Dead Girls

by Russ Trautwig

  There were currently over 80,000 names on their missing persons files. Of those, 41% were under the age of 18 and another 11% were between 18 and 20. Every year over a half million names got added to the list, the vast majority of which were cleared rather quickly: either law enforcement located them, they returned home, or they were entered in error. It was the ones that did not get removed, that her company was concerned with and out of all of those, her job narrowed that list to twenty-seven. In the last two weeks, she had gotten two tips that radically affected her strategy and tactics, and moved her from the lab to the field. The first was the positive ID of remains from the longest missing girl on her list, the first such ID of any of the twenty-seven outside the initial bone bed. The second tip had come from a retiring Wisconsin State Trooper, and it led to the break that she was following now.

  She was heading to speak with one of the people whose name appeared on the list of those stopped at a police roadblock, following the disappearance of Jenny Walker and Amy Reed back in 1989. The second time she read through the list, she realized the name Jimmy Vale sounded familiar. At first, she thought the familiarity was perhaps, solely because he had a famous name, one he shared with a rock star. But that was not the connection her brain had unconsciously made. When she went back and checked her records, she found that one of the girls, Karen Barr, an SMU Freshman, had gone to a Jimmy Vale concert eleven years ago and was never seen again.

  That was two Jimmy Vale references. Coincidence? Perhaps, maybe even probably, but one that needed a closer look. Jimmy’s eighteen-year-old companion on that trip had been a schoolmate named Christopher Carter. That boy was now an ex-felon with a last known address in Queens, New York. She wanted really badly to talk to that guy, before going to visit Vale.

  She had explained all of this to Mark and aside from an occasional whistle or exclamation of shock from him, he had not said a word. “So, here’s what I need from you. I want to know everything about this guy. I know he’s one of the most famous bachelors in the world, but I want to know who he’s dated and when. I want his concert schedule for the last ten years. I want to know about his family, his hometown and where he lives now, how many houses he has and what his favorite food is, everything. Got it?”

  There was another whistle from the other side of the line. “You are not seriously telling me that you think Jimmy Vale is a serial killer, are you? I’ve got a dozen songs of his on my iTunes playlists.”

  “No, I’m not saying that, not at all,” she said, I am thinking it though, she said to herself. “I’m just saying that coincidences are a cop’s best friend and we need to press on this one, like a festering sore, just to see if anything oozes out. Okay?”

  “Hey, you are the genius man, so I’m not going to pretend that I don’t respect your hunches. Is this front burner or back burner stuff? Do you need me to stop what I’m doing and jump on this tomorrow?”

  “It is most definitely front burner and tomorrow’s way too late. I need you to start on this right now and work through the night if you have to. I need to know as much as you can find out for me by the time I wake up tomorrow. I’m hunting down a friend of his in New York, tomorrow, and the more I know about Jimmy Vale when I find this guy, the better off I’ll be.”

  “Well, I guess one of us will be sleeping then. You got it, you know I’ll find it if it’s out there.”

  “I know, I’d jump online too if I could but I’m gonna be in the car the next ten hours or so,” the special agent answered.

  When she hung up the phone, the Lumineers came on to serenade her with “Ophelia.” Thoughts about the man she was going to see were pin-balling through her mind. She had used Quantico for the contact info and was thinking she should have used Dave. There was just so much sketchy info about this Carter guy that there had to be some fault with the research or the researcher.

  According to the email she had read this morning, the guy was a high-profile Wall Street Exec who got busted in some trading scam after he had lost his wife in a car accident. His address was unknown, but he had gotten out of jail a few years back. Carter had current bank accounts with activity and the address on those was the same as his brother. He guessed they shared an apartment. The biggest discrepancy came from the lack of public information; he had a license but no car, no home, no tax returns, no job, no parole record, no nothing. And yet, the bank activity was something, he must be working off the books somewhere.

  It was late afternoon as she crossed the border into Pennsylvania and she began to think she needed to stop for a bite when her phone rang: It was the AED. She answered by pressing the open phone button for the Bluetooth connection.

  “Good Evening Jack, I just entered the never-ending state of Pennsylvania. Should be at the hotel in Queens around eleven tonight, if the bridges are behaving,” she said. “You just checking up on me?” Kimberly was the anti-bureaucrat, she had not sent her boss any updates since the prelim from Madison.

  There was a long pause on the other end before her boss spoke, one that Kimberly knew would not lead anywhere good. “Hey Kim, we might have another name for your list, up to you if you want to add it or not. I’ll make that your call. It’s an open case now, and I have no intention of closing it anytime soon, but the girl fits your profile, all the same.”

  “Thanks, Jack, assuming you’ve already sent me all the pertinent info?” Kimberly asked.

  “Yep: Full file on your confidential email, encrypted. Be careful in New York and if at any point you feel the least bit threatened, you back out. I have lots of friends in NYPD, so I’ll get you as much cover as you need. They owe me,” the EAD said.

  “I don’t think I wanna know. Thanks, Jack, I’ll be careful. Don’t expect much trouble here though.” She hung up.

