Dead End Girl (Violet Darger Book 1) Read online

  DET. LUCK: OK, but generally, the oil gets dumped every night. Is that right?

  REILY: They’re supposed to. Yeah.

  The misspelling of Ms. Riley’s name by the transcription program irked Violet. It was a computer mistake, she knew, but one that could have been quickly and easily fixed by whoever finalized the transcript. She didn’t allow for such errors in her own paperwork, and she didn’t like it from others. If they couldn’t be bothered to correct a simple spelling mistake, what else were they missing?

  She clicked and unclicked her pen and refocused on the task at hand. It wasn’t the time to get sidetracked by minutiae.

  So in theory, the body was in the dumpster for less than 24 hours. That would mean the girl would have been dead for something like 48 hours before the dump. That was consistent with the findings for the other victims. The evidence suggested he was spending a lot more time with them after they were dead than he did while they were alive.

  Of course, there were other possibilities. If the oil didn’t get dumped the night before, for example. She remembered another one of Ms. Riley’s lines from her transcript.

  REILY: Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one holding this place together, you know? I’m the only one that cares. These kids, they don’t care. They don’t actually give a crap about doing a good job. And you know… you know, some of them are marijuana smokers. I know because I smell it on ‘em.

  Violet tapped her pen against the file and walked around the dumpster. So it was possible the body had been in the dumpster for more than one day. But three? She thought not.

  She looked at the photo of the garbage bags again. The crumpled black plastic with a sheen of oily residue. One torn, one intact. Bags for trash. And wasn’t that what these girls were to him? Human garbage? Disposable pieces of flesh and bone? Just here for him to consume and then throw out when he’s finished.

  She doubted he was trying to say that explicitly. He likely chose the bags for the sake of convenience. The word echoed in her head. Convenience. She glanced at the Burger King sign towering above and thought about the significance of the body being dumped at what one might consider a Mecca of convenience. Your way, right away.

  In the next series of photos in the file, the body was more clearly visible. At first glance, it really did look like an assortment of doll parts. Close-up shots taken after a destructive toddler has had his way with a Barbie doll. But upon closer inspection, the gruesome details became more clear: the stark white of protruding bone against a backdrop of torn red flesh. The pallor of the skin a mottled mixture of purple and gray. Strangely opaque.

  Darger frowned at a picture focusing on the neck wound. There it was again. That awful, jagged slash. Was he really going for a decapitation? A new part of his ritual? Or had he cut further into the neck by accident this time and figured he might as well go all the way, only to find he lacked the proper tools? Or the time. Or perhaps the stomach.

  Her eyes ran over the carnage again. No, she thought. He certainly didn’t lack the stomach for it.

  On the ride to the next dump site, Deputy Donaldson heaved a long sigh and broke his silence.

  “I’ll be glad when this is all over. Haven’t had a good night of sleep since it started.”

  Darger couldn’t remember having many restful nights in the past three years. But she said nothing.

  “Wish I could stop thinking about it, that’s all.”

  “Soon, hopefully,” Violet finally said.

  It was bullshit, of course. These grisly details, the images of these dismembered girls wrapped in plastic, would stick with him forever. Same for all the cops who worked their piece of the investigation. Same, too, for most all of the people who lived in this little swath of the Midwest and had become familiar with the crimes. Hardly a day would go by without these nightmares opening in all of their heads.

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him. A case like this would never be over.

  Chapter 4

  Darger repeated her ritual at each scene. Taking photos, jotting notes, comparing what she’d read in the files with what she saw with her own eyes. When she was finished, she glanced at her watch, surprised to see that it was already early evening. She hadn’t meant to take so long.

  By the time she climbed back into the deputy’s car for the last time, the sun had begun to set. Deputy Donaldson maintained a thoughtful silence as Violet consulted the file and scribbled in her notebook.

  “Before we head back to the station, can you take me to the spot where the Peters girl was abducted?”

  Donaldson wore a smirk beneath his sandy mustache.

  “Sure, if you can tell me which one.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I suppose you don’t have the updated file. The Hocking County guys had her in two days ago for another interview, and she kind of canceled her prior testimony out.”

