“He took me there."
“Do you know his name?”
“Darnell. His name is Darnell."
“Can you tell me about him?”
“He and I . . . he was my fiance."
“So you were going to get married?”
She closed her eyes. “I thought so. Dummy me!”
“How long were you together?”
“I think it was four months."
“So you say he took you out to the desert and left you?”
“He must have. I was a little . . . we’d had a lot to drink. I felt pretty sick, and the last thing I remember was the night before. I remember him holding my head while I threw up."
“Can you remember anything at all after that? Something he might have said?”
“I don’t know. I was pretty wrecked. I think I just probably passed out."
“And you woke up in the desert?”
“Yeah. God, my head aches!”
“Can you tell me more about your relationship?”
“Well, he put something in my tea and dumped me in the desert. What does that tell you? I guess he was getting tired of me. That’s just the feeling I got. And then he said he wanted to marry me, and I thought I was wrong about that."
“Was this usual—the ups and downs? Was this how your relationship went?”
“You know, I was always wondering what he was going to do. He’d surprise me with things, little things. I thought he was very thoughtful. But other times he was—honestly, I felt like he didn’t like me. That was toward the end. Whenever we went into town—wherever we were camping, I noticed he’d look at other women. I though, you know, all men are pigs, but you know, it did hurt me."
“How’d you meet him?”
“At a bar. Yeah, I know. I fell for it, hook-line-and-sinker."
“Anything else you can tell me about him?”
“At the beginning, he was thoughtful, he’d open doors for me—the perfect gentleman. He seemed to be genuinely in love with me. “Now why did I think that? The bloom was off the rose two months in. I wanted it to work out, I loved the idea of vagabonding, so when he said ‘let’s go,’ I was all for it."
Vagabonding.
“Did your relationship improve?”
“For a little while. Then it went south. To be honest, I was about to break up with him, right before he drugged my drink and I found myself out in the middle of the desert."
Laura showed her six sketches of men’s faces.
“That’s him." She pointed to the fourth photo. “It looks like he’s in the camper, near the sink."
“Are you sure? Forget about where he is. Is this the man?”
“Yes."
“And his name is Darnell? Do you have a last name?”
“Hatch. Darnell Hatch."
“Anything else you can remember? The campgrounds you went to, anyone who knew him?”
“Oh, I can tell you who knew him. He was a professor at ASU, and one time his student drove up to meet us, since he lived nearby. We were out on the road for two months, and I was getting a little tired of cooking on that little stove, so when his student met us at a steakhouse, I looked forward to it. But they . . . they talked over me like I wasn’t there. We got into a fight over that."
“Do you know the student’s name?
“Jacky."
“You disliked him right away?”
“Yes. You know, how people do. You meet someone and there’s just something about them you don’t like."
“Can you describe him?”
“He was kind of short, maybe five-six or seven. And . . . he was . . . Creepy. He had . . . weird teeth."
“Weird teeth?”
“Mean teeth. Like a shark’s. Some kind of overbite or something. He was always looking at me the time we went out to dinner. Like I was on the menu."
“Was he the guy who hurt you?”
“I’m pretty sure. But I was drugged—with what I don’t know. I was so messed up I had no idea, except for the pain. The pain—”
“What?”
“It was excruciating."
Laura asked her to sketch a picture of the other guy. The guy reminded Laura of Beavis of Beavis and Butthead fame.
Mean Teeth.
Laura cleared her throat. “Does that look right to you?”
Jan nodded.
Laura asked where they went on their travels, if she’d had any interaction with other women. How did Jan characterize their relationship at first? She liked him because he was “courtly." As a child, Jan had gone on camping trips with her parents. She remembered all the wonderful adventures they’d had. “I wasn’t that attracted to him,” Jan said, “but I loved the idea of vagabonding. Taking to the open road. And don’t think I had sex with him. Because I didn’t. He courted me, but I thought of us more as friends. Platonic." She thought about it. “But maybe he had sex with me. While I was out cold."
She added, “He seemed so nice—we just hit it off. I mean, he was a professor! He was reasonably attractive, he seemed to like the outdoors, he was . . . quaint—like you’d imagine a gentleman would be. He said he adored me, but that had a short shelf life, on both sides of the equation. I thought it would be a great adventure, a great platonic adventure, and if it happened, if we did have sex, I thought it would be something that happened over time."
“Did you have any misgivings?”
“Not a one. I thought he was one of the nicest men I’d ever met in my life. And smart, too. But then he introduced me to his student."
“Anything you can tell me about him would be helpful—the student."
Jan looked pale. “Well, when I met him, he seemed like a regular student, but I didn’t like him right off the bat. He gave me the heebie-jeebies--I didn’t like being around him. When he visited us, he kept looking at me. Like I was under a microscope. Like . . . it was . . . Clinical. But I had no idea what he was planning."
“Planning?”
“Like I was prey. Like he was waiting for his chance."
“His chance."
“As I said, like I was the prey."
“Did he talk to you much?”
