A Blind Eye

by G. M. Ford

  Ahead, on the side of the mountain, a steady line of 18-wheelers crept up the freeway grade, nose-to-tail like a herd of metal elephants. Dougherty looked back over her shoulder. The surrounding forest had swallowed Avalon whole.

  “Warren…” she said. “I need a favor.”

  “Like what?” he said.

  “Take me back to town.”

  He pulled the van to the side of the road. Jammed it into Park.

  “I need to get back to Madison,” he said. “I’ve got to be at the lab at seven tomorrow morning.”

  “Please.”

  He shook his head. “By now I’ve already got people wondering where I am.”

  “Come on,” she pleaded.

  “Tell you what.”

  “What?”

  He told her.

  A deep laugh rolled from her chest. “You little pervert you,” she chuckled. “And here I was thinking you were the last of the Mr. Nice Guys.”

  “Sometimes you just need to see things under a microscope,” he said with a grin. “They’re usually clearer that way. Deal?”

  She laughed, harder this time. “I feel like I’m nine again,” she said. “Back in the corn crib with Jimmy Crabtree.”

  29

  I’m going down swinging,” he announced.

  Sheriff Trask looked over at the handcuffed Corso and smiled. “Not in your present condition, you’re not.” She closed the top drawer of the file cabinet and opened the next one down. “Soon as Barbara gets the extradition papers put together and signed, I’m afraid the only place you’re going is Texas.”

  Corso bumped himself off the wall and meandered over by the sheriff, who was refiling a stack of case folders. Her secretary, Barbara, had made filing easy for her by color coding the drawers—red, yellow, green, and blue—top to bottom. All Trask had to do was keep each drawer alphabetized.

  “What say we go for the daily double?”

  “What’s that?”

  “What say you get me out of these cuffs and let me out the back door. All I’ve got to do is stay lost till midnight. What do you say?”

  “You know I can’t do that, Mr. Corso. I lose track of you a second time, people are gonna start to think I’ve got Alzheimer’s.”

  “Even if they catch me, I won’t say a word. Not about any of it.”

  She heaved a sigh and turned his way for a moment. “You want to tell people I let you go the first time, you go right ahead. I’ll deny the hell out of it.”

  She went back to filing. Corso ambled to the other side of the room, put one cheek up on the sheriff’s desk, and crossed his feet in front of him on the floor. Behind his back, his hands were busy.

  “I’m not talking about you letting me go, Sheriff. I’m talking about you knowing damn well what happened to Cole Richardson,” he said.

  She was good. Her hands only paused for an instant before resuming her task. “That doesn’t even deserve a response, Mr. Corso.” She put the folders on top of the file cabinet and turned his way. “And if you don’t mind me saying, that kind of lie is pretty low.” She looked him up and down. “I misjudged you, Mr. Corso. Turns out you’re exactly the kind of irresponsible skunk folks say you are.”

  “I’ve known it was you ever since you told Special Agent Molina you weren’t sure whether or not Cole Richardson was wearing his tie that day.” He shook his head in wonder. “That spit-and-polish SOB wore his tie to bed, and we both know it. Told me right away you knew something the rest of us didn’t. Something you needed to keep under your hat at all costs.”

  She closed the second drawer and slid the third open. “How you do go on,” she said with an over-the-shoulder smirk. “A man with your credibility history really ought to be careful about throwing stones, if you know what I mean.”

  “They don’t have to believe me,” Corso said. “All they’ve got to do is check the serial number on the piece you’re carrying right now against the serial number that’s listed for your piece in your own files. Number one-seven-five-three-three-nine-eight-SWA-ten. That’s what the file says.” He paused. “Let’s see what’s on that piece you’re carrying, Sheriff.”

  She ignored him. Kept filing. Corso went on. “Be-cause there’s no way in hell they match. No way you’re still carrying the piece that put a slug in Cole Richard-son’s head. You told me that much yourself. The Wisconsin State Police tested every gun in the department, including yours, and came up empty. Come on, Sheriff, show me your piece, and I’ll shut up and go off to Texas like a good boy.”

