by D. B. Gilles
“Nothing, thanks.” I sat down.
He didn’t look up from the monitor for about thirty seconds. It was as if I weren’t there. I was getting upset, so I said, “What are you doing?”
“What you asked me. Searching through thirty-plus years of missing person reports for young broads.”
I couldn’t believe he was acting so fast.
“Hold on. I’m printing something out.” He sat back in his chair. His eyes fell to the framed photograph of Virginia Thistle on my lap. “Lemme see the picture.” I handed it to him. He stared at it for several seconds. “This was taken when she was thirty?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned. If you told me she was in tenth grade I’d believe you.” He set the frame on his desk, then removed a sheet of paper from the printer. He put it next to another sheet of paper on his desk. “Did a printout of all the missing person cases from ten years before Virginia Thistle disappeared until three months ago. Then I broke it down to females in their late teens and early twenties. And for what it’s worth, besides your girlfriend and Brandy Parker, there were two other names who fit a pattern.” He picked up one of the sheets of paper on his desk and read from it. “Linda Helfer and Connie Birch.” One’s twenty, the other’s seventeen. Linda Helfer vanished two-and-a-half years ago and Connie Birch disappeared nineteen years ago.” He returned the piece of paper to his pocket. “Now, this isn’t a pattern that’s neat and clean, but if you look at the timetable starting with Virginia Thistle twenty-four years ago and ending with Connie Birch two-and-a-half years back…it seems that every four or five years a young — or in Virginia Thistle’s case, young-looking — girl disappears.” He leaned back in the chair.
“But you don’t know if these two other girls have been heard from since?”
“There’s no record of their parents contacting us to say that they came home. I’m gonna be contacting the families… or at least trying to. Odds are the one from two-and-a-half years back will still have people here, but the one from nineteen years ago…I don’t know. You know how people are around here. You either stay here awhile, then go…or you never leave…like us.”
“Things are finally starting to fall in place, Perry.”
“So? Where’s it gonna get me? What started out as an almost impossible task trying to solve one murder, is turning into an even more impossible job trying to solve two, three, four and maybe even five additional murders. I’ve been thinking that if I failed at getting to the bottom of Brandy Parker’s death people would be understanding, considering that so much time had passed since her death. But now…if word gets out that there’s been some kind of serial killer around here all these years…I’ll have to deal with something even bigger.”
“What?”
“I’d hate like hell to have it come out that all these other women were done in while my dad was Chief.”
“People aren’t gonna blame anybody…whether you get results or not.”
“You’re dreaming, Coffin Boy. If somebody doesn’t get nailed for Brandy Parker, they could let it by. But if it gets out that all these other girls might’ve been killed by the same guy…they’re gonna get on my tail. I’ll never live it down and my father goes to his grave in disgrace. Shit!”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little premature in your doom? See what you can learn about the two new girls you found. Maybe they’re both alive and well. And maybe Alyssa is too. And so might Virginia Thistle.”
He sneered as he said, “Oh, now you’re having a change of heart? Now nobody’s been killed but Brandy Parker? All this crap about other victims started because of you!”
“I’m just trying to be supportive, Perry. I know you’re frustrated. I feel sorry for you.”
“I don’t want your fucking pity!” He stood up. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“You seemed to want some of the information I gave you.”
“Yeah, well, all your cemetery buff bullshit hasn’t led me anywhere. I wish you’d never brought it up. I’d have been a helluva lot better off. I’m beginning to think that whoever put Brandy Parker’s body in that mausoleum did it out of dumb luck.” He suddenly turned off his computer. “Here’s what I’m gonna do. First thing in the morning I’m contacting the families of these two new girls. If they’re both alive and well I’m not gonna give one second of time to the Thistle’s case or your old girlfriend’s. I’m gonna do whatever more I can on Brandy Parker, then, I’m gonna keep the case open… and forget about it until the day comes when I or someone accidentally stumbles onto something that leads to a killer.”
“You want me to do anything more?”
“No.”
“Not even acting as a liaison between you and Quilla Worthington?”
“Just stay out of my way and keep doing what you do best…burying people. By the way, speaking of Quilla Worthington, her mother called in here. She hasn’t come home for two nights. Disappearing must run in the family.” Perry leaned back in his chair.
“She’s been investigating the case herself.”
Perry smirked. “Right!”
“Maybe she accomplished what you couldn’t.”
“What are you saying?”
“Maybe she found the killer and he’s got her.”
“Bullshit.”
“You think you have problems now? If anything happens to that kid you might have six murders to account for. You talk about being disgraced in this town, let me tell you something, you’ll be tarred and feathered.” I pointed to his computer. “It’s a good thing you’re so adept on that thing. If Quilla stays vanished you’ll be spending the rest of your life making eight bucks an hour as a word processor.”
I turned and left, nodding good-bye to Oscar in the outer office. As I headed back to the Home I wasn’t sure how I felt. A part of me was relieved that I didn’t have to be around Perry and think about the case. But another part made me wonder if Perry would half-ass his investigation and deny Quilla, Gretchen and I the closure we so desperately wanted.
