Find Me

by Carol O’Connell

  No one, fool.

  The young agent entered the ladies’ room at a dead run and went flying, skidding on the slick floor-falling and landing on Nahlman’s body- his face pressed to hers. He screamed, but not out of fear. It was a high keen of anguish that brought other agents running into the tiled room. Shoes were all around him now, and above him were voices all taking at once. “Jesus Christ,” said one. And another agent, the son of a doctor, knelt beside the body. This young man never tried to find a pulse; he was informed by the gaping wound that had opened Nahlman’s throat; the blood had ceased to flow-no living heart to pump it. He shook his head-no beat, no life, no use. “I’m sorry, Barry.”

  A voice was yelling from Barry Allen’s cell phone. Another agent picked it up from the floor and made her short report to Detective Riker. “She’s gone, sir.”

  The state trooper concluded his radio request for backup and roadblocks at exits east and west of the rest stop. He was behind the wheel of his cruiser when he leaned out the window with a few final words for Special Agent Berman. “Don’t touch anything. There’s a crime-scene unit on the way. I’m going after that tow truck.”

  “I’m in charge of this investigation,” said Berman, raising his voice to be heard above the revving of the other man’s engine.

  “Yeah, sure you are,” yelled the trooper as he peeled out of the parking lot, siren screaming.

  Berman turned to see a gang of agents converging upon him. “Spread out!” he yelled. “I want this whole place-”

  Oh, shit!

  Joe Finn was muscling the others aside, and the man’s eyes were crazed.

  Agent Allen was younger and faster than Finn, running, flying, aiming himself like a cannonball. In the next second, Berman was flat on his back with the younger man on top him. Allen, handicapped by eyes full of tears, only got in two good punches to the face before he was pulled off. As he was being dragged back by other agents, Barry Allen screamed, “You stupid, incompetent son of a bitch!”

  No man or woman in his company had any disagreement with this assessment of the special agent in charge. Cell phones were appearing in every pair of hands.

  Dale Berman looked up at the sky, listening to beeps of incoming calls drowned out by the boxer’s s c reams of “Dodie! My baby!”

  ***

  They were close to the reststop where Agent Christine Nahlman had died.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” said Charles Butler. “I’ll drive if you like. I think I’ve got the hang of speeding now.”

  Riker shook his head, only glancing at the exit sign in passing. He would deal with Nahlman’s death tomorrow. A child was missing. Seconds counted. Yet miles farther on, he left the interstate for a segment of the older, slower road.

  “Good thinking,” said Kronewald after fifteen miles of dark highway. “That’s gotta be it.” He was staring at the abandoned tow truck parked on a side road. “I knew he wouldn’t keep it long.” The Chicago detective scrambled out of the car to train a light on the dirt road that joined the paved one. “Yeah, he had a car stashed here.” The beam of his flashlight followed the other route. “Looks like our man’s heading north.”

  “Not for long,” said Riker. “This was just too easy, but get the troopers on it. We’re going back on the interstate. We’re going west.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “That’s the way Mallory went,” said Charles Butler, and when this did not enlighten the man from Chicago, he added. “It’s about the old phone.”

  “I wanted the Alan Ladd room,” wrote Peyton Hale. “He was the star of my favorite western. But tonight, the William Bendix room was the only one they had left.”

  All that remained of his stay in this place was the window view of a backstreet in Gallup, New Mexico. Mallory sat on the hotel bed amid her father’s scattered letters, looking for more clues to the man, but all she found was a dated love affair with his road. The pages of creased paper fell from her hands as she wrapped herself in her own arms for comfort.

  Time-how much time had passed before she began to rock back and forth-just like Dodie Finn?

  Crazy Dodie.

  Is this how it ends?

  Mallory sat very still-hyper alert. Dr Magritte’s cell phone was beeping. She plunged one hand into the knapsack, wrenched out the phone and raised its antenna, saying, “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  ***

  “You’re sure about this?” asked Riker.

