“I know, but it makes you want to know if your husband really plays poker on Thursday nights, doesn’t it?”
“I trust my husband implicitly,” she said, tension pulling on the natural downward curve of her mouth.
“But should you?” Vince asked. “That’s the question.”
“You’re making me uncomfortable, Mr. Leone,” she said curtly.
Vince feigned shock. “Oh, no! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—Oh my gosh, no! I’m the last guy . . . Really.” He started to laugh at the very notion. “Believe me, Mrs. Crane, I’m a lover not a fighter.”
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
“No, no, of course not,” he reassured her.
“What with everything that’s been in the news . . .”
“I understand. And if you don’t want to go on—”
“No, no, I’m fine, really,” she said, a little embarrassed. She tried to cover it with a little joke that wasn’t a joke. “But for the record, my boss knows I’m here with you!”
She laughed. He laughed.
But having spent too much time with killers, Vince couldn’t help thinking,
She opened the overhead garage door and sunlight spilled into the dark space.
“As you can see, there’s plenty of storage space back here, and easy access for delivery trucks.”
“And another door over here—”
“To access your parking spaces. I’m afraid there are only two. That’s the only drawback to being on the plaza—the lack of parking. But the pedestrian traffic more than makes up for the inconvenience.”
The door also led to Peter Crane’s parking spaces, Vince noted. Karly Vickers could have come out the back of the dentist’s office, been grabbed and dragged into this storage space. No one could see back there from the front windows of the vacant building. The walls of the building were brick with a thick coating of old-fashioned plaster— virtually soundproof.
Vince walked around the empty space looking for something, anything a victim or her abductor might have dropped. A gum wrapper, a cigarette butt, a stray hair. Nothing. The concrete floor had been stained over the years by oil and paint. A splatter here, a drip there. Did anything look like blood? No.
Industrial shelving lined two walls. Former tenants had left behind old paint cans, rags, assorted odd boxes of stuff. Nothing that looked useful to a killer.
He asked a couple of routine questions and listened to Janet Crane with one ear while he pictured what might have happened if Karly Vickers’s abductor had approached her in the alley.
She knows him. She feels safe, happy even. She’s had an exciting day. She has no idea she’s in danger until he puts a choke hold on her and pulls her into the vacant building.
It takes him a matter of a few seconds to accomplish the deed. He pulls her inside the building and ties her up. He glues her mouth shut to keep her from screaming. He leaves her until dark, when he comes back and takes her to the place where he will torture, rape, and eventually kill her.
It was a workable theory—provided Karly Vickers had exited out the back of the dental office. But Dr. Crane’s ever-efficient receptionist had stepped out of the office to take some bills to the corner mailbox that day, and hadn’t seen the young woman leave.
If Vickers had left out the back, and the assailant was as organized and methodical as Vince believed, Karly Vickers had not been a victim of opportunity. He had chosen her. Which meant he had to know she would be there.
That had to be a short list of subjects. Someone connected to the Thomas Center; someone who overheard her at the hair salon; the dentist; Frank Farman, who had written her a ticket on her way to the appointment. She might have told a friend, could have been overheard at a restaurant or standing in line at the supermarket . . .
Maybe not such a short list after all.
The garage door rolled down.
“And the lease is six hundred a month,” Janet Crane said.
“Great. That seems very reasonable,” Vince said, flashing the big smile. “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Crane,” he said, shaking her hand again. “I’ll definitely give it some thought.”
“Good!” she said, back to being a little too animated. She needed to leave him with that last good impression. “Your business would be a wonderful addition to the plaza. And I would be more than happy to show you some beautiful homes in town as well. I hope to hear from you again. Soon!”
She led the way to the front of the store, and Vince looked around at the space. Some warm yellow paint, old wooden display shelves filled with products imported from Italy, an espresso bar in the corner . . . As fantasies went, he thought, it was a good one.
42
Anne followed her students out of the building and watched them climb onto buses or into waiting cars. Not one child was being allowed to walk home.
Wendy’s father had come to pick her up. Janet Crane had come for Tommy. Anne ducked back behind the door to avoid being seen.
“Chicken,” Franny said. He grabbed her at the waist from behind and Anne gave a squeal of surprise.
“You’re just lucky I haven’t taken up a martial art,” she scolded. “You shouldn’t sneak up on women when there’s been a homicidal lunatic on the loose.”
“He probably doesn’t work at Oak Knoll Elementary,” Franny said. “Who were you hiding from?”
She rolled her eyes. “Janet Crane. I have never seen anyone more vicious or, frankly, out of her mind as she was in the office this morning. Shrieking about everyone she’s going to sue—including me, by the way.”
“You? What did you do?” Franny asked, outraged at the idea. She could have murdered someone with an axe and he still would have been the first to rush to her defense.
“I happened to be standing in the room.”
“She should kiss the ground you walk on!” He cupped a hand around his mouth and pretended to shout after the cars driving away. “C U Next Tuesday, Janet Bitch Queen!”
Anne elbowed him in the ribs, giggling. “Hush! What if Mrs. Barkow heard you?” she said, referring to the third-grade teacher pulling sidewalk monitor duty.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Franny said. “She’s a hundred and twelve. She’d probably die of excitement if somebody called her that. It’s been so long since she’s used hers, I’m sure it’s grown over by now. The Land That Time Forgot.”
“Oh my God. You are horrible!” Anne said, trying—and failing—not to laugh. “I love you!”
“Will you love me drunk?” he asked.
“Did you have a long day?”
“Honey, I teach kindergarten. Every day is a long day,” he joked. “Today I had one eat a crayon, one barf on the art table, and one poop in the sandbox and cover it up like a cat. Arnie the janitor had to put on his hazmat suit to clean it up, and then I had to explain to Garnett why we need all-new sand by Monday. How was your day?”
“Besides being threatened and verbally abused, I spent the day trying to explain to seventeen ten-year-olds why their classmate would have a severed human finger in his possession, and why people kill each other, and try to reassure them that they don’t have to worry,” she said, feeling the weight of every minute press down on her. “I spent the day wondering about Dennis Farman and what happened to him last night, and where was he today. Who’s with him? Is he alone? Is he going to get help?”
“There’s nothing you can do about Dennis Farman, honey,” Franny said soberly. “It’s not up to you.”
“But I seem to be the only one who cares,” she said. “And that breaks my heart. Garnett and the school board are only worried about liability. The sheriff’s office only deals with punishment. His parents created who he is.
