by Blake Pierce
“Yes, I was actually working there when it closed. Just a clerk, keeping records.”
Patting a plastic swan, Anita added, “After it shut down, I managed to keep a few of these things in boxes. Then I got this job and brought them here to sell.”
Riley asked, “Anita, did you ever have more ducks like this for sale?”
Anita squinted. “Oh, just a very few. A young woman came in here maybe a couple of weeks ago and bought the last one except for this.”
Riley asked Anita to describe the woman as well as she could. Anita’s description was vague, but Riley knew that it might well fit Margo Birch.
Riley felt sure in her gut that this was no coincidence.
But what did it mean, exactly?
She started asking questions clumsily, almost babbling, about who else might have bought some of these items recently.
Anita couldn’t seem to remember, and she began to look a bit uneasy.
She asked, “What kind of project did you say you were here about?”
Riley stammered …
“It’s just … some kind of … crime case I’m supposed to be helping on.”
“Oh,” Anita said. “Well, is there anything else you’d like to know?”
Riley’s head clicked away, desperately trying to grasp what she was she was starting to learn.
Margo bought one of the ducks, she thought.
But what about Janet?
She remembered her encounter with Gary Davis in the Hoover Building, and how distraught, angry, and frustrated he had been. Riley dreaded the thought of talking to him again …
But I’ve got to try.
She said to Anita, “Do you have a phone book I could use?”
Anita led Riley to the museum’s office, showed her the phone book on the desk, and left her alone there. Riley opened the phone book and looked up Gary Davis. She was discouraged but not surprised to see that there was a long list of people by that name in the DC area.
But she remembered the file she’d read about Janet’s death. It had included the name of the street where Janet had lived.
Then Riley read down the list until she found that street name.
This must be it, she thought.
She took out her cell phone and punched in the number. A familiar voice answered, and Riley said …
“Mr. Davis, my name is Riley Sweeney, and …”
She hesitated, then added …
“I’m the FBI intern you talked to a few days ago.”
She heard the man let out a deep, unhappy sigh.
“What do you want?” he asked. “If you haven’t found Janet’s killer, I don’t want to talk to you.”
Riley summoned up some raw nerve and said …
“I’m working on it. I’m—we’re doing everything we can. We just need some help from you. Did you and Janet ever visit a museum called Forgotten D.C.?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Did she mention going there herself?”
“I don’t think so.”
Riley took a long, slow breath.
He must know something, she thought. I just have to ask the right question.
Finally she said, “Mr. Davis, did your wife ever buy an odd sort of keepsake—the kind of rubber or plastic ducks or fish or swans that might be part of a carnival game? You know, the kind of game where you try to pick up toys like that out of a stream of water?”
“No, I don’t think …”
His voice trailed off.
Then he said, “Wait a minute. Let me go look.”
Riley waited for a moment, then heard his voice again.
“Yes, she bought an odd-looking plastic fish not long ago. She didn’t tell me where it came from, but she was amused by it. You see, it has a number on the bottom. The number happens to be the date of our anniversary.”
It was all Riley could do to keep from gasping aloud.
She said, “Thank you, Mr. Davis. You’ve been a great help.”
“Wait a minute. What’s this all about?”
Riley stammered, “I … we … can’t say just yet. But I promise, we’ll be in touch.”
She hung up. She was having trouble keeping her breathing under control.
I’ve got to stay calm, she told herself.
But calmness was in short supply. She felt all but sure that, at long last, she’d found a connection between the two victims. They’d both bought items at the gift shop right here at the Forgotten D.C. museum.
Did that mean the killer had first noticed and targeted them here?
She couldn’t believe for a moment that the kindly Anita Lockwood was a killer, but …
She left the office and found Anita back at her post at the ticket table.
She asked, “Could you tell me who else works here—aside from yourself?”
Anita squinted at her and said, “Well, hardly anyone. We’re very short staffed. This place is owned by a nonprofit historical society. Once in a while I get a college girl in for a day or two. Mostly there’s nobody but me. I’m the manager, clerk, and just about everything else.”
Riley racked her memory of her last visit here.
She said, “Someone else was here the last time I came. He was mopping the floor in the gift shop.”
Anita’s eyebrows rose.
“Oh, you mean Joey,” she said.
Riley tingled all over …
Joey!
The signer of the poem!
“Is that his real name?” Riley asked.
“No, but for some reason it’s what he likes to be called. His real name is Gordon—Gordon Shearer. He’s a little … off, I guess you might say. He actually grew up out in Whopping Escapades, back when it was open. He never had a proper family, was just raised by different people who worked there. He had a terrible childhood, as you can well imagine. I’ve known him since my own days at Whopping Escapades. I guess he’s in his late twenties now.”
