Girl, 11

by Amy Suiter Clarke

  When Dave sat up, his face was streaked with tears. “If it’s Graham Wallace, it’s my fault. I hired him three years ago. I knew what he was, and I hired him anyway.” His body shuddered, but Sandy only pulled him tighter against her.

  “What do you mean, ‘what he was’?” Elle asked. “What was he?”

  “He’s a sex offender,” Ayaan answered, turning her tablet to face Elle. “He’s a sex offender that lives two miles away.”

  15

  Elle

  January 15, 2020

  It took Elle a few minutes to convince Ayaan to let her ride along to Graham’s house. She promised to stay in the car while the commander and the two officers she’d called for backup went inside.

  Now, watching police approach the quiet, unassuming townhouse from the car, Elle shivered even though the heat was blasting. On the way here, Ayaan told her that Graham Wallace had been arrested twice for sexual contact with a minor. His first victim was thirteen years old and he was sixteen. He had agreed to a plea deal without facing prison time, but then he’d offended again, having had sex with a fifteen-year-old—willingly, according to her, although legally she was too young to consent—when he was twenty-two. He had been released four years ago after serving his time.

  Since then, he had no record of new offenses, and kidnapping would have been a huge escalation from his previous crimes. Still, he was a solid suspect.

  Graham’s parents apparently let him squat in one of their rental properties, a little townhouse not far from the Jordan family home. Every other home in the community had their sidewalks and driveways neatly shoveled, so it wasn’t hard to spot the one that belonged to a lazy, entitled child of privilege. Drifts four or five feet high swelled in front of the Wallace townhouse, blew over their sidewalk. On the road, in front of Ayaan’s car, there was a small hill of snow and ice where someone had clearly left their car parked overnight during a blizzard and became the victim of a passing snowplow. Even with the car now gone, the snow remained frozen in the approximate shape of a sedan.

  Elle watched Ayaan assemble the officers she’d called for backup, preparing to knock on the front door. Feeling like she might go mad not doing anything, Elle pulled out her phone and called Martín.

  “Bueno,” he answered after four rings. In the background, she could hear people talking and laughing. “Everything all right? I’m just in the middle of something.”

  “Oh, okay.” Her shaky voice gave her away. “I can call back.”

  There was a swishing sound on the line and then the click as a door shut. “It’s okay, Elle, it’s just a lunchtime poker game. I can talk. What’s wrong?”

  Elle stared out the windshield as she spoke. “There was a kidnapping yesterday in Bloomington. The parents asked Ayaan if I could help. It’s . . . it’s a little girl. She’s eleven.”

  Martín knew that Elle understood what the girl was going through, at least mentally.

  There was a pause, and then a slow inhale. This was how Martín calmed her—he knew when he took a deep breath, she had to also. It was a reflex, contagious like a yawn. She sucked air in through her nose, closing her eyes. Her fingertips ran over the semicolon tattoo on her wrist.

  “Better?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Are you having panic attacks?”

  Rather than answer, she said, “They asked for my help. I don’t want to mess it up.”

  “You won’t, love.”

  “It’s already been more than twenty-four hours. If he planned to kill her, she has less than a one percent chance of still being alive.”

  “You are living proof that there is an exception to every statistic. Please, be careful.”

  Elle’s eyebrows knit together. “I will. I don’t know how long this is going to take. I was calling because . . . well, I wanted to hear your voice, but I also wanted to let you know I might not be home for dinner, depending on how things go.”

  “Elle—” He paused, but then he just said, “Okay. I’ll see you when you get home.”

  “Te amo,” she said. “Go kick their asses in poker.”

  He laughed softly. “Will do. Yo también te amo.”

  As she put her phone back in her pocket, a flash of color appeared in the corner of her eye. Elle’s gaze flicked to the townhouse again. The police had disappeared, but a young man in nothing but pajamas was rolling out of a window on the side of the house. Once he landed, he stood and started bounding through the deep snow in a poor attempt at a run. Elle looked at his open front door, but she didn’t see Ayaan or the other officers anywhere. They might not know Graham was fleeing. For a second, she considered how much trouble she’d be in if she chased him, but if this man knew where Amanda was, she couldn’t let him get away. She opened the passenger door slowly, trying not to make a sound as she got out of the car, leaving it open behind her. Graham was looking behind him to see if he was being followed when Elle held up her hands and shouted, “Stop!”

  Graham obeyed, staring at her as his body trembled from head to foot, the skin on his hands and face bright red with cold. “Who the fuck are you?”

  When he saw she wasn’t holding a gun, he started to move again. She had her Ruger in a hip holster, but she wasn’t allowed to pull it on him except in self-defense, and even she could see he posed no threat to her. He could barely walk as he turned and headed toward his neighbor’s lawn.

  “Out here!” Elle shouted, hoping Ayaan would hear her. “He’s running away!” Then she sped after him and tackled him into the snow. He pushed against her, not quite managing to get her off. Her bulky coat was slippery and made it harder to lock her arms around him, but she was grateful for it. It was below zero outside, and she could see that the temperature was making him more lethargic every second. She needed to get him inside.

