Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  “Keye Street, meet my wife, Bernadette. Sweetheart, Dr. Street came to talk about Skylar.”

  “It’s terrible,” she signed while Hutchins spoke for her. “I can’t even imagine what Hayley and Brooks are going through. If something ever happened to Robin …”

  I was invited again to have lunch and when I declined, Bernadette invited me to dinner on Sunday. I watched them walk across the lush lawn between the church and their home. She reached for his waist. He draped his arm over her shoulder. They moved with the kind of rhythm that told you they’d done some walking together. It shouldn’t be surprising to see a married couple still in love, but I stood there, watching them. Meltzer liked to hang out in the Hutchinses’ home. Skylar, too, was drawn to them. Was it because of the love missing in their own homes?

  31

  My phone vibrated with a 706 area code, a local number I didn’t recognize. “Keye Street.”

  “This is Heather,” a young voice said. “ ’Member me? Melinda Cochran’s friend.”

  “Of course,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “That lady officer called us all today. Me, Briana, and Shannon. The one that interviewed us before. The bitchy one. You know who I mean?”

  “I think I know the one.”

  “She was asking if we’d seen anyone with a broken-down car or something. And then we heard about the stuff on the news at school. And you were nice so we thought we could ask you if you know who did it yet, because Melinda was our friend.”

  “The awkward friend,” I said, a little cruelly. “Bad with boys, right?” She was silent. “I know that’s not who Melinda was. Look, Heather, if there’s something I should know, it’s time to let me help. There’s another girl missing from the middle school. You won’t get in trouble. All anyone cares about is getting Skylar home so she doesn’t end up where Melinda did.”

  I could hear her breathing. I pressed harder. “Why did you deliberately mislead me about Melinda?”

  “Our parents don’t want us talking to you or anyone. They think something bad will happen.”

  “Did you see anyone that day, Heather? Was there someone with car trouble you saw on your way home from school?”

  “I’m going to get in trouble. I gotta go.”

  I heard the click and headed to Meltzer’s new war room. “Good afternoon,” I said. Brolin, Raymond, and Meltzer were lined up like birds on a clothesline looking at the board they’d created—columns labeled VICTIMS, SUSPECTS, EVIDENCE, WITNESSES. Magnetic binder clips were stuck to the board under the appropriate columns, each headed with a photo of victim or suspect. Everything was movable, erasable, as changeable as a fledging investigation.

  “Afternoon, Doc,” Meltzer nodded. “Okay, here’s where I am. I’ve pulled Deputy Ferrell into Criminal Investigations. She applied a while back, as you know, Tina,” he said to Major Brolin. “And it is abundantly clear to me that we need more bodies in this unit right away. For now, Ferrell is home base. This is to ensure we have a steady flow of information available to us all. You’ll contact Ferrell by mobile phone. No radios. We have media in town now. Let’s assume they have scanners. Ferrell will relay new information via group text message. And I’m encouraged to see we have four names in the suspect column. Let’s start there.”

  I glanced at the board. Logan Peele’s icy gaze locked on me from the suspect column. Reg offender no alibi. Below his photo was Daniel Tray’s. Middle school teacher for Cochran/Barbour—No alibi. Below Tray’s photo was the sex offender who hadn’t showed up for his group treatment program. The note next to Lamar Bailey’s picture said Reg offender—unexcused absence—AWOL. Below that was a face I recognized from the diner. It was the man who had served me the first night I was in town, the one who’d withdrawn once he learned who I was. Gene Johnson—reg offender—tipped Peele.

  “Gene from the diner is a sex offender?” I asked. He was not on the list Neil had given me, which meant he didn’t fit the original criteria we’d used to narrow the suspect pool.

  “Level one,” Raymond said. A clock with three hands ticked off seconds loudly at the end of the room. “He got too drunk one night and flashed some people in the park. Gene thought it was funny as hell. Turned out to be a bunch of high school kids.”

  “So why is he on the board?” I wanted to know.

  “He’s in Dr. Pope’s treatment program,” Brolin answered. I put my things down and stepped closer to the board. “And he imparted some real interesting information to Peele last night after their group session. We have it from the surveillance cameras. We enhanced the video. Let’s see it, Rob.”

