Hand of Evil

CHAPTER 10

It took less than three minutes for Ali to exit the parking garage and make it to the parking lot of the dingy coffee shop across from the hospital. She pulled into a space next to a uniform store and waited. Minutes later, and even though she was expecting it-waiting for it-she was shocked when a white Ford Explorer nosed slowly through the parking lot without stopping.

Suddenly meeting up with CU was no longer a remote possibility. It was all too real. What would she say to Curt? Apprehensive about the coming confrontation, a combination of fear and rage swept through her. Ali’s heart sped up. Her hands began to cramp.

A few minutes later, the Explorer was back. Again it didn’t stop, but the second time through the lot, Ali managed to jot down the license number. The third time it pulled into a space directly in front of the restaurant and stayed there for several minutes with the engine idling. No one got in or out, and the tint-darkened windows made it impossible for Ali to see inside. With her palms wet with sweat, Ali gripped the steering wheel. She had managed to lure CU out into the open, but she had no idea what his next move would be or hers, either.

With her full attention focused on the Explorer, Ali jumped involuntarily when Crystal’s phone sprang to life and buzzed again.

“HERE,” CU wrote. “WAU?” Where are you?

“TRYING TGTHOOH,” Ali added. Trying to get the hell out of here.

“TRY HARDER,” CU wrote back. “TYPO.” Take your panties off.

The idea that he was trying to lure someone as young as Crystal out of the hospital for quickie sex made Ali furious. Stymied by the tinted windows, Ali was almost to the point of exiting the Cayenne to see if she could get a better look inside the Explorer. That’s when her own phone rang. She had to put Crystal’s phone down before she could answer.

“Ali?” a woman said. “Arabella Ashcroft here. Have you read it yet?”

“Read what?” Ali asked.

“The diary,” Arabella answered impatiently.

Guiltily Ali realized that the mostly unread diary was still where she had left it the night before-in her purse.

“No,” Ali admitted. “I’ve been caught up in a crisis. I haven’t had a chance.”

“That’s probably just as well,” Arabella replied. “Things have changed on my end, too. I don’t need you to read it after all. If you’d be so kind as to just drop it off here when you have a chance.”

Crystal’s phone was buzzed again. “CNT W8 ALL DAY. MYB.” Move your butt. Clearly CU was running out of patience.

“I’ll have to get back to you on this,” Ali said to Arabella. “I’m in Phoenix right now and busy.”

“Certainly,” Arabella said. “At your convenience. There’s no rush.”

“PLS,” Ali wrote. Please. But by then the Explorer was already backing out of the parking place. As it eased south on Third, Ali made a split-second decision. She put the Cayenne in gear and followed. Traffic was a mess. It was all she could do to keep the Explorer in view while at the same time trying to remain unobtrusive. There was sweat on her face now, slipping down her forehead and dripping into her eyes; soaking the back of her shirt.

Despite CU’s apparent impatience with Crystal-or at least with the person he thought was Crystal-the man didn’t seem to be in that big of a rush to leave the neighborhood. Ali’s frantic reality slipped into a strange slow motion. Time seemed to stand still. She followed the SUV as the driver made his way back across Thomas and cruised around the hospital grounds, probably checking to see if Crystal was actually on her way. He stopped briefly at a passenger loading zone right next to the hospital entrance. For a heart-stopping moment, Ali was afraid he was going to leave the Explorer with the valet and go inside looking for Crystal. Finally, though, he drove away and headed west on Thomas. Hoping to stay out of sight, Ali delayed as long as she could before turning onto Thomas several car lengths back and following him into what was fast turning into afternoon gridlock.

Intent on her pursuit, Ali was startled when her phone rang while she was stopped at the light at 19th and Thomas. Grabbing it up, she was relieved to see Dave’s number in the readout.

“Court just recessed for today,” he told her. “I didn’t get called, which means I’ll have to be back here tomorrow. So where are you? Should I head for Phoenix or back home to Sedona?”

Ali was in full crisis mode, and the very sound of Dave’s calm, unruffled voice helped her get a grip.

“You should probably come on down to Phoenix-to the hospital,” she said.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, but you sound funny. Are you all right?”

