Walk in Darkness - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries) (19 page)

40

The Szleky’s lived just north of Balboa Park in the Hillcrest district. The neighborhood was known for its vibrant art scene and late-night parties at the local bars and clubs. Routinely, at the smaller bars that dotted the streets, owners would lock the doors after closing time and continue with private gatherings until the sun came up.

In the eighties it was known as the winter district because of all the snow
— the cocaine that was flooding in from Columbia and Mexico. Stanton remembered a girl he’d dated leaving for days at a time to party here and then returning to the shack they shared with numerous other people and sleeping for days more. Eventually, she disappeared and he never found out what had happened to her.

The
Szleky’s lived in the Silver Crest Condominiums near a local fire station. Stanton pulled into the parking lot and admired the colorful buildings. Some were green and others orange or red. A patchwork of tints, the colors mismatched and bleeding into each other, but they were appealing somehow. Youthful.

He got out of the car and walked into the complex. At the far end to the south was a building marked with a large M and he walked to it and went downstairs to unit 2. He knocked and rang the doorbell but there was no answer. Stanton waited another five minutes and tried again but there was still no answer.

As he climbed the stairs to leave two men came around the corner carrying grocery bags. Stanton passed them and then turned as they walked to unit 2 and began to unlock the door.

“Mr.
Szleky?” he said.

One of the men looked up. “Yes?”

“I’m Det. . . well, I’m working with the San Diego Police on your daughter’s case. My name’s Jon Stanton.”

“Yes, of course. I remember you Detective Stanton.”

“Not anymore. I’ve actually retired. I’m just helping out with this case.”

“What can I do for you?”

“To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. I’m just following up and was wondering if we could talk again.”

“Come inside. Oh, this is my partner
, James, by the way.”

They nodded hello as Mark
Szleky opened the door. Stanton followed in after them and shut the door behind him.

The condo was decorated tastefully and was immaculately clean. A white vase over the fireplace was filled with a leafy plant that was a vibrant crimson. The carpets were white and the tables made of glass with black leather furniture. It smelled faintly of men’s cologne and there were fitness magazines spread on the coffee table.

“Have a seat.”

Stanton sat down as the two men placed the groceries on the kitchen counter. They offered him a drink and he declined. They sat across from him on the opposite couch and waited patiently for him to speak.

“You might’ve heard that there’s been some confusion about whether we got the right man on Beth’s disappearance.”

“I saw the headlines. I refused to read them though. The media’s become too trashy and we don’t read that anymore.”

“The man who did this may not have been Darrell Putnam.”

“But the other detective told me Putnam confessed.”

“No, he never confessed. His mother gave the impression that he had said some things to her about the kidnappings but when we grilled her and followed up she admitted he never did.”

“So you think the man that kidnapped Beth is still out there?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

James said, “Do you think Beth could still be alive?”

“The chances are extremely remote. There’s no evidence either way on this. I wish I could tell you something more positive, but I can’t.”

Mark took a deep breath and James kissed him on the cheek.

“Beth was Mark’s daughter from a previous marriage. Her mother committed suicide some time ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Mark shrugged. “Everybody’s got their demons. What is it we can do for you, Detective?”

“Please, call me Jon. And I just want to know if there was anything, anything at all, that we might’ve missed in the initial investigation. Did Beth have any friends we didn’t follow up on, or are there some relatives we didn’t speak with? A neighbor that seemed suspicious after the disappearance . . . anything?”

“I don’t think so. Beth was kind of a loner. She had one friend, a girl named Kyra that moved away to Florida and I think you guys already spoke to her. You did a great job, Jon. We don’t blame you for anything that’s happened. Even if Darrell Putnam wasn’t the one that did this.”

“I appreciate that. I wish I could do more, but I’m lost on this case. The three girls we thought were taken by Putnam have nothing in common. There’s no thread connecting them.”

“How do you know it was all one person then?”

