EQMM, Sep-Oct 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Love your books,” the attorney whispered to me when we shook hands at the door. “I wish I had the time to write."

  Don't we all, I thought, and turned to follow them into my motel room.

  * * * *

  As they settled into their places, I tried to get a feel for the mood of the room. I thought I detected curiosity, dread, hope, and not a little fear. The fear was understandable. People who've lost loved ones to murder are often a lot more fearful all their lives after that; there's nowhere that ever again feels quite safe to them.

  Luis Cannistre dropped our bombshell fast rather than make them suffer through a preface to it. “The son of a bitch has offered to tell us where he buried one of the girls if Marie, here, writes a book about this case. He hasn't said which one he'll tell us about. He claims that as soon as she shows him proof she's going to write it, he'll direct us to a ... grave. He says she has to finish the whole damn book before he'll tell us the rest of it."

  Both women gasped at the end of the first sentence.

  They all looked stunned at the end of the detective's brief announcement.

  Sam Burge broke the paralysis. “How fast can you write?” He was already on his cell phone. We stared as he listened to his parents on the other end.

  When he looked up at us again, I asked him, “What do they say?"

  "They think you're on a wild-goose chase—” He made an apologetic gesture—"but go ahead and do it, anyway."

  "Are you kidding?" Billy Sterson, the man who had been engaged to marry Jessie Burge, shot to his feet. Beneath his golfer's tan his complexion darkened even more. “Are you out of your minds? I can't believe we'd give this guy anything he wants. Ever."

  "It may lead us to Jessie's body,” Luis Cannistre said with brutal frankness.

  "So what?” The fiancé came back with equal brutality. “It won't bring her back, will it? It'll just make him famous all over again. The only thing any of us will get out of it is heartbreak."

  "Heartbreak?” Her brother's tone was scathing. “Oh yeah, right, like you were so heartbroken when you married somebody else three months later! You've got a wife and three kids, and what have my parents got? Nothing! This may be their best chance to find Jessie, and you don't have any right to try to stop them.” Sam Burge looked as if he could spring across the motel bedroom and assault the other man. “You can just shut up. You treated her lousy when she was alive and now you're trying to cheat us out of finding her body?” His voice rose in pitch and volume. “You shouldn't even be here. I don't even want to be in the same room with you. What the hell are you even doing here anyway?"

  "I invited him,” Cannistre interjected. “He was like family then."

  "Well, he isn't like family now,” Sam Burge said hotly. “And he shouldn't get any say in this."

  "I agree,” Mr. Meyers said, and his wife and the lawyer nodded.

  The fiancé clamped his mouth shut, and stepped back. He sat back down on the edge of the dresser where he had been leaning, and folded his arms in front of his chest. He looked furious, but he also looked as if he knew he'd been put in his place, and that place didn't include a vote in these proceedings.

  Over in a corner, seated in one of the chairs, Erin's mother began to cry.

  "Yes,” she said, as the tears rolled down her face and she struggled to find a tissue in her purse. “I vote yes. Let's do it. I don't care what happens to him or what it does for him, I just want to know where my daughter is.” Her eyes, when she looked from one to the other of us, were pleading. “Please, oh please, all of you say yes."

  Across the room from her, Mrs. Meyers grabbed her husband's hand.

  Her husband said, “Absolutely. God, yes."

  "What if he's lying?” their lawyer said. “And he doesn't give us the other two?"

  "He will!” Erin's mom said tearfully, fiercely. “He has to!"

  But of course, he didn't have to. There was nothing riding on it for Betch. If he reneged, what were they going to do, give him another life sentence?

  I looked at them all, people I had never met until half an hour ago, and wondered if I could possibly do what they expected of me.

  That night my editor faxed a new contract, already signed by the publisher, to my agent, who looked it over to make sure it said everything they had agreed on by telephone, and then she overnighted copies of it to me. At nine the next morning I signed the copies in the presence of Darren Betch.

