“As soon as you finish there, I want you to head down to Hartland and talk to the bartenders at Skunk Hollow. Show them Sherry’s picture and see what they remember. I’m writing you directions there as well,” Ken said.
Ken handed me a sheet of paper. “I’m going to stick with Lillian. If it’s okay, we’ll stay here while I make some phone calls. I need to call a contact at the Secret Service. They’ve got a high tech guy I know who can tell us the general location of a cell phone. If Sherry had her phone with her on Saturday, we may be able to zero in on her location.”
“What if she didn’t make any calls?” I asked.
It doesn’t matter. Cell phones like BlackBerrys that access internet networks leave behind an electronic trail of their whereabouts even when no one is talking on them. When the phone is in range of a cell phone tower, they can pinpoint the location, Ken explained. “We used this analysis to find a murder suspect right before I retired from the department.”
“There aren’t many towers up here,” Brett said. Will that be a problem?”
“Maybe it’ll be helpful. If the phone is reaching out to a tower, we can trace her path. We’ll know that Sherry passed that way. Maybe we’ll know where to search. Lillian, I will drive you to the gas station at five. When will you have the rest of the money?”
“Not until tomorrow morning. If you are with me at the gas station, they’ll think you’re a policeman.”
“Don’t worry about that. You’ll sit in the back and explain that you hired a car and a driver. Maybe they won’t want to risk two meetings. If we can buy a little time, we may be able to find Sherry before any money drop, but we need more than that photo on your phone. I want you to demand to speak to Sherry today. Okay everyone let’s get busy,” Ken said. Everyone write down your cell phone numbers so we keep in touch.”
Sam had sauntered into the room. Everyone was so occupied that they didn’t notice him. I grabbed his collar and pulled him out with me to the car. Nothing like having a big German shepherd with you to scare away almost anyone.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
SHERRY’S STORY
Sherry tossed and turned almost the whole night Friday, turning her bed into something that looked like a crumpled piece of paper. Saturday morning she would follow Conrad’s detailed instructions, and they would leave for his farm and the whole weekend together.
She had her carryon bag packed and ready with the new lingerie she had splurged on; black bra and panties and a short black teddy. Of course, she was taking jeans and a sweater and hiking boots for hanging out at the farm.
It felt strange to be going away without telling her roommate or friends or anyone about where she would be. Mary scared her a little saying they should get a background check of Conrad. She really didn’t know much about him, but a background check sounded like what her mother would want. Maybe if her dad were alive she would have told him about Conrad. He had been poor once and he wasn’t as much into being socially correct. But he wasn’t alive and he had screwed up his own life. Why couldn’t she trust her own instincts? She was an adult.
Yesterday she had actually Googled Conrad Peters, Vermont, and gotten back no hits in New England; just some in California and New York, but they were much older. If he was a criminal, there should have been something in his Google file. She felt stupid for even trying to get information on him.
At six she got up and dressed and put her cologne and cosmetics in her backpack along with her wallet and cell phone. She was about to walk out the door when her roommate, Madison, called out.
“What time is it, Sherry? Why are you up?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s six thirty. Go back to sleep.”
“Where are you going/”
“I told you yesterday. I want to catch the first Dartmouth coach this morning.”
“Why are you going to Boston?”
“I already told you. You’ll remember when you’re awake. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you Sunday night.” She walked out quickly before Madison asked more questions.
After coffee and a roll at the cafeteria at the Hopkins Center, she went out to the coach stop. A large crowd of students and a few visitors were gathered already even though the bus wasn’t due for another twenty minutes. There was always a crowd on Saturday morning, students and professors going to Boston for the weekend. Sometimes people doing business with the college during the week left on Saturday. The coach connected to Logan Airport as well as downtown Boston.
She glanced at the crowd hoping not to see anyone she knew. She saw two freshman girls she knew slightly from lacrosse practices, but they didn’t notice her.
