Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  “He wants to be understood. He thinks I can. It’s a kind of transference. Happens in therapy. Patients fixate, sometimes even eroticize the person they think accepts their actions without judgment. He probably believes I have the empathy for him he lacks for his victims.” I thought for a minute while Meltzer sped up the two-lane. “He’s come full circle. He very carefully and quietly captured, held captive, and murdered Tracy Davidson. Her body lies there for a decade and he doesn’t need attention, doesn’t even need to reoffend, as far as we can tell. Then something triggered him and he took Melinda Cochran. There was an escalation in violence, evidence of torture. Melinda’s death was bloodier, more fantastic, an attempted decapitation. Now Skylar. And the letters. Leaving the card today was clever, but he’s not brilliant. He simply knows the routines of the town.”

  “I keep thinking about the people I know here in this county,” Meltzer said. “You know, the person who could walk down Main Street talking to people or whatever after he put that card under the door with a picture like that. And I can’t seem to put the pieces together. To think someone around here is responsible boggles the mind. We have some characters. And we have some troublemakers. But none of them could do this.”

  “Yeah, well, back to the liar thing,” I said as we pulled onto the side road to the judicial center. “This ability to compartmentalize, to brutalize a victim without guilt, then be kind to the family and the neighbors, it’s just a magnified extension of the way we separate from events and behaviors every day. Cops compartmentalize. You have to. That’s what allows a psychopath to fit in to his surroundings. Look at Ariel Castro, just a guy in the neighborhood. He liked music. He was quiet. His friends liked him. At trial he said he was a good person, that he wasn’t a monster.”

  “Back to the self-reflection thing,” Meltzer said.

  “Who was on Main Street today that absolutely no one would think twice about?”

  “Shopkeepers,” Meltzer replied. “Regular customers.”

  “The minister’s wife,” I said, and Meltzer’s head whipped around. I held up palms. “Hey, just an example. Everyone saw Mrs. Hutchins but no one mentioned her because they knew the questioning related to the kidnapped and murdered girls.” I sat there staring down at the letter on my phone. An idea crossed my mind. “You said a lot of hunters use those woods around the crime scene, right?”

  Meltzer nodded, and pulled into the slot on the side of the building marked with his title. “Why?”

  “When I was at Whisper Lanes, some guys at the bar were talking about hunting. One of them said something about his cams.”

  “Cameras,” he said. “Trail cameras. Sure. You know who the guys were?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve never seen any cameras out there,” he said, and called Raymond. “Rob, you see any hunters’ cameras out there in the woods where we found the bodies?”

  “Wasn’t looking,” Raymond’s breath sounded labored. Hot day. Sunny park. Sour stomach. I almost smiled. “Not that easy to see anyway. Hunters camouflage them.”

  “You know anyone that uses cameras?” Meltzer asked.

  “No, but Bryant’s place gets packed with hunters in season,” Raymond answered. “He might know. Why you thinking trail cams?”

  Meltzer explained what I’d heard.

  “Want me to follow it?” Raymond asked. “Not much of a lead, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  And you can get out of the sun and into a nice, cool bar for a beer, I thought. Meltzer said, “Stay in town. Things don’t happen in a vacuum. Somebody saw something. I want Skylar home, Detective. Alive.”

  38

  I passed the city limits sign on 441 and saw the white bowling pin on the front of the building, glowing white in the sun as if it had been dipped in bleach. I parked in front of the red-and-white oblong building and saw the lavender neon on the door—COCKTAILS. I took a long drink from bottled water that had lost its chill in my car and thought about vodka and soda, a tall glass, lots of ice, a twist. A handwritten sign on the entrance said: FRIDAY NIGHT WESTERN NIGHT CANCELED. COME PRAY FOR OUR CHILDREN IN WHISPER PARK.

  The air inside was dry and cold and lit for a lounge. The lanes stretched out empty today, like gleaming runways, abandoned and polished and waiting. No balls rumbling down the alley and cracking into pins, just the croon of country music coming softly through speakers and the inconstant murmur of voices from the bar.

