Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Dixon sighed and rubbed his temples. “I know. It’s lame. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have mentioned it, though. Frank writes half a dozen citations every day. That’s part of his job.”

“What did he stop her for?”

“He stopped her for doing twenty-nine in a twenty-five zone.”

“What an ass,” Mendez said. But that was just like Farman-by the book, no mercy. “What time did he write the ticket?”

“Fifteen thirty-eight.”

“Before her dental appointment. That’s good.”

On their time line, Farman wouldn’t be listed as the last person to have seen the woman. Not that it should have mattered. Farman had a clean record. There was no reason for anyone to look at him as a suspect. The fact that his son had been in possession of Lisa Warwick’s finger was the complicating factor.

Any defense attorney worth his salt would use that to plant the seeds of reasonable doubt. What if the kid didn’t pick up the finger at the scene? What if he found it at home hidden among his father’s things?

Defense attorneys loved nothing better than trying to make cops look dirty. They would find someone who had overheard Frank make a derogatory remark about women-not that difficult to do, him being the chauvinist he was. They would look at every traffic citation he had ever written and manufacture a pattern of harassment against women. They would drag in Anne Navarre and get her to say she believed Frank beat his kid, that he had a volatile temper.

Mendez could see Frank spanking his son for skipping school-and who was to say that was so wrong? Mendez had suffered a couple of good strappings as a boy bent on mischief, and he had straightened up because of it. And Farman could certainly come across as a bully, but brutally murder a woman? Mr. Law Enforcement? No.

Dixon sighed and shook his head. “Maybe Sells will confess today.”

And maybe pigs will fly, Mendez thought, as he walked back to his car, passing the hog lot.

An hour later the team of six detectives and Vince Leone met in the conference room that had now been fully converted into their war room. Photographs had been moved from the smaller bulletin board and tacked up on a freestanding corkboard at one end of the room. A time line had been drawn out on the big white board.

Mendez took a marker and added to the line for the day Karly Vickers disappeared: 15:38 traffic ticket issued by F. Farman.

He added to the line for Thursday: L. Warwick index finger in possession of D. Farman.

Leone came over, tapped a finger on the line about the traffic citation, and raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Mendez said. He looked his mentor over. “You look good today. You’ve got some color.”

Vince grinned. “I had a lovely evening, thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t ask,” Mendez said, cranky. “Spare me the details, please.”

“The food was excellent. Miss Navarre was a lovely dinner companion. We talked about her students. I walked her to her car, then I took a walk back down the alley behind the dentist’s office.”

Mendez chose to skip past the date part and jump right back into the case. “Yeah? What did you find?”

“The vacant building next door has a big roll-up garage door, like you could back a truck through. Could be a good place to stash a victim say from five until dark.”

“I don’t see the dentist as a suspect,” Mendez said. “The only thing we have on him is that he saw Vickers late in the day. Anybody could have grabbed the girl in the alley. And Sells had the cars.”

“What does your gut tell you about Gordon Sells?”

Mendez rolled his shoulders, as if physically uncomfortable defending the Sells theory. “There’s definitely something wrong about the guy. But his record is as a pedophile. These victims are grown women.”

Leone nodded, satisfied. “And back to your dentist: Yes, anyone could have snatched the young lady in that alley. And anyone could have stashed her in that empty building. There’s a padlock on the door, but it doesn’t work. But if she was a specific target, then her abductor has to be someone who knew she had that appointment.”

Mendez thought about it. Karly Vickers on her way to the dentist, Farman pulls her over. Why is she going so fast, he asks her. She tells him she’s on her way to a dentist appointment… Obviously, Crane knew where she would be, and people from the center, and people from the hair salon…

Dixon came in then and briefed the group regarding Frank Farman’s necessary departure from the case. No one seemed to know what to say.

“He happened to make a traffic stop the day Karly Vickers disappeared,” Dixon said. “He filed the citation, in no way tried to conceal that, and the time noted was fifteen thirty-eight. More than an hour before Ms. Vickers went missing.”

“His kid was running around with a dead woman’s finger in his pocket,” Detective Hamilton said. “That’s fucking screwed up.”

“The boy has some behavioral issues,” Dixon conceded.

“Deputy Farman has been put on administrative duty until further notice. Meanwhile, we have a legitimate suspect. Let’s concentrate on Gordon Sells.”

“Has the search of his property turned up anything yet?” Mendez asked.

“So far, nothing to connect him directly to any of the victims.” Dixon said. “The trailer is a hazardous waste dump of biological material. It’ll take months to process the samples.”

“He hasn’t said anything to incriminate himself,” Mendez said. “He’s uncooperative, to say the least.”

“How long did you interview him last night?” Vince asked.

“Six hours. Hicks and I took turns.”

“And he hasn’t asked for an attorney?”

“No,” Hicks said. “He doesn’t trust public defenders. He claims the last one he had sold him down the river.”

“Maybe he’s right,” Vince said. “He’s a pedophile. How any decent person can defend a turd like that is beyond me.”

“What decent person?” Detective Trammell asked. “I thought we were talking about lawyers.”

They all got a laugh out of that. Nothing like slamming lawyers to lighten the mood for a bunch of cops.

“He did time,” Vince said. “What was the charge?”

“He was accused of abusing three different twelve-year-old girls, but only one case went to trial. Sells pled out on lewd acts on a minor and possession of child pornography,” Mendez said. “The deal was for eight-to-twelve. He did every day of it. The mother of the victim came to every parole hearing.”

“Was he violent?” Leone asked. “Did he use a weapon?”

“Each time he threatened his victim with a knife.”

“No actual rape?”

“Oral sex was his thing, but he’s had twelve years to sit and think about it.”

“Twelve years of taking it up the ass from every bubba in the joint probably,” Trammell said. “That’s a lot of motivation for revenge against women.”

“That’s true,” Vince said. “But guys like Sells don’t usually change targets. He was locked in on twelve-year-old girls long before he got put away-probably since his teens. His sexual attraction is to pubescent girls he can easily manipulate and intimidate. Molesting children is generally an unsophisticated crime.”

“You don’t think he’s our guy?” Dixon said, annoyed.

“From what you’ve told me, he doesn’t fit the profile. I think you’re looking for a white male in his midthirties, educated, intelligent, methodical. I think he holds a position of respect or authority, or these women knew him personally. So far it looks like the victims just vanished, no commotion, no witnesses. That suggests they went with him willingly. They didn’t think he posed a threat.”