“That’s exactly what we think happened here,” said Blum, watching Pine closely.
Pine turned and looked at Roberts.
“I’ll take you up on the offer to get the file on Joe Atkins’s murder. And anything you have on Desiree Atkins.”
“Okay. It won’t be much, I’m afraid.”
“It will be more than I have now. How big were Joe and Desiree?”
“Not big. Joe was about five seven, hundred and fifty pounds wet. Desiree was a petite thing, five feet, ninety pounds, maybe.”
Pine nodded. “Okay, does the sheriff’s office have a forensics tech?”
“Oh yeah.”
“I’d like prints and DNA samples taken from here. We can take samples from Kyle and his brother for elimination purposes.”
“Do you have samples of the girl’s DNA?” said Roberts.
Pine thought, Yes I do, because it’s the same as mine.
She nodded. “And any prints found here I’d like to match against Joe and Desiree, if you have those on file.”
“We have Joe’s for sure. I don’t know about Desiree’s.”
“Okay.”
They left the cave, with Pine reluctantly leaving Mercy’s doll behind, because this was a crime scene now. But then she stopped and turned back to the door.
“You said Joe Atkins was in the security business?”
Roberts nodded. “Yeah. He’d put together alarm packages, whatever you needed. Most folks around here don’t even lock their doors. But most of his clients were businesses. So he’d put in surveillance cameras and—” He broke off when Pine rushed back to the door and started ripping at the ivy that had grown up on the rock wall and around the door.
“Agent Pine?” said Blum.
Pine said, “Help me pull down this ivy.”
They all joined her and in short order had ripped enough of it away to reveal a small, decrepit surveillance camera mounted onto the rock wall and pointed at the door, with a cable snaking down the face of the wall and into the ground.
“Damn,” said Roberts. “He had this place under surveillance.”
Pine eyed the cable. “And this was before everything went wireless. I think that cable may run all the way to the house.”
“Well, let’s find out,” said Pat.
Pine sprinted back to the house and the others followed.
CHAPTER
75
THEY REACHED THE HOUSE and searched the exterior all over for the other end of the cable.
Kyle spotted it behind an overgrown bush.
The others quickly joined him. Pine looked at the spot where the cable entered the house.
“What room is that?”
Kyle said, “That’s me and Trey’s bedroom.”
“I wonder if Atkins used that as a home office when he was here?” said Blum. She added in a disgusted tone, “Since they only needed the one bedroom, apparently, once the girl got too big to keep in that room.”
They rushed inside, and Kyle led the way to the bedroom. It looked like the bedroom of a typical teenager, meaning there was junk piled everywhere. And there was a giant flat-screen TV set on a table with Xbox controllers set in front of it.
“Where’s your brother?” asked Pine.
“He works at a 7-Eleven.”
She surveyed the room, eyeing the beds on either side.
There were two windows in the room, and one faced the rear yard.
“If I’m Atkins, I think I’d want to be constantly looking in the direction of that jail cell, because let’s just call it what it is.”
Roberts stepped forward. “Okay, desk about here,” he said. “And if he was using cable back then, I bet he was also using a VCR with a videotape.”
Blum said, “You would think that if whoever the bank used to clean out the house had found a tape they would have looked at it or turned it in.”
“Maybe it was in a place they couldn’t see,” said Pine, staring at the floor. “That carpet. Was it here when you bought the house?”
Hazel Simmons had joined them and answered. “No. It was hardwood floors. Made the room too cold.”
Pat added, “There’s no concrete slab under the house. It’s on raised footers with a crawlspace under it.”
“Okay, if the desk was there then, we have two options.” She glanced at the Simmonses. “Can we take the carpet up and look under it?”
Pat said, “Hell, yes, I’ll help you.”
They worked on both corners simultaneously.
Pat got his section up first and was examining the flooring. Kyle reached down and started feeling around each of the boards. “Hey, one’s loose here.”
They rushed over, and with everyone helping, they soon worked free a section of the hardwood flooring. What was revealed set inside a wooden cubby was a Sony VCR.
Kyle reached down and pulled it out. “Wow, never actually held one of these before.”
Blum said, “Look, the cable is still attached.”
Pat pulled the cable free and said, “We can hook this up to the boys’ TV over there. It has the connections in the back.”
“I’ll do it,” offered Kyle.
He carried the VCR over to the table the TV was on and started working away. Within a minute he had it all connected. He turned the power on and hit the Eject button.
“Oh my God,” said Blum. “A tape is still in there.”
“It has to be the last one that he put in there before he was killed. Let’s hope it’s still good,” said Pine.
“That cubby it was in looks well insulated,” said Pat.
“We don’t have the remote,” said Kyle. “But looks like I can work it from the VCR.”
He turned the TV on, rewound the tape to the beginning, and hit the Play button.
They all stood there and watched.
Pine felt herself getting light-headed and realized it was because she was holding her breath.
And then there was the door to the cave. Minutes went by and nothing happened. Then—
“That’s Joe Atkins,” said Roberts.