  Her face began to color. “You shut your filthy mouth, you hear me?”

  “Just show me the piece.”

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” she snapped. “Close your mouth.”

  “What happened? He figure out you let me skip and threatened to go public on you? That it? He threaten to tell his daddy? Get your ass fired for dereliction of duty? You can tell old Uncle Frank,” Corso taunted. “Confession is tonic for the soul.”

  She straightened up and checked her office door. Walked over and pushed on it to make sure it was latched all the way, and then stalked over and put her face in Corso’s. “You shut your lying mouth,” she whispered. “I’ve got enough problems around here without you getting everybody riled up with ridiculous lies like that.”

  “Show me the serial number.”

  “You’re starting to annoy me, Mr. Corso.”

  “I annoy everybody. It’s a gift. Show me the gun.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “So…straighten me out.”

  She checked the door again. “The dumb son of a bitch tried to arrest me. Soon as I let him up, he made a grab for my gun.” Her eyes relived the moment. “We didn’t even really struggle. Soon as he grabbed my hand…it just…the gun just went off. And…then he was dead…and…”She hardened herself. “It was an accident, pure and simple. And if you think anybody’s gonna take the word of a lying dog, fired reporter, convicted felon, over mine…well, you’ve got another think coming.”

  She grabbed him by the shirtfront, swung him in a circle, and was about to propel him toward the door when the light caught her attention. She stopped in midswing, let go of Corso’s shirt, and slowly dropped her hand to her side. Openmouthed and disbelieving, she stared at the brightly lit red button on her phone.

  Corso kept backing up until he reached the door, where his manacled hands found the handle and pulled it open a crack so his foot could swing it the rest of the way.

  Maria Trask wouldn’t look that way. It was as if she knew what was there but figured if she didn’t look at it, it couldn’t be real. As if by power of will, her withheld acknowledgment could make the pair of Wisconsin state policemen go up in smoke. She gave it a try. Straightened up and got all haughty. “Is there a problem here?” she wanted to know. The sound of her own amplified voice coming from the outer room let the air out of her in a hurry and finally moved her eyes to the doorway.

  She looked from one trooper to the other, then over their shoulders to Deputies Caruth and Duckett standing grim-lipped along the wall. “It was—” she stammered.

  “Don’t say anything,” Corso said. “Call a lawyer.”

  She glanced helplessly about. “I didn’t mean for—”

  “Call a lawyer,” Corso said again. He nodded at the red button on the phone. “I’ve got some doubts about whether information obtained this way is usable in court. Not only that, but if things came down the way you say they did…well, it was just an accident. With a clean record and a good lawyer, you ought to pretty much walk.”

  “I shouldn’t have—” she started, then clamped her jaw and looked over at Corso. “I shouldn’t have—” she started again.

  Corso interrupted. “What you shouldn’t have done was tell those Dallas boys where to find me, this time. You had no call to do that, unless, of course, you were worried I’d keep m
ucking around in things until I turned something up. All that told me was that I was right about what I was thinking about you…and that, contrary to something else I’d been thinking, I didn’t owe you a goddamn thing.”

  30

  You’re a caution, you are, Mr. Corso,” Duckett said. “I’m gonna have to sit down and have a couple of fingers of bourbon when I get back home…see if maybe I can’t make sense outta you.”

  “Personally, I don’t bother,” Corso said.

  “You got this real interesting way of putting two and two together and coming up with nine. Then getting everybody else to agree with you. Don’t think I’ve ever seen quite the like of it.” Deputy Duckett rubbed his hands together and stamped his boots. “I’ll surely be grateful for some Dallas weather,” he said. “Never been so dang cold in all my life.”

  “Your young partner there’s gonna turn out to be a hell of a cop.”

