by David Archer
Dixon gave Chance a wry grin. “Sounds like everybody ought to go there,” he said. He turned back to Yolanda. “Okay, let me ask you this. How did you end up going there? Was it court-ordered or something?”
“Oh, no,” Yolanda replied. “You have to go into it voluntarily, and you sign a contract to say you’ll stay the whole six months, no matter what. The only way you get out early is if it’s an actual medical emergency. I just got to the point where I knew I couldn’t control my drug problem, and I started going to counseling. My counselor recommended it and drove me out to do the interviews. Luckily for me, it’s covered by insurance because I certainly couldn’t have afforded it.”
“Interviews?” Dixon asked. “What kind of interviews?”
“Oh, just basic stuff,” she said. “They said the idea was to find out whether I was able to make a commitment to kicking the habit, and they decided that I was ready. They have to feel sure that you’re going to be willing to give it all you’ve got, because there are so many people that want to get into the program.”
Dixon nodded. “So, naturally, they don’t want to waste time on people who aren’t going to be serious about it. That makes sense. Yolanda, tell me a bit about your social life. What do you do for fun, who have you been dating?”
The girl’s eyes widened slightly but she grinned. “Well, I don’t have a lot of friends,” she said. “I hang out with a couple of the girls I worked with, Annette and Charlene, but we generally just go to the mall or take in a movie once a week or so. I’ve only dated a couple of guys in the last year or so, but there’s nothing serious. Johnny Rico, he’s the one I usually go out with. I met him not long after I got out of the Center, but we don’t exactly have an actual relationship. It’s more like we just have a good time once in a while. The other guy, Matt Cooper, he’s just the guy who delivers meats to the restaurant. He flirts with me now and then, and we’ve gone out a few times. Neither one of them is anything serious, just somebody to have fun with and, you know…” Her face turned red.
Dixon grinned. “No problem,” he said. “Yolanda, are you aware that there was another lady who seems to have gone through the same thing you did? Woke up and found out the whole month had gone by, and now she’s also charged with murder?”
Yolanda shrugged. “I heard about it after they arrested me,” she said. “It made me wonder if maybe there’s some kind of contagious insanity going around. One of the detectives kept trying to tell me that I was just making it up, trying to copy her story, but I hadn’t heard anything about her until then.”
“Yeah, that’s what I gathered,” Dixon said. “You actually went missing, from what we understand, before that whole story hit the news. I can understand them asking you if you were just trying to use her alibi, but we think you might be telling the truth. Now, do you know that other woman? What was her name?”
Yolanda shrugged. “I heard her name, but I can’t remember it.”
“It was Maggie Bingham,” Chance said. “She was arrested for murdering a man in Reno during the time she was missing.”
On the TV screen, Yolanda was looking from Dixon to Chance and back to Dixon. “I don’t know the name,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met her. Are you thinking the same thing I am, like maybe I caught some weird crazy disease or something?”
“Not necessarily,” Dixon said, “but I can’t rule anything out. I was just wondering if you knew her, because it seems like there might be something connecting the two of you. If we can find out what that was, then we might find out what happened to you.”
“Okay. So, let me ask you this. Mr. Kramer, the lawyer, he said that if it turns out I was just crazy, then maybe I won’t end up going to prison for the rest of my life. Do you think there’s any hope of that?”
“Yolanda, the thing is, with the story you and this Maggie have both told, I’m beginning to think that you were somehow brainwashed into doing whatever you did. If we can find proof of that, there’s a very good chance your lawyer will be able to show that you are not responsible for your actions during that time. It would mean that you are not the guilty party, but the person who did this to you would be. If we can prove that, if it turns out to be the case, then there’s a very good possibility that you may go free.”
Yolanda’s eyes had become extremely wide as she stared at him through the TV. “But—but they say there’s absolutely no doubt that I killed that man. According to the detectives, I’m either going to prison or the nuthouse, but either way they think I’ll be there the rest of my life.”
Dixon shrugged. “You know the problem with cops? They have a hundred cases every day they have to get through. All they want to do is find the quickest, easiest answer so they can move on to the next case. Me, on the other hand?” He hooked a thumb at Chance. “This young fellow hired me to do one job, and that’s to find out what happened to you. And, young lady, that’s exactly what I intend to do.”
SIX
Dixon asked a few more questions, and then told Yolanda that they would be back in touch soon. He and Chance left the visitation room and made their way out of the detention center, but Dixon shushed him until they got back into the pickup truck.
“Okay,” he said as they pulled out of the parking lot. “First stop is this diner where she worked. We need to talk to her coworkers, see if any of them have a different view of her. Go up to the third light and turn right, I know right where the place is.”
“Alright,” Chance said. “So, what’s your gut feeling? Is she telling the truth?”
