The Wrong Quarry (22 page)

He said nothing. “I could do that. And...actually, the Pinkertons said they would be glad to make the case to the federal authorities for this being a ‘serial predator,’ in their vernacular. They just preferred to gather more information, but...they
would
do it.”

“Not good enough for you, huh?”

“No. Not good enough for me. I wanted him tortured, yes, but not to death...I wanted to know what he’d done to Candy. What he had done with her...her body. Doesn’t she deserve a Christian burial?”

“Okay,” I said, jumping in fast before he could get emotional again. “And
then
you wanted him tortured to death?”

Stockwell grunted another near laugh. “Yes. I don’t believe in hell, and I want him to suffer if not for eternity, for...”

“What seemed like it.”

“Yes.”

I mulled it a few moments.

Then: “We have a time issue. Vale will be clearing out sooner than later. Obviously, that’s his pattern. He stuck around this time because you fingered him to the cops and in the media, and if he ran, it would be an admission of guilt, and he’d have the FBI down on him. He went wrong, picking for a victim a girl from a wealthy, influential family. So he tried to weather the storm, probably planning to pull up stakes in a few months, after the heat died down. Only it never did.”

He had been studying me calmly through that. “Vale sent you to kill me, didn’t he?”

“Something like that. He thinks I’m killing you right now, and with you dead, he’ll figure he has to book it.”

“What would you suggest, Mr. Quarry?”

“You’re the one behind the big desk. You’re the man of means. Why don’t you make a suggestion?”

He did: “There’s a wall safe behind the portrait of my wife and myself. I can give you ten thousand dollars down, and have another twenty-five thousand in cash for you tomorrow. After it’s done. Sufficient?”

I was nodding. “Yeah, generous. But you can afford it. Only... no torture shit. Not even to find out where Candy’s body is.”

“I could up the ante another ten.”

“No. Sorry. Not my scene. But I will gladly remove his evil ass from the planet for you.”

He rose, and so did I, and we shook hands.

Then he got me the money.

I had a sinking feeling when I pulled into the Vale Dance Studio parking lot around nine-fifteen. I had gone directly there from Clarence Stockwell’s, figuring to park on the street till I was sure dance practice was over and all the little girls who studied with this homicidal maniac were safely in the arms of the parents who had entrusted them to him.

But from the front, no sign of lights on within the black bunker gave a first indication that something was wrong.

And when I checked in back, the lot was empty. Not just empty of parental vehicles, but Vale’s red Corvette and, for that matter, Sally’s baby-blue Mustang.

Nonetheless, I parked near the cement stairs and went quickly up. A neatly hand-lettered sign taped on the inside of the door said

PRACTICE CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS.

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK

and signed, “Mr. Roger,” with a flourish.

Shit.

He was in the goddamn wind already.

While he figured I was busy ridding him of his Country Club Lane nemesis, Vale appeared to have taken his leave of this latest little town where he helped girls prepare for beauty pageants, among other more overtly perverted pastimes.

With no sign of his vehicle here, maybe he had parked on the street, to discourage any parent from knocking on the door, wanting a better explanation than that note. Or maybe just to wish their beloved Mr. Roger a
Get Well Soon.

Should I check and see if his Corvette was parked nearby? I decided to skip that; just too unlikely. But was there any chance he might still be in there?

I would have to go inside. Just had to go in and check—what other option was there?

The deadbolt at the double back doors took fifteen seconds to crack with a tension-wrench pick and a short-hook pick, so small they tucked into my billfold. By the way, if that’s the kind of lock you’re using, just stack your valuables on the porch, so you can get a good night’s sleep, undisturbed.

I slipped inside, nine mil in one surgical-gloved hand, moving forward, a lone player on a darkened stage. I stood there listening, like an actor seeking applause, and could hear only my own breathing. It was cold in here. Maybe he’d shut the heat off when he left, like the rich guys turning off lights they didn’t need. That prompted a memory of the light switch Vale had used, over on the far wall, which brought up subdued audience lighting. This guided my way through the empty seating back to the little lobby area, whose glowing red
EXIT
sign helped just enough.

