Gone for Good (10 page)

"So what did you do?"

"I stepped back. I was still going to scream. But he came toward me. He took my face in his hands and looked me in the eye and said, "I'm going to find the killer, I promise." That was it. He looked at me a little more. Then he let go and ran off."

"Have you told "

She shook her head. "No one. Sometimes I'm not even sure it happened. Like I imagined the whole thing. Dreamt it or made it up. Like my memories of Julie." She looked up at me. "Do you think he killed Julie?"

"No," I said.

"I've seen you on the news," she said. "You've always thought he was dead. Because they found some of his blood at the scene."

I nodded.

"Do you still believe that?"

"No," I said. "I don't believe that anymore."

"What made you change your mind?"

I didn't know how to reply to that. "I guess," I said, "I'm looking for him too."

"I want to help."

She'd said want. But I know she meant need.

"Please, Will. Let me help."

And I said okay.

Belmont, Nebraska

Sheriff Bertha Farrow frowned over Deputy George Volker's shoulder. "Hate these things," she said.

"You shouldn't," Volker replied, fingers dancing on the keyboard. "Computers are our friends."

She frowned some more. "So what is our friend doing now?"

"Scanning Jane Doe's fingerprints."

"Scanning?"

"How to explain this to a total technophobe…?" Volker looked up and rubbed his chin. "It's like a Xerox machine and fax machine in one. It makes a copy of the fingerprint and then it emails it over to the CJIS in West Virginia."

CJIS stood for Criminal Justice Information Services. Now that every police force was online even those in the most hillbilly of Hicksville boonies like them fingerprints could be sent over the Internet for identification. If the fingerprints were listed in the National Crime Information Center 's enormous database, they'd have a match and a positive ID in no time.

"I thought the CJIS was in Washington," Bertha said.

"Not anymore. Senator Byrd got it moved."

"Good man to have as senator."

"Oh yeah."

Bertha hoisted her holster and headed down the corridor. Her police station shared space with Clyde 's morgue, which was convenient if sporadically pungent. The morgue had terrible ventilation, and every once in a while a heavy in cloud of formaldehyde and decay floated out and hovered.

With only a moment's hesitation, Bertha Farrow opened the door to the morgue. There were no gleaming drawers or shiny instruments or any of the stuff that you see on TV. Clyde 's morgue was pretty close to makeshift. The job was only part-time because, let's face it, there was not that much to do. Car accident victims were pretty much the extent out here. Last year, Don Taylor had gotten drunk and shot himself in the head by accident. His long-suffering wife liked to joke that ol' Don fired because he looked in the mirror and mistook himself for a moose. Marriage. But really, that was about it. The morgue hell, the term was a generous description of this converted janitorial room could only hold maybe two corpses at a time. If Clyde needed more storage, he used Wally's funeral home facilities.

Jane Doe's body was on the table. Clyde stood over her. He wore blue scrubs and pale surgical gloves. He was crying. Opera blared from the boom box, the wail of something appropriately tragic.

"Open her up yet?" Bertha asked, though the answer was obvious.

Clyde wiped his eyes with two fingers. "No."

"You waiting for her permission?"

He shot Bertha a red-eyed glare. "I'm still doing the external."

"How about a cause of death, Clyde?"

"Won't know for sure until I complete the autopsy."

Bertha moved closer to him. She put her hand on his shoulder, faking comfort and pretending to bond. "How about a preliminary guess, Clyde?"

"She was beaten pretty badly. See here?"

He pointed to where you might normally find a rib cage. There was little definition. The bones had caved in, crushed down like a boot on Styrofoam.

"Lots of bruising," Bertha said.

"Discoloration, yeah, but see here?" He put his finger on something poking up the skin near the stomach.

"Broken ribs?"

"Smashed ribs," he corrected her.

"How?"

Clyde shrugged. "Probably used a heavy ball peen hammer, something like that. My guess and it's only a guess is that one of the ribs splintered off and pierced a major organ. It might have punctured a lung or sliced through her belly. Or maybe she got lucky and it went straight through her heart."

