(2012) Colder Than Death (24 page)

After about ten minutes I left and went back to the Home only to find Perry sitting in his cruiser. As I parked he got out and approached me.

“Let's have a little chat.” He was arrying the box of Brandy Parker memorabilia that Quilla had given him.

“I've spent the last few hours going over this crap. Nothing more than the silly ramblings of a teenage girl. I hoped her notebooks might reveal something, ya know, but the stuff Brandy Parker wrote was ordinary things like 'Kenny didn't call me. It's been ten days. I wonder what's wrong.' Or 'I decided to stop wearing underwear when I go out at night.' And there were some sections where she went into explicit detail about her sexual adventures.”

“Did she mention any names?”

“Not really. A first name. Like, 'Bob wanted to screw me in the parking lot at K-Mart.' Corny stuff. Stupid stuff. There was a lot of pages devoted to her feelings. The notebooks cover about four years. She died at nineteen, so she started writing in them at, say, fifteen. And the early stuff is random. Unfocused. One page will have references to ten different things. Music. Clothes. TV shows. Boys. Loneliness. Insomnia. She'll talk about a teacher who she hates on one page. Then five months later, she has a crush on the same guy. In the last few months she seemed to change.”

“How so?”

“This might be the only thing I have to go on.” He picked up one of the journals and turned to a page he had marked. “It's almost like a different person, but it's definitely the same handwriting. Instead of describing guys she went out with or things she wanted to do she becomes serious, talking about self-esteem and being a worthwhile person and not being a victim anymore. She uses words like “entitlement” and expressions like “making a contribution” in the world. It's like she suddenly found religion.”

“It wasn't religion. What she found was Kyle Thistle's daughter. Anything else?”

“That's it. It's all gonna come down to Gretchen Yearwood.” Perry sat down roughly in the Queen Anne style chair in front of my desk.

“And if she can't give you anything to go on?”

“Then I'm flying blind. But I did have a notion about your girlfriend. If
she
didn't send you the note and the postcard, obviously the killer did, right?”

“Right.”

“So the killer had to know that you and the girl were involved and where you lived. Which leads me to believe that he was extremely thorough or that he knew one or both of you. And on a strictly gut feeling, he probably knew
you
.”

“Why me?”

“If he knew her there's a good chance he knew she broke up with you so there wouldn't have been a reason for her to drop you a line. But if he knew
you
and didn't
know
that you'd been dumped...logic dictates he'd cover his tracks by sending the note.” He leaned back in the chair, looking proud of himself. “When it happened fifteen years ago were you working at Henderson's yet?”

I nodded yes. “Part-time stuff. But by the time Alyssa left I was on my way to being an apprentice.”

“But you were there. Learning the ropes, right?”

“Yes.”

Perry reached into his shirt pocket and unfolded a sheet of paper which he held out to me. It was the list of the names of employees at Elm Grove cemetery and DiGregorio's and Henderson's Funeral Homes whom he considered possible cemetery buffs and suspects.

“How many of these people did you know back then?” Perry asked as he handed me the list.

I scanned it for a few seconds. “Over time I came to know them well. But I didn't really get to know most of them until after college and I was Lew's Assistant. Obviously, everyone at Henderson's. At DiGregorio's I knew Tyler, Alphonse and Wilt Ging. Vaughn was the only person I knew at the cemetery then.”

“Who knew you were dating with Alyssa Kirkland?”

I had to think for a few seconds. “Tyler, definitely.”

“Interesting. Tyler knows cemeteries. Tyler knew your girlfriend. Tyler's the first one to show up at the Funeral Home where Brandy Parker is laid out.”

“He came to see
me
, not her.”

“He could've called. And why did he come when he did?”

“You're way off base on this, Perry.”

“We'll see,” he said. “Who else knew about Alyssa?”

“It's hard to remember. Lew might've known I had a girlfriend, but I don't think I ever would've discussed it with him. Same with Nolan. They were grown men. If we talked it was about sports or the business.”

“But you might've let it drop that you had a girlfriend. Or you and Alyssa were seen together. It's not inconceivable that Nolan or Lew knew you were dating someone.”

