Find Me

by Carol O'Connell

  “Dodie!” yelled young Peter Finn, suddenly noticing that his sister was gone from her chair. His eyes went everywhere, crazed to find her.

  “It’s okay, kid!” Riker called out to the boy. “I got her.” He reached under the table to take Dodie’s hand, and she began to scream. He drew back, wounded, for he was a man who loved children. “What did I do? The other night, she was fine with me.”

  “Let me guess,” said Dale Berman, drawing closer to the New York detective. “You weren’t wearing that red shirt.” The FBI man hunkered down by the table and smiled at the rolled-up ball of a little girl. “Hello, Dodie. Remember me? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

  Her screaming stopped. She did not reach out to him, but neither did she protest when he took her small hand and led her out of hiding.

  Riker stared at Berman. “And she hasn’t seen you for a long time? The kid’s good with faces?”

  “No, it’s probably my suit,” said the agent, openly appraising the detective’s flannel shirt and faded jeans and finding them wanting. “Dodie spent a long time with people in suits. She’s very compliant with—”

  “Interrogation?” Riker, brows knit together. “a kid?”

  Berman ignored this. He only smiled down at the little girl beside him, and Dodie stared straight ahead, blind and deaf to everyone. “Anyway, Riker, it’s nothing personal—just the way you’re dressed—the red shirt.”

  Riker marched outside and crossed the parking lot to Charles Butler’s Mercedes. Mallory watched him pull his bag from the trunk and rifle its contents, probably searching for his least rumpled shirt of another color—so a little girl would not be afraid of him anymore. Her partner was a sucker for children, and this child had freckles, his other weakness.

  Charles leaned toward Mallory. “You know that man lied to Riker. It wasn’t the color of the shirt—it was the song.”

  Yes, Mallory knew that.

  Her eyes were on Joe Finn. The boxer was slow to cross the room. There was great deliberation in each step, and she knew he was trying to bring his temper under control and only succeeding in part. His fists remained at his sides, but his eyes were full of hate when he finally stood before Dale Berman, a poor specimen compared to the prizefighter.

  Joe Finn’s voice was oddly soft, almost soothing, and he spoke with the singsong meter of reading his daughter a fairy tale. “Back away from my kid or lose all your damn teeth. Those are the only two choices you get.”

  Mallory approved of the boxer, the enemy of her enemy.

  Riker returned to the restaurant with another shirt in hand and found himself on speaking terms with Mallory again. He made a mental note—no more car jokes.

  “You won’t need that,” she said, taking the shirt away from him and draping it over the back of his chair. With a little backup nodding from Charles Butler, Mallory assured him that Dodie Finn would not care if he changed his clothes. “Trust me, the kid’s out of it. She wouldn’t know if you were wearing a red shirt or a dress.” She angled the laptop computer so that he could see the screen and a recently purloined FBI file. The code name the feds had selected for this serial killer was Mack the Knife.

  “Aw, what’ve I done to that kid?” Well, he had sung the words to her scary little tune, and then, as bogeymen will do, he had reached out for her. “And Dale’s little story about the red shirt?”

  “Misdirection,” said Charles. “The key to every good magic trick. If you thought it was the shirt, you’d never look at the song.”

  Mallory turned to the door as a redheaded man, tall and reedy in a dark suit, entered the restaurant. “Riker, we’ve got trouble.” She nodded toward the new arrival with the crew-cut red hair. “That one’s a witch doctor.”

  “Agent Cadwaller?” Riker smiled and held up his cell phone. “Kronewald called. Said to tell you he checks out. You were right. Cadwaller’s last posting was the Freak Squad.”

  “You mean the Behavioral Science Unit?” Charles turned to look at the red-haired man. “But they’re not Ph.D.’s. I thought your criteria for a witch doctor was an accredited—”

  “You’re right,” said Mallory, cutting Charles off as she usually did when his longer and more predictable sentences tried her patience. “Cadwaller’s just a screwup. That’s probably why they shipped him off to Dale’s field office.”

