“It’s good.” She wiped her mouth with a wispy napkin from the deli. “Those times she ran away. Did she come back voluntarily?”
“Nope. Her brother found her both times.”
He nodded to the cold thermos at his elbow. “Sure you don’t want to try a little of the local brew?”
Sweet tea. “No thanks. What did she look like?”
“That’s the funny thing.” He balled up the butcher paper his sandwich came in and threw it into the garbage can nearby: three points. “Those photos you showed me of your victims? She looked a lot like both those girls. Pretty and blond.”
After lunch they took a tree-lined rural road, C-30A, out to Zebra Island Trading Post and Raw Bar at Indian Pass.
Laura glanced at Redbone. He drove in a desultory fashion, the seat back all the way and one freckled hand steering from the bottom of the wheel.
“Zebra Island Trading Post?” she asked.
“This is the turn-off for St. Vincent Island. St. Vincent was owned by a rich man who thought it would look good with a bunch of zebras on it.”
Before they left the park, the chief suggested that he take the lead, since he knew the owners and probably knew the clientele as well. Laura agreed; she was a fish out of water here.
Redbone swung the wheel and the patrol car slewed into a sandy parking lot, nose in to an old-fashioned country store. Under the pitched roof were a collection of weathered murals depicting an Indian chief’s head—complete with warbonnet—a pastoral scene of zebras grazing, and a giant oyster. A GONE FISHIN’ sign hung in the window.
“Well, that’s strange. I didn’t know Gary was going fishing,” Redbone said. “Guess we should’ve called first.”
They were still thinking what to do when a dull red Blazer of indeterminate age pulled into the lot. KC lights up top, jacked-up wheels. A sinewy man in a black T-shirt and camo pants emerged from the Blazer and went to the newspaper vending machines out front.
The chief buzzed down his window and cocked his elbow on the door. “Ronnie! How you doing?”
“Hey.” Ronnie came over and bent his head inside the driver’s door. “How’re you?”
Chief Redbone nodded Laura’s way. “This pretty lady here is Criminal Investigator Laura Cardinal from Arizona. You know Jimmy de Seroux, don’t you?”
“Jimmy? He photographed my sister’s wedding.”
Redbone turned to Laura. “Ron’s cousin owns this place. Where is Gary, anyway?”
“Went down to St. George for a couple of days of R and R. I’m keeping an eye on the place.”
“Was Jimmy a regular?”
“Sure was. Came in at least once a week.”
“He tell you he was going anywhere?”
Ron rubbed the bristles on his chin. “As a matter of fact, he did. Said he was taking a trip to see the country.”
“When was this?”
“Long time ago. It was still cold—I remember talkin’ to him outside, and as I recall, there was a hard frost from the night before.”
“He say anything else?”
Ron thought about it. “I don’t think so.”
“You know Jimmy very well?”
“Just, he likes his burgers. Every time he come in here he ordered a burger medium rare. Ron don’t cook medium rare anymore. They’d go round and round on that.”
“Jimmy have a girlfriend?”
“Never saw him with anybody. I don’t remember him socializing with anybody, male or female. Real quiet guy, kind of kept to himself.”
“How come he told you he was going on a trip?”
“I don’t remember how that came up. Is it important?” He peered in through the window again. “Did he do something in Arizona?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Redbone said. “Somebody still breaking into those vending machines?”
“Nope. But it don’t hurt to check.”
Laura asked, “Do you know if he had an RV? Camper, motor home?”
Ron shook his head. “Heck, I was surprised when he told me he was going on a trip. Must have been feeling talkative that day.”
Back at Apalachicola PD, Redbone showed Laura the file on Linnet Sobek. It was a thin file because she was considered a missing person. The photograph attached was eerily similar in appearance to that of Alison Burns. Same heart-shaped face, big blue eyes, child’s small nose. Blond hair.
They could have been twins.
Scanning the file, Laura saw nothing that Redbone hadn’t already told her, but she asked for a copy of the file anyway.
“I’ll just run him on NCIC and see what comes up,” Redbone said.
There were no wants or warrants on a Jimmy de Seroux. No previous convictions. If he was who Laura thought he was, he had been very successful as a criminal, sailing under the radar all his adult life.
Next, Redbone checked the Motor Vehicle Division records. Jimmy de Seroux owned only one vehicle, the blue 1967 Chevrolet pickup.
“So much for the motor home theory,” the chief said. “You ask me, it’s pretty thin.”
“What’s pretty thin?”
An Apalachicola PD officer appeared in the doorway and the room decreased in size by twenty-five percent.
“Just helpin’ out a fellow peace officer run down a suspect.” Chief Redbone introduced Laura to the officer, Jerry Oliver.
Oliver took off his hat and Laura saw the sweat line in his hair above his moon face. She also noticed that his brass was unpolished, his nameplate so filmy,she couldn’t read his name.
“So who’s the guy?” Oliver said. “Maybe I know him.”
“It’s none of—“
“Jimmy de Seroux,” Laura said.
“Jimmy?” Oliver snorted. “No way. No way he’d do anything violent, considering what—”
“Jerry, did you go by Mrs. Darling’s?” Chief Redbone said. “She’s mighty agitated about that Buckner kid and his loud music.”
“I’ve talked to her three times. The kid doesn’t play that loud.”
“Well, go talk to her anyway. See if you can work it out. Use your negotiating skills.”
Oliver’s face turned stubborn, and he rested his hand on his nightstick. “Let me at least get a drink of water. It’s hot as Hades out there." He crossed over to the water cooler. “Arizona, huh? How’d you get a line on Jimmy?” he asked Laura, pouring water on his hands and rubbing his face.
“Jerry, I want you to get your butt out there now." Redbone’s voice boomed. Laura looked at him. She saw a hard light in his eyes.
“I’m goin’, I’m goin.’”
Chief Redbone watched him leave.
“That boy is the laziest sonofagun I ever saw." Back to his easy-going, affable self. Smiling, expansive. “Can’t do a thing about it, though. His daddy’s on the city council.”
When Laura got back to the Gibson Inn, she checked at the front desk for messages. Victor still hadn’t called back. She called him and got his voice mail. Left her own and paged him, too.
She wondered if Lehman had confessed. There might already be a deal in the works. And here she was in Florida with nothing.
Tilting at windmills.
She looked at her list again.
Alison Burns - similar
Dress patterns – Inspirational Woman
Motor home seen at Brewery Gulch
Motor home seen near primary crime scene
Digital camera, jewelry sent to Alison/Internet connection (?)
CRZYGRL12
The man in the photo—beach house?
Peter Dorrance
Serial killer, organized type?
Differences between Jessica and Alison: period of time kept, age, manner of death
Postmortem vs. antemortem
She had added five items to the list: