08-A Thousand Bones, page 16
“Can you remember any of the names of her other boyfriends before Mitch Haskell?” Joe asked.
Marie thought for a moment, then offered a few names—just first names. Joe had started to close her notebook when she thought of one last thing. “You mentioned Ronnie quit her job. Where did she work?”
Marie Langford gestured over her shoulder. “Up there on the corner at the bowling alley, Cherry Hill Lanes. She worked the snack bar on weekends.”
Joe scribbled the name, but she was seeing the dusty bowling trophies on Ken Snider’s mantel.
Marie Langford was staring at the card Rafsky had given her. Her eyes came up, and Joe followed them to the two girls coming down the street, books clutched to their chests. When Marie Langford’s pale brown eyes came back to Joe, she saw a shadow of sadness in them, but she didn’t think Marie Langford would cry.
“If you see Ronnie, I mean, find her…” Her voice trailed off. “Tell her to call her mother, will you?”
The smell was the same as she remembered it. A mix of beer, frying grease, cigarette smoke, and sweaty shoes. And the sound, always in the background, of clattering wooden pins.
Joe paused on the dirty red carpet just inside the door of Cherry Hill Lanes, waiting for Rafsky to catch up. The snack bar was to the left, with the pro shop tucked into a dark corner near the restrooms. It looked exactly like the place her dad had taken her and Dennis to back in Cleveland.
The kid at the counter paused long enough from his chore of giving out shoes and score sheets to tell Rafsky the manager was off today. The kid didn’t know if the manager worked here ten years ago and didn’t seem to care. He also didn’t know a Ken Snider.
Rafsky came back to Joe, gesturing to the old woman behind the snack bar. “Maybe she’s been here long enough.”
“Those jobs change weekly. I have a better idea.”
Joe led Rafsky to the pro shop, which was thick with dust and the smell of burned rubber. The man in the back gave them a quick look over his shoulder.
“Be right there,” he called over the whine of a drill.
Joe glanced around. Behind the glass counter was a wall of framed photos. “Rafsky,” she said. “Look at the third picture.”
He reached over the counter and took it off the wall. The photo showed five men in yellow and black shirts, holding a trophy. The middle man was Ken Snider.
“Whatcha need?”
The pro shop guy wore an old lime green bowling shirt, the name greg hunt embroidered on the chest.
Rafsky again made the introductions, then asked Hunt how long he had worked at the bowling alley. Hunt glanced at the framed photo in Rafsky’s hand.
“Twenty-two years come April,” Hunt said.
“Do you know this man?” Rafsky asked, pointing to Snider.
“That’s Kenny,” Hunt said. “Been bowling here since he was about fifteen or sixteen. I taught him most everything he knows.”
“Do you recall a high school girl named Ronnie Langford?” Rafsky asked. “She worked in the snack bar here in sixty-five.”
Hunt scratched his chin, his eyes still on the photo Rafsky held. “We get a lot of girls working here.”
Joe reached into her pocket. Back at the high school, she had made a copy of Ronnie’s yearbook picture, and she held it out to Hunt. “This is Ronnie Langford,” she said.
Hunt’s eyes widened. “Oh, yeah, I remember her now.”
Hunt offered nothing else, but there was something in his face that told Joe he now remembered Ronnie vividly, and Joe wanted to know why. “What was she like?” she asked.
“She was, well…” Hunt sighed, looking at Rafsky as he talked. “She was a bitch and kind of a tease. Played around and was always getting the guys worked up, you know? Had a few fights in here because of her.”
“Was Ken Snider one of the men she got worked up?” Joe asked.
“Kenny was only eighteen then, and he hung on her like a horny dog,” Hunt said, still keeping his eyes on Rafsky. “They dated most of that season, if I remember right, even though he caught her a couple of times doing other guys in the parking lot.”
“Was he ever violent toward her?” Rafsky asked.
