ONE TOO MANY - ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILE #9

by Marshall Huffman

  “Oh lighten up Bartoni. I was just kidding. You need to work on your sense of humor,” he said, laughing again.

  “You are a real witty guy, don’t you think Dan?” I asked.

  “Side splitter alright,” Dan answered.

  “Well boys and girls, it has been fun but unless you have something else to ask, I’m going back to watching the game,” he told us.

  “You know we found physical evidence this time. You might have gotten away with the others but you screwed up this time and that is going to be your undoing. I will nail you,” I warned him.

  “Good luck with that,” was all he said and turned and went back inside.

  “Did you see the look on his face when you told him we had physical evidence?” Dan asked.

  “Oh yeah. I don’t think he was ready for that. He had been so careful up until now.”

  “I tried to check out his shoes but they looked fairly clean. I guess he could have cleaned them but what I am worried about is him getting rid of everything he wore, including the shoes,” I told him.

  “Sounds like trash duty.”

  “We are going to have to keep an eye on Brandon as well and make sure he doesn’t take anything to be tossed in a dumpster,” I told Dan.

  “How fun.”

  “Like always,” I replied.

  THREE

  Alyssa Powers woke up totally confused. She had no idea where she was or how she had even gotten here. The last thing she remembered was the knee in her back and her face being shoved into the mud.

  She felt her face and found that it was clean. It couldn’t have just been a dream. It was totally dark and she tried to move her arms but found that she could only move them a short distance. Her legs were held down as well. About the only thing she could be sure of was that she was on a mattress. She wiggled around as much as her bindings would allow and realized that she was totally naked.

  She listened intently but all she could hear was the hum of the air conditioner. She felt slightly chilled but she didn’t know if it was real or the realization that she had no clothes on.

  She tried to yell out but the gag in her mouth made it almost impossible. She could make a sound but even she couldn’t discern what she was saying from the sound. She tried to think. By now her parents had to have realized that she wasn’t home and they would have the police looking for her.

  That’s when it hit her. They had gone to the lake to do some work on the cabin. She was supposed to be at home alone until Sunday night. Now she felt hot as a wave of panic rushed over her. Not only had she been abducted but no one would even know. This had to be a nightmare.

  **

  Alyssa was startled awake by the noise of a door slamming. She lay there listening and she could hear footsteps heading toward her.

  She tried to yell out but it came out garbled.

  “Easy Alyssa. You will be safe here with me as long as you do as you are told. Do you understand?” the voice asked.

  She said ‘yes’ as best she could.

  The man stepped into the light but he had a stupid looking mask on. It was one that went entirely over his head like you might wear for Halloween.

  “I’m going to take your gag off but you must not scream or yell. If you do I will put it back on and leave it on. Do you understand?”

  She shook her head.

  “I mean it. No yelling. You only get one chance.”

  She shook her head again.

  “Alright,” he said, lifting her head and untying the gag.

  She immediately took a deep breath. While she had been able to breath there was something about having the gag in her mouth that made her feel like she wasn’t getting enough air.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Alyssa who I am is not important at the moment. What is important is that you follow instructions. If you fail to do as I tell you, I will punish you severely. It is very important for you to understand what I am telling you.”

  “Alright. Are you going to kill me?” she asked even though she didn’t really want to know the answer.

  “I certainly hope not. That will depend entirely upon you.”

  “Please. I just want to live. I don’t want to die,” she said trying not to cry.

  “Well Alyssa I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that. It would be a shame to have to get rid of such a beautiful young girl. You are quite magnificent lying there naked. You do know that don’t you?”

  “I'm kind of cold.”

  “Then I will warm you up. I am going to untie your feet and you will do exactly as I tell you. If you don’t it will be very bad for you. Do you understand Alyssa?” he said.

  She shook her head yes.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  “That’s good. That’s very good. Now just stay still for a few minutes longer until I give you your instructions. You will obey them immediately, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent,” he said and started loosening the straps that held her legs down.

  FOUR

  “Alyssa. Where are you?” her mother yelled up the stairs, “Were home.”

  “Probably has her headphone on,” he dad said.

  “Will you go check her room? I’ll get the leftover food put away. Are you hungry?”

  “I could use a little something. Alyssa may be hungry too. I’ll go ask her.”

  He went up the stairs and was surprised to find her door open. Her bed was made and nothing was out of place. Alyssa wasn’t much for keeping her room neat and he knew the cleaning lady had been in Friday.

  He went to the bathroom and checked it out. It was spotless. This wasn’t like Alyssa at all. She could make a mess just walking into a room. He checked the towels and they were all dry. She took a shower at least twice a day. It drove him crazy.

  “Anna, something doesn’t seem right,” he told her while she had her head stuck in the refrigerator.

  “What?”

  “I said, something doesn’t seem right.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anna asked, closing the refrigerator.

