Faceless (31 page)

I looked at the incoming calls. There it was, 7:06 this morning and an incoming call from Katie. It lasted three minutes.

I handed the phone to Marty. As soon as he took possession of it, he made a futile attempt to tap in Katie’s number. It went directly to voice mail. At the sound of Katie’s voice, Cameron’s eyes shut tight, his throat made a guttural sound. He reached for the phone. Marty held it away from him.

“No! No! What if she tries to call me?” he cried out in frustration, making a grab for it.

Marty pulled it from his reach.

“Cameron, maybe we can locate where she was when she called you. She might have her phone on, and the techs can hone in on her location with the GPS,” Marty told him.

He looked up at Marty with a vacant stare. It must have taken a moment for him to comprehend what Marty was proposing, because he sat there for a few seconds in silence. The words must have made it through whatever brain fog he was experiencing, because he finally shook his head in agreement.

“Look, Cameron,” I continued. “I’m going to have one of our men come here and stay, just in case she shows up. Do you have a land line?” I asked him, looking through the opening of the doorway into the house.

He nodded. Marty handed him a blank piece of paper that he ripped off from a small memo pad he had in his shirt pocket. Cameron’s hand was shaking badly, but using his thigh for support, he managed to write down the number and handed the paper back to Marty.

We left him there, sitting exactly in the same place we’d found him.

Getting into the car, I turned and took a good look at Marty. It struck me that I was seeing him for the first time as my partner, instead of just someone who was taking Moran’s place. It had suddenly occurred to me that the past few days, whenever we were together, we easily fell into a sort of natural rhythm.

I was about to tell him my thoughts, when my ringtone—The Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye,”—broke the silence.

I hit the speaker button and we listened intently as the Chief Bergman filled us in.

“Whitley, where are you guys?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he kept on talking.

“There’s no signal coming from her cell, so either she doesn’t have it on, doesn’t have it, or she is out of the service area.”

I glanced over at Marty, who grimaced. I noticed for the first time that both of his dimples were showing. If he was smiling or laughing, only the one appeared.

“What about the partial plate of the car that the witness gave you in the Weston case? Anything?”

“Yeah,” he answered me. “Only it wasn’t a partial plate number; it’s a vanity plate: BETA 1 TOM 3 MARY EDWARD…OR B1T3 ME. It belongs to a 2012 white Lexus, registered to…”

I answered before he could finish.

“Bennett.” I glanced over at Marty, who had one eye on the road and one on me.

“Yeah, it’s probably nothing, but check it out anyway. You interviewed them, Whitley, did they ever mention anything about giving the kid a lift that day?”

“Never mentioned it, Chief,” I told him.

“Well, here’s another one for you, Jean, one of the mayor’s staff thinks she saw a fancy white car—with the emphasis on the fancy—coming from direction of the mayor’s residence this morning. She was just getting to work and she passed it on the road. She can’t swear to it, but she thinks she saw the kid in the car. She’s an undocumented worker, and it was like pulling teeth getting anything out of her.”

By the time I ended the call with Chief Bergman, a host of thoughts popped into my mind, like speech bubbles in a comic book.

First, there was Dylan, alleging that Jamie had been making fun of Tiffany in the car. Then my daughter, saying Jamie and Kimberly had both made fun of Tiffany’s nervous tic.

Tiffany
was the one who had discovered Jamie’s body. Tiffany had access to Father Murphy’s drugs and lighter fluid. Kimberly, and now the missing Katie, had both been seen getting into a white vehicle similar to the ones parked outside of the Bennett’s home.

I was about to tell Marty to head toward the Bennett home when I realized he was way ahead of me. I felt my seatbelt dig into my shoulder from the abrupt turn the car made as he was in the process of doing just that.

I closed my eyes. I almost did damage to my bottom lip as he cut off and narrowly missed hitting an SUV. I looked over at the driver and mouthed an apology. The wave of the driver’s hand did not give me comfort that he was accepting of my gesture.

Seven minutes later, we arrived at the Bennett home.

Chapter Twenty-One

Marty knocked on the door, maybe the correct terminology, was banged. The door opened and the Hispanic woman who had taken groceries from Mrs. Bennett appeared on the other side.

