Of Lost and Found (the Kingsborough House): Kingsborough House (Virgil McLendon Thrillers Book 4)

by catt dahman

  “It isn’t now,” Virgil said.

  “No.”

  “She was kidnapped and taken away or something happened to her. There’s also a possibility one of your group did something to her. Maybe she got angry and one of you hit her too hard? Had to hide her body when she accidently died?”

  “My God, Sheriff, no one killed Lisa,” Steve said.

  “It’s logical.”

  “No one chased after her. We let her go.”

  Virgil leaned back, arms crossed.

  “It was horrible, but we didn’t go further.” Trish was pale as milk.

  Virgil finally nodded, “I believe you. Only absolute cowards would pull such a joke and that had to be your limit. Whatever happened, you are responsible.” He waved them away, angry with the teens.

  Sheriff Thomas joined Virgil and Vivian. “Anything?” he asked.

  “They’re cowards. I doubt any of the kids had anything to do with the disappearance. It’s only faintly possible. Trish would have hinted if anything more happened She wants this to be over. I think Lisa was humiliated and upset, and ran out of the house. She didn’t have friends to call, so that left her mother or stepfather to call. Now the way she was dressed, she might have been offered a ride with someone looking for a prostitute, maybe refused, had a fight, and was killed and dumped by someone unknown. That is one theory.”

  “I don’t buy her getting a ride, even if she wanted one. She was far too upset and when like that, she’d want to be a lone and cry.”

  “I agree, Vivian. So, if she wanted to be alone, she used the woods and headed over to the Kingsborough House to use the telephone.”

  “She never arrived there,” Thomas said.

  “Maybe she walked all the way home. If she did, it’s possible one of those idiots in the trailer park killed her. I would requestion everyone of them and really lean on them to spill something, just to rule it out.”

  “I think it has to do with that damned house,” Thomas said.

  “I’d rather blame the house, as well,” Virgil admitted, “but if she didn’t arrive, she didn’t. Something happened in the woods.”

  “We went over every inch, looked in some holes and in bushes. Nothing. The rain washed away prints.”

  “I’m stumped. I don’t think it’s anything else but that she went into the woods, but how she vanished from there, I don’t know. Maybe someone followed her and hurt her there. A body could be hidden there and missed because of the rain. It’s a large area, so it’s possible. This may be one of the cases where we eliminate the impossible and have the probably left, but can’t quite close the case because we have no body.”

  “I’d hate that for her mother.”

  “Is she still working the streets?”

  Thomas gave Virgil a sharp look, “You buying into town gossip?”

  “Sheriff, it’s obvious. That gossip is from fathers who have used her services, and she is protective of her daughter as far as clothing and cosmetics despite their situation and lifestyle. That means there is not just smoke, but fire as well.”

  Thomas grunted, “Well, that’s her business, but yeah, she gets around some. Other than questioning those people back at Miller’s Park, what should I do?”

  I’ll get back with you, but rule out that she ran away. She didn’t. Her parents didn’t do anything either. I doubt the other kids did. So, that puts the case at having gone wrong when Lisa left the party. Someone or something made her vanish.”

  They drove back to the police station.

  Thomas had one more witness to add to all the mysterious vanishings from the town, but wondered if it might tie in. Just the night before, he had been working when a woman from town, Candy Ortega, called and said she might have information. They only spoke for a few minutes before Candy said she would drive over from out of town the next day and give a statement.

  “If she didn’t, I was going to have her picked up for questioning. I get a lot of cranks here, more than you can imagine, about reasons for the disappearances blaming aliens, their friends, saying they caused them, that it’s the Russians, and every other thing you can come up with. The crazies all call me, but this is a woman I used to know when she was growin’ up and she seems smart, ready to talk, and she gave me her name.”

  Virgil, Vivian, and Thomas walked into the room to talk, but this time, the sheriff brought tea and coffee as they met Candy Ortega. She was a pretty woman, about thirty, with long, waving, dark hair and intelligent, glittering brown eyes.

  “Hello, Candy.”

