“Questions… concerns?”
“Yes, I realize it’s been a difficult weekend.”
“Difficult,” she whispers, more to herself than the stranger on the telephone. “Well, my concern is whether he’ll kill me like he threatened. That’s the first question. Can you answer that?”
Her voice has a firm hold now on his attention. He notes nothing as simple as sarcasm or even bitterness. The hushed sincerity of what she’s said startles him. He straightens in the chair. Strangely enough, no victim has ever put it to him quite this way. What can — how does he respond? She’s waiting.
“No, of course, I can’t,” he says. “But I do want to assure you that your safety is our priority concern. That’s why I called.”
“Okay,” she breathes into the phone, “thank you.”
Every time she speaks his own response is delayed, like that of a robot with a faulty language sensor. Or a man grown wary of words. This time he delays so long that she hangs up, apparently thinking their business is finished, and he’s left listening to his own thoughts and the dial tone.
chapter four
In some cases, such as with suspected sex offenders, one condition of bail is that the accused live in a residence approved by a probation officer, which then requires a home visit. Peter has this task on his agenda the next morning, so he signs out a Jeep and writes out the offender’s name — Martin — and the address where he’s headed on the whiteboard. Number 16 in a trailer park beside the railway tracks, about the lowest rent in town, and mostly paid via welfare. He’s been there before to see other clients.
The sky is hazy with smoke from not-so-distant forest fires, sunlight tinted grey, and the air gritty with dust scattered by the trucks rumbling to and from the nearby mills. Trailer 16 has settled into the gravel and weeds over twenty years, the green aluminum faded and warped by seasons. The yard space is a tangle of weeds and cast-offs — a vinyl-and-chrome chair with broken legs, the skeleton of a child’s bicycle. The add-on wooden steps wobble under Peter’s weight as he draws a breath and firmly knocks. He holds the Martin file in the other hand at his side, the documents of authority enclosed.
Peter hears slow steps, the squeak of handle and hinges, greeted by a mumble, and the door left open while the man retreats inside. He follows, putting off his next breath, the stale air fetid. Martin has two previous convictions for sexual interference with children, and there have been other investigations yielding insubstantial evidence. The man is fifty-seven years old. His victim profile is prepubescent girls, in all cases from dysfunctional homes, neglected, easy prey to his deviant kindness, too often unreliable as their own witnesses. But the case under way looks clear-cut so far, and if convicted, Martin is looking at a few years in jail, federal time. The man now leans against the counter, limbs like sticks, his belly oddly distended, taking in the visitor with a murky, bitter gaze.
No conversation to speak of. Peter reiterates the conditions of Martin’s bail, the mandatory visit, while noting to himself the meaning formed from contradiction. He wouldn’t be here otherwise. Every surface is filmed with grease and dust, every corner and crevice of the trailer. Wood panelling, brown paint. With Martin’s nod and a grunt for consent, Peter walks down the narrow hallway, briefly glancing in the rooms for anything obvious to flag concern. There’s no expectation to look under the bed or start rooting through boxes, fortunately. And if he does spy a stash of adult porn, it may be noteworthy, but it’s not against the law. There are no signs that Martin is a heavy drinker, nor are there firearms or strange tools lying around. In one corner of the living room, near the worn-out recliner padded with towels, are several framed photos on the wall.
“Who are these children, Mr. Martin?”
“Grandkids,” he says, rubbing his chin. “Haven’t seen them for years, since… since all this business began.”
The photos do appear fairly old, slightly faded. “By this business, are you referring to your convictions for sexual interference in 1997 and 1999?”
He sneers wearily. “Yeah. All that, sure, the tapestry of justice. And my daughter didn’t buy it, neither, but her husband does. So I talk to her maybe twice a year, never to the kids.”
“That must be difficult,” Peter says with a modicum of compassion and a degree of disgust. “Thank you for your cooperation. I’ll see you at the office next week.”
“Sure, you bet, Officer.”
Back in the Jeep, Peter jams the file into his leather case. Despite the smoky haze and roving dust, he unrolls both front windows to let the rush of air rid him of Martin’s smell and dark aura. There is no typical sex offender. Some are obsessively clean, but others, it seems, are almost anti-hygenic, living in littered hovels, the material reflection of their minds. Peter shudders and exhales. Instead of heading straight back to the office, he drives north past the mills, past the city limits, until he can peer into the gorge where the creek runs toward the river, the spring high water. He pulls off the road and takes in the view for a few minutes, leaning out the window, hoping the wind will help air out his mind.
There’s a second file in his bag, on Nolin, that he brought along on impulse, thinking he might have time to swing by the victim’s residence and give her a copy of the bail document. Usually, it’s mailed out, or it’s picked up at the office. But his brief conversation with Marina Faro has stayed with him, the nature of her voice. He’d like to offer her some reassurance, if possible, and he’s curious.
The Jeep wends its way through town, and Peter pulls into the Arbour Villa parking lot. From the Nolin file he takes a manila envelope in hand, opens the door, and swings himself out. The building is clad with green-stained wooden siding, and he follows the sidewalk along in front.
A woman is bent over in the bordering flower garden. Although her back is toward him, she straightens at his approach, turns, and he’s surprised by the age in her face yet the firm way she blocks his advance toward unit 5. She steps onto the concrete with a pronged garden tool upraised as though to parry the envelope in his hand. “No visitors today, sorry,” she says.
“I’m just delivering this,” Peter explains. “It’s important that Ms. Faro receive it.”
She studies his clothes, the hair curling over his collar, and raises an eyebrow. “Are you a policeman?”
“No.” He balks at much more explanation to this woman but doesn’t want to be rude. He notes the tended soil around the flowers and shrubs. “You have a very nice garden going here.”
“I’m the caretaker, my husband and I, for nine years now,” she says as though wary of his compliment, alert to any tactic and the envelope in his hand. She glances briefly past him, then back over her shoulder at unit 5 where the curtains of both front windows are drawn. “What brings you here?”
“To deliver this,” he repeats, waving the envelope, ready to retreat.
“But what’s your job?”
She wants to nail him down, and now it seems he can’t escape without some explanation. “I’m a probation officer. My name’s Peter Ellis.”
The woman nods, outright scowling at him now. “So it’s about that trouble on Saturday.” Her raised voice reveals the trace of an accent he can’t identify. “That young man’s in jail now where he belongs!”
Her statement is incorrect, by lack of information, and this raises a bit of a dilemma for Peter. On the one hand, he’s obliged to protect Nolin’s confidentiality as best he can, though his release on bail is, in theory, public knowledge. On the other hand, given that Nolin is prohibited from being within three blocks of the complex, the caretaker is an ideal watchdog, so to speak, especially if she knows about the condition. Then there’s the fact that one of her tenants went on a rampage in the apartment next door to her own, held his girlfriend hostage,