by Platt, Sean
“So, what you think if I move this creep won’t follow me? He’s a stalker, rapist, and murderer. I doubt he gives up easily.”
“Can’t you go into some protection plan or something?”
She laughed. “That’s not quite how things work.”
“I’m sure there’s something you can do.”
“Yeah, there is. I can stay right here and not fucking run.” She took another swig. “I’m not about to let some asshole kiddy rapist chase me out of my home. This is where we raised our family. This house has a history. And maybe that doesn’t matter to you, but it sure as hell matters to me.”
Suddenly, her eyes were welling with tears.
Oh, no. Fuck this.
She turned away, not wanting Ray to see her crying. Not wanting him to see how much it bothered her that he’d somehow moved on as if his previous life wasn’t real, or didn’t matter.
She heard him step up behind her.
She didn’t turn.
He put his hands on her shoulders. “Is that what you think? That this house, that what we had doesn’t matter to me?”
Mal bit her bottom lip. If she spoke, she’d never stop crying, and that was something she couldn’t afford to do.
Mal had cried in front of Ray exactly twice in their marriage, and neither time had been from a moment of weakness. She hated this side of her and wished she could leave the room without it looking like she was being dramatic or fishing for pity.
“It’s because I care that I think you should move. Not just because you might be in danger here, but because I think you’ll never move on until you can get out of … out of this place.”
Ray sounded frustrated as if this place was a prison that trapped him in a past he couldn’t wait to forget. But to Mal, it was a reminder of better days; a sanctuary of sorts. Clearly Ray didn’t understand, because he was trying to start his life over.
But Mal didn’t want a new life. She wanted her old one.
“I’m not selling the house.” Mal knew how to get Ray out of her house. It was a bit cruel, but she knew it would work.
“You need money, Ray? Is that why you want me to sell? I mean, I know the value’s gone up a lot, and hell, you could use the cash, right?”
“That’s not it,” he said, his voice terse.
“If you need money, just ask,” she said, taking a drink.
He met her eyes, his flashing with anger or hurt. “You know what, never mind. Sorry I came.”
Ray turned and headed toward the living room, then he walked out the door and closed it behind him without another word.
Mal smiled, even though she felt like a monster.
* * * *
CHAPTER 31 - JASPER PARISH
Jasper and Jordyn sat outside the two-story home with the white picket fence in Bay Hill, a gated community in the northernmost part of Creek County. The house belonged to Rachel Dodd, Paul’s ex-wife.
“Nice place,” Jordyn said. “She must have a good job. Sure as hell ain’t getting this on alimony from a teacher’s salary.”
Jasper hadn’t looked up Rachel’s job but agreed with Jordyn’s assessment.
“So, what’s the play?” she asked. “Why aren’t we calling the cops on this asshole now that we have his address?”
“Because we don’t know if he’s keeping Jessi in his house, right? You said you weren’t sure. If we call the cops and tip him off before knowing for certain, we might never find her. So, we talk to the wife, see what she knows, and maybe it helps us.”
“I still don’t understand why we need to talk to her. We know he’s guilty if we find the girl in his house. Is that what you’re worried about, proving his guilt? What if she’s still close to him? What if she calls him the second we leave and tells the asshole that some big black dude, maybe the same black dude that stole his wallet, was over asking questions about him? What then?”
“First off, I doubt they’re close. Call it a hunch. And second of all, just let me do things my way, okay?”
Jordyn smiled. “As long as you’re not looking for a reason to wuss out.”
“You sit in the car. I’ll be back.”
She sighed, threw her feet on the dashboard, and picked up her tablet. “Fine, I’ll be here reading. Try not to shoot anyone.”
He glared at her.
“Too soon?” Jordyn smiled, thinking she was cuter than she was.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you were nicer as a kid?”
Jasper closed the door and headed up the driveway, not waiting for his daughter’s smartass response.
It was six o’clock, and there were no cars in the driveway. Hoping that Rachel wasn’t at work, Jasper rang her doorbell and waited.
