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

  “Tea’s good for you. Lots of antioxidants to get all that shit out that the corporations pump into our food.”

  Dixon sat on a stool. “I thought we’d go interview that friend who works at Macy’s today. See if she knew who Alli was hangin’ out with.”

  Baudin nodded while taking a sip of his tea. “I got something to show you first.”

  Dixon hopped down and followed him to the stairs leading to the dark basement. Baudin flipped on a light, one bare light bulb for the entire basement. Several photographs were pinned above a desk pushed up against the wall. A copy of the composite sketch they’d gotten hung next to the photographs.

  “What’s this?”

  “He’s there,” Baudin said, his eyes on the photos. “He’s in one of these photos.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s an alum, or he’s in the frat now. I know it. No one else would have a Sigma Mu up on their rearview. He’s a brother.”

  Dixon put his hands on his hips, surveying the photos. “How’d you even get these?”

  “They got the years written on ’em, but the hard part’s going to be the names. There’s no names on any of these photos.” He thrust his middle finger at a boy with a circle in marker around his face in one of the photos. “It’s either him,” Baudin said, then pointed at another boy’s circled face, “or him.”

  Dixon leaned in close. The composite sketch was rough, little more than a general outline, as though the artist just didn’t have the time, or didn’t want to take the time, to fill in the details. “Could be, I guess. Could be a buncha other people, too.”

  Baudin shook his head, taking a sip of his tea. “It’s one of them.”

  “Well, I guess we can take the photos to Dora and see if she recognizes one of them.”

  Baudin put his tea down. “Lemme get dressed.”

  Macy’s wasn’t terribly busy as Dixon and Baudin strode in. Dixon had never liked the store. Maybe something about the lighting or the customer service… something didn’t sit right with him. As soon as he walked in, that uncomfortable feeling hit his gut.

  Baudin went up to an older woman behind a counter near the clothing and said, “Excuse me. We’re looking for Dora.”

  “She’s in the fragrance department.”

  The fragrance department was completely empty except for a young girl with straight black hair who was busy stocking a shelf. Dixon approached her. She looked fragile, and he was worried that Baudin’s direct style might intimidate her.

  “Are you Dora?” Dixon asked.

  She looked up with soft blue eyes, and Dixon could tell her first response was fear. “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective Kyle Dixon with the CPD. Um, did you know Alli Tavor, Dora?”

  She closed the shelf she was working on, pulling a transparent plastic sheath over it. “I heard what happened. Her mom called me and told me she was dead. I’m sorry, I told one other person, and now everybody at school heard. They announced it on the PA and had a moment of silence.” She looked away. “I had to leave school. I couldn’t stop cryin’.”

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Dixon said.

  She nodded. “She was always partying, always hanging out with college guys and going to clubs. She ran away once and moved in with this thirty-year-old guy who was divorced. Her mom got her back, but it didn’t do nothin’. I always thought… I mean, I didn’t think this… but I always thought somethin’ bad was gonna happen.”

  Dixon nodded. He glanced down and saw that the girl was wearing an engagement ring. “Can we talk somewhere private?”

  “Sure. Lemme get someone to cover.”

  Dora left, and after a few moments, another girl had taken her place. They walked outside, and Dora took out a package of cigarettes. Belatedly realizing she was with two cops, she put the cigarettes away again.

  Baudin took out his pack and lit two. He handed one to her and smoked the other one.

  “Thanks,” she said bashfully.

  “These guys she was hanging out with,” Dixon said. “You ever meet ’em?”

  “Sure I met ’em. I met that thirty-year-old guy, too. He always creeped me out.”

  Baudin said, “You catch his name?”

  “Tom. I don’t know his last name. He lived in them apartments up on Orem Street. Philip somethin’.”

  “Philip Arms,” Dixon said. “I know the place. Did Alli ever tell you Tom was mean to her or acting strange? Was she afraid of him?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said, blowing out a puff of smoke. “He was creepy, though. Made us watch pornos when we was at his apartment. I think he was hopin’ to fuck both of us.”

  Dixon nodded. “What about the college guys?”

  “Just college guys. A lot of ’em. She’d go party up at their frat.”

  Baudin pulled out the photo from a manila envelope he had tucked in his waistband. “You recognize any of these guys as people she hung out with?”

  Baudin had erased the circles around their faces. He slowly flipped through the photos as Dixon hung back and watched the girl’s reaction. Baudin flipped back ten years, and she didn’t say anything.

  “Nothin’?” Dixon said.

  “I mean, some of ’em look familiar, but it’s kinda hard to see. Them pictures is blurry.”

  Baudin said, “Do you have any photos on your phone of any of the guys?”

  She shook her head, holding the cigarette low between two fingers. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Was she dating any one frat guy in particular?”

  “Um… I don’t think so.”

  Dixon said, “Did you go up there with her?”

  The girl looked away. “No. Because of them parties.”

  “What parties are those?” Dixon asked.

  “They call ’em slut parties, but only the guys in the frat call ’em that.” She took a pull of smoke. “They’re really rape parties.”

  “Rape parties?” Baudin asked.

