The Girl Who Didn't Die--A Suspense Novel

by Tim Kizer

  “Do you have enemies?” his brother Andrew asked him. “Some people would stop at nothing for revenge.”

  No, he didn’t think they had enemies, at least not the kind who would kidnap a child. He believed that Kathy had been taken by some unscrupulous childless couple—he had heard about such cases on TV—and didn't want to take the enemy theory into consideration. Yes, she had been kidnapped by a desperate infertile woman, which meant that she was alive. He kept telling himself that Kathy hadn’t been raped and killed by a depraved pervert, he was eager to think that she was still alive.

  But now it's certainly time to get rid of illusions, isn't it? Your daughter has been missing for more than half a year, there is no chance in hell she is alive. Little girls missing for half a year simply can't be alive, buddy. No matter how hard you try, you will not have her back; you’ve lost her forever and it was Kelly's fault. If she had been a better mother, Kathy wouldn’t have gone missing, it’s clear as day. Kathy's disappearance is a good enough reason for you to divorce Kelly.

  “Does Alex have any relatives?” Frank asked. “Maybe they know where he is.”

  “I talked to his parents; they have no idea where he could be.”

  “Does he have any siblings?”

  “No, he’s the only child.”

  Well, even if Alex had siblings, what good would it have done? Kelly had a shitload of relatives, but none of them knew where she was.

  Who was that man whose face seemed awfully familiar to him? The man had boarded the train with Kelly and gotten off at the final destination shortly after Kelly, pretending to be a stranger to her. Frank was sure that the man had only pretended not to know Kelly, because she was his relative.

  Ron Buckhaus.

  What about Ron Buckhaus?

  “Does Alex gamble?” Frank asked.

  So now you suspect that Alex is hiding from his bookie? Have you ever wondered if you might have killed him as a loose end after he helped you murder Kelly?

  “No, I’m sure he doesn’t gamble.”

  Ron Buckhaus boarded the train right behind Kelly last August. Kelly was headed for Utica, and Ron traveled there together with her, right? Yes, that would be a reasonable conclusion.

  Think harder, pal. You seem to be mixing something up. Why would Ron Buckhaus accompany Kelly on her sex trips? Kelly must have been hiding her man on the side from her relatives; otherwise Josephine would have known that she had a lover. Strain your memory, Frank, that man couldn't have been Ron.

  Yet it was Ron Buckhaus.

  This is strange, buddy. You claim that Ron traveled with Kelly and therefore knew that she’d been cheating on you. Then why does Josephine have no idea about Kelly’s lover? Ron would have surely reported that to Josephine, there’s no doubt about it.

  By the way, Ron was not missing a leg, which meant he couldn’t have been the one-legged man from the dream. Actually, Frank could have guessed it a long time ago because the one-legged man’s name was Tony.

  One more thing, buddy: Tony is the most dangerous of them all. You must fear him more than anyone else, even though he appears harmless.

  “So what do you think happened to Alex?” Frank walked up to the window and fixed his look on the courtyard.

  “I think he is in trouble.” Marilyn wrapped her arm around his waist.

  “I hope he’s alive.”

  Marilyn kept silent.

  Ron Buckhaus was the man that had traveled to Utica with Kelly in the same train car. He was the man that had gotten off at the station seconds after her.

  But why didn't Ron tell Josephine about the lover?

  Who said he hadn’t? Ron couldn't have kept this information secret from his wife, so it was reasonable to assume that he had told her about Kelly’s lover.

  Then why is Josephine convinced that Kelly did not have a lover? Isn’t that what she told you a few weeks ago?

  Josephine was lying; she was covering up for her sister. She was smart enough to keep from waving her sister’s dirty laundry around.

  But if she knows about the lover, she must know where Kelly is now, right, pal? You believe that you can find Kelly through her lover, don't you? Why hasn’t Josephine found Kelly yet?

  Josephine probably didn’t know how to use this information. She was no spring chicken anymore, and her brain was not as fast as it used to be.

  She is only forty eight, buddy. She is not some demented grandma, you know.

