Thrilled to Death v5

by L. J. Sellers

  Jackson debated his options. His ex-wife was likely at work, and Kera was taking care of her baby grandson. On another day, it would have been fine to simply keep Katie with him and make her sit and read or do homework while he filled out paperwork at his desk. Today was not a paperwork day.

  Jackson drove back toward the jail. Katie could sit on the bench in the visitors’ waiting room while he interrogated Valder, but he couldn’t take her out to Valder’s for the search. Maybe he should call Kera.

  “I’m still hungry, you know,” Katie announced. Earlier she had apologized for interrupting his day, then lapsed into silence.

  “I’m hungry too.”

  They made a quick stop at Taco Bell, Katie’s idea, and ate in the car.

  When he finished his burrito, Jackson said, “Why didn’t you ask the school to call your mother?”

  “She can’t leave work. There’s no one to cover for her.”

  Jackson knew bullshit when he heard it. Something else was going on, but Katie wasn’t ready to tell him. He wiped the salsa off his hands and called Kera. Katie was still picking at her food.

  “Jackson, it’s good to hear from you.”

  “We’ve had a development I can’t discuss right now. Are you busy this afternoon? I mean other than taking care of Micah?”

  “Not really. I took the week off from work.”

  “Can I bring Katie over? She was suspended from school.”

  “Of course.”

  As they drove west, Katie said, “What happens if Danette never comes back? Will Kera keep the baby?”

  “It’s quite likely. Micah’s her grandson.”

  “If Kera keeps the baby, and you keep dating Kera, will you be the baby’s father?” Katie gestured with her hand. “I mean stepfather, or adopted father, or whatever.”

  “Good question.” Jackson had not let himself think that far ahead. “If we end up getting married and living together…” He looked over at Katie for a reaction, but she didn’t give one. “I’ll end up helping raise Micah.”

  “Will he call you Dad?”

  The idea knocked the wind out of him. Kids needed commitment. He’d often thought it would be joyful to raise a son. Could he bond with someone else’s child? It wouldn’t be the same, would it? If he wasn’t willing to help Kera raise the child, then he owed it to both of them to get out of the way.

  “Is this freaking you out?”

  “Maybe.” Jackson turned left on Chambers and headed up the hill. “Is it freaking you out?”

  “Heck no. I’ve always wanted a brother. Every baby needs a father.”

  He glanced over to see her smiling. His daughter was serious. “I appreciate your attitude, Katie.” Two weeks ago when he’d brought up the idea of moving in with Kera, Katie had stopped speaking to him for days. But a baby had changed everything?

  Yes, a baby changed everything.

  With Micah perched on her hip, Kera opened the door. Jackson kissed her quickly on the lips. Katie rushed past them, seeming rather animated for someone who had just been suspended from school. Kera couldn’t guess what her troubles were about. Katie was usually a good student and not inclined to make trouble.

  “Hi Katie.”

  “Hey. Can I hold Micah?”

  “Sure. I’ve got a bottle in the kitchen ready to go if you want to feed him.”

  “In a minute.”

  Katie took Micah into the living room and sat on the floor with his toys.

  “Thanks for taking Katie this afternoon,” Jackson said, sneaking another kiss. “I know she’s old enough to be home alone during the day, but that would just be a reward for getting suspended.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long weird story and I don’t have time to repeat it right now. I think Katie will tell you if you ask her. It’s nothing serious. I think she may just be trying to get my attention.”

  “Kids will do that.” She wanted to know about the investigation. “Can you tell me about the breakthrough? Does it involve Danette?”

  “I think we may be very close to finding out what happened to her.”

  His deadpan tone and pinched eyes told her to expect the worst. “It’s not good, is it?”

  “I think the best we can hope for is closure.”

  His handsome, caring face held so much conflict. Kera sensed that Jackson believed Danette was dead. She put her forehead on his shoulder and fought back sobs. Another young person lost. Another hole in the fabric of her life. Jackson stroked her back for a moment, but she sensed his impatience. He was still working this case.

