He leaned back looking satisfied with himself. “They were all around and they’re all suspects. All of ’em!”
Chapter 18
“But there’s one guy who wasn’t around?” I said. “Kyle Thistle. He was in the institution when Alyssa was killed.”
“If she was killed,” said Perry.
“If. But under my theory, Kyle is eliminated. And obviously most of the names on your list aren’t serious suspects. Like Vaughn and the women. And I can’t believe you put Lew Henderson as a serious suspect?”
“Go back nine years. Lew would’ve been fifty-five. And old man DiGregerio would’ve been in his early Sixties. And interestingly enough, both men have always looked younger and stayed in good shape, especially Alphonse. And it was common knowledge that he was a pussy hound all his life. And based on what the girl just told us about her Aunt being turned off to young guys and maybe seeing an older man/father figure type, who would be more natural than Alphonse?”
“You’re reaching, Perry.”
“It’d be convenient for everybody if he was the one. Not only would a nice deathbed confession have taken the heat off me to solve the damn murder, but it would save the County a fortune in court costs. I wish I could’ve talked to him before he died.”
“The man isn’t even in the ground yet. I think a little respect for the dead is called for.”
“Screw the dead! I know what people are saying. I’m an asshole and I don’t have a shot at finding the killer. I don’t need a murder case in my life, Del. I’ll take a lifetime of chicken-shit misdemeanors. I don’t want to have to prove anything to anybody. And I don’t want this to slip into the wind. And I most assuredly don’t want to spend the rest of my life being haunted by a case like my old man.”
“Which case was your father haunted by?”
“Whattya think?” he snarled. “Not finding the body of Virginia Thistle.”
“But you said as far as your Dad was concerned, it was closed.”
“Only reason it got closed was because Kyle Thistle lost his mind. Sticking him in the nuthouse made things easy for everybody, especially my father. But he had his pride. No easy answer ever does anything for your pride. That case nearly drove him off the deep end. It’s hard enough to find evidence for even the simplest of crimes, but when it’s murder, not to have a friggin’ body? My Dad worked his ass off trying to figure what happened to that woman.” Perry shook his head with heaviness. “Goddamn Pete Dinwiddy!”
“Who?”
“The so-called witness who claimed he saw Kyle Thistle dropping garbage in a couple of cans. Dinwiddy was a lush, but it was the only thing my father had to go on. There was pressure from the County DA so my Dad made an arrest. But he never believed him. As for the body being in the lake, it’s standard procedure to make a search. You comb the area around the missing person’s house. You scour the wooded areas. You drag Lake Dankworth. Ho-hum. But Thistle got put away and everybody was satisfied except my father. He wanted Kyle to be tried. Figured a jury wouldn’t put much stock in the testimony of Dinwiddy because of his drinking. Dad was counting on a not guilty verdict. He figured people would’ve thought he tried to find justice.”
“Did he have a theory of what really happened?”
“He thought Virginia Thistle was kidnapped. Statistically, in kidnappings of adults, it’s almost always a stranger. And the victim is almost always a woman. And the perpetrator is almost always a man. Or men. Seldom the husband. If the motive isn’t a ransom, it’s usually sex. Or sex and murder. They may not want to kill the woman, but they have to because she can connect them with the crime. And because it’s usually a stranger, the officer investigating the case has to assume that some drifter did it, some psycho passing through, whether it’s a big city or a small town. With all that in mind, you’d think that it would apply to the Virginia Thistle case, right?”
“Right.”
“That’s what my father assumed when he began the investigation. But he kept having these gut reactions. Dad was always big on gut reactions, whether it was concerning somebody breaking into a feed store, me lying about a grade I got on a test in school and everything else. He operated the same way with the Thistle disappearance and his gut feeling told him a few things: that she was kidnapped and murdered and that whoever did it was someone in Dankworth… and that it was someone who knew her.”
“A friend? Neighbor? Co-worker?”
“No. Some guy who saw her and set his sights on her. Dad said that she was a nice-looking woman.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a dirty, stained manila folder held together by two thick, red rubber bands. “After I saw Kyle Thistle at the Funeral Home I pulled out his file, figured I’d refresh my memory. This is all we had. Most of it’s illegible. Because of the flood we hadsome records of old cases got waterlogged. Nobody much cared. They were closed. I have the basic data in the computer, but all the paperwork was in this folder. Not that it matters.”
“Why doesn’t it matter?”
“I’m not working on the Virginia Thistle disappearance. That case is closed.”
“But if your Dad is right, the real killer could be walking the streets of Dankworth right now.”
“Yep. Or maybe he moved away. Wouldn’t you move if you killed somebody? I would. Or maybe the guy’s dead. Hell, maybe he was buried by your Funeral Home. But it doesn’t matter. I’ve read lots of books and manuals on police work. I study the stuff. Most cases never get solved. All society demands is that somebody pay a price. Hopefully, most of the time, the right person pays the price. The rest of the time the wrong guy has to cough up with prison time or his life. But society is satisfied. Only time society gets pissed off is when nobody pays. Kyle Thistle paid and everyone’s satisfied.”
“Not everybody.”
“You mean you and that kid?”
“I mean Kyle Thistle’s daughter. If she found out everything you just told me, she could demand that the investigation into her mother’s disappearance be re-opened.”
“She ain’t gonna find out.”
“She will if I tell her.”
“You can tell her anything you want, but I’ll deny saying what I told you. And I’ll destroy what’s left of the file.”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious about what really happened to Virginia Thistle?”
He thought for a few seconds, sucking on his lower lip, then said, “I could give a shit.”
“What about your father?” Perry glared at me, his face expressionless. “Wouldn’t it be nice if he could have the answer to the biggest case of his career solved by you?”
“Don’t pull that crap with me. This how you con people into buying more expensive coffins?” He shook his head. “The past doesn’t interest me. You and the kid and Thistle’s daughter are all stuck in it. What the hell is with you people? Why can’t you let go? Get the fuck outa here!”
“If I walk out of here now I’m going straight to Thistle’s daughter and telling her everything you said. She’ll make trouble for you, man. You don’t re-open her mother’s case and she won’t hesitate to go over your head.”
“Let her try. I’ll give her the County Sheriff’s number. And the DA’s and I’ll even throw in the Governor’s. She won’t find a soul willing to muck around in old crimes. She’ll get lost in the bureaucracy. Now get out!”
I knew that if I let it end like this Perry would have another reason to half-ass his investigation and throw in the towel earlier than he might want to. I decided to make one last appeal to his vanity. “Over the years, Thistle’s daughter hired detectives to find her mother.”