alive. They had done several jobs together throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s. Falco had been missing, along with another former partner of Evans’s, Damien Cuomo, since the mid-1980s. Both men hadn’t been seen for years, and as far as the Bureau was concerned, Evans was the prime suspect in both disappearances.
“At that moment,” Horton said later, “the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I couldn’t wait to get out of that apartment so Sully and I could talk about what Caroline had just said.”
Horton then asked Caroline if the name Gary Evans meant anything to her.
“Yes!” she said instantly. “That’s the guy Tim has been hanging around with lately. I don’t like him….”
Tim Rysedorph is dead. Michael Falco is dead. Damien Cuomo is dead , Horton told himself as Caroline spoke of her hatred for Evans. If there had ever been a doubt that Cuomo and Falco were dead, it was wiped clear by the simple fact that Tim Rysedorph and Evans had been hanging around together recently and now Tim was missing, too.
Liabilities, Horton thought, all three of them .
In recent years, Horton had been accused—mostly by the press and a few local defense attorneys, but also a few cops—of carrying on a relationship with Gary Evans, Tim Rysedorph and Michael Falco’s friend and burglary partner.
When it came down to it, Gary Charles Evans was a twisted sociopath who had burglarized dozens of antique shops in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Horton had been playing a game of cat and mouse with Evans for the past twelve years, using him as an informant, while at the same time arresting him for various crimes. Evans, a master escape and disguise artist, had even helped the state police on a number of unsolved crimes, but Horton had developed a personal relationship with Evans throughout the years, which had infuriated some people.
Horton thought he had rid himself of Evans two years to the day prior to Tim Rysedorph’s disappearance. They’d had an argument. After arresting Evans for the theft of a rare and expensive book, Horton told Evans he never wanted to see him again. Their relationship was over. Too many things had happened throughout the years. And after testifying in a case Evans and Horton had worked on together, Evans did just that: he disappeared from Horton’s life and they hadn’t seen each other since.
So it would have been a safe bet to assume the last name Horton had ever expected to hear while investigating the disappearance of Tim Rysedorph on October 6, 1997, was Gary Evans.
For a number of years, Horton and other members of the Bureau had suspected that Evans had killed Damien Cuomo and Michael Falco, but they had no proof. Cuomo’s and Falco’s cases, which were considered missing person cases, had gone cold years ago. No law enforcement agency had worked on the cases in over a decade and no family members of either men, according to Horton, had put any pressure on law enforcement to revive the investigations. Like many missing person cases that are actually unsolved murder cases, Damien Cuomo and Michael Falco were mere numbers on files in the state police records room. Sadly, until a hungry investigator decided to reopen the cases, or a family member began complaining to the district attorney’s office, they would remain in the records room collecting dust like hundreds of others.
As Horton began working his way out of Caroline Parker’s apartment, Sully by his side, he told himself that Caroline was never going to see her husband alive again. If he’s been with Gary Evans, he’s as good as dead.
CHAPTER 7
Horton and Sully figured there was only one reason Tim had been hanging around with Evans: burglary. There was no other purpose. Evans was a loner. He lived by himself. Traveled alone. And unless he needed a partner in crime, he never socialized with people.
From their brief conversation with Caroline, Horton and Sully knew she was either playing