Chasing Evil (Circle of Evil)

by Kylie Brant

  She scanned the space carefully. As anxious as the man had seemed to avoid talking to her, he was probably long gone. There was a picturesque bridge over an equally scenic creek nearby, according to the park map she’d grabbed on the way from the parking lot. Ordinarily the scene would strike her as peaceful and secluded.

  But ‘secluded’ took on an ominous tone if the man were hiding in the area. She continued walking forward, looking around her carefully. Only then did she become aware of the voice, an annoyed edge to it, coming from the cell phone she still held.

  She grinned, finally remembering Jenna on the other end. The knowledge that the female agent would reach her in minutes propelled her forward. If the stranger were still in the vicinity, she wanted to talk to him. Sophia pushed through some undergrowth, belatedly hoping it didn’t contain any poison ivy. The cell was halfway to her ear when the man stepped out from behind a large oak in front of her. Stood motionless.

  She stopped and blinked. A moment stretched by. Two.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said in a calm voice. “I wanted to talk to you.” The man’s loose fitting shorts were around his ankles. He gave a little hop, as if to draw her attention to the area he’d bared for her attention. She kept her gaze squarely on his face. “I think you want to shock me,” Sophia said conversationally, staying put. “What reaction do you like best? When women scream? When they run?” The stranger’s manhood, previously fully erect, began a slow descent. “It gives you a sense of control, doesn’t it, when you surprise women this way?”

  He gathered himself up in one hand, waved his genitalia at her. Again she kept her attention trained firmly on his face. But mentally she urged Jenna to move faster. While it was true that pure exhibitionists were harmless, there was plenty of exhibitionist criminals, as well. Many of the serial offenders she’d interviewed had demonstrated multiple paraphilias, beginning with flashing and window peeking before they had escalated to sadistic sexual assault. If she hadn’t been certain backup was arriving momentarily, she would have sprinted away at the first glimpse of him.

  “I saw you this morning, didn’t I?” Without taking her gaze from him, she cut Jenna’s call off. With a single quick glance at her phone’s screen, she found the camera application while she continued speaking. “I’ll bet you come to the parks a lot, especially when the weather is nice. You like to look at the women, don’t you? And you like them to look at you.” Slowly, with no sudden movements, she brought the phone up to snap a picture. They may need a reason to arrest him, and he hadn’t yet shown a predisposition to answer any questions.

  “I’ve talked to men like you. Treated them.” A look of consternation crossed the man’s face and he bent to yank up his shorts. “You use this behavior to seek control in your life. Others have overlooked you. Not taken you seriously. But being seen like this…now people have to pay attention.” Fully clothed now, the man looked on the verge of flight.

  “You don’t know. You don’t!”

  “I do,” she continued calmly, taking a step forward. Where the heck was Jenna? The stranger seemed more sad than dangerous, but the possible danger wasn’t far from her mind. The serial killer Westley Allen Dodd had started out with flashing. So had Albert Fish. “But there are other ways to seek attention. More socially appropriate ways that won’t get you in trouble. I’m certain you’ve been in trouble before, haven’t you?”

  “Sophia? Are you all right?”

  The stranger bolted at the sound of Jenna’s voice. Like a sprinter off a starting block, Sophia surged after him. She hadn’t stayed this long just to lose the man now. “I’m fine,” she called as she burst through the trees, dodging the overgrown brush and the jumping over the occasional downed branch. “Don’t let him get away!”

  Jenna was a flash to her left, the agent moving far faster than Sophia. The stranger stayed well ahead of them, zigzagging from tree to tree as if seeking cover. It wasn’t until he bent, then whirled around that Sophia realized his real motive.

  “Watch out!”

