Time of Departure (11 page)

I turned on my heel and walked out, leaving the door ajar.

Lipinski called after me. “Just stick to yer lawyerin', girlie, and leave the police work to the professionals!
Ya hear me?
”

Girlie!

Detectives' heads swung as I stormed past desks in the squad room. I took the stairs so I could cool off before I reached the main floor lobby.

 

14

It was just after six when I left the office. Halfway home, I changed my mind, changed direction, and drove to Marc's building. I didn't call him to say I was coming. Two can play the surprise game.

But it didn't quite work out that way.

I found a parking space and was about to grab my purse when I spotted Marc standing near the curb in front of his building. He was facing away from me, talking on his cell and watching the street, as if he was waiting for a ride. I half expected the white SUV to appear, but instead a taxi drove up.

He got in and the taxi pulled away.

He hadn't once looked in my direction, so I was sure he hadn't seen me. I decided to follow him. He seemed to know a lot about me; it was time I learned something about him.

The cab navigated through the center of town and onto Route 20, heading east. I remained several cars back, keeping it in sight.

After seven or eight miles, it turned off onto County Road 325, heading south. I thought this was a bit strange. The next community was Cross Creek, a hammock-country backwater located on an isthmus between two lakes. The community's sole claim to fame was that Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, had once lived there.

The traffic had thinned, and there were no cars between mine and the taxi. It was getting dark. The road was dead straight, so I slowed down and followed the taxi's taillights from a half mile back. Miles of grassed road shoulders rolled by, punctuated by long tunnel-like stretches created by the immense trees intertwined overhead. Twice the cab's lights disappeared around a curve, and twice I pushed up my speed and reestablished contact.

But after the third bend, the road ahead was dark.

A sign read
CROSS CREEK
, but there was no sign of the settlement yet, just scattered homes and outbuildings. I caught a few glimpses of pastureland behind fences and screens of trees. I pulled to the shoulder and got out of my car. I scanned the geography behind me, searching for the telling flicker of a vehicle's lights on a side road or driveway.

Nothing.

I got back in the car and kept heading south. After a few minutes, I saw headlights approaching quickly from the other direction.

The taxi passed me, heading back to Gainesville.

Hell.

So much for spy games
.
Guess it's time to go home.

I looked for somewhere to turn around. As my tires whined across the concrete decking of a bridge, I spotted a clapboard-and-shake-sided building off to the right. A painted sign next to the road read:
THE YEARLING
. I pulled off the highway. There was a scattering of cars and pickups in the parking lot, but still plenty of room for me to turn around. I was about to do just that when a stray thought hit me.

I parked in the nearest open slot, got out, and walked toward the building. I could hear a country song playing—Lady Antebellum's “Our Kind of Love.” A lopsided screen door led onto a porch that featured the main entrance on the left, an old-fashioned Coca-Cola sign with a bench seat below it, and a window on the right. I had planned to walk straight into the bar, but instead I altered course, stepped to the window, and looked in.

All I could see was a row of restaurant tables and a few scattered diners.

I left the porch and walked to another window farther along the building. When I looked in, I saw six or seven men sitting on padded stools at a bar and a few empty tables. But at the back, on the far left, I could see part of another table. Marc was sitting there. At first I thought he was alone, but then I noticed two drink glasses on the table in front of him. Both drinks appeared untouched. I moved as far to the right as I could, but my view was blocked. I couldn't see the person he was sitting with.

I debated with myself:
Is this your business, Claire? Go home!

No! I wanted to know more about this secretive man who had elbowed his way into my life. I retraced my steps to the main door and entered.

A short passage led to a reception podium, which was unattended. I took a left into the bar area. I immediately saw that Marc was alone at his table. He had his cell phone to his ear and he was staring fixedly at his watch. I steeled myself and started walking toward him. A few of the barflies stopped talking and turned to look. One let out a low whistle. When I was halfway across the room, an older, white-haired woman with a deeply lined face came out of a stockroom behind the bar. When she saw me, she froze.

