On Thursday the 9th, the paper alluded to a “person of interest.” No name. But the next day’s headline read, “Primary St. Laurent Suspect Cleared.” Not even twenty-four hours after naming a person of interest, police cleared some unidentified local man of suspicion following a thorough check of his alibi. The article did not offer much in the way of why the man came to be suspected, but the writer did confirm this person of interest as a male who lived near the area where Jason was last seen. The whole piece was only three paragraphs long, closing with a quote.

  The quote read, “‘We verified with multiple witnesses this suspect was accounted for during any possible window of Jason St. Laurent’s disappearance,’ stated lead detective Rondo Singer.”

  Rocky shot up. She started scuttling away from her table and stopped. She bit her lip, turning back to scoop up microfilm canisters and throw them back into the boxes. She struggled to balance the boxes against her chest as she scrambled out of the microfilm viewing room and into the main part of the library. Kicking over a chair, multiple people turned to stare as Rocky worked to pick up the chair and one of the boxes which fell and put her shoe back on at one point. Included among them, her father peered over his book with a sly smile. He reclined into the most comfortable chair available, his feet propped onto a table, and stuck a finger in the latter half of the latest Bosch novel as a bookmark. His reading glasses hung on the tip of his nose as he giggled to himself at the sight of his daughter fumbling her way to the counter to return her microfilm. She then practically skipped his way, bouncing to a stop at his feet and raising her eyebrows at him.

  “Daddy?”

  Frank blinked. “Yes, sweetheart?”

  “Rondo Singer,” Rocky almost shouted.

  Frank frowned and shook his head. “What about him?”

  “We know him, right?”

  “Well, yeah,” Frank laughed. “He’s been to almost every one of your birthday parties, sweetheart. You’ve known the man all your life. You called him Uncle Rondo as a kid, Rocky.”

  Rocky waved a hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought so.” She perched onto the table next to Frank’s feet. “Can we meet him? For lunch? Dinner? Drinks?”

  Chapter 10

  Rocky had, indeed, known Rondo Singer for almost all of her twenty-eight years. Frank Champagnolle graduated with Rondo in the mid-seventies. As Rocky remembered, the story she heard as a child was that Rondo copied off a willing Frank’s test papers, keeping state football championship hopes alive. Rondo Singer made All-State running back for three straight years. He bounced all over the field like a bowling ball, and opposing teams described him as being un-tackle-able. Rondo was the kind of player destined for a scholarship to a football powerhouse and a future in the NFL. Except for one problem. Rondo Singer stood about five foot one.

  He still managed a scholarship. Rondo started all four years at nearby Southern Arkansas University, where he set and still holds enough records to get his jersey retired. After college, the diminutive star athlete tried out for every NFL team that didn’t laugh him out the door, and even some who did. He spent a couple of years determined to make the league, convinced his size gave him an advantage, not a detriment. But after bouncing around some semi-professional leagues and failing to win the heart of any scouts, he returned to Texarkana with his head hung low.

  Which is where Frank came back into his life. They happened upon each other as Frank took over run of the furniture store and Rondo made deliveries for UPS. After catching up over drinks, Frank pulled some strings and got Rondo putting his criminal justice degree to use fast-tracking through police training and onto the force. Since that day, Rondo Singer has credited Frank with renewing his spirits and sense of purpose. He poured himself into police work with every bit of the fervor he used to show on the football field, working his way to a detective rank in a little under four years. By ‘85, he earned enough stripes to snag a high-profile case like the Jason St. Laurent disappearance.

  Frank owned a string of stories like Rondo’s. If Rocky’s greatest talent was spite, then Frank’s was optimism. Frank Champagnolle thought the best of people. He encouraged their interests and curiosities. Without fail, Frank had fomented Rocky’s curious nature since she wore diapers and toddled toward outlets with forks. Even in the face of imminent danger, Frank always assumed her wonderment would lead her to positive outcomes. Which is why, without so much as an objection, Frank called up Rondo and invited him to grab a beer. Rocky listened intently as Frank ended the conversation with, “What time do you get off work?”