  Riker watched as the man spoke with Dale Berman, who pointed him toward the Finns’ table. As Cadwaller approached the small family, Joe Finn was rising from his chair and all too clear about his intent to knock the agent back into the parking lot—via a broken window—if the man took one more step toward the children.

  Caring nothing about losing face in a room full of feds and cops, Cadwaller wore a placating smile and raised one hand to beg a pardon as—he—backed—up. Nothing more was needed to classify him: this was a man who rarely, if ever, went into the field. By Bureau regulation, every fed was required to carry a weapon, but this one had the look of a man unaccustomed to walking around with a gun. Or maybe, at the start of this day, the agent had left his sidearm on his motel-room dresser—along with his testicles. A moment ago, Cadwaller had seemed an ordinary man, maybe a little on the pale side, and now Riker found him vaguely creepy, soft and unsexed.

  Ten-year-old Peter Finn watched the redheaded man withdraw to a safe distance from his father, and then the man handed a paper to Agent Berman. Now both of them were looking at Dodie. The last time Peter had witnessed this scene, he and his sister had been taken away and not allowed to see their father. It had been so easy for FBI agents to goad Dad into the last fight, the one that left two children screaming for their daddy as the Child Welfare people took them away.

  He knew what would happen next, and so did his father. Dad was watching all of this play out and shaking his head slowly to say, No, not again. The big man turned to his young son with a halfhearted smile, a failed reassurance that things would be different this time.

  Peter was looking elsewhere for a champion that the FBI could not arrest for fighting back. His eyes passed over Riker, for that man was just too cozy with the lady FBI agent. He settled on the tall blonde, the pretty woman he had first seen in the diner back down the road in Illinois. She had also come to the Missouri campsite to talk with Dr. Paul. Peter remembered being afraid of her then. What had Dr. Paul called her?

  Mallory.

  And she carried a gun.

  Agent Berman was crossing the room toward Dodie. Peter knew he would have to be quick, and he was. Rising fast, the boy ran to the pretty woman’s table, saying breathless, “You’re a cop, right?”

  Without looking up from her computer screen, she said, “I thought you didn’t talk to strangers.”

  “Well, I’m talking now, okay? I need help. I think they’re going to take my sister away.”

  “You mean protective custody?” asked Riker. “That might be for the best, kid.”

  “No!” Peter pounded the table, his eyes fixed on Mallory. “They don’t care about me and Dad. It’s Dodie they want. The last time they took her, she was worse when she came back. She wouldn’t even talk anymore.”

  And now Mallory looked up. “What did Dodie tell you—back when she was talking?”

  “Please, there’s no time. You have to stop him.” The boy pointed to the man he knew as Special Agent Berman.

  Too late.

  Peter’s father pushed Agent Berman away when the man reached out to touch Dodie. And now the FBI man was closing in on her again, one eye on Dad. A moment later, the agent lay sprawled on the floor, bleeding from his lip—and smiling.

  Mallory was rising from the table with Detective Riker. She said to Peter in passing. “We’ll talk later. Deal?”

  “It’s too late.” Peter stared at the bloodied FBI man on the floor. Pain could only be moments away. The family would all be taken off in separate directions—just like the last time. The boy had tears in his voice, crying, “Not again. We can’t go through this again.” He was looking up at Mallor
y’s face, her strange green eyes—no mercy.

  Agents slowly converged on the boxer from all quarters of the room, trying to appear natural and normal as they skirted the tables of civilian patrons. Joe Finn saw them coming. He did not care. He would take them on, one by one, or in twos and threes. That much was clear by his stance and his closed fists, and Mallory liked this man better and better.

  Dale Berman was rising to support himself on one elbow, but wisely staying close to the floor and out of immediate danger.

  Only the people from the caravan remained in their seats, and their conversations were ending as each one in turn saw the fallen man and then noticed the encroaching circle of men and women, their holstered guns exposed for quick access.

  The two New York detectives moved in quickly to flank the boxer. This brought the group of FBI agents to a standstill; their course of action was less clear now, and all of them lowered their eyes to the prone Dale Berman. They were stalled and awaiting his orders.

