by Leslie Wolfe
Frowning, Elliot took his hat off his face and looked around, squinting. They were parked in front of a two-story townhouse in Glen Park. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but Kay knew it was valued at about 2 million dollars, and the views from the upper floor must’ve been spectacular. It was built at the top of a hill, facing northeast, overlooking a part of the San Francisco downtown area, and the bay in the distance. From records, Kay knew Shannon had lived there with her mother, Joann Hendricks.
There wasn’t anything worse than having to discuss the circumstances of a child’s death with the mother. Kay felt a chill and rubbed her hands together, inhaling sharply.
“It’s nine thirty,” Elliot commented, after taking a drink of water from one of the plastic bottles he had stocked up on in a small cooler in the rear seat. “How fast were you going? You drove four hours’ worth of interstate in barely three. Did you put our lives in danger, Dr. Sharp?”
“I’ll plead the fifth,” Kay replied, rushing to the front door. The lights were still on, and as soon as she rang the bell, she could hear footsteps coming down the stairs, and approaching the door.
A woman in her sixties opened the door. She’d been crying; her eyes were red and swollen, and tears welled up when she looked at Elliot’s badge.
“Did you find Matthew?” she asked, her voice filled with hope that Kay was about to shatter.
“No, ma’am, we have not,” she replied gently. “May we come in?”
Joann Hendricks invited them to take a seat on a couch, and she sat on one of the two opposing armchairs. She was petite, but the way she carried herself, even when grief stricken, showed internal strength. She wore her hair naturally gray and cut short, speaking of her direct nature.
“My apologies,” she whispered, patting the corners of her eyes with a tissue. “I’ve just received the news of my daughter’s death this morning. I—I’m not ready to deal with life yet.”
“No need to apologize,” Kay replied. “It’s rather late, and I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us tonight.”
“I just can’t come to grips with the situation,” she said, her voice strong at first, before trailing off in a stifled sob. “I won’t be able to, for a while at least.”
“I can only imagine how you must feel. If you need more time, we could—”
Joann dismissed Kay’s question with a gesture of her hand. “Tell me, what do you need to know?”
“When’s the last time you saw your daughter?” Kay asked.
“On November twenty-seventh, last year,” she replied, “the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.” She paused for a while, hugging herself and leaning forward, her head hung low. “We had such a nice time. She was just starting to be happy again, after her divorce.”
Tears began rolling down her cheeks, while a stifled whimper escaped her lips, escalating into a sob before she could control herself.
A piercing, blood-chilling wail came from upstairs.
A moment later, Kay saw a young girl standing on the second-floor landing, pale and seemingly in shock, her blue eyes staring into emptiness. She wore a long, white nightgown stained with fresh tears.
At the sight of the child, Kay held her breath. The girl looked just like her mother, a much younger and distressed version of the beautiful blonde with long, curly hair that could be seen in many photos on the wall.
“Oh, no, Tracy,” Joann whispered, rushing to the child. She climbed the stairs as quickly as she could, then sat on the top step and talked to the girl in a low whisper. After a while, the little girl allowed Joann to take hold of her hand and they both climbed down, slowly, one step at a time.
Joann sat in the armchair, the girl curled up in her lap with her knees tightly against her chest. After a while, under her grandmother’s gentle caress, her shattered breathing normalized, and the child finally fell asleep.
“My poor baby,” Joann said, still caressing the girl’s hair. “My little miracle. It’s a wonder she came back to us.”
Kay looked at Elliot for a brief moment. He seemed just as stunned as she was. Came back? From where?
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know?” Joann asked, her voice a barely audible whisper. “Wasn’t that in the, um, police reports, or something?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Elliot said, sounding apologetic, almost embarrassed.
“When Shannon disappeared, she had both children with her,” Joann said, lowering her voice even further. “Tracy was found wandering the streets, here, in San Francisco, a couple of weeks after they’d all vanished.”