  But Jenna didn’t need her warning. She ducked as he brandished a dead tree branch in a wild swing and then rushed the man, leading with her shoulder and dropping both of them to the leaf-cushioned ground. The stranger let out a high-pitched yowl and rolled to his side. Sophia rushed to help the agent, but Jenna was firmly in command. She flipped the man over and wrestled cuffs on him. “Be thankful you didn’t actually hit me,” the agent muttered, bending to fit a cuff on his wrist. “I wouldn’t be so gentle then.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” The stranger had regained his voice as he was brought to his feet. Sophia turned when she heard a crashing approach. Saw the uniformed officer Jenna had summoned coming toward them at a jog. “I have a right to be here. That woman was chasing me. I was afraid.”

  Jenna yanked him to his feet. “Hear that, Sophia? You scared him.” A quick search of his pockets elicited a slim worn wallet, cell phone and some loose change. Flipping open the wallet, she peered inside. “Well, Carl Frederick Muller, you’re going to get the chance to tell us all about how this big bad blonde made you fear for your life.”

  Sophia stepped up to the officer when he arrived and showed him the picture she’d taken on her phone. “His name is Carl Muller. He’s likely had numerous complaints for similar acts.” The uniform gave the picture a hard look before transferring his gaze to other man.

  “Well, that’s easy enough to check out.” The uniform started forward. His square face was red with exertion beneath his close-cropped salt and pepper hair. “I’ve got this, Turner. We have enough to take him in.”

  Jenna looked at her, brows raised as the uniformed officer took charge of the man and brought him to his feet, nudging him back toward the park.

  “He was at Centennial Lakes Park earlier today. I saw him by the fountain,” Sophia explained. “When the officers joined us he left before we could question him.” Now that it was over, the whole ordeal left her with a mortifying weakness in the knees. Jenna, on the other hand, looked like she’d dearly love to catch up with the handcuffed man and beat an apology from him. The agent’s expression surprised a laugh from her.

  “Remind me never to get you mad. You look positively fierce.”

  It took a moment for the agent to tear her gaze away from the officer and the handcuffed stranger. “What?”

  It had to be reaction. She forced herself to move after the officer. Sophia was a clinical expert into the most deviant minds known to mankind. But her expertise was with conducting interviews and research. Teaching. While she regularly consulted on high profile crimes, she’d never been tempted to join the ranks of the law enforcement who chased the men bent on enacting the evil acts she studied. As she’d once told Cam, she’d long attributed her preference to a healthy dose of self-preservation.

  The two walked in tandem at a swift pace in an effort to catch up with the officer. “I wish you’d considered my ferocity earlier,” Jenna countered, sending her a sidelong glance that reminded Sophia so much of Cam she almost stopped in her tracks. “Going after him without me was plain stupid.”

  The female agent even sounded like Cam. “Believe me, I have a cowardly streak a mile wide. Had I not known you were right behind me, I wouldn’t have followed him into the trees.” She blinked as they stepped back into the bright morning sunlight. Then added sedately, “Actually, you were a bit slower than I would have liked. You need to work on your speed.”

  When Jenna gaped at her, Sophia allowed herself a small smile. It drew an answering snort. “Let me see that picture.” Sophia brought it up on the phone and passed it to the agent who stopped a moment. Stared at the screen. Then at Sophia. “So that’s what I overheard before you cut me off to snap this?” She waved the phone. “Some wienie wagger’s doing a shake-the-junk dance and you just stood there playing Freud?”

  “Believe it or not, I was doing a risk assessment,” Sophia responded dryly. “Exhibitionists are typically regarded as low-level offender
s if no other paraphilias are present. If the behavior Muller exhibited turns out to be infrequent, perhaps brought on by stress or fantasy enactment, he’s unlikely to be violent.”

  “But he was violent. At least he tried to be,” Jenna reminded her. They continued walking, closing in on the officer who was slowed by his reluctant prisoner. “Only superior reflexes prevented my getting brained by that branch.”

  “But he didn’t display sexual violence and aggression.” Sophia lifted a shoulder at the agent’s sidelong glance. “I’m willing to bet he has a record of similar acts, but I’m guessing it won’t include aggression unless he’s cornered. At any rate, my interest in him is focused solely on what he might have seen if he hangs out in the parks as often as I suspect.”