“She sure believes that she is. Whenever people are deliberately lying to you, there are little signs. Sometimes they’re obvious, sometimes they’re not. With her, I didn’t see any of them. No little flashes of anger, no little flashes of fear, she wasn’t casting about to try to find an answer, she was just telling us what she knew. That makes me believe that, at the very least, she believes what she’s saying. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s absolutely true, but it’s what she believes. Now, what we do is try to pick her story apart. If we can find other indicators that what she’s telling us is not the truth, then we need to figure out why she believes it.”
“Okay. Did you hear anything out of her that made you think any more about her being brainwashed?”
“Oh, everything. For someone to believe so completely that they didn’t do something we know they did, there’s been some kind of effect on the way they think. That could be brainwashing, or it could be trauma. People can brainwash themselves, you know, convince themselves they never did something because it’s just too terrible to think about, or they can block out something bad that happened to them because they just can’t cope with it. It’s always possible that Yolanda met Mr. Fredericks and he thought she was cute, swept her off her feet and took her out on a whirlwind romance. One day he gets tired of her, tells her it’s time for him to kick her to the curb, and she flips out and kills the bastard. When she realizes what she’s done, she just can’t believe it and so she creates this new reality where it never happened. She blocks out everything about the time she knew him and suddenly a whole month is missing out of her life. Take the next left.”
Chance made the turn, then glanced at Dixon. “I hate to say this,” he said, “but that almost sounds like the most likely scenario. A lot more likely than somebody brainwashing her, anyway.”
“And I would agree with that,” Dixon said, “if it weren’t for the fact that we now have two other women who seem to have had similar experiences. Once, you got a simple situation. Something happens twice, that could be a coincidence. Three times, though? That’s a bit of a stretch, to my mind. First we talk to her coworkers and her boss, and then we check out these other two women. Crossroads Diner, it’s two blocks up on the right.”
Chance pulled into the restaurant and parked the truck, and the two of them got out and went into the building. It was a small place that didn’t bother with a hostess, so they found an empty booth and sat down. There we
re a few people in the place, so it was only a moment before a young, blonde waitress came toward them, coffee pot in hand. Her name tag said, “Annette.”
“Hey, guys,” she said. “Coffee?”
Both of them picked up the cups that were sitting on the table upside down and nodded.
“Sure thing, sweetheart,” Dixon said. “And give me one of those big cinnamon rolls. Bring my buddy one, too.”
“You got it,” the girl said. She finished filling Chance’s coffee cup and then hurried away. She was back a moment later with cinnamon rolls on small plates, and set one in front of each of them.
“Anything else?” she asked.
“Well, yeah,” Dixon said. “Do you know Yolanda? The girl who used to work here, the one who got arrested for murder?”
The blonde suddenly frowned. “What are you, another reporter?”
Dixon took a small wallet out of his jacket pocket and flipped it open, showing a badge and ID card. “Private eye,” he said. “I’m trying to find out what really happened with that girl. Thought maybe you could tell me a bit about her, maybe help me figure out how she ended up in this mess.”
Annette glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one else was paying attention, then looked back at Dixon. “Look, I don’t know what happened,” she said. “The only thing I can tell you is that there’s no way in the world Yolanda would ever kill anybody. I’ve known her for over a year, and I don’t think I’ve ever even seen her get mad. Even when somebody stiffs her on a tip, she always just smiles and tells them to have a great day.”
Dixon nodded. “Yeah, she seems pretty nice. Do you happen to know if she drinks a lot, or messes with drugs?”
“Yolanda?” The girl’s eyes were suddenly huge. “You gotta be kidding. She won’t touch drugs, and I’ve never seen her drink anything stronger than a wine cooler. Me and her have gone out a few times, and she’s just not a drinker. Matter of fact, she’s usually the one to make sure I get home safe. Me and Charlene call her the designated driver, for that very reason.”
“Okay, I get that,” Dixon said. “Tell me, was she acting any different before she disappeared? Anything strange about the way she was talking or acting or anything?”
Annette frowned. “No, not a bit. She was just her normal, cheerful old self. I remember her saying something about having a date coming up that weekend, and she was all excited about it.”
Dixon cocked his head. “A date? Did she happen to say with whom?”
“Not that I remember. In fact, I think she was being a little secretive, like it was a new guy and she wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out.”
“And you never saw her again until she turned up just the other day, right?”
“Yeah. That was really weird, because she came walking in like everything was normal, and she swears she doesn’t remember anything about being gone.”
“How did she react, when you all told her that she’d been missing?”
“Well, how do you think? She freaked out a little bit, kept asking if we were trying to play a prank on her or something. When she finally got it through her head that we were serious, she just sat right down at the counter and cried. I’m telling you, that girl really doesn’t remember anything.”
Chance was sitting quietly, watching the exchange. There was something about the way Dixon was handling himself that impressed him, and he was paying close attention to the types of questions the older man was asking.
Suddenly, a thought struck him. “Hey,” he asked, interrupting Dixon before he could ask another question. “Was there anything different about her that morning? Was her hair different, or her makeup or anything?”
