Deeper Than The Dead (39 page)

Prostitutes were always favorite victims of serial killers because they were considered by the killer to be despicable, disposable, and easy prey. The other end of that spectrum was the killer who hunted young women perceived to be of good virtue, for lack of a more modern word. High school girls, college coeds, young single women.

This killer chose women trying to move up from poorer circumstances. Trying to fool people into believing they were something they weren’t? Was that it? Or were they simply vulnerable and accessible through the connection to the center?

Nothing was ever that simple.

Steve Morgan sat at a table on the stone patio, watching the swarm of law enforcement going over the yard. Vince walked over and sat down across from him.

“Hell of a thing, huh?”

Morgan looked at him, his expression unreadable. “Not the way you want to start your day: finding someone half-buried in your friend’s yard.”

“But she’s alive.”

“Unbelievable.” He shook his head at some private thought. “I heard Jane scream. She had gone to see what her dogs were barking at.”

“Where are the dogs now?”

“Jane’s assistant came and got them. Why?”

“We’ll need to collect hair samples from them, in the event hairs were recovered from Miss Vickers. A stray hair from an unknown source could open the investigation in a different direction. Maybe the perpetrator owns a dog or a cat. One stray hair could make a connection. It only takes one loose thread to unravel a cheap sweater.”

“The science is that sophisticated?” he asked.

“You can’t imagine the things they’re doing at the
FBI
lab in Washington, the advances in analyzing trace evidence,
DNA
evidence. One day soon there’ll be a national
DNA
databank with the
DNA
codes of every convicted criminal in the country.”

“That’s a little Orwellian, don’t you think?”

“Big Brother is sure as hell going to be watching the criminal population,” Vince said. He shrugged. “It’s nothing to worry about if you haven’t done anything wrong.”

He sat back and squared his left ankle over his right knee, settling in as if watching evidence collection at a crime scene was all part of a normal, relaxing Saturday morning.

“Good thing you were here so early today,” he said.

“Jane and I had scheduled a meeting. We were supposed to be having a press conference this morning.”

“Another five, ten minutes, that girl probably would have been dead. Now there’s a shot she can tell us who abducted her.”

“I read the man glued Lisa’s eyes closed,” Morgan said. “So she couldn’t see him. Did he do that to Karly?”

“I don’t think that’s why he did it,” Vince said, watching him carefully. “I think it has to do with his fantasy. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I think the women become objects to him—pretty to look at, but no trouble. A lot of guys would say when a woman opens her mouth it spoils everything.”

Morgan tipped his head in acknowledgment.

“How’s your family, Steve?” he asked, surprising the man a little. “Your daughter—how’s she holding up after what she saw?”

“Wendy is very resilient.”

“How about yourself? Now you know exactly what it was like for her, stumbling on that body in the woods.”

“I certainly wish that hadn’t happened to her.”

“Yeah.”

Mendez wandered over from the gravesite, scribbling in his notebook. “They found a couple of good shoe prints in the arroyo.”

“In the what?” Vince asked. “I’m from Chicago here. Don’t go throwing language at me.”

“The arroyo. Down the hill in the trees. There’s a stream. The ground is just damp enough to hold a good impression.”

“Great.”

“Mr. Morgan,” Mendez said. “I have to ask you where you were last night.”

“In bed like any sane person. Jane thinks she might have heard the guy back here—or that the dogs did—sometime after three.”

“And you arrived . . . ?”

“Just before seven.”

“Hell of a deal, huh?” Mendez said. “Finding that girl alive.”

“Hell of a deal,” Morgan said. He pushed to his feet with the effort of a much older man. The dark circles beneath his eyes spoke of another long night. “Unless you gentlemen need me, I’m going out to the search site and let people know what’s happened. The search is over.”

They watched him round the corner of the house and disappear.

“You know,” Mendez said, “he didn’t lift a finger to help her—Jane. She came out here and found that girl half buried, and started digging her out, and Morgan just stood there and watched her. I find that odd, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Vince said. “But he might have been in shock.”