  By eleven, men with shovels were gathered at a leaf-strewn spot in the woods north of Bismarck. The weather had turned chilly, the sky was pewter gray, the air smelled of wood fire burning somewhere. I felt the mood within and around me as one of almost unbearable suspense. Had Betch told me the truth about where she was? And if he had, was his memory good enough to guide us correctly to the place?

  "Who are we going to find?” I had asked Betch that morning.

  "You need to leave me some surprises,” he had told me, smirking.

  The body in the hidden grave was a surprise, all right.

  "It's not any of our girls!” Cannistre yelled, even as he was walking up the hillside to tell me. He looked stunned, distraught. “It's somebody else. My God, how many women did that son of a bitch kill?!"

  The three original families were devastated.

  So was the new family ... the family of Susan Mae Lerner, who had been twenty-three years old when she met a guy that nobody knew, in Minnesota, and who told her friends she was going out with him one night and never was seen again. It was easy to identify her. Betch had buried her purse with her.

  * * * *

  "You lied to me."

  "No, I didn't.” One hour later, back in the visitors’ room at the prison, with children running wild around us and other inmates talking, arguing, laughing with their wives, girlfriends, lawyers, Darren Betch had a crooked smile on his face. He didn't sound defensive; he looked amused. “I never said you'd find the Belafonte girl. I only said you'd find the first one.” He paused, lengthening the moment for dramatic effect. “And you did. You really did. You found the first one."

  I wanted to slap him hard enough to leave a permanent mark on his face.

  "Games. No. I'm not playing with you."

  "Sure you are.” His smirk widened into a grin. “You're already a player. You think you can quit now? What do you think you're going to tell those families? That they'll never know where their girls are, because you're too pure to play with me?"

  I was too furious to speak.

  "Tell you what,” he said, putting his hands behind his head and tipping his chair back on its legs as if he were relaxing on his own back porch. “Give me a couple of chapters, I'll give you another body, how's that?"

  "How many are there, Darren?"

  He smiled. “How many chapters do you have in your books ... Marie?"

  "No.” I drew back, appalled, and unable to keep from showing it. “There aren't that many, are there?"

  He brought the legs of his chair back down with a crack that made the whole room go silent. Behind us I heard the guard jump to his feet; I imagined a rifle leveled toward us. Darren gave a casual wave, to indicate there was nothing going on. After a tense couple of moments, I heard the guard sit back down again.

  "No,” Darren told me, with his infuriating little smirk, “don't worry, there aren't that many. Hell, you must have thirty chapters in most of your books; what do you think I am, some kind of monster?” One more time, the smirk changed into a grin. “Just bring me those first two chapters. How fast can you write?"

  * * * *

  How fast could I write?

  That was the question, all right, and now the location of all three young women's bodies depended on it, not just two of them. It was a good question. It was a terrible question. Luis Cannistre had asked me, too. I wouldn't have been surprised if the maid at the motel stopped making beds long enough to pop her head in my room and inquire.

  "Nothing makes me stop writing faster than pressure,” I warned
Cannistre. “You've got to understand, I'm not a journalist. What I do, it only looks like journalism. I'm a storyteller, like a novelist, only what I write just happens to be true. Stories take their own time to develop, or mine do. I've taken six months to do a book, and I've taken three years."

  "But what about those books that get put out so fast?” he wanted to know. “Like, there's a disaster somewhere in the world and two weeks later there's a book about it. How do they do those?"

  And why can't you? was his unspoken query.

  "Those are special cases, with writers who specialize in the quick and dirty."

  "But he wants you."

  I nearly smiled, he sounded so regretful.

  "And I'm going to hire one of them."

  "You are? Who's going to pay for that?"

  "I am, Luis."

  He didn't say anything but I saw from the way his jaw began to work that he was either gritting his teeth or feeling touched by my offer.

