The Prison Guard's Son

by Trace Conger

  I reached across the desk and shook her hand, wondering if she would have shared her last name had I said I was from Parkersburg.

  Theresa had wiry gray hair. She was short and thin and looked like she hadn't eaten in days. When we shook hands the gold bracelet on her right wrist slid all the way to her elbow and I half expected it to slip off her arm when I released my grip.

  I leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel empathy for this woman or something else. After all, her nine-year-old son murdered a four-year-old boy in cold blood. No motive, no nothing. That had to come from somewhere. I know there is evil in the world, but I also know evil doesn't suddenly manifest itself overnight. I have dealt with a lot of killers, but they all killed for a reason. Money, revenge, power. But Vance and Turner killed a helpless boy for no reason at all. Was this woman who sat across from me responsible for the monster Jacob Vance became, or was there more to it?

  "So you're looking for a property here in Parkersburg?"

  "Yes." I tried to forget for a moment that I had been hired to track down her son knowing that someone else would cave his head in with a hammer.

  "What brings you here? From Cincinnati."

  "My wife and I are looking for something we can use as an investment property. Something we could rent out. Maybe near the WVU Parkersburg campus."

  She nodded. "I think I might be able to help." She struggled to pull a thick white binder from the storage cabinet affixed to her cubicle wall.

  For the next fifteen minutes I watched as she flipped through laminated pages showing me photos of one and two-bedroom houses. Part of me didn't want to be sitting there because I was making this too personal, but on some level I wanted to know who she was and I needed more than what my research binder gave me. My daughter, Becca, was eight years old—only one year younger than Vance when he helped murder Josh Baker—and I felt some distant connection with Theresa, a connection as a parent who wanted only the best for their kid. For her, that hope vanished like a sidewalk chalk sketch in the rain.

  "So what do you think?" she said. "Any of these properties strike an interest?"

  I looked down at the mosaic of photos in front of me. "Yes, a few of them look really nice. I think I'd like to bring my wife in as a next step. So we can look at potential properties together."

  "That's a lovely idea." She slipped her business card from a plastic holder and handed it to me. "My hours are on the back. Give me a call whenever you're ready to sit down and talk further."

  I tucked the card inside my wallet. "I'll do that. Thank you, Theresa." I shook her hand again, and for the first time she smiled. I stood and walked out of her office knowing that if I ever saw her again it would be from inside my car, fifty yards away.

  Eleven

  THAT EVENING I DROVE BACK to the Vance house and took my usual spot on the street. Besides Thomas Vance wheeling two garbage cans to the curb, nothing happened.

  Nothing until 8:45 p.m., when Theresa walked out of the front door onto the porch. I grabbed my binoculars from the console. She was dressed like someone who went into a sporting goods store, plunked down a credit card and said, "Make me look like a runner." I watched as she walked to the sidewalk, stared down the street and then bent over to stretch. She stood up, turned to check the other side of the street and then stretched again. Then she jogged down the street toward the intersection of Linden Drive and Cypress Way.

  Normally, someone going for a nighttime jog didn't raise a red flag, but then I remembered the medical record in my workup. Theresa Vance suffered from a diabetic eye disease, the same eye disease that my mother had. My mother took a corticosteroid, as Theresa does, to slow the progression, but she was not supposed to exert herself—that meant no running. And someone as thin as Theresa Vance didn't need to jog to manage her weight. That made it suspicious.

  I had to tail her, but that meant leaving the car. The darkness provided enough cover to slip through the neighborhood unnoticed, but I didn't like the scenario. Someone out walking a dog or dragging a garbage can to the curb could expose me, and the echo of my boots pounding down the sidewalk could attract more attention than I wanted.

  I didn't have another option. Theresa Vance was almost out of sight. I opened the door and double-timed it across the street trying to find the balance between a sprint and a jog. I charged between two houses and ended up on a parallel street. I caught a glimpse of Theresa just before she turned onto Crabapple Way, which I knew crossed Tall Oaks and connected to Long Field Drive and the entrance to her neighborhood.

  I couldn't catch her from behind, so I ran between houses shadowing her route. Once she got to the entrance of the neighborhood she crossed Route 14 and headed for the King Kwik convenience store on the other side of the street. I crouched down behind the brick columns marking the entrance to her neighborhood and watched as she ran past the store entrance and jogged in place next to a pay phone. The phone must have rung, because she snatched the receiver and held it to her ear with two hands. I checked the time—9:00 on the dot.

  The phone call explained her field trip to the convenience store. Nothing on her mobile or home phone records made me think she was talking to her son, but she could be using the pay phone to hide the calls.

  But why the jogging? Why not drive there? She could be hiding the calls from her husband too. Daniel Schuster mentioned Thomas didn't visit Jacob at Pleasant Hill as often as his wife did, so it was likely Jacob had a tighter relationship with her. Tight enough to keep the lines of communication open after he went under. Maybe that was something Thomas didn't agree with and the jogging routine made for a more believable cover than Theresa taking evening drives.