  I tried to remember the men I’d seen when I was here. Two men with caps and T-shirts, redneck-looking guys with some bulk and scruff. I couldn’t have picked either out of a lineup right now, and that irritated me. But I remembered the woman in skinny jeans and a curly perm. I spotted her now at the bar with a glass of white wine in front of her. The fingers on her left hand were busy flicking at her nails. She missed having a cigarette in her hand, I thought, and immediately remembered Rauser’s nicotine cravings blasting over him.

  I took the stool beside her, nodded when she glanced at me. Bryant Cochran saw me and came over. His hair was combed and his beard was trimmed. “Ms. Street, how can I help you?”

  Movement caught my eye. Molly Cochran came out of the back. She was in western boots and a skirt. She was pretty and curvy, a small-town Miranda Lambert. “What is it? Did they find the girl? Did they get him?”

  “No. I’m sorry,” I said. Curly Perm leaned in closer. “But we’re very close,” I lied. Bryant moved on, to serve someone at the end of the bar. “I just had a couple of questions for your husband when he’s free. About a customer.” I smiled. “You doing double duty?”

  “I’m always here on Friday, darlin’.” She spoke with the same open friendliness she’d shown me at the diner. “It’s his busy night. Nothing to do in Whisper on a Friday night except come here for dancing and drinking and bowling. Parking lot’s usually packed by seven. And the kids fill up the alleys.” She ran a soft white towel around the inside of a beer glass, held it to the light, saw a spot, and used the towel again. “Not tonight, though.”

  “This must be hard,” I told her. “It’s so fresh. I know it brings up a lot of emotion.”

  “Every ache those parents are feeling while they wait for their little girl to come home, we’ve ached,” Molly said. “Whisper supported us, we want to be there for it. You coming?”

  Yes, I wanted to say, because he’ll be there. Because he’ll have to be there. He has to appear normal. “Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

  Bryant set a club soda in front of me, a twisty bit of lemon attached to the rim, lots of ice. A good bartender always remembers. I thanked him and took it gratefully. “There were a couple of customers here yesterday,” I told him, then glanced at Curly Perm. “They were talking about hunting. Both had ball caps, scruffy beards.”

  “That’s about half our customers,” Bryant said. Molly slid the polished glass in the rack and picked up another one.

  “I heard you talking to them,” I said to Curly Perm.

  “Could be Tom and Will,” she said. She was trying to be careful with her tongue but she was overcompensating, like a drunk walking down the sidewalk. “ ’Member what they were talking about?”

  “Trail cameras,” I said. “Hunters’ cams.”

  “It does sound like Tom Watson and Will Rawlins,” Bryant said. “They were here a couple of times this week. Big-time hunters.”

  “You know how to get in touch with them?” The club soda felt good in my hand, natural. I took a drink and let the soda burn my throat.

  Curly Perm giggled and slid her empty glass to the edge of the bar. I figured it was her third. “I didn’t even know their last names.”

  Bryant pulled a clean glass from the hanging rack and poured from an uncorked bottle of white wine. “Tom lives in Whisper. Has some land on the other side of the bridge out there near the national forest.” His voice faltered. That wasn’t far from where his daughter’s body had been found in a crater in the woods. “You think a camera got something?”

  “Just f
ollowing every angle,” I said noncommittally. “Is that common knowledge? This trail camera thing? Lot of hunters use them?”

  “I didn’t know about them until Tom mentioned he’d set some up last year so he could see where the deer hang out. I thought it was stupid,” Bryant told me. “Like cheating. Like fishing with firecrackers. Tom says his wife and kids really like watching the footage too, ’cause the deer are so beautiful and all. And he can track their patterns.”

  I slid my card onto the bar. Molly picked it up as fast as a dirty glass. “If he happens to stop by, give him my card. See y’all tonight.”

  I took another gulp of cold soda, then walked out into the blasting heat. I had Neil on the phone before I reached my car. “I need an address and phone number in Whisper for Tom Watson, probably Thomas. Mobile number, if you can get it. Text it to me.”

  “About how old is this guy?” Neil wanted to know. “That’s a common name.”

