by Owen Mullen
The janitor claimed to have seen nothing of Jolene, even the cowgirl costume passed him by. But when a female officer mentioned the too-large blonde wig, something went off in his memory.
‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘I do recall that kid. Barbie-Goes-Way-Out-West I thought at the time. No idea where she went though.’
Five minutes later, a young beat cop on his first homicide case answered that one. Officer Zachery Brown entered the boiler room and saw nothing except a concrete floor with a wire-mesh cage guarding the propane gas cylinders needed to supply the kitchen upstairs. Across the cheerless functional divide, a broom rested on one of two large plastic tanks smelling of oil fumes. The rookie unscrewed the top off the first one and shone his torch inside. The oily-black reservoir reflected the torch light and his face. He resealed the lid and moved to the next one. It was the same, except for the floating piece of strawberry-blonde hair, streaked and matted and black, like a bird caught in an oil slick.
He’d found Jolene Johnson.
When his boss had offered the chance of extra hours at the sawmill, Joe grabbed it. Only half a day, but still.
When he got home, the house was quiet. At first, he didn’t like it; he was used to the constant yammer from his wife and daughter. The silence unnerved him. After he’d showered, made himself a couple of bacon sandwiches and downed three cups of coffee he began to appreciate the peace. He’d be out again at the crack of dawn tomorrow for more of the same. All day, this time.
He didn’t crack a beer or switch on the TV sports. He was happy just to sit in his living-room, letting the silence soothe him. Later, he wouldn’t remember how he’d spent the day. The knock on the door woke him.
‘Mr Johnson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Officer de Mille. Can I come in?’
‘Yeah. Sure. What’s wrong?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve some very bad news, Mr Johnson. Some very bad news. Maybe you’d better sit down.’
Joe didn’t sit down. He stood and listened to how the life he’d known had ended. Through the awful tale, he remained calm. The officers looked at each other.
‘Do you understand what we’re telling you, Mr Johnson?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want us to take you to your wife?’
Joe didn’t answer. Jolene didn’t need him anymore.
‘Mrs Johnson’s with the doctor. It would be better if you were there.’
Joe Johnson wasn’t a cold-hearted man; he just had nothing left to give. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
The officers turned to go. One of them tried again. ‘Is there anything we can do for you, sir? Anything at all?’
‘Yeah. There is.’
He left them in the living-room. When he came back, he was wearing an overcoat and carrying a suitcase.
‘Can you drop me at the bus station, please?’
27
‘Tell me what happened again,’ Danny said.
So I did, starting with the guy’s strange behaviour at the pageant, his flight when he realised I’d spotted him, the pursuit along the corridors, and the sound of the accident. When I had finished, he opened his hand. In it was a wallet.
‘He isn’t our man.’
‘You sure?’
‘A uniform found this near the scene. Four credit cards and a driving licence, all in the same name.’
I began to feel uneasy.
‘Who is he?’
‘Tom Donald.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘Tom Donald. Timmy Donald’s father.’
‘Timmy Donald. Baton Rouge?’
‘The same. If we accept that Lucy Gilmour was the first victim, Timmy was the killer’s fifth.’
‘What was he doing there? Why did he run?’
‘Good questions, Delaney. Wish I had the answers.’
Danny called to update Delaup. The Captain was at the crime scene, and the conversation was short. I called Catherine to make sure they were all okay and to cancel my visit the next day. She’d have none of it. She wanted an explanation, preferably a good one. Unfortunately, I was fresh out.
We got to our feet when the surgeon approached, a mask still hanging round his neck. He introduced himself and explained. Tom Donald was in bad shape; a broken arm, broken legs, fractured ribs, and, more serious, a ruptured spleen.
Fitzpatrick asked, ‘Will he live?’
‘Impossible to say at this point. We haven’t established brain injury. Until he regains consciousness, we can’t be certain.’
‘But he has a chance?’ The desperation in my voice was clear, even to me.
‘Of course he has a chance. Though it may depend on how much he wants to live.’
He shrugged. ‘I mean, does he have a good reason to put up the kind of fight he’ll need to make?’
Another good question. I wouldn’t bet the farm. My colleague felt the same. A uniform would stay with the injured man and call when he regained consciousness.
Fitzpatrick pulled up outside my house. ‘I’ll call you if anything changes.’
‘Right.’
Fitzy wasn’t blaming me – experienced cops know better. Still.
He put his arm round me. ‘Listen, Delaney. I know how you react. You shut down. Go into yourself. My advice is to cut yourself a break. Shit happens.’
Easier said.
Inside, Lowell leapt on me, licking my hands and face. When I took his lead off the hook on the wall, he raced a couple of laps round the room, excited to be re-joining the world outside. I wasn’t the only one who’d had a long day.
The night air was cool and fresh. A million stars shone down on New Orleans, helping me gather my thoughts. But they weren’t good thoughts. So far, the killer had called the plays; the latest victim had been abducted and murdered right under my nose, taking the body count to eight. I talked it through with Lowell. ‘How’s he doing it? What’s his disguise? They know him, don’t they, boy?’