Shortly after he rang, a curtain beside the door parted and a brunette woman in her early forties peered outside.
“Yes?”
“Hi ma’am,” Jasper said, opening his wallet and showing the PI badge he carried as one of his many aliases. “My name is Cole Houser, and I’m a private detective working a missing child case. I was hoping you could help me?”
He waited through her pause, hoping he wouldn’t need to mention that this involved her ex-husband. That might scare her off. He figured the missing child case was enough to grease the cooperative wheels. Most people wanted to assist in a missing child case. Most people, however, didn’t want to discuss their ex. Probably doubly so if he was a pedophile child rapist/killer.
She opened the door.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Jasper said with a serious smile. “But I’m working on the Jessi Price case. Have you heard of it?”
Jessi Price was one county and an hour away, but it wasn’t as if there were so many missing children cases that they didn’t stick it out when they occurred anywhere within a few hours.
“Of course. How can I help?”
Jasper held up a picture of Jessi that he’d printed from a website, figuring it made his queries look all the more official, and maybe tug at Rachel’s heartstrings. He wanted to take the conversation inside but first had to earn her trust.
“Well, Ms. Dodd, it’s about your ex-husband, Paul.”
The look on her face perceptibly shifted. It was a coin toss whether she’d slam the door in his face or break down right there.
“I think you can help me find Jessi.” And there it was, that look of knowledge in her eyes. Yes, she knew what her ex-husband was. “May I come in to talk with you?”
“Um,” she looked behind her as if trying to determine how safe it was to trust this stranger at her door. “Can I see your badge again?”
He handed her the wallet with his badge and fake ID. She gave it a cursory glance, as most people did, then opened the door wider to let him in.
Her house was as nice inside as it was outside, with a minimalist design that Jasper could very much appreciate. He spied a piano in the far corner of the living room, a few photos of a dark-haired girl that looked around nine or ten in her most recent pictures — clearly her daughter. Jasper wondered if she was home.
She led him to a large dining room table, pulled out a chair for him at the end, then sat to his right.
“What does Paul have to do with the girl?” She kept her voice low, lending to Jasper’s theory that the daughter was home.
“I have reason to believe he could be connected to the disappearance, but I wanted to reach out to people he knew first. I don’t want to throw Paul into the public spotlight if he’s innocent. That can ruin a teacher’s career, you know?”
“Why do you think he’s connected?”
“I can’t talk too much about the details, given that it’s an active investigation,” Jasper said, hoping she wouldn’t press further. Saying something like that would usually rebuff people’s questions. “But I was hoping you could help me, just to make sure we’re not heading down the wrong path.”
She nodded, then looked up and past him.
He turned to see the girl from the photos descending the stairs, still in her
school uniform — beige pants and a white polo with a school’s name and crest stitched in blue just above her heart.
“Hi, Lily,” Rachel said, “Mommy’s just talking to Mr. Houser. I’ll call you when I’m ready to make dinner.”
The girl looked at Jasper curiously, like she wanted to ask who he was but was either too shy or polite to do so. “Okay. Can I watch TV in your room?”
“Yes,” Rachel said, clearly working not to sound impatient.
Lily bounded up the stairs.
Jasper waited until he heard a closing door, then continued. “Can you tell me a bit about your ex-husband? Do you think he’d have any reason to take a child?”
Her eyes were starting to water. “I don’t know. I would hope not.”
“But you’re not certain?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know if I should say anything.”
Jasper considered pulling the photo of Jessi Price from his jacket pocket, but he didn’t need to.
“I left Paul because I was afraid he might hurt our daughter.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Stuff I found on his computer.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Naked photos and videos of our daughter in the tub, sleeping. They weren’t sexual. And if there were like one or two, I might’ve chalked it up to a photo any parent might take. But there were soooo many. And then there was the stuff with other girls. And these weren’t even close to innocent.”
“Sexual?”
“Yes.”