  But I didn't want any credit for doing it. I couldn't finish my other book obligations—on which several million dollars of my publisher's money hung—and also research and write this one, all at the same time. I needed professional help, a hired gun of a writer. If a book actually resulted, it would pay the freight. And if it didn't, well, I already had more money than was good for me.

  In Luis's car, miles before we reached the prison to confront our game-playing killer, I was already on my cell phone to my agent to get her to find me a two-week wonder. Then I called my assistant to tell her to get her rear to North Dakota.

  * * * *

  My hired gun, Markie Lentz, wasn't any taller than me, but he had twice the energy in his compact frame. Just watching him arrive cheered me up a little, made me feel encouraged instead of overwhelmed. Maybe we could get this done fast so we didn't have to prolong the families’ suffering any more than could be helped. Coming down the ramp, he stood out in the North Dakota crowd: a small, broad-featured man in his forties, nearly bald, walking so fast he was almost jogging, dressed in a pink golf shirt, pressed blue jeans, and red running shoes. He was talking on a cell phone when he came down to Baggage, where I waited to pick him up. He recognized me and came over, saying, “Later,” into his phone and flipping it shut.

  "You do great books,” he told me, the first words out of his mouth. “They're a little long, but very compelling. How fast do we need to do this thing? How do you want to divvy up the load? You write some, I write some?"

  "As fast as we can work,” I said, and then stuck out my hand to the young man behind him whom he had not introduced. “Hi. I'm Marie."

  The young man grinned and shook my hand. “Peter Nussert."

  "Yadda, yadda,” said his boss with a dismissive wave of one small hand. “Say, three weeks. That quick enough for you?"

  I stared at him. “Really? You do books in three weeks?"

  "Isn't that why I'm here?” He smiled, sharklike. “God knows, as thick as your books are, you could never do it."

  I burst out laughing, a release of emotion that I must have really needed, so loud that a few people passing by with their luggage turned and looked at us. When I stopped, I grinned at him and said, “What's the matter? I thought you were supposed to be fast. You can't write it overnight?"

  "Not with you to slow me down,” he said, and grinned back at me. “Peter, why are you standing there? Get the bags."

  * * * *

  In my rental car, with me at the wheel, hyperactive Markie Lentz in the front passenger seat and Peter Nussert behind us, I returned to one of his first questions. “I take Darren Betch, because he can't know about you, and I take the cops, lawyers, judges. I take everything about him up to the time he goes to prison. You take the victims and their families."

  "You trust me with the victims?"

  I glanced over at him. “Why wouldn't I?"

  "You start most of your books with a sentimental glimpse of a victim. Builds suspense. Makes us care about them before they get whacked. It's one of your hallmarks. I'm surprised you'd turn that over to anybody else."

  "Don't you do that, too?” I said. “Open with the happy vacationing family just before the typhoon hits the beach?"

  "You do, boss,” Peter chimed in.

  "Oh yeah!” He sounded pleased with himself. “That's right, I do."

  "How could you forget that?” I asked, amused.

  He shrugged. “My books, they're like cramming for a test. While I'm doing it I don't know anything else, but a month later...” He snapped his fingers. “...Gone. Anyway, who cares? Our last books are so yesterday. This book! Facts. Load me up. Tell me everything you know."

  I told him.

  "You're not taking any notes,” I said at one point.

  "Short-term photographic memory,” he boasted.

  "Ah,” I said. “That explains it."

  "Also, I'm a genius."

  "Also, I'm taking notes,” Peter said from in back.

  "All right, genius.” I pulled into a parking spot and turned off the engine. “I have six rooms for our little group. One each for you, Peter, me, my assistant. Plus a double suite for our campaign headquarters. Questions?"

  "Is your assistant cute?"

  I gave him a look.

  "Not for me!” he said scornfully, and then jerked his head toward the backseat.

  "Cut it out, boss."

