Find Me

by Carol O’Connell

  The psychologist dropped his jacket and his nylon sack on the seat of the first pew. The lightest of burdens were troublesome to an old man with arthritis in every joint, and yet he had come here in search of fresh agony. After climbing three steps to the altar, he lit all the candles and stepped back. Eschewing any comfort of a padded riser, he knelt on the stone floor. This caused great pain to his knees, and he called it atonement.

  Mary Egram had been the first to die. It must always begin with the loss of Mary.

  The ruby glass beads of his rosary played across his fingers. Each time he performed this ritual, it called up an image of the old Egram house back in Illinois. All those years ago, it had seemed always on the verge of pitching into the front yard. He recalled the interior of the home with the same tension, every wall leaning, and he remembered waiting, moment to moment, for the ceiling to come crashing down.

  Next, with hands clasped tightly in prayer, he conjured up the floral patterns of worn upholstery and threadbare scatter rugs. A large television set was the only luxury item, and this would have been chosen by the man of the family, no doubt an avid football fan. In mind’s eye, Mr. Egram was seated on the couch and staring at his blank TV screen, feet tapping the floor, measuring time and willing this visit to pass more quickly.

  Paul Magritte had played this home movie in his head a thousand times so that he would not forget one detail, not one tap of the other man’s foot. Memory also recounted exactly twelve votive candles encircling the photograph of Mary, fair-haired and only five years old. The lost child’s shrine had pride of place atop the television set, and this had surely been the mother’s work. The parents had been abandoned and their loss forgotten by the media. However, Mrs. Egram had been determined that her husband would never forget, not even for the respite of a ballgame on a Sunday afternoon.

  Small plaster saints had abounded in the Egrams’ front room. The religious theme had also played out in the dining area and the hallway. Mary Egram’s mother had apparently bought out the entire stock of a church gift shop. But that was to be expected, for the woman was a lapsed Catholic who had lately returned to the faith in zealot fashion.

  And the father of the missing child? Not a great fan of the Lord.

  Sarah Egram had sought to explain her husband’s aloofness with the information that he was from Methodist stock. The Protestant truck driver had borne a look of grim tolerance for his wife, who constantly fretted her rosary beads and moved her mouth in silence, seeking help in magical incantations. Her eyes had sometimes strayed to the window, perchance to see if her prayers had worked. Or maybe she had been keeping watch over the child in the yard-the surviving child.

  That had been Paul Magritte’s second thought on that long-ago afternoon.

  His eyes snapped open. Perhaps it was the pain in his knees that had called him out of reverie and back to the cold stone floor of this Texas sanctuary. No, he had sensed something-someone. And now the flames of the altar candles flickered and bowed, as if swayed by a body in motion and very close to him. How fragile was he-that a current of air in a drafty old church should have the power to stop his breath-his heart. He feared it still, but never looked behind him, never turned his head. Instead he closed his eyes again, to see the mistakes of his distant past. He escaped into his re-creation of a shabby front room in another time, another place.

  Once more, he pictured Mr. Egram seated on the couch beside his wife, reaching out to her with one large hand and gently covering her fingers and beads to end the incessant rattle and movement. The woman’s mouth also ceased to move. Out in the yard, their child was approaching the house, and then the ten-year-old stopped halfway up the flagstone path and stood motionless, possibly taking a cue from the mother.

  That afternoon, Paul Magritte had waited out the uncomfortable silence, looking about the room and noting the lighter wallpaper that had marked the old outlines of other picture frames, their places usurped by portraits of the Madonna and a court of saints. And, as if a houseful of religious paraphernalia were not imposition enough, poor Methodist Mr. Egram now had a stranger settled into his favorite chair, for his wife had insisted that their visitor must take the most comfortable seat in the house, the one facing the television set.

  Their older child had crept up to the front window. Face pressed hard against the glass, the small features were smeared and made monstrous. One eye bulged and one was lost within deep folds of squeezed flesh.

