Highway 61 (17 page)

“I’m impressed by your grasp of history,” I said. I meant it as a compliment, only Caitlin didn’t take it that way.

“I don’t go to college, okay? That doesn’t mean I’m dumb.” She pointed at Freeman’s book. “I read.” She took a deep breath. “People judge. They think if you do what I do—I just got tired of believing the things they teach in high school. You know what I’m talking about, that through hard work and perseverance you can become whatever you want. It’s not true, you know. You don’t believe me? Ask all the people who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed and now can’t get them back, the jobs they should have. The American Dream. It might be a dream for all those rich bastards who screwed up the economy in the first place, but for the rest of us … Anyway, you need to have the right mindset for what we do. I guess Vicki didn’t have it.”

Good for her,
my inner voice said.

“Do you know where I can find her?” I asked.

“Vicki? Gosh no. I have no idea. Why are you looking for her?”

“It has something to do with Jason Truhler.”

“That dweeb? You meet so many people in my business that are pretending to be something they’re not. It’s kinda sad.”

“If you can’t help me, I’d like to talk to Roberta.”

Caitlin thought that was awfully funny. When she stopped laughing, she said, “No one talks to Roberta.”

“Not even you?”

“Sometimes, when she calls me first. Otherwise, everything is done over the Internet.”

“How do I get her e-mail address?”

“Do you have an account with My Very First Time?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t get her e-mail.”

“You could help me.”

Caitlin shook her head vigorously. “Nuh-uh,” she said. “Not about this, McKenzie. I could send her your name and number. If she calls you she calls you. I can’t give out her e-mail, though. That’s one of Roberta’s rules.”

*   *   *

Caitlin and I left the apartment building together. When we reached the front door she said, “You’re a nice man, McKenzie. You can visit anytime.”

Caitlin started jogging down the street. I watched her go while I made my way to the Cherokee. A horn sounded as a car passed her, and not because she was in the way.

It occurred to me once I climbed inside the SUV that it was possible Vicki took Roberta’s advice. She could have gone to college. I used my iPhone to call Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. I told the admissions department that I was an employer checking on the job application of a young woman who claimed to be a student there. After a few minutes, an administrative assistant informed me that the enrollment application of a Vicki Walsh of St. Paul, Minnesota, had been accepted by the school last April and that Vicki indicated the same day that she would be attending classes in the fall. However, Cornell had not heard from her since. Vicki never completed the paperwork necessary to register, nor did she show up for the fall term.

“Ms. Walsh is not a student at Cornell University,” the assistant said, “although she would be most welcome should she wish to begin classes in the spring.”

Next, I called Johnson Senior High School in St. Paul, pretending to be a member of the admissions department at Cornell University. I explained that Ms. Walsh had been accepted by the school but hadn’t showed up for the fall term. The university was attempting to contact Ms. Walsh to remind her that she was welcome to attend classes in the spring; however, the phone number she listed was not in service. The counselor supervising students with last names
U–Z
remembered Vicki—“a wonderful student with a great attitude,” she said—and she was happy to help me out. She gave me both an address and a phone number. I called the number. I let it ring ten times before hanging up. I decided to drive out there.

*   *   *

Vicki’s last known address was on a high hill above Seeger Square, on Greenbrier Street three blocks down from the John A. Johnson Elementary School. It made me aware that the locations for the money drop and the ambush were not chosen randomly. This was her ground.

I parked in the driveway between the Walsh residence and the house next door. The Walsh house was narrow and ugly; a two-story built in the early years of the previous century. It had been built to last like everything else in those days, yet the best intentions of the builders couldn’t keep it from decaying along with the rest of the neighborhood. I walked across the tiny yard and up the six steps to the front porch. The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I moved to the door. There was no bell. I knocked and waited. I knocked again. When no one came to the door I glanced at my watch. It was well past noon on a Thursday.

Some people work for a living, I reminded myself.

I left the porch, but before I could get to my Cherokee, a car pulled to a stop in front of the house. A woman got out. She stared at me across the roof of the car. I gauged her age at about forty-five, an overly plump woman with a blond dye job and skin that, at this time of year in Minnesota, suggested she was a frequent patron of the tanning salons. She didn’t ask who I was. Instead, she demanded, “What do you want?”

“Mrs. Walsh?” I asked.

She ducked into the car and quickly emerged with two large white plastic shopping bags with bright red circles printed on the sides. She walked past without looking at me.

“Walsh is my ex-husband’s name,” she said. “My name is Clementine Lollie. If you want Tim, he’s not here. He hasn’t been here for years.”

I followed Clementine onto her porch. When she fumbled with her door key, I said, “Let me get these for you,” and took the bags from her hands. She stared at me for a moment as if she had never seen an act of consideration before. She opened the door, reclaimed her bags, and said, “Wait here.” I half expected her to slam the door in my face. She didn’t. Instead, she emerged from the house a few minutes later, locking the door behind her.

“The house is a mess,” she said. “Besides, I have to get back to work.” Clementine moved to the railing of the porch and rested her thigh against it. “What can I do for you, Mr.…?”

“McKenzie,” I said.

“What can I do for you, Mr. McKenzie? If it’s about that asshole Tim, I haven’t seen or spoken to him in almost fourteen years.”

“I’m looking for Vicki Walsh.”

“You’re in luck, McKenzie. I haven’t seen or spoken to Vicki since the Fourth of July.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Nope. She packed her bags, said she was going to Canada, and left. Haven’t seen her since.”

“She just disappeared?”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t call the police?” I knew she hadn’t or I would have seen the missing persons report, yet I needed to ask.

“She was eighteen and graduated from high school. I no longer had any legal obligations toward her. That was the only reason she stayed with me once she got out of the hospital anyway. Legal obligations. So the hell with it. If she doesn’t want to stay here with me, good riddance. Besides, it’s not like we were close or anything. We barely spoke to each other after she seduced my husband.”

