Find Me

by Carol O'Connell

  “It’s a waste of time,” said Mallory, never taking her eyes from the laptop. “The perp doesn’t travel around with little hand bones. He digs them up along the way.”

  “Well, he’s got one hand that we can match up with a fresh corpse.”

  “Not anymore. He’s got no use for it.” Mallory looked up at the search in progress. “That’s just Berman’s idea of busywork, a show for the reporters.” She turned her eyes back to the glowing screen in her lap. In sidelong vision, she saw the FBI agent stiffen, and then lean far forward.

  There was incredulity in Nahlman’s voice when she finally said, “That’s my laptop.”

  Mallory nodded as she scanned a state map of graves. “I liked the early pattern you developed in Illinois. It was a good start.”

  “That’s my computer.”

  “Well, you left it on the seat of your car.”

  “My locked car.”

  Mallory waved one hand to say that these little distinctions were unimportant. “Geographic profiling won’t predict a kill site—not in this case. When he kills a parent, it’s a crime of opportunity.”

  “You broke into my car, stole my laptop—government property.”

  “I’m the criminal?” Mallory was not good at mock innocence. “You used a little girl to bait a serial killer.” Ah, bombshell. Annihilation was her forte. The agent looked as if she had been kicked in the gut.

  “That was never the plan,” said Nahlman when she found her voice again.

  “Back in Oklahoma, you knew what was going to happen before the boxer decked your boss. I saw you arguing with Dale Berman—but you didn’t stop him.”

  “I’m just one agent, not even the—”

  “You let him draw a target on Dodie Finn.” Mallory leaned close to the woman, the better to cut out her heart. “Fragile, isn’t she? I found the psych evaluations—Dodie’s FBI file. Federal agents interrogated a little girl who belonged in a hospital. They wouldn’t even let her father visit. And why? Because they knew she’d tell them anything—anything—if they would only let her go home. But Dodie had nothing to give them. Dodie is crazy.”

  And now—a little fear.

  Mallory only glanced at the lineup of reporters out by the road. “I promised them an interview for the six-o’clock news,” she lied, and then opened her pocket watch, though she knew the time to the hour and the minute. “It’s almost showtime.” The implied threat of ugly disclosure hung in the air between the two women.

  “Dale Berman personally guaranteed Dodie’s safety,” said Nahlman. “Two agents on her all the time. That’s why I—”

  “He lied. He does that a lot. Berman wanted a serial killer—a kid killer—to believe that Dodie could give up something important. Well, she can’t.” Mallory stared at the screen for a few moments of silence, her best imitation of self-righteous indignation. “Better to sacrifice Dodie than Paul Magritte, right? You’d never risk any damage to your best witness—even though the old man’s got it coming.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Why does your boss run sloppy background checks? I’m not going to do his job for him. And one more thing. I’ve seen the FBI files—all of them. You never got any credit for your work. The forensic techs who do your grave digging—they think old Dale’s got a crystal ball.” Mallory scrolled through the maps and data. “No one but your boss has ever seen this material.”

  “You do a poor imitation of Agent Berman. That’s his style,” said Nahlman, “pitting people against each other. And he does it better.”

  “You think I care about your little relationship problems?” Mallory touched the eject button on the agent’s laptop computer, and a disk came sliding out. She held it beyond Nahlman’s reach, saying, “I only came to steal.”

  So inattentive were his watchers that Dr. Paul Magritte never feared being missed, though he had driven fifty miles from the campsite to find solitude in this church. Rice grains crunched underfoot as he climbed the short flight of stone stairs. The large wooden doors were unlocked, but, upon entering, he sensed that no one, not even the priest, had remained after the ceremony. A large vase of white blooms graced the altar, and some flower girl had strewn the aisle with rose petals. He pictured a small child in this task, taking slow toddler steps toward the great stained-glass window in advance of the bridal procession. He hoped that this union would be fruitful. If the earth could not restore the lost children, it would at least be replenished.

