Come and Get Me

by August Norman

  “Bruce and I are done.” Doris looked up to the dark second-story landing. “I’ve got boxes of things, but no daughter and no husband.”

  Caitlin moved closer. “I’m sorry.”

  Doris put up a hand. “What do you want to know?”

  “Your interactions with Detective Shepherd.” Caitlin put her phone between them, started her voice recorder. “When did you find out Angela was missing?”

  “Oh.” Doris looked at her now half-empty glass. “Too late is the answer. Too late to do anything useful.”

  “Doris, I can’t find Angela without your help right now.”

  The lawyer whispered into her drink. “No one’s going to find Angie.”

  “Give it here, Sweat Pants.” Caitlin took Doris’s glass and set it on the coffee table. “I’ve been in Indiana for eighteen days—only eighteen—and now Michelson and Amireau are in jail, probably for life, unless one of them cuts a deal to tell the police what really happened that night with Angela. Since the cops are happy getting them for drugs, you may never know what happened to your daughter unless you help me tonight.”

  Doris reached for the glass Caitlin removed. “I’m so lost.”

  Caitlin stopped her and brought the woman into her arms. She felt the warmth of Doris’s face against her shoulder, the tickle of tears against her neck.

  “You might be lost, but you’re not alone.”

  In time, she got Doris through the list of questions, then crunched through two mints that hid nothing for the drive back to Bloomington.

  Twenty minutes north of the city, she got a text message from Jerry Greenwood. Did you have to use my name when you talked to the widow?

  CHAPTER

  56

  CAITLIN COULDN’T FIND a parking spot close to the guesthouse. An FBI SUV and an unmarked sedan lined the curb. Mary stood on the porch next to Chief Renton and Special Agent Foreman.

  Caitlin climbed the steps and broke the ice with a smile on her face. “Is this about the weed? ’Cause it’s medicinal, and it’s not mine, and it’s oregano, so who’s the pothead now? Also, can we order pizza?”

  Mary was the only one who laughed.

  The dour federal agent held out a document. “Caitlin Bergman. This is a court order for the return of all files related to the Bloomington Police Department’s Angela Chapman investigation.”

  Caitlin let him hold it in the air like a paperboy. “Whoa there, Foreman. Chief Renton should have told you that our agreement grants me full access to the files in question.”

  Chief Renton gave the slightest smile. “The FBI doesn’t recognize our agreement. My hands are tied.”

  Caitlin grabbed the document from Foreman’s hand. Nothing like a court order to tell her she’d found the real story. Of course, this meant the open door policy with the BPD had ended. “Fine, this gives me carte blanche to write about the fine job your department’s doing.”

  Renton shook her head. “Actually, our lawyer says that’s not quite true. You see, your agreement with the BPD stands. It’s simply been superseded by a federal investigation.”

  Caitlin hated Renton’s smug expression. “You dirty bitch.”

  Mary’s jaw dropped. Renton might have pooped. Foreman looked like someone had just punched his mother. “Miss Bergman, do you really think you can address a chief of police with that word?”

  “That was for you, you inept bag of limp dicks. I know my rights.” Caitlin pushed past the agent. “Let’s get your files and get you the hell out of here.”

  “The team’s already inside,” Renton said.

  Caitlin turned back. “You went in without a search warrant?”

  “We had the owner’s consent.”

  Caitlin looked to Mary. Maybe it was the remnants of Doris Chapman’s whiskey, but a fire burned in her gut. She threw up her hands. “Did you screw me again, Mary?”

  Mary stared back at her, confused. “Again?”

  Jerry Greenwood came through the door with the box of Chapman files. “That should be everything.”

  Another betrayal. Caitlin shook her head. “You too?”

  He gave an apologetic shrug and handed Foreman the box. Foreman and Renton headed down the steps to their cars. Greenwood stayed up top, next to Mary.

  Caitlin’s fire burned hotter and wild. She and Mary had anticipated losing the files, so this visit wasn’t a surprise. But having the BPD violate her safe space and treat her like a criminal?

  No way in hell.

  She took the three steps down to the sidewalk in one leap. “Special Agent Foreman, one quick question.”