Hunt shook his head. “It was the other way around. One night, they had a helluva fight in the bar. But it was her doing all the throwing. Glasses and bottles. I recall it was something about her leaving to go on the road with Mitch.”
“Mitch Haskell.”
“Yeah, Haskell, that’s him. He bowled on Tuesdays.” Hunt was nodding, as if things were coming back to him suddenly. “Oh, man, I remember now. Kenny came in that night with this ring and said he was going to ask Ronnie to marry him. But then Ronnie told him she was leaving town with Mitch. Man, it was ugly.”
“Mr. Hunt,” Joe said, “can you be more exact about the date of the fight?”
Hunt thought for a moment. “Maybe late January, early February? I know the Christmas decorations were down, but there was still snow outside.”
Rafsky tapped the bowling photograph. “May we have this?”
Hunt nodded. “Is Kenny in trouble?” he asked.
“We really can’t give you any more information,” Rafsky said. “But I would ask that if you see him, please don’t tell him we were here, and don’t mention Ronnie Langford.”
They left Greg Hunt with an expression of confusion on his face. Out in the parking lot, Rafsky paused as he opened the driver’s-side door.
“I need to tell you,” he said, “you did a damn fine job at Mrs. Langford’s. I didn’t think to ask her where Ronnie worked.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t usually miss things like that.”
Rafsky looked up at the neon bowling alley sign. Joe wondered for a moment if he felt she had shown him up somehow, as Mack did when she pointed something out. But she didn’t think that’s what prompted his distant look now.
“Where to now?” she asked.
“Inkster police for a search warrant.”
“Do we have enough?” she asked.
Rafsky shrugged. “I think so. We have the hoist and the bracelet found in the same area. A girl missing for ten years. A stormy relationship between our suspect and the victim.”
“Can’t we just get the warrant through your office?” Joe asked.
“It’ll be quicker this way, and my guys won’t have to drive down here to help with the search. Besides, it’s the Inkster PD’s jurisdiction, and I want to show them the proper respect.” He gave her a smile. “I like protocol, Frye.”
Rafsky strolled the length of the small room, took a peek out the only window, and wandered to the water cooler, where he poured himself a third cup of water. Joe had never seen him this agitated. She felt it, too. To calm down, she went to the window and looked out at the row of police cars parked in the lot. The Inkster police department, with ten times the number of officers as Echo Bay, was housed in a brick building that reminded her a lot of a high school.
The heating unit under the window kicked on again, puffing more hot air into the already sweltering room. Joe took off her jacket and laid it over the chair. Rafsky did the same, using a handkerchief to wipe a sheen of sweat off his brow. The gesture spiked a few strands of his damp hair straight up.
“I’d be treated with more respect in a whorehouse,” Rafsky said, checking his watch again.
Joe slipped her hip onto the table and put her feet on a chair. “You think Snider is thinking about running?” she asked.
“They all think about it,” Rafsky said. “Until today, he probably had no reason to think he would ever have to. If he killed Ronnie Langford, he got away with it for ten years. A man can get awful comfortable with that.”
“And he kept killing.”
Rafsky stopped pacing and faced her.
“The yearbook picture we have of Ronnie,” Joe said. “She isn’t wearing braces. Or glasses.”
Rafsky nodded. “So now we have three victims. The odds are astronomical that more than one killer would leave remains so close together in a remote area like Echo Bay.”
“Do you think Ronnie was his first?”
“I believe most killers start with someone they know. Ronnie sounded like the kind of girl who could make a man snap. My guess is that’s what Snider did. Probably right inside that house.”
The door opened, and a detective came in. He was the same man they had talked to earlier, Lieutenant Mumsley. Barrel-chested, with a hard jaw and dark ice-pick eyes. He held a few sheets of paper and an affidavit Rafsky had filled out earlier.
“Your man’s got no criminal record,” Mumsley said, holding out Snider’s sheet. “Just a couple of traffic tickets, all in Inkster. Nothing up north.”