None of that registered with me until much later, because in that compressed span of time, other things were engaging my attention.

I noticed that the second glass I'd seen on Marc's table was gone.

I noticed that his own glass was still full.

I noticed that a rear exit door located ten feet from his table was just clicking shut.

I noticed Marc lift his eyes from his watch, turn in his chair, and look straight at me. He snapped his phone shut. He rose from his seat and pulled out the other chair for me.

I sat, bewildered.

He resumed his seat.

“You knew I was following you,” I said. It was a statement, not a question.

“I did.”

“There was someone sitting here. In this chair.”

“An old friend. I once lived near here … just down the road. She had to leave.”

I glanced at the door that had just closed. “She, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Short visit.”

He didn't respond.

A short man with a dark tan and arms like rope appeared at our table. He was wearing a waiter's apron. I hadn't seen him when I entered. Behind him, the white-haired bar lady was edging hesitantly in our direction. She was staring fixedly at me. For some reason, she looked bewildered.

“Something for the lady?” the waiter asked.

Before I could answer, Marc shook his head. In that same instant, there was a bellow of rage from over near the bar, accompanied by the smash of breaking glass. All three of us turned to see a chair skittering sideways. It toppled with a bang as two men began scuffling and throwing punches.

The white-haired lady shouted, “Jimmy!” and hurried toward the melee.

The waiter rushed off, leaving his tray on our table. He waded straight into the brawl, attempting to separate the combatants—a gutsy move, considering both fighters were much bigger men. He was shoved aside, and the fight started in our direction. I looked at Marc and saw that he was gripping the waiter's tray with both hands.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting ready!”

“For what?”

“This!”

One of the drunks grabbed a broken beer glass and swung it at his opponent. Just in time, the scrawny waiter grabbed his arm. The weapon flew out of the man's fingers and spun away …

Straight at me.

In a blur, Marc lunged across the table and swung the tray up in front of my face, batting the glass away. It hit the floor and shattered.

The fight stopped. The room went quiet. I looked at Marc. He was checking his watch. There was an expression of wonder on his face. “It's eight fourteen,” he said. I saw tears of relief in his eyes and the obvious question died in my throat. His hand dipped into his shirt pocket and brought out a twenty-dollar bill. He dropped it on the table and rose to his feet. “Mind giving me a lift home?”

I stood. Without a glance at the watching crowd, Marc took my arm and escorted me to the nearby rear exit.

As we left the building, I heard a woman's voice call out: “Marc?”

If he heard, he pretended not to. I looked back through the narrowing gap of the closing door. The bar lady was standing in the middle of the room, staring at us.

She seemed transfixed.

“What just happened?” I asked as Marc led me quickly around to the parking lot.

“I had a premonition. It's hard to explain. Please just trust me.”

In that second, I decided that I would. “Do you mind driving?” I asked as I handed him my keys.

 

15

Four nights later, I was sitting at the worktable in Marc's improvised incident room. The Jordan binders were lined up in front of me and I was deep into one of the final volumes.

For the past three days—which had fortuitously included a weekend—I had followed up on my first scoping study of the documents by starting back at the beginning and reading every page. After all that work, it was frustrating to realize that I was not much wiser than I'd been after my initial high-speed tour. One area of inquiry that I had hoped might bear some fruit was what the gurus at the FBI referred to as “victimology.” The victims in this case were attractive females in their twenties, and all but one was a brunette, but that wasn't going to take us very far without more information.

The question was this: What else did the victims have in common? Was there any correlation between them? Did their paths ever cross? Did they have any acquaintances, friends, relatives, or business contacts in common? If so, how many degrees of separation existed between each victim and that hypothetical common contact person? Had the investigators worked that angle, especially after the list began to lengthen? If so, had they properly documented their work?

Yes, they had.

Although the two Cuban girls had apparently never met, they had two friends in common. Both friends were Latina, and therefore about as likely to fit the profile for a serial killer as a five-year-old child. Nevertheless, each woman had been thoroughly investigated and cleared, along with all her family members and friends.

