by Roger Hayden
“Outside help?” Knight asked, slightly annoyed. He felt the urge to quit right then and there, but a pending retirement was a tightrope. Quitting would lose him everything.
“Our friends at the FBI have taken interest in the case,” the captain said as though it was final.
Knight felt the case slipping away, not that he had much of a grip on it in the first place. They'd gone through about ten suspects in the Riley case and had come close to clearing every one of them. From there, they'd reached a dead end. The only difference between the two cases was how the girls were abducted. Sarah Riley was taken outside her house, Brittany Owens was taken from her own bedroom. Knight had a general profile of their suspect: male, early thirties to late forties, a loner, careful and intelligent. He hoped the Cadillac would bring them closer to an answer. It had to.
A knock came at the door. Knight and Slater turned their heads as the captain called out for the person to come in. The door opened, revealing a black woman in a beige, three-piece suit and an FBI badge hanging from her neck. Her braided hair was tied up. She walked inside with a closed-mouthed smile. The captain stood up to welcome her.
“I'd like to introduce Agent Tanya Garrett. She hails all the way from Columbia, South Carolina. Agent Garrett is a profiler with the FBI and was highly recommended to me.”
Knight and Slater nodded with friendly smiles, but there was no denying the awkwardness that her unexpected presence had brought them. Knight wasn't sure how he felt. He knew that he could get stubborn and protective when it came to cases he was assigned. “Agent Garrett, this is Detective Charles Knight and Detective Simon Slater. They'll be assisting you with this case.”
She shook their hands with a friendly nod on her freckled face. Her eyes seemed relaxed and observant. She looked to be in her late thirties if Knight had to guess. He didn't spend his time guessing people's ages. He had a hard enough time keeping up with his own.
“Please have a seat,” Marshall said, signaling to one of the two chairs in front of his desk.
She thanked him and sat, placing her purse on the floor. Even with a small couch sitting in the corner, Knight and Slater remained standing, and the message was clear. Knight's cell phone vibrated. He sneaked it out of his coat pocket and saw a message from Deputy Gibbs. She wanted to know when they were going to return. He sent a quick reply, telling her they’d be back soon enough.
The captain continued. “As you know by now, we're looking for a serial predator. Two young girls of the same age have disappeared within proximity of each other.” He pointed to a county map on the wall with its push pins and markings. “Roughly five miles apart. We've got an update on a possible vehicle seen around the neighborhood, a Cadillac, 1980s model. But without a license plate, we're flying blind.”
“It's a start,” Knight added to the silence that followed. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed that the FBI agent's arrival was indeed planned. There was no way that she had been called up that morning. Marshall must have made the call days ago. Her arrival, by coincidence, now coincided with Brittany Owens's disappearance.
Marshall pointed at Knight and Slater with his pen. “I'd like you to work closely with my detectives and keep them in line.” Light laughter followed as Knight tried to maintain a good-natured smile, though he couldn't help but consider Agent Garrett anything but an outsider. “They're to share whatever information they have as well. I want this bastard caught and behind bars pronto.”
Agent Garrett nodded in agreement with her elbow on her arm rest and finger against her cheek. “There's little doubt in my mind,” she said, “that our kidnapper is a local. He feels safe and confident in his familiar surroundings.”
Marshall smiled. “You don't say?”, sounding pleased.
Knight had already told him exactly that the week prior, but the captain seemed enamored with the federal agent in their midst. “I'd like some words with Agent Garrett,” he said to Knight and Slater. “Now, get out there and find this guy. Dismissed.” He turned back to Garrett with a much friendlier demeanor and began conversing. Knight and Slater both turned to leave without another word.
Once outside and a safe distance from the captain's office, Slater expressed his frustrations. “Showboating in front of the FBI. I hate when he does that.”
“Doesn't matter,” Knight said as they reached their cubicles.
Slater pulled out his chair and sat with an exhausted sigh. “Yeah, well... you'd think we would have earned a little respect after all these years.”
Knight sat at his desk and set his tape recorder aside. “Don't be so sensitive. There are two girls missing right now. That's all that matters.”
Slater nodded. “I suppose you're right.” He then opened the top desk drawer and pulled out a coffee mug and a small bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Pouring nearly the entire bottle, he shook two tablets out from a travel-sized tube of Aspirin. “Maybe the captain’s right,” he said, taking the Pepto and pills with a sour face. “Maybe we need a new perspective.”
Knight was adamant and sounding newly determined. “We're going to find this guy.”
Slater bounced up in his chair, showing a bit of vexation. “Sure. Where do we start? Go through the sex offender rolls again?”
Knight began typing on his computer. “I know you're frustrated. So am I. Let's just do our jobs. If our creep-o is local, then we're bound to find something.”
Slater swung his chair back and logged on to his computer, looking drained. “I'll do a search for Cadillacs.”
“Good thinking,” Knight said.
As they got into their rhythm, it began to feel like old times again. The captain's blunt remarks that morning seemed to have lit a spark in them both. Ideally, they'd have a suspect before their visitor from the FBI even finished her briefing. There were numerous people convicted of stalking and other forms of harassment within the county database. It wasn't going to be an easy search. It never was.