“Just . . . stupid stuff. He loved to talk about hunting when he was a kid. Only I don’t think it’s hunting, when it’s his neighbors’ cats and dogs, do you? He never came out and said it like that, but he implied it."
Laura nodded. Torturing or killing animals was an indicator of psychopathy.
“Anything else?”
“When we visited him at his house, that one time, he came on to me when Darnell was in the other room, he told me he wished I’d ‘go away. ’ I asked him why, and he said I was ‘getting in the way. ’ And he called me a split-tail pussy."
Laura said, “Ugly."
“Oh, you’d better believe it! A friend of mine did some research. She thinks he’s an ‘Incel. ’ ”
Laura absorbed this. Incels were men and boys who despised women; in fact, they disliked, resented, and ridiculed them. Many of them exhibited outright hostility. One theory was that these men had struck out sexually with women, and blamed all women for the sins of a few. In their resentment, they resolved never to be embarrassed by getting turned down again.
Jan said, “I was getting fed up. No one should be treated like that. Darnell got mad at me the one day we went to his student’s house, and he grabbed me so hard, I thought he would dislocate my shoulder. That was when he threatened me. He said, he said, ‘I’m so mad I could kill you with my bare hands!’ ”
“How did you respond?”
“How do you think? It scared me. Terrified me. I refused to talk to him. By that time, we were on the doorstep."
“The student’s house?”
“Yes. Jacky’s place."
“Do you know where the house is?”
“I can’t remember exactly. Somewhere in Tempe."
“Can you remember the name of the street?”
“No . . . I didn’t even look at the street sign. I . . .
I wasn’t thinking about that. He just said he wanted to introduce me to his best student, and I thought that was kind of cool. But then . . ."
“Then what?”
“The last thing I remember before . . . before they . . . they started . . . was having a glass of wine."
Laura sensed her embarrassment. She let Jan take her time.
Jan said, “Jacky . . . he raped me . . . with other things than just his penis. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t move. At some point I . . . passed out." She added quickly, “When I woke up, I was in a toolshed. Locked inside. It was hot, stifling! I could barely breathe. It smelled of something—like liniment, or something.
“I panicked. I’m claustrophobic. It was the worst. I screamed so loud they pulled me out, wrapped me in a blanket, and threw me into a vehicle—and drove me out to the desert—they just wanted to get rid of me."
“Did they say anything at all?”
“No. All I remember was them stopping the car, opening the door, and shoving me out."
“You were still in the blanket?”
“Yes, it was pulled together with duct tape. They dumped me like I was so much trash. I wondered why they didn’t kill me."
Laura wondered about that, too. “I’d like you to meet with a sketch artist and see if you can give them an idea what Jacky looked like." Laura already knew what this man she now thought of as “the ladies man” looked like—his face, all fuzzy shadows and planes. Now she could get something on this “Jacky."
Jan said, “I didn’t see a lot of him, but what I saw scared me. He had strange eyes."
“Strange eyes?”
“One of them was just a little off kilter. The left one, I think. Kind of like an odd-kilter headlight."
Laura felt an adrenaline rush. If they ever got near the guy, she’d have something specific to look for.
But the question that still bothered her was this: why did they throw Jan out without killing her? Just to make her suffer? Why not kill her, just to make sure?
It told her something about them. As Jan said, they liked the idea of stranding her out there, liked the idea of her being left out in the middle of the desert, alone, without water, in hundred-degree temperatures. They didn’t kill her when they were done with her. They wanted her to suffer.
These were bad guys. Really bad guys.
In case the desert area was the killers’ favorite dumping spot, they got directions and coordinates from Bill Gage, drove out to the area Jan had described, and set up hidden cameras on the dirt road in the desert. The cameras would be triggered by movement. The road was monitored, but after a few days, a check of the cameras only showed images of a herd of javelina and one lone bobcat traversing the darkness. No vehicles. No people.
So much for returning to the scene of the crime. They used her, they raped her, and they left her out there to die.
Skewed headlight.
That was all she had. That, and the blurry photo of the camper, and whatever else she could learn from Jan.
A few days later, Laura interviewed Jan again. This time, Jan had recovered sufficiently from her ordeal to go into more detail. She seemed to trust Laura more, so she could tell the truly terrible parts of her story. It was Jacky who hurt her. He put his hands around her neck a number of times, and each time she thought she would die. She gave up fearing death, after the fifth or sixth time—about the same time he lost interest in choking her.
“What was your first impression of his student?”
The minute she met the student, Jan said, she had a bad feeling. But she didn’t heed the warning. They hung out on the student’s sway-backed couch and snacked on chips and dip, while the student—she thought he was in his early twenties—asked her questions. Lots of questions. Where did she live? Did she have family? Brothers or sisters? Was she ever married? Where did she work? Was she retired? Did she have a lot of friends? “He just kept peppering me with questions!One after the other. It got uncomfortable. I felt that he was interrogating me. “And, I didn’t like the way he looked me up and down —it was like… he scrutinized me."
