flies?” Colly gasped.
“Jace won’t trim Fred’s wings—says it’s cruel.”
“But he’s fine with stabbing a hog through the eye,” Avery murmured in Colly’s ear.
The bird cocked its head and glared at them with a yellow-ringed eye. “Tan your hide, bitch! Shut your hole!”
“You’re sure Jace was with you the whole evening, Mrs. Hoyer?” Colly asked. “Could you have dozed off?”
“I—I was awake.”
The parrot began to bob its head rapidly. “Useless bitch. Better not, better not.”
“Good game last night,” Avery said. “Fourth quarter was a real nail-biter, huh?”
Jolene nodded distractedly. “If something happened last night, Jace didn’t do it. I dunno why folks are so quick to think the worst of him.”
“Because it saves time,” Avery muttered.
Fred chuckled. “Freakin’ psycho.”
Colly thanked Jolene and followed Avery outside.
“Like hell she was awake,” Avery said when they were back in the car. “That game was dull as dirt after halftime. She was probably drugged out of her mind.” Avery pulled out her phone and thumbed through her apps. “This was in the bathroom.” She showed Colly a photograph of an orange pill bottle.
“You rifled their medicine cabinet?”
“I texted to ask if it was okay, but you didn’t answer. It’s not like I stole anything.”
Colly sighed and took the phone, enlarging the photo with her fingers. “Xanax, huh?”
“Filled a week ago, but there’s only a few pills left. Jolene’s over-medicating.”
“Or someone’s stealing.”
“Either way, proves Jace had access. He could’ve drugged Denny.”
“Assuming Jolene had the meds in September. But that’s easily checked.” Avery’s phone began to ring in Colly’s hand. She glanced at the caller ID as she handed it back. “It’s Russ.”
Colly was slightly annoyed until she remembered that she had switched off her own phone in the house. Checking it, she saw that Russ had tried to call her first. She also had a missed call from Brenda. Alarmed, she jumped out of the car and hit redial.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded when Brenda answered.
“We’ve had a little incident. Don’t worry—” Brenda added quickly, “Satchel’s okay. Just a little shaken up. But we need to have a conference before I can let him back in the classroom. Can you come by the school?”
Colly glanced at her watch, then through the windshield at Avery, who was still on the phone, listening intently. She looked excited. When she saw Colly watching, she gestured for her to hurry.
Telling Brenda she’d be there soon, Colly hung up as Avery climbed out of the cruiser, her camera over her shoulder.
“Be right back,” she said and raced up the driveway, disappearing behind the trailer.
As Colly was considering whether or not to follow her, Avery returned. “Boss wanted some shots of Hoyer’s truck.” She buckled her seatbelt. “Hope Jace didn’t see me.”
“What’s up?”
Avery was already backing down the drive. “We’re supposed to get to the ranch, ASAP. Earla found something.”
“I’ll have to catch up later,” Colly said. “Run me by the station—I need my car.”