The door to the living quarters at right was unlocked, and I went in low and fast, gun poised; but no one was in there. I almost wished the bastard would jump out at me like Anthony Perkins in
Psycho,
so I could at least have a chance at him. The only sign that he had vacated was the rolltop desk, which had been cleaned out, all the paperwork gone.

Otherwise, everything was here—the furniture, of course— I didn’t really think he’d rushed out and rented a U-Haul since I talked to him earlier. The wall hangings, from photos of dance recitals to the framed Broadway posters, were still in place. Damn things were even hanging straight. The fridge had food in it, including half a six-pack of Diet Coke.

In the wind, all right.

The door to the bedroom across the lobby, a room I’d never been into before (no inclination, really), was also unlocked. I hit the wall switch just inside the door to reveal a chamber with alternating red and black walls, particle-board on the outer ones, the building’s natural concrete block walls for the other two. The effect was more bad bowling shirt than Satanic, but knowing who slept here and the kind of fun and games he engaged in did creep me out some.

Particularly since the bed—another goddamn waterbed!— was an oversize round thing with red silk sheets and curving, black-leather-padded headboard. A black dresser stood against a red wall, a red dresser against a black, both secondhand-store jobs repainted.

And each dresser’s drawers yawned open and empty. This was not a ransacking but a hasty departure. Closet doors painted black like the rest of a wall opened to reveal empty hangers. A couple of squat but comfortable-looking black leather chairs were angled on a black furry throw rug on the wooden floor, facing a mammoth Sony projection TV, 50” easy, against the other black wall. The big TV was hooked up to a Betamax that sat on a black cabinet perhaps five feet tall and three feet wide, with a little padlock.

A swipe with the butt of the nine mil got rid of the lock, and I swung open cabinet doors that had shelves on their inside, expanding the shelves within—rows and rows of homemade Beta tapes, each spine labeled with dates and names.

Names like Jane, Denise, Cheryl, Suzanne, Jill, Terri, over a dozen names and scores of videotapes, dates as old as eight years back and as recent as last month. How he must have hated to leave this treasure trove of priceless memories behind. Another, even better indication of his haste. No video camera, though. He must have taken that with him.

Or had he?

Above the bed was a ceiling fan with light fixture sporting a cluster of lights. Between bulbs I could spy the circular glass eye of a video camera mounted up there in a black box attached to the black ceiling. From the bed, Vale wouldn’t even have to say, “Action.” He could just hit the remote. Most of his co-stars probably didn’t even know they were in the movies.

I went back over to the cabinet of video cassettes. These were the homemade horrors and delights that Roger Vale had relished making and viewing. Underage porn and, in very special instances, do-it-yourself snuff flicks. No need to frequent the XXX section behind the beaded curtain of a video store when you had such a unique collection waiting at home.

Then I noticed something on the floor, not far from the cabinet, apparently tossed there in haste. On first glance, it looked like an iron.

On closer look, I could see that it was a Realistic brand “High Power Audio/Video Eraser.”

So he had destroyed the evidence, and done the parents of his victims the one favor he and they could share: with the help of Radio Shack, he had removed the visual record of the degradation suffered by the girls whose names were hand-lettered on the white spines of the now blank videotapes.

But as I quickly checked, several names that might be expected were conspicuous in their absence.

Where was Candy Stockwell among these small-town starlets?

Where was the video record of her death? Nothing on Sally Meadows, either. Or Heather Foster, the Rocky Fork victim whose body had washed up on a lakeshore as evidence far more terrible than any video cassette.

Had he taken with him the most precious tapes? The ones that chronicled his most extreme pleasures, the sex murders of teenage girls? Horrible as that evidence most certainly would be, it
was
evidence, and knowing it had been discovered might— in a unique if unspeakable way—give closure to families with missing daughters.

Those tapes, if they existed, should be found.

And now they were likely with the auteur who’d shot them.

In the wind.

