by David Archer
“That may be true,” Cassie said, “but it still could be a cause for worry. After some of the things you told me, I have to wonder if there’s something going on between the two of them.”
A few tears started to trickle down Kendra’s face again. “You don’t think—you don’t think she’s, like, willing for that sort of thing, do you?”
“I have my doubts about that,” Cassie replied. “You said she told you she did want to get away from him, so it’s more likely that anything that’s happening is something she feels she can’t put a stop to on her own. Men like that often threaten the child, or they threaten the mother in order to gain the child’s compliance.”
“Oh, my God,” Kendra said. “I should be out there, I should be out looking for my little girl. I just need to go and look for…”
Cassie shook her head. “No,” she said. “What I think you need to do right now is go home. They might come back, or they might call the house, but I think you need to be there. I’ll let Detective Perkins know that’s where you’re going, and we’ll let them handle it.” Cassie mentally crossed her fingers.
The poor woman looked like she was about to start crying again, but Cassie got up. She grabbed her purse and shoved a sheet of paper into it, then hustled her out the back door. “Seriously, you need to go home. You need to be there if they come back, and call me immediately if they do. If you hear from them at all, you call me right away, got that?”
Kendra nodded as Cassie walked her to her car, and then got in and drove away. Cassie waited until she was out of sight and then went to her own car, taking out her phone as she got inside behind the wheel.
“Detective Perkins,” Alicia said as she answered the call.
“Alicia, it’s Cassie. I think I may have an idea.”
SIXTEEN
“What have you got?” Alicia asked instantly.
“We both know it would be a bad idea for the police to find Roger,” Cassie replied. “If I could find him, though, he might not see me as the kind of threat that would cause him to react with violence.”
“No offense meant,” Alicia said, “but you aren’t exactly a professional investigator.”
“Want to bet? I spend every day listening to women talk about the things going on at home, but they never tell me the real situation. It seems like they always want to make it sound like it’s not as bad as it is. I have to do a lot of deduction; I have to listen to the clues and put them together to get to the truth. Isn’t that exactly what investigation is?”
“Okay, maybe you got me there, but how do you plan on tackling this?”
“When I did her intake, we spent about four hours in my office. Kendra told me a lot about Roger, including some of his friends. I think I’m going to go and pay them a visit, see if I can find somebody who might give me something I can go on.”
“I can’t stop you,” Alicia said, “but you need to be careful, Cassie. In many cases, we find that men like Roger tend to associate with other men like themselves. His friends might not be very good people, and if they actually know what he’s up to, they might be defensive.”
Cassie chuckled. “You want to know what I’ve learned? There aren’t too many people who can look Frankenstein in the eye and lie. Sometimes it pays to look scary, you know what I mean?”
“You just told me the women you meet every day lie to you,” Alicia said.
“Yeah, but only while they’re looking at my pretty side. Once I turn my face around and let them see my alter ego, that tends to fade away pretty fast. Besides, by then I’ve usually got the situation figured out pretty well, so I know what questions to ask. When Frankenstein is asking the questions, people tend to answer more honestly.”
She could hear Alicia sigh. “Okay,” the detective said, “just be careful, and keep me on speed dial. If you come up with something, I want to know it.”
“You got it,” Cassie said. She ended the call and dropped the phone into her purse, then rummaged in it until she found the paper she was looking for. It was the list of names of Roger’s friends that Kendra had given her a week earlier.
The Outreach always asked for the names of an abuser’s friends, just in case things went bad before the victims were able to get away. Cassie had once thought it was a waste of time, but now she was glad it was standard procedure. She looked at the first name on the list, Kenneth Zigler, and ran him through the background database the Outreach used.
Zigler’s address appeared on the screen, along with his place of employment, which was listed as Harold’s Auto Parts. Since it was only a quarter of eleven, she suspected he would be at work. Harold’s was only a few blocks away, and she arrived there ten minutes later.
She walked into the store and spotted the counter on the right. A man was standing behind it, smiling in her direction. “Welcome to Harold’s,” he said. “How can I help you today?”
Cassie fought down the urge to smile as she walked up to him. “I’m hoping to speak with one of your employees,” she said, noting the subtle swallow he made when he realized that he really was seeing the ruins of what had once been a face. “Would Kenneth Zigler be in?”
“Oh,” the man said, “that’s me. I’m Kenneth Zigler. What can I do for you?”
“Kenneth, my name is Cassie McGraw,” she said. “I’m a social worker who deals with domestic abuse situations, and I’m looking for a friend of yours who has abducted his stepdaughter and disappeared. Would you know where I might find Roger McCoy?”
Zigler’s eyes narrowed. “Roger? When did this happen?”
“Apparently early this morning. He and Kendra had a big fight last night because he found out she was planning to leave him over being abusive, and when she got up this morning both he and Melanie were gone. He claims you’re his best friend, so I’m hoping you might have some idea where he might’ve taken her.”
Zigler looked at her with skepticism. “Shouldn’t the police be asking about this?”
