Pretty Girl Gone (25 page)

“She was drunk?”

“One hundred and twenty pound teenage girl? Oh, yeah, she was drunk. Does that help?”

“I don’t know. Did they keep the samples?”

“No. My guy told me that samples in unknown suspect cases were not routinely held for any length of time in those days unless it was a high-profile case. There was no DNA testing, so there was no point.”

I pivoted toward Mallinger. I looked her directly in the eye as I said, “Thanks, Bobby. I owe you one.”

“You owe me a helluva lot more than one, but we’ll talk about that later.”

“Love to the family.”

“Back at ya.”

I deactivated the phone and set it next to the notebook.

Mallinger handed a cup of coffee to me and drank from the other.

“I thought you could use this,” she told me.”

“Thank you, Danny,” I said while removing the plastic lid.

“That phone call—is there something I should know?” she asked.

“This is good coffee.”

“Are you holding out on me, McKenzie?”

“Very good coffee.”

“Uh-huh. I was going to ask you if you slept well.”

“I did. How about you?”

“You were too much of a distraction. I had to go home, remember? It was lucky I did. The ME called at the crack of dawn. He was up all night trying to prove that you were wrong about Josie Bloom.”

“Did he?”

Mallinger shook her head slowly.

“There was no gunshot residue on his hand, no fingerprints on the gun. The ME has classified it as a homicide. Once I heard that,
I reinterviewed the kids we busted the other day. Did a photo array. They all picked Josie as the man who sold them the meth.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’ve already done it. I called the Nicholas County Sheriff’s Department. It’s their case.”

“How would you like to solve it?”

“What do you know that I don’t?”

“Answer the question. How would—”

“I’d like it a lot. Of course I would.”

“Could you get the rest of the Victoria Seven together, all of them together in the same room?”

“You think they killed Josie?”

“Get them together and we’ll ask them.”

“It’s done.”

“Done?”

“They’re all over at Nick’s even as we speak, planning Josie Bloom’s funeral. That’s where I got the coffee.”

“Including Dr. Peterson.”

“Everyone except Jack Barrett.”

“Let me get dressed, we’ll go over there.”

“Before we do . . . About last night.”

I didn’t want to talk about last night and my reaction was probably more brusque than it needed to be.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re going to tell me that you’ve never done anything like that before and you’re not that kind of girl.”

“I haven’t done anything like that before,” Mallinger said. “But apparently I am exactly that kind of girl. The thing is, I’m pretty sure I’m not the kind of girl who does it a lot. McKenzie, I’m grateful to you. I needed comfort. I needed understanding and tenderness. I needed someone to care about me. You gave me all that. That’s a lot to give, but . . .”

“But it’s not going any farther than last night.”

“If it does, it won’t be because I need comfort.”

“Okay.”

“Please don’t be offended.”

“I’m not offended, Danny. Honestly, I’m not. I suppose last night we were both using each other for the same reasons.”

Mallinger nodded her head, but I don’t think that was the answer she wanted to hear. Which was ironic, because that wasn’t the answer I wanted to give.
Hell yes, I’m offended.
That’s what I really wanted to say, but what was the point? At the first opportunity, I was leaving Victoria and I didn’t plan on coming back.

“We should be on our way if we’re going to catch the Seven,” Mallinger said.

“Yeah, we should.”

“I think from now on, you should call me Chief again.”

“Why don’t you wait outside while I get dressed, Chief.”

It didn’t take me long. Jeans, boots, the shirt and sweater I had worn the two previous days that now made me feel slightly soiled. I put most of my time into my hair.

I met Mallinger in the lobby. We left for Nick’s in separate cars. Ten minutes later we walked through the heavy door of the restaurant. Axel-rod, Hugoson, Reif, and Dr. Peterson were sitting alone in a room reserved for private functions just off the kitchen. I was pleased to see the splint on the middle finger of Reif’s gun hand.

“McKenzie.”

Axelrod seemed pleased to see me. The others said nothing. They were sitting at a long table, bottles of beer arrayed in front of them. I recognized Dr. Peterson from the photos in his office. He wore sunglasses—even indoors—that reminded me of the windshield of an expensive sports car. He was tanned, but it was man-made and didn’t have the healthy glow you get from sun and fresh air.

