Names of Dead Girls, The

by Eric Rickstad

  70

  Bleary but wired, Rath sat at the kitchen table with Preacher’s envelope in his hand.

  One DNA test. He could have it done by an old friend in forensics with the state police. He’d know in a week. Easy.

  He put the envelope in his pocket and stood and looked at his .30-06, still sitting on the table from the other night when he hadn’t gotten to it.

  He set to breaking the rifle down to clean it.

  By 11:07 p.m. he’d managed to drink two beers but had only taken apart and laid out the carbine’s barrel, action tube assembly and action bar lock, the walnut forend and slide action when his phone buzzed.

  Grout.

  Shit. Rath kept forgetting.

  He picked up. Before he could say hello, Grout said, “Come clean, you’re breaking up with me, aren’t you? Found yourself a—”

  “I had a shit day.”

  “She was that ugly, eh?”

  “Pretty ugly. How about we meet tomorrow? Noon?”

  “Promise?”

  “Swear.”

  “Good, because we need to meet. I need to tell you a few things. Express myself. Bring chocolates and roses. I’m pretty pissed.”

  Rath ended the call.

  He was on a second Labatt Blue and had his .30-06’s trigger assembly and safety taken apart, and was looking on the kitchen floor on his hands and knees under the kitchen table for the damned sear spring that had sprung out from between his fingers, when his phone buzzed. Test.

  It was 11:54.

  Rath answered as he checked for the spring between the cracks in the floorboards.

  “The blood from Sheldon’s unit bathroom is contaminated by bleach. Of no use,” Test said. “Prints will take a while. The hair was easy, got one of Clark’s from a brush at her daughter’s. NH put a rush on it. It’s not Dana Clark’s. She wasn’t gray.”

  “Damn it,” Rath said. “Her DNA has to be in there somewhere. That ‘drunk wife’ Sheldon ‘helped’ inside. And those goddamn photos. That locks it. Maybe we’ll get a match of prints. Let’s hope.”

  Rath spotted the spring on the floor, reached for it. No. It wasn’t the spring. It was just a coil of dark thread. “Damn it,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Rath searched along the base of the kitchen counter. How did things just disappear like this? Where the hell was that spring?

  “NH’s forensics got a good sweep. Other fibers and hairs. If she was there, we can match her. Speaking of prints, Larkin wanted me to pass along we got no match in the FBI system or any system for the prints from our Quebecois copains. There’s an APB out for Sheldon and his vehicle across New England. The motel manager will call immediately if Sheldon returns.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Rath said.

  “It could. He doesn’t know we know. We came the second time because of what Glade said. It’s likely Sheldon killed Clark before we interviewed him the first time, yet he was still there. His clothes and belongings are still there. We put the place back in order. He paid for the whole week.”

  Rath’s back and knees ached from searching for the spring. He stood with a groan and searched from a standing position, a new, wider perspective.

  Still, nothing.

  “Where the hell is he then?”

  “Maybe he’s working on his next victim. Maybe you’re right and he’s long gone, in Milwaukee or Anchorage or Biloxi. Maybe he’s lost in this fog. But maybe, just maybe, he’ll be back.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Larkin did a complete background on Sheldon, his ex-wife, and his daughter. Sheldon’s tattoo, there’s something to it.”

  “Which tattoo?” Rath said. “The guy had more graffiti than a hick town water tower.”

  Rath gave up looking for the spring and sat at the table.

  “The one across the top of his chest,” Test said. “It said Angel. His daughter’s name is Angel. It was his daughter’s name.”

  “So he’s one of a million ink junkies who thinks getting a tattoo of his kid’s name, or worse, a hideous rendition of his kid’s face, proves how much he loves his kid instead it reeking of insecurity and bad taste.”

  “If anyone can justify having his daughter’s name tattooed across his chest, it’s Sheldon,” Test said. “His daughter was murdered. Raped and murdered. When she was fifteen.”

  “What?” Rath said. “When?”