“We often help the police with inquiries of this nature,” Cassie lied. “When you’re dealing with someone with the kind of psychological problems that result in domestic abuse, they find it pays to have experts involved.”
He seemed to chew that over for a moment. “Well, I don’t know where he might be,” he said. “To be perfectly honest, Roger and I aren’t all that close. We used to be, but he’s gotten kind of unfriendly the last couple months.”
“Okay, but you used to be friends,” Cassie said. “Think about when you were. Where do you think he might go if he was trying to hide?”
Zigler made a sour face. “Well, Roger’s always been kind of a nature buff,” he said. “He’s into hunting and camping, that kind of stuff. I know that he used to talk about hiking a lot, but I never found out where he would go.”
“Can you think of anyone else who might know? Anyone at all?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m sorry.” Another man suddenly came from a back room and seemed to be watching them. “Listen,” he said, lowering his voice, “I really wish I could help, but I can’t. And it doesn’t do me a lot of good to be seen just chatting, know what I mean?”
Cassie glanced at the other man, then turned back to Zigler and handed him her business card. “Okay, but if you happen to think of anything, please give me a call. There’s actually a strong possibility that both Roger and Melanie could be in serious danger.”
Zigler took the card and looked at it, then glanced back up at her. “Hey, you might try Dexter Tate. I know him and Dex go back a long ways, so Dex might know something. He works down at the Ford dealership, in the service department. Just do me a favor and don’t tell him I gave you his name, okay? Dex isn’t always the nicest guy, and I don’t want him mad at me.”
“Okay,” Cassie said, giving him a half smile that left the mangled side out. “Have a great day.”
She left the parts store and got back into her car, then glanced at the list again. Sure enough, Dexter Tate, better known as “Dex,” was right t
here near the top. She started the car and backed out, then turned to the right. She knew where the Ford dealership was, just a dozen blocks down this same street.
When she got there, she pulled right around to the parking area that was designated for the service department, got out of the car, and walked in. A woman sitting in a window looked up at her and smiled, and Cassie was impressed when the smile didn’t waver when she drew near.
“Hi, what can I do for you?”
“My name is Cassie McGraw, and I’m a social worker. I’m here to see if I could speak with one of your employees, Dexter Tate.”
“Dex? Um, sure, just a minute.” She picked up a telephone and pushed the button, and then Cassie heard her voice come over a loudspeaker. “Dex, come to the service window. Dex, come to the service window.”
The girl put down the phone and smiled up at Cassie once more. “He should be here in a minute or so. You can have a seat, if you wish.”
Cassie had seen a row of chairs as she entered and nodded politely as she stepped back to take one. She sat there for less than two minutes before a man approached the window, and the girl pointed him toward her. Cassie rose to her feet as he approached, and held out her hand. She was surprised when he showed no visible reaction to her appearance, but didn’t let him see that.
Dex shook hands with her, but the expression on his face said he was distrustful of surprise visits. “I’m Dex,” he said. “Something I can do for you?”
“Actually, there’s something you can do for a friend of yours. Roger McCoy has abducted his stepdaughter and disappeared—it happened this morning. I’m hoping you might be able to tell me where I can find them.”
Dex’s expression didn’t change. “Why would I know? Sounds like Roger’s got a personal problem.”
“Dex, according to Roger, you’re one of his very best friends. He says you guys go all the way back to high school. If that’s true, then you would probably come as close as anyone to having a guess where he might take Melanie. Her mother is worried sick, and the police are looking for them now. If I find him first, things will probably go easier on him.”
The sour look turned to a scowl. “Roger likes to go out in the woods,” he said. “Back when we were kids, he used to disappear into the woods for a week at a time. He’s kind of a survival nut, knows which plants to eat, how to catch fish without a fishing pole, how to make traps, all that stuff.”
“I’ve heard that he likes to go hiking,” Cassie said. “Any idea where he would go, especially if he wanted to disappear into the woods?”
“You know about the blue whale? Kind of a tourist attraction out on Route 66—some old guy built this big whale and painted it blue. Sticks out into a pond so people can walk out and see the fish or something. There’s some hiking trails there, and Roger used to say that he could cut through those to get to the best spots in all the countryside around here. Back before he got married, he had built himself a little hideout back in there, like a cave, almost. He only took me out there once, and I don’t remember how to get there, but I know you had to take one of the hiking trails that lead off from the blue whale.”
“Thank you, that’s great,” Cassie said. “Can you give me any idea how I would spot this hideout if I saw it?”
Dex grinned at that question. “Well, it wouldn’t be much of a hideout if you could spot it, would it? The only thing I can tell you is that it’s kind of dug into a hill, and there’s a big old pine tree right above it, and I mean a big one. I remember Roger saying he had to cut through the roots of that tree when he dug the place out. You get into it through a little tunnel, but you have to climb through a bunch of grass and cattails and such to get to it.”
“Thank you so much,” Cassie said. “Here’s my card. If you happen to think of anything else, or if you hear from Roger, please give me a call. We are all actually very worried about Melanie, because it seems there might be something bad happening to her.”
Dex took the card and looked at it, then looked back at Cassie’s face. “Mind if I ask what happened to you?”