  “Hi, Sheriff Thomas. How are you?”

  “Same ole.”

  “And Mrs. Thomas?”

  “The same. Not well, but still waiting, you know.”

  Virgil cocked a look to Vivian who shrugged. It was obvious that the Sheriff knew this woman more than he let on.

  Dressed well, but casually, she sat back down and sipped tea. “I’ve thought about this a long time. I graduated from high school here and dated Henry Davis.”

  “He was a punk,” Sheriff Thomas blurted.

  Virgil nodded as he watched Vivian make a note. Knowing Vivian, she wrote “Henry was a punk”.

  “Yes, he was, but I was very unsure of myself and just a skinny, silly girl with never a thought as to becoming anyone or doing anything with myself. Henry was the best I could do, I thought, and I enjoyed that dangerous side of him. My parents would have had a fit had they known who I was going out with and my daddy would have likely killed Henry. I was twenty, then. He was a few years older. He was almost thirty.”

  How was your relationship?” Virgil automatically asked, as if she were a suspect. He blushed as soon as he asked.

  “I guess everything was okay until one night, we were sitting in his car, parked, and he started talking. We’d been going out a few months by then and Henry acted like he was crazy for me. I was becoming a little afraid of him when he drank and was quickly falling out of love with him.”

  “He had a big red pick-up truck.”

  “Yes, he did,” Candy smiled.

  “Where were you parked?”

  “At the edge of Wilkin’s woods. That’s why I came forward, because I heard from my grandmother, the other day, that a girl may have run out there after some sick prank was pulled on her.”

  “Lisa.” Thomas said.

  “We never went near those woods because it was close to the Kingsborough house and we were a little afraid of it…I mean my friends and I, growing up. Not Henry. He wasn’t scared of the devil himself.” She shuddered.

  “He was a punk,” Virgil smiled.

  “He was a trouble-making little thief and a smart-mouthed asshole, really. I hated that kid, only he was grown, not a kind. But he acted like an idiot,” Sheriff Thomas agreed.

  As they sat in the truck, Henry drank beer and talked. He began with saying how he loved Candy and would just die is she left him, but that turned into threats that she couldn’t leave him or he would go crazy and harm himself. He changed it to saying he would harm her if she tried to leave. She made the mistake of thinking he was joking or being dramatic, and giggled.

  “The first thing he said was that he could make me vanish. I got quiet then, because the way he said it was chilling.”

  Candy went on.

  Henry said that when he was in high school, a girl laughed at him when he invited her out for a date. He was embarrassed and angry, and a few nights later, when he saw her walking home from the library, he grabbed her, tossed her into his truck, and threatened her with a knife so she didn’t scream. He drove away, stopping to tape her hands, mouth, and feet with duct tape, and then took her to Wilkin’s Woods.

  Henry cut her tape around her feet and told her to walk into the woods with him. She fought and tried to run and he hit her a few times. Once out into the woods, Henry raped the girl.

  “He said it as ‘I got some lovin’ from that bitch.’ By that time, sitting there in his truck while he drank, listening to him, I was getting scared
to death. All I could think of was how I could stop dating him and not let my family know because I didn’t want daddy to kill Henry and go to prison.” Candy wiped away a tear.

  “What was her name?” Sheriff Thomas asked.

  “Something Arnold. Tia? Tina?”

  “Trina Arnold? She vanished when she was a senior and right about when Henry and she would have been in school together,” Thomas asked.

  “That’s it. Trina. Henry said after he finished, he planned to cut her and leave her for the animals because he knew she would tell on him. He figured it was all over for him, anyway, and was going to give up. Before he could cut her throat, as he planned, she got to her feet and ran into the brush. Henry said he saw her in the moonlight and as he blinked, she was gone.”

  “Okay,” Virgil said, taking notes.

  When Henry went to where she had been, he saw nothing but a small hole in the ground that he reached into. He felt nothing and dropped a few pebbles into the hole, hearing nothing. He listened for Trina to make noises, but all was quiet. After a few hours of waiting, he decided it was a deep well, and he left.

