The Edge of Normal

by Carla Norton

  “You’re skeptical?”

  “One example,” he repeats.

  She briefly closes her eyes. “Okay. In Washington, after the trial, the investigator told me that there’s a universal key that works on all handcuffs.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So I asked him for one, and he gave it to me. As a gift.”

  “Well, he shouldn’t have.”

  “So? Wasn’t that unorthodox?”

  “Okay, point made.”

  “All right. So, can I read Vanderholt’s file?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s ridiculous to even ask.”

  “Why? It might help me with Tilly.”

  He drives on without answering.

  “I’m trustworthy, I’m quiet, I’m anonymous. No one even knows I’m here.”

  At a stoplight, he gives her a sideways glance. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Great.”

  “But I’m not promising anything,” he adds quickly. “Because listen, I don’t know what your arrangement is with Dr. Lerner, but I can guarantee that Jackie Burke would go absolutely ape-shit if she found out we were sharing that kind of information with you. Totally, unequivocally ape-shit.”

  * * *

  The Three Rivers Mall looks like any American sprawl of franchises surrounded by acres of asphalt. There are no rivers nearby that Reeve can see as she circles around, searching for a spot to park. Finally, she angles her father’s Jeep into a slot and makes a dash through the cold to the main entrance.

  She’s on a mission, her jeans and jacket being no match for the glacial temperatures sliding down from the snow-covered mountains. An hour later, her shopping bag is full of warm clothes: three sweaters, a scarf, a pair of corduroys, gloves, and five pairs of socks. She’s wondering what she has forgotten when she spies Victoria’s Secret. Usually, the lingerie-clad mannequins seem ridiculous to the point of surrealism, but today a stream of holiday shoppers carries her through the doors, and she reemerges thirty minutes later with a sack of undergarments that are all black, all practical, yet all more feminine than anything she has ever owned.

  A rare memory of shopping with her mother strikes her. “Merry Christmas to me, eh Mom?” she murmurs, searching for an exit.

  It’s long past lunchtime, and when savory aromas from the food court waft by, she hesitates. Weighing the shopping bags in her hands, and eyeing the long lines of holiday shoppers, she decides it’s crazy to try to juggle her purchases along with a tray of food and a drink. She spots an exit and hustles outside, noticing two smokers huddled by the door.

  She darts out into the cold, stashes her purchases in the Jeep, and hurries back across the parking lot to the entrance, where she again passes the two smokers. She glances at the men, and somehow the stocky one looks familiar.

  The notion tugs at her as she steps inside. She pivots for a better look, peers though the glass, and it clicks: She has seen him on television. This stocky man with closely cropped hair and a bushy moustache works here at Three Rivers Mall.

  Randy Vanderholt’s boss.

  The man stubs out his cigarette and heads inside, and they are suddenly face-to-face.

  She blurts out, “Hi.”

  He frowns at her. “Uh, hello. Did you need to see me?”

  “Uh, no. I’m sorry. You don’t know me, but I saw you on TV.”

  “Oh, that.” He gives a shrug and puts out his hand. “My name’s Quincy.”

  She shakes his hand. “I’m Reeve. A friend of Tilly Cavanaugh.”

  He groans. “God, I’m so sorry.”

  “Right. Well, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I just feel like I should have known, somehow.” He wipes a hand over his stricken face. “I’m usually a pretty good judge of character, believe it or not.”

  She crams her hands into her pockets. “He never said anything that would, uh, I mean, he never struck you as strange?”

  He shakes his head. “Maybe Randy wasn’t very smart, but he seemed gentle, not like any kind of criminal. And I’ve got kids myself, you know? So it’s just hard to imagine.”

  “It is, yes.” She shifts from foot to foot. “During that television interview, you said he seemed pretty normal.”

  “You bet. Randy was always polite. The kind of guy that would hold open doors and help little old ladies. Kids, too, now that I think about it.” With a grimace he adds, “I guess I should have made a point of getting to know him better.”

  “You two didn’t socialize?”