“Or he might have been enjoying the show.”

Vince slapped him on the back. “Now you’re thinking like a profiler, kid.”

Wendy had gotten up early and dressed for the day in a baby blue turtleneck and bib overalls. She put her hair in two thick braids, the way her father liked it.

Her plan had been to bounce downstairs and help her father make breakfast as he always did when he was home on a Saturday. They got up early and made breakfast while Wendy’s mom slept in. They made crazy kinds of pancakes, like pumpkin or butterscotch, and cut them into shapes with cookie cutters. She loved Saturdays with her dad.

Then she remembered that her dad had left.

But surely he would come back this morning because it was Saturday and they had their tradition. He might have been mad at her mother, but he wasn’t mad at her. Of course he would come home to make pancakes.

Then she would talk him into going with her to the park. She wanted to show him where everything had happened. She wanted to tell him about her idea to write a book and/or a movie about the experience.

That had been her plan.

But her father wasn’t in the kitchen when she got downstairs. The house was quiet, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator.

Wendy’s heart felt like a thousand pounds in her chest. It was so unfair. They were a great family. All her friends said so. They all envied her her parents. Her mom was so artsy and funky and cool. Her dad was so handsome and so much fun.

We had such a nice family
, her mother had said.

Had—like in the past.

They were being so selfish, Wendy thought. They yelled at each other, hurt each other, but neither of them thought about her.

Fine then. If they wanted to be selfish, they could be selfish on their own. Let them realize she’s a person too, she should have a say too. Let them find her gone and see how selfish they were then.

She went back to her room and got her backpack. Then she tiptoed down the stairs and slipped out the front door and headed for the park.

In another part of town, Cody Roache was being pushed out of his home by his mother. One of the neighborhood dads was taking kids to the park. Not to the part where they had found the dead lady, but to the part where the fun stuff was—the swings and monkey bars and tetherballs.

Cody didn’t want to go. He felt nervous. But his mother said he would never get over it if he didn’t go out and do normal things and play like a normal kid.

There were about ten kids piling into the neighbor’s van. He would feel safe with ten other kids and a dad there. So Cody glanced back at his mom and climbed into the van. It never once occurred to him that he might never come back.

Anne begged off from a ride to Santa Barbara for an afternoon of shopping and meeting some of Franny’s friends for wine in the afternoon.

“I’ve had enough excitement for one week,” she said as they parted company outside the restaurant. “And I really need to figure out the situation with Tommy.”

Franny frowned at her. “Please stay out of trouble. And promise me—if you aren’t busy tonight—and by busy, I mean having mad hot sex with Vince—promise me you’ll come over and watch
The Golden Girls
with me.”

“The Golden Girls
?” Anne raised her eyebrows. “Can we play mahjong after?”

“Don’t make fun of my favorite show.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Anne kissed his cheek and promised to call.

Franny headed off to the parking lot. Anne walked up the street to the plaza, thinking some mindless window shopping would allow her brain to sort through the trouble with Tommy Crane . . . provided she could keep thoughts of Vince from creeping in. Easier said than done.

Preoccupied, she almost walked past Peter Crane without seeing him. He was taking the
MISSING
poster of Karly Vickers off the door of his office.

“Did they find her?” Anne asked, hopeful.

Crane stopped, poster in his hands. “Yes. The same way Lisa Warwick was found.”

“Oh, no.”

“But she’s alive. It’s quite a story.”

Anne looked at the photo of Karly Vickers on the poster in Peter Crane’s hands as he told her what he had heard. She looked shy but happy. Like everyone else, Anne had read Karly’s story in the papers. The young woman had fought hard to overcome adversity in her life. The gold necklace she wore with the Thomas Center logo of a woman with her arms raised in triumph spoke to just how far Karly had come. Now she would have to fight hard to just stay alive at all.

In light of Karly’s story, Anne was embarrassed to feel anxious at all about what was going on in her life.

“I’m glad I ran into you, Dr. Crane,” she said. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding, and I would really like to clear it up.”

