The Judas Child

by Carol O'Connell

  Rouge drove the car through the prison gates and turned onto the highway. For the next five miles of road, his passenger carried both sides of their conversation.

  “Okay, I screwed up,” said Arnie Pyle. “Christ, you could’ve warned me. You gotta admit the connection was reasonable if Ali was seduced as a child. Sometimes the kids gravitate toward the abuser. It’s fear—a survival ploy. They want to stay on the bastard’s good side. You’re not buying any of this, are you?”

  Rouge shrugged, eyes wandering to the side of the road, looking for the turnoff. He kept silent for another long stretch of highway and let the other man ramble on.

  “So maybe Ali had a crush on the priest when she was a kid,” said Arnie Pyle. “That could explain it. What about your sister? Her too?”

  “No, I don’t think so. My sister and I didn’t have any friends. We had each other. When I wasn’t there for her. she went to Paul Marie—for comfort.” And for confession? Susan could tell a priest how angry she was with their father over the separation, the loss of her twin. “Arnie, you should’ve been nicer to the priest. Maybe Ali told him how she got the scar.”

  “Paul Marie could still be a pervert. That’s how some of these freaks work.” Pyle sat up a little straighter, suddenly reenergized. “Most pedophiles target emotionally vulnerable kids—they flatter them with attention. It’s a seduction—”

  “The pervert we’re looking for doesn’t seduce kids, Arnie, he steals them. I think Ali’s right. The killer is just a sadistic bastard.”

  “Paul Marie could still fit a pattern. What do you know about his early years? Any trouble with the law? If we can find a previous incident like flashing, a Peeping Tom complaint, something like that. The church is a damn magnet for child molesters.”

  Rouge shook his head. “So are schools and summer camps. The priest is clean.”

  They were approaching the exit sign for Makers Village. The curve of the side road swung them out of a tight closure of trees and into an open vista. Beyond the lake of sky-blue water were rolling hills marked with broad patches of evergreens and stripes of brown dead leaves from a march of trees whose season was done. A mist rolled over the water and softened the edges of every landmark on the far side.

  Rouge stopped the car and pointed to the hazy shoreline. “A man named Oz Almo lives over there. He’s an ex-BCI investigator. His house is across the lake from the school and downshore a bit. I need to search that house, Arnie. You could get a warrant.”

  “Me? Don’t count on it. I don’t have much clout on this case, not since Mrs. Green killed my ransom note with the purple underwear. Anyway, I thought the cops went through all the lake houses.”

  “Oz Almo’s an ex-cop. He had rank with the State Police. Oz signed a consent form for a search, but it wouldn’t have been hard to sidetrack the troopers. And they were only looking for two little girls.”

  “So what are you looking for, Rouge?”

  “After Susan disappeared, my parents got a ransom demand. Oz Almo delivered the money himself. The rest of the force didn’t even know it was going down. He convinced my father he had a foolproof way to track the kidnapper. Afterwards, Oz said he lost the guy—gave Dad some story about faulty equipment.” Rouge pointed to the glove compartment. “In there. Something you might find interesting.”

  Pyle opened the compartment and pulled out a sheaf of papers. When he had scanned them, he let out a low whistle. “Where did you get all this stuff? You’d have to rob a bank to get financial sheets like this.”

  Rouge said nothing.

  Arnie Pyle nodded his understanding. “I should have sources like yours. It’d save me a million miles of red tape.”

  “See the wire transfers from out-of-state banks? There’s a blackmail pattern. That’s all you need for a warrant, right? It helps if you know Oz has a silent partner. Every one of those people used his cleaning lady, Rita Anderson.”

  “As evidence goes, that’s pretty slim, kid. I can’t get a search warrant with ripped-off bank records and a cleaning lady.” Arnie was still poring over the financial history. “This ransom for your sister—how much money are we talking about?”

  “Two million in large bills.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Arnie flipped through the sheets. “I don’t see any sign of it. You must have missed something here. That kind of cash, even if he was spending it in small—”

  “I don’t think he spent any of it. That’s why he needs the blackmail income. He knew the ransom was marked, and he knew my father had samples. That’s all Dad would tell him. He had a lot of faith in Oz, but he didn’t completely trust anybody.”