“Any sign Ronnie turned up somewhere?”
Mumsley shook his head. “Can’t locate an employer, social security number, driver’s license, or any warrants or tickets,” he said. “And no reports of her death anywhere. It looks like she’s still missing.”
“And the warrant?” Rafsky asked.
“Judge is seeing us tomorrow at nine across the street at the courthouse. I got six officers lined up to go with you.”
“We’re not going to go tonight?” Rafsky asked.
“Judge says unless you can tell him there’s a girl in that house right now, he’ll sign it in the morning.”
Rafsky let out a long breath of annoyance.
“You might as well get a room and cool your jets, Detective,” Mumsley said. “Even calling Lansing isn’t going to get you a team tonight.”
Rafsky snatched his affidavit from Mumsley and grabbed his coat from the chair. “This is unbelievable.”
“Look,” Mumsley said, “if it makes you feel better, we’ll stick a car down the block. Make sure Snider doesn’t bail during the night. That suit you okay?”
Rafsky finally drew a breath and managed a nod. “Thanks.”
Mumsley left the room without a word to Joe. Rafsky raked his hair, spiking it even more.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t lose my temper often. I just hate unnecessary delays. And cops who have no sense of urgency.”
Joe pulled her jacket on, her eyes moving to the darkness of the window. She thought about tomorrow morning and what it was going to be like to stand in front of a judge to secure a search warrant and how it was going to feel to walk inside Ken Snider’s house. And she was thinking about what they might find down in that basement.
“I suppose we should go get a motel and check in with our respective departments,” Rafsky said.
“A motel?”
He gave her a teasing smile. “Unless you want to sleep in the car a block down from Snider’s house.”
“Sorry,” Joe said. “My mind was drifting. Of course we need a place.”
As they headed out, she was already working on what she was going to tell Sheriff Leach and wondering what his reaction would be when she told them they had a suspect. And she was trying to imagine what Brad was going to say when she told him she wasn’t coming home tonight. As they hit the cold air of the parking lot, Rafsky touched her arm.
“I’m starved. How about Italian?” he asked, pointing down the road.
She turned. A red neon sign flickered in the darkness about a half-block down. recchi’s. Behind it, another sign read michigan avenue inn. Ice Cold Rooms. Free TV.
There was a small knot in her stomach. She wasn’t sure what it was from. She wasn’t even sure if she was hungry.
“Italian sounds good,” she said.
23
They were halfway through the antipasto plate before Rafsky brought up the case.
“I know this isn’t very exciting,” he said. He saw her puzzled expression and went on. “But this is the way real investigations are done. Lots of sorting through receipts, lots of waiting around, lots of talking to people, lots more waiting around, lots of bad food.”
Joe picked up a grilled pepper. “These aren’t bad.”
Rafsky smiled. They were one of only three couples in the restaurant, sharing a booth in the back. The place was a cave of cheesy clichés, from the plastic red-checkered tablecloth to the Chianti-bottle candles to the faded poster of the Trevi Fountain over the bar. The bearded owner was washing glasses behind the bar, humming along as Sinatra wended his way through “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning.”
“What’s your take on Marie Langford?” Joe asked.
“What do you mean?”
Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking how different she is from Natalie Newton’s mother. Hasn’t seen her daughter in ten years, and now we show up saying she could be dead. It was almost like she didn’t care.”
“People give up,” Rafsky said.
Joe shook her head slowly. “Dorothy Newton hasn’t given up. She still wants her daughter home. Even if she’s dead.”
Rafsky picked up the carafe and poured out two glasses of Chianti. He pushed the glass across the table to her. Sinatra had moved on to “I’ll Be Around.” The piano was mingling with the tinkle of glass as the owner stacked goblets behind the bar. For a long time, they sat there just sipping their wine.
“So how you dealing with this?” Rafsky asked finally.
Joe wasn’t sure what he was referring to, so she didn’t answer.
