The Criminal Mind

by Thomas Benigno

  When I asked her more about her life, I discovered that those eyes and that smile were masking the pain of a messy divorce from a habitually unfaithful husband who treated his wife like the sports car he loved: a trophy possession he refused to part with and was his alone to drive. Even more distressing was her teenage son’s voluntary induction into the Army two years earlier to escape the daily barrage of marital acrimony.

  In time though, during my daily breakfasts at the diner, I learned a few things more about Maureen and her situation. When she had gotten married twenty-five years earlier, she gave up a career as a teacher to be a stay-at-home housewife and eventually mother—wholly dependent on hubby for food, clothing, and shelter. It’s what he insisted upon. (Eleanor would have hated this guy!) And Maureen trusted him to provide. In turn, he screwed every woman who would let him and eventually her, too. She walked away from the marriage with a mere nine-thousand-dollar settlement and a thousand per month in alimony. It was just enough to get her a three-room apartment above the hardware store in town. But what mattered most to her was that this was a life that was stress-free, aside from the daily worry that comes with a son who was serving overseas. She even waived all claims to her ex-husband’s pension and any other assets of the marriage. She wanted out that badly.

  A regular at church every Sunday, she prayed for her son on a daily basis and volunteered at the local children’s hospital one afternoon a week. When I met her in 2017, she was 49 and I was 62. I should have been grateful she was even giving me the time of day.

  We began with dinners, mostly—nothing fancy. We’d then take in a movie afterward. She loved going to the movies, and it was a welcome distraction for me as well. Eventually, I felt close enough to encourage her to get back to teaching, but she seemed to have lost her confidence. “It’s elementary school—how hard could it be?” I asked, and she didn’t get offended in the least. She just laughed and said: “If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.”

  Though she poured her heart out to me on many occasions, other than my wife’s passing and living alone in Franklin while my son and daughter lived in New York, I told her very little about myself—at first. My past life as a lawyer, my funding of searches for missing adults and children, and those responsible, along with my net worth, were off the table.

  And classy lady that she was, she never pried.

  As more time passed and we grew closer, Maureen would occasionally sleep over at the house. That we were developing a strong romantic connection was undeniable. I just didn’t feel comfortable building upon it just yet. When it was time for me to go to New York again, I bid Maureen goodbye to a genuine disappointment in her big blue eyes. And though it saddened me to leave her, I just wasn’t ready to take her with me. I wasn’t ready to have her to meet my children.

  When that sadness kept recurring—and not from missing Eleanor, but from leaving Maureen—I felt as if I had somehow betrayed my one great love: When I was with Maureen, I found myself not thinking about Eleanor.

  On the evening before I left for New York for the last time without her, we drove into Nashville and had dinner at The Palm Restaurant—fancy, and yes, expensive. We dined on filet mignon and flourless chocolate cake. We drank. We laughed. I had never seen Maureen happier. Since we each had at least three drinks, and it was a warm May night, we decided to walk it off on Nashville’s Broadway lined with open bars and live entertainment, until we came to the Riverfront Railroad Station that ran along the Cumberland River. Arm in arm we stood there, taking in the night and looking out across the water at the colossal Nissan Stadium, home to the Tennessee Titans. Twenty minutes later, we returned to my car and headed back to Franklin.

  When we got to the curbside door that led up to Maureen’s apartment, I told her that I was sorry I had to go. Though she never asked why I was leaving, she knew both of my kids lived in New York and I guess that was enough for her. After giving me a goodnight kiss before she went upstairs, she did something she had never done before. Though she had every reason to believe that I was coming back, she made me promise to return anyway. “Don’t you leave me here now,” were her parting words, punctuated with a smile that was both sweet and sad at the same time.

  When I boarded my flight at Nashville International Airport, headed for JFK, I thought about the evening we spent together and how much I would miss her company. I was grateful to have met her and wondered if in some far-off alternate universe, Eleanor was pulling the strings on my behalf, which wouldn’t have surprised me in the least. But amid the feelings of gratitude, longing and loss, I recalled an uneasiness that had drifted through me as I walked to my car after Maureen and I said our goodbyes. Experiencing so many new and conflicting emotions that night, I shrugged it off as butterflies—the result of a post-Eleanor conundrum—but it had nothing to do with Eleanor.

  I had a strong sense that someone was watching us and monitoring our every move from Franklin to Nashville, and back.

  After I landed in New York, I went right to the Veterans’ Center, wheeled my suitcase into the front office for safe keeping, and headed straight for the cafeteria. It was lunchtime. I was hungry. As I entered, I spotted Charlie and took a seat across from him.

  Scores of disabled veterans, mostly men, filled the room. As always, Charlie was donning his scraggly beard, his wild hair combed back, and wearing his marine fatigues. He moved his wheelchair closer to the table. “Six times I ran into this teenage girl on the streets of Manhattan. What are the odds of that in a city of millions?” he asked. “I think she wants to be found.”