  “Years ago. Before he robbed that place and killed the clerk. No one was ever arrested. But a neighbor who was a suspect killed himself soon after. No note, though; so no telling if it was actually him or not. There was no DNA to match. The rapist had doused the daughter’s entire body in bleach.”

  “Bleach? Like in Sheldon’s bathtub?”

  “I hate to even think anyone would do that to his own daughter. But we both know that’s not the world we live in. Sheldon’s life unraveled. He got divorced, lost his job. He told us he robbed that store out of desperation. That was true. He was broke, angry, suicidal, living in slummy digs.”

  “You think he killed his daughter? Maybe she was one of many?”

  “I don’t know anything. Except Sheldon had the Polaroids. No one else could have them except Dana Clark’s attacker. My guess is he had one seriously dark, secret life. And maybe he shared it with Preacher inside, and now they’re on a tear together.”

  “Larkin stay posted on Preacher all day?”

  “All day, poor kid. Preacher never moved. Mailman came and went. Neighbor. No Preacher.”

  “That it?” he said.

  “For now.”

  “Get back to your family.”

  “Are you kidding? They were all sleeping three hours ago.” She hung up.

  Rath stood and stretched, and felt it. He lifted his bare foot off the floor. There it was. The spring. Right underfoot.

  71

  Friday, November 11, 2011

  The Lamoille River, a torrent of mud, gouged at its banks as Rath and Grout sat on a rock outcrop. A massive chunk of earthen bank across the river calved and was claimed by the current. One wrong step into the water and you were dead, as sure as if you stepped in front of a logging truck going 100 mph.

  “So what is it?” Rath said. “I can’t help you with Barrons, getting your old gig back. Test deserves—”

  “Forget that. For now. I was digging around into our friend the prig, Boyd Pratt number three,” Grout said, “and mucking online regarding the Double Black Diamond. It’s a Starmont operation. That’s the parent company.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Rath said. He’d never stayed at a luxury hotel or resort, and he’d not been in a motel since before he’d adopted Rachel.

  “Starmont’s majority holder is Champlain Enterprises,” Grouts said.

  “OK.”

  “I asked myself, back when I first ran into Dipshit the Third at the Double Black Diamond, ‘Why is he here?’ I mean, the resort is pushing three hours from his estate on the lake. And a big step down to boot.”

  “Privacy,” Rath said. “He’s well known in his area and didn’t want to have the discussions at his estate.”

  “I chalked it up to that.”

  “But?”

  “Like I said, a major holder of Starmont, which owns Double Black Diamond, is Champlain Enterprises. And guess which prig’s family is behind Champlain?”

  “That’s why he did business there? It’s his resort. What am I not getting?”

  “Starmont owns a lot of resorts. Care to guess where their newest resort is?”

  “Jay Peak?”

  “Go north, my friend.”

  “You can’t go north, without—Canada.”

  “You win the big teddy bear. And not just anywhere in Canada. Guess where th—”

  “I’m not guessing.”

  “Quebec. Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. The Riverview. And one in Montreal. Old Montreal.”

  “Which one?” Adrenaline charged through Rath.

  Grout told Rat
h, though he didn’t need to; Rath knew.

  72

  Felix had just taken the shuttle up to campus for his morning work-study when Rachel ducked into the Lovin’ Cup for her caffeine fix and saw the man.

  He sat near the window, sipping tea and reading a book as she came in for a coffee before heading up the hill again. She needed a jolt to kick-start her. She was running on fumes.

  The man did not see her, immersed as he was in his book.

  As she moved ahead in the short line she watched him. She could not make out the cover of the book, a hardcover with a sort of foil wrap. The fingers of the hand in which the book rested were long and they stretched to cover most of the book’s spine. What was he doing here, in a college coffee shop on a weekday? Didn’t he work?

  “Go ahead,” a girl’s voice said as Rachel felt a nudge at her backpack, the handgun shifting.

  The line had moved forward.

  “Clare. Clare?” a barista said. A girl came and got a coffee and muffin at the end of the counter.

