Part 2 (2/2)

”Not that I can recall.”

”Did the girls drive out to meet him or did he pick them up?” I said.

”He always picked them up in front of the club and brought them back the next morning.”

”Any idea what he was driving?”

”I saw him pick them up in a Ford Expedition a couple of years ago, but I was in my office the other night. I didn't see him.”

”You said they went out on a boat,” I said. ”Any idea whether they went to someone's house or to a marina?”

”The girls always told me the boat was huge. One of those great big house boats that looks like a giant birthday cake when it's floating down the lake at night.”

”Marina,” Bates said. ”People don't keep those things at their house.”

”That narrows it down some,” I said. ”There are only three marinas on the lake.”

”I remember the name of the boat,” Erlene said. ”It's Laura Mae. Several of the girls have told me that over the years. Laura Mae.”

Bates smiled. ”That'll narrow it down even more, ma'am. I doubt we're going to find many house boats named Laura Mae on the lake.”

”Anything else you can remember about Mr. Smith or the boat?” I said.

”The girls always made fun of Mr. Smith. They called him gofer because all he did was run around and wait on the other two men on the boat. He was the one who got the boat ready to go, drove it, and when they'd stop, he'd bring them drinks or food or change the music, whatever they told him to do.”

”So there were two men on the boat besides Mr. Smith?” Bates said. ”Is it the same two men every year?”

”I don't know,” Erlene said. ”I didn't ask for descriptions or anything. All I know is the girls said they wore expensive jewelry and clothes and they liked to party.”

I stood up and looked at Bates.

”Why don't you start looking for the boat?” I said. ”I'll stay here with Erlene and have her tell me everything she knows about the girls.”

Chapter Six.

It was almost noon as I wound my pickup through the curves of the narrow, two-lane road toward Ray's Marina. Bates had called my cell phone while I was talking to Erlene. He said we needed to talk to a man named Turtle. Turtle apparently ran the day-to-day operations at the marina, and Bates said if anyone knew what was happening on the lake, it would be him.

The clouds had cleared and the sun was high in the sky, beating down relentlessly, almost oppressively. The temperature had climbed to ninety degrees, the humidity was at least eighty percent, and the wind was absolutely still. I tried to focus on how Bates and I would approach the witness, but I couldn't get my mind off of Erlene and the pain that had radiated from her soul like a radio signal. The girls' names were Lisa Kay Burns, Kerri Elizabeth Runion, and Krystal Dawn Nickels.

Lisa, twenty-five, the girl with the ”Hope” tattoo, had grown up in Austin, Texas, the daughter of an accountant and a nurse. Both of her parents were killed in a car accident when Lisa was fourteen years old. She was s.h.i.+pped off to Midland to live with an aunt, became depressed, got into drugs, and wound up stripping. She'd made the rounds through Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte and Knoxville, and started working for Erlene a little over three years ago. She'd been a pa.s.senger on the boat each of those three years. Erlene had helped her kick her cocaine addiction ten months ago and Lisa had given up stripping, earned her G.E.D., gotten a job as a receptionist in an accountant's office, and enrolled part-time at a local community college. When Erlene told Mr. Smith that Lisa wasn't available, he said he'd double the usual offer from three thousand to six thousand. Erlene pa.s.sed the information along, and Lisa agreed to go one last time. Mr. Smith had asked for her by her stage name, ”Chast.i.ty.”

Kerrie, also known as ”Gypsy,” was a twenty-three-year-old from Columbus, Ohio. Her parents divorced when she was sixteen. After a year of bouncing back and forth between them and listening to them bicker, she decided she'd had enough. She got on a bus one day and never looked back. She'd made p.o.r.n films in New York and worked for a high-dollar escort service in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., before one of her colleagues told her about this little strip club in East Tennessee. Erlene described her as a ”sweet little ol' thing” who loved animals and Rice Krispy treats.

