by Jeff Miller
“You tell me, Dagny. You tell me.”
“I can’t.”
He sighed. “The average rapist spends sixty-five months in prison. Under the federal guidelines, a bank robber who discharges a weapon must be sentenced to between eighty-seven and a hundred and eight months! I’m not the one who says it’s bigger. You are.”
“I don’t make the law.”
“You are the law.” A minute passed. Maybe more. “Can’t you see that I like you? Can’t you see that I’m helping you?”
She stared at the darkness that was his voice. “No.”
“What do you want, Dagny?”
Only one thing, really. “I want to kill you.”
“That’s fair.” The clink of his heel meant he’d gone up a step. And then he said, “Mr. Waxton spent quite a bit for that baseball, and nothing on security for his bank.” Another clink. “Why do you think that ball was more important to him than his bank, Dagny?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sometimes there’s no explanation for the things we love, I suppose.” Clink, clink. “But he loves that baseball. So here’s a little advice.” Three more clinks. “At the end of the day, you won’t be able to bring back the Silverses, or Michael Brodsky, or the children I’m going to kill tomorrow. Or even that dog in California. But you can still get Mr. Waxton’s baseball back to him. I really hope that you do.”
The pain of hearing him say “Michael Brodsky” was quickly eclipsed by the word “children.” Dagny tried to speak, but her voice failed her. She spent the night awake, staring into black, thinking about the children, and wondering if he would kill six or eight, or if the Professor was right, and he would kill sixteen.
CHAPTER 36
April 15
The Temptations jarred Dagny from her sleep. She was sitting, blindfolded, and her head was pulled to her right. Whatever held her head in place tugged at the skin of her forehead. She guessed it was electrical or duct tape. There was something stuck in her mouth—maybe a rag—held in place by more tape, which tore at her skin when she tried to move the muscles in her cheeks. She took deep, slow breaths through her nose, trying to squelch her gag reflex. Her arms were tied behind the seat by twine or rope that scraped at her skin. Her feet were bound together. When she tried to kick them forward, she heard a metal clang. She guessed that she had been handcuffed to the base of the seat.
And then the seat jumped.
A bump in the road. She was in a car. More likely the bucket seat of a van. A cool, steady breeze tickled the left side of her face. Air conditioning. She was in the front passenger seat. He was sitting to her left. She knew this because he was singing along with David Ruffin, acknowledging that she wanted to leave him, but refusing to let her go.
Every minute or two the van would stop. Traffic lights meant traffic. She wondered whether anyone could see her. No, surely the windows were tinted. She felt a lingering, piercing pain in her right shoulder, and figured that he had shot her that morning with another tranquilizer dart.
He lowered the volume of the radio. “Dagny? Shake your arms if you’re awake.” She ignored his request. “Fine, be that way. I know you’re awake. I saw you squirming around. We don’t have to talk. I just thought you might like coming with me. A field trip, so to speak. Remember field trips?” He paused for a moment. “When I was seven, we went to a farm. We were given pieces of chalk and asked to draw on the cows, labeling the different cuts of meat. Rump. Round. Loin. It was bizarre, really. Meeting these really cool cows, and then drawing on them precisely how they were to be slaughtered. I hope they don’t have kids do that anymore. That wasn’t a fun field trip. Of course, this one isn’t really much fun either.” He raised the volume of the radio. First Herman’s Hermits. Then Tommy James and the Shondells, followed by Paul Revere and the Raiders, and then the Lovin’ Spoonful. She kept a count of the songs to keep track of the time, and distance. Finally, she felt the car shift into reverse. He was parking, and then turning off the engine. The music stopped.
“Well, we’re here,” he announced.