  Mia’s story, as divulged to Charlie, came from Mia’s own lips, but it wasn’t only Mia who told it. According to Charlie, each time he met up with her after their first encounter on that Eighth Avenue corner, she looked the same––no makeup, straight, shoulder-length hair, wearing a pink ski jacket and jeans. They would engage in small talk, after which he was politely dismissed with a casual: “See ya.”

  But the fifth time was different. Bright pink lipstick covered her lips, rouge was on her cheeks, black liner was around her eyes, and her hair was tightly pulled back behind her head. Her jeans appeared to be brand new. Her jacket was Canada Goose, and she carried herself with a prominent air of youthful sophistication. Charlie had caught up with her as she was exiting a drugstore carrying a small plastic bag with the store’s logo on it. When he called out her name, she did a double take then greeted him with an outstretched hand.

  “Hello Charles,” she said in a tone evoking a maturity that was well beyond her years.

  “It’s Charlie, but you know that already,” he answered.

  “I like Charles better.” She looked him squarely in the eyes.

  “You look different,” he said.

  “Different? How? This is how I always look. Is there something wrong with the way I look?” She spun around to showcase her clothes.

  “I don’t know,” he hesitated. “I’m not sure. I had been wondering about you, that’s all. I still ask myself why you chased after that bus the first time we met.”

  “You must be thinking of someone else,” she said firmly.

  Charlie huffed and leaned back in his chair. “No, it was you, and you said your name was Mia Langley, and that you were adopted.” He nodded his head emphatically.

  The teenager stepped closer and leaned against the drugstore window, her eyes wide with inscrutable innocence. A small plastic shopping bag was hanging from the crook of her finger. “Let me end the mystery for you,” she responded. “Mia said and did those things, not me. My name is Melanie.”

  “What is she? Your twin sister or something?”

  “Or something.” She rolled her eyes and grinned.

  “Okay, if you’re Mia’s sister, then tell her that I’m looking for her. Tell her I want to see her again.”

  “She probably knows that already, Charles. But I’ll try to get her your message. We�
�re not always in the playground at the same time, you know.”

  “Playground? What playground? What in God’s name are you talking about? I don’t think this is a nice game you’re playing, and I wish you would stop it.”

  “This is not a game, Charles. A game is something you do for fun. What Mia, the others, and I have in common—has nothing to do with fun.”

  “The others?” Charlie’s uneasiness had quickly turned to frustration and even anger as the volume of street noise around him seemed to intensify, and the sidewalk appeared to fill with pedestrians walking much faster than they actually were.

  The teenager looked down at him, her faced filled with empathy—not for his physical condition, but for his lack of understanding. “Charles,” she said politely. “There are now only five of us. There’s Judy, Marion, and—well, the names don’t matter right now. But there used to be more—a playground full of six or seven—struggling to keep Mia alive. If you want to know more about us, I suggest you speak to her psychiatrist, Dr. Sylvia Field.” She closed the conversation with resolute finality and walked off.

  Charlie rolled his eyes at me and shrugged as a gesture that he was done. The cafeteria had thinned out. Engrossed in his story, I had let the temperature of my coffee drop to lukewarm. I took a last worthwhile sip and sat back in my chair. “This is crazy stuff,” I said.

  “I know,” he answered.

  “So, wait,” I added, determined to understand. “What you’re saying is that Mia has either a lot of sisters, or some kind of…multiple personality?”

  “That’s right!” he said emphatically.

  “You’re kidding. Really? Charlie, this is hard stuff to swallow.”

  “As you may or may not know, “he added. “Multiple personality disorder is usually the product of a severe trauma that occurred in childhood. The different personalities are probably the only thing that prevented Mia—or whoever she is—from going completely insane, especially when you hear what happened to her.”

  I wasn’t sure if I had instantly turned pale, but I certainly felt like I had. “Are you sure this young girl wasn’t just pulling your leg? There are those who believe that ‘split’ or ‘multiple personality disorder’ is a hoax.”

  “Are you one of them?” he asked.

  “Let’s just say that I’ve read very little about it and haven’t ever given it much thought.”

  “Well, I have. It should be of no surprise to you that I have a lot of time on my hands,” he said firmly. “I also suppose you’re not ready to hear what actually causes it. You should keep an open mind until you do. I ran into Melanie a second time—or should I say, she ran into me. There’s much more to Mia’s story, and it’s not a pretty one. When this girl was just a child, she was driven Upstate to a cabin in the woods.”

  “A child? How old? Kids aren’t the most reliable witnesses, you know.”

  “She was six or seven, old enough to remember. And I believe her, whether it’s Melanie or Mia I’m hearing it from. The drive took hours, she said. Melanie remembers talk about a town called Cartersville. She was taken on these trips by a so-called uncle of Mia’s, who wasn’t really an uncle, but a boyfriend of her mother’s. When they got to this cabin in the woods somewhere, Mia was put in a locked wooden box. Melanie says she is not sure for how long. There were many instances of this. I’ll spare you the gritty details right now of what happened to her, but I know the area she is talking about. Cartersville, in Upstate New York, was practically my hometown growing up.”