  Pennsylvania eventually gave way to New Jersey as she drove through the Delaware Water Gap just before eight o’clock, eating the roast beef hoagie she had picked up at the Wawa in East Stroudsburg. The setting sun was golden on the mountain tops and the rind of a moon had just peeked above the horizon straight ahead. Down on the river, there were two red canoes paddling swiftly toward Kittatinny Point, racing the darkness. There were a great many eighteen wheelers on the road tonight and their slow navigation of this portion of the interstate created a backup that slowed her progress. She would have to speed up in The Garden State to get back on schedule.

  She kicked the cruise control up to eighty-two and prayed the State Troopers would cut her some slack if she got pulled over. Her worry was needless, and she rolled up to the tolls of the George Washington Bridge fifty minutes later. The view from the midpoint was one of her favorites and on this clear night the lights of Manhattan, to her right, were brilliant and enticing. She loved New York, it thrived, pulsing with so much energy, the beat of its heart was strong and vibrant. This city had a magic and a mystery and there was nothing you couldn’t find there. She felt a strong pull to Manhattan as she came off the bridge and almost willed the car to get on the FDR Drive and head south, to its core, to its excitement and its thrills. Instead, the car followed the GPS straight ahead onto the Cross Bronx and then over the Throgs Neck into Queens and her hotel.

  The window from the 10th floor of her room at the La Guardia Airport Marriott looked out over the highway and the runways beyond. It was mostly quiet now, with just an occasional plane arriving. The long line of taxiing aircraft waiting for the nod from the tower that they were next in line was gone. In the morning, the take-offs and landings would begin again with the new day and she would start to test this theory and see if there was anything there.

  She stripped and jumped into the shower, needing the hard water to force the road from her stiff and achy body. She would go for a nice long run in the morning, she needed that. She toweled off and did not bother with clothes, sitting naked on the bed with her laptop positioned atop her outstretched legs, she tucked her hair back behind both ears and went to work. When she logged on she went straight to her emails, there were two sp
ecifically that she wanted, no, needed. They were the reason she had not gone down the FDR Drive. In the first, she read about Emily Rovey, the young girl who had gone missing ten days ago. She had disappeared from Los Angeles without a trace, she just didn’t show up at work and never went back to her apartment. All her belongings were there. As usual, there were no witnesses, no one saw a thing. She looked at the pictures there and saw a beautiful girl whom she suspected would never be heard from again. She read the recap of her social media presence. The world would miss this bright light. Kimberly decided to add Miss Rovey to her list, California became the first state with three disappearances.

  Next, she opened the email from Mark and what was there, was beyond even her wildest expectation. There were dotted lines going from Jimmy Vale all across her crime scenes. It was page after page of research that was overwhelming in its content. She read like thirsty people drank. She would be up all night, Mark had done well.

  Chapter XI

  Jimmy was singing in the shower, not one of his mega-hits, but a song from his youth, a ditty from a long time ago whose tune and words still resided somewhere in the recesses of his brain, filed away and waiting for him to pull them out when the need arose. He probably had not even thought of this song for years, maybe he had heard it on the radio somewhere recently causing it to surface subconsciously, maybe it just fit his mood.

  “Welcome to the jungle we take it day by day.

  If you want it, you’re gonna bleed but it’s the price you pay.

  And you’re a very sexy girl very hard to please.

  You can taste the bright lights, but you won’t get there for free,”

  He sang loudly, at the top of his range, giving it his best Axl Rose impression. He stepped out and without toweling, draped the hotel’s plush white terry robe around himself, untied. Jimmy looked in the steamed mirror and liked what he saw. His blond curls had those ‘just came off the beach’ highlights and not a trace of gray could be seen anywhere. His smooth body exhibited none of the misplaced stray hairs that had troubled him just two weeks ago. The belly that he thought was beginning to show some middle age flab had been transformed to rock-hard, six-pack abs, and all the laugh lines on his face had melted back to wherever it is they had come from; all this without a plastic surgeon, a diet or even a single trip to the gym. The beginning of an erection stirred as he looked at himself. Life was back to normal, life was good.

  He found the remote and turned the TV on, thinking he would enjoy a little porn right about now. Just as he settled back into his comfortable, pillow-laden bed, there was a knock on his door. It was a soft tentative knock at first, like a girl scout selling cookies, (a guy could dream, right?), but was immediately followed by a much stronger, police at the door kind of knock, it was as though two completely different people had come calling at the same time. “What the fuck…” he said aloud. He glanced at the clock on the nightstand, 8:14 AM.

  Jimmy stood and tied his robe, then walked to the door and looked through the peephole. Standing in the hallway was a middle-aged man in a red do-rag with a mountain man beard. “What the fuck,” he repeated. Thinking it was some crazy fan, he watched the man a moment through the viewer. He appeared nervous, like a junkie. His hands were stuffed so deep into the pockets of his cargo shorts that parts of his forearms were hidden from view. The man looked around searchingly, back toward the elevator, then down at his feet, then back to the elevator. As crazy as it was, the old coot looked familiar to Jimmy from somewhere. The man turned and knocked again, a metered staccato repetition, hard and loud. It made Jimmy jump.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he said, “What do you want?” He continued looking out the viewer. The man returned his gaze through the hole and for a moment, Jimmy thought he was looking right at him, even though he knew the lens only worked one way.