  “But a cop would’ve known how the bills were marked when the police started a trace on the ransom money. That’s standard procedure.”

  Rouge shook his head. “Oz wanted to do the money trace himself—quietly. He said it would ruin his life if the department found out about the botched ransom drop. When he asked for a sample of the marked bills, Dad refused. I think my father suspected Almo then. I was never sure. Dad might’ve hired someone to keep an eye on Almo and—”

  “Might have? So far, you got a lot of supposition, kid, but damn few facts and zero evidence. If nobody knows how the ransom was marked—”

  “I helped my father do it.” It had taken two days and a night. “The ransom note had a specific date. There wasn’t time for Dad to mark every bill by himself.”

  “Rouge, this guy’s had fifteen years to examine the money. He’s checked for pinholes, dyes, every damn thing. Now that the currency has changed—”

  “You’ll be looking for one dot to extend a line of engraving.” Rouge unfolded his wallet and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill with a red arrow pointing to the alteration. “Printer’s ink—almost a perfect match. We used fine-point Rapidographs. You keep that sample, Arnie. I wouldn’t like to be accused of planting evidence.”

  “Rouge, this guy’s an ex-cop. He knows the odds of a marked bill being found, even when it’s altered in an obvious way. If he couldn’t find your dad’s mark, he wouldn’t worry about some bank teller picking up on it.” Arnie folded the financial sheets, returned them to the glove compartment and shut the door, as if to say that this matter was closed. He looked down at the hundred dollars in his hand. “Large bills like this one increase the risk, but after all this time, I think you can kiss the evidence goodbye.” He held the bill out between them.

  Rouge shook his head, refusing to take it back. “Oz didn’t spend the money.”

  “You assume too much, kid. You don’t know—”

  “Arnie, who’s more paranoid than a cop? And what about a cop tied to a homicide? Susan’s body was found the day after the fake ransom drop.”

  “Fake? So now you’re assuming—”

  “That Oz wrote the ransom note? Yeah, but just go along with me for a minute. So Susan is dead, and now he’s made himself part of a little girl’s murder. If anybody ties just one of those bills to Oz, his life is over. That’s what he’s been living with all this time. And he’s shrewd but no brain trust. I know he keeps the money in the house—close to him. He’s greedy too. So he can’t believe there isn’t a trace going on for two million dollars. Who lets go of that kind of money? Maybe Oz looks at the bills every night, trying to find the alteration. He’s got to know how they were marked before he lets even one of them leave the house. It’s been driving him nuts for fifteen years. Oz never spent one dime.”

  The beepers in both their pockets went off simultaneously. Arnie Pyle called in with his cell phone. When he had folded it again, he said, “There’s been an accident. They found Buddy Sorrel in the next county. His car was wrapped around a tree.”

  It was a bleak flat landscape along this stretch of road. One mile over the county line, there were only three houses in sight, each a great distance from the others, and there were no pine trees to break the monotony of bare branches and boulders. Rouge pulled over to a shoulder of earth curving into an irrigation ditch. The gray mor
ning sky was a stark backdrop for the spinning red lights from more than a dozen vehicles with the markings of local police, county sheriff and state troopers. A tow truck was pulling up to the crashed car. And two men from the medical examiner’s office were opening the back doors of a van. A thin straggle of civilians kept their distance behind the blue barricades and the yellow crime scene tape that stretched across most of the road. A trooper was waving oncoming traffic along the far side of the asphalt.

  Officers and techs milled around the wreck. The car was ripped open to reveal the innards of engine parts and shafts through the torn and crumpled skin of blue steel and chrome. A tow truck driver was rigging his chains to pull the car away from the tree, and the medical examiner was bending over the body bag containing the remains of the BCI man, Buddy Sorrel.

  Rouge and Arnie Pyle walked through the static of noise from the car radios to join the grim party of men and women. A state trooper was standing next to Captain Costello. She was pointing toward a gray weathered building set far back from the road.