  “Absolutely,” said Charles. “The El Rancho Hotel was on her list of landmarks.” And now he had made a connection via an information operator. He spoke to a man on the hotel’s night desk, then concluded his call. “She’s there. They’ve gotten to know her quite well. But she’s not taking any calls.”

  “What else is new,” said Kronewald.

  “And,” said Charles, “they don’t plan to push any notes under her door, nothing like that.”

  “Dodie’s running out of time,” said Riker.

  “What?” Kronewald leaned over the front seat to grip the other detective’s shoulder. “You know that little girl’s d e ad, right? That’s a big part of this perp’s signature. He kills ’em quick.”

  An old pickup truck drove west on the interstate, heading toward the Arizona border, and the driver was abiding by the posted speed limit.

  In the bed of the truck, sat a large green plastic trashcan with a lid battened down by rope. It rocked. It hummed.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Kronewald sounded less than enthusiastic as he spoke on the cell phone to the liaison from the state police. “This guy’s a great car thief.”

  “He only takes junkers,” said Riker, interrupting. “Tell them that. No alarms, no LoJack.”

  Kronewald relayed this to the liaison, adding, “That should narrow it down.” He covered the phone as he called out to Riker in the front seat. “You’re dead sure about the direction?” With the nod of the other man’s head, he said to the liaison. “We figure the perp stole a car with Arizona plates. He’ll wanna blend in when he crosses the state line.” Kronewald pocketed his phone. “They’re checking stolen car reports from Arizona.”

  Riker sent his passengers lurching forward when he slammed on the brakes in the parking lot of the El Rancho Hotel. “There she is.” The detective left the Mercedes and ran toward her.

  Charles was watching at the side window when Mallory flung a duffel bag into the back seat of her convertible. Her silver car was in motion before Riker reached it. He gripped the edge of a door, running alongside her. And now he dived into the front seat. The man’s right leg could be seen hanging out in the wind as Mallory sped away with her uninvited passenger.

  Click.

  After the mooring ropes were untied, the green plastic trashcan was unloaded from the back of the old pickup truck. Once he had the receptacle on the ground, he tipped it over on its side, removed the lid and stood back quickly. The child huddled inside showed no signs of wanting to come out. She was silent, no humming, no rocking, and her eyes had the vacant look of no one home.

  “Come out,” he said. When she made no response, he lifted the can at one end and spilled her out on the ground. She lay motionless in the dirt. “Stand up,” he commanded.

  Their eyes connected for a second, and then hers drifted away. He wondered if she somehow knew that he could not bear to touch her. Maybe she had guessed as much when he had used the lid to herd her inside the trashcan. There had been a moment then when their skins had touched, and he had drawn back from her with revulsion. And fear-had she seen that, too?

  Did she understand the power she had over him?

  Tonight, there was a touch of dark respect for Dodie Finn, and he had no plans to lay one hand upon her; he would sooner jump into a sea of wriggling cockroaches.

  It was his way to carefully consider every possibility, and children, particularly little girls, were not to be underestimated. His sister, Mary, had terrorized him every day toward the end of her very short life, and one out
stretched hand had been her only weapon. His father had called him a sissy boy-until Mary disappeared. That day, he had only to smile at his father, and the big man knew-but never asked-where his little girl had gone. Revelation. That great burly truck-driving man had been afraid of a ten-year-old boy-locking the bedroom door at night, never coming near his son, nor asking any questions. Then, finally, Dad had run off in the night with his psalm-singing wife, leaving a son to fend for himself and a daughter to rot in the ground.

  Reverie ended. Another child was waiting.

  The rest of his gear was pulled from the cab of the stolen pickup truck.

  He knew a toddler harness was too small for a six-year-old, but the dog harness would be a perfect fit, or so said the pet-shop clerk when he had given the woman Dodie Finn’s estimated weight. However, now he must fasten it to the child-without touching her. Dodie must stand very still and lift her arms high. If she could wipe her face with a napkin when her father asked her to, then she could raise her arms on command. But would she? He had not counted on passive resistance from a child. Upon returning to the back end of the truck, he found the little girl still lying in the dirt.

  “Stand up.” He knelt on the ground a few feet away, holding out the harness so he could explain what must happen next.