Joe Atkins, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt with a baseball cap on his head, appeared. He held a shotgun. Then next to him appeared a small woman with long, dark hair and a brooding expression. She was carrying a tray of what looked to be food.
“And that’s Desiree,” said Roberts.
Blum noted the date and time stamp that appeared at the bottom of the frame. “May thirty-first, 2002,” she read.
Roberts said, “That’s right. Joe’s body was found the very next day.”
Joe pounded on the door and called out, “Get away from the door, Becky. Food’s here.”
Joe waited and then unlocked the door. He stepped back, readied the gun, and nodded at his wife. She cautiously opened the door and placed the tray on the floor and used her foot to slide it in.
Then she slammed the door shut.
Joe got the padlock back on just before something hit the door with a tremendous blow; it made Joe and Desiree jump back. Joe fell on his ass and dropped the gun. From inside the cave they could hear peals of laughter.
Joe scrambled to his feet and picked up his shotgun. “You cut that shit out, Becky. You do that next time, Desiree gonna add another mark to your hide, you got that?”
The laughter died away.
“That’s right, Rebecca,” said Desiree in a subdued tone, as though she were on some sedative. “We don’t want that, do we? Marks on your hide?”
There was no response from behind the door.
Pine thought she might be sick. Blum put an arm around her shoulders and whispered, “Agent Pine, I am so sorry.”
Roberts looked at the pair curiously.
“Hey,” said Kyle, whose gaze was still riveted on the TV screen. “Dude forgot to close the padlock.”
Pine said, “You’re right. Can you fast-forward this?”
“Yeah.” He hit a button and the video leapt forward. Pine watched the frames like she had never watch
ed anything else before.
“Stop,” she said.
Kyle immediately hit the Play button, and the frame speed returned to normal.
The door had just been hit by another blow. And then another, even more powerful one.
“Why is she doing that?” asked Pat. “She must know the padlock’s on there.”
Pine said, “Stop the tape for a sec.”
Kyle did so, and Pine looked at Pat Simmons. “She knows he didn’t close the padlock.”
“But how?” said Pat.
“Because she’d been in that hellhole for years, and she knew every sound. And she didn’t hear that sound that night.”
Blum said, “Do you think that’s why she didn’t jump out at them when the door opened? She waited until he was putting the lock back on, but before he actually locked it she hit the door to distract him?”
“I think that’s exactly what she did,” said Pine. And with that statement, she felt an immense sense of pride in both her sister’s patience and her cunning. All those years a prisoner and she had remained vigilant, just waiting for an opportunity.
“Turn it back on, Kyle.”
Kyle did so, and they watched as three more blows hit the door. Then the fourth one was the charm. The open padlock flew free of the clasp and the door swung open.
And there . . . there, just like that, was Mercy Pine, tall, lean, strong, filthy, dressed in rags and looking quite . . .
Pine had to admit it to herself.
She looks . . . not in her right mind. And who the hell could blame her?
Pine’s hand shot out and hit the Pause button, freezing Mercy’s image. She was staring right at the camera. Pine thought she must have known where it was located. She took in every atom of her twin’s appearance, trying to wind it all back to when they were six and then carrying it forward once more to this . . . person.
Roberts said, “Is that the person you’re looking for, Agent Pine?”
Pine didn’t answer him right away. Her gaze kept searching, the eyes, the nose, the forehead; the body was of no help, it had changed too much. But then she leaned forward and gazed closely at something.
It was the freckle. On the nose. As a child Mercy had told her twin that God had done that because she had come out first and their mother needed a way to tell them apart.
Pine straightened and nodded. “Yes, it’s her.”
I never thought I would be able to say those words ever again.
Her head was filled with so many thoughts, some happy, some insanely sad, some that were threatening to tear her apart. In desperation, she hit the Play button.
Mercy came to life, looked around, and then dashed off to the right, heading toward the house and out of the camera’s view.
The tape kept running, and they all jumped when they heard the shot. Then screams. Then another gunshot. Then more screams. They couldn’t make out who was screaming, and they had no way to know who was shooting, although Pine assumed it might be Joe Atkins. Then things grew silent and the tape continued to run. But the only image on it was the busted door.
Pine finally reached over, turned off the VCR, ejected the tape, and picked it up.
Blum looked at her, lips trembling. “At least . . . at least she escaped.”
Pine wouldn’t look at any of them. She said, “Yeah.” And then walked out.
As she headed back to their car, Pine slowed so Blum could catch up to her. Roberts was on the front stoop thanking the Simmonses for all their help.
“That must have been terrible for you to see, Agent Pine.”
“I’ve been waiting almost my whole life to see Mercy. And she’s alive—at least she was in 2002.”
“Yes, absolutely. That is a huge positive.”
Pine stopped walking. “Roberts said that people reported hearing screams and he found Desiree branding a dog.”
“Right,” said Blum.
“But dogs don’t scream, Carol.”
“You . . . you mean . . . ?”
“That’s what Joe meant when he threatened Mercy—Desiree would make ‘marks’ on her hide again. They used the dog to cover that up when Roberts got there.”
