The Wrong Quarry (Hard Case Crime)
Page 17
He sat down and said, “You can look at these at your leisure, Mr. Quarry. I have nothing else planned this evening.”
I hadn’t reached for them yet. “Maybe you’d care to give me the gist first.”
He leaned back in the swivel chair, rocking just a little, like an old man on a sunny porch, but there was nothing sunny about his bleak expression.
“As you may know from Jenny...I would imagine you have utilized her as a source for your inquiries...I hired the National Detective Agency to explore the runaway possibility—they’re coast to coast and have the staff and the computer support.”
“That’s the Pinkertons.”
“Yes. But it was a man out of a St. Louis agency who came up with the key piece of information, thanks to a friend on the Missouri state police. Over a period of a year and a half, four teenage girls disappeared who’d made Stockwell Park part of their Spring Break or other vacation plans. None were local— and I’ve since learned that our mayor made sure it didn’t hit the media. Wouldn’t want to discourage tourism, after all.”
No. Not now that buggy whips were out of fashion. If a Great White had been spotted in that sand-bottomed stream, what was the harm?
“With all those hiking trails,” I said, “that park would make a perfect hunting ground for a Ted Bundy.”
“That was my exact thinking. I instructed the Pinkertons to look at other disappearances or murders of young girls in parks or other recreational areas. Almost immediately, someone in their western regional office reported that half a dozen girls, over a period of two years, had gone missing in Burton Creek State Park. Vacationers, kids on spring break.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“All too much so. Burton Creek Park is near Tahoe City, Nevada, so it wasn’t certain any one of the girls had disappeared there, just that the park was one of the places they planned to go—and of course Tahoe is more than a ‘little’ vacationland. These disappearances were over a period of approximately two years, the last Burton Creek incidence just over six years ago.”
“And you can connect Vale to those?”
“Decide for yourself, Mr. Quarry. During that same twoyear period, in a little town near Tahoe called Incline Village, a Calvin Dorn ran the Dorn Dance Studio. He was very helpful in getting local girls prepared for the Miss Teen Nevada beauty pageant.”
“Any pictures of Dorn?”
“He avoided photographers, and when there was publicity in the local press, only pictures of his students appeared. And since it was his own studio, he needed no references, other than materials he self-generated to give to the parents of prospective pupils. He was described as ‘discreetly gay’ by one Incline Village resident, and there are similar descriptions of him in the Burton Creek folder. Physical description matches Vale, although Dorn was blond and not mustached.”
“I’d be less impressed,” I said, “if I didn’t see those three other folders.”
“Yes. Highland Hammocks State Park, four girls disappeared over a year-and-a-half period, near Sebring Florida, where one Corey Ellis ran his Ellis Dance Studio. Then there’s Sparta, Wisconsin. The Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail, Buckhorn State Park, Wildcat Mountain State Park, all are near Sparta, where Louis Dane ran the Dane Dance Studio for just under two years. Helping local girls interested in beauty pageants. Beloved by the parents, and a safely gay man to be working alone with young girls. A total of five girls missing from those state parks. Never local.”
“Candy was local.”
“There was one other local victim. Heather Foster, sixteen. Hillsboro, Ohio, near Rocky Fork State Park. Heather’s body had been dumped in the lake, but it washed up onto the shore—there are before-and-after pictures in the Rocky Fork file. She was a cheerleader, a very popular girl at the local high school. She had been raped, vaginally and anally. Her hands and feet showed signs of severe restraint. Cigarette burns. Small cuts. Finally, death by strangulation—bruising indicated the hands were a male’s, not a terribly big male, either.”
“Jesus,” I said, and I wasn’t even looking in the file yet.
“Perhaps the foulest thing of all is...the murdered girl was thought by the other parents of girls to be one that dance instructor Rick Varney had singled out. She’d been his favorite, became his assistant, really his protégée.”
Like Sally Meadows.
I said, “No pictures of him?”
He dug into one of the folders. “That’s all we have—taken after a recital. This is not the Varney persona, it’s the first one we know of—Calvin Dorn.”
Dorn was in the background, smiling as he talked to a proud mom, whose arm was around her pretty junior-high-age girl, who was in a tutu and looking adoringly at her dance instructor. The central figure in the photo, an older girl posing, was sharp, as in-focus as the background was blurry. And Dorn had blond hair and no mustache.
But that was Vale, all right, right down to the black tights, black t-shirt and Capezios.
“In every instance, the town was small but not tiny,” he said, “maybe ten thousand population, near a vacation area. In every instance, after around two years, he closed down his business pleading financial failure and moved quietly on.”
So Candy’s diary entries had almost certainly been legit.
“Take your time with those,” he said, nodding to the folders.
I gave them a gentle shove back toward him. “No. I believe you. Vale’s a serial killer. That’s what they call them, you know, the FBI. And that’s who this information should go to.”
He shrugged. “I discussed that with the Pinkerton people. They say all this is compelling but extremely circumstantial. Further investigation, if I wanted to fund it, might make a difference, and they will be glad to go to the FBI...when the time was right.”
“Which file is the one with the photo of the dead girl?”