  Mallory leaned close to Joe Finn, saying, “The bastard on the floor belongs to me. Stay out of my business and sit down. That’s a direct order from a cop. Don’t fool with me.”

  The boxer nodded his understanding of a prior claim, and he seemed to have no problem with her authority. This was not about his manhood; this was all about his children. Slowly he settled into his chair.

  Riker held up his gold shield, and Mallory drew her denim jacket to one side, displaying the gun in her shoulder holster. Better than a badge, this act screamed cop war to every fed as she revolved slowly, making eye contact with agents all around the room. The feds were not backing down, but neither would they advance, and their own weapons were no longer on view to the gaping civilians. There would be no gunplay today, not with so many sheep in the house, and not ever with cops.

  Mallory’s voice only carried as far as the floor when she said, “Berman, call them off before you get up. If I deck you, the troops won’t forget that.”

  He smiled. “You think that’s worse than kicking me in the balls in front of—”

  “Much worse,” she said, looking down at him with no expression. Her voice was a harsh whisper, and, to the surrounding agents, this must look like a normal conversation. “When you’re picking yourself up off the floor? When you’re just a little off balance? That’s when I take my best shot. Closed fist. They’ll talk about that for a long time. And I won’t pull my punch…like the boxer did.”

  “Say, Dale.” Riker spoke softly when he hunkered down, smiling for appearance’s sake, as if he might be consoling the fallen man. “Your front teeth—those are caps, right? Cost much?”

  “Don’t interfere,” said Berman. “And that goes for your partner, too. Assault charges—”

  “Provoked assault,” said Riker, ever so politely correcting the agent.

  “I’m bleeding.”

  “And you had that split lip when you walked in the door,” said Riker. “So you cheated. You saw the punch coming. Hell, you asked for it—and then you rolled with it. More like a tap, I’d say. Just dumb luck that Finn reopened the cut on your lip. And I wonder where that came from.”

  In unison, both men looked up at Mallory.

  Berman spoke to her in a low voice, possibly believing that she was listening to him. “You’ve got three seconds to stand down, Detective.”

  “Count real slow,” said Riker. “You giving orders to Mallory—that’s a good one—for a man who’s still walks funny. You thought her shot to balls was bad?” Riker raised his voice to laugh, and this had a calming effect on the surrounding agents; the tension level in the room was dropping. “Don’t fool with my partner. She’ll bite your head off. I’ve seen her kill six pigeons that way.” Riker reached out and ruffled Dale Berman’s hair to assure him that this was just a small joke, and then he leaned in close and whispered, “I have no control over her.”

  Magic words.

  The man on the floor was a true believer. “All right. Enough.” Berman called out to the surrounding agents. “Everybody settle down. Back to your tables. Now!”

  “And no penalty for Joe Finn,” said Mallory.

  “No deal,” said the agent as he regained his feet. “Finn’s a prizefighter. He knows the law. His fists are—”

  “Considered weapons,” said Riker. “Yeah, yeah.” Before Dale Berman could say any more, the detective jumped up the stakes by humming the opening bars to “Mack the Knife.”

  “Okay,” said Berman, magnanimously, “no charges.”

  Special Agent Dale Berman gave Mallory a wide berth in passing the table where she was deep in conversation with the boxer’s boy. Still holding an ice cube on his split lip, the FBI man sat down with Charles Butler and Riker. He laid an official fax communiqué in front of the detective.

  “I just want to clear up one little thing,” said Berman, tapping the fax. “The sheriff back in Missouri requested protective custody for the Finns.”

  “And that would be us,” said Riker, not bothering to even glance at the fax. “Me and Mallory, we’re the protection now. And let’s clear up another little thing. You should pray that Joe Finn doesn’t talk to a lawyer. Provoked assault, abuse of power—oh, and that time you snatched his kid.”

  “In your dreams, Riker.”

  The detective glanced at the far table where his partner was discussing murder with a child. “Little Peter makes great witness material, doesn’t he? I’m betting that kid can cry at the drop of a dime, and that might come in handy. Now a charge of kidnapping Dodie—that won’t stick in court, but it might get some airtime on the evening news—prime time. And that would be a damn shame. Up to now, you’ve been real good at squashing media interest. So play nice with the boxer. Your balls belong to him now.”