Ali was a long way from all right. The light changed and traffic inched toward the freeway, but the Explorer didn’t make it through on that cycle, and neither did Ali.

“I’m stuck in traffic,” she said. “And I need your help.”

“Name it.”

“I need you to run a plate for me.”

“Run a plate?” Dave repeated. “Have you switched over to cop lingo now?”

Ali read off the letters and number. “Please,” she added when she finished. “Just run it.”

“You realize it’s against regulations to run a plate for private use?”

Ali took a deep breath. “It’s about Crystal,” she said.

“Why didn’t you say so?”

Ali hung up. The Explorer turned onto the eastbound I-10 entrance ramp at Thomas and waited for the metered traffic light to allow it to merge onto the crowded freeway. Ali followed suit. Once on the freeway, the Explorer cut in and out of traffic, forcing Ali to do the same. Even so, it took the better part of an anxiety-ridden hour of nail-biting to travel from there to where the Explorer exited onto eastbound U.S. 60.

While she waited for Dave to call back, Ali worried about what she would tell him. She had used a possible connection to Crystal to galvanize him to action. Ali knew that sooner or later she would have to tell him what was really going on with his wayward daughter. Crystal wasn’t ever going to tell him. That would be up to Ali. Between worrying about telling Dave about Crystal’s issues and dreading the coming confrontation with the driver of the Explorer, Ali’s stress level was off the charts.

“Got it,” Dave said when he finally called back. “The 2001 Ford Explorer belongs to Curtis Wilson Uttley of 101 Blue Spruce Circle, Flagstaff, Arizona. Who is he? What’s going on?”

So CU was Curtis Uttley. That made sense, but before Ali could answer, she realized that the Explorer was headed for the exit ramp at McClintock. With traffic the way it was, Ali realized she could either drive or talk. She couldn’t do both.

“Thanks, Dave,” she said. “I’ll have to get back to you.”

At the light, the Explorer turned right on the red and headed south. Unfortunately, the vehicle two cars in front of Ali decided to go straight through the intersection. Ali was forced to wait interminably until the light finally turned green. By the time she made the corner, the Explorer had vanished.

For the next several minutes, Ali cruised the neighborhood streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of where the Explorer had gone. A Roto-Rooter truck was parked in front of one of the houses, but that was the only sign of life. Ali saw no pedestrians on the street, no joggers or kids out riding bikes, no people she could have asked for help in tracking down exactly where the missing SUV had gone.

Shaking with a combination of frayed nerves, letdown, and frustration, Ali eventually had to give it up and head back to Phoenix. On the way, she picked up her phone and called Dave back.

He answered right away. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I was driving,” she said. “Traffic was bad.”

“Tell me about Curtis Uttley’s vehicle. Where did you spot it? Was he driving it or was somebody else?”

“I was following it, but I lost it over in Tempe,” Ali said. “And I have no idea who was driving it. I couldn’t see inside. Why?”

“Because that vehicle is listed on a BOLO, a be-on-the-lookout-for, in a missing persons case out of Flagstaff,” Dave said. “Curtis Uttley reportedly left there on Tuesday night, supposedly to visit one of the casinos down in Scottsdale. He evidently has a bit of a gambling problem. His wife didn’t bother reporting him missing until today. Now tell me,” Dave added. “What’s going on?”

Ali felt her heart constrict as she found herself wondering if the CU who had been sending text messages to Crystal’s phone had been someone else and not the real Curtis Uttley at all. She had been pretending to be Crystal. Maybe someone else had been pretending to be Curtis Uttley. Clearly turnabout was fair play.

“I’m afraid this particular missing person may have far more serious problems than gambling,” Ali said.

“Why?” Dave asked. “What makes you say that?”

Ali didn’t answer directly. “Are you on your way here now?”

“As a matter of fact I am,” Dave said. “Why?”

“Because,” Ali told him. “We need to talk.”

Ali returned to the hospital to find Madeline Havens gone. Crystal was closeted with Detective Farris in a small conference room just off the lobby, and Bob Larson was still commiserating with Sandy Mitchell. If there had been any change in Kip’s situation, no one had bothered to come let Sandy know. That was where things stood when Edie Larson appeared on the scene.