  Renton and Foreman turned to face her. The chief smiled. “It’s really nothing personal, Miss Bergman.”

  “And this is purely professional, Chief. According to our agreement, I can’t write about the Bro-duce brothers, but there’s a much better angle to cover. Special Agent, can you confirm the presence of an active serial killer in Bloomington, Indiana?”

  Foreman slid the box into the back seat of the SUV, shut the door. “No comment.”

  Caitlin didn’t stop. “Is that because confirming the presence of an active serial killer would not only reveal your own agency’s incompetence, but might also show how the BPD’s handling of the Chapman disappearance allowed the killer to evade detection for two years, to then hunt and kill Paige Lauffer?”

  Foreman walked around to the driver’s side, got in.

  Renton came back, ready to fight. “How dare you? Are you saying that Detective Greenwood was anything but professional?”

  “Not at all. It wasn’t Jerry Greenwood who mishandled the investigation, possibly even disposed of evidence.”

  Mary came down by her side. “What are you doing, Caitie?”

  Caitlin shrugged Mary’s hand off her elbow. They didn’t get to walk away with their shame in a tidy box. “Chief Renton, is it true that Detective Chris Shepherd treated Angela Chapman’s disappearance as the inconsequential worry of a female friend, rather than a missing person’s case, ignoring obvious physical evidence?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Is it possible that the three-day window caused by the man’s patronizing of female student Lakshmi Anjale allowed Kieran Michelson and David Amireau ample time to dispose of any and all evidence that might have led a competent investigator to Angela Chapman’s remains?”

  “Detective Chris Shepherd was a great man with an exemplary record.”

  “Who just happened to shoot himself two months after being removed from the Chapman investigation?”

  Renton dismissed her with a wave. “Shepherd’s suicide was the result of a personal medical issue.”

  “That he withheld from his wife?”

  “You’re talking out your ass, Bergman. Greenwood, let’s go.”

  Jerry walked down the steps, stood next to the chief.

  “Maybe not,” Caitlin continued. “The lack of paperwork from Shepherd is highly suspect. Either he didn’t bother to fill out an incident report or else someone in the BPD chose to omit his version, going so far as to put a typed revision in its place, not signed by the officer on the scene, but by you, Chief Renton.”

  Jerry put a hand up, started to open his mouth.

  Caitlin didn’t wait for a response. This was the tenth round, time for the knockout. “Here’s something more significant. Did you know that both Detective Shepherd and the last two men to see Angela Chapman alive, Kieran Michelson and David Amireau, were all members of the same college fraternity?”

  Renton pursed her lips like someone with a rotten tooth who’d just smelled her own breath. “Forty years apart? Who would care?”

  Caitlin crossed her arms. “I think Doris Chapman would care that members of the same fraternity recently arrested for running a massive drug operation had the opportunity to conspire with the initial investigator into her daughter’s disappearance.”

  “There’s no proof of that.”

  Like she’d done with so many before, Caitlin had Renton on the rope
s. She took one more verbal swing.

  “Just how long did the Bloomington Police Department allow members of Delta Omega Tau to manufacture and distribute narcotics under your command?”

  Renton looked ready to burst. “Do you know how hard I’ve worked to get where I am, you self-serving bitch?”

  “You kiss the FBI’s ass with that mouth, Abigail?”

  “Stop it, Bergman.” Greenwood said. “Chief, we have what we need.”

  Renton pointed Caitlin’s way. “Write that shit in a public forum, and you’ll spend the rest of your nights in Bloomington in the drunk tank.”

  Caitlin’s heart raced, all adrenaline, but she wasn’t going to back down. “You think you scare me? You’re not half the asshole Connor Hartman was.”

  “I didn’t rape you, Bergman, but I’ll fuck you over if you get in my way.”

  Caitlin heard the words, but didn’t see Renton anymore, only Connor Hartman’s beautiful, but uncaring, blue eyes. She felt her fingers make a fist, her arm fly forward. Lucky for all involved, Greenwood’s last-minute dive kept her from connecting with Renton’s jaw. He took Caitlin’s punch in his ribs.

  “That’s it, Bergman,” Renton yelled. “Assaulting an officer. You’re going in.”

