They Thought He was Safe

by P. D. Workman

  “Dougan.”

  “Oh, Detective Dougan. You don’t know me,” Zachary fumbled a little. He hated dealing with people by phone, where he couldn’t read their facial expressions and body language. “I’ve been talking to Pat Parker about Jose Flores, the man that he reported missing…?”

  “Right,” Dougan said, his voice taking on an edge. Too early in the morning and he apparently didn’t have his morning coffee on board yet. “And who are you?”

  “Pat is my step-father,” Zachary said, fudging the relationship a bit, but he knew Pat wouldn’t mind. In fact, he would have been delighted. “And I’m a private investigator.”

  “I see.”

  “I know you’re busy and you have plenty of other cases that demand your time and attention. I wondered if I could get a report from you on anything you were able to find, and then I’ll do a little follow-up investigation, see if I can put Pat’s worries to rest.”

  “I don’t suppose Mr. Parker explained to you that Jose Flores is an illegal immigrant.”

  “Yes, he did. And I know that makes him a lot harder to trace through the usual channels.”

  “It makes him damn near impossible to trace. These guys don’t leave a trail. Like I told your father when he made the report, this guy probably just got worried about an Immigration investigation and decided to move on to another location. Or he decided to go back home. It happens all the time. With undocumenteds, there’s really nothing we can do.”

  “Yeah,” Zachary agreed, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible, “and you’ve got plenty else on your desk to worry about.”

  “Darn right I do.” Dougan sounded a little mollified. A few more minutes, and Zachary would have him volunteering everything he knew. The man didn’t want to have to investigate it any further and he didn’t want to waste his time in reporting to Pat that he hadn’t been able to find anything. He just wanted it off his desk.

  “I’m wondering what you were able to cover. Did you talk to his boss?”

  “Sure. First place I went. As usual, the guy wouldn’t admit that Jose even worked there. Of course he doesn’t hire illegals. Everything he does is above board. But a little pressure and he did admit that he knew Jose, but hadn’t seen him since your friend had. He just stopped showing up one day. Nothing unusual for these guys. They come and they go, and they don’t say what they’re doing. They just disappear. They’re ghosts.”

  “Yeah. Pat said that he was sure that if Jose went back to El Salvador or to a different job, he would have said something about it, and he never did…”

  “Pat doesn’t deal with these guys on a daily basis. That’s just not the way it works. It’s pounded into these guys. Don’t tell anyone where you are or where you’re going. It’s too dangerous. ICE will get you. Don’t leave a trail. So even though Pat may think that it’s a suspicious disappearance, that is not my opinion.”

  “Got it. And how about the roommate?”

  “Roommates,” Dougan corrected. “You never get just two of these guys in one place. You get whole families living in one room. With single guys, you get half a dozen or more in one apartment. They sleep in bunk beds, on couches, on the floor. Anywhere there’s room.”

  “Uh-huh. Did you find anyone over there who was willing to talk to you?”

  “Just got the same line everywhere. Jose doesn’t live here anymore. Maybe Jose went home. Maybe Jose found a better job. Nobody knows anything. But they’re not worried about it, either.”

  Zachary nodded to himself. It was going to take more digging to get anything more out of the roommates or friends. More time and effort than a police officer had to pursue such things.

  “Did you find anything at all that indicated that he had planned to leave? Or anything that didn’t jive with what the roommates were saying?”

  “No. It was all pretty much what I expected. Nothing suspicious.”

  “Any enemies? Jealous—uh—lovers? Any risky behaviors?”

  “No. No hint of any foul play. I gather from your, uh, step-father, that they were under the impression he was gay, but I didn’t find any hint of that.”

  It didn’t surprise Zachary that Jose had kept that part of his life a secret. It sounded like it was less acceptable in his circles than it was for Lorne and Pat. And they hadn’t been comfortable with being openly gay for a lot of years.

  “I’ll take a closer look at that,” he told Dougan. “Is there anything else that you would look at more carefully if you had the time to spend on the case?”

  Dougan didn’t answer immediately. Zachary wondered if he had pushed too fast. He didn’t think he’d have Dougan’s attention for long, so he didn’t want to waste any time. He hadn’t implied that the police weren’t putting enough effort into the case, just that they didn’t have unlimited time.

  “I’d take a harder look at the roommates,” Dougan said finally. “They’re all undocumented, of course, so there’s no way to check criminal records or follow their histories without getting federal agencies involved… but when you are trying to encourage them to talk, getting the feds involved is counterproductive.”

  “Yeah. That makes sense. Was there any roommate in particular that gave you a bad vibe? The one that Pat mentioned was Nando González.”

  “He seemed okay. But some of the others… I honestly couldn’t even tell who was living there and who was just visiting. It seems like a free-for-all. If it was me, I wouldn’t want to be living there with people coming and going in my room all the time. I wouldn’t feel like I had any security.”

