Find Me

by Carol O'Connell

  He turned to the young agent beside him. “You might wanna go get your boss.”

  Oh, how that young girl could run.

  While he waited for her to return with Special Agent Berman, the trooper took a close look at the Medic Alert tag that announced Pearl Walters’ allergy to penicillin. Next, he opened the glove compartment. It was not her name on the vehicle registration.

  Christine Nahlman was about to lean down and flush the toilet for Dodie, but this time the child smiled shyly and flushed it herself.

  Was there another noise riding below the sound of the rushing water?

  Agent Nahlman turned her back to the child before she pulled out her gun. Walking around the open stall door, she checked the room’s common area. The lid of the green garbage pail was now on the floor.

  And the pail was empty.

  Someone had come in and emptied the trash on Berman’s watch. Well, great—just great. Son of a bitch.

  Dodie was humming.

  The child was coming up behind her.

  No, not Dodie—some one else.

  The wound did not register at first. Nalhman never saw the knife as it slashed her throat. She watched it happen in the mirror, light sparking on metal, the red spreading from ear to ear. In that first second of shock, even a little girl could have taken her gun away. After it was knocked from her hand, she heard it skittering across the floor when he kicked it. Nahlman spun around and slipped in her own blood. Her head hit the tiled wall, and she was going down, leaving a slick red trail as she slid to the floor.

  Dale Berman stared at the dead stranger in the back seat of the SUV. “Well, the missing clothes—that’s new, but the slashed throat—yeah, our guy did this. He’s here.” Berman turned to the gathering of agents. “Okay, people,” he said, clapping his hands. “We’re gonna make another sweep of the area, all the buildings, the grounds and those rigs in the lot.”

  The trooper was standing by his cruiser, the radio receiver in one hand, as he called out, “Her name’s Pearl Walters and she drives a—”

  “Yeah, yeah—good to know,” said Berman, losing patience with this plodding state cop. He turned to the road leading back onto the highway. “Why isn’t somebody watching that exit?” He looked down at the rookie who had fetched him to this new crime scene. “That’s pretty basic. I shouldn’t have to spell out every little thing. Get on it. Now! Nobody leaves.” He looked up at the trooper as the man joined them. “I need you to find that park attendant. Get him to help with the—”

  “Listen to me!” said the trooper, who did not care what the special agent in charge wanted. Apparently he did not find Dale Berman all that special. “There are no park attendants this time of night. And Pearl Walters drives a tow truck.” He pointed to the other side of the grounds and the second lot. “There was one over there, and now it’s gone.”

  Christine Nahlman put her hand to the wound that spanned her throat, as if she could close the long gash that way. Her second thought was to fire her weapon to summon help. She had heard the gun fall, but could not see it anywhere.

  Blood flooded down the front of her blouse to pool in her lap. Vocal cords cut, only gurgles came from her mouth. Shock was a hammer. Thought was slow. She pulled the cell phone from her pocket. Wasted effort. Who would answer? Noone here would even have a cell phone turned on.

  She worked the buttons for the named entries and found Riker. As she depressed the button to call him, she was dying—and she knew it.

  But what of Dodie?

  Speech was impossible. One chance only. Riker’s phone would be turned on. It would print out the name of his silent caller. Yes, now they were connected. She could hear his voice.

  “Nahlman? You okay?”

  Oh, no. She was draining of blood and life.

  “Talk to me,” he said to her, begged of her.

  Sorry, so sorry.

  She heard the sound of other conversations, asides to other people, Riker saying, “Something’s wrong.”

  Her eyes closed, her heart slowed.

  “I’m on the way,” he said to her.

  The cell phone clattered to the floor, and she was no longer there to hear him say, “Nahlman, hold on.”

  She could not wait. She was dead. She was gone.

  20

  Peter Finn stood beside the urinal and watched Agent Allen frowning, puzzling over a cell phone with a dark screen. Was it broken? No, for now the FBI man decided to turn it on. The small device in his hand came to life and beeped. The agent raised the phone to his ear, saying, “Allen here…. Riker?”

