With the dog fed and resting, I try to move beyond the feeling of change. I try to get back to something more comfortable to me. Try to think what had so engaged me before the assignment. What had most pulled my concern and given me that feeling of complete and total immersion, to the exclusion of all else. William Atwater. At large. Back in the world. But even that can’t move me now. And it isn’t only me that has lost their fascination for Atwater, nor simply is it just my own ennui. Things have been quiet from the West. Even the endless nattering of the media has slowed to almost a complete stop. The news cycle hasn’t had any food in this direction for a while and it is possible to sit in front of a television and slip from station to station without a single mention of Atwater. He is loose somewhere, but he has gone quiet. Maybe he’ll hide forever. But there is nothing to see here, and the newsies have moved on.
I lean into that. Begin to get my mind around it. Begin thinking about plants and maybe cooking; puttering. Pushing away thoughts of splendid, questioning eyes. Lost children.
There are several days of this, but not enough of them to make up weeks. I am in a sort of stasis, but I apply myself. Tell myself to snap out of it. I take forest walks with my new pal. Make excursions into town for dog food and other supplies. Spend time in the garden. More time at the stove. Time to pass and fill. And just as I feel myself begin to relax into a sort of rhythm, the news trickles to me: a little girl has gone missing. And as I wake, the world wakes up again, too. And both of us—the world and I—we sit up and pay attention again. It’s like someone has turned a light switch on. Or maybe, shut it off.
Her name is Emma Schwartz and she is six years old, forty-two inches tall, and forty-eight pounds. We are told clearly that she is an average six-year-old, and she has been poached from a house just outside the city, while the babysitter sat in the other room. The parents had returned from an evening out to find that their little girl was gone. No signs of a struggle. Nothing broken in the entry or exit. It was possible a door had been left unlocked—and in—and then out—he had gone.
One can imagine Atwater with the child over one arm. Perhaps placating her, “It’ll be okay. I’m taking you to your mommy.” It’s a horrible picture and I force it away.
I see the distraught babysitter on the screen. She is a pale teenager with watery blue eyes and pale hair. The newsies capture her beside herself with remorse and, yes, even grief. The seriousness of this has not escaped her. There is a very good possibility that this loss will be complete.
“I was so sure I had locked the door,” she explains to the reporter. The words are smooth, the sides worn down. This is not her first interview and the words are beginning to feel dog-eared from use.
“And you didn’t hear a sound? You weren’t alerted by a knock or a cry from the child, or …”
“No,” the babysitter says, breaking into this litany. Her voice is still calm, but there is a wild look in her eyes. She wishes things were otherwise. You can see it. But they are not. “I’m sure of it. There was nothing.”
“Are you absolutely sure you locked the door?”
The hesitation is deep. “No,” she says after a pause that feels like twenty minutes but that had to have been less than fifteen seconds. And then again, “No. I’m not sure.” Eyes downcast, remorse thick on her like fuzz coating a tongue.
I hear all of this in increasingly alarmed tones on the various channels I search. Once again, experts are brought in and friends. We see the missing child’s tearful parents. The father has the studious air of a college professor, which I suppose is possible as San Pasado is a college town. He has glasses and a long chin. Today, his face is void of expression. But the lines on his face indicate this is not his usual look.
The missing child’s mother herself appears to be little more than a child. She has a waiflike face under so much hair, there would seem to be danger of it bending her neck from the sheer weight of it all. Together they are an attractive if slightly eccentric-looking couple. And they are beautiful in their grief. You can feel that anguish come in waves over the television.
At first it is not conclusive that Atwater is involved in this disappearance. I know in my heart that this is his work, even while I hold my breath in hope that it is not. I don’t want it to be Atwater. I want him to have fallen under a bus somewhere. Or, better still, gotten some sort of awful virus and drowned in a puddle of his own phlegm. Even though that feels very specific, the sentiment is clear: I want it to be anything that would remove him from the picture. Out of any picture. Forever. But the markers are right. After a few hours it is conclusive. It is Atwater, the police tell us. Or maybe it is more correct to say that the markers are wrong.
I sit in front of the television and watch and listen, but I don’t truly hear. My mind sees again little Ashley at the edge of Atwater’s garden. Ready for planting. Arden’s pale face drawn in on itself in fear for her daughter’s life. And though the timbre of his voice has faded in my mind, and I can’t quite remember his tone, I see us both in the dimly lit RV and the words I hear are painfully clear.
She was just so very tiny. And perfect. And she looked so soft. I really just wanted to pet her skin.
I shudder with all of it and try to shake it off like a wet dog, though I find to my distress that it is impossible to do that. The marks he has left have rooted too deeply.