She heard him open the door and jump down to the ground, and then she heard the rear side door slide open. He grabbed something, then opened the front door and climbed back up to the driver’s seat. Dagny felt him lean toward her. His breath was warm on her neck as he spoke. “I guess I’ll let you peek for just a second.” She felt his fingers graze her forehead, and then he peeled down the top of the blindfold. Even though the window was tinted, the light hurt Dagny’s eyes. Then he lowered her window. At first she saw only a blinding flash of sunlight. As her eyes adjusted, a building appeared as a blur, then slowly came in focus. Dagny struggled to make out the white recessed letters on the wood sign just a few feet away: HAYSWORTH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.
“So I’m sorry about this, but...” Dagny felt a sharp prick in her arm. “We haven’t been together very long, Dagny. I’d like to think you’ve gained a few pounds, and that you’re sufficiently motivated to stay on the right course. I’m putting my trust in you, and I hope it isn’t misplaced. I expect to see you again, and next time, you’ll have the upper hand. I can’t wait to see what you do with it.” He paused, and then added, “Oh, in case you were wondering...it will be sixteen.”
CHAPTER 37
April 15—Nashville, Tennessee
She sat on the swing, gripping the chain links with her hands, struggling to tap the dirt below with her feet. Most of the boys were playing tag; the girls were standing around on the blacktop, talking, laughing. Maybe laughing at her. Cassie was alone, always alone.
A man came around the corner of the school and started walking to the back of the lot, toward Cassie. He was wearing grey overalls and work gloves; a duffel bag hung off his shoulder. A janitor, she guessed, though she’d never seen this one before. When he got closer, he smiled. Cassie smiled back. He seemed nice.
“Mind if I join you?”
She shook her head and he sat on the swing next to her.
“All by yourself over here, I guess?”
She nodded.
“What about the teacher? Doesn’t a teacher usually monitor recess?” Cassie pointed over toward the far corner of the playground, where Ms. Jenkins was sitting on the curb, reading a book and smoking a cigarette. He nodded. “She really shouldn’t be smoking.” The man kicked his legs just a little and started a slow swing. “Nice day.”
She watched his eyes survey the playground, scanning back and forth.
“Where’s Danny Deardrop today?
She shrugged.
“Is he here today?”
She shrugged again. Danny wasn’t in her class. She’d seen him before, but not today.
“Well, that’s a real kick in the pants, isn’t it?” he laughed.
She laughed, too. It was a pretty funny expression.
“What are you? I’d guess you’re about eight years old, right?”
She nodded.
He pointed over to the girls on the blacktop. “I guess those girls think they’re too cool for you? I know what that’s like. I’ve been shut out before, too.” He shook his head back and forth a bunch of times, then looked down at his watch. “I guess I’m procrastinating. You know how sometimes you have to do something, but you don’t really want to, so you just wait a little while longer, hoping it will go away.”
She did know this feeling—like when her mom wanted her to clean her room.
“Well, I guess I can’t wait any longer.” He hopped off the swing and opened his duffel bag, then reached in and pulled out a small white card. “Honey, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to take this card and run back to the woods on the side of the school. And I need you to stay there for a long time...maybe count all the way to five hundred. Can you do that?”
She nodded. Five hundred was easy.
“And when you come out, I want you to give this card to an adult. A teacher or the principal or a policeman...just any adult. This is really important. Will you do that for me?”
She nodded
. Finally, someone wanted to play with her.
He handed her the card. “Now go,” he said, patting her bottom as she ran toward the woods.
When she got to the end of the playground, she turned around and he waved for her to keep going. She continued into the woods. One, two, three, four...five hundred was going to take a long time, but she could do it. Eleven, twelve, thirteen...he didn’t say she couldn’t look at the card. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...
THIS IS MY EIGHTH CRIME.
MY NEXT WILL BE BIGGER.
Cassie heard the shots and the screams, but she stayed in the woods, counting to five hundred, standing alone. Always alone.
CHAPTER 38
April 16—Alexandria, Virginia
Dagny opened her eyes and saw a quarter moon peeking through the clouds. The rain had soaked her clothes, and she was cold. She curled her fingers around slick blades of grass and pushed herself to a sitting position. A clump of wet hair smacked her face, and she pushed it back. She felt awful. There were grooves on her wrists and arms from the rope. Her shoulder still hurt. She stood slowly, bracing herself with her arm, then straightening her legs.
