The Killing Vision (20 page)

“Have a great day at the office,” Wade called.

“Yeah.”

Wade watched him make his way up the back steps into
the house, and a couple of minutes later heard the Escort fire up and pull out
onto the highway with a squeal of tires.  When he was sure he was alone and
that Marla wasn’t going to make an appearance, he pulled the cigar box from the
notch in the wall and rolled up a joint.  He fired it up and sat down in the
old chair, watching the leaves rustle in the trees outside.

Last night had been a strange one.  He had fully
intended to clean up after work and head into town, to cruise by the Capitol
and meet up with Shelley and Abby again.  But neither Marla nor Derek was home
when he got there.  The pickup was gone, and there was no sign of dinner.  He
sat down on the couch to wait for one of them to pull into the drive and fell
asleep watching the news.  When he awoke, it was almost eleven, Derek was
coming through the front door smelling like old grease and hamburgers, and
Marla was still gone.  He ate a bowl of Frosted Flakes and sat stupidly looking
at the television, his head thick and groggy.

And when Marla came through the door a few minutes
later, looking disheveled and flustered, he simply looked at her and said,
“Where the fuck have you been?”

She averted her gaze from him and walked through the
room toward the stairs.  “I went to the movies.”

“Alone?”

She stared back at him this time, meeting his eyes. 
“Yes.  Then I went and got something to eat.”

He felt rage building up in his gut.  “You think I
believe that?”

A muscle was working in her jaw.  “I don’t care what
you believe.”  She tromped on upstairs, and Wade heard her moving around in the
bedroom, then the sound of the shower.

He sat there, still looking at the television
screen, wondering if she had been out with another man and why he didn’t just
get up and beat the shit out of her.  But in the end he decided he was just too
damned tired.  The last weekend of partying seemed to have caught up with him,
and all he wanted to do was rest.  And besides, even if Marla was seeing
someone, he really didn’t give a fuck anymore.  He flipped off the TV and made
his way upstairs and collapsed next to her in the bed.

And now as he sat in the dry heat of the barn and
watched the shadows of the trees play across the green grass outside, he took
another hit off the joint and thought of what he would do if Marla was
cheating.  In the end he figured it might be for the best.  He would be free to
do whatever the hell he wanted.

Wade smiled and felt his body melt into the chair. 
He would finish the joint and then get started on the brakes.  And later he
might head into town and try to meet up with the girls. 

The day stretched lazily before him, full of fun and
promise.

* * *

1:15 PM

Halloran stared at the remaining fries on his plate
and took another sip of his Coke.  He and Chapman had met for lunch at a small
diner near the police station to talk about what their next move would be.  He
hoped it wouldn’t involve looking for a new job.

Last night had not gone well.  Other than the
clippings and the sex sling in the basement, the search of the mayor’s house
had turned up nothing.  Larry Carver was pissed.  Chief Pettus was pissed. 
Hell, Halloran was pissed himself.  Something wasn’t adding up.  He was missing
something, he knew it.

“You gonna eat those?” Chapman asked, pointing to
Halloran’s fries.

Halloran grunted and slid the plate across the
table.  He watched Chapman shove the fries into his mouth and for a split
second felt a shiver of revulsion.  He licked his dry lips.  He really needed a
cigarette, but since the city passed the smoking ban last March he would have
to wait until he got out to the car before lighting up.  “You’ve certainly got
a healthy appetite,” Halloran said.

Chapman licked his fingers.  “I eat when I’m
nervous.  Especially when I’m about to be on the unemployment line.”

“Nobody’s going to be on the unemployment line,”
Halloran said, and hoped he sounded convincing.  “Besides, who’re they going to
get to do our jobs?”

“Brooks would make a good detective,” Chapman said.

Halloran nodded.  “I’ve thought the same thing
myself.  He doesn’t have the experience yet, though.”

“Or the training.”

Halloran blew out a breath.  “I just knew we’d find
something at Carver’s house.  I felt it.”

Chapman popped the last fry into his mouth.  “Maybe
the lab will come up with something off those swabs.”

“Maybe.”  Halloran sipped his Coke.  “In the
meantime, we’ll just stay out of Carver’s way.  It’ll all blow over
eventually.”

* * *

A little after seven, just as Halloran had settled
in to watch the Cardinals game, he was summoned to an apartment building on
Woodside.  Chapman was already there, along with a couple of other officers. 

One of the cops met him at the door, an obnoxious
little guy named Pavoni.  “Missing girl is Abigail Saunders,” Pavoni said,
reading off his notepad.  “Roommate said she hadn’t been able to reach her cell
all weekend.  Came in and found the place a mess about a half hour ago. 
Parents haven’t heard from her either.”

Halloran glanced at the sofa, where a sobbing blonde
was already talking to Chapman. 

“Back bedroom looks like a tornado went through it,”
Pavoni went on.  “Roommate was out of town last night, so we think that’s
probably when it happened.”

Halloran peered into the hallway beyond.  “Any crime
techs here?”

Pavoni shook his head and jerked a thumb behind him. 
“Go on back.”

Halloran slipped past him and stuck his head in the
doorway.  The place was completely trashed.  Clothing and books littered the
floor.  An overturned lamp by the bed cast grotesque shadows on the ceiling. 
He turned and made his way back to the living room and found Pavoni.  “Anyone
hear anything?”

“Nothing,” Pavoni told him.  “All the tenants were
out last night, and the old lady downstairs in the corner unit couldn’t hear
thunder.”

“Anything missing?”

