Beauty to Die For and Other Mystery Shorts (6 page)

Cameron agreed. “There’s no way Linda Pryor would have mentioned Charley with her in the room if she wasn’t aware of what she was talking about.”

Since the University of Pittsburgh was where the three women had met and created a lifelong bond, it was the logical place to start toward uncovering their secret.

The state park police at Allegheny National Forest was of little help to fill in the blanks about the unidentified body from the newspaper article. The officer Cameron spoke to on the phone was unfamiliar with the case. After leaving her on hold so long that she thought she had been forgotten, the officer returned to say that the case was still open. They believed Jane Doe had been killed by a blow to the head and there was no record in the case file about how long ago she would have been killed.

“Does the ME still have the remains?” Cameron asked.

“Sure,” the officer replied.

“Then you must have the DNA or dental records for comparison if that body is the remains of who I think she is,” she said.

“Who do you think she is?” the officer asked.

“I have no idea,” Cameron replied.

On the way up the twisting road toward the University of Pittsburgh’s campus, Joshua noticed a two-story red brick colonial home with green shutters that reminded him of his uncle’s farmhouse in Chester. A painted sign in the front yard read: Halston Center for Clinical Counseling. Below the phone number and website, in italic font, it read: Students Welcome.

Joshua drove on past the building to the library on the other side of the campus.

The librarian at the university library appeared to have been up too late the night before. Through sleepy eyes and lines on her face, she almost glared at Cameron for interrupting her zombie nap to ask where the school yearbooks were shelved. With a grunt, she pointed to a corner as if to order her and Joshua to detention for bothering her.

Susan, Linda, and Rachel had entered the university in 1993. They graduated in 1997. The college yearbooks for that period seemed like a worthwhile place to search for Charley or Charlene.

Joshua found Charley in the third yearbook: 1993. It helped that Ronald Pryor had been University of Pittsburgh’s star quarterback. In the 1993 yearbook, he found Ronald’s picture with a brunette with long wavy hair. The picture appeared to have been taken in a radio station where Charley Halston, a communications major, was interviewing the athlete for the university radio station.

“Charley Halston?” Joshua asked Cameron. “I wonder if that’s the same Halstons that own that clinic we passed on the way here.”

On her mini-laptop, Cameron connected to the free wi-fi to do a search of the Associated Press website for the name Charlene Halston in news items published during the years 1994-1998.

A moment later, the site came up with a handful of articles. The first in the list was dated October 13, 1996:
Co-ed Disappears After Univ of Pitt-NYU Football Game

The article went on to report that Charlene Halston, a University of Pittsburgh junior, disappeared in Syracuse, New York. Reportedly, the twenty-one year old, brunette, had gotten separated from her friends while clubbing after the game. Hours later, when her friends were unable to locate her, they contacted the police.

“Charley is a missing persons,” Cameron said.

Joshua suggested, “Maybe she was found in the Allegheny Mountains.”

“Based on the tone in Rachel’s voice on that recording,” Cameron said, “they know what happened to her.”

Joshua slowly shook his head. “That’s what we assume. Nowhere on that recording does it say that they killed her.”

“Well, someone certainly killed Rachel Burke,” she said.

“A defense attorney can argue that the meaning in what Rachel said, ‘end up like Charley’ could be to end up missing,” he said.

“Spoken like a lawyer.”

“Do you like arresting people only to have them get off?” he asked. “Keep reading.”

None of the articles that had come up in the search named the friends that Charley Halston had been traveling with.

“Syracuse, New York, is north of Allegheny National Forest,” she said. “They would have gone right past, if not through, the Allegheny National Forest. Angela Jarvis must have suspected that Charley Halston was the Jane Doe whose body was found in the mountains.”

Joshua stood up. “We need to find out who Charley’s friends were.”

“If those friends were the ones who killed her,” Cameron said, “Charley didn’t need any enemies.”

“When did I get so old?” Cameron whispered to Joshua.

“About seven years after me,” he whispered back.

Sitting in the waiting room at the Halston Counseling Clinic, Cameron could not help but notice, how each of the three other people waiting were all young enough to be her children. The laugh lines on her face that jumped out at her in the mirror on the wall didn’t help any.

Like the others in the waiting room, Joshua scanned the Internet on his tablet to see if he could find more information about Charlene Halston and her disappearance in Syracuse, New York in 1996. The receptionist at the clinic had confirmed their assumption that the owner and chief psychologist at the Halston Clinic was Charley’s sister. She had been a college freshman when Charley disappeared.

This was further confirmed by a picture of Charlene and a younger version, equally pretty, of her in a frame up on the wall. “She must be the sister,” Cameron noted.

After almost an hour of waiting because they didn’t have an appointment, a young woman who looked barely old enough to be driving hurried down the stairs and out the door. She had her face buried in a tissue and made squeaky noises during her departure. They were still wondering at what had sent her running when the receptionist told him that Dr. Halston could see them and directed them to the top of the stairs.

Dr. Halston wore her long dark hair straight and had soft features. In keeping with her status of doctor, she wore a pale blue dress with a jacket accentuating her feminine curves. “You two look more like professors than students.” She offered Cameron her hand. “You can call me Sam. I know most of the professors here on campus, but I don’t believe we met.”

Joshua shook her hand after she had finished shaking Cameron’s. “That’s because we’re not. I’m a lawyer from Chester, in the northern panhandle of West Virginia; and this is my wife, Detective Cameron Gates. She’s a homicide detective with the Pennsylvania State Police.”

A flicker of fear crossed Sam’s face before she led them to her office in the corner of the upper floor. As with downstairs, Charlene had left her mark in the form of pictures on the psychologist’s desk and on a shelf on the bookcase.

