The Unseen - A Mystery (The Baudin & Dixon Trilogy Book 2) Page 6

  They walked slowly up the long driveway before coming up to the porch. Baudin didn’t see a doorbell, so he pounded on the door with his fist. A woman answered in what appeared to be a gray uniform, but could’ve been a dress.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Is Roger in?” Baudin asked.

  “And who are you?”

  “The police. Are you his wife?”

  “No, I’m the maid. I’ll go get him. Wait here, please.”

  The maid left the door cracked, and Baudin pushed it open a bit and looked inside. The floors were marble, and a painted portrait hung in the living room. A large fireplace took up one wall, and on the opposite wall was an ancient map of the world.

  A short man with gray hair and glasses came to the door. He was dressed in a white jumpsuit unlike any jumpsuit Baudin had ever seen. It appeared to be made of silk, and it looked odd with his white tennis shoes.

  “I’m Roger Walk.”

  Baudin flashed his badge. “We just need a minute of your time, Mr. Walk.”

  “This is about that girl, I take it?”

  “Her name is Hannah Smith.”

  “Right. Well, you might as well come in. I was just sitting down for lunch.”

  They followed him through the home. Everything was immaculate, polished and scrubbed until it gleamed. Baudin didn’t actually think the home was a mansion, but it was decorated like one. As they crossed the massive kitchen to the back deck, Baudin saw a woman in a robe, definitely not another maid, and she didn’t smile when she saw him. In fact, she didn’t even acknowledge them other than tightening the sash around her waist.

  Once outside, Baudin saw the enormity of the backyard. That was really where the wealthy in Cheyenne differed from the wealthy in Los Angeles—land. Almost no one in Los Angeles owned a home with that much land attached. But Roger Walk’s yard went on and on for as far as Baudin could see.

  “Beautiful property,” Baudin said, sitting down in a wicker chair with a fluffy blue cushion.

  “It was my father’s, and his father’s before him. My grandfather came to Wyoming with nothing. He was a wildcat, looking for oil anywhere it was rumored to be. He got lucky here and settled down.” Walk took a bite of a croissant that had something white spread across it. “Not to devalue strolls down memory lane, but what exactly do you need, Detective? It is detective, right?”

  “Yes. What we need is information about Hannah. We found some inconsistencies at the scene, and I thought, ‘Who better to straighten them out than the boss himself?’”

  “What kind of inconsistencies?”

  Dixon said, “Forensics told us that the wounds on her belly were inflicted by your machine. Now, we’re not making that public, Mr. Walk. You should know that. That stays between us. I know how important the meat industry is here. But we also gotta find who did this.”

  Baudin almost grinned. Dixon had played it perfectly. Forensics had said the body was too mangled to be able to tell much, but Walk needed a little nudge in the truth’s direction.

  “Maybe she was in one of our machines,” Walk said. “I couldn’t say. I wasn’t the one that found her.”

  Baudin nodded and leaned forward. “See, we can tell when a body’s been moved. Lividity. The way the blood settles. After it settles and then the body is moved again, the blood has to resettle, but it doesn’t resettle the same way the second time. So we know the body was moved after it had been dumped in your plant. Someone moved it.”

  “Well, feel free to interview anyone at the plant about that. Anything else?”

  Walk had also played his part perfectly. He was an uncooperative cooperative. He had invited them into his home and spoken to them, but not given them a single thing. They would’ve gotten just as much if he’d slammed the door in their faces, but he seemed to be cooperating.

  “Thank you for your time,” Baudin said.

  They rose and left without looking back. On the way to the car, Dixon said, “Well, that’s good that he’s not hiding anything.”

  Baudin got in and stared up at the large house. “This guy’s done some dirt. We need everything we can find on him.”

  16

  After pulling up Walk’s history, Dixon and Baudin sat at their desks, staring at the paperwork in front of them—an entire life summed up in ten pages. Dixon lifted the stack then dropped it back on the desk just to feel the weight. It didn’t feel like anything.

