Find Me

by Carol O’Connell

  “Yes, she was.” Mallory held a bottle of water to Mrs. Hardy’s lips, forcing the woman to drink. “I’ll tell you one true thing.” And now she drew upon her own life for the right words to say. “When kids are really scared, they always yell for their mothers.”

  “But my Melissa-”

  “No,” said Mallory, “she couldn’t yell-her throat was cut. But I know she tried. And that’s how I know Melissa was thinking about you when she died.”

  The driver’s-side door of the Mercedes hung open. Riker had one foot on the ground and one hand on his gun. The sun was rising, and he donned his sunglasses to keep watch on the man who walked beside the wolf. This camper had more names than most: In Riker’s notebook, he was the George Hastings who matched up with the owner registration of a pickup truck. On Dr. Magritte’s growing list of parents, he was known only by his Internet moniker. And the young FBI agents had code-named him Wo lfman, a mistake in Riker’s o pinion. This parent was not a mean or quick-tempered sort. He seemed like a very patient man, and this was what worried the detective.

  Jill’s D ad led the wolf close to the Mercedes and lifted one hand to show his wristwatch, acknowledging Riker’s rule of only fifteen minutes for exercise. And now he moved on to his pickup truck, where the animal was locked up in the cab as promised.

  Riker holstered his gun, but he continued to watch the pair for a while. The man did not appear to have any love for the wolf-and the wolf loved no one. This animal was no pet, nor had it been brought along for security; it never barked. And the man? He carried no posters of his missing daughter and cared nothing for reporters. He had even less use for the FBI.

  What listless, lifeless eyes. Yet Jill’s D ad was quick to spot each newcomer and just as quickly disappointed every time. This man was definitely waiting for someone, a person he would know on sight.

  Riker knew he should kill the wolf, shoot it right now. Ah, but then Jill’s Dad might buy a gun, and the detective did not want to shoot this man.

  Done with his wake-up coffee, he lit a cigarette and tossed the match on the ground. When had he last seen a car equipped with an ashtray or a cigarette lighter? Now there was only a hole for car chargers. He plugged in a portable television set confiscated from a news van. The screen was only eight or nine inches on the diagonal and called for much squinting, but the volume was clear. He listened to a replay of last night’s interview with Melissa Hardy’s mother. And now the anchorwoman gave her national audience the updated report that six-year-old Melissa no longer played the piano. She was dead.

  Riker left the Mercedes to greet a state trooper’s c ar as it parked near the circle of caravan vehicles. Tw o civilians emerged from the back seat, and they were introduced to him as the Hardys from the Oregon branch of the family. Some woman named Mallory had called and asked them to come for their cousin. They had taken the very next plane.

  And how many Hardys had Mallory called before she found someone to come for Melissa’s mother and take her safe home? This argued well for the existence of a human heart-but it was also police procedure, and so Riker still had no proof in the young cop’s favor.

  At this moment, he was watching his partner drive off again, and so was the boy beside him. But Peter Finn did not seem alarmed this time. Her return last night was proof that Riker had not lied to him, and Mallory had not abandoned him-not yet.

  The detective and the boy stood side by side as the silver car disappeared down the road. Riker rested one hand on Peter’s s houlder, saying, “Let me guess, kid. You’re wondering if Mallory’s e yes glow in the dark.” He took a drag on his cigarette and exhaled the words with the smoke. “Yes… they do.”

  The sun was half risen, and Mallory was running late for this appointment with the road. After rolling the car onto the shoulder and cutting the engine, she opened another letter that had been penned long ago when Peyton Hale last passed through Oklahoma. She read his instructions for how to watch a sunrise by looking at the roadside instead. The land was waking, going from gray to green, silence to gentle noises and birdsong.

  But the morning was spoiled. The bottom of this letter was marred by a smudge of lipstick that could only belong to Savannah Sirus, and now this flaw was fixed with the scratch of one long red fingernail. All gone.

  Not quite.

  The image of this woman remained: Savannah on her knees, mascara running-the weeping had lasted for days; Savannah reaching for the letters-a little moment of horror-they were Mallory’s letters now; Savannah’s hand grasping air.

