Victim

by Gayle Wilson

  Her gaze had already moved beyond the anomaly when it registered on her brain. She made another visual sweep of the same section.

  Whatever she'd seen only a second before was no longer there. The image, however, of something straight and tall and man-shaped, seemed burned on her retinas.

  "Mac? Is that you?"

  She spoke his name tentatively. That's not where she'd expected him to be. Maybe he'd found an easier passage, she thought, wisely skirting the thicket she'd struggled through.

  "Coming."

  Mac's voice put him behind her. In the opposite direction of whatever—or whoever—she'd just seen.

  She swallowed against the force of her fear, eyes again sweeping the spot where she'd seen someone standing. Watching Toby?

  With that thought she once more became aware of the dog, who continued to growl menacingly. She turned her head to look down at him. His attention was still focused on the line of bushes where Sarah had seen the shape, the vapor from his breath as he barked visible in the cold air.

  "Sarah? You find him?"

  Mac was closer than he'd been before. And still behind her.

  "Somebody's out here, Mac. That's what Toby's barking at."

  “Somebody”

  She turned, reassured by his nearness. She watched as he pushed his way through the tangled barrier that separated them.

  "I saw him. Standing just beyond that tree."

  Mac directed his flashlight toward the area she'd indicated. There was nothing there now but a maze of bare, arching branches.

  "Are you sure?"

  "I saw someone." She examined the memory, wondering if what she'd seen had been a trick of the shadows. Branches moving in the wind.

  "Could be somebody from one of the search teams," Mac suggested.

  "Then why didn't he say something?" she argued. "He had to have seen me. He certainly would have heard Toby."

  "He probably thought you were just out walking your dog. The department isn't going to advertise that we've got another missing child. Not until they have to."

  He took the leash from her hand as he moved past her. obviously intending to attach it to Toby's collar. As he began to stoop to accomplish that, Mac stopped, almost recoiling.

  "Mac? What is it?"

  "Nothing. Stay there. Sarah. Just... Just wait a minute, okay?"

  She didn't believe it was nothing, but for some reason she obeyed. Whatever Mac had found, clearly he didn't want her to see.

  She turned her head, eyes once more examining the dark area that had been the focus of Toby's hysteria. She knew someone had been standing there. Toby had seen him, too. Had sensed the threat he represented.

  "Mac?" she called again. Whatever he'd found under the tree, the known would be less frightening than the unknown had become.

  He didn't answer this time. He was balanced on the balls of his feet, studying the ground. As he slowly directed the flashlight around the foot of the tree, Sarah caught a glimpse of something terrifyingly identifiable.

  At Mac's feet, highlighted against the blackness of rotting leaves, lay a small, worn white tennis shoe.

  Eighteen

  Mac moved the switch of the flashlight to the off position, even as he acknowledged the impossibility of protecting Sarah from this. He leaned forward, fumbling among the leaves that had been loosely piled over the body until he located first the head and then the neck.

  He already knew the answer to his question by how cold the skin was. Still, as a matter of training, he sought the pulse of blood that should have been throbbing through the carotid artery. It wasn't there.

  He brought his hand away, swallowing to deny the surge of bile into the back of his throat. He began to blow small puffs of air out through his mouth, a trick one of the older cops had taught him the day they'd pulled his first floater out of the river.

  "Is that him? Is it Dwight?"

  He heard Sarah start toward him. He got to his feet before she could arrive, grasping her shoulders and turning her. With his arm around her back, he propelled her away from the body.

  "Don't."

  "Is it Dwight?"

  "I don't know. But... It's a child."

  "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Is he—"

  "Yeah." In the background the dog continued to bark, the grating, insistent noise now part of the horror. "Can you get him out of here?"

  "What?"

  "Toby. Can you take him somewhere? Just...talk to him. Shut him up. Do something."

  She nodded, but her eyes left his to track back to where the body lay. "You said you didn't know. Could you look? Could you make sure?"

  Who the hell did she think this could be? Who had they been out here looking for the last forty-five minutes?

  "I don't want to do anything that might destroy evidence." That wasn't exactly a lie, but it was close enough to one that he felt guilty for saying it.

  The truth was he didn't want to shine that damn light down into those lifeless eyes. He didn't want to see the child's bloodless face.

  More importantly, he didn't want her to see it. There were enough of those kinds of memories in Sarah Patterson's past already. She didn't need this one, too.

  "Evidence? So you can lock whoever did this up? Why bother? They're just going to let him out again."

  There was nothing to say in the face of that caustic bitterness.

  "Just shut the damn dog up. I need to call. I need to get the techs out here."

  When she nodded, he handed her the leash. He stuck the flashlight in his outside coat pocket. As he reached inside his jacket to fish out his cell, Sarah pushed by him on her way to the dog.

  He'd be damned if he was going to call Sonny again. He'd told them they needed to watch the kid's building. He'd told them Tate was the one who'd killed Dan Patterson. Sarah told them he'd left the message on her machine. They had both told them everything they needed to know in order to prevent this. And nobody had listened.