Kay sprung to her feet, but quickly sat again, when Joann’s firm gaze met hers. She couldn’t believe there was no mention in the missing person report of the other child. She looked briefly at Elliot. He was checking something on his phone, already retrieving the report from the system.
She remembered it word for word, because she’d read it many times, each time hoping the report was wrong, hoping Shannon had been taken alone, and that her son was home, safe. Each time she read the same phrase, “Last seen leaving her home in Glen Park, in a blue Subaru Forrester, together with her son Matthew, age five.” Then the report listed the corresponding AMBER Alert activation number. No mention of Tracy anywhere.
“Tracy isn’t listed in the missing person report,” Elliot said, confirming her recollection of the facts. “I’m not sure how—”
“She spent a few weeks in foster care, poor child,” Joann said with sadness. “It took them a while to identify her, although I had given them DNA samples for all three. But because she was found lost, in the street, they couldn’t assume she’d been taken with her mother and her brother, I guess. No one bothered to tell me anything; why would they?” The bitterness in her voice was unmistakable.
“When could we speak with Tracy?” Kay asked.
“She hasn’t said a word since they found her,” Joann replied. “Don’t you think I would’ve said something, if I’d known anything, any little detail that could lead to finding Shannon and Matthew?”
“Have you tried speaking with a psychiatrist?” Elliot asked. “Sometimes they’re able to reach children like Tracy.”
“You mean, children traumatized beyond words?” Joann replied. “Yes, I’ve tried. I took Tracy to a Stanford University professor, who saw her every day for weeks. He tried hypnosis and other methods, but Tracy seems too shocked to be able to speak, and he recommended we don’t push her. At some point, when her brain will be able to handle the trauma, she will start remembering and she’ll tell us what horrors she witnessed.”
She choked on the last word, and the little girl shifted in her sleep, whimpering quietly.
“No one knows how she came to be lost, or where her brother is,” she added. “She just screams when she hears me cry, and it’s been incredibly difficult, especially today.”
Slack-jawed, Kay looked at the two of them, broken-hearted and frail, rocking gently in the leather armchair. A million questions whirled in her mind, most of them having to do with the police investigation into Shannon’s disappearance a year ago. “What did the cops say, after Shannon and the kids disappeared?”
Joann breathed deeply before answering, as if gathering her strength before bringing up painful memories.
“Shannon wanted to teach the kids how to ski,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye with a quick touch of her finger. “She just packed them up in the Subaru, winter clothes and everything. On a Tuesday, no less,” she added with a sad chuckle. “It wasn’t something she’d planned; she just waited for the first snow to fall, so it would be nice, but not crowded, and not very cold. Shannon hated the cold.”
“And then?” Elliot asked when the woman stopped talking, biting her lip hard to control her tears.
“She was supposed to call that night, and she didn’t. I called her, and got voicemail. Then I rang again the next morning, but I didn’t panic until about lunch. I started to call the hotel, the resort, aski
ng if anyone had seen her. Then I phoned the police.”
They’d only known Shannon’s identity for a few hours; reviewing the investigation findings with the San Francisco Police Department was something she now wished she’d had the time to do before meeting with Joann Hendricks.
“What did they say?” Elliot asked calmly.
“They went back and forth for a while,” Joann replied, “as if they didn’t know what they were doing. They kept asking questions about Larry, Shannon’s ex. He lost custody of both children and they assumed he was vengeful, or had kidnapped them himself.”
“Is he a violent man?” Kay asked, wondering if he could be who they were looking for. If Shannon had been his first victim, it was possible the unsub had a personal relationship with her. The divorce and lost custody battle could’ve been the trigger, setting him off on his rage-fueled path of killing women. Everything fit, except the Mount Chester connection.
“He’s an addict,” Joann replied coldly. “He was snorting cocaine to perform at his high-paying job, and was driving my daughter insane. She was able to do the same job without drugs, and raise two children, but him, no. An addict and a loser, that’s who Larry Pickett really is.”
