“No offense taken, I’ve long thought that possible myself.”
“But now I’m not so sure about that.”
“Because of Lash.”
“She is not a…vulnerable person. Genevieve was not a person apt to expose herself to risk of abduction. Kidnapping? It’s possible, but we’ve had no call and there is no sign that’s what’s going on here. She has some history of drug use, is a party girl, sleeps around some, but she’s also street smart and is not someone to necessarily let her guard down.”
“She’s not an easy mark is what you’re saying.”
“Right. So why pick her? That is why I’ve focused on that because obviously more people know her and what her life is all about at this point than would remember your sister.”
Tori nodded her head and then looked to Braddock. “I can understand why you had reservations that the two cases were connected.”
“Yeah, but then you showed up with that article and note,” he replied. “We either have a situation where they are connected, and your sister’s disappearance was not random, or someone is using the disappearance of your sister to deflect and hide some other agenda.”
Braddock drove them into the town of Holmestrand where there was a small out-of-the-way deli so they could grab some lunch in relative privacy. They each ordered sandwiches and sodas and then grabbed a picnic bench covered with an umbrella out back. Under the shade they dug into lunch and talked.
“Let’s eliminate a couple of other things,” Tori stated. “I assume you’ve looked at all sexual offenders?”
“The BCA has been making the rounds of registered sex offenders in the area. So far, nothing and since your arrival, I’m really skeptical that nets anything.”
“Why?”
Braddock finished a bite of his sandwich. “Twenty years between cases narrows the possible suspects and really, how many of these guys would have had the ability to keep track of you over twenty years? I mean, think about that for a second. Is your address public, like in the White Pages? Is it findable on the Internet?”
“No. I’ve done everything I can to prevent that given what I do.”
“Right, I mean you live in a city of eight-point-five million people,” Braddock answered. “So, whoever reached out to you has either kept close track of you somehow or tracked you down. You’d know better than me, but most sexual predators don’t profile to have that ability, and to be honest…this just doesn’t have the feel of a sexual offender case. It’s too well-planned, too well-executed, especially with Lash.”
Tori thought about that for a moment while she chewed on a potato chip. “Sexual offenders often tend to give off a whiff of perversion. Genevieve Lash, for all of her partying and whatnot, would have sensed that and would not have gotten into a car with one.”
“I agree. It’s not impossible, but it is extremely unlikely. Like we said, it appears Jessie and Lash trusted the person they got into a vehicle with.”
“Was it the same person?” Tori asked. “I’m betting it was.”
“We can’t know for sure but…for now, I’m operating as if it is.” Braddock took a bite of his sandwich, looking away, deep in thought before he turned back to Tori. “Have you kept in contact with anyone from here?”
“No.”
“Nobody?”
Tori shook her head. “I didn’t keep in contact with anyone, not even Cal.”
“You left and…”
“I basically never looked back.”
“Hmpf,” Braddock grunted. “Were you surprised by the warm reception last night?”
“Yeah, I kinda was,” she replied. “I’m not sure I deserved it. I cut off all contact.”
“Well, despite your efforts, someone appears to have kept track of you.”
“Cal said that, too. He said I need to watch my back.”
“He’s right about that,” Braddock agreed. “And, like it or not, there is something we have to do.”
“Which is?”
“Re-interview your friends from twenty years ago that are still living here.”
“You think one of them had something to do with Jessie?”
Braddock shrugged. “Maybe. If these are connected, odds say it’s someone living or working around here.”
“I just find it hard to believe any of my friends would hurt Jessie.”
“I’m looking with a wider lens than that,” Will answered. “If there is a connection, your friends who still live here might be able to help bridge the twenty-year timeline between your sister and Lash. When you start thinking about twenty years and the growth and expansion of this town and area, maybe there is some obscure connection that we haven’t recognized or found that could spring from talking to your friends. That’s the job a lot of the time, you keep going around and talking to people. That’s what I’m thinking, anyway. That is, unless you have a better idea. I’m all ears if you do. The suggestion box is wide open.”
Tori shook her head. “No, it has to be done. And if it must, well…” she sighed, “I’d like to do it with you.”
CHAPTER 9
“I’M NOT SOME SORT OF HARVEY WEINSTEIN SYMPATHIZER.
O ne of the reasons Tori stayed away from Manchester was that everything there was a reminder. Despite the never-ending support of all her friends who made sure she was rarely alone, Tori felt suffocated by the darkness of her senior year. It was a long, joyless, torturous slog to graduation and her eventual escape. Then, seven months away at college she received the fateful call from Cal. Her father had died. She’d seen it at Christmas when she’d come home from Boston, the drastic change in the Sheriff, his gloomy mood and deteriorating health. She begged him to go to the doctor, to get himself checked out, but he refused. “I’m fine.”
She knew better. He’d lost a wife to breast cancer and now a daughter on his watch as sheriff. It was all too much for him. The doctor said he died of a massive heart attack, but Tori knew better. Her father died of a broken heart.