Bertha shook her head. "She don't seem the lucky type tome."

Clyde turned away. He lowered his head and started crying again. His body heaved from the stifled sobs.

"These marks on her breasts," Bertha said.

Without looking he said, "Cigarette burns."

What she'd figured. Mangled fingers, cigarette burns. You did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that she was tortured.

"Do it all, Clyde. Blood samples, tox screen, everything."

He sniffled and finally turned back around. "Yeah, Bertha, sure, okay."

The door behind them opened. They both turned. It was Volker. "Got a hit," he said.

"Already?"

George nodded. "Top of the NCIC list."

"What do you mean, top of the list?"

Volker gestured toward the body on the table. "Our Jane Doe," he said. "She was wanted by none other than the FBI."

Katy dropped me off on Hickory Place, maybe three blocks from my parents' house. We did not want anybody to see us together. That was probably paranoia on our part, but I figured, what the hell.

"So what now?" Katy asked.

I had been wondering that myself. "I'm not sure. But if Ken didn't kill Julie "

"Then someone else did."

"Man," I said, "we're good at this."

She smiled. "So I guess we look for suspects?"

It sounded ridiculous who were we, the Mod Squad? but I nodded.

"I'll start checking," she said.

"Checking what?"

She gave me a teenager shrug, using her whole body. "I don't know. Julie's past, I guess. Figure out who'd have wanted to kill her."

"The police did that."

"They only looked at your brother, Will."

She had a point. "Okay," I said, again feeling ridiculous.

"Let's hook up later tonight."

I nodded and slid out. Nancy Drew sped off without a good-bye. I stood there and soaked in the solitude. I was not all that eager to move.

The streets of suburbia were empty, but the well-paved driveways were full. The paneled station wagons of my youth had been replaced by a vast variety of quasi-off-road vehicles minivans, family trucks (whatever that meant), SUVs. Most of the houses were in the classic split level mode of the circa-1960s housing boom. Many were bloated with additions. Others had undergone extensive exterior renovations circa 1974 involving too-white, too-smooth stone; the look had aged about as well as the powder-blue tux I'd worn to the prom.

When I arrived at our house, there were no cars out front and no mourners inside. No surprise there. I called out to my father. No answer. I found him alone in the basement with a cutting razor in his hand. He was in the middle of the room, surrounded by old wardrobe boxes. The sealing tape had been sliced open. Dad stood perfectly still among the boxes. He did not turn around when he heard my footsteps.

"So much already packed away," he said softly.

The boxes had belonged to my mother. My father reached into one and plucked out a thin silver headband. He turned to me and held it up. "You remember this?"

We both smiled. Everyone, I guess, goes through fashion stages, but not like my mother. She set them, defined them, became them. There was her Headband Era, for example. She'd grown her hair out and worn a potpourri of the multihued bands like an Indian princess. For several months I'd say the Headband Era lasted maybe six you would never see her without one. When the headbands were retired, the Suede-Fringe Period began in earnest. That was followed by the Purple Renaissance not my favorite, I assure you, like living with a giant eggplant or Jimi Hendrix groupie and then the Riding-Crop Age this from a woman whose closest connection to a horse was seeing Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet.

The fashion stages, like so many other things, ended with Julie Miller's murder. My mom Sunny packed the clothes away and stored them in the dingiest corner of the basement.

Dad flipped the headband back into the box. "We were going to move, you know."

I hadn't.

"Three years ago. We were going to get a condo in West Orange and maybe a winter place in Scottsdale, near Cousin Esther and Harold. But when we found out your mother was sick, we put it all on hold." He looked at me. "You thirsty?"

"Not really."

"How about a Diet Coke? I know I could use one."

Dad hurried past me and toward the stairs. I looked at the old boxes, my mother's handwriting on the sides in thick marker. On the shelf in the back I could still see two of Ken's old tennis rackets. One was the first he'd ever used, when he was only three. Mom had saved it for him. I turned away and followed him. When we reached the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator door.

"You want to tell me what happened yesterday?" he began.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You and your sister." Dad pulled out a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing," I said.