Bob seemed surprised to see his wife. “What are you doing here?” he wanted to know.

“I had to come,” Edie declared. “No one’s exactly burning up the phone lines between here and Sedona letting me know what’s going on.”

“That’s because we don’t know. They’re not telling us anything,” Bob returned. “If he’s out of surgery, they may have taken him to the ICU.”

“Why don’t we find out then?” Edie asked. “Which way is the ICU? Let me go rattle a few cages.”

“I’ll go with you,” Bob offered, and off they went.

Once they were gone, Ali walked over to the conference room door and pushed it open. To Detective Farris’s obvious annoyance, Ali let herself into the room and placed Crystal’s cell phone on the table between them.

“What’s this?” Farris demanded. “Can’t you see we’re busy here?”

“Let me guess,” Ali said. “Crystal has told you that she was with some guy the other night but that she has no idea who he was or how to get in touch with him, right?”

Farris studied Ali somberly for a moment then nodded. Ali, in turn, directed her remarks to Crystal. “A woman from Flagstaff reported her husband missing this morning,” Ali continued. “His name is Curtis Uttley. Sound familiar, Crystal? And it happens that somebody using the name CU has been sending you text messages all afternoon. He’s been trying to be in touch; wanting to meet up with you in person. In fact, he came here to the hospital a little while ago, looking for you. He was driving a white Ford Explorer. Does that ring any bells?”

Crystal’s cheeks paled. “He, like, actually came here?” she asked.

Ali nodded. “He actually did,” she returned. “You didn’t happen to have your phone in your possession, but I did. So I’ve been texting him back for you. And because you weren’t straight with me and didn’t tell me what I was really dealing with, I followed him all the way to Tempe before I lost him. What do you think would have happened to me if I’d caught up with him?”

Refusing to meet Ali’s gaze, Crystal studied her hands and said nothing. “So what’s the deal, Crystal?” Ali prodded. “Did you tell Detective Farris exactly what you and Curtis Uttley were doing there in Mund’s Park the other night?”

“Making out,” Detective Farris supplied.

“I thought that’s what she’d say,” Ali said. “Actually they were doing quite a bit more than that, Detective Farris. So maybe it’s time you started the interview over again from scratch. And maybe this time Crystal will be kind enough to tell you what was really going on up there at Mund’s Park-and I do mean all of it. Like how she got there from Vegas and how she hooked up with Mr. Uttley. And don’t bother telling Detective Farris that you didn’t get a look at Mr. Hogan’s attackers. I know from hearing you barf your guts out in the ladies’ room that you recognized at least one of them. I’m guessing Curtis Uttley did, too, and that’s why he’s gone missing. He’s hiding out.”

Ali waited to see if Crystal would say anything. She didn’t.

“You might want to move along with that interview,” Ali continued. “With any luck, you’ll be finished before your father gets here.”

“Dad’s coming?” Crystal asked faintly.

“Yes, he is,” Ali said. “And believe me, he’s going to get an earful.”

With that, Ali left the conference room. Out in the lobby, Bob and Edie were nowhere to be seen. Sandy sat alone, deeply immersed in reading what seemed to be a Bible. Rather than interrupting her, Ali found a chair in a relatively quiet corner and turned on her computer. She planned to check for cutloose correspondence. Instead, on a whim, she logged on to the Internet and Googled Curtis Uttley. It turned out there were any number of listings, most of them talking about Curtis’s reputation as a trophy-winning coach of girls’ softball and soccer teams. The most recent mentions came as a result of coaching teams in the Flagstaff area. Previous items came from towns in Texas, Kansas, and California.

A rolling stone gathering no moss, Ali concluded. And with an endless supply of adolescent girls. What more could a pedophile want?

Edie Larson emerged from the elevator and went straight over to Sandy. She placed one hand on her shoulder. After a whispered conversation, Sandy stowed her Bible, stood, and accompanied Edie back to the elevator. Ali rose and made as if to follow them. From the back of the elevator, Edie discouraged her doing so with a single shake of her head. Feeling a little rejected and still angry with Crystal, Ali returned to her computer screen.