“Chyez, may I …”

I didn’t wait for an invitation. I pushed my way passed her.

“Where’s Tiffany? We want to speak to her,” I demanded.

I could hear someone coming toward us. Whoever it was definitely was not wearing the four-inch heels we had seen earlier. From the sound of the heavy steps, I wasn’t surprised when I heard his voice.

“What the hell?” he asked angrily as he met us entering the front room.

“Where’s your daughter, Bennett? Where’s Tiffany?” I called out to him, my hand ready to draw my weapon.

“That’s none of your damn business, now please leave,” he answered angrily. He stood there, his chest puffed out like a football player guarding his quarterback.

“Look, Bennett…” I pointed a finger at him. “I have two dead girls and now another one is missing. Where the hell is your daughter?”

“Daddy?” a voice called out from above us.

Tiffany
stood at the top of the stairs, her arms extended. On top of them sat some neatly folded laundry.

“Daddy, Maria was putting these away with my clean clothes,” she told him, a puzzled look on her face.

He didn’t look up at her.

“Honey, please, not now,” he told her, sounding impatient, as if he was dismissing her.

“Daddy… they’re not mine, Daddy,” she told him, her voice quivering.

The pieces of clothing fell from her arms and over the banister. We all watched as they floated through the air toward us.

The next words she spoke seem to float down with them.

“Daddy, it’s Jamie’s. It’s the shirt Jamie was wearing.” She stood at the top of the stairs, as if she was frozen.

Now I was confused. I’d thought I had it all solved. It had to be Tiffany. Both girls were seen getting into a car registered to her family. She was alone in the woods when Jamie was found. Both girls teased her unmercifully.

Maybe I was wrong, maybe it wasn’t Tiffany at all, but this S.O.B. standing in front of me… I looked over at Marty and I knew we were in sync; he was thinking the same thing.

We both started to pull our cuffs out and I was about to arrest and read the bastard his rights.

“Dustin Bennett, you are under…”

All the color drained from his face. He turned ashen and fell back, landing on a red velvet chair. His hand grabbed his face and he pulled on his leathery skin as if he wanted to pull it off.

Something was out of place. This was not what I was expecting. I had been ready to take him down, but the look on the man’s face had me doubting myself.

It was Marty who figured it out first.

“Your wife, Mr. Bennett? Do you know where she is?”

Bennett
looked up at me. Pewter-gray eyes matched the color of his hair perfectly.

“Which one? Which girl is missing? You said another girl was missing.”

“Katie Hepburn. She hasn’t been seen since getting into a white Lexus this morning,” I told him.

I could hear Tiffany gasp. She was still standing at the top of the steps.

Her father looked up. “Tiff, go to your room.” She started to protest, but he stopped her. “Tiff, please.”

He didn’t have to repeat himself. She turned with some reluctance, but walked back into a room and shut the door behind her.

Marty turned to him.

“Do you want to tell us what’s going on, Mr. Bennett? Do you know where your wife is?”

Mr.
Bennett
looked up and shook his head. As big a man as he was, it must have been intimidating looking at Marty who stood six foot three, positioned in front of him, his Glock resting snuggly in the leather holster next to his broad chest.

I’d had enough, time might have been running out for Katie. I knew it was imperative to get to her fast. I was hoping that she was still alive; that for some reason she was being kept alive.

“Look, Bennett, where do you think she is?” I asked.

He turned and faced me. He looked like he was having trouble focusing.

“My wife has some problems. She’s had a tough time. Gail is a good mother and she loves our kids, she loves my daughter. She’s…” His eyes dropped down to the floor.

“Do you have any idea where she may be? Does she have a cell phone? The car—does it have a GPS system?” I grabbed my phone, ready to call in the answer, to find the woman, track her down.

He looked up. “Yes, she has a cell, and we have OnStar on the Lexus.”

He got up and we followed him into the room where we had spoken to his wife earlier in the week.

He grabbed his iPhone from the coffee table and punched in some numbers. I glanced out the wall of windows again. If I wasn’t so agitated, I would have been able to appreciate the scenery.

He held out the phone for me to see. A small thumbtack type icon pointed to a spot on a map.

