Find Me

by Carol O’Connell

  Sometimes they came back. Sometimes they died.

  “Ta k e that exit,” said Riker. The overpass ahead would give him the high ground he wanted. As the Mercedes climbed the ramp, he lit a cigarette and rolled down a window. “You know what drives most people nuts?” And now the detective had to smile. Well, yeah. The man in the driver’s s e at would know that. Psychology was Charles Butler’s stock and trade. But, what a gentleman, he kept his silence.

  “It’s all the things that just aren’t fair.” Riker shot a burnt match out the window. “Mallory’s e arly life was one long bad trick on a little kid.” He squinted into the darkness, as if he could see her as a child out there, cadging loose change from whores and eating out of garbage cans. “I think the kid’s on a mission. She’s counting up all the cheats, the stolen things, lost things. That’s what drives people crazy. Imagine the life she could’ve had- if her mother had lived. Funny thing is, I don’t t hink that other life would’ve measured up.”

  “How can you say that?” Charles made a hard right turn at the top of the overpass. “If her mother hadn’t d ied, she wouldn’t have ended up homeless and lost.”

  “Lost? Never,” said Riker. “The kid was a born survivor. But let’s say you’re right. In another life, she gets all the perks-two real-live parents, a dog and a swing set in the yard. You think she would’ve turned out better? I don’t. Lou and Helen had her tested when they took her in.”

  “Louis told me.” Charles pulled up to a gas pump and turned off the engine. “Her gift was mathematics.”

  “Yeah, a math whiz.” Riker stepped out of the car in a futile attempt to pay for the gas, but Charles already had his credit card in the slot. “So she was always meant to be a computer witch. No change there. And she’d still be real pretty. If you saw her on the street, you’d stare long and hard. But then you’d move on. Most every guy would, and you know why.”

  Charles watched changing figures on the gas pump. He nodded. He knew. How many men could believe they had a shot with her? Hobbled by that matchless face, she would have been just as unapproachable as she was today.

  Riker smiled at the frog-eyed, eagle-beaked man who loved Kathy Mallory. “You think she would’ve turned out more human, Charles? The kind of girl who could see her reflection in mirrors? Well, maybe she’d be a vain little snot, and you wouldn’t w aste six minutes having a beer with her.”

  Oh, this was heresy in Charles Butler’s u niverse, where Mallory stood at the exact center, and all else revolved around her. “No,” said Mallory’s apologist. “She would’ve had a real childhood instead of all those feral years. It would’ve made all the difference in how-”

  “A lot of her talent came from those years on the street,” said Riker. “Your alternate Mallory wouldn’t be able to open pick-proof locks. So she might let you call her Kathy, but she wouldn’t have the makings of an even better cop than her old man-and I mean back when Lou was in his prime.” And now he played to the other man’s s e nses. “Oh, and the way she walks. You can see it all coming at you, the badge and the gun and all that power. If she’d gotten that other life, she’d be ordinary-or worse.” The detective exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Not the kid that Lou and Helen raised, the one who fascinates you-not my Kathy.”

  Riker dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it with his shoe. “I wouldn’t c hange a minute of her history… not one screwed-up brain cell in her head… nothing. You look at her and see all that potential. And me? I only wish I could make her see what a great kid she is.” And maybe she was a sociopath with the eyes of a stone killer, but Riker had never expected perfection from those near and dear.

  Dr. Paul Magritte led Mallory to a Lincoln Town Car. He held the back door open so that she could enter first, but this was not to be. Of course not, and he smiled at his error; she would hardly trust a stranger at her back. Tr ust was not in her stars, her style or her pathology.

  He entered first. When she closed the door for privacy, he braced himself.

  “Your missing camper,” she said. “Gerald Linden? He’s dead. His body was found at the beginning of the road.”

  The doctor closed his eyes. “It can’t be connected. The FBI has been finding bodies along Route 66 for more than a year now, but they’re all children.”

