Pursuit
Page 11
Setting words to the event cast a realistic pall on the conversation.
“Hold on. We’re going to prevail here, trust me. Go see Pastor Garthwait again.” Todd paused. “Also, why don’t we call the lab in Chicago, have them take pictures of the ring from all angles, see if the good reverend recognizes it as his grandmother’s?”
“How will that help us?”
“If we can establish a connection between what’s going on with you and what happened to these other girls years ago, maybe there’s a way to put this guy in the picture. Some sort of coupling, a nexus.”
“I hate that word, but I get where you’re going.” Julie looked at the still-darkened sky. “It’s early. I hope my Cheryl’s all right.” She covered her eyes. “Sorry.” Her mind worked on the possibilities. “I still don’t get it. What’s my link to this guy? It has to be me, Todd. He took her because of me.” She paused. “You’re right about talking to Garthwait. I look into these cold cases, and suddenly my life gets dangerous.”
Todd phoned dispatch and got the number for the lab in Chicago. “We still can’t do anything for a couple hours. Let me ask you—who might be the most relevant?”
Julie had no response.
“Okay, let’s concentrate on Garthwait. We’ve seen Preston recently, and what’s your factory guy’s name?”
“Drew. William Drew. As I said before, I don’t think he knows more than what he’s already told me. But today we’ll probably find out who has been there since Drew’s niece went missing.”
Todd looked surprised.
“I’m sorry, maybe I didn’t tell you. We asked for a list of people who were around when the kidnapping occurred. If, in fact, that’s what it was.”
Julie took her cup to the sink. She put her hands on the edge of the counter and stretched. The pain in her upper body was still intense, but she welcomed it. It put her in touch with her baby. That smiling cherub years ago. Pigtails waving as she sang, “You are my thunshine. My only thunshine.”
Angie Hogar, here.”
Cheryl pulled the cot away from the wall. It looked like someone had lain facedown on the cot and with an outstretched arm over the edge scratched the words into the concrete floor. The woman must have carved the message with a piece of metal, something hard. She peeled off the dirty sheet and stuffed it between the wall and the faucet. She vowed to wash it, but later. Cheryl curled up on the flimsy mattress, a mere token of protection from the wire stretched across the frame of the cot. She didn’t know how long she had been there or why.
In all of the trekking through the rain, stumbling falls, and angry man retorts, Cheryl never got the idea that this had anything to do with her. Or Billie, either. She wondered what happened to Aunt Billie. The man’s attitude echoed that of a workman going about his chores, doing what he had to do. His initial sense of excitement gave way to a dogged firmness.
She wrapped the blanket around her like a cocoon. The light stayed on, as there wasn’t any way to turn it off. The fan hummed, once in a while going off center and creating a metal-on-metal screech, mixing the cool basement air into her cell.
Cheryl stared at the opposite wall. In the corner, a piece of the children’s nursery wallpaper buckled slightly, forming a rectangular protrusion. She eased off her bed and moved her hand along the length of the bubbled wallpaper. Then she felt the short side of the wall. There was a difference. Was it just the texture, the sense on her fingertips of the rough, thick paper? She felt it again. No, the temperature. The area where the paper bulged was cooler. She shut her eyes and did it again, this time going in the opposite direction. She lay back on the cot and looked at the wallpaper’s shape. It began high in the corner of the room, stretched two feet across, and a foot and a half down. It looked like the size of a picture frame, maybe an earlier installation of the fan that was now over the door. Or perhaps a window.
She continued to look at the swollen wallpaper, and she was sure that it covered a window. Basement windows were placed in that way, under heavy beams that held up the floor above. Whoever made the room—probably “the voice”—covered the window. It made sense. Why build this prison cell and have a window through which one could escape?
She eased into a light nap, thinking about what her mother used to say about adversity, “Don’t bellow until you’re out of the woods.”
A man’s muted voice awakened her. “Hey you, move over here, close to the door.”
Cheryl positioned herself where a waist-high slot in the wall had been opened. She glimpsed a man’s belt looped through dark blue trousers, a white shirt, and the tip of a tie. “Are you listening? Are you listening?”
“Yes. Where’s my aunt Billie?” Cheryl saw the man’s waist and the back of his shirt as he paced.
It was a while before he spoke. “Mind your manners, and you won’t end up like your auntie, you hear? I’m going to pass you food.” Five apples and a loaf of bread were squashed in the pass-through. Then three tins of sardines, a package of potato chips, and two sealed Styrofoam Cup Noodles soups. “My advice, make it last. I’m not going to wear myself out hiking up and down these stairs to feed you.”
In the past, he’d tried to gain favor by feeding his guests substantial meals. Now, let them eat cake. He flashed the lights off and on several times, working himself into a fever. “What do you expect of me? Lazy bitch, sitting on your butt, like a teenage pig! I’m telling you, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you!” Once again he flashed the lights and cut the fan on and off. He stomped up the stairs, his voice high and angry. “If I hear a whisper, I’ll come right back down and beat the living hell out of you! Got it?” His voice trailed off as he slammed the basement door.