“She’s on the property, she’s here somewhere.” I could feel a sense of relief in his words.

I looked out the window again, this time with a purpose. The scene was the same, except the horses were missing. The waterfall, the rocks, a few spruce trees, the little cottage, it was a breathtaking view.

The cottage! I looked closer, trying to see if I could spot her car. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could make out the front end of a vehicle hidden by an evergreen that was on the north side of the building.

“Is that the only building on the property, besides this one?” I asked him.

“No, we have a building that houses occasional help, and a stable for the horses, but she never goes there, she hates horses. She’s deathly afraid of them.”

Marty had already called in an APB on her Lexus and was patiently waiting for me to call the next shot.

I looked back at Mr. Bennett.

“You said she had problems—what kind of problems, Mr. Bennett?”

It was all just conjecture up till now. We didn’t have a motive, I mean, why would the woman want to harm these girls? She may have seemed a bit stuffy, but she looked and sounded normal. She definitely didn’t look like a psychopathic serial killer.

“My wife’s mother was burned badly in a fire, resulting in her death. Gail was only thirteen at the time. The woman was insane and was very abusive to my wife. Everyone in town knew it, so Gail immediately became a suspect.”

“Did she do it?” Marty asked him.

“What happened? Was she arrested?” I asked him, impatiently waiting for his answer. I was ready to go.

“She was, but because of the abuse, her attorney used the insanity defense. Gail was acquitted, but the judge had her committed to Armistace Mental Institution for Children. She lived there until she reached the age of majority, and then was released.”

I’d heard enough. I wanted to find Katie, and now I was positive we were headed in the right direction. I’d had enough of the history lessons.

I turned to Marty after another quick glance at the small building in the distance.

“Let’s go.” I turned back to Mr. Bennett. “Stay here, and keep your daughter here.” He nodded, giving up without a fight.

I called for backup as we were leaving the house and getting into our car. We drove down a gravel road through the property until we had in our view the building I had seen from the house.

Marty parked the car and we made our way on foot through a narrow, wooded area covered with spruce trees, until we hit a clearing.

The building that we had seen from the Bennett house appeared before us. It looked like something out of a child’s storybook. A human-sized dollhouse is the only way I could describe it. The white cottage with rounded corners had roof shingles that were created to look like pieces of a chocolate bar. A round-edged door with large wooden slats had a brass knocker shaped like a lion. White wooden shutters accented real glass windows, set in the same wood as the front door. Below the windows were red flower boxes filled with giant vinyl lollypops of various colors. It was obvious to me that the building had once served as a playhouse for the child of a very wealthy parent.

When we first entered the clearing, I first thought my instincts had been wrong. The building appeared to be unoccupied. Still keeping a safe distance, we quietly made our way around the west side .We could see the Lexus, partially hidden by some trees.

Marty put his finger up to his lips as we stopped to listen.

There must have been either little or no insulation in the walls of the cabin, because we could hear her voice.

We were about twenty-five feet away, but we were able to decipher what was being said. Not all the words were clear, but I could make out most of them. It was clear from the woman’s tone that she was frantic. Her words would fade in and out, as if she was pacing back and forth in the small structure.

“This is your fault. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t have to be doing this if you would have protected her. You were supposed to be her friend.” Her voice faded out, and we strained to listen.

A feeling of relief came over me like a warm wave. As long as she was talking to someone, there was a good chance that Katie was still alive. Unless this woman was totally psychotic and delusional, there was a good chance we were in time.

I saw Marty speaking quietly into his radio. He was getting the ETA on the backup and requesting they come in with no lights or sirens.

We had no idea what the situation inside was at this point. We both knew we had to proceed with caution. We knew what this woman was capable of, and neither of us wanted her to catch the scent of what was right outside the door.

“You let them torture her. You let them tease her without mercy. Why didn’t you stop them? My baby, my Tiffany, would call me, crying. Crying about the cruel things Jamie and Kimberly called her. And you… you called yourself her friend. You were too busy with your new boyfriend to be her friend.”

Her voice began to fade in volume, her tone going from anger to despair. She started out ranting and ended up with her voice cracking in sobs. If it was Katie she was talking to, the girl was either unable to answer or too afraid to do so.