  Mallory did not recall closing her eyes, but an hour had passed before she awakened. She wanted to check off this last stop, but could not find her gold pen, an old birthday gift from Charles Butler.

  A pencil would do.

  Back on the road again, she recalled placing the pen on a napkin at the restaurant. She had missed the napkin when she reached out to use it, and she had forgotten all about her favorite pen. How was that possible? She carried it everywhere. Mallory put this bit of carelessness down to lack of sleep.

  Not a natural-born camper, not a nature lover, the New York detective checked into a motel. The cell phone was turned off, and the shower turned on to fill the bathroom with steam. When the last of the road dust was gone down the drain, she was ready for a few hours of sleep, all she needed, but sleep would not come. She emptied her knapsack on the bedspread, but the lost pen was not there. Ariel’s autopsy photographs mingled with pictures of a man with green eyes. The image that hurt her most was the one of Peyton and Cassandra. The questions posed in yesterday’s letter ran round her brain in an endless chant: Where do we come from? Why are we here? And where are we going?

  She had no idea.

  And now these mysteries resolved themselves into one: Why did I have to be born?

  Riker ended his cell-phone call to the undercover agents riding at the rear of the caravan, and turned to the man at the wheel. “It’s working, Charles. The moles haven’t s potted any cars taking the exits. Who knew reporters would come in handy?”

  On the downside, the moles had counted ten more parents joining up with this parade. The caravan had swelled to a hundred and fifty vehicles, yet they moved along the interstate at a good clip. By some miracle, only one old junker had broken down, and that one was now being towed by a Winnebago.

  “This is it,” said Riker. “Ta k e Exit 108.”

  The exit ramp led them uphill to the Cherokee Restaurant, another travel plaza. When they pulled into the parking lot, the news crews were already there, unloading sound equipment, lights and cameras.

  While Charles parked the car, Riker’s e yes were trained on a sign for homemade pies, and he gripped the door handle as soon as the car stopped. But his friend remained behind the wheel and showed no signs of moving.

  “Problem?” asked Riker. “Hey, just spit it out.”

  “About Mallory,” said Charles. “When were you planning to tell me the rest of it? There has to be more to this than her not showing up for work. You’re so confident that she’s coming apart. You don’t t hink you can trust me with all of it?”

  “No, it’s not that.” Riker released his grip on the door handle. He rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. This was going to take some time. “Her doorman, Frank, called me one night. He said there were shots fired in Mallory’s apartment. So I asked him if he’d thought of calling 911. Well, Frank didn’t s ay a word. Finally, he tells me he talked to Mallory on the house phone. She told him somebody left a window open… and she had to kill a few flies. Now the kid’s a real big tipper. So Frank wouldn’t t u rn her in if she shot four tenants right in front of him. He calls me instead. I go over there. Mallory opens the door, but just a crack. I had to muscle my way in. She goes for her gun. She aims it at the wall. I look-I see a fly- I hear a bang. And now there’s a hole in the wall where the fly used to be. She’s good. I don’t know a single cop who could’ve made that shot.”

  Charles closed his eyes. “When did this happen?” />
  “Two weeks ago.”

  “When Savannah was there.”

  “But I didn’t know that,” said Riker. “I swear-I never saw one sign of her in that apartment.”

  “The poor woman was hiding,” said Charles. “So Mallory was-”

  “Torturing her houseguest? Probably.” Riker blew smoke out the window and considered the odds that this story would ever be told in a com- petency hearing. He knew that Charles Butler would lie for Mallory in a heartbeat-if he only could. Unfortunately, the man’s face gave away too much, and his blush prevented him from ever pulling off a lie to save her.

  “You didn’t t ake her gun away?”

  “Naw. This wasn’t her regular gun. It was a small-caliber revolver, and Mallory was only picking off flies on the street-side walls-a double row of solid brick. A twenty-two caliber’s got no penetration.”

  “A twenty-two penetrated Miss Sirus’s heart,” said Charles-just a reminder.

