The Murder of Janessa Hennley (21 page)

7

The pizza restaurant shared a wall with the bar next door. The pairing seemed incongruent. From what Mickey could tell, college students
frequented the pizza restaurant, whereas Harleys lined up out front of the bar. It was a biker bar, but not someplace Hells Angels would go. More a place blue-collar weekend riders stopped to grab a beer before heading home.

“We haven’t had lunch,” Angela said. “Let’s grab a slice while we’re there.”

“You ate two hours ago.”

“I’m
a growing girl, Mickey.”

“We can do that later. I want to go to the bar.”

“She was at the pizza place, though.”

“Yeah, but where was he?”

Compared to the bright sunlight outside, the bar was like a cave. A mirror dressed the wall behind the bartender, reflecting even the dimmest flicker of light. The bartender was a fat man with a dirty beard and a ponytail. His nametag said “Tony.” He was pouring amber liquid out of a bottle into a shot glass. He slid the glass over to a man at the end of the bar. Off to the side was another bartender wearing a Blackhawks T-shirt.

A handful of solitary drinkers
wore biker jackets adorned with skulls, pirates, and pentagrams. But Mickey had seen real bikers during an undercover operation into the Mongol biker club in Los Angeles. These guys looked like choirboys in comparison. Mickey guessed the stares they received were directed at Angela more than him.

“What can I do for you, officers?” Tony asked.

“That obvious, huh?” Mickey said.

“Clear as day if you know what to look for.”

“The girl that was kidnapped out in the parking lot, I’m sure a couple of detectives have already interviewed you about her. But I just had a few follow up questions.”

“You don’t look local. I know all the deputies.”

Mickey pulled out his badge and showed it to him before replacing it in his pocket. “Was there anybody in here that night that left around the time she was kidnapped? About eight o’clock.”

“I don’t remember. I didn’t know she was kidnapped
’til, like, two days later.”

“It’d be someone you’
ve probably never seen before but that was here a long time. Just keeping to themselves. Maybe ordered one drink to sip, but didn’t finish it.”

“I’m sorry. I’d love to help. I got me a girl her age out in Des Moines. If I knew anything
, I’d tell y’all, but I just don’t remember. I don’t keep track of that stuff.”

Mickey left
his card on the bar. “If you think of anything, please let me know.”

“I will.”

He scanned the faces in the bar, and they all turned away from him. “Might as well get your pizza.”

The booth faced a window overlooking the parking lot. Mickey played with a fork, lightly jabbing it into his thumb as cars
came and went. The pizza—pepperoni with extra cheese—arrived, and Angela ate a slice before either of them spoke.

“This is freakin’ delicious,” she said. “Have one.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re going to starve. Have a slice.” She put
a piece of pizza on a paper plate before pushing it toward him. He took one bite and placed the slice back down.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“I’m scared he’s already fled the state. That we’re just going to be one step behind him the entire time.”

“We’ll catch up eventually.”

“There are a lot of victims between here and eventually.”

A man walked up to the booth
. His eyes darted around, and sweat glistened on his forehead. The bartender in the Blackhawks T-shirt.

“You’re with the FBI, right? I heard you talkin’ to Tony.”

“Yeah,” Mickey said.

“I seen somethin’ the night Carrie Ann was taken. My name’s Dan.”

Mickey moved down in the booth. “Have a seat.”

Dan
rubbed his fingers together, his gaze zooming around the restaurant as if he was expecting a hail of bullets to come flying through the windows. “She wasn’t leavin’, she went out to her car for a pack of smokes. That’s when I seen her talkin’ to a dude in a white van. He was drivin’ and smokin’ a cigarette.”

“You saw him?” Angela said. “Saw his face?”

He swallowed hard. “But I don’t want no trouble. I didn’t talk to the cops or nothin’.”

“Why are you talking to us
, then?”

“’Cause the news said what happened to her. Ain’t no one deserve that. Especially her.”

“You knew her,” Mickey said.

“Yeah, I knew her. That’s why she was here. For me. She didn’t want her friends knowin’ we was…
you know. She’d bring ’em for pizza and then spend some time with me. Her friends was college folk, and she was embarrassed, I think, but she never said nothin’. She treated me real good.”

“I’d like to get a sketch artist to work with you,” Mickey said. “We need a composite drawing of the person you saw.”

“No cops. The bar… We got issues. If folks there knew I was helpin’ the cops, even with somethin’ like this, they wouldn’t trust me no more.”

“I understand. Can you describe him to me, then?”

“Old dude. With a white beard. Looked kinda shady, you know? He was wearin’ a hat and glasses. He talked to Carrie Ann a bit, and she went ’round to the passenger side and got in his van.”

“Wait,” Angela said, “she got in willingly?”

“Yup. I thought maybe it was someone she knew. Then she didn’t answer her phone for a day, and then the cops come by.”

“So you had this information and you just—”

“Agent Listz,” Mickey said softly. He turned back to Dan. “Can you tell me anything else? Any number or letter on his license plate?”

“No, I don’t recall the numbers. But I did see they wasn’t Iowa plates
, ’cause they had like, oranges on it.”

“Oranges?”

“Yeah,” Dan glanced around. “They looked like balls,” he said quietly.

Angela snorted and immediately covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry.”

“Dan,” Mickey said, sliding one of his cards to him, “if you think of anything else that can help me, will you let me know?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“And, I know this is asking a lot, but could I have your cell phone number? I promise it will stay between us. I just may think of some questions later.”

He played with his fingers a moment. “I guess. Here, I’ll just text you.”
After the text, he stood up without a word.

“Dan, thank you for your help. I’m sorry about what happened to Carrie Ann.”

