by Terry Shames
When I hang up, I think about the sequence of events immediately before and after surprising the intruder in Loretta’s house. I conclude that we found the list before he broke in. That may have been what he was after. If so, how did he know she had it? She must have told him. If that’s what he was looking for, then at least we know that there was something on that list that he didn’t want us to find.
I turn on my computer to see what kind of fish I might have caught with my dummy profile on the dating website. There are ten new responses. I see right away that most of them are the same men who responded to Loretta’s profile. I try to imagine who these men must be. Are they that desperate for a date? Are they lonely? All I know is that one of these men is up to no good, and it’s up to me to find him. At first, I think I can eliminate the new ones, but it occurs to me that the killer might be using more than one name. I have to cross-check names and profiles to see whether I get any matches.
I’ve barely started when I get a call from Brent Hogarth. “I thought you might want to know about the autopsy report on Elaine Farquart. It’s interesting.”
“Interesting how?”
“Several things. For one thing, she was drugged.”
“Did they say what she was drugged with?”
“You ready for the big words? It was a benzodiazepine called flunitrazepam.”
Big is right. “What is that exactly?”
“I had to look it up. It’s called a ‘date rape’ drug. But it’s also used clinically for anxiety.”
“Sounds like our abductor is a nervous sort?”
Hogarth chuckles. “Who knows? Maybe he’s a pharmacist, or maybe he stole the drugs. Anyway, she didn’t have enough in her system to kill her, just make her disoriented. Which at first I thought would explain why she was in a position to get run over.”
“I’m curious. Why did the medical examiner even do toxicology tests?”
“I asked him to. It seemed too unusual for Elaine Farquart to be walking along a road in the middle of the night. Her family and friends said she wasn’t much of a drinker, so it made sense that the guy who killed her drugged her to make her compliant. But it turns out I was wrong. That isn’t why she was compliant.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What was the reason?”
“She was dead when she was run over. And she wasn’t murdered.”
“You’re kidding. What did she die of?”
“Heart attack. Could have been fear that brought it on, but she had a bad heart. We’ve confirmed it with her doctor.”
“You could make a case that the stress from being kidnapped brought on the heart attack.”
“We could. There was another odd thing they found in the autopsy though. Or at least I thought it was odd.”
“What’s that?”
“There was no sign of recent sexual activity.”
“That’s a surprise.” And a comfort. At least she wasn’t raped.
I describe yesterday’s meeting with the man who said Loretta mentioned she had a date to meet a chef. I ask him to call Amy Martin to find out whether Elaine mentioned anything similar.
Every time I hear anything new about Elaine, I get more disheartened. And more determined.
I turn back to the computer. The answer is somewhere in the group of men who contacted Loretta. It’s up to me to find it. Even though I don’t have the fourth page of Loretta’s notes, I do have the website’s record of her replies. After eliminating the ones that were on the three remaining sheets, I’m left with eight names. Three of those have no profile photo, and not all have email addresses.
It occurs to me that I might get information if I Google the names. It turns out to be harder than I thought. Only a couple of the names are distinctive enough that I can tell they are the men on the site. The rest are so general that it’s tedious trying to match the photos on the images with the profiles. I narrow it down a bit. Three of them are not very likely to be my targets. One is ninety years old, one is in a wheelchair, and one is in prison.
I then compare the old profiles from Loretta’s list with the new ones that I’ve recently received, and I am rewarded by one match. The two men go by different names, but the details in their profiles are too similar to be a coincidence.
Bob Beckman, who contacted Loretta, describes himself as “a man of experience who enjoys meeting ladies who like to explore life. My goal is intimacy with a woman who knows how to appreciate a man. I’m financially well off, so I’m not interested in a woman’s finances. You have no reason to fear me, as I am a religious man who respects women. I love classical music, art, and enjoy going out for a good meal.”
Rob Barnes, who contacted my fake profile, says he “has had many life experiences” and “wants to meet a woman who loves life.” And, “I hope to find a woman who knows how to appreciate a man’s finer qualities. I respect women and am financially stable, so you have no need to worry about your finances.” He goes on to say he loves music and good food.
This Mr. Beckman/Barnes is very interesting. The question is, how do I get him to send me a photo of himself?
Connor is on duty this morning and comes in while I’m working. He pours himself a cup of coffee and comes over to my desk. “I heard that the woman missing from Bobtail was killed. No word on Loretta Singletary?”
“No. I’m going through the names of the men who responded to her online.”
He picks up the photos I’ve been showing around and goes through them. He stops at one. “What are you doing with this one?” He’s holding out the composite drawing that was made from Amy Martin’s description of the man she and Elaine Farquart deemed “too handsome” to be real.
When I tell him where it came from, he says, “This is not a real person.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen this man’s photo on a couple of the bigger dating sites. It’s used as an example of a good profile photo.”
“Are you sure?”
“Here let me show you.” He commandeers my computer, types in a few words, and one of the big dating sites pops up. Then he goes to the “instructions” section. There it is. The photo of “Andrew.”
I sit back, stunned.
“Whoever lured the Farquart woman took this photo off the website and used it,” he says.
