by Steven James
I nodded.
Sheriff Dante Wallace shook his head. “I can’t believe our guy carried her to the top of this mountain. How do you know he didn’t do her up here?”
Ralph deferred to me, and I pointed to the girl. “There’s no sign of a struggle,” I said. “The ground isn’t disturbed. And look at her hair. It’s clean and neatly combed. No leaves. No dirt. She was probably killed indoors.” Probably, I thought. But this guy might be toying with us. I’m not sure about anything yet.
I turned to Ralph. “You said some hikers found her?”
“A couple locals, yeah,” he said, “just before I called you. We took them in for questioning. So far they look pretty clean.”
“Do we know her name yet?”
Ralph shook his head. “No ID. But there was a girl from Black Mountain reported missing yesterday named Mindy Travelca. We think it might be her. We’re checking.”
“He wanted her found,” I said.
“Then why did he bring her all the way out here?” Agent Tucker asked.
That’s what I’m here to find out, I thought. But I didn’t say it. I didn’t say anything. I just knelt there and stared at the unblinking eyes of a girl who should have been making out with her boyfriend or studying for her college exams or eating a pizza with her roommate or chatting with her friends online instead of lying dead on top of this mountain.
Someone’s daughter. Someone lost his daughter today.
Just like me, I thought, even though Tessa was alive and well and wasn’t exactly my daughter at all. Someone just like me.
I reached down and gently closed the eyes of the girl who might have been named Mindy just as the first raindrops began to fall, like tears from the eyes of God, splattering on the tarp above me.
4
The Illusionist watched as they carefully wrapped and removed the body, as the rain began, as the storm arrived. Everything was going according to plan. Everything!
It would take them at least half an hour to carry the body down the trail to the ambulance. He wished he could stay to watch the show, he really did, but with the storm rolling in and so much work to do, he would have to be going. He glanced at his watch. Oh, yes, he needed to be on his way. There was so much to do yet tonight.
5
After we left the mountain, I rode with Sheriff Dante Wallace to a hotel about eight miles outside of Asheville. Dark sheets of angry rain slanted against the windshield. I was lost in thought, staring at the water running off the windshield wiper blades when he asked, “So how do you do it?”
I turned and looked at him in the dim light. “Do what?”
“Chase these monsters all the time.”
I considered my words for a moment. “Well, I try to tell myself they’re just as human as I am. It helps some. Makes it more personal.”
Tension hardened the lines around his jaw. His voice took on an edge. “How is someone who rapes little babies or dissects his wife and eats her for supper just as human as I am?”
Actually, it was a good question, although I’d never heard it put quite like that. It’s hard not to think of these killers as monsters or aliens or subhumans; I struggle with it myself sometimes. “I try to think in terms of the similarities not the differences, Sheriff Wallace. Criminals interact with the world just like everyone does. They have patterns, follow routines, try to save time and money. They eat, drink, sleep, work, get into arguments, avoid the things they don’t like, and cover up the things they do wrong so they won’t get caught. Just like all of us. I know it sounds cold and unfeeling to say all that, but it helps me catch them. Understanding how people act helps me understand how killers act, and it helps me track them down.”
He drove in silence for a few moments letting my words sink in. At last he turned off the highway and let out a coarse cough. “Well,” he said tersely, “you’re the expert.”
A few minutes later he slowed to a stop in front of a Comfort Inn. “It ain’t the Hyatt,” he said. “But it should do ya for tonight.”
“Thanks for the ride, Sheriff.”
“You’re welcome…” He paused. I could tell he was trying to think of how to address me-Detective Bowers, Agent Bowers, Dr. Bowers
…
“Pat,” I said. “My friends call me Pat.”
“All right. See you tomorrow, Pat.”
“OK,” I said.
Then, I walked inside and tried not to think about what the killer had done to that girl on the mountain.