  Darger flipped through the file until she found the witness statement for Sierra Peters. She scanned it again, refreshing her memory.

  “She recanted?”

  “Not exactly. But a lot of the details — which were fuzzy at best to begin with, mind you — changed.”

  “Maybe she started to remember things more clearly. I mean, what about her story changed?”

  “The beginning, middle, and end, mostly. I expect it’s hard to keep the details straight when it never happened. Listen, when I drop you off, I’ll radio inside and have Marcie make you a copy of the most recent statement. You can go in and grab it before you leave.”

  “But you think she made it up?”

  “The girl has a history. On and off drugs. Meth and painkillers, depending on her mood. She calls our department. A lot. Filing noise complaints. Reporting suspicious activity in the neighborhood. Calling in ex-boyfriends for things and refusing to press charges two hours later. Crap like that. You take enough of these calls, and you start to take what she says with more than a few grains of salt. Add to that the fact that her supposed abduction happened the day after the press started up with all the serial killer hullabaloo?”

  He shook his head as he finished his thought.

  “A little too coincidental for my tastes.”

  Damn it all. If she’d made up the story, that wouldn’t just scratch up her profile. It would mar the entire investigation. What doors had been closed because of her statements? What assumptions had already been made and hardened into fact in the minds of the investigators?

  Donaldson was still rambling about the girl’s history as a troublemaker.

  “She went away to a real rehab out in Arizona a while back. Forty days of peace and quiet around town without her calling something in every few days. It was heavenly. Rehab didn’t take, though. Two days after she gets back, she gets in a heated altercation at a convenience store and gets busted for possession.”

  There was a pause, and she could hear the suctioning sound of him sucking his teeth before he continued.

  “She’s a dead end girl, that one.”

  Darger had been almost convinced to drop it until that last remark. Her history didn’t preclude her from being a victim. Besides, she’d met witnesses who had second thoughts before. It was scary to get mixed up in a murder investigation. Scary for a reason. Sometimes the risk involved was very real.

  This thought triggered memories. Bad ones. Darger ground her teeth and blocked the worst of the lot before it had a chance to fill her head with images best forgotten. There would not be a replay of the spell she’d suffered in the Burger King parking lot. She wouldn’t allow it.

  “That’s the thing about the boy who cried wolf, Deputy,” Darger said, returning her focus to Sierra Peters. “That last time he really had seen a wolf. I’d like to talk to the girl. See what I think.”

  Deputy Donaldson scoffed.

  “Be my guest. If you’re in the mood for a goose chase, that’s no skin off my nose. I don’t pretend to be an expert in homicide investigations. Barely seen one up close myself before all o
f this. I know people, though. About 80% percent of ‘em are good. Maybe not quite that many, but close to that. The other 20% can’t connect to anyone else. Some of ‘em lie and cheat and steal. Some of ‘em kill. I suppose some do all of the above. Our girl isn’t the worst of the bunch, but… I think you’re wasting your time if you go talk to her. Like I say, though. Maybe I’m out of my element. This is a rural county. A different way of life than what you’ll find a lot of places. But I’ve been patrolling these streets for 25 years. I’ve observed the human ape in his natural habitat.”

  He fell quiet for a beat. The car thudded over black stripes of tar where the road had been patched.

  “I guess they say people can change. I’ll let you know about that if I ever see it for myself.”

  At the station, Donaldson stopped the cruiser near the front walk. Darger thanked him for accompanying her before she closed the car door behind her. Over the sound of her feet slapping against the sidewalk came the electric whir of a car window.

  Donaldson called out through the open window.

  “Oh, and Agent?”

  “Yes?”

  “If you do go talk to the Peters girl, I’d suggest you keep a running inventory of anything that isn’t nailed down.”

  Darger had stopped walking. She stood there on the pavement, squinting back at him.

  “How’s that?”

  “Our star witness is a bit of a klepto. Liable to steal whatever she can get her hands on. Pawn it for drug money and whatnot.”

  He chuckled like it was a joke of some kind.