“They were taken in the same area, they’re about the same age, similar hair and facial features, taken in the middle of the night by someone using a glass cutter.
It’s not coincidence, it’s one person. Or two people working together.”

Mark looked down to the floor, anger filling his eyes. Stanton knew he had reopened a wound that was just barely starting to heal. He knew the images going through Mark’s mind: the look of terror on Beth’s face as she was woken by a man in her room, the horror of being dragged out to an awaiting car . . . the pain she probably felt before her death.

“I’m sorry, Mark. I shouldn’t have—”

“No, no. It’s . . . it’s not you. I think about this so
much, just never out in the open. It hurts.”

James put his arm around him and pressed his forehead to his. Stanton got the impression that he should probably leave.

“I think that’s all I needed for now. Do you mind if I just have one more look through her room?”

“Of course.”

He rose and walked to the kitchen and down the hallway. There was a large photo of Mark, James, and Beth at Disneyland in front of the Indiana Jones ride. They appeared carefree and happy and Stanton hoped that Mark could look at that photo and wipe away the images he held of what was probably her last night on earth.

He turned right into the first bedroom. The room was exactly as he remembered it: untouched by time. Nearly all families of missing children kept the rooms
the same as when the children had been there. A way of holding on, keeping some connection, no matter how loose, to the kids that took up their lives. It pained him each time to see it.

Stanton heard soft sobbing behind him from the living room and he stepped into the room and shut the door. He went to the bed and sat down on the edge, scanning the room. Forensics had been through here twice: once as part of the investigation and once more two weeks later as a favor to Stanton at his request. Every fiber had been catalogued, ever
y print analyzed, every stain sampled and evaluated under a microscope. There was nothing his eyes could catch that hadn’t already been examined, but he looked anyway.

He stood and opened the closet and peered in at the clothing that had gathered dust
, the shoes that would never be worn by Bethany again. One day, far in the future, he had no doubt Mark would donate all these clothes to a charity and they would be filled with the vibrancy of another child. But right now they were gravestones, each and every one of them. He closed the closet and was about to leave when he saw something on her dresser.

A shock went through his body and he didn’t trust himself to stand. He put his hand against the closet just to be sure.

There was no doubt in his mind now: he was going to find who had taken Beth Szleky.

41

Calvin Riley sat on the couch while the party was going on around him and wondered why he had allowed Karen to talk him into coming. The people here were in their late teens and early twenties but Calvin felt he had absolutely nothing in common with them. They were beneath him: what were they compared to him? He was a tiger and they were mice, unworthy to even be near him. But instead of knowing and accepting that knowledge, they pranced around and looked down their noses at him.

“Hey,” Karen said, flopping down on the couch next to him, the smell of weed on her breath and clothes. “You having fun?”

“Not really.”

“Have some pot.” She held up a joint to his lips.

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“My training.”

She shrugged. “More for me.”

Calvin pulled out his cell phone and saw that no one had called or texted. He had sent several texts to Stanton hoping he could come over with a few beers tonight and they could talk. Stanton
had seemed distracted earlier and Calvin wanted as much information as to why as he could get.

“Make love to me,” Karen said, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“What?”

“Make love to me,” she said again, nibbling on his ear.

“Here?”

“No, silly. Take me home.”

“Not tonight.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t feel like it.”

“But I do,” she said, running her tongue up his neck.

“Cut it out.”

“What’s wrong?”

He lifted her arms from his neck. “I said cut it out.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I just don’t . . . feel that way about you. That’s all.”

She sat back on the couch and looked at him as if he had struck her. “You don’t feel that way about me? Well fuck you Calvin Riley. You don’t feel that way about anyone. I’ve never even seen you look at a woman. Are you gay or something?”

“No, I just don’t want to have sex with you.”

“Well fuck you,” she said louder as she stood up. People at the party were beginning to take notice now. “You think you’re so badass
; you’re not shit.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Fine, go. I could fuck any guy I want here.”

“Then do it. Fuck them all.”

