Vanished - A Mystery (Dixon & Baudin Book 1) (18 page)

36

Hillary Dixon lay in bed and wept softly. The tears flowed down her cheeks and left spots on her pillow. She was nude except for the sheet that covered her lower body. Chris lay next to her, asleep. His arm was thrown over her, and the touch of it was at the same time pleasurable and revolting. She lusted after him. She had no doubt of that. He had thrown her on the bed—her marital bed—ripped off his pants, and forcefully shoved himself into her mouth, nearly gagging her. He then pulled out and thrust inside her so powerfully she screamed.

When they were done, she went to the bathroom and vomited.

On the nightstand was a photo of Kyle. She reached over and turned it face down. She remembered that photo. They’d been hiking at Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado. Her husband had a juvenile fascination with dinosaurs, and whenever they went on vacation anywhere he insisted they see all the dinosaur sites they could.

The trip had lasted four days, and it had gone by so fast she could scarcely believe it. It was four days of pure fun and laughter. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so happy in her life.

And now she lay in their bed with another man on Kyle’s side of the bed, the man’s child in the other room, being raised as Kyle’s own. She rose again and ran to the bathroom. Bending down over the toilet, she retched, but nothing came. Everything in her stomach had already been expelled.

She sat on the bathroom floor and quietly cried. This was too big. A secret this big felt like a noose around her neck, and every time Chris touched her that noose grew tighter. It would suffocate her soon, and nothing would be left.

No matter the consequences, she would have to tell him. She had to.

“Hey, Hillary? You okay in there?”

“Fine,” she said, flushing the toilet. She stood up and stared at herself in the mirror.

Her body was perfect, honed with hours of yoga, biking, running, and weight-lifting every day. But her mind, her soul, felt diseased, as if it were poisoning the world around her. She washed her face and hands and took a wet towel and wiped between her legs, breasts, and neck. She threw the towel in the wicker basket they used for their dirty laundry, and she saw one of Kyle’s shirts: a blue one with a stain where Randy had spit up on his shoulder. She’d wanted to throw it out, but he said he liked that it was stained, that it provided proof he was a real father and had earned his stripes.

Before she could leave the bathroom, her stomach churned again, and she returned to the toilet.

When she was done, she went to the closet and got dressed. Nothing fancy, jeans and a black shirt with two buttons at the top.

Chris was sitting up in bed smiling, one arm behind his head. “Come back to bed.”

“I want to tell him,” she said, slipping on her shoes.

“Tell him what?”

“I want to tell him, Chris.”

Chris jumped out of bed and approached her. He stood behind her without touching her. “You can’t tell him. Not yet. You need to leave him first. Then I’ll serve him with the paternity suit.”

She shook her head. “I’m not leaving him. He might leave me, but I’m not leaving him.”

“You have a child with another man and lied to him about it. He won’t stay.”

“Maybe not, but I need to give him that chance. I want you to leave.”

“Hillary—”

“Leave. Now.”

He stood a moment longer, and then anger flashed through him. He swung, and his fist hit the wall behind her. She flinched but didn’t move. They stood staring at each other, and then he gathered his clothes and left.

Hillary stood in front of the mirror, trying to look at herself and not being able to lift her eyes to do it.

37

Dixon yelped as the car nearly careened off the road into a building. Baudin yanked the steering wheel into the turn, and the car spun fully around before settling.

The Volvo had made a mistake. It went right when it should have gone left and was now stuck in a cul-de-sac. Baudin spun the car so that it was lengthwise, taking up as much space as possible. He got out and drew his weapon, as did Dixon.

The kid in the driver’s seat looked frightened. Not at all the calm psychopath Dixon was expecting. Then again, what was a psychopath if not a good liar? Dixon decided he wouldn’t believe anything this boy said or did.

“Turn the car off and come out with your hands up,” Baudin shouted.

A long pause followed where the boy simply stared at the two men without moving. Finally, Dixon said, “Kid, I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to. Get your ass out of that car.”

The door opened, and Orridge stepped out. He was short, maybe five six, and had his hands up. Baudin approached him and told him to lie on the ground. He got to his knees, and Baudin shoved him into the pavement and slapped cuffs on him.

