Kyle bit his lower lip and looked down at the floor. He was clearly debating what he could and couldn’t tell them. “I don’t do that anymore,” Kyle said. “I’ve been in recovery since I got locked up.”
“But I bet you still have those lists,” Stanton said. “The police never take every computer. I just want the lists.”
He swallowed. “If my PO knew I had a computer he didn’t know about, I’d be back in prison. So I don’t have one.”
Stanton took a step closer. “You love children.”
“No,” Kyle snapped. “No, I don’t. Not anymore.”
“Yes you do. I know you do. I can see it in your eyes. The eyes don’t lie, Kyle. When I mentioned children, your eyes lit up. That’ll never go away, no matter how long you’re in recovery. I know you love them, I know you believe you were helping them. Taking care of them. But this man we’re looking for, he doesn’t love children. He hates them. He ties them up in a dark basement and tortures them.”
Kyle began to weep.
“Help me find him.”
Kyle wiped his tears away. “I would never hurt a child. Ever. I do love them. They’re gifts to us.”
“So help me find him.”
He wiped the rest of his tears away with his fingertips and nodded.
20
Kyle sat in the back of Katie’s car as they drove farther downtown. Stanton hadn’t asked, but he had no doubt that Kyle, like many sex offenders, had a residence his parole officer knew nothing about: somewhere to stash everything he wasn’t supposed to have, rented under a fake name, and paid for with cash every month.
“Right here,” Kyle said.
The apartment building was four stories and looked at least two decades too old to still be standing. The bricks were chipping off, the glass on the entryway was cracked, and the front lawn overflowed with weeds.
“I don’t want you coming with me,” Kyle said.
“That’s fine.”
He got out of the car, looked both ways, and then headed into the building, which had a keycode entry. From the car, Stanton could see his fingers move over the keypad. A four-digit combination: 4121. Kyle disappeared inside.
“How’d you know he’d do that?” Katie asked.
“Pedophiles—not the sadists, but the garden-variety pedophiles—think they’re helping children. They think they’re in love with them. Usually, the ones who torture and kill children are outcasts. A hub is typically not a sadist. That’s not why he’s doing what he’s doing.”
Katie looked into the apartment building. “You don’t think we should go with him?”
“No. He’s got things in there that will send him back to prison.”
She tapped her fingers against the wheel. At any time, she could call this thing off, send Stanton packing, and arrest Kyle. If there had been a second man who’d helped Carter kidnap and kill those girls, he would get away.
“Katie, I don’t know how long you’ve been in Homicide, but I’ve been in it longer. If you want to last, you have to prioritize. You can’t go after everybody.”
“You’ve never been a detective here, so don’t patronize me. We don’t let pedophiles keeping child porn in secret apartments slide.”
“You have to. As odd as it is, that’s the way this is gonna work. You have to go after the biggest fish you can, and always use the little fish.”
She turned away, keeping her gaze fixed on another apartment building across the street. Stanton wondered what to say but wasn’t sure exactly what the issue was. Pissing contests between agencies were common, but he suspected that’s not what this was. Something else was going on. He knew women detectives had a rough time in a predominantly male-dominated field. Perhaps she’d been told what to do so much by men who knew less than she did that she’d developed a defense against it.
“I’m sorry,” Stanton said. “I’m overstepping my bounds. I just need to know what happened to her. It’s the not-knowing that eats you up. That’s what you think about at night, and you picture all the horrible things that could’ve happened. I can’t move on from it. Every relationship I have, my career, my dreams, it’s all tied to this. I’ve never moved on. I didn’t heal.”
She exhaled and turned toward him. “You have more of a right to be here than I do. But there have to be some ground rules. I’m not comfortable with this. We can’t do this again. If we’re talking to somebody and he admits to a crime, we need to act on that information. Especially if it’s a felony or a parole violation.”
Stanton nodded. “Okay. It’s your investigation. I’m just here to help if I can.”
Kyle came back out a moment later. He had a scrap of white lined paper in his hand and got into the backseat. He handed it to Stanton. It was a list of names, at least seventy, maybe eighty. Stanton quickly scanned the paper and said, “Do you have addresses or phone numbers?”
“Sorry, man. Just emails and names. You can track down the addresses if you have a tech that knows what they’re doing. Just a matter of getting everything from the email provider and the ISPs.”
“I appreciate this. You did the right thing.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning back into the seats, “let’s just see if the dudes whose names I just gave you agree.”
After dropping Kyle off, Stanton went back to his hotel room. Katie had been called to a scene, a murder-suicide of a married couple in Glitter Lake. She promised to call him tomorrow and that they would hit the other three names on the list Greg had given them.
Stanton had taken a photo of Kyle’s list, and he counted the names once he was up in his room. Seventy-three names. Too many for him to interview in person. He called over to the Records Division in Honolulu and got the familiar voice of Amanda Nalathu. After exchanging greetings and getting an update on the weather in Honolulu, he asked if she could run background histories for seventy-three names.
“That many?”
