In the Shadow of the Arch

by Robert J. Randisi

  Robert J. Randisi

  In the Shadow of the Arch

  ***

  Joe Keough, formerly a New York City police detective, has moved to St. Louis to get away from the mayhem of the Big Apple and start over. Transferred from the energized streets of his hometown of Brooklyn, Keough is expecting anything but the twisted trail of abductions and murders that await him. He barely has time to acclimate himself to his new home and job before two cases capture his attention, his imagination, and-in the case of a little boy-his heart.

  Five minutes into Detective Keough's new life, four-year-old Brady Sanders walks into his St. Louis police station, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints. So begins a riveting tale of murder and mystery, from Brady's missing parents and their blood-soaked house, to the kidnapping of beautiful mothers and their small children.

  Are these events a series of unrelated coincidences, or is there a serial killer on the loose, stalking and killing the citizens of St. Louis?

  Keough is forced to realize that life and crime in the Midwest is no different from life and crime New York. Death is death, no matter where you live.

  ***

  DEDICATION

  To Marthayn,

  for being the one who finally gave me a reason to put my work second.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  I would like to acknowledge the following people for their assistance in putting this book together: Major John Connelly of the Richmond Heights Police Department, who set me up with Sergeant Rick Vilcek, who was the source for most of the police procedure described in the book. Also my thanks to Ken Ryan, not only a police investigator but a fine writer himself. He introduced me to Major Connelly-and the wheels went round and round.

  Special thanks to Barbara Lutz, who read the manuscript for St. Louis accuracy, and who made several other fine suggestions as well. Hopefully, she kept me from sounding like a hopeless tourist-even though I have now lived in St. Louis for four years.

  Last, but certainly not least, I would like to acknowledge the editorial efforts of Marthayn Pelegrimas who, in four short years of cohabitation, has made me a better man, and certainly a better writer.

  PROLOGUE

  June 21, 1997

  He picked summer to start, because the young mothers wore shorts and sundresses in the summer. They walked through the malls, thinking nothing of showing acres of firm, young flesh. In fact, he had one spotted right now. She was blond, in her twenties, walking through the mall holding a young child by the hand. The child was a girl, also blond, about six or seven.

  In her brightly colored sundress the young mother was all well-toned arms, shoulders, and legs, and as she passed him he saw that her whole back was naked. Throbbing, he turned and followed her.

  Galleria was St. Louis' largest and classiest mall, but while a lot of people complained about getting lost inside he knew his way perfectly. Rather than following right behind her he circled the large fountain because he knew from the route she was taking that she was going to use the south entrance.

  The woman had to walk at the child's pace, so it was easy to stay ahead of her. He took a look behind twice, each time to make sure she didn't take an escalator. He considered cutting through Lord & Taylor to get far ahead of her, but there was a chance that she'd take that last escalator before heading for the exit, and he didn't want to risk it. Instead he circled the fountain, passed between the St. Louis Bread Company and the Rendezvous Cafe, and got ahead of her.

  As he passed the California Kitchen he knew she was behind him, heading for the south parking lot. He went out through the automatic doors and sat down on one of the metal benches to wait.

  He watched as she came through the doors a minute after he did and once again admired his choice. She had a wonderful body, tight and sleek except for her breasts, which were large. He couldn't wait to pull the string behind her neck that would allow the dress to fall away from her bosom. As she walked past him he could see the sunlight illuminating the blond, downy hairs on her arms, giving her a sort of glow.

  He allowed her a small head start and then followed her into the parking lot. Unlike some of the other malls in the city it was rare to find empty spots in the Galleria parking lot, whether you used the surface lot or the covered. He had decided to use the surface lot because he didn't like being closed in. As marvelous as this woman was, if she had headed for the covered parking he would have let her go and chosen another.

  He trailed behind her as she tugged the little girl along. He was watching the woman's legs, which had solid calves, and he loved her walk. He knew that if it wasn't for the child holding her back she'd be striding proudly, her shoulders back, her chin high, her chest out. He risked a look around and saw that there were no people in their aisle. A man was walking toward the mall one row to their left, but there was no one on the right. Everything was going perfectly.

  Finally, she reached her car, a small red Toyota Tercel, and he closed the gap between them, timing it so that she had her keys in her hand. He would be using her car to drive them away.

  "Just stand still and don't move, honey, until Mommy opens the door," she was saying to the child when he reached them.

  "Hey…" the woman said as he approached.

  She was afraid. He could see it in her eyes which-he also saw-were a beautiful green. Up close he could see that her face wasn't that pretty after all, but from the neck down she was so beautiful that he was throbbing, afraid that he might come in his pants. Her body looked just the way it did in the movies he watched every night.

  "Give me the keys," he said. "But I-"

  "Just give me the keys and the little girl won't be hurt."

  "Oh, God," the woman cried, "don't hurt my baby-"

  "I'm not gonna hurt-"

  "Run, honey, run!" the woman shouted, and the little girl obeyed.