  Before she could say anything in response, the cruiser propelled forward, coasting to the edge of the lot. Darger watched it wait there, turn signal blinking on and off like a lightning bug until it merged into traffic and traveled out of sight.

  Chapter 5

  The manila envelope was ready for Darger at the front desk, just as Donaldson said it’d be. She thought about waiting until she got back to the motel to go over the newest witness statement, but her curiosity got the better of her. As soon as she was in her rental car, she pinched the metal tab securing the top flap and poured the papers and burned DVD into her lap.

  She drummed her fingers impatiently on the center console while her laptop booted. The desktop background appeared, and she jammed the DVD into the drive, clicking a file named 11932_SPeters_Int_1.avi.

  The first interview took place the night of the alleged abduction, and the girl’s appearance certainly backed up her story. In the video, Sierra’s hair was wet and disheveled. Smudges of black makeup ringed her eyes. She wore blue hospital scrubs, her own clothes certainly taken as evidence. Darger knew that the trace evidence found on her clothes had given them nothing useful.

  DET. JANSSEN: OK, Sierra. Why don’t you start from the beginning? Where were you when he picked you up?

  SIERRA: I was… on Vine Street. Savarino’s.

  DET. JANSSEN: Savarino’s. The Italian place?

  Sierra nodded.

  DET. JANSSEN: Can you answer Yes or No?

  SIERRA: Yes.

  DET. JANSSEN: So you’re on Vine Street, near Savarino’s. And what were you doing there?

  SIERRA: Walking.

  DET. JANSSEN: Walking. Right. Where to? Where from?

  SIERRA: Huh?

  DET. JANSSEN: Well, you weren’t just out walkin’ for your health at 2 AM, were you?

  SIERRA: No, I was at Jimmy’s.

  DET. JANSSEN: Jimmy. Does Jimmy have a last name?

  Sierra sobbed.

  SIERRA: Oh God. He was gonna kill me.

  DET. JANSSEN: Jimmy was gonna kill you?

  SIERRA: No! The guy that took me! He was gonna kill me.

  DET. JANSSEN: OK, so what happened at Jimmy’s?

  Sierra abruptly stopped crying then.

  SIERRA: Nothing. I went there to see if he was home, but he wasn’t so I left.

  DET. JANSSEN: And what had you walkin’ over to this Jimmy guy’s house at 2 AM? He your boyfriend?

  SIERRA: What? No. I don’t… Forget Jimmy, OK? He wasn’t there. He wasn’t a part of it.

  Darger throttled the pen in her hand. What the hell was this? She’d had the same feeling reading the interview the first time. The video was even worse. This Detective Janssen seemed like he was interrogating her more than taking a witness statement. She let her gaze fall back down to the screen.

  DET. JANSSEN: OK, so you go over to this Jimmy’s house, for God knows what reason, and he’s not home, so then what?

  SIERRA: So I started to walk back home. And that’s when this guy pulls up.

  DET. JANSSEN: Can you describe him? What about his car?

  SIERRA: He had dark hair. It was wet. Like he just took a shower or maybe had some mousse or somethin’ in it. And glasses. Big glasses.

  DET. JANSSEN: And what about the vehicle? Car, truck, van?

  SIERRA: Car.

  DET. JANSSEN: Do you remember what color?

  Sierra folded her arms over her chest and hugged herself like she might be cold.

  SIERRA: It was dark.

  DET. JANSSEN: The car was dark, or it was too dark to see the color?

  Sierra shook her head, seeming confused.

  SIERRA: Both? I mean, it was dark outside, but the car was dark, too.

  DET. JANSSEN: OK. Big or small?

  SIERRA: Um. Big? I don’t know about cars, really. It didn’t seem super old.

  Janssen’s mustache quivered while he ponders this revelation.

  DET. JANSSEN: So you think it was a newer car?

  SIERRA: Not brand new, but… newish.

  DET. JANSSEN: Darkish, biggish, and newish. Got it. And how did he get you in the car? He call you over, then grab you? Hit you or something?

  SIERRA: Uh-huh.

  DET. JANSSEN: “Uh-huh?” Does that mean, Yes, he grabbed you? Yes, he hit you?

