AUGUST 1972
“Russ Van Alstyne.” Detective Arlo Simpson held up Russ’s mug shot, taken the morning they had brought him in for questioning. Looking at the boy’s disheveled, angry face, Jack Liddle realized he should have gotten a better photo from Margy. Anyone would agree Russ was guilty of something, going by that picture.
“We confirmed positive identification from the bartenders at the Paddock and the Flying Dutchman.”
“What about Bennie’s?” Jack shifted his position on the heavy maple worktable at the head of the officers’ desks. He had taken to sitting on it during their meetings when, assuming the chief’s badge, he had discovered the wooden briefing podium was just over-tall enough to make him look like a junior high schooler giving a report on Civics Day.
“The barkeep at Bennie’s said business was heavy last night. He didn’t remember the face in the photo. However, since Van Alstyne places himself at Bennie’s first, with the two other establishments coming after, I don’t think the lack of corroboration is significant.”
Sergeant George Gifford rolled his eyes. Arlo did have a tendency to talk like a dictionary’d been shoved up his ass.
“What about the Flying Dutchman? Did his story hold up?” Jack tried not to sound hopeful. The last thing he needed was his men thinking he’d lost his objectivity.
Arlo nodded. “Oh, yes. The bartender remembered the fight very well. He said Van Alstyne was clearly the aggressor, and claims he threatened to call the police on our boy.” He held up his notebook. “The young man Van Alstyne fought with is a regular. David Reyniers. I’m attempting to find his address so we can follow up with him.”
“Did anyone recognize the girl?”
“No. But the barkeep at the Flying Dutchman was quite certain of the time Van Alstyne left. Eleven thirty.”
Jack nodded. “And he went to the Golden Banana.” There were some snickers from the rest of the investigating team.
“No.”
“What?” Jack stared at Arlo. “Are you sure?”
“Because of the nature of the establishment, the Golden Banana has three bouncers on duty each night, as well as the bartender and a girl who takes the cover charge. None of them recognized Van Alstyne’s photo. I can find no record of his whereabouts between the time he left the Flying Dutchman and the time he appeared on the MacLarens’ porch.”
Lieutenant Calvin Ogilvie, Jack’s second-in-command, whistled. “That’s six hours unaccounted for.” He nodded toward Arlo. “This guy starts to look better and better.”
“Maybe we should retry with a better photograph,” Jack said.
George and Cal looked at him as if he’d cracked his skull. “If you think it would help, I can go back,” Arlo said doubtfully.
“Chief, this kid’s been trained by the army to be a cold-blooded killer.” Cal stood up and walked to the case board, where pictures of the still-unknown dead girl were pinned like macabre souvenirs. “We know some of these guys in Vietnam had ways of offing the enemy without making a sound, with just sticks and ropes.” He rapped his knuckle against a photo of the girl’s unblemished skin. “Who else would know how to kill without leaving a mark? And he can’t account for his whereabouts for six whole hours around the time of death?” He jerked his thumb to the mug shot still in Arlo’s hand. “I say we bring him in and sweat him good. Five bucks says we’ll have a signed confession before we finish the first pot of coffee.”
Jack pressed his lips together. He had recruited Cal Ogilvie out of the Albany force precisely because the man was smart and dogged. “Okay. I’ll go to his house and question him again. George, what have we got on the dead girl? Any leads?”
Arlo cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Chief, but don’t you want to bring Van Alstyne in to the station?”
“No.” Everyone looked at him. “I want him relaxed. Not feeling like he’s a person of interest. If he’s going to trip up on his story and let something drop, it’ll be at home, where he’s comfortable.” Arlo frowned and Cal screwed up his face. As well they might. It was a bullshit reason. But at least it wasn’t I’m sure he’s innocent. “George? The victim?”
“Oh. Yes.” George flipped open his notepad. “The ME can’t find any cause of death. Autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow or the day after, depending on the pathologist’s schedule.”
“We know that part,” Cal said.
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” George had only recently moved up from supervising the patrol officers to investigations, and he hadn’t yet gotten the hang of the more informal give-and-take of the team. He bent over his notes again. “Description sent out on the wire and we’re following up with mailing her photo to other area law enforcement. No hits have come back yet. One of the uniforms and I canvassed homes within a five-mile radius, no one recognized the picture.”
“And we already know the bartenders at the places Van Alstyne went to didn’t see her.” Cal peeked over George’s shoulder. “Anything from open-case missing persons?”
“Nothing that fits her age range.”