“How does somebody even do that?”
“It’s easy.” He frowns and looks at me, calculating. “Well, maybe not exactly easy, but it means whoever did it knows how to use the Internet.”
I can’t take my eyes off the photo on the website. The man is handsome and looks sincere and reliable and not the least bit threatening. No wonder these women were interested in him. But I’m puzzled. He has a glib smile, which I don’t think Loretta would take to. She’s down to earth. Her husband was a good man, respectable and responsible, but no Cary Grant.
I thank Connor for his help. “I’ll have to call Hogarth and tell him we can stop looking for a man who looks like this,” I say.
Hogarth is as surprised as I was. “Sometimes I think we’re going to have to turn all our investigations over to youngsters,” he says. I agree with him, but to me Hogarth is a youngster.
I talk to Connor a little more, and he suggests that I email each of the men who didn’t put in a profile photo and tell them I’d like them to email me a photo. “And let me find a photo for you to send them,” he says.
He types some more and eventually comes up with a photo of a woman who looks the right age, who, as he says, is attractive enough to be passable, but not gorgeous enough to scare anybody away. And she has an inviting gleam in her eye. Actually, that reminds me of Wendy.
I write emails to each of the men who replied, personalizing the email with bits of information from their profiles. On the fifth one, I come to a problem.
“Connor, this one doesn’t have an email address.” It’s one of the ones without a photo.
He has been eating a kolache from the bakery down the street, and he wipes his hands. He already
has a little weight on him, and eating pastries like that isn’t going to take care of the stomach bulge that is threatening to bust his shirt buttons.
He looks at the website again. “Hmmm, probably there’s a main email where people can go through the website and be anonymous until they want to make a date. It’s probably in the instructions.” He taps in a few lines. “Here is it.” Anonymous. That gives people a chance to make plans without leaving a trace—at least not in public.
I understand that the website needs to maintain people’s privacy, but they also have a duty to make sure people are safe. It can’t hurt to contact the website and make my case. At the top I see a “Contact” selection, and I hit it.
As I figured, it’s complicated. To get in touch with the faceless person on the other end, you have to type in your profile identification, then you’re given a list of reasons you might want to get in touch, and finally it asks how you want to be contacted “within 48 hours.” I have the ID, and from the list of reasons I hit “Other,” and then give my phone number. At last I’m allowed to write 200 characters for “What seems to be the problem?” I decide short is best: “URGENT. Need to report stalker.” Then I change the last part to: “Need to report sexual harassment.” I figure that is more likely to get their attention.
Meanwhile, I’m not going to sit around and wait for them to contact me. I send a carefully thought-out message to Rob Barnes, who is going through the anonymous email address: “Your email made me very curious. I don’t know if I’m ready to explore, but I am ready to hear more. Would luv to see a photo.” It embarrasses the devil out of me to write “luv,” but something tells me that the kind of woman who would write “luv” is exactly the kind of woman he’s looking for.
CHAPTER 25
Chasing our elusive suspect on the Internet has taken more hours than I thought, and it’s late afternoon before I know it. While I wait for Maria to get back and for three return messages—one from Hogarth, one from the website, and one from Rob Barnes—I continue to look at the website profiles. I doubt it will be productive, but I have to keep myself busy.
When Father Ray Sanchez walks in, I’m grateful for the break.
“I hope this is a social call,” I say.
“I wish. I’m not sure what to do about this, but the Baptist ladies are on the rampage.”
“I’m picturing pitchforks. Can you be more specific?”
“Jolene Ramsey and Ida Ruth Dillard came to see me. They said if the Baptist Church isn’t made a co-sponsor for the rodeo, then they and all the Baptist families will boycott the rodeo.”
“Was Reverend Becker with them?”
“No, but I detect his hand behind it. And I don’t like it. If we could sit down and hash it out, it would be one thing. But he’s pulling blackmail, and I don’t feel like giving in. At the same time, all the kids in those families are going to be really upset if they can’t participate.”
There’s little enough to do in a small town, and the rodeo has become a central event of the year. I can’t help thinking that if Loretta were around, she wouldn’t have let it get to this point. But what would she have done? Maybe I should ask Ida Ruth what she thinks Loretta would make of this.
“What is it you’d like me to do?” I ask.
“I thought I should pass it by you, because . . .” he looks to the heavens, which if they speak to him, remain silent for me. “I’m not going to give in to this kind of tactic.” He searches my face for a response, but I just nod. “The first time Becker talked to me, I suggested maybe they’d want to start out small and take one part of it this year, and then we’d see how that worked out. But he insisted on full participation. I don’t like his bullying.”
It comes to me that even though Father Sanchez seems unassuming, he has an ego investment in the rodeo. He may tell himself otherwise, but it’s true. “I appreciate your warning me in advance,” I say. I must admit I’d be glad if this particular preacher had not come to town.
“You know I never cared much for Reverend Duckworth, as bossy as he was, or that poor boy who was here last year that the congregation fired before his boxes were unpacked, but they never tried to commandeer the rodeo.”