  This little horror show had hardly ruffled Paul Magritte that day. He had seen it as a ploy to gain attention, the normal behavior of a child with emotionally distant parents. Despite a missing sibling, the youngster was well adjusted; a psychological evaluation had been done while Social Services still had custody of this ten-year-old-and while the police had been investigating the parents, suspecting them in the disappearance of their little girl.

  That day, only the mother’s behavior had shocked Dr. Magritte. He had wondered how she could have been averse to his wonderful plan to take her surviving child away from her. Fool that he was in those days, he had assumed that she had been unable to fully grasp it all. “You understand,” he had said to her then, “this won’t put a financial burden on your family. The surgeon, the hospital and staff-they’re donating their services.”

  For the second time, she had said no to him. “It wouldn’t be right.” And then, Sarah Egram had elaborated. “You can’t make everything all normal that way. Nobody will ever see it coming.”

  It.

  This was how she had referred to her disfigured child.

  Memory dissipated like mist, and Paul Magritte’s eyes were jolted wide open. The altar flames did not waver now, but he heard a noise behind him, and what was it? A baby rattle? No, and it was not a rosary, either. The rattle of little bones? Lessons of Sarah Egram: He would not see it coming. The old man had never known such fear, and he could not move; he could not turn around even to save his life. But he could close his eyes-not to pray, but to carry him away from here, back in time to the Egram house, eyes shut tight.

  And now he could see that small misshapen face pressed to the pane of the front window, one eye focused on the mother-center of a child’s universe. But Mrs. Egram had been looking elsewhere, and some interior vision had made her tremble. That day Paul Magritte had believed that the poor woman was imagining the fate of her missing five-year-old. Or perhaps the prospect of separation from the older child had unhinged her and made her nonsensical.

  “We’d be gone no more than four weeks.” That very day, Paul Magritte had planned to personally escort the youngster to Chicago-if the mother would only listen to reason. “This would be the first in a number of operations. Some procedures are best done during the formative years. Later, when the bones are fully matured-”

  “You don’t understand,” the woman had said to him in the slow, mother tones reserved for speaking to young children. “This is not right-not God’s will.”

  The truck driver, roused from lethargy, had nearly smiled. “You say it’ll take four weeks? That’s fine with me.” The man had reached out and snatched the consent forms. Sarah Egram had slumped forward, her eyes downcast, while her husband searched his pockets for something to write with. A pen was found. Defeated, the woman had risen from the couch and left the room.

  Pen to paper, the trucker had asked, “One signature? That’s enough?”

  “It’ll do.” Magritte’s eyes had been focused on Sarah’s retreating back. “Your wife needs help.”

  “I know what she needs.” And these had been the truck driver’s last words to him.

  A metallic sound called Paul Magritte back to the real and solid environs of a Texas church, where he worked his own rosary and incantations, whispering the magic words, not asking forgiveness or relief from pain; he only wanted to stave off his growing fear. He was not alone in this place, and escape was not possible anymore, not by any door in the present or in his past. His skin prickled. He held his breath.

  Wh
ich one would it be?

  “Who are you praying for, old man?”

  “For you.” This was a true thing, and he said it with awe. His movements were slow and full of pain as he rose to his feet and turned to face Detective Mallory with a smile of thank God. It was the first time any prayer of his had been answered, and his new name for this young woman was Deliverance. With another sort of smile, a foolish one, he looked down at the rosary in his hands, saying, “Candles, hocus-pocus and magic beads. This must fit your idea of the average witch doctor.”

  “Oh, but you’re more than that, Dr. Magritte.” She sat in the first pew, arms folded against him and daring him to tell a lie. “Did they throw you out of the priesthood? Or was it your idea to leave?”

  Mallory’s leather knapsack sat on the floor at her feet. His own sack of light nylon rested on her lap. The zipper was undone, and that must have been the noise that had frightened him so.