  “Late twenties. Thirty at most. And it’s Whisper, Neil. There’s like only two thousand permanent residents here.”

  “Just want to make sure I don’t hook you up with his dad. I’ll text. And don’t look at your phone until you’re stopped. That boat you drive will end up in a ditch.”

  I called Tom Watson’s home number as soon as the text came and got a recording. I tried the mobile number and got voice mail there too. “Mr. Watson, my name is Keye Street. I’m a consulting detective to the Hitchiti County Sheriff’s Department. You may have information that would be helpful in an investigation. Would you call me back as soon as possible?” I left my number as I pulled into Whisper and cruised around until I found an empty parking space behind the hardware store.

  The park was full of kids and teachers and parents. A long folding table displayed clear plastic bags filled with new tea lights. A plywood stage had been set up. Another plywood base had been covered with red velvet. Two girls about Skylar’s age knelt there, each of them with a bag of tea lights. They set them in the base and squeezed glue on the bottom, placing them carefully in a pattern I couldn’t make out. I saw Brolin and Raymond talking to two kids. Robbie and one of the boys I’d seen come out of the smoothie shop were setting up a lectern on the stage. A photo of Skylar was taped to the front. Over the heads of strangers, I saw Pastor Hutchins and his wife. Bernadette had her arm around the shoulder of a young girl. Her hair was blond and long. Their daughter, Robin, I presumed, whom Skylar had mentioned in her diary—Skylar’s perfect family.

  I crossed to the school, stood at the double doors, and checked the time. Four-oh-five. I walked at a leisurely pace down the steps, across the schoolyard, and through the park, feeling the sun on my back as Skylar would have just yesterday, which felt like a thousand years ago. The cool shade dropped down around me when I stepped onto the path. It was well marked and well used. I imagined Skylar using this path every day, walking home, thinking about school, her friends, her crushes, getting home to Luke.

  Light flickered between the trees. When I stepped out of the tree line and reached the center of Cottonwood Road it was four-seventeen. Twenty-five hours to the minute since the call was placed from her mobile to the landline inside the house. It would have taken Skylar twelve minutes to get from the school to the point where the offender acquired her. It had taken another five minutes for the offender to get her phone and make the call. They’d talked for a couple of minutes, I realized. He’d been biding his time, running his con, probably messing with his engine, building his courage, waiting for that moment, hoping it would be as terrible, as spectacular, as he’d fantasized.

  I crossed through the tangle of people preparing the park for the vigil to get my car. Mr. Smith stood outside his hardware store talking to a couple I recognized from their Main Street shops, the antiques dealer, the pharmacist. All grew quiet as I neared. We exchanged a nod.

  Six minutes later I was on Cottonwood Road looking at the mouth of the trail I’d just used to retrace Skylar’s steps. The killer could have watched Skylar leave school from just about anywhere in downtown Whisper, beat her here, and set up his fake breakdown with minutes to spare. He would have wanted to do it that way, I thought. He’d want his timing to be spot-on in order to minimize his time on the road and the possibility of a witness. He had a coyote’s mind for gauging his risk.

  I got out of my car and gazed down at the Barbours’ white-fenced home. Red dust from the road drifted by. There were cars in the Barbours’ driveway, family and friends, no doubt, huddling in close for comfort. Then I heard my phone buzzing on my seat and reached in for it, hoping it would be a return call from the hunter Tom Watson. It wasn’t. It was the deputy Meltzer had assigned to chart progress and relay developments.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Street. Wanted to let you know we now have access to the Internet storage with Skylar Barbour’s saved photos.”

  “Can you email me something?”

  “There are hundreds of photographs,” she told me.

  “How about a link?”

  “Not my area. I’ll see what tech can do,” Ferrell answered.

  “Tell me what you see,” I said. “Any photographs of adults?”

  She was quiet for a minute. I envisioned her scrolling through Skylar’s photo stream on the war room monitor, row after row of Skylar’s friends, Luke, places the girl had been. “Mostly kids. Mostly girls being goofy, her dog, a couple boys. Band trips. Adults in those pictures we’re attempting to identify. Probably chaperones. Couple pictures of her parents,” she told me. “And there are a few with the minister and his family standing in front of the community garden.”