  “This was gathered from five different cameras last night around the time Victoria Pope was having her group session,” Raymond told us. The security footage showed the F-150 pulling up, Logan Peele getting out and walking the same walkway I’d just used to get to the judicial center. Next we saw him inside at the elevator, then getting off the elevator and disappearing into the office Dr. Pope used for group. “Now watch this.”

  The door opened and the corridor filled with men, men in jeans, men in business suits, average-looking men, men who might have been leaving a sales meeting. Twelve of them. Raymond reached for the mouse as we watched Logan Peele come through the door. Behind him, Gene Johnson put a hand on Peele’s arm, stopped him. Raymond slowed the video. Johnson’s lips moved. “Somebody took a girl.” Raymond spoke the words for him. Now I understood why the minister’s lip-reading wife had been asked to come to the complex. Brolin and Raymond had aggressively followed up. It was good work.

  “He might have also said somebody took the girl.” Raymond froze the image on the screen. “It’s kinda hard to distinguish that one word, but we’re solid on the rest of it.”

  “You know how Peele responded?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t get it.” Meltzer was frowning. “He never turned toward the camera.”

  “As if he knew it was there. What time did your deputies take the first call from Skylar’s parents?” I asked.

  “That’s the problem,” Brolin told me. “This was recorded half an hour before. That’s how Peele knew about a missing girl in your interview this morning. Not because he’d seen the news.”

  “We know Peele went home after this. We had eyes on him. And we checked his financials. Debit card charge to Pizza Hut for sixteen dollars,” Raymond said.

  “Alibi Hut,” Brolin muttered, miserably. “How many creeps have we had alibi out with a pizza delivery?”

  “Have we picked up Gene Johnson yet?” Meltzer asked.

  “Got him,” Raymond said. “Set up a temporary interview room next door.”

  “We have audio and video in the room,” Brolin added. “No window, obviously.”

  Raymond pulled up the feed on the monitor and we saw the old server sitting at a bare table, probably smelling, as the diner smelled, of bacon and caramelized onions and oil. “Go find out how he knew about Skylar before we did,” Meltzer told them.

  Brolin walked into the interview room with a manila folder. Raymond lumbered in behind her. He put his phone on the table. They sat and faced Gene Johnson. Johnson straightened in his metal chair. The sheriff sat next to me.

  Raymond spoke first. “How you doing, Gene? Do you know why you’re here?”

  “No. I don’t. You know me, Rob. I don’t get into trouble. Not since I quit drinking.”

  “Logan Peele your buddy or something?” Raymond asked.

  “He’s in that program they make us go to. That’s all. I toe the line, Rob. I don’t hang around with those guys.”

  Brolin opened the folder and looked down at it, a tactic meant to imply she had information she wasn’t sharing. She lifted her eyes to him. “That’s curious, Gene. Because we have you on video telling him, and I quote, ‘Somebody took a girl.’ ”

  “Yeah,” Raymond said roughly. “Curious.” He clicked his phone on and slid it across the table to Johnson.

  Johnson stared miserably at Raymond’s phone screen. “
There’s no sound,” he said finally.

  “We have it on the house security,” Brolin lied effortlessly. “Want to tell us how you knew Skylar Barbour was missing?”

  “I don’t know nothing about it,” Johnson insisted. “I swear.”

  “Bullshit.” Raymond’s big, puffy face was grim and impatient. He looked bone-tired. This investigation had been hard on all of us. “You got off easy on your first offense. We figured you just got drunk and acted up. But now it’s starting to look like you’re one of them. That disappoints me, Gene.”

  Johnson shuddered but stayed silent. He looked as if he was going to cry.

  Brolin leaned forward. “Where’s the girl you warned Peele about?”

  “How would I know?” Gene shot back.

  “You said somebody took a girl. So where is she?” Brolin pressed. “Who has Skylar?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You warned Logan Peele before we received the missing persons report,” Brolin told him. “How’d you know?”

  Johnson looked confused, but he was silent.