They worked steadily and quietly, the only sound a loud sigh occasionally. “How are we looking on those car matches?” Knight asked, stretching his arms overhead but keeping his eyes on the list of convicted sex offenders on his screen.
“Over one thousand so far,” Slater said with another sigh.
“Narrow down the date from ‘80 to ‘85,” Knight suggested. He heard typing followed by a cautious tone of optimism. “Two hundred and forty-two,” Slater said. “Guess that's better.”
“Damn right it is,” Knight said. He typed in the zip code associated with the Owens house: 32609. His cell phone vibrated again, interrupting him. He pulled it from his pocket, expecting a message from Deputy Gibbs but found that it was from his wife, Bonnie.
Don't forget to pick up some ground beef on your way home for tacos.
At that point, he didn't know if he was going to be home in time for dinner. They heard the captain's door open as he walked Agent Garrett out, talking her up with boisterous praise. He pointed in their direction and sent her off. Knight sat at his desk, facing away from the door, as her footsteps approached. He tried to keep his attitude positive, lest they get off on the wrong foot.
She walked between their two desks and asked how they were doing. Knight slightly turned his head and told her they were fine. What bothered him wasn't so much her presence, but that she seemed like a distraction. He had his own leads to follow, and the momentum between him and Slater was already there. They'd have to stop everything to brief her.
“What are you up to now?” she asked them both.
Slater grunted, offering a non-answer. Knight held his tongue and turned away from his monitor altogether to give her his attention. “I'm searching our database for convicted sex offenders. I want to see if there are any that live in or around the areas in question.”
Agent Garrett nodded. “That's a good start.”
“Same thing we did last week,” Slater blurted out, still turned around.
Agent Garrett glanced over at his desk, curious. “You're ref
erring to the Sarah Riley case.”
“Yep,” Slater said.
“And what are you working on now?” she asked, approaching him.
Slater turned his head, surprised to see her standing over him and glancing at his screen.
“Cadillacs,” he said. “Is that all right with you?”
Knight got up and walked over to Agent Garrett to change the subject. “Thoughts on the case so far?”
She turned and looked at him, pleased to be engaged. “Yes. It's clear that Brittany Owens was kidnapped from her room in the middle of the night. The intruder used a ladder to get inside her room. He wore gloves and was probably masked. His first action was to silence her to avoid waking up any family members. He moved swiftly, which means that he's done this before. He used nylon rope to bind her wrists, gagged her mouth with tape, and left her ankles free so that she could move. He either carried or forced her out the window and into a vehicle, then they left the scene.”
Slater turned around, astonished. “You sure about all of that?”
“There were bits of nylon found in the girl’s bed, and adhesive residue on her pillow from the tape,” Agent Garrett said with confidence. “Yes. I've been in contact with your forensics department.”
Knight considered her theory and its validity. It seemed a better explanation than anything else he had heard that morning. He then suggested returning to the Owens's house to continue their investigation. “I was talking with her parents before being summoned here.”
Slater laughed. “Yeah, Charles here thinks the lawn mower man did it. Or maybe it was the butler.”
Knight flashed a middle finger and noticed Garrett 's eyes on him, awaiting further explanation. “If the girl was abducted from a second-floor window, I think it's safe to say that our culprit knew what he was looking for.”
“Yes, that's correct,” Garrett said. She walked between Knight and Slater and approached a county map pinned to a bulletin board on the cubicle wall. Her finger traced an area of grid lines and streets somewhere in the middle. “Sarah Riley was abducted on Hibiscus Avenue, where she lived. Brittany Owens was abducted less than five miles away on Tilford Lane from her own bedroom.”
Slater glanced at Knight with a dismissive shrug. Agent Garrett seemed to be formulating something, and they weren't sure where she was going. “Both neighborhoods aren't far from the local middle school,” she continued, trailing a red fingernail to the Bradford Junior High School. “That's only a few miles from both homes.”
“What are you getting at?” Slater said.
“I don't know yet,” she said with her back to them.
Slater continued, irritated. “Well, I'll tell you what I'm looking at. We've got no reports of stolen Cadillacs, so that's a dead end.”
Garrett turned around to face them with her arms crossed. “Our suspect sticks to the shadows. He's comfortable there. He's a watcher. He feels invisible.”
Slater scoffed. “How do we even know that these abductions are related? Other than the homes being a few miles apart, we've got nothing.”
“They are,” Agent Garrett replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
Slater stared at her, shaking his head, and then turned to leave. “I need to get some air. You guys figure it out.” He moved quickly through the cubicles and out of sight as his footsteps trailed off.
Knight looked at Agent Garrett, slightly embarrassed. “He's all right. Just going through some things right now.”
Garrett nodded. “Tell me, Detective Knight. Do you believe the abductions are connected?”
“I do,” Knight said.
“I'd like to see the list of suspects you've acquired so far from the Sarah Riley case.”
Knight walked to a nearby filing cabinet and opened the third drawer down. He grabbed a file labeled “Riley Abduction” and handed it to her. “Everything you need should be in there.” But he wasn't certain. There were files all over his desk, and he needed to get organized. “Would you like a coffee or anything from the break room?” he asked, turning away. A litany of thoughts flooded his mind. Though she was there to help, he couldn't think straight in her presence.
