White Space Season 1

the phone in his pocket.
    “Who was that?” Cassidy said.
    “My friend, Brock.”
    “And?” Cassidy stared. “Spill it, Jonny. I read between the lines already, now tell me the shit I don’t know.”
    “Know a guy named Larry Whistler?”
    Cassidy thought for a moment then shook her head no.
    “Well, he lives about three blocks from you. Before Hamilton was home, he lived in Rochester, New York. And, allegedly,” Jon measured his words, “he had some trouble keeping his hands to himself before leaving there and coming here.”
    Cassidy gritted her teeth, and began to breathe heavy through her nostrils.
    Jon continued. “A mentally disabled girl’s parents swore he was guilty, but there wasn’t any evidence, so the powers that be had to drop the case. Whistler packed up there and headed west.” He finished the sentence he didn’t want to say. “And now he’s a youth pastor working under Avery.”
    Cassidy’s eyes went wide. “I know him! At least I’ve seen him. I thought he seemed a little too damned happy to be teaching kids.”
    “So,” Cassidy said, “What’s your friend gonna do?”
    “Whatever will get him the answers we’re looking for.”
    “How do you know he can get them?”
    Jon swallowed, hoping Houser made the right move. “Because once Houser gets scent of something, he don’t stop until he gets what he wants.”

    * * * *

CHAPTER 5 — Brock Houser

    Houser pushed the front door open, gun drawn in his ungloved hand, as he made his way into Larry Whistler’s home.
    The house was two stories, common from what he’d seen on the island so far, with a well-manicured lawn, plenty of trees, and a tall brown privacy fence surrounding the back yard. The inside of the house was another story, though, something from a hoarder’s wet dream, with boxes, newspapers, garbage bags filled with all sorts of something, open boxes of food, and empty pizza boxes filling nearly every inch of the bottom story. The house reeked strongly of cat urine. At least Houser hoped it was cat urine.
    “Jesus,” he whispered, searching the bottom floor, room by room, wading his way through more of the same. Evidence collection in this house would be a bitch and a litter. He hoped, for the investigating officers’ sake, if nothing else, that this pig wasn’t guilty of anything more than filth in his sty.
    “Jon‘s paying me double for this bullshit,” he said, navigating his way through the pyramids of laundry littering the stairway.
    The second floor was more shit decorating shit, crowned on piles and mountains of crap. Shockingly, the man’s bedroom was nearly immaculate, especially compared to the rest of the dump.
    A large TV sat on the dresser, beside an ancient looking PS4. On the nightstand lay a plate with half a muffin and a cup half-filled with water. Beside the plate was a bottle of lotion, and next to that, an iPad.
    Houser holstered his gun and picked up the iPad with his gloved hand to see what sort of shit the man was into, or maybe sort through his email, searching for anything which could tie him to the missing child.
    He didn’t have to search long.
    There were several photos of children playing on a playground which all seemed to be taken from far away with a telephoto lens. Houser’s stomach turned as he swiped with his ungloved hand through the images. All the photos were of young girls, with the occasional boy in the background. The targets were all girls, with a high percentage of shots aimed up the girls’ skirts.
    Jesus; fucking scumbag.
    Houser kept swiping until he saw Emma in a photo.
    A chill ran through his body. He swiped forward, five, 10, 12 photos of Emma in a row, suggesting the perv had a thing specifically for Emma — all the proof he needed to make this asshole as his prime fucking suspect. Houser flipped through more photos. No nudes or child porn, but had enough to get him a room with a mirror down at the station.
    Not finding anything else of note, and not wanting to tamper with what might wind up as evidence, Houser set the iPad back on the nightstand, then searched the rest of the room, stomach sinking as he opened the nightstand drawer on the other side of the bed and found several pairs of girls’ underwear, many stained and all small.
    Houser’s blood began to boil, more certain than ever that he’d found the fucker who took Emma. He prayed to God that the man hadn’t already killed her and dumped her somewhere. A small island like this, where