She grabbed a beer can off a side table and flung it at him. It hit him in the face and fell to the floor. He looked up at her, and she took a step backward.

“You’re going to regret doing that,” he said, turning away and heading to the door.

“Calvin, wait. Calvin!”

As he stepped outside he wiped the beer off his cheek and got to his car before Karen caught up to him. She grabbed his arm and tried to turn him around and Calvin swung back with a fist and smashed it into her jaw. She fell back and he crouched over her, his hand on her throat,
squeezing. She began to choke and cough and he watched her, never taking his eyes away from hers . . . until he realized where he was.

He let go and stood up, the shock of what had happened overtaking him. He had to lean against a car just to keep himself up. How had he let that happen? How could he be so stupid when he was so careful about everything else?

Karen was on the ground crying when someone from the party who’d witnessed it all from the porch went inside and came back with two other guys and came over to help.

“What the fuck, bro?” one of them said. “You
hittin’ on bitches at my party?”

“I’m sorry . . . I, I wasn’t . . . I’m just sorry. I’ll leave.”

“Fuck you, you’ll leave. Bear, kick his ass.”

The largest of the three ran over and swung with a right. Without even realizing fully that he was fighting
, and with no fear or hesitation, Calvin ducked under the punch and delivered an uppercut into his groin. Before he could respond Calvin grabbed his genitals and twisted nearly 360 degrees, feeling a slight crack in his hands as one of the man’s testicles burst. The man screamed and Calvin came up with an elbow into his throat that sent him to his knees.

The other two men didn’t move. Calvin looked to them
, and the one that owned the house held up his hands as if surrendering. Calvin grabbed the large one on his knees by the back of his head and thrust his thumbs into the man’s eyes as far as they would go. Blood shot out and over his shirt and down onto the pavement of the driveway. He did a final twist of his fingers and the man fainted from pain.

Calvin looked up and saw several more people watching from the porch. He was so stupid. How could he have been so stupid?

He turned and ran, leaving his car behind.

By the time Calvin slowed down and realized where he was, his heart felt like it was going to explode. He figured he had run four miles without a single stop. He sat down on a nearby bus bench and looked up to the moon, feeling its light over him, letting it fill his body.

He had been so careful for so long that it felt routine, but something had been changing the past year. He had been forgetting
things, speaking to people he shouldn’t have been speaking to, going places he shouldn’t have been going to. Calvin had even ended up at a cop bar one night drinking with a bunch of patrol cops, talking about the cases he had perpetrated. He was so stupid, he knew that now. Arrogance was how he would get caught and he had become too arrogant.

The man back there at the party would survive but Calvin could be charged with felony mayhem or even attempted murder. He could be looking at life in prison. Calvin struck himself in the face. How could he have been so stupid?

A thought danced itself into his head and he didn’t really pay attention until he spelled the words out: his car was back at the party. It had his registration in it and it would lead them back to him. It wouldn’t matter anyway because Karen would tell them who he is. And if they came to the house . . . what was at the house? He racked his brain trying to remember if he had left anything there. What would they find? A piece of clothing? A ring? He couldn’t remember what was there.

They would never find the apartment
. Or was there something there on which he had jotted down the address or apartment number? He hadn’t memorized the address at first, he’d written it down. Where had he written it down?

Calvin stood up and began walking down the sidewalk, mumbling to himself, going through the lists of items he knew he had at his house. He pictured his room and went through
, naming each item out loud.

This was too much for him. He needed his father. His father would help him out of this, but first he needed time to think and calm down. He took out his phone and called Stanton. There was no answer so he left a message.

“Hey, Jon, this is Kyle. Can you call me back, I kinda need a place to stay for a couple days. I got evicted ‘cause a money stuff. Anyway, can you please call me back? I’m gonna be waiting for your call.”

He hung up. There was a diner down the street a ways and he began to walk
to it. He would wait there. Though they hadn’t known each other long, Stanton didn’t strike him as someone to not help another person when he could. Stanton would help him.