“I don’t know, but I think you do! Why don’t you tell me the truth since I can’t seem to get it from Eric! Is he sleeping with her?” I was upset already and my day had barely started.
Coop sighed. “CeeCee, you know I’m in a bad spot, working and being friends with both of you,” he said, quietly looking at the door to make sure no one was listening. “Eric’s been asking the same thing. I told him I don’t know anything. As for him and Jordan, I don’t know for sure if they’re sleeping together. Do I think something is going on? Yes, I do. I just don’t know what. As for you, I didn’t know what to tell Eric when he called. He put me in a very bad position.”
“I stayed at my dad’s, Coop. Eric and I haven’t been getting along, so I went there and crashed a couple of hours,” I lied. And I think he knew it.
As if I were being forever punished, my dad, who has probably seen the inside of my office twice, walked in. He was the lieutenant of the night shift and worked until six in the morning. Seeing my car already, he decided to take this rare opportunity to come up for a visit. How nice.
“Who crashed where?” he bellowed, making me and Coop jump in our seats.
“Hi, Pop. I was just telling Coop I crashed on your couch last night for a couple of hours.”
“You did? Was Carly up?” He was referring to my stepmother.
“Nope. I snuck in, took a power nap, and snuck out,” I continued to lie, making me feel even worse. Coop’s look made me feel even more terrible, if that was possible.
We chatted for a few more minutes before Michael and Kincaid returned. My dad left, and the rest of us started in on business as if nothing had happened. I was glad there was something to take my mind off my disastrous personal life.
Kincaid gave us a quick briefing. All the detectives from the other agencies would be arriving in Cleveland within a couple of hours, and she and Coop were going up there to pick everyone up and take them to the hotel where the FBI was staying. After they got settled in, our first meeting would convene in the late afternoon.
Since it was my understanding that Michael was in charge, I gave him a raised brow, silently asking why Kincaid still seemed to be running the show. He pointed to the hallway and smiled. I understood. While they were out of my office earlier, Michael filled her in on everything and let her do the briefing so she could feel important. If she had things like briefings to occupy her time, she wouldn’t screw up anything else. Smart man, my Michael.
Kincaid said the other two agents would continue interviewing sex offenders all day and that more agents would be here tomorrow. He and I were to be on standby, ready to go in case anything broke. In the meantime, we had to check, for the millionth time, to see if anyone missed anything. I was sick of going over the case files. We had gone over them with a microscope and couldn’t possibly have missed anything. But, yes, we did.
When going over Hanna Parker’s final lab report, I saw another sheet was stuck to the back of it. It had come fresh off the copier and was put into the file that way; the two sheets had not been separated and the static made it seem like one page. One would think we would’ve discovered it the previous hundred times we’d gone through the file, but, considering the file was now three inches thick, with papers jammed together, something like that was bound to happen. Pulling the pages apart revealed writing on the back of the lab report, a continuation of what was found on Hanna’s dress. Traces of fiberglass.
“Michael!”
“What?” He jumped a little, startled by the excitement in my voice.
I handed him the report and explained the error. He looked at it and his face broke out into a smile when he handed the report back.
“Well?” I asked eagerly.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” he said.
“Of course. it means Hanna was on, or around, insulation.”
“Right, which means she was probably in an attic or unfinished room somewhere.” He stood and began pacing. “This obviously doesn’t solve the case, but it’s a hell of a break.”
Three more hours of concentrated work went by before Michael suggested we take a break for breakfast. Hearing the growls coming from my stomach, I leapt at the chance. As we pulled into the parking lot of a small downtown diner, my cell phone rang. Having caller ID, I usually didn’t answer my phone if it didn’t show a number. For whatever reason, this morning I did. Michael was driving. He found a parking spot, pulled in, turned the car off, and waited for me to take the call.
“Hello?”
No one answered.
“Helloooo?” I asked again, but still received no response. It sounded as if there was a bad connection, so I started to hang up.