  “Nope, never did talk to him much.”

  “Not even during cigarette breaks?”

  “Oh no, Randy doesn’t smoke. Nasty habit, don’t tell me. I’m trying to quit.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jackie Burke hates dealing with the press. No matter what she says, and no matter how carefully she phrases it, her words always seem to come back to bite her. And she holds a special grudge against Otis Poe, the local reporter who has made his name stirring up trouble. Lately, Poe seems to have made a crusade of making her look bad. Twice, she has given comments to Poe that were explicitly meant to be off the record, yet later appeared in The Jefferson Express. One such comment was even thrown back at her in court.

  In the state of California, it is illegal to record a conversation without the other party’s knowledge, so her office phone emits an intermittent beep to indicate that the conversation is being recorded. Today, when Otis Poe calls, Burke makes sure to hit the “record” button and to start the conversation by pointedly announcing: “This conversation is being recorded, Otis.”

  “Hey, Jackie, how are you doing this lovely morning?”

  She loathes the false bonhomie in his tone. “It’s lunchtime.”

  “Oh, right. So when are you going to let me take you to lunch?”

  “What do you want, Otis?” It’s no mystery why he’s calling, but she’s not going to offer him anything.

  “Right. I know you’re busy, but I’m calling to find out how your office is going to handle the kidnapping cases of Abby Hill and Hannah Creighton, now that the cadaver dogs have found nothing to link Vanderholt to those crimes.”

  She gnashes her teeth. “You know the answer to that.”

  “No evidence, no leads? Come on. You can do better than that, can’t you?”

  “You know better than to ask me to comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  “Nothing else to share? What about DNA evidence?”

  “You also know that DNA takes time to process.”

  Poe grunts. “Yeah, that’s a shame, isn’t it? How long do you think it might take?”

  “I’m busy, Otis, so if there is nothing else—”

  “I just wanted to get your reaction to Clyde Pierson’s statement.”

  Jackie Burke senses that Otis Poe is leading up to something nasty. She scowls into space.

  Just then, Deputy Nick Hudson tips his head around her door frame, sees that she’s on the phone, and raises his hand in a gesture of passing greeting.

  “What are you saying, Otis?” she says, urgently waving a hand at Hudson, signaling him to come into her office.

  The deputy steps inside and Burke jabs a finger at a chair until he takes a seat.

  Poe is saying, “I understand that you’ve already hired a famous forensic psychologist. Who do you think Pierson will be hiring as an expert witness?”

  Her answer comes in a rush: “The PD’s office and Clyde Pierson have the luxury of hiring anyone they wish, and making any sort of claim they wish, regardless of the facts. But I have no statement at this time for either your paper or your blog.”

  Burke listens another moment, then barks, “No comment,” and slams down the phone.

  “What’s going on?” Hudson asks.

  “Even Otis Poe knows that Clyde Pierson is up to something.”

  “But Vanderholt confessed. There’s a mountain of evidence, and we’ve got the victim’s statement. Pierson has a loser of
a case.”

  “Exactly. So why is he making statements to the press about mitigating circumstances?” Burke pops out of her chair and starts pacing. “He’s not one for stupid posturing. But now he’s got a hotshot investigator and apparently he’s hiring a fancy expert witness. He’s got something cooking.”

  Hudson turns his palms up in an empty gesture. “He has the same reports we do.”

  “Nothing exculpatory, by any stretch,” she agrees. “So he has to have something new, but he hasn’t sent me so much as a memo, the crafty old bastard.” Burke stops pacing and faces Hudson. “I thought this case was solid. Hermetically sealed and going to court with a cherry on top. I’ve got a highly sympathetic victim who’s willing to talk, and we’re about to pull the trigger on fourteen criminal counts. I’ll be damned if I’m going to be blindsided in court.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “I want you to go over to the PD’s office and inform Pierson you’re there regarding his new evidence.”

  “What new evidence?” Hudson asks, frowning.

  “Hell if I know. Our investigators are clueless, but with all the noise he’s making, there has to be something.”