  "Hey, wait-" he shouted, annoyed, but too late to stop her.

  The little girl screamed as she ran, a high-pitched sound that hurt his ears.

  "Damn it!" He wanted to tell the mother that she'd made a mistake, that he had no intention of hurting her damned child-he didn't want the kid, that would be sick- but in that moment he knew that he was the one who had made the mistake.

  "Help!" the woman shouted, but he was running between the cars already, swearing that next time he would choose a mother who was pushing a stroller or carriage, and not one who had a kid who could run!

  1

  July 24, 1997

  The little boy was about three years old, and as he entered the Richmond Heights police station on Big Bend Boulevard at 9:00 a.m., his Dr. Denton's left bloody little footprints behind him.

  The first cop who saw him looked behind the boy, expecting a parent to be following. When he realized there was no adult with him he wondered what the hell a child was doing alone in the station.

  Joe Keough was the second person to see the boy, having entered the station from another door. He stopped and stared, as the first cop had done. The boy saw Keough and headed for him like a small, towheaded guided missile.

  "What the hell-" the cop said. "What's that on the floor?"

  Keough looked behind the child and saw the wet footprints.

  "That's blood," he said. "Officer…?"

  "Horton," the young uniformed cop said.

  "Horton, I'm Detective Keough. Check outside and see if anyone's there. Somebody must have dropped him off."

  "Right."

  Keough dropped into a crouch as the child reached him. The boy's eyes seemed slightly unfocused as he approached. Never having been a father, Keough had no idea if that was normal for a child of this age.

  Several other people had seen the child now and started coming forwa
rd, some cops in uniform, some civilians.

  "Don't go anywhere near the footprints," Keough called out to everyone. Not caring how chauvinistic it might have been, he looked around for a woman. There were no female officers in this station, and no female detectives that he knew of, but there were clerks. Unfortunately, he didn't see one. He was going to have to deal with the child himself.

  "Hi," he said, for want of something better to say.

  "Hi," the boy replied, shortly.

  "Where's your mom and dad?"

  The boy looked around for a few seconds, then looked back at Keough.

  "Got a cookie?"

  Keough remembered that the station vending machine had chocolate chip cookies. He'd noticed that when he first came in for his interview.

  "Sure," he said, "we've got cookies. Why don't you come with me. Okay?"

  "Okay," the boy said, his eyes still wandering, his hands idly clapping together soundlessly.

  He looked at another uniformed cop and said, "Officer, get someone from social services over here, an ambulance, and see if you can get me a female clerk who's got some experience with kids."

  Keough picked the boy up, but held him at arm's length so as not to get blood on himself from the child's feet, which were still dripping.

  "Who are you?" the cop asked.

  "I'm Detective Joe Keough. Is there a captain on duty?"

  "Sure, the watch commander."

  "Get him, too, will you? Tell him I'm in the kitchen with the boy."

  "Right."

  "Oh, and get me some pajamas."

  "Pajamas?" The man frowned.

  "Yeah, we've got to get these footie things off him and send them to the lab."

  Looking helpless, the officer said, "Where am I gonna get pajamas?"

  "Go to a store," Keough said. "Just get me some."

  "What size?"

  "Look at him," Keough said, holding the child toward the cop. "Use your judgment."

  "Okay," the cop said, but he didn't sound very enthusiastic.

  As Keough started for the kitchen, Officer Horton came back in and walked along.

  "Anything?" Keough asked.

  "There's nobody out there, Detective."

  "What about bloody footprints on the sidewalk, or the steps?"

  "None."

  Keough frowned. Someone must have not only dropped the child off, but placed him right in front of the doors. They were taking a big chance that someone would see them. Somebody must have seen something. The quicker they did a canvas of the area the better.

  "Horton, do me a favor?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  Having recently moved from New York to St. Louis, Keough was not used to that kind of deference from a member of the uniformed force. It was going to take some getting used to.

  "See if there's another detective in the building and get him over here for me."

  "Yes, sir."

  Horton went off to complete his task and Keough entered the kitchen, opening the door with his back, still holding the child at arm's length.

  This was a hell of a start for his first day on the job.

  2

  Keough's career with the New York City Police Department had dribbled to an end after a particularly messy case. He could have stayed on if he wanted to, but there was a lot of bad blood and it wouldn't have made much sense. Still, he might have hung on if he hadn't gotten an offer from a friend of his in St. Louis.

  "Heard what happened to you, man," Mark Drucker had said on the phone one night. "Bad break."

  Drucker was a minor politician or something in St. Louis-actually, the assistant to a minor politician-but he swore he could get Keough onto one of the smaller municipal police departments in St. Louis.

  "There's tons of them here, man," Drucker said. "Every ten blocks you're in another city with its own police department, and they need experienced detectives."

