Hello, Darkness

by Sandra Brown

  It would be a long afternoon, but the anticipation alone was delicious.

  Hurry, nightfall.

  chapter 9

  When Paris entered the room where they were waiting for her, Dean and the other two men stood up. They had convened in a small meeting room within the CIB that was ordinarily used to interview witnesses or question suspects. It was cramped quarters but confidentiality was assured.

  Curtis pulled a chair from beneath the table for Paris. She nodded her thanks to him and sat down. She was still wearing sunglasses. Dean could barely detect her eyes behind the dark gray lenses. He hated to speculate as to why she never removed them.

  “I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient for you to come back downtown,” Curtis said to her.

  “I got here as quickly as I could.”

  In unison they all looked at the wall clock. It was coming up on two P.M. None needed to be reminded that twelve hours of Valentino’s deadline had already expired.

  The detective motioned to the third man in the room. “This is John Rondeau. John, Paris Gibson.”

  She leaned forward and extended her hand across the table. “Mr. Rondeau.”

  As they shook hands, he said, “A pleasure, Ms. Gibson. I’m a huge fan.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I listen to you all the time. It’s a real honor to meet you.”

  Dean drew a bead on the officer, whom he had met only minutes before Paris’s arrival. Rondeau was young, trim, and good looking. A weight lifter, from the looks of his biceps. His face was lit up like a Christmas tree as he gazed at Paris. Plainly, like the rookie Griggs, Rondeau was instantly infatuated with her.

  Dean suspected that Sergeant Curtis was, too. They’d gone to lunch at Stubb’s. The Austin landmark, famous for its barbecue, beer, and live music, was only a few blocks from police headquarters. They’d walked.

  During the lunch period there was no band playing in the amphitheater beneath the live oaks out back, but hungry state capitol personnel and downtown office workers lined up by the dozens to order cuts of smoked meat slathered with fiery sauce.

  Opting to not wait for a table, he and Curtis had ordered chopped beef sandwiches and had taken them out onto the wood porch, where they stood in the shade to eat.

  Dean had expected Curtis to ask him about Paris, but he’d thought the detective’s approach would be subtle. Instead Curtis had dug into his sandwich, then asked him bluntly, “What’s with you and Paris Gibson? Old flames?”

  Maybe it was Curtis’s candor that made him such a crackerjack investigator. He caught suspects off guard. Striving for nonchalance, Dean took a bite of his sandwich before answering. “More like water under the bridge.”

  “Lots of water, I’m guessing.”

  Dean continued chewing.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?” the detective probed.

  Dean wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Curtis nodded as though to say, Fair enough. “You married?”

  “No. You?”

  “Divorced. Going on four years.”

  “Kids?”

  “One of each. They live with their mother.”

  “Has your wife remarried?”

  Curtis took a drink of iced tea. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  They’d left it at that and moved the conversation back to the case, which actually wasn’t a case yet, but which they feared would become one. But now Dean knew that Curtis was single, and the detective never let pass an opportunity to treat Paris to some show of chivalry.

  Paris elicited that kind of attention from men. In all the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her play the coquette. She didn’t simper. She didn’t flirt or deliberately draw attention to herself or dress provocatively. It wasn’t anything she did. It was something she was.

  One glance at her and you wished you had a long time to study her. Her figure wasn’t voluptuous like Liz’s. In fact, hers was rather angular and boyish, and she was taller than average. Her hair, light brown streaked with several shades of blond, always looked slightly mussed, which was certainly sexy, he supposed. But that alone wasn’t enough to rouse male interest.

  Maybe it was her mouth. Women got painful collagen injections to achieve that pout. Paris had come by it genetically. Or was it her eyes? God knows they were pretty damn spectacular. Blue and fathomless, they invited you to dive in and splash around, see if you could ever plumb their depths. Not that you could tell anything about her eyes now, hidden as they were behind the sunglasses.

  Young John Rondeau didn’t seem to mind, though. He was practically transfixed.

  “Have you learned something else since this morning?” she asked.

  “Yes, but we don’t know how significant it is.” She had posed the question to Curtis, but by answering, Dean forced her to look at him, which she had studiously avoided doing since she entered the room. “We’re here to discuss its validity.”

  Curtis chimed in, “Rondeau works in our computer crimes unit.”

  “I don’t understand,” Paris said. “How do computer crimes relate to what you requested of me?”

  “We’ll get to that,” the detective replied. “I know it appears to have no relevance, and maybe it doesn’t.”

  “On the other hand,” Dean said, “it could all tie in together. That’s what we’re trying to determine. Are those the cassettes?” He gestured at the canvas tote she had carried in along with her handbag.

  “Yes. The Vox Pro holds one thousand minutes of recorded material.”

  “So when a call comes in, it’s automatically recorded?” Curtis asked. “That’s how you screen calls, keep people from shouting obscenities to your audience?”

  She smiled. “Some have tried. That’s why each call is recorded. I then have the option of saving it and playing it on the air, or deleting it.”

  “How do you transfer the recordings onto cassette?” Dean asked.