“Those evil, evil people.”
“And Joe Atkins was murdered and Desiree Atkins vanished.”
Blum stopped walking. “Wait a minute, what are you saying?”
“Seeing her in the photo and now in the video, Mercy is taller than me and weighed maybe a hundred and sixty pounds and none of it was fat. She looked lean and rock hard. The Atkinses were small. She was bigger than both of them.”
“Agent Pine, you can’t mean—”
“I mean, Carol, that it’s possible that my sister escaped, they tried to stop her—we all heard the screams and gunshots—and . . . she killed them.”
“But where is Desiree’s body if she was killed?”
“Who knows? If she buried her, it could be anywhere. After all these years, there wouldn’t be much left.”
“But why bury Desiree and not Joe?”
“She might not have had the opportunity.”
“That is all speculation.”
“I agree. But if it’s not that, then it’s something equally improbable.”
They started walking again.
Blum said, “Well, if she did kill them, she had every right. I mean, that was her home? A cave, for all those years? The abuse. The horror. I can’t even imagine. I can’t even contemplate—”
“Ariel Castro in Cleveland? Jaycee Dugard? Elizabeth Smart out in Utah? There have been lots of others. I just never thought my sister would be one of them.”
“But why would they do that? They were given a child because they couldn’t have one of their own. Why turn her into . . . into a prisoner?”
“Mercy was old enough to know who she was and where she belonged. She might have resisted. Tried to run away. They got scared that if she told the cops they could get in trouble. And Desiree ‘Voodoo’ Atkins, who brands helpless dogs, doesn’t sound like your normal nurturing type. As the years went by and Mercy became an adult, they had to take more drastic measures, like that jail cell back there. And they knew if she ever got away, they were going to prison for a very long time.”
“Do you think Leonard Atkins knew?”
“They were in a photo with her. They could see how she looked, the wounds on her, the fact that she wouldn’t even look at the camera. Yeah, they knew, and they didn’t do a damn thing about it. And when their son was killed and Desiree went missing? They probably thought Desiree killed Joe and vanished with Mercy. Or else, Mercy had killed them both and made a run for it. Either way, they wanted nothing to do with that. They ran away instead.”
“Disgusting,” said Blum. “Just disgusting. After what they did, they don’t deserve to be called human beings.”
They drove Roberts back to his house.
“I’ll call the sheriff and tell him,” said Roberts. “And I’ll let him know you’ll be by for the file.”
“Thanks, Mr. Roberts.”
“Agent Pine?”
“Yes?”
“This isn’t just a cold case for you, is it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was a cop a long time. Still got the nose for it. I saw how you were looking at that doll, for one thing. Like you’d seen it before. And then with the video, well, it just seemed personal to you.”
Pine sighed. “She’s my sister, Mr. Roberts. She was kidnapped from her bed when we were little, and she’s been missing for over thirty years now.”
He nodded, his expression one of sorrow. “I thought I recognized your name. I remember the case ’cause we got a BOLO on her. Mercy Pine, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“But it seems like you’ve learned a lot here.”
“I have. Now I just have to find her.”
“You know she might be—”
“I do, Mr. Roberts, maybe better
than anyone. But I can’t let it go. I have to know either way.”
“I wish you luck then. I really do. Nobody deserves what we just saw, especially not a little girl.”
“No,” said Pine. “They don’t.”
CHAPTER
76
THE COLDEST OF CASES.
Pine had the file on Joe Atkins’s murder and the disappearance of his wife spread out on the bed in her motel room. The unofficial conclusion by the local cops was that Desiree had killed her husband and fled. They had no idea that another person was living with them, so that person was never a suspect.
Not just a suspect. My sister.
She had seen Mercy on the video, she was sure of that. But she now had another piece of evidence leaving no doubt. DNA could live a long time on certain surfaces, and there were many things in that cave that Pine had never touched that had come back as confirmed to be consistent with her DNA.
Not mine, of course, but Mercy’s.
The file did not have much in it. The autopsy on Atkins showed that he had died from a knife wound that had severed his aorta. He had bled out. But he also had severe blunt force trauma to his head. The trauma had clearly been done before he died.
Beaten and then stabbed.
The chain in the cave broken. The door busted. Mercy escaped. Captured on that video for all time.
And . . . maybe during that escape she had exacted her revenge on her captors.
She knew where Joe Atkins was. Six feet under. But where was Desiree? Where had Leonard and Wanda Atkins gone? Were they still alive? Should she try to find them?
Deputy Sheriff Wilcox had listened patiently to Pine’s speculation and information. He had provided her copies of the case file. He had looked at the video. He had even gone out to the cave to see it for himself. He had been intrigued by the possibility of another person present at the scene. He had been surprised that that person was Pine’s twin. But he seemed to have no desire to pursue an investigation into the matter. And neither, he told Pine, did his boss, the sheriff.
Wilcox had said, “We’re really not equipped to handle cold cases. And from what you said, seems to me that this Joe Atkins fella got what was coming to him.”
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