Should Be Dead (The Valkyrie Smith Mystery Series Book 1) (11 page)

She pulled into a gas station at the edge of town, and while she was pumping her gas, an attendant came out to talk to her. He was husky, in his thirties and wearing a black t-shirt that did nothing to hide the tattoos covering his arms and neck. His nametag said Charles.

“That’s a beauty,” Charles said, circling around the front of her Packard. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in real life.”

“They’re rare,” she said. “My husband did all the work on it himself, before he passed away.”

“It looks great. Could use a wash, though.”

“I was just up Pepper Lane. It was a dusty drive.”

The attendant looked askance at her. “Pepper Lane? I hope you didn’t go all the way to the end.”

“Actually, I did,” she said with a grimace.

He let out a long whistle. “I’m surprised you got out of there in one piece. Old Shelby doesn’t care much for trespassers, which is the word he uses for anybody that gets within a thousand yards of that place.”

“I noticed. He wouldn’t listen to a word I said. He threatened to shoot me, so I left.”

Charles glanced at her clothing. “You an insurance agent or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, good luck with that. The only way you’ll get a close look at that property is with a swat team.”

“That wouldn’t do much good,” she said. “I’m trying to find information about his son.”

“Michael? Trust me lady, you’re best to stay away from him, too. He’s just as crazy as his dad, and maybe even more dangerous.”

“How so?”

Charles leaned up against the pump. “It started with rumors when he was younger. Stories about him doing crazy things like setting cats on fire and trying to burn down the school. He was always in one sort of trouble or another. Eventually, he dropped out of school. After that, there were reports of him stalking high school girls. We had a few rapes, and he was the main suspect, but nothing ever came from it.”

“I don’t understand. I was told he had no criminal record.”

“That doesn’t mean anything around here. Our old sheriff was Michael’s second cousin. Every time Michael got into trouble, the sheriff would make a couple phone calls and the next thing you know, Michael would be back on the street. That’s the way it was until the election last fall, when we ran that crook out of town. Wasn’t long after that Michael disappeared.”

The pump shut off, and Val returned the handle to the cradle. As she put the gas cap back in place, she said, “Do you have any idea where Michael might have gone?”

“Hard to say. To tell the truth, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was buried back in the hills around here somewhere. It was always just a matter of time until he messed with the wrong person. He was dangerous, but not too smart. The only thing for sure is that he’s not around here anymore. Lake County is a small place, population wise. If he was here, somebody would have seen him.”

Val thanked him. She collected her receipt and drove away, thankful that the trip hadn’t been a complete waste. Val had a feeling that if she spent more time talking to the locals, she would find plenty of stories about Michael’s childhood. She also had a feeling that his torturing cats and stalking girls was just the tip of the iceberg. His was textbook behavior for a future serial killer.

However, none of that really mattered. It wasn’t important how Michael had gotten to be the creature he was. The important thing was catching him, and using that information to find Odin. Loki was reckless. He was malicious in a way that made Odin look downright disciplined. If not for Odin’s oversight, Val thought that Loki’s inclinations might have gotten the better of him already. It was Odin holding him back, she was sure of it. The question was, how long could he do it? And when Loki had finally snapped, then what would happen?

She was almost afraid to think about it.

Two and a half hours later, Val was back in her room at the Bodega Bay Lodge. She was tired, she had a headache from too much driving, and her back hurt. She’d spent too much time in the car over the last few days, and she was suffering from a lack of regular exercise. That was something she’d have to remedy soon.

As soon as this is all over,
she told herself for the hundredth time.

She scanned Diekmann’s file and sent it to Matt, and then took a long soak in the tub. After that, she ordered room service for dinner and fell asleep early.

Val woke the next morning to the sound of her cell phone vibrating on the nightstand. She moved, and a moan escaped her lips. Her back felt even stiffer than usual. She rose on her elbow, wincing as spasms of pain shot up and down her spine. The fingers of her left hand were tingling. She shook it, restoring the blood flow.

By the time she had her phone in hand, the caller had hung up. It began to ring again. It was Matt. She put him on speaker.

“Sorry about last night,” he said. “My schedule this year is killing me.”

“That’s all right. Did you get the file I sent to you on Michael Barnes?”

“Yes, I’m looking at his social security history right now. This is the guy you think is Loki?”

“I’m sure of it. Do you have an address?”

“I have more than that. Grab a pen.”

Val did, and she proceeded to take down the address of an apartment in Santa Rosa, along with Loki’s employment information. He was a janitor at the Santa Rosa High School.

“Thanks Matthew,” she said. “You’ve been a huge help. I take it you had no luck finding that motor home?”

“Hah. I can point you in the direction of about two hundred of them, if you like.”

“What do you mean?”

“That area is crawling with RV parks. There are five just between Forestville and the coast. That’s not counting the ones between Jenner and Bodega Bay, or the ones parked in driveways and backyards and motel parking lots-”

“I get it,” Val cut him off. “I was afraid you might run into that problem.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s not like I have a GPS signal to track. I’m looking at satellite images here. There’s no way I can pick out one single motor home without some sort of identifying information.”

“How about a hole in the roof? Would that help?”

“What kind of hole?”

“When they took off, they ripped a satellite dish off the roof. That must have left some kind of damage.”

“Val! Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“What?”

“What brand was it?”

“The satellite dish? I have no idea.”

“Val, if it’s an internet capable system, that means it uses a two-way communications uplink!”

“Great! What does that mean in English?”

Matt groaned. “Okay, satellite television systems have been around for decades. In the old days, the dishes were huge, like eight feet across.”

“Yes, I remember. One of our neighbors had one when I was a kid.”

“Okay, the reason those dishes were so big was because the radio signal was coming from a satellite in space, and it was difficult to insure a strong signal. But over time, they improved the signal and the dishes got smaller.”

