"Just let me know if I can-"
"I will," he said, annoyed at the interruption, "thank you."
She frowned and moved away, watching him suspiciously.
Keough saw the FBI man who had been tailing the killer as he walked past the decoy. The man spotted him in the store, but to his credit did not break stride. He kept walking and entered a clothing store across the way. From there he watched, as did Keough, and waited.
"What's he doing?" Connors' voice came over the radio anxiously.
"He's watching her."
"Come on, come on," Keough heard Connors say into the radio, "make a move…"
"Be patient, Harriett." He said it before he could stop himself and then thought maybe he shouldn't have used her first name over the radio.
Things started to happen, then, things he would think about later.
First, Pautz was coming around again, to walk by Tompkins for the second time. Maybe he just wanted a second look at her.
"He's moving toward her again…"
Tompkins got up and dropped her empty cup in a trash can, then started walking with the stroller. She was walking toward Pautz, so that she'd be sure to pass him. Keough was certain she didn't know she was doing this.
"She's getting up."
"I'm coming up," Connors said.
Keough stepped out of the Museum Store so he could keep her in sight. Pautz came around into her line of sight-and Keough's-and he saw Tompkins break stride for just a moment, and then keep walking. She was stiff, though, and he hoped the killer wouldn't notice it. Come on, he thought, swish your ass, relax…
It was inevitable. She and the Mall Rat were going to pass very close to each other. If he was going to take the bait he'd probably pass her, then turn around and follow her. This was it…
That's when Keough saw the kids. They were teenagers, probably fourteen or fifteen, two white kids with baseball caps on backward, jeans halfway down their hips, two white kids who thought they were gangster rappers from Compton. They were running, pushing each other, knocking into other people.
Tompkins and Pautz finally passed, and Keough saw Pautz turn to watch her.
At that moment the two teenagers converged on Tompkins, playing their game, and they must have been so impressed by her looks that they sort of staggered. One of them tripped over the other one's feet, and Keough knew there was no way to avoid it. He fell right into the umbrella stroller, knocking it over with enough force to have ejected a real baby.
He certainly hit it hard enough to knock a doll out of it, and that's what happened. The doll hit the mall floor and skidded toward Eric Pautz, who jumped back as if scalded, and then stopped and stared…
The last thing that happened was Steinbach and Hannibal appearing from the opposite direction, coming toward Tompkins, who was confused now. She didn't know what to do. How could she continue to play her role when her "baby" lying on the floor, plain as day, was made of plastic?
It all happened so fast…
***
He couldn't believe his eyes. The baby had fallen out of the stroller and it wasn't real. It was a doll. What was she doing with a doll?
He looked at her and their eyes locked, and he knew something was wrong. Suddenly, he felt cornered. He looked past her and saw the two men coming, one grabbing the other's arm, that one shaking it off and still coming.
Something was very wrong here…
64
Keough saw Steinbach try to grab Hannibal's arm, but the younger man wasn't having any of it. He was heading right for Eric Pautz.
"Shit."
"What's going on?" Connors asked, coming up next to him.
"Your partner's about to blow it," Keough said.
"I can stop him-"
"It's too late," Keough said. "Pautz sees him."
And then to compound the error Hannibal suddenly shouted, "FBI! Put your hands up!" and produced his gun.
Pautz looked around frantically for someplace to run, and Keough suddenly had an idea. They had to force him into the section of stores that led to the covered parking lot.
Steinbach came forward and now had a firm hold on Hannibal's arm.
"Al," Keough said into his radio, hoping that Steinbach had a unit, "herd him into the covered parking."
"He won't go in covered parking," Connors said, "you said so."
"He will if he has nowhere else to run."
And he didn't, unless he wanted to go into a store and take a hostage, but he didn't think like that. Keough was sure that Eric Pautz's thoughts would be of flight, not of hostages.
The Mall Rat turned to run and saw both Keough and Connors.
"We can't grab him," she said. "We don't have anything on him."
We don't have a choice, now, Keough thought, thanks to her partner, and thanks to circumstances.
The two teenage boys scrambled out of the way, not knowing what was going on, but knowing that something serious was happening.
Pautz turned again and saw Steinbach and Hannibal closing in now, along with Tompkins.
He looked around frantically. There was only one place to run, and he went for it.
He started running down the hallway toward the entrance to the covered parking lot. Keough didn't know if Pautz knew where he was going, or if he was just looking for a way out.
As the five of them followed, Keough shouted into the radio, "We need to seal off covered parking."
"Which area?" a voice came back.
"I don't know," Keough shouted, angrily. I low could he know how they divided the area up? "Seal it all off."
Pautz went through the door, leaving Keough worried because he didn't know how big the covered parking lot was.
