Into the Black Nowhere

by Meg Gardiner

  He lifted the stack of papers on his desk. “If you could help us evaluate these leads, that would advance the investigation. Because Saturday is coming up sooner than any of us would like.”

  He tossed Caitlin her phone and walked away. Caitlin and Rainey felt the air rush out of the room with him.

  “The guy’s frustrated,” Caitlin said.

  “I’ll give you that.” Rainey turned back to the computer screen. “Dallas PD?”

  Keyes nodded. “Already sent it to them.” He clicked off.

  Still staring at the screen, Caitlin rewound the video two seconds, to the moment when the reflections of Teri and the UNSUB flashed on the pickup’s windshield.

  She touched the screen. “What’s that?”

  She pointed at a bright streak that ran vertically along the UNSUB’s side.

  “That whitish stripe? It looks metallic,” Rainey said.

  “Something he was carrying? Weapon?”

  “Good question.” She scanned the screen. “You still think he was playing injured?”

  Caitlin nodded. “A crutch?”

  They zoomed in and out but could draw no inferences.

  Caitlin shook her head. “Can’t believe Keyes got this much out of it. He’s a sorcerer.”

  Rainey glanced up. “Keyes came to the Bureau from NASA. The Planetary Science Section at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.” She sounded admiring. “A lot of our video software was developed for the space program. When you’re looking at 2-D photos of the moon or a comet, you need heavy-duty math to determine an object’s size and distance. How do you think the Apollo program surveyed the Sea of Tranquility? They needed to know, ‘How deep is that crater at our landing site, really?’ We use that capability to deal with angled reflections and convex surfaces.”

  “Thank you, Isaac Newton. And Nicholas Keyes.”

  In the hallway, Emmerich walked past. He looked solemn.

  Rainey said, “Print a high-res copy of that parking garage image.”

  22

  Caitlin found Emmerich in Chief Morales’s office. He was on the phone, holding a manila folder labeled GIDEON COUNTY MEDICAL EXAMINER. She rapped on the open door and he nodded her in.

  Into the phone, he said, “I spoke personally to Ms. Canova’s mother. I told her she can expect the body to be released this afternoon.”

  The chief’s space was spare, except for a topographical wall map of Texas and a Mexican saddle on a pommel in the corner. The saddle’s silver rowels were shot through with light. Outside the window, a freight train rattled toward the railroad crossing where Phoebe Canova had disappeared. Bells rang and the crossing arm descended.

  “Yes,” Emmerich said. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He ended the call and set the folder on the desk. “ME’s preliminary report on Phoebe Canova. Cause of death is exsanguination, due to dissection of the right and left radial arteries. External exam found trace—two short, dark hairs that could belong to the UNSUB. Nonfollicular.”

  No DNA, he meant.

  “Next of kin confirms that the cosmetics applied to Phoebe’s face didn’t come from her personal supply.”

  Caitlin realized why he had looked so somber when he came in: He’d paid a visit to Phoebe’s mother.

  Emmerich closed the manila folder. Seemed to push a restart button on his emotions. He turned his attention to Caitlin.

  She handed him the still image from the Dallas garage video—Teri Drinkall and the UNSUB, passing the SUV.

  “Detective Berg discounts Detrick as a suspect, but we shouldn’t,” she said.

  Emmerich examined the photo. “This definitely does not exclude him. But it doesn’t implicate him, either. What does?”

  Rainey appeared in the doorway. Caitlin took a second to put her thoughts in order.

  “To start with, he’s off.”

  Emmerich’s expression didn’t change.

  Reset. “He lives at the geographic center of the disappearances and murders.” She turned to the wall map of Texas. “Detrick’s Austin home is here.” She tapped a point south of town, a sparsely populated area a mile off the interstate. “We’ve profiled an anger-excitation rapist and killer who prefers to hunt beyond his immediate environment. Which fits Detrick exactly, while still putting him in the center of the overall hunting grounds.”

