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"What does he look like?" May asked.
"About six foot tall, with long, tangled hair and a scar on his cheek," Paul said.
"Thank you," May said.
With the description, and the school he'd gone to, she was sure that they could now find out exactly who Skunk was, and hopefully track down his whereabouts.
This was exactly the kind of violent man, with an illegal motive, who was likely to have committed such a crime, May thought, feeling encouraged.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"This sure is the wrong side of the tracks," Owen said in an uncertain voice to May, as she headed down the potholed road that led to the disused railway station adjoining the trailer park.
"Well, it's definitely where Skunk is said to hang out, according to the police reports," May confirmed.
She wished they'd gotten this lead earlier. It was already late afternoon now, and getting dark, and it had taken them nearly an hour to reach this location.
Luckily, Skunk had been well-known to a few of the police departments, especially the ones on this side of Tamarack County, where the town of Higginsvale and Higginsvale High School were located. May had quickly learned that his real name was Ryan Hatcher, and he'd been arrested several times for possession of drugs and illegal firearms.
Now, here they were, at the old railway station, which had been shut down for a long time since the railway line was relocated to a nearby river bridge and the tracks were torn up.
The old railway station had once been a point of pride for the area, but it had long since been abandoned. The windows had been boarded up with plywood, the roof was leaking, and the place had a bad reputation. The town it was in, Goodsville, was one of the poorest in the area, on the far west of Tamarack County.
This was way outside the Fairshore jurisdiction and May hadn't had reason to visit this town more than a couple of times in the past.
She looked around her as they drove through.
The station was in a hollow, which was surrounded by streets of shabby old houses, with patched roofs and broken windows. The potholed roads were surprisingly quiet, although May saw a few people on foot loitering nearby.
"This place has really gone downhill," she said to Owen. "It's such a shame that this station hasn't been renovated or repurposed." As a policewoman, May hated to see the bad parts of town that were always the problematic crime hotspots. She never attended a callout to places like this without wishing that the area could be uplifted and the core problems that had led to the decay, addressed. Her heart ached for the families and children in these less privileged areas.
"Not much opportunity for work here, I guess," Owen said, clearly thinking along the same lines as he looked around with a worried frown. "If you're not in the drug business, that is."
Beyond the station, she saw the trailer park, on a piece of vacant land between the station and a light industrial area, with a few small factories and businesses, including a scrap metal yard, a lumberyard, and an auto parts supplier.
The trailers were bunched together in rows, with a wide gap between each row. The lots were filled with junk cars and trash. May noticed a few people hanging out on the porches of the trailers. The air was filled with smoke.
There was a strong feeling of menace in the air that made May feel a little uneasy.
She knew she was on the right track in asking Skunk questions, but now she was wondering if two of them would be enough. May had a strong sense that in this part of the world, police were not liked or trusted. That was most definitely the impression she was getting.
She parked the car outside the main gateway, which was nothing more than two rusty gateposts set in the ground.
"You ready?" she asked Owen.
He nodded, looking resolute. "Let's go find Skunk," he said.
May glanced again at the ID photo on her phone. Skunk, aka Ryan Hatcher, was twenty-three years old, a tall, stringy man with limp, straggly brown hair that seemed to adhere to his narrow head, and a shifty look in his eyes. The scar, on his left cheek, was very distinctive.
May got his features in her mind. Then, with her chin up, she walked over the potholed road and into the trailer park.
She stopped at the first trailer, which had a man and woman sitting outside. The trailer had a cracked wooden fence around it, and a rusted old car was parked in the front yard.
"Good evening. We're looking to speak to Ryan Hatcher. Do you know if he's here anywhere?"
The couple on the plastic chairs looked sullen, and they didn't move. The woman shook her head in silence.
A few of the younger children, however, peeked out of the windows of the trailer, entranced by the sight of the uniformed police officers.