“Sure,” she said.
Knight pulled his chair out for her. “Make yourself comfortable, and I'll be back.”
He left as fast as he could and headed straight for the lobby, down the hall. Through the glass in the outside doors, he saw Slater standing in a pavilion, smoking. Knight passed the front desk and outside the double doors. He walked down the concrete walkway, passing two police officers with a nod as they entered the building. Slater kept looking into the parking lot, not acknowledging Knight's approach beside him, as if he wanted to be left alone.
“Smoking again?” Knight said. He recalled how Slater boasted of quitting a few months prior.
“What's it to you?” Slater said, avoiding eye contact. He pulled nearly half the cigarette in one long puff and then blew the smoke in the air. Attitudes seemed all over the place that day. There was a definite rift between the two partners, widened further by the presence of an unwanted FBI agent in their midst, but Knight was determined to bring his partner back from the brink.
“I understand your frustrations,” he began, “but we have to work with her. We do our best to solve this thing, and that's all we can do.”
Slater gave him a side glance with narrowed eyes. “Easy for you to say. You've got less than a month before sailing out of here. I've got three-hundred and twenty-two days.”
“Don't do this to yourself,” Knight said. “It's a job. We're not miracle workers.”
Slater flicked his cigarette to the side and pivoted toward Knight, inches from his face. “I didn't spend twenty-five years on the force to be micromanaged by some FBI lackey. She can go find the kidnapper all by herself as far as I'm concerned.”
Knight answered with equal tenacity. “What are you going to do, get reassigned?”
Slater waved him off. “Go screw yourself,” he said, stepping away. He continued into the parking lot, out of the shade of the pavilion as though he was leaving for the day.
“Where are you going?” Knight shouted to him, hands cupped over his mouth.
“I've got things to do!” Slater shouted back.
He hurried past rows of cars before finding his own. Knight watched as his partner swung open the driver's side door of his burgundy Oldsmobile open and jumped inside. The engine cranked on as the door slammed shut. He backed up and raced out of the parking lot, leaving a trail of exhaust.
The Oldsmobile roared out with no sign of coming back. Knight placed his hands in his pockets, thinking. His options were limited. He could go inside and work with Agent Garrett or walk away like Slater. The choice was clear enough. He turned around and headed back inside the station.
5
Suspects
Knight returned to his desk to find Agent Garrett going through his files. He wasn't surprised or upset about it. She showed no sign of hiding her intentions. Folders were open all over his desk, papers scattered everywhere. It looked like she'd been sent in there to give him an audit.
“Is there something I can help you find?” he asked, holding two cups of coffee in hand.
She swiveled around and looked at him matter-of-factly. “Just seeing if there's anything useful in this mess.” He then handed her a coffee as she thanked him with a smile.
“Did you come up with an answer yet?” he asked, blowing on his coffee.
“Answer on what?” she asked back.
“On whether my files are useful?”
She closed another folder and pushed it to the side. “Yes, they certainly are.” She then opened another folder from the Mitchell homicide from at least five years ago.
“Is this some kind of internal review?” he asked, stepping forward with a friendly smile.
Garrett sipped from her coffee and looked at him as though nothing was out of the ordinary. “Not at all, Detective. I just... love crime.”
“You love cr
ime?”
“Studying cases and solving them. Finding criminals. It's my passion. I live for it.”
Knight supposed that he had felt the same way early in his career. Curious, he asked her how long she had been in the bureau. She said ten years.
“I spent a good five years in the army, but I wanted to move on. I never thought I'd finally get to this point in my career. It's exhilarating.” She closed another folder and then stood up with two files in hand. “This should be all I need.”
He glanced at the files. “And what will you be doing with them?” He was beginning to understand Slater’s discontentment more and more.
“I'm trying to establish connections, Detective.”
“Well, you're a profiler, correct?” he asked. “What's your profile on this guy?”
“Who says that it's even a male?” she asked.
Knight stood back, surprised at the suggestion. Agent Garrett laughed. “Don't rule anything out.” He wanted to ask her more about her credentials, experience, and history, since she wasn't offering much.
“I think we should go back to the house,” she said, pausing to look around. “Is Detective Slater coming back?”
And once again, Knight found himself covering for him. “He was called away. We'll link up with him later.”
Agent Garrett seemed satisfied enough as they left the office. The captain's door was closed, and his light was off. He must have left at some point. Knight sighed in relief and walked with Garrett beside him. They continued down a hall, past the conference room, where a briefing was taking place. The room was filled with police officers seated in front of a podium. One of the section leaders, Staff Sergeant Vazquez, addressed the room. Knight slowed and stopped in the doorway, listening with Garrett nearby.
Different search teams had been dispatched throughout town. Volunteers from all over had pitched in to help, but they hadn't found anything yet. The obvious hope was that Brittany Owens was still alive. And if she was alive, they had to assume that she was being held captive somewhere. They were going to form a task force primarily designed to respond to missing children. Knight scanned the room for the captain but didn't see him anywhere.