Peak Road - A Short Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 10) Read online

  “Would it make a difference to you if he was a cross-dresser?”

  “No. It’d make me pity him more than anything. That he had to hide his true self his entire life.” I understood what Mickey meant—the idea of hiding one’s self gave me an uncomfortable tightness in my chest.

  I turned to watch the planes landing and taking off. I was still impressed that humans had conquered flight. Of all the animals on the planet that have ever lived, we were the only ones who could fly without being born with the ability.

  “How did you know I would come?” I asked.

  “Because you’ve never been able to say no to this type of case.”

  “What type is that?”

  He held my gaze for a second. “Hopeless.”

  Our flight was called, and we filed into the plane with the other passengers. The flight wasn’t packed, and we had a row of three seats to ourselves, so we sat with an empty seat between us. Mickey’s watch beeped; he took out an amber bottle of large pills and asked the flight attendant for some water. She brought a small bottle, and he popped the pills then swallowed them with the water. It looked almost painful.

  “How is everything?”

  “Good as can be. Most doctors didn’t predict I would live as long as I have, and now I’m out parasailing. You ever been parasailing?”

  “No.”

  “It’s quiet up there. You get high enough and come near the boat, you can’t see it anymore, and it looks like you’re flying. All you hear is the wind, the sunshine on your face… I do it at least three or four times a month.”

  He paused for a second, and I could tell he was somewhere else—back home maybe, with his new wife. The case must’ve really pained him to pull him away from that.

  “Tell me how they died,” I said.

  “He came in through the basement window. Basement windows were shattered in both homes, and in the Noels’ home, too. Didn’t bother to slide it open or use a glass cutter. He crashed through.”

  “Were you able to get any blood off the shards?”

  He shook his head. “No. He must’ve been wearing something protective or maybe threw something against the window first. But once he got in, it was quick. He went to the first bedroom he could find. In the Wyatts’ home, that was their children’s room. They had bunk beds. Their throats were ripped out. Mr. Wyatt was killed next, in the same way. He spent most of his time with Mrs. Wyatt. There was evidence that he had attempted to rape her, but there was no evidence he succeeded.

  “The Roths’ murders were nearly identical. They had four children, all killed in the same manner. One of the kids was found in the closet. We think the boy heard something and tried to hide, but the killer found him. Same thing with Mrs. Roth—an attempted rape, but no actual bruising or tears.”

  “He was impotent.”

  Mickey nodded. “That’s what I thought. This was before Viagra. Wasn’t much help a man could get back then. The Noels, I’m told, were the same thing. They found some evidence that he had attempted to rape Mrs. Noel, but no bruising or tears. Doesn’t look like Viagra made much of a difference to him.”

  Now that everyone had boarded, the engines revved, and the captain made an announcement that the plane would be lifting off in two minutes and landing in McCarran Airport in Las Vegas around noon.

  “Did you have anybody you were looking at?” I asked.

  He shook his head, taking another sip of water, then replaced the cap and set the bottle down next to him. “The whole damn town was suspect. Despite being only a few hours away from Las Vegas, it’s actually a backward place. One sheriff for the whole town, one doctor, one school for pre-school through high school. It reminds me of a snapshot from a hundred years ago.” He paused. “There was one guy—Earl Kaiser, the town mechanic. Young kid, maybe twenty at the time. He had a lewdness charge and several assaults on his record. Those charges weren’t alarming, but everyone knew who the judge and sheriff were in that town. For them to actually convict one of their own, I’m guessing, took a lot. For every conviction, there were probably ten other offenses that got warnings.”

  The plane lunged forward, and I felt the tires lift from the ground. My stomach twisted at the unusual sensation of becoming airborne. Mickey was staring out the window. A bruise on his right wrist wasn’t large, but it looked out of place on his tanned skin. I remembered Mickey then as the young, fiery special agent who wouldn’t take no for an answer—not from anybody. He was larger than life, but I’d always seen past that. Deep in his core, in a place that he refused to show anyone, he was lonely. Since his wife’s passing, a deep sense of solitude had descended on him and wouldn’t let go. I wondered if he saw the same thing in me.

  “Do you talk to Melissa anymore?” he asked.

  “No. She’s… having a baby with her new husband.”

  He looked at me. “I guess that’s good news.”

  “I suppose. I never really felt that I’d lost her until the moment I heard that.”

  “When I heard about your divorce, honestly, I was surprised. You two seemed close.”

  “People grow in different directions sometimes. If I’d known what was happening, though, I would’ve quit. The job was what got between us. The long hours, the inability to open up about what I saw during the day. My psychiatrist says I withdraw into myself when something traumatic happens.”

  “You’re seeing a shrink?”

  I nodded. “Several years now.” I paused then decided I wouldn’t tell him about the panic attacks. They didn’t seem relevant, and for some reason, I was embarrassed. “It helps to talk to someone.”

  The plane ride was pleasant. The last flight I’d been on had given me a migraine. Maybe the difference was the number of people on the plane. Sartre had said that hell was other people. I thought of that often, even though I didn’t think I believed it.