She shrugged and added, “When he came around here looking for a job, I gave him something to do.”
Riley swallowed hard and said …
“I’ve got to contact him. How can I do that? What’s his phone number?”
Anita looked surprised by the barrage of questions.
“The truth is, I really don’t know. I never really contact him, he just shows up several times a week, whenever he seems to feel like it, and I pay him in cash.”
She laughed a little nervously and said, “Oh dear. Maybe that’s something I shouldn’t admit to someone in law enforcement. Paying him in cash, I mean.”
Anita scratched her chin and added, “But I do have his address, I believe. I’m not sure I should share it with you, though …”
Riley struggled to keep from sounding as desperate as she felt.
“Please, Anita. It’s really, really important. I can’t tell you how important this is”
Anita gazed at Riley for a moment, then shrugged.
“Well, you seem like a nice enough girl,” she said. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Anita went to her office and came back out with a slip of paper with the address written on it.
Riley thanked Anita—maybe a little too extravagantly, she was afraid—and left the building. She stood on the sidewalk staring at the address in her hand.
What do I do now? she wondered.
It only took a moment before she realized …
Like it or not, I’ve got to get in touch with Crivaro.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Riley’s fingers shook as she punched Agent Crivaro’s number into her cell phone.
She knew this wasn’t going to be an easy call to make.
After hearing his outgoing message and the beep, Riley stammered …
“Agent Crivaro, this is Riley Sweeney and … look, I know I’m probably the last person in the world you want to hear from right now but …”
She took a deep breath and continued.
“If you’re listening, pick up, OK? This is
really important. I think I’m really on to something. I think I know who the killer is. His name is Gordon Shearer, but he calls himself Joey, and I’ve even got an address for him.”
She read the address aloud, then said, “Please call me. As soon as you can. Call me right now.”
When she ended the call, she thought …
Fat chance of Crivaro getting back to me at all.
After what had happened last night, he’d probably never take anything she said seriously again.
He probably wouldn’t even bother listening to her message.
Anyway, she still could be wrong about Gordon Shearer.
After all, she wasn’t even so much as a bona fide rookie agent, just some raw, stupid intern who had repeatedly made a fool of herself and had no idea what she was doing.
So she asked herself …
What would Agent Crivaro do?
She figured he would go straight to the address she’d gotten for Gordon Shearer and pay him a visit, probably with at least one partner in tow.
Of course, going there for an interview wasn’t an option for Riley, but …
I can still go there.
I can check the place from outside.
She wouldn’t approach him directly or knock on his door, but if she could only get a glimpse of him, she’d know whether he really was the same man who had attacked her last night.
She didn’t need to put herself in any danger.
Just a little reconnaissance, she told herself.
But then she sighed bitterly.
Just a little reconnaissance.
Yeah, right.
That been her exact strategy at Lady Bird Johnson Park last night.
And how had that worked out for her?
Not good, she thought.
Not good at all.
She promised herself that she’d be a lot more careful this time. She’d make sure not to be spotted.
She took a metro schedule out of her purse and figured out how to get to the address she’d been given. It was on the southwestern edge of the city, and she could get a direct ride there by bus.
But Riley’s hopes were dashed when she got off the bus, walked around the corner, and stood facing the place where the address should be.
There was nothing there at all.
The entire block had been razed, and a building was under construction there.
Riley felt her heart sink.
But at the same time she was relieved that Crivaro seemed to have ignored her message. She could imagine his reaction if he’d come here with one or more colleagues only to find that the address no longer existed.
Riley felt exhausted and demoralized, and she leaned against a lamppost for support.
That’s all I can do, she thought.
Surely this was the end of any effort she could make.
Whether Gordon Shearer was really the killer or not, he had gone to a lot of trouble not to be found. Of course he had to live somewhere, but where might that be? Riley certainly had no way of finding out.
Maybe no one can, she thought. Not even the FBI.
Maybe it doesn’t even matter.
She’d been wrong way too many times now, about too many things. She remembered the day when she’d first noticed the poem, and she’d wrongly convinced Crivaro that they should try to find the killer in a carnival. They’d gone to the only carnival playing in DC, and it brought them no nearer to the catching the killer.
She still wasn’t sure how she’d been so wrong about the carnival.
She’d based that theory on a stanza in the killer’s poem …
Let’s dance and play amid
The palpable public crush
Of revelers who bid
A wild farewell to flesh.
Riley mulled it over yet again.
A “wild farewell to flesh” …
A “palpable public crush” …
Riley still wondered—what could those images possibly suggest except a carnival where lots of people were gathered?
But as she thought it over now, a single word stuck out in her mind …
Palpable.
At last it started to dawn on her—the word palpable had led to her mistake.
The word meant tangible and real, but at the same time …
… it means something completely different!
