“She showed us his texts,” Loni said with a sniff. “One said he’d love her till the day he died. We all thought it was pretty romantic, but … maybe it was obsessive and not romantic at all.”
Amarok knew a little something about exes who were hard to get rid of. He seemed to run into Samantha Boyce, his ex-girlfriend, who’d moved back to town last winter, everywhere. To a point, that was to be expected. They lived in such a small town. But she’d also swing by the trooper post to bring him his favorite milk shake, to say “hi” or to relate some news about a member of her family he knew—her mother wasn’t doing well but had asked about him; her brother was considering getting into law enforcement in Anchorage. She even approached him to dance with her whenever she could corner him at the Moosehead. “Do you know his name?” he asked Loni.
“Ward Something.” She covered the phone, but he could hear her speaking to someone else. “Hey, do you know the name of Sierra’s ex? The guy who texted her a few weeks ago about getting back with her?”
She sniffed again before coming back on the line. “Brothers,” she said. “Ward Brothers.”
“How did Sierra meet Ward?”
“I don’t remember.”
“How long was she with him?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, either. I wish I could. I do know he’s a telemarketer and he lives an hour away from Sierra’s apartment. She told me she met up with him a week or so before she left and mentioned the trip to him.”
“How long have they been broken up?”
“Three years. I know because that was when I started working here and Sierra had already met Allen by then.”
“That gives me something to go on,” Amarok said. “Thank you for your time.”
“I don’t mind helping. You’re going to find her, right?” She sounded worried, and he felt she had good reason to be. If he found anything at all, he was fairly certain it would be a body. Even that wasn’t likely, given the abundance of wildlife in Alaska that could scatter the bones. But at least neither person of interest was from Hilltop or Hanover House. This time HH seemed to be in the clear.
“Yes. I’m going to find her,” he replied, and prayed to God he could deliver on that promise.
7
When Evelyn met with the more dangerous inmates—those who’d committed violent crimes—she used a room where she was separated from her subject by plexiglass. It was a federal mandate that she take this precaution with any inmate who had a particular coding on his file. Although this policy had its critics, because some psychologists argued that no subject could be relied upon to speak freely under such “hostile” and “unnatural” conditions, she’d rather leave the men uncomfortable than risk her life. She never knew when one might try to throw feces at her, urinate on her or use a homemade blow dart to give her AIDS or hepatitis. Others couldn’t be trusted not to attack her outright. It wasn’t wise to take chances with certain inmates, even in the name of science.
Bobby Knox didn’t require that much security, so she met him in one of the three small rooms that had no plexiglass, only a desk between them. He wasn’t a killer; he was a con man. He’d bilked several hundred people out of millions by claiming he was going to build a boys ranch. He’d said that once the land was purchased and the school built, the state he was living in at the time would pay a certain amount for each child who attended, which was how his investors would receive their money back, with interest.
Some boys ranches were supported the way he’d described, so that part was plausible—except Bobby had no contract with the state and never planned to build anything. What he showed his investors was a forged document that, to the unsuspecting, looked pretty authentic.
Old ladies were particularly susceptible to his pitch. At forty-six, with light brown hair and dark brown eyes, he was fairly attractive and seemed trustworthy. They loved the idea of helping troubled teens while growing their retirement funds. But none of that ever happened. Bobby would string them along for three or four years with excuse after excuse as to why the building was delayed. Said he couldn’t get this or that permit. That he needed more money, since one of his contractors had run off with a large sum. That he had to find a new site because toxic waste studies indicated the place he’d shown them wouldn’t be suitable, after all. He said whatever he could to keep his investors patient or willing to write him another check. Then, when a vocal few began to get suspicious, he’d move on, only to run the same scam in a different state.
According to his file, he’d started running his scams about five years after dropping out of college with only a semester to go and stolen $5 million, mostly from people who were too old to continue earning, by the time law enforcement caught up with him.
“It says here that you were raised by your grandmother.” Evelyn had met with Bobby once before but barely long enough to introduce herself and welcome him to Hanover House. He’d arrived a week ago, transferred from a federal correctional institution in California, which was where he’d run his last scam.
“Seriously?” he said. “Is that why I’m here? You want to go over everything in my file?”
“Do you have a problem with starting there?” she asked.
“No. Except I didn’t need to come all the way to Alaska to confirm I was raised by my grandmother. We could’ve handled that over the phone.”
She set her pen beside the pad of paper she’d been planning to use for notes. All she’d really intended to do was begin a conversation with him, and it appeared she’d done that. Today her goal was simply to gain some idea about the way he thought, so she could determine where he might fit best in her studies. “You don’t believe you belong here?”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m nothing like the crazy fuckers you’ve got locked up here. So why would I be of any interest to you?”
Because he was more like those “crazy fuckers” than he realized. What he’d left behind was a different kind of carnage, but he’d scored almost as high on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist as another inmate Evelyn worked with who was convicted of killing twenty-five prostitutes. That was what had attracted her interest. When Janice at the Bureau of Prisons brought his name to her attention and mentioned his outlandish score—36 out of 40—Evelyn had immediately requested he be transferred.
“How familiar are you with me and my work?” she asked instead of answering.
“I know you were attacked by an old boyfriend eons ago and won’t let it go.”
“Is that how you interpret my situation?”
“Pretty much.”
He was being a smartass, purposely trying to upset her. But she merely smiled. “Then I think you’ve answered your own question.”
His belly chain rattled as he jumped to his feet. “Don’t give me that bullshit! I don’t deserve this.”
Evelyn clasped her hands in front of her. “What do you deserve, Mr. Knox?”
Seeming surprised by the question, he stepped closer to the desk between them. “Not twenty years! That’s more than the typical rapist gets! And I shouldn’t have to do my time in this godforsaken place.”
“This is a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility where you don’t have to deal with the overcrowding issues of so many other places.”
“So? How many of my friends and family do you think will visit me here?”
She set the glasses she sometimes used to avoid eyestrain to one side. “How many visited you in California?” He was a user, someone who took advantage of other people. She couldn’t imagine that evoked much loyalty among his friends, but perhaps his family was supportive. Or he had a girlfriend.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
That meant he didn’t get many visitors even when he was in California, but he was the one who’d brought it up. “Why don’t we start with this, then. When’s the last time you saw your parents?”
“I don’t have any parents. You just asked me if my grandmother raised me, didn’t you?”