  SIERRA: Uh-huh. Yes. He hit me. I got in the car, and he punched the side of my head and put something that smelled like rotten fruit up to my face.

  Sierra gestured to nose and mouth.

  DET. JANSSEN: Did he say anything to you before that?

  She brought a knuckle to her cheek and rubbed at it.

  SIERRA: He asked me if I wanted a ride?

  DET. JANSSEN: Is that a question? Or a statement?

  SIERRA: What?

  DET. JANSSEN: You didn’t sound sure.

  SIERRA: He asked me if I wanted a ride.

  DET. JANSSEN: OK. And do you normally accept rides from strangers?

  SIERRA: I don’t… I didn’t… I didn’t accept a ride from him.

  DET. JANSSEN: You didn’t? Because you said he asked if you wanted a ride, you got in the car, and then he hit you.

  SIERRA: No. No. That’s not what happened.

  Sierra’s chest started to jerk a little, like a child that’s just stopped crying but is thinking about starting up again.

  SIERRA: I didn’t get in the car. He made me get in the car.

  DET. JANSSEN: OK, OK. So you’re in the car. Does he say anything when you’re in the car?

  SIERRA: Well, I wouldn’t know, would I? I was passed out.

  DET. JANSSEN: And when did you wake up?

  SIERRA: On the floor.

  DET. JANSSEN: Not where. When?

  Sierra spoke slowly and deliberately.

  SIERRA: When he put me on the floor. How am I ‘sposed to know when? He took my phone. Wasn’t like there was a clock in there.

  DET. JANSSEN: In where?

  SIERRA: In the room.

  DET. JANSSEN: What was it? Like a house? An apartment?

  SIERRA: No. The floor was hard. And cold. Cement.

  DET. JANSSEN: Like a basement? Or a garage?

  SIERRA: Garage. I think. I think it had one of them doors that go up.

  Sierra pantomimed a garage door opening.

  DET. JANSSEN: And he didn’t have you tied up or anything?

  SIERRA: My hands were tied, yeah.

  DET. JANSSEN: Not your leg
s, though?

  Sierra started to cry again, rocking back and forth.

  SIERRA: I don’t know. Maybe. Oh my God. I should be dead. He was gonna kill me just like those other girls.

  DET. JANSSEN: But he didn’t. Right, Sierra? Sierra.

  Sierra wiped her nose and looked up at the detective.

  DET. JANSSEN: He didn’t get you. Stay with me for a few more minutes, and then we can take a break.

  SIERRA: OK.

  DET. JANSSEN: What could you see outside the door?

  SIERRA: I don’t know. I don’t remember.

  DET. JANSSEN: Think about it for a minute. Were there houses? Other buildings? A parking lot?

  Sierra shook her head.

  SIERRA: The lights were too bright to see anything.

  DET. JANSSEN: What lights?

  SIERRA: The headlights. On the car.

  DET. JANSSEN: So you were on the floor, tied up, and then what?

  SIERRA: I could hear rain on the roof. Sounded like metal. I thought I was in my apartment, but the rain didn’t sound right. And I opened my eyes, and I was on the floor, and when I tried to touch where my head hurt, my hands were tied. And then I could feel that my feet were tied-

  DET. JANSSEN: So your feet were tied?

  Darger wished for a time machine so she could travel back just to jump in at this point in the interview and tell Detective Janssen to shut the fuck up and let the girl talk. Sierra had been on a roll there — the most lucid she’d seemed in the entire interview — and he had to go and interrupt.

  SIERRA: Yeah.

  DET. JANSSEN: It’s just that before, you didn’t seem to remember.

  SIERRA: Well now I do. They were tied.

  DET. JANSSEN: Go on.

  SIERRA: I woke up, and I didn’t see the man. So I ran.

  DET. JANSSEN: I thought your feet were tied.

  SIERRA: They were. I got ‘em loose. Obviously.

  DET. JANSSEN: What were you tied with? Rope? Duct tape?

  SIERRA: Rope. Or more like… twine, I guess.

  DET. JANSSEN: What did you see when you got outside?