  The psychologist dropped his jacket and his nylon sack on the seat of the first pew. The lightest of burdens were troublesome to an old man with arthritis in every joint, and yet he had come here in search of fresh agony. After climbing three steps to the altar, he lit all the candles and stepped back. Eschewing any comfort of a padded riser, he knelt on the stone floor. This caused great pain to his knees, and he called it atonement.

  Mary Egram had been the first to die. It must always begin with the loss of Mary.

  The ruby glass beads of his rosary played across his fingers. Each time he performed this ritual, it called up an image of the old Egram house back in Illinois. All those years ago, it had seemed always on the verge of pitching into the front yard. He recalled the interior of the home with the same tension, every wall leaning, and he remembered waiting, moment to moment, for the ceiling to come crashing down.

  Next, with hands clasped tightly in prayer, he conjured up the floral patterns of worn upholstery and threadbare scatter rugs. A large television set was the only luxury item, and this would have been chosen by the man of the family, no doubt an avid football fan. In mind’s eye, Mr. Egram was seated on the couch and staring at his blank TV screen, feet tapping the floor, measuring time and willing this visit to pass more quickly.

  Paul Magritte had played this home movie in his head a thousand times so that he would not forget one detail, not one tap of the other man’s foot. Memory also recounted exactly twelve votive candles encircling the photograph of Mary, fair-haired and only five years old. The lost child’s shrine had pride of place atop the television set, and this had surely been the mother’s work. The parents had been abandoned and their loss forgotten by the media. However, Mrs. Egram had been determined that her husband would never forget, not even for the respite of a ballgame on a Sunday afternoon.

  Small plaster saints had abounded in the Egrams’ front room. The religious theme had also played out in the dining area and the hallway. Mary Egram’s mother had apparently bought out the entire stock of a church gift shop. But that was to be expected, for the woman was a lapsed Catholic who had lately returned to the faith in zealot fashion.

  And the father of the missing child? Not a great fan of the Lord.

  Sarah Egram had sought to explain her husband’s aloofness with the information that he was from Methodist stock. The Protestant truck driver had borne a look of grim tolerance for his wife, who constantly fretted her rosary beads and moved her mouth in silence, seeking help in magical incantations. Her eyes had sometimes strayed to the window, perchance to see if her prayers had worked. Or maybe she had been keeping watch over the child in the yard—the surviving child.

  That had been Paul Magritte’s second thought on that long-ago afternoon.

  His eyes snapped open. Perhaps it was the pain in his knees that had called him out of reverie and back to the cold stone floor of this Texas sanctuary. No, he had sensed something—someone. And now the flames of the altar candles flickered and bowed, as if swayed by a body in motion and very close to him. How fragile was he—that a current of air in a drafty old church should have the power to stop his breath—his heart. He feared it still, but never looked behind him, never turned his head. Instead he closed his eyes again, to see the mistakes of his distant past. He escaped into his re-creation of a shabby front room in another time, another place.

  Once more, he pictured Mr. Egram seated on the couch beside his wife, reaching out to her with one large hand and gently covering her fingers and beads to end the incess
ant rattle and movement. The woman’s mouth also ceased to move. Out in the yard, their child was approaching the house, and then the ten-year-old stopped halfway up the flagstone path and stood motionless, possibly taking a cue from the mother.

  That afternoon, Paul Magritte had waited out the uncomfortable silence, looking about the room and noting the lighter wallpaper that had marked the old outlines of other picture frames, their places usurped by portraits of the Madonna and a court of saints. And, as if a houseful of religious paraphernalia were not imposition enough, poor Methodist Mr. Egram now had a stranger settled into his favorite chair, for his wife had insisted that their visitor must take the most comfortable seat in the house, the one facing the television set.

  Their older child had crept up to the front window. Face pressed hard against the glass, the small features were smeared and made monstrous. One eye bulged and one was lost within deep folds of squeezed flesh.