  “And you know this how ?”

  “The Internet. I ran several online therapy groups for parents of missing children.”

  “And murdered children,” said Mallory. “You left that part out.”

  “Yes,” he said, “forgive me.” Oh, what a foolish idea that was. Forgiveness would be anathema to the likes of her. “I have five therapy groups, twenty-eight patients all told.”

  “I counted forty-two people when you stopped at the diner in Illinois.” Detective Mallory said this as if she had caught him in a lie. She turned to the window and the rows of parked cars to one side of the field. “How many more people have joined up since then? Twenty? More than that?”

  “Parents have been joining us all along the road. Obviously, not all of them are my patients. The rest came from other Internet connections. A year ago, the FBI located the graves of a few children and told the parents where the remains had been found. The fathers of two of those children were in one of my therapy sessions. Now that got my attention, two children, both buried near roads. Odd behavior for a murderer-to risk being seen burying a victim. Most bodies are found in remote areas with more concealment and less-”

  Oh, he could see she was losing patience with him. He was telling her things that she already knew, and he should not make that mistake again; that much was clear as she leaned toward him-just a touch of menace to train him properly.

  A quick learner, he continued. “The graves were on different roads, but an acquaintance told me that they were both segments of old Route 66. He’s something of an expert on this road. And he has a gift for seeing connections and patterns. When he explained the odds of this happening to-”

  “What’s his name?”

  When he hesitated, she leaned in close-too close-saying, “Now we’ve established that ‘acquaintance’ and ‘gift’ are code words for ‘patient’ and ‘crazy.’”

  Paul Magritte chastised himself and vowed to choose his words more care- fully. “I contacted psychologists with other Internet groups. I found more parents of murdered children with roadside graves. Some of the bodies turned up years ago-all Route 66 burials, all little girls, aged five to seven.”

  “You knew you were dealing with a serial killer.” This was an accusation.

  He nodded. “According to my sources, the FBI hasn’t c o ntacted any parents in the past ten months, but rumor has it that they’re still digging up the remains of children on this road. One grave was found not three miles from here.”

  “Why would you bring all these people into a serial killer’s t e rritory?”

  “Adults won’t fit his pattern.”

  “Gerald Linden.” Detective Mallory wielded this name as a hammer.

  “You can’t c o nnect that to-”

  “Can’t I? You’re a shrink. You know the victim profile can change at any minute in a murderer’s d ay. So don’t e ven try to hide behind that. Now back to my question. Why would you put all these people in danger?”

  “The parents were suffering too publicly. I wanted to get them off the Internet.”

  “So you know he’s in one of the therapy groups,” said Mallory, “probably all of them. You had to know he was fixated on the parents.”

  Though all her traps for him were laid with words, he envisioned Mallory digging a deep pit and covering it over with twigs and branches. “I’m not so talented,” he said. “I never foresaw a prolific child killer making the jump to murdering adults. But I could see the danger of the Internet. What an opportunity for someone who feeds off the pain of others.”

  “You’re holding out on me. You’ve had contact with this freak.” She leaned closer to drive this point home. “You just diagnosed him.
”

  He turned to his windshield and the lights of the caravan city. Mallory’s hand was on his arm, and her grip was tight. No escape.

  “Gerald Linden was part of your core group,” she said, “the people you met up with in Chicago.”

  “Yes.” He watched the Finn children as they walked by, hand in hand. Dodie had been announced by her humming. Those four notes were almost a mantra to him.

  Mallory’s e yes were also on Dodie Finn. “You have to get these people off the road before the next one dies.”

  “They can’t go home. If the killer could find Gerald Linden before he ever joined the caravan-well, you see what that means.” He looked out over his flock, mindful of the humming child. She was always in his thoughts-his sights. “The killer knows their names and addresses.”