***
Eric Pautz ran toward the only door he could see. He heard shouting behind him, and running, but he didn't dare look back. His heart was pounding. If they caught him they were going to punish him. If his mother found out…
He ran through the door and he had the choice of going up a short flight of concrete steps, or down. He chose down, and then right. He started to run, and then suddenly he realized where he was. The ceiling seemed impossibly low, there were too many vehicles. A car drove up behind him, then sounded its horn. It echoed off the concrete ceiling and walls; Pautz put his hands over his ears to try and block it out. He broke into a cold sweat and suddenly the floor seemed slanted as his senses were assailed by a bout of vertigo.
Suddenly, he fell to his knees…
***
"What's going on?" Hannibal asked, aloud.
"Everybody stay where you are," Keough said. "It's the confined space."
"He doesn't have a weapon," Hannibal said. "Let's get him."
At that point Captain Battle of the mall security and Officer Hardey came through the door behind them, both with their guns drawn.
"Put those away," Keough said, as another horn sounded. A second car had come up behind Pautz, who was still on his knees, blocking the aisle.
"Get out of the way!" the driver yelled.
"Captain," Keough said, "get that car to back up, but walk all the way around our man. Don't go near him."
"Right."
"What are you going to do?" Connors asked.
"If we grab him now we've got nothing on him beyond flight to resist arrest. I've got to get him to confess."
"Confess?" Hannibal asked. "How-"
"That's the only way we can take him for the murders," Keough said. "He's got to confess in front of all of us."
Keough didn't know what a defense attorney's psychiatrist would do with this sort of confession, but he couldn't worry about that now. They simply could not let the man get away.
"Just stay back and let me talk to him," Keough said, starting forward.
"Let's move around and surround them," Connors said to the others as Keough started walking. "We don't want him getting away."
"Right," Steinbach said, and they all started circling with their guns still holstered.
&nbs
p; ***
Still holding his hands over his ears, Pautz saw the man coming toward him. The second horn seemed to be echoing inside his head now, and he still felt as if the floor was slanted. Tears mingled on his face with beads of sweat, and his skin felt prickly.
"Eric?"
The voice was muffled. He was surprised that the man knew his name.
"Eric? I want to help you."
"Get me out of here!" Pautz screamed, startling both Keough and himself.
"I can get you out of here, Eric," Keough said, "but you've got to do something for me first."
"What?" Pautz asked. A spit bubble formed on his mouth and popped. Tears and mucus streamed into his mouth. "What do I have to do?"
Keough came closer. The car behind Pautz backed up. Slowly, the Mall Rat removed his hands from his ears so he could hear what he had to do to get out of the parking lot.
"I need you to tell me about the women," Keough said, "and the babies, Eric."
"The babies…" Pautz repeated.
Once again it occurred to Keough that the baby they found dead had met its end accidently. He decided to use that.
"Why did you kill one of the babies?" he asked.
"The babies…"
Pautz looked confused, his hands hovering inches away from his ears, ready to clap back over them if the need arose.
"The babies…"
"You killed one of the babies, Eric," Keough said. "We found the other ones in the Dumpsters, but you killed one of them."
"I… I didn't…"
"Yes, you did."
Pautz shook his head violently.
"Didn't… wouldn't kill the baby… I took care of him…"
"You took care of the first two," Keough said, "but the third one died."
"I took care of him," Pautz said again, and Keough wasn't sure they were talking about the same thing.
"The women, Eric," he said, "you killed the women…"
"Yes," Pautz said, "I killed the women."
"Why?"
"They weren't… right," he said. "They weren't the right ones… I thought they were."
"And the babies?"
"I didn't hurt the babies," Pautz said. "I put them where they would be found."
"Except for the third one, the one that died."
"No," Pautz said, "I didn't… I put him in a Dumpster, like the others. It wasn't my fault nobody found him… not my fault…"
"But the women," Keough said, wanting him to say it again, "you did kill the women?"
Pautz looked directly at Keough and said, "I… I killed them…" His eyes were wild, showing whites all the way around, and he looked around him without moving his head, just his eyes, so that they seemed to be rolling in his head.
"Can you let me out? Can you let me out… now?"
"One more thing, Eric."
"I have to get out," Pautz said, and it came out in an anguished whisper.
"One more thing."
"W-what?"
"The policeman."
Pautz closed his eyes.
"I didn't mean it," he said. "He scared me."
"He scared you?"
Pautz nodded.
"I hid in the closet, but he found me."
"You had a knife."
Pautz nodded.
"And you stabbed him."
Another nod.
"Because he scared you?"
"Yes," he said, "he broke into my house, and I was scared." His eyes pleaded with Keough. "Can you take me out of here now?"
"Yes, Eric," Keough said, walking to him and reaching down, "I can take you out now."
He took Pautz by the arm and lifted him to his feet. The man's hands were still hovering near his ears. He looked at Keough, eyes wild, and said, "Mister?"
"Yes."
"About the baby?"
"What about the baby?"
Pautz finally moved a hand, wiping some tears and mucus from his face, and said, "Don't tell my mother?"
65
"There are some things I don't understand," Steinbach said.