  Riker crossed the room to deposit a laptop computer on Mallory’s table. And now the detective’s tall friend, Charles Butler, was left alone to make conversation, faltering for words and finally saying, “So you’re in charge here.”

  Agent Berman smiled in faint appreciation for Butler’s dry punch line. His smile became more affable when the detective returned to the table. “Riker, I got Kronewald’s presents from Mallory. If you’re curious about the tool mark on the air valve and the fingerprint—”

  “Not good enough for matches,” said Riker. “I know.”

  “So you and your partner plan to give us a hand on this one?”

  “Cooperation? Not your style,” said Riker. “You’d rather cut cops at the knees.”

  “Hey,” said Berman, “that business with Kronewald in Chicago—that wasn’t my call,” he lied. “I wasn’t even there.” That part was true. He gave Riker his very best good ol’ boy smile and lightly slapped the table with the flat of his hand. “So, we do a little deal? Share and share alike?”

  “Just like old times?” asked Riker. “With Lou Markowitz?”

  “What? You’re still pissed off about that? Mallory, too? Okay, I held out on Markowitz. But that was years ago, and it’s not like somebody died.”

  Riker’s response was instant and strong, every muscle tensing. The detective wanted to hit him; that much was very clear. Instead, Riker rose and left the table, and this time he did not plan to return, but slouched into a distant chair with an air of permanent repose.

  Agent Berman turned to Charles Butler. “You know what that’s about?”

  “The old business with Louis Markowitz? Sorry, I don’t have any facts to work with. However, given Riker’s reaction, I’d say it’s obvious that someone did die.”

  Dale Berman’s luck with Mallory was no better. He waited until the little boy left her table, then pulled up the chair next to hers. “We could help each other on this one.”

  Too clearly, he understood the look in her eyes that said, Yeah, right.

  “I have legal authorization to take Dodie Finn into custody.” And now, lest she misunderstand and send a knee toward his privates, he held up one hand in surrender. “That’s not a threat. I won’t, okay? See, I’
m just trying to—”

  “This is the new and improved FBI?” She continued to stare at her laptop screen. “So now you can disappear a little girl? How did you do it the last time? Did you fob her off as a terrorist? Oh, wait, I forgot. The feds don’t have to give reasons anymore.”

  Berman had a comeback for that, but he was interrupted when a large woman settled into the chair beside Mallory’s and introduced herself as Margaret Hardy, widow of Jerold Hardy, and mother to young Melissa Hardy, who had gone missing when she was six years old.

  “I think about her every day.” Mrs. Hardy opened her purse and pulled out a fistful of snapshots that pictured a little girl in different costumes and poses. Apparently six-year-old Melissa was a born performer, mugging for the camera in her ballet dress and her Halloween costume. “And this shot was taken at her school play. That’s her in the carrot suit. She likes carrots and peas—just the colors, not the taste—and she plays the piano. I thought you should know that…something…personal.” Mrs. Hardy wore a constant smile, but she seemed always on the verge of tears.

  Mallory was on best behavior with this civilian. She looked at each photograph and asked polite questions about the place where Melissa had lived. “Any close neighbors? Did your daughter take a bus to school?”

  Even before these questions were answered, Dale Berman knew that the lost Melissa Hardy fit the victim profile—and now Mallory knew it, too.

  As the FBI man’s gut knotted up, he had to wonder what else this New York cop had worked out on her own. When Mrs. Hardy had left the table, and Mallory was once more absorbed in her computer, Berman edged his chair closer to hers, saying, “Back to the subject of Dodie Finn. I didn’t want to—” He forgot what he had intended to say, for she finally looked up to acknowledge him, and he wished that she had not.

  What cold eyes you have.

  The young detective leaned toward him—too close. She was robbing him of personal space, and each of her words had equal weight, as if a metronome could speak. “If you touch that little girl one more time, I will mess you up so bad.”