Find Me

by Carol O’Connell

  Click.

  Dale Berman turned to the young agent at the wheel. “See any likely comers yet?”

  “No, sir,” said the rookie, glancing at his rearview mirror. “Nobody’s following us. You really think he’d try to kill that little girl with all these agents around?”

  “You bet I do. I invited him to the party.” Berman lit a cigar, leaned back and smiled. “I’ll tell you how we usually catch these bastards. They get too damn cocky. After a while they do something really stupid.”

  “But, sir, this killer’s been active for thirty or forty years.”

  “Where’d you hear that? From Nahlman?” Her name was said with derision. He continued his monologue on the serial killer, a rare species he had never encountered in all his years with the Bureau. “This guy’s at the end of his run. His little rituals are falling apart. No more throat slashing. He’s running people down with a damn car. Panic kills. So all his careful detailing-that’s gone to hell. This is his last shot at the kid. He won’t come at us with a plan this time. He’ll just come running, and we’ll see him a mile off.”

  The driver kept silent. Perhaps the boy had a contrary theory of his own, or maybe he objected to child-size bait.

  In Dale Berman’s view, it was bad for morale when the kids did their own thinking. “Now, our guy was getting reckless even before I put the pressure on.” He had allowed all of his agents to assume that transporting the Finns tonight had been his own idea and not the direct order of Harry Mars. “The perp’s really frantic now.” As if Dodie Finn could ever give him away. Crazy Dodie. Dale closed his eyes, saying to his driver, “Wake me the second we pick up another car on our tail.”

  Special Agent Berman feigned the sleep that angst would not allow. It was an all-or-nothing kind of night.

  ***

  Assistant Director Harry Mars had taken to making his futile phone calls outside of Kronewald’s hearing. And now he connected to yet another field agent’s voice mail. In his last hope for a rational explanation, he turned to the man beside him, the liaison from the New Mexico State Police. “Is there any chance that my people could be driving through a zone where their cells won’t work?”

  “No, sir, not between the campsite and the airport. This ain’t the Bermuda Triangle.” The New Mexico man pulled out his own cell phone. “We got a trooper riding point. I can ask his barracks commander to raise him on the radio if you like. It’s your call, sir. Me, I wouldn’t w ant to broadcast anything covert on that frequency. To o public.”

  A few yards away, the detective from Chicago was taking a call of his own, raising his voice to be heard above the static of airport traffic. “Riker!” yelled Kronewald. “My plane landed twenty minutes ago. Where’s the feds and the Finns?” Apparently, Riker’s answer was unsatisfactory. Kronewald jammed his phone in his coat pocket.

  Harry Mars tried one more number and had no luck reaching Mallory, but then she never answered to anyone.

  Christine Nahlman turned her head to look at the passengers in the back seat. The children were sleeping in Joe Finn’s arms. The boxer’s e yes were also closed, but she had seen him go from deep sleep to full alert. Was he only dozing?

  Ah, snoring, a sign that Joe Finn was finally beginning to trust her.

  Agent Barry Allen drove with his eyes on the road, but his mind was obviously elsewhere. After the incident with the trooper’s radio, he was probably questioning everything he had ever been told from kindergarten on. When he did look her way, Nahlman saw the face of a puppy that had made a mess on the carpet.

  Finally, she had won his soul back from Dale Berman.

  Riker hunkered down by the agents’ campfire. In the manner of a parent on a school night, he turned off their portable television set. Five pairs of very young eyes turned to him.

  “I’m making a run to the airport.” The detective handed a slip of paper to the oldest agent, the only one who was sporting a day’s growth of beard. “That’s my cell. You got any trouble, call me right away.” “I can’t,” said the agent. “No cell-phone contact.” Riker smiled at the boy for a moment, not quite believing what he was hearing. “What? Are you nuts?”

