Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  “Observation room two.”

  “Stay put,” he told me. “He’s a couple of doors down. I need a few minutes. There’s a little cubbyhole with espresso if you walk past the elevators. You have time. And you look like the latte type. That’s what they drink in the city, right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s the official drink. What type are you?”

  “Latte,” he said, and I heard his smile.

  I clicked off and pushed in Rauser’s number. I hadn’t even called to say good night last night.

  “Streeeet,” he answered. “Highlight of the morning right here. How’s it going down there?”

  “Another girl disappeared yesterday afternoon. It’s our guy. We caught a break on some physical evidence, though,” I said. “The sheriff’s team is icing me out. Two investigators. Total dicks. I may have to go rogue.”

  “That’s your specialty,” he said, and we were quiet for a few seconds. I paced the empty corridor with the phone to my ear. Light streamed in a row of windows lining the corridor. I looked down at the asphalt parking lot and the newly planted saplings that edged up against it. “Listen, Keye,” Rauser said. “I know we’re new at this. Maybe you feel like you gotta report in or whatever. Maybe you’ve been with the kind of guy who needs that. Me, I’m not an insecure man.”

  “Where’s this coming from?” I asked.

  “You give me room when I’m working. The favor extends both ways, that’s all. That’s why we’re good together, you and me. So just, you know, find the kid. I’m good. White Trash is being totally sadistic to Hank but I think he’s starting to like it.”

  Rauser was not only a secure man, he was an instinctive one. He knows me. And he knows what to do when he feels me slipping. He lets go. I leaned my back against the cold marble wall, closed my eyes. “You have any idea how much I love you?”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, and I heard the flint on his old Zippo catch on the third strike. “You left me with your cat.”

  He’d stopped smoking last Thanksgiving. And now it seemed he was again. I didn’t question him. I understand all the ways addiction can rise up and pull you back under.

  We said good-bye and less than ten minutes later, I was standing in an observation room with Sheriff Meltzer, watching Logan Peele drum his fingers against a gray metal tabletop in an interview room devoid of natural light. We were each holding a latte. I’d bought three. The third for Peele. Meltzer pulled the plastic cap off his cup and blew into steamed milk and coffee. The judicial center didn’t know it was August outside. Icy air blasted through new ductwork.

  Peele got up and paced the room. He had the fluid movements of someone completely at ease with his body, the gym body he’d probably developed in prison. But that body had the coiled energy of a cheetah. Irritation was getting the best of him. He didn’t seem to be aware of being watched, but I knew that he was certain he was.

  Meltzer chuckled. “He doesn’t like waiting. Or is it confined spaces?”

  “He doesn’t like anything he can’t control,” I answered. “How long’s he been there?”

  “An hour. I wanted to wait for my deputies to give his property a good going-over while he was gone.”

  “Nothing?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Meltzer said. “And you don’t seem surprised.”

  “Acquiring a victim right after your people left his property would have been brazen. Bringing her back to that same property, even more so.”

  Meltzer glanced at me. “He’s arrogant enough.”

  “True.” I nodded. “But I don’t think he’s stupid enough. I guarantee he hasn’t stopped the behaviors that put him in jail the first time. He’s just gotten smarter.”

  “He could be holding Skylar somewhere else.”

  “True again.”

  He opened the door for me and we stepped into the corridor, then into the interview room where Peele waited. “Welcome back to the Hitchiti County Judicial Center, Mr. Peele,” Sheriff Meltzer said as we walked in carrying our coffees. “Have a seat.” Meltzer set a cup down in front of Peele.

  Peele eyed the coffee, took it in his hand, a coating of red hair on his knuckles. He didn’t sit. “I should have known you were the reason I had to wait.”

  “Just a couple of questions before you collect your things, then you’re free to go.”

  “Where are my things?”

  “Downstairs,” Meltzer told him. “Property room. You sign for them and you’re free to go.”

