by Roger Bray
“I don’t think I should go,” Alex said.
“Good call. I’ll take Alice and a digital recorder and let’s see what Todd has to say for himself.”
Chapter Eleven
Todd Bailey lived south-west of Bend on a ten-acre block off the southern end of Brookswood Boulevard. Steve and Alice had driven over from Eugene the next day, Saturday, hoping that he would be home over the weekend. Steve hadn’t wanted to try to contact him and warn him they were coming. He had always found that turning up on someone’s doorstep had an unsettling effect on the guilty.
As they turned off the road and onto the rough dirt driveway, the house came into view from behind a small stand of trees as they rounded a small bend.
“Nicely hidden from the road,” Steve commented as he maneuvered around a pothole.
“And the neighbors,” Alice agreed.
The house was of an older style. High standing with two stories and a full-length cellar underneath. A large shed stood off the right. Todd’s white Transit Connect with its cartoon electron on the sides was parked in front. Steve was relieved that he was home. He wanted to get this sorted out as soon as possible, for Alice as well as Alex.
She hadn’t been as sure that Todd was guilty of anything when Steve had first put it forward but as the evidence against him had built she had become more convinced that, as Steve said, Todd was hiding something.
They parked right in front of the steps that led to the front door. There was no point in hiding the fact that they were there. Steve adjusted the shoulder holster in which he kept his Glock 19.
She had been surprised he had wanted to take the gun. He had pulled over a couple of miles before Bend and had got his small tactical bag from out of the trunk. He pushed the magazine home and then secured the weapon in his shoulder holster. Adjusting the straps, he made it as comfortable as he could before answering her inquiring looks.
“I’m not taking you somewhere where there may be danger without being armed. We know little about Todd and he could be a survivalist with an arsenal in there for all I know.”
“Todd never struck me as someone who liked guns. He never mentioned them. And I know that his mom was anti guns.”
“Even so, I would rather be safe than sorry afterward.”
She shrugged and gave him a look that maybe he might be over-reacting. He adjusted the holster as he got out of the car and grabbed his folio from off the back seat.
They were only halfway up the stairs when the front door opened and a worried looking Todd Bailey came out.
“Alice and …?”
“Steve, we’ve met.”
“Yeah, Steve. What the hell are you doing here Alice. What’s going on?”
“Do you mind if we talk?” Steve asked as they reached the top step.
“About what?”
“Can we do this inside, Todd?” Alice said softly now less convinced than she had been before. But he did look worried.
“I have no idea what you want to talk to me about but sure, come on in.”
He led them into the surprisingly neat house, down the hallway and into what they guessed was a formal dining room. It didn’t look like it was used much. Todd probably didn’t hold many formal dinners.
“Todd, to start, I should tell you that I’m a licensed PI and I want to ask you some questions. If that’s OK?”
As he said this, Steve put his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his identification and showed it to Todd. As he put his credentials away Todd could see the Glock in its holster and he frowned.
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“I don’t know, Todd. Do you? Can we sit?” Steve said looking at the table.
Todd nodded and pulled out a chair. Steve and Alice did the same and sat opposite him. Taking out a small digital recorder Steve set it up in the middle of the table and set up the twin microphones so one was facing Todd and the other toward Alice and him.
“You want to record this?”
“If that’s OK with you?”
Todd shrugged, “Sure,” he said, not sounding convinced.
Steve pulled the folder from his bag, got a legal pad and a pen. He clicked the pen open and looked up with a smile.
“OK, Todd. Alice and I want to talk to you about Hazel Reed.”
“Hazel, Alex’s Hazel? What the hell would I know about her?”
“You were around on the night that she went missing,” Steve stated.
“Yeah, I told you that.”
“Did you leave your house that evening?”
“Later on, maybe.”
“And did you see Hazel?”
“No. I didn’t see her.”
“What about her car?”
“What about it?”
“Did you see it, when you went out?”
Todd shook his head.
“Or anyone else?”
He hesitated before answering, “No.”
“You don’t seem sure.”
“I am sure. I hesitated to think but I’m sure that I didn’t see anyone.”
“You’re fairly independent with your business, aren’t you? You can come and go—no set hours.”
Todd shrugged, “I guess.”
“No boss and no office open at set times.”
“No, I have a workshop here but mainly work at the client’s site. Look, what are you getting at here? I thought you wanted to know if I had seen anyone or anything, like a witness. Is that what I am, a witness? Well, I’m not because I didn’t see anything.”
Steve resisted looking at Alice who was staring at Todd with barely disguised loathing.
“What time did you go out?”
“I don’t know. I had tried to sleep because I knew that I had to leave early. I couldn’t, I tossed and turned for a while and then decided to go for a walk. It would have been a bit after midnight I guess.”
“How long did you walk for?”
“An hour maybe.”
“Where?”
“It was quite cold and misty that night I remember. I walked from my mom’s house up past Alex’s house, toward 11th Avenue, then I cut across to the top of the university and walked back through the Pioneer Cemetery and then back home. I slept for a few hours and then got up and drove over to Prineville, like I said.”