  “Yeah.” Zachary thought about some of the foster homes he had been in, where there had been no sense of personal space or ownership, and if there was anything he didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on, he had to keep it on his person. Like his camera. Places like that, the neck strap didn’t leave his neck, not even while he was sleeping. “I wouldn’t like that either.” He let silence draw out for a few seconds. “Was there anything else that bothered you about the case? Anything that felt discordant?”

  “We don’t usually get missing persons reports for illegals. So that was a bit different. Not bad or wrong, just unusual. When we’ve got a case involving illegals, it’s usually a body in the morgue, smuggling, human trafficking… we’re not looking for immigrants that have gone missing.”

  Zachary jotted a few quick notes. “Great. Thanks for your time, Detective Dougan. I’ll let you know if I run into anything you would want to act on. Feel free to call me if anything comes to mind later that didn’t seem right or that you couldn’t pursue at the time. Did I give you my number?”

  He hadn’t, but it was a way for Dougan to feel like he was still in control of the flow of communications. As if Zachary were acting for him, taking just one thing off of his desk that he didn’t have to worry about anymore.

  Dougan grunted that he hadn’t, so Zachary gave it to him, and repeated his name, first and last. “And can I call you if I have any other questions? I promise I won’t become a pest. But just in case something comes up that I need to get your read on.”

  “Yes, fine. I suppose. But if you do start harassing me, I’m going to block your number.”

  “Fair enough,” Zachary agreed. Probably he wouldn’t need Dougan for anything else, but he wanted to leave the lines of communication open and to leave a good impression with Dougan in case Zachary ever had to deal with his department again. He knew how much cops hated investigators who interfered with their cases. He had both friends and enemies in his own local precinct. He couldn’t always avoid stepping on toes, but he did the best he could to keep relations friendly.

  “Thanks for all of your help, Detective Dougan. I appreciate you taking the time.”

  Chapter Four

  M

  r. Peterson and Pat had never talked very much about their social life or the gay community in Vermont. Zachary had always assumed that they lived a fairly reclusive life, mostly doing things with each other. He didn’t get invited to
large dinner parties, and things like Christmas were always quiet, private affairs. Not that Zachary had ever been there for Christmas, other than the most recent one. He’d always turned down the invitations before. It wasn’t because he didn’t appreciate them, but Christmas was just such a difficult time of year for him, he could never bring himself to make plans ahead of time, and once Christmas Day arrived, he just wanted to recover his equilibrium.

  But Pat and Loren obviously had a social life. They didn’t just stay at home reading, cooking, and gardening. They went places, saw shows, and went out shopping with friends.

  Zachary didn’t imagine there was a big gay community in Vermont, though there were an increasing number of couples moving into the state following marriage equalization. Zachary fired up his browser and after anonymizing his IP address, started to do some research.

  It occurred to him that if there were any foul play involved, even though the cops didn’t think there was, there might be some hint of it in the community. Other people might have been targeted but never reported. There might be more information available if a more well-known gay white man had been targeted than there would be with an unknown, dark-skinned illegal. Zachary started with some general searches to see where the various gay bars, lounges, and other gathering places were in the nearby towns. There was a good amount that he turned up with just regular web searches. He could have someone else do some deep web exploration for him later on to see what was hidden in webpages that weren’t cataloged by Google.

  After making note of some locations, events, and festivals that were going on or had taken place recently, he started to dig deeper. Looking for signs of gay men or women who had disappeared, been assaulted, or murdered. If someone had targeted Jose, he was probably not the first person. More than likely, if there were a kidnapper or murderer out there, he had worked his way up gradually from threats and assaults, through other attempts and violent acts, until he had success on a higher level.

  There were bulletin boards, many of them requiring a new account to get access. Zachary created a new email address and used it to apply for memberships. Most of them were automated and he was allowed immediate access. Not really secure if the participants really wanted any kind of shield between themselves and the general public. A couple of the boards indicated that his membership was pending, and he wondered whether there would actually be someone checking the profile out to see if he were a real person, or whether all the moderator would do was look at his name and email address and click ‘approve.’

  He started digging into the forums, looking for any sign of trouble. And it didn’t take long.

  Within half an hour, he’d amassed enough information to occupy a special task force. He wasn’t sure how he was going to sift through all of it to find anything useful. There were specifics given about people who had caused disturbances at events, people who ordered gay prostitutes just to beat them up, neo-Nazis who had threatened violence and, in some cases, had followed through. It wasn’t going to be a matter of trying to find someone who had committed crimes against the gay community, but sifting through all of the potential suspects to find someone who might be connected with Jose. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do that.

  It was late enough that Zachary knew Kenzie would be at the morgue, sorting through the email that had collected over the weekend, having downed at least one cup of coffee. She might be too bogged down to talk on the phone, especially if they’d had a number of bodies come in over the weekend, but he could leave a message and she could get back to him when she felt like it.