I find myself wondering how much time we have. Last time we managed to bring little Ashley home, if not perfectly intact, then at least alive. How long would it have been? She’d been missing maybe four hours at most before we found her. I’d had the sense that things had been about to get worse just as we intervened. But I also knew that, in the past, there were those among his victims he had kept alive for days. I’d been keeping track of the numbers the talking heads had thrown around when endless newscasters talked about each of the children. One of the things that had been estimated with many of them was how long between capture and time of death. Time of addition to the garden. The estimates had varied widely. And what would have determined the variation? What would have been the contributing factors? I realized that some of it might even have been a bit random. By comparison, I thought about me taking a crack at his skull with that mallet while he was in the trunk of my rental car. A light and calculated crack, to be sure. But still, any one of those could have killed him. An inch to the left. A few pounds more pressure. Anything a little different and he could have been dead. I reason that it’s been like that with his victims, as well. In the course of the type of torture he would have subjected them to, some would have expired before others. It all makes a sort of terrible sense.
Even while I think it through, I try not to observe too closely. There is a world of guilt in those thoughts. There had been an opportunity. Several, really. What if it was something that my inside knowledge could have helped control? And on the tail of that thought comes another: I had the opportunity and did not take it. It would have been so easy to stop him there in the campground. Stop him forever and right in his tracks. And then all of this would have been over. This latest missing child? This is my fault, that is clear.
I had felt compassion for the parents of lost children, not for him. It was my sympathy for the parents that had stopped me from killing him right there. And I had let him live. And now? Now yet another child would pay the price. It is hard to think about.
The dog sits on my feet while I’m at my desk trying to book a flight. My feet are warm, but the flight booking is unsuccessful. I want to leave right now—this instant!—but I will be unable to book anything that will get me there in under two days. Two days is too many. I know that driving there will not in the end offer much of a time saving, but it will at least get me on the road. Plus, of course, I have a new consideration. Bringing the dog with me is ridiculous, but I feel I don’t really have a choice. I want action and I need it now.
Within the hour, I am back out the door, but first I water the baby plants and pack up some water, dog food, and dishes
for the consumption of both. A small part of me is acting like a mom again. I am uncertain about how that makes me feel.
Once again, and even on this longer trip, the dog is a good traveler. I fashion an old blanket into a little bed on the back seat and he settles into it quite nicely. I barely hear any peeps from him at all.
I spend my time on the road trying to cool my brain. Not an easy task. I try to remember the traveling games I played as a child and then later with my own child, but it seems those times of innocence are so far behind me, there are only vestiges left. Little wisps of colorful memories, but distant and faded, as though viewed through a sepia filter. Something about colors: a purple car, a purple roof, a purple jacket on a child crossing the street. Something about Volkswagens—and why that particular brand?—and then punching someone in the arm. I see one and punch myself in the thigh and with enough force that it will leave a bruise. The dog jumps when I do it, but otherwise the punch does not have the desired effect, whatever that was. I give up on the road games. They aren’t meant to be played alone in any case. Or even with a dog.
In my twelfth hour on the road, I pull off the freeway and into a Walmart parking lot. I stash my car between a couple of RVs, not unlike the one I had purchased recently, then left behind.
I kill the motor and, after I empty the dog, I sit in the car and lock the doors, but I can’t rest my brain as easily. I know my body needs downtime, but I can’t turn it off and I sit there counting the stitches on the steering wheel and the slats in the air vents until finally I give up, go into the store, buy an energy drink, a box of Milk-Bones, and a bag of cheese puffs from a bleary-eyed cashier. Then we get back on the road.
It is another six-hour drive to my destination. Not that I know the exact location of my destination. But my research into Atwater had paid out before. I’ve turned into the most deadly kind of stalker: a potential author. Maybe my big inside knowledge will pay out again.
Before I get to San Pasado, I pull into a diner to think and recharge. I park in the deep shade of an ancient oak. The dog seems unbothered by all this activity. I take him on a quick tour of the parking lot where he takes care of some business of his own. When I open the back door of the car, he jumps in and settles happily back onto his blanket. I have a little pang at this ease of transition on the dog’s behalf. I think again of the shock of hair; the questioning eyes. It’s possible, I reason quickly, that the life of the dog has been improved. His position is better now. Ivy League financial guys spend long hours at the office. The puppy would have been alone a lot. I’ve saved him from that.
I’ve saved him.
I lock him in the car, though I leave the windows and the sunroof open a crack. Whatever his history, he is mine now. No one can take him.
He is mine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
IN THE DINER, I open my electronic pin-filled map realizing only as I renew its acquaintance that I’d never planned on having a reason to open it again. I am sorry beyond thought that I was wrong and that I am forced in there again now.
My educated guess and a bit of luck over dinner in San Pasado had paid out so well that first time. I tell myself that there is no reason I can’t do so well again. And though I know that, strictly speaking, it is foolish to think so, I feel that right is on my side. Wonder Woman with a gun.
Here’s the thing, though: experience has taught me that right doesn’t really have a side. If it did? The world would look quite different. The world wouldn’t look the same as it does now. At all.