  This little horror show had hardly ruffled Paul Magritte that day. He had seen it as a ploy to gain attention, the normal behavior of a child with emotionally distant parents. Despite a missing sibling, the youngster was well adjusted; a psychological evaluation had been done while Social Services still had custody of this ten-year-old—and while the police had been investigating the parents, suspecting them in the disappearance of their little girl.

  That day, only the mother’s behavior had shocked Dr. Magritte. He had wondered how she could have been averse to his wonderful plan to take her surviving child away from her. Fool that he was in those days, he had assumed that she had been unable to fully grasp it all. “You understand,” he had said to her then, “this won’t put a financial burden on your family. The surgeon, the hospital and staff—they’re donating their services.”

  For the second time, she had said no to him. “It wouldn’t be right.” And then, Sarah Egram had elaborated. “You can’t make everything all normal that way. Nobody will ever see it coming.”

  It.

  This was how she had referred to her disfigured child.

  Memory dissipated like mist, and Paul Magritte’s eyes were jolted wide open. The altar flames did not waver now, but he heard a noise behind him, and what was it? A baby rattle? No, and it was not a rosary, either. The rattle of little bones? Lessons of Sarah Egram: He would not see it coming. The old man had never known such fear, and he could not move; he could not turn around even to save his life. But he could close his eyes—not to pray, but to carry him away from here, back in time to the Egram house, eyes shut tight.

  And now he could see that small misshapen face pressed to the pane of the front window, one eye focused on the mother—center of a child’s universe. But Mrs. Egram had been looking elsewhere, and some interior vision had made her tremble. That day Paul Magritte had believed that the poor woman was imagining the fate of her missing five-year-old. Or perhaps the prospect of separation from the older child had unhinged her and made her nonsensical.

  “We’d be gone no more than four weeks.” That very day, Paul Magritte had planned to personally escort the youngster to Chicago—if the mother would only listen to reason. “This would be the first in a number of operations. Some procedures are best done during the formative years. Later, when the bones are fully matured—”

  “You don’t understand,” the woman had said to him in the slow, mother tones reserved for speaking to young children. “This is not right—not God’s will.”

  The truck driver, roused from lethargy, had nearly smiled. “You say it’ll take four weeks? That’s fine with me.” The man had reached out and snatched the consent forms. Sarah Egram had slumped forward, her eyes downcast, while her husband searched his pockets for something to write with. A pen was found. Defeated, the woman had risen from the couch and left the room.

  Pen to paper, the trucker had asked, “One signature? That’s enough?”

  “It’ll do.” Magritte’s eyes had been focused on Sarah’s retreating back. “Your wife needs help.”

  “I know what she needs.” And these had been the truck driver’s last words to him.

  A metallic sound called Paul Magritte back to the real and solid environs of a Texas church, where he worked his own rosary and incantations, whispering the magic words, not asking forgiveness or relief from pain; he only wanted to stave off his growing fear. He was not alone in this place, and escape was not possible anymore, not by any door in the present or in his past. His skin prickled. He held his breath.

  Which one would it be?

  “Who are you praying for, old man?”

  “For you.” This was a true thing, and he said it with awe. His movements were slow and full of pain as he rose to his feet and turned to face Detective Mallory with a smile of thank God. It was the first time any prayer of his had been answered, and his new name for this young woman was Deliverance. With another sort of smile, a foolish one, he looked down at the rosary in his hands, saying, “Candles, hocus-pocus and magic beads. This must fit your idea of the average witch doctor.”

  “Oh, but you’re more than that, Dr. Magritte.” She sat in the first pew, arms folded against him and daring him to tell a lie. “Did they throw you out of the priesthood? Or was it your idea to leave?”

  Mallory’s leather knapsack sat on the floor at her feet. His own sack of light nylon rested on her lap. The zipper was undone, and that must have been the noise that had frightened him so.

