by Robin Mahle
The conference room was large and well-appointed with the latest technology. Katie thought the chief might be envious of the sheer amount of money this police department had, given his lack of resources in his rural town. An enormous 75-inch flat-panel television hung on the wall and just below it, resting on a credenza, was a slim notebook computer. On the cherry-stained oval table sat another laptop and three speakerphones that looked as though holographic images might suddenly appear and hover above them. Economic downturn be damned; this department had money.
“Katie, it’s very nice to see you again.” The chief offered his hand.
“Nice to see you again, Chief; although I wish it were under different circumstances.”
“Me too, Katie.”
With the requisite pleasantries exchanged, Captain Hearn took the lead. “Thank you, Chief Wilson, for coming down to see us. I see you have the files we requested. Might we take a look?”
“The latest piece of evidence is this letter that I received a few months ago, back at my station in Rio Dell.” Chief Wilson pulled out the letter, which had been sealed in an evidence bag. “I immediately informed Ms. Reid and Detective Avery that this came to me and advised them to take caution in any further inquiries into this investigation. All was quiet until last month when Ms. Reid received a similar letter at her home. I’d like to see that letter, Katie.”
“Yes, we have that.” Katie looked at Marshall, who had the case file, and pulled out the sealed bag containing the letter. She glanced over at Captain Hearn, who was sifting through some of the documents the chief had brought with him. One of the items of particular concern was a photo of the girl from Portland. Captain Hearn began jotting down some notes.
“I think we should consider entering this case into ViCAP,” Captain Hearn said, still taking notes.
“There are clearly some similarities between Katie’s case and the others who went missing that same summer. If we can get the details down, we just might get a hit from another agency.”
“I’m sorry; I don’t know that much about ViCAP,” Katie said.
“If another jurisdiction or agency entered similar signature marks from an ongoing investigation, or cases that have gone cold, then we might be able to match up some of those marks.”
“I don’t know, captain,” the chief started. “I would doubt cases this old would have been entered into a system that most jurisdictions still aren’t very familiar with. I’ve never used it myself, but its widespread use among local authorities is still fairly uncommon and, from what I understand, the FBI is slow to provide assistance in utilizing it effectively. You may just be wasting valuable man hours here.”
“I respectfully disagree, Chief,” Marshall chimed in. “We need all the help we can get and it wouldn’t take long to get the data entered. We aren’t talking but maybe half a dozen markers to identify.”
“Respectfully, Detective Avery.” The chief’s tone was quickly changing. “I’ve been doing this a long time and I know every detail about this case, and I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time with ViCAP. We need to be focusing on leads from the hotline and, from what I understand, you’ve got some kind of lead on where this stationery was purchased. That’s current and relevant information we need to be running on. Not spending hours sifting through this file, trying to figure out if our guy preferred to rape little girls or little boys or how he might have disposed of the bodies.” The chief’s eyes widened as he realized his callous choice of words. “Jeez, Katie; I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say…”
“No, it’s fine. I’m wearing my big girl pants today. I can handle it.” It wasn’t fine. And when Marshall looked to her for assurance that it was, her eyes told a completely different story. Still, she held it together even as memories of her captor’s hands touching her thighs flashed through her mind. Taking a deep breath, she refocused on the task at hand.
“We can discuss this another time, Chief, but I’m telling you, it is something this department will pursue,” Captain Hearn replied.
The chief appeared to be agitated, which surprised Katie. She had only ever seen him as a calm, rational man.
“On another note, we’d like to discuss setting up patrols around Kate’s family home. The constant presence of the media is a cause for concern and after discussing it with Captain Hearn, we are in agreement that we want to shield her family from it as much as we can, at least for the immediate future. Is that something your department can take care of, Chief?” Marshall asked.
In a slightly less inflammatory tone, Wilson replied, “That’s something we can agree on, detective. I’ll set it up immediately after we’ve finished here today. Katie, have your parents been informed of the situation?”
“I have spoken with them, yes. They are aware that the sketch has been made public. But to my knowledge, they haven’t been approached by any media. Or anyone else, for that matter.”
“Good. We’ll be sure and keep it that way. It hasn’t been made public that the suspect could be linked to other cases, but when it is, and it will be soon enough, the chief will need to step up patrols. If and when that time comes, we’re going to have to talk to those other families,” Captain Hearn said.
“That won’t be easy, captain. I doubt they want to hear from me again.” Wilson seemed hard pressed to continue. “Not after I let them down every time I had a lead that didn’t pan out. Most of those parents just want to let their kid rest in peace. They’ve come to terms with what happened.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Katie said. “It’s only a matter of time, like Captain Hearn said, before we have enough solid evidence. I believe they’d very much like to close the book on the past. I’ve lived with what this has done to my own family. And I made it home.”
“If it’s all right with you, Chief, I’d like to have my team scan your files into our system for reference. I plan on sending a couple of guys up to Oregon City to follow up on the paper lead. They’ll need to get up to speed on the case,” Captain Hearn said.
