The OC

by D P Lyle

  CHAPTER 35

  I CHECKED MY watch. Still fifteen minutes before Richard McCluskey, the station manager in Henderson, would conclude his meeting. While we waited, Pancake tracked down the number for Detective Roberto Gomez in Salt Lake City and called.

  Once Gomez was on the line, Pancake told him who was present on the call and explained who we were and what we were doing.

  “You’re thinking the guy here might be the guy there?” Gomez asked.

  “Not sure,” Ray said. “Right now, we’re scrambling.”

  “I hear you. For your sake, I hope it isn’t. But for my sake, I hope it is. This is the one that got away. Still eats at me.”

  “I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Anything you can tell us might help.”

  “I suspect you already know she had picked up a stalker. She never made contact with us about it, but her boss said she was planning to. Too bad she didn’t. Anyway, she was abducted from a mall not far from where I’m sitting right now. Disappeared without a trace. Until an older couple saw something on the side of the road literally out in the middle of nowhere. They stopped to see and found her. That was two days later.”

  “I understand she was strangled,” I said.

  “That’s true. He did other things, too. During those two days, she’d been bound and tortured.”

  Nicole stiffened. I reached over and grabbed her hand.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “She had bruising and abrasions of her wrists and ankles, indicating that she’d been bound. Based on the nature of the bruises, I suspect with ropes. She was tased. Multiple times. She showed evidence of burns over her chest, back, legs. Looked like they were from cigarettes.”

  Nicole’s palms were now cold and damp. Mine too.

  “As bad as that was, it seemed as though she was struck with some instrument. Likely a ball-peen hammer. Broken fingers and toes, one arm, lower leg.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Sure enough. To make all that worse, the coroner said all these wounds, the hammer blows and the burns, were inflicted over a couple of days.”

  I couldn’t get my head around this. It was too much. I thought Billy Wayne Baker was a bad dude. I mean, he was a quiet, soft-spoken guy, but he did rape and murder women. But this guy? He made Billy Wayne look like a wussy.

  Gomez wasn’t finished. “He also repeatedly strangled her over the two days she was captive.”

  “The bruise patterns?” Ray asked.

  “Exactly. The ME said it appeared that the ligature marks were of varying age. Like she was choked out over and over.” He sighed. “The coroner ultimately signed out the cause of death as ligature strangulation but he couldn’t be completely sure. When she was found, she had a plastic bag over her head, secured at the neck with duct tape.” He sighed. “Don’t know where these guys come from, but they aren’t part of my humanity.”

  I flashed on something I’d read, many years ago about the BTK killer. Dennis Rader. BTK stood for his methods: bind, torture, kill. What I remembered was that he would do this. Strangle, or use a plastic bag, to render his victims unconscious then let them revive only to do it all again. Sometimes for hours. It seemed that Dana Roderick had gone through this and more for days.

  “I’ve seen it before,” Ray said. “You’re right. These guys aren’t part of anyone’s humanity and shouldn’t be allowed to breathe.”

  “I like your thinking,” Gomez said.

  “Did your investigation uncover any leads?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately not. We looked into Dana Roderick’s life. Other than this stalker, we found nothing unusual. Very nice young lady. A good reporter and her coworkers loved her. Her boss, too.”

  “Yeah,” Pancake said. “We talked to him.”

  “Good guy. He was crushed. We looked at all her friends and coworkers and even a couple guys she had dated in the past. At the time of the murder she wasn’t involved with anyone. In the end, we found no one to implicate except this unknown stalker. Which of course was the obvious choice from the beginning. We tracked all the emails and texts she received. Over a nearly four-month period. They came from several burners. I think four different ones, if I remember correctly.”

  “Did you find out where they were purchased?” Pancake asked.

  “Sure did. A couple of months earlier in Denver. Small mom-and-pop shop with no security cameras. He paid cash.”