  “Caruth? He’s a damn good boy…that’s for sure.”

  “Guy puts a muzzle on your forehead and tells you to move…most folks just ask how far and how fast. The kid showed big balls,” Corso said.

  Duckett snorted. “As I recall, under very similar circumstances, you told the same gentleman to go fuck himself.”

  “I don’t like being called a liar.”

  Duckett chewed on the idea for a moment. “I can understand how a man might take serious offense at something like that,” he said. “I surely can.”

  A maroon Crown Victoria crunched up to the curb in front of the police station. Deputy Caruth got out and stood in the open doorway. Corso waved.

  “Go home and get warm,” Corso said to Duckett.

  They shook hands for a bit longer than was comfortable, and then Duckett started down the stairs. Corso shouted a good-bye to Caruth, who doffed his hat in salute, before climbing back in, shifting the Chevy into Drive, and rolling out into the street.

  Corso buttoned his overcoat all the way up to his chin and turned up the collar. He hunched his shoulders against the cold and started down the gray granite steps.

  “Hey,” a familiar voice called.

  The sound pulled his eyes across the street to the police station parking lot. He slipped a hand from his pocket and shaded his eyes against the red glare of the gathering sunset. Dougherty and Warren stood side by side at the rear of an unmarked white van. He barely came up to her shoulder. Looked like he’d been captured by vampires and was being kept as a pet.

  As Corso approached, Dougherty turned to her companion. “Told you,” she said. “He weaseled out somehow. One minute he’s under arrest and on his way to Texas. Next minute he’s sharing a male-bonding moment with one of his captors, who then proceeds to drive off into the sunset without his prisoner. It’s absolutely amazing.”

  “Pretty slick,” Warren agreed.

  “What are you doing here?” Corso asked her. “I figured you’d be back in Seattle catching a little of that liquid sunshine by now.”

  “I had some good news, so we stopped by the cop shop to see if you were still here. The woman at the desk said she didn’t think you were under arrest anymore. Said there was something going on she couldn’t talk about, but that if we hung around you’d probably be waltzing out on your own sometime this afternoon.”

  “Looked like a big day at the Avalon Police Department,” Warren commented. “People coming and going all afternoon. Lotta real grim looks.”

  “Yeah. We had a little excitement, we did.”

  He told them the story. Started back with Clint Richardson and the scene in the street and worked his way up to about five minutes earlier, when Duckett, Caruth, and he finally signed their statements and were shown the door.

  “No shit,” Dougherty said. “The sheriff herself.”

  “Not anymore she isn’t,” Corso said with a shiver.

  “What the hell are we standing out here for?” Dougherty wanted to know. She pulled open the van’s sliding door and stepped up into the rear seat. Warren slid the door closed and walked around toward the driver’s side as Corso climbed into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut.

  It was fifty degrees warmer inside the van. Corso looked from Dougherty to Warren and back as he un-buttoned his coat. They were having trouble keeping smug looks from taking over their faces. “So…” Corso said, “what was this good news?” He watched as they shared a look. Waited as Dougherty decided whether to blurt it out or to torture him some first, as she usually did. She opted for the former.

  “We found her,” she said.

  “Sissy?”

  “Nancy Anne Goff.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “That’s who Sissy became after she left Avalon,” Warren said.

  Corso repeated the name. “And would we have any idea where Nancy Anne got to from here?” Corso asked.

  “We would,” Dougherty said with a smirk.

  “You’re going to make me suffer, aren’t you?”

  “Count on it,” she said.

  “Midland, Michigan,” Warren offered.

  Corso folded his arms across his chest and looked from one to the other. “Okay, I’ll bite…how’d you two find all this out?”

  “Warren was driving me to the airport. He said something that gave me an idea. We turned around and checked it out, and lo and behold, I was right. Got her on the first try.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He was talking about how modus operandi was so important to investigations because criminals generally find something that works and stick with it.”