  Besides, she had brainwashed herself into thinking that Mister Fowler had killed Kelly. Most people hate changing their opinions. If they get some idea into their heads, they’ll make sure to keep it there for as long as possible, no matter how ridiculous it might be. Josephine was dead set on believing that Frank Fowler had murdered her sister, and a week ago her suspicions had been confirmed by Marilyn. She needed no other alternative theories; she didn’t care about no stinking lovers.

  “I think I’m done here,” said Frank. “Let’s go to the storage place.”

  2.

  Glancing at the two-terabyte Seagate external drive sitting on the front passenger seat, Frank admitted to himself that his mood had greatly improved since last night. The drive contained all data from Alex’s laptop—a whopping two hundred and fifty gigabytes worth of it—and even though Frank didn’t know what specifically he was supposed to look for, he felt very optimistic: there had to be at least one important clue in this sea of information. He was going to start combing through the files as soon as he arrived home.

  Why hadn’t Frank taken the laptop home with him? Marilyn was afraid that he would lose it or someone would steal it from his house, and he had agreed with her arguments.

  What information did he hope to find? Frank was highly interested in learning more about the story behind the safe and the truck, mainly because those were the only specific memories he had of Alex.

  You got distracted, buddy. Answer the question: what was Ron Buckhaus doing in Utica? Why the hell did he go to Schenectady with Kelly? To Cincinnati?

  Before heading home, he had sent up a trial balloon to test Marilyn’s reaction.

  “What would you do if someone told you that I killed Kelly?” he asked in a very casual tone.

  Marilyn gave him an inquiring look and shrugged.

  “I don’t really know,” she replied. “I would have to think about it.”

  Frankly, her ambiguous answer didn’t sound particularly reassuring to him.

  You are positive Ron went to Utica, right? It might have been a coincidence, you know. He was going to Utica on business, and Kelly was headed for Utica, too, for her own reasons. They bought tickets for the same date, the same car—a mere a coincidence.

  What about those four tickets in Kelly's bag? Had it occurred to him that two of them were intended not for Kelly's lover but for Ron? He realized that Ron had accompanied her on all of her trips; it dawned upon him when he was following Kelly from Utica to Buffalo. Ron Buckhaus had climbed in the same car as Kelly in order to see to it that nothing bad happened to his wife's step-sister. That's what came to his mind then. He was her bodyguard; a thirty-four-year-old woman needs a bodyguard in a car filled with strangers, some of whom definitely have criminal inclinations. Ron couldn't allow his beloved wife's baby sis to go alone hundreds of miles away from home. Kelly was hunting for a lover on a train, and Ron ensured security.

  You are not rushing to conclusions, are you, buddy? There could be a more innocent explanation for all of this.

  No, he was not rushing to conclusions. Ron had traveled together with Kelly. And he’d been in Schenectady, too.

  Yes, Ron went to Schenectady along with Kelly—-good catch, pal! You didn’t recognize him right away when you noticed him during the Schenectady trip. You assumed it was just a guy who looked a lot like Ron, and only two weeks later, when Kelly was getting on the train to Utica, did you discover that the guy not only closely resembled Ron but actually was Ron himself. Yes, Josephine's husband escorted Kelly on her trips to Tole
do, Cincinnati, Schenectady, and Utica.

  Nobody had killed her, it was nonsense. Kelly was alive. She had a dozen lovers and could stay on the loose for months, playing sex games with them if she wanted to.

  Josephine obviously doesn't think so, buddy. She hasn’t been able to find Kelly yet despite knowing about her lovers. Kelly was taking a shower on the 24th of April, and you killed her. You killed her, bro.

  He had already closed this discussion. Kelly was alive, and as for Josephine’s failed search—she probably thought that Kelly’s lovers were useless to her. By the way, he’d just recalled one more thing: it was Josephine's house where Kelly had taken her lover after the three-hour drive back from Utica.

  Are you sure? They went to Josephine's place?