Conrad and she had planned carefully. She would mingle with the crowd as if she were getting on the bus. Conrad would pull his truck up at the last minute across the street and while everyone was loading on the bus she’d run across to his truck and they’d be on their way. She felt like a character in a mystery novel. It was so secret. She shivered a little.
“Ms. Yarmouth, are we to have your company on the trip to Boston?”
Sherry whirled around. It was Professor Roden, her art history teacher.
“Did I scare you? Sorry,” he said. Can I help you with your bag?”
“No, thanks, I can handle it.” He was the last person she wanted to see. He was an old fart, who was always coming on to the female students. Just then an older woman came up and took his arm, leading him over to a group of faculty.
Sherry turned her attention to the street. Conrad’s truck was nowhere in sight. The air was brisk and she shivered again. Within minutes the bus pulled up and the driver disembarked. He opened the luggage compartment and then began his standard announcements.
“If you have a ticket, I’ll take it after you’re seated on the bus. If you need to purchase your ticket you must do so when we stop at the main terminal in Lebanon before we start the trip to Boston. Our only other stop will be in New London to take on passengers if there are still seats. We’ll start boarding as soon as all baggage is loaded. Please form a line now.”
Sherry mingled with the passengers who soon started boarding the bus. Still no sign of Conrad. Maybe he changed his mind and was going to stand her up.. In a few minutes everyone was on board.
“Are you getting on, Miss?” the driver was speaking to her. “We’re about to leave. Are you okay, Miss?”
She realized she must have looked close to tears. “I’m waiting for a friend, so go ahead,” she said.
“Well, suit yourself. Haven’t got all day, you know.” The driver hoisted himself up the steps and shut the door.
Just then Sherry saw Conrad’s black pickup pull into a space across the street. She grabbed her bag and bolted across to meet him.
“Hi, you’re late. I thought maybe you weren’t coming,” she said as she jumped into the truck, throwing her bag and backpack into the space behind the seat. She leaned over to kiss him. He brushed her lips lightly and stepped on the gas jolting her back against the seat.
“Well, that was some greeting. Aren’t you glad to see me?” She looked at Conrad who looked straight ahead.
“Sure, I am. I just need to get back to the farm. Morning chores you know.”
He headed on to the freeway. He was driving very fast and Sherry thought she smelled alcohol on his breath.
“Have you been drinking this morning?” she asked.
“What’s this? Are you the alcohol police? No, I had a few beers last night. I just need to concentrate on driving. Why don’t you listen to your I-Pod or something.”
Sherry reached in her backpack and took out her headphones and turned up the volume. Maybe Conrad was just nervous, she thought.
They headed onto Route Four and passed through a village. “Can we stop at that market for some coffee?” Sherry asked.
“No, I told you I need to get back.” Conrad barked at her.
They passed through the village and he pulled onto a dirt road. He pulled ov
er on the shoulder. She could see an old house down the road. Conrad honked his horn. She saw two people running towards the truck.
“Get the blindfold on her,” a woman’s voice yelled.
Conrad pulled her towards him by her shoulders and tried to tie a piece of dark cloth around her eyes. Sherry screamed and began to fight him. She scratched his face and he screamed at her. “You bitch, stop it.”
Then she saw an old woman and a young man at the passenger door. They opened the door and the woman came toward her. Sherry saw her white hair and faded blue eyes. The woman pushed something over her nose and mouth.. That face was the last thing she remembered about being in Conrad’s truck.
Sherry awoke to a strange feeling. Her head throbbed. She couldn’t remember where she was. She tried to turn over, but something held her back. She couldn’t move and her wrists hurt. Suddenly she remembered being in Conrad’s truck. She could hear voices. She couldn’t see anything. Now she realized her hands and feet were tied together and something was covering her eyes. She tried to scream but nothing came out. This must be a bad dream. She strained to hear what the voices were saying.
