by Eva Hudson
The line went quiet, but Ingrid could hear McKittrick breathing. “Natasha? Have I said something out of line?”
“No—you woke me up—that’s all. I can get a bit tetchy. Sorry.”
“Hey, no problem. I’m sending you a photo of the pill now.” Ingrid found a sheet of plain white writing paper on the bureau next to the door, carefully placed the small capsule on it so that the writing printed on the side was clearly visible and snapped a couple of shots with her phone. She sent them to McKittrick. “You get them yet?”
“No—where did you find this pill, anyway?”
“Bathroom cabinet of Kyle Foster.”
“What does it say on the bottle?”
“The bottle was unmarked—you think I’d be calling otherwise?”
“OK—the pictures have arrived. Give me a second.” A few moments later she was back on the line. “It’s an anti-depressant. A bit like Prozac with knobs on. You think Foster was taking them for his PTSD?”
“The therapy he’s been getting is the cognitive behavioral kind. Do you know if there are any common side effects to these drugs?”
“Like most of this class of drugs: disorientation, fainting, drowsiness maybe.”
“Not exactly ideal if you’re a pilot.”
“Maybe that’s why they were in an unmarked bottle. Perhaps he’s been getting some unofficial extra help with his problem.”
“How easy are they to get ‘unofficially’?”
“If you have the contacts, it’s no problem at all.”
Ingrid couldn’t imagine how Kyle Foster would have the right connections to get hold of prescription drugs and wondered what other secrets he might be keeping.
“Are they something he’d need to keep taking? Are there any withdrawal symptoms?”
McKittrick paused a beat before answering. “You can’t just stop them dead. Otherwise you might suffer severe mood swings, maybe even suicidal thoughts.”
Ingrid thought about Tommy. If Kyle Foster were that volatile, it wasn’t surprising he’d lashed out at his eight-year-old son. “I don’t think the police found any drugs in the hotel room.”
“Maybe Foster keeps some with him all the time.”
“But if he has stopped taking them… does that mean Tommy is at risk?”
“Foster might not even have any withdrawal symptoms. But it could affect his stability, his judgement.” McKittrick yawned.
“I really did wake you up.” Ingrid glanced at her watch.
“Nothing shameful about getting to bed early on a school night.”
“Sorry to disturb you.”
“It’s OK. Try not to make a habit of it, will you. Do keep me posted, though.”
“We’re not making much progress.”
“I don’t mean with the bloody case. I want to know what’s happening with you and my detective constable. What kind of spell have you put on him?”
“I genuinely do not know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“Look—I’ve got to go. Pleasant dreams.” Ingrid hung up before McKittrick had a chance to protest. As she sat staring at the phone, she wondered if she should tell Gurley about her discovery. She quickly decided it was something that could wait until the morning.
She put the phone on the nightstand and started to get ready for bed. In the bathroom she was pleasantly surprised to discover toothpaste, soap and shampoo. The US Air Force knew how to treat their guests.
While Ingrid cleaned her teeth, hoping to let her mind drift, she started to think about the mp3 attachments Mike Stiller had sent her. She’d managed to keep any thought of them buried all day, but now she was on her own, with nothing else to distract her, their presence on her phone was harder to ignore.
She thought about the phone sitting innocently on the nightstand. Now she’d started to consider the content of Mike’s email, she knew it would be impossible for her to get to sleep until she’d at least listened to one of the interviews.
She quickly finished up in the bathroom, changed into her tee shirt, turned off all the lights except the one on the nightstand and picked up her phone. Mike’s email was easy to find—it was the only one in her private mail account flagged as both urgent and important. She stared long and hard at the mp3 attachments before summoning the courage to open one of them. When she did, the recording started playing automatically. She hit the pause button, not quite ready for what she might hear.
She grabbed a bottle of water from the nightstand, slowly drank a third of it, then hit ‘play’.
The first voice she heard was a man’s. He had a thick Kentucky accent. He introduced himself, a colleague, and the interviewee for the purposes of the recording. The sound quality wasn’t good. There was a low background hum and the voices sounded distant. As Ingrid strained to make out the words, she jotted down a few notes. The start of the interview merely covered the basics: name, date and place of birth and date of abduction. The twenty-eight-year-old woman, Karla Anderson, then quickly went on to describe the basement where she’d been held captive, unprompted by the two agents. She seemed anxious to convey just how bad her living conditions had been for the last fifteen years.
It took Ingrid a little while to notice she had started to cry. It wasn’t until tears had actually started to dribble around her jaw and down her neck that the dampness registered. She found a Kleenex in her purse and dabbed her eyes. She wasn’t sure whether she was crying in sympathy for the woman’s plight or if she’d been imagining Megan Avery in the same house, forced into the same deprivation and depravity.
When the interview moved on to the other women and girls being held, Anderson had nothing to say at all. “First I knew I wasn’t there on my own was when I was taken to the hospital in the same ambulance as another girl. Soon as I laid eyes on her I knew she’d been through the same things I had. The pain in her eyes, you know? I could see it plain as day.”
“You thought you were alone in the property with your abductor?” a female agent asked.