  Rachel stepped forward, her eyes on the man near the window.

  He was not that attractive, not really. But there was an air to him. Her earlier impression had been correct. A man of his age sitting in a coffee shop run and patronized by undergrads was out of place. If he were any other man, Rachel would have had one of two impressions of him: he was a poseur wannabe coffee shop artist who suffered delusion and did not recognize his age difference to those around him, saw himself as one of them, mentally and philosophically; or he was a creep. She got neither impression from this man. He was simply enjoying a tea and a book before he headed to wherever his day brought him. Which is where? Rachel wondered. Was he a visiting professor, a salesman? No. He was dressed too casually, worn jeans and a flannel shirt, although the shirt did have suede patches at the elbows.

  “Patrick,” a barista said. “Patrick. Order.”

  “Go ahead,” the girl behind Rachel said.

  Rachel stepped to the counter and ordered her Red Eye to go.

  She watched the man near the window as the cashier, a classmate of Rachel’s, said, “Fueling up before the lecture later?”

  The man peered up from the pages of his book. Instinctively, Rachel gave a slight wave, but the man seemed not to recognize her and went back to reading.

  Rachel felt slighted, and moronic. What did she expect, the man to leap out of his seat for a girl he’d offered to give a three-minute ride? If men of his age all seemed to look alike to her in a vague way, what must students Rachel’s age look like to him?

  Rachel went to the end of the counter to await her coffee.

  The man glanced at her again. Or did he? His eyes showed no recognition. Perhaps he was merely gazing at the menu above her, a blackboard scrawled with colorful chalks.

  “Your daily Red Eye,” her classmate said. Rachel took the cardboard coffee cup and slipped a corrugated cardboard sleeve onto it.

  When she turned to leave, the man was gone.

  73

  Outside, Rachel sipped her coffee, savoring its dark intensity as the caffeine revved in her bloodstream. It made her feel as if she were about to lift off her heels. As much as she mocked Felix for his beer obsession, Rachel was just as much a sucker for the dark hot brew.

  She headed to the shuttle shelter and spotted the man looking in a shop window up ahead.

  As Rachel passed by in the fog, she caught the man’s eye in the window reflection.

  He noticed her this time, no doubt about it.

  “Hi,” she said.

  The man turned from looking at backpacks and mountaineering gear in the Precipice Outdoor Shop.

  “Oh.” He squinted, as if mining his memory. “Apologies. I’m in a cloud.”

  “Cloud?”

  “Research.”

  “Are you a scientist or a professor or—”

  “Hardly. A layman.”

  “What kind of research?”

  “Of no consequence to anyone but myself, and perhaps my few subjects.”

  Rachel looked toward the shuttle shelter. She only had a few minutes to spare.

  “I’ll let you grab your shuttle.” The man started away.

  “What kind of research?”

  “It’s not appropriate to discuss with a young woman I don’t know; and certainly not something your boyfriend would be comfortable with me sharing.”

  “How do you know I have a boyfriend?” Rachel said.

  “I don’t know. I presume. You’re young. In college. And— You ought to catch your shuttle.”

  “And what?” Rachel said. “I’m young, in college, and—what?”

  “It’s of no importance. We don’t know each other. My research is private. Not a subject to just divulge to strangers outside coffee shops. It could be . . . misconstrued. And gauging by your answer, you do have a boyfriend, which would make my sharing doubly taboo.”

  Taboo? What in the world was this man researching?

  Whatever it was, Rachel’s pushiness was inappropriate. If a man were to press her when she clearly did not wish to be pressed, she’d have stalked off by now.

  “There’s the shuttle,” the man said and brushed past her, his arm just grazing hers as she saw the book in his hand, Deviants: Interviews.

  Rachel felt a rush of heat as she watched the man go.

  She hurried toward the shuttle, eager to see Felix.

  But she found herself peering after the man in the fog for a heartbeat more.

  74

  “I believe I have some insightful updates, if I may?” Larkin said as he reported to Rath and Test in Rath’s barren office.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Rath said.