“You dimwit, all you had to do was get the blindfold on her and you screwed that up. You are the dumbest bastard I ever did see.” It was that same gravelly voice of the woman Sherry had seen.
“Oh, shut up, Francie. I got her here, didn’t I? I guess I’m not so dumb. Without me, you wouldn’t have your prize in sight.” Sherry thought she recognized Conrad’s voice.
“Stop arguing. We’ve got to work together here. Let’s go through her stuff and plan the phone call. Mom, do you know what to say when you reach Sherry’s mother?”
“You’re right, Otis, honey. We’ll go over it again,” the woman said.
“Whew, Pauly, look at that silk underwear. Looks like you missed some hot fucks,” the young guy she called Otis was talking. But who was Pauly? In a minute she knew. She heard Conrad answer. He hadn’t even given his real name. What an idiot she was. Oh, my God, she had been having sex with a criminal of some kind.
“I fucked her a bunch of times already,” Pauly said.
“Hey, there’s two hundred bucks in her wallet. That’s a start, ain’t it?” And here’s a real nice cell phone. Can we use it?”
“Quit worrying about this chicken feed. We need to think about how we’ll get rid of her.” It was the woman’s voice.
“What do you mean, get rid of her?” Conrad/Pauly sounded confused.
“You didn’t think we was going to just give her back to her folks, did you? She saw us, you moron. She can identify you for sure and now I think she saw me, too.”
“But I thought the whole idea was to get the money so we wouldn’t have to stay around here anymore. You and Otis are the ones in big trouble, so quit calling me a moron. You said we were just going to steal some stuff,” Pauly said, “not kill anybody.”
“The plan is to get enough money to get out of here. Don’t think you’re not in trouble, Paul. You were with us before and you’re with us now, so let’s do what we gotta do.”
Sherry tried to scream again. She felt a prick in her arm. Then she felt herself falling into the black abyss of a drug induced sleep..
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
I drove to the Dartmouth Coach terminal following the directions written out by Ken. I found the turn into Etna Road, but then drove past the terminal and had to find a driveway or street to turn around in. “Damn these narrow roads,” I yelled to no one in particular. After going a mile out of the way and turning the Explorer back the way I had just come, I finally saw the terminal. A bus had just pulled in under the portico and passengers were piling off carrying shopping bags, small cases, and laptops.
I fought my way through the crowd and into the terminal, and found myself in a compact waiting room. There was a counter with one woman behind it. I pulled out the picture of Sherry from my handbag and approached the woman.
“Good afternoon. I wonder if you can help me with some information. I’m an attorney from Florida and I’m trying to find a family friend who seems to be missing. She may have taken the early coach to Boston on Saturday morning. I’d like to speak to the driver as soon as possible.” I handed her my card along with the photo of Sherry. “This is her picture. Did she come in here Saturday?”
“Hard to say,” the woman responded. “What’s her name? There should be a ticket receipt in our file. Wait, you said Saturday morning early? The driver who just pulled up may be the one you’re looking for. Hold on a second.” She rummaged through a file box and pulled out a card. “Yes, here it is, Hiram Grady. He’s one of our best. Been driving for us almost eleven years. Let me get him before he takes off. Oh, he just drove the bus around to the parking area. I’ll walk out there with you.”
The woman came around from behind the counter and moved to the side door. I followed her. “This is so nice of you to help me catch up with your driver,” I said, as we jogged to the area behind the terminal
“Not at all. Glad to help,” she said.
We approached the bus and the woman knocked on the exit door to get the driver’s attention. He opened the door immediately, and stepped onto the step. “Something wrong, Ellie?”
“Well, this attorney wants a word with you before you scoot out of here,” she said.
“An attorney? Am I in trouble?” Hiram laughed.
“Definitely not, Mr. Grady,” I said. “I need to ask you about a passenger on your bus early Saturday morning.”
“Please call me Hiram. Everyone does.” Hiram stepped out of the bus and stood next to me.