  “Not all of them.” Mallory lost interest in Dodie Finn and turned her eyes back to him. “He knew Linden’s movements, where the man lived, what kind of car he drove. He would’ve learned all of that when he stalked Linden’s d aughter. The killer only knows the parents of his victims. And so do you.”

  Dodie’s humming had stopped.

  He looked around nervously, searching every window of his car. Ah, there they were. Peter and Dodie had wandered back to their own camp-fire, where their father still struggled to set up their tent. Paul Magritte’s interest in the Finn children was not lost on Mallory. She looked at him as if she had caught him in some obscene act. Did she take him for a child killer, or did she only share a suspicion about that insane little girl?

  “Back in Illinois,” she said, “you told me Joe Finn had a missing daughter. How old was she?”

  “A teenager. I really can’t s ay more than that.” But did he have to? She was nodding, adding this to her store of evidence against him. And now she turned back to look at that little family only yards away. Her interest should have waned with the information that Ariel Finn had not been a child. But no, her focus on the Finns was keener now.

  Canny Mallory.

  She pointed toward Joe Finn and his children. “So you’re not worried about them?”

  As she searched his face for telltale furrows and maybe tics, he found her method of extrapolating information was something akin to vampirism. She had bled him until she was satisfied, and now he was almost certain that young Dodie’s secret belonged to Mallory.

  “Tell me about April Waylon,” she said. “I know that woman was invited to the meeting in Chicago. When were you planning to tell me that she was missing?”

  “Oh, but she’s here. April arrived an hour ago.” He observed a slight fault line in Mallory’s façade, a look of surprise, fleeting-gone now.

  “Make a shortlist,” she said. “All the parents who make likely targets. Then get them off the road and off the killer’s radar.”

  “By sending them back home? If the killer is targeting parents, they’re safer here. What chance would they have isolated in their own houses? You think they’d e ver see it coming?”

  “It,” said Mallory. “You mean the killer, don’t you? Interesting word for a shrink to use. But then you know him better than I do.”

  He shook his head, and the line of the detective’s mouth dipped on one side to tell him that denial was wasted on her. And just when he thought the inquisition was about to begin in earnest, she opened the door of the car, preparing to leave him.

  “The sheriff will be back in a little while,” she said, one hand resting on the chrome door handle. “He’s arranging a guard of deputies to get you through the night. The locals have a personal interest in this case.” She stepped out of the car. “So maybe you’ll tell Sheriff Banner what you wouldn’t t e ll me.” The door slammed in anger.

  He thought that she had vanished, but then her face appeared in the open window, startling him.

  “Something else to think about,” she said. “What if it was the road trip that made him decide to kill one of the parents? If you’d left them on the Internet, he might’ve been satisfied with that-feeding on all their misery… but then you cut off his food supply.”

  After so neatly slaying Paul Magritte with words, she wiped her hands together, seeming to shed his problems along the ground as she left him behind. And yet he was still hopeful as he watched her walk away. In this new century, he had regained his faith in gods and monsters-and she was both.

  7

  The caravan was twenty miles behind her when she found the motel. This was the place Sheriff Banner had named as a federal rendezvous point.

  The silver convertible rolled into the parking lot, and Mallory counted up the FBI jackets on people standing by their vehicles, twelve of them. This was not a typical task force. Every face was newly minted, unlined. And where were their mentors? These fledgling agents should be partnered up with senior feds. The youngest of them hurried to block her path before she could drive into the last remaining space.

  And Mallory did not run over him.

  This was to be expected of kiddy agents-they ran in front of moving cars.

  “The motel’s full up, ma’am.” The young man pointed toward the access road. “If you get on I-44, it’ll take you to a-”

  Mallory flashed her gold shield, but not long enough for him to read the city of issue by the poor light of the motel’s neon sign. “Who’s in charge of this operation?”

  The young man hesitated too long.

  “The SAC, the special agent in charge,” said Mallory, as if she needed to spell out the initials. “Give me a name.” She made this demand with all the authority of a woman who carried a bigger gun. She left her car to stand toe-to-toe with the rookie agent. “You don’t w ant to waste my time while people are dying. And I know you’ve got orders to play nice with cops. So give me a name.”