  “It isn’t easy. As a favor to me, one of the engineers figured out a way. Periodically, he dumps—his term, not mine—the recordings off the Vox Pro computer onto cassettes for me.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged self-consciously. “Nostalgia, maybe. The more interesting conversations could also be useful if I ever put together a demo tape.”

  “Well, whatever your reasons for saving them, I’m glad you have them now,” Curtis told her.

  “I hope you understand that you lose quality in the duplication process,” she said. “These tapes won’t be as clear as the original.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dean said. “Quality might become an issue later if a voice print becomes necessary. But right now all we want to know is if the call Valentino referenced was real or a fabrication.

  “That’s why we asked to hear the calls you received during the past week. If there was such a call, and if hearing it on your program lighted Valentino’s fuse, then we need to trace that call to the woman who placed it.”

  “If it’s not too late,” she murmured.

  Judging by the expressions around the table, everyone in the room echoed her grim thought.

  “Can you remember a call similar to the one Valentino described?” Curtis asked her.

  “Possibly. I’ve been thinking about it since our conversation this morning. I got a call three nights ago. As I was driving here, I listened to it on the cassette player in my car. I marked the cassette and cued the call.”

  Dean found the marked cassette among the others in the bag, inserted it into the machine, and pressed Play.

  This is Paris.

  Hi, Paris.

  What’s on your mind tonight, caller?

  Well, see, I met this guy a few weeks ago. And we really hit it off. I mean, it’s been hot, hot, hot between us. (A giggle.) Sorta exotic.

  That’s probably all the detail we need on a family show.

  (Another giggle from the caller.) But I like being with other guys, too. So now he�
��s getting jealous all the time. Possessive, you know?

  Do you want to take the relationship to another level?

  You mean like do I love him? Hell, no. The whole thing has been about fun. That’s it.

  Perhaps not to him.

  Then that’s his problem. I just don’t know what to do about him.

  If you feel that the relationship is constricting, you probably shouldn’t be in it. My advice is to make the break as quick and painless as possible. It would be cruel to string him along when your heart is no longer in it.

  Okay, thanks.

  “That’s all,” Paris said. “She hung up.”

  Dean switched off the recorder. For several moments there was a heavy silence, then everyone began talking at once. Curtis pointed to Paris, giving her the floor.

  “I was just going to say that this call may have absolutely no connection to Valentino. It was a rather silly conversation. I only put her on the air because she was so animated. I gathered from her voice that she was young. My audience are mostly baby boomers. I’ve wanted to expand it to include the younger crowd, so when a call from someone obviously younger comes in, I generally use it.”

  “Did you get the phone number?”

  “I checked the Vox Pro. The caller ID said ‘unavailable.’ ”

  “Did other listeners respond to your conversation with her?”

  “You’ll hear a few on the tape. Several offered interesting advice on how she should handle the breakup. Others I thanked for calling but didn’t put them on the air and deleted their calls from the Vox Pro.

  “I don’t remember talking to anyone else this week about a breakup, even off the air. But I talk to dozens of people every night. My memory isn’t one hundred percent.”

  “Do you mind if we keep these tapes for a while?” Curtis asked.

  “They’re yours. I had duplicates made.”

  “I think I’ll have someone listen to all—how many hours is it?”

  “Several, I’m afraid. I went back three weeks. That’s fifteen nights on the air, but of course I delete more calls than I save.”

  “I’ll have someone listen, see if there’s a similar call that’s slipped your mind.”

  “Did Valentino call in response?” Dean asked.

  “That night, you mean? No. He always identifies himself by name. Last night was the first time I’d heard from him in a while. I’m definite on that.”

  Curtis stood up. “Thank you, Paris. We appreciate your help. I hope coming back downtown wasn’t too much of an imposition.”

  “I’m as concerned as you are.”

  Apparently, he intended to escort her out, but she remained seated. Curtis hesitated. “Is there something else?”

  Dean knew why Paris was reluctant to leave. Her news-gathering instinct had kicked in. She wanted the full story and didn’t want to stop until she had it. “I’m guessing she’d like to know what’s going on,” he said.

  “I would, yes,” she said with a nod.

  Curtis hedged. “It’s really a police matter.”

  “For you it is. But it’s a personal matter to me, Sergeant. Especially if Valentino turns out to be someone I know. I feel responsible.”

  “You’re not,” Dean said, speaking more sharply than he intended. Everyone looked toward him. “If he’s for real, he’s a psychopath. He would be doing something like this whether or not he talks to you on the radio.”

  Curtis agreed. “He’s right, Paris. If this guy is wound as tight as he sounds, he would’ve snapped sooner or later.”

  Rondeau said, “You’re just providing him with a forum, Ms. Gibson.”

  “And because of that, you’re our only link to him.” Dean looked over at Curtis where he still stood beside her chair. “That’s why I think she has a right to know the leads we’re following.”

  Curtis frowned, but he resumed his seat. Then he looked directly at Paris and, with his characteristic bluntness, stated, “We might have a missing girl.”

  “ ‘Might’?”