Cassie gave him the full smile, the one with the twist on the end that made her look even more like Freda Krueger. “Somebody set me on fire,” she said, “for asking too many questions.”
Dex suddenly burst out laughing. “Good to see it didn’t slow you down,” he said. “Listen, if Roger is doing something to that little girl, I hope you find him fast and he gets exactly what’s coming to him. And if you need any help in that regard, don’t hesitate to call on me.” He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a card of his own. “I don’t know if you know it, but Roger got accused of something like that when we were teenagers. He always said it wasn’t true, and I know they threw it out of court, but I’ll admit I always wondered. I knew that girl; she wasn’t the kind to make up stories.”
Cassie took his card and glanced at it, then slipped it into her back pocket. “I knew about that,” she said. “That’s just one of the reasons I’m worried about Melanie. And don’t worry, if I find him, he’ll be going to jail. And if he’s guilty of that sort of thing, I understand the inmates don’t like people like that very much.”
Dex nodded and then turned away. Cassie waved a thank-you at the girl in the window and started to walk out the door, but suddenly she heard her name called. She turned around to see Dex coming back toward her and waited just inside the door for him.
“One other thing I thought of,” he said. “About two weeks ago, Roger came by my house to show me something new he bought. It was a pistol, a handgun. Roger has always been a hunter, but he’s always used shotguns or crossbows. I asked him why he wanted a pistol, and he said that you never know when you might need one.”
A shiver went down Cassie’s spine as she remembered looking down the barrel of Mike’s gun two years earlier. “Thank you,” she said solemnly. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
“You do that,” Dex said. “There aren’t a lot of good women left in the world, not any with guts. I’d hate to see anything happen to you.” He turned and walked away, leaving Cassie speechless.
She shook off the surprise and turned to go out the door, then got back into her car and pulled out her phone. She called Kendra McCoy, who answered on the first ring.
“Cassie? Did you find…”
“No, not yet,” Cassie said. “But I just heard something that really worries me. Do you know anything about Roger buying a gun? A handgun?”
There was a gasp. “A handgun? You mean like a pistol?”
“Yes.”
“No, he never said anything about that. He’s got several guns, but they’re all for hunting. Shotguns and a couple of rifles, and then he likes to use a crossbow sometimes, but he doesn’t have a pistol that I know of.”
“Apparently he does now,” Cassie said. “He showed one to Dexter Tate a couple of weeks ago. Okay, I just wondered if you knew. I need to call Alicia.” She disconnected and immediately dialed the detective.
“Detective Perkins,” Alicia answered.
“Bad news,” Cassie said. “I just found out Roger McCoy bought a pistol two weeks ago.”
“Oh, crap. This just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it? I’ll put the word out, and you need to stand down.”
“Like hell I will,” Cassie said. “All this does is make me more determined to find them as soon as I can. I also just heard that he has a hideout in the woods, something he built a few years ago. From what I was told, you have to get to it through the hiking trails out at the blue whale, and that fits with something Kendra told me. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything.”
SEVENTEEN
“Not so fast, girlie,” Alicia said. “What do you mean about it fitting with something the mama said?”
“Kendra had told me that Roger used to take Melanie out hiking a lot,” Cassie replied. “She didn’t have any idea where they might have gone, but if he ever took Melanie out to his little hideout, they probably went through those trails out of the blue whal
e.”
“Cassie,” Alicia said, “would he know you if he saw you?”
“No, I’ve never met him. Melanie would recognize me, but I’m hoping she’ll realize I’m there to help and stay quiet, if she does. One of the few good things about looking like Frankenstein is that people tend to look the other way in a hurry once they see you. It’s like they try to avoid getting your attention, so Roger would probably just ignore me. If I can spot them, I’ll call you and we’ll go from there.”
“That’s out in Catoosa,” Alicia said. “Rogers County. I’ll contact the sheriff’s office there and give them a head’s-up in case you run across them. Call me as soon as you know anything, got that?”
“I will,” Cassie said. “Wish me luck.”
Getting out to the blue whale took almost an hour, mostly because of getting through the city itself. Cassie knew that Roger was driving a white, older Ford Explorer, and she kept her eyes peeled as she pulled into the parking lot, but didn’t see one. She parked anyway and got out of her car, then happened to glance across the road to where the old trading post used to be. A white SUV, one that she was almost certain was an Explorer, was partly hidden among some bushes that were overgrowing the place.
They’re here, she thought. She looked around and decided to check out the blue whale itself, first, and started walking in that direction. In order to look like a tourist, she took out her phone and started snapping pictures. That would also give her the advantage of being able to dial Alicia quickly if she spotted Roger and Melanie.
The whale extended out into a pond, and she walked through it quickly. There was no sign of the man or the girl, so she turned around and headed back immediately, then turned toward the walking trails.
There were three of them, and no way of guessing which might be the right one. She took the one that looked the most worn and continued snapping pictures as she walked along. There were several places where whoever maintained the place had put up signs suggesting photo opportunities, and she took advantage of them to stop and look around.