by Trace Conger
"I hope you don't run into problems. Trouble with the government and all. They put those boys in hiding and I suspect they'll want to keep them there."
I cracked a smile. "Nell, I'm pretty much expecting trouble." I reached into my pocket and handed her a business card. "If you think of anything else that would be helpful could you give me a call?"
"Sure." She studied the card. "Like I said, don't expect much from me, but I'll see what I can do."
I thanked her and walked across the front porch. She waited for me to get into my car before she closed the door.
Nine
IN MY CAR I FLIPPED through the red folder Nell gave me. At first glance the articles looked like the ones I'd found while researching the case. I would study them closer when I had more time. Now I was more interested in what Daniel Schuster might have to tell me about Vance and Turner. Since he was on the inside with them he might be able to tell me something about their life and habits at Pleasant Hill. Something they might have continued on the outside.
I called Daniel and told him I had spoken with Nell and hoped to meet him in person to learn more about his interactions with Vance and Turner. I kept up the author backstory since most people love to talk to authors, and I hoped Daniel was no different. He agreed to see me at his place. I punched his address into my GPS and twenty minutes later I pulled through the gates of his neighborhood.
He lived in a retirement community, but it wasn't one of those typical old-folks communities. In this neighborhood each resident had a two-bedroom unit, a single-car garage and a small, neatly manicured lawn that was probably managed by a landscaping company. Each bungalow was a different color, each brighter than the last. Lots of yellows, blues and oranges. It reminded me of the beach homes I've seen in the Bahamas and those afternoon television commercials for retirement communities in Florida, minus the golf courses and swimming pools. I'd made a mental note of those places should Albert become intolerable.
Daniel Schuster met me on the front porch of his bright blue bungalow. He looked as though he'd been waiting for me, as if he wanted to be outside when I arrived. Daniel looked to be in his seventies. He wore a thick jacket that was too heavy for the brisk November weather and he smelled like the barbershop Albert took me to as a kid.
"Mr. Schuster?" I said, hoping he would tell me to call him Dan. He didn't.
"That's right. You the writer that called?"
"Yessir. Roger Mathers." I reached out my hand. "Nell suggested I chat with you."
He shook it without standing up from his porch chair. "You can drop the sir. You don't work for me." He sized me up. "You spoke with Nell, huh? She don't put up with much shit. So if she told you to call me I guess you're okay." He looked at the notebook in my hand. "A writer, huh? What you write'n?"
"I'm researching a book on Jacob Vance and Ray Turner. And the Josh Baker murder."
He nodded. "Well I don't know how I can help you with that. That was a long time ago."
"Nell said you worked at Pleasant Hill when Vance and Turner were there. That you were a guard."
"Patient advisor," he said. "They called us patient advisors not guards, even though that's what we were."
"Do you remember interacting with them?"
"Yeah. Saw them both."
"What were they like?"
"Just like everyone else there I guess. Didn't come off as cold-blooded killers. Kept to themselves mostly. Pretty quiet kids. Stuck to the rules and blended in. Not much trouble that I remember."
"Did they see each other on the inside?"
"No. They were on separate floors and weren't allowed to move about much. I worked all the floors though. All us guards rotated each day. That's how I got to know them both. What kind of information you looking for?"
He motioned to a second porch chair and I sat down and leaned forward, my notepad on my knee.
"The guards, you guys talk at all? Maybe hear something about where Vance and Turner went once they got out?"
"You asking if I know where they are?"
"Yeah. I want to talk to them about the case. Now that so much time has gone by, I want to give them the chance to tell their story."
"Shit, son. Those boys are long gone. The bureaucrats saw to that."
"Anything you can tell me to help locate them?"
"That's a fool's errand. If I hear it right, they ain't the type of people you find."
"How's that?"
He searched his jacket pocket for something but gave up. "They got protection. Disappeared." He adjusted his porch chair and leaned back. "You know they only did eight years for that murder? And not a minute of it in prison. That's what really bothers me. They didn't spend a single day in prison. Did their entire time at Pleasant Hill. It's no country club, but it ain't no jail neither. They probably lived better than half of West Virginia. Meals cooked for them, got to watch television whenever they wanted, education classes. How's that punishment? Christ, one of 'em even had a girlfriend."
My eyes narrowed. I snatched my pad from my lap and clicked open my pen. "What do you mean a girlfriend?"
"Turner. I think it was Turner." He paused. "Yeah, it was Turner. He had a girlfriend. Kim something. I can't remember her last name."
I wrote her name on my pad. "This girlfriend, she come to visit him while he was inside?"
"No, she was a patient there too. She was older than him by a year or two. Pleasant Hill was a coed facility, but the patients were segregated by floor. She wasn't supposed to be up on our floor, but she got up there anyway. If I saw her I'd send her packing, but some of the other guards, they let her be. She'd flash them her titties and they'd look the other way. I never asked her to do that."
"And you don't remember her last name? Just Kim."
He thought again. "Sorry. All I can remember is Kim."
"Was it serious? Their relationship?"