  Dean watched her while she listened to Curtis’s summary of what Griggs had told them about Judge Baird Kemp’s daughter. He already knew the facts, so he was able to tune them out and concentrate on Paris, who was hanging on every word.

  Obviously she had cultivated a sizable radio audience, but he wondered if she missed her TV news reporting. Like greasepaint for a stage actor, didn’t it get into a person’s blood?

  She’d been a natural, earning the viewers’ confidence with her solid and impartial reporting. She’d been smart enough to know that if she was too cutesy or glamorous they would regard her as an airhead who had probably slept her way into her job. Taken to the other extreme, she would’ve been thought of as a ball-breaking bitch with penis envy.

  Paris had struck the perfect balance. She had been as aggressive a reporter as any of her male counterparts, but without any sacrifice to her femininity. She could’ve taken her career as far as she chose to take it.

  If only.

  Her soft exclamation brought him back into the present. “This girl hasn’t been seen or heard from for almost twenty-four hours, and her parents are just now becoming worried?”

  Dean said, “Hard to believe, isn’t it? They haven’t formally notified the police, so Janey’s disappearance isn’t official. But there’ve been no other missing persons reported. It’s a long shot, but it’s a coincidence that Curtis and I thought we should investigate.”

  She quickly connected the dots. “And if it turned out that this caller was the judge’s daughter—”

  “That’s why we asked for the tapes,” Dean said. “Did she give you her name?”

  “Unfortunately, no. You heard the recording. And the name doesn’t ring a bell. If I’d recently heard the name Janey, or Kemp, which is more unusual, I think I would remember. Besides, isn’t this a stretch? It’s an awfully broad coincidence on which to base an investigation.”

  “We thought so, too. Until we heard about this Internet club. The Sex Club.”

  “The what?”

  Rondeau came to life. “That’s where I come in.” He glanced at Curtis as if asking permission to continue.

  Curtis shrugged. “Go ahead. It’s not as if she couldn’t find out for herself.”

  Rondeau launched into his description. “The website has been online for a couple of years. Janey Kemp was one of the . . . founders, I guess you’d say. It started out as a message board where local teens could communicate, more or less anonymously. Using only their user names and email addresses.

  “Over time the messages got more explicit, the subject matter racier, until the purpose of it has evolved into what it is now, which is, basically, an Internet personals column. They flirt via cyberspace.”

  “Flirt?” Dean scoffed. “The messages they exchange are more like foreplay.”

  The younger cop said, “I didn’t want to offend Ms. Gibson.”

  “She’s a grown-up and this isn’t Sunday school.” Dean looked at her directly. “The Sex Club’s sole purpose is to solicit sex. Kids post messages advertising what they’ve done and what they’re willing to do with the right partner. If they want more privacy with someone, they enter chat rooms and talk dirty to each other. Here’s a sample.” He opened a folder and removed the sheet he’d printed off the computer in Curtis’s office.

  She scanned it, registering her dismay. When she looked up, she said, “But these are kids.”

  “High school mostly,” Rondeau told her. “They congregate at a designated spot each night. It’s a huge swap meet.”

  Curtis said, “Part of the fun, it seems, is trying to match individuals with their user names, see if you can figure out who’s who.”

  “And if a couple who’ve been chatting over the Internet find each other, they have sex,” Dean said.

  “Or not,” Rondeau said, correcting him. “Sometimes they don’t like what they see. The other person doesn’t live up to expectations. Or someone better comes along in the meanti
me. No one’s obligated to follow through.”

  “The computer crime guys discovered the website,” Curtis said, “and since most of the users are minors, they brought it to the attention of the child abuse unit, which investigates sex offenses against children and child pornography, which falls under the auspices of the CIB.” He folded his arms across his stocky torso. “It’s a bleed-over investigation, meaning we can put a lot of people on it.”

  “That’s the good news,” Rondeau said. “The bad news is that stopping it is virtually impossible.”

  Paris was shaking her head with incredulity. “Let me make sure I understand. Girls like Janey Kemp go to a designated place and meet up with strangers whom they’ve teased, via the Internet, into believing they’ll have sex.”

  “Right,” Rondeau said.

  “Are they insane? Don’t they realize the risk they’re taking? If they meet their chat room partner, who turns out to be less than a Brad Pitt, and say, ‘No thanks,’ they’re placing themselves at the mercy of a man whom they’ve inflamed and who is . . . disappointed, to say the least.”

  “They’re hardly at anyone’s mercy, Ms. Gibson,” the young cop said quietly. “We’re not talking nuns here. These are party girls. They frequently charge the men for their favors.”

  “They ask for money?”

  “Not ask. Demand,” Rondeau told them. “And they get it. Plenty of it.”

  This information stunned them into silence. Eventually Curtis said, “What troubles us, Paris, beyond the obvious, is that anybody who applies for membership in this so-called club gets it. Getting a password and access to this website requires only a few clicks of a mouse. That means any sexual predator, any deviate, would know where to go to look for his next victim.”

  “What’s more,” Dean said, “his victim would probably go with him willingly. He’d have to put forth very little effort.”

  “This is alarming whether or not it has a connection to Valentino,” she said.