FOLLOW THE LEADER - Chapter27

Chapter 27



On my way back to see Joy Rollins, I quickly reviewed what Terry and I knew (which was damn little), starting with the Death Valley location. We figured that the killer probably drove a windowless panel truck or possibly a camper. It seemed possible that the girl in the café knew the killer. We thought the only way Katherine would climb aboard a stranger’s van was by invitation only. She may have had some some dope on her and mentioned it to her new acquaintance. Maybe there was dope in the van or camper. Katherine was looking to get high, perhaps.  The desert was a classic place for that. Maybe it felt safer with her new “friend,” away from Amy, who only got loaded with beer. And she and Amy were at odds at the time.

         Snatching someone in broad daylight would be tricky. Too many campers roaming around that time of the morning. And some of them could see things from inside their own vehicles. She went in voluntarily, I decided.

         But then what?

          Like the coroner, I believed she died in a forest. Or near a camp in the woods, if there was one. Big if there. 

         But why drop the body on someone’s sidewalk?  Was that some kind of statement?  And why did she have a full head of hair?   The female cult members were bald, as far as we knew. The decapitated head was bald.  So the Rollins girl was probably not a member, but the beheaded girl was? Maybe. And there was solid evidence that she beheaded girl had died close to a Redwood tree. I continued  to believe that Katherine’s murder was connected to the Death Valley killings. But she had not joined the gang. 

         The rest of it made little sense.

         From the killer’s standpoint, it would have been simpler to just do her there, in the desert. Why drive to a different location that was miles away? To King’s Canyon or Yosemite, for example. Whatever the reason, both the decapitated girl and Katherine Rollins were killed in or near a forest. That was about all we knew for sure. There was no explanation for the fact that there were no brands on the headless girl’s right hip. And she died with her clothes on. Unlike the others.

         All of it was driving me nuts. I was happy to escape my own peregrinations, even though I would be talking about the same cold case with Joy Rollins.

         I buzzed Joy’s condo. 

         She buzzed me in immediately.

         This time she waited for me in the hall. She quickly wiped away a tear as I walked up. I could smell the liquor from five feet away.  Apparently she had finished off the wine or had just decided to “move up” to hard liquor.

         “What’s up?”  I asked.

“I remembered something,” she said.

         “Excellent.” 

         We went into the kitchen.

         A bottle of Glenlivet Scotch sat on the counter. It was three-fourths full.

         “Can I get you a drink?”

         “I’m fine.”

         “In that case I’ll finish this off.” She grabbed a small tumbler of Scotch and downed it.  She shuddered. 

         I waited.

         “This stuff  came bubbling up tonight, like heartburn. Ever had a bad case of heartburn?”

         I nodded.

         “What stuff?”

         “The girl Katherine ran into in the café.  Her first name is Emily. Now that I say it, it feels trivial.”

         “It’s anything but.  Anything else?”

         “Katherine said she was a blonde.”

         “Why would she mention that?” I wondered out loud.

         “Something about Emily’s need to stay out of the sun. Maybe she burned easily. Had fair skin. That was the gist of it. When I look back on it, maybe Katherine was telling me that the two of them were going to screw around, to hell with the desert. She disconnected before I could question her.”

         “This is good.”

         I stopped to write it all in my notebook. 

         “Anything else?”

         “One thing. I think the troubles between Kath and Amy had to do with drugs.”

         “Can you be more specific?”

         “Zack Tyler accused Katherine of breaking into his dealer’s crib and stealing two bags of heroin.”

         I had not heard the heroin part.

         “And you know this how?”

         “I heard them talking in her room.”

         “Zack and Katherine?”

         She nodded. “They thought I had gone to the grocery store.”

         “Do you know who Zack’s supplier is?”

         “No.”

         I described the guy with the yellow glasses. She’d never seen him.

         “When I heard Zack was accusing her of stealing, I was so incensed that I could scarcely talk. You know, the nerve of that creep. But then I remembered she had been stealing drugs from us, as well.”

         “What kind of drugs?”

         “Percoset. Fentanyl. Whatever was around.”

         “Why were you using Fentanyl? That’s dangerous stuff. They use it to tranquilize elephants.”

         “Really?”

         “Really.”

         “Maybe that explains why Mike was sprawled on the couch unconscious one day. I shook him for a long time before he finally woke up.”

         She shot me a look.

         “I’ve had my differences with my husband, but I would never blame him for taking drugs. I take stuff, too. You do what you can to get through the day.”

         “I get that. Sort of. I don’t have kids.”

         Change the subject. 

         “So Katherine must have told Amy what was going on. Is that why Amy was so upset?”

         “Probably. Amy liked to think of herself as Katherine’s big sister. For a while there, they were inseparable. She hated Zack’s guts. The truth is she was insanely jealous of him. Zack and Katherine were spending more and more time together. Probably having sex. Amy isn’t into drugs, herself. I heard her scolding Katherine one day. How easy it is to get hooked. How it could ruin your life.”

         Duh, I thought.

         Joy Rollins could not come up with anything else to help our investigation. She rose, wobbly, to see me out.

         “I know my way,” I said.

         “Could you do me a favor?”

         “Sure. If I can.”

         “Hold me.”

         I hesitated.  I could see she was too drunk and tired to want sex. So I held her. I could feel her shoulders and middle back slowly relaxing, the longer we stood there. I got the distinct feeling that it had been a long while since a man had held her like this.  The truth was it had been ages since anyone held me like that.

         It felt great.