  “How do you know that Mia or Melanie, or whoever, isn’t just making up stories? How do we know that this isn’t just a convincing fantasy of one of her alleged personalities?”

  “Like I said, I believe her.” Charlie was adamant. “The part about the cabin and the box came from Mia herself, not an alternate personality. You are just going to have to trust me on this.”

  I was sufficiently scolded, and instantly reminded that I wasn’t as tough in mind as I once was. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready to delve back into a life consumed by horrible crimes again. Maybe I had spent too much time in Franklin, Tennessee, living the idyllic small-town life. Maybe those years without rancor and stress had softened me. Maybe I didn’t want this anymore—another dark adventure to get personally involved in. Either way, I had heard enough, and got up to leave when Charlie grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard.

  “I want to help this girl,” he pleaded. “I believe I keep running into her because she wants me to.”

  “She’s under a doctor’s care, isn’t she?” I answered, as he released his grip. “We can’t change what happened to her, Charlie.”

  As I walked away, I noticed a tear form in the corner of Charlie’s eye that I was convinced had less to do with Mia, and more to do with who she reminded him of—his late sister, Peggy.

  I left the Center and enjoyed the long walk back to my apartment. It was a warm spring day, and I always loved how the buildings in Manhattan glistened in the midday sun only to cast broken shadows across the avenue. It was a day better suited for a long walk or window-shopping, or an afternoon in the park—not one for hearing about horrible atrocities against a young girl. Not that there ever is one.

  I thought about my son, John, the idealistic young lawyer (I was one of those once), and my daughter, Charlotte, the hedge-fund manager as beautiful on the inside as in every other way. I thought about how much I missed them, and how I always wanted them to be proud of me. I thought about how adamant they were that I leave all forays into crime-solving in the past—close the vault—contain the ghosts that might spur me down another dark and dangerous path once again.

  It was 8:00 a.m. and the ground was still wet from the rain. The tractor’s shovel bore deeper than the driver intended, and when it rose into the air, the rectangular box of gray-aged wood was lifted but otherwise undisturbed. It was a clean scoop, and when the excess dirt and rocks were shaken loose, the box remained largely unscathed. If not for a break in the clouds and the early morning sun, it might have gone unnoticed, routinely dumped in a waiting truck to be hauled away and dropped into an even larger pile of dirt, sand, and unearthed gravel.

  Diego was a Mexican American and a citizen of the United States for over fifteen years. The home he shared with his wife and five kids was in a suburb just outside Ithaca, New York. Every morning he woke up at 4:00 a.m. to start his shift at 7:00 a.m., seventy miles away outside the small town of Cartersville. This day, his foreman put him on the tractor. The last thing Diego wanted was to find a box in the dirt that resembled the coffin of a small child. Two years earlier, he had buried his son in one the same size. The boy had died of brain cancer and was three years old.

  At first, Diego thought he had found a hidden crate of rifles. He was tempted to put it back, bury it deeper, and not get involved as a witness against ‘the wrong people.’ Then he thought again. Perhaps these were the remains of someone whose family could not afford a proper burial.

  He leveled the shovel to just a few feet off the ground. Arms wide, he stepped off the tractor, gritted his teeth and gripped the sides of the box. It was lighter than he expected. He gently placed it on the ground. After hesitating for a moment, he tried to lift the cover off. But it was nailed shut. He thought about calling his foreman, who cared only about time and money and keeping on schedule, and then thought again. Although Diego feared the ramifications of what he might find, he was a religious man and would not be able to live with himself if he dumped the box without knowing.

  He climbed back on to the tractor, grabbed a large screwdriver from his tool bag, stepped off and pried open the box only to have his worst fear realized.

  Inside he found the skeleton of a young child, and alongside it a tarnished copy of the children’s book, Christmas Moon.

  When I entered the cafeteria the following day, Charlie raced toward me. After bumping past a few other veterans in wheelchairs,
he screeched to a stop at what had become our usual table. “I wanted to call you,” he said frantically. “The supervisor here wouldn’t give me your number.”

  “I’ll give you my number if you want it, but what is it? What’s going on?”

  His voice was grating and raspier than usual. “They found a box of bones in a construction site in Cartersville. It was the skeleton of a small child, five or six years old.”

  “When was this?”

  “Yesterday, and get this. Less than a hundred feet away, another box was dug up with more bones in it.”

  “Another child?”

  “The authorities aren’t saying. Once the second box was found, the police shut the press out and refused to release any other information. They have the area barricaded. No one can get within a quarter mile of the site. Very strange if you ask me. I have a sneaking suspicion they found more bodies and are keeping it under wraps.”

  “What kind of boxes are they anyway?”

  “Wood crates, like you would ship produce in.”

  “Listen, if you run into that teenage girl, I wouldn’t tell her anything about this. It’s too upsetting.”

  “Fuckin’ A, Captain. Don’t you worry.” Charlie was about to say something else, but caught himself.

  “Okay, Charlie. What is it?”

  “There’s just one problem. She was the one who told me. And now she wants to meet you.”

  “But how does she know about me?” I asked, raising my voice.