  Yes, they pulled into Josephine’s driveway, the garage door opened, and their car rolled inside. Then they closed the garage. He had been in Josephine’s house several times before, so he had no problem identifying the building. It was Josephine's house.

  So, Josephine was indeed well-informed about Kelly's sex partners? And she even invited them to her house? Let them have sex there?

  Yes, Sir. He wouldn't be surprised if it had been Josephine behind the wheel of that car. Most likely, it was her. She drove the car in which Kelly and some guy in brown pants and a brown short sleeve shirt were having hot steamy sex—what a wild idea.

  Does it mean Josephine is a pervert? Does she find pleasure in watching her sister sucking dicks?

  It was quite possible that she loved it. A kinky passion hiding behind the ascetic, bland façade. It sounded fascinating, didn’t it?

  Boy did you get a rotten luck, pal! Your wife is a whore, your sister-in-law is a pervert. Ron must have some ugly skeleton in his closet, too. And who the hell is Tony? Why don’t you focus on the one legged man, bud?

  And you know what? Even if you find every single one of Kelly’s sex partners, it won’t solve your problems because Kelly is dead.

  3.

  Ghoul. The word he had been trying to remember the last three weeks was ‘ghoul.’ Ghouls. Something from fairy tales, right? Demonic creatures of some sort.

  You might be interested to know that they drink blood, buddy. But not human blood.

  Whose blood do ghouls drink then?

  Good question.

  4.

  Minutes after Frank returned home from the hotel, the door bell rang, causing him to grimace: this time of day, it could only be Josephine.

  “Who is it?” Frank put his eye to the peephole. He immediately recognized Bluth.

  “It’s me, Michael. I came to talk. You didn’t let me finish yesterday.”

  To hell with him, buddy. Let him stand there until he gets bored and leaves. Focus on Kelly’s trip to Rochester. This past March, you shadowed her all the way to Rochester. Keep digging, pal. There was a major game-changing revelation there. Rochester, last March, Ron as a bodyguard, Josephine as a spectator.

  “What do you want?” asked Frank. If he hadn’t responded, he might have appeared to be scared, which was the worst impression you would want to make when dealing with a blackmailer. Besides, Bluth might turn out entertaining, and he wouldn’t mind getting amused right now.

  “Can I come in? Or maybe we could talk here on the terrace?” said Bluth.

  So, Rochester. Three perverts, multiple lovers. Actually, one of those lovers was a woman. Yes, that must have been the first time Frank had seen Kelly hook up with a girl. And once again Ron escorted Kelly and provided her and her lovers with a place to fornicate. Breathtaking, right? And if memory served him correctly, Frank had taken pictures of Kelly and her relatives during that trip.

  What had he done with those photos? Thrown them out?

  The photos became useless to you, buddy, after you murdered Kelly.

  “Hey, are you there?” asked Bluth. “Can you hear me?”

  “Okay, let’s talk on the terrace.” Frank opened the front door and walked outside. Before taking a seat on a chair, he spent a few seconds scanning Bluth’s t-shirt: it was another Ed Hardy garment, which read ‘Love Kills Slowly’ and depicted an elaborate fusion of a skull and a heart. Bluth was also wearing different shorts this time: they were dark brown and had a drawstring whose ends were peeking from under the t-shirt.

  He should take a closer look at Josephine and her husband. And Graham, too. Why Graham? Because he had accompanied Kelly to Rochester together with Ron. He had gone to Rochester with them, there was no doubt about it.

  Are you sure? Is he a pervert, too?

  “Have you thought my proposal over, Frank?” asked Bluth. “Did I tell you I’d seen you take your wife's body out of the house? Her dead body.”

  Tell this clown that you put Kelly’s body in the trunk. Tell him he could not have seen anything unless he had an X-ray vision.

  He had not put her body in the trunk or any other place. There was no body, period. He ought to focus on Kelly’s trip to Rochester. Josephine had rented a car in Rochester and waited for her sister’s arrival, right? Ron and Graham had provided Kelly with reliable protection. He had searched Kelly’s bag and found round-trip tickets to Rochester.