“Vicki seduced her father?”

“No, no, hell no. Even she wasn’t that depraved. No, her father, Tim, he’s been gone forever. Carson Lollie was my second husband, Vicki’s stepfather.”

“You’re saying that Vicki seduced her stepfather?”

“Came on to him like gangbusters. Carson never had a chance. Once I found out, I couldn’t stay married to him, of course not, I mean … well, how could I? Had to divorce him. Now look at me. Look at where I live.”

“You blame Vicki?”

“That little slut, yeah, I blame her. She’s the reason I got no one to love me now. No one except bastards who want you to suck ’em off, who want to dominate you, degrade you, make you into something they’d just as readily piss on. The guys I meet, all they want is a hole to masturbate in.”

“Mrs. Lollie…”

“I’ll tell you the last thing Vicki said, her parting words as she’s marching out the front door. She said she was tired of getting pushed around. From now on she was going to do the pushing. Well, good fucking luck with that. You know what? I haven’t got time for this. I need to get back to work.”

Clementine moved quickly off the porch and across her tiny yard. She didn’t look at me again until she opened her car door, and then only for a moment before getting behind the wheel and driving off.

ELEVEN

I sat in my SUV in Clementine’s driveway and worked my iPhone. As promised, Erica had sent me a link and a password, plus instructions that even someone as technologically challenged as myself could follow, all of which gave me access to Vicki’s Facebook page.

It used to be, and not long ago, that you needed smart, focused Web surfing to find out what you wanted to know about a target. You had to have an aptitude for accessing both public and private records—court, motor vehicle, property taxes, health care, credit history, Social Security, and so much more. Now most of what you need to know can be found by hacking a target’s Facebook page. People upload the most amazing information, everything from comprehensive résumés to explicit details about their most intimate relationships.

Something else—it’s been my experience that 80 percent of what you want to know comes from human beings, not archives and databases. With Facebook you can uncover what targets have written about themselves; you can learn about their backgrounds, their personal histories, the people in their lives, and what’s important to them, so when you do talk to them, you’ll already know them. You’ll be able to chat with them like you’re old friends, like you already have a special relationship.

If that’s not helpful enough, the target’s Facebook page will also list an army of friends that can be ready and willing sources of intelligence. Take Vicki Walsh’s page. She identified thirty-two friends—one of them was Erica. That number seemed awfully low to me. I’ve heard of some Facebookers who have literally thousands of friends. Personally, I don’t believe it is possible to have thousands of friends. Or even thirty-two, for that matter, but that’s another story. In any case, I was able to follow the chosen few on Vicki’s page to their own pages, where I found their contact information.

The data Vicki supplied under
INFO
gave me an insight into her character:

Sex:
Female.

City:
St. Paul.

Hometown:
Ditto.

Birthday:
April 23.

Looking for:
Friendship.

Relationship status:
It’s complicated.

Religion:
Infidel.

Education:
Cornell University (in the fall); Johnson Senior High School.

Activities:
Fencing, chess, and all things geek.

Favorite music:
I like all music.

Favorite TV:
Um, generally speaking, I don’t watch TV (but then she listed twenty-two programs including Star Trek—all incarnations, House, The Simpsons, Glee, and Invader Zim, whatever the hell that was.

Favorite movies:
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “The Princess Bride,” “Spirited Away,” and the complete works of Hayao Miyazaki.

Favorite books:
She listed thirteen authors including Jane Austen, but no titles.

Favorite quotes:
“Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet left on the heel that crushed it.”
—M
ARK
T
WAIN
.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you cannot do”
—E
LEANOR
R
OOSEVELT
.

She left Parents blank.

She also wrote, “I now present 21 random things you should know about me:”

  1. It’s hard for me to talk about myself.

  2. I have four piercings, two have healed over.

  3. Pets I’ve owned include fish, hamsters, a parakeet, and a dog named Riley. They’re all gone now.

  4. I thought about being a veterinarian when I grow up.

  5. I also considered being an architect, medical doctor, and writer.

  6. I cry every day.

  7. I also laugh every day
.

  8. I started reading to myself at age three because no one else would read to me.

  9. I can’t stand coffee unless there’s chocolate in it.

10. I’ve never used illegal drugs, although plenty of people have offered them to me.

11. I have, however, used over two dozen different psychiatric medications.

12. I’ve never broken a bone.

13. is my lucky number.

14. The most challenging book I’ve ever read was “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo. It took me a solid month, reading an hour or two a day after I did my homework.

15. I want kids, but at the same time I’m terrified that I’ll raise them to be as screwed up as I am.

16. I like cherry Kool-Aid.

17. I’ve played violin, recorder, clarinet, flute, piano, and acoustic guitar, all of them badly.

18. I have a pathological fear of spoiled food. I can’t eat leftovers that are more than a day old.

19. I’ve never met a man who didn’t like me.

20. I’ve dyed my hair blue, blue-black, purple, green, and crayon red (which faded to orange). I decided my natural color is best.

21. I can change a flat tire.

I scrolled down Vicki’s home page, reading all the postings. She seemed genuinely thrilled when Cornell University accepted her application in early April; she wrote that her hands were trembling when she replied by e-mail that she would enroll there in the fall. Her friends congratulated her profusely. Denny Marcus wrote that they should take a road trip to Ithaca to scope out her new digs. Denny, as it turned out, was one of only two males included among Vicki’s friends. The other was named Drew Hernick, and as far as I could tell, Vicki had exchanged no postings with him. However, she had exchanged more postings with Denny than with anyone else, male or female. In fact, her very last posting was to Denny. It was made July 2, just before she left for Canada.