She had scanned the first list and was halfway through the second when she found the Web site, AskCoachCurt.com. Coach Curtis Uttley answers your team sports questions. Ali immediately logged on to the site and scrolled through a series of essays. How to Be a Team Player; Get Off the Bench and Get on the Field; Winning Isn’t Everything; It’s Never Too Early to Look for a Scholarship. There at the bottom of the page was one final note. For individual questions or coaching advice, feel free to write to CoachCurt@askcoachcurt.com.

So this is how he meets girls, Ali thought. Then he reels themin with text messages that never show up on computer screens that parents might actually see.

Going back to the original list, Ali made a note of each town mentioned in the coaching articles. It would probably be worthwhile to contact school and recreation folks in each of those areas to see why a teacher who was also a winning coach had suddenly moved on. Ali had a feeling that Crystal Holman wasn’t Coach Uttley’s first teenage conquest and that, rather than confronting him, the authorities in the other towns had simply passed him along and turned him into someone else’s problem.

And now he’s mine, Ali thought.

She wrote and posted the next blog entry while sitting in the hospital lobby.

CUTLOOSEBLOG.COM

Thursday, January 12, 2006

It’s been a long day. I’m in a hospital lobby, waiting for a friend whose loved one is hovering between life and death. Sitting here is giving me some time to reflect on some of the things I’ve learned today, and they aren’t pretty.

What I want to do is speak to every parent with an adolescent or pre-adolescent child and say to those parents: WAKE UP!!! If your child has a computer, check it out. Find out what chat rooms he or she visits, and find out what’s going on there. Find out who’s on your child’s buddy list. Who sends e-mails to your child’s address and what do those e-mails say? And what does your child say back? Does this sound like an invasion of your precious offspring’s privacy? You bet it is. It’s also called parenting.

The same rules apply to your child’s cell phone. What comes and goes on your son or daughter’s text messages is private. It’s also possibly deadly. Today I’ve caught glimpses of some of the people out there, evil people-who are trolling the cyber-ether for innocent children to victimize-your children. And yes, you should be very afraid for your children.

And if looking over your son or daughter’s shoulder when they’re online annoys them? Fine. You can tell them from me that being a parent is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

Babe,

posted 6:07

P.M

. January 12, 2006

Dave Holman arrived at the hospital a few minutes later. “Where’s Crystal?” he wanted to know.

“In a conference room talking to Detective Farris,” Ali told him.

“Lee is interviewing her? How come? She’s involved in this?”

Wrestling with how much to tell and when to tell it, Ali nodded. “Before I picked her up the other night in Mund’s Park, she may have seen something.”

“What?”

“She was in the car with Curt Uttley,” Ali said. “They were there at the time of the attack.”

“What were they doing there?” Dave asked. “Car trouble? How is Kip, by the way?” he continued without waiting for Ali to answer. “And where’s Sandy?”

Ali knew it was only a matter of time before she’d have to tell Dave the whole story, but right that moment she was grateful for any delay that spared her from doing so.

“Kip’s out of surgery and back in the ICU,” Ali said. “That’s where Sandy is, too, along with my folks. They’re all up in ICU.”

“I need to let Sandy know that we’ve finally got a lead on Kip’s family. He has a daughter named Jane Eyre Hogan. Her married name is Braeton. She was born April 1, 1974. Her mother’s name was Amy Sue Laughton Hogan. Jane was raised by her grandmother, Elizabeth Hogan, a retired Kingman High School English teacher.”

“Raised by her and most likely named by her, too, I’ll bet,” Ali offered. “Anyone who would stick a poor little boy with a name like Rudyard Kipling wouldn’t hesitate at naming a baby girl Jane Eyre. Elizabeth Hogan must be quite unusual, though. Mostly it’s maternal grandmothers who pick up the child-raising responsibilities when the parents take a hike.”