“Listen, I don’t know how much more help I can be here. I haven’t been contacted by him since this letter he sent months ago. I gotta be honest with you; I don’t know where to go from here.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Marshall started. “You put your soul into this case and now, forgive me if I’m wrong, but it seems you just want to give up. We know what he looks like now.”
“You know what he looked like twenty years ago, detective. I’m sorry to say, but apart from this minor lead you’ve got on the paper, you don’t have much else to go on.”
Marshall pushed the sketch across the table toward the chief. “This is what we’ve got. It’s been scanned in and adjusted by a software program that ages a person based on certain factors that we input. You can’t sit there and tell me we’ve got nothing. What is it about this case that gives you pause?” Marshall’s frustration had become obvious to everyone. “Can’t deal with the fact that you let the child killer get away? Is that it? We’re supposed to just give up because you did twenty years ago?”
“Detective Avery!” Katie said.
“It’s all right. I doubt Detective Avery has ever been forced to deal with the fact that he didn’t do his job; that he let a monster slip out from under him and then have it thrown back in his face twenty years later. You be sure and let me know what it feels like when your failures are thrust back in your direction. Then, maybe we can talk. My point is, detective, I’ve been down this road before. I’m just trying to save you the frustration that I’ve been dealing with for most of my career.”
“I think we’re forgetting one thing here,” Katie interrupted. “This isn’t about you or Detective Avery. This is about me and the other missing kids. I’d appreciate it if you both would put your egos aside and remember that.” Katie stood up, shoving her chair hard and, as it rolled back and hit the wall, she stormed out. She was angry and had every right to be. Katie walked back to her desk with speed and purpose.<
br />
“Kate, hang on a minute,” Marshall said, jogging to catch up with her. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t know what’s gotten into the chief. This is the first time I’ve seen him so defensive. It just caught me off guard, okay?”
“Neither one of you was there with me, sitting on that damn fold-out cot while I waited for that fucker to come down and put his hands on me. And now that I’ve come forward, put out this sketch of what I remember him to look like, you think he’s done with me? Because I sure as hell don’t. The letter will attest to that. So I’ve got to deal with you two pissing all around me; trying to prove that you’re each a better cop than the other.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “I just thought he was on our side. That’s all.”
“He is on our side. He just doesn’t want you or the FBI taking over and trying to prove he screwed up the first time around. You can’t tell me you’d feel any different in his shoes.”
“All right. I get it. I’ll go back in there and make nice. Let him know he’s in charge. For now.”
“I need to talk to my parents. Tell them to get used to seeing patrols on their street. Thanks to me…again.” Katie sat down at her desk. Since she was no longer allowed to conduct any fieldwork, she’d be entering the data that the rest of her team collected. It could be worse; they could have let her go altogether. Marshall, looking defeated, went back to the conference room to smooth things over.
She turned on her computer and opened her email. An urgent message from a sender she didn’t recognize popped up. In the subject line were the words I’ll need my trinket back.
“What?” she whispered, double clicking her mouse to open the email. An image of the young girl from Arcata, Ashley Davies, stared back at her. The same picture she had first come across when all this started. The necklace? she wondered.
Her heart pounded against her chest as she looked around, wondering if she would find him staring at her from somewhere off in the corner. No one was paying any notice of her as they sat in their cubicles, clicking away on their keyboards. First the letter to her apartment and now this? He knows where I work. It had been almost a month since he sent the letter. Why now? Why here? She was scared and needed to find Marshall. Katie didn’t want to risk anyone else looking at the email, so she texted him to come back as quickly as he could.
A minute later, she caught sight of him walking at a brisk pace toward her desk.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” He kept his voice low enough so as not to raise suspicion.
“Look.” She pointed to her computer screen at the photo. “It’s him. He sent this. I don’t understand what he means by wanting his trinket back, but this is the girl whose necklace I saw in my flashbacks, remember?” She took to calling them flashbacks now since they were no longer simply nightmares. They were a reality she had come to accept as a part of who she had been and they had shaped who she was now.
“I remember,” Marshall stared at the screen. “How the hell did he get your email address? How does he know you work here?”
She shook her head. “He wants to find me.” A deep breath helped to slow her pulse. “I just don’t get why he’s telling me he wants it? Wants what? That necklace? I don’t have it. What the hell…” And then it came to her. “The necklace was on a stand on the other side of the room I was in. He took it from her.”
“It was his prize,” Marshall interrupted. “His signature.”
“Damn. Was I wearing some sort of jewelry when he took me? I don’t remember having a necklace on.”
“Could it have been another piece of jewelry? A ring, earrings?”
“Not a ring, I wouldn’t have had a ring at that age. Earrings? Maybe. I don’t really remember when my ears were pierced. I’d have to ask my mom.”
“Maybe he took a piece of jewelry—a trinket—from all his victims? Kate, do you remember seeing any other pieces besides the necklace?”