“He was the only person I spoke to in fifteen years.”
“Did you see him?”
“He didn’t wear a mask, if that’s what you mean.”
“Can you give us a description?”
“Why do you need me to do that? You know what he looks like. I can identify him no problem—just tell me when.”
The recording fell silent.
“What, what is it?” Anderson asked, the panic in her voice building. “Wait a minute. You have arrested him, right? You do have him locked up?”
“At this time, the suspect is not yet in custody.”
“Sweet Jesus. How could you let him get away?”
“Have no doubt, Miss Anderson, we will arrest him. How quickly depends in part on the detail of the description you can give us.”
Ingrid heard a muffled sob, then a louder one.
“Please, Karla. We know you’ve been through so much. But the sooner you give us the information, the faster we can get him behind bars.”
“OK. Where should I start?”
“How about height and build?”
“He’s skinny… wiry, I guess, only a few inches taller than me, I’m five-foot-six. No, wait. That’s how tall I was when I was fourteen. Maybe I grew since then.”
Ingrid heard a distant rustling of paper.
“You’re five-foot-nine.”
“I am?”
“You don’t remember the nurse measuring you during the medical exam?”
“I guess I had other things on my mind.”
“What else can you tell us about him?”
“He’s white, but tanned, like he’s spent a lot of years outside. He has tattoos on his arms, from the middle of his forearms right up almost to his shoulders. Old style ones, like you’d see on some old sailor or something. He has greased-back dark hair, going gray a little above his ears. Long sideburns.”
“Does he have an accent?”
“Southern. Couldn’t say
which state, though.”
“Did he ever talk about where he came from, originally?”
“He always said he was from everywhere. Real proud of the fact he lived like a gypsy.”
“A gypsy?”
“He traveled around the country, always moving from state to state, he said. Until he came here. And decided to settle down.”
“What was he? Some sort of salesman?”
“No! He told me he managed the roller coaster at a traveling carnival.”
Dear God.
Ingrid closed her eyes. Her head started to buzz. An intense heat rose from the middle of her chest up into her neck and head. She couldn’t breathe.
A traveling carnival?
It had to be the same man who took Megan.
31
The next day Ingrid rose early. She was dressed and making her way to the officers’ mess for breakfast before seven.
The previous night she had continued to listen right to the end of the mp3 recording, then listened to the whole thing again, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Then she’d called Mike Stiller, impressing upon him once again the importance of the DNA test for the third woman.
“I’m still working on it,” he’d said. “You have to trust that I’m doing everything I can here.” He’d sounded pissed that she’d interrupted the ball game he was watching.
“The more I hear about this case, the more convinced I am that this guy took my friend. Is the investigating team getting any closer to finding him?”
“They’re making some progress. That’s all they can tell me.”
By the time she’d hung up on him and laid her head on the pillow, her mind was swirling with images of carnival men, tattoos, bright lights and contorted half-smiling, half-grimacing faces. She could taste the sweetness of cotton candy at the back of her throat and hear the off-key steam organ music all jumbled up with the screams of people on the roller coaster. It hadn’t taken much to transport her back eighteen years and four thousand miles. Mike Stiller had to come through with more information for her. He just had to. The waiting and not knowing whether or not the third victim was Megan was getting harder with each day that passed.
Halfway through breakfast a Security Forces sergeant came to her table and told her Gurley was waiting for her in his office. Five minutes later she arrived at a single-story cinder block building that looked like a bunker from WWII.
She was met at the door by another uniformed sergeant, this one a woman, and led through an outer office to an interior door. The sergeant knocked twice and opened the door without waiting. As Ingrid stepped inside the inner office she saw Gurley sitting behind a wide metal desk, his back to her, his chair facing the wall. He was on the phone, but he wasn’t speaking. After a moment he swung around to face her and held up a forefinger indicating he’d be another minute. Ingrid decided to fill the time by looking at the framed photographs hanging on the wall next to the door. They all featured Gurley posing with high ranking officers, various Secretaries of Defense, and even one or two ex-presidents. Gurley hadn’t struck Ingrid as the boasting kind, so an array of his claims to fame arranged on the wall like a collection of hunting trophies seemed a little out of place.
Gurley slammed down the phone. “Sonofabitch!” He took a breath. “Him, not you,” he said, staring at the phone.
“Something to do with the Foster investigation?” Ingrid asked.
“No—Air Force bureaucratic bullshit. I should be used to it by now, but it still pisses me off. It’s a waste of time and money.” Gurley stood up and stretched his arms above his head. For a moment Ingrid was sure his knuckles would graze the ceiling. “I didn’t ask you last night,” he said, “did you get a sense from Sherwood that she thinks Foster is likely to stay in the area?”
“I don’t think she was lying when she told us she has no idea what Foster’s plans are. Without the supplies and the cash from Sherwood, I guess Foster has fewer options.”
“I wouldn’t be taken in by her story.”
“I have done this before, you know. I can get a sense when somebody is lying to me.”
“Well, I don’t trust her. I’m planning on keeping her under surveillance today, just in case she gets any ideas about helping Foster again.”
