Simon Says... Hide (Kate Morgan Thrillers Book 1)

by Dale Mayer

  Kate looked at Alice and asked, “Do you mind if I look through them?”

  “I’ll give you half, and I’ll take half,” she said, “to see if I can find the ones I was thinking of.”

  And that’s what they did.

  Kate went through them, noticing that the pictures were everything from flowers to vehicles to storms and the odd person. When Kate got down to the bottom of her pile, there were more photos of people, and she studied them, as she tried to figure out which ones might be Ken and which ones might be other people. She stopped at one and tapped her finger on it. “That’s Ken, isn’t it?”

  Alice looked over at the picture and nodded. “That’s him.”

  “Who is he talking to? Do you know?”

  “No,” she said, “no idea.”

  Kate put that picture off to the side and went through several more photos. Another one of Ken, standing alone. She put it off to the side as well.

  Alice was going through her pile much more slowly. Then she picked up one and said, “Here. This is one of them.” In the photo, Ken was walking on the street, holding the hand of a little boy.

  Kate stared at the picture and shook her head. “I don’t recognize the little boy.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Alice said. “I keep hoping that maybe it’s a neighbor’s child he was looking after for a little bit.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Do you mind if I take this photo?”

  “Please take all of them,” she said. “I don’t want any of him left around.” She found one more, and, in that one, he was pushing a little buggy.

  “Was a baby in there?”

  “It was a toddler, but I don’t know how old.”

  Kate took that photo too. “Also I’d like any photos showing people coming and going at Ken’s house,” she said. “Not that you would have been watching or anything.”

  “Oh, I watch,” Alice said somewhat derisively. “I was looking for anything to keep myself busy.” She grabbed a few of the remaining photos and went through them. “That one, that one, and that one,” she said. “They were all of Ken’s place, and, indeed, people are standing there, talking to him.”

  Armed with a new collection of photographs, Kate stood and thanked Alice for her time and for the photos. “Should you come across any more, Alice, just give me a shout.” Kate placed her card on the coffee table. “If you remember anything about times that you’ve met him or things he might have said, I’ll like to hear from you.”

  “What is it you’re trying to find?” Alice asked.

  “Friends and associates and, of course, any children he may have come into contact with,” Kate said bluntly. “We are looking for other victims and potentially other people like him.”

  “Now that just doesn’t bear thinking about,” Alice said.

  “I know, which is exactly why we have to do this,” she said, and, with that, she took her leave.

  Back in the office, she showed Rodney. “This is what we came up with.” He stared at the photos in surprise.

  “Wow,” he said, “that’s one nosy neighbor.”

  “Maybe so, but what I want to know is who this guy is,” she said, pointing to one of the pictures.

  “What about the other ones?” he asked, tapping the three at the end.

  “They look more like they were just passing by,” she said. “Looks like they walked down the sidewalk, and he was there, talking to them. Could have been friends, but might only have been strangers stopping to talk for a few moments.”

  “So get on that one,” Rodney said.

  “How though? These photos aren’t even that good,” she murmured, frowning at the photo in her hand.

  “Some of the tech guys are really good with that stuff,” he said. “Show it to them.”

  She turned to head back to her corner. She was not a computer whiz, but she was decent at some of it. She scanned a photo in and sent it to the tech guys.

  When Kaplan contacted her, he asked, “Where did you get that photo from?”

  “From one of the neighbors,” she said. “Why?”

  “I was hoping for the original, like a digital file. And poor quality.”

  “I’m not sure it’s available,” she said and quickly explained. “Any chance of facial recognition on that guy talking to our dead pedophile Ken?”

  “I can do my best,” he said, “but the face is twisted, so it’s not an easy one. So first impression—not a hope.”

  “It’s connected to the pedophile cases that we have ongoing,” she said. “The same for these other two I just sent you. Two little children.”

  “Great,” he said sarcastically. “I always love looking for images of children.”

  “I’ll send copies of them to the Missing Persons Division and to the International Sex Crimes Division too,” she said.

  “Let’s hope you don’t get any hits.”

  “I know.” When she hung up, she realized just how much everybody hated working cases involving children.

  *

  Saturday Noon

  The next day, Saturday, at about noon, just as Kate was trying to get some healthy food into her body for a change, she got a call from Detective Martins in the International Sex Crimes Division.

  “Dennis Fragipano of ICE sent on your images. The female child in the photo,” he said, “she’s shown up in over ten thousand different images.”

  “How long ago?”

  “As far as we can tell, about twelve years ago,” he said. “It’s one of the earliest as far as we can tell.”

  “So it probably started with our dead pedophile Ken?”

  “Or he was one of the earlier ones to get her.”

  “Get her?”

  “Yes,” he ended up saying. “Chances are she was taken early and kept within the ring.”

  Kate sank back in the chair. “See? That’s what I was wondering,” she said. “Are these children being handed around?”

