Utah: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 7)

by J. J. Henderson

  They met across the parking lot at Denny's at eight am, and decided that Devereaux would go back and work the neighborhood around the house, gathering what the local law missed, then go by the video store, and finally visit the school to find out what kind of bad boys Ellen Longford might have been running with. Larsen would work his way through the commercial district around the garage, see what might come up with the car. The main highway ran right past Denny's, and the garage was just two blocks away. There wasn't much else around in the way of hotels or restaurants. It wouldn't take too long to find out if any bad guys had done anything more than park in the garage. They ate, it was likely at Denny's. They slept, it was likely at the Tremonton Inn.

  Devereaux started banging on doors at eight thirty am and by ten had drunk five cups of coffee, seen a lot of hair in curlers, and learned nothing of value to his investigation. Arthur Longford was a pillar of the community and the church. His wife was nice but tended to keep to herself. The daughter played with a camcorder a lot. She had run away once or twice, and was in trouble sometimes. The boys were standard issue, and boys will be boys.

  He stopped in at Desert Mountain Video around ten past eleven, just after opening. The clerk, a skinny, nerdy-looking kid maybe nineteen, was picking up the nightdropped videos and DVDs off the floor. He wore jeans, a t-shirt four sizes too large with a picture of a snarling pit bull on the front, and black, horn-rimmed glasses. When Devereaux showed his badge the kid didn't even pause, kept putting movies on shelves. He said, "The bureau, huh? Well whoop-de-doo! So what, you here to pop me for renting out pornos, or what?"

  "Pornos?"

  "Hell yes. Got a closet full, with special back door service. When I got the job I had to sign an agreement I wouldn't ever give out the customer list to no one, not the cops, not the newspaper, not somebody's wife in here. Not even you, Mr. FBI. Got a bunch of real big-time fellas around here watch a lot of 'em. Boss knows his LDS, even if he don't know shit about movies."

  Kid was a talkative one. "Really? How 'bout you? You know a lot about movies?"

  "Well, I ain't no Quentin Tarantino but yeah, I know my shit."

  "Cool. I like the flicks myself," said Devereaux. "So don't you want to know what I'm here for...uh..."

  "Ben. Benjamin Oxenwalker."

  "Oxenwalker? That's a hell of a..."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. Easy to figure what my ancestors musta did. So what are you here for, Mister Devereaux? What is the big bad FBI doing in nice little Tremont-town?"

  "Guy named Arthur Longford ever take advantage of your...back door deliveries?"

  "I told you I can't give those names out, but no, he's not a customer, front door or back. Not Longford. He's the straightest of the straight arrows. And a first rate fuckhead."

  "You sure got a foul mouth on you, Benjamin. But what makes you say that?"

  "Around here saying "fuck" to strangers is about all I can get away with. So I do it when I can. What are you gonna do, arrest me? Anyways, his daughter comes in here a lot and she sure doesn't like him."

  "Ellen?"

  "Yeah, Ellen. Why, is she...what's up, man?"

  He'd find out, soon enough. "Her dad's dead, and she's missing. Tell me what you know."

  "Ellen's missing? Her old man's dead? Holy shit! What the...what happened?"

  "We don't know, Benjamin. We are trying to find out. Her father was murdered. We think she's been kidnapped. But why did you call her father a...what was it...fuckhead?"

  "Oh, I don't know, I didn't mean to...Jesus, the poor dude...look, she used to come in here a lot and buy blank DVDs, and...well, I have a little closet-sized room back there"—he pointed at a door—"and I have a system set up in there to watch flicks sometimes. Ellen used to come in and watch with me. She just really liked movies, and her old man was, well, he wouldn't let her see any of the movies she wanted to see, so..."

  "What kind of movies did you watch with her, Benjamin?"

