Hunter's Trail

“We tried everything,” Sharon said to us, desperation in her voice. “Private school, tutors. I even took him to a therapist in Van Nuys. He means well, and he’d never hurt anyone, honest. He just . . . prefers the company of wildlife to the company of people.” One of her cuticles ripped a small line of blood, and she frowned and stuck it in her mouth.

Jesse glanced at me. “Mrs. Remus,” I said gently. “Do you have a family photo?”

Her face lit up. “Oh, yes.” She jumped up and grabbed a framed photograph off an end table. It was the only picture in the room. “These are my boys,” she said proudly.

The photo was a few years old, judging by the depth of the wrinkles on Zeke Remus’s cheeks. Zeke and Sharon were posed in the center, sitting on wooden stools, while three younger men stood in a line behind them. “That’s Phillip, he’s the oldest,” Sharon said, pointing at the one on the far right, a weary-looking man with graying temples. “He’s an accountant in Bakersfield now. And that’s Mikey, he’s my baby,” she added, touching the man on the left, who looked about thirty in the photo. “He just got married last winter to the nicest girl, from San Luis Obispo. I’m hoping they give me some grandbabies soon.” She smiled fondly at the photo.

“And that must be Henry in the middle,” I finished for her. All three “boys” had similar features: their father’s long face, dull sandy hair that had probably come from Sharon before hers grayed. Phillip and Mike both had empty, obligation-filled smiles, the kind that said “look how nice I’m being, to do this for my mother.” But Henry’s grin was different: a little too wide, a hair too crazy. Maybe I was just seeing what I expected to see, but he seemed . . . well, off. Neither of us had gotten a great look at the guy the night before, but this certainly could be him.

I showed the photo to Jesse, then handed it back to Sharon. “They’re very handsome, ma’am.”

Sharon Remus beamed at me. “Thank you.” She placed the picture carefully back on its end table and returned to her kitchen chair.

“How much time does Henry actually spend here?” Jesse asked.

“Oh, he’ll stay a stretch of about a month, at the most,” Zeke drawled. “Then he’s back out in the woods. Usually he stays at the public campgrounds. Police’ve brought him home twice, though, when he was camped out somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.”

“I put a card in his wallet,” Sharon added helpfully, “so they’ll call if they find him. He’s not actually . . . you know . . . retarded. But sometimes he gets agitated.”

“Stubborn is what he gets,” Zeke grunted. “I don’t get it. You thinkin’ Henry killed those women?”

Sharon gasped and her hands flew up to clasp at her breastbone. Zeke ignored her. He seemed absurdly satisfied with the direction of the conversation, as though he’d been just waiting for someone besides his wife to show up so he could bad-mouth his son.

“There’s no evidence of that,” Jesse said. “But we’re talking to people who know the missing women, and that includes members of their environmentalist clubs.” He looked at Sharon, clearly the gatekeeper to current information on Henry. “So you don’t know where he is right now?” Jesse asked. “Where does he go when he camps?”

Sharon and Zeke looked at each other. Zeke gave a little shrug. “Heard him say he’d been to Lake Casitas, once,” he said doubtfully. “And I know he goes over to Mammoth once in a while.”

“You said he went to the Sequoias,” I said hesitantly. “Would that be Kings Canyon National Park?”

Sharon beamed at me again. “Why, yes.”

Jesse gave me a questioning look, but I shook my head slightly. A little piece had fallen into place, but now wasn’t the time to talk about it.

“When the police brought him home,” Jesse said, “where did they find him?” I knew he was thinking of the werewolves running in the LA parks at night.

“At Griffith Park,” Sharon said immediately. Her voice was soft and a little sad. “I used to take the boys for picnics there, when they were little. He loved it.”

“Where in the park?” Jesse asked sharply. “The big picnic area to the south, by the playground?”

Sharon blinked at the intensity of his voice, and Jesse flushed. “Sorry,” he said. “I just know that park pretty well. I take my parents’ dog for walks there.”

“No,” she said hesitantly. “Northwest of the observatory, by where the tunnel comes out.”

Jesse’s face clouded over for a moment, then he nodded in recognition. “Ma’am,” he said to Sharon, “would you try calling Henry now, and ask where he is?”

She hesitated, her loyalties torn. Zeke Remus made an exasperated noise. He really did have quite the versatile range of grunts. “For Pete’s sake, Sharon,” he barked. “If he hasn’t done anything wrong, they’ll figure it out when they talk to him. And if he has, well, he’s gotta answer for it.”

Biting her lip, she acquiesced. “I’ll call but I can promise you he won’t answer. He only turns the phone on to call me on Sundays. He said it saves the battery that way.”

She was right. After retrieving her phone from the kitchen, Sharon Remus put it on speaker before Jesse could ask her to and placed the call. It went straight to voicemail. “You’ve reached the voicemail of Henry E. Remus,” said an overly cheery male voice. He sounded odd, like that moment right after you suck in balloon helium and talk in a Munchkin voice, just before it goes back to normal. I felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for Zeke Remus. That voice would annoy the shit out of me too. “If you’re calling about my classroom services, please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you just the second I can. Have a wiiiiild day!”