  Dodie reached out for him. It was only a threat; she was not within touching distance, and yet he fell backward, toppled by shock.

  The child knew. She knew.

  He scrambled to his feet and watched her rise from the ground; it was mesmerizing. As she walked toward him, her eyes still had that vacant look, but her small feet had perfect direction. One pale hand was reaching out to him. His chest constricted-hard to breathe-and his feet would not obey him. He pulled out his knife, but the child’s crazy eyes did not see it. She was so close to him now.

  “Do as I say!” he yelled, or thought he did. It was more of a squeak, and the girl was still coming, walking slowly. “Do as I say!” His voice was hoarse; his throat was closing; it was fight to get out the words, “I’ll kill your brother.”

  The girl stopped.

  He breathed more easily. “And I’ll kill your daddy, too.” He brandished the knife. “I’ll go back there right now and slit his throat. Is that what you want?”

  Dodie’s head moved from side to side. No, that was not what she wanted.

  “Raise your hands high.”

  The child did as she was told.

  21

  By the time Charles Butler had climbed into the driver’s s e at of the Mercedes, Mallory and Riker were long gone.

  His sole passenger, Detective Kronewald, ended another cell-phone call. “That was Riker. He says the perp talked to Mallory. I told you guys that phone belonged to the killer.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s the one who bought it.” Charles left the old road and turned onto I-40. “But the phone belonged to Dr. Magritte. Call it a present, so he could stay in touch with his doctor-his priest. Mallory found the cell phone in the old man’s knapsack. There’s no reason for the killer to plant it there.”

  “He might-if he wanted an open line to the cops. Or maybe he just wanted to know if we’d found that body yet. Can’t you go any faster?”

  Charles ran the portable siren as he drove down the road at one hundred miles an hour. “I think he recognized Mallory’s voice when he called. That’s why he hung up. It startled him. He doesn’t like surprises.”

  “Okay, let’s run with that idea,” said Kronewald. “If he recognized Mallory’s voice, then it’s somebody she knows. He was riding with the caravan.”

  “Right,” said Charles, minding the speedometer. “And he would’ve seen Mallory chatting up his doctor a few times.”

  “Interrogating him, you mean. Yeah, I know the kid’s style. But Dr.

  Magritte was an ex-priest, for Christ’s sake. The seal of the confessional still holds up in court. Even Mallory couldn’t break that old man.”

  “Back to the phone,” said Charles. “Originally, I believe it only had one purpose. Dr. Magritte was a serial killer’s confessor.”

  “You’re right. Okay, I buy that part. An ex-priest and a shrink-the perfect audience for a serial killer. These freaks just love their bragging rights. But Dr. Magritte could never rat him out-so why kill the old guy?”

  “Perhaps, toward the end, this killer had more faith in Mallory. And now she’s got the phone.”

  At his partner’s request, Riker fastened his seat belt. That was his only clue that he was in for one hell of a ride. “You wanna tell me where we’re going?”

  “The Painted Desert,” said Mallory. “Call the park rangers. If the road in is gated, I want it opened up before we get there. I’m not ripping up this car going overland.”

  “Wait a minute. This freak told you he was there? In a national park?”

  “No. He only told me he was in a dark place, waiting. He knows this car. He’ll blink his lights twice if I get it right. If he sees any cops or feds, he’ll just kill Dodie Finn and dump her out on the road.”

  “Are you sure the kid’s still alive?”

  “I could hear Dodie humming.”

  “That desert is huge, Mallory.”

  “But it’s only got a few segments of the old road running through it. They don’t s how up in maps or guidebooks. I think he’d know where they are, but no one else would. Even the buffs on the Internet wouldn’t know where to look. It’s perfect.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Charles to his passenger. “I can’t match speed with Mallory’s car, and I can’t predict an outcome for you.”

  To o late he had come to understand that his function on this road had nothing to do with the capture of a serial killer. He fixed his eyes upon a highway sign to reassure himself that he had not left the earth for the moon; but he was drawn back to the strange dark landscape framed in his side window. The prairie was so beautiful, though not hospitable to humanity, not welcoming nor forgiving, and it held not one whit of sentiment for the living or the dead. This was his only view into Mallory’s mind. One could easily get lost in such a place.