Krystal, twenty-one, was from Memphis. She was a junior at East Tennessee State University, studying pre-medicine. Erlene said she came from a poor family; both of her parents were deaf and lived off of Social Security disability checks. She'd been s.e.xually abused by a neighbor when she was young and, as a result, didn't have much use for men. She'd earned an academic scholars.h.i.+p to college and had decided to maximize her earning potential in her spare time by taking advantage of her best a.s.set her body. Erlene told me that Krystal didn't drink, smoke or use drugs. She showed up for work on time, left when her s.h.i.+ft was over, and stayed away from the usual hanky-panky the girls tended to get into. She'd worked hard to improve her dance skills, and because of the combination of her beauty, her act, and her aloof nature, she'd developed a large following at the club and was making more money than any of the other girls.

I was struck by the tenderness in Erlene's voice when she spoke of them. In Northeast Tennessee, which is often referred to as the buckle of the Bible belt, most people would have regarded three strippers who moonlighted occasionally as hookers the same way they would regard a crackhead or a burglar. But Erlene spoke of them as though they were her children. She was proud of Krystal, fond of Lisa, sometimes frustrated by Kerrie. It took almost two hours to get basic information from her, because she broke down and sobbed time and time again. The guilt she felt was palpable, almost visceral. It was obvious that she blamed herself for their deaths.

When I pulled into the parking lot at the marina, I saw Bates leaning against the black BMW he'd confiscated from a drug dealer a little over a year ago. His cowboy hat was perched atop his head at a slight angle and he was talking on his cell phone. I parked, got out of the truck, and looked out over the marina. There were at least a hundred and fifty water craft tied to the docks, everything from jet skis to huge house boats. A small, pale-blue building with an attached deck housed a grill and a bait shop, and there were two gasoline pumps on a dock below the deck. A short, heavy-set man wearing cut-off jeans, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and a loud Hawaiian s.h.i.+rt was pumping gas into a ski boat that was filled with young men that looked to be about my son's age.

I knew neither Bates nor I could board the boat if it was there. We'd have to have a search warrant for that, but there was nothing preventing us from taking a look around the outside. If we saw something that might be of evidentiary value to us, the ”plain view” doctrine would apply and we'd be able to get a search warrant. I knew we might be able to get a warrant based solely on an affidavit from Erlene, but I preferred to have more evidence before I went to a judge.

”That's got to be him,” Bates said as he came off the car and stuck his cell phone in his s.h.i.+rt pocket. ”A couple of my investigators do a lot of fis.h.i.+ng out here. They said if it happens on the lake, Turtle knows about it. Said he's a chubby guy who always wears a straw hat.”

Bates and I stepped onto the dock just as the man was hanging the nozzle back on the gas pump. He turned to face us and grinned.

”Well I'll be,” he said. ”If it ain't the two most famous law men in the county. You're both uglier in person than you are on TV.”

He offered a meaty hand, and I took it.

”Joe Dillard,” I said, ”and this is Leon Bates.”

”Jasper T. Yates,” he said. ”Folks call me Turtle on account of I don't move too fast.”

Turtle's face was covered with dark stubble and the bridge of his nose bent sharply to the right. He peered out from under the straw hat with bright eyes. In his jaw was a wad of chewing tobacco about the size of a golf ball.

”We're looking for a boat,” Bates said.

”Which one?” Turtle said.

”It's called the Laura Mae. I believe it's one of the big house boats.”

”Be happy to show her to you if she was here, but she ain't. She's gone.”

”Gone?”

”As in adios, sayonara, bye-bye. Somebody took her out late yesterday evening and I ain't seen her since.”

”Who took her out?”

”Some young feller. Never seen him before.”

”Any idea where he went?”

”One of the fishermen told me he saw her being pulled out of the water over at the Winged Deer Park ramp.”

”Does that happen often?” I said.

”It happens once a year. They take her out and store her until springtime, but they don't usually come get her until mid-September. Follow me, fellers. I need to get outta this heat and back into the air conditioning.”

We started walking, very slowly, back up the dock toward the building. Turtle wasn't joking about not moving too fast. The steps he took were less than a foot long.

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