  Without another word, Frank hung up and chuckled. Rocky held her hands up, “Well?”

  Frank smirked. “He said he gets off work whenever I’m buying beer. He’ll see us there in half an hour.”

  There was Pecan Point, a local gastropub and microbrewery Frank liked to frequent downtown. More than for what they served, Frank liked Pecan Point for where it sat, nestled in the shadow of Texarkana history. From the Public Library, they could reach Pecan Point by walking a few blocks due east. Travel about a block further and they could step from Texas back into Arkansas, while standing on a block home to both the local newspaper and the rundown Hotel Grim, an old eight-story brick building with a couple hundred rooms—abandoned now, but once the nicest hotel for miles around. Two blocks south of Pecan Point loomed the old Union Station, still functioning but nothing compared to its heyday. The railroad used to make Texarkana a hub of East meets West. “Little Chicago,” they called the small town. Now, trains rattled along the edge of town like ghost chains. And next door to the little gastropub staggered the Perot Theatre, an ornate Italian Renaissance theater once known as the “Gateway to the Southwest.” Now a venue for traveling stage productions, Frank used to tell Rocky about how his daddy watched The Seven Year Itch there and then walked a few blocks over to the Municipal Auditorium and watched Elvis and Johnny Cash.

  “On your birthday, sweetheart. Everything good in pop culture converged right here at one time,” Frank recounted the story for Rocky for the hundredth time. “It was one of those deals where they just drove themselves to the concert. Had a big pile up on the highway just outside of Memphis. So Elvis was late and Cheesie Nelson got up and did an impersonation. Supposed to be the first one ever. You remember Cheesie Nelson, honey?”

  Rocky leaned against the open door of Pecan Point and tapped her foot. “Yes, Dad.” She frowned. “Well, from this story, I do. I’m not sure I can picture him. I think he’s always been a cartoon character in my head.”

  Frank stood staring wistfully off past the Perot toward a large mural painted on a brick wall facing the Perot parking lot. He pointed. “Did I ever tell you about that Scott Joplin mural? Texarkana’s favorite son, Scott Joplin.”

  Rocky spun into the restaurant, calling out, “Let’s hear it while I drink alcohol, what do you say, Frank?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, sweetheart.” Frank shuffled to hurry after Rocky.

  Pecan Point stretched back from the road in two narrow rooms. On the side closest to the theater, there were long tables for family style dining. Rocky and Frank entered the bar side and set up at a pub table near the back. The dinner crowd hadn’t started in yet, so the manager seated them himself and went ahead and took drink orders. Frank got his usual locally brewed pale ale and Rocky ordered a Cape Cod.

  Frank marveled around at the old photos on the walls and shook his head at Rocky. “Rock, they make some damn fine beer.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “This is one of those deals where they brew it right back there. What’s wrong? You watching your figure?”

  Rocky rolled her eyes. “Dad, I butter Pop Tarts. No, I’m not watching my figure. I drink alcoholic beverages you would serve to a child. The ones that taste like sunshine and beachfront property. You know I don’t drink beer.” She said the last word like a piece of sour candy she tried to spit out.

  When a waiter brought the drinks, Frank instructed him to go ahead and bring a couple more beers for the table. As the waiter walked away, Frank smiled at Rocky. “Well, Rondo does.”

  On cue, Rondo Singer strutted into Pecan Point like he owned the place. He stood about Rocky’s height, a little less than the one inch over five feet programs always listed him at as a player. He still carried the bulk of a running back, with broad shoulders and ripped arms, but he added a small bulge of a gut with age. A fedora teetered to one side of a shaved bald head, and a touch of gray glittered in his black goatee. He and Frank were the same age, but Rondo’s coffee-colored skin betrayed no wrinkles. He could have been sixty or thirty or anywhere in between. He wore a black sports coat over a rose-colored short sleeve Polo-style shirt. His shoes, pants, and belt were all black, with a gun and a badge visible peeking out from under his coat. Rondo walked with the confidence of the all-everything football player from forty years prior. There were four people in Pecan Point and three of them spoke to Rondo by name as he walked through the door. Each time, he smiled like they had told him a joke, pointed, and tossed out an “All right now” in a way that told Rocky he didn’t know any of their names. His gravely and high octave voice somehow fit both a man of his stature and a man of his size.