“Was he upset about the custody? As a man, that had to hurt, not being allowed to see his kids,” Elliot said.
“I don’t believe he cared enough to feel hurt,” Joann replied, contempt seeping from her words. “He found himself some girls he could do cocaine with and started living the life, forgetting to send in his child support checks. A couple of months after the divorce, he was fired from his job, and he spiraled from there. I was happy that Shannon didn’t get to see him in the office every day; that was terrible, an awful situation. They worked together, both of them were analysts for that major investment bank, um, Rolfe Sanders Trust.”
She whimpered quietly, evidently heartbroken to use the past tense about her daughter’s job, her life.
“Where is he from?” Kay asked. Another key piece of the already paper-thin victimology had shattered when she’d learned that Shannon had driven her own car to Mount Chester, meaning the car rental thread that Alison and Kendra had in common was just a coincidence, and so was the connection with San Francisco International Airport.
“Not sure, but I can tell you where he is,” she replied. “In jail. Where he belongs. And as sad as I am to know my grandkids will grow up knowing their father is a convicted felon, I believe this is better for everyone.”
“Since when?” Kay asked.
“They arrested him in May, I believe. He was high, and propositioned an undercover cop, offering her drugs and money for sex.”
If he was in jail, Larry couldn’t’ve killed Kendra, or abducted Alison and her daughter. Another dead end. Kay repressed a sigh of frustration.
Tracy shivered and started shaking in her sleep, mumbling unintelligible words. Joann wrapped her arms around the child and whispered in her ear, “Shh, baby, I’m here, and you’re safe. You’re at home, and I love you. Shh… sleep now, baby.” After a few heart-wrenching moments, the little girl settled.
“That’s how she’s been,” Joann said, gently touching the girl’s hair. “She cries or she shakes; she has night terrors and she screams; and she never relaxes. Who knows what happened to my poor baby, what that monster did to her?”
There was a brief moment of silence. Kay kept thinking how she could hope to unlock the secrets buried inside the girl’s traumatized memory, while Elliot seemed to be preoccupied with something else, given how he kept reviewing his notes.
“You were telling us about the police investigation,” he said, whispering so quietly she could barely hear him.
“Yes,” Joann replied. “They didn’t do much, and I believe they weren’t so sure she was kidnapped. You see, at first, they kept obsessing about Larry. Then they found her car—”
“Where?” Kay asked.
“In the airport’s long-term parking lot, out of all places,” she replied, frowning. “Subaru did a number with a technology it has, STARLINK I believe it’s called, and located the car. The police conveniently assumed she left by plane, although her luggage was still in the car. Even her coffee cup was there, untouched.”
The airport. One common thread that remained true, the unsub’s favorite method to dispose of the victims’ vehicles. She checked the time and realized it was almost midnight. Tomorrow morning, when she would see the case photos, she’d be able to establish if the untouched coffee had come from Katse Coffee Shop in Mount Chester.
“Where’s the car now?” Kay asked. She wanted to see if she’d find it with the check engine light on, returning the same error codes as Kendra’s Jeep and Alison’s Nissan had.
“The police have it. Honestly, I have no idea why Shannon drove to San Francisco International Airport,” Joann continued. “She left for Mount Chester Ski Resort; that’s north of here, not east.”
“Did the FBI investigate?” Kay asked, knowing it was the norm for the bureau to deploy the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment or CARD team for missing children of Matthew and Tracy’s ages.
“Yes, they all worked together, but didn’t, um, couldn’t find them. Then Tracy was found, and they said there was a strong possibility Shannon abandoned her children and flew out of San Francisco under a false identity, probably to meet a lover. They let the case grow cold,” she said, while tears pooled in her eyes. “They gave up on them. On us.” She cleared her voice quietly. “My daughter would’ve never abandoned her children. Never.”