  “You look worried, Magritte. You shouldn’t be. I don’t have a warrant.” Mallory reached inside his sack and pulled out an ancient revolver. “So I can’t seize this. FBI agents are searching all the cars.” She held up the gun. “I don’t think this is what they’re looking for…so that’s not why you’re hiding out in this church.”

  “That was my grandfather’s revolver,” said Paul Magritte. “My inheritance if you like. It’s all he left behind. That’s why I kept it.” Oh, fool, he was making a liar’s worst mistake—overanxious to explain in detail, and now he found that he could not stop himself. “I’m afraid I never took proper care of the gun. Rusty, isn’t it? I very much doubt that it would work. Just as well. It’s not loaded. I wouldn’t even know how to load it.”

  Mallory hefted the weight of the weapon, and then examined it more closely. “A twenty-two.” This was said with mild derision. And now she held up a small blue pouch that was also his property. “And this? Another souvenir? It wasn’t very smart to keep it.” She emptied the contents of the pouch into her palm, then closed her fist on the tiny bones of a child’s hand.

  Struck dumb, he could only stare at her.

  “I’ve got a few possibilities here,” said Mallory. “Did you murder all those little girls?” The detective dangled the little blue pouch. “Or did somebody plant this for the feds to find?”

  She had actually provided him with a possible way out. Or was it the way into another trap? In the stillness of the church, he could hear the little bones rattle as she slipped them back into the blue velvet pouch.

  “Oh, wait,” said Mallory. “I’ve got one more theory. Did this little bag of bones come in the mail with a note? Something like—oh, how does it go?” She produced a slip of paper yellowed with age—another theft from his knapsack, and she read the words, “‘Father, forgive me for I have sinned.’” The detective rose to her feet, holding his gun in her right hand, the blue pouch in her left, and she seemed to be weighing them, one against the other, but her eyes were fixed upon him. He imagined another sort of creature might look at its next meal this way, while the prey still breathed and writhed under one clawed paw.

  “You could help me find him,” she said. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

  He shook his head.

  “The law won’t protect you, Magritte. You’re not a priest anymore.” She waved the yellow paper like a small flag. “And this note wasn’t written inside a confessional.”

  He kept his silence.

  “Thank you,” said Mallory. “So now I know you’ve got a long history w
ith this freak.” She looked down at the old note and its words of confession, then slipped the small piece of paper into the pouch with the bones. “When the feds see this, they’ll take you away. Who’s going look after your parish on wheels?”

  You will.

  He had such great faith in Detective Mallory even as she planned to bring him down.

  “It’s too bad Special Agent Berman never saw you as a suspect,” she said. “He might’ve run a better background check. Now me—I suspect everybody. When you were with the Church, I know you treated other priests. Does that narrow down my list? Am I looking for an ex-priest like you?”

  He finally understood the intensity of her eyes as she stared at his face: she was looking there for tells and tics and other signs of truth or lies.

  “Don’t smile at me, Magritte.”

  He had not meant to do that. “I’m so sorry.” He held up his hands in supplication to tell her that he was helpless, as if she did not already know that—on several levels. And now she seemed to tire of playing with him.

  Oh, no—not quite yet.

  She raised his grandfather’s rusty old gun, aimed at the altar and fired. The air exploded. The vase shattered, water splattered, flower stalks went flying, and—in a special little moment of horror—he fancied that he could hear torn petals softly falling on the stone floor. And then the silence was absolute. All his bones were shaking, legs failing him. He sank to his knees—alone again.

  Mallory was gone.

  Agent Christine Nahlman was waiting beside the open door as Mallory left the church.

  The detective handed her the blue pouch of bones and Magritte’s nylon sack. “Satisfied? Now feed him to Dale Berman. They deserve each other.”

  “Wait,” said Nahlman, but Mallory waited for no one, and now the agent followed her down the church stairs, saying, “You know the old man’s not guilty.”