  “But wouldn’t he have to turn that over?”

  “Of course. Don’t be dim. If there’s any physical evidence, even a scrap, it’s discoverable.” She stops pacing and crosses her arms across her chest. “Pierson knows damn well that he should have sent any new discovery over to me before strutting around in front of the media. Now the Hills and the Creightons are buzzing like wasps. Not that I blame them. We’ve got zip-all about their missing daughters.”

  Burke starts pacing again, the heels of her boots clacking across the floor. “This is only going to get worse. That damned Otis Poe is going to post a load of crap on his blog, no doubt.”

  “Can’t argue that. But there’s nothing we can do, is there?”

  “Not unless we get lucky. But I’m not going to gamble. Since Pierson has Molland working with him, I’m going to have to sharpen my claws, too.”

  “What? You’re putting Krasny on the case?”

  “Damn right. If he’s getting his best investigator, then I’m getting mine. I’m meeting with Krasny this afternoon. I’ll have him turn this case inside out, send him over to grill that surveillance guy, Eubank, see if there’s something we missed. But in the meantime, I need everything lined up for court tomorrow. So I want you to run over to Pierson’s office and demand a copy of whatever the hell he’s got.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Hudson unfolds from the chair and stands. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” she says, putting her hands on her hips. “For Christ’s sake, act like we already know what it is.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Every time she’s about to tip over into sleep, Reeve jerks awake. Her eyes won’t stay closed, and her mind won’t stop ticking. She can’t stop thinking about Tilly. There’s something unsettling about that girl.

  Is it that their situations are so eerily similar? Reeve had been older than Tilly when she was found, true. More damaged. But there were so many parallels: captors in jail and awaiting trial. Families intact, with one older sibling at home. Safe, suburban houses. Even a few similar scars.

  Giving up on sleep, she opens her laptop, finds pictures of Randy Vanderholt, and studies them. How does a man transform from car thief to kidnapper?

  She groans. Evil is a subject that has already occupied far too much of her time. Years. After her rescue, after the trial, after her mother’s diagnosis, she spent countless hours in hospital waiting rooms, and instead of reading escapist fiction, she read academic journals. Studies on sadists and psychopaths. Theories about reptilian brain stems, about amorality and lack of empathy. Abstracts about defective genetic structures and childhood trauma, about bedwetting and an early tendency to torture animals.

  There was no solace in any of it. Trying to divine some essential truth about evil is toxic, like inhaling fumes.

  Reeve’s mind wanders to the other two missing girls.

  Did Randy Vanderholt kidnap and kill them? Or was it more likely that there are other predators out there with the same MO?

  She climbs out of bed, finds the remote, and turns on the TV, clicking through channels until she catches a local news report. A windblown reporter addresses the camera from outside a low fence, her face glaring white against the gloomy house in the background. “This small home on Redrock Road is where Tilly Cavanuagh was first held captive.”

  Reeve clicks to another channel. A voice-over is saying, “—alongside a national forest, where Tilly Cavanaugh was ultimately rescued. Farther from town, and with a much larger basement, this second home seemed—”

  Reeve clicks away again. Away and back. Away and back. Sampling the local news reports in small doses, while reporters reexamine Tilly Cavanaugh’s rescue and try for fresh angles. One reporter coaxes words of outrage and despair from the mouths of ordinary citizens. It seems cheap, like the producer is filling airtime. Another speculates about the charges the district attorney’s office will bring against Vanderholt at tomorrow’s highly anticipated arraignment.

  Both broadcasts show footage of search dogs straining at their leashes, dragging their handlers through the brush. A newscaster declares disappointment that the specially trained cadaver dogs found, “according to an informed source,” no trace of the two other missing girls, Abby Hill or Hannah Creighton. The screen flashes the smiling photographs of all three kidnapped girls—scrubbed, cute, wholesome girls—while newspeople deftly mix fact with guesswork.

