Red Web

by Ninie Hammon

  "You can't … I mean, that's absurd. You don't understand." She had been standing bold in the doorway, as if to bar their entrance, but she moved back now. "Come in, then, so I can make it clear why you absolutely cannot bother poor Dominic right now."

  The two officers stepped into the foyer and she gestured toward a doorway into a small parlor.

  "Have a seat."

  "We'll stand," Nakamura said.

  She was offended and made sure the two officers knew it.

  "Very well, then." She took a breath, then continued in a strained, patient tone. "Dominic can not be disturbed because—"

  "I don't care why your son wants to be left alone. We have to talk to him and you're going to tell us where he is."

  The woman began to pace back and forth in front of them, literally wringing her hands.

  "You don't understand Dominic. He's … his psyche is delicate, fragile. That's what ended his singing career. He has a trained operatic voice, you do know that, don't you? Surely they told you that at the church."

  "I'm not interested in your son's training—"

  But she was on a roll and there was no stopping her.

  "He's not just some 'church choir director.'" The words dripped with disdain. "He was trained at Juilliard in New York. I moved there from Cleveland to make a home for him while he studied. Oh, he showed such promise. All his professors said so. I have voice recordings of him singing Habanera from Carmen. It is truly breathtaking, really it is."

  She turned and Brice realized she intended to go get the recordings to play for them. Nakamura stopped her with a question.

  "Fragile? What do you mean he is fragile?"

  She turned back to them.

  "He couldn't take the pressure of performance. It just wasn't in his gentle nature. I had hoped he would overcome the stage fright with age, that he'd be less nervous as he got used to it. At five years old his talent was so obvious I realized I had to prepare him for a future of fame, so I got him up to sing before every group I could think of. A five-year-old was frightened, of course, but I wouldn't let him give in to it. No sir, I forced him out there because I knew he would thank me for it one day … but …"

  "But?"

  "His stage fright got worse instead of better as he got older. At Juilliard, he would get nauseous before a recital and … well, he had intestinal issues as well. His hands would shake and … Once he started singing he was fine; he would get lost in the music and his voice would positively soar. But it got to the point that he was too upset to perform. And then … it was his final recital after his sophomore year. He was singing a very intricate piece — so difficult and he did it flawlessly, absolutely flawlessly, in rehearsal. He never performed anywhere without me by his side, of course, and the afternoon of the recital I left his dressing room for only a moment to get a soft drink and when I got back … he was gone. Just gone. We finally we located him in a broom closet, sitting in a corner, sobbing. He had … a complete mental collapse, had to be hospitalized."

  "So he was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital?" Nakamura confirmed.

  "Oh, the professionals never did know what to do with him. It was an absolutely horrible time, the poor boy. In and out of one place after another. Do you know they actually diagnosed him with DID? Do you know what that is?"

  Brice knew what it was, knew much more than he wanted to know about all manner of mental illnesses, in fact. He was especially familiar with Dissociative Identity Disorder, commonly called split personality, because he and T.J. had had a conversation about it only a week ago. The whole crew had been at Bailey's grilling hot dogs and hamburgers when she dropped a dog on the ground and the real dog snatched it up and ran off with it. When T.J. started scolding Sparky, Bailey'd defended him, saying the hot dog thief wasn't the real Sparky, that he had an alter ego, and that had launched T.J. into the tale of an arrest he'd made once, a guy named Pepe he'd hauled off to jail for domestic violence who'd claimed "Malcolm had done it," Malcolm being his alter ego.

  "It was almost believable because this guy was barely five feet tall, a hundred pounds with concrete blocks in his pockets, and the girlfriend he'd beat the crap out of was over six feet, easy two-hundred-fifty pounds."

  T.J. had done some snooping, discovered the foremost expert in DID was right there in New York City, and went to talk to him.