“It was a cold, misty night, and after midnight you decided to walk through the cemetery?”
“I like cemeteries. I find them calm and peaceful.”
“Each to their own.” Alice thought as Steve continued, deciding that he had had enough of Todd’s nocturnal stories.
“Todd. We’ve got a problem. Actually, it’s you who has the problem.”
“What?”
“How did you get Hazel’s phone?”
“Hazel’s phone? Shit! OK, that will do me, I’d like you to leave now. What are you actually accusing me of here?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything, Todd,” Steve said, “Not yet anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Todd, we know you had the phone, we know that it’s Hazel’s, and we know that your fingerprints are all over it.”
“Please leave.” Todd stood up and raised his arm toward the door, pointing the way out.
Steve shrugged, “OK, that’s your right, but I think that you’re making a mistake.”
“Well, I don’t think so. I don’t have to talk to you, do I, I don’t have to say anything?”
“No,” Steve admitted, “You don’t. You can refuse to talk to the police when they come around as well.”
“Police? You never mentioned the police.”
“No, I didn’t. But that’s our next stop.”
“But I haven’t done anything.”
“You’ll have to convince them of that. It would be bad though if the local news got a hold of this. Big story for a local channel, they’d get a nice video of you being driven out of here in a police cruiser.”
Todd gulped and sat down again so Steve continu
ed.
“C’mon, Todd, you were around that night, you’ve already told us that. What you forgot to mention is that you were walking around the neighborhood late at night around the time that Hazel was taken. You also forgot to mention that you have Hazel’s phone. Finally, we know that the phone didn’t spend a long time outside. It was taken when Hazel disappeared, there’s a lot that you need to explain, Todd and to either us or the police. If we have to go to the police, I have a full file in which there’s more than enough evidence for them to come here and serve a search warrant.”
Alice could see the change in Todd. As he sat in the chair looking at them, she could see that he was trying to take in what Steve was saying. He sat there staring, his head bobbing back and forth. His eyes closed for a moment and he was starting to slump forward and looked trapped.
“I have a good life here,” he whispered, “I’ve built my business up and it will all be destroyed if that happened.”
“Sorry about that, yeah it probably would. But can you imagine how much Alex’s life has been destroyed by losing his wife and then finding himself locked away.”
“But I haven’t done anything.”
“Do you want us to leave and call the police? Or, would you prefer to talk to us?”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone but if it will make this go away then fine, I’ll talk to you.”
Steve set the clock back twelve years to put Todd off guard. It worked.
“Todd, we know that you left Eugene and set up here in mid-2000. That was a couple of months before a woman called Grace Armitage went missing.”
Todd was looking at them both now. Wide eyed and shaking his head.
“What? Grace who?”
“Armitage, Grace Armitage. Did you know her?”
“No, I’ve never heard of her. As far as I know, I don’t know her. I thought you wanted to talk about Hazel?”
“We do want to talk about Hazel, who I believe is the last of four women who were kidnapped over the last fifteen years. Between you leaving Eugene and Hazel going missing, another three women disappeared.”
“Look, I know nothing about Hazel going missing, I don’t. I definitely don’t know anything about these other women.”
“How were you when Cheryl broke it off with you?”
“Cheryl? What does this have to do with Cheryl?”
“She broke off with you in the summer before you moved to Bend and bought this house, didn’t she?”
“You’ve spoken to Cheryl?”
Steve nodded.
“How is she?”
“She’s fine, Todd. She’s doing well.”
“Is she married, children?”
“No, never married and no children.” Alice said, starting to feel a little sorry for him.
“How were you, Todd? How were you when the love of your life broke it off with you?”
“How did you know that?”
“She told us that’s what you said.”
“And what did she say about me?”
“She said the same, Todd, that’s why she never married,” Alice said quietly.
That seemed to be the moment Todd’s resolve crumbled.
The woman he loved had never moved on and neither had he. There had been no long-term girlfriends. A few relationships that came to nothing after a couple of months. If they had known Todd and Cheryl’s lives had mirrored each other’s.
Todd shook his head again. “I told her that I was fine. I told myself that, but it was a lie. I was devastated, I loved Cheryl, but I couldn’t give her what she wanted, or needed I suppose.”
“She wanted you, Todd. That’s all, but she thought you were holding back and hiding something,” Alice said.
“It’s funny isn’t it,” Todd started, “What seems so important to you when you’re younger suddenly doesn’t seem so important later in life. I was hiding something. I didn’t think of it like that but of course I was.”
“What were you hiding? Cheryl said that you used to be a different person when you were with her than when you went out.”
He nodded, “I suppose I was. Mom knew about it but I couldn’t tell Cheryl. At school I played football, and I enjoyed it but it wasn’t what I was about. At that age kids are either jocks, nerds or losers.”
“And which were you?”
