The Night Monster_ A Novel of Suspense - James Swain [53]
“You shouldn’t have spoken to me like that,” she said.
“I know. I was wrong. It was the way I was raised.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
I shook my head. My father was the most stubborn man I’d ever known, and I was my father’s son.
“I’ll make it up to you,” I promised.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Burrell said. “Let’s go.”
I followed her through the house. The downstairs was deceptively large. I peeked into the rooms at antique furniture too old to have been made in Florida. The joint reeked of old money, and I wondered whose side of the family it had come from.
We came to a winding staircase and Burrell halted. The living room was off to her right, and through a picture window I saw Snook out on the front lawn, basking in the TV camera’s bright lights.
“Come on, Jack, hurry,” Burrell said.
“What’s the rush?” I asked.
“If Snook sees you inside the house, he’ll start screaming his head off. He’ll want to know why the police are letting a civilian work the case.”
“Who’s running this investigation? You or him?”
Burrell acted offended. “What kind of question is that?”
I went to the front door and locked it.
“Screw Snook,” I said.
Suzie Knockman’s bedroom was on the second floor at the end of the hallway. As was customary with missing children investigations, it had been classified as a crime scene and yellow police tape crisscrossed the door. Burrell pulled the tape down.
“It’s all yours,” she said.
I handed Burrell Buster’s leash, and entered the bedroom. It was lavishly decorated, with a four-poster bed, a closet filled with expensive clothes, and a wooden toy chest overflowing with beautiful dolls and teddy bears. It was too much, even for a rich kid. Someone was indulging Suzie.
A framed photograph sat on the dresser. Suzie was slender and dark-skinned and had multiple earrings in both ears. She was extremely attractive, only she wasn’t smiling in the photo. I looked at Burrell, who’d remained in the hallway with my dog.
“Give me a timeline,” I said.
“Suzie left school yesterday afternoon at three-thirty, but never came home. She normally walks home with a group of friends, but they didn’t see her. Her mother says she tried Suzie’s cell phone, but it wasn’t turned on.”
“What was Suzie carrying?”
“Her books and her purse.”
“Does she have credit cards?”
“Yes, and a debit card that she used to withdraw two hundred dollars last night.”
“Where does the family money come from?”
“Her mother. She’s loaded.”
Kids did not run away from happy homes. They were either pushed out or forced out. I had to figure out why Suzie had run. Once I did, I would have a better idea how to find her.
I walked around the bedroom and stopped at the toy chest. A Winnie the Pooh teddy bear caught my eye. There was something dark and slender sticking between Winnie’s legs. I started to reach for it, then stopped.
“Is it okay if I touch this?”
“Go ahead.”
I removed the object from the toy chest. It was a baseball bat, only smaller, the kind used by kids in Little League.
“Did you see this?” I asked.
“Yes,” Burrell said. “I mentioned it to the girl’s father. He said that Suzie was a tomboy, and liked to play softball with the boys on the street.”
The reason struck me as lame. I hit the bat against the palm of my hand.
“Where’s her glove?” I asked.
“Beats me.”
I kept hitting the bat against my palm and walked around the room. I had a bad feeling in my gut, and needed one more piece of evidence to confirm that feeling.
I stopped at the door. It was being held open by a doorstop. Thirteen-year-old girls didn’t use doorstops, and I kicked the doorstop away, and pulled the door back. My eyes fell upon the deadbolt directly above the doorknob. The wood around it was badly chipped. Suzie had installed it herself.
I quickly checked the other bedrooms on the second floor. There were four, all occupied by adults. None had deadbolts on their doors. I returned to Suzie’s room.
“Someone’s been trying to molest Suzie Knockman,” I said.
CHAPTER 26
ive me that