  Bingo. There it was. The connection. Cell phones from Denver.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “He purchased a dozen phones.”

  A hesitation, then Gomez said, “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “We have the same situation here,” Pancake said. “The phones he’s using, several of them, were from Denver. I spoke with the store owner. The buyer used the name Terry Zander.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Gomez said. “That’s exactly what we discovered. We couldn’t find any Terry Zander that fit this guy.”

  “I didn’t either,” Pancake said.

  “I’d say my guy has relocated to your area. I mean, what are the odds?”

  Exactly. The odds were incalculable.

  “Things are starting to smell that way,” Pancake said.

  “I hate those phones,” Gomez said. “No way to track them. Makes it more or less a dead end. Left us with only the crime scene to analyze. Our forensic team’s pretty good, but they found nothing. Not on, in, or near her car or at the dump site. Not a single print, or hair, or fiber, or anything. We analyzed the security videos from the mall and the parking deck. The mall cameras showed nothing unusual. We did find Dana going in and out of several stores. Seemed to be a normal shopping trip. She didn’t buy anything though. We saw no one following her or anything like that. But I doubt the guy came inside. More likely he waited in the deck. The parking structure had three entrance/exit ramps and each had a camera set up. We went through hours of video, looking for single males driving in or out in the several hours before and after she was seen on the mall cameras.”

  “Big job,” Pancake said.

  “It was. We identified eighty-something cars of interest. As I said, single males. We tracked them all down over the next few weeks but none were viable for this.”

  “Anything else we can use?” Ray asked.

  “That’s about it.” He hesitated. “I hope you have a line on him. I truly do. He needs to be found. Everything I saw told me Dana Roderick was a wonderful young lady and she suffered greatly before he killed her.”

  The weight of that settled over me. Nicole had a death grip on my hand. I glanced at her. She seemed paler than before. Was she thinking the same as me? That one of her stalkers could have been carved from the same mold?

  CHAPTER 36

  AFTER HANGING UP with Detective Gomez, Pancake and Ray began hammering away at their computers. Each making notes on the conversation. The grunt work of the P.I. world. Recording everything was an obsession for both of them and an important part of the job. One of the many reasons I actively avoided having anything to do with Ray’s business.

  Yet, once again, here I was in Ray’s domain. Memo to self—get better at tap dancing away.

  Nicole worked her iPhone and Pancake and Ray seemed to carry on with the click-click-clicking for an hour. More likely three minutes but too long for me to sit still. All I could do was play with the salt shaker. For a minute anyway. Nicole plucked it from my hand and placed it on the table out of reach, tossing me a scowl. Like I was acting up in class. It was a look I had garnered many times during my school years. I had to admire their concentration. All three of them. It seemed intense and unwavering.

  I never had that kind of focus. Not in school for sure. Not even on the mound when I pitched big-league ball. Deciding where to place a slider or a cutting fastball was a snap. That, for some unknown reason, came easy to me. Even in Little League. So, when the catcher went through all his hand and finger gyrations, indicating he wanted a breaking ball low on the outside corner, part of my brain recorded
that data, and I adjusted my grip, the seam location, and the arm angle I would use as well as the speed I’d cut loose that little packet of leather. Those calculations required no thinking or processing. It all seemed automatic. Which was good since my brain was usually elsewhere. Maybe I would think about next week’s travel to New York and my favorite watering holes in the city. Or about the vintage Mustang I had just purchased and that sat in my garage in Gulf Shores and how I wished I was in it motoring down the coast. Or maybe I would consider the blond beauty in the fourth row just left of home plate and try to figure out a way to meet her after the game. So, focus wasn’t my thing. But I did record a lot of strikeouts.

  Finally, thankfully, Ray and Pancake simultaneously closed their laptops. I had witnessed this before. It was as if their brains were wired together. Or more likely the Ray-virus had infected Pancake. They were in sync in a way that would create envy among the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.