  "Oh, man, don't get me wrong, it wasn't like that...the pornos are for the saps with bad-tempered wives. No, me and Ellen would watch real movies. European. Antonioni, Truffaut, Fellini. She loves Fellini, that Ellen. But her parents thought anything that wasn't produced by Disney was evil, or something like that. I don't know, they were a pretty stiff pair, know what I mean? Ellen shot a lot of video shit herself, you know. She has a pretty good eye...for a kid I mean. I think she was planning to beat it out of here and go to Hollywood as soon as she got old enough."

  "When was the last time you saw her?"

  "Like, what, day before yesterday? She came in and bought five or six DVDs. Blank ones, I mean, not movies. Hey, you know what? She said she was maybe going to do some traveling and wanted to take some footage."

  "Did you ever see her hanging with...well, anybody weird, bikers, dopers, or..."

  "Ellen? Nah. She was pretty much of a loner. I don't think I ever saw her come in here except alone or with that weird mom of hers. Lady's a space cadet, know what I mean?"

  "Yeah...sure. Well, thanks, Benjamin. And don't worry about renting out the porn. It's legal, last I heard."

  "Maybe out there in the world, but here in Tremonton, Utah, you gotta watch your step, believe me, Mr. Federeaux."

  "I believe you, kid." Devereaux went out and climbed in his car and headed over to the high school.

  Larsen couldn't find anyone who saw anything the night in question, and ended up back at the Tremonton Inn around ten a.m. He approached the desk, where sat the fat man. Didn't figure a kidnapping murderer would be leaving his name and address on a hotel registration but you never knew, part of the job, had to look under every rock. Larsen had a knack for spotting names that didn't read right, or read too right, or whatever. "Good morning, sir," he said quietly to the man, who was reading the paper.

  The man rustled his paper, putting it down. "Yes?" he asked.

  "Well, sir, as you know I'm here on FBI business. I need to see your registration records for the last week."

  He gave Larsen what the agent thought of as The White Man Glance: essence of condescension, with a glimmer of hatred thrown in for spice. "Sure," he said fussily. "Why not?" He made a major production of pulling a book out from under the counter, opening it, and sliding it over. "Here. It's all right there. We have sixty-four rooms and only seven have turned over in the last 48 hours. Most of the others have been taken for the week because there's a regional sales meeting for the Vacu-Pak Corporation going on at the Days Inn outside of town, and we got their overflow. Only four have been rented by people whose faces are unfamiliar to me. Many salesmen stay here and I know almost of them. I can vouch for them, and..."

  "We'll need this list of names and addresses just the same. You can copy this for me, OK?"

  The man gave him The Look again, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose I can. Of the four I didn't know three were ladies and one was...well..." he paused, a little coy, and then shook his head with disapproval.

  "Well what?"

  "Nothing. It's just that...this man was obviously...he simply reeked of marijuana when he checked out yesterday morning, and so did the room. It was so bad I went and had a look myself."

  "Which one was he?" Larsen asked.

  "There," the man pointed at the list. "Mr. Gus Gerard. Definitely a dope head."

  "Did you...Is that the correct license plate? Georgia plates?"

  "I would assume so. I mean, I don't check every car against what they write down, but..."

  "So you don't know?"

  He looked irritated. "No."

  "Can I use your phone?" He grabbed it over the counter and dialed.

  "Certainly. Help yourself. As if you..."

  "Harris? Listen, Larsen here. Put out an APB on an '88 Datsun sedan, Georgia plates, seven six one Adam Larry Rebel. That 761 ALR, Georgia. And proceed with caution, suspect may be armed and dangerous, and may be holding a hostage."

  "The Longford girl?" asked Harris.

  The clerk waved, trying to get Larsen's attention. "Maybe
," Larsen said, and hung up. "What?"

  "You're looking for the kidnapper? Of that girl? I heard about it on the..."

  "Why the hell else you think we'd bother coming here? Why are you asking?"

  "Oh, there's no way this man could have kidnapped anybody. He was...well, he was in a wheelchair. He was disabled."