The only other connection was between the hospital employee, Patricia Chapman, and the
Miami Herald
journalist, Pia Ostergaard. They had attended the same high school in Fort Lauderdale, four years apart, and, amazingly, one of Chapman's male cousins turned out to be a former boyfriend of the journalist. The cousin also had an alibi. He'd been vacationing with his wife on the Caribbean island of Antigua on the date his ex-girlfriend disappeared. That, coupled with the fact that he had been on shift and hard at work as a police officer with the Miami-Dade PD when most of the abductions took place, pretty much put paid to any idea of his involvement.

Marc came in. He said something. It took a second for his voice to penetrate my deliberations.

“What was that?”

“I said I ordered Chinese.”

“Oh good! I'm famished.”

He joined me at the table. “We should start doing our own cooking. All this fast food is a bit hard on my vintage body.”

“I make a pretty mean shrimp creole,” I said.

“Oh yeah? Well, I make a pretty mean paella.”

“We could stage a seafood cook-off, but who's going to judge it? No one knows we're working together, and we need to keep it that way.”

“That will change.”

I didn't argue the point. When it came to predictions, he had already proved himself. “Okay, I need to ask you something.” I got up and retrieved one of the Ostergaard binders. I flipped to a page I'd marked with a paper clip. “Look at this. Each successive page is hand-numbered, and this section seems right at first—see?” I turned the page to show him that the sheets were in sequence and then turned back. “But this heading at the bottom is left hanging.” I pointed.

PUTNAM COUNTY REPORT—WOMAN IN RIVER

I turned the page. “At the top of this page, there's a new heading and the text is unrelated. At least one page must be missing, maybe more. Whoever numbered the pages in the original file probably didn't notice.”

Marc leaned close to examine the pages. I could feel the warmth of his body. A mischievous thought crossed my mind. I banished it.

“Put a flag on that.” He didn't seem too concerned. “But I'm sure this wasn't related to the missing women. I would have remembered.”

“I'd still like to read that report.”

“I'll check to see if we have it.”

“Check where?”

“There's a batch of miscellaneous papers in that box under the desk.”

“While we're on the subject, there's something else.” I looked him in the eye. “Geiger told me they're missing an entire box of reports.”

Marc didn't blink. “Which one?”

“He said it was box number eighteen.”

He didn't hesitate. “That was one of María's boxes. They must have misplaced it after I left the department. Probably during one of their moves.”

“How could you know that?”

“Because we have the complete Ruiz file here, which means it was still there for me to photocopy.”

“That reminds me,” I said. “Lipinski said you left the police while the investigation was still ongoing. That would mean they have later investigative reports that we don't have.”

“He said that?” Marc's mouth twisted into a scornful smile. “Claire, how many boxes did they tell you they have?”

“Twenty-six.”

He nodded, obviously expecting that answer. “Lipinski's memory is playing tricks, or the man's lying. I left the department in April 1979, a year after Mandy Jordan went missing. Actually, I left in March because I had some accumulated leave. My last official act was to sign the complete file into the cold case archive. I boxed up all eight subfiles and labeled every box myself.”

I saw where this conversation was going. “How many boxes?”

“Twenty-six. I kept a copy of the property room receipt. Would you like to see it?”

I felt my jaw tighten. Lipinski's memory hadn't faded. The bastard had played me. It wasn't difficult to reconstruct the likely scenario. Snead told Lipinski that Marc was in town. Lipinski called Sam Grayson, making sure to plant a seed of suspicion about Marc in the mind of the chief prosecutor. During the phone call, Sam mentioned what Annie had told him about the sealed packet Marc had delivered to the office. When I met with Lipinski and Geiger, I told them that our copies of the missing person files came from Roy Wells's filing cabinet. Suspecting I was lying and that the files had actually come from Marc, Lipinski used our discussion about the missing box to try to undermine Marc's credibility in my mind.