THIRTY-TWO
Ben’s first stop after watching his oldest kid play soccer was John Hardcastle’s house off Gunn Road in Carmichael. John, a tech writer, had retired from the Tribune eleven months ago. It was his HTML skills, not stringing words together, that had landed him a job with his first tech publication back in the day. But along the way, John had fallen in love with journalism. Before he retired, he’d often entertained Ben with stories about how serious and socially inept Ben had been when he’d first come to work for the newspaper. Although Ben couldn’t say whether the stories were true or not, the two men had become fast friends after Ben’s accident. Although Ben tended to be an introvert, he honestly missed having John around.
Ben had to knock on the door quite a few times before he heard movement inside the house. The door came open. “Hey there, pal. Long time no see.”
“Mind if I come in?”
John scratched the salt-and-pepper scruff covering his chin before gesturing inside. “Come on. Make yourself at home.”
Ben followed him through the small living area, where piles of newspapers and tech publications were stacked high against one of the walls. On the TV screen was a grid-shaped maze, a giant game that had been paused. A remote rested on the recliner in front of the big-screen TV. When they reached the kitchen. John opened two cans of beer and handed him one. “So what brings you here on a Sunday, my day of rest?” he asked with a chuckle.
Ben took a swallow. It tasted better than he’d expected, soothing his parched throat. “I’m hoping you can help me with something.”
“What sort of something?”
“I’m investigating the disappearance of a woman who went missing ten years ago. There’s not a lot to go by, since she didn’t seem to have many friends. But there’s a yearbook that points to a woman named Juliette Farris. I was hoping you could unlock the universe to her social-media life.”
John frowned. “I’m offended.”
“Why?”
“That’s for babies. But come on,” he said with a wave of his hand toward the living room. “Let’s see what we can do.”
“Looks like you’ve been keeping busy,” Ben said after John grabbed his laptop and took a seat in his recliner.
“Don’t be a smart-ass. Most people want to travel when they retire, but not me. For thirty-five years I couldn’t wait to sit in my favorite chair and play games. Not just any game, either. Right now I’m playing The Witness. Took six years to develop at a cost of more than five million dollars. If I wanted to waste my time, I would go on because it would blow your mind, but enough about me.”
Ben smiled. “It’s good to see you doing what you love. You’ve earned it.”
“Damn straight.”
It didn’t take long for his computer to light up. He punched away at the keys and said, “Juliette Farris? Was that the name?”
“That’s right.”
“Thirty years of age? McClatchy High School?”
Ben set his beer down and came to his side to take a look. “That was quick, but that’s definitely her. What I need to know is whether or not she hung out with Sophie Cole. Juliette wrote a note in Sophie’s yearbook. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got. I have an appointment to talk to her later on today. I need to know if there’s anything—”
“Jackpot!” John turned the laptop so Ben could have a look.
“What site is that?”
“You knew what it was before the accident messed up your brain,” John said. “It’s called Myspace, a social-networking website that was founded in 2003. In 2008 it was overtaken by Facebook in sheer number of unique visitors. Here, take a look. Read the profile, group photos, blogs, et cetera, and you’ll see both girls’ names mentioned in the captions. My guess is they were good friends, indeed.”
Ben took the laptop to another chair and scrolled through the images. John wasn’t kidding. He’d hit the jackpot. “You’re a genius.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I could kiss you right now.”
John gave him a worried look.
“Kidding.”
“Not funny.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a printer, would you?”
“I hope that’s another stupid joke.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “Can I use it?”
“Help yourself. Down the hall. First room to the right.”
Ben took the computer that way. Behind him he could hear John clacking away, playing his mind-blowing game.
An hour later, Ben was in Elk Grove, knocking on the front door of a one-story house that belonged to the parents of Juliette Farris.
Prior to his visit with John Hardcastle, he’d used his own sources to find out what he could about the woman. The yearbook pictures had shown her to be tall and vivacious. Yesterday he’d made dozens of phone calls until he finally reached Juliette. Although it took some prodding, she had agreed to meet with him at her parents’ house. He didn’t know whether she lived with her parents on a permanent basis, but at this point in his investigation, he didn’t care one way or another. He wanted to have a chat with her.
When he saw Juliette in the flesh, he couldn’t hide his surprise. She looked nothing like the pictures he’d seen in the yearbook. She wore a bright-red head covering. Her face was thin, and once-lively eyes were now buried in deep sockets. The dark lipstick accentuated the lines around her mouth, and she reeked of stale tobacco. Juliette was thirty, yet she looked twenty years older than that, battle worn and wary.
“I’m Juliette,” she said as she gestured for him to come inside, and then promptly closed the door behind him. He followed her to the kitchen, where she motioned for him to take a seat on one of three stools lined up at the kitchen counter.
“My parents should be gone for another hour. I prefer not to talk about any of this in front of them, so let’s get to it.” She grabbed a glass from the cupboard, filled it with water from the tap, and slid it across the counter in front of him. Unidentified particles floated to the top.
Ignoring the glass of water and pretending not to notice the mouse that skittered across the kitchen floor and disappeared beneath the refrigerator, he pulled out his notebook and pen. “So, I’ve been told you were one of Sophie Cole’s closest friends.”
She nodded, lit a cigarette, then sucked in a lungful of nicotine.
“You’re on record as saying you had no idea what men, if any, Sophie hung out with during high school, but it’s become apparent that she made the rounds at any number of random bars from Placer to Sacramento County.”
She gave a tiny shrug of one shoulder.
