Laura Cardinal 01 Darkness on the Edge of Town

by J. Carson Black

  “Well, he could be a cousin. But that’s no de Seroux.” She tapped one long, lacquered nail on the photocopy. “That there is Dale Lundy. I know that because his daddy died must be eight, nine years ago, and he’s the spitting image of his father.”

  Laura was having trouble absorbing this. “Dale lives here?”

  “He might’ve come back, I don’t know. When his father died, an aunt took him in. She lived in Alabama.”

  “You knew the father well?”

  “Just to say ‘hi’ to. Not that he was what you’d call friendly. Bill was an oysterman.”

  “And this Dale—did you know him?”

  “Not hardly. I don’t think anybody saw much of that kid.”

  Laura couldn’t make sense of what she was hearing, but she asked anyway. “Why was that?”

  “His mother home-schooled him. Nothing wrong with that, plenty do, but there was more there than met the eye.” Marlee refilled Laura’s cup. “That’s a story in itself. She ran off and left the boy and his father to their own devices.”

  Laura was still trying to reconcile the one man and two names.

  Marlene continued, “Alene Lundy belonged to some religious group. These days you’d call it a cult. Everybody knew she was a little strange and she seemed to get worse, keeping to herself, keeping that son of hers away from other kids, and you know that’s not natural. If any family was going to end in tragedy, I’d a bet it would have been them, not the de Serouxs.” She nodded to the photo. “I don’t know who’s been pulling your leg, but that’s Dale Lundy.”

  Laura caught Redbone as he was coming down the stairs of the police department. “Why didn’t you tell me about the de Seroux family?”

  He paused in the stairwell, a Co’ Cola in his hand, the heat making his proximity stiflingly close. Laura saw little lumps of ice on the bottle. A Co’ Cola would really hit the spot right now, but for once he didn’t offer her one.

  “Can’t talk now. I’m on my way to a meeting,” Redbone said, continuing down the stairs. Laura followed him out into the heat haze.

  “I want to know why you didn’t tell me about the de Seroux murders.”

  “Holy Jesus Lord, it’s hot today.” He pressed the Coke bottle to his sweating cheek. Perspiration like giant inkblots soaked his shirt. Looked at her. Good ol’ boy with eyes of steel. “That de Seroux story was a long time ago. That’s why.”

  “Maybe so, but it could have affected my case.”

  “And how would that be?”

  “Whether it did or not, you should have let me know. At least then I’d have some idea what I was dealing with.”

  “He’s a cousin from the outside,” he said, stressing the word “outside." “He had nothing to do with any of that.”

  “You had to know I’d find out. A mass murder in a small town isn’t—“

  “That’s all water under the bridge. Folks here don’t like to talk about it. We don’t like to even think about it.”

  “So the piano player is Jimmy de Seroux.”

  “He is to the best of my knowledge.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged. “I know the family had cousins somewhere. He showed up and said he was a cousin. He owned the house. That was good enough for me. People here mind their own business.”

  “But didn’t you wonder about his resemblance to Lundy?”

  “I thought that wasn’t any of my business either.”

  “What? Oh.” She got the inflection. “You think Bill Lundy might have—”

  “I think we’ve aired enough dirty laundry for one day." He unlocked his car.

  She persisted. “How would that happen?”

  He took off his straw hat and placed the Coke against his forehead, smearing his dripping coils of hair. “The way it always happens, I guess.”

  “You’re saying Bill Lundy and Mrs. De Seroux had an affair?”

  “Look, missy, I don’t know. Could be a lot of things happened. Henry had a sister, a real spinster type, if you’ll excuse the saying. She lived there for a while. Don’t ask when because I don’t remember. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late.”

  “I want you to run Dale Lundy for me.”

  “When I get back I’ll do it first thing,” he said, hefting his bulk into his unit.

  The doors to the Apalachicola Times were locked—closed, even though it was the middle of the day. So Laura went looking for the library.

  The library was located on a quiet Apalachicola street; a red brick, one-story building with white trim. Laura asked the librarian if she had newspapers or microfiche dating back to the time of the de Seroux murders.

