by Katy Munger
"I’m in," he said smugly. “It took a while. Her password turned out to be the name of the cat she had in grade school and her lucky number."
"Whiskers66?" I asked.
"Yup. Another six and she’d be conjuring up the devil."
"I'm not so sure she hasn’t. What do you see?”
"About a hundred calls from one particular number. Looks like a Durham number. Clearly, she has a stalker."
I repeated Frieda's number from memory.
"That's it," Marcus said with admiration. "How did you know?"
"Don't ask. What else?"
"Some texts back and forth between her and some guy she's calling Rodman. You don't suppose she actually knows Dennis Rodman, does she?" Marcus asked. “They’d make quite a pair.”
"Oh, for godsakes. Of course not, Marcus. That's probably Rodney Salem. Remember him?" I added rather nastily.
"No need to get snippy," Marcus informed me. "They're pretty tame texts. Something about getting together because he wants to pop the question. Were they dating? He wants her to check out some rings and help him pick out the right one. It doesn't seem very romantic to me. Picking out your own engagement ring."
That was rich, coming from Marcus, who’d “accidentally” left his browser open on a web page displaying the ring he had wanted a dozen times until his German boyfriend got the hint and bought it.
"That's because he wasn't going to give the ring to her,” I explained. “He was giving it to her sister. That's why they were there, at the club, the morning Candy was taken."
"Okay, then. It looks like ‘Rodman’ was telling the truth about that. There's definitely nothing going on between them. Unless they have the least passionate relationship in the history of mankind.”
“They don’t,” I said. “That title still belongs to me and Larry Ward.”
“Captain Ward? Do tell.”
“No. That’s the point. There’s nothing to tell.” I needed more. "What else? There must be something else.”
“Maybe. What time did you say she disappeared?"
"No one knows for sure, but it was around noon on Saturday."
"Then I do have something," Marcus said. My heart began to beat faster. "There are a couple of texts to someone named Robbie and they may have been sent after she was taken. If you look at the timestamps, he was the last one she texted before she was taken. That was about 11:30 AM. Then she starts texting him again a few hours later.”
I thought about it. "Robbie is her brother, Robert Jr. Take a look at all the texts between them. Go back as far as you need to. Does this Robbie seem a little, well, I don't know how to put it. Off? He’s mildly autistic but he’s also schizophrenic and has a couple of other problems as well. Can you confirm it’s him by reading his texts?"
"Hold on," Marcus said. There was a long silence as he scrolled through Candy’s texts. Too much coffee and too little Zen made me want to zoom over to the police department and rip that damn pink phone from his hands so I could read it for myself, but I swallowed my impatience. At last, he came back online. "I think it is her brother. I went back a few weeks and he sounds like about six different people during that time period. One moment he's happy, the next he’s sad. Sometimes he sounds like a genius and, at other times, it looks as if he could barely type out a syllable. And there is one text that talks about electronic signals that are giving them headaches."
"That's him," I said. "And you say she texted him after she was taken?"
"Looks like it," Marcus said. "It was just before 2:00 PM. Although what she wrote doesn’t make much sense."
"Read it to me," I asked, holding my breath. A way forward depended on what he had found.
"Like I said, it doesn't make sense, but here goes: ‘shut your yap corn Ima goner pop you 1. If you think I goner listening to yeah why seeing yuts are nuts.’ It’s basically gibberish.”
"Keep going," I ordered. I thought I knew what I was hearing but I needed to hear more. "Please," I added.
I never said please, so Marcus knew it was important. He continued to read the text message. It seemed to go on and on and it made little sense. Until it got to the end. Suddenly, Marcus was reading coherent sentences. I made him stop and back up. I needed to hear that part again.
"My father will take you apart," Marcus read. "You have no idea who you're dealing with he won't stop until he finds you and then you’re dead you hear me dead you better stop laughing because I mean it you are so wrong if you think he’s a push-over who’s just going to…." He paused. “The lack of punctuation is appalling. And I don’t think there’s a lot that makes sense after that.”