  The bitter truth is that Vanderholt is now the nexus of attention, and over the coming months or years, he’ll be the focus of a lot of experienced legal brainpower. Tonight, all the reporters steadfastly refer to Randy Vanderholt not as a vicious, sick rapist, but always as the “suspect” or “alleged kidnapper.” Or simply as “the man who will appear in court tomorrow morning.”

  An anchorwoman addresses the camera and makes the smiling promise that “one thing is certain about this case: It’s going to be a media circus.”

  Reeve clicks off the TV and falls back on the bed. Damn it! If Nick Hudson won’t let her see Vanderholt’s file, she’ll ask Dr. Lerner for his copy.

  Do the cops even know that Vanderholt doesn’t smoke? And what on earth compels a man to burn a girl with cigarettes?

  With his full lips and doughy features, Vanderholt looks nothing like Daryl Wayne Flint, but she imagines that Tilly’s captor will try to use his twisted psyche as a defense, just as hers did. Images of Flint rise up and swirl around her like dust. His wiry beard and yellow teeth. His stained fingernails. His wild eyebrows and feral stare. She can almost smell the stench of his breath, almost hear his cackle, his dry cough. If anyone deserved to get cancer and die—

  Reeve groans.

  When will she be done with this quagmire? Her trial is finished; Tilly’s is only beginning. And it’s only going to get worse.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Tuesday

  At twelve stories, the Jefferson County Jail is by far the tallest and most expensive structure within a two-hundred-mile radius. It is widely derided as “Moore’s last erection,” since the builder, Lester Moore (a man who battled “Moore is less” jokes his entire life), died the week of its completion, just a few hours after marrying his sixth bride.

  Open for barely five weeks, the new jail sits on the corner of a two-mile stretch of recent development, a controversial sprawl of tax-funded buildings including an extravagant city hall with marble pillars and a huge fountain.

  The front of the jail is as minimalist as the city hall is ornate: a concrete slab and bald ground spotted with a few sickly trees. The barren lot stretches around back, where workers and heavy equipment are preparing the cold ground for the next phase of building.

  Years ago, this entire area was a pleasant park, but now the tennis courts and baseball diamond are gone, replaced by expanses of gouged earth. A huge bulldozer uproots tree
s and shifts tons of rock and dirt, busily preparing for the scheduled pour of innumerable cubic yards of concrete. It’s a noisy project that seems to never end. The new county courthouse is scarcely underway, and has already fallen far behind schedule.

  A short drive away in downtown Jefferson, anticipation runs high at the old courthouse, a functional but cramped and outdated structure, where Randy Vanderholt is due to be arraigned.

  The throngs began lining up to get inside well before eight o’clock. TV vans with satellite dishes have staked out territory. Newscasters freshen makeup and rehearse lines. Seasoned reporters gather facts, making jaded comments, while younger ones grin and gossip over salacious details. Each one hopes to scoop the competition. With kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape, and other charges on the menu, this could be a career-making day.

  No one expects Tilly Cavanaugh to appear, but everyone has heard the rumor that her father will be making a public statement on the courthouse steps at the end of the day.

  The wide double doors swing open. Security guards stationed inside begin efficiently shepherding the agitated crowd through the metal detectors.

  “Doesn’t look like any guns are going to make it into court today,” one citizen observes.

  “And ain’t that just too bad?” jokes another.

  The guards scowl but remain unfazed. Variations of this exchange will surely be repeated. Kidnappers and pedophiles are universally loathed, always have been, and in earlier times these types of spectators would have cheered to see Randy Vanderholt hanged.

  While the crowds jest and grumble at the old courthouse downtown, Randy Vanderholt is prepped for transport from the shiny new jail. He stands and watches as a deputy locks cuffs around his wrists and shackles around his ankles. The heavy chain linking them clinks as Vanderholt shuffles out of the holding cell, a guard on each side.

  In the future, an efficient underground tunnel will lead from the jail to the new courthouse, but today Vanderholt is hustled down a hallway, buzzed through a heavy vault-like door, taken down another hallway, and shoved into a high-security elevator. It whines down to the ground floor, where more deputies are waiting.