I have the feeling Sanchez just wants an ear. “I’ve known Ida Ruth a long time. She’s a good person. I’ll have a chat with her and see if I can move things in another direction.”
He sighs. “That’s more than I hoped for. I appreciate it.”
After he leaves, I call Hogarth again at the Bobtail Police Department, too impatient to wait to find out if they talked to Elaine Farquart’s neighbor about the chef aspect. He tells me he talked to Amy, and she said Elaine did not mention anything like that. I’m brooding over it when Maria flings herself in.
“It’s blowing up to rain outside. Did you see that?”
I haven’t been paying attention, and sure enough dark clouds have closed in and the wind has picked up. “Did you get anywhere with your cold case?”
She sighs. “Jenny says I’m going to need more evidence. She said just because Doug Lantana’s body was found buried on the ranch doesn’t mean Howard Mosley killed him. I showed her what we had— that the hired hand and Mosley had had a very public fight a week before, and that I recently found out that Mosley had taken out an insurance policy on Lantana, but she said that’s not illegal, and that it isn’t direct evidence.”
“Do you know if Mosley owned a gun like the one that Lantana was shot with?”
“No, I haven’t investigated that. I thought I’d go talk to Mosley’s ex-wife. She lives in Burton. And I’m going to talk to the people who had ranches close to him to see if anybody remembers anything at all. They were all questioned at the time, but I got the feeling the officer who did it wasn’t particularly thorough.”
“That wouldn’t be Rodell Simms, would it?”
She looks surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”
“I knew Rodell a long time, and it fits with his way of working that he let things slide. And he’d misfile papers as well. Be sure you check all the files that might be relevant.”
“Good to know.”
Instead of tackling the files, Maria sits back and frowns. I know she’s back to thinking about Loretta. “You know, we’ve never considered motive. What would cause a guy to want to kidnap a woman he met through the Internet, like Elaine Farquart? And the same for Loretta. What drives somebody to do that?”
I remind her that the FBI told me usually older women are targeted for money scams. But then I tell her about Hogarth’s call, saying the autopsy showed that Elaine wasn’t murdered.
“That’s no comfort,” she says. “But if Elaine was kidnapped as part of a scam, maybe she died too fast for him to follow through.”
“If it’s money he’s after, I don’t see how Loretta fits. She’s comfortable, but that’s because she’s frugal.”
I get up and pour myself a cup of coffee. It’s sludge, so I pour it out and make a new pot.
I think out loud while I work. “Elaine Farquart didn’t live high, but she had a nice house. I wonder how much money a scammer would be aiming for.”
“A woman who owns a house might look appealing to a guy who rents a place and lives on a shoestring.” Maria rubs her forehead. “This gives me a headache.”
“Go home. I’m going soon myself.”
But after she leaves, I know I’m not ready to go yet. Each time I walk out the door, it feels like I’m abandoning Loretta. Realistically, I know I can do as much from home as from work, but it feels more serious here. I want to make a list of everything we’ve gone through, starting at the beginning. I want to see in black and white whether I’ve missed anything.
Dusty has pointedly positioned himself by the front door to remind me that home is where his dinner is. “Sorry, boy, you’re stuck a little longer.” He flops down with a big sigh.
I get out a pad of paper and begin jotting down a timeline of events as they happened:
1. Ellen tells me t
hat Loretta missed an appointment.
No. I need to back up from there.
1. Loretta changed her hair and the way she dressed.
2. She was not bringing baked goods as often.
3. Ellen says Loretta missed an appointment.
4. She’s missing and left the house without washing dishes, and she left no one in charge of watering her yard.
5. Her car, a suitcase, and toiletries are missing.
6. We find out she has been meeting men through the website, Smalltownpair.
7. Elaine Farquart kidnapped.
8. Farquart dies, and her body is mutilated by being run over.
9. Point of connection between the two women: they went to the same hairdresser.
I then write down the dead ends:
1. The professor at Texas A&M who seems to have had an innocent cup of coffee with her at Mykonos. (Maybe not as innocent as he seemed?)
2. The man whose daughters set up an Internet site for him. (Not as embarrassed as he acted? Took advantage of being on the site?)
3. Wade Drummons. (We only have his word for it that he didn’t set up another date with her.)
Finally, there is a short list of odd things that can’t be explained:
1. The man I surprised at Loretta’s house. Maybe he stole one of the four sheets of paper with names of men who had replied to her profile posting. (Where was he from? Where had he parked his car? What was on that sheet of paper that might have incriminated him? Did she tell him she had written something down?)
2. The man (woman?) who Loretta’s next-door neighbor saw carrying the suitcase out of her house. Did Loretta send him to pick up items for her? Did Loretta have a secret stash of valuables? Stocks or bonds? Jewelry?
The last items seem ridiculous. I’ve known Loretta my whole life. Where would she get anything worth stealing that I didn’t know anything about? Maybe she’s secretly a master thief and has stored up goods and someone found out. Ha!
Another thing that piques my curiosity is the area where Elaine Farquart’s body was found. Why there? I wish the Department of Public Safety could stake out that stretch of highway in case the killer brings Loretta there, but that’s impossible. It’s twenty miles long.
