by Ben Miller
Jack sighed before responding. “It’s just a hunch, I guess, but I would like to know more about how Sara Gardner and Tina Langenbahn perceived the Piper’s voice when he said, ‘Hey,’ to them. It’s decidedly weird he would reveal himself that way—and the same way both times—when it seems unnecessary.”
“Right. Decidedly weird,” Reilly echoed.
“Try to get them to remember every detail of it. No nuance is insignificant. OK?”
“Got it. I’ll let you know what I find out,” Reilly said before they hung up.
He looked at the time on his phone. He needed to get back to the hotel and get cleaned up for their meeting. He turned and crow-hopped into a jog. After only a few steps, he stopped. He considered turning around to offer some sort of goodbye to his mother’s final resting place. He stood frozen for nearly a minute, perceiving opposing forces pulling him both back toward his mother and forward toward his car. Finally, he concluded that this pause served as a sufficient farewell, certainly a better one than his mother had ever provided for him. He lunged forward into a run, having no way of knowing at the time that he would never return to his mother’s gravesite.
49
“All rise,” the bailiff announced, with far less pageantry than people who spent less time in courtrooms than Corinne might expect, based on portrayals on TV and film. She glanced at her watch as she stood up: 9:33 am. This trial was already a half-hour behind before it even got started. She despised the inefficiency of our justice system even more than its ineptitude.
The judge had banned any recording devices in the courtroom for James Randall Franklin’s murder trial. A wise but unfortunate choice, according to Corinne. While that kept much of the riffraff from entering the courtroom, it couldn’t keep them away from the courthouse itself. Corinne had to wade through a sea of TV cameras and waving microphones to enter the building’s main entrance. She suspected just as many media personnel had camped out at the rear entrance, where they brought in the accused.
A number of other journalists leaned against the walls and filled the ends of the gallery rows. She sat about midway back on the right side of the courtroom. This location provided a decent view of the witness stand, the lawyers, the accused Dr. Franklin, and most of the jurors. She had waited in line before they opened the courtroom for a spot like this. As it turned out, she also had a desirable vantage point to watch many of the victims’ families in attendance.
Jennifer and Mario Cugino, Stephanie McBurney’s mother and stepfather, sat on the inner aisle end of the front row. Jennifer had begun to cry, before any court members filed in. Mario’s steely gaze darted around the front of the room, as if trying to predict through which door Randall might enter. Stephanie’s biological father Andrew sat beside Jennifer, a respectable distance between them. After several weepy seconds passed with Mario’s attention diverted, Andrew offered Jennifer a Kleenex.
Right behind them sat Amy and Carl Coulter, Danielle’s parents. Amy wore a navy dress that reminded Corinne more of a discount-rack ball gown than courtroom attire. Carl wore the same black suit he had on their Good Morning, America appearance. Soon after sitting down, Amy had glanced over each shoulder and leaned forward to view the front corners of the courtroom. Corinne surmised that Amy had not heard the judge’s decree regarding media coverage of the trial and she searched for the expected multitude of cameras. Amy did not hide her disappointment well.
Corinne had to scan nearly the entire room before locating Adrianna Cottrell’s parents, Adam and Bernadette. They sat in the middle of the next to last row in the gallery. Unlike their counterparts the Cuginos and the Coulters, the Cottrells had aggressively avoided the limelight throughout this whole process. Corinne had met with them on two occasions while researching her book. She had come to learn that their lack of outward involvement in the media’s attention to this case did not represent a lack of mourning for their daughter or caring about the outcome of this trial.
When Randall had entered a few minutes ago, a silence fell over the din of the room. Corinne had watched Randall enter the visitation room in his prison about a dozen times in the last several months, and she had learned to appreciate the variety of facial expressions and other antics he displayed with his entrances. She despised him as a human being, but part of her undeniably found him entertaining. None of this prevented her from finding him a trustworthy and valuable collaborator in her book and co-conspirator in their scheme. Finding a mutual enemy always strengthened bonds.