  “Jimmy?” The man said questioningly. “Jimmy Vale, is that you?”

  Something in that voice, the way he said his name, the Queens accent. “Who’s asking?”

  “It’s Chris, Jimmy, Chris Carter.”

  Aaron Judge swung his Louisville Slugger with all his might, and it connected in Jimmy’s gut, or that’s how it felt. The wind was knocked out of him, he turned his back on the door and then collapsed back against it. He couldn’t breathe. He turned around again so quickly that he was dizzy for a moment and looked back out the peephole. Holy fuck, it is Chris. He had not seen his old friend in twenty years, maybe more. “Chris? Is that really you?” he asked, knowing full well that it was.

  Jimmy watched the face as recognition that this really was the hotel room of Jimmy became clear, a great sigh escaped the man’s mouth like he had been holding his breath. His old friend’s jittery animation was replaced with a contented calm. “Let me in Jimmy,” he said, in a voice that sounded weary and tired.

  That was not lost on Jimmy and his old friend’s obvious fatigue, made him relax a little, there was a vulnerability there that he liked. He reached for the doorknob, turned it, and pulled it in, saying, “Sure buddy, hang on.”

  * * * * *

  When the door opened, Chris and Jimmy stood face to face for the first time since Jimmy had dropped Chris home after their trip in 1989. There had been a few phone conversations, but they had not seen each other ever again. Chris looked at Jimmy’s face and the smile there was an awkward one, it was only on his mouth, there was no smile in his eyes. Chris tried a smile on himself, but it didn’t fit, it fell right off. “Hi Jimmy,” he said, looking at his old friend with a curiosity, a disbelief and yet a certainty that what he had suspected, he now knew. The two looked like they had spent the last twenty years on different planets, planets on which time passed in non-relative ways.

  “Hello Chris, long time, how’ve you been?” he said. It was a wholly inadequate greeting for this one person on the planet with whom he shared a singularly mind-altering and life-altering, experience. “You look like shit, man.”

  “Gee thanks, you look like Dorian Gray. Where’s the painting?” Chris watched Jimmy close the door, uncomfortably avoiding the questions, avoiding his eyes. He glanced around at the ridiculously ostentatious suite. “Looks like you’re doing pretty good, huh?”

  “Yeah man, things are really good, can’t lie. Can I get you a drink or something? It’s five o’clock somewhere, like they say, ya know?” Jimmy asked, walking towards the wet bar. He poured himself a Patron on the rocks and looked back at Jimmy, waiting for his response.

  “Sure,” he said, even though in his mind he had said no. “Whiskey if you have it.”

  “Rocks?”

  “Neat please.”

  Jimmy poured a few inches of Jameson into a highball glass and passed it to Chris. “So, what the fuck man, what are you doing here?” He walked over to the window that looked down on Fifth Avenue and Central Park. One could actually see the zoo from here, the view from the Sherry-Netherland was spectacular.

  “Nice to see you too, Jimmy,” Chris said before downing the whiskey in one long swallow. “Okay, guess we’re gonna skip the bullshit and jump into it. When was the last time you saw the Wendigo? He’s done all this for you, hasn’t he?”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Jimmy asked, finally turning and meeting Chris’s eyes.

  “A Wendigo, Father Flynn…your dad.”

  “Man, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Who? What’s a…what did you call it? A Wendingo?”

  “What about Jenny Walker? Amy Reed? Know what I’m talking about now? The fucking Cleaner, Jimmy. Your boss.”

  “Man, you are just fried dude, too much drugs or something bro. That’s been a hard day to bury but, it is buried. I haven’t had anything to do with them since that day. Have you?”

  “Jimmy, you and I know what the deal is, you can pretend it isn’t happening, but I crossed him, and he destroyed me, destroyed my family. He killed my wife, Jimmy. You’re doing his bidding, aren’t you? Just what exactly are you doing for him?”

  “Time to go, Chris, befo
re you say something I can’t forgive you for,” Jimmy said in a tone that really said, “get out you crazy fuck.” Chris didn’t move and didn’t take his eyes off Jimmy measuring him, testing him. Jimmy walked away from the window, and settled down on the plush couch that was across from his bed. He sat there with his legs crossed, trying to look hard and resolute but looking quite silly in his bathrobe when he sank deep down in the cushion.

  “I’m going after it Jimmy, I’m gonna kill the fucker.” Chris moved, so he was now standing directly in front of Jimmy, towering over him and glaring down, hoping the disgust on his face was clear. “I was hoping you’d come along but I guess I knew you were so far under his thumb you couldn’t move unless he pulled the string. I just hope now that you don’t tip him off. You won’t, right?” He was edging closer and closer to Jimmy. Their feet were an inch apart.

  “You’re out of your fucking mind Chris, just get out.” He pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his robe. “I’m calling 911, I’ll give you a ten-minute head start. Go crawl back into the sewer you came out of, I don’t think they’ll follow you there.”