“Me too.”

When he was gone, Angela said, “Why’d you let him off so easy?”

“You need to read between the lines. Why would he be afraid of working with the police as a bartender?”

She shrugged.

“He’s scared because they’re dealing drugs. If he’s seen as a rat, they’ll fire him. Maybe worse.”

“You got that from what he said?”

“I got more than that. The license plate.”

She bit into another slice of pizza. “Yeah, what state has a pair of balls as their logo?”

He grinned. “None, but Florida has two oranges.”

8

Stephanie Hawkes was vaguely aware of movement. She knew she’d been lying on a bed
, because a pillow was propped next to her. She opened her eyes and saw a dresser against the wall. A bedroom.

The
dull ache in her head quickly became a pounding that overtook her senses until she couldn’t focus on anything else. Her eyes kept closing as though she’d been awake for days.

Something hard pressed against her legs and then her hips. She was hoisted up onto her feet. Someone had lifted her up and was carrying her.

Boots, jeans, and a white beard. The man smiled at her before dragging her down some steps into darkness. A light bulb flickered on. A single chair sat in the center of a concrete floor. White ropes wrapped around two of the legs and armrests.

“W-what are you…
what are you doing?” Her tongue was heavy and dry, as though she’d been chewing on cotton.

T
he man pushed her into a chair and then wrapped the ropes tightly around her wrists and ankles. She peered down and realized she was nude.

A chair scraped against the floor
. The man appeared in front of her, his elbows on the back of the chair and his fingers interlaced as if he were about to give a lecture at a university. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, and the smoke drifted into her eyes.

“You a pretty young thing,” he said. “How old are you?”

“W-where am I?”

“You right here, ain’t ya?”

“I don’t understand,” she said, closing her eyes to protect them from the light. Everything hurt, and even the dim light of a hanging bulb was like staring into the sun.

“Oh,
’nuff talk ’bout all that, now. We gonna have some fun.”

“Fun?”

“That’s right, darlin’. We gonna have some fun. So, where you from?”

She opened her eyes. He smiled at her, revealing stained and yellowed teeth.

“I know you,” she mumbled. “I know you.”

“Well
, we’ve met. Yeah.”

A knock from upstairs and then the doorbell. Her
gaze drifted up and then back to his. His brow furrowed, and he spit on the floor.

“Well, shame to cut this short now, but we got ourselves company.” He took a case
containing several syringes out of his back pocket. He plunged one into her arm. She tried to fight him off, but the only movement she could muster was a twitch in her arm.

He took a
Band-Aid from his pocket and gently placed it over the needle mark. “Don’t go nowhere,” he said with a grin before heading up the stairs.

9

The sun beat down on Mickey’s skin
as though it didn’t have anything else in the world to do. He leaned against the hood of his rental car. Angela was inside an ice cream parlor getting a sundae. She texted him and asked if he wanted anything. He replied that he didn’t, and she sent him a frowning emoticon.

He was waiting for two phone calls,
but he wasn’t sure which one he wanted to come first. In front of him was just a dirt field, and clouds of dust kicked up every time a car started and made its way to the road. The stuff caked his Italian loafers, and he was staring at them when his cell phone buzzed.

“This is Mickey.”

“Mick, it’s Steve. I got that trace you wanted. I’m emailing all the info now.”

“Great. We got a hit
, then?”

“Yup. Sixteen white vans with owners over
sixty registered in Florida. Had the interns track fifteen of ’em down. That leaves one unaccounted for.”

“Who?”

“Harold Ricks. But it’s only been three hours; he might just not have gotten around to returning our calls. I did get in touch with his mom, who said he was on trip. But she couldn’t say if it was in state or out.”

“Do me a favor, Steve. Send me his criminal history, would you?”

“Already in the email, bro.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“No worries.”

Angela
carried out a bowl of ice cream hosed down with chocolate syrup.

“You’re missing out,” she said.

He opened the email from Steve from the Bureau’s tech division. “I’m getting a stomachache just watching you.”

She shrugged and shoved another spoonful in her mouth.

Harold David Ricks was sixty-seven years old and worked as a bus driver part-time in a suburb of Tallahassee. A note in his employment history said he had been terminated from his job four months ago, though it didn’t say why. Mickey flipped through his credit history and then located his criminal convictions and arrests.

His career outside the law began when he was fifteen and convicted of
petty theft. The probable cause statement from the information, the document used to file charges against him, said he had stolen food from the cafeteria at school.

From there, the episodes grew in frequency. Mickey had seen this before. A kid
did something stupid or horrible, and the state placed them in juvenile detention. A place where they learned their craft, everything from how to hotwire cars to avoiding the cops. Inmate-on-inmate sexual assault was common as well, though people talked even less about it than in the adult jails and prisons. The child went in a normal kid that made a mistake, and came out a lifelong criminal.

At a young age,
Harold racked up everything relating to theft. They locked him up for three years in the Union Correction Institution on a car theft. A major gap in his history followed his parole only two months later. Mickey checked the dates: no criminal charges from 1971 to 1975.

Mickey scrolled down to the last known addresses
, and his heart dropped. His final identified place of residence was listed in Gainesville, Florida. But the place prior was in Raiford, Iowa. In Madison County. A house under his mother’s name. Prior to that was an apartment in Lincoln, Nebraska.

“We need to go
. Now.”

“Where?” she said, working around a dollop of ice cream.

He jumped into the driver’s seat and opened the door for her. Handing her his cell phone with one hand, he started the car with the other. “Call Detective Toby Miller at the sheriff’s office and tell him to meet us at that address. The first one.”

“Why?”

“Just tell him there’s someone there he’ll really want to meet.”