“Have you guys met McKenzie?” Axelrod asked.

No one replied. The other men seemed more interested in Mallinger than they did in me.

“What’s going on, Chief?” Hugoson asked.

“Good question,” she replied. “What is going on?”

“Gentlemen, and I use the word loosely,” I said. They all turned to look at me. “Which one of you has A negative blood?”

Dr. Peterson carelessly raised his hand.

Hugoson shot him a glance that could have frozen running water.

“Which one of you is B positive?”

“Shut up, you guys!” Hugoson told the room. “What are you doing here?” he asked me.

“How about you, convict? Are you B positive?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“It’s easy enough to find out. We’ll just check your prison records.”

Hugoson rose so quickly to his feet that his chair fell over.

“Going somewhere?” Mallinger asked.

“I don’t need to listen to this crap.”

“Aren’t you curious?” Mallinger asked him. “Me? I’m curious. How ’bout the rest of you guys? Are you curious?”

“I am,” Axelrod said and laughed. “Very curious.” Only his laughter didn’t have the same lilt as it had when I first met him.

“What’s your blood type, Nick?” I asked.

“O positive. Universal donor.” He answered like he was proud of it.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Hugoson wanted to know.

“You guys have been all hot and bothered ever since I began asking questions about Elizabeth Rogers. No one would talk to me except Josie Bloom, and you killed him for it.”

“He committed suicide,” Dr. Peterson said.

“No, he didn’t,” Mallinger told them.

They all seemed genuinely surprised by the news.

“I announce that I’m going to the BCA”—I was staring at Dr. Peterson, it annoyed me that I couldn’t see his eyes—“and less than an hour
later someone tried to kill me. Then someone killed Josie. Now we know why.”

“Why?” asked Hugoson.

“Elizabeth Rogers was raped before she was murdered—raped by at least three men with type A negative, B positive, and O positive blood.”

“Who are you, Kojak?” Hugoson wanted to know. “You expect us to jump up now and say, ‘Yes, we did it, ha, ha, ha, and we’re glad?’ Get lost.”

Here it comes,
my inner voice announced.
The big bluff.

“As soon as I leave here I’m going to visit the Nicholas County attorney and then we’re going to visit a judge. We’re going to get a search warrant and then we’re coming back here and take blood samples from each of you. Back when you killed Elizabeth, they didn’t have the technology. All they could identify was blood type and that couldn’t be used to differentiate between suspects with the same blood type. But a miracle has occurred since then, gentlemen. DNA testing. We’re going to take your blood and match it to the semen you left in Elizabeth Rogers and then the mighty Victoria Seven, the do-or-die kids—you’re all going to prison for the rest of your lives.”

“I ain’t goin’ back to prison,” Hugoson announced.

“If not for Elizabeth, then for Josie,” I said.

“I had nothin’ to do with that.”

“Were you his partner, convict? Were you and Josie dealing meth?”

“Fuck no.”

“How ’bout you?” I was staring at Reif. “Were you trying to pick up some extra cash to support your KKK club, or whatever it is?”

“No,” he insisted.

“But you knew he was dealing.”

“I knew,” Hugoson said. “I seen enough crankheads in stir to know one when I see one, only I had nothing to do with it. That’s bad shit and I had nothing to do with it.”

“Who was helping him?” Mallinger asked.

“It wasn’t me.”

“Someone was helping him.”

Neither Hugoson nor the rest had anything to say to that.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “When we get the search warrants for Elizabeth, all the rest will fall into place, too.”

“We didn’t kill Beth,” Dr. Peterson said. He had a high, almost squeaky voice. It was the first time I had heard it.

“Shut up.” Hugoson was snarling. “They don’t have squat or they wouldn’t be here. You think I don’t know how things work?”

“We didn’t rape her, either,” Dr. Peterson said.

“Shut up, I tell you.”

Hugoson went toward Dr. Peterson, but Mallinger stepped between them.

“It wasn’t like that.” Reif was doing the talking, now. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

“What was it like?”