“I get it. Why is that important?”

“Even though the technology got better and the dishes got smaller, the receivers had no way to communicate back to the satellite, which is what you need if you want to use the internet. Think of it like this: when you use a computer at home, you have a two-way connection. You click on a link and the system delivers that website to your computer. Then you click on another link, and that page appears. Every time you click the mouse, you’re sending a request. You’re sending information
into
the internet.

“The problem with satellite systems was that they had no way to allow you to click that link. You could receive the page, but you couldn’t
request
the page. They overcame this with a link through the phone line. When the user clicked a link, the request went through the phone line to the satellite company. The satellite then sent the website to the dish.”

“That sounds slow.”

“You have no idea. But in the last ten years, they’ve come up with something new. It’s a system that puts a high energy radio transmitter on the satellite dish, which sends a signal directly to the satellite server’s hub.”

“And if Odin’s camper had one of these?”

 “I might be able to track that receiver. Granted, it might not be easy. Reception is spotty along the coast anyway, and with the dish missing…”

“Just do it,” said Valkyrie.

“I need the model and serial number from the dish. Do you have that information?”

Valkyrie winced as she thought of the mess in the empty RV space. “I’ll get it,” she said with a sigh.

She hung up the phone and settled onto the edge of the bed. Her back cramped up immediately. Valkyrie twisted her torso right and left, trying to loosen the muscles. Gradually, the pain diminished until she felt like she could move again. She went straight to her suitcase and dug out her bottle of prescription painkillers.

Valkyrie didn’t like taking them. The pills were not only moderately addictive, they also dulled her senses. On most days, she chose to live with some pain rather than sacrifice her wits. Today, she didn’t have a choice. The way her back was feeling, she’d be absolutely useless without some drugs in her bloodstream. Val popped one pill and stuck the bottle in her purse, just in case. She took her time getting dressed, not wanting her back to seize up again.

She left the hotel at nine a.m. and headed straight for Marigold RV Park. The first thing Val noticed when she pulled into the park forty minutes later was that Odin’s space had been cleaned up. The trash, the sewer line, the satellite dish… All of it was gone!

“Hey there!” Leann said as Val crawled out of her car.

“Leann, what happened? I thought you weren’t letting anyone touch that space.”

“Sorry, thought you were done with it. Dad said we had to clean it up before the county sent out a health inspector.”

“What did you do with the satellite dish? The one that fell off the roof?”

“I suppose it’s with the rest of the trash.”

“Please tell me you didn’t take it to the dump.”

Leann laughed. “Not yet. The dump truck won’t come until this afternoon. Everything is in the dumpster, by the showers.”

Valkyrie was too stiff to walk the two hundred yards to the showers, so she climbed back into her car and drove. Once there, she found the dumpster pushed into a brick-walled cubicle behind the building. She nearly gagged from the stench as she approached the thing. Val removed her jacket and put it over her face to filter the smell. It helped, a little.

She leaned over the top of the dumpster and saw a dozen large white trash bags and a lot of loose debris. With one hand, she began rummaging through the refuse. It took her a few minutes to clear one side of the dumpster to the halfway point, and that was where she came across a TV cable. She pulled on it, and realized that the dish was located under the rest of the trash at the opposite end of the dumpster. With a groan, Val began moving all the trash back to the other side. Thankfully, her meds were kicking in by then. Otherwise, she would have been in excruciating pain.

At last, Valkyrie located the dish. It was badly bent, like an old-fashioned saucer sled whose unfortunate rider had crashed into a tree. The receiver was a small metal box with a plastic cylinder sticking out of one side. The frame that held the box in place was twisted off to the side, hanging precariously by one screw. Val went to her car, located a multi-tool in the glove box, and returned to remove the screw. When she had it disassembled, she carried the contraption to a nearby picnic table and performed her detective work there.

With the receiver detached from the satellite, Val turned it over to view the identifying numbers stamped onto a metal plate on the back. The plate had rusted, making the numbers difficult to read. She cleaned the plate a little with the edge of her knife. Once she could make out the serial number, Valkyrie used her cell phone to photograph the plate. She mailed the picture to Matthew and tossed the receiver box in the trunk in case she needed it later.

Val’s next stop was the Sheriff’s Department. She had decided to share what she had learned about Michael Barnes with Sheriff Diekmann. Even as she walked down the hall towards his office, she still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. Val knew the smart thing would have been to play her cards closer to the vest; to use the precious information Matthew had given her to get ahead of Diekmann’s investigation, and then only reveal it to him if it became absolutely necessary.

That was how she’d always worked in the past. But now things had become complicated. Odin had complicated the situation by joining up with Loki, and Diekmann had made it even worse with his old-fashioned cowboy attitude. Every time she thought about the man, she felt guilty.

This was going to wipe the slate clean, she decided. No more guilt, no more conscience eating up at her. She was going to tell him everything.
Well… not
everything
.

“Come on in,” Diekmann said as she appeared. “Did you get one of the donuts in the break room?”

“Thanks anyway,” Val said. “I have some information that might interest you.”

Diekmann tilted his head to the side. “What kind of information?”

“Michael Barnes’ address,” she said, handing Diekmann the note she’d written down. “And his last employment.”

Diekmann accepted the slip of paper and glanced back and forth between her and the writing. “How did you get this so fast?”

“I have sources,” Val said. “Shall we go take a look?”

“Give me twenty minutes to get a warrant.”

Chapter 15

The bleeding had stopped. Maddie looked down the bridge of her nose and noticed that it seemed crooked. It was likely broken. That wasn’t the worst of her injuries, but so far nothing was permanent. So far, she had been lucky.

Lucky!
she thought.
Is that what I call being physically tortured and sexually violated? Lucky?