Find Me

by Carol O’Connell

  Dr. Magritte gave up a smile of apology and a wave of the hand to say that Riker would get nothing helpful from him, not even the admission that Horace Kayhill was his patient.

  Riker watched the doctor’s face, hoping to see something useful there if he should hit upon the right question. “You know who the killer is, don’t you? Do you talk to this freak on the phone? Are you Internet pen pals or what?”

  And now the doctor, somewhat surprised, said, “You and your partner don’t communicate very well. I bet you’re wondering how I know that.” He smiled. “Your cheeseburger is getting cold, Detective.”

  Special Agent Dale Berman was basking in camera light and sharing a table with a celebrity anchorwoman. This prime-time personality seemed disappointed in his basic profile for a serial killer. She pulled back the microphone to say, “Isn’t t hat sexist? Why not a woman suspect?”

  “It was a man.” Dale Berman wore his mask of tragedy today, but only while the camera was on him. “A female serial killer is very rare.”

  The newswoman extended her microphone to the next table occupied by the wonderfully photogenic cop from New York City. “What do you say, Detective Mallory? Could a female have done all those murders?”

  The detective never looked up from her laptop computer. “Female killers are as common as dust.”

  Dale Berman’s face fell.

  “Like that prostitute who killed her customers?” The newswoman’s professional smile was waning as she waited for a response. Precious airtime was slipping by. “And then we’ve got mothers killing their own children.” She gave Detective Mallory a smile of encouragement. When was this young cop going to open her damned mouth? The reporter filled in the silence with, “Nurses killing patients? Oh, and the black widows-wives killing husbands for insurance money.”

  “I like money motives.” Detective Mallory looked up, finally hearing something of interest to her, but she was facing Dale Berman, not the camera.

  The cameraman stood before Mallory’s t able, bowing low, hoping for eye contact, and the reporter said, “So, Detective, you think a woman could be-”

  “It was a man,” said Mallory, who had now engaged Agent Berman in a staring match. “Men are monument builders. That’s what the killer’s done with this road.”

  “That’s right !” And with these words, Dale Berman had recaptured the cameraman’s attention and the lens. “The killer believes these murders will make him live forever in the-”

  “And what do you think, Detective?” asked the reporter as her cameraman swung around to refocus on the New York City blonde.

  “Nobody lives forever,” said Mallory to Dale Berman.

  At a far remove from Dale Berman and the reporter, Mallory found another empty chair by the window and sat down with the Pattern Man, who promptly spilled his coffee. As she arranged her knapsack and the computer on top of his maps, she had to endure his apologies for clumsiness and listen to the day’s figures for the amount of caffeine ingested by way of coffee and cola. He did not seem to mind that she never spoke to him; the little man was more comfortable talking at her rather than to her. Horace Kayhill unfolded another map so he could describe the new landmarks discovered since his last trip down Route 66. “The road is always changing, you know, just like a living organism.”

  Mallory slapped one hand down on the coffee-stained map, and now she had the little man’s attention. “You’re a statistician, right?”

  “Yes. I used to work for an insurance company.”

  “Give me some odds. It’s a country of three hundred million people, and only a hundred of them have something in common. What are the odds that they meet?”

  He adjusted his glasses, preparing to launch into another lecture. “Perhaps you’re referring to a theory of six degrees of separation-that we’re all six connections away from everyone else on the planet. Well, that really won’t apply here, not if you’re looking for a chance meeting. You see, someone has to follow the threads to force the outcome and prove the-”

  “I don’t believe in chance,” said Mallory. “I don’t believe in accident or coincidence. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Yes. The caravan parents.”

  “Not all of them, just the ones with little girls buried on Route 66.”

  “Well, before the advent of computers,” said Kayhill, “those people never would’ve met. But now you have variables that didn’t exist in the past. Today, it’s possible to cross-index every aspect of your life with the whole earth. If you have an odd tic, a rare disease, or, in my case, migraine auras without the headaches, you can find a chat room for that, a website-”

  “Or a therapy group.”

