The Guilty - Jason Pinter [91]
that he cared one way or another.
We both stood up. Jack began to walk back to his desk.
"So," I said, "did you go out last night?"
Jack barked a laugh. "Go out? Kid, when you're my age
going out means ordering in Chinese food and hoping they
remembered the sesame chicken."
"So you stayed inside."
"Same as I do every night."
"Any company?"
Jack's eyes closed as he tried to understand what I was
asking. "What's all this about?"
"I just want to know if anyone is there to, you know...
just in case."
"Just in case what? "
"In case you need any help...anyone to talk to. If anything,
you know, happened."
"Help?" Jack said. "What I hear, you need help more than I
do. Don't think I didn't hear about Frank Rourke and his
infamous crap-in-a-sack. You'd better work on your interpersonal relationships with the other reporters before you start
asking if I'm okay. Otherwise that won't be the last bag you get.
Help yourself, kid. There are only so many hours in the day."
As he left, I tried to think of something to say. Jack clearly
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had a problem, and if it were anyone else they would be confronted, put on leave, made to do something to right the ship.
But Jack O'Donnell was a living institution. You didn't take
the Michelangelo in for a cleaning until the marble was
covered with so much grime you couldn't tell its ass from its
elbow. Jack was still Jack, pumping out quality stories, but it
was only a matter of time. And from the look of things, this
wasn't an issue about to go away on its own.
I needed to focus. I still had a job to do, and there was still
a killer out there. Maybe if I could uncover more information
about William Henry Roberts, I could save more lives than
just Jack's.
I logged into LexisNexis and performed a search for
William's parents, John and Meryl Roberts. I found records
of them owning two homes--one in Hico, Texas, and another
in Pecos Valley, New Mexico. Pecos Valley, if I remembered,
was where John Chisum ended his famous cattle drive which
began in Paris, Texas, and where Billy the Kid wreaked havoc
during the Lincoln County Wars. Hico was where Brushy Bill
Roberts had died.
I searched for all newspaper articles in the state of Texas
containing references to either John or Meryl Roberts. Aside
from previous known addresses, there were half a dozen other
clippings. I clicked on the first piece.
It was from the Pecos Valley News, a local paper from a
town sleepy enough that high-school football was front-page
material. The article had run in the Church Briefs section of
the paper, and was about the baptism of the Roberts's newborn
son, William Henry. A photo accompanied the article, a robed
priest holding an infant, nestled in between folds of cloth. I
could just make out William Henry's eyes, which were
peaceful, closed.
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It was hard to imagine that this child, renouncing evil,
would eventually become a servant of the devil.
The second article was also from the Pecos Valley News, and
it was written in 1995. The article was titled "Roberts Family
Sells Home, Wish Them Luck in Texas!" An accompanying
photo showed John and Meryl with their young children
standing in front of a For Sale sign in their yard. The parents
looked young, vibrant, like they were about to start a new
chapter of their lives. An eight-year-old William stood to the
side with an expression on his face that showed neither happiness nor sorrow. It was a blank slate, as though he was simply
going along because there was nothing he could do to stop it.
I clicked on the third article. It was from the Hamilton
Herald-News out of Hamilton County, Texas. It was dated
August 23, 2004. The headline read Five Dead in Deadly Hico
Blaze: Family Of Four Trapped Inside Their Home, Die
Along With Beloved Chaplain.
The accompanying photo showed the charred embers
where a house once stood. There were police cars, ambulances and fire trucks spread out with abandon.