  The FBI agent left the men’s room on the run, and Peter had his father all to himself, though Joe Finn was behind the closed door of a stall.

  Better that way.

  The boy had been waiting for this moment for so long. “Dad?” He pressed his forehead to the cool metal of the stall door and asked, “Do you hate me—because I lived—and Ariel died?”

  There was a moment of silence, and then he heard his father crying.

  Barry Allen ran past the startled agent guarding the entrance to the men’s room. He was heading for the other facility. All that Riker had said was, “Get to Nahlman now!”

  As he rounded the side of the building, he saw Dale Berman in the far-off parking lot. Who was watching Nahlman’s back?

  No one, fool.

  The young agent entered the ladies’ room at a dead run and went flying, skidding on the slick floor—falling and landing on Nahlman’s body—his face pressed to hers. He screamed, but not out of fear. It was a high keen of anguish that brought other agents running into the tiled room. Shoes were all around him now, and above him were voices all taking at once. “Jesus Christ,” said one. And another agent, the son of a doctor, knelt beside the body. This young man never tried to find a pulse; he was informed by the gaping wound that had opened Nahlman’s throat; the blood had ceased to flow—no living heart to pump it. He shook his head—no beat, no life, no use. “I’m sorry, Barry.”

  A voice was yelling from Barry Allen’s cell phone. Another agent picked it up from the floor and made her short report to Detective Riker. “She’s gone, sir.”

  The state trooper concluded his radio request for backup and road-blocks at exits east and west of the rest stop. He was behind the wheel of his cruiser when he leaned out the window with a few final words for Special Agent Berman. “Don’t touch anything. There’s a crime-scene unit on the way. I’m going after that tow truck.”

  “I’m in charge of this investigation,” said Berman, raising his voice to be heard above the revving of the other man’s engine.

  “Yeah, sure you are,” yelled the trooper as he peeled out of the parking lot, siren screaming.

  Berman turned to see a gang of agents converging upon him. “Spread out!” he yelled. “I want this whole place—”

  Oh, shit!

  Joe Finn was muscling the others aside, and the man’s eyes were crazed.

  Agent Allen was younger and faster than Finn, running, flying, aiming himself like a cannonball. In the next second, Berman was flat on his back with the younger man on top him. Allen, handicapped by eyes full of tears, only got in two good punches to the face before he was pulled off. As he was being dragged back by other agents, Barry Allen screamed, “You stupid, incompetent son of a bitch!”

  No man or woman in his company had any disagreement with this assessment of the special agent in charge. Cell phones were appearing in every pair of hands.

  Dale Berman looked up at the sky, listening to beeps of incoming calls drowned out by the boxer’s screams of “Dodie! My baby!”

  They were close to the rest stop where Agent Christine Nahlman had died.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” said Charles Butler. “I’ll drive if you like. I think I’ve got the hang of speeding now.”

  Riker shook his head, only glancing at the exit sign in passing. He would deal with Nahlman’s death tomorrow. A child was missing. Seconds counted. Yet miles farther on
, he left the interstate for a segment of the older, slower road.

  “Good thinking,” said Kronewald after fifteen miles of dark highway. “That’s gott a be it.” He was staring at the abandoned tow truck parked on a side road. “I knew he wouldn’t keep it long.” The Chicago detective scrambled out of the car to train a light on the dirt road that joined the paved one. “Yeah, he had a car stashed here.” The beam of his flashlight followed the other route. “Looks like our man’s heading north.”

  “Not for long,” said Riker. “This was just too easy, but get the troopers on it. We’re going back on the interstate. We’re going west.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “That’s the way Mallory went,” said Charles Butler, and when this did not enlighten the man from Chicago, he added. “It’s about the old phone.”

  “I wanted theAlan Ladd room,” wrote Peyton Hale. “He was the star of my favorite western. But tonight, the William Bendix room was the only one they had left.”