  They were headed back to the parking lot where they’d left their vehicles. Sophia slowed her step. “Maybe one of us should stay with the others,” she suggested. “I’d feel terrible if I interrupted the search for possible witnesses only to discover this guy is harmless.”

  Jenna eyed her askance. “Harmless? We’ll see soon enough downtown. And the officers will continue the canvass. If this lead is a bust…” The agent shrugged. “We can always rejoin them. The fact that Muller was seen at the park this morning and left before he could be questioned is enough to have me wanting to talk to him now.”

  Sophia hoped she was right. The sense of urgency elicited by the news of Van Wheton’s disappearance was growing stronger. She certainly didn’t have the expertise to determine which line of pursuit would prove fruitful. But she had a growing certainty that the missing woman could ill afford to have them waste any time.

  Interview rooms differed little, regardless of the location, Sophia decided. Although this one seemed a tad cleaner, for the most part it was identical to others she’d seen.

  It wasn’t the cleanliness of the room next door that held her attention on the live feed on the TV before her, however. It was the man slumped in one of its chairs. Carl Frederick Muller had indeed turned out to have an arrest record. Lieutenant Bruce Goldman, a plainclothes detective sat silently across from the man, looking through a file folder spread open before him. His conduction of the interview for the last fifteen minutes had been textbook. He’d started out easy, asking about Muller’s interests, sharing his own, an effort designed to put the man at ease. Then he segued into leading Muller into describing what he’d done for the last two days. Where he’d been. The other man’s narrative was disjointed, riddled with contradictions. The detective made a few notes while the man spoke, but said nothing until the other man’s voice tapered off mid-sentence.

  Then the tenor of the interview abruptly changed. “So you like to look in windows while you whack off, don’t you, Carl?” The other man looked away at the lieutenant’s conversational tone. “Get a kick out of flashing the goods to attractive women in the parks, too. You’ve been pretty busy since the weather warmed up. Got no fewer than three arrests since April, which brings you to a total of…” He looked back down at the file contents to do a rapid tally. “…almost a dozen complaints. Four plea bargains and two convictions. I figure a slow learner like you, it must be a real sickness, huh?” Goldman raised his gaze to the other man, who remained unresponsive. “Is it the shock value, or do you just never get any other opportunity to show women your junk?”

  “They had no right to bring me in,” Muller muttered. “Whatever those women said is a lie. I didn’t do anything. They chased me.”

  “Did you forget the picture one of them snapped, genius?” The lieutenant took a copy of the photo Sophia had taken earlier from the file on the table in front of him. Slid it over to the other man. “Not to mention that the one whose head you threatened to bash in is a DCI agent from Iowa. Why didn’t you want to answer their questions? It wasn’t because you were snapping pictures on your phone again of strange women in the park, was it?”

  If anything the man slunk lower in his chair. “No crime in not wanting to talk to people. Just like it’s not a crime to take pictures. Of the trees and stuff.”

  “Except Judge McNeil’s orders about that were pretty clear. On account of how many of the women in your pictures ended up being the ones whose windows you peeked in later while playing spank the monkey.”

  Muller finally looked up then, his voice going higher. “That’s not what the judge said!”

  “Pretty close,” the detective said imperturbably. “Near enough that he’d figure today was a violation of your probation agreement if you were taking more pictures in the parks. You want to make any bets about what we’re going to find on your phone when the warrant comes through?” The other man’s gaze slid away. “No? Maybe another picture of this woman.” Goldman took a photo from the folder and slid it over to the man.

  Muller glanced at the photo then away. “I don’t know her.”

  “Didn’t stop you from taking a picture of her a couple months ago, did it?” The detective’s tone had hardened and he leaned forward, all signs of his earlier laid-back demeanor absent. “This picture was among dozens of others they found after you got caught at your last peep job. Problem is…” Goldman’s voice rose slightly when Muller started to protest. “…this woman,” he stabbed the photo with his index finger, “disappeared yesterday and no one’s seen her since. So you’ll see why we’re asking a guy like you with such interest in this lady here what you did to her.”