Annette looked at him and frowned again. “No,” she said, but then her eyes narrowed. “Well, now that you mention it, I think I did notice she was wearing a lot more makeup than usual. She’s always been pretty conservative about that, but that morning she really had on a lot. I guess I blanked that out after all the confusion and everything, but yeah, she did look different.”
Dixon glanced at Chance approvingly, then turned back to the waitress. “What about her clothing? Anything different about that?”
Annette thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “No, she was dressed the way she always does. She did have a different purse, though. Her usual one is kind of big, and the one she had that morning was a lot smaller. I guess that was kind of odd, for her.”
Someone called her name at that moment, and Annette turned and walked away. Dixon turned and looked at Chance.
“That was a good question,” he said. “If we go on the assumption the girl was brainwashed, then she probably had a completely different personality while she was missing. Some of it apparently remained as residual effects, which would explain the makeup and maybe the purse. Give me your phone.”
Chance handed it over and Dixon dialed a number. He put the phone to his ear, and a moment later he said, “Hey, I need to speak to Detective Jensen.”
He held the phone while he took a sip of coffee, and a moment later his face brightened. “So,” he said, “you finally got out of diapers, did you?”
Chance could hear the voice coming through the other end of the line. “Oh, my God,” it said. “Pete Dixon? How are you doing, man?”
“Temporarily off the sauce and back to work. Bobby, I heard you got the Yolanda Martinez case. That right?”
“Yep,” Jensen said. “It’s my first one going solo. Are you working on that?”
“Yeah, some rich fart hired Alvin Kramer for her, and he brought me into it. You mind to tell me what you got so far?”
“Well, it looks like an open and shut case,” Jensen said, “but it’s bothering me. We’ve got security videos showing her and Fredericks going into the hotel room, then her coming out later alone. Housekeeping found the body the next morning, and he’d been stabbed about twenty times. The knife was still sticking out of his chest, and her clear, bloody fingerprints were all over it and the room.”
“Bobby, what kind of knife was it?”
“Just a hunting knife, nothing special about it. Five and a half inch blade, plastic handle, the kind you can buy just about anywhere. Based on just the physical evidence alone, I’d have to say there’s no doubt she did it, but this girl swears up and down she can’t remember anything about it all. At first I thought she was lying, but—Pete, I gotta tell you, I personally think she’s telling the truth. Of course, it doesn’t really matter if she remembers it or not, she still did it.”
“Unless she had been in a reduced mental capacity due to deliberate psychological manipulation,” Dixon said. “Check it out, there are precedents. If somebody is brainwashed into committing a crime, they cannot be held responsible.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of that,” Jensen said. “The thing is, without her being able to remember anything about how she ended up in this mess, I don’t have anything to go on that would officially let me claim anything like that. You got any evidence that she might’ve been brainwashed?”
“Just a gut feeling at the moment,” Dixon said, “but it’s pretty strong. Listen, you know there are two other women who are claiming the same thing, that they don’t remember the last month or so. Have you talked to either of them?”
“Just the one who got arrested for the murder in Reno. Steve Langley and I were the ones who got sent out to pick her up, so we got to ask her the first questions. That was the first thing I thought about when this case started, that it sounded just like that woman’s problem.”
“Okay. Now, let me ask you another question. Had you been able to find any kind of connection between those two women?”
“Nothing, and I’ve been looking. I’ll be honest, Pete, I’m thinking the same thing you are, but without some kind of proof, I don’t even dare say it aloud in front of the prosecutors. Right now, both of these women are looking at doing at least life in prison, but I’m not really sure they deserve it.”
“Right, and I’m on the same page
. Listen, I need to get a look at the Martinez girl’s personal effects. Can you help me out with that?”
“Personal effects? What do you mean?”
“I just found out that when she showed up for work the other day, she wasn’t carrying her usual purse. I’d like to get a look at that bag, see if I can figure out where it came from. Might give us a clue to where she was and what was happening to her during that time she was missing.”
“Well,” Jensen said, “nothing about her personal effects seemed to be evidentiary, so it’s probably out at the jail. I can call out there and tell them to let you take a look at it. Will that work?”
“That would be great, Bobby,” Dixon said. “Thanks, kid, and if I find out anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Good, because I can use any help I can get,” Jensen said. “Hey, just a minute. Let me take a look at something—okay, yeah, I found it. That woman in Reno? A couple of her friends said she looked different when she came back, like she had a makeover or something. One of the things they noticed was that she had a different bag. Think that’s just a coincidence?”
“I don’t know,” Dixon said. “But I’ll bet you a dollar I’m going to find out. Thanks, Bobby, I’ll get back to you soon.”
He ended the call and passed the phone back to Chance. “Eat up,” he said. “We gotta go back to the jailhouse.”
They finished their cinnamon rolls quickly and went to check out, and Chance pointed at the toothpick dispenser. Dixon picked it up and dumped it into his hand, then shoved them into his pocket.