  Skylar had snapped the picture of the family she wished she had.

  I hung up just feet from where Skylar had been abducted. Yellow spray paint marked the areas where evidence was found on the road last night—Skylar’s blood, the smashed phone, the case and compact and nail file.

  I looked up at the Barbours’ ranch house on the hill, shadowed by black walnut trees, the afternoon sun turning the filigreed, breeze-ruffled leaves bright.

  I got back in my hot car. Heat and irritation prickled my skin. Nothing had panned out. I felt like pounding my fists on the dashboard. Meanwhile, that little girl was perched on some demented tightrope. Not one lead had taken us anywhere, not Skylar’s diary or call log or photos, not one witness, the sex offenders—Lewis Freeman and Logan Peele, or the old offender who’d whispered to him in an empty corridor on video—not Lamar Bailey who hadn’t shown for his mandatory group therapy because he was in the hospital. Not Daniel Tray who’d alibied out because he fucked a married woman twice a month.

  It’s not like television. Not everything works out in the end. That possibility rocked up at me now, muscular and choking and rolling black like the sea at night. I looked at the house and thought again about that caramel-eyed kid in the photo booth.

  39

  This case was growing cold. I felt the chill coming off it as I waited to hear from a hunter who may or may not have trail cameras in the area. I knew that unless one of us—me, Raymond, Brolin, Meltzer, Sam—dug some new lead out of the frustrating rubble we’d unearthed so far, Skylar’s next hours or days or weeks would be cruel and long. How long? That was the question. How long would it take him to grow tired of her? To feel the need to escalate the situation because he’d constructed a chess game with law enforcement. How long until she went from a prize that had obsessed him to everything that was wrong and inconvenient in his life? Because once she fulfilled her purpose, or couldn’t fulfill her purpose, as he’d alluded to in the letter, the psychological disconnect would be immediate and complete. He would be sick to death of the burden of her. He’d blame her for the hassle and the pressure, and he’d want her ripped out of his life. His world, his normal life would call him, as it always does with this kind of offender after they offend, and he would crave the emotional cooling-down, the process by which he reintegrated himself back into life and separated himself from Skylar and the other murders. And when he was
done with her, it wouldn’t be a regretful, bittersweet good-bye like it had been with Tracy, but a quick, blunt good-bye. He’d broadcasted his intentions when he turned the sharp side of that axe on Melinda. I knew exactly what he planned for Skylar, and every tick of the clock felt like an axe blow. Investigations have one thing in common. They each hand you a basket brimming with half-truths and partial facts. Extrapolating some meaning from a thousand tiny strands of yarn is the challenge.

  I had to find that calm, flat space and shut out the muddled, dark distractions, the time, the wrong turns. Everything depended on clarity now. Driving always helps me get there.

  I lowered the top on my Impala and hit the two-lane. The lake was rippled and muddy blue in the late-afternoon sun as I turned my car loose to do what it does best. I curved around the point, smelling all the mossy, breeding, algae-tangled things that feed off its waters.

  A couple of miles in, I saw the first signs for the national forest. Dirt roads wound into the acreage on my left and led to hiking trails. On the right just past a bridge railing, I turned into the campground entrance.

  I got out and looked up at the trail a killer had used to walk his victims to their own murder scene.

  My phone went off. It was the hunter’s number. “Mr. Watson, thank you for calling me back.”

  “What’s this about?” Tom Watson wanted to know.

  “There’s an area off the point of the lake near the national forest. Catawba Creek runs through it. About a thousand acres. You know it?”

  “Sure,” Watson said. “I grew up around here.”

  “I understand you use trail cameras.”

  “Nothing illegal about trail cams,” he said.

  “Mr. Watson, I’m sure you are aware the bodies of two murdered girls were found on that land. If you or anyone has cameras in that area, they may contain valuable evidence.”

  “I only used a trail cam out there last season. This year, some asshole vandalized it. I hadn’t even activated it yet,” Watson said, and my hopes sputtered, then pinwheeled down.