  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Corso said. “And?”

  “He was talking about the way the murders were committed and how no two of the methods were the same.” She leaned forward in the seat. “Right then we were driving past the town graveyard. I told Warren it seemed like I was spending a lot of time in cemeteries lately.” She put her hand on Corso’s shoulder. “And that’s when it hit me. Maybe the murder methods didn’t match, but what about the way she came up with new identities? What if she used the same method of identity theft as she did the last time?” She waved a hand. “At least the last time we know about anyway.”

  “So?”

  “So we went to the courthouse and checked the death records for the year preceding her disappearance from the area. Women. Late twenties to late thirties.”

  “How many?” Corso prodded.

  “Two,” she said. “One of them had two names, the other had three. You wanna guess which one I tried first? The county had a request for a birth certificate seven weeks after Nancy Anne Goff’s funeral. The Social Security Administration sent her a new Social Security card a month after that. By the time she disappeared, Sissy Warwick had a complete new set of identification, including a driver’s license and two credit cards.”

  “Everything sent to a P.O. box in Midland, Michigan.”

  “Dude,” Corso said. He slapped high fives with both of them. “Hell of a job! Hell of a job!”

  “What next?” Dougherty asked.

  “You come up with a copy of the license?”

  “No picture,” Warren said. “Wisconsin didn’t start putting pictures on their driver’s licenses until ’89.”

  “Shit.”

  “We’ve still got the mug shot,” Dougherty said.

  “What we’ve got is a twenty-five-year-old shot of a seventeen-year-old hooker with one side of her face swollen up the size of a grapefruit. We turn anything from that shot, we’ll have to get real lucky.”

  “So…what? We’re gonna give up and go crawling back to Seattle?”

  “Of course not. That’d be way too sensible.”

  “What then?”

  Corso thought it over. “Where’s Midland?” he asked.

  “Northern part of the state,” Warren said. “Want to see a map?”

  “Love to,” Corso replied.

  Warren rummaged around in the glove box and found a packet of road maps held together by a red rubber band. He handed it to Cor
so, who spread the map across his knees. Warren snapped on the overhead light.

  “Near the base of what I think they call the Upper Peninsula,” Dougherty said as Corso found his way to Midland with his finger.

  Corso nodded. “That figures,” he said. “Someplace away from people. But where there’s enough bodies to get lost in.”

  “Good place to hide out,” Dougherty said.

  “Actually, she’d be better off in Chicago, where folks come and go all the time and nobody gives a shit anyway. Get herself lost in the crowd.” He tapped the map with his fingertip. “Place like Midland, it’s big enough to blend in but small enough to find a place out of town where you can have a little space.”

  “Which is why she’s not someplace like Chicago,” she said.

  “Big city like that’s way too out of control for her,” Corso said. He looked over the seat at Dougherty. “You remember what that county shrink said about her back in New Jersey?”

  “What?”

  “She tries to control everything in her environment. Anything she can’t control, she sees as a threat and has to do something about. In a place like Chicago, you can only control things as long as you stay inside. The minute you step out into the street, it’s a zoo.” He folded the map in two. “Too scary for her. For her, this is all about control. About creating a nice safe little haven for herself where she can pull all the strings and deal with other people as little as possible.”

  “But she seeks out people,” Dougherty argued. “She slept with half of Avalon. She married a guy. Had a family.”

  Corso handed the map back to Warren. “That’s the other thing the shrink said. She’s psychologically attached to her roots. She can’t imagine living in any situation where she’s not surrounded by some sort of family. That’s all she knows. It’s the only lifestyle that makes any sense to her, so she tries to duplicate it.”

  “Then why kill them?”

  “Because they get out of control. For one reason or another, things start to go haywire, and she gets this terrific urge to start all over again. To take it from the top so she can get back in charge of everything. That’s what the angels were doing in those pictures she drew. Cleaning up loose ends before moving on to whatever was next.”