All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(76)

I did mind, but I shrugged. Cardoza seemed decent enough, but he wasn’t losing any sleep over those missing kids. What was keeping him awake was the fact that his big career-making drug bust had farted and failed. With Liam Quinn dead, Cardoza and the rest of the feds were looking around to see what they could salvage.

Driving out to the ranch, he said, “I like Barfoot for the murders. Looks to me like he tried to make it look like a murder-suicide.”

“If you’re looking for somebody who’d plan a thing like that, he’s not your man.”

“In a big drug operation like this, murder is sometimes the best way to move up the ladder.”

Cardoza could like Junior for the murders all he wanted, but I’d believe it when I saw the evidence.

I’d known Junior Barfoot his whole life, although I don’t suppose I knew him by name until the night I drove him to the emergency room in Garringer. He was maybe ten years old and his old man broke the boy’s jaw. Junior didn’t even cry when they wired his mouth shut and took out a tooth to put a straw through. Coming from that, I figured he’d end up on the same path as the rest of his family. Both his folks drunk all the time, an older brother in prison for armed robbery, older sister in and out of jail, and the oldest brother shot dead in a bar fight before he was even old enough to drink.

Wasn’t but four years after that trip to the emergency room, when Junior was about fourteen, we got our usual domestic disturbance call out to their house. Mrs. Barfoot was standing on the front lawn, her housedress torn and her nose bloodied. Inside, I expected to find the old man going at Junior, but for the first time it was the other way around. Junior was pounding on him and screaming, “I’ll f*cking kill you!” It took me, two deputies, and a volunteer fireman to pry Junior off his father. He was a big boy.

After Barfoot Senior was in the hospital, their youngest girl, who was retarded, was put in a state home, and Junior went to stay with Mrs. Barfoot’s family down in Oklahoma. That’s when he started going by Kellen, her maiden name. He came back two years later, and almost immediately got into trouble. I never saw anybody could tear up a bar the way he could. Furniture broken and grown men bleeding and crying, looking like they’d been hit by a train.

So I could imagine Junior killing somebody if he got angry enough, but he wouldn’t waste any energy trying to plan it or cover it up.

“The rape charge is a problem for us, since the girl isn’t cooperating,” Cardoza said. “We’d rather get Barfoot on the murders or the meth production. Your county prosecutor isn’t going to give us any trouble, is he?”

“My county prosecutor is likely to do whatever he wants. He usually does.”

At the farmhouse, I headed for the windmill, with Cardoza trailing.

I panned my flashlight around the stock tank, and there sat a little boy. He was awake, huddled up in his undershorts with a pile of bloody clothes next to him, probably been there all night.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you Donal?”

He looked scared, but he nodded and said, “Is Wavy okay?”

“Why are you worried about her?” Cardoza said, trying to make that one question mean something.

“She’s fine, son.” I hoped it wasn’t a lie. “You want me to take you to her?”

“Will you piggyback me like Kellen does?”

The kid was worn out, so I wrapped him in my windbreaker and carried him up the hill to the car. Left Cardoza to gather up the bloody clothes for evidence.

Driving back to Powell, I radioed the station.

“I was just set to call you,” Haskins said. “Delbert picked up the Quinn girl at Junior Barfoot’s house. Looks like she spent the night there.”

“Well, take her up to the motel to her aunt. I’m bringing her brother.”

“I’d rather we didn’t put them together just yet,” Cardoza said. “He’s our only eyewitness.”

“Your eyewitness is seven years old. He’s been up all night, and I bet he’d like to make sure his sister’s okay.”

“Look, I have a little boy about Donal’s age. I just—”

“Bet you wouldn’t think much of me interrogating your son at a time like this.”

The sun was coming up when we got to the motel. Mrs. Newling was already dressed, didn’t look like she’d slept either. I carried Donal into the room and put him to bed. As I was leaving, Delbert pulled up with Wavy Quinn. She stepped out of the patrol car, wearing a man’s T-shirt like a dress, and a pair of motorcycle boots. She brushed past me and went straight to her brother.

Driving back to the station, Cardoza said, “I wonder what he saw yesterday that he was so worried about her. Do you think he saw Barfoot kill his parents?”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree there.”

“But you have to wonder if Donal brought the gun to the garage to point a finger at Barfoot,” Cardoza said.

“Or maybe the garage was someplace familiar. And he knew his sister was there.”

“Why bring the gun, though? And why’d he leave if he went there for his sister?”

“Your little boy, does everything he do make sense?”

I’d had enough of Cardoza, but I wasn’t anywhere near getting shut of him. The feds were like a plague of cockroaches, except they didn’t scatter when you turned on the lights. They were convinced somebody would roll over on Junior, but everybody they interviewed said the same thing: Junior wasn’t Quinn’s second-in-command. This Butch character was, and he’d lit out in Brenda Newling’s car. Junior was just Quinn’s mechanic, and that held some water, seeing as he had half-ownership in Cutcheon’s garage. The feds took that place apart, pored over the books, and got nothing. Not a trace of meth, not a misplaced decimal point, which I could’ve predicted. Dan Cutcheon wouldn’t put up with any nonsense.