  She pulled away. “I know you need to go.”

  “Will you be okay?”

  “What else is there?” She smiled bravely, warm tears streaming down her face. “Go get the bastard.”

  Chapter 24

  Jackson climbed into his cruiser and sat for a moment, trying to visualize his future. He couldn’t imagine it without Kera. Yet he didn’t know if he could love unconditionally a child he had no biological connection to. Other people seemed capable of it. Foster parents, step-parents, adoptive parents. Maybe he could too.

  Jackson started the car and mentally forced himself to shift gears. Finding Danette was the best thing he could do for Kera in the long run. A brief memory of his dream flashed in his head. If by some miracle Danette was still alive out there somewhere, finding her was the best thing he could do for that little boy as well.

  He was so close to getting the whole story. If only Valder would talk, slip and say something.

  On his way downtown, McCray called. “I’ve got the search warrant for everything. Valder’s property, phone records, bank records, DNA, the works.”

  “Great. Let’s get the phone records first. Pull in another detective for the bank records if you need to. I’m going back to the jail for another session with Valder. We need to keep pressuring the bastard.”

  Jackson made a quick call to Schak. “We finally got the warrant, so you can go in. Call the crime lab and get some evidence techs out to Valder’s place too. I’ve got a call in to Lammers about getting a digging crew out there.”

  “We’ll do it ourselves if we have to.”

  “Right.” Jackson thought about his stents and how tired he was already. “Call me if you find anything significant. Anything I can use as leverage with Valder.”

  “Good luck.”

  Valder, wearing dark-green jail scrubs, was perkier than he had been the night before. He looked up from his chair in the interrogation room and said, “Oh good, you’re back.”

  “Feeling cocky?”

  “More like sarcastic.”

  “I have a videotaped confession from Eddie Lucas saying he dropped Danette Blake at your place Monday morning. Alive and well.” Jackson set his tape recorder on the table as he talked.

  Valder noticed but made no comment. “Lucas is a liar, a punk, and a low-life. His testimony isn’t worth a damn.”

  “Detectives and evidence technicians are searching your house right now. The next step is to dig up your property. Just tell us where Danette is buried and you may get out in twenty years.”

  “You don’t have a body? You’re wasting your time.” Valder shook his head in mock sympathy.

  Jackson hands clenched into fists. He pulled them down into his lap. “I have two kidnapped young women. One dead and the other vanished without a trace. A jury will be hungry to convict someone of something.”

  “If you ruin my property, I’ll sue the department and put you out of a job.”

  Oh, just once to be the kind of cop who could smack a suspect upside the head.

  “Your statement is that you never saw Danette Blake. You had nothing to do with her kidnapping. Is that correct?”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “Did Eddie Lucas bring Danette Blake to your house Monday morning or not?”

  “I don’t know Danette Blake and I’m not answering any more questions.”

  “Did Eddie Lucas br
ing a young woman to your house Monday morning?”

  Valder was silent.

  “This makes you look guilty.”

  Valder leaned back and crossed his arms.

  For a moment, Jackson considered rounding up a couple of deputies and dragging Valder out into the rec yard to continue the conversation. Maybe his agoraphobic suspect was too comfortable here with all the walls and needed a little fresh air and open space to feel like talking. Jackson envisioned the police department’s citizen auditor reacting to the news of such treatment. Followed by the newspaper coverage.

  He pushed back his chair and stood. “I’ll head out to your house and help with the search. Our warrant includes all the files on your computer, so we’ll find something to keep you in lockup.”

  Valder blinked, and Jackson knew he’d hit a nerve. He eased toward the door, wondering what Valder was into. Double sets of books for his business? Child porn? They would nail him for something.

  Sophie’s call to ThrillSeekers didn’t go as planned. The woman who identified herself as the assistant director said the company no longer offered any high-risk services. She wouldn’t even mention a price, let alone discuss how such a service would be carried out. Sophie’s call to Kera had confirmed that Danette saw the same psychiatrist as Courtney, and that Danette had disappeared after seeing Dr. Callahan. Brett, the boyfriend, had yet to return her call.