  “Dale Berman’s orders, sir. No incoming or outgoing calls.” Riker held out his hand, palm up. “Give me your cell phone.” The rookie agent, so accustomed to following orders without question, handed it over. The detective turned it on, then pressed the menu buttons and held the phone to his ear. After listening a moment, he said, “You’re stacking up voice mail from Assistant Director Harry Mars.” He returned the phone to the startled agent. “Does that make you nervous, kid? It should.” And now they were all turning on their phones. As he walked away from them, he heard the beeps of their incoming calls.

  It took three seconds for the import to settle in-Dale, that son of a bitch-and Riker traveled from a mosey to a dead run across the campground. Opening the door of the waiting Mercedes, he told his friend to move over. “No, offense, Charles, but I need some speed.” The siren was wailing, wheels churning up dust, and they were off.

  Nahlman fixed the layout in her mind as Allen pulled up to the walkway and cut the engine. This was the long parking lot of an ersatz comfort stop for interstate travelers. Two outlying buildings of cinderblock housed toilets, and the center structure was an open arcade of maps and locked vending machines. A separate lot for trucks and motor homes held three big rigs, but there was no sign of the drivers; they were probably napping in the back of their cabs. In the slots reserved for smaller vehicles, a tow truck was parked a few spaces away from an SUV. On the far side of the picnic tables was another parking lot for cars. A man in workman’s coveralls and a bright orange vest was pulling bags from the large trash receptacles.

  Government vehicles rolled into the slots on either side of her car. Doors slammed and flashlights came out though the lot was well lit.

  In the back seat, Peter was wide awake and antsy, ready for another toilet call. Joe Finn roused his daughter and asked if she wanted to use the little girls’ room. It was a revelation to Nahlman when the child responded to her father’s voice with a nod. And now came a moment when the girl’s eyes fluttered open and the vacant look was gone. She seemed so normal in that second, fully cognizant of her surroundings. Was the girl truly insane or very sanely hiding out from the greater adult world? Nahlman’s last thought was that she was merely tired and reading too much into the simple nod of a little girl. But suspicion was a lingering thing. Perhaps Dodie Finn could teach her father something about the extremes of distrust.

  Nahlman had one hand on the door when she said to her partner, “Wait till another agent clears the men’s room. And before you go in, make sure you’ve got somebody watching your back.”

  Allen nodded, taking no offense that she repeated these simple rules to him for the second time in one night. He was looking about him, utterly focused, remembering what she had taught him about burning the landscape into his brain. At last, she was confident that he would not be taken by surprise, not tonight.

  “There you are,” said Dale Berman, upon finding one of his rookies entering the ladies’ room. “Start checking those rigs in the parking lot.”

  “I’ve haven’t cleared the restroom, sir.”

  “I’m on it,” he said with a smile for his prettiest and greenest agent. He entered the ladies’ room with his gun drawn and checked all the stalls. When he came out again, he was met by a park attendant in coveralls and an orange vest. The man was carrying a green plastic trash receptacle on one shoulder.

  “Make it fast,” said Dale Berman, standing to one side so the man could pass into the ladies’ room. And now he saw another rookie standing around with his hands in his pockets. What the hell was this idiot called? Ah, he had it now. He clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Hey, Bobby. I need you to help the trooper.” He pointed to the parking lot on the other side of the building. “He’s checking the perimeter.”

  “Who the hell is Agent Cadwaller?” Harry M
ars broke off this phone conversation with one of the field agents left behind at the campsite. He was watching the action beyond the lineup of waiting cabs. He recognized the detective, though he had never seen the man move so fast in the old days. Riker sprinted across the lanes of moving traffic. Brakes squealed. Horns honked. And now the New York cop came to a dead stop at the glass doors where Kronewald was standing, and he grabbed the older man by one arm.

  Oh, what fresh crap is this?

  With a new sense of urgency, Harry Mars turned back to his conversation with a rookie agent. He cut short the youngster’s report on the mysterious and now unaccounted for Agent Cadwaller. “Get on the fucking road, all of you! The troopers can guard the parents.” And they would probably do a better job of it. “I don’t give a shit about Dale Berman’s orders, and I don’t c are about the speed limit, either. Get moving! ”

  He turned to see Detective Kronewald piling into the back seat of a Mercedes. A portable siren was slapped on the roof of the car, and now it was screaming through the airport complex.