“Go on,” I urged him.
Marcus was silent as he read more, then he mumbled. “There’s another section of gibberish and then it says, ‘Why are we going there? I know that lake. My brother lives nearby. We went to camp there when we were kids. They had—‘” Marcus fell silent again, then added, "The text gets interrupted with more stuff that doesn’t make sense. Do you have any idea what the hell this is?"
"I think so," I said. "I think she still had her cell phone at that point, that maybe they hadn’t noticed she had on her. I can think of at last one place she could have stashed it without them finding it. And I doubt they stopped to conduct a full body search. I think she was able to open up the top message thread on her phone and press the dictation button when she was in the car with them. I think all that gibberish is the dictation app picking up what the guys who took her were saying. I think the parts that make sense were Candy speaking closer to the phone.”
“Wouldn’t they have tied her up?” Marcus asked. “How she’d get to her phone.”
“If taking her was spur of the moment, they wouldn’t have rope with them. But neither one of those girls is a push-over. Whoever took her probably learned that eventually. My guess is she’s trussed up like a turkey by now, if I know my Tinajero sisters.”
“What was she trying to do recording all that gibberish?”
“She was trying to send her brother a message. He was the last one to text her and she couldn’t risk doing much more than pressing reply and the dictation app button without being noticed. She was trying to tell him where the kidnappers were taking her. She couldn’t call her brother and leave the line open because he’s not quite all there. He would never have known what was happening. He’d have started talking into the phone and would have given her away. And he might even have sounded crazy if he told anyone about it. She texted him because she knew it would leave a record. That eventually someone would think to check with him, or might find it on her phone if she could ditch it somewhere.”
“How can you know that?”
“I once did something similar when I was desperate and those girls are as least as smart as me.”
Marcus cleared his throat but passed on the opportunity to insult me. “And she did, literally, ditch it, right?” he asked instead. “When they tossed Rodney Salem into that ditch? She hid the phone on him and they never thought to look. They’d already found his phone and stomped it to hell so they thought he could not call for help when he came to,” Marcus guessed. “Am I right?”
“Probably. But that begs the question of why they did not kill Rodney.”
“Maybe they were bikers, too. Maybe you don’t kill another biker,” Marcus suggested. “Or maybe they thought they had killed him. And they didn’t shoot him because they didn’t want his death connected to whoever had killed Rats. They didn’t want to leave a bullet behind.”
“You might be right,” I said. “It fits. But bikers brings us back to Cody Sherrill. Have they brought him in yet?”
“Yup. He’s being questioned now. My source says they’ve been at him for over an hour and he’s not telling them anything.”
“I bet he isn’t. No one is telling us anything, either.” I thought for a moment. Robert Tinajero had told me that his son was in a facility outside of Asheville. There were lots of summer camps for kids outside of Asheville.
“Asheville,” I said out loud. “It’s got to be near there.”
“What has to be?” Marcus asked.
“Everything. Including Candy.” I though it over. “What’s the name of the facility where Robert Jr. lives?” I asked Marcus. “Can you access the file and find out?”
I could hear the click-click-click of his computer keys before he announced, “Haven House, about fifteen miles south of Asheville.” He gave me the address and I punched it into my navigation app.
“Is that it?” Marcus asked.
“Don’t forget to send Frieda Salem some names of lawyers.”
“On it,” he said.
“Thanks. You did good,” I said. “Real good. You are my hero of the day.”
“Of the day?” he asked, peeved.
“For forever,” I promised “You are my forever hero.”
We may have been on the verge of some breakthrough in our friendship, because it was pretty much the first honest, non-sarcastic personal thing I had ever said to Marcus. But I'll never know. I was so excited at having a direction for my next steps that I hung up on him just as he said, “Oh, Miss Casey, you are…"
When I realized what I'd done, I felt like an asshole, but what else could I do?
I could call Frieda, I realized. I could ask her where Candy had gone to camp. She would know. But when she picked up her phone on the first ring and said hello in a trembling voice, I knew immediately something was wrong.
