Shep was at his side, long forgotten. He spit in the gutter and kicked at the curb. Mike’s legs tingled. How long had he been standing here?
The old lady on the Gages’ porch set aside her knitting and rose, grimacing into the effort of it. Mike hurried over. ‘Ma’am, excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you. Have you lived here long?’
The woman paused, bunch-mouthed and wizened, at the screen door. Despite the prominent veins, her hands looked young and strong, and the crocheted shawl thrown across her shoulders gave off the pleasing aroma of coffee and cigarette smoke. ‘What’s long enough for you?’
‘So you’re Mrs?’
‘Geraldine Gage.’
His throat clicked dryly when he swallowed. ‘I’m a reporter looking into-’
She let go of the screen, which snapped closed, and gestured next door. ‘Saw you looking there. Been years since anyone came asking.’
‘About the incident?’ Mike asked carefully.
‘Is that what they’re calling it?’
‘How would you describe it?’
‘More like a non-incident. An entire family just up and vanishes one day? Not a trace left behind? After a while the bank quietly reclaimed the house, and then there was a new family in there, and then another. Life goes on. I suppose it has to.’
The porch swing jagged in the wind, creaking softly on its chains.
‘Do you think…? Did they seem the types to get tangled up in trouble?’
‘You mean, did they bring it on themselves?’ A dry chuckle. ‘If life’s taught me anything, it’s that you never know anything. But no, they sure as hell didn’t act like folks who played with fire. If they had any enemies, you’d never know it. That’s what was so shocking about the whole thing. They just didn’t seem the type that something like this would happen to.’ She shook her head, annoyed at herself. ‘Whatever that means.’
‘What was my-’ He caught himself. Cleared his throat. ‘What was their last name?’
‘Shouldn’t you know that,’ she asked, ‘if you’re writing an article?’
‘I’m doing a retrospective on a few cases like this. I sometimes get them mixed up.’
‘Their name was Trainor,’ she said. ‘With an o.’
Trainor.
He’d said it out loud, he realized, just to taste it in his mouth.
John and Danielle Trainor.
Michael Trainor.
After all these years, the childhood interrogations, the X-rays and dental assessments to determine his age, after the private-investigator bills, the database searches, the cemetery walks, after all that and more, at last: a name.
His.
The fake name given Kiki, “Trenley”, was kept close enough to the real one that it might ring a bell. But the real name was just as unfamiliar, and Mike was crestfallen over his inability to make it resonate.
Geraldine Gage had turned again to tug open the screen door.
‘What were they like?’ he blurted.
She paused, one slippered foot on the threshold. ‘Normal-type folks, like I said. Quite in love – they’d hold hands on walks, like honeymooners. We were fond of them. She was graceful, a little hippie-ish, and… I guess these days you’d say spunky. Long, beautiful black hair. And he was a nice fella. Used to lend Glen a hand with… you know, moving a couch, holding a ladder. A handsome guy. Looked a bit like… a bit like you, if memory serves.’ Her gaze intensified. ‘They had a boy.’
Mike nodded, since he didn’t trust his voice.
‘He’d be about your age now,’ she observed. ‘Michael, was it?’
‘I think that’s right.’
The wind brushed a leafy branch musically across the slats of the porch.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I really must be going.’
His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. ‘And him?’ he asked. ‘What about the boy?’ His face burned. ‘Did they seem close to him? I mean, no matter what happened, that’s quite a thing to uproot a kid like that.’
She mused on this a moment, her back slightly curved, shoulders hunched into the breeze. She seemed to sense what was at stake, or maybe he was only imagining it.
‘He was well loved,’ she said.
The screen clapped shut behind her.
He stood a few moments, listening to the crickets.
Shep was waiting back in the car. Mike paused by the passenger door, looking across at his old house, pausing at the sight. The little girl stood on a stool before her bathroom sink, brushing out her hair before bedtime. Her motions were uncoordinated, the brush snagging on knots. She couldn’t have been six.
The phone vibrated in his pocket, though it took a few bursts to break his trance.
‘License plate traces to a GMC Sierra 1500 pickup.’ Hank’s voice was excited, driving. ‘It’s corporate-owned, registered to Deer Creek Casino.’
‘A casino?’ Mike repeated.
Hank said, ‘And guess where it is?’
‘Where?’
‘You’re in Chico, yeah? Look northeast. See that mountain?’
‘It’s dark.’
‘Right. Well, it’s Mount Lassen. The casino’s there on the slopes. I’m sure you’ll see billboards.’
‘My family name,’ Mike said, ‘is Trainor.’
A long silence. In the house the girl had managed to work out most of the tangles. Her honey-blond hair looked soft and fluffy. When she clicked off the bathroom lights, she paused, noticing him standing there by the idling car at the curb.
Hank said, ‘Trainor with an o?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m getting on the road while the getting’s good. But I’ll see what I can find.’
The little girl raised her hand in silent greeting. Mike waved back. ‘Me, too.’
Chapter 46
Deer Creek unfolded roadside, darting away and returning at flirtatious intervals, a freestone stream tumbling past lava shelves. Swaths of landscape bled by, the Pinto’s weak headlights barely able to keep pace with the shifting topography. First splotches of orchard with sprinkler streams arcing across walnut and olive trees like tinsel. Then came the rolling foothills, blue oaks staking down vast tracts of golden weed. Finally Mount Lassen closed in on them, dense sagebrush crowding the hub-caps, fir and pine shoving up from red-clay dirt, rocky plateaus encroaching overhead. The night breeze through Mike’s window cleared his lungs, his thoughts.
Signage was plentiful and traffic thick as they neared the Deer Creek Casino. At last the mall-like building floated into view, sprawled across a flat plane stamped into the terrain. The parking lot bustled, cars waiting on spots, community-center buses unloading seniors, workers on break gathering at the exits, staking out cell-phone reception. One van, labeled NEW BEGINNINGS ACTIVE LIVING CENTER and featuring a logo of a winking smiley-face sun, disgorged one wheelchaired patron after another on its mechanical lift. A few lonely picketers circled out front, smoking cigarettes, ignored by and ignoring the trickle of gamblers. There were no Vegas lights, no showgirl glitter; it might have been a Walmart.
Shep trawled the lot. To the side, next to the plentiful handicapped parking, was the section for employee vehicles, each space labeled by name and title. Shep parked in the CFO’s spot, and they climbed out and walked the rear bumpers. Nearly every vehicle sported law-enforcement plate frames and multiple shiny stickers – CHP Foundation, Sheriff’s Booster Club, Friends of Sacramento PD.