  All that remained of his stay in this place was the window view of a backstreet in Gallup, New Mexico. Mallory sat on the hotel bed amid her father’s scattered letters, looking for more clues to the man, but all she found was a dated love affair with his road. The pages of creased paper fell from her hands as she wrapped herself in her own arms for comfort.

  Time—how much time had passed before she began to rock back and forth—just like Dodie Finn?

  Crazy Dodie.

  Is this how it ends?

  Mallory sat very still—hyper alert. Dr Magritte’s cell phone was beeping. She plunged one hand into the knapsack, wrenched out the phone and raised its antenna, saying, “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “You’re sure about this?” asked Riker.

  “Absolutely,” said Charles. “The El Rancho Hotel was on her list of landmarks.” And now he had made a connection via an information operator. He spoke to a man on the hotel’s night desk, then concluded his call. “She’s there. They’ve gotten to know her quite well. But she’s not taking any calls.”

  “What else is new,” said Kronewald.

  “And,” said Charles, “they don’t plan to push any notes under her door, nothing like that.”

  “Dodie’s running out of time,” said Riker.

  “What?” Kronewald leaned over the front seat to grip the other detective’s shoulder. “You know that little girl’s dead, right? That’s a big part of this perp’s signature. He kills ’em quick.”

  An old pickup truck drove west on the interstate, heading toward the Arizona border, and the driver was abiding by the posted speed limit.

  In the bed of the truck, sat a large green plastic trashcan with a lid battened down by rope. It rocked. It hummed.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Kronewald sounded less than enthusiastic as he spoke on the cell phone to the liaison from the state police. “This guy’s a great car thief.”

  “He only takes junkers,” said Riker, interrupting. “Tell them that. No alarms, no LoJack.”

  Kronewald relayed this to the liaison, adding, “That should narrow it down.” He covered the phone as he called out to Riker in the front seat. “You’re dead sure about the direction?” With the nod of the other man’s head, he said to the liaison. “We figure the perp stole a car with Arizona plates. He’ll wanna blend in when he crosses the state line.” Kronewald pocketed his phone. “They’re checking stolen car reports from Arizona.”

  Riker sent his passengers lurching forward when he slammed on the brakes in the parking lot of the El Rancho Hotel. “There she is.” The detective left the Mercedes and ran toward her.

  Charles was watching At the side window when Mallory flung a duffel bag into the back seat of her convertible. Her silver car was in motion before Riker reached it. He gripped the edge of a door, running alongside her. And now he dived into the front seat. The man’s right leg could be seen hanging out in the wind as Mallory sped away with her uninvited passenger.

  Click.

  After the mooring ropes were untied, the green plastic trashcan was unloaded from the back of the old pickup truck. Once he had the receptacle on the ground, he tipped it over on its side, removed the lid and stood back quickly. The child huddled inside showed no signs of wanting to come out. She was silent, no humming, no rocking, and her eyes had the vacant look of no one home.

  “Come out,” he said. When she made no response, he lifted the can at one end and spilled her out on the ground. She lay motionless in the dirt. “Stand up,” he commanded.

  Their eyes connected for a second, and Then hers drifted away. He wondered if she somehow knew that he could not bear to touch her. Maybe she had guessed as much when he had used the lid to herd her inside the trashcan. There had been a moment then when their skins had touched, and he had drawn back from her with revulsion. And fear—had she seen that, too?

  Did she understand the power she had over him?

  Tonight, there was a touch of dark respect for Dodie Finn, and he had no plans to lay one hand upon her; he would sooner jump into a sea of wriggling cockroaches.