  "His name was Dr. Milton Brazinski, and it was hard to buy what the shrink was selling, that some people suffering from DID — depending on the severity of the childhood trauma that caused it — had the ability to change their own body chemistry with their minds. He said they 'become who they believe themselves to be.' He even described the case of a man who was a diabetic with multiple personalities — one of which was not diabetic. When the man assumed that personality, he required no insulin — his body produced it normally."

  T.J. had cocked his head to the side then and said, "All I know is that according to Pepe, Malcolm was a professional wrestler. And according to the woman he beat up, Pepe had pinned her down on the floor and broke her arm."

  Brice was wondering what other personalities Dominic Ingerson might have had who'd have been willing to kidnap two children. But his mother made it clear there was only one Dominic.

  "Can you imagine that — my Dominic, crazy? The very idea was insane. He was just terribly upset, that's all, was too fragile to withstand the pressure of his great talent. I tried to tell them that, but that doctor was determined Dominic was more than one person."

  "So you're telling me your son has a history of mental illness? How did he get a job with a church working with kids—?"

  "They did a criminal background check," she said, offended. "He is not a criminal, has never been arrested for anything, and after that horrible year when they had him misdiagnosed, now he is fine. Dominic has bipolar disorder, that's all. And with the proper medication, he can function normally in all situations. He takes his meds. Every day. I make sure of that. He is perfectly fine."

  "Where is he now?"

  "Weren't you listening to a word I said? He needs his rest. He was so upset over that little boy. The child was in Dominic's children's choir, you know. Poor Dom … he wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping. I told him, I said 'Dominic, dear, you need to get away. You need to rest and relax, center yourself.' I finally had to lay down the law, told him he had to take a leave of absence, that I wouldn't stand for anything less. Now do you see? You understand now, don't you, why you absolutely can not disturb him?"

  "Ma'am, I am going to ask you one final time. Where is your son? If you refuse to answer, you will be arrested and charged with—"

  "I am a mother guarding my son's mental health. I have a right to protect my child."

  The FBI agent had had enough. He nodded at Brice, who removed handcuffs from his belt as he stepped forward

  "Mrs. Ingerson, I am placing you under arrest for—"

  "You can't do this!"

  "Watch me. Put your hands behind your back."

  She was horrified.

  "Oh alright. Alright. I'll tell you. But this is police harassment, it's police brutality. You will hear from my attorney. You can't just barge in on him. You must speak softly and be gentle. He's doing his exercises, yoga, he is in a dark environment, without stimulation. You mustn't frighten him!"

  "Where is he?" Nakamura ground the words out through clenched teeth.

  "He is in the Nautilus Hotel on the other side of the lake. Room 435."

  "Listen to what I'm telling you, Mrs. Ingerson," Brice warned, loading his voice with threat. "You are not to call him and tell him we are coming. Do you understand? If you do, you will be charged—"

  "Oh, I can't call him." She picked up a cellphone off the coffee table. "I took it away from him. He was too caught up in it, checking it all the time, getting texts from people I didn't even know. It was unsettling him, upsetting his equilibrium. I had to put a stop to it."

  Out of curiosity, Brice asked. "How old is Dominic?"

>   "He is forty-three, will be on Christmas Day, the only Christmas present his worthless father ever gave me."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sadness passed between Juanita and Wendell Bartley as palpable as a cold breeze.

  "Part of what happened was our fault," Wendell said. "We got to depending on Caitlyn and we shouldn't have done that. If we'd gotten out of the foster care system when we should have … but with Caitlyn around, to help and to just … just be, we stayed with it."

  "You can only do something like that for a time, then it wears you down. It's like you're a pencil eraser and the rubbing back and forth is all the frustration, all the difficulties. But Caitlyn changed everything. We tried to adopt her." Juanita paused and when she began again her voice was tear-clotted. "We did love that little girl somethin' fierce. We wanted her to be our little girl for always. And maybe we could have, but some of her medical records had gotten destroyed in a flood, and they wasn't sure whether or not she had family somewhere. They looked, but they wasn't in no hurry. And we wasn't neither. She was a teenager by then. Time just got away from us."

