“Can you describe him?”
“Oh, I can do better than that. There’s a photo of him on my phone. It’s not very good, because I kind of had to sneak a picture of him. He told me he didn’t like to be photographed—he said he didn’t like the way he looked. Something about his teeth. But I took a couple of photos with my phone, when he wasn’t looking. At the time, I wanted to share him on Facebook, since he’s pretty good-looking."
“Did he know about that?”
“He saw it on Facebook and he insisted I take it down. It was our first argument—our first and last. He was so mad, it scared me. That’s when I started to think this wasn’t going to work out. It was the beginning of the end."
“Did you remove the photo from Facebook?”
“I did, but as you can see, I didn’t take it off my phone. I told him I did, though."
“He believed you?”
“I don’t know. Once I told him I wasn’t going to marry him, he took off and never looked back."
“Can you email me the photo?”
“Give me your email address and I will. I only have the one photo.
“Did anything else bother you about him?”
“At my age, it’s hard to find a perfect man. He had a bit of a temper, but he always apologized and made it up to me—the man gave me flowers for every occasion, which I thought at the time was quite romantic. But he couldn’t keep it up. At some point it turned into a cycle: he’d cut me down, he could really do contempt—and I finally realized—right before the wedding—that I just couldn’t marry him."
“Because of the way he acted?”
“I just didn’t know him well enough. And I didn’t like the drama."
Laura asked her to describe the drama.
“Oh, it was everything! No thing too small to drive me crazy. At first, he was wonderful, but now I think it was just an act. Everything was, I don’t know, difficult. He just made it that way.
“Can you give me an example?”
“Oh, there are so many things. He lied a lot. Took me a while to figure that out. But he was one helluva convincing liar. Lie, lie, lie—about everything, big or small. It took me a while to catch on to what he was doing. I guess I wanted it to work out. I just couldn’t take the chaos. When I told him I’d had enough, he pursued me. Flowers, candy, promises of going vagabonding . . . but by then I was done."
“So, he lied a lot?”
“Oh, GOD, yes! He just made stuff up. “I mean, these were barefaced lies. So obvious. It was like there were no rules. I even wonder if he knew he was lying, there was so much of it. And then there was all the negativity—which I never saw before we became an item. Then he just let loose. He had grievances with everybody. Even the anchors on the TV news. He said . . . he said, that he wanted to hurt certain folks."
“When was this?”
“There was a late night talk show host on TV, and it bothered him. He said, “If I could get my hands on that guy, I’d throttle him."
“Throttle him?”
“Yes."
“Did he ever threaten to throttle you?”
“You know? He did. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back."
“Could you describe it for me?”
“We had an argument in my kitchen—it just kind of got out of control and the next thing I knew he had his hands around my neck."
“What happened then?”
“I told him to stop it. Right then and there. And he did. I think even he was even surprised that he’d done it. He apologized."
Laura didn’t tell her that the greatest indicator of a person prone to homicide was the act of putting hands around another person’s neck in anger. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. It was pretend. He just wanted to run roughshod over me, and that was what he did. But that really was the straw that broke the camel’s back."
As Laura looked at the best photo she’d seen of the man, there was no doubt it was the same guy. The guy she thought of as “the ladies man." She realized that was her name for him.
Now she had four photos. Bad and blurry as they were, she had enough images to try a facial recognition tool. A company called Facix used biometrics to measure the planes and features of a face, and compared that face to similar headshots in the database, using “nodal points” like the distance between the eyes, width of the nose, depth of the eye sockets, the shape of the cheekbones, and the length of the jaw line.
It was not a perfect system, though. Laura was aware that many mistakes had been made using this software. She used it as an additional tool, but took it with a large grain of salt. She decided to give it a shot.
And so she brought up the photo of the guy, and enlarged it—she could send it out to several jurisdictions. Sure, it was blurry, but she thought there was enough here to give it a shot. The camper was another way they could look for him—although he might have ditched it by now. She accessed the National Crime Information Center database, or NCIC, called the lifeline of law enforcement.
If luck was with her, she’d find a name to go with the photo.
And there he was. Marcus Antonio—which sounded like an alias. Still, she made note of it, and copied the page.
First thing, she sent three separate photos, grainy as they were, to jurisdictions in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
Hopefully, she would hear from one.
Later that day, she did hear. A U. S. Forest Service ranger named Frank Barr, based in Lakeside, recognized both the composite, and the camper.
“You saw him?”
“Briefly. When I was driving by to check on the campground."
“Can you describe him?”
“He was thin—bordering on skinny. Tanned complexion, like he’d been out in the sun—looked kind of cured, like ham. Wore a gimme cap but it was so grimy I couldn’t read the lettering. That’s about it."
“So his camper was parked in one of the campsites?”
“Yup."
“Can you describe the camper?”
He did.
