The Hunt. Andrew Welsh-Huggins
way he made the rest of us look so bad.
I said, “Actually, it’s you I came to see.”
“Me?”
“That’s right.”
“For what?”
“It’s about a case I’m working on.”
“What kind of case?”
I gave her the rundown. She frowned when I mentioned Bronte Patterson.
“Hang on,” she said, gesturing at the phone.
I left the office, walked down the hall, turned right, and entered the sanctuary. I sat down in the second pew. It was chilly and dark inside, the only light coming in through the stained-glass windows. The air smelled of incense, wood polish, and mildew. The building looked airlifted straight from a small English town, with its stone block exterior, wooden altar, and arched ceiling, as if the architects had stripped a nineteenth-century sailing ship for lumber. Some plaster was coming off the walls here and there, and jigsawed patterns of painted plywood filled in a few stained-glass gaps, but it was in pretty good shape, thanks to the money the diocese had put into it to lure Roy in as priest. Much better shape than the flea market that had operated there most recently. Or the crack house before that. I pulled out my phone and checked my messages. Nothing new from Shelley or my mom. My dad’s surgery was scheduled at week’s end, and there was nothing to do but wait.
Theresa stepped inside the sanctuary and slipped into the pew beside me.
“Bronte Patterson,” Theresa said. “That ain’t good.”
“So I gather. But maybe not as bad as a serial killer.”
“Unless it’s one and the same. Is this girl from here?”
“Mount Alexandria.”
“Where’s that?”
“Little city about an hour east. I grew up in a town near there.”
“Always figured you for a country bumpkin. You trust the brother?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean do you trust him? Is he really worried about his sister? Or does he want her found for some other reason?”
“Like what?”
“Like, maybe did he do something to her when she was younger, and he’s feeling bad about it now?”
“Do something?”
“Use your imagination, QB.”
“I’m not sure—”
She chuffed in exasperation. “Did he fuck her?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“It happens.”
“Yeah. But he’s raising her son. Seems like that counts for something.”
“What about Jessica’s stepdad?”
“What about him?”
She rolled her eyes. “Did he fuck her?”
“I have no idea. Why are you asking me this?”
She rubbed her hands up and down her thighs, from the cold or from something else, I wasn’t sure. She was wearing a long-sleeved yellow patterned dress over brown leggings, and a gray sweater coat over the dress to ward off the chill. In the past couple of years she’d gone from dressing the way you did selling yourself on the streets, which is where Roy found her, to looking like a grown-up Pippi Longstocking.
She said, “She ran away, right?”
“She left Mount Alex to come here after high school. Her brother didn’t say if she ran away.”
“Girls like her, they’re not sucking strangers’ dicks at 1 a.m. because they feel like it. They got pushed into it. And most of them got pushed by someone or something at home. Or near home. It’s like when you step in dog shit.”
“Dog shit?”
“You know how bad it smells? And how the smell don’t go away? How hard it is to get it off your shoe?”
“Sure. People say I step in it all the time.”
“How about not making it about you for once? That’s how these girls live every day. Like their whole life is one big pile of it. I’m just saying for starters it’d be nice to find out who put it on her shoes.”
I said nothing. The sanctuary was silent except for the sound of traffic up the street on Broad and a mechanical hum coming from someplace near the front. I glanced at Theresa, but she wouldn’t make eye contact.
I said, “I get what you’re saying. But how does that help us find her?”
“Who knows? She stepped in enough crap, she could be easy to track down.”
“Either way, I’m going to need to hit the streets, start asking about her.”
She nodded and rubbed her thighs.
“It’d be nice if I had someone to help me. Not exactly my territory.”
“That’s obvious,” Theresa said. I looked up and saw that Roy had entered the sanctuary while we’d been talking.
“So, you available?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. I’ll even let you drive the Odyssey.”
“No thanks. Those vans look like they have big butts.”
I laughed. “You’re right. I never thought about it before.”
“You gonna pay me?”
“Of course. You’d be on the clock.”
“That’s all right. I don’t want any money. It’ll be a freebie.” She cackled. “When do we start?”
“How about tonight?”
“What time?”
I did the math. Despite that morning’s disastrous visit, I planned to be back at the hospital most of the rest of the day.
“How about I pick you up at nine?”
“That works. I’ll check with some girls from that court program. They might know something.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s smarter to talk to me than a country bumpkin.”
“THERESA’S RIGHT,” ROY SAID a few minutes later, walking me outside. “Your van has a big butt. You look dumb driving it.”
“Says the guy who wears black pajamas to work.”
“Be careful, OK? Theresa’s got that brusque exterior, but she’s still fragile. She’s only two years off the streets. One year sober.”
“Was she abused? Is that why she was asking me about the brother?”
“I think it was a neighbor. What she always told me. Forced her to give him blowjobs, threatened her if she ever told. No one in the family knew. She started self-medicating with alcohol, and things went downhill from there.”
“You’re afraid looking for Jessica could be a trigger.”
“Maybe. The stuff about dog shit? She didn’t read that in a book.”
10
“YOU REALLY THINK THIS IS WORTH IT?” I said, turning onto Main Street off Third a few hours later. The temperature had dropped into the upper thirties. “Is anybody going to be around?”
“Cocks need sucked no matter the weather, QB. They’ll be out.”
I