  “Exactly. I belong to lots of them.” He tapped his head to indicate a problem there. “I’m a bit on the compulsive side. But I spend most of my time compiling statistics and information on Route 66. That’s how I met the first caravan parent-Gerry Linden. An FBI agent called to tell him his child’s body had been found, and this woman gave him the location of the gravesite. But his daughter’s remains were never returned to him.”

  Mallory nodded. Last night, she had seen Gerald Linden’s daughter in Dale Berman’s Nursery. The remains had been identified by a small gold pin, a distinctive heirloom.

  “So,” said Mr. Kayhill, “Gerry Linden went to visit the burial site. He told me it was the only place he had to leave his flowers-this bit of road where his child had been found.” The Pattern Man leaned forward and smiled. “This is the part where chance comes in.”

  And perhaps now he recalled that she was not a big believer in chance, for he dropped the smile and spilled more coffee. “Let’s call it a forced link for the six-degree theory,” he said. “Mr. Linden stayed in the area for a few days-talking to the locals-and he heard a strange story about another grave forty miles down the road. You see, years ago, a man was trying to bury a dog and inadvertently dug up a child. Now that grave was across a state line, and the road was known by a different name, but it was also part of the old highway. So Mr. Linden hooked up with a lot of Route 66 websites. Well, I monitor all of them, and his name cropped up quite a few times. He wanted information on murdered children found along that road.”

  “He was the one who told you about Dr. Magritte’s therapy group?”

  “Yes, and I joined it. I collected more data from another one of Dr. Magritte’s patients. Now, two such parents with the same psychologist- well, the odds of that happening are just remarkable. That was when I realized that I was onto something huge.”

  “But you never had a child,” said Mallory, as if this might be a defect in him. “Magritte’s sessions were only for the parents of missing and murdered children.”

  “Oh, no. Where did you get that idea? The only criterion was a computer. The doctor never turned anybody away.” And now, no doubt feeling the need for immediate therapy, Horace Kayhill packed up his maps and fled.

  After flopping down in the recently vacated chair at his partner’s t able, Riker handed her a cell phone. “It’s Kronewald. He’s got some news.” Riker’s o w n conversation with the Chicago detective had been illuminating and disheartening.

  She held the cell phone to her ear. “It’s Mallory… Right… No, that’s all I need.” After opening the laptop computer, she flicked the keys until she was looking at a map of the continental United States. A route was marked in a thick red line. “Got it,” she said.

  Riker could hear Kronewald’s rising voice as Mallory depressed the button that would end the call. The old man was shouting toward the end, as if he knew she was going to hang up on him.

  Charles Butler was in flight from Cadwaller’s t able, and seeking sanctuary with the two detectives. He stared at Mallory’s computer screen as he pulled up a chair. “That seems a bit different from the other Route 66 maps. What happened to Santa Fe?”

  “This is a route from the sixties,” said Riker, “after the ends of the Santa Fe loop were connected.” The detective gave his partner
a disingenuous smile. “I just thought I’d save you the trouble of sharing that.” Turning back to Charles, he said, “It’s a long-haul truck driver’s route from Chicago to L.A.”

  “So,” said Charles, “you think the killer is a truck driver.”

  “No, but his father was.” Riker turned to Mallory, still smiling but hardly meaning it. “And you were gonna tell me that, right?” And now he told the story of the trucker and his wife abandoning their son after the disappearance of five-year-old Mary Egram. “That’s right, Charles. Our boy didn’t start with small furry animals. He killed his own sister. But I’m sure my partner was gonna mention that-eventually.”

  Mallory turned her chair to face away from Riker.

  Oh, was his voice getting a little testy? Well, tough.

  She spoke only to Charles. “I hope you got something useful off that agent.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Riker was now an invisible man as far as she was concerned. He moved his chair around the table until he was once more in her line of sight. “Cadwaller probably bored poor Charles with his expertise on serial killers. But at least that worthless fed tries to communicate with-”

  “Cadwaller has no expertise,” said Charles. “He’s a fraud.”

