Shut Your Eyes Tight (Dave Gurney, No. 2): A Novel (30 page)

Kline spoke up excitedly. “What do you think, Becca? Is that possible?”

Her eyes widened. “It’s possible, yes. Jillian could have been chosen as a specific revenge target based on her actions against some individual Flores knew, or as a proxy target representing abusers in general. Do you have any evidence pointing in one direction or the other?”

Kline looked to Gurney.

“The dramatic details of the murder—the beheading, the placement of the head, the choice of the wedding day—have a ritual feeling. That would be consistent with a revenge motive. But we sure as hell don’t know enough yet to say whether she was an individual target or a proxy target.”

Kline finished his coffee and headed for a refill, speaking to the room in general as he went. “If we take this revenge angle seriously, what investigatory actions would that require? Dave?”

What Gurney believed it would require—to start with—was a much more detailed disclosure of Jillian’s past problems and childhood contacts than her mother or Simon Kale had so far been willing to provide, and he needed to figure out how to make that happen. “I can give you a written recommendation on that within the next couple of days.”

Kline seemed satisfied with that and moved on. “So what else? Senior Investigator Hardwick gave you credit for what he called a ‘shitload’ of discoveries.”

“We may be a couple short of a shitload, but there’s one thing I’d put at the top of the list. A number of girls from Mapleshade seem to be missing.”

The three BCI detectives came to attention, more or less in unison, like men awakened by a loud noise.

Gurney continued. “Both Scott Ashton and another person connected with the school have tried to contact certain recent graduates and haven’t been able to.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean—” began Lieutenant Anderson.

But Gurney cut him off. “By itself it wouldn’t mean much, but there’s an odd similarity among the individual instances. All the girls in question started the same argument with their parents—demanding an expensive new car, then using their parents’ refusal as a pretext for leaving home.”

“How many girls are we talking about?” asked Blatt.

“A former student who was trying to reach some of her fellow graduates told me about two instances in which the parents had no idea where their daughter was. Then Scott Ashton told me about three more girls he was trying to reach, who he discovered had left home after an argument with their parents—the same kind of car argument in all three instances.”

Kline shook his head. “I don’t get it. What’s it all about? And what’s it got to do with finding Jillian Perry’s killer?”

“The missing girls had at least one thing in common, besides the argument they started with their parents. They all knew Flores.”

Anderson was looking more dyspeptic by the minute. “How?”

“Flores volunteered to do some work for Ashton at Mapleshade. Good-looking man, apparently. Attracted the attention of some Mapleshade girls. Turns out that the ones who showed interest, the ones who were seen speaking to him, are the ones who’ve gone missing.”

“Have they been put on the NCIC missing-persons list?” asked Anderson, in the hopeful tone of a man trying to shift a problem onto another lap.

“None of them,” said Gurney. “Problem is, they’re all over
eighteen, free to come and go as they wish. Each one announced her plan to leave home, her intention to keep her whereabouts a secret, her desire to be left alone. All of which is contrary to the entry criteria for mis-pers databases.”

Kline was pacing back and forth. “This gives the case a new slant. What do you think, Rod?”

The captain looked grim. “I’d like to know what the hell Gurney is really telling us.”

Kline answered. “I think he’s telling us that there might be more to the Jillian Perry case than Jillian Perry.”

“And that Hector Flores might be more than a Mexican gardener,” added Hardwick, staring pointedly at Rodriguez. “A possibility I recall mentioning some time ago.”

This had the effect of raising Kline’s eyebrows. “When?”

“When I was still assigned to the case. The original Flores narrative felt wrong to me.”

If Rodriguez’s jaws were clenched any tighter, Gurney mused, his teeth would start disintegrating.

“Wrong how?” asked Kline.

“Wrong in the sense that it was all too fucking right.”

Gurney knew that Rodriguez would be feeling Hardwick’s delight like an ice pick in the ribs—never mind the touchy issue of airing an internal disagreement in front of the district attorney.

“Meaning?” asked Kline.