He nodded as he opened a cabinet. He took out two glasses, opened the freezer, filled them with ice. "Your mother used to eavesdrop on you and Melissa," he said.

"I know."

He smiled. "She wasn't very discreet. I'd tell her to cut it out, but she'd just tell me to hush, it was a mother's job."

"You said, me and Melissa."

"Yes."

"Why not Ken?"

"Maybe she didn't want to know." He poured the sodas. "Very curious about your brother lately."

"It's a natural enough question."

"Sure, natural. And after the funeral, you were asking me if I think he's still alive. And then the next day, you and Melissa have an argument about him. So I'll ask you one more time: What's going on?"

The photograph was still in my pocket. Don't ask me why. I'd made color copies with my scanner that morning. But I couldn't let go of it.

When the doorbell rang, we both jumped, startled. We looked at each other. Dad shrugged. I told him I'd get it. I took a quick sip of the Diet Coke and put it back on the counter. I trotted to the front door. When I opened it, when I saw who it was, I nearly toppled back.

Mrs. Miller. Julie's mom.

She held out a platter wrapped with aluminum foil. Her eyes were lowered as though she were making an offering on an altar. For a moment, I froze, unsure what to say. She glanced up. Our eyes met just as they had when I stood on her curb two days earlier. The pain I saw in them felt alive, electric. I wondered if she felt the same coming from mine.

"I just thought…" she began. "I mean, I just…"

"Please," I said. "Come in."

She tried to smile. "Thank you."

My father moved from the kitchen and said, "Who's there?"

I backed up. Mrs. Miller stepped into view, still holding up the platter as if for protection. My father's eyes widened, and I saw something behind them burst.

His voice was a rage-filled whisper. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Dad," I said.

He ignored me. "I asked you a question, Lucille. What the hell do you want?"

Mrs. Miller lowered her head.

"Dad," I said more urgently.

But it was no use. His eyes had gone small and black. "I don't want you here," he said.

"Dad, she came to offer "

"Get out."

"Dad!"

Mrs. Miller shrunk back. She pushed the platter into my hands. "I better go, Will."

"No," I said. "Don't."

"I shouldn't have come."

Dad shouted, "Damn right you shouldn't have come."

I shot him a glare, but his eyes stayed on her.

With her eyes still lowered, Mrs. Miller said, "I'm sorry for your loss."

But my father was not through. "She's dead, Lucille. It doesn't do any good now."

Mrs. Miller fled then. I stood holding the platter. I looked at my father in disbelief. He looked back and said, "Throw that crap away."

I was not sure what to do here. I wanted to follow her, to apologize, but she was halfway up the block and moving fast. My father had moved back into the kitchen. I followed, slamming the platter down on the counter.

"What the hell was that about?" I asked.

He picked up his drink. "I don't want her here."

"She came to pay her respects."

"She came to ease her guilt."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your mother is dead. There's nothing she can do for her now."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Your mother called Lucille. Did you know that? Not long after the murder. She wanted to offer her condolences. Lucille told her to go to hell. She blamed us for raising a murderer. That's what she said. It was our fault. We raised a murderer."

"That was eleven years ago, Dad."

"Do you have any idea what that did to your mother?"

"Her daughter had just been murdered. She was in a lot of pain."

"So she waits until now to make it right? When it won't-do any good?" He shook his head sternly. "I don't want to hear it. And your mother, well, she can't."

The front door opened then. Aunt Selma and Uncle Murray entered with their grieving smiles in place. Selma took over the kitchen. Murray busied himself with a loose wall plate he'd spotted yesterday.

And my father and I stopped talking.

Special Agent Claudia Fisher stiffened her spine and knocked on the door.

"Come in."

She turned the knob and entered the office of Assistant Director in Charge Joseph Pistillo. The ADIC immaturely nicknamed, naturally enough, a-dick ran the New York office. Outside of the director in Washington, an ADIC was the most senior and powerful agent in the FBI.

Pistillo looked up. He did not like what he saw. "What?"