  "Disabled. What the fuck! Why didn't you...Christ!" He grabbed the phone and dialed. "Cancel that Georgia APB," he said. "False alarm. Make sure no one stops the guy, please. Just leave him alone." Turning off the phone, he glared at the fat man. "You think I have time to waste chasing some pothead in a wheelchair? This is a god damned murder and kidnapping we're talking about here, mister! Now tell me anything else you can remember from that night."

  "Well, you could have mentioned it before."

  "It wasn't your business." Larsen glared at him.

  "Sorry, Mister...Larsen. Anyway like I said the others were all women, so...Oh, one of them was, well, she wasn't that strange, not like a...criminal or anything...but she did sneak a dog into her room. A large white poodle." He pointed at the NO PETS sign.

  "She snuck a poodle into her room? Fucking federal crime. Get you twenty years, down in Texas. C'mon, Mr. Hotel, you can do better than that."

  "My name is Saunders. William Saunders."

  "Sorry, Saunders."

  "Thank you. When she left I followed her outside because I was considering calling the police about her dog so I wanted to see her car. I wouldn't really have minded so much but she was very, well...snotty. She had a bad attitude. Anyways, she was driving a large yellow truck. You know, a rental moving vehicle. I compared the numbers, and she had put the correct license plate down here," he said, pointing at her name in the registration book. "Right here. Lucy Ripken, with an address in New York City. I guess she thought since she was from New York she had the right to break the rules. A lot of New Yorkers are like that, I've discovered. So I felt I was justified in wanting to call the authorities," he finished primly.

  Larsen glanced at the registration. Lucy Ripken. Name had a nice ring to it, but somehow, odd as it was for a woman to be traveling alone across the country in a moving truck, Lucy Ripken didn't quite fit the profile of a kidnapping murderer. What, was her dog the lookout? Besides, this fat honky had his head buried six feet deep up his wide rear end. "Whatever, Saunders. But what about the other...women...Oh, never mind, just give me a copy of these pages and I'll take care of it." Women didn't do these crimes. Larsen waited impatiently as the man copied the pages on an ancient copier behind the counter. What a waste of time! Damn these Mormon morons. He took the copies and went back across the parking lot to Denny's to suck up more bad coffee, call in names off the hotel guest list for checking, and wait for Schmoe to show. Time to get this act moving! They should have more by now, he thought. They should be wailing down on the bastard, ready to reel him in or cut him down, rescue the girl if she was still breathing, and he knew she was, to bring her back to her life of misery in this miserable little town. But Larsen couldn't even smell him yet. Elusive bastard.

  At twelve-thirty pm Devereaux met with the Tremonton High School guidance counselor, a tall, thin man named Edward Sampson, in his office just down the hall from the principal's office on the ground floor in the red brick school building. The desk was clear and the office spotless. The man was precise. He had framed family pictures and a pair of diplomas from BYU on the wall. He had heard about Arthur Longford's death on his car radio on the way to work. After the formalities, Devereaux sat down across from him, and Sampson, who wore a white shirt, a red bow tie, suspenders, and a neat little mustache, said, "Forgive me for being distracted, but I'm shocked, shocked. Arthur Longford was a good friend of mine; I've known him forever, and we served on many church committees together. He was one of the finest men in this town." He stared at a faint stain on Devereaux's green tie. "By the way, Mr. Devereaux, any discussions I may have had with his daughter Ellen are confidential."

  "Confidential? We're talking about a murder, and a kidnapping, Mr. Sampson. You're not a lawyer, what's the..."

  "No, I'm not a lawyer. Nor am I technically speaking a doctor. But doctor/patient privacy holds for the work I do with the kids here. If they can't trust me, they will never tell me the things I need to know to help them in their..."

  "That's a very noble attitude, Mr. Sampson. Just keep in mind what's at stake here. We may be trying to save her life."

  "But there's nothing I can help you with. Or maybe..." he stopped. "You did know that she was adopted?"

  Devereaux decided Sampson looked like he had an itch in a bad place, but didn't dare scratch his butt in public. Way to handle this fellah was ease him along. He leaned back in his chair, and folded his hands over his gut. "Adopted. So? I mean, that's interesting and all, but what does it..."

