Dancing in the Dark (28 page)

“Anthony’s camera isn’t here,” said Diane glumly. “He had it with
him tonight at the concert.”

“All right,” said Matthew. “Don’t worry. This card will fit into one of the slots in my computer.” He
started toward the door. “It’s at my motel. I’ll go get it.”

“Wait a minute,” Carlos piped up. “No need for that. My laptop’s
downstairs. Let’s go and stick this baby in. With a few mouse clicks,
we’ll be viewing every photo Anthony stored on this memory card.”

Anthony knew that once the flash went off, he’d have to run like the
devil. Willing himself to be calm, he pushed the shutter-release button
halfway down to set the focus and exposure. He inhaled as he pressed
the button the rest of the way to take the picture. Then, the flash.

In one swift movement, Anthony turned and scrambled away, holding
the camera tight, knowing he was being chased. But he knew he had the
advantage of surprise and the speed of youth on his side.

He had almost reached the opening that would lead him out to the
beach when he tripped over a rusty tin can.

At the Dancing Dunes, the group was gathered around the desk in the
reception area. Carlos was sliding the memory card into a slot in his
laptop when Kip came bounding through the front door.

“Whoa, the joint was jumping at Club Paradise tonight,” he said
breathlessly. “Carlos, I should have insisted you come with me to
Asbury Park instead of staying in to do that dreary paperwork.” Kip
stopped short as he took in the worried expressions on all their faces.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

Carlos explained that Anthony was missing.

“Sweet Jesus, no.” Kip was immediately sober. “What’s going on in
this town? I stopped on my way home at the 7-Eleven to pick up a quart
of half-and-half for breakfast in the morning and I heard that another
girl went missing tonight.”

As he fell forward, the camera slipped from Anthony’s hand.
Frantically, he tried to get up while scanning the darkened area. There
it was. The shining metal package that held the proof of what he had
just witnessed.

It took only a second to reach down for the camera, but it was all
that was needed for the ski-jacketed figure to catch up to him and grab
hold of his ankle.

When the police arrived at Owen Messinger’s house, there wasn’t a
single light burning in any of the windows. After repeated ringing and
knocking, the front porch light switched on and the therapist answered
the door.

“Yes?” he asked, pulling closed the belt on his robe and squinting
as his eyes adjusted to the light. “What is it?”

“Dr. Messinger? Dr. Owen Messinger?”

“Yes.”

“It’s our understanding that a young woman named Anna Caprie is a
patient of yours.”

“That’s right.”

“And that she had an appointment with you tonight?”

“Yes,” Owen answered. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

“Ms. Caprie hasn’t come home, and her parents are worried. You don’t
mind if we come in and have a look around, do you, Dr. Messinger?”

“This is ridiculous but, sure, why not? I have nothing to hide.”

Owen stood back and let the men enter. They walked through the
rooms, upstairs and down, opening closet doors, checking behind the
shower curtain and under the beds, until they came back again to the
entry hall.

“Satisfied?” the doctor asked with sarcasm in his voice, never
expecting they would ask that he escort them outside and open the trunk
of his car.

“Who knows you’re here?”

Anthony cowered as he heard the desperation in his captor’s voice.
If he told the truth, that no one knew where he’d gone, he didn’t know
if it would hurt him or help him. So he said nothing.

“Who have you told about this place?”

Again, Anthony didn’t answer.

“All right, kid. Have it your way.”

As Anthony watched the sharp, gleaming metal coming toward him, he
suddenly found his voice.

With a few clicks, Carlos had the first of the memory card’s
pictures up on the computer screen. There were shots taken before the
family had come to Ocean Grove. Pictures of Anthony’s friends,
immediately recognizable landmarks in Central Park, a couple of shots
of a homeless man who sometimes camped out on Seventy-fourth Street
until the police shooed him away. Diane recognized herself in the
picture Anthony had taken the night before they left. She winced at the
memory of scolding him because she was annoyed that he’d brought the
camera to the dinner table.

“Why don’t we skip down a bit?” Matthew suggested. “Get to the stuff
taken here in Ocean. Grove.”

Anthony had been busy, snapping pictures at the beach of kids riding
boogie boards, flying kites, and building sand castles. There were
close-up shots of tiny sand crabs and a gutted fish. Diane smiled in
spite of herself as she viewed the shot Anthony had captured of a
teenage girl whose bathing-suit top had come undone by a crashing wave.

“Wait a minute,” she said as Carlos brought up the next photo.
“What’s that?”

Filling the computer screen was a picture of a man curled up and
lying in the sand.

“Can you zoom in on it so we can see it better?” Matthew asked.

A few more mouse clicks brought the man’s profile into clear view.
That, and the military fatigue jacket, nailed the identification.

“That’s Arthur Tomkins,” said Diane. “I recognize him from his
picture in the
Asbury Park Press
article.
What was Anthony doing? Where was he that he took this picture?”

Emily piped up. “He’s been taking walks up the beach. I know he’s
wanted to get away from us girls, so I’d let him go for a little while.
He must have taken this picture on one of those walks.”

Next up came more pictures taken on the beach and then a long shot
of a dilapidated and decaying brick building.

“That’s the Casino,” Carlos said before clicking onward.

Pictures of an eerie world popped up on the screen. An empty stage,
moss-covered bleachers, and rusted chandeliers. Then a shot of the
counter at the deserted refreshment stand.

“Anthony must have gone inside the Casino,” observed Kip. “Remember
that time we sneaked in there to see what it was like, Carlos?”