  The train’s caboose clattered by outside.

  “I’ve checked his alibis for the nights in question. They’re uselessly vague,” Caitlin said. “And I took photos of his SUV. It’s freshly washed. You can see from the photos that the dashboard is gleaming—it’s been dusted and cleaned with polishing spray. Which suggests that the entire interior has been wiped down and vacuumed. And,” she said, “its GPS history has been wiped.”

  “Wiped.”

  Rainey approached the desk. “Electronically jet-washed almost as soon as Hendrix and I left Castle Bay.”

  Caitlin said, “When we were at Detrick’s office, he stepped too close to me. He . . .” Just say it. “He seemed attracted to me. He pressed his card into my hand like he was handing me his hotel key.”

  She waited for pushback. Got none. “Detrick acted like we were engaging in flirty banter, not discussing serial murder.”

  Emmerich shook his head. “That’s not enough.”

  She reached deeper. “He fits the profile. Narcissist. Hyperconfident. Salesman. And he’s intensely interested in suicide. That’s at the heart of the UNSUB’s fantasy.”

  Outside the window, the freight train rumbled away and the crossing arm lifted.

  “Agreed.” Emmerich stared at the CCTV still image. “He’s worth a further look. What do you propose?”

  She tried not to let her excitement show. “Let me dig.”

  “Where?”

  “The Westside Crisis Hotline.”

  23

  The Westside Crisis Center occupied the second floor of a renovated nineteenth-century house in downtown Austin. Shaded by ash and lacebark elms, it sat behind a white picket fence a few blocks from the university.

  It was late afternoon when Caitlin arrived. The day had warmed from near freezing to the high seventies. Her black V-neck sweater and pegged slacks absorbed the heat, and the fabric hummed against her skin. The offices were old, a warren. The wood floor creaked when she came through the door.

  The man who emerged from the director’s office to greet her looked like an English professor. He was gray bearded, African American, and thumped across the room like a benevolent bear in a checked shirt and Dockers.

  He shook her hand. “Darian Cobb.” His expression was warm but wary. “I’ve never spoken to an FBI agent before.”

  She had thought out her approach to this meeting. Before she brought Detrick’s name into the conversation, she needed to gather as much information about the hotline’s operations as possible. Cobb ran a service that depended on building trust between counselors and callers. She didn’t want to mislead him, but she didn’t want him to clam up and show her the door either.

  “We think the man who’s committing these crimes may have a familiarity with crisis counseling,” she said.

  “What kind of familiarity?”

  “I can’t go into detail.”

  “As a caller? Counselor? Social worker? Psychiatrist?” Cobb looked increasingly guarded. “All calls to this hotline are confidential. I won’t release callers’ phone numbers. You’d have to get a court order.”

  “I don’t want you to breach your callers’ confidentiality. I would like you to tell me how crisis phone counseling works.”

  He looked quizzical. “Behavioral analysis. You’re profiling the killer?”

  “Yes.”

  He digested that. “Do you think the killer is familiar with this hotline?”

  “I can’t rule it out.”

  He took a p
ensive second. “We get thirty calls a night. Fifty to sixty on weekends. We staff the phones twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Callers always phone the landlines here at the center?”

  “Always. Volunteers aren’t permitted to give out their personal numbers. If they ever need to push an incident to critical status—say, if a caller threatened to commit an atrocity—volunteers call nine-one-one on a separate line and contact a supervisor.”

  She looked through a door into an interior room where tables were set up with phones. Under the white afternoon sun, a young woman was bent over a thick textbook, twiddling a highlighter in her fingers. Another volunteer was organizing files.

  “What’s the procedure when the phone rings?” Caitlin said.

  “Calls are answered in the order they come in, and taken by the next volunteer who’s free. Callers can remain anonymous, but volunteers encourage them to give at least a first name,” Cobb said. “Volunteers are trained to handle a variety of situations—depression, suicidal thoughts, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence.”

  “Do they work from a script?”

