Page 67 of I’ll Be Watching You

Keeping them was something else entirely.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Margo Angelhart

I had never worked directly with Nate before, and I’ll admit it was weird. Nate had worked part-time for Angelhart Investigations since he left the Navy, but I only started working with my family six months ago.

Nate didn’t talk much, and he had an aura of both confidence and deep stillness. He reminded me of a couple of the guys I’d worked with in the Army, the type who excelled in the military, but maybe for the wrong reasons. I hadn’t enlisted to escape demons; Nate had. I hoped he had left them on the battlefield, because when you couldn’t, it caused untold problems in civilian life.

He seemed to be doing okay.

I showed him Novak’s photo, before and now. “I reached out to his daughter earlier, she didn’t answer. She’s twenty and at ASU. Honor House told me she wanted to know where her father was and she might be in a position to help him.”

“He might not want her to see him the way he is.”

“True, but having support helps.”

Nate grunted noncommittally, then stopped talking.

Maybe I should have brought Jack.

The Scatter Wash came off the mountains, went under the 101 freeway, and cut through neighborhoods until it met up with Skunk Creek. It was usually dry, filled with trees, broken branches, shrubs, and lots of rocks and boulders of all sizes. Wild animals—coyotes, javelinas, and the occasional bobcat had been seen in the area. And snakes, which I detested after I’d been bit by a rattlesnake when I was a kid.

A path was built along the southern edge of the wash, which was primarily for flood control. Years ago a homeless woman who had been sleeping in a culvert had been washed away during a flash flood, so law enforcement tried to keep people from camping there, but it still happened with some regularity.

We parked at a turnout near the wash on Forty-Third Avenue, which would give us easy access both east and west.

It was a fifteen-mile walk from the VA medical center to the wash. It could be done in a day, but it would be exhausting, even now in November when the weather was mild. There was no guarantee that Novak was here.

We first walked east using the jogging trail. Fenced yards backed up to the wash, which was a good ten to twelve feet below street level and between 200 and 250 feet wide, filled with scraggly bushes, a few stocky trees, and lots of rocks and debris from the last monsoon. We passed a lone jogger, an older couple walking and holding hands, a couple of young teens who were clearly up to no good—probably smoking pot—and skirted away when Nate gave them the evil eye. We edged around a big hill of black rocks that would be interesting to anyone who cared about geology. Which wasn’t me.

Not only did we not see Jim Novak, but we didn’t encounter any homeless. Once past the rock outcropping, the wash was barren—no shade, no place to camp. So we stood there and surveyed the edge, where the trees and shrubs ended.

“There,” I said, gesturing to the opposite side of the wash where I saw a glint of metal. “Is that a shopping cart?”

Nate nodded, and we carefully scrambled down the side into the wash and crossed to the other side.

The camp was empty. A grocery cart with a sleeping bag, wool blanket, a couple bags that might contain food, a half-filled liter of cheap whiskey. Cans and bottles were in one black garbage bag; another bag was tied closed. All partly concealed by bushes.

“Think that’s his stuff?” I asked Nate.

“Could be,” Nate said. “It’s packed fairly neat, someone who wants his space kept clean, no garbage lying around.”

We both looked across the wash. This was a good place to stay, I thought, one of the few sections that didn’t back up to someone’s property. Instead, it backed up to a field at the edge of a school. A place to avoid confrontation, and if neighbors didn’t see a homeless guy, they wouldn’t call the police to have him removed.

“We’ll check out the other side, then come back here,” I suggested.

Nate didn’t argue and followed me as I walked down the center of the wash, mindful of ankle-breaking rocks and rodent holes. We climbed out near Forty-Third Avenue, encountered a lone man in shorts and a sweatshirt fast-walking with two shiny Irish setters. Nate nodded appreciatively at the beautiful animals.

“Why don’t you get a dog?” I said. “You’re all alone in that big house with that huge backyard.”

He shrugged. “I’ve thought about it,” he said. “When the right dog comes along.”

He said it as if he was talking about marriage and finding the right woman.

“Heard you got a cat,” he said.

“It was foisted upon me,” I said. “He likes Cal more than me.”