Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake (лучшие книги без регистрации txt) 📗

He took off his straw hat and placed the Coke against his forehead, smearing his dripping coils of hair. “The way it always happens, I guess.”

“You’re saying Bill Lundy and Mrs. De Seroux had an affair?”

“Look, missy, I don’t know. Could be a lot of things happened. Henry had a sister, a real spinster type, if you’ll excuse the saying. She lived there for a while. Don’t ask when because I don’t remember. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late.”

“I want you to run Dale Lundy for me.”

“When I get back I’ll do it first thing,” he said, hefting his bulk into his unit.

The doors to the Apalachicola Times were locked—closed, even though it was the middle of the day. So Laura went looking for the library.

The library was located on a quiet Apalachicola street; a red brick, one-story building with white trim. Laura asked the librarian if she had newspapers or microfiche dating back to the time of the de Seroux murders.

The librarian looked at her, a vague uneasiness creeping into her deep violet eyes. She was a pretty woman, powdered and small, somewhere in her thirties. “The de Seroux murders?”

“That’s what I heard. Someone named Henry de Seroux killed his wife and daughters here in Apalachicola.”

The librarian looked shocked. “When was this?”

“A long time ago. It’s not something that people would forget, though.”

Definitely flustered. “Excuse me, let me take a look, see what I have on the database.”

She went into the back room. Laura waited.

At last she returned. “I couldn’t find any references on the computer, but that doesn’t mean anything. We have back issues of the Times going back to the mid-seventies.”

“So you never heard that story? Have you lived here long?”

“Twelve years.”

“I guess it would be before that then.” A mass murder would appear on the front page, so all she’d have to do was look for the headlines. She’d start with 1990 and work her way back from there.

The librarian took her to the little alcove where the microfiche machine was. She showed Laura how to wind the tape on the spool, and Laura let her, although she’d done this many times before.

There was no reference to a mass murder in 1990. Or 1989, 1988, 1987.

By the time she got to 1983, her neck was beginning to ache.

And then she saw it: Page One, June 12, 1983.

“LOCAL MAN KILLS FAMILY, SELF”

She read quickly, getting more excited as she read.

Henry de Seroux, a respected dentist and family man, had cancelled the newspaper subscription, the water, the electricity, and the gas; gave his golf clubs to his surprised receptionist; and went home to kill his family and himself.

No mention of a young man who could be a cousin. No mention of any other family at all.

There was a picture of the family, though. A studio portrait with a gauzy, blue background. The two girls were pretty and blond. One of them, sitting on her mother’s lap, was five or six. Her name was Carrie. The other, standing, was older—eleven? Twelve?

Marisa.

She looked familiar, and Laura suddenly realized why. Marisa de Seroux looked a lot like Linnet Sobek.

And Alison Burns.

And Jessica Parris.

Laura hit the button to photocopy the page.

Back in her room, Laura started a fresh page of her legal pad. Looking for links.

1) The XRV tire treads in de Seroux’s driveway were the same make and type as the ones found up on West Boulevard.

2) The resemblance among Alison Burns, Jessica Parris, Linnet Sobek, and Marisa de Seroux was uncanny.

3) Jimmy de Seroux might or might not be a man named Dale Lundy, the son of the next door neighbor.

4) Dale Lundy/Jimmy de Seroux—whoever he really was—had access to the original proofs of Pete Dorrance’s publicity photos.

5) Laura herself had seen him at the Copper Queen Hotel.

She stared at the list. A couple of things occurred to her immediately.

Punching in 1411, Laura requested the number for the Copper Queen Hotel in Bisbee, Arizona, then called the hotel. The front desk answered.

“I wonder if you could help me,” Laura said. “I was in the bar last weekend when you had the pianist there. I liked him so much I asked if he could play for my wedding. We exchanged cards, but I can’t find his anywhere, and the wedding is in three weeks. Could you help me out? I think his name was …" She looked at her notes. Jimmy or Dale: Pick one. “Dale.”

“Let me take a look,” the woman replied. “Hold on.” The phone clattered.

A minute passed before the woman picked up again. “Dale Lundy, right? He’s playing this weekend, too. All I have is a cell phone number.” She recited it.

“Thanks so much! This will make all the difference.”

“Just make sure you have a good photographer. I stinted, and it was the worst mistake we ever made. Good luck!”

Laura loved small towns. People still saw strangers as human beings.

Next, Laura opened her laptop and connected to the Internet. She’d already bookmarked TalentFish.com. She opened it up now and compared the Talentfish photos of Peter Dorrance to the one Detective Endicott sent her.

One of the Talentfish photos, the three-quarters shot in front of the house, was almost identical to the photo from Alison Burn’s computer. Laura held the five-by-seven digital printout up near the computer, eyeballing one and then the other.

In the Talentfish photo, Laura could see half the saw palmetto fronds behind Dorrance, but in the Burns photograph, she could see only one-third. Dorrance’s smile was different, too. Just a millimeter this way or that.

Laura had been to photo sessions before. A photographer took many shots of one pose. The Talentfish photo and the Burns photo were in the same sequence, but slightly different.

She reached Myrna Gorman at the Strand Talent Agency on the first try. “How many different photos do you have of Peter Dorrance?” she asked.

“I’ll have to look to be sure, but usually we get a headshot and a composite.”

“How many in the composite?”

“Three or four.”

“Did he send his photos to Talentfish.com or did you?”

“We did. We have an agreement with them. You want to hold? I’ll get his file.”

When she came back she said, “It’s what I thought. We sent the composite. Four pictures.”

“Can you describe them for me?”

They corresponded with what she saw on the screen. Laura found Chief Redbone’s card and asked her to fax them to the Apalachicola Police Department.

She didn’t need any more convincing, though.

The digital photo that had been sent to Alison Burns did not correspond to any of the photographs up on Talentfish.com. That meant that no one could have downloaded the photo and sent it on to Alison Burns. Either Peter Dorrance had placed publicity shots on another site, or the person who sent the photo had access to all the rolls of film they shot that day.

That meant either Peter Dorrance or Dale Lundy sent the photo to Alison Burns.

And Peter Dorrance wasn’t playing at the Copper Queen Hotel next weekend.

“He’s not gonna like seeing us again so quick,” Chief Redbone said as he turned onto Avenue B. “If we get the warrant, let’s do it tomorrow. That old house hasn’t been lived in for a long time. It can wait till morning.”

Thaddeus Lanier lived in a large, Federalist, red brick building with a gracious white portico and two tall live oaks dressed in widow’s weeds.

Laura was feeling good—especially after they ran Lundy on NCIC. Unlike Jimmy de Seroux, Lundy had two arrests for sexual offenses: peeping and masturbating outside a grade school, both in Dothan, Alabama. One when he was twenty years old, another when he’d just turned twenty-one.

Nothing since then, but if he was the man she thought he was, Lundy had learned to fly under the radar, graduating from peeping and masturbating to taking young girls. His crimes fit into a predictable time line, a clear trajectory. He had been given time to develop predilections and rituals—like dressing girls up in his doll dresses.