Little Girls Lost

by Jonah Paine

  "I suppose so."

  "Has he helped you, the doctor?"

  "Sure."

  "You've been through some things, I gather. Really terrible stuff. And I'm glad that you found someone like Dr. Sundquist to help you out, but it's got to be a lot to deal with, even now. You have good days and bad days I bet, right?"

  Tyrone nodded.

  Sam made his move. "What do you do on the bad days?"

  Tyrone looked uncertain, as if he'd been navigating a maze and came to a turn that he wasn't expecting. "I don't ... what do you mean?"

  "What do you do on the bad days? When it's all boiling up inside of you, how do you let it out? How do you get to the next day?"

  "Dr. Sundquist...."

  "Sure, the doctor can help when he's available, but he's not always going to be there, is he? Sometimes you have to take care of it yourself. And I'm just wondering, how do you do it? When you're deep down in the thick of it, when you're lying in bed at night trying to sleep but all the shit you've been through just keeps bubbling up no matter what, what do you do to make yourself feel better?"

  "I look out for assholes like you," Tyrone said with sudden heat, and for the first time Sam saw what lay behind the veil. It was a brief glimpse before the shields slammed down again, but it was so intense that he nearly took a step backwards."

  He held up his hands. "You're right, I'm out of line. I deserved that, and I apologize. I just have one more question for you."

  Tyrone looked at him, clearly ready to turn on his heel and leave if he heard something he didn't like.

  "Those scratches on your arm. Where did you get them?" Sam asked, gesturing at the long, pink welts that decorated Tyrone's right forearm.

  "I have cats. Sometimes they play rough," he said, then slammed the van's doors shut. "Are we done?"

  "We are, sir, and thank you for your time," Sam said with a smile. He turned and walked to his car, hoping that his gait wouldn't give away the excitement that was building in his chest.

  Tyrone was the killer. He was sure of it. He was lying about the scratches on his arm. Sam had grown up with cats, he knew what a cat scratch looks like, and these were not cat scratches. Tyrone had evaded the question about where he was on the night of the most recent abduction. He was the owner of what now seemed a very incriminating gray van. It was all there.

  But best of all? Not once in their conversation had Tyrone asked a single question about why Sam was questioning him. He didn't ask about the crime, the victim, or anything to do with the investigation, and Sam knew why: Tyrone already knew all about the crimes. He knew more about them than Sam did.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed Bud's number. When his partner answered, he said the magic words: "We're going to need a warrant."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The room that Tyrone Pasco called home was narrow at the best of times, and with a swarm of cops going over every nook and cranny it was so claustrophobic that Sam had to struggle against the urge to start shouting and shoving the others out of his way.

  He was OK in small spaces as long as he was alone there. Something about the crowding and the jostling made him want to scream, but nothing short of a team of horses was going to drag him out of this place. There was nowhere he would rather be.

  Sam already felt like he knew Tyrone Pasco. As soon as he got back to his desk he ran a search on prior convictions, and discovered that the good Dr. Sundquist had not been entirely forthcoming with him. Tyrone Pasco had done time, five years for manslaughter, after he roughed up a prostitute who subsequently died from her injuries. After what the man had gone through as a child, and then again as a soldier in Afghanistan, a five-year stint in maximum security could bring out the worst in anyone. Maybe it could even turn him into a serial killer.

  They weren't going to find any physical evidence that linked Tyrone Pasco to the crime; he knew that as soon as he saw the place. This wasn't where he took the girls, he would have a different place for that. They already had their physical evidence from the van. Tyrone had cleaned the interior with bleach, but he had been in a hurry and he was sloppy. Investigators had already found traces of blood, and Sam didn't need to wonder whether they would be able to match it against the blood of the victims. They had their man.

  Pasco's room was on the second floor of a coach house behind Dr. Sundquist's home. The good doctor had neglected to mention that, in addition to giving Pasco work around the house, he also provided him with a place to live rent-free. Sam hoped that the doctor had withheld that information in the belief that it was irrelevant to the investigation, rather than as part of some misguided attempt to protect his patient.

  The walls were of cinderblock painted white, and there was one window looking out on the house and the grounds. To Sam's left a narrow bed, barely large enough for a child, hugged the wall. The blanket had a thick layer of cat hair at the foot of the bed, though evidently Pasco only let his pets in at night—there was no sign of them now. In the corner stood a desk, and that's where they found their treasure.

  With gloves on his hands Sam flipped through the contents of the folder they found on Pasco's desk. It was a cop's dream. It held everything they could have hoped for. There were photos of all three girls taken from a distance, as well as photos of four other girls Sam couldn't identify. He could only assume that they had been Pasco's victims as well, or would soon have become victims. In addition to the photos there were documents that appeared to be from Dr. Sundquist's case files. Sam hadn't had the time to read them carefully yet, but they appeared to be files on sexual sadists the doctor had treated.

  It all tied up. Pasco had used his connection with the doctor to learn about others like him—to study up on their methods. Then he had deliberately mutilated his victims according to other sadists' methods in order to hide his tracks. Sam had to give it to the man: Pasco had not seemed nearly clever enough to pull off a crime like this. Apparently, in addition to being a rapist and a murderer, he was also a gifted scam artist.