God knew what his wife had told him about the night before. The best thing Anne could do would be to set the record straight.

“Sure,” Crane said. “Why don’t you come into the office?”

He opened the door for Anne, followed her in, and locked the deadbolt behind them. Anne’s heart jumped.

“No walk-ins,” he said by way of explanation.

They seemed to be alone. There was no receptionist, no lights on except in the enormous aquarium in the waiting room.

“You’re not usually open on Saturdays?” she asked, feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

“Emergencies only,” he said as he bent to pick up the mail that had been shoved in through the slot in the door. For the first time, Anne realized he was in jeans and a denim shirt, and sneakers. “I came in to catch up on paperwork. Why don’t we have a seat?”

He gestured toward the waiting room where they each took a comfortable leather chair.

“The detectives asked me to ask a couple of questions of the kids involved in finding the body in the park,” Anne said, going straight to the heart of it. “The questions seemed harmless enough, but—”

“You don’t need to apologize, Miss Navarre,” he said. “I did think it was odd, coming from you, but, as you said, harmless enough.”

“Mrs. Crane didn’t seem to think so,” Anne said. “I ran into her after the vigil last night. She was very upset with me. She said I made Tommy think you might be a suspect. I’m not sure how he would have gotten that idea from me. That certainly wasn’t anything I was thinking.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Crane said with a charming smile. “People have enough fear of the dentist without thinking he might be a serial killer.”

Anne relaxed a little.

“Really, I’m not upset or offended,” he said. “Janet is much more apt to take offense. She’s had a hard time dealing with everything that’s happened this week. I know she’s been difficult.”

“I’m not going to try to tell you that isn’t true,” Anne said honestly. “We’re all in uncharted territory, dealing with the things that have happened this past week. Everyone at the school is doing the best in a bad situation.”

“I know that,” Crane said. “I think you’ve done an admirable job, all things considered. I appreciate that you take a real interest in my son, Miss Navarre.”

“Thank you.”

“As for my wife . . . Janet is a person who needs to be in control of her environment. She has good reasons for that. Obviously, I can’t elaborate, but she had to overcome a lot in her early life, and in times of stress . . . She doesn’t always handle that well.”

Anne had no interest in understanding Janet Crane. No matter what she’d had to overcome in her life, Janet was an adult and should have been able to conduct herself in a better way than she had. But she wasn’t Anne’s focus.

“I’m actually worried about Tommy,” she admitted. “I’m afraid he somehow thinks I betrayed his trust.”

“Tommy thinks the world of you.”

“I would feel better seeing that for myself. I would really like to be able to sit down with him and have a talk, one-on-one. I want him to know he can rely on me. Do you think there would be any way we could arrange that without upsetting Mrs. Crane?”

He thought about it for a moment, no doubt weighing the benefit for Tommy against the risk of incurring his wife’s wrath.

“I’ll see what I can do. Can I call you?”

“Of course. I would really appreciate that.”

“I’m sorry if Janet has made your life difficult.”

“I’m fine,” Anne said, getting to her feet. She felt worse for him and for Tommy. Janet Crane could attack her and Anne could still go home at the end of the day. Peter Crane and his son had to live with the woman. “My concern is Tommy.”

The buzzer at the front door sounded, making Anne jump. Crane got up and went past her. When he opened the door the space was taken up entirely by Detectives Mendez and Hicks. Mendez flicked a glance at Anne.

“Dr. Crane,” he said. “We have a couple of things we need to discuss with you. Would you mind coming down to the station with us?”

Dennis went into the woods, not from the park entrance, but from the back, from the service road. On the other side of the service road was the sheriff’s office. Where the good guys worked. That was what his third-grade teacher had told the class when they had all walked over, hand in hand, from school for a field trip.

Mrs. Barkow hadn’t known Dennis’s father beat his wife, beat him. Dennis had always believed his father was a good guy, anyway, that there had to be something wrong with him that he made his father so angry. He was bad, he was stupid, he was brain damaged, and his mother was just a drunk, stupid cunt, and she deserved whatever happened to her.