  “Time to see if Mr. McCluskey is out of his meeting,” Pancake said.

  He dialed the number, and in less than a minute, had station manager Richard McCluskey on the line. Pancake once again went through who we were, made the introductions, and laid out the purpose of our call. He concluded with, “As part of our research we came across your situation. I guess Tiffany Cole’s predicament would be a better way to put it.”

  “You think it might be related to your case?” McCluskey asked.

  “We do. As well as another one in Salt Lake City.”

  “That young lady that was murdered up there? What? A year ago?”

  “That’s the one,” Pancake said. “She was also a TV reporter for a smaller station.”

  “That’s what caught my eye when I read about it. But I never thought it might have anything to do with Tiffany.”

  “It might not,” Ray said. “Tell us what happened there.”

  McCluskey ran through what was becoming a repetitive story. Started out as a fan with emails and texts and notes and benign gifts. Then after a couple of months escalated to more aggressive language. Beautiful roses became dead flowers. Other presents left at her door. Her home sprayed with foul graffiti. Car tires slashed.

  I looked at Nicole. She was no doubt thinking what I was. This was looking more and more like a pattern. Like the same guy was roaming around and creating havoc along the way. Not to mention had tortured and murdered a young woman.

  “Did she ever go to the police?” I asked.

  “No. I tried to convince her to do that, but she’d have none of it.”

  “Why?”

  “She told me that if she did, and if she angered him, he might do something.”

  She was right. Salt Lake City proved that. If this was the same guy.

  McCluskey continued. “I told her that the police might have arrested him. Then she would be safe.” He let out a long breath. “I remember even as I said that, that it sounded very naive. Tiffany told me so. She said they probably couldn’t even find him, and that even if they did, they wouldn’t do anything. Maybe a restraining order but her feeling was that those were worthless. Even if he was arrested, he’d get bond and she’d be out there on her own with him pissed off.”

  Hard to a argue with that. The guy hadn’t physically assaulted her, and other than some texts and emails, a little spray paint, and a couple of car tires, he hadn’t really done any damage. That’s not how I saw it, but that’s how the law would look at it. He did have rights, after all.

  Pancake hunched his shoulders forward and clenched both fists. I knew what he was thinking, and what he wanted. To be put in a small room with this dude so he could read him his rights. Something along the lines of: You have the right to broken ribs, a fractured jaw, and half your teeth in your lungs. You have the right to an ICU bed, a ventilator, and peeing blood for a month. You have the right to blunt-force trauma to your entire person. Pancake had a way about him.

  McCluskey went on. “So, instead, she left the area.”

  “What about a marriage proposal?” Nicole asked. “Did he send one of those?”

  McCluskey’s intake of breath was clearly audible. “Yes. It came with a dozen yellow roses. Don’t tell me this also happened in Salt Lake City?”

  “It did. Here too.”

  “What does that mean?” McCluskey asked.

  “That we just might be dealing with the same guy in all three cases,” Ray said. “Which means we need to find him.”

  “Of course. What can I do?”

  “We need to talk with Tiffany. She might remember something that could help.”

  “I doubt she’ll talk to you or anyone else. When she left she was terrified and wouldn’t give us even the merest clue what her plans were.”

  “Do you have any idea, even a guess, where she might be?” Pancake asked.

  A hesitation. “She wouldn’t tell anyone.” He sighed. “But she has a sister near here. Over in Summerlin. She might know.”

  “Do you have a number for her?”

  Another hesitation. “I’m reluctant to give it out.”

  “It might help,” Nicole said. “It might save my friend’s life.”

  “Tell you what, let me call her and see what she says. I’ll give her your number and she can call if she wishes.”

  “Okay,” Ray said. “Please let her know we’ll absolutely protect her sister’s privacy. That her sister just might have the key to taking this guy out of society.”