  Roger Walk’s history, as told by a Tribune article, read exactly as Walk had said. His grandfather, Callen Walk, the person he’d gotten his middle name from, had come to Wyoming during the wildcatting days of the early twentieth century. He’d struck oil five years later and sold his rights to the land for a small fortune. The Walks then invested in livestock and switched from oil to meat and dairy.

  Roger Walk had three children, two of whom had left Wyoming. One had attended Harvard Business School. The only one who still lived in Wyoming was his youngest son, Dennis. But the file had a note from the Department of Child and Family Services that said Dennis had been taken from Walk and placed with a foster family when he was ten years old. When he turned eighteen, he’d moved in with his biological mother, who was no longer married to Walk.

  “No criminal history,” Dixon said. “No protective orders, stalking injunctions, not even a call to the cops in his entire life.” Dixon leaned back in his seat. “No one’s that clean. He’s got to have people inside this station helping him.”

  “He’s just rich. The law doesn’t apply to rich people like it does to the poor.” Baudin rose and paced around their desks. “It would be good cover, wouldn’t it? He kills girls then tosses them in with his hogs to be ground up and sold. Gets rid of the bodies.”

  “This couldn’t be the first time at his age. If he’s been doing it for a time, why did someone just happen to notice now?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe he got sloppy? Ted Bundy said killing was like changing a tire. The first one is easy and clean, everything goes how it should. But by the tenth one, you can’t even remember where you left the wrench.”

  Dixon took a pen and began tapping it against his knee, his gaze on a slip of paper on his desk. “What about the son?”

  “What about him?”

  “Got taken from Walk’s custody. There’s probably some abuse there, and he might want to get back at Daddy by dumping a body at his plant. And he would have access to everything.”

  “So would every employee that has a key to that place.” Baudin sat on the edge of the desk. “So the way I see it, either Walk was involved—or someone he cares about is involved, and he’s stonewalling us—or he just doesn’t want bad press. Somebody else, probably an employee of the plant, did it, in that case.”

  Dixon sighed. “I think we’re gonna have to interview everyone.”

  “I’ll flip you for who calls and gets the interviews set up.”

  Dixon shook his head. “I got a date tonight. It’s all you.”

  “No shit? A date with who?”

  Dixon couldn’t help but grin. “A neighbor. Jenny. She’s probably half my age, but she’s nice.”

  “She’s nice?”

  “All right, I wanna fuck the shit outta her. But she’s also nice.”

  Baudin smiled. “Far be it from me to get in the way of new love. I’ll set everything. You take off and get showered.”

  Dixon smelled his underarm. “Not a bad idea.”

  Once Dixon had left, Baudin sat for a long time at his desk with his eyes closed. Several times throughout the day, he closed his eyes and focused on a single thought. It didn’t matter what the thought was, as long as it was simple and he could keep it in his mind. A number worked, but so did a single word, a color, or a note of music. He had once meditated like that for over an hour, and afterward, he didn’t know if he had fallen asleep or not.

  He opened his eyes and picked up his phone, punching in the number for Grade A. A receptionist picked up, and Baudin asked for Henry, who picked up the line a
moment later.

  “Henry, this is Ethan Baudin. I’m about to ruin your day.”

  17

  Dixon went home and showered. He hadn’t been on a date in so long that he wasn’t sure what was proper, especially with someone from a younger generation. In the end, he decided the safest bet was just dinner and a movie. People still ate, and they still watched movies.

  He left his apartment and went downstairs. Darkness was quickly enveloping the city. Standing in front of the door, he inhaled the cool evening air and tried to discern the scents he was taking in. Smells were always wafting on the air, whether real or imagined. Sometimes he wondered how much of life was actually in his head and how much really existed.

  Shit, he thought. Now I’m sounding like Ethan.