  So Keough had come to St. Louis, gone to the Richmond Heights Police Department for an interview with Chief Harold Pellman, and gotten the job-after answering some questions.

  "I know what you went through in New York, Detective," Pellman said at that first meeting.

  He was a tall, slender man in his early fifties who had stood to shake hands, and then reseated himself, inviting Keough to sit.

  Keough didn't reply to the statement.

  "Why would things be different here?" Pellman asked.

  "I don't know that they would be, Chief," Keough answered. "I can only tell you that I would do my job."

  "I don't need trouble here, Detective."

  "I'm not here to bring trouble, sir."

  "What I do need is an experienced detective," Pellman said. "I've finally succeeded in getting money from the city to increase the number of detectives we have on the force."

  "How many do you have?"

  "Three," Pellman said. "With the extra money we're going to hire three more. In fact, I'm going to promote two officers to detective. They're being tested tonight. I'll expect you to show them the ropes."

  "Will I be in command?"

  "No," Pellman said. "In addition to the three detectives there's also a detective sergeant, and he'll be in command. I will, however, need you to guide the others with your expertise."

  "I understand."

  "Even the detectives who have been here awhile could benefit from your knowledge."

  Keough nodded, but he was hoping he could avoid having any of the existing detectives resent him.

  "Once you're here and we see how things go," Pellman said, "then we might talk about a promotion."

  Keough shrugged at that. He just wanted to be a detective and do his job.

  "Okay," Pellman said, "what do you say we try it?"

  Keough had smiled and asked, "When do I start?"

  ***

  They figured it would take two weeks for him to get settled. When he arrived in St. Louis with his belongings, he had taken a small furnished apartment in Soulard and then started looking for something more permanent. During those two weeks he also went to see the Arch, the botanical gardens, the President Casino on the Admiral Riverboat, University City, the Central West End, just some of the things he might not have time for when he started the job.

  Again, through his friend Mark Drucker, he found a place to live. A friend of Drucker's who owned one of the large homes in the Central West End was going to Europe for two years and needed someone to house-sit.

  "Most of the house will be closed up," Drucker said, "but you'd have use of the living room, den, and kitchen downstairs, and one of the bedrooms upstairs."

  There were twelve rooms, but four out of twelve was plenty for Keough and he liked the Central West End. It reminded him of Greenwich Village in New York, with its shops, bookstores, and restaurants and sidewalk cafes. That's how he came to live on Pershing Place, one of the West End's private streets.

  ***

  On his first day as a detective on the Richmond Heights Police Department, Keough stopped at the Tuscany Cafe, the newest coffee emporium-nobody called them shops anymore-in the Central West End. He had coffee and a danish, never suspecting that in less than an hour he'd be in the station kitchen-he had to remember to call them stations and not precincts-with a three-year-old boy who had blood on the feet of his Dr. Denton's pajamas.

  He sat the boy on the table and looked up when the door opened. A uniformed officer entered with one of the female clerks who worked in the city hall. One of the things Keough learned about St. Louis is that the smaller police stations like Richmond Heights shared a building with the city hall, and sometimes even with the fire department. Richmond Heights Fire Department, however, had its own building, right behind city hall. Behind that was the local library.

  "Officer," he said, "would you go to the vending machine and get me some chocolate chip cookies, please?"

  "You want cookies now?"

  Keough stared at him and said, "They're for the boy."

  "Oh, right…"

 
As the door closed behind the officer, the woman approached Keough and the boy. She was in her thirties, dark-haired, slightly overweight in an attractive way.

  "What's your name?" Keough asked her.

  "Joyce Wilson."

  "Joe Keough. Do you have children, Joyce?"

  "Yes. Three."

  "Any boys?"

  "One."

  "Then maybe you can help me."

  "You seem to be doing all right."

  "I'd just like to have a woman present."

  "Sure. Can we clean his feet?"

  "No," Keough said, "not until we have another pair of pajamas. I've sent one of the men for a pair."

  "God knows what he'll come back with."

  "Is there any milk-" he started to ask.

  "Not in the building," she said, then spotted the small refrigerator in the corner. "Unless there's some in here."

  She opened the door, saw a quart container of Pevely milk. She picked it up and shook it, found a glass, and poured the milk out. There was just about a half a glass. She brought it to the table where Keough was sitting on a chair facing the boy, still trying to avoid his bloody feet.

  "Are you thirsty?" she asked the boy.

  He nodded and said, "Cookies."

  "The cookies are coming, pal," Keough said. "How about telling us your name?"

  "Brady." The boy dug at his nose.

  "Brady," Keough said, "what's your last name?"

  The boy didn't answer.

  "Where are your mom and dad?"

  "Gone."

  "Gone where?"

  The boy shrugged.

  "How old are you, Brady?" the woman asked.

  The boy thought a moment then laboriously displayed three fingers of his right hand. At that moment the door opened and the officer stepped in with a bag of cookies.