Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Sells jumped up out of his chair again, his face flushing red. “I don’t wanna talk to you! I wanna talk to the other guy!”

Mendez remained calm. “Nobody here cares what you want. Sit back down and stay there or I’ll cuff you to the wall.”

Reluctantly, Sells took his seat. He was breathing hard.

“You’re going back to the can,” Mendez said. “But it won’t be Wasco this time. They’ll send you up to Folsom where a whole new pack of cons can take a crack at you.”

“I ain’t going to prison,” Sells said. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

“The crime scene team isn’t going to find any more pictures of little girls when they turn that pigsty you live in upside down?” Mendez asked. “That’s a parole violation. We can send you back in just for that. Then there’s the grand theft auto, and the murder-”

“I didn’t kill nobody!”

Mendez shrugged. “You look good for it to me. You’ve got her car. If the CSI team comes up with so much as a hair from the head of Lisa Warwick in your home, you’re done. And if there’s any justice in the world, maybe the death penalty will come back before you go to trial.”

Sells glared at him and literally spat out the words, “Fuck you, you fuckin’ spic!”

Mendez shot up out of his chair and leaned across the table. Sells went backward so fast, he tipped his chair over and spilled himself onto the floor.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Mendez said. “I need a cup of coffee. This case is such a slam dunk, I’m bored with it.”

With the Sells file tucked under his arm, he walked out the door and across the hall where Hicks and Dixon were watching the video monitor.

“How do you like that?” Mendez asked. “This guy’s a member of the master race.”

“Unbelievable,” Hicks said.

“Did the cars come in?” Mendez asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Yeah.” Dixon nodded. He looked a little frayed around the edges. “I’m mobilizing a ground search for Karly Vickers at first light.”

“If she isn’t found in a fifty-five-gallon drum in Gordon Sells’s garage tonight,” Mendez said. “The crime scene unit is still out there, right?”

“It’s going to take days for them just to get through the trailer,” Dixon said. “The guy is an animal.”

“That’s an insult to the animal kingdom,” Hicks declared.

“How do you think he’s connected to the Thomas Center?” Dixon asked.

“Maybe the fact that both women were associated with the center is just a coincidence.”

“Three women,” Dixon corrected him. “Julie Paulson was there briefly in eighty-four. She washed out of the program. Jane was out of the country. That’s why the name didn’t ring a bell with her. Can’t be a coincidence times three. How could he know these women? How could he abduct three women without somebody seeing something? If you were a woman and this guy tried to get his hands on you-”

“People would hear me screaming five miles away,” Hicks said. “But maybe he’s not the one who nabbed them.”

“Tweedle Dumb in the other room?” Mendez asked. “That’s hard to imagine. He probably can’t figure out how to roll the window down in a car, let alone persuade some woman to get in with him.”

“No,” Hicks said. “I’m thinking about this maintenance guy from the center.”

“What maintenance guy?” Dixon asked.

“Hamilton found out the guy has a record for car theft and domestic abuse.”

“That’s impossible,” Dixon said. “Jane does background checks on everyone working there. She never would have hired someone like that.”

“The guy’s been using his brother’s name and identity,” Hicks explained. “They live together. Hamilton goes to the house to interview the guy-Doug Lyle-but the Doug Lyle he talks to doesn’t work at the Thomas Center. The brother, Dave, used Doug’s information because he didn’t think anyone would hire a car thief fresh out of prison.”

“Jesus,” Dixon said. “Jane is going to flip out when she hears that story. She goes to such lengths to make sure her women are safe and protected, and it turns out she let the fox in the henhouse herself.”

“And how do Doug Lyle and Gordon Sells connect?” Mendez asked.

“My theory,” Hicks said. “Lyle steals the cars, takes them to Sells, Sells ships them somewhere, and they split the proceeds.”

“And kill a woman or three in the process?”

“Why not? The Hillside Strangler in LA turned out to be two guys working together.”

“It’s a viable scenario,” Dixon said. “See if you can connect Sells to Lyle. You take a crack at him, Bill. You guys can tag team him until he decides he wants a lawyer.”

Hicks took the “Sells file” and went across the hall.

Mendez sipped his coffee, anxious for the caffeine to kick in.

“What do you think, Tony?” Dixon asked. “Do you like this guy for it?”

Mendez stared at the monitor, watching Sells pick his nose until the door opened and Hicks walked in. “That would be an easy solution. If we can tie him to Lyle, and prove that Lyle stole the cars, et cetera.”

“But?”

He shrugged. “Sells is a pedophile. They don’t usually graduate to crimes against adult women. They go after kids because kids are most vulnerable, kids can’t fight back, because something in their own background attaches their sex drive to a certain age group.”

“Maybe the other guy is the sexual predator.”

“Maybe.”

They listened while Hicks questioned Sells about any association to Doug Lyle. Sells denied it.

“You’re bringing in the maintenance guy?”

“We sent a unit to pick him up.”

“I want to know when he gets here,” Dixon said, heading for the door.

“Right. Did you find anything inside the cars yet?”

He stopped in the doorway and turned back around slowly, looking like the weight of the world had descended on him.

“Karly Vickers had a traffic ticket in her glove compartment, dated the day she disappeared,” he said.

“Yeah? So?”

“The ticket was written by Frank Farman.”

Friday, October 11, 1985

12:47 A.M.

Karly had no idea how much time had passed since she had last been visited. It might have been a day. It might have been a matter of a few hours.

She was losing her sanity. Exhausted and weak, she had begun lapsing into hallucinations. She would see Petal walking around the room, coming over to look at her quizzically. Karly would go to pet her and realize she couldn’t move her hand, though she didn’t understand why. Then Petal would speak as clearly as any person.

“You can’t get up. We have to kill you.” And the dog would lunge for her throat and tear it out.

This time when the hallucination came and she went to pet the dog, her hand was free. If only that was true, she thought. Then the dog vanished and darkness descended, and she began to think she might actually be conscious. And her hand was still free.

And her other hand was free.

And she was able to move her legs.

Was this really happening or was it another dream? Slowly, carefully she tried to sit up. The pain was terrible in her stomach, her ribs, but she sat up. Dizziness swirled around in her head like water in a toilet bowl. She waited for it to pass. When it had, she carefully turned herself until her legs dangled over the side of the table.

Was she alone? Was she being watched?

She had no way of knowing if her tormentor ever left. He could have been right there, sitting at a table, eating his breakfast, casually watching her, knowing she would never be able to get away.

But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. She had fought so hard to rise above her past. Having her future snatched away from her wasn’t fair. She had to get angry. She had to try to help herself. Miss Thomas always said, “God helps those who help themselves.”