He lifted him by his arms and brought him over to their car.

“Yo,” Orridge pleaded, “what about my car?”

“Kyle, drive the car and follow us,” he said, tossing him the keys that were in Orridge’s hand.

A tow would’ve been proper, but Dixon had driven suspects’ cars before when a tow wasn’t available. On weekends, Cheyenne had one of the highest per capita DUI arrest rates in the nation, and it only had a handful of tow trucks to service all of them. Once, Dixon had driven back to the precinct a Ferrari that might have been used to transport drugs.

He got into the Volvo and followed Baudin, who’d put the kid in the passenger seat. They left the cul-de-sac, went down University Avenue, and parked in a Walmart parking lot. Dixon wasn’t sure what was happening until he saw Baudin turn and begin asking questions right there.

“Shit,” Dixon said as he stepped out. He hurried to Baudin’s car and got into the back, staring incredulously at Baudin.

“Dustin and I were just talking about a girl we both know. Isn’t that right, Dustin?” The boy looked out the window. “See, Dustin is claiming he didn’t know this girl, but I think he did.”

The boy was fidgeting and biting his lip.

Baudin leaned in close to his ear. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let you go. Right now. We’ll pretend this never happened. That’s why you’re not in a station right now, Dustin. I just need the information. I don’t need you.”

The boy swallowed. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about Alli.”

“She was cool, I guess.”

“She was cool,” Baudin said, nodding. “You are a poet.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me about her.”

The two of them stared at each other. The boy looked so terrified that Dixon almost felt bad for him.

“I didn’t kill her.”

“You sure about that?”

The boy turned to face him squarely. “I swear. I didn’t know she was dead until someone told me. They saw her mom on the news talkin’ about it. I thought she just took off. She was doing that all the time, just leavin’ for no reason. I thought that’s all it was.”

“And when you learned it wasn’t, you didn’t call the cops, did you?”

He looked back through the window. “I want a lawyer.”

“Maybe you don’t get a lawyer.”

Dixon said, “Ethan, can I talk to you outside?” He opened the door and stepped out of the car. Baudin followed.

“He’s asked for a lawyer,” Dixon said, once Baudin shut the door. “Anything he says beyond now will be excluded from court.”

“No, it won’t. We’ll just say it’s bullshit.”

Dixon shook his head. “No, man. I will testify that he asked for a lawyer and you kept interrogating him. I told you to keep your damn mouth shut and let me handle this.”

“You’d let this piece of shit walk because he said some magic words? You think that’s what this is about?”

“Yes, I do,” he said sternly. “I believe in the fucking Constitution, Ethan. Now take him back to the station and get him a lawyer.”

Baudin looked at him as if he were insane. He put up his hands as though in surrender and got back into the car. Dixon got into the Volvo, and they drove out of the parking lot.

Once back at the station, the frat was called to tell them Dustin had been arrested. Someone there then called Dustin’s father, who sent a lawyer down within an hour. Baudin and Dixon stood in the observation room while the lawyer spoke to his client. Baudin was staring at him through the glass. The room was soundproofed but had a microphone that had been turned off.

“This isn’t right,” Baudin said. “This kid’s gonna walk.”

“Maybe.”

Baudin began pacing like a caged animal. “All we had to do was work him in that parking lot and promise we’d let him go, man. We would’ve had him.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? That all you can say to me?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say you’re fucking sorry for torpedoing this case.”

Dixon couldn’t help chuckling. He shook his head, watching the way the light played off the linoleum on the floor. “You are unique, Ethan, I’ll give you that. That kid may or may not get what’s comin’ to him, but I can sleep at night with a clear conscience.”

“A clear conscience?”

“Yeah, man, a clear conscience. Because I did my job and followed the law.”

“There isn’t any law, man, I told you.”

Dixon stepped away from the wall toward his partner. “That is bullshit. And if you really believe that, you need to find some other work.” Dixon left the room and headed for his desk. “Maybe some alien conspiracy theorists are hiring security guards,” he said, looking back.

Within twenty minutes, the lawyer was out. He walked straight to the captain’s office and spoke to him briefly. Jessop came out and went to Dixon.

“Cut him loose.”

“You sure?” Dixon said. “This is the guy.”