Where was she? Dagny noticed the pitcher’s mound and then the tennis courts. The sign prohibiting dogs. The basketball court with the eight-foot rims. She was at the YMCA, just four blocks from her house. It was almost considerate. Even monsters have a good side. This one was a good cook, kept his shoes shined, and returned his kidnappees a few blocks from their homes. He even had a certain charm. Of course, so did Ted Bundy...
He kept his shoes shined. The brown Edward Greens. The Deaver book. Flying from Cincinnati to DC. The man sitting next to her, hitting on her. Was it him?
Dagny splashed through the puddles, weaving between parked cars and streetlights. When she reached her house, she plowed through three inches of wet flower bed, grabbed her spare key, and unlocked her front door. Bedroom, maybe? She ran upstairs. When it wasn’t on her nightstand, Dagny raced back downstairs and scanned her bookshelves. Adams, Ambler, Baldacci, Block, Bowen, Burke, Cannell, Chandler, Child, Christie, Clark...Connelly. Connelly!
She grabbed the Connelly book and carried it to the kitchen counter. The card fell on the counter when she turned the book upside down. “Roberto Altamont, Consultant.” Dagny didn’t touch the card, but leaned closer to study its edges. They were perforated. She stared at the phone number under Altamont’s name. If she waited, maybe they could trace it. She couldn’t wait—she had to know. Dagny grabbed the phone and dialed the number.
At first she heard ringing only in the earpiece. Then she heard it, faintly, from her backyard, too. Dagny grabbed a chopping knife from the block on her kitchen counter and headed to the back sliding door. Ring. She slid the door open, and it was louder. Ring. There was a small, wet cardboard box on her patio. He’d probably tossed it from a neighbor’s yard. Ring. She reached down, picked up the box, and opened it. The cell phone inside it rang one more time before going to voice mail. “Hello, Dagny. I’m not available right now, but I’ll see you soon, I hope. And remember, always ask, Why?”
Dagny hung up her phone and dialed another number. “Professor, I’m home. I’m home. I’m...” She dropped the phone and fell to the ground.
An hour later, Dagny was in a private room at George Washington University Hospital, being scraped, poked, and prodded, first by a female agent collecting evidence, then by physicians assessing the state of her health. When they had finished, Justin Fabee walked in and closed the door. He took off his raincoat and hung it on a hook, then grabbed a chair and carried it to the side of Dagny’s bed.
“Is Victor okay?” she asked.
Fabee sat down. “He’s fine. How are you?”
“Is Victor here? Where’s the Professor?”
“Victor’s in Tennessee. The Professor is on his way.”
“What about the children?”
He just shook his head. Her heart sank. Sixteen kids were dead because they’d failed to do their job. With the Silverses, Mike, and Candice, that was twenty-two lives lost.
“I know you’re going to have a ton more questions,” he said, “but first I need to talk to you about what happened to you, and then there will be some visitors, if you’re up for it. A lot of people are happy you’re okay. I’m one of them, by the way.” It seemed sincere. Even a blue-flamer can have a heart, Dagny figured.
She spent the next two hours telling him most of what had occurred, omitting a few details, like her anorexia and the fact that Altamont, or whatever his real name was, had kidnapped her in order to nurse her back to health.
“Why do you think he took you?” Fabee asked.
“I think he wants to be caught,” she replied. “And I think he wants to be sure that we investigate why he did what he did, even after we catch him.”
Fabee furrowed his brow. “So he’s got some kind of message or political cause?”
“I don’t know,” Dagny said, though she had some thoughts on the matter.
“You really think he wants to get caught? Did he give you any clues about what we should be looking for?”
“No. He refused to answer any questions. Did Victor ID him?”
“Victor never saw the guy.”
“What about Murgentroy?”
“Murgentroy is dead.”