He pushed it over to me. It was right inside on top, actually both pictures were: a junior high school yearbook-type photo of a beautiful blue-eyed freckle-faced redheaded girl. In the other photo, she was just so much human refuse on a muddy, rocky lake shore.
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. This could be what Candy went through. So you wanted him tortured. I can dig it. And what about the girl’s father?”
“My son? What about him?”
“Was he with you in this?”
His head rocked back. “Lawrence? Heavens no. He has no stomach for hard decisions. He may have some vague sense that I might be doing something about Vale that, well, steps over the line. But that’s all.”
We sat in silence for a while.
Then he said, “What now, Mr. Quarry?”
“Why don’t you make a phone call?”
“A phone call?”
“Right from your desk here, or from a booth if that’s the established procedure. Call whoever set this up for you, and tell him you are cancelling the contract. You understand he’s suffered an inconvenience, and intend to pay the full fee. If he mentions that the team he sent to Stockwell has turned up dead, you don’t know anything about it. You’ve just decided to pull the plug.”
“Have I?”
I sighed. “Understand something, Mr. Stockwell. Nothing against the Pinkertons, but I think you have enough evidence here to easily go to the FBI. You’re a powerful man in this state, and no doubt have political strings you can pull. Pull them.”
He said nothing. “I could do that. And...actually, the Pinkertons said they would be glad to make the case to the federal authorities for this being a ‘serial predator,’ in their vernacular. They just preferred to gather more information, but...they would do it.”
“Not good enough for you, huh?”
“No. Not good enough for me. I wanted him tortured, yes, but not to death...I wanted to know what he’d done to Candy. What he had done with her...her body. Doesn’t she deserve a Christian burial?”
“Okay,” I said, jumping in fast before he could get emotional again. “And then you wanted him tortured to d
eath?”
Stockwell grunted another near laugh. “Yes. I don’t believe in hell, and I want him to suffer if not for eternity, for...”
“What seemed like it.”
“Yes.”
I mulled it a few moments.
Then: “We have a time issue. Vale will be clearing out sooner than later. Obviously, that’s his pattern. He stuck around this time because you fingered him to the cops and in the media, and if he ran, it would be an admission of guilt, and he’d have the FBI down on him. He went wrong, picking for a victim a girl from a wealthy, influential family. So he tried to weather the storm, probably planning to pull up stakes in a few months, after the heat died down. Only it never did.”
He had been studying me calmly through that. “Vale sent you to kill me, didn’t he?”
“Something like that. He thinks I’m killing you right now, and with you dead, he’ll figure he has to book it.”
“What would you suggest, Mr. Quarry?”
“You’re the one behind the big desk. You’re the man of means. Why don’t you make a suggestion?”
He did: “There’s a wall safe behind the portrait of my wife and myself. I can give you ten thousand dollars down, and have another twenty-five thousand in cash for you tomorrow. After it’s done. Sufficient?”
I was nodding. “Yeah, generous. But you can afford it. Only... no torture shit. Not even to find out where Candy’s body is.”
“I could up the ante another ten.”
“No. Sorry. Not my scene. But I will gladly remove his evil ass from the planet for you.”
He rose, and so did I, and we shook hands.
Then he got me the money.
THIRTEEN
I had a sinking feeling when I pulled into the Vale Dance Studio parking lot around nine-fifteen. I had gone directly there from Clarence Stockwell’s, figuring to park on the street till I was sure dance practice was over and all the little girls who studied with this homicidal maniac were safely in the arms of the parents who had entrusted them to him.
But from the front, no sign of lights on within the black bunker gave a first indication that something was wrong.
And when I checked in back, the lot was empty. Not just empty of parental vehicles, but Vale’s red Corvette and, for that matter, Sally’s baby-blue Mustang.
Nonetheless, I parked near the cement stairs and went quickly up. A neatly hand-lettered sign taped on the inside of the door said
PRACTICE CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS.
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK
and signed, “Mr. Roger,” with a flourish.
Shit.
He was in the goddamn wind already.
While he figured I was busy ridding him of his Country Club Lane nemesis, Vale appeared to have taken his leave of this latest little town where he helped girls prepare for beauty pageants, among other more overtly perverted pastimes.
With no sign of his vehicle here, maybe he had parked on the street, to discourage any parent from knocking on the door, wanting a better explanation than that note. Or maybe just to wish their beloved Mr. Roger a Get Well Soon.
Should I check and see if his Corvette was parked nearby? I decided to skip that; just too unlikely. But was there any chance he might still be in there?
I would have to go inside. Just had to go in and check—what other option was there?
The deadbolt at the double back doors took fifteen seconds to crack with a tension-wrench pick and a short-hook pick, so small they tucked into my billfold. By the way, if that’s the kind of lock you’re using, just stack your valuables on the porch, so you can get a good night’s sleep, undisturbed.
I slipped inside, nine mil in one surgical-gloved hand, moving forward, a lone player on a darkened stage. I stood there listening, like an actor seeking applause, and could hear only my own breathing. It was cold in here. Maybe he’d shut the heat off when he left, like the rich guys turning off lights they didn’t need. That prompted a memory of the light switch Vale had used, over on the far wall, which brought up subdued audience lighting. This guided my way through the empty seating back to the little lobby area, whose glowing red EXIT sign helped just enough.
