Why was Harding, who by all accounts didn’t give a shit about anyone or anything, so interested in this abandoned girl? What did she mean to him?
Collier asked, ‘What’s next, Kemosabe?’
‘I’ll be right back.’ Faith stood up. She went back into the kitchen. Again Collier followed her. He was like a kid, always underfoot. She longed for Will’s quiet self-containment. ‘We can be apart for longer than two seconds.’
‘Then how will I know what you’re up to?’
She opened the freezer door. Ice cream and alcohol filled the shelves, but there was also a quart-sized Ziploc bag with a stack of papers shoved into the back. Freezer burn had melded it to a box of fish fingers. Faith had to hit the box on the side of the fridge to break away the bag.
People with chronic or end-stage diseases were told to leave valuable documents like medical directives in their freezer so that paramedics could easily find them. As horrible a man as Harding was, he had managed to follow the guideline. Except his directive explicitly stated that all possible measures should be taken to preserve his life.
‘Je-sus,’ Collier said, because of course he was reading over Faith’s shoulder. ‘The guy’s got a death warrant, but he wants the paramedics to keep him alive for as long as possible?’
‘This was filled out two years ago. Maybe he forgot about it.’ Faith found the contact information on the second page.
Next of kin: Delilah Jean Palmer.
Relationship: daughter.
‘She was his kid,’ Collier said, because he had forgotten that Faith had eyes in her head. ‘Her juvie rap sheet listed her as an orphan.’
There were three phone numbers beside Delilah’s name, two of which had lines drawn through them. All of them were in different shades of ink. Faith used Harding’s landline and dialed the most recent number. It went straight into a pre-recorded message from the phone company informing Faith that the number had been disconnected.
She tried the other two numbers just to be sure.
Disconnected.
Collier took out his cell phone. ‘My turn to work some magic?’
‘Help yourself.’
Collier started to follow her back to the bedroom, but she put her hand out to stop him. ‘We don’t have to do everything together.’
‘What if the rat comes back? With its babies?’
‘Scream really loud.’
She headed down the hallway again, glancing up the attic stairs because the rat was still up there, possibly giving birth to triplets, because that was the kind of day she was having. Thank God Faith had made more holes in the ceiling in case the thing decided it wanted to expand its territory.
She sat down in the chair and made herself look at the photos of Delilah again.
Putting aside how disgusting it was that a father kept pictures of his naked daughter, age twelve, bending over a stick riding horse, there was something off about the girl. Faith couldn’t articulate what made the photos different from the hundreds of similar photos she had seen throughout her law enforcement career, but it was there.
Exploitation had a common theme: misery. Delilah’s eyes were glassy, likely from the heroin that had either been given or withheld so that she would pose for the camera. Her thighs were red where someone had been rough with her. A thin powdering of make-up barely concealed the bruising around her neck. There was lipstick on her teeth. None of this was new or particularly surprising.
It was that same feeling Faith had been having all day: something wasn’t adding up.
Faith hated when things didn’t add up.
‘It’s weird that they’re pictures, right?’ Collier was hovering in the doorway again.
Faith said, ‘You mean like some fathers keep school pictures of their kids, only Harding kept naked photos?’
‘No, I mean why doesn’t he have videos? Porn is the sole reason for the internet. It ruined the nudie pic industry. Even Playboy gave up the ghost.’
‘You’re asking why Harding was looking at naked pictures of his daughter instead of naked videos?’
‘Basically. Shit.’ He clapped his hand to his throat. He coughed. ‘I think I swallowed a fly.’
‘Try keeping your mouth shut.’
‘Ha-ha.’ He sat down on the mattress again. It made the sound again. He gave her the look. Again. ‘I asked my girl in records to run a priority background on little Delilah. We’ll see what she’s been up to lately. With Harding dead, she’ll wind up in jail soon, and there won’t be anybody to get her out.’
‘She could know something,’ Faith said. ‘We have to figure out what Harding was up to over the last week or so of his life. That’s going to tell us why he ended up in Rippy’s nightclub.’ She tried to talk through what was bothering her. ‘Was he a pedophile or a bad father?’
‘My vote goes for both.’
‘He must’a broken his piggy bank over this chick.’ A cop’s currency was knowing who to call, and also knowing that when that person called you back, you did what they wanted, no questions asked. ‘This isn’t asking a uni to lose a speeding ticket. These are high-level favors, lieutenants and parole officers and judges, even. No way he could pay all of that back. He worked white collar. He didn’t have the juice. There was probably nobody left on the force who would answer his calls.’
‘You know the story about the dad who stopped going to work. He couldn’t leave his little girl’s behind.’
Faith shook her head, wishing Collier would shut the hell up. Will’s sense of humor could be irreverent, but he would never, ever joke about a man molesting his own child.
Miraculously, Collier finally picked up on her mood. ‘Harding doesn’t have a computer or a printer.’
Faith checked the paper stock on the photos. ‘These weren’t printed at a lab. Somebody did them privately.’
‘You think someone printed them out for him?’
‘For what? Blackmail?’ She thought about Harding’s windfall six months ago. He moved into the Mesa Arms. He bought a new car. ‘It would be the other way around. Harding’s the one who came into some scratch. I have a good mind to call the lottery board and run his name.’
Collier’s phone buzzed. His finger slid across the screen. ‘Attachment.’ He waited for the download. ‘Oh man. This keeps getting better and better.’ He held up the phone. The screen showed a scan of an official marriage license.
Faith squinted at the words. She had to read them twice before their meaning came through.
Five and a half months ago, Vernon Dale Harding had married Delilah Jean Palmer. It was his fifth marriage and her first.
Faith put her hand to her mouth, then thought better of it.
‘Damn,’ Collier said. ‘Dude married his own daughter.’
‘That can’t be right.’
‘You can see it right here. Processed and everything.’
‘He listed her as his daughter two years ago. You saw it on the forms.’
Collier didn’t seem as confused as she felt. ‘The DNR forms aren’t official, at least not unless somebody finds them and takes them to the hospital.’
Faith felt her head shaking in confusion. She wanted to go back and look at the papers again, but she knew she hadn’t read them wrong. ‘How did that even happen? You can’t marry somebody you’re related to. You have to fill out a license. They run the—’