"I don't know. They were around each other a lot. I mean as much as they could be with us guards and all. I probably saw them together once a week. We all knew they were messing around. I guess no one cared. Like I said, I'd tell her to get lost, but I wasn't always around."
"When was this? How old was Turner?"
"Probably sixteen. Think they were still seeing each other when they let him out at eighteen. She was still there for a few months after he got out."
"What about Vance? He have a girlfriend too?"
Daniel shook his head and grimaced like he didn't want to talk to me anymore. "Not that I recall. I do remember his parents came to visit a lot though. Not every day, but a few times a week. They always brought him cupcakes. I remember that. It seemed like they were really close. I know if I did what he did my parents would have whipped and disowned me, not brought me cupcakes."
"Who came to see him? His mother or father? Or both?"
"Mostly his mother. She was there a lot. I'm sure his father came too, but not as often as his mother. She was there enough that I thought it was strange."
"Why was it strange?"
"With most of those kids, when they first came in their parents would come once a week. Then it tapered to once every two weeks and sometimes once a month, but she came all the time. It never dwindled."
"What about Turner's parents? They come to visit?"
"I'm sure they did, but it wasn't a regular thing. Not like Vance. You might be able to look at the logbooks at Pleasant Hill and see how often they came by. I know it was a lot for Vance."
"Anything else you can tell me that might help me find Vance or Turner? Anything, even something small that might push me in the right direction?"
"I'm sorry, son. You got to understand it was a long time ago and I think everyone in this town wanted to forget about those boys. Me included." He scratched his head. "You could contact Pleasant Hill. Maybe find someone else on the staff who was there with Vance and Turner. I know they met with doctors as part of their treatment, so maybe there's a lead there. I just don't have anything for you." He stood up indicting the con
versation was over. "I don't know what else to tell you. I don't know how you could find them. But if you do, I hope you find them dead. And I don't feel bad about saying that. I'm a Christian and I believe everyone should get a second chance, but what they did to that boy… it wasn't human."
I stood up and shook his hand. "Thanks for your time." I stepped off the porch as Daniel searched an inside pocket for whatever he didn't find in his front pockets. I had one foot in my Navigator when he shouted at me.
"Burton!"
"What?" I said, turning.
"Kim Burton. The girlfriend. Burton."
"You've been a big help, Daniel. Thank you." I waved as he disappeared back into his blue bungalow.
I sat in the driver's seat and wondered how likely it was that Kim Burton had had any contact with Turner after being released. Gypsy Scott said people who went under had a hard time severing ties with the outside world. That made sense. I'd bet that at some point, after a certain amount of time, everyone who went under thought about coming up to see a loved one. They probably rationalized how much harm they could do by making one phone call or sending an email. The fact that Kim and Turner spent some time together at Pleasant Hill meant they had some connection. Two years is enough time to create a strong bond, and while I'm no shrink, I'd imagine Turner was probably the type of person who didn't connect with a lot of people.
For Vance, I'd go after his parents since they were the best link in his tether to the surface. But for Turner, all I had was a girlfriend who would do anything, like lift her shirt to the prison guards, to see him. If she still had that fierce dedication maybe I could use her to get to him.
Ten
THAT THERESA VANCE VISITED HER son at Pleasant Hill several times a week, and even brought cupcakes, told me they had a strong relationship. A strange one maybe, but strong nonetheless. I hoped their relationship endured through his new identity.
I did not find anything in my workup that connected Theresa to her son. No regular bank transfers, no telephone records indicating a relationship with someone on the other side of the country, nothing that led me straight to him, but I had a hunch there was something there. That meant staking out the Vance homestead waiting for anything that offered a connection to Jacob. I'd sit on the home for a few days until I established a pattern of activity. Once I was certain Theresa and Thomas would be out of the home, I would go in and try to find something to get me closer to Jacob.
I HATED STAKEOUTS. THEY ARE worse than anal fissures and church. It doesn't matter how much you accomplish sitting in a comfortable office with your feet up on the desk, do this job long enough and at some point you will find yourself in a cramped car in the middle of the night fighting sleep and boredom waiting for something to happen.
Stakeouts aren't like the movies. The big screen never shows the detectives driving around to find the right secluded location to watch their mark, being hunched over in the driver's seat for seven hours at a time suffering through back spasms and cramps, pissing in bottles or explaining to an observant police officer what in the hell they were doing in a strange neighborhood at three in the morning. Ninety-nine percent of stakeouts is sitting in a car twiddling your thumbs for hours watching nothing happen. Nothing. But as shitty as they are, staking out a location or an individual can get you intel you won't find elsewhere. Just like dumpster diving, the dirtiest methods often yield the best results. Sometimes you just have to hold your breath and dive in.
The last two cases I worked had tight deadlines. The kind of deadlines that when missed meant someone ended up with more holes in their body than God intended. This case was different. Since I did not have a gun to my head I could take my time and conduct a proper investigation. An investigation that allowed for a few nights of stakeouts. That's another thing Hollywood gets wrong. Nothing exciting ever happens the first night of a stakeout. Ever.
