Vanished - A Mystery (Dixon & Baudin Book 1) Read online

  “Yeah, man. That too.”

  “Well, I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, tomorrow.”

  Baudin hung up. He pulled another beer off what was left of the six-pack at his feet, cracked it open, and chugged half of it. He was drunk. He could always tell because the room would start spinning. He didn’t hold his liquor well, and four beers was enough.

  He rose and, as carefully as possible, tiptoed to Heather’s bedroom. He stood in the door and watched her. When she’d been a child, he found himself doing the same thing, sometimes. The way she breathed comforted him. The rest of the world didn’t matter as long as that little person was drawing breath.

  The feeling was still there, only now it didn’t comfort him. When she’d been a kid, a toy or an ice cream solved all problems. Now, he didn’t know what she needed, and that terrified him.

  He shut the door and went back to his beer. Within a few minutes of sitting down, a soft knocking came from the front door. He sat quietly a second, unsure if he’d really heard it, and then it happened again. He slid the beer behind the couch and answered the door. Hillary Dixon stood there in a coat, though it wasn’t cold.

  “Can I come in?”

  “What are you doing here, Hillary?”

  “I just… can I please come in?”

  He held the door open for her. She brushed past him, the scent of body wash on her skin. He shut the door and sat down in the recliner as she took the couch.

  “I like the house,” she said. “You’re an austere.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to talk about what you think you heard.”

  “If it wasn’t what I thought, you wouldn’t be here right now.” A moment passed between them where they held each other’s gaze, and nothing else needed to be said. They understood each other perfectly. “I won’t tell him. That’s not my place.”

  “I just… when it started I was all alone.”

  “I don’t need to hear this, Hillary. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “No, it would help if I could just tell somebody. You don’t know what it’s like carrying around a secret like this. It feels like I’m always being crushed. Like I can’t breathe.” Tears formed in her eyes, and her voice cracked. “I sometimes just think everyone would be better off if I just died.”

  “You can’t die. You have a child now. One of the advantages the childless have over us, I guess. That child has no one else to take care of him. He’d be raised in daycare until Kyle could remarry. And stepmothers aren’t exactly known for their kindness to children from previous marriages.”

  She wiped the tears away, drawing in a deep breath. “You must think I’m such a horrible person.”

  “No, I don’t. I think we’re all learning as we go.”

  “Yes,” she mumbled, “we certainly are.” She sniffed and glanced around the room. “There’s no pictures of your wife.”

  “No.”

  “How’d she pass?”

  Baudin swallowed. “She killed herself.”

  Hillary was silent as she watched him. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded. “Like I said, we’re learning as we go.”

  “How old was Heather?”

  “She was eleven. After that, things started to unravel. Her grades dropped, her friends changed… I lost control of her. That’s why we moved out here. I thought if I could give her someplace that didn’t remind her constantly of her mother, maybe things would be different.” He grabbed a package of cigarettes and lit one. “But there’s no running from it. You’re stuck in life where you are, no matter where you run to.”

  She folded her arms, staring at the floor. “Are you going to tell him?”

  “I already told you I wouldn’t.”

  “I know I have to tell him someday. He deserves to know, but he’s so good with Randy. I just…”

  “Randy’s not his?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He looks like Chris. I haven’t done a paternity test or anything, but it’s obvious—obvious to everyone but Kyle.”

  “The world’s just a construct in our minds. We see in it what we want to see in it. Maybe somewhere inside him, he knows and can’t bring himself to think it.”

  She nodded, though he could tell she hadn’t heard what he’d just said. “I better go. He’ll wonder where I am. I told him I was just going for a walk.”

  Hillary stood and hurried to the door, but then she turned around and watched him for a moment. “It was good just to tell someone. It feels like it doesn’t hurt as much.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  She shut the door and was gone. Baudin slid the beer out from behind the couch and took another drink.

  When Baudin awoke the next day, he found that he’d slept on the recliner in the front room. Heather woke him after she showered.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Musta passed out from exhaustion.”

  “Exhaustion or beer?”

  “Both.” He sat up, the room still spinning. “Get ready, would you? I’m dropping you off with Anna at Kyle’s house.”

  “Why?”

  “Just got some things I gotta catch up on.”

  “Well, I was gonna hang out with Gina and them at the mall.”

  He shook his head, afraid that if he stood he might fall over. He tried it anyway and got to his feet without wobbling. The effects of the alcohol must’ve long since faded, and he wondered what was causing his vertigo. “I don’t know who Gina is.”

  “She’s fine, Daddy. Just let me go to the mall, and I’ll call you after. Gina’s mom is gonna drive us. What could happen with her there?”

  He watched his daughter, the way she looked up at him with her doe eyes… the eyes that were exactly like her mother’s and reminded him every day of what had happened. “Okay, sweetie. I’m trusting you, though.”

  “Thanks, Daddy,” she said, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.

  Baudin went out and met Gina’s mom when she came to pick up Heather. She was about the same age as he was, and attractive. She smiled widely and flicked her hair at one point. Her clothing was something a twenty-year-old would wear, and she was certainly attempting to appear as young as her daughter.