  “In some cases, yes. Sometimes these are big rings, and it’s all about the images, the photos, and the videos. In other cases, small groups pass the children around.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “It’s all sick,” he said. “I have something else I want to send you. I tried to get to you at your office late yesterday and missed you.”

  “What is it?”

  “That mark on the wrist,” he said.

  She straightened. “Did you find somebody with it?”

  “Two photos,” he said. “Images of just the hands, but both showing what appears to be, or what could be, that same mark.”

  “Send them to me.”

  “Already done,” he said cheerfully.

  She got up and walked over to her laptop, just as the images came in. And, sure enough, it was the same mark. She called him back and said, “This one in particular has three lines. Are these both from the same guy?”

  “Same hand, different angles.”

  “Okay, that’s why I can’t see the same lines in the other ones. You have no idea who this man is, right?”

  “Not yet, but it’s one of our priorities,” he said. “We have quite a few images with him in it. But it could take years,” he cautioned.

  “Great,” she said. “Lots of different children?”

  “Different children, but it’s like he is keeping them for a while, maybe a month. It depends on how many photos we have of each one, and we can’t really give a time frame. If we don’t get an outside image, then we don’t know what day, what time of the year, that sort of thing,” he said. “We don’t know if these pedophiles have had them for one week or for six months.”

  Six months rang a bell to her. “We have a deceased little boy who was found,” she said. “He was in pretty rough shape. We’re still waiting on the autopsy, but he’d been missing six months.”

  “And in that case,” he said, “he could have been with one pedophile, or he could have been passed around to a dozen.”

  “God, that doesn’t bear think
ing about,” she cried out.

  “Which is why most of us can’t do this job for too long,” he said. “We see terrible things and can’t imagine anything like that happening to our loved ones, but, the fact of the matter is, it does happen. And it happens more than we would like to think.”

  “Scumbags,” she said.

  “So you do your job,” he said. “Just think that, for every time we find something, we’re getting another piece of the puzzle.”

  “I want the noose,” she said harshly. “I want the noose, and I want to tighten it on this asshole’s neck.”

  “In your case, this perv is already dead and gone, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said, “Ken is, but I’m starting to suspect we have a ring here in Vancouver.”

  “Unfortunately I think you’re right.”

  *

  Saturday, Late Afternoon, through Sunday Dawn

  Simon woke up from his nap late Saturday afternoon and sat up, swinging his legs over the bed. He got up and walked onto the balcony. He never went on a cruise unless he could get a balconied room. Last night had been fun, getting back into the swing of things, as it always had been. Normal routine, he won a few, lost a few, won a little more, and then finally called it quits. He had several drinks with a friend and several other acquaintances here.

  But he’d yet to even figure out who else was here because he hadn’t cared. He’d just been so busy losing himself in his hobby. Tonight would be a whole different deal though. He had a quick shower and headed off to get his first meal of the day, and, with that under his belt, he headed in to prepare for a heavy evening again. Back in his room, he quickly got changed and headed out again. They were on international waters, but he found himself wondering what the detective was up to. He had checked the news, but he found nothing new, and that was good with him.

  As he headed toward the casino a couple hours later, he looked up to find Yale sitting there, with Ben and Jerry, two other guys Simon knew well. He sat down and had a drink with them.

  “Are we keeping up this lifestyle forever?” Ben asked.

  “My wife has given me an ultimatum,” Jerry said. “This is the last weekend, or she is gone.”

  “Ouch,” Yale said, “maybe it’s time you got rid of her.”

  Jerry nodded. “But I love her,” he said, “so this is my last hurrah.”

  “Then we need to make it a good one,” Simon said in a joking manner. With the others in agreement, that started them onto heavy drinking, heavy gambling, and Simon didn’t even worry about winning. By the time it was dawn, Jerry stood ten grand to the good, and he’d had a blast. They walked him to his stateroom.

  As he closed the door behind him, he called out, “You guys are the best.”

  They split up at that point, and Simon headed back to his room. He dropped on his bed. He was only a couple rooms away from where the others were, but he wanted time alone. He’d made a good fourteen, fifteen thousand tonight, and, considering he hadn’t even worked at it, it was just an easy win. He closed his eyes, and almost immediately his phone rang. He groaned, lifted it, and knew that everything else he did would cost him, but it was the detective. He swore. “What the fuck do you want on a Sunday morning? I haven’t slept yet. You know where I am?”

  “I know where you are,” she said calmly. “I want you to come in and see me Monday when you get home.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “I have some guys I want to see if you know,” she said. “I think that one pedophile was working with a local ring.”

  His stomach twisted, churning at the thought. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But, just like you sent me those numbers because it had to do with me, I’m calling you because I think it has to do with you.” And, on that note, she hung up.