  Theresa only spoke for a few minutes then she hung up and jogged back the way she came. I dashed between the houses again, faster this time since I knew her route, and I was already in my SUV when she arrived at her home ten minutes later. She knew when that pay phone was going to ring. Did someone send her a message and tell her when to be there, or did she have a standing appointment at 9:00 p.m.? Only one way to find out.

  I fired the ignition, left the neighborhood and pulled into the King Kwik parking lot. I slipped inside and poured a medium cup of coffee. Standing at the checkout counter I peered through the large front window, past the painted advertisements for lotto tickets and milk specials. The pay phone stood out of sight, which meant the clerk didn't see the call and probably couldn't tell me if a woman in a black jogging suit emblazoned in pink stripes was a common sight on certain evenings. I paid cash for the coffee, stepped outside and examined the pay phone. A blue-and-white sticker above the receiver read:

  THIS TELEPHONE AND ALL ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF SOUTH LAND COMMUNICATIONS. ANYONE FOUND DEFACING OR TAMPERING WITH THIS EQUIPMENT WILL BE SUBJECT TO PROSECUTION.

  IF THIS TELEPHONE IS OUT OF SERVICE OR OTHERWISE DISABLED, PLEASE INFORM THE CLERK AT THIS RETAIL LOCATION.

  LOCATION: 1053

  The notice also provided a telephone number and address for South Land Communications in Mobile, Alabama. I snapped a photo of the notice and climbed into my SUV. My gut told me Theresa and her son had arranged a schedule where he called this pay phone at a certain time on a certain day. Then again, my gut didn't always know its ass from an air freshener.

  I would test my theory the next morning.

  Twelve

  PAY PHONES HAVE BEEN DISAPPEARING from the American landscape since the ‘90s. Now that everyone has a cell phone in their pocket there isn't much need for a quarter-munching dinosaur on every street corner or gas station parking lot.

  Most of today's pay phones serve one of two purposes. They're either used to report a crime or commit one. Drug dealers and prostitutes love pay phones because they don't leave a paper trail. That was the same reason Theresa Vance used it. What Theresa and most criminals don't realize is that there is a paper trail. The call information for pay phone #1053 was tucked away safe and sound inside a computer
at South Land Communications in Mobile, Alabama.

  The major phone companies still own most of the country's pay phones, but thanks to deregulation smaller companies have snatched up a percentage of those units. I hoped South Land would cooperate with the friendly detective about to call their corporate offices.

  I took a deep breath and dialed the number on the pay phone's sticker. After a few transfers Dave Reaves, the company's manager of southeast operations, picked up the line. I introduced myself as Roger Mathers, a detective with the Parkersburg Police Department.

  "Our department has received several complaints from residents about dealers using one of your phones," I said. "Your unit 1053 seems to be a base of operations to distribute narcotics."

  "That's unfortunate," said Reaves. "But I can't control who does what with our phones, detective."

  "I understand that, but I've got a shitload of complaints here and I have to do something about it. There's enough information to open an investigation and that's why I'm calling. If I could establish a timeline for when calls are coming into that specific phone I might be able to find a pattern. Then I'd know when to put a man on the street to watch the phone."

  "How do you want me to help?"

  "If I had the call records for the phone—"

  "You know I can't do without a—"

  "Before you ask if I have a warrant, the answer is no," I said. "But I'm hoping we can take care of this without going that route, Dave."

  "Why's that?"

  "Because that's going to take more time than I have, and to be honest a judge won't sign off on the warrant anyway because I can't identify a specific dealer who's using your phone. Look, all I have to go on are thirty-some complaints about illegal activity at that location. I don't have the time or the manpower to stick someone on that corner to watch your phone until I identify a specific dealer, gather surveillance, get a warrant, call you back to get the call records, review those records, and so on. I'm asking for your cooperation so I can knock this out quickly and get back to all the other shit I don't have time for."

  The story I blew up his ass was damn thin and I half expected him to tell me to fuck off.

  "Plus, if you help us out it'll work in your favor," I said.

  "How's that?"

  "The neighborhood watch has organized an angry mob of retirees who want to rip your phone out of the concrete. They're probably at home sharpening their pitchforks right now."

  "That's vandalism and you can't—"

  "Of course it is Dave, but that's how these things work. Neighborhoods see this as one of their only options. They figure if the phone goes away so will the illegal activity."

  "They can't do that."

  "Legally no. And I'm not an advocate for vigilante justice, but I can't stand next to your phone all day to ward them off."

  "So what are you offering?"

  "Send me the call records. I need incoming and outgoing calls for the past sixty days. You send me that and I should be able to identify a pattern, find my dealer and get 'em off the street quickly."

  The other end was quiet.

  "And you can guarantee no one is going to bust up our phone? Those aren't cheap to replace."

  "I can't promise anything, but I can talk to the neighborhood watch group and tell them you're cooperating with us and that messing with your equipment isn't in their best interest. They just want these assholes out of their neighborhood. Got nothing against your equipment here."

  It was weak, but I'd gotten more with less effort.

  He was quiet again.

  "All right. Just keep our company name out of it. We had a similar issue near Atlanta. Even had a boycott until we switched the phones there to outgoing calls only. I don't need that shit again."