Looking at my map, one of the things I think about is that a rational person would not go to any of these places, alone or otherwise. They would be hiding from police and others. They would be a fugitive and putting energy into not being found. But this is William Atwater who I have researched extensively. I know about him. And one of the things I know is that he is not a rational person. That opens the door, in a way. It seems to me it makes the unthinkable and the impossible possible.
So then, a new challenge. What would an irrational person do? Is there anything that can be counted on? I lack the experience to know. Which makes me think of something. Somewhere there has to be someone—or even a whole group of people—who might know, based on behaviors and archetypes. People who might be able to make an educated guess, better than my possible shot in the dark. It is a big county and, hell, Atwater might not even be here. Though it would be out of character, he might have left the area in order to go to ground somewhere. But maybe I don’t have to guess. Maybe there are people out there who can offer some sort of insight.
For lack of any better ideas, I turn to Google. Someone has the answer I need. I apply myself to finding it.
On the Internet, I locate a doctor who specializes in serial killers. He does lectures, has written a book. There is a phone number on his website. I dial the number from my phone, right there at the table. To my surprise, the phone is answered. It is him, the author doctor himself. It catches me off guard. I’d planned on leaving some imprecise message. Something, perhaps, about my own book. But now I’ve got him in person and I had nothing prepared. I hesitate. And then I begin.
“It seems to me that the past history of a serial killer might help determine a present location,” I say without much preamble. I have introduced myself. Not much more.
I hear nothing and then a deep chuckle. The sound is warm and present. It gives me hope.
“You’re looking for William Atwater.” It’s not a question.
“I am.” I cover my surprise, though I don’t know why I bother. Clearly, the guy knows his stuff.
“Don’t think I’m magic. It isn’t rocket science.”
“An educated guess?”
“Right. Because you’re not the only one. There is a whole platoon of others. What gives you special insight? What makes you think you can succeed where so many others have failed?”
“I’ve done it before.”
“I don’t think I understand,” he says. “You’ve done what before?”
“Found William Atwater.”
Silence. And then, “And what was the outcome?”
I think about how to answer before I say anything. What can I tell him without giving too much away? “It’s complicated,” I say at length.
“Is it?”
“It is.”
“I’m sorry, miss.” I hear an impatience in his voice I hadn’t detected before. “Whatever delusions you have, I can’t aid you. You are right to seek professional help, but there’s no help I can think to offer. Perhaps talk to your physician for the recommendation of a doctor who can help you.” There isn’t even a click, just a sudden deepening of the silence that tells me he’s gone.
I had hoped for help, but I am alone.
I choke back the sudden flood of tears that threaten to overtake me. I find them in my chest, my throat, but I push them back. There will be time for that at some point, but it isn’t now.
What had I imagined, in any case? Of course what I’d asked him sounds insane. I can’t even believe it myself. And briefly even I wonder at my own sanity. It’s not the first time. Delusional, he said. I hold my hand in front of my face, turn it around. It looks real enough. I catch the waitress looking at me. I scowl at her and she scurries away.
I put her out of my mind and study the lines of my hand. I study my palm, my knuckles. I pluck at the skin near my wrist, watch the color drain and then return. Yes. It all seems real enough to me.
Pick yourself up and go on.
It’s all I really know how to do.
Unbreakable.
I consider everything I know and the steps I’ve taken. I try to think if there’s something I’ve overlooked. I mentally retrace my steps, not stopping until I come to my meeting with the reporter. I struggle for less time than one would have thought, then come up with his name: Curtis Diamond. He had told me something ridiculous; something I’d discounted at the time. I struggle briefly, then it comes to me: a psychic is what he’d said. Someone w
ith sight who had gone to the police in San Pasado with information but had been turned away.
I try to remember if Curtis told me her name, but if he did, I can’t think of it. And even while I’m running through all of these thoughts, I wonder if I’m seriously thinking about looking for a psychic. Then I cut myself some slack: What other leads do I have?
My smartphone is set to anonymize my number, so I don’t have to worry about Curtis tracking me when I contact him.
I identify myself, then clear my throat before getting to the meat of the call.
“You mentioned a psychic,” I say.
“I did?” On the phone he sounds even more newscastery than he did in person. His voice is all deep rumble and clear annunciation. If I didn’t know what he did for a living, I’d guess correctly.
“Yeah. Someone who had tried to go to the police.”
“Oh right. Yes. Sara Jane Samaritano.”
“Whoa. Okay. I was trying to remember if you’d told me the name. Now that you’ve said it, I know you did not.”
“Right? It’s a distinctive handle. Why do you ask?”
“I’d tell you,” I say, laughter in my voice. “But then I’d have to kill you.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that. Good luck with whatever you’re doing. And don’t forget: call me if you want me to interview you. I know you’ve got a story.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” It sounds like something you say, even if this time it’s true.
Endings Page 17