  CHAPTER 37

  THE MINUTES DRIPPED by. As my granddad used to say, “Like blackstrap molasses in winter.” Nicole sat at the kitchen table, flipping through pages on her iPad. Ray across from her, his laptop open, concentration on his face. Pancake rattled around the kitchen as if lost. Obviously trying to decide what to eat. He settled on the fridge, rummaged inside, and came away with a foil-covered plate of leftover ribs and hot links. I was surprised there were any given Pancake’s scorched-earth approach to food. He gnawed on a rib while bending over the sink. Nicole offered to heat it in the microwave to which Pancake responded, “Why?”

  “They taste better warm.”

  “Takes too long.”

  That was another thing about Pancake’s relationship to food. It was more a sprint than a marathon. Actually, it was both.

  I stepped out on the deck and used the railing to stretch out my back. Bending, twisting, none of it helped. I noticed Jimmy Fabrick’s boat slip sat empty. He was probably out on the water given it was another day made for sailing. Were there ever any days in The OC that weren’t? It seemed that every time Nicole and I were here the weather was perfect. I never saw a drop of rain. Sure, some early morning dampness and drizzle from the marine layer, but that rarely lasted past noon.

  By the time I stepped back inside, Pancake had cleaned the plate, licked and washed the excess sauce from his fingers, and dried them with a paper towel. His phone buzzed from the tabletop. He answered. Tiffany Cole’s sister.

  Pancake introduced himself and told her that he represented Longly Investigations. She responded that she was Sharon Wynter and that, yes, Tiffany was her sister. Pancake told her she was on speaker and then introduced each of us.

  “Thanks for calling,” Ray said.

  “I almost didn’t. I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

  Nicole jumped in. “I completely understand your hesitation. All we want to do is ask a few questions. I promise we will protect your sister.”

  Sharon said nothing for a beat, and then, “Mr. McCluskey was a little vague about all this. What’s this about?”

  “A friend of mine,” Nicole said, “here in Orange County, California, is in the same boat your sister was.”

  “You mean the same guy is there? Doing all this again?”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Ray said. “But based on our investigation, we think that your sister’s case, another one a year ago in Salt Lake City, and the situation we have here might all be related.”

  “What makes you think that?” Sharon asked.


  Ray explained the other cases, running through the stalker’s actions and how things escalated in a similar pattern in each. He ended with, “I assume your sister is now safe and moving on.”

  “I’m not sure how far she’s moved on. I have my doubts that she’ll ever get over it. Maybe someday, but right now it’s still too fresh to her. And safe? I’m not sure she’ll feel that way until the guy who harassed her is caught. Maybe not even then.”

  “Understandable,” I said. “These things do leave scars.”

  I thought of the baggage Nicole still carried around from her various stalkers.

  “Mr. McCluskey said you’re trying to reach my sister,” Sharon said. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”

  “Like Nicole said, we’ll protect her privacy,” Pancake said. “That’s an ironclad promise.”

  “I see.” She sighed. “I don’t want Tiffany to have to relive all this again. She’s still fragile. Probably more so than you could imagine.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Nicole said. “My friend, who like your sister is a local TV reporter, is in the middle of a similar situation right now. She’s scared and needs some help.” No response. “I have some personal experience with these guys so I know what she’s going through.”

  “How so?”

  “I grew up in the movie business. I was an actress for many years. I managed to attract several of these guys. A couple that were more than an annoyance.”

  “Any as bad as this?”

  “Let’s just say that I’ve had my space invaded. I’ve been threatened and scared shitless, so I know how this works. I know how terrifying it is to have someone following you, taking photos and videos, and threatening you.”

  “Would you want to relive all that? Have it all dragged to the surface again?”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Like your sister, I’d avoid doing it if I could. But the difference is that I knew who was stalking me. It helped the police make each of them evaporate. Mostly with restraining orders and the authorities offering the guys forceful explanations and making sure they understood the consequences of continuing along their chosen paths. I even got one of them considerable jail time.”