“Hamilton found out the guy has a record for car theft and domestic abuse.”
“That’s impossible,” Dixon said. “Jane does background checks on everyone working there. She never would have hired someone like that.”
“The guy’s been using his brother’s name and identity,” Hicks explained. “They live together. Hamilton goes to the house to interview the guy-Doug Lyle-but the Doug Lyle he talks to doesn’t work at the Thomas Center. The brother, Dave, used Doug’s information because he didn’t think anyone would hire a car thief fresh out of prison.”
“Jesus,” Dixon said. “Jane is going to flip out when she hears that story. She goes to such lengths to make sure her women are safe and protected, and it turns out she let the fox in the henhouse herself.”
“And how do Doug Lyle and Gordon Sells connect?” Mendez asked.
“My theory,” Hicks said. “Lyle steals the cars, takes them to Sells, Sells ships them somewhere, and they split the proceeds.”
“And kill a woman or three in the process?”
“Why not? The Hillside Strangler in LA turned out to be two guys working together.”
“It’s a viable scenario,” Dixon said. “See if you can connect Sells to Lyle. You take a crack at him, Bill. You guys can tag team him until he decides he wants a lawyer.”
Hicks took the “Sells file” and went across the hall.
Mendez sipped his coffee, anxious for the caffeine to kick in.
“What do you think, Tony?” Dixon asked. “Do you like this guy for it?”
Mendez stared at the monitor, watching Sells pick his nose until the door opened and Hicks walked in. “That would be an easy solution. If we can tie him to Lyle, and prove that Lyle stole the cars, et cetera.”
“But?”
He shrugged. “Sells is a pedophile. They don’t usually graduate to crimes against adult women. They go after kids because kids are most vulnerable, kids can’t fight back, because something in their own background attaches their sex drive to a certain age group.”
“Maybe the other guy is the sexual predator.”
“Maybe.”
They listened while Hicks questioned Sells about any association to Doug Lyle. Sells denied it.
“You’re bringing in the maintenance guy?”
“We sent a unit to pick him up.”
“I want to know when he gets here,” Dixon said, heading for the door.
“Right. Did you find anything inside the cars yet?”
He stopped in the doorway and turned back around slowly, looking like the weight of the world had descended on him.
“Karly Vickers had a traffic ticket in her glove compartment, dated the day she disappeared,” he said.
“Yeah? So?”
“The ticket was written by Frank Farman.”
35
Friday, October 11, 1985
12:47 A.M.
Karly had no idea how much time had passed since she had last been visited. It might have been a day. It might have been a matter of a few hours.
She was losing her sanity. Exhausted and weak, she had begun lapsing into hallucinations. She would see Petal walking around the room, coming over to look at her quizzically. Karly would go to pet her and realize she couldn’t move her hand, though she didn’t understand why. Then Petal would speak as clearly as any person.
“You can’t get up. We have to kill you.” And the dog would lunge for her throat and tear it out.
This time when the hallucination came and she went to pet the dog, her hand was free. If only that was true, she thought. Then the dog vanished and darkness descended, and she began to think she might actually be conscious. And her hand was still free.
And her other hand was free.
And she was able to move her legs.
Was this really happening or was it another dream? Slowly, carefully she tried to sit up. The pain was terrible in her stomach, her ribs, but she sat up. Dizziness swirled around in her head like water in a toilet bowl. She waited for it to pass. When it had, she carefully turned herself until her legs dangled over the side of the table.
Was she alone? Was she being watched?
She had no way of knowing if her tormentor ever left. He could have been right there, sitting at a table, eating his breakfast, casually watching her, knowing she would never be able to get away.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. She had fought so hard to rise above her past. Having her future snatched away from her wasn’t fair. She had to get angry. She had to try to help herself. Miss Thomas always said, “God helps those who help themselves.”
She had to try to help herself.
Having no idea how far it might be to the ground, she started to slide off the table, reaching downward with her toes. And there was the floor. It was cold. Pain bolted up her legs, up her spine to her brain. The soles of her feet had been cut numerous times. The half-closed wounds burst open as she put weight on her feet. It had been so long since she had been upright, her legs felt as if they didn’t really belong to her.
She gripped the edge of the table, fighting not to pass out or collapse to the floor. She couldn’t think about the pain. She had to fight.
Slowly, she began to walk. One step and then another. She clutched the edge of the table as she inched along. If she could make it to a wall, she would follow the wall around until she came to a door. When she found a door, she would go through it.
Without sight or hearing she had a difficult time trying to balance. Her head felt as huge and heavy as a bowling ball perched on top of her neck. As she moved it would feel as if the bowling ball began to roll one way and she would overcorrect and tip in the other direction.
She began to panic when she realized the table was not sitting against a wall. She would have to walk across open space.
Three steps and she couldn’t tell up from down. She stumbled and flailed with her arms, pitched forward. She didn’t realize she was falling until she hit the hard floor. Because she was disoriented, she didn’t even try to break the fall with her hands. She hit the floor head-first, her skull hitting so hard it bounced twice before she lost consciousness.
She didn’t know how long she had been out when she came around again. It didn’t matter. She had to get out. Maybe she would walk out a door into a neighborhood and someone would see her and call for help. Or she might walk out into the wilderness, wander aimlessly, and die of exposure. At least that would be on her own terms.
Karly pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and began to crawl. Better to stay on the ground, and still she lost her balance and fell again and again. She ran into a cabinet and slowly felt her way up the front of it until she was standing again.
Her hands swept over the surface-a counter, cluttered with things, tools maybe. Maybe she could find a weapon. Each object she picked up she carefully studied with her fingers until she found a screwdriver. That would do. She could stab someone with a screwdriver. Maybe she could gouge his eyes out, blind him as he had blinded her. Maybe she could sink it into his body and tear at his internal organs as he had torn at her.
Adrenaline came with the ideas of revenge. She began to feel giddy. Laughter bounced up and down inside her chest. The laughter segued into hysteria. She was losing it. She had to pull herself from that mental ledge. She had to keep going. She had to keep moving. She had to get out.
Now that she had found a wall, she lowered herself back down to the ground and began to crawl again. There had to be a door. And she had to get out.
36
Dawn was a pale sliver of color on the eastern horizon when Mendez pulled into Gordon Sells’s salvage yard. Despite the hour, the place was a hive of activity.
Crime scene teams from two counties and the state Bureau of Forensic Sciences were working over the property. Besides the trailer house, the place was cluttered with garages and sheds half falling down-all packed with machinery, parts, cars, and junk of all varieties. Behind the salvage business was a dilapidated barn and a pen full of twenty to thirty hogs. As if the place wasn’t disgusting enough to begin with.