“Detective Gallagher?” A deep, gruff male voice came out of my phone.
“Yes?” I asked uncertainty. Michael suddenly became very attentive, focusing on the perplexed look on my face.
The man started to chuckle quietly before getting louder again. He began laughing loud enough so I could hold the phone away from my ear so Michael could hear him. For a moment, I froze. This was my personal cell phone, and very few people had the number.
“Who the hell is this?” I barked. The laughing stopped.
“I have a poem for you, Detective. Pay attention: Babies are dead, and CeeCee is blue, another one gone, find the other pink shoe!”
“Oh my God!” I gasped, looking at Michael with sheer, blind terror.
“What? Give me the phone!” He reached out. I gently slapped his hand away.
“Oh, Detective? Are you there?”
“I’m still here. Who is this? Where is Ashley Sanders, and is she OK? Just tell me if she’s OK.” I tried to keep my voice even.
“Now, now, now! You know better than that, Cecelia. Tell me, how was the agent in bed last night, Cecelia? Did you leave that exquisite black blouse on when he fucked you?” He began to laugh once more, then quickly hung up the phone.
I was shaking as I put down my phone. Michael was ready to go through the roof waiting for an explanation of what just happened.
“What, CeeCee. What!”
“Michael, we’re in trouble.” I began to panic and worry about the safety of my family. “That was him, our murderer! He’s been following us. He’s knows about last night. He knows me! He recited a sick, deranged version of the ‘Roses Are Red’ poem.” I got out of the car for some some air. Michael did the same.
“What do you mean last night? What about last night?”
“Michael, he asked if I left my black blouse on while you fucked me. He knew what I was wearing yesterday, and he saw us at the hotel. That’s what! He even called me Cecelia, and he has my personal cell phone number!” By now, I was pacing back and forth like an animal alongside the car.
Michael got on his phone and called the main FBI office, giving them my cell number so they could try to trace the last call by signal, if possible.
“That’s a waste. If he’s smart enough to do all this, he sure as hell wouldn’t call me from anything other than a pay phone.”
“At least we can determine that he’s still in the county, CeeCee, which is very important.”
He was right.
Ignorance must be a prerequisite for law enforcement these days, he thought. Smiling, he watched as Detective Gallagher and Agent Hagerman got into their car. The thought of how she would explain her indiscretion to her coworkers brought forth a mean-spirited burst of happiness as he carefully followed them back to the police department.
This is what God must feel like. CeeCee Gallagher and Michael Hagerman were nothing but characters in a plan of which he had the ultimate control. That thought made him relish his own brilliance. He had outwitted, and would continue to do so, the top minds in law enforcement, just as he had for the last thirty years.The poem was simple enough. It came from a spontaneous thought this morning, and he wrote it down quickly. He was regularly amazed at his own cleverness for spur-of-the-moment games; this one, the poem, stated everything to sheer perfecti
on. Elsa had been so proud of him she had given him a special gift, a gift that made him feel glorious. His assumptions were correct. Gallagher would have the poem figured out within minutes.
Thinking of her again, his smile faded. She was weak, this famous detective. He’d heard it in her voice, seen it as she paced back and forth by the car after he’d spoken with her on the phone. Feeling a little disappointed, he wondered if he’d made the right decision. Everything he’d read and seen until now, even the incident twenty-six years ago, led him to believe she was impossible to break. Now she was letting him down, and that made him angry. If only she knew. She really didn’t want to make him angry.
He kept driving straight as they turned into the parking lot, looking ahead and chastising them for not paying attention to the fact that he was right behind them. Standard police work, you idiot. Always check your mirror to see if you’re being followed.
