“Someone familiar with Richmond, then,” Stanfield finally offers an opinion.
Mclntyre’s eyes are wide. She has a stricken expression on her face. “I didn’t know about torture,” she says to me. Her professional resolve shivers like a tree about to fall.
I describe Barbosa’s burns and go into detail about the burns Matos had, as well. I talk about the evidence of ligatures and gags, and then Marino talks about the eyebolts in the motel room ceiling. All present get the picture. Everyone can envision what was done to these two men. We have to suspect the same person or persons are involved in their deaths. But this doesn’t begin to tell us who or why. We don’t know where Barbosa was taken, but I have an idea.
“When you go back there with Vander,” I say to Marino, “maybe you ought to check out the other rooms, see if another one has eyebolts in the ceiling.”
“Will do. Got to go back there anyway.” He glances at his watch.
“Today?” Jay asks him.
“Yup.”
“You got any reason to think Mitch was drugged like the first guy?” Pruett asks me.
“I didn’t find any needle marks,” I reply. “But we’ll see what comes up on his tox results.”
“Jesus,” Mclntyre mutters.
“And both of them wet their pants?” Stanfield says. “Doesn’t that happen when people die? They lose control of their bladders and wet their pants? Just a natural thing, in other words?”
“I can’t say losing urine is rare. But the first man, Matos, took his clothes off. He was nude. It appears he wet his pants and then disrobed.”
“So that was before he got burned,” Stanfield says.
“I would assume so. He wasn’t burned through his clothing,” I reply. “It’s very possible both victims lost control of their bladders due to fear, panic. You get scared badly enough, you wet your pants.”
“Jesus,” Mclntyre mutters again.
“And you see some asshole screwing eyebolts in the ceiling and plugging in a heat gun, that’s enough to scare the piss right out of you,” Marino abundantly illustrates. “You know damn well what’s about to happen to you.”
“Jesus!” Mclntyre blurts out. “What the fuck is this about?” Her eyes blaze.
Silence.
“Why the fuck would someone do something like that to Mitch? And it’s not like he wasn’t careful, not like he would just get in someone’s car or even get close to some stranger trying to stop him on the road.”
Stanfield says, “Makes me think of Vietnam, the way they did things to prisoners of war, tortured them to make them talk.”
Making someone talk can certainly be one reason for torture, I respond to what Stanfield has just said. “But it’s also a power rush. Some people are into torture because they get off on it.”
“You think that’s the case here?” Pruett says to me.
“I have no way of knowing.” Then I ask Mclntyre, “I noticed a fishing pole when I was coming up the walk.”
Her reaction is a flicker of confusion. Then she realizes what I am talking about. “Oh, right. Mitch likes to fish.”
“Around here?”
“A creek over near College Landing Park.”
I look at Marino. That particular creek is at the edge of the wooded camping area at The Fort James Motel.
“Mitch ever mention to you the motel over there by that creek?” Marino asks her.
“I just know he liked to fish over there.”
“He know the lady who runs the joint? Bev Kiffin? And her
husband? Maybe you both know him since he works for Overland?” Marino says to Mclntyre.
“Well, I do know that Mitch used to talk to her boys. She has two young boys and sometimes they’d be out there fishing when Mitch was. He said he felt for them because their dad was never around. But I don’t know anybody named Kiffin at the trucking company, and I do their books.”
“Can you check that out?” Jay says.
“Maybe his last name’s different from hers.”
“Yeah.”
She nods.
“You remember the last time Mitch went fishing out there?” Marino asks her.
“Right before all the snow,” she replies. “It was pretty nice weather up until then.”