“Yeah. I especially need lists of known acquaintances.”
“All right, hon. Might take me a while, though.”
Law enforcement databases across the country varied, based mostly on the fact that mayors of various cities could be bought by the database software companies, but one database in use in a lot of places was Spillman. A Spillman search would give Stanton almost everything he needed to know about these men. On top of that, Honolulu did extensive background searches that included financial information, aliases, known acquaintances, credit reports, and a list of known addresses. If Stanton needed to find a link between two people who had criminal histories, the search would give it to him. He had once found out that the suspect in a murder and the husband of the victim had shared a cell together for a few weeks, one for a drug charge and one for a DUI. It led to the arrest of the husband on aggravated murder charges to which he pled out on second-degree murder, with a sentence of life with possible parole.
Stanton ate at the grill downstairs and then watched television for a few hours before taking a nap. When he woke, evening was falling, and the sky darkened. Here, Stanton actually preferred the night. The grayness dulled his mind, but the night could’ve been night anywhere. He pretended he was back on his beach on the island, surrounded by crystal-blue ocean. It helped calm him and lift the malaise that had settled in the past two days.
It suddenly dawned on him that he hadn’t checked on Hanny. Knowing that Hanny was okay was suddenly important to him.
Stanton quickly showered and changed his shirt, though he wore the same pants and leather jacket. He headed down to the computer lounge and onto one of the old PCs they had for guests. After he input his room number, the computer booted up, and he logged into the dog care website. A color image came to life, about a dozen dogs in large kennels with blankets. Hanny was right in the center, lying on his paws, his eyes lazily drifting between the workers darting back and forth.
Stanton watched the dog for a few minutes and then rose and headed outside.
21
The city seemed to be wak
ing up. When he’d lived here, Stanton had been too young to remember that Seattle catered more to the youth than anyone else. Bars, clubs, restaurants and lounges, jazz clubs, concerts, and coffee shops with poetry slams seemed to permeate the city once the sun fell. From his youth, he only remembered a city that was wet and quiet. A new vibrancy had settled there, and he guessed the city had easily tripled in population since he’d lived there, spreading much more widely over the valleys and hills.
He walked briskly down the street, enjoying the salty air, and headed toward the ocean like a scrap of metal flung toward a magnet. Even if he couldn’t be in the ocean, he could be near it.
The beach had its own restaurant right there, catering to seafood enthusiasts. Stanton asked for a table outside and stared out over the sea, a distant ship’s lights twinkling red and white toward shore.
“Can I get you something to drink?” the waitress said. “A vodka tonic or a beer?”
“Just an orange juice would be great.”
She nodded and headed back to the kitchen. She was pretty; blonde and skinny with large white teeth and blue eyes. Stanton watched as she walked away. The acute pain of loneliness hit him just then, the feeling that no one in the world would really care much if he weren’t in it anymore. Much of the time, he knew, those thoughts could take over if he didn’t pay attention. Depression had plagued him his entire life. His faith alleviated the pain but never abolished it. It was always there like some wound that wouldn’t heal.
A text came to his phone on the table. It was from Katie, and read, You doing okay?
Surviving, he replied.
I’ll be here a couple more hours if you wanna grab a late dinner later
He hesitated before replying. Maybe she wanted someone to have dinner with and it didn’t really matter who, or she felt sorry for him because he was here alone. Of course, it was always possible she was interested in him, but he decided he didn’t have enough information to decide. He was interested in her; he knew that, at least. She had an odd kind of strength, as though she displayed courage and tenacity, but inside was insecure, a chaotic mess that couldn’t be organized. Though physically attractive, Stanton didn’t think that’s what drew him to her.
Late dinner sounds great.
When the waitress came back out, Stanton told her he wouldn’t be eating and asked for the orange juice to go. He was in the middle of paying when another text came in. This one was from Amanda, letting him know the reports were emailed.
Stanton quickly paid and headed back to the hotel.
He logged into one of the hotel’s computers and then tried to access the Honolulu PD server to get to his email. His access was denied. He sighed and stared at the screen, debating what to do. Without access to his resources in Honolulu, he was completely reliant on Katie—not a position he liked being in. But he couldn’t see that there was anything else he could do. Sending confidential information in unsecured email was illegal, and Amanda could get fired. He couldn’t do that to her.
He decided when he met Katie for dinner tonight he would ask her for thorough background checks. Then he stopped, wondering if they would ever know if he just sent them to a private email address, and then deleted the account. Amanda would be at risk, but what choice did he have?
Think you can send them to a private email? he wrote to Amanda.
Against policy, sorry.
I know. But I’m stuck and don’t have anywhere else to go. The guy I’m looking for hurts kids.
It seemed as though a full minute passed before the reply came.
Okay.
Stanton quickly created a new email address on Gmail and sent it to Amanda. He’d close the account after he got the list.