  Undeterred, Sophie called Jackson and was surprised when he answered the phone. “Thanks for picking up. I have some information you’ll want to hear. Danette Blake and Courtney Durham were both seeing the same psychiatrist, Dr. Stella Callahan.”

  There was a long silence. “How do you know?”

  “I talked to Elle Durham and I talked to Kera. Do you have a lead in Danette’s disappearance? Any suspects?”

  “We have a suspect in custody.”

  “Can you name him?” Sophie reached for her tape recorder, just in case.

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Was Danette involved with ThrillSeekers too or just Courtney?”

  Another silence. “We’re looking into that, but it’s highly unlikely.”

  “What do you think happened to Danette?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say just yet.”

  He knows, Sophie realized. Interesting. “Any possibility she’s still alive?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Elle Durham says you won’t tell her how Courtney died. Do you know? What are you protecting her from?” Sophie put the recorder down. “Off the record.”

  “The cause of death is undetermined, and we’re still waiting on toxicology reports. I have to go. Thanks for the information.”

  The phone clicked in her ear. It was more time than Jackson usually spent on the phone with her. Cause of death was undetermined. How was that possible?

  Sophie grabbed her sweater and headed outside. She needed to think and she did her best thinking when she was walking. She took the little dead-end road that ran parallel to the property the newspaper owned across the street.

  Jackson had a suspect in custody who was connected to Danette’s disappearance. He thought he knew what had happened to her. Was she dead? Was that what he couldn’t say? Better yet, was Danette still alive? Was there someone else involved? Someone who was holding her? Kidnapping an adult would probably require several thugs to pull it off.

  It was Friday and she had the weekend off. Sophie decided to keep an eye on Jackson and see if he would lead her to the story.

  Jackson entered the foyer at Seth Valder’s home and didn’t see or hear anyone moving around the house. He’d expected a swarm of activity, based on the number of vehicles in the driveway. He hustled down the hallway toward the staircase to the basement. The door at the bottom was propped open and he heard Schak’s voice. Jackson trotted down the stairs.

  He went into the small room on the left and nearly collided with Evans. Beyond her, Schak was inspecting the bare mattress and Jasmine Parker was using a forensic light source to look for fingerprints and/or blood on the walls.

  “Hey, I was just going up to call you,” Evans said. “There’s no cell phone service down here.” Her eyes flashed with excitement. “Guess what I found?”

  Jackson raised an eyebrow. He was not expected to answer.

  “Check this out.” Evans crossed the stubby hall and entered the room on the other side. They hadn’t looked at the room yesterday because Valder hadn’t offered and they hadn’t written the warrant yet.

  “What do you suppose all this is for?”

  A workspace on one side of the room held camera equipment and spotlights, while the long desk on the other side held a tower computer and twenty-six-inch monitors on either side.

  “Somebody is making videos.” Jackson tried to process how this scenario fit with his two cases. On the surface, it didn’t. “My guess is porn.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Evans said.

  Schak moved into the room. “Did you get anything out of Valder?”

  “Not yet.” Jackson glanced over at the computers. “We need to take all of this into the lab. Do we have pictures of this room yet?”

  “I took some and so did Joe,” Evans answered.

  “Where is Joe?”

  Schak gestured with his thumb. “He’s in the bathroom across the way, collecting hair from the drain pipe, floor, and toilet.”

  “Have we found any trace evidence that could belong to Danette?”

  “Specifically, no,” Schak said. “The sheets that were on the bed yesterday are not there now. So Valder probably decided to launder them after we left here. Joe says the bathroom has been scrubbed clean, which is why he’s looking in the drains for hair.”

  “All of you started down here?”

  “Yes,” Evans answered. “Our thinking is that if he kept Courtney down here, then he probably kept Danette here too.”