  Rocky greeted Rondo with a hug and then let the two friends catch up over three rounds of beers. She laughed along at stories and made a point to stay sober—at least more sober than Rondo. Rocky wanted him greased up enough to talk freely.

  After an hour or so, Rondo rolled through one story after another of weird cases he had worked. He named them all, like episodes of some cop show he starred in. While finishing up one about a real estate agent who disappeared, leaving one shoe behind as the sole clue (titled, “Rondo and the Glass Slipper”), he put a hand on Frank and Rocky’s shoulders and ducked his head in laughter. When Rondo came up for air, Rocky took a sip of her drink and asked, “Was the realtor your most high-profile case?”

  Frank rolled his eyes. Rondo sucked at his teeth and tried to laugh, but the sound came out as more of a sighing cough. “Naw, girl,” he shook his head. “Only high-profile case I ever worked on was those kids who got killed.” Rondo had a way of stroking his goatee and staring off while thinking. He rasped, “Not even my case, technically.” Rondo waved a hand for another round of beer, finishing the last of his current one, sucking at the foam at the bottom of the glass. “Frank, you remember when the St. Laurent kid got killed?”

  Frank nodded and mumbled while cutting his eyes at Rocky, “Yeah. Yeah, it rings a bell.”

  Rondo shook his head. “Man. That was a big case. Biggest I ever caught.”

  Rocky shook her head and blinked innocently. “I guess it was before my time. What happened?”

  Rondo snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, Rock. Happened right around the time you was born. I wasn’t on the child killer case. They’d been four kids killed before the St. Laurent kid went missing. In fact, I found the remains of one of them during my first year on the job. Freaked me the hell out.” He laughed, “Awful to say, but I ran off to throw up so I wouldn’t get shit all over the crime scene. But that’s all I had to do with it until I got detective. Hadn’t been in a suit and tie for more than a couple of weeks when I got put on the St. Laurent case. He was just missing at this point, now. Hadn’t been for every homicide cop in the force working those kids, I’d never be given a case like that.”

  Rocky frowned. “Homicide? I thought you said he was just missing.”

  Rondo nodded. “Homicide cops got all the missing persons cases back then. Still do, most of the time.” He shook his head. “When it gets to us? Ain’t gonna end pretty.”

  Rocky nodded. “And this one? Didn’t end pretty?”

  “Naw. This one was never gonna end pretty. I knew from the jump.” Rondo rubbed at his goatee some more and proceeded to walk through the basics of the case, nothing Rocky didn’t know.

  But at a passing mention of Trailer Pines, Rocky jumped at her chance. “Trailer Pines? The trailer park over by Spring Lake Park? What the hell is a rich kid doing there?”

  Rondo cocked his head and pointed at her. “I’m saying. Craziest thing. Why you wanna go riding your bike to some trailer park when you got a mansion to go home to?”

  “Are you sure he did?” Rocky asked. “Maybe he never made it.”

  Rondo shrugged. “I believe he did. He had a little group of friends. They said he was going there every day. Been acting all funny and hanging out with some friends they didn’t know.”

  “Friends at Trailer Pines?” Rocky frowned. “Did it check out?”

  Rondo cocked an eyebrow. “Those folks ain’t gonna talk to no cop. Who knows? We found some kids there, yeah. Ain’t a one of them in school. But they all swore they didn’t know Jason. His friends said they were older. Seemed right. All those trailer trash kids were middle school age and up.”

  “Do you think one of them might be the killer?”

  Rondo shook his head. “Naw. Ain’t none of them kids started killing people in 1981. The oldest one of them would’ve been about ten years old back then.” He pointed at nothing in particular. “Now, before we found Jason? Yeah. Those kids were on my list.”

  Rocky squinted at him. “Your list? Who else was on your list? Parents?”

  Rondo shook his head. “Not in my book. I mean, yeah, we looked at them. Hard. Got to. But smelled clean to me.” He rubbed his goatee. “Now, one of my partners on the case? He liked the dad for it early. We didn’t see eye to eye though.”