I dragged myself into my hotel room and closed the door. I could still see her face, her unblinking eyes. Over the years I’ve tried to forget the faces, but I can’t. So many young, promising faces. It seems like it’s always the most attractive ones who get killed. Beauty brings out the worst in us. You’d think it would be the other way around-that the twisted, the deformed, the misshapen would ignite rage and terror. But they only seem to arouse sympathy. No, it’s beauty that brings out the beast. For whatever reason, elegance and grace always seem to ignite the deepest rage and darkest lusts of the human animal.
I’ve been to hundreds of crime scenes over the last fifteen years. Probably thousands. I stopped counting a few years ago when I reached nine hundred. At first all the remembering bothered me. It always bothers people at first. Every cop and FBI agent I’ve ever met can remember their first crime scene.
There’s something about seeing your first dead body. It’s not like the movies or TV. And it’s not like at a funeral where everything has been cleaned up and sanitized. It’s dirty and sad and messy and you see the chest that doesn’t rise and the lips that don’t move and the eyes that don’t blink. Corpses are discolored, misshapen, bloated, and reek with the smell of death. There is nothing beautiful or glamorous about a corpse.
Everybody remembers seeing their first dead body.
But after a while the images kind of run together. You remember bits and pieces-a patch of blood here. A bullet hole there. A knife lying discarded on the grass. A torn piece of fabric clinging to a patch of mottled skin. And if you really work at it, you can start to make the connections. Oh yeah, that was the nine-year-old girl who was kidnapped from her home and found buried outside her dad’s fishing cabin in Montana… That bullet wound reminds me of the boy down in Arkansas who was showing his friend the shotgun in his dad’s office after school… Those pliers look like the ones that couple in Maine used to torture their victims…
The details blur together, but the faces remain etched in your mind. You don’t forget the faces.
I kicked off my shoes and took a quick shower. Then I flipped on the TV. Images I didn’t care about flickered past me. Plastic people flashing fake smiles at a pretend world. I channel surfed past a few home shopping shows, the day’s sports highlights, a rerun of 24, a series of mindless commercials trying to sell me stuff I didn’t need, and of course, the political smear ads for the upcoming presidential election.
The last channel I came to was a local news station doing a story on the disappearance of Mindy Travelca. They had footage of her dad standing in his front lawn. Based on the position of the sun in the sky, I guessed they’d filmed the interview sometime late in the morning. If it was Mindy we’d found, she was probably already dead at the time of the interview. “We’re just hoping and praying she’ll be OK,” the dad was telling the camera as bravely as he could, but his eyes betrayed him; they glistened with tears. A girl of about eight or nine ran up and jumped into his arms.
That must be Mindy’s little sister.
“We know she’s going to be OK,” the man continued. “Don’t we, sweetie?” The little girl nodded. “We love you, Mindy,” he said. “We’re here for you-”
I shut it off. I couldn’t take it.
They probably would have shown Mindy’s picture in a minute or two and I could have known for sure if she was the one we’d found. But I just couldn’t watch. Maybe I didn’t want to know.
I lay there on my back, listening to the cars rush by on the highw
ay less than a hundred meters away, watching the curtains rustle softly as the heater beneath the window struggled to spit mildly warm air into my room.
Someone lost a daughter today.
I grabbed my cell phone and dialed my parents’ number. I heard it ring, and then a frail, familiar voice answered, “Hello?”
“Mom, it’s Pat. Is Tessa there?”
“Oh, Patrick. Yes. I’ll go and get her. Just a moment, dear.” In the background I could hear her calling Tessa’s name, and then I heard my stepdaughter yell back that she was busy!
I pictured her standing there yelling at my mother. A study in contrasts. Tessa with her shoulder-length, shadow-black hair. My mother with her arctic white curls. Most of the time Tessa liked to wear black long-sleeve T-shirts emblazoned with the skull-shaped logos of bands I’d never heard of. Torn jeans with retro tennis shoes usually rounded out her outfit. My mother always wore a dress. Always.