  A moment later, the two officers were pulling Graham away from her and whisking him to the back of their police-issued SUV, where they had blankets and an old pair of boots to put on his bare feet.

  “What were you thinking? Are you okay?” Ayaan asked once she had Graham secured and Elle back in her car.

  “He was getting away—came out the window. I called for you.” Elle tried to disguise the fact that she was shaking as she held her hands up to the heat vents. “I take it you didn’t find Amanda?”

  Ayaan shook her head. “He locked the door on us and ran inside as soon as we identified ourselves. We had to break the door down, and he must have sneaked out while we were searching the house. But she’s not in there, at least not that we can see.”

  “You think he’s holding her somewhere else?”

  The detective’s round face was grim. “Maybe. But I don’t see why he would. The townhouse isn’t exactly secluded, but he lives there alone. He has an attached garage where he could park and move her in and out of a vehicle without being seen. Why would he bring her somewhere else unless—”

  Elle’s body finally grew still. “Unless he’s already killed her.”

  * * *

  As soon as Ayaan led Graham through the door at the station, a young woman with red hair pulled into a ponytail stood from her seat in the entryway and greeted Graham with a tight smile. Elle wondered which detective had let him make a phone call from the car on the way over here, but she wasn’t surprised. White guys getting better treatment by the police was nothing new.

  “Mr. Wallace. Have you stayed silent?” the woman asked.

  “I encouraged him to reserve his rights,” Ayaan said, meeting her iron-gray eyes. “Come with us, Miss—”

  “Delaney.” The lawyer smirked, probably at the expression on Elle’s face. Delaney, Block & Gomez was a relatively new firm in the city, but they’d already developed a reputation for being cutthroat. And for winning. Her gaze flicked to Elle, but she continued speaking to Ayaan. “I heard you had a civilian consultant working with you. I trust she hasn’t been allowed to handle any evidence in my client’s case?”

  “She attacked me!” Graham said.


  A smile tugged at Ms. Delaney’s lips. “Oh, really?”

  Elle crossed her arms. “That was a lawful citizen’s arrest. I’m allowed to stop anyone who is committing a crime in my presence, and he was fleeing from police.” She might not be a cop, but she had spent years in CPS, and she knew the law. Her work as an independent investigator was no good if everything she touched got thrown out in court; she knew what the rules were, and she chose very carefully which ones were worth breaking.

  “We’ll see about that.” Ms. Delaney took Graham’s arm, relieving Ayaan of her grip.

  Ayaan’s expression stayed neutral. “Right this way, Miss Delaney.” She led them toward an interview room, Elle trailing behind.

  The lawyer paused outside the door. “I’d like a few minutes alone with my client.”

  “Certainly.” Ayaan let them into the room and shut the door behind them, turning to Elle. “You don’t have to stay, you know. But thank you. For all your help. Are you sure you’re not hurt from before?”

  Elle shook her head. “I’m fine. Sore, but nothing a long bath won’t fix.” She nodded at the room. “What are you thinking, with this guy?”

  Ayaan chewed the corner of her lower lip. It was the first time Elle had ever seen her look uncertain. “I’m not sure. He’s a good suspect, but I don’t like that we didn’t find any sign of Amanda in the townhouse. They’re taking samples from his car now, but it’ll be at least a few days before we know anything. If he’s holding her somewhere else—”

  “It’ll be too late.”

  “He’s a sex offender with a known relationship to the family and matches the physical description of the man the student said she saw in the area,” Ayaan said, as if trying to convince herself. “It almost has to be him.”

  The phone in her office rang, and Ayaan rushed past Elle to pick it up. While she spoke in hushed tones, Elle went to sit in the dark, empty office next to the commander’s. She stared at the clock on the wall. It was nearly three in the afternoon. Amanda had been missing for more than thirty hours. The clock ticked loudly in the shadows, marching forward with no regard for how each second that passed made it less and less likely that Amanda would be found alive. A rush of unexpected panic made Elle light-headed, and she closed her eyes.

  Just like that, she was no longer in the police station. She was huddled in a cold, isolated room, alone and terrified. Fear coursed through her body as the sound of the ticking clock was blocked out by a man’s footsteps as he came up the stairs. The door opened on soundless, oiled hinges; it shut with a soft click. He walked toward her. She tried to pull away, but her body would not listen to her mind. The nausea, the pain—it threatened to swallow her whole, blacked the vision in her eyes.

  Her phone vibrating against her right thigh snapped Elle out of the flashback. She quickly dug it out of her pocket. Martín.

  “Hi.” Her voice was breathless.

  “Hey, I just wanted to check on you. Are you all right?”

  Elle stood up and shut the office door. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You sound kind of shaky.”

  “I will be fine, Martín. I can handle this.”

  For a moment, he was quiet. Then he said, “I know you can, but you don’t have to. You can’t help everyone. You were already so focused on the TCK case that you’ve hardly slept in weeks. Then you started chasing down family for a guy who wrote in to your show and ended up killed. And now you’re adding something new? A little girl’s kidnapping?”

  A sharp headache started in Elle’s eye, radiated backward. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and rubbed her temple with her free hand. “I can handle it. I’ve hit a dead end with Leo’s case anyway.”