  He dropped back onto the bed and groaned. He needed sleep. He had to be rested up for whatever the hell she had planned for him. As he slowly drifted off to sleep, he was once again assailed by the same nightmares that had driven him to the police station the first time.

  Chapter 19

  First Monday in July, Morning

  Kate wasn’t at all surprised when she got a text message this morning on her phone, saying that Simon had docked but wasn’t coming in for several hours, as he needed a shower and a change of clothes.

  One o’clock, she sent back and didn’t get a response. It was Monday, after all, but then she didn’t seem to know the difference. She worked most of the time and didn’t have a partner or a family. By the time one o’clock rolled around, she stepped out of the station to wait for him, just in time to catch him arriving.

  He glared at her. “Why the hell did I have to come in right now?”

  “Because,” she said and led the way back to her desk. She motioned at the chair and then handed him a bunch of photos.

  He stared at the old pictures, some just printed on regular paper. “What are these?”

  “That’s the dead pedophile in the morgue,” she said. “The one with the safe that you helped to open.”

  He shrugged and handed them back. “I don’t know who he is,” he said. She handed him a more recent photo.

  He winced. “Is this a mug shot?”

  “It is. This is one”—she splayed out another one on top—“from a couple months ago.”

  He handed it back and then stopped, snatched it back from her hand again. He frowned. “I’ve seen him down at a restaurant,” he said. “At Stevie’s. A burger joint downtown.”

  “A favorite hangout of his apparently,” she said. “And we were wondering—because we found out he’d been there that evening before his death—if you’d been around at the same time.”

  He looked up at her and said, “That was the night of that local poker game with the cheater.”

  “Right,” she said. “But did you go to Stevie’s?”

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t.”

  “Nobody there has cameras,” she said sadly. “It would be nice if we had video cameras of the patrons, so we saw if he talked to anybody.”

  “Guys like that don’t have to talk to anybody,” he said, his voice still harsh. “They live in their own world.”

  “Look here,” she said, handing him the third photo, with the two men talking.

  Simon turned the photo ever-so-slightly and frowned.

  “Do you know him?”

  “Not sure,” he said. He held it out at arm’s length and then shrugged. “It’s a really shitty photo.”

  “We’re working on that,” she said. “I was just wondering if you knew him. They appear to be quite friendly.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They don’t generally have anything to do with anybody in their own field.”

  “That’s true, … unless they are part of the ring,” she said. “And that’s the theory I’m operating on.”

  “There’s probably what? One hundred and fifty, two hundred released pedophiles in the city? Or maybe a couple thousand.”

  “I know,” she said. “We’ve been keeping an eye on a bunch of them.”

  “No way to really check unless you get into their group chat.”

  “We’re doing that too,” she said. “But, so far, nothing.” Just then, her phone rang. She glanced down and answered it. “You got into his laptop? Ah, now that’s exactly what I want to hear,” she said. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She stood up, looked at Simon, and said, “You can go now.”

  He sat back and glared at her. “What if I don’t want to?”

  “Too damn bad,” she said cheerfully. “Our forensic techs got into Ken’s laptop. Apparently they’ve found some interesting chats.”

  He nodded, stood, and said, “Good. The question is whether they are local or not.”

  “Well, hopefully,” she said, “we just found something that will crack this wide open.”

  “Good,” he said. “Then you don’t have to hassle me anymore.”

  “
Am I hassling you?” she asked curiously.

  He just glared at her.

  She shrugged and said, “Thanks for coming in.” She watched as he turned and walked away. As soon as he was out of sight, she headed for the Forensic Department. As she walked in, she said, “What have you got for me?”

  “All kinds of goodies,” the tech said. “Looks like this case is starting to pop.”

  *

  Simon had to admit that he was a little miffed. He wanted to see what forensics had found. Curiosity was one thing, but this was something else. He knew the cops needed a break in the case, but he did too. He wished he could do something to help. He brought himself up short, shocked and surprised. After a lifetime of trying to stay uninvolved, he was doing a hell of a lot worse on that whole plan than he’d ever had before.

  Was it the detective? Or was it the series of unending nightmares about kids? He didn’t want any more of that. As long as he kept fooling himself, he could keep believing that it was all about the nightmares. But he knew the detective was affecting him in some way, and it didn’t appear to be in a good way.

  As he stepped outside the police station, he walked a few blocks to get his bearings, seeing an outdoor café up ahead. Still unsettled, he walked in, ordered a coffee, and then sat outside on the little patio deck, watching the world go by. It had been a successful gambling weekend, but something was seriously unsettling about coming off the docks and heading straight to the police station.

  He pulled up his phone and downloaded all the messages that he couldn’t receive while out in international waters. He went often enough, but he also took it as a break from so many problems that always seemed to assail him on a daily basis. It was a pain in the ass in most cases, but, right now, as he sat here drinking his coffee, he quickly sorted through his emails. He had no intention of calling anybody back at this point. He would have to, soon enough, but not right now.