Sarah dialed the phone number. A woman answered who told Sarah in an annoyed tone that Frank was at work, not at home, but she did give her his cell phone number. Sarah called the cell’s number. A man answered, “Hello?” he said loudly. She could hear a lot of traffic noise and sounds of machinery.
“Is this Mr. Quillen?”
“You’ll have to speak up, can’t hear you.”
Louder, “Is this Mr. Quillen?”
“Yes, hang on a minute.” Sarah could hear sounds of walking, as though on rocks, then steps, followed by the background sound being dampened to a manageable level. “Yes, this is Frank Quillen. Who’s calling?”
“Hello, Mr. Quillen, my name is Sarah Vines, I’m a detective with the Russellville Police Department, in Logan County, Kentucky.”
“Oh, my gosh, ok, what do you need with me?”
“I am hoping you can give me a little insight into the circumstances of a vehicle you once owned and last registered in 1997, a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba?”
There was silence on the other end, then, “Oh man, I forgot about that old car.” He laughed, “What the heck is up with that?” He stopped laughing, “Am I in trouble for leaving it there?”
“No, not at all, Mr. Quillen. But what I do need, if you can, is for you to give me an idea of your history with the car, how long you have been in California, and why the car was last registered in your name and is still here in Kentucky when you aren’t.”
“Alright. Let me see.” He exhaled slowly into the phone, “I’m originally from Elkton. I was eighteen years old when I got that car. It was right after I graduated high school, 1996, and I got my first job, for Lawson’s Construction. I wanted to get my own house and car. I couldn’t buy a house or a new car. I found a house to rent, on the south side. There were still residents in the house who had until the end of the month to move out. The landlord had that old car in a carport out behind the house and I saw it when I looked at the house. I asked about it because I was in the market for a car. The agent said he would check with the owner to see if he wanted to sell it. He did and I bought it from him for almost nothing.”
“Ok, you bought the car when you still lived on Tulip Street, is that right? Was that your parents’ house?”
“Yeah. I registered the car to that address because I did still live there at the time; I was waiting for the current tenants to move out. It was near the end of the registration year for 1996, so I registered it for the additional couple of months, through 1997. I never changed the address. By the time I needed to register it again I knew I was moving out here. I always wanted to live in California and had been hired at a construction company out here. I still work for them, I’m a Foreman now.”
“I’m glad to hear you have done well in California. You didn’t want to take the car with you?”
Frank laughed, “No, I was afraid it might not make it for one thing. It was 22 years old by then, older than me. And…I didn’t have enough money to feed it gas every three or four hours all the way out here. It’s a guzzler. I guess I shouldn’t have just left it there, but I had a lot to do, what with packing, trying to find a place to live, and then moving. I knew I wouldn’t get much for it if I sold it and I didn’t have time to do that anyway, so I just parked it back in the carport and left it there, then I forgot all about it.”
Sarah then realized that when she made the request for registration information on the Chrysler, she hadn’t asked for information regarding previous owners. “You said the car had belonged to your landlord at the time, what was your landlord’s name?”
“Oh, what was it?” he asked himself. “It’s been a long time. It was Joe something, I can’t remember his last name. I never met him, he did everything through a rental agency. He didn’t live in Kentucky.”
Sarah felt the blood draining from her face. “Mr. Quillen, was your landlord’s name Joe Blackwell, by any chance?”
“That’s it! Yes, Blackwell. Now I remember. He lived in Kansas…no, it was Oklahoma. Some city in Oklahoma.”
“Mr. Quillen, this is important or I wouldn’t ask, can you remember the address of the house you rented? Or at least where it was located?”
“Sure, it was on Poplar, 619 Poplar.”
Sarah hung up the phone. Her ear ached from having the receiver jammed into it all afternoon. She had made a lot of progress. It made up for the complete lack of progress over the last week, but her adrenaline level was inching upward by the minute as the pieces began to fit together and she realized her problems, their problems, were not over.