  “Her room and the bathroom are spotless. No towels on the floor and none are wet.”

  “Maybe she is growing up.”

  “No, I mean it is like the cleaning lady always leaves it. It’s almost like Alyssa hasn’t been home.”

  “What are you talking about? She knows darn well she had better have her butt home.”

  “I’m just saying that’s the way it looks to me,” he said.

  Anna went to the den and looked for Alyssa’s jacket and backpack. Neither was there.

  “Was her backpack in her room?”

  “I didn’t see it,” he replied.

  Anna went racing up the stairs and stopped when she got to Alyssa’s room. There was no way she had been home. Even the closet doors were closed which she never did.

  “Dale, something is wrong,” she said as he came into the room.

  “That’s what I am saying.”

  “I need to start calling her friends and find out if anyone knows where she is or if she stayed with someone,” Anna said starting to get worried.

  The full impact was starting to hit home. They hadn’t seen her since she left for school Friday morning. Anna started dialing while Dale paced around the room. With each call Anna was becoming a little more panicked.

  “Where in the world could she be,” Anna said after she hung up from the fifteenth call.

  “Anna, we need to call the police.”

  “The police? Do you think something has happened to her?”

  “I don’t know but we need to make sure. Call them and report her missing. We can deal with it later if she shows up.”

  “Oh dear God please don’t let anything happen to my baby,” she said, her eyes starting to tear up.

  Dale took the phone and called the police.

  **

  The two police officers were trying to be nice but when pa
rents are missing a child they often want instant gratification and take it out on the police officers present.

  “Look, I’m telling you she did not run away. She is an honor roll student and has never been in any trouble. She has more friends than you can shake a stick at,” Dale said, raising his voice an octave.

  “Sir, please understand these are questions we have to ask.”

  “I don’t care about what you have to ask. I want you to start looking for my daughter. Something has happened to her,” he said.

  “Can you give us a list of her friends?”

  “I told you, we called them. No one has seen her since Friday when she got off the bus.”

  “Yes sir. But sometimes they will tell us things they won’t tell the parents. You know how kids are. The last thing they want to do is squeal on a friend.”

  “That is not the case here. She is missing,” Anna interrupted.

  “It would be a big help if we could get the list,” he insisted.

  “Oh crap. Let’s waste some more time,” Dale said throwing up his hands and dropping down to the couch.

  “Look Mr. and Mrs. Powers, if you want to speed the process up you need to cooperate. Right now we are wasting time trying to get information from you. We need to get certain information and the faster we gather it, the faster we can move to the next phase,” he told them.

  “Alright. What do you need besides the list of friends?” Anna asked.

  “A current picture. Name of any boyfriends. Anyone giving her trouble at school or anyplace else.”

  “I’ll get the picture,” Dale said.

  “I’ll give you a list of her friends. She doesn’t have a boyfriend just now. She did but they broke up,” Anna said.

  “We will want his name for sure,” the officer said.

  Dan came back downstairs and handed the picture to the officer.

  “Nice looking girl. Certainly doesn't seem like the type to run away. You would be surprised how many times we can just look at a picture and predict if they are a runaway or not. Have you checked the hospitals yet?”

  “Oh my goodness, I didn’t even think of that,” Mrs. Powers said.

  “It’s okay. My partner will go do that right now while we finish up here.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that either,” Dale said shaking his head.

  “We can get answers faster than you can anyway. I think I have everything I need. Oh, what was she wearing when she went to school?”

  “Anna?”

  “Black faded jeans, a pink tee-shirt, white tennis shoes and a light pink jacket. She had a backpack that had some dumb band's name on it but I don’t know what it was. Two sets of initials and a lightning bolt.”

  “AC/DC,” the officer asked.

  “I think so. Something like that.”

  “We will check out the hospitals and let you know what we find. Since you haven’t seen her since Friday we will go ahead and put this in as a missing person without the usual waiting period.”

  “That would be great. Thank you,” Dale said.

  “You will find her won’t you?” Anna asked.

  “I can tell you that we will give it our very best effort. I have a teenage daughter of my own and I know what I would be going through in the same situation.”

  “Please find Alyssa and bring her home.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said and headed to the patrol car.

  His partner was waiting inside the car.

  “Anything?”

  “Not a thing. They don’t even have a Jane Doe,” he replied.

  “I have a very bad feeling about this.”

  “Yeah, so do I.”

  FIVE

  “So what do you have Bartoni,” McGregor asked, dribbling jelly from his donut onto his desk top.

  “I’ll bet you're going to lick that off the desk when we leave,” I said.

  “How about you worrying about the case and I’ll take care of my eating habits,” he replied.

  “Sure. Okay, the killer is Kenny Miller,” I told him

  I thought he was going to drop his jelly donut.

  “I suppose you have a signed confession? Some physical evidence? A witness? Any damn thing?”