  Greenwood kept them apart. “Chief, the last thing you want is this reporter in your jail. Let’s go.”

  Renton ground her teeth, opened the passenger side of the unmarked sedan. “This is my town, Bergman. My town.”

  Greenwood shut the chief’s door, walked around to the driver’s side. “Calm down, Caitlin—take a bath. This will all work itself out.”

  “Take a bath? Are you shitting me, Jerry?”

  “No,” he said, then got in the car and drove away. The SUV followed.

  “Caitie, are you okay?”

  Caitlin had forgotten Mary was standing there. She took a short breath. “I’m fine.”

  Mary put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t look fine.”

  Caitlin turned fast, knocked the hand away, stuck her palm out, and pushed. Mary stumbled backward. Hitting the rock wall kept her from falling on her ass.

  “Illegal search and seizure mean anything to you, Mary? You let them in my house.”

  Mary held her wrist like it hurt. “Your house? You need to calm down.”

  “You did it again,” Caitlin said, the image of Hartman’s eyes now replaced by Mary standing next to Troy Woods in a bar.

  “Did what again? Chill out, Caitie. You didn’t even have those files a week ago.”

  Caitlin felt her chest tighten. “That’s not the point. They can’t just—”

  The pounding in her chest drove her words away. She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Caitie?”

  She tried to breathe, heard the rush of waves. Mary’s face morphed, flew up and sideways, ended perpendicular—or maybe that was her.

  * * *

  “For a skinny girl, you’re pretty heavy.”

  Caitlin saw Mary’s face, felt water. She looked down, found her naked body in a foot of water.

  “How did I get in the tub?”

  “Unicorns, Caitie. How do you think?”

  Mary stood in the bathroom doorway. “Do you need to go the hospital?”

  “No, I guess I had a panic attack.”

  “Duh.”

  Caitlin leaned forward. “Mary—”

  Lubbers put a hand up. “Don’t. Are you going to drown if I leave you?”

  Caitlin took a deep breath. “I’ll be fine now. I’m so sorry.”

  “You might be tomorrow. Between the BPD and the FBI, you might be really sorry. I’m going home. I’ve got a whole bunch of work and three classes tomorrow. Your boyfriend left you some towels.”

  “Mary—”

  Too late. Caitlin heard the front door slam. She sank into the water, closed her eyes.

  Had she really tried to punch a police chief?

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

  “Take a bath,” Greenwood had said. “This will all work itself out.”

  What a crock of shit. No one cared about finding Angela Chapman. Not compared to covering their own asses.

  She turned the hot water handle and put her hands under the pouring spout. The water in Lake Lemon was nowhere near as warm. She took another deep breath and sank beneath the surface, remembering her daytime plunge—the feel of the underwater grass, the mud floor of the reservoir, the calm glow of the sun at the top of the dark water. She stayed in the deep until her mortal need for breath brought her back to the light. She sat up, brushed the water from her eyes, found herself back in the bathroom.

  A robe and two thick towels waited for her on top of the closed toilet seat. She reached over, found one of the smaller files from the big box of Chapman tucked between the towels. She grabbed the file with wet hands, read the handwritten label.

  Possible Suspect—Lakshmi Anjale.

  Caitlin jumped out of the tub and read the file, sitting wet and naked on the cold tile floor. After her second pass of the ten-page document, she shuffled into the living room, found her phone, and sent a text: We need to talk right now.

  CHAPTER

  57

  HALF AN HOUR later, Caitlin met Lakshmi on the sidewalk outside Angela Chapman’s empty apartment. She held back the assault of questions on the tip of her tongue, not because Lakshmi looked like she’d been crying for the last hour, but because she didn’t want the BPD’s cameras to capture a single word. “Why are you hanging out here tonight?”

  Lakshmi zipped up a hoodie. “After you asked about Shepherd, I got mad and drove over. You want to come in?”

  “Let’s walk.” Caitlin turned toward the opposite end of the complex, her still-wet hair sticking to her neck. “Mad about what, me bringing up Shepherd?”