  “Were they here at the same time?” Jackson was thinking out loud. “Eddie Lucas picked up Courtney late Monday night and brought her here. Valder wouldn’t want Courtney to know about Danette, because Courtney was supposed to walk away from her adventure. So Danette was not likely in this basement for long if she was here at all. Lucas says he carried Danette from the garage into Valder’s office and dumped her on the couch.” He turned to Evans. “When you’re done down here, start with the couch and work your way along the route to the garage. She could have dropped a hair, an earring, fibers from her hooded jacket. I’ll head up to Valder’s bedroom and see if I can find his cell phone and wallet.”

  “McCray says we have permission to access the computers. True?” Schak wanted to know.

  “I haven’t seen the paperwork, but I assume so. Let’s load this one into the evidence van and take it to the lab.” Jackson didn’t want Schak to get sidetracked looking at Valder’s porn files. That wouldn’t help them find Danette.

  “You don’t suppose he made a video of Danette while she was here?” Schak’s question sounded casual, but it hit Jackson like a blow to the chest.

  Evans booted up the computer. “I think Schak should take a look. I’ll go upstairs and start in Valder’s office.”

  Jackson left Schak to do the dirty work and followed Evans upstairs. He was anxious to get his hands on Valder’s cell phone. The homebound sleazebag would have needed to call in help for dealing with Danette.

  Valder’s wallet was in a pair of jeans on the bedroom floor. In it was a thousand in cash, a second driver’s license issued to Sam Walton, and a credit card in that name as well. It seemed odd for a man who didn’t leave the house to carry that much cash and fake ID, but Valder had said the agoraphobia had come on a year ago. Had he lied about it? What the hell had he been up to before he lost his nerve?

  Wearing latex gloves, Jackson slid the wallet into a pre-labeled evidence bag. He glanced around the room to see if anything struck him as worthy of immediate attention. Other than its twenty-by-twenty size and high-end furniture, the room was not n
oteworthy.

  Jackson moved to the tall dresser where he found Valder’s cell phone on top, plugged in and charging. He flipped it open and clicked around looking for a record of recent calls. The last call Valder received came in at ten the night before, about three hours before they picked him up. The name associated with the number was Beth. Two hours earlier, Valder received a call from someone named G. Scrolling through the list, Jackson noted three other calls from G, one additional call from Beth, one from A. Sanderson, several from numbers that had no name associated, and a call yesterday morning from ThrillSeekers.

  Crap. Mircovitch’s assistant must have called Valder and warned him they were coming. No wonder he had been so calm and cooperative. He’d had hours to clean and hide whatever he didn’t want them to see.

  Jackson clicked over to recently dialed calls and found a similar list. Once he was back at his desk, he would access the database and see who these numbers belonged to. The real day in question was Monday–the day Lucas claimed he brought Danette to this house–and Jackson wouldn’t have access to those calls until McCray brought in the phone records. Jackson bagged the phone and tucked it away before continuing his search.

  The two dressers revealed nothing except a collection of nice clothing, but in the nightstand by the bed he found a loaded handgun of a make he didn’t recognize. Jackson emptied the chamber and bagged the bullets and the weapon separately. Valder’s criminal past meant he most likely was not permitted to own a weapon, but Jackson wouldn’t be surprised to find more.

  On the floor of the walk-in closet was a two-foot safe. He twisted the handle to see if it had been left unlocked. No luck. They would haul it into the lab as well. With the right tools, anything was penetrable. In a floor-to-ceiling cabinet in the back of the closet, Jackson found a massive collection of porn, shelf after shelf of old videotapes on the top half, with two shelves of slimmer, new DVDs underneath. Had Valder’s obsession with porn led him from watching to making his own?

  Jackson wondered about the man’s intimate life. Did he have a girlfriend who came here to see him and didn’t mind that they never went out? Or had his mental condition turned him into a celibate recluse? Except, of course, for the women who made videos in the basement. Who were they? Dancers from his Lucky Numbers club?