By his standards, Randall’s appearance in the courtroom had been boring. Accompanied by a bailiff, his odious lawyer Victor Upshall, and a couple other sycophantic parasites on their legal team, Randall had moved to his spot behind the defense table unceremoniously. He had sat down and pulled his chair in, interlacing his fingers and placing his joined hands on the table in front of him.
When everyone arose to welcome the judge and the members of the jury, Corinne studied Randall. As he began to sit down, he turned his face slightly to the right. The corners of his mouth elevated a smidgen, as if he suppressed a smile—one of a man with a winning secret. Corinne suspected that this little display was meant just for her.
No one watched Corinne, so she found no need to suppress her smile. She shared his secret and had the grand pleasure of soon revealing it.
50
Jackson Byrne glanced at his watch for the fourth time in the last fifteen minutes. Time moved like a geriatric tortoise. He silently thanked God that he got out of trial law, and that he had found a profession that fit his work flow—and work ethic—much better. Sitting around government buildings while waiting to testify constituted the most disliked aspect of his job. Slowly pushing his way through the gaggle of reporters outside came in a close second. The analogy of hacking his way through a jungle with a machete had come to mind, and the vision had brought some odd comfort to the plight.
He looked at Vicki sitting beside him in the witness waiting room. She seemed to stare straight through the coffee table in front of her. Jack felt a pang of sorrow for her and he wished—for myriad reasons—that she didn’t have to be here. State’s Attorney Ian Dewey had assured both Jack and Vicki that they were unlikely to testify today, but he requested their presence nevertheless. Jack had discovered that Dewey was a man who liked to have his bases covered. If proceedings went in an unexpected direction, he wanted flexibility to change courses with it.
“You doing OK?” Jack asked his wife, but she did not seem to hear. He leaned toward her. “Vick?”
She blinked slowly several times, her eyes meandering to meet his. “Yeah. I’m OK. Thanks.” She forced a wan smile.
Her eyes seemed glossed over. He hadn’t seen her like this before. He wondered if she had taken the Xanax Dr. Inkler had prescribed in order to help her go out in public. He shouldn’t pry, though; that was her decision to make, he told himself. However, he mostly didn’t want to ask because he didn’t want to know the answer. If she had, then it would explain her distant gaze, but he worried he might feel disappointment in the reality that she required pharmacologic intervention to leave the house. If she hadn’t taken the drug, then perhaps this current state represented the new normal, or at least a representation of Vicki he could come to expect throughout this trial. Last week Jack had thought Vicki was doing so much better; now he grew skeptical. But he would rather embrace skepticism than face a confirmed despondence.
“OK. We’ll check in with someone from Dewey’s team at lunch, see if we can get out of here early.”
“Right,” Vicki replied. Jack had already mentioned this twice this morning. She picked up the book in her lap and opened to her bookmark.
Jack felt assuaged by talking to his wife, even for a few seconds. Suddenly the thought hit him that they would both emerge from this entire ordeal OK. Not unscathed by any stretch, and not unchanged either. But they would be OK.
He decided to pull out a folder from his soft leather briefcase. He would pass the time by going over
material from the Piper case for about the tenth time.
51
“Have you found Theo?” Sara Gardner blurted as she whipped open the door. She must have seen Reilly coming to her front door and instantly recognized him as a representative from the authorities.
“Unfortunately, no, Ms. Gardner,” Reilly answered, his hands folded in front of him. “But we’re still pursuing a number of leads. I’m Special Agent Heath Reilly from the Child Abduction Information Resource Center of the FBI,” Reilly said as he extended his hand. He sometimes included the full name of his agency during an introduction, but more often he omitted the “Serial Murder” part. He had found the reception could be less emotional without it. And if he used the acronym CASMIRC, no one ever knew what he was talking about.
“Come on in,” Sara replied dejectedly as she turned, shoulders slumped, and collapsed into her sofa.
