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Faith thought about the neatly tied bundles out by the street. "You said she wasn't seeing anyone. Were there any men in her life— ex-husbands? Ex-boyfriends?"
"Who knows? She didn't confide in me much and Gwen hasn't known the day of the week for the last ten years. Honestly, I think Jackie just needed a couple of tokes to take off the edge, and she knew I was holding."
"Why'd you let her?"
"She was okay when she unclenched."
"You asked if she'd been in a drunk-driving accident."
"I know she got stopped in Florida. She was really pissed about that." Candy was sure to add, "Those stops are completely bogus. One measly glass of wine and they're cuffing you like you're some kind of criminal. They just want to make their quota."
Faith had done many of those stops herself. She knew she had saved lives just as sure as she knew Candy had probably had her own run-ins with the cops. "So, you didn't like Jackie, but you spent time with her. You didn't know her well but you knew she was fighting a DUI rap. What's going on here?"
"It's easier to go with the flow, you know? I don't like causing trouble."
She certainly seemed fine with causing it for other people. Faith took out her notebook. "What's your last name?"
"Smith."
Faith gave her a sharp look.
"I'm serious. It's Candace Courtney Smith. I live in the only other shitty house on the street." Candy glanced out the window at Will. Faith saw that he was talking to one of the uniformed patrolman. She could tell from the way the other man was shaking his head that they hadn't found anything useful.
Candy said, "I'm sorry I snapped. I just don't like the police around."
"Why is that?"
She shrugged. "I had some problems a while back."
Faith had already guessed as much. Candy certainly had the angry disposition of a person who had sat in the back of a squad car on more than one occasion. "What kind of problems?"
She shrugged again. "I'm only saying this because you're going to find out about it and come running back here like I'm an ax murderer."
"Go on."
"I got picked up on a solicitation when I was in my twenties."
Faith was unsurprised. She guessed, "You met a guy who got you hooked on drugs?"
"Romeo and Juliet," Candy confirmed. "Asshole left me holding his stash. He said I wouldn't go down for it."
There had to be a mathematical formula out there that calculated to the second how long it took a woman whose boyfriend got her hooked on drugs to get turned out on the street in order to support both their habits. Faith imagined the equation involved a lot of zeroes behind the decimal point.
Faith asked, "How long were you in for?"
"Shit," she laughed. "I flipped on the asshole and his dealer. I didn't spend day one in prison."
Still not surprised.
The woman said, "I stopped the hard stuff a long time ago. The weed just keeps me mellow." She glanced at Will again. Obviously, there was something about him that was making her nervous.
Faith called her on it. "What are you so worried about?"
"He doesn't look like a cop."
"What does he look like?"
She shook her head. "He reminds me of my first boyfriend, all quiet and nice, but his temper." She smacked her hand into her palm. "He beat me pretty bad. Broke my nose. Broke my leg once when I didn't earn out for him." She rubbed her knee. "Still hurts me when it's cold."
Faith saw where this was going. It wasn't Candy's fault that she'd tricked herself out to get high and more than likely failed her share of Breathalyzers. The evil boyfriend was to blame, or the stupid cop meeting his quota, and now Will was getting his turn as the bad guy, too.
Candy was a skilled enough manipulator to know when she was losing her audience. "I'm not lying to you."
"I don't care about the sordid details of your tragic past," Faith stated. "Tell me what you're really worried about."
She debated for a few seconds. "I take care of my daughter now. I'm straight."
"Ah," Faith said. The woman was worried her child would be taken away.
Candy nodded toward Will. "He reminds me of those bastards from the state."
Will as a social worker certainly was a better fit than Will as an abusive boyfriend. "How old is your daughter?"
"She's almost four. I didn't think I'd be able to—all the shit I've been through." Candy smiled, her face changing from an angry fist into something that might be called a moderately attractive plum. "Hannah's a little sweetheart. She loved Jackie a lot, wanted to be like her with her nice car and her fancy clothes."
Faith didn't think Jackie sounded like the kind of woman who wanted a three year-old pawing her Jimmy Choos, not least of all because kids tended to be sticky at that age. "Did Jackie like her?"
Candy shrugged. "Who doesn't like kids?" She finally asked the question that a less self-absorbed person would've asked ten minutes ago. "So, what happened? Was she drunk?"
"She was murdered."
Candy opened her mouth, then closed it. "Killed?"
Faith nodded.
"Who would do that? Who would want to hurt her?"
Faith had seen this enough times to know where it was heading. It was the reason she had held back the true cause of Jacquelyn Zabel's death. No one wanted to speak ill of the dead, even a fried-out wanna-be hippie with an anger problem.
"She wasn't bad," Candy insisted. "I mean, she was good deep down."
"I'm sure she was," Faith agreed, though the opposite was more likely true.
Candy's lip quivered. "How am I gonna tell Hannah that she's dead?"
Faith's phone rang, which was just as well because she did not know how to answer the question. Worse, part of her didn't care now that she'd wrung out all the information she needed. Candy Smith was hardly number one on the list of horrible parents, but she wasn't a stellar human being, either, and there was a three-year-old child out there who was probably paying for it.
Faith answered the phone. "Mitchell."
Detective Leo Donnelly asked, "Did you just call me?"
"I hit the wrong button," she lied.
"I was about to call you anyway. You put out that BOLO, right?"
He meant the Be On the Look Out Faith had sent around to all the zones this morning. Faith held up her finger to Candy, asking for a minute, then walked back into the family room. "What've you got?"
"Not exactly a miss-per," he said, meaning a missing person. "Uniform patrol found a kid asleep in an SUV this morning, mom nowhere to be found."
"And?" Faith asked, knowing there had to be more. Leo was a homicide detective. He didn't get called out to coordinate social services.
"Your BOLO," he said. "It kind of matches the mom's description. Brown hair, brown eyes."
"What's the kid saying?"
"Fuck-all," he admitted. "I'm at the hospital with him now. You've got a kid. You wanna come see if you can get anything out of him?"
