Besides, as Phil Krider and the feds reported, Rick Shectman had ties with the underground pornography market. One of his associates had been busted for producing bestiality films, and Rick's father had an illustrious history that stretched back to the early seventies. Old man Shectman was even rumored to have been involved in the production of a snuff film, so it stood to reason that his son was following in Dad's footsteps. After all, the print shop the younger Shectman now operated had been run by his father. And Boris Shectman had been convicted twice of producing child pornography out of that very shop. Talk among the underground porn world was that the younger Shectman had his hands in the business, despite a lack of hard evidence. "The print shop's been raided at least three times that I know of and we never found anything," Phil told William. "He hasn't been raided in five years because of lawsuits. Also, Rick Shectman has been contributing to various political figures lately and that's helped keep the heat off of him, if you know what I mean."
William Grecko knew what Phil meant, but that wasn't what was worrying him this afternoon. Not by a long shot.
He took another sip from the bottle. He had sent Marilyn, his secretary, home at lunch. He couldn't stand hearing her outside his office. It wasn't as if she was particularly annoying, it was just that hearing her perform her normal duties was distressing to him. Listening to her was reminding him of Lisa. And Lisa was reminding him of Brad, and Brad was reminding him of-
He gulped down another shot-and sighed as it spread through his system. The warmth flooded through him. He dosed his eyes. First things first. Sift through what you've just been told, then make an educated decision based on the evidence. No need in getting Brad worried and riled up now.
Shortly after noon, while Marilyn had still been in the office, William had taken a call from one of the detectives working on the Golgotha angle. They had finally questioned all of the board members of the Golgotha Multimedia Corporation and all their alibis and backgrounds had checked out.
William had been expecting that, but he still had to ask the detective a little more about the board members themselves. What had they been like?
Rich country-club executive types, the detective had said. Smug, pampered bastards. Oh, not smug in the sense that any of them were suspicious-they all really did check out fine. No criminal records, their stories and alibis checked out, the whole nine yards. But you know they've got money. ft's like they all had fucking Teflon coated to their skins, y'know?
William had nodded, feeling a little dejected at the news. Yeah, so what else is new?
The detective had given him the rundown. The cabin was used as a retreat for business functions, usually meetings. Sometimes they had weekend retreats, where they drove up for the weekend, went skiing, talked shop, the usual bullshit. The cabin was primarily a tax write-off. Did they ever go up for personal use? Billy had asked.
Oh yeah, all the time was the reply. They all had keys to the place. It's just that the weekend your clients went missing, all twelve board members were at other locations; none of them were within a hundred miles of the cabin. We checked. Their alibis are tight.
Billy had just been about to ask if the men had family members that perhaps used the cabin when the detective beat him to it. Of course we questioned friends and family members. That s only following the logical nnil, you know? And everybody's story corroborated. Each man had only one key to the place. That key was on that member's person, and since each member was away that particular weekend, far from Big Bear Lake, it makes it impossible that any of them could have been involved
The detective had been rambling, and Billy had had to steer him back to the question he wanted to ask. Did family members have their own keys? Was it possible a family member had used the cabin that weekend?
No, family members don't have their own keys to the cabin. Everybody we spoke to denied using the cabin that weekend. Some of them had used it before, of course, but-
Billy had leaped on that statement. Like when? Who?
And that's when the detective had come back with one of those revelations that in thrillers always brings a chill to the audience. It brought a chill to Billy when he first heard it, and it gave him a chill now just thinking about it.
One of the board members, guy named LanyAllen, said he had a copy of the key made for a buddy of his a krv years ago, but his Mend hadn't been at the cabin either. In fact, the board had been meaning to have renovations done to the place and Lany had mentioned it to this guy. His buddy said he d take care of it for him, he knew a general contractor who would do the work, and he set it uµ 14 sent another team of detectives to question this friend of Mr. Allen s and he checked out too. And… well, this is where it gets weird His story really does check out 'cause he was with the California Highway Ftinul in Ventura County pretty much the entire weekend your client went missing. You air t gonna believe this-
Who the fuck is it?William had hissed.
It's Brad Miller s father. Hunk Miller.
That was what had sent William Grecko over the edge.
Now William sat in his office drinking Bacardi 151 and thinking about what he was going to tell Brad.
I've known Frank Miller for ten, fifteen years, he thought. This has to be some kind of weird coincidence. I saw the guy that weekend. He looked like he was a wreck. He was going through the same amount of anguish and grief as Joan and Brad were. He was elated when we found Lisa. And he's going completely batfuck now at home, waiting for word of the whereabouts of his daughter-in-law.
Or was he?
William had been trying to play connect-the-dots with this for the past hour now. The alcohol had helped unlock a lot of the barriers he normally wouldn't have been able to get past. He wondered if the alcohol was what was now making him paranoid.
It was perfectly logical that Frank Miller and Larry Allen would know each other. Larry was an executive at Fidelity, while Frank was an executive at a competing firm. 'They'd both been with their respective firms for twenty years, so it was only natural for their-paths to cross, being that they both worked in the financial industry. 'Iheyd probably met at a business function, became friends. No problem. Larry Allen was also a Christian, and by virtue of his stock in Golgotha, one would think he'd be of the squeaky-clean type. No alcohol, no drugs, and surely no pornography, not even of the Playboy variety. Although that image surely didn't provide guarantees. Lots of religious guys were closet freaks. Rank Miller was no heathen, but then he wasn't a terribly devout religious man either. So where was the bond formed? The golf course? The country club? Fbrhaps. It made sense.
William had formulated the relationship in his mind over sips of 151, trying to make the connections. And the connections he made weren't pretty.
Suppose they became pretty good friends. Maybe lorry tried to convert fhaak at one point but Rank passed 1 can buy that. But suppose there was still something they built their friendship on. Maybe Larry told Rank about the Golgotha retreat and it intrigued Flunk enough that Zany had a key made.?told Flank that if he and his wik ever wanted to use the cabin, he could. And Flank took the key. There's no evidence that suggests he used it… 1W get to that later. But suppose… just suppose that Flank later palmed the key to somebody else who used it for the snuff film?
William shook his head. That wouldn't have worked. Frank had been a nervous wreck that weekend. He was a nervous wreck now. Billy had seen him, spoken to him. Joan was flying off the wall and Frank was…
Strangely silent.
William took another sip of rum. Admittedly, he'd never seen Frank upset or emotional before this mess started. And he knew from experience that people handled stress and traumatic experiences differently. Some people, like Joan Miller, wore their hearts on their sleeves. Others, like Frank, kept their emotions dose to the bone. That's what he'd figured was going on when Lisa Miller first turned up missing. Frank was trying to be the rock for his family, was holding his emotions in. And he was doing that now not saying much, being quiet, but still visibly shaken. But then… suppose he was shaken because he was nervous?