He smiled again, knowing he could overlook their errors for today, but the low thud from the trunk of his car forced him to refocus. For today was only beginning…
CHAPTER TWELVE
Having lost our appetites, we went back to the department and alerted Kincaid, Coop, and the other agents about the phone call. I desperately wanted to omit the part where the suspect referred to Michael and me at the hotel, but that would be withholding evidence. Of course, when I got to that part, the other agents looked at each other and snickered. Coop glared. Kincaid was oblivious to it.“What did he mean by that stuff at the hotel?” she asked, figuring something must be up but not knowing exactly what.
A large smile appeared on Coop’s face, letting me know he was going to be very amused to see how I would get out of answering the question honestly.
“Just a guess from a lunatic pervert. I dropped Michael off at the hotel last night, and the guy just assumed something, or else he was just trying to push our buttons. I never even got out of the car.” If I wasn’t thirty-four years old, I would’ve stuck my tongue out at Coop and said, ‘Smartass, what do you think about that!’”
“All right, then. Can you remember the poem?” Kincaid, mercifully, moved on. Michael stayed silent.
“I already wrote it down.” I handed her the scrap of paper I grabbed off my desk.
“Okay. Michael, you take it from here,” she said, handing him the note.
He had been leaning against my desk with his arms folded, observing Kincaid’s briefing, worldless as usual. He looked at the poem again before passing it to the other agents.
“You guys pick this apart, see if there’s any underlying message. Mostly, he’s laughing at us because we haven’t found Ashley or, should I say, Ashley’s body yet. I think it’s safe to assume she’s probably dead.” Reluctant nods of agreement followed. “One more thing, CeeCee. He’s picked you out, so I don’t think it’s a good idea that you’re by yourself at all right now. Are your kids still in Cleveland?” I nodded. “Good, keep them there. Let’s get rolling.”
Kincaid and Coop had to leave since they were already running late in picking up the detectives at the airport. I suggested to Michael we make an attempt to eat again and plan our next step. He agreed. We were leaving when I got a call from Captain Norris.
“CeeCee, Ashley Sanders’s mom just got one of those little shoes in the mail, like the Parkers did.”
“Let me take a guess, it was pink and matched the one found on her book bag.”
“Yup. Crime lab is here now. I’ll call you if anything comes up.”
I told Michael, who promptly called the other agents. I guess finding the other pink shoe was no longer an option. What I didn’t understand was why the killer called me with the poem the same morning Mrs. Sanders got the shoe in the mail. Wouldn’t it have been better to make us sweat it out for a couple of days?
We went back to the same diner for the second time in one day, this time even more tired and hungry. And for the second time, when we pulled into the parking lot, my phone rang.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” barked Michael as he looked at the phone. “Is the guy on the fucking roof of the diner watching us or what? How does he do it? No one appears to be following us.” Just to prove his point, he craned his neck all around, looking for suspicious cars and upward to see if anyone was on a roof.
I couldn’t believe it either, and now I was so nervous that I wasn’t sure I would be able to talk to the killer again. My caller ID showed it was Eric. Maybe it would have been easier if it had been the killer. I asked Michael to wait inside the diner, reluctantly telling him why I needed to take the call. To say the least, he did not look pleased as he got out of the car and headed for the diner.
“Hello.” My voice was shaking.
“It’s me. Can you talk?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what there is to talk about. You haven’t wanted to speak to me in days.”
“Do you want to tell me where you were last night?”
Eric was good, I’ll give him that. He threw the question out right in the beginning, throwing me off guard; his intention, I’m sure. I was flooded with guilt and on the verge of tears, but I’d be damned if I’d tell him the truth. And damned I just might be.
A 911 page beeped in my ear, cutting into our call. It meant a major emergency, most likely with the Ashley Sanders case. I assumed that her body was found.
“Eric, I have to go. Now. I just got a 911. Can we talk later?” With no response, he simply hung up.
My stomach knotted, but I couldn’t worry about Eric right now. While I was starting to call the office, I was motioning for Michael, who was sitting by a window in the diner, to quickly come outside. I was on hold and still waiting when Michael came out.