It was three days after the Mall Rat was apprehended. The newspapers had even used the name, which they had apparently gotten from someone. Steinbach? Hannibal? Perhaps by accident, someone letting the name slip? It didn't really matter.
They had taken Eric Pautz from the Galleria to the nearest police station, that being Richmond Heights. He was be held there until the FBI could arrange transportation, which they did, later in the day. The Mall Rat was no longer Keough's concern. The FBI had taken over, had gone through Pautz's apartment, and was now trying to ascertain where he had hidden the body of the third woman and if he had committed any other murders that they didn't know about, either in St. Louis or someplace else.
"There are always things we don't understand," Connors said, "or that we can't explain."
They were all there: Keough, Steinbach, Connors, Hannibal, and McGwire. The decoy, Tompkins, had been sent back to Denver with the assurance that she had done her best, and had actually been a help.
"What's not to understand?" Keough asked.
"Well, why was he taking blond mothers and children, for one thing?" Hannibal asked.
"There was a photo in his house," Connors said.
"Of who?"
"A blond woman."
"Who was she? His mother?" Steinbach asked.
"We're not sure."
"What do you mean, you're not sure?"
"Well," she said, "according to him, it's either his mother, or his baby-sitter."
"What? He doesn't know-"
"He's a little confused," she said.
"He's a lot confused," Hannibal said.
"Apparently his mother was a pretty blonde, but so was his baby-sitter when he was a child. Also, there's a younger brother he used to care for, and apparently there was some transference going on when it came to the babies. He used them to get the mothers to do what he wanted, but he never meant to hurt them. He thought he'd get in trouble if he did."
"He was killing women," Steinbach said, "but thought he'd get in trouble if he hurt the babies?"
"That's about it," she said.
Steinbach shook his head and looked at Keough, who rolled his eyes. Keough was not interested in the psychological reasons for Eric Pautz's crimes. He was satisfied with getting him off the streets.
"Are the charges going to stick?" he asked.
"I think so," Connors said. "He repeated his confession under much calmer conditions. I think we can make it stick."
"What about the closet?" Steinbach asked.
"What about it?" Connors asked.
"Well, he was afraid of the covered parking, right? Like, claustrophobic, right?"
"Right."
"Then how could he wait for Jackson in a closet?"
"Apparently," Connors said, "he considered the closet his safe place. This was a holdover from his childhood."
"And what about the porno movie? Strolling Blondes?"
"We screened it," Hannibal said, making it sound like a Hollywood premiere. "It's about blond mothers having sex with… whoever."
"I don't get it," Steinbach said. "Did he kill these women because they looked like his mother? His babysitter? Or the women in the movies?"
"Yes," Connors said, and before anyone else could speak the phone rang.
"Major Case," Captain McGwire said, picking it up. He listened for a moment, then held it out to Keough. "For you."
"Thanks."
Keough stepped away from the others as Steinbach kept asking questions, and said, "Hello?"
"Joe, it's Valerie."
"I've been meaning to call-"
"It's happening again, Joe," she said, agitated.
"What is?"
"Brady," she said. "There's a man hanging around his foster home."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"Give me the address, Valerie," he said, grabbing a slip of paper…
***
He didn't tell anyone where he was g
oing. He still hadn't told McGwire that he had continued to work the Sanders case, even now that he was the fair-haired boy.
The foster home was in Sunset Hills this time, a nicer neighborhood, where people were concerned about strangers hanging around. He wasn't sure why the foster parents had called Valerie and not the police, but that didn't matter. He hoped that whoever the man was, he'd stay around long enough for Keough to catch him.
On the way he wondered-if this was indeed the same man-how he had managed to get the addresses of both the foster homes that Brady had been put in. He also hoped that this second incident wouldn't cost Brady his second foster home.
Sunset Hills was filled with residential neighborhoods, some better than others, but none of them below the lower rung of upper-middle class. People who owned homes there cared about them, kept up the appearance of their property, and chipped in for neighborhood security. Keough knew that because as he pulled up in front of the house he saw a private security car also parked there.
The man was just getting out of his car. Keough approached him, flashing his ID.
"What was your call?" he asked.
"A Peeping Tom," the man answered. He was young, so Keough doubted he was an ex-cop.
"What address called you?"
The man told him, and it matched Brady's address.
"Do you automatically put in a call for the police?"
"No, sir," the man said, "not for a call of this nature. Do we, uh, need backup?"
"I don't think so. What's your name?"
"Henry Deavers, sir."
"Henry, why don't you go around the right side of the house and I'll go around the left and we'll see what we can find."
"Okay."
He saw the man put his hand on his gun.
"Keep your gun holstered, okay? I don't think you'll be needing it."
"Yes, sir."
"Let's go."
This appeared to be one of the better Sunset Hills neighborhoods. The homes were large and well built, with driveways and two-car garages. Keough thought that this place was actually more like the home Brady had lived in with his parents than the one in Florissant had been. The little guy was probably comfortable here.
In the Shadow of the Arch Page 24