  “I did tell the kid that they’d lock her up in Bellevue for sure if she didn’t keep the noise down.”

  “A short hospital stay for observation might’ve been the best thing.”

  “I couldn’t do that to her,” said Riker. “She’d never be a cop again, not after a turn in Bellevue. And I’ve done worse when I was drunk. Now Mallory’s problem is she does these things when she’s sober. Anyway, there was no more gunfire after that.”

  “Until Savannah Sirus died,” said Charles-another reminder. “Any ideas about what might’ve set off the fly-shooting incident?”

  “Just what Mallory told the doorman. Somebody opened a window and let in some bugs.”

  “Well, I think we can guess who that was,” said Charles. “In order to let the flies in, you’d have to open a screen as well as a window. That might’ve been Miss Sirus’s first attempt at suicide-interrupted by Mallory, who then proceeded to teach her houseguest not to let in any more flies.”

  “Good theory,” said Riker, biting back the sarcasm. “I like it.” He tossed his cigarette out the window. “So Mallory’s just doing this woman a good turn-preventing Savannah’s s u icide by scaring the crap out of her.”

  “Here’s another thought,” said Charles. “Maybe it was Miss Sirus who tortured Mallory.”

  Special Agent Dale Berman led Riker and Dr. Magritte away from the Cherokee Restaurant, past the statue of a giant Indian and down a narrow curving road and a chain-link pen with a small herd of buffalo.

  “Ah, bison burgers on the hoof.” The detective was hungry and willing to eat wildflowers if this damn tour did not end very soon.

  Dale was pointing out the amenities as they entered the public camp- ground at the bottom of the road. “The managers are great people. They opened the facilities to the caravan free of charge.”

  On the other side of the paved lot, Riker saw Agent Nahlman riding herd on campers who formed a neat line outside a small building. The parents were holding towels and toiletries, waiting for their first hot shower in days.

  Dr. Magritte was less than enthusiastic as he looked over the marked slots that accommodated motor homes and cars. “There’s not enough room to hold all of us.”

  “But there is,” said Dale Berman, pointing toward the restaurant at the top of the road. “The parking lot up there is huge. It’ll take the overflow. And now, over there-” He was looking into the trees beyond the lot. “Six cabins. So,” he rubbed his hands together, “everything we need-food, lodging. And the reporters like the idea of a permanent base.”

  “Spoken like a true PR man.” Riker turned to Dr. Magritte. “Public relations was Dale’s job a few years back. He’s not thinking this through. That’s a bad habit with him.”

  “The restaurant has elevation,” said Berman. “We can see anyone approaching the caravan.”

  “And that might work,” said Riker, “if we were expecting an Indian raid. You think you’ll recognize this freak when you see him coming?”

  “You won’t,” said Dr. Magritte, raising his voice for the first time. Obviously regretting these words, the old man edged away from them and pretended interest in the bison pen.

  The detective marched back up the hill. He was hungry, and a banner hanging outside of the restaurant had caught his eye and promised him homemade pies.

  Dale Berman called after him. “We’ll stay the night. See how it goes.”

  “No we won’t,” said Riker. He was hoping for blueberry pie, but he would settle for apple, and he planned to cross the state line into Texas before nightfall.

  At the top of the road, he headed across the parking lot to the restaurant. A noise close by made him stop. His hand was on his gun as he turned to the passenger window of George Hastings’ pickup truck.

  Thump.

  The wolf ’s head hit the window. How many tries would it take before the glass broke? And now the animal drew back, eyes fixed on Riker, seeing him all of a piece, a single piece of meat. The detective’s hands were wet with sweat and clammy. Adrenaline iced his veins, and his heartbeat was jacked up to a faster rhythm. It was a lot like falling in love.

  Thump.

  The animal slammed his head into the glass again, but the window held.

  Riker wondered if the man had stopped feeding the wolf yet.

  Dale Berman accompanied Dr. Magritte back up the road to the parking lot. The FBI man drove away, and the doctor remained to watch his watchers. Back in Chicago, these two undercover agents had introduced themselves as the grieving parents of a missing child, but he had never found the couple credible. Neither had Riker, who alternately referred to them as the moles, or the mole people, and sometimes as Mr. and Mrs. Mole, though they were certainly unmarried.