  “They’re trained on a series of steps to take,” Cobb said. “Number one, determine whether the caller is in acute crisis. Is their life in danger right now? Are they at risk of dying in the next ten minutes?”

  Caitlin nodded.

  “Volunteers must be clear. Don’t guess—ask. ‘Are you safe?’ If the caller says no, immediately move to solve the problem. Call nine-one-one, police, ambulance, get first responders to the caller’s location. The Austin Police Department has officers trained in crisis response, and we liaise with them. If there’s an external danger, work to get the caller to a safe place.” Cobb’s voice was calm but insistent. “If the caller isn’t in imminent danger, the volunteer can take a breath and prepare to stay on the line for as long as necessary.”

  She was listening with sunbright alertness. Her cheeks felt hot.

  “At that point, what’s the next step?” she said.

  “Listen, listen, listen.” Cobb’s gaze was penetrating. “Our volunteers aren’t psychiatric social workers—they’re capable, concerned people who won’t panic in emergencies. Crisis hotline volunteering is about soft skills. Compassion. Patience. Empathy.”

  Caitlin stood unusually still.

  “Always keep the focus on the caller—never yourself. Ask them their story. Find out if they have a support system—family, friends, therapists,” he said. “Don’t offer solutions. Your job is not to fix their problems. It’s to work with the caller while they come up with a plan. And keep control of your own emotions. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. People are calling from a dark place. You stay on the line while they figure out how to turn on a light.”

  She found she was having a hard time swallowing. When she breathed, her chest wanted to shudder.

  “That’s a big job,” she said.

  “We’re here to provide comfort and encouragement. We’re a gentle place for people to talk through their problems.”

  She took a second, letting the unexpected swell of emotion dissipate. She scanned the room. On the wall a schedule was posted, with volunteers’ names.

  “Do volunteers have regular shifts?”

  “Most work a particular day of the week.”

  Wednesday. Jan. 2, 9, 16, 23, 30. Feb. 6, 13, 20, 27.

  6 P.M.–Midnight

  Vanessa Guzman, Kyle Detrick

  She perused the schedule long enough that Cobb said, “Do you have a particular question about our volunteers?”

  There was a slight chill in his question. Not worry, but a quaver, a fuzz in the deepest reaches of its frequency. Static disturbing his thought processes.

  “What’s got your attention?” Cobb regarded her closely. “The schedule? Was there a particular day of the week you need information about?”

  “No.”

  “You think one of our volunteers might have taken a call from . . .”

  She shook her head. “Can you give me examples of how volunteers have dealt with tough calls?”

  Cobb either believed her or was playing along. He spoke about some of their longtime volunteers, offering examples. He nodded at the schedule on the wall. “Ms. Guzman has worked here for five years. She’s a schoolteacher in her day job. We pair veteran counselors with newer volunteers.”

  That provided a fortuitous opening. “So, she’s paired with a rookie?”

  “He’s not a rookie anymore. Mr. Detrick came to us a year ago, via an outreach program from his church.”

  “How do volunteers from church programs tend to work out?”

  “On the whole, very well. Occasionally we get volunteers who . . .” He sought for a diplomatic way to phrase it. “. . . struggle when talking to callers whose life choices conflict with their religious teachings.”

  “Suicide, drug addiction, sexual abuse—some volunteers feel an obligation to evangelize?”

  He shrugged, confirming it.

  “But not this volunteer,” Caitlin said.

  “To the contrary. Mr. Detrick is an excellent counselor—patient, encouraging, steady.”

  “Can you give me an example of how that works out in practice?”

  He nodded at the schedule. “I heard Kyle keep a suicidal caller on the line while he got paramedics dispatched.”

  “Really.”

  “He calmly got the caller’s address and kept them talking. He was compassionate, he drew the caller out, he kept them from losing control.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  She was. Caitlin knew that Detrick had won a powerful, fragile victory.