  “Well not exactly,” I admitted.

  “Not exactly. Just like the last time you tried to pin this on him.”

  “Captain I did not try to pin it on him. He did it. He told me so.”

  “And yet we have absolutely nothing that we can use against him; isn’t that also true?”

  “Come on captain. I can’t help it if he is smart enough to avoid the camera and microphones. If we had more up to date equipment it might have picked up what he said.”

  “We don’t and it didn’t. So what is your next plan of action?”

  “We are heading to the morgue and then to the crime lab to see if we can hurry them along with the stuff they are processing from the crime scene.”

  “Then go,” he said.

  I swear he was bending forward to lick the jelly off his desk. He was just waiting for us to close the door.

  **

  We headed to the morgue. What a dump. It is the only building that is uglier than the one we work in. It has that Viking-Gothic thing going on that is just plain horrid. Inside was no better. Gray walls, cheap gray vinyl tile and off white acoustical ceiling tiles. Half the bulbs were out which gave it an even more sinister atmosphere.

  “Doc Sorenson in the lab?”

  “Yep, cutting room two. He is kind of grumpy today,” the receptionist said.

  “Like I would expect anything else,” I replied as we walked on down the hall with our footsteps echoing off the walls.

  “Ah, you decided to grace me with your presence,” Sorenson said when we came in.

  “You must be living right,” I replied.

  “Humph,” was all he said.

  “So, did you learn anything new?”

  “Positive ID but we were already pretty sure of that. His early tox screen turned up Propofol in his system,” Sorenson said.

  “And that is?”

  “Geez Bartoni. We had a case like this no more than eight or nine years ago.”

  “Sorry Mr. Grumpybutt, I don’t remember it.”

  “Propofol is an intravenously administered anesthetic agent. It basically causes the brain to go numb. I found a needle mark on his right shoulder. Someone filled him full of the stuff so they could render him unconscious,” Sorenson explained.

  “So they jab him with a needle and knock him out then they wait for him to come out of it and work him over.”

  “Looks like.”

  “So where do you get Propofol?” I asked.

  “It’s marketed as Diprivan and you would have to have a prescription for it which I doubt anyone would give to a lay person,” Sorenson said.

  “Well someone has it.”

  “What else would they need?” Dan asked.

  “Nothing special. Syringe and a hypodermic needle. Giving them the correct amount would be kind of tricky if you didn’t know the side effects. It can even cause death if too much is given.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Time of death is on the report. It’s pretty accurate due to the mild weather.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said and headed for the door.

  I was waiting for some snide remark but it never came. This was the second time I had noticed that the Doc wasn’t quite up to his usual banter. Even when I gave him an opening he just let it slide. It made me wonder what was going on with him.

  “We need a search warrant for Miller’s house,” I told Dan when we got to the car.

  “We will never get one on what we have right now.”

  “Look, we know Miller is involved. Either with someone else or by himself. If it isn’t him it could well be his son and he is covering for him. No matter what, Miller is our problem.”

  “Angie, it doesn’t matter. We still don’t have anything linking him to this or any other m
urder. As much as it irritates me too, he is home free,” Dan said.

  I hate it when he is right and he was right. Essentially all I had was what he said to me almost a year and a half ago. We needed a break.

  “Let’s go to the lab and see what they have come up with,” I said to Dan.

  “Can we get something to eat along the way?”

  “Sure but it has to be fast food. I have some things I want to check out.

  We stopped at a fast food burger joint and went inside to eat. My partner is a slob when he tries to eat in the car. I got a salad and he got two half-pound burgers and fries. He is a perpetual eating machine.

  We just talked about various things and he tried to nib into my relationship with Ben but I shut that down.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Dan said stopping in mid-bite.

  “Sure as long as it isn’t about Ben.”

  “Why is it that women will never order fries but they steal them from someone else and not think a thing about it?”

  “What? I had one fry. Geez.”

  “No, you had ten not including the one in your hand right now. If you wanted fries why not just order them?”

  “Because I don’t need them. Too much starch.”

  “Do they have less when you take someone else’s?”

  “Absolutely. The guilt calories are gone,” I told him.

  He just rolled his eyes and shook his head. Men are so dense at times. If people see women ordering fries they think that eventually they will end up on her hips. This way they never know. Now what’s so hard to understand about that?

  SIX

  “Mr. and Mrs. Powers I know you are upset but believe me, we are doing everything we can to locate your daughter. I know it’s been almost a week now but we have put out alerts on her and sent her picture and description to every agency.”

  “What about the crime scene that you said you found?”

  “We have processed everything we can. The only really useful item was the footprint and until we have a suspect that doesn’t do us much good.”

  “I want my baby back,” Mrs. Powers sobbed.

  “I know. We totally understand but no one has come forth with any new information. We have no witnesses at this point and our discussions with her friends and classmates have turned up nothing suspicious.”