Tori spent years finding distractions and inventing ways to suppress the memories of it all to varying degrees of success, but she couldn’t avoid them now. She was fully reliving it again. And now that she was back, she was going to have to make her friends relive it, too. The good news, if there was any, was that at least she had Braddock along to go through it with her. He wasn’t burdened by all of it.
They started with Lizzy Cowger, who first made sure to introduce Tori to her husband and three children before the three of them sat around the kitchen table to talk. Lizzy remembered the night clearly. “We were all down at the beach watching the fireworks. After that we went over to Tommy Peterson’s house on the lake and sat around the bonfire pit for a while.”
“Who was there?” Braddock asked, his spiral notebook open, pen at the ready.
“Corinne, Mickey, Katy Anderson, Eddie, Jeff, Steak, The Mouse and The House.”
“The Mouse and the House?” Braddock asked, eyebrows raised, looking up from his notepad.
“Casey Schmidt and Terry Bird,” Tori replied but with a wry smile at the remembrance of them. “Those two,” she shook her head, “they were tight, always together. She looked to Braddock. “Casey was the little guy, shorter than me who somehow played defensive back and Terry was the big guy, tall as you but girthier, played tackle. Hence Mouse and The House. Who else, Lizzy?”
“My gosh, there were lots of people. Those that still live around here? Jamie Sedor, Jill Gregg, Michelle Fritz and Jenna Berneck were all there. Jeff Herrmann and Adam Smith were around, too. Adam moved west to Alexandria and owns a resort on Lake Darling but still comes over this way every so often.”
“I know Jeff,” Braddock nodded, jotting down the name. “He has a son who plays hockey with my son Quinn. He lives on the east side of Steamboat but owns a machine shop up in Holmestrand.”
“It was just a normal fun night, like we always had.” Lizzy said, staring away before she looked back to Tori and Braddock. “I don’t think about that night as of
ten as I used to, at least until the last few days when I’ve thought about it a lot again. But what has always gotten me about that night is it wasn’t any different than anything we’d done before.”
“Do you know Genevieve Lash?” Braddock asked.
Lizzy shook her head. “I recognize Lash Construction, everyone does, but I don’t know her.”
They visited Corinne next and her recollections were pretty much the same. “I remember Leanne Carlson and Sue Tomczik being there as well, so you could talk to them. They still live here.”
“Lots of the girls still living here it seems,” Braddock commented, taking notes.
“A lot of the guys we hung with back in the day, Goth, Korton, Joey, Odie, Hall and Kly, they were there that night, but they’ve all moved down to the Twin Cities except for Kly. He lives somewhere outside of Chicago, I think.”
“But all of these guys were our friends,” Tori added. “We all hung out together as a pack, all the time. Heck, and don’t take this wrong, Corinne, but you, me, we could be recalling someone, and we might be doing that just because we all were always together—always.”
“True statement,” Corinne agreed. “But when the party broke up everyone went home.”
“Did you see Jessie Hunter leave?” Braddock asked.
Corinne nodded. “Sure, I can remember it clear as day. There was the hug goodnight like always. She and Katy got into the car and away they went.”
“Did everyone leave at the same time?” Braddock asked.
Corinne thought for a minute. “I think so, although—” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I think most of us were there to the end. I’m sure some people filtered off earlier, I suppose. I just remember Tommy’s dad coming down to the firepit and saying it was almost one a.m. and time for everyone to go home. It was no big deal, he wasn’t mad or anything, he just said that was it for the night.”
She looked to Tori. “I go out to that cross along the road a couple of times a year. God, I wish I could remember anything from that night that seemed wrong, but I just…can’t. I mean, you probably don’t want to hear this, but we all talk about it at the class reunions, we toast Jessie and—” Her voice trailed off as she reached for Tori’s hand, her eyes getting watery. “She’s never far from our thoughts, nor—were you.”
Tori nodded, her lip trembling, “I know Jessie would love that you all still think of her. That would have been important to her. It’s important—to me.”
Mickey Webb told the same story. “Mike was there,” she added, of the man who became her husband. She looked to Braddock. “I was Mickey Olson back then. Mike was there that night with Gunther Brule.”
Tori and Braddock shared a quick look at the mention of Brule.
“What? Gunther?”
“He is one connection between your group and Genevieve Lash,” Braddock explained. “Gunther was at Mannion’s on the night of the Fourth and he had a brief little issue with Lash at the bar, pinched her on the butt.”
“Really?” Mickey shook her head in disbelief. “He must have been drinking then.”
“Do you still see Gunther much?” Braddock asked.
Mickey shook her head. “Not really other than maybe around town. He and Mike were friends then, but not so much now.”
“They have a falling out, Mick?” Tori asked.
“No. They’re not…not friends. It’s just that Mike teaches at the high school like me. He coaches hockey and baseball, plays golf and runs the kids all over to their activities. Gunther, on the other hand, works at the explosives plant out west of town, is divorced, has no kids and hunts and fishes so they don’t have that much in common anymore. Gunther still hangs around with Eddie Mannion, though. They’re tight, I guess. They both were in the service, went to Iraq and I think bonded over that.”