  Peele pried the top off the latte and sipped. “Not bad,” he remarked. “And since you obviously didn’t find what you were looking for on my stuff, I’ll just enjoy this on the way home.”

  Meltzer’s hand closed down on Peele’s wrist, fast like a trap closing. “Sit,” he demanded.

  Peele stared at him. Then he lowered himself back down and found his smirk.

  “You didn’t fuck up my day enough yesterday?” Color was coming up in the fair skin on his neck. “I have to make a living, Sheriff Meltzer. You’re not supposed to interfere with that.”

  “Tell us about yesterday,” I said. “After the sheriff’s team left your house. What did you do?”

  “Well, Dr. Street, I fucking cleaned my house. The team made a mess. I might as well have invited in a bunch of baboons.”

  “After that,” I pressed. “Between three and four?”

  “I drove to Conyers, where I could find a decent place to shop. And where nobody knows me. God, I need to move out of this hick town.”

  “What kind of store?”

  “Food, Sheriff. A man’s got to eat.”

  “You have your receipt?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Peele smirked. “Maybe.”

  “A guy like you knows where his receipts are,” I said. “You know where everything is.”

  Peele showed me the straight row of small white teeth. “Perceptive,” he said.

  “Where’s the receipt, Logan?” Meltzer asked. He wasn’t amused.

  “I probably threw it away,” Peele answered. His index finger picked at the cardboard sleeve on his latte.

  “You must have thrown it away somewhere other than home,” Meltzer said. “Because we’ve been through everything in that house, including the trash, while you were sitting here.”

  Peele didn’t blink.

  “What’s the name of the store?” Meltzer asked.

  Peele was silent.

  “Did you use a credit or debit card?”

  “Cash,” Peele said.

  “I don’t think you fully understand the situation you’re in.” The sheriff leaned forward and looked into Peele’s blue eyes. “We just searched everything you own. In fact, my deputies probably spilled trash all over your shiny floors. You know, because they’re baboons.”

  Peele smiled.

  “A very serious crime has been committed,” Meltzer pushed. “And you don’t seem to have an alibi.”

  Our coffee jumped. The flat of Peele’s hand had slammed the tabletop. The dam had broken. “And you don’t seem to have a missing fucking girl. Or anything else. So fuck off.”

  Meltzer sat back, glanced at me. “Did I mention a girl, Dr. Street?”

  “No, Sheriff. I don’t think you did,” I replied.

  He’d stumbled for the first time. “I’m speaking in generalities.” His eyes blazed at us. “I figure it’s something like that or you wouldn’t be fucking with me.”

  Posters had not even begun to hit telephone poles and bulletin boards, neighborhood searches hadn’t even had time to organize. “How does a man who says he has no friends in town and who doesn’t have devices to monitor the Whisper gossip feed hear about a missing girl?” I asked.

  “I never said I didn’t have a television,” Peele’s blue eyes danced with energy and nerves and the delight of confrontation. “Look, I had a meeting here at seven last night. That should be easy enough to check.”

  “What kind of meeting?”

  “Sex offender treatment progra
m. Sheriff, you should keep up with these things. I was right downstairs. It’s a lot of fun. Guys like to relive their freaky shit on the pretense of expressing remorse. Remorse is a big theme. You should drop in sometime, Dr. Street. Everyone leaves with a hard-on.”

  The hand Meltzer had on the table closed into a fist. His forearm flexed. I shot him a look. Chill. Interview rooms have cameras.

  Peele had seen what I had seen. He’d have learned to read aggression in jail. He rocked back in his chair, folded arms over his chest. Meltzer put Skylar’s picture on his phone and pushed it across the table. Peele didn’t look at it. “She lives about a mile from you,” Meltzer said.

  “It’s Whisper,” Peele said. “Everyone lives a mile from me.”

  “She attends the junior high,” Meltzer continued. “She didn’t come home yesterday afternoon.”

  “I’m not allowed to hang out around schools, Sheriff. Remember?”