  Brolin scraped back her chair and stood. “You will be held accountable if something happens to this young woman,” she threatened. “And I’ll make it a priority to see that your status is reviewed. I’m starting to think you’re a danger to the community living on the outside.”

  Johnson cracked. “My wife, okay?” he said. “It was innocent. Her best friend is a bus driver for the middle school, that’s all. Somebody called her and said that girl had disappeared. She told my wife. That’s how I knew.”

  “Then why not just say that right off, for fuck’s sake?” Raymond snapped in disgust. “ ’Cause this just makes it seem like you’re lying your ass off now.”

  “She was really upset,” Johnson said. “I didn’t want to get her in trouble ’cause she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone yet.”

  “Damnit,” the sheriff spat, beside me. This wasn’t going where we wanted it to.

  “And you gotta run and tell Peele about it?” Raymond asked Johnson. “Why?”

  “ ’Cause I knew if something bad happened to her you’d start rounding us up.” Johnson’s face knotted. “And you did. I just wanted to warn him, that’s all. Some of us are trying to live normal lives, but that’s not easy when deputies show up every damn time something bad happens.”

  “What’s the driver’s name?” Brolin asked. “The one who called your wife.”

  “Vicki,” he said. “Um … Vicki Bello. Lives over on Maple. Look, don’t get her in trouble, okay? They were just talking. Vicki said the parents were calling everyone. Even the kids.”

  “That’s the bus driver’s name,” Meltzer murmured. “In Hayley Barbour’s statement. She called the bus driver Mrs. Bello. And Major Brolin spoke to her too.”

  Tina Brolin was standing now, looking at Johnson in disbelief. I knew exactly how she felt. She’d thought she finally had it within her grasp—the answer to Skylar’s disappearance, the killer or someone who could lead us to the killer. “You’re free to go for now,” she told Johnson.

  “Call the driver and see if she’ll admit to calling Johnson’s wife,” the sheriff ordered when they returned.

  We listened as Raymond made the call, disconnected, nodded. “Checks out,” he reported.

  Major Brolin plucked Gene Johnson’s photo out of the suspect column. Her front teeth pressed hard into her bottom lip and her eyes were as feral and unpredictable as a Siamese cat’s. She flung the photo across the room like a Frisbee. It fluttered and failed. The clock sounded hollow and loud. Skylar’s photograph looked down at us from the board, beckoning, pleading.

  32

  Missing, it said in the wide, uneven strokes of a black marker. Skylar’s photo hung alone in the open center of the board, away from the evidence column, away from the witness and suspect columns. Simple notes chronicled what we knew of the last day anyone had seen her: School, leaves school, walks home. 3 p.m. School out. 3:17 Skylar’s mobile/Cottonwood Rd to Barbour landline. Those last hours, those last moments before the crime, they always boil down to a few bare lines. You have to remind yourself they’re more than that. Someone was in those moments, experiencing them, living their life, thinking their thoughts.

  “Parole officer’s trying to track him down,” Raymond was updating us on the sex offender Lamar Bailey. He wasn’t home and hadn’t shown up for work. My eyes drifted to the suspect column and Bailey’s photograph.

  I moved Daniel Tray’s photo to a clean section on the board. “I dropped in to see the band teacher who taught both Melinda and Skylar. His reaction to the news Skylar had disappeared was more stress than grief. He was actually sweating. And he lied to me.” I made a list next to his photo with a squeaking marker that sounded like wet sneakers on tile. Leaves early 2X a week. Excused absence 1/17/M Cochran abduction. Lied about time. 2 p.m. No alibi. “He told me he left at four yesterday. He didn’t know I’d been by the school to see him at three o’clock.” I’d been inside that school while Skylar crossed the park for the last time and walked into the woods and vanished. Perhaps she was one of the throng rushing through the double doors when the bell rang. Perhaps we’d rubbed elbows at the door. My life had crossed paths with her in those last precious moments before she became a victim. “The admin assistant said she saw Daniel Tray leaving at two,” I told them. “He also works a thirty-hour week, which makes him free at midafternoon twice a week.”