  The captain announced that we would be landing at McCarran in a few minutes. Mickey’s posture changed. He seemed agitated. He gripped both armrests and kept his eyes out the window as the glittering cityscape of Las Vegas came into view.

  7

  After renting a sedan, we drove through the Strip. Mickey asked if I was hungry, and I was. We stopped at a ribs restaurant in a hotel off the Strip. The valet took the car, and we wandered through the casino. The dings, beeps, rattles, and bright lights brought the tightness to my chest again. I had to close my eyes for a moment and just breathe. It didn’t help much because the air tasted and smelled like cigarettes.

  When I opened my eyes, Mickey was watching me.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  I followed him to the restaurant on the south side of the casino. A black curtain separated it from the gambling floor. A host stood behind a podium, pressing buttons on a computer screen.

  “Two, please. As far from the gambling as we can get,” Mickey said.

  She led us to a seat against the back wall. I could still hear the sounds of the machines, but it wasn’t as pronounced.

  “Diet Coke,” I told the server when he asked what we wanted to drink.

  “Beer,” Mickey said. “Heineken if you got it.” He took a moment to glance at the menu. “Something threw you off, didn’t it?”

  “Sounds and lights, particularly loud sounds.”

  “Hyper-sensory?”

  I nodded.

  “It sometimes comes with ADHD and panic attacks, doesn’t it?”

  I looked at him. Panic attacks shouldn’t have made a difference, but I knew he was asking whether or not he had to worry about me.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  The waiter brought our drinks, and we ordered. I got a portobello mushroom sandwich, and Mickey got ribs. We sat in silence for a moment before I noticed that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

  “No ring?”

  “I keep it in my drawer at home. I don’t want to lose it. It was her grandfather’s.”

  “Tell me about
her.” He hadn’t even told me her name so far.

  “She’s a doctor, or was. She retired when she tested positive. We met at a lounge in a hotel. What are the odds of that—to meet your soulmate, who lives with the same affliction you do, on some faraway island?”

  “Astronomical.”

  He nodded, playing with his ring finger as though the ring were there. “It’s funny the things you think about when you know the end is nearing. I’ve got maybe five or ten good years left, if that. I think about my father a lot. I saw him grow old. He would sit in a room by himself and watch television for hours. I used to think it was his way of passing the time with some entertainment, but I walked by once when I was a kid. It was turned to a channel with static, and he was still staring at the screen. I knew then that the television had always been on for my benefit. He was forgetting where he was and what he was doing and he wanted to cover it up. To save me the pain.” He paused. “My mother died when I was young, so he and my stepmother were all I had.”

  “How is your stepmom?”

  “She has dementia. The nurses told me she has some moments of clarity and asks for me, but by the time I get there, the moment’s passed. I see that a lot in old veterans when I volunteer.”

  Mickey was one of only two Vietnam veterans I had ever met. The government had allowed him to join when he was seventeen, and he’d gotten in on the tail end of the war, but he’d seen combat. He didn’t talk about it much, and I’d never brought it up, but I wondered how much that war had shaped him.

  The other Vietnam vet I’d known was a man who’d attacked a single mother in a grocery-store parking lot with a hunting knife. He’d just cut her, not killed her. We’d caught a glimpse of him on a grocery store’s video of the parking lot, but he was gone by the time police arrived. We thought he was a paranoid schizophrenic until the victim told me her attacker had called her a “gook” and told her to shut up. “Gook” was a racial slur American soldiers had used for the natives. I went to the VA hospital and sat in on the meetings for soldiers suffering from PTSD. Then a man who matched the description of the man on the video talked about “gooks” he had killed. He went peacefully and kept telling me that it didn’t matter what happened to him—he had already died in the jungles forty years ago.

  “Why this case?” I said, leaning back in my chair and glancing around the restaurant. “Of everything you’ve done, why’d this get under your skin?”

  Mickey sat there for a moment, seeming to think. “I think it was the second home, the Roths. The child that tried to get away. I told you he was found in the closet, but I didn’t tell you how he died. It wasn’t quick, like the rest of the family—one giant tear in the throat. The boy was torn limb from limb. It looked like a shark attack—that’s the only way I could describe it. I couldn’t imagine how frightened he must’ve been. I thought about him a lot. Sometimes I dream about him, see him crying in a dark closet.”

  The food came. I lay my napkin across my lap and stared at the vegetable sandwich. I looked up at Mickey and said, “You know, a case like this, we might not be able to do anything.”

  “I know. But at least I can know I tried.”

  After eating, we got on the interstate and headed northwest. The scenery changed from desert to forest. The trees surrounded us, and after an hour, we had to stop so Mickey could use the bathroom. I sat in the car, watching the people, who were mostly crossing Nevada on their way to California. I saw a few hunters and even fewer locals.

  We got off the interstate a little before four in the afternoon and took a winding road up a hill. We had to stop at a tollbooth and pay five dollars. I got the impression that Peak Road was a town that wanted to dissuade visitors as much as possible.