  “What? No, I was mad at myself.” She laced her fingertips and pushed back and forth with nervous energy. “I’m having a hard time remembering Angela. The real her. Does that make sense?”

  “Sure.”

  Caitlin stepped into the forest on the path that Chapman would have walked to the boys’ apartment. Headlights of cars on a road to their left flickered through the leaves.

  Lakshmi started up again. “I came up here to talk to her, you know? I sat in her room and tried to hear her voice.”

  “And?”

  “Didn’t work. I mostly cried.” She pointed toward the road. “Look, there goes the Monster.”

  Caitlin saw a lit red and orange sign strapped to the top of a pizza delivery car. The Monster-mobile’s light passed behind tree trunks, fading into the darkness.

  Lakshmi turned back to Caitlin. “Not Chad, though. He’s got an old white SUV.”

  Convinced no one else was around, Caitlin went to work. “Memories can be fuzzy, Lakshmi. Sometimes they change over time.” She squared off facing the girl. “What do you remember about Ruth Davis?”

  The night hid much of Lakshmi’s face, but Caitlin caught the ripple of tension on her forehead.

  “ ‘Jesus’ Ruth? As in my freshman-year roommate?”

  Caitlin nodded. “ ‘My roommate went mental,’ you said. Almost three weeks ago, we were talking about how you and Angela met—”

  “I remember. What are you asking me?”

  Caitlin watched her eyes. “Did Ruth Davis file a complaint against you with the student housing administration?”

  Lakshmi stepped back like she’d been shoved, her mouth open in disbelief. “Ruth Jesus-is-the-only-man-I’ll-get-on-my-knees-for Davis was the spawn of a Bible-thumping evangelist who thought girls went to hell if they danced, even in Zumba class. She was a lunatic with a ten-year-old’s understanding of human sexuality.”

  Caitlin took a step forward. “A lunatic who swore her roommate harbored a lesbian crush on her, bordering on obsession. Did she file a complaint?”

  Lakshmi gave a sharp, single laugh. “Yes, she alleged that I tried to seduce her with my lesbian wiles.”

  “Did you?”

&nb
sp; Lakshmi threw a hand up. “Second week of school, I told her she’d look great in a skirt. The girl dressed like the Amish. She needed all the encouragement she could get. A month later, she comes home, walks in on me having ‘personal’ time. She filed a report about me showing her my fanny, all because I thought she’d be gone for another hour. The poor girl didn’t know the difference between her urethra and her vagina. Masturbation might as well have been sodomy.”

  Like the reasoning behind Lakshmi’s restraining order, the answer sounded believable, but Caitlin had more. “Tell me about Pratima Siddal.”

  Lakshmi’s voice dropped. “Those documents were supposed to be sealed.”

  Caitlin crossed her arms. “You attended a public high school before you went to Hackley. Did you have a relationship with a teacher named Pratima Siddal?”

  Lakshmi met Caitlin’s posture and came back angry, her voice doubled in volume. “Sounds like you know what I had with Mrs. Siddal, Caitlin. I want to know how the sealed record of a juvenile victim of sexual assault got in your hands.”

  “The feds profiled you, Lakshmi.” Caitlin quoted a line from the FBI’s report. “ ‘From a young age, Anjale has exhibited tendencies toward obsession with female love interests.’ They say you stalked Chapman, that you harassed Ruth Davis, that you cost Pratima Siddal her job and her marriage.”

  “I cost Pratima her job?” Lakshmi threw her head back, then returned with fire in her eyes. “I was a fifteen-year-old who’d never been kissed, and she was the twenty-four-year-old grammar teacher who coached the girls’ soccer team, and the only other woman of Indian descent within twenty miles. Did I have a crush on her? Yes. Did I lose my virginity with her? Yes. Did I start it? No bloody way.”

  She ran a finger under an eye, pushed back a tear. “I was fifteen. I’d never smiled so much in my life, so I called her, way too many times, even waited outside her house to try to talk to her. That’s what teenagers do. Her husband called the police, my dad got involved, the next thing I knew, they arrested Pratima for statutory rape and my father shipped me off to private school. That record is supposed to be sealed.”

  “It is,” Caitlin said. “Your father shared the story with the detectives.”