Page 37 of The Family Cross

“How are you, Anna?” I asked gently.

“Been better. Been worse.”

“The kids?”

She smiled a little. “Off with Boog. His mother’s due back, you know.”

“Heard that,” Sampson said.

I got out my phone and called up the first picture we’d seen on Corey McGovern’s Instagram account, the one where she’d been making the goofy face with the caption Make way for a positive day, y’all.

“Do you know her?” I asked. “Corey McGovern?”

Anna squinted, studied. “Pop-pop-pop. Runaway, maybe. Emma, Emma, my girl, would know. She’s not here now.”

“When will Emma come back?”

“After she meets my son—pop-pop-pop—and walks him here. Usually around, around four.”

We thanked her, crossed the old roadbed, and started climbing the south wall of the homeless camp. The young couple with the baby were still sitting outside their tent. The infant lay on a blanket between them, sleeping.

“Hawk up there?” Sampson asked, gesturing toward the uppermost tier.

The young woman, who wore only a bra and shorts, shrugged. “Dunno. I don’t keep track of him.”

I showed them the picture of Corey McGovern. “Do you know this girl?”

She looked, then nodded. “I’ve seen her around. But I don’t think she lives here. Phil?”

The young man, who’d been ignoring us as we spoke to his partner, took his eyes off the dream of another life in the distance. He glanced at the picture. “Nope, she don’t live here. Comes through once in a while, though.”

“Why?” Sampson asked. “She come to see someone?”

He gazed at his feet a moment. “Me and Tammy don’t want to be involved in nothing, man. We just don’t.”

I crouched down and addressed the mom. “We can help get you into a shelter, Tammy. Your baby here makes you a number-one priority for a bed.”

“I won’t leave Phil,” she said flatly.

“We’ll make sure Phil can go too,” Sampson said. “But you have to tell us who this girl was coming to see here. This is a murder investigation.”

“Corey’s dead?” Tammy asked.

“Yeah, unfortunately. She was killed last night.”

Tammy looked at Phil. “Tell them.”

Phil seemed to wrestle with that a moment, then said, “I’ve seen her up there talking to Choir Boy and going into Hawk’s place a couple of times. She was there just yesterday.”

“You saw this girl go in Hawk’s shelter yesterday?” We’d seen her in the area, but this was confirmation that she’d specifically been with Hawk.

“Not for long, but she was in there with him,” Phil said. “Go up on top of the bridge. Ask him. He’s usually up there about now, doing his thing.”

They showed us the best way to get onto the ghost ramp from this side of the camp; it involved climbing a ladder of sorts made of stout lengths of rebar sticking out of the concrete. We were drenched in sweat by the time we climbed over the guardrail, but we immediately spotted the head high troll of the south.

Alejandro Rodriguez was about forty yards from us down the ramp. He was bare-chested and barefoot. His sandals and grubby T-shirt were tossed on the ground near a camouflage military pack a few feet away.

Hawk’s head was thrown back, his eyes were closed, and his palms were raised toward the blazing sun. He spun in slow circles, laughing and weeping at the same time.