“You can't possibly think either one of them could be the... ”

“Hell, if your theory about the same person killing all three women holds water, Lew and Nolan are old enough to be responsible for all deaths.”

“That's just crazy, Perry. Why would either one... ?”

“Don't waste your time asking 'why?' Del. My father used to say that there is no why for some crimes. Guy robs a bank for money. Guy steals food to eat. Woman kills her husband for insurance money. Guy murders his wife because she's cheating on him. Those are solid, definite whys. Then there are the crimes of impulse. Guy doesn't need money, but he robs a liquor store for laughs. Kid from a good family decides to sell drugs for kicks. Guy slaps his girlfriend around one punch too many. Then there's the crimes where a cop or a District Attorney scratches his head from here to Timbuktu looking for a reason. A motive. And there isn't one. Give me a motive why somebody killed Brandy Parker.”

“I can't.”

“Give me a motive why someone killed or kidnapped and killed Virginia Thistle.”

“I can't.”

“Give me a motive why Alphonse Digregorio or Lew Henderson or Nolan Fowler or Wilt Ging or Alton Held or Tyler DiGregorio would have killed Alyssa Kirkland.”

“I can't.”

“Neither can I. Let's narrow the odds. Tyler could've, understand me, could have killed Brandy Parker and Alyssa Kirkland, but he would've been too young to have done in Virginia Thistle. So we'll leave him out of this scenario. But Nolan and Lew--and to make it interesting--Kyle Thistle could've killed his wife
and
Brandy Parker. But he was locked up in the nuthouse when Alyssa disappeared. But Nolan and Lew... and just for laughs, let's say Alphonse... who knew you indirectly because you were friends with Tyler... and just to make it really interesting, let's put Wilt Ging into the mix because as Chief Embalmer at DiGregorio's, he might've known you only because of your friendship with Tyler.”

“Where are you going with this, Perry?”

“The point being that those men were all in Dankworth when Virginia Thistle disappeared. And of the people you knew fifteen years ago when Alyssa Kirkland vanished, Lew, Nolan, Alphonse, Wilt and Alton could've known that she was your girlfriend. They all were certainly around nine years ago and each of them knew enough about the layout of that fucking cemetery to know where to hide a body.”

“Wrong! Not Nolan and Wilt. Embalmers don't go to cemeteries. I can't speak for Wilt, but I'd bet you a thousand dollars that Nolan Fowler doesn't know anything about the layout of Elm Grove or any other cemetery. In all the years I've been associated with Henderson's Funeral Home, with the exception of a handful of burials, if
that
, Nolan never spent enough time at Elm Cross to be any kind of expert on the layout of the grounds.”

“Fine. But Lew has. And Alphonse. And Alton works there, for God's sake. And you don't know if Wilt Ging is a cemetery buff. And, frankly, you don't know what Nolan does in his spare time or what he
did
in his spare time fifteen years ago. He might've been a cemetery buff back then.”

Perry was confusing me. I wasn't sure if he was playing mind games with me like he usually tried to do or if he was genuinely trying to communicate to me from the point of view of a cop stumped by a difficult case.

“Is being a cemetery buff a lifelong hobby for people?”

“For some.”

“I've been interested in some things all my life, other things I get tired of after a year. Some things six months. I have to weigh all kinds of facts and information. It sounds nice to theorize that the same person was responsible for what happened to these three women, but when you think hard about it...it's just too remote. I'll grant you it's possible, but it's not probable. That's why I have to focus on the facts I have. And the biggest fact I have the body of Brandy Parker. If I had the remains of Alyssa Kirkland or Virginia Thistle, then I'd say your theory has one hundred percent credibility. But I have to go with what I've got. And as of this moment, it's all in Gretchen Yearwood's court. And if she can't give me something new to go on... it's over.”

“She's already given you something, Perry. She's the only person connected to both Virginia Thistle and Brandy Parker.”

Perry took in the remark. “I take it that you and the kid have already talked to her?” I nodded yes. “Save me some time. Did she say anything that I can work with?”

“Not much.”

“Then that's it. There's nothing except theories. I met with Greg and Wendell to pick their brains. We sat down like lawyers trying to come up with logical scenarios of who, what, where, why and how.”