Her heart did a somersault. What he described was virtually identical to the photos she had. “Did you see anyone else?”
He thought for a minute. “I heard someone running water in the trailer, like washing dishes."
“You didn’t see who it was?”
“Nope." He added, “I guess it was his wife."
“Did you see her before?”
“No."
“Anything else you can think of?”
“Well, they had a dog."
“What kind of dog?”
“Some kind of Husky mix. Malamute, maybe? A real nice-looking dog."
“Did you talk to either of them?”
“No. I just checked to see he had a hangtag permit on his rearview, and he did."
“Anything else you can remember?”
“The dog—he was staked out on a long chain. You know, like they do."
“Do you know when they left?”
“We have that information. Let me look it up."
Laura waited.
“They left that day. I can’t tell you when exactly they went, though, but I’d say before noon. If they don’t pay for another day, people have to be out by eleven."
“Did you by any chance get the information on the rearview hangtag?”
“I saw that they had one."
Laura observed his lack of comfort as he answered.
“Were you supposed to check it?”
“Well, yeah . . ." He drifted off. But I got a call right then—someone trashing one of the campsites."
“Is there anything else you can think of?”
“Well, there was something I noticed—in fact, it was pretty unusual. When I made my rounds the next morning, the camper was gone, but the dog was still there."
“Do you have the information on them?”
“Just what was on their hangtag."
Laura could tell he was embarrassed. She needed to change the su
bject. “I have a couple of photos here I’m going to send you. They’re kind of blurry, but I’d like you to look at them. What’s your email?”
He gave her his address. She sent a composite of five photos (three of them cops about the same age as the offender), and the photo of the man with the camper—just his face. The other photos featured a similar haircut and color. “Let me know if any of these looks familiar."
“Sure."
She waited.
“Yeah. That’s him. Number Three."
“You’re sure?”
“Oh, yeah."
She asked him a few more questions. Had he seen the woman? No. Had he heard any arguments? No.
“Anything else you can think of?”
“I think they might have been camping with friends."
“Why is that?”
“Because after they left, the people in the campsite next to them had the dog with them."
“Didn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Well, come to think of it, I guess it is a little weird. Maybe they gave them the dog."
“Do you have the addresses for the people in the campsites? Do you hold on to that kind of information?”
“We do." He rattled off the names and home addresses for the two campsites.
One was an Arizona address: Tubac. Jerry and Mary Naughton.
Laura said, “Can you hold on for a minute?”
“Sure."
She looked up the other address: Columbine Road, outside Chugwater, Wyoming. She looked for the address, but there was no Columbine Road. There was no Columbine Place, no Columbine Lane, no Columbine Trail. She wrote it down just in case. Even if the guy didn’t live anywhere near Chugwater, it was possible he had visited there or had friends in the area. She checked NCIC. No one named Winslow popped up. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have ties there. The guy very likely had just picked up a name and used it. There was a Winslow, in Arizona, which he might have driven through—he could have adopted the name of the town.
Another dead end.
Still, Laura thought that the pieces she had were beginning to come together. She was getting closer.
“Can you tell me anything more about the people in the other campsite?” she asked.
Jerry and Mary Naughton, yeah, they stayed one more day.
“And they had the dog after the other people left?”
“Sure did.
“Is there a phone number?”
“Sorry, no."
That was okay. Laura could find it.
Besides, it was better for her if the visit was a surprise.
Chapter 6
Darnell had it all planned: a small celebration at home, the menu of chicken piccata and a brilliantly good pinot noir from his wine cellar, ice cream, so that he and his Best Student could celebrate his freedom—freedom from that boring, ignorant, stultifying woman. Though physically attractive, she had proved to have the brains of goat and the manners of a cowhand.
Now she was gone, and he should be happy. He’d texted his Best Student that a small celebration was in order, seven o’clock on the dot, but it was an hour later and his Best Student had not replied. As he waited, and the chicken piccata got cold, he went from feeling let down, to angry.
He could feel the anger if he pressed his thumb just below the sternum. It was the spot where often he felt deepening sadness, but this was different. He couldn’t help but believe he’d been stood up.
His heart was eminently reliable. There was always a reason for melancholy, and this put him on alert for trouble. In that way, he was just like good old Mom. He eyed the clock every few minutes, listened for the sound of car tires on the gravel driveway, but there was nothing. He texted his student again, but there was no reply. He had been repelled by people many times, but this really and truly hurt. He’d prepared a wonderful dinner.
Perhaps he’d been too eager to share his dinner and home with his student.
Of course, he’d shared everything else.
He knew he’d been set up for a fall in life. At least when it came to relationships. His mother told him he was special from Day One, and that was good, because his dad had shown little interest in him. In fact, his dad was stern and angry most of the time. Darnell could close his eyes and see that glowering face, the face that meant trouble. His dad’s favorite line was “buck up and be a man!” His favorite thing to do was “tar the hell out of you." Darnell’s mother tried to comfort him, telling him he just needed to be stronger, that he just felt too much. Yes, he sure as hell DID.