“The roommate hasn’t noticed anything gone, but with
the mess, who knows.”  Pavoni thumbed through his notes.  “Oh, here’s something
that might interest you.  One of the neighbors noticed a black Ford Escort
hanging around a good part of the morning yesterday.  He said there was a guy
inside, but he couldn’t get a good look at him.  We’ve got an ATL out on the
vehicle now.”

“Good.”  Halloran pulled out his own notepad and
jotted the information down.  “I’ll check further on that.”

The roommate had finished talking to Chapman and was
heading out the front door with a female officer.  Chapman made his way over to
Halloran.  “It’s a mess back there.”

Halloran nodded.  “Get anywhere with the roommate?”

“Not really.  She’s gonna spend the night with a
friend and come down to talk to us in the morning.”

Halloran blew out a breath.  “Jesus, what else can
happen in this town?”

* * *

8:43 PM

Wade had been sitting in the Capitol for almost half
an hour now and Shelley and Abby were nowhere to be seen.  He was still nursing
his first beer at one of the side tables where he could keep an eye on the
entrance to the club, and although quite a few hot women had come in, none of
them were in the same league as his girls.  He laughed at that.  “His girls.” 
It made him sound like a pimp.

He wondered, not for the first time, if Shelley and
Abby had just been playing him, fucking with him.  Perhaps they were tired of
him already.  They had all had some fun, but now maybe that was over. It would
be no less than he deserved.  He glanced at his watch again.  It was still
early, they still might show.

But finally at a quarter to nine, just as the crowd
was becoming unbearably close, he decided he’d had enough.  He had left his
phone back at the house, so he couldn’t call them.  They weren’t coming, and
since this really wasn’t his scene, he figured he would head over to the Wild
Horse and see what was happening there.

He pulled his truck out of the parking lot and on a
whim swung a right and headed back toward the college campus.  Maybe he would
just drive by the house and see if anything was going on.  Maybe they were
entertaining some other man.  Maybe he would surprise them.  Maybe they would
ask him to join them.

He turned onto Woodside and came to a screeching
halt.  There was something going on, all right.  Three police cars and an
ambulance were parked out front.  The entire neighborhood was bathed in
whirling, flashing light, and several people milled about in the street and on
the sidewalk. 

His breath had left his body and a cold sweat
trickled down his forehead.  What the
fuck
?  He had no idea what to
think.  What had happened?  Were they all right?  Was someone hurt?  He sat
there, looking at the activity surrounding the apartment house, feeling a cold
dread pulse through him.

Something banged on the hood of the truck and he
looked up to see a stout cop waving him on.  “Come on, buddy, you can’t come
this way.”

Wade nodded and waved back.  He turned down a side
street and headed back toward the edge of town, toward the Wild Horse.  Behind
him, the lights continued to flash with sickening intensity.

* * *

11:32 PM

He drove through the darkened
town away from the campus, weaving through the traffic.  Even for Saturday
night there seemed to be more people out than usual.  But no one was paying him
any attention.  His car was plain and unobtrusive.  He had planned it that way.

It was going to be so easy to
connect the missing girl with the others.  Those stupid fucking assholes
couldn’t see past the ends of their dicks.  When he was finished, they would
tie all the girls together and then he would be home free.  It couldn’t have
been any better if he had planned it this way.  It was as if all the stars had
aligned or something.

He had just left the shopping
district, heading toward the residential area, when he saw her.  She plodded
along the sidewalk in shorts and flipflops.  A backpack in the form of a purple
stuffed monkey hung over her shoulders beneath long tresses of blond hair.  She
turned toward him and the headlights brushed her face.  She looked a little
older—maybe fifteen—but she was unblemished and perfect.

He slowed down to match her gait
and lowered the passenger side window.  “Hey,” he said.  “You’re out kinda
late.”

“Heading home,” she said.  “I’m
gonna catch it for being out past eleven.”

He cleared his throat.  “Need a
ride?”

She looked up and down the
deserted street, then smiled at him.  He felt the blood rush to his crotch. 
She wasn’t afraid of him.  They never were. 

Sunday, July 15

10:45 AM

For the first time since the search at his home,
Halloran found himself face to face with Larry Carver.

Halloran and Pettus sat on one side of the table in
the interrogation room and Carver and his attorney sat on the other.  Carver’s
face was stony and red and his cold eyes darted between Halloran and the
chief.  If Halloran had had any doubts about how pissed off Carver was, they
were gone now.  The man exuded anger like an odor.  Carver’s lawyer, a
well-respected attorney by the name of Daniel Woods, looked equally pissed.  He
wore the expression of someone who had just stepped on a disgusting insect.

“I suppose you’re wondering why we called you in
here,” Halloran said.

Carver’s nostrils flared.  “I would have thought
Friday night would have been the end of it, when you didn’t find anything.”

Woods laid a pudgy hand on the mayor’s arm.  “Easy,
Larry.”

Halloran opened the file folder in front of him and
pulled out an eight-by-ten photo.  Wordlessly he slid it across the desk to the
other two men.

Carver looked at it, then blew out a breath.  “I
give up.  What the hell am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Tire track,” Halloran said.  “We found this on the
river bank near where the McElvoy and the Santos girl both washed up.”

“So?”

Halloran pulled out a second photograph and laid it
beside the first.  “This is the front passenger tire on your Lincoln
Navigator.  It’s a perfect match.  Right down to a piece of gravel stuck in the
tread.”  He pointed with the end of an ink pen.  “Here.”

Carver slammed a fist down on the table.  “I had
nothing to do with those girls,” he spat.

Woods put a hand on Carver’s shoulder.  “Don’t say
anything else, Larry.”

Carver shrugged out from under Woods’ grip.  “Get
your goddamned hand off me.”