  Now they just needed to find him. Pasco had gone missing, of course, shortly after his abortive and ineffective cleansing of his van. Sam felt a small prickle of worry at the idea that the killer might manage to slip through their fingers, but he remained confident. The man who had lived in this room had depended for everything on Dr. Sundquist. That man would not be able to survive by his own wits, not for long. He would resurface, and then they would have him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  For the fifth time that day, Celeste arranged the contents of her desk until they were just so. The picture of her parents and the lavender box of Kleenex were to her right, next to the mouse pad.

  To her left lay her weekly planner, the inbox where she collected the paper documents that came her way, and the pink-framed picture of her sister. On the wall of her cubicle hung what she thought of as her personal yin and yang: the printed schedule of scheduled interviews and field assignments hung next to a headshot of Brad Pitt. The photo of the impossibly sexy actor reminded her where she wanted to be, and the schedule of work told her how to get there.

  When everything was in its place and arranged perfectly, Celeste smiled and reached for the handset of her desk phone. A more cautious woman would not be placing this sort of call on her work phone, and she certainly wouldn't do it while sitting at her desk, with four or five co-workers within easy earshot. Celeste didn't bother with caution, however. She believed that caution was a major cause of death in this country: it might not kill your body, but it killed your passion and your courage and left you with little to live for.

  His phone rang three times before he answered. "Yeah?" he growled.

  She smiled and leaned back in her chair. "Bad day?" she asked.

  "Nah," he answered, his tone lightening as he recognized her voice. "A pretty great day, actually, and getting better all the time. It's great to hear your voice."

  "Mmmmm," she agreed in a sultry hum. "I'm getting butterflies in my stomach ju
st thinking about you. Can you come over tonight?"

  "Oh," he said, and she could hear the sincere regret in his voice. "I really want to, but I can't. We've ... there's a lot going on down here."

  "Oh?" Her journalistic senses were tingling. "What's that about?"

  There was a long pause while she could imagine him wrestling with two contradictory urges, one to protect his investigation and the other to respect the new intimacy they shared. Finally he let out a sigh. "This is totally off the record, and you have to promise me that you won't tell anyone about this, but we finally have a break in the killings."

  "You got the guy who did it?"

  "No, but we know who he is. Look, I've got to go. I'll call you later, OK?"

  "OK. Bye, baby."

  "Bye," Sam said and hung up.

  Celeste leaned back in her chair, the telephone handset still in her hand, and let her mind play through a range of possible scenarios. Once all the pieces clicked into place, she swiveled in her chair.

  "Bill!" she called to her editor. "I've got something!"

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It was just after 11:00 when Sam got home, and every bone in his body called out for sleep. His mind was still racing, though. They had every unit on the street looking for a man fitting Tyrone's description.

  Sam had spent hours at his desk, wired at the thought that their primary suspect could be caught at any moment, frustrated beyond words that he couldn't do anything in the moment to help bring him in.

  He would sleep soon, but first he needed to do something to unwind. Sam collapsed on the living room crouch and fished in the cushions for the television remote. Finding it, he flicked the TV on and began idly surfing through the channels.

  The sight of Celeste's face brought him to a halt. She was in the studio tonight, reporting on something from the news desk. The television was on mute, and Sam watched her talk in the silence, savoring her beauty and pretending that the smile she wore was just for him.

  Then his stomach dropped. Superimposed on the screen above her right shoulder was a grainy photo of Tyrone.

  Sam's thumb urgently stumbled over the remote before he managed to turn the volume on.

  "…has been a handyman at the residence of his psychiatrist, one Dr. Warren Sundquist, for the last three years, and in an Channel 5 News exclusive we have learned that the suspect has a history of violence and should be considered extremely dangerous."

  "FUCK!" The expletive exploded out of Sam's lungs involuntarily, and he squeezed the remote so hard that the plastic groaned and he thought he might break it. Celeste was talking now with the news anchor, but Sam wasn't listening anymore.

  His head was spinning. Until now there was a chance that Tyrone Pasco didn't know they were actively looking for him. His ignorance of how close they were to catching him was a critical element in bringing him in quickly and without violence. Now, if he was anywhere within range of a television screen, he knew. He would be scared, and he would be desperate. If they were lucky, Pasco would merely be driven underground and it would be harder to catch him. If they were unlucky, Celeste's "exclusive" might have just made their suspect even more dangerous to innocent bystanders than he was already.

  The whole scene was like a rotten onion. Every time Sam peeled away a layer, he found something nasty underneath. At the heart of it was the worst of all: Celeste had done this to him. He didn't know how she had learned Pasco's name, but he was her source. He was the one who tipped her off that they knew who they were looking for. He was the one who let her know that there was a big story about to drop, and she had found it because she knew what she was looking for.

  She had played him, and as much as Sam wanted to catch Pasco before he hurt another girl, what he now knew about Celeste was a knife twisting in his gut.

