Dynamite Dolls didn’t open until four on the weekends, but after they called the number on the website, the owner, Rollie Dettmar, agreed to immediately meet them there.
As they pulled into the lot, they saw a bald biker type of about sixty with a lot of tats sitting in the open door of a cherry-red Dodge muscle car. He had on a Metallica concert tee and was talking on his phone. He hung up when they pulled in beside him.
“Oh, my,” Kit said as the man stood and they saw that Rollie Dettmar had to be six-foot-five.
“Ditto on that,” Gannon said as they got out.
“I appreciate you meeting us, Mr. Dettmar,” Kit said after she showed him her credentials.
“No problem,” the large man said, closing his door. “You said on the phone this is about Tracy?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to tell you but she’s deceased,” Kit said.
The completely collapsed look that immediately overcame the TV-wrestler-sized man’s weather-beaten face was as heartbreaking as it was unexpected.
“No,” he said. “No, no, no. How?”
“She was murdered,” Gannon said. “About three weeks ago.”
He put his elbows atop the roof of his car and covered his face with his huge hands. They watched as he wept openly.
“We’re really sorry, Mr. Dettmar,” Kit said.
“Oh, I knew it,” he said, snuffling loudly as he wiped at his eyes. “I knew it. Tracy was sweet. She would have called. She wouldn’t have just left. These girls get into such crazy things.”
I wonder why, Gannon, thought getting a bit tired of the big man’s sob routine.
“I was going to give it a few more days and head by her apartment.”
“When was the last time she worked?” Gannon said.
“I’m not positive,” he said, wiping his eyes with the edge of the concert tee. “But I can check. The time sheets are in my office.”
The inside walls of the large open barnlike building were painted all black like there had been a fire. They stepped past mirrors and black leather seats. The dark laminated mirror-like surface of the pole stage was so glossy it looked slippery.
Gannon counted six security cameras as they followed Dettmar through the warm stuffy air.
“Okay. We’re looking at the second,” Dettmar said as he sat with a binder in his lap in the back office. “Tracy’s last night was August second. That was a Tuesday. She worked first shift which goes two to ten.”
“She got out at ten on Tuesday the second? You’re sure?” Kit said as she as she gave Gannon a look of confusion.
Gannon was perplexed himself.
The Grand Teton shooting had happened on Wednesday the third, he thought. How could Tracy have been at work at ten o’clock Tuesday night and then be found dead Wednesday morning up on top of a mountain four hundred miles away?
“Could she have left early?”
“Like, I don’t remember specifically, but my managers keep the records real sharp. If it says it in the book here, it happened.”
“How long do you keep video? A month?” Gannon said.
“Yep, a month,” Dettmar said as he clicked at his computer. “You want to see inside or the parking lot?”
“Try the parking lot first,” Kit said.
Dettmar brought up an array of screens and clicked his mouse and began fast-forwarding.
“Right there, see? Ten fifteen and there she is. That’s her leaving after her shift,” he said.
They stood looking as Tracy stepped out into the gray-toned parking lot. She looked skinnier and meaner than the photos of her Gannon had seen in her apartment. The lot was empty of people and there were about ten cars in it.
“Is this Tracy’s car here in the corner?” Kit said, pointing at what looked like a Camry.
“Yep, the Toyota right there. That’s her blue Toyota.”
They watched her cross toward it and get in and close the door. She was in there for a full minute, then two, and then the brake lights on the car flashed and it began to back out.
“That’s it. She left. I’m sorry I can’t help you with anything else,” Dettmar said.
“Can I see the part where she gets into her car again?” Gannon said.
“Sure,” Dettmar said, rewinding slowly.
“Now stop it there. Pause it,” Gannon said as he watched Tracy open the door.
“What is it?” Kit said.
“The dome light doesn’t go on when she opens the door,” Gannon said. “The interior dome light should go on.”
“You’re right,” Kit said.
“Can we rewind some more?” Gannon said.
Dettmar started rewinding. Tracy went backwards into the building and then there was just the car.
The time stamp said it was nine thirty-five when they saw her car door open and the figure emerge from her car walking backwards.
“There was somebody already in the car!” Kit said. “Pause it! Pause it!”
Dettmar paused the video and they looked at the darkly dressed man on the screen standing there in the lot. He had a ball cap and a hoodie on. Facing away from the camera, his features weren’t visible. He didn’t look tall, but it was clearly a man because his shoulders and back were almost bodybuilder wide.
“Look, he’s wearing gloves,” Gannon said, pointing.
Dettmar hit Play and they watched as the hooded man walked with his wide back to them toward the car. As he approached the driver’s side door, both hands went to the front of him. He did something with his hands and the door popped open, and then he climbed in and closed the door.
“He slim jimmed it,” Gannon said. “He waited in her car until she got off her shift.”
Kit took out her cell phone and brought the video app up on it and turned it on.
“Do you think you could roll that footage again for us, Mr. Dettmar?” Kit said.