  “You look worried, Magritte. You shouldn’t be. I don’t have a warrant.” Mallory reached inside his sack and pulled out an ancient revolver. “So I can’t seize this. FBI agents are searching all the cars.” She held up the gun. “I don’t think this is what they’re looking for… so that’s not why you’re hiding out in this church.”

  “That was my grandfather’s revolver,” said Paul Magritte. “My inheritance if you like. It’s all he left behind. That’s why I kept it.” Oh, fool, he was making a liar’s worst mistake-overanxious to explain in detail, and now he found that he could not stop himself. “I’m afraid I never took proper care of the gun. Rusty, isn’t it? I very much doubt that it would work. Just as well. It’s not loaded. I wouldn’t even know how to load it.”

  Mallory hefted the weight of the weapon, and then examined it more closely. “A twenty-two.” This was said with mild derision. And now she held up a small blue pouch that was also his property. “And this? Another souvenir? It wasn’t very smart to keep it.” She emptied the contents of the pouch into her palm, then closed her fist on the tiny bones of a child’s hand.

  Struck dumb, he could only stare at her.

  “I’ve got a few possibilities here,” said Mallory. “Did you murder all those little girls?” The detective dangled the little blue pouch. “Or did somebody plant this for the feds to find?”

  She had actually provided him with a possible way out. Or was it the way into another trap? In the stillness of the church, he could hear the little bones rattle as she slipped them back into the blue velvet pouch.

  “Oh, wait,” said Mallory. “I’ve got one more theory. Did this little bag of bones come in the mail with a note? Something like-oh, how does it go?” She produced a slip of paper yellowed with age-another theft from his knapsack, and she read the words, “ ‘Father, forgive me for I have sinned.’ ” The detective rose to her feet, holding his gun in her right hand, the blue pouch in her left, and she seemed to be weighing them, one against the other, but her eyes were fixed upon him. He imagined another sort of creature might look at its next meal this way, while the prey still breathed and writhed under one clawed paw.

  “You could help me find him,” she said. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

  He shook his head.

  “The law won’t protect you, Magritte. You’re not a priest anymore.” She waved the yellow paper like a small flag. “And this note wasn’t written inside a confessional.”

  He kept his silence.

  “Thank you,” said Mallory. “So now I know you’ve got a long history with this freak.” She looked down at the old note and its words of confession, then slipped the small piece of paper into the pouch with the bones. “When the feds see this, they’ll take you away. Who’s going look after your parish on wheels?”

  You will.

  He had such great faith in Detective Mallory even as she planned to bring him down.

  “It’s too bad Special Agent Berman never saw you as a suspect,” she said. “He might’ve run a better background check. Now me-I suspect everybody. When you were with the Church, I know you treated other priests. Does that narrow down my list? Am I looking for an ex-priest like you?”

  He finally understood the intensity of her eyes as she stared at his face: she was looking there for tells and tics and other signs of truth or lies.

  “Don’t s mile at me, Magritte.”

  He had not meant to do that. “I’m so sorry.” He held up his hands in supplication to tell her that he was helpless, as if she did not already know that-on several levels. And now she seemed to tire of playing with him.

  Oh, no-not quite yet.

  She raised his grandfather’s rusty old gun, aimed at the altar and fired. The air exploded. The vase shattered, water splattered, flower stalks went flying, and-in a special little moment of horror-he fancied that he could hear torn petals softly falling on the stone floor. And then the silence was absolute. All his bones were shaking, legs failing him. He sank to his knees-alone again.

  Mallory was gone.

  Agent Christine Nahlman was waiting beside the open door as Mallory left the church.

  The detective handed her the blue pouch of bones and Magritte’s nylon sack. “Satisfied? Now feed him to Dale Berman. They deserve each other.”

  “Wait,” said Nahlman, but Mallory waited for no one, and now the agent followed her down the church stairs, saying, “You know the old man’s not guilty.”