  "Help us out and you won't have any issues. And you won't have to replace the phone."

  "Fine," he said. "Sixty days?"

  "Right."

  "You got a fax number?"

  I gave him a number I used to receive faxes on my laptop and hoped he wouldn't call the Parkersburg Police Department to confirm the number or the story.

  AN HOUR LATER REAVES SENT the information I needed. I printed out the call log and scanned the sheet. The log showed a total of 327 calls placed from unit 1053 over the past two months, way more than I would have thought. I wasn't interested in outgoing calls though, I wanted to know how many calls came in. I circled the incoming calls on the printout and tallied twelve, all of which were placed from the same number, one with a Texas area code.

  I scanned the rest of the log and identified the pattern. Whoever called Theresa dialed that pay phone's number every Sunday and Wednesday evening at nine o-clock. They only spoke for a few minutes, but they’d spoken every Sunday and Wednesday over the past two months. No exceptions. If I had a call report for the entire year, I suspected the pattern continued.

  The idea that Jacob checked in with his mother for a few minutes twice a week fit the behavior profile of someone separated from his family who didn't want to cut ties completely.

  I opened my laptop and accessed a reverse phone number database. A quick search revealed the calls originated from a commercial phone line registered at 1380 Cross Timbers Road in Flower Mound, Texas. Another pay phone.

  Before I drove all the way to Texas I had to confirm whether Jacob Vance was on the other end of that pay phone. I had to wait until Wednesday to verify that. I closed the laptop and wondered how to kill two days in Parkersburg. I'd start with Kim Burton, Raymond Turner's girlfriend.

  Thirteen

  KIM BURTON'S RECORD AT PLEASANT Hill would be sealed so I had no idea what she did to get into the facility or how much time she spent there, but she'd be easy to find assuming she was still alive. Most criminals are repeat offenders, so I started with the clerk of courts database. If she had a record, I'd find hints of it there. I had to search through three counties before I found a record for a Kim Burton in Ritchie County, which was close enough to Parkersburg to pique my interest. Her age also fit.

  According to record, Kim's landlord sued her for failure to pay rent. The case was closed shortly after it was filed, so she probably paid the obligation and moved on with her life. Even though the case was closed, the record gave me all the vital information I needed to find her.

  Kim lived in Morgantown, West Virginia, about three hours east of Parkersburg. According to employment records she split her time cutting hair at a place called the Hair Loft and waitressing at an Olive Garden. I hoped she was at the restaurant, because if I left now I could make it to Morgantown by lunch.

  I PULLED INTO THE RESTAURANT'S parking lot a little after noon. Since I had skipped breakfast, my stomach was making those sounds that send you to the kitchen. I stepped inside the lobby and asked the hostess to seat me in Kim's section. She probably thought I was a pathetic middle-aged man with a crush on the waitress, or one of Kim's relatives. Why else would I ask for a specific waitress at an Olive Garden?

  "She's working the bar today, honey." The hostess pointed to the section behind her. "Just take a seat anywhere and she'll be right with you."

  I walked into the bar area and grabbed a seat at a round table that was high enough to trigger vertigo. A few minutes later an attractive but tired-looking blond approached the table. She had long hair, pulled back into a tight ponytail. Several hair strands had come lose from the black elastic hair tie and hung lazily down the side of her face. That and the sweat stains on her white shirt told me she had been on her feet too long.

  Her nametag read Kim B. and I didn't need her full last name to know who she was.

  "Can I get you something to drink?"

  I ordered an iced tea with no lemon. When she returned with that I ordered the pasta lunch special. She took the order on a notepad that she had tucked inside a fat black wallet. She slipped that into the front pocket of her apron. As she walked back toward the bar, I saw the unmistakable outline of a cell phone on the rear pocket of her tight black slacks.

/>   The bar area was only half full and most of the patrons were probably local businesspeople breaking for lunch. I was a few sips into my iced tea when a younger couple walked in and sat at the table next to me. The guy wore a long-sleeved University of Delaware T-shirt and they looked like they were passing through town on their way someplace more exciting. After ordering their drinks the guy excused himself and walked to the bathroom. I set my glass on the table and followed him in.

  "Excuse me," I said. "I was hoping you could help me out." He looked at me with raised eyebrows, probably wondering why I was talking to him in an Olive Garden bathroom.

  "With what?" he said.

  "Long story short, I'm a detective and I'm investigating your waitress."

  "The lady at the bar?"

  "That's right."

  "What do you need my help with?"

  "I won't go into a lot of detail, but when I finish my lunch I'm going to ask her a question that's going to piss her off. And then I'm going to leave. All I need you to do is watch her and let me know if she makes a phone call. That's it. You don't have to talk to her or anything."

  "Just see if she makes a phone call?"

  "Right." I slipped a fifty-dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it to him along with my business card. "Just do that and I'll buy your lunch."

  "You just want me to tell you if she calls anyone and that's it?"

  "Right. If she calls someone and you can tell me what she says, then I'll give you another fifty."

  He thought for a moment, probably running through all the ways I could be full of shit.

  "Okay."

  "Thanks," I said and returned to my table.

  My meal was on the table when I returned.