“Snider, the missing girls,” he said. “It can start to get to you after a while. Especially if you’ve never worked something like this before.”
He was being protective. But she heard no condescension in his voice.
“Sheriff Leach gave me his files on John Norman Collins,” she said. “Photos, everything. I was okay with that. I’ll be okay with this.”
Rafsky raised a brow in interest. “How did Collins come up?”
Joe shrugged. “We thought for a while he may have killed our victims, but the Ann Arbor PD didn’t think so. And now we have Snider.”
“Collins was one of the first people I checked,” Rafsky said. “I didn’t think he did these murders up there, either. Guys like Collins tend to stay within a comfort zone, and he never dumped far from where he abducted.”
Rafsky pointed to the last peppers and salami on the antipasto plate, and Joe gave a wave that he should finish it. As he ate, she was tempted to fill in the silence by responding further to his concern that the case might be bothering her. It was bothering her on some level.
She was seeing the photograph of Mary Fleszar, the nineteen-year-old coed who had been John Norman Collins’s first victim. A blackish-brown object lying in a field. She was thinking about the statement of the farmer who had found Fleszar, his description of smelling something foul and thinking he had happened upon a decomposing deer. The August heat, the carcass in a cloud of flies, the head so shapeless only the ear told of its humanity. She was thinking of Collins’s victims—seven official but maybe fifteen—thinking of the other gruesome photographs.
And she was thinking about the bones lying somewhere in the Lansing crime lab. So clean and white. So unconnected to anything real—yet.
“What’s the matter?” Rafsky asked.
She toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “Nothing.”
Rafsky was studying her, but with a gentleness in his eyes that made her feel uncomfortable.
“Can I say something?” he said. “It’s personal, and we don’t know each other very well, but I think I need to say it.”
She nodded.
He took a drink of wine before speaking. “When I asked you how you were taking things? I only asked that because I’ve been doing this a long time, and I have worked with a lot of cops, big departments and small departments. And I have seen some cops invest too much of themselves emotionally in their work.”
Joe could feel the heat of a blush working its way up her face and was glad it was dark.
“You have to be careful,” Rafsky said. “You have to have another life. You can’t let this be your life. A lot of cops do that, let their work become their life. And my God, that will kill you.”
She just stared at him. “Are you telling me this because I’m a rookie or because I’m a woman?”
He held her eyes. “Neither. I’m telling you this because I think you are very good at what you do. And I can tell you love doing it.”
She took a drink of wine, looking away.
The waitress brought two big plates of spaghetti. Joe stared at hers for a moment and picked up a fork. She twirled it into the steaming red mass but didn’t raise the fork to her mouth. Finally, she set the fork down and took another drink of the Chianti.
“You reach Sheriff Leach?” Rafsky asked. He was digging into his spaghetti with gusto, and the unease of the personal moment was gone.
“Yeah,” Joe said, picking up her fork again. “He was surprised about Snider. I don’t think he expected anything out of this trip.”
“He wasn’t the only one,” Rafsky said with a small smile.
It could have been the wine or the long day spent together, the compliment he had given her, or the advice he had shared. But suddenly, for the first time, Joe felt on equal enough ground to ask something personal. “Your boss was surprised, too?”
“A suspect in four days? Surprised is putting it mildly.”
The waitress came by with a basket of garlic bread. They ate in silence for a while. Rafsky was on to his second meatball and his third glass of wine.
“So how’d you get into this?” he asked suddenly.
“This?”
He nodded at her badge. “The job.”
Joe smiled. “God, I’m not even sure anymore.”
“What, don’t all little girls want to be cops when they grow up?”
He was teasing her. She didn’t mind. “My mom was a cop back in Cleveland,” she said. She saw the shock on his face and went on. “She never wanted me to be one. And to be honest, I didn’t want it, either, growing up. I guess I really wanted to be a fireman like my dad.”
“How’d he feel about that?”
“He died when I was ten.”
Rafsky hesitated. “On duty?”