“That’s the point, I was a jock, and I didn’t want to be the weird loser kid. I saw how some of them were treated and I didn’t want that. I played football, and I had the most beautiful girl at school going out with me. It was all a bit of a joke. There was more to me than that and when Cheryl and I were alone, I could stop pretending. A little bit anyway.”
“You’re gay?”
“What? No, I’m not gay,” Todd laughed, “Maybe that was the problem. That I wasn’t gay. It would have been easier to explain if I was.” He continued before they could double guess him. “I have a hobby which back then, would have seemed weird to the other kids and had they known they would have made my life miserable. I know what would have happened, I saw it done to others. I even did it to other kids I’m ashamed to say.”
“Something to do with hair dye?” Steve guessed.
Todd shook his head again and laughed softly.
“You went through the bin? That’s how you found the cell phone.”
“Do you want to tell us about the cell phone, Todd? How did Hazel’s phone find its way into your house?”
“It’s stupid and I doubt you’ll believe me. You’ve already got me marked as a mass murder or something.”
“What happened?”
“I found it. It’s that simple. Near Alex’s house in the gutter. I didn’t know it was Hazel’s until you just told me. I never charged it. It was on the ground and I nearly kicked it. I realized what it was and had actually intended to do a bit of a door knock the next time I was at the house, but I forgot. When I got back from the walk, I put it in the kitchen and when I left, I left it there. Work kicked on and I was busy for the next few months. I simply forgot about it. Now you’re telling me all this, I feel like a complete idiot. Of course, Hazel’s disappearance was all over the news. How could I not put the two things together? I didn’t think of it—I simply forgot about the phone.”
“Why did you feel the need to get rid of it now? After Alex got out of jail and the story hit the headlines again? It’s a little suspicious Todd. Were you worried that Alex getting out would renew the interest in the case and investigators might start taking an interest in you if they found out you had it?”
“No. I didn’t know that it was Hazel’s. I swear if I had known I’d have handed it in. I forgot, and that’s all there’s to it. As far as getting rid of it—I went to the house to find something and decided to have a bit of a clean-up while I was there. I was sorting through some old stuff and I found the phone in a drawer. Even then I didn’t connect it with Hazel, I chucked it into a box I was throwing out.”
“What were you looking for?”
Todd took a deep breath.
“The cell phone I’ll put to one side for now, but I have to say that it’s all a bit coincidental. What is it you’re hiding? What was so terrible that you’d rather leave Cheryl than tell her?”
“It isn’t terrible, nothing like that. Back then it might have destroyed my life, I thought it would but now it’s nothing. In fact, I’m quite proud of it. It’s not terrible at all.”
“What is it?” Steve asked slowly.
Alice and Steve both felt themselves leaning forward for the answer as Todd took a breath looked at both of them and said.
“I make dolls.”
“What?” Alice and Steve said together.
“I make dolls but that’s too simple an explanation. I like to think of them as signature pieces. Almost like exhibits depicting a period in time, there’s a lot more to it than making dolls. I make them from scratch. I design each one and their clothes. I match the clothes to whatever era the doll is in and do a lot of research to get the details corr
ect. I sew the clothes by hand. Each one is individual and most of them are made to order. It’s time consuming, but it’s what I’m passionate about.”
“Dolls?”
Todd stood up and led them to the rear of the house. He opened the door into a large rear room and they entered. The room was well lit with the sun streaming in through the windows. It was light and airy compared with the rest of the house but somehow, they didn’t feel as if they were disconnected from each other.
There was a low workbench along one wall with chairs and stools in front of it. Opposite the wall was covered with shelving on which stood small piles of material, bare dolls heads with no features or eyes which creeped Alice out. In front of them was a row of glass cabinets each with four shelves. On each of the shelves stood at least one doll. Some had three or four. The largest of the dolls stood about two feet tall with smaller versions about twelve inches tall standing with the help of wooden frames which held them under the armpits.
Alice was standing in front of one of the cabinets looking at the finished ones.
“What do you do with all these dolls you make, Todd?”
Todd flicked a switch and the LED lights in the cabinets came on highlighting the high quality of the clothes and the dolls themselves.
Todd turned to Alice and gave her a look as if she had asked a stupid question.
“What do you think I do? Keep them in here and come in every night to talk to them? I sell them of course.”
“There’s a market for this?”
“You have no idea. A made to order doll, which these are, sell for upwards of two thousand dollars. A bit more if the clothing takes longer.”
“You make a living at this?”
“I could but I have my IT and cabling business as well. The dolls do bring me a good income, the money from the dolls has paid for this house. And another I own in Bend.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said, “I don’t get it. It’s a hobby sure, but you’re making things and selling them. Why did you want to keep it so secret?”
“Now it’s OK, but I’ve been doing this since I was about eight or nine. I didn’t want to play with dolls but make them. I talked my mom into buying me some, cheap ones for sure but I didn’t care. I wanted them to see how they were put together. I don’t know what worried Mom the most, the fact I might want to play with dolls or if I wanted to dismantle them. It didn’t seem right for a young boy.”