  "In the foster care system, you rotate out at age eighteen," Wendell said. "When you're a legal adult, you're on your own. But we didn't intend that for Caitlyn. Soon's she started high school, we started talking about her future. Got serious about it when she was a senior. She wanted to be a scientist, loved to study, a biologist. Or maybe a fashion designer. Those wouldn't seem to go together, but with Caitlyn, you could believe it as possible. She'd been accepted, already enrolled in a community college and she was going to stay with us. She could have moved into a dormitory with other girls, but she wasn't interested, said she wanted to stay 'home' with her 'family.'"

  "We had a party for her eighteenth birthday a week before classes started," Wendell said laboriously, then ran out of gas and Juanita continued.

  "At that time, we had three junior high boys and a five-year-old girl named Missy — who'd been taken away from her parents because they was abusing her. She was shy, quiet, withdrawn, scared of her own shadow. The boys were … oh, they were just boys. Acted like boys, a little too rough and rowdy, but not as bad as lots of others we had. They went to a flea market the weekend before the party, and they came back with a sack full of stuff they wouldn't let us see. Secret stuff."

  She smiled.

  "Of course, as soon as they went to school, we searched their rooms, making sure they hadn't got something they shouldn't have. And it was basic junior-high-boy stuff. A whoopee cushion, fake vomit, a couple of plastic turds, a big black rubber spider, a dead rat, and a rubber snake. Because they were so secretive about it, we knew they were planning to haul those out at the party. We told Caitlyn they were going to play tricks on her and she just laughed and said she'd enjoy it."

  "They did, too. At the party, there was a plastic turd in the water pitcher."

  "Wendell sat down on a whoopee cushion. Clayton threw down plastic vomit in his plate. Stuff like that. It was all harmless fun. Neither one of us was in the room when it happened so … we suddenly heard screaming and we ran into the family room. Missy was totally hysterical. She'd been sitting in Caitlyn's lap and the boys gave her a box, said the present was for her, and when she opened it, the rubber rat, the snake and the spider were in it. That child totally lost it, shrieked, knocked the box away, ran to a corner and put her hands over her face and screamed and screamed. Caitlyn tried to calm her, but she couldn't do a thing with the child. We couldn't either. I never seen a child as freaked out as she was."

  "Being abused like she was, she musta had some kind of bad experience, you know, maybe with a rat or something."

  "Nothing we done would soothe her. The boys apologized, tried to show her that stuff was just toys, wasn't real. The snake was one of those wooden, jointed ones and Kyle took it apart to show her the pieces, Tyrone pulled the legs off the spider, showed her they was just rubber. They both jumped up and down on the fake rat. They really did feel bad but didn't nothin' they tried work. That child was so hysterical, we finally had to call an ambulance and take her to the emergency room so they could give her something to calm her down."

  "That was the end of the party. Juanita didn't get home with Missy until two or three o'clock in the morning. Caitlyn had cleaned up the mess, done the dishes, waited up and she sat by Missy's bed holding her hand while we went to bed." The couple stopped and looked at each other. When Wendell continued, his thin voice was soft. "The next day, Caitlyn was gone."

  "Gone?" Dobbs said.

  Wendell nodded sadly. "Without a trace."

  Juanita was holding back tears.

  "She was kidnapped! I know she was, but the police never believed that."

  "Kidnapped," Bailey parroted the word, no emotion at all in it.

  "Now, Juanita—"

  "Wendell never believed it either, said she just left. But I know somebody took her."

  Juanita finally let go, put her head in her hands and began to cry, not great gulping sobs which was what T.J. figured she felt like doin', just cried softly 'cause that's all she had the strength for.

  "She didn't say goodbye," Wendell said, "didn't leave a note. Her bed was made and her clothes were still in her closet, so Juanita thought—"

  "I knew she …" Juanita wiped tears off her cheeks as she spoke. "Caitlyn went out with Bradley almost every night — just a rescue mutt but she did love that dog. We had a doggie door so nobody had to take him out, but almost every night before she went to bed, she'd go out in the back yard with him to do his business. And every now and then, she'd go down to the convenience store on the corner and get a bag of M&Ms. She loved M&Ms, but if you had candy, you had to share with all the kids so you never got more than a piece or two. So when they were all in bed, sometimes she'd get a bag she could have all to herself."