“I mean too fucking smooth. The illiterate laborer, too rapidly educated by the arrogant doctor, too much advancement too soon, affair with the rich neighbor’s wife, maybe an affair with Jillian Perry, feelings he couldn’t handle, cracking under the strain. It plays like a soap opera, like complete fucking bullshit.” He delivered this judgment with such a steady focus on Rodriguez that there could be no doubt about the source of the scenario he was attacking.

From what Gurney knew of Kline from the Mellery case, he was sure the man was loving the confrontation while he was hiding the feeling under a thoughtful frown.

“What was your own theory of the Flores business?” prompted Kline.

Hardwick settled back in his chair like a wind dying down. “It’s
easier to say what isn’t logical here than what is. When you combine all the known facts, it’s hard to make any sense at all out of Flores’s behavior.”

Kline turned to Gurney. “That the way you see it, too?”

Gurney took a deep breath. “Some facts seem contradictory. But facts don’t contradict each other—which means there’s a big piece of the puzzle missing, the piece that’ll eventually make the others make sense. I don’t expect it to be a simple narrative. As Jack once said, there are definitely hidden layers in this case.” He was concerned for a moment that this comment might reveal Hardwick’s role in Val’s decision to hire him, but no one seemed to pick it up. Blatt looked like a rat trying to identify something by sniffing it, but Blatt always looked like that.

Kline sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “Which facts are bothering you, Dave?”

“To start with, the rapid Flores transition from leaf raker to household manager.”

“You think Ashton is lying about that?”

“Lying to himself, maybe. He explains it as a kind of wishful thinking, something that supported the concept of a book he was writing.”

“Becca, that make sense to you?”

She smiled noncommittally, more of a facial shrug than a real smile. “Never underestimate the power of self-deception, especially in a man trying to prove a point.”

Kline nodded sagely, turned back to Gurney. “So your basic idea is that Flores was working a con?”

“That he was playing a role for some reason, yes.”

“What else bothers you?”

“Motivation. If Flores came to Tambury for the purpose of killing Jillian, why did he wait so long to do it? But if he came for another purpose, what was it?”

“Interesting questions. Keep going.”

“The beheading itself seems to have been methodical and well planned, but also spontaneous and opportunistic.”

“I don’t follow that.”

“The arrangement—of the body—was precise. The cottage had very recently, perhaps that same morning, been scoured to eliminate any traces of the man who’d lived there. The escape route had been planned, and some way had been devised to create the scent-trail problem for the K-9 team. However it was that Flores managed to disappear, it had been carefully thought through. It has the feeling of a
Mission: Impossible
scheme that relies on split-second timing. But the actual circumstances would appear to defy any attempt at planning at all, much less perfect timing.”

Kline cocked his head curiously. “How so?”

“The video indicates that Jillian made her visit to the cottage on a kind of whim. A little bit before the scheduled wedding toast, she told Ashton she wanted to persuade Hector to join them. As I recall, Ashton told the Luntz couple—the police chief and his wife—about Jillian’s intentions. No one else seemed to be crazy about the idea, but I got the impression that Jillian pretty much did whatever she felt like doing. So on the one hand we have a meticulously premeditated murder that depended on perfect timing, and on the other hand, we have a set of circumstances completely beyond the murderer’s control. There’s something wrong with that picture.”

“Not necessarily,” said Blatt, his rat nose twitching. “Flores could have set up everything ahead of time, had everything ready, then waited for his opportunity like a snake in a hole. Waited for the victim to come by, and … bam!”

Gurney looked doubtful. “Problem is, Arlo, that would require Flores to get the cottage perfectly clean, almost sterile, prepare himself and his escape route, wear the clothes he intended to wear, have whatever he was taking with him at hand, have Kiki Muller equally prepared, and then … and then what? Sit in the cottage with a machete in his hand hoping that Jillian would pop in to invite him to the reception?”

“You’re making it sound stupid, like it couldn’t happen,” said Blatt with hatred in his eyes. “But I think that’s exactly what happened.”

Anderson pursed his lips. Rodriguez narrowed his eyes. Neither seemed willing to endorse their colleague’s view.

Kline broke the awkward silence. “Anything else?”

“Well,” said Gurney, “there’s the matter of the new elephant in the room—the missing graduates.”