“This is a picture of the young woman I’m trying to locate. She’s a Dartmouth student. Do you have any recollection of her getting on the bus early Saturday?”
Hiram looked at the picture for a minute. “Well, I’ll be darned. I do remember her all right. She was acting very odd. Waited with the other passengers at the coach stop on the campus, but she never got on the bus. She kept looking around like she was waiting for someone. I asked her was she going to get on the bus or not, and she said she was waiting for a friend. Then just as I was going to pull out, I saw her run across the street to a truck that pulled in. I waited a second because I thought maybe they were going to rush back to the bus, like maybe the friend was late getting there, but she jumped in the truck and they took off real fast.”
“Could you see who was in the truck? Can you describe the truck?”
“I saw a man in the driver’s seat. Couldn’t see if there was anyone else. Didn’t really get much of a look at the guy. I think he had kind of long hair. The truck was your regular black pickup, old, kind of dirty, maybe a Dodge or a Chevy.”
“Did you see a license number or what state it was from?”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t look that close. The girl seemed kind of upset.”
“Anything else you can remember?”
“No, not really. Well, wait a minute. There were some professors on the bus. They took the seats right behind me. I must have said something about the girl changing her mind, and that I waited for her to get on board and she held up our departure for nothing. I have a great record for being on time unless there’s a traffic mess-up.”
“So what was it you remembered?” Ellie asked.
“Well, this one professor said something like, ‘yeah, that –I think he said-Yarmouth girl. She’s been acting strange since her father was murdered.’ That’s why I remembered because he said something about a murder.”
“Thank you, Hiram. You’ve been very helpful. This girl’s family has been through a lot. I may need to come back and see you again. How can I reach you?”
Hiram scribbled his phone number on the back of my card. I rushed back to my car just as my cell phone rang.
“Mary, its Brett. I just finished going through Sherry’s desk and dresser.”
“Well, I just finished talking to a bus driver who remembers Sherry from Saturday morning. I’ll fill you
in, but what about Sherry’s phone. Was it there?”
“No, and Madison reminded me that if we had been calling Sherry, Madison would have heard Sherry’s cell ringing, so she does have it with her.”
“That means Ken’s Secret Service guy can give us some help.”
“I did find something that may help us. I found a photo of Sherry and some guy. I showed it to Madison. She said she didn’t know him. Then I asked her about going to Skunk Hollow with Sherry. That helped her remember the guy in the picture. She said she and several others went down there when they finished the summer semester. She said Sherry not only talked to the guy in the picture, she also ended up leaving with him. Madison drove Sherry’s car back to campus that night.” Brett sounded excited.
“Listen, Brett, let’s meet down at Skunk Hollow. Bring the picture. Maybe someone down there can tell us who this guy is and where he lives. I’ll meet you there in half an hour, if I don’t get lost.”
I was studying Ken’s directions, while I gave Sam a quick walk outside the bus terminal, when the phone rang again.
“Mary, it’s Dash. I thought you might stop at the office this afternoon to get everything you need for court tomorrow.”
“Hi, Dash. I think I have everything I need. I’m a little distracted right now. I’m trying to help my friend from Miami. Can I call you later?”
“Sure. I tried to reach Ken, but his wife said he was out helping with some investigation.”
“He’s actually helping me, Dash. Why don’t I call you later, or stop by. I really can’t talk right now.”
“Sure, Mary. If I can help, please call on me.”
I clicked off and started the drive to Hartland. I was hopeful that we wouldn’t be too late to get Sherry back. If my mother were here she would tell me to pray. I was more into relying on cell phone technology.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
The roads to Skunk Hollow were ablaze in color. Some of the leaves here were still on the trees and the higher elevation seemed to make the colors sharper. I wondered if there were any ugly roads or freeways in this state.
Barbara Levenson - Mary Magruder Katz 03 - Outrageous October Page 12
