sterile, prepare himself and his escape route, wear the clothes he intended to wear, have whatever he was taking with him at hand, have Kiki Muller equally prepared, and then… and then what? Sit in the cottage with a machete in his hand hoping that Jillian would pop in to invite him to the reception?”
“You’re making it sound stupid, like it couldn’t happen,” said Blatt with hatred in his eyes. “But I think that’s exactly what happened.”
Anderson pursed his lips. Rodriguez narrowed his eyes. Neither seemed willing to endorse their colleague’s view.
Kline broke the awkward silence. “Anything else?”
“Well,” said Gurney, “there’s the matter of the new elephant in the room-the missing graduates.”
“Which,” said Blatt, “may not even be true. Maybe they just don’t want to be found. These girls are not what you’d call stable. And even if they’re, like, really
There was another silence, this time broken by Hardwick. “Arlo might be right. But if they
No one said anything. It was well known that, when young females went missing under suspicious circumstances with no further contact, the odds of their safe return were not high. And the fact that the girls in question had all started the same peculiar argument before disappearing definitely qualified as suspicious.
Rodriguez looked pained and angry, looked like he was about to offer an objection, but before any words came out, Gurney’s cell phone rang. Gurney glanced at the ID on the screen and decided to answer it.
It was Scott Ashton. “Since we last spoke, I made six more calls and got through to two more families. I’m continuing the calls, but… I wanted to let you know that both girls in the families I got through to left home after the same outrageous argument. One demanded a twenty-thousand-dollar Suzuki, the other a thirty-five-thousand- dollar Mustang. The parents said no. Both girls refused to say where they were going and insisted that nobody should try to contact them. I have no idea what it means, but obviously something strange is going on. And another distressing coincidence: They’d both posed for those Karnala Fashion ads.”
“How long have they been missing?”
“One for six months, one for nine months.”
“Tell me something, Doctor. Are you ready to provide us with names, or do we get an immediate court order for your records?”
All eyes in the room were on Gurney. Kline’s coffee was inches from his lips, but he seemed to have forgotten he was holding it.
“What names do you want?” said Ashton in a beaten voice.
“Let’s start with the names of the missing girls, plus the names of all the girls who were in the same classes.”
“Fine.”
“One other question: How did Jillian get her modeling job?”
“I don’t know.”
“She never told you? Even though she gave you the photograph as a wedding present?”
“She never told me.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I did, but… Jillian wasn’t fond of questions.”
Gurney felt an urge to shout,
Instead he said simply, “Thank you, Doctor. That’s it for now. You’ll be contacted by BCI for the relevant names and addresses.”
As Gurney slipped the phone back into his pocket, Kline barked, “What on earth was that?”
“Two more girls are missing. After having the same argument: One girl demanded that her parents buy her a Suzuki, the other a Mustang.” He turned toward Anderson. “Ashton is ready to provide BCI with the names of the missing girls, plus the names of their classmates. Just let him know what format you want the list in and how to send it to you.”
“Fine, but we’re ignoring the point that nobody is
Gurney got the impression that Lieutenant Anderson was coasting toward a Florida retirement and had a coaster’s fondness for inaction. It was a state of mind for which Gurney, a driven man in his police career, had little patience. “Then find a basis. Declare them all material witnesses to the Perry murder. Invent a basis. Do what you have to do. That’s the least of your problems.”
Anderson looked riled enough to escalate the argument into something unpleasant. But before he could launch his reply, Kline interrupted. “This may seem a small point, Dave, but if you’re implying that these girls were following the directions of some third party-presumably Flores-who rehearsed them in the argument they were supposed to start with their parents, why is the make of car different from case to case?”
“The simplest answer is that different cars might be necessary in order to achieve the same effect on families in different economic circumstances. Assuming that the purpose of the argument was to provide a credible excuse for the girl to storm out-to disappear without the disappearance becoming a police matter-the car demand would need to have two results. One, it would have to involve enough money to guarantee that it would be refused. Two, the parents would have to believe that their daughter was serious. The different makes may not have any significance per se; the key point may be the difference in the prices. Different prices would be necessary in order to achieve the same impact in families of different financial means. In other words, a demand for a twenty- thousand-dollar car in one family might have the same impact as a demand for a forty-thousand-dollar car in another family.”
“Clever,” said Kline, smiling appreciatively. “If you’re right, Flores is a thinker. A maniac, maybe, but definitely a thinker.”
“But he’s also done things that make no sense.” Gurney stood to get himself some more coffee. “That damn bullet in the teacup-what the hell was the point of that? He stole Ashton’s hunting rifle so he could shatter his teacup? Why take a risk like that? By the way,” said Gurney in an aside to Blatt, “were you aware that Withrow Perry had a gun of the same caliber?”
“The hell are you talking about?”
“The bullet that was fired at the teacup came from a.257 Weatherby. Ashton owns one, which he reported stolen, but Perry also owns one. You might want to look into that.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as Rodriguez and Blatt both made hurried notes.
Kline looked accusingly at both of them, then turned his attention to Gurney. “Okay, what else do you know that we don’t?”
“Hard to say,” said Gurney. “How much do you know about Crazy Carl?”
“Who?”
“Husband of Kiki Muller.”
“What’s he got to do with it?”
“Maybe nothing, except for having a credible motive for killing Flores.”
“Flores wasn’t killed.”
“How do we know? He disappeared without a trace. He could be buried in somebody’s backyard.”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s all this?” Anderson was appalled, Gurney guessed, at the prospect of more work. Digging up backyards. “What are we doing here, inventing imaginary murders?”
Kline looked confused. “Where are you going with this?”
“The assumption seems to be that Flores fled the area in the company of Kiki Muller, maybe even hid out at the Muller house for a few days before leaving the area. Suppose Flores was still around when Carl came home from his stint on that ship he worked on? I assume the interview team noticed that Carl is bonkers?”
Kline took a step backward from the table, as if the panorama of the case were too broad to see from where he’d been standing. “Wait a second. If Flores is dead, he can’t be connected to the disappearances of these other