“Beth, she found us. We weren’t looking for her. She found us. We were in Josie’s basement drinking beer, and we had a lot of it, and then she was there. She came over because she was looking for Jack. Jack Barrett. Only he wasn’t there. We didn’t know where he was and then—”

“She said she’d take us all on.”

That from Hugoson. I spun toward him.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean? She said she wanted to fuck us all.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“It’s not a lie,” Reif insisted. “That’s what she said. She said Jack was sleeping with another girl and that she wanted to teach him a lesson. So she, we . . .”

“So we let her,” said Hugoson. “All of us. Together. We took her every way we could think of. A regular orgy.”

I was forced backward by his words until my back was against the wall. My mind reeled at the information I suddenly didn’t want to hear.

“All of you?” I asked.

I looked at Axelrod. He nodded.

“It was no big deal,” Hugoson said.

I wasn’t surprised that he thought so.

“She was seventeen,” I said.

“So were we,” Hugoson said.

“She was drunk.”

“So were we.”

“Beth came down to the basement and took off her clothes,” Dr. Peterson said. “Just like that. She was standing there wearing nothing but her locket. A beautiful girl like her. What would you have done?”

Not that,
my inner voice said.
I wouldn’t have done that. Not even at seventeen and drunk with my friends urging me on.

“You took advantage of her,” I said.

“She took advantage of us.”

“I don’t believe you.”

But I did.

“That’s what happened,” said Reif. “That’s all that happened. We all did it and then she left.”

“Just left?”

Reif glanced at Hugoson and looked away quickly.

“Yeah. She just left.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hugoson said. “You can’t touch us. The rape thing has expired, the statute of limitations.”

“But not murder.”

“We didn’t kill nobody.”

“Tell us about the convenience store clerk you beat up,” I said.

“Fuck you.”

“It’s true, though,” Reif said. “We didn’t kill her. We didn’t touch her. We liked her. We really did.”

“Then why was Josie Bloom so upset?”

“Because he
loved
her,” Axelrod answered. There was fear in the voices of the other men. His was seasoned with regret. “He had loved her his entire life. That night in the basement, it wasn’t fun and games for Josie. It was love. When she turned up dead the next morning, I guess he started to die, too.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Hugoson said.

“We didn’t kill her, McKenzie,” Axelrod said. “As God is my judge.”

“She said, before she left . . .” Reif hesitated as if he knew he was saying something foolish and decided to say it anyway. “She said she was going to ruin everything.”

“Shut the hell up!” shouted Hugoson.

“What do you mean, ruin everything?”

“She said—”

“Brian!” Hugoson shouted.

“She said she was going to tell Jack what we did. She said she was going to get her revenge on Jack and then see how well we all played basketball together.”

Hugoson slumped in his chair. He knew a motive when he heard one.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“She left,” said Reif. “We never saw her again.”

“We were all together,” Hugoson said. “We didn’t leave each other until it was way early in the morning. If you want us to take a polygraph, we will.”

Dr. Peterson nodded his head in agreement.

I knew it was unnecessary. The fact that Hugoson and others would even volunteer . . . I felt the need to sit down. I found a chair at the far end of the table. We sat staring at each other for a few minutes while Mallinger circled the room, not looking at anything in particular. The expression on her face—it seemed as if she had given up on civilization once and for all.

“You got nothing on us,” Hugoson said.

“We didn’t kill Beth,” Reif said. “We didn’t kill Josie.”

“Who did?” I asked.

“I don’t know about Josie, but . . .”

Reif didn’t speak the words, but they hung in the air just the same.

Jack Barrett killed Beth.

“McKenzie?” Axelrod reached out his hand as if he wanted to touch me, then pulled it back again. “You’ll never know how sorry I am. I could tell you and tell you and tell you and still you’d never know.”

I was in the Audi, driving way too fast for the narrow county roads. I had ignored Mallinger’s calls to wait when I left Nick’s and sped to Chief Bohlig’s lake home as quickly as I could. I found his driveway and turned in. The Audi slid on his slick asphalt and nearly rammed his trash bins before halting.

Mallinger arrived moments later. She ran to catch up as I approached Bohlig’s door. He opened it before I had a chance to knock.