  He dialed her number on the phone without looking it up or relying on a saved speed dial number. It rang a few times, but then was picked up.

  “Zachary. Hey.”

  “Hi. How crazy is it over there today?”

  “The bodies are practically walking themselves in today. I thought we were past the busy season once Christmas was over and done, but apparently some people managed to stick it out through Christmas, but couldn’t stand the cold, dark months after that.”

  Zachary sighed. He could sympathize with her new clients. Christmas and the long, cold nights of January and February were daunting. Even those who were mentally healthy complained about how cold it was and how they were depressed by the snow and the cold.

  “But, you don’t want to hear about that,” Kenzie said cheerfully, realizing that it wasn’t the best approach to take with someone who regularly had problems making it through the cold, dark months. “I’m at your service. What’s up?”

  “Maybe I just called to talk.”

  “You wouldn’t just call me just to talk on a Monday morning. You know it’s a busy time, and I’m sure you have weekend emails and other jobs to catch up on as well. If you were going to call me just to visit, you’d wait until the end of the day.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So, what is it? You got a new case? Zachary Goldman is out to get justice?”

  “Yes to a new case… though I don’t know whether it will go anywhere or if there was any injustice done. For now, just a missing person.”

  “Okay. And what do you need me for?”

  “You’ve taken some psychology courses, right?”

  “Sure. I’m not as up with it as my forensics, but I can help with some basic questions.”

  “Okay, well, this one is about how to tell the difference between someone who’s just blowing hot air and someone who really intends violence. Or has committed violence. How can I sort through possible threats to find the people who are really dangerous?”

  “Yikes. You don’t think that’s a little deep for a Monday morning? I’m sure there are a lot of people who would like to know the same thing. But the fact is, you can’t really tell. If you know enough about the person you might be able to construct a profile and have an idea of who is dangerous and who is not, but you couldn’t tell for sure. Those TV shows you see where they build detailed profiles and predict who is committing a string of serial murders, that’s fiction. There’s no way to construct something so specific. People are going to do what they’re going to do, and some of them are very good at masking what they feel. Or the fact that they don’t feel.”

  Zachary thought back to the bullies and psychopaths that he had encountered in foster care or in school. Or even in the police force. Some of them were very good at looking innocent, even vulnerable. Some of the worst bullies hid behind their masks of age, femininity, or friendliness. They made you think that there was nothing to worry about, and then they brought down the hammer.

  Someone like Mrs. Phipps at one of the group home he had been in would have the social worker eating out of her hand, thinking she was the sweetest little old lady anywhere, but as soon as the social worker was out of the house, would turn around and whale on Zachary with her cane for some infraction. Danger could lurk behind just about anyone’s innocent-looking eyes.

  “Can you think of some warning signs you might see? In, say, a serial killer or someone who had committed violence repeatedly, but managed to keep it under the radar?”

  Kenzie made a clicking noise with her tongue. “I’m going to have to think about that one. Psychological profiling can give you some ideas. A serial killer is most likely to be a man, probably comes across as charming and self-effacing, maybe still lives with his mother or helps to take care of someone else. Sometimes it’s someone who has a connection with crime, like a dispatcher or firefighter. Probably not a cop, but someone who would like to be, that sees things in black and white and sees themselves as the only one who can fix society’s ills. As far as age goes, I can’t help you there. Some of them start out very young. They’ve probably committed some kind of violence by their teenage years, if not actually killed someone, and either served time or got away with it.”

  “So, someone wouldn’t just start at thirty or forty.”

  “Not as likely. They might not get caught until then, but chances are they started much earlier.”

  “And th
ey tend to like a certain type, right? Like all of the victims are girls with long blond hair…”

  “Maybe. But not necessarily. You’ll usually see them sticking to one particular gender, maybe age range, but physical type is not as important as they make it out to be on television.”

  “Okay. I’m not sure how I’m going to get through all of this information, then. If you had to sort through a bunch of unrelated data to figure out who was a serial killer, how would you do it?”

  Kenzie considered. He could hear her tapping away while she filled out forms. “Well… to tell the truth, I probably wouldn’t use psychology at all. Because you’re not going to be getting interviews and psychologist’s report for each of the suspects, are you? Even if you were, I’m not sure it would help. What I would do is… I would try to match up their schedules with the victims’. Who doesn’t have a good alibi? Whose long-haul trucking route or time off of work matches up with the distribution of the victims? You’ll probably have a lot easier time narrowing it down that way than by a psychological profile. You’re not going to be able to tell who is hiding behind a mask. You need to look for the physical evidence.”

  Chapter Five

  I

  t would take a couple of hours to drive to Jose’s residence. Zachary eventually bit the bullet and just headed out. He hadn’t gotten far with the list of suspects from the discussion boards, but he had everything saved to the cloud so he could look it up on his computer, tablet, or phone when he needed to. If he happened to run across any of the accused bullies in Jose’s apartment or at his work, he would at least have somewhere to start.