  “I’ll bring them back safe, I promise,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  Baudin watched them drive off, then got into his car and called Kyle.

  They agreed to meet by the Motel 6. Baudin got there first and waited by the sign, smoking and watching the cars pass. Even this early in the morning, a few girls were out on the corners. One got into a Cadillac, and they drove away only to return ten minutes later and dump the girl out on the corner again.

  Dixon parked near the entrance and walked over. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt but had his badge clipped to his belt.

  “Lose the badge,” Baudin said. “It makes them nervous.”

  He slid it into his back pocket. “So who we meeting?”

  Baudin motioned with his head. Dixon followed him over to Candi’s room, and he knocked. Candi answered wearing a robe that was open in front, revealing her breasts. Baudin reached in and closed the robe.

  Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face drooped as though she couldn’t flex the muscles in it.

  Baudin slipped in, Dixon behind him. They stood in the center of the room and Baudin scanned the place. He saw what he was looking for on the nightstand: a spoon and hypodermic needle.

  “I need to know where Dazzle lives,” Baudin said.

  “She ain’t here,” Candi mumbled. She collapsed onto the bed, her eyes rolling back before she snapped her head back then forward. “She gone.”

  “Gone?” Baudin said, approaching her. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

  “She heard some cop was askin’ for her and she gone. She don’t want… she don’t want no trouble.”

  Baudin bent down so he was at eye level with her. “Candi, I need you to listen carefully. I need to speak with Dazzle. Y
ou need to get her on the phone and get her back here.”

  “She at the airport. She ain’t comin’ back.”

  “Where’s she going?”

  “California. She got family there.”

  Baudin rose, his hands on his hips as he watched the young woman. Drugs were glamorized in celebrity culture, but as he watched her turn into little more than a heap of conscious meat, with no direction, emotion, or reason, he wondered why anybody would want to turn into that.

  No, he didn’t wonder. Not really, he thought. He knew why: escape so deep that it ripped them away from their current lives.

  “Who the hell is Dazzle?” Dixon asked.

  “We need to get to the airport,” Baudin said as he headed out the door.

  27

  Cheyenne Regional Airport was in the middle of the city. Baudin drove over ninety the entire way, expecting to have to explain himself to some highway patrolman who pulled them over, but none ever did.

  He parked just outside the sole terminal and ran in, Dixon not far behind him. Baudin stood in the center of the terminal, staring past the metal detectors. A line was forming for a flight that was about to leave, and a few people were scattered in seats across from the gate waiting for their plane to come in.

  Baudin rushed past the metal detectors, showing his badge, but the TSA stopped him and forced him to go through.

  “You gotta be shitting me,” he said.

  “Sir, please just comply or we won’t let you through at all.”

  He did as he was asked and then checked the information on the gates. The flight leaving right then was heading to Denver, the other one to LAX. Seated in one of the blue plastic seats was a young lady matching the description Candi had given him: straight hair, dark skin, purple eyeliner. He walked over casually and sat down.

  At first, he didn’t say anything. He wanted to watch her, the way she moved and interacted with her surroundings. She moved with confidence and defiance. If she didn’t feel like it, she wouldn’t be giving them anything.

  “I thought you’d be gone by now, Dazzle.”

  She looked at him, an even expression on her face. Dixon was a few seats away, watching her face.

  “Don’t run,” Baudin said. “I just want to ask you about ten questions, and then we’re outta here. Is that cool?”

  She looked at Dixon and then Baudin before nodding her head.

  Baudin pulled out his phone and the photo of Alli. He showed it to her and let it sit for a while before saying, “You recognize her?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m not here to get you involved in anything you don’t want to be involved in. We think a john murdered this girl. I know you’re hard, you have to be, but you gotta care about these girls. They went through the same shit you’ve gone through. I know you don’t want to see them hurt.” He looked at the photo on his phone. “She was only sixteen.”

  Dazzle sighed and looked away. “Yeah, I recognize her.”

  “From where?”

  “She and this other dude rode up on me about seven or eight weeks ago.”

  “You remember her face from that long ago?”

  “They was real strange, that’s how come I remember. The dude had this big smile and a Lexus. She was just sittin’ there, like, staring into space. They wanted a three-way. I was gonna do it, too.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I got this, like, feelin’ from it, you know? Just a feelin’. I didn’t trust that dude. Sometimes in this game you got nothin’ but your gut to go on, and my gut said that muthafucker was trouble.”

  Baudin slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Did they say where they wanted the threesome?”

  “No. Didn’t say nothin’ about it other than they wanted one.”

  “Did you catch his name or any part of his license plate?”

  She shook her head. “Wasn’t lookin’ for that.”

  Dixon said, “Did you see anything that might help us identify this guy?”

  “He had, like, symbols hanging down from his rearview. Like a sideways M and a U with a line at the bottom, like you drew the first line too long on a regular U. I remember that ’cause I axed him what it was. He said just letters.”