“Yeah, that’s it, all right.” Carlos went to the next picture.

The screen was filled with a yellow blanket. A discarded magazine
and dark red ski jacket lay on top of the blanket next to a white
Styrofoam picnic cooler.

“Next shot,” said Matthew.

The cooler was open. A couple of cans of soda, an orange, and a box
of saltines. There was also a package.

“Can you zoom in on that, Carlos?”

Matthew let out a low whistle. “So that’s where he got them,” he
said.

“Got what?” Diane asked sharply.

“The other night, when we were playing miniature golf, Anthony
showed me a set of flex cuffs. He told me that he had gotten them from
a friend whose father was a cop.”

Diane shook her head. “He doesn’t have any friends whose fathers are
cops.”

“Okay, so now we know Anthony has been in the Casino. But who left
those flex cuffs there?” Matthew mused aloud.

Something wasn’t sitting right with Diane. “I can’t remember,” she
said. “Did the police say that Leslie and Carly had been bound with
plastic flex cuffs?”

Matthew frowned as he thought back to the press conference. “No. I
don’t remember hearing that. But that doesn’t mean that flex cuffs
weren’t used. The cops could be holding back on making that detail
public.”

“Still,” said Diane, “I don’t like it.” She studied the computer
screen some more before making another request. “Can you go back to the other picture, the one of the blanket with
the ski jacket and magazine?”

Carlos complied.

“Now can you zoom in on the magazine? See if you can get close
enough that we can read the address on the label.”

“I can’t find my keys.”

Owen pretended to search, stalling for as long as he could, trying
to think of a way he could get out of opening the trunk of his car for
the police.

“Well, if you can’t find the keys, we have ways of opening it
ourselves,” said the officer.

Owen let out a deep sigh. There was no avoiding it. He had to open
the trunk and hope for the best. With some luck, the cops wouldn’t
recognize what they were seeing.

“Found ‘em,” he called, and he led the way out to the driveway. Owen
pointed his remote key fob in the direction of the car, heard the
familiar beep, and watched the Volvo’s trunk lid open automatically. He
stood aside while the police beheld the
multicolored binders of patient notes that he’d reported stolen.

Why didn’t 1 take care of these when I had
the chance
?
he thought ruefully
.
At
least I should have destroyed Leslie’s
.

As Diane leaned closer to the computer screen, the lettering on the
magazine label was surprisingly clear.

L. Belcaro
Surfside Realty
Main Avenue
Ocean Grove, NJ 00756

That was the real estate agent who had called out to her in Dr.
Messinger’s parking lot, the one who thought the therapist should be in
jail for the lives he had ruined. Though she hadn’t had a chance to do
it yet, Diane had planned to call Belcaro to follow up with him. But
she knew that she still had his card in her bag.

Why was his magazine there? Was this
his
little campsite
?

Matthew was looking at the address as well. “Belcaro. That’s the guy
I met at Nagle’s the other morning. He talked about Carly Neath in the
past tense, before her body had even been found.”

Diane had made up her mind. “I’m going to the Casino to look for
Anthony.”

“I’m going with you,” said Matthew.

As the pair sprinted out of the inn, Diane called over her shoulder.
“Phone the police and tell them to meet us there.”

It wasn’t far to the Casino, but they decided to drive up Ocean
Avenue, Matthew at the wheel. Diane clicked on the overhead light and
rifled through her bag, looking for the white business card.

“Great, here it is.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the
number Larry Belcaro had written on the back of the card. No one was
answering.

The car reached the end of the boardwalk, and Diane was about to
hang up just as she heard the man’s sleepy voice.

No one knew where this snoopy kid was,
he hadn’t told anyone about this place.

But his revelation that he was Diane
Mayfield’s son was truly frightening. When the newswoman’s son was
reported missing, everybody would be searching for him.

Worse, Anthony Mayfield hadn’t been
blindfolded. He would tell what—and whom—he had seen.

He just couldn’t be allowed to do that.
For now, a gag was stuffed into his mouth.

“Nothing at the Messinger house, Chief,” the officer called into his
radio once he and his partner had gotten back into the patrol car.

“Ten-four,” Chief Albert acknowledged from police headquarters.
“What about the garage?” he asked, assuming he would be told there was
nothing incriminating there either.

“No, Chief. Nothing in the garage or in the trunk of the car except
a stack of colored binders.”

“Binders, you say?” Albert asked, recalling, amid the chaos of the
week, the day-shift report of the theft at Dr. Messinger’s office filed
on Monday.

“Yes. Multicolored binders.”

“Go back there and seize those binders from that son of a bitch. He
staged his own burglary.”

“Mr. Belcaro, this is Diane Mayfield. I’m sorry for calling you so
late.”

“Oh, hello, Ms. Mayfield,” he said with enthusiasm. “That’s quite
all right. I wasn’t really sleeping, but I couldn’t find my cell phone
right away. I’m so glad you’re calling me. I was hoping you would ever
since our conversation in the parking lot.”

“I still would like to talk with you about Dr. Messinger, Mr.
Belcaro. But something else has come up that I’m hoping you can help me
with.”

“Oh.” She could hear the disappointment in his tone. “What’s that?”

She didn’t want to reveal too much. “My son is an amateur
photographer, and he’s been taking photos of just about everything he’s
seen in Ocean Grove. He seems to have come across a campsite of some
sort, and one of the items in his pictures is a magazine with your name
on the mailing label. I’m just wondering, Mr. Belcaro, how your
magazine might have gotten there.”