Deeper Than the Dead

34

“So, Gordon,” Mendez said, sitting down across from Gordon Sells at the little table in the interview room.

Sells scowled at him. “I didn’t say you could call me that.”

“I didn’t ask,” Mendez said flatly, looking down at the papers he had brought into the room with him. “So, Gordon, you’ve got yourself a record. You’re a pedophile.”

“I am not.”

“A jury decided you are.”

“Them girls lied. I didn’t do nothing to them.”

“Except expose yourself, fondle yourself, put your hand down their pants—”

“I never did that.”

“And you didn’t have a collection of kiddie porn stashed in your house either, I suppose. It says here you had a hundred thirty-one pages of photographs of minor girls in various states of undress.”

“From the JC Penney catalog!” Sells shouted. “Them were things I was gonna order for my nieces for Christmas presents.”

“And the twenty-seven photographs of minor girls engaging in sexual activity with an adult. Whose Christmas present was that collection?”

Agitated, Sells got up out of his chair and started to walk toward the door. Mendez rose, blocking him.

“Stay on your side of the table, Gordon. And have a seat. We’re going to be here for a long time.”

He turned to another page in what was supposed to be a thick file on the life and times of Gordon Sells. In reality he had one sheet on Sells. The rest of the file was from an assault case he had closed three months prior.

“You were a guest of the California State Department of Correction for twelve years up in Wasco.” Mendez looked up at him, just this side of amused. “I bet that was fun. There’s nothing cons like better than raping a child rapist. Or maybe you liked that.”

Sells jumped up out of his chair again, his face flushing red. “I don’t wanna talk to you! I wanna talk to the other guy!”

Mendez remained calm. “Nobody here cares what you want. Sit back down and stay there or I’ll cuff you to the wall.”

Reluctantly, Sells took his seat. He was breathing hard.

“You’re going back to the can,” Mendez said. “But it won’t be Wasco this time. They’ll send you up to Folsom where a whole new pack of cons can take a crack at you.”

“I ain’t going to prison,” Sells said. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

“The crime scene team isn’t going to find any more pictures of little girls when they turn that pigsty you live in upside down?” Mendez asked. “That’s a parole violation. We can send you back in just for that. Then there’s the grand theft auto, and the murder—”

“I didn’t kill nobody!”

Mendez shrugged. “You look good for it to me. You’ve got her car. If the CSI team comes up with so much as a hair from the head of Lisa Warwick in your home, you’re done. And if there’s any justice in the world, maybe the death penalty will come back before you go to trial.”

Sells glared at him and literally spat out the words, “Fuck you, you fuckin’ spic!”

Mendez shot up out of his chair and leaned across the table. Sells went backward so fast, he tipped his chair over and spilled himself onto the floor.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Mendez said. “I need a cup of coffee. This case is such a slam dunk, I’m bored with it.”

With the Sells file tucked under his arm, he walked out the door and across the hall where Hicks and Dixon were watching the video monitor.

“How do you like that?” Mendez asked. “This guy’s a member of the master race.”

“Unbelievable,” Hicks said.

“Did the cars come in?” Mendez asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Yeah.” Dixon nodded. He looked a little frayed around the edges. “I’m mobilizing a ground search for Karly Vickers at first light.”

“If she isn’t found in a fifty-five-gallon drum in Gordon Sells’s garage tonight,” Mendez said. “The crime scene unit is still out there, right?”

“It’s going to take days for them just to get through the trailer,” Dixon said. “The guy is an animal.”

“That’s an insult to the animal kingdom,” Hicks declared.

“How do you think he’s connected to the Thomas Center?” Dixon asked.

“Maybe the fact that both women were associated with the center is just a coincidence.”

“Three women,” Dixon corrected him. “Julie Paulson was there briefly in eighty-four. She washed out of the program. Jane was out of the country. That’s why the name didn’t ring a bell with her. Can’t be a coincidence times three. How could he know these women? How could he abduct three women without somebody seeing something? If you were a woman and this guy tried to get his hands on you—”

“People would hear me screaming five miles away,” Hicks said. “But maybe he’s not the one who nabbed them.”

“Tweedle Dumb in the other room?” Mendez asked. “That’s hard to imagine. He probably can’t figure out how to roll the window down in a car, let alone persuade some woman to get in with him.”

“No,” Hicks said. “I’m thinking about this maintenance guy from the center.”

“What maintenance guy?” Dixon asked.

“Hamilton found out the guy has a record for car theft and domestic abuse.”

“That’s impossible,” Dixon said. “Jane does background checks on everyone working there. She never would have hired someone like that.”

“The guy’s been using his brother’s name and identity,” Hicks explained. “They live together. Hamilton goes to the house to interview the guy—Doug Lyle—but the Doug Lyle he talks to doesn’t work at the Thomas Center. The brother, Dave, used Doug’s information because he didn’t think anyone would hire a car thief fresh out of prison.”

“Jesus,” Dixon said. “Jane is going to flip out when she hears that story. She goes to such lengths to make sure her women are safe and protected, and it turns out she let the fox in the henhouse herself.”

“And how do Doug Lyle and Gordon Sells connect?” Mendez asked.

“My theory,” Hicks said. “Lyle steals the cars, takes them to Sells, Sells ships them somewhere, and they split the proceeds.”

“And kill a woman or three in the process?”

“Why not? The Hillside Strangler in LA turned out to be two guys working together.”

“It’s a viable scenario,” Dixon said. “See if you can connect Sells to Lyle. You take a crack at him, Bill. You guys can tag team him until he decides he wants a lawyer.”

Hicks took the “Sells file” and went across the hall.

Mendez sipped his coffee, anxious for the caffeine to kick in.

“What do you think, Tony?” Dixon asked. “Do you like this guy for it?”

Mendez stared at the monitor, watching Sells pick his nose until the door opened and Hicks walked in. “That would be an easy solution. If we can tie him to Lyle, and prove that Lyle stole the cars, et cetera.”

“But?”

He shrugged. “Sells is a pedophile. They don’t usually graduate to crimes against adult women. They go after kids because kids are most vulnerable, kids can’t fight back, because something in their own background attaches their sex drive to a certain age group.”

“Maybe the other guy is the sexual predator.”

“Maybe.”

They listened while Hicks questioned Sells about any association to Doug Lyle. Sells denied it.

“You’re bringing in the maintenance guy?”

“We sent a unit to pick him up.”

“I want to know when he gets here,” Dixon said, heading for the door.

“Right. Did you find anything inside the cars yet?”

He stopped in the doorway and turned back around slowly, looking like the weight of the world had descended on him.

“Karly Vickers had a traffic ticket in her glove compartment, dated the day she disappeared,” he said.

“Yeah? So?”

“The ticket was written by Frank Farman.”