“No. We need to talk to the chief and take another look at the pictures from the other kids who went missing. Although the boy who had been taken from his bed—I doubt he had any jewelry on. That’s not to say it couldn’t have been some other trinket he found in the kid’s room, I suppose. Maybe we’ll find something there. If he had a habit of taking these shiny things, prizes or whatever, from his victims, he must want mine back; whatever it was. He apparently didn’t keep it. Maybe he waited until they were dead before taking the souvenirs. A prize for his all his hard work.”
“We need to show this to Chief Wilson and the captain. He’s getting too close, Kate. I think once they see this, they’re going to insist you go someplace safe. I don’t see how we’re going to keep the FBI out of this now. He damn near just admitted to taking this girl. I don’t think we’re dealing with a serial killer; I know we are.”
After dealing with the IT department, the chief, and Captain Hearn, Katie had had enough. She was glad to be back at Marshall’s. The email rattled her hard, but she knew it could bring them one step closer to finding him. They were already working on tracing the email’s origins. It seemed unlikely, given the history of the killer’s methods, that he would have used a traceable IP address. Nevertheless, IT had their work cut out for them. Marshall was right about one thing: her abductor had just admitted to being the same man who killed Ashley Davies.
The apartment brightened in an instant as Marshall flipped on the lights in the living room. The dusky light outside filtered through shade-screened windows and cast a murky light. The conditions were a difficult adjustment to the already sore eyes of a person who’d been staring at the words of a killer on her computer screen for most of the afternoon.
It had been brought up, more than once today, that putting Katie into protective custody was the only option. The inevitability of the FBI’s involvement was no longer in question and, in fact, Hearn made the call and an agent was already assigned. This new cog in an expanding wheel would be flying in tomorrow. He would help enter the case information into ViCAP and take point on coordinating between the multiple jurisdictions.
Katie dropped to the couch, exhausted and frightened. Maybe they were right; maybe she should be relinquished to the hands of the FBI, sent someplace far away where neither she nor her family would be in any danger. But she felt safe being with Marshall—conflicted about putting him in too much danger—but safe. He, of course, would not see it that way, but the fact remained.
Marshall joined Katie on the couch with two beers in hand. “Here, thought you might want to take the edge off.”
“Thanks.” It might take the edge off, but it would take a hell of a lot more than one beer to get her to sleep tonight.
“You defended the chief earlier today saying that I didn’t know what it was like having to live with letting the bad guy get away.”
“I’m sorry, Marshall. I was just upset.”
“No, it’s okay. But I want you to know something about me. Something I never, ever talk about.”
He rarely talked about himself at all; in fact, Katie always felt he kept her at arm’s length.
“You know I was born in Chicago, right?”
“Yeah.” That much he shared only after she dragged it out of him one night because he’d had a few too many beers at the bar.
“We lived in the suburbs. Oak Park. My dad was an architect for a firm in the city. My mom stayed home with me and my little brother. We had a pretty great life there. We took vacations every summer and my parents seemed to be happy together. My brother and me always fought; no surprise since he was younger and wanted to hang out with me and my friends.”
Marshall’s eyes lit up as he talked about his family. An only child, she couldn’t entirely relate, but it was the first time he’d ever spoken of them other than in passing.
“So my dad took the ‘L’ into the city every day. He was usually home by 6:30 and then we’d have a family dinner. My mom insisted on it and he complied with her wishes. Always. One night, when I was ten, my dad was late. Really late. It
was almost 9:30 and my mom hadn’t heard from him. She said he had to work late because of some project deadline, but that he was expected home no later than eight o’clock. This was well before cell phones, so she had no way of contacting him. He didn’t wear a pager. That was the thing back then, right?”
Katie smiled at his reticent humor, but remained silent. Just let him talk.
“It was about midnight when the cops showed up at the house. Me and my brother waited at the top of the stairs. Mom thought we were asleep, but we both heard the doorbell.” Marshall took a swig from his beer; his eyes drifted far beyond the here and now.
Katie knew what was coming.
“The conductor found his body on the way back into the city. It was a late weeknight and the train was empty. The cops said he was robbed, then stabbed. Whoever did it got off at a random stop—they didn’t know which one—and left him for dead. By the time the conductor found him, he’d bled out. No pulse.”
The words reverberated in her head while she watched as Marshall’s eyes glistened with tears. But he turned away and wiped them dry.
“They never found who did it?”
“No. They suspected it was a couple of kids, thugs, but no one saw anything. It just became another in a long line of unsolved murders in Chicago. So, my mom packed us kids up and moved here to live with my aunt. My mom, who, by the way, had never worked a day in her life, had to take a waitressing job while she went back to school to finish her college degree. She was hardly ever home. My dad had a small life insurance policy, but that ran out pretty quickly. I basically raised my little brother, who was only seven at the time. So much for my happy childhood.”
“Is that why you became a cop?” Katie asked.
“I suppose it played a pretty big part. I wanted to catch the bad guys to try and make up for not finding the ones who killed my dad, at least at first. But after too many years on the job, I think I’ve learned how to accept what happened; accept that I couldn’t fix it. So, I do know what it’s like living with the cloud of failure over my head.”