A slight twinge of guilt came with the elation that he would have a list of active child pornography addicts who lived near where his sister had disappeared. Though a lot of research had shown that offenders who only consumed child pornography and didn’t have a history of physical abuse against children likely wouldn’t harm children, he felt the research was flawed. He’d seen it in traditional pornography addicts. They would build a tolerance to the pornography, their brains adjusting in much the same way a cocaine addict adjusts to the levels of cocaine consumption. They would become involved in more deviant pornography, until finally they discovered rape fantasy and child pornography. Eventually, those would grow dull as well, and they would have to move on to more stimulation, whether flashing, masturbating in public, or full-on sexual assault.
The problem with the research was that research could only be conducted on those offenders who had been caught. Only the most out-of-control offenders were caught—the ones who couldn’t be patient and plan. The ones who could wait and think about how to fulfill their addiction covered their tracks well and were difficult to find and study.
The email came through. He opened it and quickly flipped through it. Seventy-three names. He excluded the ones who lived more than a hundred miles from Rosebud and was left with a list of forty-one offenders in the Seattle area. He would collect a list just like this from all four names Greg had given them and then would have to whittle it down until he had someone that fit the criteria.
It was a long shot. If Carter did have a partner, anything could’ve happened in twenty-seven years. He could be dead, he could be in prison, he could’ve moved… The likelihood that Stanton would find him was nearly zero.
Stanton saved the background checks on the hotel’s computer and then emailed them to himself before deleting them from the computer. He walked outside, reading the names on the list, their financial histories, their addresses and known acquaintances. It wouldn’t be as simple as seeing Carter’s name as someone’s acquaintance. Carter was a respected teacher and leader in his church. He wouldn’t have associated with men who had criminal histories. This would be an association that was completely in private.
Stanton got another text from Katie saying she was done and that there was a great steak place near her condo. Stanton got the address. He checked the clock on his phone and saw that he’d been walking for more than twenty minutes. He hurried back to his car and began the drive over to the restaurant.
22
On the way over, the only thing Stanton could think about was talking to the other three names on Greg’s list. Kyle had already given them so much, if they could get anywhere near as much information from the other three, he had no doubt they would find someone who knew something about Reginald Carter.
The restaurant had a sloped, curving roof that looked like something on a Buddhist temple rather than a steak house. He parked and stepped out of the car, glancing up at the moon, which was peeking out from behind gray-black clouds.
Inside, the restaurant was packed, primarily with families. He saw Katie sitting at a booth, gazing at her phone, and he headed over. He sat down across from her, and she put the phone down and smiled at him.
“Sorry for making you wait,” he said.
“No worries. What were you doing?”
“Some follow-up to the list Kyle gave us. I’ve narrowed it down to forty-one names that lived within a hundred miles of Rosebud, and six names that live less than twenty miles away.”
“You wanna interview them all?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Usually I have a goal in an investigation, something concrete. I don’t have that here. It feels like I just want some sort of forward motion just to be doing something.”
The waiter interrupted them and took their order. Katie wanted a steak and Stanton asked for a salad. When he left, Katie said, “At some point, no forward motion’ll be possible. What then?”
“I don’t know. Go back home, I guess.”
She hesitated. “When Brian passed, I did everything I could to find out why that woman was on the road. I was obsessed with it. It… consumed everything else. My marriage fell apart, we sold the house and everything else. I had to take almost a year away from the force. The obsession ate me alive. I can see some of that
in you. Don’t let it take over.”
Stanton rested his hands on the table, feeling the cracks and crevices of the wood. “It already has. I had no business becoming a police officer. I shouldn’t have divorced my first wife, or broken up with my fiancée later. I shouldn’t be thirty-seven years old and living by myself. I can see where it began, though, as clearly as anything: the moment I found out my sister was gone, I knew she was dead. I don’t know how. But I just knew. And from that moment I wasn’t the same person. How can I not be obsessed?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but you have to. Otherwise there’ll be nothing left.”
Water arrived, and Stanton took a sip. They spoke of other, more pleasant things: Katie’s hobby of bird watching—something Stanton thought only biologists and retirees did—her love of movies, and why she had chosen to become a police officer. Stanton talked about his sons and about the rejuvenation that living on a tropical island brought him every day.
“You seem like the most unlikely cop I’ve ever met,” she said.
She had said it offhandedly, not meaning anything by it—in fact, Stanton suspected it was meant as a compliment—but it stung him. He shouldn’t have been a police officer. Being a cop was being part of a gun culture, machismo, and bragging about machismo. It was why people left the military and joined police agencies right after. The transition would be seamless for someone who understood the culture. A culture he never fit into.
“I better go,” she said as they finished up. “I’m on call, and I wanna get a couple of hours’ sleep first.”
Stanton picked up the check, and they left together. He walked her to her car and there was a moment, just a moment, where it seemed as though something was between them—just enough that if he gave her a kiss, it wouldn’t be entirely awkward. Still, when it came to these things, his instincts weren’t the best, so he decided to play it safe. He leaned in and pecked her on the cheek, and she grinned.
Mania - A Thriller (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 9) Page 8