“The cops are there, aren’t they?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said quickly.
“They think Rodney is involved, right?”
“Yes.”
“Get him a lawyer now,” I told her. “Don’t let him talk to the cops without one. My friend Marcus is texting you with some names. And don’t tell them about...”
I got no further because a deep, authoritative voice came on the line. “Who is this?” the voice demanded.
“Who is this?” I countered.
“This is Deputy Mauldin of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Department. Now it’s your turn. Who are you and what do you want?”
I hung up. Not elegant, I know. Especially since my phone rang immediately afterward. Frieda’s number. I ignored it. But Deputy Mauldin was a persistent bugger. He called eight more times before he gave up.
If I wanted more information, Rodney and Frieda were no longer an option. There was nothing I could do other than to get my ass to Asheville and see if Robert Jr. could tell me where he and his sister had gone to camp as children. I had nowhere else to turn. The cops were monitoring Lavonia and Robert Sr.’s phones and Roxy was still in jail. I wouldn’t be able to talk to her until later tomorrow and, even then, I’d risk being questioned by Bill Butler if I showed my face anywhere in Raleigh. But was Robert Jr. even functional? How much would he be able to tell me? I’d just have to show up in person and find out for myself. I had no other options left.
Chapter Nine
I had a three-hour drive ahead of me, and I was tired as hell, but there was nothing I could do but go. With any luck, I’d get to Haven House before Robert Jr. went to bed. If I didn’t, I’d have to wait until morning and I was not willing to chance that.
I stopped for fresh doughnuts from the original Krispy Kreme store in Winston-Salem. Now I knew how pilgrims felt when they finally reached Mecca. I had to resist the urge to genuflect upon entering.
I cradled the warm box in my arms as I sat in the front seat of my car, two double lattes waiting for me in the cup holders. Seeing all those piping hot Krispy Kreme's reminded me of Bobby D. so I called him, hoping for any scrap of additional information that might help.
"Bobby?" I asked through a mouthful of lard and sugar.
"Casey? Is that you? We have a bad connection. I think there’s a Krispy Kreme on the line."
Bobby is amazing. Not only can he divine food over the telephone lines, he never flags in his sarcasm when talking to me.
“Yes, it's me," I managed to get out before I had to stop for a moment and finish my second doughnut. I could practically hear Bobby D. drooling on the other end of the line. That man could plow through a box of Krispy Kremes the way Sherman had marched through Atlanta.
"Where are you, babe?" Bobby asked. “Butler has been calling here every half hour looking for you. Don’t you check your cell phone?"
“I must have missed him,” I lied. But of course I checked my cell phone. That’s how I’d been able to ignore Bill Butler's calls for most of the day. Between him and Deputy Mauldin, I was starting to feel very popular with all the wrong people.
"I'm on my way to talk to someone I think might be important when it comes to knowing where Candy is,” I told Bobby, knowing he was easily distracted.
"That's a lot of detail," Bobby said dryly. “Shall I meet you in the middle of nowhere?”
"I'll tell you when I can," I promised. "In the meantime, I need your help."
"My help? Since when do you admit that?"
"I learned a little bit about the men who were at the club Saturday morning, the men I think killed Rats. A very little bit. But I can't quite put my finger on why I think it's so important."
"Lean on me," Bobby offered. "I'm the brains of this operation, remember?"
God help us all if that was the case. But I told Bobby what Rodney Salem had remembered: the voices, the New Jersey accents, how he thought there had been three men plus Rats and that Rats had known them from somewhere.
“I know it’s connected,” I said when I was done. “But I can’t quite make the leap. I’m sleep deprived, exhausted, and on a sugar high. It’s driving me crazy.”
"The money laundering," Bobby said immediately. "You're thinking about the money laundering connection and that New Jersey mob family, the Lopresti's.”
"That's it," I said. "I can’t believe I didn’t think of that right away.”