  The boy read the sign for the ladies’ room and shook his head. No, he was not going in there. Though Peter was doing that little dance of legs pressed together, he was determined to pee standing up beside his father in the men’s room. Joe Finn was loath to let go of his daughter until the last moment. Still distrustful, he gave up Dodie’s small hand to Agent Nahlman.

  Dale Berman sauntered over to the opening in the wall and the short corridor that led to the ladies’ room. “Get on with it, Nahlman. The kid’s gotta go.” Dale smiled at the father in apology for his agent’s slowness, and Joe Finn did not knock the man cold, though both his hands were tight fists.

  Dubious, Nahlman turned to the opening. “The room is clear?”

  “You had to ask?” Berman shrugged in Agent Allen’s direction, code to say, You see what I have to put up with? “Yes! I checked it myself.” In fact, he had checked it twice, unable to account for the park attendant’s departure. And now he was certain. “It’s clear.”

  Barry Allen turned around, moving stiffly as he led Joe Finn and his son toward the men’s room on the other side of the building. The agent was only a few steps away when he heard Dale Berman say, “What are you waiting for, Nahlman? I got your back.”

  With these last words, Agent Allen made a small stumble.

  Charles handed the cell phone back to Riker. “Sorry. Agent Nahlman’s not taking calls. Her messages are going to voice mail.”

  Riker nodded, pocketing his phone and pressing his foot on the gas pedal. “You remember what time the Finns left the campsite? I don’t think the FBI escort is in a big hurry right now. So figure the speed limit and-”

  “Got it,” said Charles, anticipating Riker’s request, computing figures and reviewing the maps in his mind. “If you can maintain a hundred miles an hour, you’ll catch up to them in about forty minutes.”

  “He’s a genius,” said the Chicago detective, not realizing that this was actually true. Kronewald reached over the front seat to slap Charles on the shoulder. “I love this guy. So back to your problem with Magritte’s cell phone. Well, the doctor’s not listed with any wireless outfit. He’s not paying the bills either.”

  “Spit it out, you bastard,” said Riker. “What’ve you got?”

  “It wasn’t Magritte’s phone. The doctor’s got credit cards out the wazoo and a nice healthy bank balance, but the phone bills get paid a year in advance by money order. Interesting, huh? It gets better. I sent a guy out to the address where the statements go. It’s a graveyard. That phone’s gotta belong to our killer. He dropped it at the scene after he killed the old man.”

  “No,” said Charles. “I think it belonged to Dr. Magritte.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s old.”

  Kronewald answered the beep of his own cell phone, listened for a moment, and then said, “Good job.” He leaned over the seat. “That was Harry Mars. There’s a state trooper riding with the feds. But he’s not responding to the radio. Now that might mean something. Or maybe the guy’s just taking a leak by the side of the road.”

  The state trooper was looking down at the asphalt. More interesting than the pool of blood was the fact that someone had attempted to hide it with a thin sprinkling of soil. He followed a trail of red drops to the locked SUV. With his flashlight pressed against the window, he could make out black plastic trash bags blanketing the bulky shape on the back seat. After breaking the window and unlocking the vehicle, he opened the door to pull back the covering plastic. Now he stared into the wide eyes of a middle-aged woman dressed only in her underwear and work boots-a dead woman.

  He turned to the young agent beside him. “You might wanna go get your boss.”

  Oh, how that young girl could run.

  While he waited for her to return with Special Agent Berman, the trooper took a close look at the Medic Alert tag that announced Pearl Walters’ allergy to penicillin. Next, he opened the glove compartment. It was not her name on the vehicle registration.

  Christine Nahlman was about to lean down and flush the toilet for Dodie, but this time the child smiled shyly and flushed it herself.

  Was there another noise riding below the sound of the rushing water?

  Agent Nahlman turned her back to the child before she pulled out her gun. Walking around the open stall door, she checked the room’s common area. The lid of the green garbage pail was now on the floor.