I arrived at the Vances’ house at eight o'clock on a Saturday evening. Jacob Vance's parents lived ten miles outside Parkersburg in an unassuming two-story home on Linden Drive. They had a two-car garage, four floodlights bolted to the sides of the home and a surveillance camera over the front door. From my parking spot about fifty yards away I had a clear view of the front of the house. The curtains were pulled tight, but there were several lights on inside.
As I watched the house my thoughts turned to my workup binder. I grabbed it from the passenger seat and traded glances between the black-and-white pages and the house far off in front of me.
Nell Richards was right. Thomas Vance had a career in government. My research corroborated he had been a council member in Parkersburg in the early ‘80s, then moved to the United States Attorney's office in West Virginia and finally to the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. before retiring immediately after his sixty-first birthday. He never worked on the legal side at either the Attorney's office or the DOJ. He ran technology programs. According to Theresa's employment record, she switched jobs every few years and now worked at a local real estate agency.
I flipped to anther section of the binder and reviewed a series of police reports the Vances had filed over the years. Theresa had filed more than a dozen reports against individuals for vandalism and trespassing, most of which coincided with her son's release in 1992. Apparently some locals were unhappy with the release, and since they couldn't take it out on Jacob Vance they turned to his parents.
Auditor records showed Thomas and Theresa Vance had moved six times since their son's release. At first I was surprised they had not left the state to get a fresh start somewhere else, but their daughter also lived near Parkersburg so it made sense that Thomas and Theresa stayed nearby to be a part of her and her family's life. Since the daughter had married and taken her husband's last name, she had probably been spared the stigma of being a Vance.
I looked back at the house and watched the downstairs lights click off one by one and then a moment later an upstairs light, likely in a bedroom, clicked on. Two hours later someone snuffed that light out and the entire house fell dark.
After another hour I pulled out of the subdivision and found an all-night diner for a quick bite before checking into a roadside motel and paying more than I should for a hard mattress, a thick pillow and a leaky faucet. It could have been the lack of sleep and a preference for paranoia, but I was certain a silver SUV followed me half the way to the motel, but it pulled off the main road before I made it to the parking lot.
Before I fell asleep that night I thought about Willie Baker and how he got a raw deal. Not as raw as his son got, but he still ended up on the wrong end of life's toilet plunger. I tried to imagine what he went through. First to learn his son was missing and then to have hope immediately turn to grief when the police found Josh's body. Then the agony of reliving his son's murder during the trial and finally watching the two responsible walk out free men after serving only eight years. Those experiences rob the life out of you and make swallowing a gun seem like a good escape.
I WOKE UP AT 7:00 a.m., grabbed a shower and breakfast and was back in front of Thomas and Theresa's house an hour later. I didn't like watching the place in the daylight, but I had nothing else to do. Jacob Vance's parents were the only leads I had for him, and I had to sit on them until they led me somewhere. I had only been there forty-five minutes when the garage door opened and a black Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled out of the garage and turned down the street. Time to see where it took me.
I gave the Jeep enough distance and then pulled out behind it. I followed it out of their neighborhood and onto Route 14. After about ten miles it pulled into a strip mall parking lot on the right side of the street. I took the next right and circled the block. I drove past the strip mall and pulled into a supermarket next to the parking lot where the black Jeep sat empty.
A few businesses lined the strip mall, but I was interested in the one on the far end, Kichurchak and Associates. That was the name on Theresa Vance's employment record. I wasn't going to start asking Theresa questions about
Jacob, because the last thing I wanted was her knowing someone was looking for her son, but I did want to see her. I wanted to put a human face on this case and that started with her.
I left my Navigator, crossed the parking lot and pulled on the glass door, but it was locked. Looking up, I saw a woman walking toward me. She checked her watch, unlocked the door and opened it a few inches.
"Can I help you?"
"I wanted to speak with a realtor about finding a property," I said.
She checked her watch again. Her shoulders relaxed as if she was less nervous now than when she opened the door.
"We don't open for another ten minutes, but I guess we could start a bit earlier today."
"Are you sure? I can come back."
"No, that's silly," she said. "Come on in."
She opened the door wide and stepped aside. Kichurchak and Associates had a small office. Four cubicles stood on each side of the room and two conferences tables were in the back next to a larger office, maybe for a director or executive. This wasn't the kind of real estate company where the agents wore gold jackets and plastered their faces on bus stop benches. As I followed the woman to her cubicle I scanned the nameplates on the other cubicle partitions. Each plastic nameplate featured the realtor’s first and last name, except for the one I walked toward. This one had a first name but only the last initial. Theresa V. Not surprising, because who wants to buy a house from the mother of a child killer?
"Have a seat," she said, motioning to two small chairs inside the gray partition.
I pulled the seat away from her desk and sat down. My back hit the cubicle wall.
"Are you local?"
I felt like she was feeling me out. A local might know her or know she was Jacob Vance's mother.
"No. From Cincinnati," I said. "Roger Mathers."
"Theresa Vance." She sounded uncomfortable, like she wasn't used to saying her name out loud.