“You’ve slept with too many Yankees,” Bobby explained. “It’s made you soft when it comes to those Northern invaders.”
“What would I do without you?" I asked him.
"Fail. Now, will you tell me where you are?"
"I will," I said, mostly because I now knew that I needed Bobby more than ever. "But I need your help once I do. And you can't let anyone else know what I'm about to ask you. I think Candy's life may depend on it.”
There was a silence. Bobby was my friend in addition to being my colleague. We made a good team, as improbable as that sounds. But he was devoted to his agency before all else—and keeping things from the Raleigh Police Department put it in jeopardy.
"I mean it," I pleaded. "If the kidnappers get even a hint that they've been found out, it’s over."
"The police are questioning Cody Sherrill about it now," Bobby said.
"I know. But I think that's a deliberate distraction."
"Why would Cody Sherrill distract the cops from the real kidnappers?"
"I don't know," I said, getting annoyed. "Maybe he's working with them? Maybe he's in on the money laundering?"
"I can't see Cody Sherrill sharing his ill-gotten gains," Bobby said.
"Neither can I. But since I’m the only one who thinks Cody Sherrill had nothing to do with Candy’s kidnapping, and everyone else is off on a wild goose chase, I’m her only hope. Here's what I need you to do."
I told him about discovering Candy's cell phone in Rodney's personal effects at the hospital and taking it. He did not like it anymore than Marcus had. But when I told them about the last text exchange she’d had with her brother Rodney, he started to get excited.
"That gibberish is definitely the dictation app picking up background voices and trying to translate their accents,” he agreed. "Did you say it said something like ‘yutes’? That's ‘youths’, remember? You saw My Cousin Vinny, right?"
That’s Bobby. His entire knowledge of life could be traced back to two great influences: food or movies, since neither required much physical exertion on his part.
"That's what I thoug
ht," I told him. “But I don't know where they may have taken her. I’m pretty sure it’s near Asheville, since that’s probably close to where they went to camp as kids. And her brother lives in that facility near there now. Can you do a property search of the surrounding areas? Start with the Lopresti family and what they own. If you dig up anything more on other families associated with them, do a property search on those as well. If they took her up to the mountains, I think they had to be heading for a private home. I don't think they would chance keeping her at a rental property with other people snooping around. But I could be wrong."
"I hope not," Bobby said. "If you are, then we’ve got nothing, right?"
"Right," I admitted.
"Okay, I'll order in some pizza for inspiration and work on this for you. I'll give you a call if I find out anything."
“Thanks. I really need you to come through. But you’ll have to leave me a message," I told him. "I'm trying to get into the facility to talk to Robert Jr. and it's going to be late when I get there. I'm going to leave my phone and ID in the car. If I get caught, I’m going to say I’m someone else and lie my way out of it."
"Will do," Bobby said. He paused before he added, "Be careful, Casey. These guys don't hesitate to kill. Remember Rats."
"As if I could ever forget."
●
By the time I got to Haven House, it was nearly 10:00 PM. The last of the day had faded from the sky. I was all alone on the road. I drove past the facility three times but saw no signs of life on the grounds or in the parking lot, though there were some brightly lit rooms on the third floor as evidence the patients were still awake.
I knew what I was doing was foolish. I had no idea what kind of condition Robert Jr. was in. For all I knew, the place included a ward for the criminally insane. With my luck, once I managed to break in, I could be greeted by some maniac with an ax chanting, “Red rum.” That seemed unlikely, though, given that no fence of any kind encircled Haven House. I put the image out of my mind.
Once I was satisfied that I was not being followed, I parked my car down the road, pulling it into a picnic area so it could not be spotted easily. I dd not want anyone knowing what I was about to do. I walked back to Haven House concealed by laurel bushes until I had to abandon my cover and run for it. I darted into a stand of trees that marked one side of the property line then crept through the woods until I was as close as I could get to the main building. By then, only two floors still had lights on that I could see, the second and the third. I backed up, staring at the building, trying to understand the layout and looking for a way in.