Jasper swallowed. No matter how many times he’d encountered stuff like this, it was never easy to hear, and always sickened him.
“What happened? Did you confront your husband?”
“If by confront you mean freaked the hell out, then yes, I confronted him. I asked him why the hell he had photos of our daughter like this. And I asked him who the other girls were.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the other girls were from the internet, and that he’d never touch a child. Weird as it might sound, I believed him.”
“Why?”
“Because of what happened to Paul when he was a kid.”
“What?”
Rachel took a drink of water, then wiped at her eyes. “Does it really matter?”
“Anything that might help us understand where his head is at can be helpful to ending this thing peacefully, and finding Jessi Price alive.”
She swallowed hard then began the story.
“It all started when Paul was eleven. His father disappeared. Nobody knows where he went, but Paul figured he’d probably had enough of his mother’s crap. His mother, Jean, was bipolar. Depending on the day, either overly nice or downright sadistic. Add to that a horrible lisp and kids calling him ‘Odd Dodd’ and you can imagine how hellish his life was. Paul had adored his father and felt rejected that his old man abandoned him and his sister. He hated that he’d basically been left to raise his three-year-old sister, Katie.
“Anyway, Jean was a waitress at some dive bar, made just enough to keep them in their house, with the little that was left going to drink and drugs. She was barely there for the kids. Worked at night and slept through the day. Paul wound up doing a lot of side jobs for the neighbors to keep food on the table for him and his sister.”
Another swallow, another sip of water.
“When Paul was twelve, a new neighbor moved into the nice house at the end of the street. His name was Wes Richardson, and he was a single, rather wealthy realtor. Paul saw his car, a beautiful brand new Corvette, a car you’d obviously want to take good care of, and figured that he’d found himself the perfect client.
“Soon, Paul was washing the guy’s car and cutting his lawn. In no time, he was walking the man’s Husky. One night, during one of Jean’s bad spells, she hurt Paul something fierce. Left bruises all over his face then told him to get the hell out of her house. It was raining, and Paul, not knowing where else to go, wound up standing on Wes’s porch to escape the rain. Wes came home and asked him what happened. Paul broke down and told his new friend everything.”
Jasper could see exactly where this was going.
“Wes invited him in then comforted Paul with pizza and cold Cokes. He convinced him to go home and work things out with his mom. Paul did, but he was also going over to Wes’s place more and more. He even gave Paul a key and told him that he could crash there whenever he needed to. So, one week Wes had to go to some realtor conference in Salt Lake or something, and Paul had total access to the house while watching the dog. That was when Paul saw his first pornographic magazine, in a nightstand filled with a bunch them. This was his first exposure to a naked girl outside of his little sister. He was aroused but too young to know what that meant, or what to do with those feelings. He said he felt an immense amount of shame, yet he couldn’t stop returning to Wes’s stash, or looking for more. And then, in a box buried in the back of Wes’s closet, Paul found a box of video tapes with names like Missy’s Spanking, Teaching Tina, and other salacious titles that only fueled his curiosity. He debated for three days whether to pop one into the VCR. Finally, curiosity got the better of him. But this wasn’t regular porn. There were children, in addition to adults.”
Jasper sighed.
“Paul wasn’t mature enough to know this was not normal. He doesn’t think twice that Wes is anything but your everyday single guy. So, he never said anything to anyone because that would mean admitting to his snooping. Not only would he get in trouble, and a beating from his mom, but Wes would probably stop paying him for odd jobs, and would certainly never let him come over again.
“After a while, he practically lived with Wes. He’d watch cable, which he didn’t have. He’d play video games, which he didn’t have. And he’d eat and drink whatever he wanted, which he wasn’t allowed to do at home. One weekend after Jean had an especially terrible episode, Paul went over to Wes’s. That’s when everything changed. He wasn’t alone. Wes had a girl over, a pretty blonde in a bikini. Paul figured she was in college, but she could’ve been a teenager. Anyway, Wes and the girl, Julie, were drinking and smoking pot.