  He knocked on the door, and Jenny answered after only a few seconds. She hadn’t changed her clothes since he’d seen her earlier. She smiled, and it lit up her whole face.

  “Lemme grab my shoes,” she said.

  She picked up some leopard-print shoes and came out of the apartment barefoot. She headed straight to his car, and he was about to ask if she really wasn’t going to lock her door then thought better of it. He had to remind himself that not everyone thought like cops did or lived in the same world they did.

  “Where we goin’?” she asked.

  “I thought we’d grab dinner and a movie.”

  “Fuck that. Let’s go get trashed.”

  The nearest bar was fifteen minutes away and on the drive over, they talked about what Miami was like. Once there, they sat at the bar, and a crowd slowly began to gather. They met a few other people and began drinking shots. Dixon was older than the crowd they were with, but he didn’t mind. The energy of youth was contagious. He felt light and, for the first time in a long time, free.

  Two shots turned to five then ten. By the time midnight rolled around, Dixon couldn’t remember how much he’d drunk, but several beer bottles were sitting in front of him, and the bartender had already cleared away several shot glasses.

  The group they were hanging out with played darts and pool. They danced, though Dixon refused to, and Jenny seemed to be the center of attention. Several of the men danced with her, their hands sliding over her body. But when the other men touched her, Jenny looked at Dixon. Occasionally, she would wink at him, and it made his heart flutter as though he were a teenage girl.

  “Dance with me,” she finally said a little after midnight.

  “I don’t dance.”

  She pressed herself against him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Dance with me,” she whispered in his ear. Slowly, she pulled him out to the floor.

  Her body against his, they rocked back and forth, their hands exploring each other before she pressed her lips to his.

  Dixon hadn’t kissed another woman since he’d met his wife all those years ago. It made his skin tingle, and he wondered if the buzzing in his head was really there. Jenny’s lips were soft, far softer than he remembered Hillary’s lips being.

  Gently, she slid her tongue into his mouth. It was slick and tasted like tequila. He pushed his tongue against hers, and she pulled away, biting onto his lip and pulling with a strength that nearly made him wince.

  “Let’s get outta here,” she said.

  Dixon took her hand and led her back to his car.

  The moonlight was strong. No clouds were in the sky, and it seemed to go on forever. The stars were almost as bright as the moon was, and Dixon could see them out Jenny’s window as they lay in her bed under the thick comforters. A woman’s bed… he hadn’t been in one for so long that he’d forgotten how much better women smelled than men did. Jenny was asleep next to him, and as quietly as he could, he pressed his face to the pillow and inhaled deeply.

  The motion, though slight, woke her. She smiled at him. Her nude flesh appeared pale in the moonlight. Her breasts, supple and round, had pink nipples perfectly in the center. Dixon reached over and ran his fingers around them before putting his mouth to hers. They kissed passionately, then she pulled away.

  “Spend the night,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t sleep. I would keep you up.”

  “That’s okay.” She giggled. “Let me help you.” She placed her head on his chest and angled her arm so that she could reach the top of his head. Rubbing slowly, she massaged his scalp.

  Her face was away from his, so she couldn’t see him. The touch felt nice, and the sex had been the best Dixon had ever had. Still, something was missing, and he didn’t know what. Everything felt hollow and black.

  Biting his lip so he wouldn’t make a sound, he wept. The tears streamed down his face as Jenny continued to rub his head until she fell asleep. He removed her hands, then slid out of the bed before putting on his clothes and leaving.

  18

  Baudin got home late, too late to tuck his daughter in. He turned off the alarm when he got home and grinned because Heather had turned it on. She was taking to heart his lessons about being cautious.

  He checked on her. She was asleep in her room, her back turned toward the door. In the moonlight, in that position, with her hair over her shoulders, she looked like her mother. A sharp pain lanced through Baudin like a hot needle stuck into his heart. He shut the door.