  “Yes, he is.” The detective paused on the bottom step and turned around. “He’s holding out on me. So arrest him and charge him with obstruction. Keep him in custody till this case is wrapped.” Mallory snatched the pouch from the agent’s hand and removed the confessor’s note. “There,” she said, handing back the pouch with only the bones inside. “That should make it easier to hold Magritte for a while. Now you can nail him as a murder suspect. He’ll never make bail.”

  “Mallory, I can’t-”

  “You can’t do anything, can you? If the feds had only cooperated with the Illinois cops, this case would’ve been wrapped by now. Kronewald’s a good detective. But your boss is just a jacked-up PR man-worthless out in the field. And what’s your problem, Nahlman? Are you just too damn polite to stomp Dale Berman into the ground?”

  “I was assigned to work on-”

  “Don’t feed me any lines about following orders. I robbed your laptop, remember? I read your personal case notes. One of the Illinois graves was deeper than all the rest-very deep. You knew that one had to be his first kill. Kid stuff. He was so afraid of getting caught-he couldn’t bury that little girl deep enough. So you know the perp started young-when he lived near that road. With Kronewald’s help, you would’ve had a name for him by now. Fledgling killers have comfort zones-close to home. He was still murdering kids when he moved away from Route 66. And then, when he was old enough to drive, he went back there and replanted those kills on that road. And that’s why you found two different types of soil in some of the Illinois graves-the shallow ones.”

  “You gave all of this to Kronewald?”

  “You know I did. He’s working the data now. All the missing little girls from Illinois won’t be in a federal database. The FBI just can’t be bothered with every lost kid. But Kronewald’s got access to all of them, decades of missing little girls. Feeling the pressure now, Nahlman? Maybe it’s time for you to take charge of this mess.”

  “Mallory, do you know what I see when I look past Dale Berman to the next link in the chain of command?”

  “Another incompetent bureaucrat. And you wonder why cops hate feds. Ta k e over. At least, get rid of Berman.”

  “What do you expect me to do-shoot him?”

  “It’s a start.”

  Riker hunkered next to the bedroll of Darwinia Sohlo, alias Miriam Rainard. What passed for her tent was an old canvas tarp anchored to the door handle of her ten-year-old car. The detective took over the chore of making a fire to keep her warm. The wood and the kindling twigs were damp, and the woman was in tears, saying, “It’s no use. No fire to
night.”

  “Just you wait.” He held up a road flare he had found in the trunk of the car. “You can set fire to water with one of these.” He torched the kindling.

  The fire burned bright. The woman smiled.

  “I’ve got some bad news,” he said.

  One hand flew up to her mouth. “My daughter?”

  “Oh, no. I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s not about your kid.” He settled one more log on the fire. “I was watching the TV coverage. I know you always hide from the cameramen, but one of those bastards got you on film. Your face made national news tonight. If your husband was watching that-”

  No need to finish. She was nodding. If the wife beater had seen that news program back in Wisconsin, he would be coming for her soon, coming to collect his runaway property. Riker watched her face by firelight. He had expected fear, but she seemed resigned to this news of a beating in her future. He had come prepared with a six-pack of beer to medicate her jitters, but there was no need for that now. He offered her a bottle more in the spirit of companionship, and, when she was done with it, she told him her story.

  “I sent my daughter away with the rescue mission. It’s like an underground railroad for women and children.”

  “I know what they do.” Riker was familiar with groups who assisted in the escape from abusive spouses. “But you sent her alone.” And that was not normal.

  “Yes, I wanted my husband to believe she’d been kidnapped. I stayed with him for two more years-until I was sure he’d given her up for dead. The police always thought she was dead. They watched my husband for a long time. Well, finally it was my turn to run. I didn’t even take a purse. I had this idea that I could just go out and meet up with my child. But you had to go from one contact to the next. If one link in the chain was gone, the trail was lost.”