“I’m not staking out the pub. It’d be a waste of time.”
Gurley folded his arms across his broad chest. “I had no intention of asking you to. I’ll get a couple of my team to check it out.”
“Good, waste their time instead of mine.”
The landline on Gurley’s desk started to ring. Its tone sounded particularly shrill as the noise bounced off the cinder block walls.
“Excuse me.” Gurley snatched the handset and turned away from her. “You’re saying he’s on the line right now?” He glanced over his shoulder at Ingrid. “Of course you should patch him through. Set up a trace on the call, as fast as you can.”
Ingrid ran around the desk. “Is it Foster?”
Gurley nodded.
“Put the call on speaker phone.”
Gurley narrowed his eyes, clearly reluctant to comply with her request. “He called to speak to his superior officer. His superior officer has transferred the call to me. Foster doesn’t know who the hell you are.”
“You want me to escalate this? With the embassy? With the Pentagon?”
“This is Major Gurley, Security Forces.” He turned another few degrees away from her, the handset pressed hard against his ear. “Major Brown thought it best you speak to me.”
Ingrid scanned the phone on the desk and stabbed at the only button that looked remotely like the right one. A crackle of static filled the room. Followed by an irritated sigh from Gurley.
“I know what you’re doing. I know you’ll be tracing this call, so I’m going to be quick. You have to listen to me without interrupting.” Foster’s voice was deeper than Ingrid had expected.
“Go on.”
“You have to believe that I didn’t hurt Molly. I could never hurt her. I love her and Tommy more than anything in the world. Jesus, until I saw the news reports, I thought she was dead. That’s why I panicked and took Tommy. I had to get him out of harm’s way.”
“Tell me what you’ve done to him,” Gurley said.
“I told you not to interrupt. I haven’t done anything. Tommy’s right here with me. He’s safe. I want him to stay that way. In order for that to happen, I need your help. I want to get him to my parents back home. You can arrange that for me, I know you can.”
“Let me at least speak to Tommy, know for sure he’s all right.”
“I don’t have time for that. I want him on a flight to the US by the end of tomorrow. He’ll need a chaperone. Maybe one of your female officers. My mom and dad will take good care of him.”
“We know Tommy was injured. We spoke to the doctor who treated him. What did you do to him?”
“I didn’t do anything. Aren’t you listening to me? I love my kids.”
“I think it’s best for Tommy, for you… for everyone… if you give yourself up. We can hear your side of the story then. Take all the… ah… mitigating circumstances into account.”
“Story? What do you think this is? I’m not telling tales. Jesus. Why won’t you listen to me? I want to make sure Tommy’s safe. And Molly. She looked so tiny wired up to all those monitors. I just wanted to scoop her into my arms and protect her. Take her away with me. But I saw the cop guarding her. I figured she was in the best place. That she was safe. But as soon as she can travel I want her to go to my mom and dad’s too.”
The door opened and the female sergeant from the outer office held up a sheet of paper with the words: keep him talking, partial location only scrawled across it.
“A flight to the US and a chaperone will take some organizing, Kyle. It’d be much easier if you and Tommy come to the base, then we can start to put those wheels in motion for you.”
Foster didn’t reply.
“Kyle?”
“You’re lying,” Foster said, eventually. Then the line went dead.
“Goddammit!” Gurley slammed down the handset.
A moment later another MP ran in. “He’s in northeast England, within a ten mile radius of the center of Newcastle.”
Gurley considered the information for a moment. “A ten mile radius?” He paused a beat, glancing up at the ceiling. “That’s an area of over three hundred square miles. For crying out loud, you couldn’t do any better than that?”
“It took a little while to set up the trace. He hung up too soon.”
“I want a trace ready to go next time.”
“You think he’ll call back?” Ingrid asked.
“We have something he wants: a plane ride home for his son. Of course he’ll call back.”
“What did you make of all that? He seemed genuinely concerned for Tommy’s safety. And his daughter’s, for that matter. Do you think he was suggesting they’re not safe with Carrie?”
“Yes—I do think the sonofabitch was suggesting that.”
Ingrid remembered what Sherwood had told her about Carrie Foster’s ‘baby blues’. Maybe they were a lot more serious than she’d realized. “At least we solved the mystery of the impostor in Molly’s hospital room.”
“We were so close to him.”
“And now he’s over two hundred fifty miles away.”
“How’d he get to Newcastle so fast?” Gurley’s face had reddened.
“I’d say train, but the local cops should have been liaising with British Transport Police, watching all the local stations and train lines.”
“Should have been.”
“We need to check out the CCTV footage they have, maybe we’ll see something they missed.”
“So damn close,” Gurley said again and thumped the desk with a fist.
The female sergeant ran into the room again, stopped abruptly in front of Gurley’s desk and stood to attention.
“Tell me you’ve pin-pointed his location,” Gurley barked.
“No, sir. It’s something else.” The sergeant glanced at Ingrid, her lips pursed.
“For God’s sake, you can speak freely in front of Agent Skyberg!”
“The munitions store have just contacted me. A hand gun and ten rounds of ammunition are missing from their inventory.”