The door to the living quarters at right was unlocked, and I went in low and fast, gun poised; but no one was in there. I almost wished the bastard would jump out at me like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, so I could at least have a chance at him. The only sign that he had vacated was the rolltop desk, which had been cleaned out, all the paperwork gone.
Otherwise, everything was here—the furniture, of course— I didn’t really think he’d rushed out and rented a U-Haul since I talked to him earlier. The wall hangings, from photos of dance recitals to the framed Broadway posters, were still in place. Damn things were even hanging straight. The fridge had food in it, including half a six-pack of Diet Coke.
In the wind, all right.
The door to the bedroom across the lobby, a room I’d never been into before (no inclination, really), was also unlocked. I hit the wall switch just inside the door to reveal a chamber with alternating red and black walls, particle-board on the outer ones, the building’s natural concrete block walls for the other two. The effect was more bad bowling shirt than Satanic, but knowing who slept here and the kind of fun and games he engaged in did creep me out some.
Particularly since the bed—another goddamn waterbed!— was an oversize round thing with red silk sheets and curving, black-leather-padded headboard. A black dresser stood against a red wall, a red dresser against a black, both secondhand-store jobs repainted.
And each dresser’s drawers yawned open and empty. This was not a ransacking but a hasty departure. Closet doors painted black like the rest of a wall opened to reveal empty hangers. A couple of squat but comfortable-looking black leather chairs were angled on a black furry throw rug on the wooden floor, facing a mammoth Sony projection TV, 50” easy, against the other black wall. The big TV was hooked up to a Betamax that sat on a black cabinet perhaps five feet tall and three feet wide, with a little padlock.
A swipe with the butt of the nine mil got rid of the lock, and I swung open cabinet doors that had shelves on their inside, expanding the shelves within—rows and rows of homemade Beta tapes, each spine labeled with dates and names.
Names like Jane, Denise, Cheryl, Suzanne, Jill, Terri, over a dozen names and scores of videotapes, dates as old as eight years back and as recent as last month. How he must have hated to leave this treasure trove of priceless memories behind. Another, even better indication of his haste. No video camera, though. He must have taken that with him.
Or had he?
Above the bed was a ceiling fan with light fixture sporting a cluster of lights. Between bulbs I could spy the circular glass eye of a video camera mounted up there in a black box attached to the black ceiling. From the bed, Vale wouldn’t even have to say, “Action.” He could just hit the remote. Most of his co-stars probably didn’t even know they were in the movies.
I went back over to the cabinet of video cassettes. These were the homemade horrors and delights that Roger Vale had relished making and viewing. Underage porn and, in very special instances, do-it-yourself snuff flicks. No need to frequent the XXX section behind the beaded curtain of a video store when you had such a unique collection waiting at home.
Then I noticed something on the floor, not far from the cabinet, apparently tossed there in haste. On first glance, it looked like an iron.
On closer look, I could see that it was a Realistic brand “High Power Audio/Video Eraser.”
So he had destroyed the evidence, and done the parents of his victims the one favor he and they could share: with the help of Radio Shack, he had removed the visual record of the degradation suffered by the girls whose names were hand-lettered on the white spines of the now blank videotapes.
But as I quickly checked, several names that might be expected were conspicuous in their absence.
Where was Candy Stockwell among these small-town starlets?
Had he taken with him the most precious tapes? The ones that chronicled his most extreme pleasures, the sex murders of teenage girls? Horrible as that evidence most certainly would be, it was evidence, and knowing it had been discovered might— in a unique if unspeakable way—give closure to families with missing daughters.
Those tapes, if they existed, should be found.
And now they were likely with the auteur who’d shot them.
In the wind.
* * *
In my Holiday Inn room, I began to pack. Nothing else for me to do here, besides go over to Country Club Lane and wake Clarence from a less than restful sleep, and return his money. That further twenty-five grand he’d promised was a pipe dream now. I’d been too late. We’d both been too late. And now the FBI would have to pick up the ball.
Which meant the sooner I left Missouri’s Little Vacationland, the better. Maybe I would stop and say goodbye to Jenny. I sighed and shook my head. Probably not wise.
I sat at the foot of the bed and stared at my suitcase. Was there any other play for me to make here? I could think of none. I’d been beaten, beaten by a goddamn manipulative sociopath, and all I had to show for it was the exhaustion of a long and stressful day. Could I afford to grab a decent night’s sleep, and check out in the morning? That way I could stop at Clarence’s office at the bank to return his money. And maybe say goodbye to Jenny....
These last-ditch thoughts and hopes had just about congealed into the realization that I needed to get the fuck out of Dodge, now, when the phone rang.
I frowned at it.
Clarence Stockwell should know better. What the hell was he thinking, calling me here? I understood that he’d be anxious to know how I’d fared on my mission, but I’d given him strict instructions not to get in touch. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. Fucking businessman of his standing ought to be the fuck familiar with that concept.