  “You have another piece of property somewhere, Logan? A little getaway maybe?”

  “I’m sure you’ve already double-checked those records and found out I do not.” Peele looked down at Meltzer’s phone, touched the screen with a manicured fingertip to bring it back to life. “Nice-looking kid. Never had the pleasure.”

  “If anything happens to this girl because of something you’ve done or withheld, everything you’ve built since you got out, that clean house, all your nice electronics, all the things you control, it’s all gone,” Meltzer threatened. “Have a great day.”

  Peele stood up, put one finger on the top of the coffee cup we’d brought him, and pushed. It tipped over. Coffee slowly gurgled out the plastic spout onto the table. He walked out.

  “Great guy,” Meltzer grumbled when the door slammed behind Peele. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. He righted the cup and we stared at the milky pool on the table.

  “Three dollars in latte right there,” I remarked.

  “So how do I cover this bastard?” Meltzer wanted to know. “I can’t afford to lose him.”

  “Give him room,” I said. “Because if he’s the one, he’s hidden Skylar somewhere else.”

  “She’ll need food and water—”

  “He wouldn’t care what she’d need, Ken. If he supplies her with anything it’s to use it as a bargaining chip. Not because he cares if she’s hungry and thirsty. He’d let her die to keep from exposing himself. And the only regret he’d have is that he didn’t get enough time with her. Never forget that.”

  27

  Victoria Pope rose from her chair and came around her desk to greet me. She was slim, African American, with straight shoulder-length hair. “You must be Dr. Street.” She extended a thin hand. Short mauve-colored nails precisely matched the color of her blouse. “Please.” She gestured me to the corner of the office where there were two chairs with a small walnut table between them. It was an interior room in the judicial center complex. No windows. But bookcases and vases of dried flowers, a couple of paintings, and walls of deep saffron warmed the office. She took one of the chairs, crossed long brown legs that looked like they spent some time at the gym. “Ken Meltzer asked me to speak with you about the participants in our sex offender counseling and treatment program.”

  “Thank you for seeing me so quickly,” I said.

  “Normally, only a review committee would be privy to information regarding our sessions.” Her voice was tentative. Almond-shaped eyes studied my face.

  “I understand,” I said. “It’s also my understanding that given your position as an in-house psychologist with the state, the privacy that normally exists between doctor and patient is forfeited in a criminal investigation. There’s also a clear-and-present-danger exception. And I wouldn’t disturb you if I didn’t believe that exception applies here.”

  “I am compelled to provide certain information, yes,” she conceded.

  “A thirteen-year-old girl was abducted yesterday just a few miles from here. She was last seen walking home from Whisper Middle School at three o’clock. We believe her disappearance is connected to the unsolved murders of Tracy Davidson and Melinda Cochran.”

  “The bodies that were found in the woods.” She said it without emotion.

  “Yes. The suspect is using a lure to attract the victim. Physical evidence tells us he’s pretending his vehicle has broken down. After he overpowers the girls, he disassembles their phones and GPS, wipes his fingerprints. That sound like any of your guys?”

  She thought for a moment before replying, her eyes on one of the paintings, a landscape of a river. “The purpose of treatment is to break the chain of behaviors that lead to sexual reoffending, Dr. Street. With work, it provides skill sets to live productive, prosocial lives without the offending behaviors. That’s what we’re trying to do here. We’ve had good results.”

  “Uh-huh. So are any of your guys right for this?” I pressed.

  “They are not unlike addicts. Most of them are one bad decision away from a relapse and—”

  “Let’s talk about the ones you think are making bad decisions right now,” I interrupted.

  “I have the feeling you’re not particularly interested in the work we’re doing here.” She spoke in that polite, nonreactive tone every counselor I’ve ever known uses.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful.” I matched her polite and raised her some of my southern mama. “I just don’t have time to care about your program, Dr. Pope, or whatever it is you’re trying so hard to protect. What interests me is narrowing the suspect pool as quickly as possible in order to get this child home alive, and with the minimum physical and psychological damage.”