  It did not require his degrees in psychology to spot the early warning signs of love and lust, but theirs had not begun until that first night under the stars and a few hundred miles from Chicago. The moles’ mutual involvement had deepened every day since then. Now they were so taken with one another, feverish in their glances. They had even worked out a little language of their own-hand signals, nods, winks and blinks. The rest of the world did not exist for them, and Paul Magritte found it easy to slip away.

  He walked back down the sloping road, past the bison pen and into the woods of pine trees, seeking solitude for his ritual.

  Charles had completed his assignment to nail down a table with an ashtray for the smoking detective. Hardly a problem. It was the nonsmoking section that had the least seating. A teenager in a red T-shirt took his order and left him. He was content to sit alone.

  After months of licking wounds in the solitude of European hotel rooms, he felt a sense of awakening to the sounds of clinking glassware and people talking all at once-so many voices-proof of life after Mallory. How he had missed her. And now he was chasing after her-again. However, he was resigned to this: Following her was a pleasure; catching up to her was pain. Yet he watched the windows on the parking lot, waiting for a glimpse of her car. At least there was no residual awkwardness on her part. He should have known that she would forget his proposal of mar- riage the day after he had uttered those foolish words. He died every time he saw her, and he could not wait to see her again.

  He was distracted from his vigil at the window when a floorshow passed near his table. A middle-aged woman was being photographed each time she paused to strike a pose with one of the parents. A young man in the entourage handed Charles a flyer. According to the text, the woman was a “celebrated criminal profiler.” Apparently, she was interrupting a national book tour for a photo opportunity with the caravan.

  Charles was presented with his own copy of her latest book. Agent Cadwaller dropped it on the table as he pulled up a chair. The garish dust jacket was splashed with the blood of printer’s ink, and another version of the lady’s c redentials was printed in large type. “A forensic psychiatrist?”

  “That’s what she calls herself.” Agent Cadwaller smoothed back his hair, using a butter knife for his mirror.

  Charle
s turned the book over and read the biography on the back, noting the third-rate medical school and the woman’s home state. It was lamentable that there were places where the most incompetent M.D. could hang out a shingle and call herself a psychiatrist.

  A young man introduced himself as the author’s personal assistant, and he made a lackluster defense to the agent’s overheard remark. “She is a forensic psychiatrist. Accredited and board certified.” He presented Cadwaller with a handout sheet. “See for yourself.”

  “Already saw it,” said the FBI agent, waving the sheet away with one hand. “She was accredited by a board of clowns, the group with the lowest standards. So, it might be legal, but that doesn’t make it right.”

  Charles was also familiar with this board. It took a more in-depth course of study to become an accredited plumber. And now the author was advancing on other parents. He leaned toward the FBI profiler. “Uh, don’t you think this is a bad idea, given the subject of her book-serial killers?”

  “I tried to stop it,” said Cadwaller, using his knife blade reflection to straighten the knot of his tie. “The reporters are running the show today. They want a few sound bites from the author, something colorful and bloody. And Berman won’t do anything to piss them off.”

  Charles was appalled. The reporters were snapping photographs while the faux psychiatrist hugged a stunned parent against the man’s w ill. “What else do you know about her?”

  “She’s a hired gun for defense lawyers. If your client’s a murdering rapist and he needs a bad-potty-training defense, she’s your girl.” The agent held up the flyer and pointed to a line of type. “Now this is a lie. She never worked on a police investigation. Her books profile the perps after they’re caught and jailed. And even then she screws it up.”

  When the author and her followers moved in a straight line for the Finn family, Charles stood up, knocking over his chair in his haste to cross the room and plant himself in her path, saying, “You don’t need your picture taken with those children.”

  With the air of royalty confronted with a filthy commoner, the author only glanced at her liaison to the masses, a young man, who pranced up to Charles and puffed out his little bird’s chest. “Are you a cop?” He folded his puny arms. “I didn’t t hink so.”