  “Cat got your tongue, Frank? We're alone here, don't be afraid. I’m not wearing a wire or anything like that. Look.” Bluth lifted his t-shirt, baring his stomach and semi-hairy chest; there was nothing attached to Bluth’s body. Then he turned his shorts pockets inside out, demonstrating that all he had there was his wallet and keys. “No wire or recorder, Frank, see? I’m not playing games here. I just want to know if you will pay.”

  Josephine had rented cars in Schenectady and Utica, but not in Rochester, if he was not mistaken. Last March he hadn’t seen tickets to Rochester in Kelly's bag. They traveled there by car, not by train. Rochester was only seventy five miles from Buffalo, less than one and a half hour drive, so they had taken a car. They had driven a rental car to Rochester and back.

  Deeper, bro, dig deeper.

  “Pay what?” asked Frank with ostensible ignorance.

  Keep nibbling on that amnesia of yours, Frank. How did you spy on them this past March? Push harder, buddy.

  Okay, he would try.

  So, they drove there in a rental car, a dark blue Chevrolet Tahoe. They left for Rochester from Josephine's house. The day before, Kelly had told you that she was going to spend a night with her friend, whose husband had gone away on business. You had rushed to Hertz in the morning and rented a car, a white Nissan, you forgot the model. Kelly had said she was taking off around seven in the afternoon. At half to seven, you were sitting in the Nissan a hundred feet from your house, waiting for Kelly to get in her BMW and leave.

  That's a quick and dirty picture of how it happened.

  “Twenty grand. I know you killed your wife Kelly, and if you want me to keep my mouth shut, you’ll have to pay me twenty grand. You committed murder, Frank, and don't think it won’t cost you.”

  Let's review it. On a Thursday night in early March, Kelly put her arms around you and said:

  “Honey, I'm going to stay at Julia's tomorrow night. Her husband is on a business trip in Miami, and she feels so lonely and bored. She’s afraid of robbers, too, you know. Please don’t miss me too much.”

  “You women are such cowards,” you said jokingly. You told Kelly you were fine with her keeping Julia company the next night. You didn't ask for her friend's phone number, even though this idea had crossed your mind. It would have been smart to check Kelly’s story by talking to Julia, but you suddenly realized that there was no need to do it because you sensed that she was lying. You decided to spy on your wife.

  “I didn’t kill anybody,” Frank said softly to Bluth.

  Last September, you began ignoring Kelly’s absences. You decided to spend some time analyzing the valuable information you had obtained so far. There was a lot to mull over: you had found out that Kelly had sex with other men at her sister's place; that Josephine was probably a pervert; and that Ron was a pervert, too. This
weird web of deceit and deviance amused you. Two months later, Kathy disappeared, and Kelly's lovers stopped interesting you at all; you forgot about them until last March.

  That Thursday in March, when Kelly lied to you about staying overnight at her friend’s place, you were shocked. You could hardly believe that Kelly would go on another sex trip while her daughter was missing. How the hell could she do it? Did she understand what she was doing? Kathy had been missing for over four months—she could have been being tortured that very moment—and Kelly couldn’t wait to stick another dick in her ass while Josephine and Ron watched! It was absolutely sick.

  What was this bitch doing?

  He had rented a car to tail Kelly; he had been eager to confirm his suspicions. He had been thinking about finally divorcing this fucking whore.

  “Why are you so stubborn, Frank?” said Bluth. “Stop acting like a child. Let's have a serious talk, okay? Are you going to pay?”

  At a quarter past six on the D-day, he said that he needed to breathe some fresh air and went outside. Kelly had previously announced she was going to her friend at half to seven, so he had to leave the house before her in order to get in his rental car. He waited for Kelly to drive her BMW out of the garage and went after her. He wasn’t furious, he wasn’t planning to catch Kelly in the act and make a scene. He just wanted to see for himself he had been right about her. Honestly, he still had doubts, he still couldn’t believe that Kelly continued having fun while their daughter was in the kidnappers’ hands. He needed proof.