  “I understand but—”

  I interrupted again and saw her surprise. “Every hour that ticks by increases the likelihood that a thirteen-year-old child will be brutalized and raped by a sexual sadist. The two murder victims found in the woods were that age. Before they died, they had suffered significant malnutrition.” I saw Victoria Pope’s lips twitch. “He starved them before he killed them. They had bone injuries. They had been tortured. I’m not here to cast a shadow on your treatment program. I fully understand the value of counseling in breaking destructive chains of behavior.” I decided not to tell her just how intimately I comprehended destructive chains of behavior.

  “What makes you think one of my group is involved?” Again her tone was devoid of resentment or anything that resembled emotion.

  “In an interview this morning, Logan Peele mentioned a girl disappearing before we’d given him that information. He claimed he’d seen it on the news. Maybe he did. But it has to be explored. His alibi is soft for the time the girl disappeared. He says he was here later.”

  “Logan was the first one here last night,” she said. “I found him alone in the conference room where we meet.”

  “How did you find his demeanor?”

  That mouth twitch again. If we were playing poker I’d watch for that. And maybe we were. She didn’t answer my question. “Have you met Logan Peele?” she asked me instead.

  “Yes, I have.”

  “He can be quite aggressive and arrogant. He made sexual remarks to me before group. He wants to believe—and he wants me to believe—that he is attracted to adult women. And he wants to frighten me. But I didn’t notice anything different about him last night.”

  “He have any friends in the group?”

  “My patients aren’t supposed to have any contact with one another outside our sessions. Or with any other convicted felon. To my knowledge, they don’t communicate outside group.”

  “Three victims have been abducted sometime after leaving their school. As I said, the physical evidence suggests the con is probably engine trouble. Anything familiar about that scenario? Maybe something someone talked about in group?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “How about the names? Tracy, Melinda, Skylar.”

  “No,” she said again. “I require my patients not to use real names here. We have to consider the victi
ms’ privacy and safety.”

  I thought about Peele saying they used therapy as a way to brag about their crimes and get a sexual charge. “Logan Peele told us that some of your members talk about their offenses in some detail during these sessions,” I said.

  “That’s true. But I monitor this extremely closely. I pay attention to the details and how they are delivered. I stop it immediately if it begins to sound like anything but contrition.”

  “What do you think about Mr. Peele?” I asked her.

  “One of the ways we measure progress is how willing a sexual offender is to acknowledge and accept responsibility for his behaviors and for the repercussions of his behaviors,” she responded. “I have three members of my group who have a long ways to go in that regard. Logan is one of them.”

  I agreed. “Peele blamed his ex-wife for turning him in.”

  “Exactly. Some offenders can learn to take responsibility for their actions and control sexually abusive behaviors. But Logan was grossly underclassified as a medium-risk offender,” Victoria Pope told me. It was exactly what I’d thought when I’d read his file. “If he was upgraded to high risk he could be electronically monitored. I’ve made that recommendation for three of these men. Logan only comes to group because it’s part of his contract to stay out of jail. The same was true with Lewis Freeman. But the system is overwhelmed. Some offenders slip through the cracks.” She paused. “I’m glad Lewis is back in jail, Dr. Street. I’ve talked to his parole officer twice in six months with concerns about his likelihood of reoffending and the unlikelihood he can be rehabilitated. I would never put the success of the program above the lives of children.”

  “Who else besides Peele and Freeman was in the group you thought should be reevaluated?”

  She hesitated again, then gave me the name Lamar Bailey. I’d seen it on the final list of eight registered sex offenders Neil had compiled. I had read Bailey’s statements to the parole board, and unlike with the cases of Peele and Freeman, I’d detected an acceptance of his actions and their impact on his life and others. I’d thought I’d heard remorse and a desire to change. But Dr. Pope had the opportunity to observe him in life. Perhaps she was privy to information she wasn’t disclosing now.