  After getting a beer from the fridge, he headed downstairs and flipped on the light. The room lit up with the dull glow of the single bulb. He took a swig of beer and sat in a chair before the board.

  The beer was cold and stung going down. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the pain for a moment before opening them and rising to his feet. He approached the board and stared at the photo of Sandoval. You’re not getting away from me.

  Hannah’s case had done exactly what Baudin had thought it would: distracted him. He had been thinking of Sandoval less and less and about Hannah Smith more. Eventually, Sandoval wouldn’t seem as important, though Baudin knew the man was the only thing that mattered.

  Baudin hadn’t told Dixon, but he had visited their old assistant chief of police, the man under Robert Crest, in prison. When Crest was killed, Internal Affairs and the FBI had opened a full-blown investigation, and the assistant chief, Bill McFarland, was indicted by the US Attorney’s Office on forty-two counts of corruption and bribery. After McFarland had been sentenced to thirty years in prison and no longer had anything to lose, Baudin had paid him a visit.

  Baudin had to drive to Colorado, to the nearest federal penitentiary. When he actually got into a visiting room and McFarland was brought out, Baudin couldn’t believe how much weight he’d gained.

  “How the hell you get fat in prison, Bill?” he asked.

  The man sat down, breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. “What do you want?”

  “I wanna talk. See, you’re not part of the frat. I know you don’t owe them anything. So I wanted to chat about them.”

  He snorted. “Fuck them.”

  He nodded. “They sold you out, didn’t they?”

  “They needed someone to take the fall, and I wasn’t a member. No one believed me when I pointed the finger back.”

  Baudin nodded. “Help me get back at them. Every conspiracy has a leader—one person that’s connected to all the others. Take him out, and the connections disappear. It falls apart. Who is that person? The mayor?”

  He chuckled. “Shit. The mayor couldn’t find his dick with both hands.”

  “Who then? I know you know.”

  McFarland licked his front teeth. “What do I get in return?”

  “A clear conscience?”

  He laughed. “Shit, man. I took money from one place and put it in another. I don’t feel too bad about that. What else?”

  Baudin thought a moment. “Because I’m a detective, they give me contact visits with you anytime I want. What do you need?”

  He shrugged. “Pot would be nice. But not to smoke—they’ll smell that shit. Put it in cookies or something
.”

  “What about booze?”

  He shook his head. “We can make booze here in the toilets. Pot and cigarettes have to be brought in.”

  “I didn’t know you were a toker.”

  “I’m not. But I can trade the pot for other things. Some of the guards will give me extra conjugal visits and shit.” He looked down. “Gotta use that shit now before Darlene leaves me and gets remarried.”

  Baudin leaned back. “You never know. She might stick around.”

  “For thirty years? No woman would do that.” He took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose. “Pot and cigarettes. You bring me that, I’ll tell you who you’re looking for.”

  A couple weeks later, Baudin snuck in two packages of cookies made with pot along with two cartons of cigarettes, just enough that McFarland could hide them under his shirt and probably not be noticed. McFarland smiled when he got them.

  “You’re as corrupt as I am, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Life isn’t about good and evil. It’s about choosing the lesser of two evils. You’re the lesser of two evils, so I’m helping you.” Baudin leaned forward. “Who am I looking for?”

  “Mike Sandoval.”

  “The DA?”

  He nodded. “He was one of the founding members of Sigma Mu. I don’t know if he started those rape parties, but he was there during the first one, I bet.” He smirked. “You know, the chief told me once that he went into that frat normal and came out twisted. He said once you’ve raped forty girls, you can never have normal sex again. He couldn’t get a hard-on unless he was raping them after that. And it just took off from there.”

  “What’s Sandoval’s involvement?”

  “Even the chief said he was a sick fucker. Said a lot of the girls from the rape parties disappeared. Sandoval used to interview every new hire in the department and the DA’s Office. A lotta people owe him their jobs. And sometimes, he’d recruit people right from the prison and put badges on ’em.”