She snatched up the phone to again call the Todd County Assessor’s office. She put in an urgent request for the deed or property ownership of 619 Poplar Street in Elkton, now and as far back as they could go, with instructions to call her on her cell phone as soon as the information was available. The reaction to her emergency request for property information late on a Friday afternoon was met with grudging verbal agreement which in no way promised actual results. Sarah definitely felt the prospect for a speedy result was pretty dismal. She called the Elkton PD and requested a little expediting assistance if possible. If what she thought was true was indeed true, she had to have something concrete to work with; acting on assumptions was never the best idea.
She then called the Guthrie police department again and asked to speak to the same detective she had spoken with earlier. When he came on the line, Sarah explained the developments of the afternoon and requested a photo of Joseph Blackwell as well as information on vehicles he owned. Detective Falls was amiable and promised to fax a photo as quickly as he could get one. It was 4:43 p.m. and that was really all Sarah could do at the moment.
She made a list of pending information in her phone to avoid shuffling through paperwork to find it. That was when she recalled that Perri had said she was returning to Russellville that day for the festival, which had started about an hour ago. Perri was in town and probably walking around downtown and elsewhere. She called Perri’s cell phone number, but the call went unanswered and Sarah was forwarded to voice mail.
Becoming more anxious than she had been, she scooped up her purse and phone. George Wilcox was manning the counter. Sarah barely slowed down as she went through the lobby and hurriedly told George that she was waiting on vital information either by phone or fax, or both, and asked him to forward calls to her cell phone, and if a fax came through to take a picture of it and send it to her phone. He nodded, “Ok, Sarah, sure, I sure will. But Sarah, do you need someone to go with you.” As Sarah darted out the door she said, “George, I’ll call you if I do, I’m not sure,” and ran to her car.
Chapter 34
The hotel parking lot was nearly full when Perri got there and she had to drive around twice to find a space to park the Cooper. She muttered to herself, “Gee, I’m glad I’m not going to be driving again tonight; I might not get a spot.”
She made sure she hadn’t left anything valuable visible in the car. Crowds of out-of-towners to a large event tended to be a recipe for car theft in packed parking lots. As she crossed the parking lot, she saw streams of people flowing toward the downtown square, laughing and talking, ready for a night of fun. She walked through the crowded lobby, people were everywhere: checking in, pushing and pulling luggage into the elevator, kids running around.
There was a rapidly lengthening line at the check in desk; the couple currently at the head of the line apparently had some problem with their reservation and were arguing with the flustered desk clerk. The lobby was so congested that Perri had to sidestep and weave her way through. The elevators were on the opposite side of a throng of people standing in groups, talking, yelling at their kids, ‘I think I’ll take the stairs,’ she decided.
It took Perri a minute to find the stairway door between a soft drink machine and a table displaying pamphlets for nearby attractions and coupons for local businesses. She tugged open the door, pulling against the resisting hydraulic arm that would shut the door after her. Every stair was a nar
row slab of concrete seated in a metal framework that produced a brief metallic clang with each step she took. The stairway to the second floor was divided into two flights of stairs. As she reached for the handle to open the door on her floor, she could hear the door on the first floor open and close again followed by footfalls on the stairs. ‘I’m not the only one who wants to avoid the crowd’ she thought to herself.
The stairs were closer to her room than the elevator, but Perri was disoriented, having used the elevator when she checked in and she had to follow the signs to get to her room. The ice machine made a thumping noise as it dumped a new load of ice into the hopper when she passed the small room with vending machines, which was adjacent to her room. She marveled at the gaudy carpet. Hotels seemed to prefer these combinations of confetti-like geometric shapes in the most garish colors that were excellent at inducing vertigo while walking along a corridor. Once at her room, she had to insert the card key several times to get her door to open.