  He watched the news carefully and listened to gossip, but only heard that the girl vanished and was thought to be a runaway since she always wanted to go to California and talked about it all the time. She wanted to be an actress.

  Henry went back a few times but there was nothing to be heard, smelled, or seen. He examined it and decide it was a great place to keep secrets buried. Trina was thought to have run away and everyone forgot about her. Henry dropped out of school before the year ended.

  “Henry mentioned his sister’s no-account boyfriend. Henry was a brawler and petty thief, but he looked down on drug users and dealers. His sister was dating a drug dealer and the man accidently let one of her kids get close to some pills. It made Henry furious.”

  “Righteous indignity,” Thomas said.

  “Exactly. But that night, he said he made that man disappear.”

  “Name?” asked Thomas.

  “I have no idea what it was but it was Henry’s sister’s boyfriend.”

  “Some background. Henry and his sister and stepfather, some more of the children of the family, and his mother lived in a mobile trailer house, a good sized one, out at Miller’s Park,” Sheriff Thomas said.

  Virgil tilted his head, “Where we were earlier. I see.”

  Thomas went on, “About when Henry was in ninth grade, his mother was driving home with two of her younger kids in the car. She hit a tree and all three flew out the windshield. The kids died on impact and she died about an hour later at the hospital, and when we came up on that accident, you can’t believe the beer cans and strawberry wine bottles that covered the road and all. You’d think a dozen people had been drinking but it was Henry’s mother and she was drunk as could be.”

  “Any trouble before that?”

  “Hell, we were called on a domestic once a week at least. Step father beat mother, mother stabbed step father, all like clockwork. If we weren’t called there, we were called to the bar to get Henry’s father for drunk and disorderly, brawling, assault, and little shit. Mom had a half dozen tickets for driving while drunk. They came from out of town and that was all in about two year’s time.”

  “Did Henry get in trouble?”

  “ Not that I was called on until after his mother died. After that, he got picked up for fighting, drunk and disorderly, and shop lifting. Nothing big. But he had a mouth on him that he liked to run. Hated authority by then.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “So Henry stayed on with his sister and step father and one day, the father blew town and Henry and his sister and her kids lived in the trailer. Sometimes it was quiet a few months when Henry worked out of town, and then we’d get a call he was drunk and brawling down to the bar. I saw Henry was dating Candy and thought about telling her father, but she’s right that Mr. Ortega would have killed Henry straight up.”

  Virgil asked, “Candy, what did he say he did to his sister’s boyfriend?”

  “He said he invited the man to go out hunting and drinking with him, but to not tell his sister or she’d be mad. Once they were in the woods, Henry said he shot the man and shoved him down the hole. He said he sent his stepfather down the hole, and a girl who cheated on him.”

  “So his dad didn’t blow town?”

  “Not according to Henry.”

  “Did he indicate where the hole was?”

  “No, he didn’t. In fact. Thinking back, I decided he might have been intentionally secretive about that part. I was scared. A few weeks after that, he took me to the woods with a blanket and six pack of beer and I was terrified that he was going to kill me. Henry asked me all kinds of questions about me working at the Five and Dime. I was scared. Like I said, and so I answered truthfully, telling him who I worked with and how they acted and all.” She cut her eyes to Sheriff Thomas.

  He winced.

  “Sheriff, can we step outside?” Virgil asked.

  “It’s okay, Sheriff McLendon. I should have told you already, but I hate it and was thinking we might get through this without mention of Danny. I don’t like talking about it, but you need to know.” Sheriff Thomas rubbed his eyes and Virgil saw tears.

  Vivian poured more coffee and tea. “Why did Henry ask about your work, Candy?”

  Candy looked at the ceiling, pulled her hair away from her face and sipped her tea again, “He was afraid…no…not afraid…he was suspicious that some boy at work might be flirting with me or trying to date me. Several nice boys and men worked there and several really nice girls and women as well. It was a good place. I told Henry I was friends with them all and tried to divert the conversation.”