  The exterior of the news station was nothing special. There were similar office buildings scattered throughout the city, and this one was distinct only by the number of unusually tall and well-groomed men and women who drifted outside shortly before 1:00 in the morning, after the evening edition had been broadcast.

  Celeste came out with a couple of suit-clad men, and Sam had never seen her so happy. One of the men said something to her, and she laughed loudly in response. They talked briefly, and Sam caught the word "congratulations" just before they broke up and she headed on alone, towards her car. She paused when she saw him.

  "You shouldn't be here, Sam," she said.

  "Why?" he asked. "Do you want to protect your source?"

  The eye-roll she gave him was visible even in the semi-shadow of the parking lot. She walked slowly towards him. "You knew I was a reporter. You can't just drop things like that and expect me not to pick them up and run with them. The public has a right to know!"

  "Oh, bullshit," Sam growled. "This has nothing to do with the public. This has to do with you getting your exclusive!"

  "And what if it does? Who cares?"

  "Who cares?! I care! Celeste, you betrayed my trust and you put my investigation at risk! You put my career at risk! You used me!"

  She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a slow nod. "I won't argue with you, Sam. You're right. I did use you. And you know what? You've been using me all along. We use each other, Sam. That's what people do."

  "Not when they care about each other."

  "Especially when they care about each other, Sam!" She threw her arms out and laughed. "Especially then! Your wife is a cold bitch who blames you for your daughter's death, and you used me to feel better. It worked, didn't it? Didn't I make you feel good? But what about me? I'm stuck in a stupid job in the middle of nowhere, and so I used you to break a story that would get me noticed. And guess what, that worked, too! Those two guys I was talking to? One is the station manager, the other is a network representative who just happened to be in town this week for some meetings. It was perfect, Sam! That story might get me out of here!"

  Sam stared at her in silence, marveling as the layers of fantasy he'd built around her fell away and revealed a cold, hard truth underneath. What had he imagined for the two of them, that they would get married and live happily ever after? He had never been so stupid.

  "You're right, Celeste. I see that now. We've been using each other. Only now, I'm all used up." He turned, walked back to his car, and drove away without a glance in her direction. In his chest something closed like a fist.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Over the next few days Sam did what he could to stay busy and avoid thinking about the ridiculous charade his life had become.

  He couldn't stop himself from thinking about Celeste, and every time he caught his mind drifting back to her, he grew even angrier at himself. He had been the perfect mark for the con she was running. Celeste had invited him into her bed and in return he had given her his unquestioning trust. It was a foolish and selfish choice he had made, Sam knew. He had decided that he could trust her, not because he could, but because the alternative was not something he was prepared to contemplate.

  The hours of waiting for Pasco's apprehension were exquisite torture. While he waited Sam imagined a thousand ways in which he might elude capture. In his mind's eye he saw Pasco hopping a train out of town, hiking out through the countryside, or slipping out in the trunk of a friend's car. Sam imagined the ways in which Pasco might dye his hair, change his skin color, and otherwise change his appearance. He tried to distract himself with work and focus on other case files, but nothing could distract him from his own guilt and self-recrimination. If Pasco managed to escape the dragnet Sam would blame himself. Forgiveness would be a long time coming, if ever.

  Finally the word came when he was in his car, driving aimlessly on the pretense that he was aiding in the search. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to see that it was Bud calling.

  "Yeah?" he answered.

  "Come in. Now. We got him."

  Sam gave a silent fist pump. "Thank God. Where? When?"

  "About twenty minutes
ago. Dumb bastard was trying to catch a Greyhound out of town. As if that's not the first place we were going to look."

  "If criminals were smart they wouldn't be criminals."

  "You speak truth, my friend. Come in, and then we'll go out. We'll get drunk. Celebrate."

  Sam considered the offer. He wanted to get back to normal with Bud, but they had a long way to go before they arrived at forgive and forget. "Not tonight. I'll celebrate when we have a conviction," he said at last. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  This time Sam and Bud were on the other side of the mirror, and there was nowhere they'd rather be. Across the table from them in the interrogation room sat Tyrone Pasco, his hands cuffed behind him.

  One cheek was purpling with a bruise that made Sam curse under his breath when he saw it. The last thing they needed was a police brutality charge interfering with a quick and clean conviction.

  Over the years he and Bud had worked out their procedure in situations like this. Sam would take the lead in the interrogation. Bud would hang to the side, projecting menace like few others could, and jump in whenever a "bad cop" opportunity presented itself.

  Sam gave Pasco a half-smile that was completely lacking in warmth. "You're doing OK? Can we get you a cup of coffee?"

  Tyrone Pasco's eyes shifted around the room before returning to Sam's. "I'm fine," he said.

  "Fine," Sam said, sampling the word on his tongue. "Fine. How does it feel, to be 'fine' when two girls are dead and another is missing. How does that feel to you, Tyrone?"

  The man's shoulders hunched forward, as if he was protecting himself against a physical assault. "They're in a better place," he mumbled half-audibly.

  "Excuse me?"

  "They're in a better place. I'm fine. They're better than fine."