But she “understood” him, unlike his Dad. She called him her “sensitive boy."
Darnell was one of four boys—talk about a tough situation! Every one of her boys succeeded in life. His brother Dennis was a captain in the USAF. His brother Dan had a small but thriving furniture business. His brother Dell was a successful musician. Darnell, himself, was not as spectacular (although he knew things about himself that almost no one else did—and most of those who knew, were deceased). He had a Ph. D. in Economics, and was an adjunct professor in good standing at Arizona State University in Tempe. Of course few people these days valued education, and without tenure he was paid shit. But he was proud to be a professor—and a mentor.
Normally, he would have looked forward to the summer off. He never taught classes in the summer. That was his time, to devote himself to the Quest. But . . .
He was worried. There were plenty of reasons to be worried. For one thing, there was his Best Student. He had to admit the whole thing was getting a little out of hand.
Recently, his Best Student had been agitating for more and more adventures. He was obsessed! He always wanted more more more!
To keep this going, undetected, took incredible restraint. You had to be like a general, mapping out a strategy.
Once again, Darnell vacuumed the floor of his bachelor pad, making sure the place was spic and span. Frankly, he didn’t even want to know why he invited Jacky for dinner. His “best student” was such a slovenly pig!Jacky knocked back beer after beer, and left them on his marble-topped table, which was a 19th century wonder—a beautiful piece. And yet Darnell didn’t really want to get into an argument with him—
His Best Student had a bit of a rage problem.
That was the difference between them. As much as Darnell appreciated Jacky, some of the things Jacky did made him recoil. Darnell really should have Thought Things Through, regarding his Best Student’s—face it—disgusting and reprehensible acts.
Darnell himself knew how to keep a cool head. He was a connoisseur, A connoisseur of women. He loved women! He loved their company. He was much more at home with women than with men, to be honest. All he yearned for was ADVENTURE. He wanted to find the right woman for him, the right woman to live happily ever after with. Why he had such trouble finding the right one . . . well, that was the true Mystery of Life.
But the problem with women was this: once they got used to you, once they got their hooks into you, you could not leave them. Women believed in “happily ever after”—as did he, but they just wouldn’t take no for an answer. How many times did he tell them it was over? How many scenes would he have to go through before he found the right fucking ONE?
He honestly didn’t like to think of hurting anyone. It turned his stomach. Ever since he was five years old and his dad took him fishing, he’d felt that way. His dad hit the trout on the head, bludgeoned it. One moment the fish was beautiful and breathing, and the next, it was smashed!
So yes, he felt guilty.
If only women weren’t so pushy. So needy. So obsessed. Really, they were . . . dim! And that’s when he had to call in the pinch hitter (okay, it was a gruesome pun, but it did make him titter).
All he really wanted was the Right Woman. He’d tried with many to no avail before he came up with the idea of Vagabonding. That was a great way to get to know a person. You could see all her virtues, have a little sex along the way, and, the plan was to end the relationship if she di
dn’t qualify. Drop her off at her house and say goodbye-and-nice-meeting-you.
But of course, in real life, it wasn’t that easy. Once you convinced a woman that you were meant to be together, once you showered her with love and gifts—
You couldn’t take it back. They would fucking hound you to the Gates of Hell.
One day, though, he’d find the right woman. One day, he would have no need for his Best Student—except for their teacher-pupil relationship, of course.
Frankly, the guy was brilliant, truly brilliant. But when it came to the fair sex, he was . . . Reprehensible. Useful, yes, but not the kind of person you wanted to be friends with. They’d fallen into a reciprocal partnership after dealing with a particularly bad situation. The woman in question just would not take no for an answer. She became obsessed with him. That was when his student led him to the Come to Jesus moment.
That moment of weakness, of desperation, was when it all started to go south—and now he was helpless to stop it. To be frank, he was a little afraid of his Best Student. And the worst thing? His Best Student knew everything. He knew where the bodies were buried, because he buried them.
It shouldn’t be like this. He needed to get rid of Jacky. But would his Best Student defy him? Jacky was like a box of TNT. So far, he’d been handled well, but he had no idea when the guy could blow. Despite his native preternatural intelligence, he was a brute. Darnell knew he’d have a talk with him, see if they could work this out. He knew it was dangerous. He knew that Jacky liked their arrangement—
In fact, he gloried in it.
Darnell vowed to find a way to keep these women from harm. He’d seriously have to man up and have a Come to Jesus moment with Jacky. But the problem was, his Best Student was part of the package. If Jacky didn’t agree, if he kept up his psychopathic ways, well, really, what could he do about it?
Ladies Man (Laura Cardinal Series Book 6) Page 6