  “Yeah. They, like, throw a party and invite a bunch of girls. Then they kinda, I guess, vote on which one they’re gonna do. Then they get her drunk or put, like, roofies or GHB in her drinks. When her friends aren’t paying attention, the guys take her upstairs.”

  Dixon couldn’t speak for a second and just stared at the girl. “Are you telling me they organize and rape girls at these parties?”

  “Yeah, they throw ’em, like, for special occasions, I guess. New people comin’ into the frat or somethin’.”

  “Have you seen one?”

  She nodded. “I wasn’t picked, but a girl I knew was.”

  “I’ll need her name.”

  “Ruth Chase. She’s a grade behind me. Or was. I dropped out.”

  Baudin took down the name in his phone. “We’re looking for one person in particular, Dora. A man who knew her, spent time with her, and then wasn’t that broken up about her disappearing. Can you think of any man like that?”

  She shook her head. “No, I didn’t go to those parties after what happened to Ruth.”

  Dixon stood grinding his teeth. Baudin must’ve noticed because he said, “Thanks for your help. We’ll give you a call if we need anything else.”

  As they were walking back to the car, Dixon couldn’t speak. The anger inside of him was too much.

  “I worked campus police there, man,” Dixon said. “There was nothin’ like that back then. What the hell is wrong with the world?”

  “You’re just seeing more of it. Or you didn’t see enough of it back then.”

  “Bullshit. There weren’t no rape parties twenty years ago.”

  “Maybe not here. I worked some. It’s a type of binding oath they have. Everyone in the frat has to rape her, that way none of them can go to the cops because they were part of it, too. Keeps their silence. It started in the Ivy League. The rich kids would invite the poor ones from other schools and rape one. Degradation, man. It’s what it’s always been about.”

  Baudin opened the door to th
e car but stood there a second. “I think we should visit the friend at school before the porno guy. She’ll know more about what the frat guys are like than anyone.”

  31

  Hillary Dixon finished her workout and cooled off by walking on the treadmill. The sweat had poured out of her in a way she wasn’t used to, and she checked her distance: she’d run ten miles, four miles more than her usual.

  The gym was always busy with the stay-at-home mothers who kept their bodies in perfect shape. She saw the way they looked at her as though she were poison but then would all smile and pretend they were her friend when she spoke to them. She didn’t understand their jealousy. Hillary had always been beautiful and never gave a second thought to it. Intelligence was more important to her, but she didn’t hate those more intelligent than herself. She admired them and tried to learn from them. Pettiness wasn’t an emotion she could relate to.

  The daycare worker was a skinny woman with a tattoo on her neck, and she was playing with Randy, making him coo and smile. From a few steps back, Hillary stared at her son. The older he got, the cuter he got. But he also resembled his father more and more.

  She’d told herself to get a paternity test dozens of times. Once she’d gotten as far as walking into the clinic before turning around. A glimmer of hope still existed that Randy was her husband’s child, that she wasn’t the worst wife she’d ever known—something she felt constantly—and that life could go back to some sort of normal, without the endless bouts of crying and dread that would eat up her days.

  A day would come when Kyle would look at his son and realize he looked nothing like him, and she didn’t know what she was going to do on that day.

  “Hey,” she said, “you miss me?”

  Randy cooed as the daycare worker laughed. Hillary picked him up in her arms and kissed his cheeks. Regardless of what she had done, of what she and Chris had done, the child was innocent. He was pure and good… and her son. Even if he wasn’t Kyle’s.

  She walked out of the gym and to her car. As she approached, she saw a man leaning against the driver’s side door. Chris stood there with a grin on his face. His arms were folded, and his eyes never left the baby.

  “Are you following me?” she said.

  “We used to meet in places like this,” he said, looking out over the traffic in the street. “Anywhere we thought Kyle wouldn’t be. Little nooks of the city I didn’t even know existed.”

  She pushed him away and opened the backdoor. Buckling Randy into his car seat, she saw Chris get into the passenger side.

  “Get out.”

  “I need a ride.”

  “I said get out.”

  “I’m serious. Just a ride. I took the bus down here.”

  She sighed. Once the baby was buckled in, she sat in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes for a moment. His scent still gave her shivers down her spine. Every man had a unique scent and, though she had known many lovers in her life, she had only known the scent of two men.

  “Please, Chris, if you ever cared for me at all, please leave us alone.”

  “How can you ask me to do that? We have a child together. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Are you really so cold that you would raise this boy without telling him who his real father is? Do you think he would love you for that?”

  Tears were streaming down her face. “Please, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Just please leave us alone. Please.”

  He was quiet a moment. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” He took some papers out of a satchel and laid them on the dash. “That’s a petition to force a paternity test. If he’s mine, I’m going to sue for custody. Just weekends. Even every other weekend. Just so he doesn’t grow up thinking his father’s completely abandoned him.”

  Reason had gone out the window, and Hillary felt nothing but a deep ache that started in her gut and ran up to her head. It dulled everything and filled her with a terror that made her tremble. “Please… please… why are you doing this?”