Perri closed the door with relief. She set her purse on the bed and pulled her phone out. There was a text she hadn’t heard. It was from Nick, ‘See you soon!’ with a smiley face emoji. “At least I’m not the only one who is goofy.” She smiled to herself as she set the phone on the dresser, next to the television, and opened her duffel bag on the luggage rack. She pulled out her zippered bag of shampoo, lotion, and other toiletries, tucked her hair dryer and curling iron under her arms, took the clothes for that night from the hangar she had hung them on when she checked in, and went into the bathroom to get ready.
The bath towels were a little rough and somewhat smaller than regular towels. Perri sniffed the towels. They smelled clean, but with the same kind of scent hospital linens had; a no-nonsense industrial detergent smell, nothing pretty or pleasant about it. She opened two of the towels, one for her hair and one to dry off with and laid them on the sink counter. She turned on the water and undressed while it warmed up. When it was steaming, she pushed the button in to send the water through the shower head. The curtain rod was curved, to keep the shower curtain from getting in the way, which she was glad of. She didn’t like the thought of it touching her skin after touching who knew how many other people’s skin.
She stood under the shower for a while just enjoying the hot water on the back of her neck, then stuck her head under the stream to wet her hair and shampoo first. Perri heard a thump and peeked out of the shower. The door was still closed and she saw nothing. ‘With as many people as are here now, it was probably that ice machine again since it was against the shared wall of her room and the vending room.’ She lathered up her hair with the bar of solid shampoo she had ordered and recently received in the mail. She loved this stuff and looked forward to using it.
***
Once in her car, Sarah tried Perri’s phone again and still got voicemail. Sarah didn’t know of any way Perri would be known to be helping with the research, but she couldn’t be sure of it, and that is exactly what it seemed to Sarah had gotten Amy killed. She was trying to decide what her next move should be when her text message ring tone sounded. She pulled her phone out.
The text was from George and included two images from the Guthrie PD. The first image was of what looked like a glossy poster or sign. It announced the recipient of the local Business of the Year for the Guthrie Chamber of Commerce in 2013. The award had been given to Blackwell Oil & Synthetics. Pictured on the poster was a woman in a business suit presenting an abstract lump of acrylic mounted on a plaque to two men who were identified as Joseph Blackwell, CEO, and his son Jason Blackwell, Executive Vice President. The photograph wasn’t great, but it did fully show their faces.
Joseph was a man who did appear to be in his mid-sixties, hair graying but the original blond color was clearly discernible. He appeared to be tall, he was taller than his son, and was slender and pale, almost a little gaunt. Sarah wondered if his health had not been good even in 2013.
His son, Jason, was slightly shorter than his father, not overweight but with a stockier build. His hair was sandy blond and curly. In an obviously posed, awkward stance, his father was smiling and holding the award with one hand while shaking the woman’s hand with the other as they spoke. Jason was standing just behind his father and assertively smiling directly into the camera.
Sarah swiped the screen of her phone to the next image. It was a photo of a typed sheet of paper, clearly lying on the station counter when George snapped the picture. The lettering was quite small, so she expanded her view of it. It was a listing of the owners of 619 Tulip Avenue in Elkton, KY. There was no heading or salutation on the paper and it contained quite a few typos, indicating it had been hastily produced, but that didn’t matter as long as it was readable. Sarah talked to herself, ‘Not the time to be a spelling Nazi.’
Sarah scanned through the deed information. It wasn’t hard because the last names were all the same, all the way back to the early 20th century. The house at 619 Tulip Avenue had initially belonged to Judith Blackwell, Jonathan’s mother. Judith’s house had been transferred to the ownership of Jonathan Blackwell in 1902 and had remained as such until 1929, when it passed to Edward. Ownership of the house followed the lineage through Edward and Nathaniel, down to Joseph, the current owner.