  “The guy who owns that farmhouse confirmed it, sir.” The trooper looked down at her notebook. “The farmer was driving home from a neighbor’s party last night. Now the man might’ve been a little tight—he didn’t say—but it would’ve been hard to miss a thing like this.” She waved at the wreckage of metal and shattered glass extending far into the roadway. “Even if the guy was plowed, he would’ve remembered having to drive around a smashed car. I checked with the other people at the party. The farmer was accurate about the time. So the car wasn’t here at midnight. But the medical examiner says the victim died maybe five hours before that.”

  “Goddamn thing to happen on my watch,” said Captain Costello.

  But Rouge saw no emotion in the captain’s face, as though this death were a great inconvenience instead of a great loss.

  Dr. Howard Chainy was probing the corpse and nodding to the other county’s medical examiner, the man with jurisdiction and proprietary rights to Buddy Sorrel’s body.

  Rouge stared at the face of the corpse, the stark white flesh, the open, staring eyes gone cloudy. The coat had been stripped off and the sleeves rolled up to show the massive arms of the ex-marine.

  “No defensive wounds on the forearms.” Howard Chainy was shaking his head as he stood up to speak with Costello. “But I think the accident was staged. There’s a trauma at the back of the head that won’t fit with the rest of the damage. The local ME’s bowing out. My boys will take the body back.” Chainy was turning to leave.

  “Hold on,” said Costello. “Your guy Hastings says you met with Sorrel an hour before he knocked off for the day. Wanna tell me what that was about?”

  “Just some damn nonsense. Nothing to do with this.”

  Costello was leafing through the pages of a leather notebook, and Rouge recognized it as Sorrel’s. The captain looked up at the medical examiner. “Howard, your name is here as a scheduled appointment. He didn’t just drop by to shoot the shit. Looks like you saw him last.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t kill him. I even liked the son of a bitch.” Howard Chainy abruptly turned his back on the captain and strutted over to the van where his crew was awaiting orders.

  “Damn prima donna.” Costello turned to scan the crowd until he found the face he wanted. “Hastings,” he yelled. “Get your ass over here.”

  Dr. Chainy’s assistant came running. “Yes, sir?”

  “Hastings, were you there the whole time Sorrel was in the autopsy room? Did you hear the conversation?”

  “I was there, but I couldn’t hear much from the other side of the room. Something about another case. I only caught a word here and there.”

  “Another case? Not likely. I had Sorrel working on the kids and nothing but the kids.”

  “Well, maybe I misunderstood. It could’ve been a private joke. Yeah, I think Dr. Chainy was ribbing him. He asked Sorrel how he was doing on the great truffle hunt. Now what’s that got to do with missing kids?”

  When the man had been dismissed, Costello was facing Rouge. “You know what Sorrel’s got on his desk right now?”

  “A list of dealers in rare mushrooms, importers, customs material.”

  “Any aerial photographs?”

  “Those too,” said Rouge. “But almost everything was covered. I know he scheduled a team of uniforms to dig up that hazelnut tree in the postman’s atrium. I don’t know if they started or not.”

  Costello was watching the medical examiner in conversation with Ali Cray. “What’s she doing here?” Then he waved one hand in the air to say never mind, it wasn’t important. He called out to the three troopers searching the side of the road beyond the wreck. “Keep looking for that gun.” He turned back to Rouge. “Go ask that old fool Chainy if he’d mind stepping up to the body again. I wanna get this over with.”

  Rouge walked toward the van where Ali was deep in conversation with the medical examiner. As Rouge approached the pair, it was obvious that Ali annoyed Howard Chainy as much as Costello had.

  “But you know, don’t you?” she asked. “Myles said you and William went back a long ways.”

  “It’s no use asking,” said Chainy. “William Penny doesn’t tell me where he spends his damn vacation time. If he won’t tell his own brother, why would he tell me?”

  Ali touched the sleeve of his coat. “Please?” She ran her hand up and down the man’s arm. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. My uncle has a heart condition. I really have to find William.”