I waited helplessly as they argued until finally Tessa’s voice came on. “What do you want?” she said.
“Don’t talk to your grandmother like that, Tessa Bernice Ellis.”
“I’ll talk like I want to whoever I want. Besides, she’s not my grandmother. My grandparents are dead, remember?”
Ouch.
“I know and I’m sorry, but Martha is my mother, and I’m asking you to treat her with a little more respect.”
A pause with ice in it. “So what is it you want, Patrick?”
I didn’t really expect her to call me Dad, but I could do without the venom in her voice.
“I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”
“My birthday was yesterday.”
Of course I knew that. Of course I did. And I should have called. There was no excuse. “I know, but I couldn’t call, I was at a conference and then-”
“That is so lame.” She was right, and we both knew it.
“Look, I’m sorry. Really, listen-”
“It doesn’t matter. I gotta go. I’ve got stuff to do. I gotta study. I have two tests tomorrow.” And then, before I could reply, “You’d know that if you were ever here.”
“Listen, Tessa-”
Click.
I stared at the phone. Oh, that went well.
Sighed.
Someone lost a daughter today.
Someone just like me.
6
N3161 Virginia Street
West Asheville, North Carolina
10:01 p.m.
He thought of himself as a magician. A great illusionist. Ever since he’d been a kid he’d liked magic. Now you see it, now you don’t! It all had to do with disguise and trickery and misdirection.
The first magic show he remembered was back in fourth grade when some guy had come to his school to perform tricks for the students.
“Watch as I make a red bandana appear out of nowhere,” the guy had called into his portable PA system. And the children had watched, just as they were told, until the cheap sound system squealed loudly and all the kids screeched along with it.
A moment later he pulled out a green bandana and the kids laughed and pointed.
“Oops,” he said. “Aha. There!” He pulled out a purple one this time. The kids laughed again. Then it was pink. More laughter.
“Now, watch and be amazed,” he said. “As the Magnificent Marty attempts his next trick.” He showed them his empty hands and then walked out into the audience, right up to the Illusionist. He looked down at the boy, smiled, and then reached down and pulled a bandana out from behind his ear. This time it was orange.
The kids laughed as the Magnificent Marty walked back onstage, looking very disappointed. He folded the bandana and stuffed it into his right hand. Then with a flourish he pulled out a blue bandana, and the orange one was gone. The children all gasped and clapped and whispered to each other, “How did he do that? It’s magic!”
Then he pulled a dove out of a balloon, he escaped from a set of handcuffs, and finally, at the end of the show, as he was bowing, he pulled the red bandana out of his nose, and the kids erupted in applause.
And that was when the Illusionist realized that the entire show, from start to finish with all its feigned mistakes and slick banter, had been perfectly planned, carefully rehearsed. The show itself was one big illusion. And the magician had been in control the whole time. He’d crafted each moment to misdirect the children. He was always one step ahead of the audience. One step ahead of the world.
The secret was all in misdirection. While you’re looking over here at this hand, I’m hiding the coin in my back pocket with this one. Watch and be amazed!
The light in the living room flicked off, and the game began. He edged closer to the window and waited. He was a master at waiting for just the right moment. He could wait an hour or a year. And that’s what made him who he was. The Illusionist. Always one step ahead of the world.
Time ticked by, and he waited. More lights in the neighborhood blinked out. The dogs stopped barking. Crickets began chirping from everywhere and nowhere. He stood motionless, entombed in the shadows. Always in the shadows. Just like those crickets. A man at home in the dark.
At last the bedroom light went out. Minutes passed. Then hours. He listened to his own soft breathing until the night stopped moving and sleep spread her wings over the neighborhood. Finally, it was time.
The Illusionist pulled on his ski mask and slipped on the latex gloves. Then he glided his leather gloves over the latex ones. He knew that latex gloves can snag or rip. Fingerprints and DNA from the sweat on your fingertips can be lifted from some types of latex. He knew that too. That’s why he wore both pair.