“What brings you here?” In her office, Sam took the upholstered chair while directing them to the sofa as if they were a couple in for marriage counseling.

Joshua took the lead.

Not wanting to waste her time with the details of how they had come to this point in their case Joshua told her that he was working on another case for a client in Chester, and had come upon the case of Charley Halston’s disappearance. “I’m wondering if they could be connected in some way. Can you give me more information?”

Instead of launching into the details of her sister’s disappearance, she asked him, “What kind of case are you working on that Charley’s name came up?”

Cameron and Joshua exchanged glances before turning back to the doctor.

“Murder,” he finally answered.

“Why kind of murder?” Her counter question was quick.

“I can’t really go into the details.”

“Charley disappeared in New York.”

Cameron said, “We suspect we found a witness who may know something about Charley’s disappearance. But before we can pursue it, we need more details about how she disappeared.”

“What witness?”

“We can’t say. It’s an active investigation.” Cameron concluded it wasn’t really a lie. Even though the Rachel Burke case was closed, Cameron’s unofficial investigation was active.

This seemed to satisfy Dr. Sam Halston.

“Charley had gone to Syracuse with some friends for the football game. It was October in 1996. Pittsburgh won. They all went out clubbing in Syracuse to celebrate after the game. Charley didn’t come home. No one has seen her ever since.”

Now it was time to connect some dots. “Who were her friends?” Joshua sat on the edge of the sofa to wait for her answer, which came quickly.

“Her best friends. Susan Burke. Susan’s sister Rachel, and Linda Rogers. It’s now Pryor, Senator Pryor.”

Cameron grasped his arm.
This is it! This is the Charley they were fighting about in the recording.

Sam said, “Charley never should have gone out with them.”

“Why do you say that?” Joshua sat so much closer that he threatened to fall off the sofa onto his rump on the floor.

“Charley had problems.” She gestured at the office and the clinic. “She’s why I’m here today.” She stared at one of the pictures she had of her sister on the desk. “Charley was what most people nowadays would call a drama queen. She was emotional, but it was more than that. Her highs where higher than other girls and her lows were lower. Back then, no one had any idea that she had a serious problem.”

“Charley was bi-polar,” Cameron said.

Sam nodded. “Not knowing what her problem was, with no one to help her other than to offer a shoulder for her to cry on and asking her to calm down when she was manic, she tried self-medicating as best she could. By that I mean drinking or taking pills or smoking pot. A lot of times, she was out of control, like she was that night in Syracuse.”

“What happened in Syracuse?” Joshua asked. “Who told you what happened?”

“Susan Burke,” Sam said. “They were best friends. Charley was studying theater and communications. She had interviewed Ronald Pryor on her radio show here on campus and they started having a fling. Susan had warned her that it was a mistake. He was dating Linda. They were serious, as serious as you can be when you’re cheating on your fiancée. He was going to marry Linda. They were going to be a power couple. But Charley bought all the lies about him loving her. Then, here, the four of them went up to Syracuse together and after the game they went out clubbing.”

Cameron asked, “She rode up to Syracuse with the girlfriend of the guy she was sleeping with? I can imagine that ride.”

“Charley wasn’t wrapped too tight
before
she started drinking on that trip.”

“When did it all come apart?”

“At their third club after the game. According to Susan, Ronald was paying attention to Linda. Charley was drunk, plus she was in one of her manic moods. She started a fight with Ronald for not telling Linda about them. the bartender threw them out. Rachel and Susan dragged her out of the club and put her in the car to take her home. Next thing Susan says she knew, Linda was in the car, too, and they were fighting in the back seat while Rachel was trying to drive back to the motel. Then, Charley was climbing over the front seat to grab the wheel out of Rachel’s hands away. They almost crashed. Rachel hit the brakes and Charley got out –where they could not remember—and refused to get back in the car. It was close to one o’clock in the morning and they were in downtown Syracuse. Linda ordered Rachel to leave her there. Rachel drove away—leaving Charley there on the street.”

“I don’t believe it,” Joshua breathed in disbelief. “They
left
her there.”

With the steadiness that comes with acceptance, Sam said, “Susan told me that she knew Charley had money and expected her to get a cab to take her back to the motel. Only problem is, in her condition, it was doubtable if she could remember where they were staying. As soon as she got back to the motel and Linda was out of the car, Susan turned the car around and went back to find Charley, but she was gone.” She let out a breath that, in spite of the passage of years, contained a whimper. “No one ever saw her again.”

“Have you ever talked to Senator Pryor about what she thinks happened to Charley?” Cameron asked.

“She’s made it very clear that she doesn’t ever want to talk to me about it anymore.” Sam added, “Senator Pryor is not the most compassionate of people. She has a six foot wall, complete with guard dogs and motion sensors, built around her heart. No one gets in.”

“That cold, huh?” Cameron asked.

Sam nodded her head with a smile. “I used to be angry with her for refusing to help me find Charley. Now, treating students here, I have come to feel sorry for her. She must be a miserable person. As smart as she is, she has to know that she’s married to a dog.”

“The wife only pretends to be the last to know,” Joshua said. “What about the police in Syracuse? Have they been any help?”

She paused, “In two-thousand and five, they found a serial killer that was targeting streetwalkers in downtown Syracuse. He would keep them captive in his house for months until he got tired of them and then he would kill them and bury them in his basement. I expected the police to call me to tell me that Charley was one of his victims. When they didn’t call me, I called them. They didn’t think so. Charley disappeared about three years before the first murder this guy confessed to.