Twenty-Three
Monogram
Alison had lain on her side, unable to move, for what seemed like hours after he’d left. She couldn’t distinguish where the pain was coming from anymore; her entire body ached. But worst of all was she hadn’t seen Hazel, not for two days. She hadn’t heard her either, although she often held her breath hoping she’d hear a sound, no matter how tiny, just to tell her that her daughter was okay.
She’d asked him earlier, but he’d just laughed and said, “You and your little girls… aren’t you something?” When she’d asked again, he was instantly enraged and grabbed her by her braided hair, pulling her back. He sunk his teeth into the flesh of her breast, hard, until his teeth pierced the skin and she screamed, as much as she’d sworn to herself she wasn’t going to scream again.
Because Hazel could hear.
Then, lesson learned, she’d just let herself be inert in his hands, not fighting anymore, knowing it was useless and would only hurt more. He’d been fuming and violent, more than usual, saying senseless things like, “So much for that mother’s instinct of yours… you only care about your little girls, not your boys. Screw the boys, right? Well, screw you!”
She knew better than to ask what that was about. She endured, swallowing her tears, trying to think of something else, of Hazel playing in the hot Atlanta summer sun in the backyard of their house. Of the day when they’d both walk through that grass again, barefoot, enjoying the morning dew against their feet.
When he finished with her and left, she didn’t dare to move, fearing the new pain she would discover as soon as she tried to stand and walk. But only moments later, the dreaded footsteps approached, and a part of her clung to the hope he might be bringing Hazel to see her. Because she’d been good. She hadn’t fought him back, hadn’t clawed at his face, to force him to tie her up again. The fact she could eagerly await the return of the man who’d been raping her every day since she was taken messed with her head and nauseated her, eroded her inside like a cancer seeded and watered every day by her captor.
She raised her head a little as he stepped inside the room, only to see he was alone.
“Hazel?” she whispered through fresh tears.
He laughed, a short laugh that turned into a lopsided grin. “Not before you clean up this pigsty.”
He set on the floor the bucket he’d brought with him, filled three quarters with foamy water smelling of bleach and detergent. “There’s a rag in there,�
� he added. “Scrub everything clean, the floors, the walls, everything you’ve touched and stained. Under the mattress too, and the bathroom floor.”
Then he left, locking the door behind him and climbing up the stairs whistling that sickening lullaby.
She didn’t realize how much time had passed since he’d left. She slipped in and out of consciousness, weakened by the blood loss, traces of which lined the inside of her thighs and the soiled floor tiles. After a while, the tiniest sliver of hope started fighting the darkness in her mind, making her wonder if he really meant it when he’d promised she could see Hazel after finishing up the cleaning. Maybe he spoke the truth. Maybe she should hurry.
She forced herself to her knees and fished the rag from the bottom of the bucket, then squeezed it with trembling hands. As she scrubbed and scrubbed, dried blood stained the soapy water, the foam turning pink, an innocent color that didn’t belong in hell.
How much longer would she endure?
For a while she’d thought she could escape. That hope had died quickly, after a few days in which she’d tried everything she could think of to break free. Then she hoped he’d get bored with her and set her free, or maybe the cops would break down the door one day and rescue her, like she read in the media and saw on TV. She’d just seen such a story of a man who chained nannies to the bed and kept them as sex slaves. They caught that guy and set those women free. Who would set her free? And when?
What if no one came?
Tears started rolling down her cheeks, dropping onto the floor as she scrubbed her way across the room.
If no one came, what would happen to her? Would he keep her for years and years?
She reached the corner where the mattress, lying directly on the floor, took almost a quarter of the room. She scrubbed all the way to its edges, then lifted the corner with trembling fingers, to see if there was dirt underneath it.
A torn pair of panties had been shoved under there, the cream silk contrasting with the dark tiles. She took them, carefully, as if not to disturb the woman who’d once worn them. They’d been torn at the seams and had bloodstains on them where several drops had reached the luscious fabric.