“But I ran into a brick wall trying to find her,” Dave continued. “Elizabeth Hogan left Kingman long enough ago that there’s no longer a valid forwarding address. She may actually be dead by now, although there’s no sign of a death certificate anywhere I could find. The records clerk over in Coconino County had better luck with the daughter-Jane Hogan Braeton. I have an address for her here in Phoenix-down in Chandler, actually. The clerk tried to call the information in to Detective Farris, but his phone is turned off, probably because he’s doing the interview. I told her I’d pass it along as soon as I saw him.”

Dave looked expectantly toward the conference room door. Ali’s first instinct had always been to leave the tale telling to Crystal, but she seemed incapable of telling the truth to anyone about anything. Now, with a few minutes of relative privacy, Ali knew it was time to come clean.

She took his hand and led him toward the room’s most distant seating. “Listen, Dave,” she said, changing the subject. “We need to talk about your daughter, and you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

“What has she done now?” Dave asked.

“It turns out she’s been doing lots of things.”

By the time Ali finished giving him her account of what had been going on, Dave was crushed-crushed, livid, and irate all at the same time.

“You mean to tell me she’s been screwing around like this right under Roxie’s nose?” he demanded. “How’s that possible? And she calls herself a blow-job virgin? I can’t believe it. She’s only thirteen, for God’s sake!”

“I know,” Ali agreed.

“And where do I find this worthless son of a bitch Curt Uttley so I can put him out of his misery?” Dave demanded. “He’s probably hiding out in Tempe somewhere near the same place where you lost whoever was driving that Explorer. Take me there. I’ll find him if I have to take the neighborhood apart brick by brick. What’s the address?”

“I never saw exactly where he went, so I can’t give you an address,” Ali said. “The Explorer turned onto a residential street and disappeared-probably into an attached garage. Once the door was shut, there was no way to tell which one it was.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Dave said determinedly.

Just then Lee Farris left the conference room and came over to where Ali and Dave were sitting. “Did you tell him?” Lee asked. “About what she was doing in Mund’s Park?”

Ali nodded.

“Sorry about that, Dave,” Farris said. “She claims she met the guy over the Internet.”

“At askcoachcurt.com?” Ali asked.

Frowning, Farris gave Ali an appraising look. “How did you know that?” he asked.

“Lucky guess,” she said.

Farris turned back to Dave. “According to what Crystal told me just now, while she and Uttley were parked there, they witnessed part of the attack on Kip Hogan. Uttley drove across the freeway to report the incident. Crystal thinks Mr. Hogan’s assailants came there looking for Uttley and Crystal both. When Crystal came out of the restroom, she broke into a house, looking for a place to hide. She was afraid the assailants might come after her, too. And it turns out one of them did-earlier today. She saw him.”

“Today?” Ali asked.

“Crystal said she heard from Uttley late this morning-at least she thought it was him. He offered to give her a ride back to Sedona. She went to a park down the street to meet him, but he didn’t show. Crystal was being cautious and was keeping out of sight because she was afraid you might come there looking for her as well. The Explorer parked, but the guy who got out of it wasn’t Uttley. The driver turned out to be one of Mr. Hogan’s attackers.”

“She recognized the guy?”

Farris nodded. “And it scared her to death.” He held out one of Madeline Haven’s composite sketches. “This one,” he added. “She says this is the guy.”

Ali recognized the sketch, too. It was the same one Crystal had dropped earlier. Looking at it and seeing the man’s dead-eyed stare, a cold chill ran down Ali’s spine. If this was the man who had come looking for Crystal, he was most likely also the man Ali had followed. For miles. Only being caught at that stop-light had kept her from catching him-or him from catching her. When Ali glanced in Dave’s direction, he was staring at her.

“If Crystal hadn’t been hiding from you at the park, the guy probably would have caught up with her. And if you hadn’t confiscated her phone, he definitely would have caught her the second time. Thank you, Ali,” he said, crushing her in a bear hug. “Thank you so much.”

“Taking the phone was pure luck,” Ali said with a laugh. “I wanted to get her attention. Since spanking her wasn’t an option, I did the next best thing-I took away her lifeline.”

“Thank you,” he said again.

“I saw you come in, Dave,” Lee Farris said. “I told Crystal you were here, but she wouldn’t come out to talk to you. You should probably go talk to her.”