He removed two sheets of paper, folded in half, from his jacket pocket and unfolded them. “This is a printout of the fifty-six names you and the kid got from the headstones by the mausoleum. We poured over them, looking for a link. Abbreviations. A big chunk of people from Europe settled here. Lots of them changed their names. We considered that the killer uses the shortened surname of his ancestors. “He handed me the page. “Of the fifty-six names, eleven could've been trimmed down or 'Americanized'. I made a separate list of those. Take a look.”

I looked at the paper, my eyes going to the short list:

Norbyer

Uvorelli

Friskenacht

Suinneur

Oberfuolner

Bastaad

Ruddigger

Wachtmannfried

Viteurhoven

Kogarun

Puillifert

“None rings even the remotest bell for me,” I said. “In my head I'm trying to make anagrams out of them.”

“We tried that too. Nothing. I even ran them through the computer to find variations on the names. Made it even worse. Came up with seventy-six weird-sounding names.”

I examined the longer list of conventional names hoping to find one that I could place with the face of someone alive in Dankworth today. There were none, other than a few common English and Irish surnames.

“Listen, Del, I'm not Sherlock-fucking-Holmes. There's no bodies. No weapons. No evidence of any kind. I've read enough and talked to enough cops to know that cases get solved either through plodding, detailed, painstaking work or dumb luck. Just like it was a fluke that Brandy Parker's body was discovered, it'll be the same kind of chance event that'll put an end to this. When I don’t know.”

“Just like it's taken twenty-four years for something to solve the Virginia Thistle case?” I snapped. “Or fifteen years for something to solve the Alyssa Kirkland case?”

“You want me to go forward? Give me more than hunches and heartache. Give me something real.” He walked to the door. “Give me something I can hold in my hands.” He stepped out of my office.

He left the printout of names of people buried near the mausoleum and the box containing Brandy Parker's things behind. I picked up the printout and studied the names again. Not one looked even remotely familiar.

I spent the next five hours going through Brandy Parker's things. I examined everything in the box, reading the notebooks, looking at the pictures, grasping for something that would offer a clue. There was nothing. I was beginning to understand Perry's frustration. I knew he was right about finding something solid to work with, but I also knew he was right about dumb luck playing an important part. Either way would take time.

I wanted to call Quilla. It had been two days since she'd left me standing in front of the Police Station. I wanted to see if she'd calmed down, as well as to tell her about my latest visit from Perry. Plus, I had Brandy's things. Even if Quilla had made up her mind to stay angry at me forever, I wanted to get them back to her. I decided to be the adult and give her a call.

Suzanne Worthington answered with an abrupt, “Quilla?”

“No. It's Del Coltrane.”

“Have you seen or talked to Quilla today?” There was an edge to her voice. “Or yesterday?”

“No. Is something wrong?”

“Quilla hasn't been home for the last two nights,” she said gravely. “Sometimes she stays away for one night... if we've had an argument, but she always comes back the next day only... we didn't have an argument two days ago. Since the funeral, we've actually been very decent to one another. I'm extremely concerned. She's been obsessing on finding my sister's killer. And she mentioned a connection with her friend Gretchen's mother and someone you knew. At first I thought it was too unbelievable to give any credibility to, but now I'm wondering if it could be true. I can't believe I'm saying this, but... could the same man be after her?”

The question gave me the chills. “Why would you think that?”

“My sister vanished off the face of the earth,” she snapped. “I think I have a right to ask the question. Quilla wasn't the only one to suspect that something awful happened to her. I just chose to focus on the easier solution: that she ran away. But a small part of me feared the worst. Since Brandy's disappearance I've spent every day dreading that the same thing might happen to Quilla. She's run away in the past. You can't imagine what
that
did to me. And she's stayed out all night without warning me. Going on forty-eight hours without knowing where your child is can be hell. For the last two days I've been asking myself if my worry is premature. Should I call her friends? They would lie to protect her. Should I call the police? What good would it do. So I've been waiting... wondering... and I don't know who to turn to.”

“Where was she going the last time you saw her?”

“I don't know. She doesn't tell me her plans. She comes and goes. Sometimes I'm here. Sometimes I'm not. I often work long hours. My worst fear is that the person who killed my sister has indeed gotten hold of Quilla.”