  “Right. So. The update. We thought Preacher didn’t have a car. Or he had one hidden. Perhaps stolen. But he does have a car.”

  “What the hell, where?” Test said.

  “Right there, under our noses. The truck.”

  “That truck is registered to an Andrea Diamond.”

  “Right,” Larkin said. “Well, sitting there in the cruiser like that watching his road, I got itchy looking at the fog and that massive rock with the lone rose on it memorializing a car wreck. So. I started thinking about how Preacher got to Johnson, or across the border, if it’s him. I started searching deeper into this Andrea Diamond. I dug social media, checked her criminal history. The usual. She’s clean, as we found initially. But, then I hit it. A relative of hers is anything but clean. Her cousin. Clay Sheldon.”

  “Preacher is driving Sheldon’s cousin’s fucking car?” Rath said.

  “I didn’t see him drive it, but it’s sitting in his yard.”

  “Damn it,” Test said. “We need to check a lot deeper into her.”

  “I did,” Larkin said. “Immediately. I did not want to leave my post, so I tracked her down by phone at her work, Connecticut Valley Bank, she’s a teller. She says the car is in her name but the car is actually Sheldon’s. He’d asked her to register it in her name, as a favor. Gave her some line about not wanting two cars in his name, and he was going to trade it to a friend, anyway, so it would only be in her name for a week or so. She thought maybe it was sketchy, but she and Sheldon were those close cousins as kids, the ones tighter than siblings in some ways. She was his daughter’s godmother. She wanted to do something to help him out. Classic enabler, I suppose. Said it didn’t hurt her any.”

  “Trade the car for what?” Test said.

  Rath thought he knew. “We have reason to go pick Preacher up,” he said to Test. “He lied to you about the truck.”

  “Technically, he didn’t,” Test said. “He told me he didn’t own a car. He doesn’t. But. His MW affidavit will come through today. We’ll get him and haul him in.”

  “I did a deep dive into Pratt, too,” Larkin said. “His alibi checks out for Jamie Drake’s murder. He was at the library groundbreaking. No doubt. Airtight.”

  He brought up a local online newspaper on his laptop to show the photo of Pratt in requis
ite hardhat, pushing a shovel into the dirt with the heel of his Le Chameau as a small crowd of citizens circled round to witness the event.

  “And the time frame for the Quebec murder, he was at a conference in his hotel up there, with about a dozen other investors and business partners.”

  “The wife?” Test said. “She’s not in the photo for the groundbreaking.”

  “Probably just didn’t make the frame,” Larkin said.

  “Find out. Find out if she was up at the hotel with her husband when he had that conference, too. Look into her background. Dig. She’s a good fifteen years younger than Pratt. They’ve been together at least since they had their daughter who died, so Victoria was young when they met. Very young.” Test glanced at Rath just as a thought slipped through his mind, something to do with Victoria Pratt’s age. Or the age of her daughter. He could not seize it before it escaped.

  “Find out all about her and Pratt,” Test continued, “how they met, and where. What she did and who she was before she met her not-so-charming prince. Thank you, Officer Larkin. Check on her maiden name, too, as quick as possible,” Test said.

  “Won’t take a minute.” Larkin left Test’s office.

  It was more like a half hour before Larkin returned, but he was practically gamboling when he did. “Victoria Pratt. Maiden name: Legault.”

  “French,” Rath said.

  “French Canadian,” Larkin said. “She’s from a small town outside Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.”

  “Shit,” Rath said. Her accent, French Canadian, diluted from years of disuse in the States.

  “I need you to find out if she still has family up there. Old friends we could speak to,” Test said.

  “Done.”

  “You’re good,” Test said.

  Larkin nodded in a deflective manner. “Once I found she was from there, I did a quick search. Worked backward. Found her maiden name. From there, where she was born, parents, childhood hometown, schools. Her parents have lived in a small town a couple hundred miles north of Ottawa for twelve years. Her sister, Charlotte, lives in the house they grew up in. I have the address.”