  The town seemed like nothing but trees. The road turned to dirt, and we looped around a small mountain. The valley opened up as we went downhill, and on the bottom of the hill was the town. It was even smaller than I had expected, perhaps no more than a hundred buildings. It had one gas station along the road leading into town, and the dirt road turned to a paved one right as we passed it.

  “I didn’t know towns like this existed anymore,” I said.

  “It hasn’t changed one bit in twenty years. It would take effort to stay this isolated.”

  We drove through town and didn’t see a single person until we got to the school, where children were playing in the yard. The girls wore dresses that came down far past their knees, and the boys wore long-sleeved shirts. A few of them looked our way then quickly went back to playing.

  “There’s a motel up here. It’s the only place to stay in town. I have to warn you, it’s not exactly the Ritz.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine, Mickey.”

  We parked in front of the brown two-story motel. A cleaning woman came out of one of the rooms, and I smiled at her as I stepped out of the car. She turned away without reaction.

  “I’ll check in,” Mickey said.

  I sat on the hood of the car, watching the cars pass on the road. There weren’t many, maybe one every minute or so. The cars weren’t new. Several of them were easily twenty years old, models that took me back to my childhood: station wagons, Volkswagen Beetles, and Oldsmobiles so large they looked like boats.

  Mickey came out a while later to get his bag, and he gave me a key. Unlike the cards most modern hotels and motels used, it was an actual key.

  “I need to sleep,” Mickey said. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  I could see the exhaustion etched across his face. This morning, he had looked vibrant and energetic, and now, after maybe six hours, he was worn down.

  “I’m going to take a drive around the town,” I said.

  “Probably best you don’t tell anyone you’re a cop. The residents weren’t exactly friendly last time.”

  I got into the car and pulled away. I saw Mickey nod to the cleaning lady, and she didn’t acknowledge him, either.

  8

  The town was about five miles across. In the center was the municipal administration building, and next to that were the county sheriff’s office, the station house, the mayor’s office, and the jail. The jail looked like a small cabin and couldn’t have housed more than ten people at a time.

  The only restaurant, as far as I could see, was the Peak Road Diner. Across the street was a bar, and small shops ran up and down both sides of the street. A single church sat nearby with a sign out front that listed the times for worship on Sunday. Other than that, the town consisted of family homes. No apartments, no strip malls, no movie theaters or libraries.

  At first, it was disorienting, but after driving around, I could see the appeal of living someplace like this, the simplicity of it.

  I drove up to the sheriff’s office and got out of the car. Though I was still in Nevada in the springtime, the air was noticeably cooler in Peak Road than it had been in Las Vegas. I strolled along the sidewalk, staring in the windows. A few people walked down hallways into offices, but for the most part, the building looked nearly abandoned.

  I opened the door to the sheriff’s office—no metal detectors or security. The office was one large open space with two desks and another room off to the side. At the first desk sat a young girl, maybe nineteen, popping gum and listening to a country station on something I hadn’t seen in years: an actual radio, not a computer or smartphone.

  “Help you?” she asked.

  “Sheriff here?”

  “Yeah, you want me to get her?”

  I scanned some of the posters on the wall. “So is it just her in this department?”

  “No, we got Will, her deputy. Who are you again?”

  “Jon Stanton. I’m just visiting Peak Road.” I approached the desk. Despite Mickey’s warning, I felt I may have been in the one place where telling someone I was a cop meant something positive. “I’m actually a police officer, too. I’m here helping a friend on something. Have you heard anything about the Werewolf of Peak Road?”

  She stared a
t me for a second. “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout that.”

  Secretaries at police stations and sheriff’s offices had the best information on what had and hadn’t been done on a case. The case could pass through several detectives, but the secretaries were always there, always listening, and always watching. Many times, the secretary at my own station had information about a case before I did.

  “I heard there was a new family about a week ago.”

  She looked at me sternly. “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout that,” she repeated slowly.

  “You know what? On second thought, can I see the sheriff?”

  She popped her gum then said, “One second.”

  Instead of calling back on the phone, she rose and went to the other office. She came out a half a minute later. “The sheriff’s on a call right now. She said to leave your name and number, and she’ll call you back.”

  I took out my card, which had my cell phone number on it, and left it on the desk.

  The woman picked it up and looked at it. “Hawaii, huh? What you doin’ way out here?”

  “Like I said, just helping. Have the sheriff call me when she can.”

  I left the sheriff’s office and sat in my car a few minutes. I hadn’t yet looked through the case files—what detectives informally called “murder books.” I was sure Mickey had them, but he hadn’t offered to show them to me. Maybe he thought if I’d seen the brutality, I wouldn’t have come.

  The door to the sheriff’s office opened, and a woman wearing a beige uniform with a green sheriff’s jacket came out. She walked over to the car, and I rolled down my window.

  She was about my age, late thirties, and had shoulder-length black hair. She was wearing little makeup other than lipstick, and a wide scar marked the back of her right hand. In her left hand, she held my card.