  “You gotta gimme something,” said Kronewald, “any damn thing.”

  “Well, it would appear that the killer feels some connection to Mallory-since he invited her to chase him down tonight.”

  “Gimme more,” said Kronewald, slipping into the interrogation tone.

  “I can string together a line of logic for you. Best guess?”

  “Anything.”

  “He definitely plans to kill the child-that’s hardly guesswork. The plan will be well thought out. Dodie Finn’s death will cap off his monument, and he’s planning something spectacular. That’s the most logical reason for keeping that little girl alive this long.”

  “So he’s got a thing for Mallory?”

  “She probably fascinates him, but it’s nothing sexual, no fantasizing in that direction. This man is repulsed by the whole idea of physical contact with a living person.”

  “But the guy takes big risks. He’s not afraid she’ll catch him after he kills this kid?”

  “I think he’s counting on it. Mallory thought he got sloppy with the murder of Dr. Magritte-when he left the old man’s bloody knife behind. It was the killer’s blood, his DNA. What if that was deliberate?”

  Kronewald nodded. “He wants credit.”

  “Right. Now, if he wants us to know who he is-then he’ll escalate his personal risk for the grand finale. He won’t c are if he lives through this night.”

  “Back in Chicago,” said Kronewald, “we call that suicide by cop. So he’s planning to take that little kid with him?”

  Charles nodded. “But not Mallory.” His eyes were on the road, searching for a familiar pair of taillights. “He called her out because he needs an audience tonight-someone who can appreciate his work.”

  And what would that do to Mallory, who did not take well to failure?

  Some people had reoccurring flying dreams. Charles had the toppling dream. An obj
ect would be about to fall, and he would startle himself awake by physically reaching out for it. Lately, he dreamed not of objects but a toppling woman, and it was always Mallory he reached for. And now he truly understood why Riker had brought him along. The police did not require his help to catch a serial killer. His job was to catch Mallory-when she fell.

  The two detectives had found the first abandoned segment of Route 66 inside the national park and just beyond the ranger station. It had gone to ruin, crumbles only-fruitless and disappointing.

  And now Riker had the ride of his life, a dizzy run of turns and curves for miles and miles of dark road.

  Mallory said, “Watch for a sign. We’re looking for Lacy Point.”

  Riker shouted, “There!”

  The car stopped on the park road, and Mallory stepped out, flashlight in hand, to show him a sight he would never forget.

  “I had no idea this was here.” Riker stood beside her and, disbelieving, head shaking, stared at a road that was not there. It had vanished long ago. Ghosty telephone poles, all stripped of their wires, trailed off into the desert and disappeared in the dark of night beyond the flashlight’s beam. Nature had reclaimed every bit of land and replanted it with scrub. There was no sign of pavement anymore, nothing left to say that millions of cars had gone this way. All that remained was a straight march of tall wooden poles- grave markers all of them-to show him where an old highway had died.

  Mallory blinked her flashlight twice. They waited in the dark, counting off the passing minutes, time enough for despair to settle in. They would not find Dodie out here.

  “I guessed wrong,” said Mallory.

  “Kid, it was a world-class guess,” said Riker. “Your knapsack is beeping.”

  Mallory’s caller wanted to voice a complaint. He was still waiting in the dark, and he would not wait for long.

  So much time had been lost on the park road through the Painted Desert, and the silver convertible was making up for it in speed, flying westward again on the interstate.

  “He says he can see for miles and miles,” said Mallory. “So I know he’s not sitting in the pine trees around Flagstaff. He’ll be near the old road. No lights, lots of open ground. He’s laying out a murder scene with maneuvering room. He wants me to see him kill Dodie, but he doesn’t w ant me to get close enough to stop it.” She waited for feedback, but her partner evidently had no better theory. Riker would always defer to her in all things sociopathic and monstrous. Mallory gripped the wheel a little tighter.