  Brolin picked up a marker and scrawled opportunity next to Tray’s photo. “We ran him again yesterday and he was clean,” she said. I noticed the again. “We didn’t consider him a person of interest when Melinda disappeared.” Brolin was trying to cover. She was telling us they were aware of Tray and had excluded him. But the files reflected a different story. They’d let their familiarity with the victim prevent them from compiling a complete victimology, which would have rooted out Tray and everyone else Melinda had contact with in her life, and now Brolin was trying to save face, and maybe save her ass. I knew the sheriff wasn’t happy with his team.

  “Deputy Ferrell is canvassing Mr. Tray’s street,” Meltzer told us. “Tray told Keye he went straight home from school. We need someone in the neighborhood who can corroborate.”

  “He was shaken up when I interviewed him,” I told them. “Ten minutes later he comes out of the school, obviously distraught. He’s talking fast into his phone. Then he drives straight to the church. By the time I get inside, he’s huddled with the minister. In prayer. Anyone else find that suspicious?”

  “Very,” Brolin said grimly.

  “I spoke with Ethan Hutchins,” I told them. “He said a lot of people had come to pray since the news broke about Skylar. He assured me he doesn’t protect violent offenders.”

  “But you didn’t buy it?” Brolin said.

  “Something’s going on with Tray,” I answered. “We need to know why he lied. His time is currently unaccounted for after two o’clock, and that coincides with Skylar’s abduction. And there’s the excused absence on the day the second vic disappeared.”

  “Fucker looks like Mister Rogers,” Raymond rasped. “Hard to trust that. And it’s not like we haven’t seen the God thing before with crazies.”

  “If no one supports his alibi, we’ll have a closer look,” Meltzer said, like he was checking off his list.

  “Couple of other interesting items,” I added. I pointed to the names on the board under the witness section—Shannon Davis, Briana Franklin, and Heather Ridge. “When I interviewed these girls, Heather referred to Melinda as awkward.”

  “Not the Melinda I knew from the diner,” Brolin said, and the sheriff agreed.

  “Apparently not the Melinda anyone knew,” I said. “So Heather intentionally misled me. Why? She called me a few minutes before I got here. She was fishing. She wanted to know what we had.”

  Raymond chuckled. “Probably trying to cover some kid shit. They’re always guilty of some kind of crap at that age. And believe you me, you never kn
ow what they’re thinking.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, and looked back at the board. “Or maybe those girls know something. I walked down the street with them yesterday. You can see right into Melinda’s neighborhood. Y’all know those neighborhoods. If someone was waiting for her, how is it they didn’t see him?”

  Shannon Davis. Briana Franklin. Heather Ridge. Brolin put a big question mark next to their names.

  “I’m not trying to shoot your theory down or anything.” Raymond shifted his big body, stuffed some of his shirttail back under his belt. “But as a parent to a teenager, let me tell you they’re self-absorbed as hell and they lie their asses off for the fun of it. Robbie hasn’t told me the truth in three years. Melinda’s address is on a side street that runs off the one into the neighborhood. We found her phone at an intersection. That view would have been partially obstructed.”

  “I got a call from an attorney this morning. After Tina spoke to the girls, the parents contacted him,” the sheriff said. “Upsets the girls to keep talking about it, I was told. Any more questions will have to be scheduled with attorneys present.”

  Raymond muttered something. Meltzer flashed him a look.

  “A couple of things are bothering me,” I told them. “It’s not unusual for there to be an interval between serial crimes. The offender uses the time to emotionally distance himself from an offense, compartmentalize, detach from his violent behaviors. He tries to psychologically reintegrate into society, and into his own life. The ten-year gap between murders we have with Melinda and Tracy could mean the killer was out of the area for that period of time or he was incarcerated. It could also have to do with the level of fulfillment achieved with the last victim. Some of these guys get married and lead a normal life for long periods of time. It’s not always understood what triggers a dormant period or a violent period. But we’ve got significant differences in behaviors before and after that long cooling-off period. Tracy’s injuries were much less severe, even though she was held for a longer time. That’s inconsistent with the sadist who tortured Melinda.” You broke her fingers and nearly severed her head, I thought. Why?