  I smiled, thinking of my rather eccentric young assistant. “She's cute."

  "All right," Lentz said approvingly. “Come on, let's get to it. Hell, I could write the whole damn book from nothing but what you just told me. What do we need another nine days for anyway?” He was halfway out of the car before Peter or I had moved. I glanced over the backseat and asked his assistant, “Cocaine and speed?"

  He laughed, this young man with a calm demeanor and a lot of intelligence in his eyes. “Oh, you haven't seen anything yet."

  * * * *

  By that evening we had our double suite lined with sheets of white butcher paper tacked to the walls. My assistant, Deborah Dancer, had been out ever since she arrived taking photos of anything and anybody we might want to describe. From the victims’ homes to Darren Betch's apartment, from the TGIF party condo to the prison and the road to the grave, Deb had snapped locales and the people in them with her digital camera. Then she transferred the photos to her laptop computer and from there made enlarged color prints for us to tack up. We had wall sections for each “character” in the book, with lists of their habits, jobs, education, ages, physical traits, personality traits, everything we knew about them, detailed below. We had a flow chart of Darren's process through the North Dakota legal system, along with names and titles of everybody who had prodded him along its path.

  We had a chronology of the Bismarck victims:

  Erin Belafonte is reported missing.

  A county-wide search ensues.

  Ten days later, Jessica Burge and Caroline Meyers are reported missing.

  Darren Betch is arrested for the murder of Erin Belafonte; he denies it.

  He is convicted, at trial, after which he confesses to all three homicides, and goes to prison.

  A lot of this I would have done anyway on any of my books—only slower, as Markie Lentz loved to point out—but he added some idiosyncratically efficient ways of doing things that I vowed to steal and use in the research for my own books. For instance, he had Peter and Deb using different colors of Magic Marker for each person, so we could see with a mere glance at the walls where they turned up in the story.

  "Did Jessie's family go to the sentencing?"

  "Just her brother and fiancé—it's on the wall."

  "Who made the actual arrest?"

  "Cannistre."

  "Are you sure about that?"

  "It's on the wall, Markie."

  On Day Two, he suddenly appeared at my shoulder. “Hey, Lightfoot. We got a problem at our end of the room. We're having a hell of a time trying to give these families the old sentimental twist."

 
; "Why?"

  "You know how Caroline's folks drag that lawyer around with them like he's their pet dog? Turns out they have good reason for never leaving home without him. It seems Caroline's parents have run a few financial scams in their time and now and then they've made the mistake of crossing some tough customers. I don't know if they're afraid of getting sued or if they just want a witness when they get shot."

  "You're kidding."

  "Right,” he said sarcastically. “Like we have time for joking around."

  I smiled. Markie always had time for joking around. We were all working nearly nonstop, fueled by coffee and by food that we sent the assistants into town to pick up for all of us. But that didn't stop him from needling me every chance he got about how slow I was. As payback, I constantly ragged on him for being sloppy.

  Neither was true. I was working like a demon. He was careful, a pro.

  "You said ‘families,'” I reminded him.

  "Yeah, Jessica's fiancé, Billy Sterson? He beat up on her a couple of times. Her brother Sam is a real winner, too. You want to know why his parents say they moved to Arizona? Because Sam's a leech of the first order. And when they don't let him squeeze them, he gets nasty about it. They moved to get away from their own son, if you can believe that.” Markie cracked a cynical smile. “I think they miss their boat more than they do Sam. Aren't many lakes in Tucson, apparently."

  I sighed. “Ozzie and Harriets, one and all."

  "That first girl, the real first one, the one from Minnesota? Susan Lerner? Mother married five times, father's whereabouts unknown. It was all I could do to persuade her mother to send me a photo and even that is so old you can't tell what she looked like the year she died. Which leaves us with only one family sob story, which is Erin Belafonte's family. You know how her dad died the year after she went missing?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Suicide. His wife says it was guilt."