It was close to midnight when I swung into the parking lot of the Home. I was surprised to see a vehicle parked in the lot. It was Viper’s ancient VW bug. I pulled alongside it, got out of my car and looked inside. Viper was sleeping. I nudged his right calf a couple of times, waking him.
“Hi, Mr. Coltrane,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up.
“Did you get my message?” I asked. I assumed Gretchen had finally reached him and that he’d come to see me.
“What message?”
“From Gretchen.”
“I didn’t get any message from anyone today. Our phone was out of order all day.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To pick up a magazine from Mr. Fowler. Yesterday, Quilla and I went to his house to get a bunch of ’em and…”
“You saw Quilla yesterday?”
“In the afternoon. She went with me to Mr. Fowler’s.”
“And she was okay?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t she be? I can’t believe I fell asleep.” He glanced at his watch. “Whoa…I’ve been out here for three hours. Mind if I get out and stretch my legs?”
“Go ahead.” He opened the door and got out. “Quilla didn’t come home last night or the night before and as of a couple hours ago, she hasn’t been home tonight.”
“She stayed at my house night before last.”
“Why didn’t she tell her mother?”
“We kind of got drunk and forgot. She’s mad at you.”
“Why?”
“Because you were giving up on finding the killer.”
“Did she stay at your house last night?”
“No.”
“Where could she have stayed?”
He got a bemused look. “She has a few other places to crash, but that’s only when she’s pissed at her mom. She said they’re getting along good since her Aunt’s funeral so she wouldn’t have had a reason not to come home last night. I�
��m starting to feel weird about this. In fact, I think I’m gonna, like, pass out.”
Suddenly, Viper fell into my arms. I picked him up and carried him inside, into my office where I placed him on the sofa. I took an ammonia pellet from a drawer and opened it under his nose. He regained consciousness instantly.
“Wow,” he said, sniffling and coughing as he sat up. He looked around the office. “How’d I get in here?”
“You fainted. Are you alright?”
“Yeah. Fainting. It’s like, such a chick thing. Would you promise not to tell anyone, especially Quilla?”
“Promise. When was the last time you saw Quilla?”
He paused for a few seconds, scratching his head and scrunching up his forehead. “We went to Mr. Fowler’s to get the mortician magazines he wanted me to look at. We stayed there about ten minutes. No. Wait. That’s wrong. We went to Mr. Fowler’s after we went out to the cemetery.”
“What were you doing at the cemetery?”
“Checking out gravestones. By the thing where her Aunt’s body was found. Quilla said you and she went up there at night and checked ’em out, but she felt you guys might’ve missed something because of the dark. She’s got this idea that nobody’ll be able to solve her Aunt’s murder except her, so she’s putting a package together to give to a private detective she was gonna hire.”
“Where’d you two go after you left the cemetery?”
“Her laptop’s broken so we went to my house and she typed the names in alphabetical order. There were a bunch.”
I glanced at my desk and noticed the detailed printout of the names that Perry had given me when he showed up after Alphonse’s funeral. I reached for it. I was curious if they had managed to find some additional names that Quilla and I might’ve missed.
“Would you know how many names you two came up with?” I asked as I held Perry’s printout in my right hand. There were fifty-six names in two columns. Column A contained forty-five names that Perry labeled as Typical/Normal. Column B had the eleven oddly spelled foreign surnames that Perry felt could have been Americanized into shorter names.
“Not off the top of my head,” said Viper. He reached into his shirt pocket, removed a flash drive and glanced at my computer. “I can plug this in and pull up the list for you.”
“You always carry a flash drive with you?”
“It’s Quilla’s. Forgot to give it to her.”
Viper inserted the flash drive into the back of my computer. Within seconds I was looking at the list of names he’d typed up. They weren’t numbered, so I had to count. He stood behind me and counted, as well.
“I get sixty-four names,” I said.
“I get sixty-three,” said Viper.
“Let’s count together.” We did. Viper was right.
“You and Quilla found seven more names. Tell you what… ” I handed him my list. “That’s in alphabetical order too. You read the names from it and I’ll check them off on the computer screen.”
“This has two separate lists of names,” he said.
“Read the longer one first.”
“No problem.”
It took us only a few minutes to find the additional names. All seven were common and none rang a bell for me.
“What’s this other list?” asked Viper.
“Foreign names that might’ve been shortened to sound more American.”
Viper glanced at the list. “Some of these are really strange-sounding. And I thought having to go through life with a name like Petrovitch was bad.”
He laughed. I did too.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “This one name…” He stared at the sheet of paper. “I could swear I saw this…”
“What? Which name?”
“The fifth one from the top.” He handed me the list.
“Oberfuolner? You know this name?”
“I saw it.”
“Where?”
Viper closed his eyes and again scratched his head and scrunched up his face for several seconds, then a huge smile flashed across his face. “Ah! Yesterday. At Mr. Fowler’s.”
“Nolan’s?”
“It was over his fireplace. Hanging on the wall. It was one of those things. People with ancestors who go way back have them. Family… uh…family somethings.”
