An older SUV peeked from an open garage that was separate from the main house, an A-frame built sometime in the late seventies. September pulled to a stop beside it, scooped up her messenger bag, and headed toward a sagging front porch. A few outbuildings were scattered around the fields where a couple of goats scampered and a clutch of brightly feathered chickens pecked at the ground, clucking softly as she passed. Further off, three horses grazed, and September was reminded of the one Lance had supposedly ridden in the fields behind the rental house.
Before she reached the first step the screen door opened with a clatter. A man and a woman, both somewhere in their sixties, greeted her together. A small dog, a spotted terrier of some kind, dashed out, jumping up on her despite the woman’s shouts of, “Down, Precious! You get down!” She finally scooped up the excited dog and whispered into one pointed ear, “Troublemaker!” then she set her back down and shooed her inside. The dog launched itself at the screen door, so Mrs. Patten took the time to yank the heavy door shut. “Sorry,” she apologized as the dog’s barks became muffled and frustrated. “You must be Detective Rafferty.” She dusted her hands on worn jeans and managed a worried smile.
“Yes, I am. Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” she said, showing her ID.
“What’s it about?” the man asked.
The woman jumped in. “I’m Raquel and this is Maury.”
They shook hands all around, though Maury was more reluctant than his wife. September was about to respond, but Maury cut her off. “Something about our boy? Don’t suppose you found him.” He was a tall man with a buzz cut of gray hair and a trimmed beard that didn’t hide his jowls. His jeans were belted below a stomach covered by a T-shirt that had seen better days, and though he was supposedly retired, his whole demeanor suggested he was too busy to be bothered with any interruptions, even—or maybe especially—the police.
“Is it Lance?” Raquel asked anxiously. Behind rimless glasses, her eyes swam with worry. “Do you have news about him after . . . after all this time?”
There was no way to sugarcoat this. “We’ve located some bones in a house on Aurora Lane and we’re trying to identify them. All we know is that the body was of a male, approximately eighteen years old.”
Raquel grabbed her husband’s meaty hand to squeeze it. “Lance? Oh God.” She dropped into a once orange plastic chair.
“What house?” Maury asked.
“The Singletons’,” September answered. “At the north end of the lane toward the lake.”
“Think I saw something about that on the news.” He swallowed hard, but his face set in a scowl.
“We’re trying to ID the body,” September said.
“Boy was always trouble,” Maury stated flatly.
His wife protested, “But he had a good heart.”
Snorting his disagreement, Maury lowered himself into the chair next to his wife’s and waved September onto a stool placed against the porch railing. His jaw worked as he let Raquel cling to one hand. “What is it you want to know? It’s been a long time.”
“He would be thirty-two now,” Raquel whispered.
“You don’t know what happened to him?”
“No,” Raquel whispered hoarsely. “We haven’t seen him since before he graduated from high school.” Her throat clogged, but she managed to get hold of herself.
Maury’s crusty exterior melted a little as he patted his wife’s knee. “He just up and disappeared when we were living in Laurelton in that rental. The one that skinflint Mamet owned.”
His wife sent him a disapproving look.
“Well, he was. A type A-one bastard in my book.” Ignoring his wife, Maury, whom September had expected to be the silent one, started talking. “The truth is, our kid got caught up in the wrong crowd. First drinking, then marijuana, and then God knows what else. We had lots of fights about it and he took off a couple of times but always came back.” He let out a long breath and said a little more quietly, “And then he just didn’t.” With a look toward the mountain, Maury added, “The kid just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, get his act together. Never figured out which it was. Maybe a little of both.”
Raquel was shaking her head, gray ponytail sliding across her shoulders. “We looked for him. Called all his friends, the hospitals, the police . . . anyone we could think of. He didn’t have a cell phone back then, but we had a family computer, such as it was.”
“Hand-me-down clunker from my brother,” Maury interjected.
“But,” Raquel went on, “nothing . . . not a word. Ever.”
“Do you know if he went by a nickname?” September asked.
Raquel shot her a look. “A nickname? No? Maury, here, called him ‘Son,’ but that was about it.”
“What about Laser?” September asked as a breeze kicked up, touching the back of her neck.
Maury shook his head but said, “That crowd he ran around with had all sorts of names, or handles, or whatever you want to call it, for each other. Some not so nice, if you know what I mean.”
“Would you happen to have anything of his that might help me either to ID the body or eliminate Lance as the victim?”
Raquel shuddered at the idea.
“You mean like for a sample of his DNA?” Maury asked. “Like they do in all those cop shows? What, a toothbrush or a hairbrush?”
September nodded. “Or a lock of his hair, maybe a first tooth from when he lost them?”