  “Special Agent Dale Berman.”

  Bad news-the worst. Why did it have to be Berman? But now she understood this playgroup of unseasoned agents without their mandated babysitters. When did Dale Berman ever pay attention to protocols? She supposed one or two rookies would have to die before someone in Washington realized that the wrong man was in charge.

  “Where is he?”

  “You just missed him.” The agent pointed to a field where a helicopter was spinning its rotors in a small cloud of dust as it lifted into the air. “Agent Berman’s destination is more than a hundred miles away, but he’ll be back tonight. If you can’t w ait, we can raise him on the radio.”

  Mallory got back into her car, wondering what the air speed of the helicopter might be. A landing site on Route 66 was predictable, but the aircraft would not be hampered by traffic and winding roads. She would have to move back onto the interstate to catch it-and maybe even beat it. Her engine was a perfect machine, and FBI equipment was crap.

  “Detective, you don’t w ant to drive that distance for nothing.” The young fed had to raise his voice, for she was revving the engine to drown him out as he yelled, “Agent Berman will probably just turn around and-”

  He was talking to the air. Mallory was gone.

  Riker blew smoke from the passenger window as the Mercedes pulled up to a field lit by campfires and the smaller flames of propane bottles. Spinning cherry lights flashed from the roof racks of cruisers parked out on the road, and officers in uniform patrolled the perimeter on foot.

  “So that’s the caravan. Definitely worth a look.” Riker had gotten only a few steps from the car when he held up his badge for the inspection of a man with a deputy’s s t ar, who now turned his attention to Charles Butler.

  “He’s with me,” said Riker. “Maybe you met my partner tonight, Detective Mallory?”

  “Never heard of her, sir. I just got here.” The deputy pointed across the hood of his cruiser to an older man a few yards away. “You want to talk to Sheriff Banner. He’s in charge.”

  Riker clipped his badge to the breast pocket of his suit before he approached the sheriff. The two men shook hands and moved in tandem toward a more secluded spot, talking cop to cop as they walked.<
br />
  Charles looked out over the campsite. Some tents were no more than lean-tos. Others were dome-shaped and lit from within like glowing igloos. Small groups of men and women huddled by firelight and lantern. It was an end-of-the-world scenario peopled with survivors of an apocalypse, and he supposed that, given their loss, this was more than metaphor.

  As he walked through the caravan city, dogs barked and then were hushed by their owners, and now he heard a small voice humming. It was a surprise to see two school-age children in this company. The little boy appeared to be on sentry duty, standing over the body of a prone man asleep by the fire. The child was so alert in his stance, so serious in his mission. He moved to one side, giving Charles a better view of the girl, the source of the music, albeit a limited repertoire of one refrain. She sat upon a blanket and rocked back and forth as she hummed, sometimes looking up as sparks flew out of the flaming woodpile. He took this as a startle response and nothing more. The child was not really among them. Her mind had gone elsewhere.

  The boy stared at him with distrustful eyes that were far too old for a youngster who could be no more than ten. Charles smiled, and the boy was instantly amused.

  Of course he was.

  Though a height of six feet, four inches could be intimidating, Charles now presented himself as a hapless, harmless fool, and he knew it. Not his fault-it was all in the genes. He had been born with this great hook of a nose and bulbous eyes with a permanent aspect of surprise, and every time he smiled, he took on the look of a recent escapee from clown school.

  He donned his travel-worn suit jacket and straightened his tie as he approached the children. Hunkering down beside their campfire, he spoke softly so as not to wake the sleeping man. “Hello, I’m looking for Dr. Magritte,” he said, pronouncing it Mahgreet and even screwing up his mouth for a funny French r. He presented his wallet identification to the little boy and won the child’s heart with this adult transaction. “I’m a doctor, too.”