“Family crests?”
“Yeah! That name was part of a design with a couple of Crossed swords and some other stuff on it, but I remember the name because it was so weird-looking.”
I looked at the name again: Oberfuolner. I froze.
“What does it mean, Mr. Coltrane?”
“It’s either the biggest coincidence of my life or it means that somebody I’ve known since I was your age killed Quilla’s Aunt not to mention a couple of others. But more importantly, he may have Quilla.”
Viper stared at me. His face serious, concerned. Angry. I looked at Oberfuolner again and imagined it without the first four letters.
F-u-o-l-n-e-r
To myself I said, “Is this the Americanized version of Fowler?”
“Tell me everything you and Quilla talked about with Nolan when you were at his house yesterday.”
“Well… uh… mainly about me wanting to get into mortician business. Then Quilla talked about some of the ideas she had about who the killer was.” He looked up at me with compassion. “She told us about how your old girlfriend might be a victim. Sorry.”
“Did she say that in front of Nolan?”
“She said everything in front of Mr. Fowler.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He just listened.”
“Then you guys left?”
“Yeah. Well, I mean…I did. Quilla stayed.”
I wanted to throw up. “Why?”
“I had to go to my job. I work for my Uncle. Petrovitch Heating and Cooling.”
“Why did Quilla stay behind?”
“Nolan wanted to talk more about some of her ideas. He was very interested and said he wanted to help.”
“Jesus.” I stood up and walked out of my office. Viper followed, saying, “Where are you going?”
“To Nolan Fowler’s.”
“I’m coming too.”
“No. Stay here. If I don’t call you in forty-five minutes call Perry Cobb and tell him to go straight to Nolan Fowler’s house. Tell him I said Nolan is the guy.”
“Got it,” said Viper. “Mr. Coltrane? Are there any bodies in here now?”
“One.”
“Is there anybody else in here? Anybody alive?”
“Just you.”
I watched him gulp. There was fear in his eyes.
“Don’t panic,” I said. “It’ll be good practice if you get into the business.”
Chapter 22
As I sped to Nolan’s I found myself torn.
A part of me still viewed this as a terrible coincidence. I knew Nolan too long to let so little evidence make me think that he could be capable of harming anyone, let alone murdering someone. I wanted to call Perry and let him know that his Americanized list might’ve hit paydirt, but I felt that after eighteen years of working together, I owed Nolan the benefit of the doubt and the chance to explain. On the other hand, what if Nolan was involved in the killings? Or just Brandy Parker’s? Or what if he had done something to Quilla? If I confronted him what would he do to me?
I tried to figure out how to handle the situation. I couldn’t just show up at Nolan’s door and say I was in the neighborhood. I’d never even been to his house. The only reason I knew his address was from preparing his W-2 tax forms all these years. If Nolan was guilty and he saw me approaching he would have time to prepare. And if he wasn’t guilty and he let me in and I presented him with this extreme coincidence of his family’s original surname being on a grave near the mausoleum where Brandy Parker was found, how would it make him feel to know that I thought he might be a killer?
It would hurt him deeply. He had little enough human contact and I was one of the few. If he was innocent how w
ould it affect our working relationship? And what would Lew Henderson have to say about it? Lew liked me a lot, looked at me as if I were a son, probably was going to hand over the business to me when he finally had enough. But he and Nolan went back thirty-five years. There was a history there and the loyalty that goes with three-and-a-half decades of almost daily contact. Lew would find himself in the middle. He would have to take a side and I wasn’t sure it would be me.
I decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to not confront Nolan directly. I felt that if I could obtain more evidence it might be easier. I decided that before I did anything I needed to see the family crest Viper told me about. To do this I would have to make sure that Nolan wasn’t around, assuming he was home in the first place. Maybe Viper was wrong about the spelling of the name. Maybe it wasn’t an actual family crest. Maybe it was something Nolan picked up at a flea market.
I called Nolan. I wondered if he’d be awake. The clock on the dashboard said 12:15 a.m. After the first ring he answered with an overly friendly, “Hello?” It was as if he were waiting for the call.
I hung up. I would wait until I got to his street, then call again, only this time I would pretend to be calling from the Home. I would tell him we had a body coming in and that he needed to get there right away. When he pulled out of his driveway I would make my move.
I got to Nolan’s street which was actually an unpaved, dirt and stone road without streetlights or sidewalks. It was in Dankworth’s oldest and least upscale neighhorhood. Although the houses were smallish and run down, the lots were surprisingly large with at least thirty yards separating the home from its neighbors. Nolan’s was the last one on the right. He liked to say he lived on a cul de sac, but it was really a dead end. His was a tract house, circa pre-World War II, which was almost an exact replica of the house I lived in when my mother and I came to Dankworth: a living room, dining room, kitchen and two small bedrooms on the first floor, an unfinished second floor and a basement. I knew from past conversations that Nelson was very adept at carpentry and that he’d renovated his basement and attic. As I approached Nolan’s house I observed that the front and back had several tall shade trees and that the house itself was surrounded by thick, elaborate shrubbery.