  The librarian looked at her, a vague uneasiness creeping into her deep violet eyes. She was a pretty woman, powdered and small, somewhere in her thirties. “The de Seroux murders?”

  “That’s what I heard. Someone named Henry de Seroux killed his wife and daughters here in Apalachicola.”

  The librarian looked shocked. “When was this?”

  “A long time ago. It’s not something that people would forget, though.”

  Definitely flustered. “Excuse me, let me take a look, see what I have on the database.”

  She went into the back room. Laura waited.

  At last she returned. “I couldn’t find any references on the computer, but that doesn’t mean anything. We have back issues of the Times going back to the mid-seventies.”

  “So you never heard that story? Have you lived here long?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “I guess it would be before that then.” A mass murder would appear on the front page, so all she’d have to do was look for the headlines. She’d start with 1990 and work her way back from there.

  The librarian took her to the little alcove where the microfiche machine was. She showed Laura how to wind the tape on the spool, and Laura let her, although she’d done this many times before.

  There was no reference to a mass murder in 1990. Or 1989, 1988, 1987.

  By the time she got to 1983, her neck was beginning to ache.

  And then she saw it: Page One, June 12, 1983.

  “LOCAL MAN KILLS FAMILY, SELF”

  She read quickly, getting more excited as she read.

  Henry de Seroux, a respected dentist and family man, had cancelled the newspaper subscription, the water, the electricity, and the gas; gave his golf clubs to his surprised receptionist; and went home to kill his family and himself.

  No mention of a young man who could be a cousin. No mention of any other family at all.

  There was a picture of the family, though. A studio portrait with a gauzy, blue background. The two girls were pretty and blond. One of them, sitting on her mother’s lap, was five or six. Her name was Carrie. The other, standing, was older—eleven? Twelve?

  Marisa.

  She looked familiar, and Laura suddenly realized why. Marisa de Seroux looked a lot like Linnet Sobek.

  And Alison Burns.

  And Jessica Parris.

  Laura hit the button to photocopy the page.

  Back in her room, Laura started a fresh page of her legal pad. Looking for links.

  1) The XRV tire treads in de Seroux’s driveway were the same make and type as the ones found up on West Boulevard.

  2) The resemblance among Alison Burns, Jessica Parris, Linnet Sobek, and Marisa de Seroux was uncanny.

  3) Jimmy de Seroux might or might not be a man named Dale Lundy, the son of the next door neighbor.

  4) Dale Lundy/Jimmy de Seroux—whoever he really was—had access to the original proofs of Pete Dorrance’s publicity photos.

  5) Laura herself had seen him at the Copper Queen Hotel.

  She stared at the list. A couple of things occurred to her immediately.

  Punching in 1411, Laura requested the number for the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, Arizona, then called the hotel. The front desk answered.

  “I wonder if you could help me,” Laura said. “I was in the bar last weekend when yo
u had the pianist there. I liked him so much I asked if he could play for my wedding. We exchanged cards, but I can’t find his anywhere, and the wedding is in three weeks. Could you help me out? I think his name was …" She looked at her notes. Jimmy or Dale: Pick one. “Dale.”

  “Let me take a look,” the woman replied. “Hold on.” The phone clattered.

  A minute passed before the woman picked up again. “Dale Lundy, right? He’s playing this weekend, too. All I have is a cell phone number.” She recited it.

  “Thanks so much! This will make all the difference.”

  “Just make sure you have a good photographer. I stinted, and it was the worst mistake we ever made. Good luck!”

  Laura loved small towns. People still saw strangers as human beings.

  Next, Laura opened her laptop and connected to the Internet. She’d already bookmarked TalentFish.com. She opened it up now and compared the Talentfish photos of Peter Dorrance to the one Detective Endicott sent her.

  One of the Talentfish photos, the three-quarters shot in front of the house, was almost identical to the photo from Alison Burn’s computer. Laura held the five-by-seven digital printout up near the computer, eyeballing one and then the other.