* * *

In my Holiday Inn room, I began to pack. Nothing else for me to do here, besides go over to Country Club Lane and wake Clarence from a less than restful sleep, and return his money. That further twenty-five grand he’d promised was a pipe dream now. I’d been too late. We’d both been too late. And now the FBI would have to pick up the ball.

Which meant the sooner I left Missouri’s Little Vacationland, the better. Maybe I would stop and say goodbye to Jenny. I sighed and shook my head. Probably not wise.

I sat at the foot of the bed and stared at my suitcase. Was there any other play for me to make here? I could think of none. I’d been beaten, beaten by a goddamn manipulative sociopath, and all I had to show for it was the exhaustion of a long and stressful day. Could I afford to grab a decent night’s sleep, and check out in the morning? That way I could stop at Clarence’s office at the bank to return his money. And maybe say goodbye to Jenny....

These last-ditch thoughts and hopes had just about congealed into the realization that I needed to get the fuck out of Dodge,
now,
when the phone rang.

I frowned at it.

Clarence Stockwell should know better. What the hell was he thinking, calling me here? I understood that he’d be anxious to know how I’d fared on my mission, but I’d given him strict instructions not to get in touch.
Don’t call me, I’ll call you.
Fucking businessman of his standing ought to be the fuck familiar with
that
concept.

I answered it anyway.

“Yeah?”

“Jack...oh God, Jack.”

It was a female voice.

“...Jack, he’s here at my house...
”

Whispering.

Frightened.

“...he’s crazy, running around...crazy...”

Sally.

“...he says he’s leaving and wants to take me with him...I said I didn’t want to go, and now...I don’t know
what
the fuck he’s going to do, Jack....
”

“Honey, just take it easy.”

“...I’m afraid, Jack, I’m really, really afrai
—”

And the line, as they say, went dead.

* * *

The charcoal clouds were rolling again, but no thunder growl or electrical strobe signaled rain, or would that be snow, considering the temp? Would one of those freak snowstorms with lightning erupt to make this night even weirder?

I was guiding the Pinto, no lights, down the gravel road with the walls of cornstalks hovering on either side of me, the breeze catching them, making them rustle, making shivering shapes out of them, as if they too felt the cold.

I could see the farmhouse up ahead, and the barn Sally rented out, and two cars parked where the gravel lane widened—his red Corvette, her blue Mustang. I swung the car over off the gravel onto what little shoulder there was, brushing up against the scratchy stalks, their fingers clawing and scraping at the vehicle.

I got out and crept along the edge of the cornfield, staying low, the nine mil in my right hand, again in surgical gloves. Still in my white shirt and tie, fleece-jacket over them. The .38 snubnose was in my left jacket pocket, the switchblade in my right pants pocket, the hunting knife clipped in its sheath on my belt.

There it was, the moon, gray balls of cloud rolling to either side to give it a window to throw ivory across the rural landscape and, along the way, bathe me in light that I didn’t want. I waited for those clouds to roll back over it and conceal the motherfucker, but they didn’t.

Moonlight or not, I had to cross the open space between the edge of the cornfield and the two vehicles sitting on that gravel apron.

I took several breaths, my exhales like car exhaust in the chill, then made my move. If I’d been hunkered down any lower, I’d have been crawling. As it was, I moved like an ungainly Munchkin. The moon loved me, stroking me, bringing out my hidden beauty.

Seconds that felt like minutes later, I was behind the Corvette, where I withdrew the hunting knife from its sheath and cut a nice wide gash in a beautiful tire, letting out air that also smoked in the night, hissing like a cranky librarian. I did both rear tires, just to be safe. Then I did the same thing to the rear tires of Sally’s Mustang, next to the sally vanity plate, figuring she would understand when I explained I did not want to give the man terrorizing her any means of escape.

Quite a few lights were on in the house, both upstairs and down, squares of subdued yellow indicating shades were pulled. The windows were mismatched, as if the builder, likely the farmer himself, had used whatever he could salvage or pick up cheap. A side section looked tacked on, its roof a little crooked. How Mateski would have loved this slapped-together place— one of his ugly paintings come to life.