“Then what happened?”
“We stayed and watched a football game, had beer, chips and dip. Basically they ignored me. It was so weird. I didn’t like him . . . Jacky. I hardly knew him, but I didn’t like him. Just being in his presence made me nervous. He looked at me just like he was looking at a bug. His eyes. I felt like I was . . . Naked. We left after drinks and chips. I kind of thought I wouldn’t see him again. But I was wrong about that."
“So you saw him again."
“Yes. Same deal, we went over to his rat’s nest of an apartment a week or two later. It smelled, like old sweat. I remember that. He made me a margarita. The next thing I remember I was on a bed, and that creep was on top of me—he was naked but I was clothed—and he was . . . humping me."
She paused. “I hate thinking about it, but I know I have to say it. I’m trying to remember—I was out of it, but I knew what he was doing, but I felt unable to stop him. I think—yes, he was giggling. I started to panic—and that was when he put his hands around my throat. And his face was right in my face and he started yelling at me, screaming at me. He slapped me in the face—hard—and pulled my hair. Then . . ."
“What?”
He must have had an orgasm. He rolled off me but he held on to my hair and pulled hard. He told me to stay where I was, or something bad would happen. And he reached over to the bed table and grabbed a big knife—like a hunting knife. And I knew right then I was going to die. He was going to stab me to death. He held the tip of that sharp knife to my chin, he was giggling—crazy. And I closed my eyes—I didn’t want to see the knife coming. I knew I was going to die. I tried to accept it. To prepare for it—”
“And then what?”
“He punched me in the head and I passed out. The last thing I heard was Darnell’s voice, saying: ‘We have to go now.’ ”
Jan had told a horrific story. What happened to her body, her person. The student, who raped her repeatedly, using several objects. How he slapped her in the face, over and over again. How he put her in “stress positions,” and warned her not to move or he would slit her throat. He showed her the knife, a big one.
“Was Darnell in the room with you as well?”
“Yes. He pulled up a chair in the bedroom so he could watch."
“He just watched?”
“Yes."
“He was enjoying it?”
“Yes—he was . . . I sensed he got off on it."
“Got off on it?”
“Literally."
“But he never touched you."
“No. He just watched."
“Then what happened?”
“I passed out, but I wasn’t out for long. I woke up in the dark. That was when his student punched me, and knocked me right out. When I came to, they dumped me out in the desert."
Chapter 8
Laura had a lot. Jan had told her everything she could remember—and it was recorded. Unfortunately, Jan didn’t know have a fix on the house location. Tempe was a city in and of itself in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Again, Laura wondered why they didn’t kill her before they disposed of her. To continue the victim’s nightmare? It seemed like a reckless thing to do. Someone could have found her—and someone did.
She wondered. Did they want someone to come across her brutalized and dead body? The most likely outcome in this heat was that Jan Woodhouse would die from heatstroke or thirst, or both.
In another circumstance, with different people, leaving someone out to die might be because they did not want to do the dirty work themselves. But she knew with these two men that was not the case. They hurt her, then dumped her out there, possibly to continue her nightmare. What did it say about them? The younger man—the student—had no qualms about torture. And the older man . . . Laura’s theory was that he tired of the women he romanced, and got rid of them the easy way, and pleased his student at the same ti
me. His psychopathic student. The student was the cruel one.
Laura asked Jan again if she remembered where the house was located. Could she remember a shopping center, or a park, or a school, or a business nearby?
“I don’t . . . Wait. A car dealership. It was on the corner a couple of blocks from the house. I remember, because we turned there at the light."
“I have to ask again. Do you remember the name of the street the student lived on?”
“Mullberry? Mayberry? Something like that."
Laura went to a Tempe interactive map online with her laptop and searched for Mullberry. Nothing came up. She tried Mayberry. Nada. Gilbert but no Tempe. “Was there a grocery store or a complex of stores—“
“A strip mall."
“A strip mall?”
“Yes. It was an old place—you know, from the sixties or seventies. I remember, yes, there was a bookstore on the end."
“Was there a sign?”
“Yes, but I can’t . . . don’t remember what it said. ‘Something’ Plaza."
“Anything else you can remember?”
“Just the sign. It was like an oval, only clunkier."
“Clunkier?”
“It was kind of octagonal? And… the sign was pale yellow with blue lettering."
“What else was in the strip mall?”
“I don’t know. Maybe . . . yes, a laundromat. I remember a sign, it was a funny name. Double Bubble.
“And you say the house was on a street near the strip mall?”
“Yes. I think it was on a street that met the main drag. A right turn off the street into a neighborhood."
Laura pulled up the map of Tempe again, looking at the street view and then the aerial view. Entered “Double Bubble” and zeroed in on the area. She saw the laundromat and strip mall, and the street and stop sign. There was a row of houses that looked as if they had been built in the 1960s, and a small park across the street. “Does this look familiar? The park?”
Ladies Man (Laura Cardinal Series Book 6) Page 8
