‘Hot.’
‘What?’ said Ren.
Billy laughed. ‘I’m the new owner.’
Ren laughed out loud. ‘No way. Congratulations. Obviously bought with drug money.’
‘Obviously.’ He smiled.
She gestured to Jo’s corner. ‘So no more blowjobs for beer?’
‘It’s full of students,’ said Billy. ‘They give them out for free.’
Ren laughed. ‘So …’ She tried to avoid his eyes.
‘I thought I might see you some time soon,’ said Billy.
‘You heard about Jean.’
He nodded. ‘So is that good or bad for you?’
‘Well, here I am, back on the case. So to answer your question – I have no idea.’
He smiled. ‘I still can’t believe you were ever off the case. Why would they do that?’
Ren paused. ‘Well … I wasn’t getting very far, was I?’
‘That’s not true.’
‘I guess I’m getting a second shot,’ said Ren.
‘You weren’t alone in not solving the case,’ said Billy. ‘You can’t take the blame for everything.’
‘Yes, I can.’
‘You do, but you shouldn’t.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ren. She lowered her head on to the table. ‘I want it all to go away.’
‘Yes, but you only want it to go away by solving it …’
Ren looked up and smiled at him. ‘You’re right. So … go through it all with me – everything from that night.’
‘Did anything show up on the body?’ said Billy. ‘Any new evidence?’
‘Probably not … the autopsy will tell us more,’ said Ren. ‘Billy, I need you to give me more. I need you to think more.’
‘I’m not a retard.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was sounding that way. Can you go through again who was here that night?’
‘I gave you that list. Look at it.’
‘Now who’s calling who a retard?’
‘Don’t take your work shit out on me. I’ve done what I can for you. Including being the invisible fucking man.’
They sat in silence.
‘I cannot think of any more people to add to that list, OK?’ said Billy. ‘They were strangers to me. It’s that kind of bar. Of the people you’ve met? Me, Salem and Jo da Ho.’
‘This is driving me nuts,’ said Ren. ‘Because I know, for certain, that this was Jean Transom’s last stop. I just know it.’ She shook her head. ‘And more than one person is responsible for what happened to her, because they took her car and we don’t know where it is. We’ll probably never find it. I can’t see how all that could have been done otherwise.’
And right now I’m discussing all this with a confidential informant.
Ren’s phone rang and Denis Lasco’s name flashed up on the screen.
‘Hello, Ren? I found something when I was going through Jean Transom’s pockets. It was in a pocket I missed first time around. You know these ski jackets – they have zips everywhere. It’s a photo of a woman. And I know who the woman is, because I was on the case. I’ll drop this by your office.’
‘Who is the woman?’
‘Her name was Ruth Sleight. She was thirty-nine years old, lived in Frisco.’
‘Ruth,’ said Ren. ‘I have a mystery RUTH folder belonging to Jean. In fact, I was just about to add a case to it. What happened to Ruth Sleight?’
‘Suicide. June last year. I mean, you can see by the photo that she wasn’t in great shape. She’d been an alcoholic half her life.’
‘There’s too much alcohol everywhere,’ said Ren.
‘All the better to party with.’
‘OK – anything else on this Ruth Sleight?’
‘Well, I think I have the reason for her alcoholism. Do you remember the Mayer–Sleight case in the late seventies?’
‘Vaguely,’ said Ren.
The Mayer–Sleight ‘abduction’ had been the lead news story on every network in 1979, the headline in every newspaper. Two eleven-year-old girls from Frisco, Jennifer Mayer and Ruth Sleight, disappeared on their way home from dance class, the first day their mothers had allowed them to walk home alone. Both families refused to speak to journalists. The girls showed up … three weeks later. The families released a statement saying, We would like to thank America for the thoughts and prayers that kept us hopeful during such a fearful time. Our beautiful girls have returned to us unharmed and we thank God for this blessing.
No one mentioned ‘abduction’. No one mentioned ‘runaways’. The police revealed nothing other than ‘happiness and relief’ at the outcome, and eventually the story went away.
‘So,’ said Lasco. ‘The media attention at the time, the whispers, the questions, whatever – must have become too much for her. Or something else went on in those three weeks.’
Ren nodded. ‘And we can all guess what the answer to that is.’
‘I’ll drop this by in a little while.’
* * *
Ren pulled out the RUTH file again, the thirty-year span of sexual offences against children, all within Summit and Garfield Counties. Ren wondered what more she could get from the latest little girl than what her mother had told her the day it had happened. She had called the Glenwood RA in a state of panic that just seemed to increase as the conversation went on. Ren read back her handwritten notes – she hadn’t had time to type them up, she hadn’t even had time to write them. Her writing was legible, but still scrawled across the page – real shorthand, mixed with improvised.
The daughter was changing out of her bathing costume, her mother had turned away to attend to her young son, when a man had exposed himself to the little girl and taken pictures of her. He had hair that was neither dark nor light. He was wearing navy blue track pants, a white T-shirt and sneakers. He had a big belly. She described him as ‘old’, but everyone is old to a seven-year-old. And he was ‘missing hair on his head’. Bald, fat and old. Surprise, surprise.
Ren read through the file to see was there a similar description from any of the other girls. It looked like Ren wasn’t the only one who had to rush through an interview. The page about Ruth Sleight had no case number. Under the heading WHERE? was circles … faded … dust … funny smell … bakery? Under the heading WHO? was musk … bony hips. Under WHY? she had just written why? why? why?
Why would Jean be asking why?” Why what?
Ren looked at the child’s drawing on the page stapled to it – the collection of shapes. Underneath it was adult writing that read: Love, Ruth XX.
Ren noticed the back of the first page. There was a phone number scrawled diagonally across it. Something about it looked familiar, a sequence of digits that had once been automatic to her – her only way to reach someone – untraced, a number she associated with laughter