  Baudin thought a moment and then took out his phone again. He Googled the ancient Greek alphabet and showed her sigma.

  “This the sideways M?”

  “Yeah.”

  He pulled up another letter. “This the U?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. It was them two.”

  Dixon said, “You remember what color the car was? The model of it, maybe?”

  “Nah, nothin’ like that. I think it was either blue or black, though.”

  “If we put you with a sketch artist, you think you could help him draw this man you saw?”

  “I don’t know, I guess. But I can’t. I’m headed home, fellas.”

  “We could arrest you for solicitation,” Baudin said. “Keep you here.”

  “What? I ain’t done no soliciting.”

  “Sure you did. You asked to give me a blow job for twenty bucks. Isn’t that right, Kyle? Isn’t that what you heard?”

  “Clear as day.”

  She sighed. “Crooked-ass cops.”

  Baudin moved seats and sat closer to her, close enough that he could smell her breath. “You would not believe how far I’m willing to go to catch him,” he whispered.

  “Well this is some bullshit.”

  “It is, but one way or another, you’re gonna help me.”

  The sketch artist said he was unavailable for Sunday work, and Baudin and Dixon each pitched in twenty bucks to get him out to the precinct. The only things he said when he arrived were “Where’s my money?” and “Where is she?”

  The sketch artist sat in a conference room with Dazzle for over an hour.

  Baudin researched fraternities. Sigma Mu was a local frat at the University of Wyoming. It was on a block next to the university called “frat row,” which he told Dixon they’d have to visit. “Those symbols… I’ll bet you he’s an alum or a current student and was in that frat.”

  “I worked there as a uniform when I first got POST-certified. You don’t just run up on the frats. They’ll lawyer-up right away. You gotta set an appointment.”

  “Shit, they aren’t gonna talk to us. I want to talk to the sororities.”

  “For what?”

  “They go to all the parties. They’ll know if someone plays a little rough.”

  The door to the conference room opened, and the sketch artist came out. He slapped a drawing on Baudin’s desk and left without a word. Dazzle came out and said, “’M I free to go?”

  “Have fun in LA.”

  She shook her head as she walked out, slamming through the double doors hard enough to get one of them to bounce off the doorstop on the wall.

  Dixon rose. “Well, I’m headin’ home.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now. And you should, too. This is one case. Don’t get a hard-on over it. That shit never ends well.”

  Baudin was left sitting by himself. The only other detectives had been the two on call, and they’d been summoned to the scene of a home invasion. Baudin sighed and rose to go home.

  28

  Dixon waved to someone on the street who waved to him as he drove past. He wasn’t sure who the man was, but he didn’t want to be rude. He thought for a moment that the guy might be crazy, but it didn’t matter. He missed the days when everyone said hello to strangers on the street.

  He parked at the grocery mart near his home and went in. It wasn’t one of the large grocery chains, but it had enough. Dixon grabbed some beer as he knew he was out and some flowers on the way to the register.

  When he was back in his car, he laid the flowers on the passenger seat and wondered whether Hillary would really like them or if she would just pretend to like them. She had a tendency to spare his feelings in all things, and he knew there were gifts he’d given her that she hated but never said
anything about.

  He drove home with the windows down and parked in the driveway. As he was getting out, Chris was coming from across the street, a smile on his face. In his hand was a leash, and on the end of that leash was one of the ugliest dogs Dixon had ever seen.

  “Holy shit,” Dixon said.

  “I think it’s a dog,” Chris said playfully. “Picked it up from the pound yesterday. Just needed a little company.”

  Dixon bent down and rubbed the dog’s head. “Well, I’m sure he’s got a sweet spirit.”

  Chris shrugged. “Someone else to talk to.”

  “If you’re lookin’ to hook up, Hillary has this friend who just went through a divorce. Blonde, skinny, an accountant… If I weren’t married—”

  “You sold me at blonde.”

  Dixon grinned. “You’ll like her.”

  “Mind if we make it a double date? I’m a little awkward on first dates.”

  “Don’t see why not.” Dixon reached into his backseat and pulled out some files before getting the flowers.

  “Those cases you working?”

  “Yup.”

  “I always wanted to be a cop,” Chris said. “Just never had the stomach for it. Too scared of getting shot or something.”

  “Yeah, there’s that. But you put it outta your mind most of the time. Sometimes you can’t help it, but officer deaths are rare. Especially here.” He paused, thinking of his last partner, and then reached for his suit coat.

  “I bet. That’s one of the reasons I chose to live here—how safe it is.” He hesitated. “Hillary like it here?”

  “Yeah, I think she does. She’s more big-city-folk than me, but I think she generally likes it.”

  “Huh. Her family here?”

  “No, they live in Kansas City. Like I said, big city folk. She came out here for college and just never went back. Probably ’cause we got married.”

  Chris smiled. “Well, I’m sure it was worth it.”

  Something in the way he said it made Dixon think that he didn’t think it was worth it. Almost as though he were mocking him somehow, though Dixon couldn’t see how that was an insult.

  “Yeah,” Dixon said. “I better head in. You have yourself a good one.”