Lowell stopped at a tree and tilted his head towards me. We were onto something, and he knew it. I threw questions at him that lacked answers. ‘How can you breathe the same air as a maniac and not recognise the madness in him? How can that be? How does he blind them to what he really is? Kids, maybe, but what about the adults; the parents? Isn’t there a vibe? A suspicion? Some sense of unease about the guy standing next to them?’
Except, there hadn’t been with me.
Above our heads, an owl flew noisily out of a branch and disappeared into the black sky. Usually, Lowell would chase after it. Not tonight. He stuck with me. In my head, an idea was forming. Just like with the Word Jumble, Lowell let me get there by myself. ‘It’s about trust, isn’t it, boy? They trust him.’
His tail beat the grass, and he nuzzled against me.
‘Yeah. It’s all about trust.’
Danny called to cue me for a seven-a.m. meeting next day. ‘Think yourself lucky you’re out. It’s a fucking circus here. Every clown up the chain screaming for results and pushing each other out of the way to get their face on TV. Nothing on Tom Donald. Still critical.’
‘Hope we get a chance to speak to him soon.’
‘Mmmm. See you tomorrow,’ he said and hung up.
I got a big welcome at Catherine’s from Molly, a story about a bad man and exaggerated descriptions of his evil works. Her eyes grew large. ‘And there was a helicopter. And there was a camera. Mommy says I might be on the television.’
She warned me of the dangers that lurked in the world. I promised to be careful, especially at night. Her parents’ reception was less fulsome. It couldn’t be avoided forever. I hung out with the junior member of the family as long as I could. Once Molly was off the carpet, Ray got up and poured everyone a drink, guessing we’d need one. Good guess.
Now the game was over: time to ‘fess up, and after a hesitant beginning, I managed to get it out.
‘I got a call from Danny Fitzpatrick telling me my old boss wanted to speak to me. Anyway, when I met Fitzy and Dela
up they filled me in on a serial killer working his way back and forth across the South. Because of the nature of the crimes and the geography, it was a federal case.’
They listened, every reaction held in check.
‘Long story short, they persuaded me the investigation would benefit from my involvement, though I no longer carry a badge. I agreed, and I’ve been working on it since.’
I was happy to leave it at that. No dice. Ray was a bright guy: too bright. He nailed it in one. ‘Why did they want you?’
I couldn’t lie to them anymore. But I tried, hoping to keep the full extent of my involvement from them: a doomed strategy. ‘The nature of the crimes led them to think I might have something to offer the investigation.’
‘How? What made them think that? What was the nature of the crimes?’
He already knew the answers.
‘The killer. His victims are all children.’
The skin round his eyes creased. ‘And you could help because of your experience with that kind of criminal?’
My sister couldn’t look at me.
‘No, Ray. I’m someone who can go where the killer goes, without attracting attention.’
They were at the end waiting for me. They knew.
I stopped running. Let the chips fall where they may. ‘This killer had murdered five children when they asked me in. Five children over five states. Now, the total is eight kids in seven states. The serial aspect of the attacks was played down because we wanted to catch this guy. If we’d broadcast we were onto him, he’d have disappeared like smoke. Not forever, just until the trails were cold.’
I took a pull on the drink Ray had poured before we started down this road. If ever I needed to find an extra gear, it was now.
‘Why they asked me was simple. You’d told Fitzpatrick about Molly. About the pageants and how I was against the whole idea.’
The contempt in Catherine’s voice shook me. ‘You were prepared to put Molly’s life in danger? Our daughter, your own flesh and blood?’
When I heard it put like that, I wanted to be sick.
But that wasn’t how it had been.
In or out, Mr Delaney?
Did I care enough to put aside my own feelings? Yeah, as it turned out I did, because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t add that in spite of everything my reply to McLaren wouldn’t alter.
In.
‘The option was to do something or do nothing. Cee, I love Molly. But other people have their Molly. Just as important. Just as loved. My choice was to try to stop them losing their child. As for the pageant thing, you didn’t realise it was a serial, but you knew about the kid in Baton Rouge. And once you were going, I was going too. And you were right. I can’t ever not be a cop.’
My passionate defence changed the atmosphere.
Catherine said, ‘What happened yesterday? Were you chasing somebody?’
After all the shit about a cop’s instinct and being in a unique position, able to go where the killer goes without attracting attention, it would’ve been good to report how it all had paid off.
‘Yesterday was a new low for me. I picked up on a guy acting strange. When I tried to talk to him, he took off. I raced to the other side of the building and caught up to him seconds after he’d run into a moving vehicle. Now, he’s close to death.’
‘But you’ve stopped him. It’s over.’
‘No, it isn’t. There’s little to no chance he’s our guy.’
‘How? How can you know that for sure?’
‘Because the man I chased is Tom Donald. His son Timmy was one of the killer’s victims.’
‘So, what was he doing there? Why did he run from you?’
I held my arms up and out in a gesture of defeat.
Catherine spoke again, to herself this time. ‘And while that was happening, the murderer took that poor girl. She’d just won, too. Her mother looked pleased as punch. It was a big thing for both of them. It was horrible. Really horrible. There were cops everywhere, then, when they finally let us go, there was the media shoving microphones at us, shouting questions we wouldn’t have answered, even if we could.’