“What the hell am I going to say?” Dave asked despairingly as he stood up. “Any suggestions about what a father should say to a sexually active thirteen-year-old?”

“That’s easy,” Lee said with a sympathetic chuckle. “You could always threaten to lock her up for the next four years. That’s what I told my daughter when she went off the rails in middle school. It’s not fatal. And eventually Gina figured out I was right.”

Dave started toward the conference room moving like a death-row inmate taking his last walk.

“Crystal sees herself as a drama queen,” Ali called after him. “Don’t fall for it. You don’t have to be mad, but you do need to give her a dose of reality. Tell her the first order of business will be taking her to a doctor to be checked for STDs. Maybe that will get her attention. She’s operating under the idiotic notion that oral sex isn’t really sex. Somebody has to get the truth through to her.”

Dave stopped and looked back at Ali, his haggard face full of regret. “You always wonder how you’ll do the birds-and-bees talk with your kids,” he said. “I never imagined it would turn out like this.”

Crystal’s a long way beyond birds and bees talking, Ali thought. She’s into birds and bees doing.

“I know you didn’t,” Ali told him kindly. “All you can do now is play the hand you’ve been dealt and hope for the best.”

Nodding, Dave started away and then stopped once more. “I almost forgot, Lee. You need to turn your phone on and check with your records clerk. They believe they’ve got a line on Kip’s family.”

While Dave headed into the conference room to talk with his daughter, Farris plucked his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “But first we need to get a line on whoever’s driving Curtis Uttley’s Explorer. So tell me again, Ms. Reynolds. Where were you exactly when you lost him?”

Ali started to tell him, but by then someone had answered his call. “Okay,” Farris said. “I’m still down in Phoenix, but I’m going to need you to put out a BOLO on a white Explorer registered to one Curtis Uttley of…”

“He was?” Farris resumed. “Really? When did this happen?” He listened for a moment more and then added, “And they’ve got detectives headed here? All right. Give them my number so we can coordinate. Yeah, I’ll keep my phone on. I was doing interviews and didn’t want to be interrupted. And Mojave County will be following up on tracking down his cell phone? That’s probably the best way to pinpoint the location of whoever has it. The problem is, that could take some time.”

There was another pause before Farris continued. “Yes, Detective Holman’s still here in Phoenix, and yes, he did mention something about that, but he didn’t have a chance to go into any details. Okay, shoot.” For the next several minutes, Farris jotted lines into a notebook. Finally he closed it and put it away. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got all that. Tell the sheriff that with everything happening down here right now, I’ll probably have to stay over tonight.”

Farris closed his phone and turned to Ali. “So much for Curtis Uttley,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Ali asked.

“I mean he’s over,” Farris said. “Dead as a doornail. One of the construction workers on the new Burro Creek Bridge found what everybody thought was an unidentified jumper down in the bottom of the canyon yesterday morning. Except when they got around to doing the autopsy this afternoon, it turns out he wasn’t a jumper at all. Signs of restraints on his ankles and wrists, and the guy was dead before he ever hit the ground. The ME says his injuries are mostly blunt force trauma. So somebody beat the crap out of him the same way they did Kip Hogan. And tonight when the Mojave County ME finally got around to running the dead guy’s fingerprints through AFIS, guess what? Curtis Uttley’s name came up because of the thumbprint on his California driver’s license, which he hadn’t bothered to change.”

“They killed him?” Ali asked.

Farris nodded.

“And they took his vehicle,” Ali added. “Just like they took my dad’s truck after they attacked Kip.”

“Looks like,” Lee Farris agreed. “Luckily for your dad, they blew a tire on that Bronco of his or it would still be gone. It also looks like you’re real lucky you didn’t catch up with this creepo today. His losing you was the best thing that could have happened. Otherwise we’d probably be looking for you now, too.”

Half sick to her stomach, Ali knew it was true. She hadn’t been following Curt Uttley-she had been following Curt Uttley’s killer, and if she had managed to catch him, no doubt she’d be dead as well. So far both she and Crystal had been incredibly lucky.

There’s only one question, Ali thought. Will the killers give up or will they come back and try again?