"Sheila Rogers was found dead," Fisher reported.

Pistillo cursed. "How?"

"She was found on a roadside in Nebraska. No ID. They ran her prints through NCIC and got a hit."

"Damn."

Pistillo chewed on a cuticle. Claudia Fisher waited.

"I want a visual confirmation," he said.

"Done."

"What?"

"I took the liberty of em ailing Sheriff Farrow the mug shots of Sheila Rogers. She and the M.E. confirmed it was the same woman. The height and weight match too."

Pistillo leaned back. He grabbed a pen, raised it to eye level, and studied it. Fisher stood at attention. He signaled for her to sit. She obeyed. "Sheila Rogers's parents live in Utah, right?"

" Idaho."

"Whatever. We need to contact them."

"I have the local police on standby. The chief knows the family personally."

Pistillo nodded. "Okay, good." He took the pen out of his mouth. "How was she killed?"

"Probably internal bleeding from a beating. The autopsy is still under way."

"Jesus."

"She was tortured. Her fingers had been snapped back and twisted, probably by a pair of pliers. There were cigarette burns on her torso."

"How long has she been dead?"

"She probably died sometime last night or early in the morning."

Pistillo looked at Fisher. He remembered how Will Klein, the lover, had sat in that very chair yesterday. "Fast," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"If, as we were led to believe, she ran away, they found her fast."

"Unless," Fisher said, "she ran to them."

Pistillo leaned back. "Or she never ran at all."

"I'm not following."

He studied the pen some more. "Our assumption has always been that Sheila Rogers fled because of her connection to the Albuquerque murders, right?"

Fisher tilted her head back and forth. "Yes and no. I mean, why come back to New York just to run away again?"

"Maybe she wanted to go to the mother's funeral, I don't know," he said. "Either way, I don't think that's the case anymore. Maybe she never knew we were on to her. Maybe stay with me here, Claudia maybe someone kidnapped her."

"How would that have worked?" Fisher asked.

Pistillo put down the pen. "According to Will Klein, she left the apartment at, what, six in the morning?"

"Five."

"Fine, five. So let's put this together using the accepted scenario. Sheila Rogers walks out at five. She goes into hiding. Someone finds her and tortures her and dumps her in the boonies of Nebraska. That sound about right?"

Fisher nodded slowly. "Like you said, fast."

"Too fast?"

"Maybe."

"Time-phase-wise," Pistillo said, "it's far more likely that someone grabbed her right away. As soon as she left the apartment."

"And flew her to Nebraska?"

"Or drove like a demon."

"Or…?" Fisher began.

"Or?"

She looked at her boss. "I think," she said, "that we're both coming to the same conclusion. The time line is too close. She probably disappeared the night before."

"Which means?"

"Which means that Will Klein lied to us."

Pistillo grinned. "Exactly."

Fisher's words started coming fast now. "Okay, here's a more likely scenario: Will Klein and Sheila Rogers go to the funeral of Klein's mother. They return to his parents' house afterward. According to Klein, they drive back to their apartment that night. But we have no independent confirmation of that. So maybe" she tried to slow down but that wasn't happening "maybe they don't head home. Maybe he hands her over to an accomplice, who tortures and kills her and dumps the body. Will meanwhile drives back to his apartment. He goes to work in the morning. When Wilcox and I brace him at his office, he makes up this story about her leaving in the morning."

Pistillo nodded. "Interesting theory."

She stood at attention.

"Do you have a motive?" he asked.

"He needed to silence her."

"For?"

"Whatever happened in Albuquerque."

They both mulled it over in silence.

"I'm not convinced," Pistillo said.

"Neither am I."

"But we agree that Will Klein knows more than he's saying."

"For certain."

Pistillo let loose a long breath. "Either way, we need to give him the bad news about Ms. Rogers's demise."

"Yes."

"Call that local chief out in Utah."

" Idaho."

"Whatever. Have him inform the family. Then get them on a plane for official identification."

"What about Will Klein?"

Pistillo thought about that. "I'll reach out to Squares. Maybe he can help us deliver the blow."