Reilly took a step inside and closed the door softly behind him. He surveyed the room and nearly didn’t dare to walk into it for fear of stepping on something. It resembled his frat house after homecoming weekend, if a raging tornado later ravaged it. Perhaps he would just stand here by the door. “Ms. Gardner—may I call you Sara?”
Sara lackadaisically flopped her hands on her lap—presumably her version of a shrug.
“OK, Sara. I just have a few quick questions for you and then I’ll get out of your hair.” As the words floated out of his mouth, Reilly considered that cliché especially apropos, wondering what crumbs and other bits of junk actually currently resided in the bird’s nest on her head.
“Sure. I got no place to be.” She sat up and tried to project more of a proper façade. She nonchalantly cupped the underside of her right breast. “I just need to pump in a little bit.”
“Oh, OK,” Reilly responded uncomfortably. “Well, just a few minutes, then.” He cleared his throat, taking a moment to reflect on how this mother continued to produce and store breast milk for her lost baby boy. Reilly knew that established data from criminal science predicted only a minuscule chance that, at this point, Theodore would be returned to her alive. He guessed she might have known these same statistics, but she wouldn’t let them bury her hope, despite what the disheveled appearance of her home might suggest. He felt a gush of sympathy for this sad young woman before him. He trudged forward into the filth, tossing aside a crusty bathrobe to sit down on an armchair across from her.
“I know you’ve been interviewed probably twenty times by now, but I want to focus on one particular part of your ordeal: the man’s voice.”
Sara began shaking her head. “I’ve told everybody: I didn’t recognize it.”
Reilly nodded. “I know. But I’m wondering if you can tell me anything about it. Any accent?”
Sara continued to shake her head.
“Was it scratchy or raspy, like a smoker’s voice? Or gruff, like an older man?” Reilly tried emulating these sounds as he talked, hoping any trigger might jog her memory.
“None of that.”
Reilly went on, showing off his best acting chops. “Anything you can remember could be helpful. High-pitched or low-pitched? Loud or soft?”
The oscillations of her head slowed as she drew in a deep breath. “No. It wasn’t…loud. Or soft. But the volume was weird.”
“Like some sort of loud whisper?” Reilly tried to fill in the blanks.
“No. I can’t really describe it.” Sara closed her eyes, trying to focus on her memory of the sound. “It was like the volume didn’t match the distance. It got louder between the first time and the second, but not as loud as it should have been.”
“What do you mean?” Reilly leaned forward. Perhaps he was onto something, thanks to Jack Byrne’s hunch. Of course it would be Jack to find the missing piece to this case.
“I don’t know. He was right on me after the second time, but…” Her eyebrows twisted, her display of the cartoon light bulb going off in her head. “And there was something else. Like…tinny.”
“Tinny?”
“Yeah. Like it was coming through a megaphone or something. But it wasn’t even close to loud enough to be a megaphone.”
Reilly focused so much on trying to piece together these latest tidbits that he didn’t even think twice when he sat back in the disgusting chair. He hoped repeating these oddities aloud might help make them fit together. “A tinny voice with disparate volume qualities…”
“I guess,” Sara confirmed as best as she could. “It’s tough to describe,” she said again.
Reilly’s phone cut through the silence with its raucous ring tone. It was Camilla. “Excuse me,” he said to Sara as he rose and walked toward the door to take the call. Perhaps, had his current train of thought not been interrupted by such monumental news on that phone call, his brain would have made the valuable but elusive connection to point this case in an entirely different direction.
52
Not surprisingly, the last half of the morning passed much faster for Jack than the first. He was shocked to see the time—almost noon—when he looked at his watch. He had immersed himself in the Piper files; work had always blurred his perception of time like no other activity could. Unfortunately, he had not yet found the insight he sought and had made no headway in this cognitive investigation.
Vicki had not made a move or a sound in quite a while, other than to turn the page of her book periodically. With the sluggishness with which she flipped pages, though, he now wondered if she were actually reading or just staring at the pages.