  Anger building, he punched in 9-1-1 and waited through the rings. The voice that answered was black, young, and disinterested, even when he told her about the boy's body. He wondered how many other homicides had been reported to this particular operator. Enough that she'd grown inured to hearing about death.

  When he'd given as much information about the location as he could, he hung up to wait. Only then did he realize that Toby had finally stopped barking. An eerie stillness had settled instead over the area, so that he could hear condensation dripping off the leaves of the trees around him.

  He turned, trying to locate Sarah. A light glowed faintly in the darkness.

  Flashlight. His flashlight, he verified by patting his pocket. Sarah must have taken it as she'd brushed by him. Now she was bending down to play its beam over the body.

  Mac watched, unable to prevent what was about to happen, as she carefully removed the damp leaves from the face of the boy under the tree. He couldn't see the kid's features from this angle, but he didn't step forward to get a better look. He'd known all he needed to know from the time his fingers touched that cold, still flesh.

  Sarah's body seemed to slowly fold inward. Her knees gave way until they rested against the ground. Then her head fell forward so that it was bowed on her chest.

  The light went out, and Mac heard the sharp intake of breath he knew would precede her tears. He flinched from the sound. He didn't think he could stand to listen again as those merciless sobs racked her body.

  And what choice do you have?

  No matter what either of them had intended when this started, they were now irrevocably entangled in one another's lives. Emotionally as well as physically involved.

  He could do nothing about the pain she felt, but he should be there for her as she suffered it. He shoved his phone into his outside pocket and took the four strides that would carry him to where she knelt.

  He bent, putting his arm around her shoulder. He didn't try to lift her as he had that night in the shower. Instead, he held her hard and tight against
his body.

  She trembled, but the outburst he'd dreaded didn't come. After a moment she pushed away from him a little, putting her closed fist over her mouth.

  "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I didn't do enough. I told them they needed to watch him, but... I should have seen to it. I should have made sure—"

  "It isn't him, Mac. It isn't Dwight."

  It took a moment for the sense of her words to break through his litany of self-blame. Even when they had, he didn't believe her.

  After all, how many dead kids had she seen? Did she realize how different a face could look with all the animation, all the life force, sucked out of it?

  He reached down, taking the flashlight from her other hand. He held it out, directing the beam toward the features she'd exposed. And then he pushed its switch back on.

  He had known this face would haunt him, just as all those others in the photographs on the task force's white board had. And it would.

  But he also knew now that Sarah had been right. This face didn't belong to Dwight Ingersoll.

  "You aren't going to try to tell me that isn't Tate's handiwork, are you?"

  Sonny swiveled on the balls of his feet, looking up at him. "I'm not going to try to tell you anything, Mac. Not until we've processed the scene. The autopsy will verify whether or not—"

  "Oh, for Christ's sake, Sonny. I'm not the media. You and I both know who killed that kid. By tomorrow everybody in New Orleans is gonna know it, too."

  His partner stood, moving back from the body to allow the technicians to take over. He walked a few feet away, motioning for Mac to follow. When they were out of earshot of the rest. Sonny turned to face him.

  "I do what I'm told. Mac. And I say what I'm told to say. You ought to try it sometime. You might not be sitting on the sidelines for this if you did."

  "That's good, Sonny. I seem to remember that you're the one who was gonna go to the Wal-Mart and get me a lighter."

  "I'm not talking about that. You did what you needed to do with the tape. I'm not questioning that."

  "Then what the hell was that little sermon all about."

  "Morel. He don't like you. He never has. You know that, and you still go out of your way to alienate him."

  "We got another dead kid on our hands and another one missing, and you're going to lecture me on Morel."

  "Did it ever occur to you that we need you? That maybe you could eat a little humble pie and keep some other poor kid from ending up like this one?"

  That wasn't a thought Mac wanted in his head. With the ease of long practice, he dismissed it from his mind as quickly as he could.

  "What are you doing about Dwight Ingersoll?"

  "We got a bulletin out. That's all we can do right now. Nobody saw him get snatched. As far as we know he went out to play and is late getting home."

  "Yeah, so is he, I guess." Mac jerked his head toward the body behind them.

  "We're doing what we can within the guidelines we've been given. You know that. You know how this works."

  The problem was Mac did. He even understood the restraints. If they overused the alerts, putting them out for every kid who was a couple of hours late getting home, they would diminish their effectiveness.

  "You know who he is yet?"

  "We're looking for boys reported missing in the last couple of days. Got a couple of black kids, but nobody white who fits the age and size. I guess Tate could have taken him earlier or brought him back here from somewhere out of state, but..." Sonny shook his head.

  "So you're admitting this is Tate?"

  "Whaddaya think, Mac? You think I enjoy this? Enjoy you and me being on different sides? Enjoy finding dead kids?"

  That was about as animated as Sonny ever got, so Mac knew this was all getting to him, too.

  "I know you don't," he conceded, modifying his tone. "I'm just frustrated. I knew something else was gonna happen here. For some reason Tate broke his pattern. When he did, that meant all bets were off."

  "When he got into her apartment?"

  "Yeah. And I can't figure out why."