  Juanita took a deep, shaky breath.

  "She kissed me goodnight before I went to bed — I was exhausted. She thanked me for the birthday cake. We never saw her again."

  "Her purse was gone, but not her cellphone. She'd always had after-school jobs, always worked, for years, saving her money for college. Flipping burgers, babysitting — making lattes at Starbucks was the last one. We never seen how much she'd saved. And we didn't find no money in her room, so—"

  "She decided to get M&Ms — that's all!" Juanita said. "So she took her purse. Maybe she kept all her money in her purse; it was one of those big ones, size of a diaper bag, and with so many kids around, things had a way of disappearing. She went out with Bradley into the back yard, and then started to the convenience store, but somebody …" She looked deep into Bailey's eyes. "She wouldn't have run off without a word. Caitlyn wouldn't have done a thing like that."

  "At first we thought she took Tyrone's bike, cause he said it was missing. But he found it a few days later, left it at a friend's house down the street."

  "You called the police?" T.J. asked, and the couple nodded. "What'd they say?"

  "Since she wasn't underage, she wasn't a runaway. And since she took her purse and her savings, no sign of a struggle … they asked questions, talked to the neighbors. The man at the convenience store said he might have seen her walk by, he wasn't sure, but she didn't go in. The police said there was no evidence of a kidnapping. She was an adult, had a right to leave if she wanted to, go anywhere she chose."

  T.J. caught the time-dulled edge of anger and outrage in Juanita's voice when she spoke again.

  "The real reason they didn't dig into it was because of us taking Missy to the emergency room. We explained what happened, but they … they thought since this was a foster home, Caitlyn had run away from us, left soon as she could, the very day she turned eighteen. But it wasn't like that. She loved us."

  After they'd found out everything they could from the Bartleys, the three of them walked to the car in silence. Bailey stopped and didn't get in, turned and said the one word, "kidnapped," but it was colored in so many layers of emotion T.J. couldn't have said what sh
e was thinking about it. He hooked his fingers in his red suspenders as they stood there.

  "I feel no connection to Caitlyn Whitfield, so that means she's dead. And there's no link of any kind between her and Riley Campbell … unless they were both kidnapped and murdered by the same person."

  "That bucket's got lots of leaks," T.J. said. "Serial killers stick to a pattern, select their victims for a reason. We're saying he killed a grownup — Caitlyn wasn't no child — seven years ago here in Huntington, got rid of the body so nobody ever found a trace of it. Then takes a little boy and two days later a little girl in Shadow Rock?"

  "I have to find a way to connect to Caitlyn again," Bailey said.

  She turned and looked deep into T.J.’s eyes. "Your mama painted pictures of people when … bad things were happening to them. They were dead or dying. If I could connect to Caitlyn when … when she was being murdered, surely I would see something, some detail … even if it's just colors reflected in a toaster … something that would help identify the kidnapper."

  "You want to crawl inside the head of a woman's being murdered, do you?"

  "Of course I don't want to."

  "How you plannin' on doing that, connecting again?"

  Dobbs interrupted in his made-for-radio voice.

  "I'll call Zankoski, fill him in on what the Bartleys told us and get him to keep checking. He got us this far. Before we leap on our horses and ride madly off in all directions, let's see what else he can find out."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Because it was faster than driving around the lake, Brice called for a West Virginia Water Patrol boat to take him, Nakamura and Agent Hardesty across to the Nautilus Casino and hotel complex on the other side of Whispering Mountain Lake. He'd arranged for two West Virginia State Police troopers to provide backup on the other side. Though it was noon, the day was not yet hot, the glassy smooth water mirroring the multi-hued green of the mountains, the azure sky and a dusting of cottony white clouds in postcard perfection. Even Nakamura noticed.