Shamefully not for the first time, Jack pondered if he had lost Vicki forever. He knew her horribly traumatic experience occurred only less than five months ago, and in the next few days she would have to relive it in a room full of strangers, so he wanted to reserve hope. In fact, he had successfully remained hopeful all along. Yet, times like this—seeing his wife an emotionless shadow of herself—challenged his optimism.
Soon the court would take a recess for lunch. He had planned his speech for Ian Dewey, or one of his assistants, to allow him to take Vicki home for the remainder of the day. Certainly Dewey would hear his plea and grant their dismissal, he assured himself. Jack really wanted to get Vicki out of here. The sooner the better.
His phone vibrated on his belt, signaling an incoming text message.
Camilla
Call me ASAP. Huge news on Piper case.
Jack leapt up from his chair and told the bailiff at the door that he needed to step outside to make a call. He got halfway through the threshold when he remembered about Vicki and that he had neglected to explain to her why he had to rush out. He spun around to tell her, but she had never even looked up from her book to notice he was almost gone.
53
Jeff Pine slammed the door behind him as he walked into the interrogation room. Aiden Dolan, seated on the opposite side of the metal table, jumped in his chair. His court-appointed defense attorney—Jim Fedorko, a mustachioed, bald man with coke-bottle glasses and a poor complexion, even well past middle age—didn’t flinch.
“Who are you working with, Aiden?” Jeff accused loudly as he pulled a chair up to the table.
Dolan looked at his attorney, who offered a shrug. Fedorko had counseled Dolan earlier to answer only the questions he wanted to answer, but to always answer truthfully. His current apathy indicated he would simply defer to his earlier advice.
Dolan turned his attention back to Jeff, addressing him directly but without an iota of confidence. “No one. I’m not working with nobody.”
Jeff leaned forward, resurrecting the low, deep tone in his voice that had shaken Dolan yesterday. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying to me, and I know it. I have proof. Now tell me who you are working with.”
Dolan’s lower lip quivered. “Nobody,” he whispered. “I don’t know. I don’t…I don’t know what you mean.”
“I don’t mean Wendy.” Jeff had relaxed the intensity of his tone, but not much. “I know you and Wendy took Tyler together. I want to know who else
is playing in your band, Aiden. Who else?!”
Dolan’s head began to flutter back-and-forth. He could barely force words through his lips. “No…nobody.”
Jeff stared at him through his eyebrows, judging the veracity of his response. Finally, after an uncomfortable several seconds, Jeff looked away and took a deep breath. He blew it out toward the ceiling. He had planned his approach to this videotaped interview carefully, and he feared the time to diverge from his script had arrived quite early. Jeff realized that Dolan had broken, after less than twenty-four hours in captivity. He now saw little utility in breaking him down even further. His mind raced through a variety of scenarios in seconds, running through algorithms as best as he could predict them. He needed to connect Dolan to these other kidnappings, and he prayed he could do it fast.
Jeff sat up straighter in his chair and rubbed a hand over his eyes, down his face. When he spoke, he adopted a conversational tone, much different from any he had taken with Dolan thus far. “You know what I think, Aiden? I don’t think this was even your idea in the first place.”
Dolan’s eyes brightened but he didn’t say anything.
“The first baby taken was, Portia, Tina Langenbahn’s baby. You don’t know Tina Langenbahn, do you, Aiden?”
“No.” Dolan began to relax.
“You do know Sioban Meloy, though, don’t you?” Jeff averred.
Dolan paused for a moment, blinking rapidly as he looked toward the corner of the room—Jeff had learned to recognize this as a sign of contemplation. “Sioban? Yeah. What’s she got to do with this?”
“How do you know her?” Jeff asked, ignoring Dolan’s question.
“I used to date her roommate. A while ago.”
“Do you keep in touch with her?”
“Not really. I mean, we’re Facebook friends, but that’s it. That doesn’t mean nothin’. I haven’t seen her in a long time. Why? What’s—she didn’t lose a baby too, did she?”