“Is that a yes?”
“That sounds about right,” she said flippantly.
“You two were close,” he said.
She nodded.
“Did you visit these bars with her?”
“Maybe. Sure. I don’t really remember.”
He sighed, opened the file he’d brought with him, and then showed her the pictures he’d had printed.
Her face paled. “Where did you get those?”
“Myspace.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I deleted my account ages ago.”
It was his turn to shrug. “I have a friend. You could say he’s sort of a techno whiz at that kind of thing. Your account popped right up.”
“When did you meet Sophie?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know . . . middle school. I was probably twelve.”
“So you hung out from the age of twelve until she disappeared.”
“Yeah.”
He laid the pictures across the counter. There were six total, blown up to eight-by-tens. Juliette and Sophie were in every one. The first four were group pictures, Sophie, Juliette, and unidentified men, everyone making silly faces. The last two were Juliette and Sophie alone in semi-intimate positions. He looked at Juliette and waited for her to meet his gaze. It didn’t take long.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do I even need to ask?”
“No. We were more than just friends.”
“So she was bisexual?”
“No,” she said, sounding possessive.
“Why all the men in the bars?”
“We needed money, and Sophie was good at getting it.”
“You two were a team,” he said when he finally caught on to what she was saying. “She’d pick a guy up at a bar, bring them to a hotel, and you would rob them?”
“Something like that,” Juliette said before taking another hit of her cigarette. “Let’s put it this way—hotels were costly.”
He understood. “So, she brought him to her car, and that’s when the two of you would take his money.”
“Close,” she said. “Sophie would get him in the car, drive down the road, pump the brakes, pretend she had a flat tire, then pull over to the side of the road . . .”
“Where you would be waiting,” he said when she failed to finish her thought.
“That sounds about right.”
“And yet nobody ever turned either of you in?”
She shook her head. “Mostly I think they felt like idiots. And we rarely went to the same bar twice, so it would have been difficult to track us down.”
“What about the Wild West in Auburn?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Ben let that go for now. “All anybody had to do back then was describe what Sophie looked like and then report the make and model of the car or license-plate number.”
She laughed. “Neither of us owned a car.”
“So whose car did you drive?”
“Take a guess,” she said, still chuckling as if he was the biggest moron she’d ever met.
“You stole a car, drove to a bar, zeroed in on some fool, robbed him, and then left the car on the side of the road.”
She stubbed her cigarette out on a dirty plate. “More often than not, we returned the car to its original owner.”
“I’m sure they appreciated you returning their vehicle.”
“I’m sure.”
Judging by her mannerisms and the tone of her voice, it wasn’t that Juliette didn’t have a care in the world, Ben thought. She just plain didn’t care. “You never thought to tell the police any of this?”
“Why? I couldn’t tell you the name of even one man we robbed. It’s not like we killed anybody.”
“You never stopped to think that maybe one of these men might have wanted revenge?”
“Nope. That would take brains and balls.” She laughed.
“You talked to Sophie’s sister, Jessie, on more than one occasion after Sophie disappeared. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t tell her much—why is that?”
“It was Sophie’s sister, for God’s sake. How do you tell someone that their sister lies, cheats, and steals on a daily basis?”
“You sound bitter.”
“I was. Maybe I still am. I loved Sophie, but the truth is, she was bad news. She taught me how to disengage a car alarm and hot-wire an engine. Then she showed me how to make a living by robbing men who think with their dicks. My parents didn’t like me hanging around her, but Sophie Cole was addicting. I couldn’t let go.”
“What about the pregnancy?” Ben cut in. “How close were you two by then?”
“Close enough. She was raped.”
“Are you sure about that?” He pulled out one last photo from the manila folder and slapped it on the counter. This picture was of Sophie and a good-looking fellow with light hair and a friendly smile. A young Robert Redford look-alike. Sophie was sitting on his lap, her long arms hooked around his neck as she gave him one of her winning smiles and gazed longingly into his eyes.
“She looks pretty happy to me,” Ben said.
Juliette’s face twisted, her anger palpable, making him wonder for the first time whether or not she had something to do with Sophie’s disappearance.
“Where did you find that?” she asked.
“Like I said, I have a buddy who—”
“It’s time for you to go. I never should have agreed to talk to you in the first place.”
“Why did you?”
“Because you aren’t the only one who wants to know what happened to Sophie.”
She didn’t do it, Ben thought. She loved Sophie, and she wanted to know what happened to her. And there was more to it. His gaze roamed over bony shoulders and eyes shadowed with death. “How long do you have?”
“Doctors aren’t sure. Could be three months, could be six.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We all gotta go sometime.”
“If you tell me what you know about this guy, I can track him down, talk to him, see if he knows anything.”
She lit another cigarette. “I know he was a loser,” she said. “He didn’t deserve her. Besides, she didn’t love him. Not like she loved me.”
“I need a name,” he said. “It might take me a few hours, a day at most, but I’ll figure it out with or without your help.”
“Jimmy Rhodes,” she said with a cough. “He meant nothing to Sophie.”
“Are you sure about that?” Ben asked as he glanced at the picture of Sophie and Jimmy. “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
“He dumped her,” she said, her tone spiteful. “Started dating another girl. I remember hearing through the grapevine that he moved out of the country.” Her hand trembled as she brought the cigarette to her mouth and took another drag. “It took Sophie a while to figure it out, but she finally realized it was for the best.”
“What was for the best?”
“Jimmy finding someone else.”
“Why was that for the best?”
“I already told you. She loved me.”