Sarah’s anxiety instantly multiplied. When she called Perri’s phone again and there was still no answer, she got back out of the car and headed toward the Arrogant Rogue. Perri had said she was going to the festival with Nick. Since she was yards away from it, she’d check for them in the tavern first. She hoped against hope they weren’t already milling around in the hordes of people downtown. Although, that might be why Perri didn’t answer, either she couldn’t hear the phone or had turned it off.
Chapter 35
Perri was just about finished luxuriating in the shower when she thought she heard her phone. She realized she had left the phone on the dresser. She was suddenly afraid it was Nick calling to say he was on the way and here she was in the shower. The light shining into the shower dimmed briefly, not more than a flicker. She turned her head and saw the top of the door, now visible over the shower rod, closing. Adrenaline shot through her body making her heart pound and her breath catch. The curtain was a coffee brown color, so she couldn’t see through it. Facing the curtain, Perri stood stock still and listened. Surely Nick wouldn’t have come on into her room and he didn’t have a key. And even so, he wouldn’t have barged into the bathroom. She couldn’t hear anything but the water and the rushing of blood through her ears. She realized she was breathing through her mouth, water running in at the corners then dribbling back out down her chin. She closed it.
In a sudden burst of movement, the shower curtain hurtled into Perri. She could feel arms closing in around her through the wet plastic. She struggled against the gripping embrace as the curtain was wrenched away from the rod. The attacker pushed her against the tiled wall at her back and pinned her arms at her sides. Her feet were slipping on the bottom of the tub. Now loose, the top of the shower curtain collapsed and folded over her head.
Perri tried to think of the best response, but the attacker was pulling her downward and her feet were almost against the side wall of the tub in her struggle to remain upright. She tried to grab the plastic of the shower curtain between her thumbs and forefingers in an attempt to pull it down, to see her attacker and hopefully get out of the plastic bag she was now in. That was hopeless. The curtain didn’t budge with the little amount of grip she could get.
Without warning, the attacker’s head rammed into her face. Sharp pain shot upward from her nose and into her skull, her eyes watered and she pinched them shut. In that moment of distraction, the attacker overlapped the sides of the curtain around her back, fully enveloping her. She lost her footing and went down sideways, her head smacking the knob of the faucet as she fell. The curtain served as some cushion, but it was still extremely painful since her ear was the main point of contact. Panic started to win the struggle and she began kicking wildly, as much as
was possible with the curtain tangled up in her legs. The man, it had to be a man, climbed in and sat on her abdomen, pinning her arms down at her sides to the bottom of the tub with his knees.
Perri took a huge breath and launched into what she hoped was a far-ranging blood-curdling scream, but it was cut off by an object being shoved into the opening of her mouth from the other side of the curtain. She gagged, but the hand held the object in place. She heard the shower head being shut off and in the next second, the water came from the faucet which was directly over her forehead; she could feel the water hitting the curtain full force. The next sound she heard was the tub stopper. Perri was engulfed with the hot, horrifying realization that he was going to fill the tub.
***
Sarah pushed through the door of the Arrogant Rogue without apology for pushing aside several patrons trying to leave. Andrea was the bartender behind the bar and was emptying a large plastic bucket of ice into a hopper.
“Andrea, where is Nick? Has he left?”
“Hi, Sarah.”
“Has he left? Is Nick still here??” Sarah’s voice rose.
“No, he’s in the back. He finished his shift and went to the back to clock out.”
“I need to talk to him right now, this instant,” Sarah headed toward the employee door.
“Sure, go on back…” but Sarah was already through the door behind the bar. The back of the tavern was a warren of small rooms: kitchen, bathroom, employee area, store rooms, closets. Sarah didn’t see Nick. She poked her head in every room and called his name. The cook looked at her with surprise. Sarah was headed back toward the bar area when she noticed the rear exit. “Crap.” She ran through the door. Nick had backed out of his parking space and was shifting to drive forward out of the small parking area behind the building. Sarah ran in front of the car.
“Nick, stop, stop.” She was out of breath, more from fear than exertion.
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