  Okay, playtime with Mallory was over. Riker made a rolling motion with one hand to ask the man to continue that thought.

  “Perhaps I was harsh,” said Charles. “I’d s ay, at best, he ’s an expert on bad psychology books written by incompetent hacks for mass consumption. But he’s not a profiler.”

  “Kronewald ran a background check,” said Riker. “Cadwaller’s got a history with Behavioral Science Unit.”

  “Sometimes,” said Charles, “history gets rewritten. I can only tell you the man is not what he seems.”

  This information came as no surprise to Mallory, and Riker had to wonder what else the brat had forgotten to share with him.

  “Well,” said Charles, “at least now you have a name for the killer.”

  Riker nodded. “For all the good it does. No pictures, no prints, no idea what name the perp’s using now. He’s good at stealing cars. That’s all we know.” He shot a glance at his partner as he corrected himself. “That’s all I know.”

  Dr. Magritte passed close to their table, and Mallory turned an accusing eye on Riker, asking, demanding, “Why isn’t t hat old man in custody?”

  “What? Back up,” said Riker. “Where does Magritte come in? What did he do? And what the hell did I do wrong?”

  Mallory stared at him, incredulous. “Doesn’t Agent Nahlman tell you anything ?”

  16

  They met by chance -or this would be Riker’s story. He rehearsed it as he followed Agent Nahlman’s car down a side road that led him far south of Route 66. This was a part of the world where people thought nothing of driving fifty or a hundred miles to do a simple errand. In the dark, the two vehicles might be passing through any small American town of windows lighted by the glow of televisions sets.

  The FBI agent’s black sedan stopped in front of a saloon that would cater only to locals, judging by the license plates at the curb and the distance from the interstate. Riker switched off his headlights and waited in the dark until the door closed behind Christine Nahlman. He parked the Mercedes behind her car and waited a patient twenty minutes before following her inside.

  The front door opened onto a wall of smoke and sound. A jukebox wailed country-music songs of dead dogs and feckless women, but that had been expected. And it was no surprise to see Nahlman drinking alone at the bar. The lady had a small but appreciative audience of men with baseball caps and pool cues, unshaven and smiling in her direction. They were checking her out and nodding to one another, seeing her as easy prey.

  They had no idea that the lady packed a gun and more than enough ammo to dispatch the pool players and the bartender, too, if she felt so inclined.

  Riker pulled a barstool closer to hers and sat down.

  After the first few minutes of the cop-to-cop small talk that always began, “Hell of a day, huh?” Agent Nahlman was reassured that he was not here to make a play for her, and that was the truth. He had come to her as a thief to steal whatever he could.

  He was picking up Mallory’s worst habits.

  The detective was quick to find a common ground with Nahlman: the cop and the fed both liked the same brand of cheap Scotch; this was a lie on his part, for he was a bourbon drinker. But he had hopes that this bonding ritual would lead to every field agent’s pastime, bitching about bureaucrats-like the SAC, Dale Berman. Her ability to hold her liquor was impressive, and it was his fear that she might drink him under the bar before uttering the first disparaging word.

  After the third round, he laid on a compliment. “So Mallory tells me you did a great job on the geographic profiling-and Dale took all the credit.” Riker shook his head to say, Ain’t life a bitch.

  Nahlman shrugged and slugged back her drink. “In a way-Dale Berman should get the credit. He was the one who combed every state data-base for unsolved homicides.”

  “He worked cold cases? And they didn’t even belong to the feds?”

  “He didn’t work anything,” she said. “He just collected data for deadend homicides-zero evidence, no clues. He favored skeletons discovered years after death.”

  Riker had a store of trivia for filling awkward silences. “Did you know that most murder victims are found by drunks stopping to pee by the side of the road?”

  “Dale tossed those,” she said. “Not enough similarities. He concentrated on buried victims. A year ago, he gave the list to me, hundreds of gravesites all over the country, and he said, ‘Make me a pattern.’ ”

  “Not find one? Make a pattern?”