“Dead?” Dagny was surprised. She’d assumed that Murgentroy and Victor had both been hit with tranquilizer darts, and that the two shots she heard had been fired by Murgentroy at Altamont. That seemed to make sense, since Murgentroy fell slowly, several seconds after she had heard the gunshots. Most people fall pretty quickly after they’ve been hit by a bullet. “I thought he was hit by a tranquilizer. He wasn’t?”
“Bullet, in the heart. Matches the gun used at the other crimes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I lifted the bullet myself.”
Dagny was always suspicious of eyewitness recollections. In stressful situations, people pay attention to their immediate needs—an escape path, for instance, or the safety of their children. They don’t pay much attention to the cause of the stress. Later, they’re likely to merge assumptions with actual recollections. Maybe she’d done this with Murgentroy’s fall. But why would Altamont kill Murgentroy? Had Murgentroy seen his face?
“Kidnapping looks pretty good on you, aside from the scrapes and bruises,” Fabee said. He rose from his chair and picked up Dagny’s medical chart from the foot of the bed. “One-oh-seven. Hmmm. Maybe we can get some ice cream in here.” He set the chart down. “So you never saw his face?”
“Not from the kidnapping, but I remember it from the plane. He—”
The door flew open, crashing into the wall behind it. Dagny expected a hulking mass to be standing in the doorway, but it was a slight, balding man with a pointy grey beard and a briefcase. “Thank God!” The Professor hobbled to her bed and grabbed Dagny’s hand. “I’m so glad to see you. You have no idea.” His face seemed worn by worry, but his smile betrayed his relief.
“Not as glad as I am to see—”
“Enough with the mushies. Did you see his face?”
“Not this time, but last month, on the flight from Cincinnati.”
This should have provoked a wide range of questions, but the Professor seemed unfazed. He opened his briefcase and pulled out a manila folder. He handed the folder to Dagny. “Is this him?”
Dagny opened the folder to find a single photograph—the mug shot of a chubby dark-haired man. Chubby? She studied his face more closely—his cheekbones. Dimples. The cleft chin. Could it have been him a decade earlier? Now he was fit, and his hair was greying. Prison could have done that to him. The deep-blue eyes. Yes, she was certain. “That’s him. He’s thin now. Strong.” She looked up at the Professor. “How did you—”
“Profiling. What, did you think I was just twiddling my thumbs this whole time?”
She laughed. “I had no idea.”
“I figured it was a Caucasian white-collar type who’d
known Berry. Every white-collar Caucasian inmate released from Coleman within the past five years was accounted for. But Berry also spent a short amount of time at other institutions, either awaiting trial or testifying in other cases. Ashland, Elkton, and Memphis. I was able to account for one hundred and forty-eight potential white-collar criminals who had spent time in those prisons. There was one that I couldn’t account for. He was six four and named Noel Draker.”
Noel Draker. Now they had a real name. A prior case file. Coworkers, family members, friends. If only they had prints to confirm it. Dagny remembered the Newsweek article in her sock. She reached down for it, but it was gone. Draker must have found it. Still, it had to be him.
“Why was he in prison?”
“Securities fraud,” the Professor said.
“When was he released?”
“Last May. Almost a year ago. Served ten years at Ashland.”
“Long sentence.” She handed the photograph to Fabee. “You ever heard of this guy?”
Fabee studied it. “Securities fraud, you say?”
“Yes,” the Professor answered.
“Never heard of him.” Fabee handed the photograph back to Dagny. “Should I have? Is he famous?”
“No, not really,” the Professor said. “The case had some notice when it broke. Regional story, mostly.”
Dagny handed the photograph to the Professor and tossed her right leg to the floor.
“Just where do you think you’re going?” Fabee said.
“To work,” Dagny replied. She tried to spear her right shoe with her foot and tumbled to the ground. Fabee helped her up. “Just a little dizzy,” she explained. The Professor frowned.
“What?” Dagny reached down and grabbed her shoe, but Fabee tore it from her hand.
“Sorry, Dagny, but you’re stuck here ’til the doctors say so.”