  Henry steered her right back. Scared that he was spying on her, Candy decided to be honest so he wouldn’t hurt her. She said that Bobby Dowd gave her a ride home twice in the last two weeks because it was raining and she didn’t have a ride those days. Henry began questioning her, asking what they talked about, how long she was in the car, if he flirted with her, and more.

  “I told him Bobby and chatted about work and co-workers all the way home and then I waited a few seconds until the rain let up, and then I ran to the house. Henry asked why Bobby gave me a ride and I didn’t know. Henry asked a lot more questions and then we went home. I was glad to be alive by then.”

  “What happened?”

  “I didn’t have work the next day, but planned to warn Bobby by writing him an anonymous letter. I broke down crying and told my mother most of the story, leaving out the part about the hole, but just saying Henry said he made people vanish and that I was scared of him and of Wilkin’s Woods. The next day, she took me to my grandmother’s house. She gave me all the money she had set aside and had me enroll in college. I did and I have a degree in business now and a good job.”

  Virgil felt the story ended too easily, “And did you hear from Henry? Did he do anything to Bobby Dowd?”

  Candy looked at Sheriff Thomas.

  He leaned back, “That fits my timeline. I tried to talk to you, Candy, but your mother wouldn’t tell me where you were,” he nodded and said. “About then, we had a serious situation here, Sheriff McLendon. We had three young men go missing and who were reported vanished. Henry went missing and his sister was worried. At the same time, Bobby Down went missing and so did….” The sheriff took a deep breath, “…so did my son, Danny.”

  Vivian felt her jaw drop.

  Virgil swallowed hard, “I see. I am sorry, Sheriff.”

  “Ten years ago. Danny worked next door at the shop by the Five and Dime where Bobby worked and they were best friends. They had nothing in common with that thug but them going missing at the same time. We looked and all, and we talked to everyone but couldn’t find them. Two days later, we found Henry’s truck wrecked on a tree with beer cans all over.”

  “Like his mother’s car was found?”

  “A lot like it. There was a some blood…not much…and someone cracked his s
kull on the windshield, but Henry wasn’t there and his shotgun wasn’t on the rack in his truck. I found a half roll of cinnamon breath mints on the passenger side floor. Remember how Bobby ate those all the time, Candy?”

  “I do. You think Bobby was in the truck with Henry?”

  “I did then and I still do. If Bobby was, then Danny was. Those boys never went anywhere without the other. They were about to graduate high school and were close as brothers because they were going off to separate colleges.”

  “I think they were together and Henry got them into his truck and maybe told them it was about me? I don’t know. Maybe something went wrong and they fought with Henry and he crashed. He came to, got his gun and walked out to the woods with them.”

  Virgil looked at Candy, “You’re a good detective. I think so as well. Where was the truck?”

  “Out close to Wilkin’s Woods,” Sheriff Thomas sighed sadly. “If Henry was telling the truth, he walked them out there to that hole and something else must have happened. I am saying I suspected Henry all along and followed his trail like a coon dog. I searched everywhere and stayed with cops all over. He didn’t run away, though, like I figured, but something else happened.”

  “You searched for Henry to bring him in for questioning, thinking he hurt the boys?”

  “Right. I looked for Henry for years and couldn’t find a thing. I pushed his sister and she didn’t know anything, she said. After a while, I figured, well, one day Henry would show up somewhere and when he did, his ass was mine, and I’d get the truth out of him about my boy and Bobby if I had to beat it out of Henry.”

  Virgil nodded and drank more tea. Vivian went to get more tea and coffee.

  Candy stared into space.

  “Let’s say Henry had the gun and walked them out there. What were the boys like in personality?”

  “Bobby would have watched and waited, but Danny was a tough kind. He wanted to be a cop. He would have figured Henry out and fought back.”

  Virgil thought, “Maybe the boys tried to get the shotgun and it went off? If one fell in the hole, the other would try to get him out. Maybe they slipped in. Maybe Henry pushed them and fell as well. It could have been a dozen scenarios.”