“Maybe, but you’re cutting him loose. All you got is some dipshit who told your partner this guy was dating her. That’s nothin’.”

“It’s enough to make him a person of interest.”

Jessop watched him. “Kyle, you don’t have anything.”

Dixon sighed. “I know.”

“Cut him loose,” he said, going back to his office.

Dixon rose and walked back to Baudin, who was staring at the kid through the glass. “Let him go.”

Baudin looked at him, was about to say something, then changed his mind. He opened the door to the interrogation room and said, “You’re free to go.”

They both watched as Dustin Orridge smiled and left the precinct.

38

A day later, Dixon was at his desk. As far as he was concerned, Alli Tavor was a cold case. No forensic evidence existed, no witnesses, no real motive, and their only suspect had lawyered up. They could put a twenty-four hour tail on Orridge and see if he screwed up somewhere, but that was fantasy. Dixon had only seen the expense of a tail authorized once when they were following a biker gang selling meth in the high schools. With the lack of evidence in this case, there was no way Jessop would approve a tail.

Baudin was sitting across from him, working on the computer. They hadn’t said a word to each other all day other than “Hey.”

Dixon finished up a few calls and was about to head to lunch when the doors to the detective squad opened, and Dustin Orridge and his lawyer walked in. The two detectives looked on as the boy, his face down, trudged past everyone and directly into Jessop’s office. They shut the door, sat down, and the lawyer began talking.

“What is this?” Dixon asked.

“No idea.”

After a few minutes, the door opened, and Jessop stuck his head out. “Detective Dixon, your suspect is ready to confess.”

Dixon sat across from Orridge as Baudin stood behind him. The camera was on, and the lawyer was sitting next to Orridge, busy on his phone. Dixon had a yellow legal pad in front of him with a blue pen, and he wrote Dustin’s name across the top, more for something to do than for any functional purpose.

“I was told you wanted to speak to us, Dustin.”

The boy wouldn’t lift his gaze from the floor. His eyes were puffy and red as though he’d been crying.

“I did it.”

“Did what?” Dixon asked.

“I killed Alli Tavor,” he said, his voice cracking.

Dixon was silent a long time. “How?”

“She said she didn’t want to fuck me no more. I got mad. I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

Baudin asked, “You just
happened
to crucify her? Like by accident?”

“That was all done later. After. To cover everything up. I choked her until she wasn’t moving no more. She died.”

“How else did you injure her?” Baudin asked.

“I cut her up with a knife. I don’t remember the details of that—it was a blur, all real fast. But I killed her.”

“When?”

“Five weeks ago. In a field near where you found her. I told her we were going to have a picnic and hang out with my frat brothers. When we got out there, I started hitting her, and then I choked her.”

Dixon didn’t know what to say. He looked back at Baudin, who, for the first time since Dixon had met him, didn’t know what to say either.

“Um,” Dixon said, trying to keep a veneer of cool, “Dustin, I’d like you to write down everything you remember about it on this legal pad, please.”

The boy wrote. He wrote for a good fifteen minutes, filling two pages. The entire time, Dixon stared at him and wondered if he really looked like a murderer.

When Orridge was done, he slid the pad back to Dixon, who read it. It said the same things he’d just confessed to orally. Dixon showed it to Baudin.

“I want some time with him,” Baudin whispered.

“Why? He confessed. It’s done.”

“I just want to make sure.”

The lawyer finally put his phone away and said, “Gentlemen, this interview is over. Please book my client and let’s get on with it.”

The two detectives looked at each other. Dixon took out his handcuffs and helped Orridge stand before saying, “You have the right to remain silent…”

When they stepped back into the bullpen and Orridge was escorted down to booking, several of the detectives clapped for Baudin and Dixon. Jessop came out and shook their hands.

“Don’t know what you said to that little prick, but it must’ve scared him. Lawyer said he was confessing against legal advice.”

A few detectives slapped their backs and asked them about the case. Someone broke out a bottle of sparkling apple cider he’d had in his desk. Styrofoam cups were passed around. Murders with almost no evidence weren’t something that were solved often.

Dixon stood chatting with a few of the officers when he glanced at Baudin. He held up his cup as if in salute, and Baudin nodded.