Ray said, ‘How do you get over something like that? What is there to make you want to get out of bed ever again? That’s the end of contests for us. We’re done.’
It wasn’t the end of anything for me. The madman was still out there. That was where I needed to be, with or without my family.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t straight with you two.’
They didn’t tell me it was all right, but they didn’t throw me out.
That was something.
28
The team assembled for the Monday morning meeting long before seven a.m. The latest attack only made me more determined to bring this guy down. Everyone felt the same.
At one minute to seven, Captain Delaup banged on the table, and conversation ceased. Never a comedian, today, his face was stone. The feds shared his expression. I could only imagine the pressure these guys were under to get a result.
‘All right. First, the bad news. On Saturday, Jolene Johnson became the eighth victim right here in Louisiana. Her body was found hidden in an oil reservoir in the boiler room of the venue where she was performing. Jolene was drowned.’
He gave us a minute to imagine the horror of drowning in oil.
‘Before anybody asks, no clues and no witnesses. In fact, the usual with this guy, even though the circumstances increased the chance he could get caught. Nothing.’
He cast a baleful look over the assembly.
‘She was six years old. We thought we had him; we were wrong. More on that later.’
Agent McLaren took over. ‘Eight victims now. Unless our killer makes a mistake, we’re going to be hard-pressed to stop him.’
As law enforcers, that was unacceptable.
‘Agent Rutherford will pass out the autopsy findings. Bottom line: we missed him again.’ He glanced in my direction. Danny’s jaw tightened.
‘Mr Delaney chased a man acting suspiciously. The guy’s behaviour supported the assumption he could be our man. When he was spotted, he ran – into a passing van. He’s in the hospital, unconscious and critical. It hasn’t been possible to interview him. Turns out, he’s Tom Donald, father of Timmy Donald, victim number five, murdered in Baton Rouge. We guess he was doing the same as us: looking for his son’s killer. So why run? As soon as he wakes up, we’ll ask him – if he ever does.’
What he said next didn’t make me feel good about how Saturday had ended.
‘Mr Delaney was undercover at the pageant looking for the kind of behaviour shown by Tom Donald. It may be the killer seized his opportunity to attack Jolene, knowing our man was going in the other direction. We think Delaney’s presence forced him to hurry and change his modus. That would account for drowning. Nothing like as intimate as strangulation. No time to savour the breath leaving the body.’
McLaren stopped to sip some water, then said, ‘He’s laughing at us, people. And with reason. For all our work, what we’ve achieved is easy to quantify. Marginally more than fuck-all!’
The veins in his neck threatened to burst through his skin; cords of frustration, ugly against the pristine whiteness of his shirt.
‘He’s laughing because he knows we’ve no idea who he is. If he decided to stop, even for a while, we’d be left with zip. Nothing but eight dead kids.’
He turned to Diskins. ‘Anything to add, Charlie?’
Diskins shook his head. Coming second to this psycho was dragging everybody down.
Delaup came in. ‘There has to be something we’re missing. Has to be. Everyone. Go over it again. Get to it as soon as you leave here. There’s all kinds of heat on this. One dead child was bad enough. Two is unacceptable. All overtime is cleared and, I might add, expected.’
The troops didn’t argue; this was the reality of police work: drudgery, disappointment and still more drudgery.
Charlie Diskins found his voice. ‘Captain Delaup’s ri
ght. There’s no such thing as the perfect crime. The evidence is out there. We’re looking at it.’
Diskins was trying to boost morale; it was going to take a lot more than that. Agent Rutherford contributed nothing, looking more unwell than the last time I’d seen him. When the meeting broke up, I stayed behind with Danny and the boss.
Fitzpatrick said, ‘Don’t blame yourself, Delaney. On another day, you might’ve been right.’
‘But I wasn’t. And things have changed. Ray and Catherine know I was using them as cover.’
‘How did they take it?’
‘Weren’t thrilled. That isn’t the point. The killer must’ve seen some of what went down, which means my cover’s blown.’
‘Do you want out?’
‘No. When I said I was in, I meant for the full term. I want to get more involved in the investigation. With my uncle-disguise in the wind, I can operate out in the open.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I’ll start by going to the three crime scenes in this state. Talk to some people there. Maybe shake a memory loose. We all agree there’s no perfect crime.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yeah, as a matter of fact. The motive we know from Charlie Diskins. But do we? Back at the start, he reminded us these crimes were about power. Okay. So how does he choose his victims? The place’s full of potential marks. Why settle on the ones he takes? What attracts him to them?’
‘Do whatever you have to. You’ll keep going to the competitions?’
‘Yeah, though the odds against ever being at the same one as the killer again are long.’
Danny said, ‘Could be you’re just the incentive he needs. Got more crimes here than any other state. First time he’s doubled back. What if he’s decided to put himself up against you? What if it just got personal?’
‘Fucked up or what? I still have to decide where I’m going next weekend. The Jolene Johnson murder’s all over the news. Maybe Saturday was the psycho’s last hurrah. Hell, maybe there won’t be any more pageants. Hearing a lotta noise about shutting them down.’