  In the Talentfish photo, Laura could see half the saw palmetto fronds behind Dorrance, but in the Burns photograph, she could see only one-third. Dorrance’s smile was different, too. Just a millimeter this way or that.

  Laura had been to photo sessions before. A photographer took many shots of one pose. The Talentfish photo and the Burns photo were in the same sequence, but slightly different.

  She reached Myrna Gorman at the Strand Talent Agency on the first try. “How many different photos do you have of Peter Dorrance?” she asked.

  “I’ll have to look to be sure, but usually we get a headshot and a composite.”

  “How many in the composite?”

  “Three or four.”

  “Did he send his photos to Talentfish.com or did you?”

  “We did. We have an agreement with them. You want to hold? I’ll get his file.”

  When she came back she said, “It’s what I thought. We sent the composite. Four pictures.”

  “Can you describe them for me?”

  They corresponded with what she saw on the screen. Laura found Chief Redbone’s card and asked her to fax them to the Apalachicola Police Department.

  She didn’t need any more convincing, though.

  The digital photo that had been sent to Alison Burns did not correspond to any of the photographs up on Talentfish.com. That meant that no one could have downloaded the photo and sent it on to Alison Burns. Either Peter Dorrance had placed publicity shots on another site, or the person who sent the photo had access to all the rolls of film they shot that day.

  That meant either Peter Dorrance or Dale Lundy sent the photo to Alison Burns.

  And Peter Dorrance wasn’t playing at the Copper Queen Hotel next weekend.

  “He’s not gonna like seeing us again so quick,” Chief Redbone said as he turned onto Avenue B. “If we get the warrant, let’s do it tomorrow. That old house hasn’t been lived in for a long time. It can wait till morning.”

  Thaddeus Lanier lived in a large, Federalist, red brick building with a gracious white portico and two tall live oaks dressed in widow’s weeds.

  Laura was feeling good—especially after they ran Lundy on NCIC. Unlike Jimmy de Seroux, Lundy had two arrests for sexual offenses: peeping and masturbating outside a grade school, both in Dothan, Alabama. One when he was twenty years old, another when he’d just turned twenty-one.

  Nothing since then, but if he was the man she thought he was, Lundy had learned to fly under the radar, graduating from peeping and masturbating to taking young girls. His crimes fit into a predictable time line, a clear trajectory. He had been given time to develop predilections and rituals—like dressing girls up in his doll dresses.

  He’d learned his craft.

  Laura had no doubt he kept a rape kit in his motor home with all the tools he needed to capture, subdue, and kill his victim.

  She had been right about the motor home. Dale Lundy owned a 1987 Fleetwood Pace Arrow. He also owned the house next door to the de Seroux house—the one she’d noticed because it was boarded up.

  Vindication.

  The Lundy house had been empty and boarded up since Bill Lundy died all those years ago, but had never been put up for sale. Dale Lundy had used the address when he bought the motor home, and it was the address listed on his credit cards.

  They crossed the neat lawn and knocked on the front door.

  Lanier appeared in khakis and a knit shirt—relaxing after a hard day of torpedoing search warrants. A dour, long-faced man with wire glasses perched on his nose, he looked down that nose now. Two grouchy-looking King Charles spaniels barked and yapped at his feet. “What do you want now?” he asked.

  Redbone scratched his ear. “Well, Thad, more evidence just turned itself up. Looks pretty convincing to me.”

  “Very well.” Lanier opened the door and stood back.

  The front room was palatial. High ceilings, plaster rosettes in the corners. A gleaming hardwood floor. A grand piano with a mirror finish. Striped silk Queen Anne chairs.

  Lanier led the way to his study, followed by the two muttering King Charles spaniels. He sat down at his massive mahogany desk and directed them to sit, too.

  His sigh was long-suffering. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  He perched the glasses farther down on his nose and started reading.

  Twenty minutes later, they had their search warrant.

  36

  “Here’s what I want to do,” Laura said to Chief Redbone outside the police station early the next morning. “I want one officer on the back door, and the rest of us will go in the front.”