Before the sound finished reverberating around the concrete block walls, he was back. “And, if there’s anything you need, sweetie, just tap on the door.” His voice, coming from the top of the stairs, had changed to that of a gentle soul. “A light, pleasant knock will do.”
She thought he was more than strange.
He hummed a few notes. “By the way, you can call me ‘King,’ or ‘the King.’ A-wop-dah-a-doo-dah, a-wop-wop-wop!
“Should I avail our guest of the full spa treatment? Massage, pedicure, a refreshing cold shower under the tap? Naked, of course.” He laughed. Still in a fit of self-congratulatory merriment, he forgot to close the food slot and once again slammed the door shut. Cheryl went to the wall and pressed her head against the slot, holding her left hand tightly to her ear. After several minutes, a car revved and drove off.
She waited five minutes. Her head and hands rested on the ledge of the food slot. “Hey up there!” She heard only the faint whir of the fan above the door. “Hey, King! If that’s your name.” She pounded her clenched fist on the ledge. Nothing. She sat back down. He was gone. She made a pledge that she was going to get out.
“How?” She startled herself by speaking out loud.
She would use the tops of the sardine cans to cut through the wallboard, certain that there was a window up in the far corner, noting also a bulge in the wallpaper where it looked water-stained, as if there were something behind the paper. She would cut through to the window but try to preserve the wallpaper in case he came back and looked in the room. She wasn’t even certain a window was back there, but she was going to find out.
Cheryl took the wrapper from the loaf of bread and emptied the can of sardines into it. She wasn’t crazy about sardines, but maybe they would save her. She took the oily can and climbed on top of the fridge.
Once the paper had been pulled away, about twenty inches from the corner could be seen, with a couple nails perpendicular to each other. Tapping her knuckles on the wall, and then on the upper portion, it sounded different, more hollow. She scraped a line next to the nails and then a horizontal one at the bottom, where the wallpaper had been. Taking a dish towel from the top of the fridge and wrapping it around the empty sardine tin, leaving a sharp edge exposed, she cut away. She created a long, horizontal line and
worked for what seemed several hours, making a pitiful amount of progress against the wallboard. The sardine can began to distort, the constant sawing pulling it into a more elongated shape. Her hands cramped. Shifting positions, the tough-minded teenager worked on the vertical line next to the nails.
While heading into town for work, Charles thought about his life. He enjoyed his multiple-residence routine. A modest one-bedroom flat served him well from Monday night through Friday morning, and then he would be off once again to his “pied-à-terre.” A real estate lady used the expression once while giving a talk at the factory. French. He liked the idea of it. “A foot to the ground.”
He relished his acts of authority; they gave him great joy. The banal patter with his captives lifted him like nothing else.
Somewhere, others might say that what he was doing was wrong, but he reasoned that they would be the cowardly; the meek sisters of ho-humdrum. Those do-gooders who raise the prescribed number of children, attend church, and vote for the candidate with the biggest grin.
He vowed that his days would be filled with more worthwhile endeavors. A foot to the ground indeed. Or, closer to accurate, a whole body itself to the ground. Or how about a half dozen to the earth? But he had to admit he’d lost count, now with quality being the essence of the work.
Laughing out loud, he wondered if motorists around him thought him to be at all exceptional or queer. No, not queer. That, he knew, would not be accurate. His relationship to women would no doubt deem him heterosexual. He might be thought of as different but not fairy-like or lame. He and his mighty stallion implement would prevail, with never a hint of light-footedness. He sang:
I have this grand opinion
that I’ll always rule my dominion.
Women will beg to be incarcerated
in my basement room, inebriated.
Julie contacted Captain Walker and discussed her theories on how the cases connected.
“Okay,” said Walker. “Meet me at the office. We’ll start pushing some of these interviews again. See who we can shake up.”
When Julie and Todd pulled up to the office, Captain Walker was outside, talking to two very serious-looking men in dark suits.
“Who are these guys?” Todd asked.
“I’d say feds,” guessed Julie, not too excited about the development.
Walker made the introductions as they approached. “Julie Worth, Todd Devlin, this is Supervisory Special Agent Jason Tyler and . . .” He trailed off, having already forgotten the second agent’s name. “Agent Tyler was just offering his support.” Walker gave Julie a look that clearly meant “Play nice.”
“Sergeant Worth, we are sorry to hear what you’re going through. We are here to offer the full resources of the Bureau.”
“Thank you.”
“Such as?” asked Todd.
Tyler flashed a quick and easy smile. “We’re not here to take over your case, Officer. We’ve been talking to Captain Walker, and he was quite clear.” He shot Walker a quick glance. “This case is being directed personally by him and the Missouri Highway Patrol. And so far, we have no evidence to support that Sergeant Worth’s daughter has left the state, so it is still not a federal case. We want to offer to handle this with the other potential victims around the country. Captain Walker says this guy might be a serial—”
“Abductor,” offered Devlin.
“Yes, sir.” Tyler smiled again. “We are staffing a command post in Saint Louis as we speak. We’ve requested copies of your cold cases, as well as others around the region. The Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico is already opening a case, building a profile. The crime lab already has a file open and is searching other pending unsolved cases. And we have agents around the country who can chase down interviews, so you guys can focus on finding Sergeant Worth’s daughter.”