“And were Mike and Gunther there at the end of the night?”
Mickey nodded. “Yeah. I mean, Mike and I were kind of dating at that point, so he hung around as long as I did and then left with Gunther in Gunther’s truck, I think. They did that and then I—” Mickey’s eyes began to tear up, and this time Tori was the one to comfort, reaching for her friend’s hand. “I remember, vividly, vividly saying goodbye to Jessie that night. You know, a big hug like we always did. I mean, we made a silly thing about that. The guys would all mock us. Don’t you remember the big hug?”
“I do.”
“It was so stupidly obnoxious.” A tear ran down Mickey’s cheek, “But I’m always thankful we did that back then. You know, I got to hug her one last time, I got to do that.”
Mickey’s husband Mike arrived home with their son and they ran through it all with him again.
“Gunther dropped me off at home and then he went home,” Mike explained. “That’s what I remember about that night. Gunther lived a mile from my house, so he’d have been home less than five minutes after he dropped me off. As for the other night, what you mentioned happened at Mannion’s, Gunther had to be drinking—had to be. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the balls to speak to, much less pinch a hot woman on the ass.”
“Somehow I don’t think you’d be so afraid, Mike,” Tori needled.
“To talk to a hot woman? Come on, Tori, you know they all talk to me.”
“Oh God, don’t encourage him,” Mickey moaned.
“But pinching a woman on the bum?” Mike glanced warily to his wife. “Those days are long over, sweetie.”
“They better be, buster.”
None of Tori’s closest girlfriends knew Genevieve Lash personally, although they’d all heard of the Lash family due to the construction company and then her disappearance. Genevieve was a decade younger and lived the party life. All of Tori’s friends were now in their later thirties with families and busy lives. A big night out was a Tuesday at The Steamboat Tap Room.
In all, they made eight stops throughout the evening, finishing after eleven p.m. “That had to be tough to do,” Braddock offered quietly, looking straight ahead as he drove. “Going through that night over and over again with your friends.”
Tori simply nodded, looking off in the distance. “The good news is all the friends I saw tonight are all doing well. They’re married, have kids and seem perfectly happy and healthy. I’m grateful that’s the case.”
As Braddock pulled to a stop in front of the Radisson, Tori reached for the door handle and then looked back at him. “You know what the hardest part of tonight was?”
“The fact you weren’t at the bonfire.”
“Yeah,” Tori answered. “You know where I was and what I was doing.”
He nodded.
“She’d be alive if I’d been there.”
Braddock shook his head. “I know this is of little solace to you, but it wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have been there,” she insisted.
“No,” Braddock answered, shaking his head. “No. You were doing something completely…normal, something I’m pretty sure your sister probably encouraged you to do, didn’t she?”
Tori looked down and nodded.
“That’s what I thought,” Braddock answered, looking over to her. “What happened to your sister was tragic. What it wasn’t was your fault.”
Braddock picked her up at six-thirty a.m. the next morning.
“Did you get any sleep?” he asked.
“Not much, a bit here and there. I finally got up at four forty-five and went for a run. You?”
“I got some, although I was tossing and turning, too,” he replied. “I took a long swim in the lake about the same time you took your run.”
Braddock took her to an early breakfast at the Wavy Café and then they kept going, finding her old friends at home or at work. By midday they made their way over to Mannion Companies to find Eddie in his office. “Tori!” he greeted with a big smile and a warm hug, “Jeff told me you were at the tap room the other night. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“It’s good to see ya, Eddie.”
They spent a few minutes
reminiscing before Eddie exclaimed, “I just can’t believe you’re actually here.”
“Well, I am. And I’m sorry to do this, but we need to ask questions about the night Jessie went missing.”
“I kind of figured you might.”
“What do you remember about that night?” Braddock asked.
“Man, Will, it’s been twenty years. My recollections are that it was a regular old night for us, other than it was the Fourth of July. We were downtown, watched the fireworks, went to the bonfire at Peterson’s. I mean, back in those days, with our group in the summer that’s what we did. Wash, rinse and repeat, day after day.”
“Who were you there with that night?”
“Steak, for sure. Jeff, of course. The Mouse and the House. Mike Webb, I think Gunther was around. I remember Goth and—” Eddie rattled off many of the same names and no new ones. “I know you and Jason were around for some of the night but, well…sorry…never mind. I didn’t mean to go there.”
“It’s okay, Eddie,” Tori replied. “Do you remember leaving Tommy’s that night?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I remember leaving and I dropped Jeff off at his dad’s house.”
“And then after you dropped him off, you had to go home,” Tori suggested solemnly.
“That’s right,” Eddie sighed, looking away.
Braddock asked about Gunther Brule, “I have witnesses who say he pinched Genevieve Lash on the ass at your bar on the Fourth and it caused an incident.”
Eddie tipped his head back in laughter. “I shouldn’t laugh, given what happened to Genevieve and the times we live in. I’m not some sort of Harvey Weinstein sympathizer. I support the #MeToo movement. And for the record, all of that with Gunther and Genevieve was probably my fault as much as Gunther’s.”
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