  “It’s just, last time you got involved in an active kidnapping, it didn’t go so well.”

  Elle was suddenly glad she’d gone into a room where no one could see her. The hollow, trembling aftershocks of her flashback gave way to anger that stiffened the muscles in her jaw. “That was a long time ago, Martín. I have a lot more experience with cases like this now.”

  “Mi vida, I believe in you. I trust you, if this is what you want to do. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to . . . to please everyone. I’m only trying to make sure you’re okay. I have never seen you like this, taking so many risks.”

  “I’m fine. I don’t need you to protect me.” Elle scrubbed her hand across her face. “I’ll see you at home, if I can remember how to get there without your help.”

  “Elle—”

  She ended the call, turned her phone off, and slipped it back into her pocket. Her breath was coming in short bursts, and she stopped to inhale, long and slow, through her nose. So many people thought they knew what she could handle better than she did. Usually, her husband wasn’t one of them, though. The TCK case was always going to be a major one, something that required 110 percent of her time. And there was no way she could have known she’d be asked to help with a kidnapping, but how could she say no? If she could help, she had to be here. Martín was probably trying to call her again, but she resisted the urge to turn her phone back on to check. They’d figure it out when she got home.

  The sound of Ayaan’s voice at the door made her jump. “We’ve got the presumed abduction vehicle on security camera footage,” she said, her eyes sparking with excitement. “Are you okay?”

  “Yep.” Elle forced a smile, jumped up, and followed Ayaan into her office. She dragged a chair around to sit next to the commander on her side of the desk, looking at the windows lined up on her monitor.

  Ayaan pointed at the screen. “We’ve got footage from six security cameras at businesses in the area. It’s from the hour before through the hour after Amanda was taken.”

  “Have you watched it?” Elle asked.

  “Yes, we think we have the van that was used for the kidnapping. At least, it matches the description the bus driver gave us: plain dark blue, with no license plates.”

  Ayaan hit a key on her computer, and the videos started at the same time. White digits counted the passing time down to the millisecond in the bottom right corner of the video. After a few seconds, she paused it again and pointed to where a van was driving. “See here, on video number four, there’s a dark-colored van at 8:35:21 driving in front of the Super America station, going north on Lyndale.”

  Elle squinted at the screen. “Is it Graham? I can’t see his face at all.”

  Ayaan shook her head. “Not sure. The windshield is tinted, and there was a glare our techs couldn’t edit out.”

  Elle clicked back on the progress bar under the video and paused. “He’s not reckless, that’s for sure. If he’s got a kidnapped girl in the car, it shows a lot of discipline to drive the same speed as the other cars around him, to not draw attention even in such a high-stress scenario.”

  “You’re right, but still, it seems pretty dangerous,” Ayaan said, looking at Elle. “I suppose in his mind, it might be worth the risk of being pulled over for driving without plates rather than the bigger risk of getting caught on camera or by a witness who could track down the plate number.”

  Elle stared at the image of the van. “He probably only drove a couple miles in that vehicle, during rush-hour traffic on a weekday morning when he knew he wasn’t likely to be pulled over for such a minor offense. Not if he’s a white man, anyway.”

  Ayaan smiled wryly, nodding. “It shows a level of criminal sophistication, which matches with how seamlessly he pulled off the kidnapping. It’s unlikely to be his first time doing this. Maybe Graham hasn’t been as aboveboard the past four years as his record would suggest.”

  “Do we know whether he has access to a van like that?” Elle asked.

  “No, but odds are it’s stolen anyway. I’ve been looking into his alibi. He’s got another job, besides working for Dave Jordan. Washing windows for some office cleaning company. They said he was working yesterday until two p.m. Backed up the dad’s story.” Ayaan met Elle’s gaze. “I’m
going to have to do some more chasing up for this alibi, but could you see what you can find using your normal investigative methods this afternoon? We can meet up tomorrow and compare notes. I’ll let you know if anything changes in the meantime.”

  “Sure. Yeah, of course. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  She didn’t want to go home, where she’d have to talk about the case with Martín, but she didn’t have much choice. Elle pushed down the rising swell of panic in her gut as she stood and left the office. Right now, a little girl was depending on her. She couldn’t afford to fall apart.

  16

  Justice Delayed podcast

  January 2, 2020

  Transcript: Season 5, Episode 4

  [SOUND BREAK: A clock ticking.]

  Elle voice-over:

  Dr. Sage works at Mitchell University, a local college in Minneapolis that has one of the top forensic psychology degrees in the state. This interview took place in December 2019, prior to the first episode launching, and obviously well before the revelation about the potential identities of the burnt bodies we have uncovered in this episode. I’m sure Dr. Sage would have much to say about this new information, but while we wait for possible DNA matches to be made, I think it’s important we still focus on TCK himself. The more information we have about him—who he is, what made him do what he did—the more chance we have of finding him.

  Elle:

  Doctor, you studied the TCK cases a few years after he went dormant, correct? Sometime in the early 2000s?

  Dr. Sage:

  Yes, that’s correct. I’m one of the psychiatrists who spoke with the FBI about the profile they had put together for him, before they all stopped investigating the case.