Julie nodded. This might not be so bad after all, she thought.
“We also have an Amber Alert issued. Anyone traveling with a pretty sixteen-year-old blonde in the Midwest will probably be interviewed. If they are not moving—”
“You mean if she is already dead?” Julie interrupted.
“No, ma’am.” Jackson Ross spoke for the first time. His face was solid and strong, and, unlike his supervisor, smiling did not come naturally for him. “We mean if he is holding her, in a room or a basement somewhere.”
Julie shivered at the image involuntarily.
Ross continued, “And if he is, we can bring Hostage Rescue in from Quantico and get her back.” He held her eyes, his confidence undeniable and a little contagious.
“Special Agent Ross will be the case agent on this,” explained Tyler.
“Have you worked abductions before?”
Ross nodded. “Maybe a dozen.”
“How many have you solved?”
“All but one.”
“How many victims did you get back?”
Ross continued to look into Julie’s eyes. “Alive? Four.”
Julie looked away. Jesus, she’d had better odds in the mall.
Tyler interrupted. “If we could get those files, we’ll get out of your way.”
As the captain and Tyler walked off, Julie asked Ross, “So how did you get stuck with us?”
Hearing the question, Tyler stopped and turned. “Because he is the best I have at this.”
Julie looked at Ross, who nodded briefly, as if to confirm his supervisor’s assessment. For the first time in a couple days, Julie smiled. “Then let’s go find this motherfucker.”
And for the first time, Ross’s face broke into a broad, engaging grin. “Yes, ma’am. Let’s do.”
Todd, Julie, and Captain Walker stood at the wide double doors of Pastor Garthwait’s church. Makeshift tents and large cabana-style beach umbrellas crowded the yard next to the church parking lot.
Walker scuffed his new black combat boots on the rough concrete. “Of all the fucking—” He stopped and looked around. “Of all the days to have a church bazaar, they gotta pick this one.”
When they arrived, a man identifying himself as a church deacon assured them that he would round up the good pastor. A scratchy “Onward Christian Soldiers” recording blared from somewhere in the crowded Bedouin-like encampment.
The reverend came from within the church. He appeared in a tight-fitting black suit, white ironed shirt, and patterned tie. Julie’s eye caught his polished black shoes.
He looked as if he had been eating, wiping his hands on a delicate handkerchief, which he stuffed back into his pocket. “What, pray tell, may I do for you?”
“We’d like a few minutes with you in private, if we may.”
“And you are?” The reverend looked perplexed.
“Captain Walker, Missouri State Patrol.”
The man paced across the broad concrete landing of the church steps. He brushed lint from his suit jacket. “This is not convenient for me now, Captain. As you can see, we are in the middle of a celebration.”
Walker made impatient clicking sounds with his tongue. “You’ve been interviewed by Sergeant Julie Worth recently, do you recall?”
“Yes, so? And?”
“We’re investigating a kidnapping.”
“She told me, and I relayed to her—”
Walker held up his hands to stop the clergyman. “It’s not that kidnapping. Do you have an attorney?”
“Why do you ask, my good man?”
“Because if I have to get a court order to speak to you, you’re probably going to need counsel, understand me?” Walker took a step toward the man.
“Sir, may I?” Julie asked.
Walker signaled for her to speak.
“You recall my having spoken to you, correct?”
The pious man blinked.
“We have something we think is relevant pertaining to a recent kidnapping. It may have a link to your daughter’s case.”
“As I attempted to tell this elite member of the”—he tapped his heels together in a halfhearted salute—“I’m in the mid
dle of a financially important church function.”
“Listen to me.” Walker turned his back to the tented crowd. “I’m going to tell you something confidential. Sergeant Worth’s sixteen-year-old daughter was abducted last evening, and the sergeant’s friend was ruled dead at the scene. That death, because it was connected to the kidnapping, is believed to be a homicide.”
Julie took in a sip of air at the spoken words.
“We also have evidence that it is related to your daughter’s abduction. We want to show you a few pictures.”
The reverend paced again and then nodded.
Walker looked him in the eyes. “Not here.”
Garthwait stepped aside and opened the double doors to the church foyer. Set up at the back of the gallery, a long table piled with plates of fried chicken, potato salad, and corn on the cob. A young woman sat alone at the far end of the banquet table.
“Excuse us, please.” Walker gestured for the woman to trot along.
Todd moved aside a plate of salad and opened a manila envelope, spreading five eight-by-ten-inch photos on the table. “Any of these look familiar?”
“Where did you get these?” The reverend adjusted his glasses and leaned over the table.
“Let’s just stay on point here, okay? Where we got these is not important.” Walker pushed the photos closer. “Any of these look familiar? Do you recognize the ring? Can you answer the question? Please, we’re pressed for time.” Walker tapped at the table’s edge.
“That’s my grandmother’s ring.” Garthwait pointed to the center photo.
Julie resisted putting her hand to her mouth.