  Rouge stopped some distance from the two and waited. Chainy seemed to be melting. The doctor was a confirmed bachelor, never married. When had he last been touched by a young woman? Ali Cray continued to stroke him. With a subtle shift of her body, a slash of bare leg was showing through the slit in her skirt, and Rouge did not think this was accidental.

  “I really don’t know where William goes,” said Chainy with some regret. “But I know it can’t be far from Makers Village. Sometimes I see him around town, usually after dark. He’s got a high-pressure job, Ali. Probably just needs a little seclusion. I never saw a surgeon so much in demand as William.”

  “So he sneaks around town after dark? You don’t—”

  “Wait now. I saw him in town a day or so ago in broad daylight—at the tobacco shop. He could be just a few hours from here. You might check that resort up the highway. He’s just married to that special blend of pipe tobacco. I could see him making a long drive to restock.”

  Rouge stepped closer and tapped the medical examiner on the shoulder. “Sir, the captain has a few more questions about the body.” He remained behind with Ali as the doctor walked back toward the body bag. “If the resort comes up dry, check out motels where the cheaters go—married men, women. You can get a short list from some of the village cops—the married ones.” He turned to walk back to the crime scene.

  Ali caught up to him. “But William Penny isn’t married.”

  “Maybe he knows a woman who is.” He walked alongside of her for a few more paces, and then she stopped short.

  “Wait. Do you know something, Rouge? Is William part of the investigation?”

  “No.” But he found her question interesting. “Only guessing.” He removed his ring to show her a scar encircling one finger. “You remember this—the skating accident? William Penny did the emergency operation. Up till then, my mother thought he was gay. No one ever saw him with a woman. But he made a pass at Mom when she picked me up at the clinic after the surgery. Maybe he’s the type who likes a challenge.”

  “If he only chases married women, that would explain a lot. Well, thanks, Rouge.”

  So why did she seem disappointed?

  He caught her arm as she was moving away from him. “You might narrow that down to grateful married women—the way my mother was grateful after Penny stitched my finger back on.” He waited to see what she would do with that.

  Ali’s interest was renewed. “Vulnerable relatives of patients? Wives, mothers�
��a victim pattern?”

  He nodded. But this was only plausible if his mother’s incident was not an isolated one. Ali wouldn’t make that reach unless she believed the worst of William Penny. And by the slow nod of her head, he could see that she did. In a further stretch, he wondered if Ali might be tying the surgeon to an entirely different pattern with even more vulnerable females. The word victim remained with him after they parted company.

  When he joined the others at the crime scene, Captain Costello was kneeling on the ground beside the medical examiner and looking down at the wound Howard Chainy was showing him.

  “You see this, Leonard?”

  “Of course I see—” Costello bit back a few words and nodded. “Get on with it, okay, Howard?”

  “No blood.” Dr. Chainy seemed almost pleased as he put a metal probe into a hole in the body’s chest. It was not a man any longer; the corpse was evidence.

  Rouge wondered if another medical examiner had done this to Susan, probed her small body, her wounds, and then smiled with the same satisfaction. According to the trial transcript, the acting medical examiner had been Dr. William Penny.

  “A piece of metal punctured the skin on impact. No blood loss. His heart had stopped by then.” Chainy pulled on the shoulder of the corpse. “Give me a hand here, will you?”

  Costello helped him roll the body until Buddy Sorrel’s face was in the dirt.

  “See this, Leonard?” The medical examiner was pointing to the dark bloody clots of hair and flesh at the back of the head. Dry blood coated the collar of the shirt and the coat. “Now that’s the wound that killed him, the only one he bled from. I’d say it was a quick death, a few minutes tops.”

  Costello nodded. “So he was taken by surprise.”

  “I’ll say.” Howard Chainy was pointing into the wound, as a large uniformed officer came out of the gully that ran alongside the road. “Now look here, Leonard, see this?”

  The trooper called out, “Captain?” In one massive hand, pinched between finger and thumb, the trooper was holding up a tiny pair of purple socks. And now Captain Costello covered his eyes.