  “He won’t respond to that approach,” Sophia said, half to her self. “Goldman needs to use finesse.”

  “Let’s give him a chance,” Boelin responded behind her, a slight edge in his words. “The lieutenant’s got nearly thirty years of experience. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “So does Dr. Channing,” Cam surprised her by saying. “She worked closely with Quantico’s BSU unit for five years while she was in graduate school. Didn’t join law enforcement, which may account for her stupidity in following this guy into the woods, but she’s an expert in her field. Care to wager a bet on the outcome of this?”

  Sophia turned more fully to look at the two men askance. It wasn’t quite an accident that the move had her stepping squarely on Cam’s toe. The man was the master of the left-handed compliment, but it was his last statement that had her attention.

  The two men were eyeing each other with an all too easy to read expression of male competitiveness. Boelin cast a speculative glance at her. “I’m familiar with Dr. Channing’s reputation. But twenty says Muller spills everything he knows in the next ten minutes.”

  “I’ve got twenty that says otherwise. And that Channing will get him talk after your detective fails.”

  “My money’s on Dr. Channing, too.” Jenna raised her brows when Sophia narrowed a look at her. “What? The rate you were going, you’d have had him telling you all about his childhood bedwetting problem before I got there.”

  Shaking her head slightly, Sophia returned her attention to the TV screen, where the live feed showed the interrogation deteriorating.

  “…don’t know her!” Muller was agitated now, visibly angry.

  “You also said you weren’t in Centennial Lakes Park this morning, but two people have placed you there. If you lied about that, what else are you lying about? Look at it from our perspective. We’ve got a missing woman, and her picture was found in the file of photos taken by you a couple months ago. Plus you’ve got a rap sheet for following some of those women in your pictures home, then going back at night to get a look in their windows while you jack off. So we’re out canvassing all the areas the missing woman used to run and who do we see hanging around? You again.” Goldman paused to let his words sink in. “It just doesn’t look good is what I’m saying. So you’re going to want to tell us everything you know about this lady,” the detective stabbed Van Wheton’s photo with his index finger. “And explain why I should believe that you don’t know her.”

  Muller crossed his arms over his dirty t-shirt in a posture that was as telling as his abrupt silence. And despite long min
utes of continued questioning, he remained stubbornly quiet.

  “Saying nothing is worse than talking to me. Way worse.” Goldman softened his approach, far too late, in Sophia’s estimation. “It makes you look guilty. And maybe you have a really good reason for taking her picture before. If you do, now’s the time to tell it. You don’t want to have to go back in front of the judge if you don’t have to, do you?”

  “I’ll talk to her, not you,” Muller said suddenly.

  “Her?” The lieutenant looked confused. “Last I checked, Judge McNeil was still a guy.”

  “No, her. That lady. The one that talked to me before.”

  “You mean the DCI agent you tried to brain with that branch?” Goldman made a scoffing sound. “You think she’s going to be feeling all sympathetic for you?”

  Carl sucked in his bottom lip. “Not her. The other one. The blonde. She helps people like me. She said so.”

  “Dr. Channing? She’s a psychologist who works with cops. She helps put guys like you away. You want a sympathetic ear, I’m the one to talk to, not her.”

  Clearly having made up his mind, Carl shook his head. “I don’t believe you. She had kind eyes. She said she understands. I want to talk to her.”

  “Double or nothing. Another twenty says Channing gets Carl pouring his heart out.”

  Whirling around in her seat, Sophia frowned at Cam. “Will you stop?”

  He cocked a brow at her. “I gave him ten more minutes. The guy shut down in two. You’d better head next door.” He nodded toward the exit. “See if Muller has anything important to tell us, or if we’re spinning our wheels here.”

  Nonplussed, Sophia looked at Chief Boelin. There was a reason neither Cam nor Jenna had led the interview instead of Goldman. Inter-agency cooperation went so far, but the agents were out of their jurisdiction. And that included the civilian consultant connected with their case.