The Reticence 1 (Nantahala River) by Levi Fuller

Author:Levi Fuller [Fuller, Levi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blue Scallop Digital LLC
Published: 2021-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER5

“All right,” Marcia said. “Let’s start at the beginning. What do you know about the victim, Mandy Salter?”

“The usual stuff,” John answered. “Fourteen. Freshman in high school. Good student, good athlete. Had a boyfriend of sorts. You know how high school romances go. Some kissing, some touching, but she was a virgin when she died. I suppose you’ve read the autopsy report, so I won’t bore you with the details. Mandy had a good relationship with her parents, as far as it goes. They had the usual arguments about school and dating, but nothing serious. Her father was a long-haul trucker. Their relationship was not close, like with her mother.”

“The boyfriend,” Margo said, eager to hear more. “What about him?”

“Randy Nokes. Played freshman football and basketball. A nice looking kid who wasn’t all that good with grades. Not the smartest kid. Dropped out of school during junior year and became a pothead. I haven’t seen Randy lately, but I doubt you’ll get much out of him. Did he have an alibi for Mandy’s death? Not really. He was supposedly home, but no one could prove that. Randy didn’t have a good reason to kill Mandy, but then, boyfriends don’t always have good reasons.”

“Who was your chief suspect?” Marcia asked.

“At first, we concentrated on Nokes and a neighbor, Billy Peters. Billy was an odd duck. Lived alone in a shack in the woods. He was weird with a capital ‘W,’ but he had no history of violence. It was only after he moved West that we found it. Everyone thought Billy was too simple to make hooch. He fooled us. I always suspected he had a marijuana farm somewhere in the forest, but I never found it.”

“Mandy was gone for four days. Where was she kept?” Margo asked.

John shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Culpepper County is a big county that is sparsely populated. There is lots of woods, a few caves, lots of places to stash a teenage girl.”

“Ever found her clothes or backpack?” Marcia added.

“Nope. Nothing ever turned up, and you would think that someone would happen upon them in twenty years. So, we guessed everything went up in smoke.”

Margo and Marcia exchanged a look. “That makes sense. Who else was on your list?”

“Well, we looked at the male teachers at the school. Most of them had solid alibis. A couple were shaky, but they didn’t have any motive. And the motive was the key factor. No one had a reason to grab Mandy and kill her after four days of torture.”

“Someone had a reason,” Margo added, her tone insistent.

“You’re right there,” the sheriff replied.

“What did you make of the torture?” Margo continued.

“What anyone would conclude. She knew something that someone wanted. So, when she didn’t give it up, they applied a little pressure.”

“But they didn’t beat her, right?”

“No, just the burns. Sadistic and probably successful. She either gave up what she knew, or the kidnapper discovered she didn’t know anything. He strangled her and dumped the body.

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