  “Why? Why did he think the dad did it?”

  Rondo laughed. “Because Bo St. Laurent is a fucking asshole. Mean son of a bitch. We both agreed he beat on the kid. But I didn’t think he went past a hard ass whoopin every now and then.” He slapped Frank on the arm. “Black folk got a different outlook on whoopins. Ain’t that right, Frank?”

  Frank grinned and nodded to Rocky. Rocky raised her eyebrows. “That’s all? Your partner thought Bo St. Laurent killed his son because he was an asshole?”

  “Well,” Rondo cocked his head, “there was a life insurance policy.”

  Rocky grinned and nodded.

  “I know, I know.” Rondo held up both hands in surrender. “Sounds mad fishy. Two-million-dollar life insurance policy on your own kid.” He closed one eye and pointed at Rocky. “But the man didn’t claim it.”

  Rocky laughed. “Of course he didn’t. Not immediately. His kid was missing, not dead. At least, in the public eye.”

  Rondo shook his head and sucked at his teeth. “Naw, Rock. He never claimed it. Not ever. Not even after we found Jason’s remains a couple weeks later. I kept watching him. For years. Even after my partner passed. Never claimed it.”

  Rocky frowned. “So who did you like?”

  Rondo leaned back in his chair. “Me? I liked this fella down in Trailer Pines.” He rubbed his goatee and worked to remember. “Went by Spinny. Last name Spinelli. What was his first name? Something funny. Like Marcus, but longer. Marcellus, maybe.”

  Rocky shook her head. “Why him?”

  “He was a perv. Kiddie porn and all kinds of shit. Got released after doing time for messing with a kid up in Memphis. Those sentences were such a joke back then. I tossed his place and found a whole closet of child porn. Mother fucker should’ve been put down.”

  Rocky nodded. “The person of interest they mentioned in the paper. It was him?”

  Rondo laughed and trained one eye on Rocky. “You know a little more than you let on, girl.”

  Rocky smirked. “Maybe.”

  “Yeah,” he laughed. “Yeah, that was Spinny. We found him drunk out front of his trailer and went through his shit. No warrant. So it got tossed. We fucked up. But his alibi also checked, I guess. I never liked his story, but it checked. His job gave us a time card showing he was at work the day Jason went missing.”

  “So what didn’t you like?”

  Rondo clucked his tongue. “The shit was handwritten. Could’ve been faked easy. But a co-worker put him there. And then, of course, Jason got tied to those other kids. Spinny was in a Tennessee jail during two or three of those killings, so I had to accept it. I still wonder what all the fucker did while he’s living in Trailer Pines, though. Spinny’s dead by now, but I still wonder.”

  “But you’re certain Jason St. Laurent was killed by the Rye Mother?”

  Rondo threw his head back and let out an exasperated groan. “Fucking Rye Mother. Get out of here with that shit, Rock. Ain’t no cop ever going to acknowledge some bullshit name like Rye Mother.”

  Rocky smiled. “Okay, okay. So what do I call her?”

  Rondo curled a lip. “I don’t know. Crazy?”

  “But you do believe it was a woman?”

  Rondo rolled his head around and shrugged. “I don’t know, man. I mean, I didn’t work those cases, so ain’t my place to say. I got involved a little after Jason, because he was my case and it connected. But you had a lot of veteran cops working those killings. I was still green. They didn’t want me too close. And after I fucked up the search of Spinny’s trailer like I did? I got froze out of several things for a while after.”

  Rocky shook her head, frowning. “So you didn’t think it was a woman?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. They brought in some dude. Like a criminal profiler. He said woman. After the profile got created, the photo showed up and seemed to confirm woman. I guess I never wanted to believe a woman could do that. But what do I know?”

  Rocky shook the ice in her empty glass and Frank scooped the tumbler up and headed to the bar to get her another. “Did you ever think it was a local woman?”

  “Like who? You got a local woman in mind, Rock?”

  Rocky gave him a series of little curt shakes of her head. “Oh, no, no. Nobody in particular.”

 

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