One described something as “palpable” when it only seemed real and tangible.
Feelings were palpable.
A sense of loss was palpable.
A crowd of real, living people—the kind of crowd one would find at a carnival—wasn’t the kind of thing you could call palpable.
So when the killer had written about a “palpable public crush,” he’d really meant something quite different—an abandoned place haunted by people who were no longer there.
And what kind of place might that be?
Riley felt a growing sense of realization.
She remembered her visit to the museum on Sunday, when she’d looked at all those photographs of the Whopping Escapades amusement park with its huge roller coasters, Ferris wheels, and merry-go-rounds.
She remembered the words that had gone through her mind …
A true “labyrinth.”
Riley gasped aloud.
Everything suddenly seemed starkly clear—almost too clear.
Am I right? she wondered.
Or am I just losing my mind?
All she knew for certain was that she simply had to talk to Agent Crivaro—right now.
She punched his number into her cell phone again and gathered up her nerve to leave a much more emphatic message than she had before, possibly using some colorful language this time. Instead, she was startled when Crivaro himself answered.
“What the hell do you want, Sweeney?”
Riley stammered, “Uh, Agent Crivaro—did you get my last message?”
“Yeah, I got it. And I called the city government to check on that address you gave me. Guess what? It doesn’t exist. It’s a goddamn construction site.”
Riley stifled a moan of despair.
She said, “I know that, and I’m sorry. I’m there right now. But I’ve figured out where the killer really lives. I’m sure of it.”
“And I’m sure you’re full of crap, Sweeney. The only reason I took this call was to tell you to never get in touch with me again. Ever. I mean it, Sweeney. I’m through with you once and for all. Go get yourself a life of some sort, marry that boyfriend of yours, have lots of kids, and stop with all this craziness. Goodbye.”
Riley almost shouted …
“Agent Crivaro, please! Don’t hang up! Listen to me just this once last time! If I turn out to be wrong, I promise, I’ll never get in touch with you again. I won’t bother you. Never, for the rest of my life. It’ll be like you’ve never even heard of me.”
A silence fell.
Riley wondered if Crivaro had ended the call already.
Finally he said, “I’m listening.”
Managing to sound a lot calmer than she felt, Riley talked him through what she’d found out at the museum—that the two murder victims had bought trinkets there, that a young man who went by the name of Joey sometimes worked there, and that he had been raised by employees at Whopping Escapades until it had closed down about a decade ago.
When she finished, another silence fell.
Again, Riley wondered if he’d hung up on her.
Then she heard him say slowly …
“So you’re thinking this Joey guy lives on the abandoned site, where Whopping Escapades used to be?”
Riley could barely breathe now.
“Don’t you think so too?” she managed to say.
An even longer silence fell.
Finally Crivaro said, “I don’t know, Sweeney. I really don’t know. This still sounds kind of nuts to me. But this is what we’re going to do. McCune and I are on the opposite side of town from the site of the old amusement park. But we’ll head over there right away. St
ay put where you are, and we’ll pick you up along the way.”
“You won’t need to,” Riley said. “I’m just a few bus stops away from the site myself. I can probably get there ahead of you.”
Crivaro said, “OK, we’ll meet you there. Wait for us outside the front gate.”
Riley ended the call. She was really hyperventilating now, and it took a few moments to calm herself. Then she headed back to the metro stop to catch the bus that would take her to the abandoned site.
I’d better be right this time, she thought.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
When Riley got off the bus and walked the short distance to the park, she saw that it was a vast, desolate-looking expanse surrounded by high chain-link fences with barbed wire along the top. The main gate was chained and padlocked.
A large wind-battered sign said …
PRIVATE PROPERTY
KEEP OUT
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
Riley looked through the fencing. All she could see beyond the gate were trees, masses of overgrown bushes and weeds, and the badly weathered roofs of buildings that had not been completely torn down.
From the looks of the place, Riley guessed that not many people had disobeyed that warning. At least not for a very long time.
In fact, Riley was starting to wonder …
Was I wrong?
It seemed crazy to imagine that anybody could actually live in there.
She paced back and forth in front of the gate, wondering when Crivaro and McCune would arrive. Crivaro had told her that they were on the opposite side of town, so it might still be quite a while.
Meanwhile, she felt restless.
She wandered around a corner of the fence and saw that a narrow unpaved road ran along the outside of it. The road was weedy and overgrown, but tire tracks revealed that was used, at least occasionally.
She walked along the road until she arrived at another wide gate that stood in the shade of overhanging trees. This gate was pushed closed, but it wasn’t chained or padlocked. The tire tracks passed on through it, clearly indicating that someone had driven through there recently.
Riley’s pulse quickened and a deep chill came over her.
This is it, she thought.
This is the place.
Joey has been here.