  She knew how much fortitude it took the hotline volunteers to talk people back from the brink. Because she knew how it felt to be the person on the other end of the call.

  Her cheeks felt flushed. She hoped Cobb wouldn’t notice, or wonder why. She took a second to anchor herself and let the backwash of her teen desperation dissipate.

  “How do those calls affect him?” she asks.

  “He maintains his equilibrium.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Nerves are a problem for many volunteers. Not Kyle,” Cobb said. “Our counselors go through forty hours of training. But when reality hits—an actual crisis call—the training may not stick. The first time a counselor hears a caller say they’re having suicidal thoughts . . . that’s extremely anxiety provoking. Volunteers can lose the thread.”

  “Mr. Detrick doesn’t let the calls get to him personally?” Caitlin said.

  “He’s in his thirties, more mature than some of our student volunteers, and that helps. He’s a calming influence on the rest of the team.”

  Maybe Detrick was a genuine Good Samaritan. Or maybe he was an expert manipulator.

  And maybe, Caitlin thought, he exhibited no anxiety when talking to desperate people because psychopaths feel no concern for others.

  “How about afterward? Excitement? The shakes? A letdown? Prayers?” she said.

  “Satisfaction and gratitude,” Cobb said. He tilted his head back and forth. “The occasional fist pump.”

  “Does he like to talk about calls afterward?”

  “Why are you so interested?”

  “I need to know the dynamic. How callers and volunteers influence each other. It can give me psychological insight into the UNSUB we’re seeking. It might guide how we eventually talk to a suspect.”

  Again, Cobb looked skeptical. “All our volunteers talk about calls afterward. Some more enthusiastically than others.” He pinned her with his gaze. “Should I be worried about the safety of the center, or my volunteers?”

  She shook her head, and meant it. “We have no indication that the man behind these killings would target you, your volunteers, or the center. If that changes, we’ll inform you.”

  He nodded but
didn’t look reassured. She couldn’t blame him.

  24

  Caitlin left the crisis center with brochures, including a primer on crisis telephone techniques, and a flashback hangover. She felt a physical memory—of despair constricting her chest like a strangling vine. As she sank into Austin’s rush hour traffic, she turned on the radio and spun until she found Beyoncé, “Freedom.”

  The song was driving, soaring. Even—especially—the quiet line about telling your last tear to burn into flames . . .

  She turned it up. The song thundered through her, flushing the black-blood sensation that had tried to creep into her veins.

  When she pulled into the Solace sheriff’s station at six, she was tired, but buzzing. Under another violet sunset, headlights cruised up Main Street. Inside, she found Emmerich conferring with Chief Morales, coffee cups in their hands. Morales had sooty circles beneath his eyes. Emmerich cocked an eyebrow at her.

  “Kyle Detrick has volunteered at the crisis hotline for a year,” she said.

  Both Emmerich and Morales understood: Detrick had been a volunteer for several months before the Solace abductions began. Whether that mattered, she didn’t know.

  “The director of the center describes him as outstandingly even-keeled on acute crisis calls.”

  Morales seemed to parse her body language. “You think that’s a bad thing?”

  “He pumps his fist and retells his victory stories,” she said. “That could be overenthusiasm. Or a salesman bragging that he sold life to the desperate. Or it could signify a love of glory.”

  “That’s not criminal. Not when you’ve talked someone off the ledge.”

  Emmerich set down his coffee. “You think Detrick has a hero complex?”

  From his tone, and posture, he was inviting her to explore the implications.

  “Maybe,” she said. “And maybe his elation arises from playing God.”

  She thought of the FBI Crime Classification Manual: Mercy/Hero Homicide.

  Mercy killers murdered in the genuine belief that they were relieving their victims’ suffering. Hero killers recklessly committed homicide by inducing a crisis so they could save the day. They were firefighters who set a blaze, then arrived to fight it. They were nurses who caused patients to code, so they could revive them. They reveled in the rush and the praise that came from bringing people back from the brink. When they botched it, their victims died.