“Which,” said Blatt, “may not even be true. Maybe they just don’t want to be found. These girls are not what you’d call stable. And even if they’re, like, really
missing
, there’s no proof of any connection to the Perry case.”

There was another silence, this time broken by Hardwick. “Arlo might be right. But if they
are
missing and there
is
a connection, there’s a good chance they’re all dead by now.”

No one said anything. It was well known that, when young females went missing under suspicious circumstances with no further contact, the odds of their safe return were not high. And the fact that the girls in question had all started the same peculiar argument before disappearing definitely qualified as suspicious.

Rodriguez looked pained and angry, looked like he was about to offer an objection, but before any words came out, Gurney’s cell phone rang. Gurney glanced at the ID on the screen and decided to answer it.

It was Scott Ashton. “Since we last spoke, I made six more calls and got through to two more families. I’m continuing the calls, but … I wanted to let you know that both girls in the families I got through to left home after the same outrageous argument. One demanded a twenty-thousand-dollar Suzuki, the other a thirty-five-thousand-dollar Mustang. The parents said no. Both girls refused to say where they were going and insisted that nobody should try to contact them. I have no idea what it means, but obviously something strange is going on. And another distressing coincidence: They’d both posed for those Karnala Fashion ads.”

“How long have they been missing?”

“One for six months, one for nine months.”

“Tell me something, Doctor. Are you ready to provide us with names, or do we get an immediate court order for your records?”

All eyes in the room were on Gurney. Kline’s coffee was inches from his lips, but he seemed to have forgotten he was holding it.

“What names do you want?” said Ashton in a beaten voice.

“Let’s start with the names of the missing girls, plus the names of all the girls who were in the same classes.”

“Fine.”

“One other question: How did Jillian get her modeling job?”

“I don’t know.”

“She never told you? Even though she gave you the photograph as a wedding present?”

“She never told me.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I did, but … Jillian wasn’t fond of questions.”

Gurney felt an urge to shout,
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? IS EVERYONE CONNECTED WITH THIS CASE OUT OF HIS GODDAMN MIND?

Instead he said simply, “Thank you, Doctor. That’s it for now. You’ll be contacted by BCI for the relevant names and addresses.”

As Gurney slipped the phone back into his pocket, Kline barked, “What on earth was that?”

“Two more girls are missing. After having the same argument: One girl demanded that her parents buy her a Suzuki, the other a Mustang.” He turned toward Anderson. “Ashton is ready to provide BCI with the names of the missing girls, plus the names of their classmates. Just let him know what format you want the list in and how to send it to you.”

“Fine, but we’re ignoring the point that nobody is
legally missing
, which means we can’t devote police resources to finding them. These are eighteen-year-old women, adults, who made apparently free decisions to leave home. The fact that they haven’t told their families how to reach them does not give us a legal basis for tracking them down.”

Gurney got the impression that Lieutenant Anderson was coasting toward a Florida retirement and had a coaster’s fondness for inaction. It was a state of mind for which Gurney, a driven man in his police career, had little patience. “Then find a basis. Declare them all material witnesses to the Perry murder. Invent a basis. Do what you have to do. That’s the least of your problems.”

Anderson looked riled enough to escalate the argument into
something unpleasant. But before he could launch his reply, Kline interrupted. “This may seem a small point, Dave, but if you’re implying that these girls were following the directions of some third party—presumably Flores—who rehearsed them in the argument they were supposed to start with their parents, why is the make of car different from case to case?”

“The simplest answer is that different cars might be necessary in order to achieve the same effect on families in different economic circumstances. Assuming that the purpose of the argument was to provide a credible excuse for the girl to storm out—to disappear without the disappearance becoming a police matter—the car demand would need to have two results. One, it would have to involve enough money to guarantee that it would be refused. Two, the parents would have to believe that their daughter was serious. The different makes may not have any significance per se; the key point may be the difference in the prices. Different prices would be necessary in order to achieve the same impact in families of different financial means. In other words, a demand for a twenty-thousand-dollar car in one family might have the same impact as a demand for a forty-thousand-dollar car in another family.”