  “I don’t know we need to do that,” Redbone said. “The place is boarded up and you said yourself this guy is in Arizona. We don’t have to go running in there like we’re looking for terrorists or something.”

  He had a point, but it was not one Laura would concede. She didn’t care if the place was boarded up, she wanted a safe entry. She outlined it for him: she, Redbone, and one officer would take the front, and the third officer would take the back. She would position herself to the left of the front door, and Redbone and his officer would take the right.

  She said to Redbone, “I’ll go low and you go high. Your officer will go low. That way I’ll cover the right side of the house, and you’ll take care of the left.”

  He shrugged. “You’re calling the shots.”

  Jerry Oliver drove up and got out of his car.

  Redbone called out, “Jerry, you ever check that steak knife of Ginny Peacock’s into evidence?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s safe in the trunk.”

  “Why don’t you do it now?”

  “Can’t it wait until after we do the entry?”

  “No, it can’t wait.” Redbone looked at Laura. “Tell you what. You go with Officer Descartes, and Oliver and I’ll be right behind you.”

  Warning her, perhaps, what caliber of officer Jerry Oliver was. She hoped Descartes was better.

  Officer Descartes, it turned out, was much better.

  “How’s that strep throat, Andy?” Redbone asked as a young man in an Apalachicola PD uniform emerged from the City Hall building. Redbone turned to Laura. “Got him out of bed for this thing.”

  “I’m fine now, sir,” Descartes said. “The antibiotics pretty much knocked it out.”

  Redbone introduced them. “I hope that pretty wife of yours is taking care of you.” Redbone winked at Laura. “Newlyweds.”

  Laura noticed the unmistakable outline of a protective vest under Descartes’s uniform. That made two of them. She’d asked Redbone earlier if he had Kevlar vests, and he’d said that the city council was still considering if it was a necessary expense. Evidently Officer Andrew Descartes had ordered the vest on his own. And unlike Jerry Oliver,
Descartes’s uniform was pressed and his brass polished.

  The trip to Lundy’s house covered only a few blocks, allowing Laura to get a feel for the third member of the Apalachicola PD. She ran down her plan.

  “Are we clear on that?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “You might think because the place is boarded up that this should be a cakewalk.”

  Before she could continue he said, “I don’t think that, ma’am.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was taught at the Academy you always need a plan. I mean, think about it, the bad guy might—have a plan. And if he does and you don’t, you could get yourself and others killed.” He came to a stop at an intersection, scanning the street with sharp eyes. “Besides, you know what you’re going to do, you practice it, then if things go bad on you, you’ll probl’y come out all right because you fell back on your training.”

  “You sure you feel up to this?” she asked. “Strep throat is nothing to fool around with.”

  “I’m fine. Those antibiotics kick major—they really do the job.”

  On Fifteenth Street now, he made a pass by the Lundy house. He didn’t slow down, didn’t give any hint that this was the house he was interested in, although his eyes missed nothing. He reached the end of the block, turned, and parked out of sight of the house. He turned off the engine, tapped the wheel with his fingers. Geared up.

  “Have you ever done this before?” she asked him.

  “No ma’am.”

  “I’m not worried,” she said. “Just trust your instincts.”

  Right now, her instincts told her that at least one member of the three-man Apalachicola Police Department wasn’t up for this. Even sick, Descartes looked like the better bet.

  She stepped out into the warm morning. The grass and hedges were still soggy with dew and the street was quiet—no one around. Good. A tickle of excitement in her own gut. Nervousness. Not unusual, but something to acknowledge. Mentally she took inventory: the Sig Sauer forty caliber under her blazer, the S&W nine millimeter in her boot, handcuffs tucked into the back pocket of her slacks. Flashlight. Pepper spray. Gloves.

  They walked up to the corner. An Apalachicola PD patrol car came up the street. To Laura’s dismay, it stopped right in front of Lundy’s house. Might as well be a flashing sign. Laura wasn’t surprised to see Jerry Oliver emerge from the driver’s side.