Canvassing is painstaking and frustrating at best, hopeless and infuriating at worst. And just when you think you couldn't knock on another door, or stop another stranger on the street, someone starts talking, and that someone will tell you exactly what you need to know.
Ideally.
So the four of us hit the pavement and, using a street map, centered our efforts on four different quadrants surrounding the meth house. I had the northeast section, which included a lot of rundown apartments, rundown homes, and a handful of motels. The guys didn't like me running off on my own but I reminded them that I was a highly trained federal agent. They didn't like it, and made me promise to keep my cell phone and pepper spray handy. I didn't have any pepper spray, but the old man Aaron, gave me his.
I checked with Danny once, confirmed that Anthony was still sleeping, checked with my sister, confirmed Tammy was safe and sound at their home, and then hit the pavement.
And hit it hard.
* * *
We did this for four hours.
I questioned dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of people. I sensed that many of the young men recognized the man in the picture. None of them were talking. I would make them talk if I had to. I remembered where all of them lived.
Sometimes I don't play by the rules. Sometimes I make up the rules. Someone was going to talk, whether they wanted to or not.
A few of these men let be known that they didn't appreciate me walking around and asking a lot of questions. One of these men might have threatened me. One of these men might have soon thereafter suffered a broken finger.
Might have.
I handed out all the fliers I had, each one with my cell phone number on the bottom and a promise that the call would remain confidential. And at the end of the night, with no one talking and the neighborhood shutting down, the four of us reconvened at the McDonald's. We discussed our options. We all felt we had hit the area pretty hard. Most of us felt someone knew something but wasn't talking. We all agreed that unless someone started talking soon, we would have to take drastic measures. None of us talked about what those drastic measures were. I suspected each of us had our own definitions.
Knighthorse and Spinoza would both be back tomorrow morning. I would be back in the evening. Aaron King had a lead or two he wanted to follow up tonight. He insisted on following up alone, stating he would use his old Southern charm to get the information he needed. He even winked. Hell, I was charmed ten times over.
As I stepped into my minivan, Knighthorse pulled up behind me in his classic Mustang. He cranked down his window and said he'd heard from someone on the street that a mean, dark-haired lady had broken some gangbanger's finger. His eyes narrowed. "That wouldn't have been you, would it?" he asked.
"Everything but the mean part. It's not nice to threaten a lady."
He threw back his head and laughed. "I knew you were a badass."
"Badder than most."
"Hey, that's my line," he said, winking. He rolled up his window and pealed out of the parking lot.
Spinoza followed behind in his nondescript Toyota Camry, a car much better suited for investigations than Knighthorse's eye-catching classic Mustang. He nodded at me and told me we would find her. I thanked the deeply troubled man for his help, and secretly hoped he would find himself.
As I started up my minivan - a vehicle even better suited for long surveillances - Aaron King sidled up to the window. His eyes twinkled. As if he was in on a private joke. Or if he knew a secret. I rolled down my window.
"We'll find that girl," he said. "I have a daughter. I can't stand the thought of a little girl alone and scared and possibly abused."
"I have a daughter, too," I said. "And a son."
But that was all I could get out. My voice caught in my throat.
Aaron King angled his beautiful face down into my window. "Is there something wrong, lil' darling?" he asked.
"No, I - " But my voice did it again. Or, rather, my throat did. It shut tight, and all I could do was shake my head.
But there was something so tender, so serene, so warm about Aaron King. I felt myself opening up to him, responding to him. Connecting with him.
I tried again. "My son..." But, dammit, that was all I could say. Even those words came out in a strangled choke.
Aaron reached through the driver's side window and gently touched my chin. "Hey, even highly trained federal agents cry," he said.
And I did. Hard. Much harder than I thought I would around a stranger. Aaron King let me cry. The hand he used to touch my cheek now reached around and patted my head and shoulders gently. He was a loving grandfather. A man with a big, beautiful heart.
And when I was all cried out, he rested his forehead against the upper window frame. "I'm sorry you're sad, lil' lady. But everything's going to be alright."
Some of the McDonald's yellowish parking lot light caught his eyes, and when he smiled again - a smile that was so bright that it lifted my spirits immediately - I got the mother of all psychic hits. So powerful...and so mind blowing. So much so that I was certain I had made it up.
No way, I thought.
But the hit persisted. His name wasn't Aaron King. At least, not the name the world knew him by.
Unbelievable.
"I'll call you tomorrow, Samantha Moon. And you can tell me about your son then."
I nodded, too dumbfounded to speak.
He winked at me. "Go take care of your son." And then he reached through the window and gave my chin a small boxing jab, smiled at me again, and walked back to his own car.
A Cadillac.
Might as well have been a pink Cadillac.
Chapter Thirty-two
Still reeling from my encounter with Aaron King, whose real name, of course, wasn't Aaron King, I found myself at the Wharton Museum.
Danny had promised to call me immediately if anything came up, and since I hadn't received a call, I might as well keep working, right? And with Aaron still working the case in Buena Park, I thought it was best to tackle some of my paying work.
I might be undead. I might drink blood. And I might be one hell of a freaky chick, but I still needed to feed my kids and pay my bills.
Still in my van, I removed my secret stash of foundation make-up, which I often applied heavily to my face and the back of my hands. I may not show up in mirrors or on surveillance video - weird as hell, I know - but the make-up still did. And after a long night of pounding doors and breaking fingers, well, I wasn't sure how much of my make-up was still in place.
I had already been introduced to the head night security guard, whose name was Eddie. Eddie was a heavy-set Hispanic guy who seemed as cool as cool gets, and oozed a smooth confidence. The way he carried himself, you would have thought he looked a little more like George Clooney and a lot less like Chris Farley.