  He gently took her hand. “Because I love him… and you.”

  “No, no… no.”

  He kissed her, and she let him. His lips were soft, far softer than Kyle’s, and the pit of her stomach quivered at his kiss.

  “I’m married,” she whispered, pulling away. He brought her head onto his shoulder. “I’m married.”

  “I know. But you don’t have to be. We don’t have to be apart, Hillary. Do you still love him?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you love me, too. I know it. I can see it when you look at me.”

  He held her, his arms wrapped around her as she wept. A single image kept coming to her: Kyle. Her husband. The one who she swore she would always be loyal to. The one who had always been loyal to her. The one who she had betrayed in the deepest way possible. Somewhere inside her, she knew there was a price that would have to be paid. Betrayal this intimate had to be avenged.

  She pulled away from Chris, stared into his eyes, and then pressed her lips to his.

  32

  “Shit, I loved high school,” Dixon said as they parked in guest parking.

  Baudin scanned the school and then looked at his partner. “I figured you’d be the type.”

  “And what type is that?”

  “Someone who would think this meat grinder was enjoyable.” He stepped out of the car and watched as Dixon popped some gum and followed him. A paved sidewalk led up to the front doors and was surrounded by grass and trees.

  “I take it Ethan Baudin didn’t have a good time in high school. What, did you get picked on by the jocks?”

  “How do you know I wasn’t a jock?”

  “No, you got nerd written all over you.”

  Ethan began to pull out his cigarettes then thought better of it. “I was an outcast. For gym class I’d sit on the sidelines and read Shakespeare. That didn’t win me many friends. Kids, though, adolescents, see, their brains aren’t formed like ours. They can’t repress what’s inside them as well. They’re cruel in a way adults would be arrested for. Monsters.”

  “I wasn’t a monster.”

  Baudin looked at him as he held the door open. “Ask the people you stepped on, and let’s see if they say the same thing.”

  The school seemed small. Baudin remembered high school appearing larger than life, and he didn’t know whether it was the school or if he had been shorter. Maybe the perspective of middle age looking back on youth just aggrandized everything.

  The administration offices were to the left, and Baudin went inside. Dixon sat down in one of the chairs as if he were waiting for the principal.

  Baudin asked the receptionist to speak to the vice principal. He knew the vice principal was the one who did most of the work and would know the students intimately.

  A skinny man with hair that was slicked back to cover a bald spot stepped out of an office a moment later. He shook hands with Baudin.

  “Roger Daft.”

  “Detective Ethan Baudin.”

  “Pleased to meet you. My brother’s a highway patrolman, actually.”

  Baudin ignored his attempt at familiarity and said, “We need to speak to one of your students, Ruth Chase. And then maybe a few more after that.”

  “I assume this is about Alli.”

  “It is.”

  He nodded, solemnly looking down at the floor. “I was wondering when you’d come out. I don’t announce things like that without the parent’s consent. The mother consented, I want you to know that.”

  Baudin shrugged, though it was odd that her mother had called Dora and told her that quickly. He wondered why she would want everyone else to know her daughter died. “I don’t care. I want to know about her.”

  “I knew you would. I met with her a lot because of her behavioral problems.” He cleared his throat. “She accused me of sexual harassment once. You should probably know that. It was a complete fabrication, of course. But that was the way she was. She was promiscuous at an early age and used her sexuality to get what sh
e wanted. Very underhanded that way.”

  Baudin stepped close to the man, not breaking eye contact with him. “She was a kid.”

  “I know,” he stammered, “I know. I’m just saying she had certain proclivities… that’s all. I’ll have someone pull Ruth out of class for you.”

  Dixon was smiling when Baudin turned around.

  “What?” Baudin asked.

  “Just interesting the stuff that gets you riled up, that’s all.”

  “Why would Alli’s mom call Dora and tell her she’s dead?”

  Dixon shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Maybe she wants to play the grieving victim and can only do that if everyone knows our Jane Doe is her little girl. Don’t matter, I stopped asking questions like that a long time ago.”

  Baudin paced the offices until one of the staff brought in a girl with glasses and worn jeans.

  “May we use this office?” Baudin asked.

  “Sure,” the receptionist said without looking up.

  The office was decorated with motivational posters. Baudin sat on the couch so as not to give the appearance of authority. She sat across from him in a recliner, wringing her hands.

  “You’re not in trouble, Ruth,” Baudin said. “I’m Detective Baudin, and this is Detective Dixon. But you can call me Ethan, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I guess you heard what happened to Alli Tavor.”

  She nodded without looking up.

  “It’s come to our attention that something like what Alli went through may have happened to you.”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  Baudin stared at her a while in silence. He rose and sat next to her, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, his lips close to her ear. “I know you’re scared of them, Ruth. But I promise you, you don’t have to be. Not anymore. I will protect you. I’m stronger than they are. I have more power than they do. I won’t ever let them hurt you again.” He took out his card and scribbled a number on the back. “This is my personal cell phone number. If any of them ever even look at you funny again, I want you to call this number.”

  She took the card, her eyes never leaving the floor. “I told Mr. Daft about it.”