  And the pail was empty.

  Someone had come in and emptied the trash on Berman’s watch. Well, great-just great. Son of a bitch.

  Dodie was humming.

  The child was coming up behind her.

  No, not Dodie-someone else.

  The wound did not register at first. Nalhman never saw the knife as it slashed her throat. She watched it happen in the mirror, light sparking on metal, the red spreading from ear to ear. In that first second of shock, even a little girl could have taken her gun away. After it was knocked from her hand, she heard it skittering across the floor when he kicked it. Nahlman spun around and slipped in her own blood. Her head hit the tiled wall, and she was going down, leaving a slick red trail as she slid to the floor.

  Dale Berman stared at the dead stranger in the back seat of the SUV. “Well, the missing clothes-that’s new, but the slashed throat-yeah, our guy did this. He’s here.” Berman turned to the gathering of agents. “Okay, people,” he said, clapping his hands. “We’re gonna make another sweep of the area, all the buildings, the grounds and those rigs in the lot.”

  The trooper was standing by his cruiser, the radio receiver in one hand, as he called out, “Her name’s Pearl Walters and she drives a-”

  “Yeah, yeah-good to know,” said Berman, losing patience with this plodding state cop. He turned to the road leading back onto the highway. “Why isn’t somebody watching that exit?” He looked down at the rookie who had fetched him to this new crime scene. “That’s pretty basic. I shouldn’t have to spell out every little thing. Get on it. Now! Nobody leaves.” He looked up at the trooper as the man joined them. “I need you to find that park attendant. Get him to help with the-”

  “Listen to me!” said the trooper, who did not care what the special agent in charge wanted. Apparently he did not find Dale Berman all that special. “There are no park attendants this time of night. And Pearl Walters drives a tow truck.” He pointed to the other side of the grounds and the second lot. “There was one over there, and now it’s gone.”

  Christine Nahlman put her hand to the wound that spanned her throat, as if she could close the long gash that way. Her second thought was to fire her weapon to summon help. She had heard the gun fall, but could not see it anywhere.

  Blood flooded down the front of her blouse to pool in her lap. Vocal cords cut, only gurgles came from her mouth. Shock was a hammer. Thought was slow. She pulled the cell phone from her pocket. Wasted effort. Who would answer? No one here would even have a cell phone turned on.

&nbs
p; She worked the buttons for the named entries and found Riker. As she depressed the button to call him, she was dying-and she knew it.

  But what of Dodie?

  Speech was impossible. One chance only. Riker’s phone would be turned on. It would print out the name of his silent caller. Yes, now they were connected. She could hear his voice.

  “Nahlman? You okay?”

  Oh, no. She was draining of blood and life.

  “Talk to me,” he said to her, begged of her.

  Sorry, so sorry.

  She heard the sound of other conversations, asides to other people, Riker saying, “Something’s wrong.”

  Her eyes closed, her heart slowed.

  “I’m on the way,” he said to her.

  The cell phone clattered to the floor, and she was no longer there to hear him say, “Nahlman, hold on.”

  She could not wait. She was dead. She was gone.

  20

  Peter Finn stood beside the urinal and watched Agent Allen frowning, puzzling over a cell phone with a dark screen. Was it broken? No, for now the FBI man decided to turn it on. The small device in his hand came to life and beeped. The agent raised the phone to his ear, saying, “Allen here… Riker?”

  The FBI agent left the men’s room on the run, and Peter had his father all to himself, though Joe Finn was behind the closed door of a stall.

  Better that way.

  The boy had been waiting for this moment for so long. “Dad?” He pressed his forehead to the cool metal of the stall door and asked, “Do you hate me-because I lived-and Ariel died?”

  There was a moment of silence, and then he heard his father crying.

  Barry Allen ran past the startled agent guarding the entrance to the men’s room. He was heading for the other facility. All that Riker had said was, “Get to Nahlman now!”

  As he rounded the side of the building, he saw Dale Berman in the far-off parking lot. Who was watching Nahlman’s back?