  “That’s right.” She rattled her ice cubes and spoke to her glass. “He wanted to manufacture a serial killer. It’s been done before. A perp confesses to a murder in one state, and cops from all the surrounding states come in with their own unsolved cases. They’re hoping this guy can clear the books for them. And sometimes they get lucky. They find an obliging killer who likes the attention.” Nahlman turned her calm gray eyes on Riker. “So don’t pretend to be shocked, okay? Cops do it, too. Now you promised to tell me how Dale Berman wound up in charge of a field office.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Riker. That bribe had been offered early on with the first drink, the setup. “It’s a real short story. The bastard screwed up a high-profile case in New York. It embarrassed the Bureau. So naturally they promoted him to make the mess stink less.”

  “Amen,” said Nahlman. “Always praise the jerk in trouble.”

  “But before Dale got the Texas posting, the Bureau buried him in a North Dakota satellite office-in the winter. It is a balanced universe.” Riker lifted two fingers to the bartender for another round, then turned his most sympathetic smile on Nahlman. “So the bastard fobbed the whole pile off on you. Why am I not surprised?” He was too obvious that time. He could see his mistake in the narrowing of her eyes, a slow wince.

  “Riker, you should spend more time listening, and less time manipulating me. I think it’s the lack of finesse that pisses me off the most.” She lifted her glass to give him a moment to think that over. “I was glad to have the work, even if it landed me in Berman’s little dynasty. What a joke-a task force for a killer who didn’t exist yet.”

  He wondered what Nahlman had done to earn this assignment to a disgraced SAC and a limbo of dead-end cases, but he observed the cop’s etiquette of not asking how she had screwed up her own career. That would be rude. He wondered if it had something to do with drinking on the job. This was not a criticism. It took an alcoholic to read the signs, and this woman was definitely one of his people-almost family.

  She drained her glass-again. “Are you ready to listen?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He well understood his own place in this scheme: it was no longer his role to ply her for information-she would never tolerate that; it was Nahlman’s plan to feed it to him.r />
  “I mapped out a lot of areas,” she said, “every place where a body was dug up over the past twenty years-hundreds and hundreds of them. Then I found the anomaly-bodies buried close to roads. If a killer only wanted to hide the remains, why risk being seen by a passing car? When I recognized the roads as different pieces of old Route 66, I had my signature for a serial killer. Then I knocked out all but eight of the graves on Berman’s list. And I had my pattern.”

  “A pattern for two thousand miles of road?”

  “Just listen, okay? Seven years ago, the telephone company dug up a grave in a place where the pavement doesn’t even exist anymore, but it used to be Route 66. I called local police for details. The case was so old. Notes got lost-evidence, too. I dug up my own buried skeleton twenty miles down the road, and then I found another one. I checked missing persons reports on neighboring states and found matches on personal items from the graves. Then-big mistake-I contacted the parents to ask them for DNA samples.”

  “And one of them was Jill’s D ad? George Hastings?”

  “When Berman found out, he went ballistic. So then he formed the recovery detail.”

  “The body snatchers.”

  “Right,” she said. “Hit and run, no paperwork with the local cops. Berman had a bona fide serial killer, and he didn’t w ant to lose the case to a task force out of D.C.”

  “And he had you. You knew where to dig.”

  “My estimates weren’t e x act. There were gaping holes in my pattern. So I still have to go out and eyeball the land, looking for likely places-nothing near a town, no homes close by. If there’s a house near one of my sites, I have to find out when it was built. And I walk a lot of miles with the cadaver dogs.”

  “So you’ve been working the case for a year.” According to Kronewald, the war of cops and feds had begun with the graves of three children stolen from Illinois.

  “Working it? Ye s and no. I spend all my time mapping sites for the body snatchers. I don’t know how many of them panned out. And I’ve got no idea what Dale does with evidence-if he does anything at all.” She pushed her glass to the rail of the bar. “I know you don’t like my boss, but you always call him by his first name. Why is that?”