“Did you apply to Troop G for that old case file I told you about?” Jack asked.
“The one from ’52?” George leafed through his file folder and pulled out several mimeographed papers stapled together. “Officer Durant drove down and picked it up. There’s not much there, Chief. Based on the evidence, the medical examiner—”
“Coroner,” Jack said.
“Excuse me?”
“It was a coroner back then.” Jack waved a hand. “Sorry. Go on.”
“Okay. The coroner ruled the death natural from unknown causes.” George flipped to the second page. “There’s a note from his office stating it could possibly have been a drug overdose.” George looked up. “They couldn’t tell? Didn’t they do blood work?”
“Sure. But the science twenty years ago wasn’t half what it is today.” Just saying it made Jack feel old. “And don’t forget, drugs were a lot rarer up here back then. I didn’t make my first bust for possession until almost a decade later.”
“Those were the days.” Cal took the papers from George. “You think the two deaths are connected?”
Jack gestured toward the mimeographs. “You can see for yourself. Summer, young woman, party dress, McEachron Hill Road—all the same.”
Cal flipped through the pages. “You were the responding officer, Chief.”
“That I was. Twenty-four years old and green as a field of clover.”
Cal handed the pages on to Arlo. “Are you suggesting this might be a copycat killing? Or are you thinking the same person might be responsible for both deaths?”
“I have a hard time making it a copycat. The case was never a homicide investigation. There wasn’t much in the news about it, just a short article about a girl found dead on McEachron Hill Road. None of the details about her clothing were released. The chief here at the time put a ‘do you know this girl’ picture in the paper. That’s not enough information for anyone to re-create the death exactly.”
“Unless they heard all the details at the time,” George said. “People love to talk.”
“Or unless it was someone with access to police records,” Cal pointed out. They all paused for a moment.
“On the other hand,” Arlo said, “we could be seeing a coincidence.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
Arlo rattled the papers in his hand. “The coroner found evidence that the girl in ’52 had had sex sometime before her death. Then and now, a young woman in fancy clothes could be a prostitute, or a taxi dancer, or even a coed out for a thrill. All vulnerable populations. Let’s say she’s with a man. As part of the deal, he gives her drugs. She takes off everything under her dress and they have sex. Then she dies, he panics, dumps the body, and leaves with everything else she had on.”
Cal nodded. “If I wanted to dump a body quick, that stretch of McEachron Hill Road’d be one of my top choices. Very little traffic, but well paved with a straight shot to Route 57 and from there, the Northway.”
“I agree with your reasoning for the ’52 case,” Jack said. “Everyone working it assumed she’d been dumped from a car. But unless our victim was a contortionist with Barnum and Bailey, she wasn’t having sex on that motorcycle.”
Cal pointed to George. “We need to canvass area motels right away.” George nodded.
“Canvass at the carnival,” Arlo said.
Jack stared. “Are you trying to make a joke, Arlo?”
“No, no, no, no, no. The Washington County Fair. The agricultural and craft exhibits are local, but the rides, the freak show, the music hall—all that is a traveling carnival. Which has been here since they began setting up at least thirty-six hours ago.”
“Check it out,” Jack said. “Both of those are good starting points. But we still have the issue of getting her to where the body was dumped. Let’s say Van Alstyne picked her up—at the fair, or at a bar—and took her to a motel. Let’s say he gave her something that caused her to OD. Then what? How does he drive to McEachron Hill Road with a corpse on his motorcycle?”
“They didn’t engage a room,” Arlo said. “They enjoyed themselves en plein air.”
Cal gave him a look. “English, please?”
Arlo sighed. “They did it outdoors.”
“No pro is going to turn her trick in a field,” Cal said. “Not with so many motels around.”
“But a free-spirited coed might. Or an amateur carnival girl who doesn’t know the area.”
“The pathologist may find evidence of that,” George said. “A little grass or pollen in her hair.”
“We’ve got twenty-four to forty-eight hours before Dr. Roberts reports to me.” Jack slid off the table, the thud of his feet emphasizing his words. “I want to have her identity by the time we have the autopsy results. And I want every possibility on the board. The same perp in ’52 and now, a copycat killer, or”—he made a face—“a coincidence based on the fact the girl might have been a pro.”
Arlo stood and handed the mimeographed papers back to George. “Van Alstyne is still our best lead.”
“I know.” Jack hoped he sounded tired, rather than depressed at the thought. “If anything in his story is off, we’ll do what Cal suggested. Bring him in and sweat the truth out of him.”