  "When she found out she was adopted last year, it was as if...well, that's when her troubles seemed to start. That's when she started making things up about the family."

  "What kinds of..." Devereaux had a thought. "Do you know if there's been any contact with the real mother? With Ellen's birth mother or father?"

  "Birth mother? Not that I know of, and I think I would know. Why?"

  "Well, you know there's been some people around the country intent on putting birth mothers back together with the children they gave up, even years and years ago. Some people have gotten pretty crazy behind the idea. Like somehow it was going to make their lives better...or maybe just so they'd know, I guess. Wouldn't you want to know?"

  "I have been acquainted with Arthur since, my goodness, since our days at BYU, and he...I believe they went up into northern Idaho to get Ellen. I don't think the real mother ever even knew who took her baby. No, that was not an issue."

  Devereaux made some notes. "So what kinds of things did Ellen say about her family?" he asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You were saying that when she found out about being adopted she started getting into trouble, and saying things. Making things up."

  "Predictable kinds of things. That her parents mistreated her. That they didn't understand her. Sometimes she'd get really out of hand, and say..." he stopped, glanced at the door, and then looked eagerly at Devereaux.

  "What?"

  He dropped his voice conspiratorially, and leaned forward. "Please, keep this to yourself, because if Dot...if Dorothy ever knew, she would never forgive me for saying anything. Ellen had this very destructive fantasy that she...that her father...that Arthur...was forcing her to have sex with him. You know how much of this kind of talk there is going around, people watch these television talk shows, and..."

  "What exactly did she say?"

  "Just what I told you." He leaned back, and took on a more professional air. "When I probed her about it she became very defensive, and then admitted she'd made it up. I told her it was OK to be angry with your parents but that it wasn't right, and it was in fact very wrong, to say things like that about her father. And she said but he isn't my father! And I said but he is, Ellen. He's the only father you've got." He paused. "This is not an easy job. There's a lot of pressure on these kids. Can you imagine, back when we were growing up, that kids would accuse their parents of forcing them to have sex?"

  "Anyone else ever say anything like that about their parents? At this school I mean?"

  "You mean among the kids?" He looked shocked. "No. But that doesn't mean..."

  "Pretty weird stuff," said Devereaux. "I guess the trauma of finding out she was adopted caused it, huh?"

  "That, and...well, Arthur was something of a disciplinarian. I'm sure Ellen wasn't too happy with that. Arthur didn't let her run loose the way some fathers do, even here. They are a very disciplined family. I've always admired that about..."

  "Yeah, well...what about her friends? Did she run with any troubled kids, or..."

  "No, not really. We have our share of...malcontents...here, but Ellen didn't really like that crowd. She was a quiet type. A loner, really
."

  "What about when she ran away? Before, I mean..."

  "She didn't even make it out of town. Tried to hitchhike. A friend of Arthur's spotted her the first time, called him up, and he went and fetched her himself. The other time she got as far as the bus station in Salt Lake. She tried to buy a ticket to Los Angeles but someone that knew Arthur called him and he drove down and got her himself. This whole state's like a small town that way sometimes. It's the church that keeps us together. And Arthur was a very involved father. Involved with the church, and with his family. I admired him very much for that. He was not one of these...Saturday dads, I call 'em, who don't even notice their kids except on the weekends."

  "I see. So you can't think of anyone Ellen knew who was part of a bad crowd?"

  "She didn't run with any crowd. Gosh, I sure hope she's all right. She is a good girl, and I know she will get straightened out. Arthur did a good job with her. His passing is...a real loss to our community."

  "Well, thanks. If you think of anything...anyone...else, here's my card. Give me a call." Devereaux stood.

  "Mr. Devereaux?"

  "Yes?"

  "What I said about Ellen's...imagination. Please keep it to yourself. I don't want Dorothy to think that I betrayed her confidence, or did anything to harm that family. They are good people and they have gone through this tragedy and I don't want to make anything any worse for them. Just find Ellen and bring her back, please."

  "We'll do our best, Mr. Sampson."