“What’s the matter?” he asked breathlessly.
“I just got a 911 page. I bet they found Ashley’s body, and I’m still on hold.”
It seemed like eons before someone picked up the line. After explaining that I had just been paged, it was a matter of seconds before I was told why. And I didn’t need a mirror to know my face went pale. I hung up the phone and looked at Michael, feeling like I was going to vomit.
“Good Lord, CeeCee! What’s wrong?” Michael was impatient.
“Michael, it’s not about Ashley. There’s another Amber Alert, a five-year-old Amish girl walking home from school.”
“He told us.”
“He told us what?” I hated riddles.
“The poem—‘another one gone.’ We assumed it was Ashley Sanders. The pink shoe was found first, then ‘another one gone.’ He went in reverse. He told us he was going to take another child today, and we missed it!”
After it sunk in what Michael was saying, I still thought that as far as prevention goes, he was wrong.
“Even if we had known and figured out the poem earlier, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He never referred to a place or any timetable. We can’t have officers surrounding every child in the county, for crying out loud!”
“I realize that, CeeCee,” he snapped. “I’m just angry at how this is playing out. The killer still has the fucking upper hand.”
Recriminations and further analysis were useless. We needed to get to the kidnapping scene as quickly as possible, so I got in the car without replying. He drove while I made calls, the first being to Kincaid, who was already aware of the alert. It was about a twenty-minute drive, fifteen if Michael drove faster. Planktown Road, where the child was taken from, was one of the northernmost roads in the county. Admonishing myself for not driving since I knew the area better, I was yelling out directions to Michael.
The officers gave a suspect vehicle description; a newer, red passenger car. No suspect description. The child, five-year-old Emma Yoder, was wearing a light blue floor-length dress with long sleeves, a white bonnet, and black shoes. A helicopter flew over us as we neared the scene.
“The perfect victim,” I mumbled, looking out the window.
“What did you say? Do I turn here?”
“No, turn left at the next r
oad. I said she’s the perfect victim. With all the media attention right now, the suspect needs to be careful. A brilliant stroke to choose an Amish child. No one pays attention to the Amish, they don’t read or watch news, they’re not overly cooperative with law enforcement, and they’re isolated. The perfect victim. He has long thought this out ahead of time.”
“I do believe you’re right, Detective,” Michael muttered, pulling onto Planktown Road.
The sheriff was already on scene and saw us coming down the road. He waved us over.
“How’s the family doing?” I asked the sheriff, nodding in the direction of the farm.
“You know them, CeeCee. When the officers first got here, the father insisted on discussing the matter with the Amish elders first, before talking with us. I guess it was the wife who spoke up, surprisingly, and started prodding her son to tell the officers what he saw.” He took his eyeglasses off and peered through the lens before putting them back on.
“I don’t know what to do.” He sighed. “We’ve got to figure something out. I know it’s the FBI’s party right now, but this is still my county and these children live in it. I feel responsible for them. CeeCee, please.” He lowered his voice as if there were a million people around; there wasn’t one, “I don’t care what you have to do to find this asshole, but do it. And I don’t care how. I’m a parent, too. Do you hear what I’m telling you? I’ll take the fall.”
I heard him loud and clear. The Sheriff of Richland County had just ordered me to forgo all laws, ethics, and morals, if necessary, to catch a child murderer. And when it was all said and done, let the chips fall where they may, he would take responsibility. If the life of one child was saved, it would be worth taking the risk.
Frankly, what the sheriff just asked me to do was nothing compared to what I’ve done in the past. I’m by no means some rogue, dirty, or corrupt cop, but I’ve had my share of sins. The worst were trotted out last year in West Virginia when I almost died. I’d shot an unarmed man in the head on Murder Mountain and would do it again in a heartbeat, no questions asked. Eric, Michael, and Coop watched me do it, but none of them have ever brought it up, not once. And it will remain unspoken.
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