“Paul had seen his mother do both, as well as her friends, but had never tried either himself. Julie teased Paul, trying to get him to try a little. How could he say no to this girl with breasts falling out of a bikini top? He wanted her, and Wes, to think he was cool. That he wasn’t just some stupid whiny kid from down the street. So, he had his first taste of beer and weed. One thing led to another, and soon Julie was letting Paul touch her. He was too messed up, and too excited to see how incredibly wrong this was or to find it creepy that Wes encouraged them both while he watched. Julie went down on Paul. He said he came immediately. But then he ran into the bathroom, embarrassed and scared.”
Jasper sighed, wishing that someone had been around to stop Wes from turning Paul into a monster.
“Wes and Julie both talked Paul down, told him that what happened was completely okay, and even a normal part of growing up. Paul went home, again saying nothing and clinging to his secret shame. He avoided Wes for a month or so. But then one night he found himself back at his house. Julie was there. And it wasn’t long until they were all at it again. This went on every weekend for a few months, Wes encouraging Paul to ‘be a man’ and have sex with Julie. Paul eventually did. On the couch. And as he did, Paul looked over and saw Wes masturbating. And rather than being disturbed or weirded out, Paul was happy that he pleased this man who had become like a second father.
“In the months that followed, Paul thought more and more about Wes, and even began to think of it as he masturbated in his bedroom late at night. He wondered if maybe he was gay. He felt such a mix of shame and lust, it was doing a number on his head.
“One weekend Paul went over eager to see Julie again. But she wasn’t there. Paul was disappointed, but also excited. Wes told him that they didn’t need Julie. They could do these things with each other.
And that’s how it all started.”
“Jesus,” Jasper said.
“Things went on for a while like this. Sometimes with Julie, and other times with only them. A few times with other girls or women. Paul said it was a confusing time, but also a lot of fun. Then he turned ten and everything stopped. Suddenly, Wes was too busy. He had some other younger boy doing his odd jobs. Paul was shut out and didn’t understand why. He was devastated, started sneaking his mother’s booze, weed, and pills. He was spiraling out of control, but Jean was too out of it to notice. Paul said that much of this time went by in a haze.
“By the time he was fourteen Paul was hanging out with other loser kids, drinking, doing drugs, and getting into tons of trouble. His mom had lost her job and was on welfare. She was always home, but never really there. One day, Paul and Katie, who was nine at the time, came home from school and their mother wasn’t home, which wasn’t anything new as she was always taking off for a day or two with whatever guy floated in and out of her life. But this time Paul had lost his key, so they were stuck outside. Then who comes along but Wes Richardson, asking if they’d like to have dinner.
“Soon Paul was back in Wes’s good graces, doing odd jobs, watching his dog, back to making money. Things were good again. Paul thought perhaps he’d misjudged Wes’s coldness, and that maybe it had been his fault. But—”
“Wes was targeting Katie?”
“Yes. And at first, Paul resisted, never leaving Wes alone with his sister or allowing her to drink or do drugs. But one weekend, Paul slept in. He woke up to nobody home then went over to Wes’s and found Katie in his jacuzzi with another teenage girl. She wasn’t even wasted or drunk, but she enjoyed the affection. Paul was pissed but didn’t want to rock the boat. He figured if Katie wanted to let Paul and the other girl do stuff to her, who was he to stop them?”
“I don’t know, only her brother?” Jasper said, disgusted.
“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “But the way Paul explained it, Katie had always been flirtatious with boys and men, always craving attention. He often called her a slut, so I guess that was his way of justifying allowing this all to happen. Wes was also now paying Paul and Katie what was a ridiculous amount of money for them, each week. Money that put food on the table, and helped them feel secure. Anyway, this next part Paul confessed through tears. A few months into this rekindled relationship, Wes had one of his girls over. Lots of drugs and booze. One thing led to another and … Paul wound up having sex with his sister.”