  "How about because she tried to blow his head off?"

  That's what he'd been thinking at the time. That Tate had been waiting there to kill Sarah, and Dan Patterson had surprised him. Then Tate had had to kill him in order to get out of the apartment before Mac arrived.

  Only, if Sarah hadn't been back from the park to let Mac in, what possible threat was he going to be? Why hadn't Tate just waited for Mac to leave and waited for Sarah to return and then do what he'd intended to do? Even if Sarah had returned in time to let Mac in, there was no reason to believe he would have searched her apartment and discovered either the killer or the body.

  It made no more sense than killing some boy and leaving his body virtually across the street from where she lived. Maybe if this had been Dwight...

  "Why put him here?" he asked aloud.

  "The kid?"

  "Tate usually dumps them where he thinks they won't be found. That's always been his pattern. The few that have been discovered before the body decomposed were lucky accidents. This one... I'll be real surprised if he's been dead more than four or five hours."

  "I don't know. Mac, but I never look a gift horse in the mouth."

  "What?"

  "The kid. No predators. No insects. The cold. It hasn't rained. Hell, this one's gonna be like a gift for the forensics guys."

  Like a gift...

  The phrase stuck in his brain, strongly enough that Mac put it aside for further consideration. Sonny had turned to watch the photographer set up his lights to take pictures of the body and the surrounding area.

  "Sarah said she saw somebody out here. Standing in the shadows beyond the tree."

  "You see him?"

  Mac shook his head. "She was pretty adamant, but conditions weren't exactly ideal. I thought you might want to get somebody to look in that direction. Maybe there are footprints."

  "They'll check."

  "And Sarah lifted some of the leaves off his face. She was careful, so I don't think she touched anything, but they should know."

  Sonny nodded, seeming unconcerned about the possible contamination. "She back at her own place?"

  Mac thought about lying, but despite his earlier anger, this was his partner. "Not yet."

  "Motel?"

  "Why are you asking?"

  "I'm thinking we might need to put some surveillance on her." Sonny turned his head, looking him in the eye.

  Mac could see the speculative gleam. "You think Tate's going to try for her again?"

  "I think what you said before is right on."

  "What I said before?"

  "She's the only connection we've got to him now. And he doesn't seem to be able to let it go. That's why I was wondering where she's staying."

  "She's at my apartment."

  Sonny's lips pursed. "You mind if I tell the department that? If they're thinking what I'm thinking, then they're gonna want to know."

  "I'm not going to let anything happen to her."

  "Her ex would probably have told me the same thing."

  "Her ex didn't know what we know now."

  "Fair enough. You want me to put surveillance on your building?"

  "So now we got the manpower for that?"

  Sonny didn't respond, looking again to where the techs were working under the flood lights.

  "I'm not going to let anything happen to her," Mac said again, his voice flat.

  "Suit yourself, buddy."

  "If we find Dwight Ingersoll alive, you can put somebody on his building. I think Tate knows the kid means something to Sarah."

  Poor Dwight. He'd gotten involved in this insanity because he was lonely. Because Sarah had shown him some kindnesses. Because he wanted to be friends with her dog.

  None of which should have put him in Tate's path of destruction. Of course, nobody deserved to be put in Tate's path.

  "I'm going to go check with the Ingersolls," Mac said. "See if they'v
e heard anything."

  And check on Sarah.

  He had finally been able to convince her she would be more help at Dwight's apartment telling the uniforms who were interviewing the mother everything she could remember about those afternoons she and Dwight had played in the park than she would be standing out here in the cold watching them process the body. He wasn't sure what good her memories would do. since they had searched those areas themselves, but at least it had gotten her inside. And. he acknowledged, she'd gone not because of any argument he'd made, but because she was aware that they'd done everything they could out here.

  "Let me know if he shows up."

  "I will. And Sonny..."

  "Yeah?"

  "It isn't what you think. With Sarah. I mean."

  His partner turned his head to look at him again. "It ain't none of my business. Mac. I know that. I just hate to see you get mixed up in somebody else's grief, you know? There's plenty of women who come without the baggage this one is toting."

  Mac nodded. Sonny was his friend. No matter how much he might disagree with what he was saying, he respected him for trying to say it.

  In this case, his partner was probably right. Sarah Patterson had a lot of demons. He'd seen a few of them, but he'd probably only scratched the surface. In spite of that...

  In spite of that, he was heading back across the street to make sure she was okay. And until she told him specifically not to, he suspected he was going to spend quite a bit of his time doing exactly that.

  Nineteen

  They haven't identified the body yet." Mac said as he accepted the cup of coffee Sarah offered.

  He figured she'd made it, since Mrs. Ingersoll was sitting in the exact same position at the kitchen table where she'd been when they'd come to get something that had belonged to Dwight. The ashtray in front of her was fuller than it had been then.

  "They're checking for any boys reported missing in the last few days who fit the general age and size," he went on. "They should have an ID soon."

  "That poor mother," Mrs. Ingersoll said. "And she doesn't even know it yet. You're sure—"

  "Absolutely," Sarah assured her. "That child isn't Dwight."