He stepped across the footpath to the garden and leaned up against the scratchy brick wall of N3161 Virginia Street. It was an anonymous middle-class house in an anonymous middle-class neighborhood in an anonymous middle-class town.
But it wouldn’t be anonymous for long.
He already knew about the alarm system. And he knew how to disarm it. The Illusionist knew where the motion sensors were, where Alice McMichaelson kept the spare key for the neighbors when she left town. He knew it all.
There’d been a break-in at Locust Security Enterprises last week. A flat-screen computer screen had been stolen. Apparently, nothing else had been touched. But he’d gotten what he was looking for. Always misdirection. Look at this hand while I put the coin in my pocket with this one. Look at the broken window and the missing monitor and don’t notice two sheets of paper missing from the copy machine. No one would notice something that small. And besides, the papers containing the security codes and wiring layout for the McMichaelson home had been put back in the locked file cabinet exactly where they belonged.
He glanced at his watch: 4:03 a.m. Perfect. People usually sleep the soundest from 3:00-5:00 a.m. See? He knew that too. He knew everything!
He walked onto the back porch, past the plaid Martha Stewart lawn chairs, past the gas grill, to the patio door and peered inside the sleepy house.
Lots of people forget to lock their porch doors and just lock the front and garage doors, as if a thief is going to walk down the street and just roam up the driveway and try the front door. Porch doors are the most vulnerable. The Illusionist knew that too. But he was prepared either way. He was always prepared.
He reached out a gloved hand and tried the door. It slid open easily, even easier than he had imagined. Part of him was disappointed. It was always better when it was a challenge.
He stepped across the welcome mat and entered the code to disarm the alarm.
There.
Now he had the whole house and the rest of the night to himself.
7
An oval dining room table loomed before him; beyond that, the living room sprawled back into the darkness. He paused and listened to the gentle sounds of a house speaking to him that all was calm. All was still.
The Illusionist moved quickly and quietly through the dining room and then into the kitchen, letting his eyes adjust to the thick
darkness. The vague outlines of the living room furniture slowly materialized to his right. On his left, a large dark opening told him the hallway was there, but he already knew that. After all, he’d memorized the blueprints for the home.
He could hear the sounds of a hamster running on a squeaky wheel in a nearby room. Brenda’s room. She was eight years old and had just started third grade at St. Catherine’s Catholic School out on Sweeten Creek Road. Her teacher’s name was Andrea Brokema, but the students all called her Miss Andi.
The Illusionist entered the hallway and approached Brenda’s bedroom. She would be sleeping with Wally, the stuffed walrus she’d received on her fourth birthday.
He stood in her doorway for a moment and watched her sleep in the pool of pale light that found its way through the window. Wally was lying beside her bed.
Hmm. Must have fallen out of her arms.
The Illusionist eased into her room as silent as a dream, picked up the walrus, and slid it gently into the arms of the sleeping girl. He had to lift her left wrist slightly to do it. She squeezed the stuffed animal and rolled over onto her side. The Illusionist smiled and backed out of her room.
There. That’s better, Brenda. Much better.
A few steps ahead, the night-light in Jacob’s room spilled a green glow into the hallway. How thoughtful of you, thought the Illusionist. Providing me just enough light to see.
A fifth grader, Jacob liked Spider-Man video games, was good at math, and had been the highest scorer in his soccer league last spring. He played for Andy’s Sub Shop. The Illusionist knew everything.
He knew about their mother too.
Because, really, that’s why he was here. Not for the kids. For her.
Nobody would notice a missing prostitute. He knew that much already. He’d found that out years ago, as a matter of fact. But a soccer mom who serves on the PTA would be all over the news. Especially one as good-looking as Alice. Just like he wanted. The news media loves a missing beauty. Especially a white woman. They’d be running her story for weeks.