  It was his way to carefully consider every possibility, and children, particularly little girls, were not to be underestimated. His sister, Mary, had terrorized him every day toward the end of her very short life, and one outstretched hand had been her only weapon. His father had called him a sissy boy—until Mary disappeared. That day, he had only to smile at his father, and the big man knew—but never asked—where his little girl had gone. Revelation. That great burly truck-driving man had been afraid of a ten-year-old boy—locking the bedroom door at night, never coming near his son, nor asking any questions. Then, finally, Dad had run off in the night with his psalm-singing wife, leaving a son to fend for himself and a daughter to rot in the ground.

  Reverie ended. Another child was waiting.

  The rest of his gear was pulled from the cab of the stolen pickup truck. He knew a toddler harness was too small for a six-year-old, but the dog harness would be a perfect fit, or so said the pet-shop clerk when he had given the woman Dodie Finn’s estimated weight. However, now he must fasten it to the child—without touching her. Dodie must stand very still and lift her arms high. If she could wipe her face with a napkin when her father asked her to, then she could raise her arms on command. But would she? He had not counted on passive resistance from a child. Upon returning to the back end of the truck, he found the little girl still lying in the dirt.

  “Stand up.” He knelt on the ground a few feet away, holding out the harness so he could explain what must happen next.

  Dodie reached out for him. It was only a threat; she was not within touching distance, and yet he fell backward, toppled by shock.

  The child knew. She knew.

  He scrambled to his feet and watched her rise from the ground; it was mesmerizing. As she walked toward him, her eyes still had that vacant look, but her small feet had perfect direction. One pale hand was reaching out to him. His chest constricted—hard to breathe—and his feet would not obey him. He pulled out his knife, but the child’s crazy eyes did not see it. She was so close to him now.

  “Do as I say!” he yelled, or thought he did. It was more of a squeak, and the girl was still coming, walking slowly. “Do as I say!” His voice was hoarse; his throat was closing; it was fight to get out the words, “I’ll kill your brother.”

  The girl stopped.

  He breathed more easily. “And I’ll kill your daddy, too.” He brandished the knife. “I’ll go back there right now and slit his throat. Is that what you want?”

  Dodie’s head moved from side to side. No, that was not what she wanted.

  “Raise your hands high.”

  The child did as she was told.

  21

  By the time Charles Butler had climbed into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes, Mallory and Riker were long-gone.

  His sole passenger, Detective Kronewald, ended another cell-phone call. “That was Riker. He says the perp talked to Mallory. I told you g
uys that phone belonged to the killer.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s the one who bought it.” Charles left the old road and turned onto I-40. “But the phone belonged to Dr. Magritte. Call it a present, so he could stay in touch with his doctor—his priest. Mallory found the cell phone in the old man’s knapsack. There’s no reason for the killer to plant it there.”

  “He might—if he wanted an open line to the cops. Or maybe he just wanted to know if we’d found that body yet. Can’t you go any faster?”

  Charles ran the portable siren as he drove down the road at one hundred miles an hour. “I think he recognized Mallory’s voice when he called. That’s why he hung up. It startled him. He doesn’t like surprises.”

  “Okay, let’s run with that idea,” said Kronewald. “If he recognized Mallory’s voice, then it’s somebody she knows. He was riding with the caravan.”

  “Right,” said Charles, minding the speedometer. “And he would’ve seen Mallory chatting up his doctor a few times.”

  “Interrogating him, you mean. Yeah, I know the kid’s style. But Dr. Magritte was an ex-priest, for Christ’s sake. The seal of the confessional still holds up in court. Even Mallory couldn’t break that old man.”

  “Back to the phone,” said Charles. “Originally, I believe it only had one purpose. Dr. Magritte was a serial killer’s confessor.”

  “You’re right. Okay, I buy that part. An ex-priest and a shrink—the perfect audience for a serial killer. These freaks just love their bragging rights. But Dr. Magritte could never rat him out—so why kill the old guy?”

  “Perhaps, toward the end, this killer had more faith in Mallory. And now she’s got the phone.”

  At his partner’s request, Riker fastened his seat belt. That was his only clue that he was in for one hell of a ride. “You wanna tell me where we’re going?”