Find Me

by Carol O’Connell

  “He didn’t wait that long. He knew I was missing when he called the computer camp the next day-just to see if I was playing nicely with the other kids-that was his story. Then the old man tracked me down to the San Francisco airport. He was waiting at the gate when I showed up with my return ticket. We flew home together.”

  “I suppose he was very upset.” In Louis’s version, the man had been badly frightened in every passing minute until he had found his lost child.

  “No. The old man just asked if I was okay. He never mentioned it again, and he didn’t rat me out to Helen. He said Helen liked the computer-camp story, so we’d let her go on believing in that one. After a while it was like somebody else took that trip to California, not me. And I didn’t c are about my father anymore.”

  Charles very much doubted that, but knew better than to accuse her of human frailty. At least, Mallory had found the best part of her father, the young man who would always be in love with Cassandra, the Peyton Hale she had rediscovered on Route 66.

  And what now-what next?

  She had no plan beyond this moment. She could not see one day into the future, and this worried Charles. Those who could not see a day ahead might not have another day to live.

  He picked up the canvas bag of maps and pulled out the one for California. As he plotted a therapeutic drive up the coast, she was staring at him. No-she was staring at the map with its arcs, circles and little crosses.

  “Why would Riker give you a bag full of evidence?”

  “Personal effects,” said Charles, correcting her. Oh, that was a mistake. She never took criticism well. And now his attention was diverted to other items at the bottom of the bag, things he had overlooked before. He pulled out a pair of dark glasses, distinctive for their great expense and style- Mallory’s sunglasses? Yes, for next he found her gold pen, a gift he had given her years ago. He stared at these items for the longest time. “Some of your things,” he said, holding them out to her. “They got mixed up with Horace’s effects.”

  She shook her head. No, he was mistaken about that, though these items most certainly belonged to her. “The killer stole them. They belong with the rest of the evidence.”

  And now, as Mallory would say, they had a game.

  ***

  Charles carried their bags into the Santa Barbara Hotel, prime beachfront property and room service; his world was complete. All the people in the lobby were dressed to the nines, and, though blue jeans and denim shirts were acceptable attire among wealthy travelers, he made the error of laying the car keys on the reception desk. The Volkswagen emblem branded him as scurvy middle class in the eyes of the hotel clerk. The young woman said nothing in response to his request for two of her best rooms. Instead, she wrote down a price, and he fancied that her frosty little nose actually tilted up as she pushed the slip of paper across the desk. She was no doubt certain that this would send him on his way to some lesser establishment and a room without a view.

  Hardly.

  But it was Mallory who snatched up the paper, read the price and found it not nearly exorbitant enough, saying, “You must have better rooms than these.” Her hand was on one hip, the denim jacket incidentally drawn back, the gun exposed, the clerk surprised, and now it seemed that deluxe suites were available.

  When they stood alone on the balcony overlooking the sea, Charles took this romantic moment to say, “I know it wasn’t Horace Kayhill.” Was she even listening to him? No. She was inspecting the label on a complimentary wine bottle. He tried a different tact. “I wonder why the killer left your sunglasses and pen with Horace’s body.”

  Mallory took her own time pouring the wine. She sipped from a glass and seemed to be considering the taste. “So Riker never told you who the killer was. That’s interesting.” She scrutinized his face, looking there for signs of lies.

  This test-this torture was proof enough that she was back in form. This was a cause for celebration, and he wanted to throttle her. “Who was he?” If she did not tell him now, his head might explode.

  “You met him, Charles.” She sipped her wine slowly. “I think you even liked him.”

  “So he was with the caravan.”

  She nodded. “He was the Pattern Man.”

  All right. That was interesting, though it could not possibly be true. It would be a grave error to question her logic. She hated that-and he could do miles better. He poured himself a glass of wine and courted a more hostile response, saying, “You’re wrong. The Pattern Man-Mr. Kayhill died in New Mexico. His bones were picked clean by wild animals.” Failing to get a rise out of her, he added, “Horace was quite dead.” He slugged back the wine in one swallow and said, “Extremely dead.”

  Mallory’s voice had no inflection when she volleyed. “That’s right, but you can’t tell the time of death from skeletal remains. Horace Kayhill died before you met the Pattern Man back in Missouri.”

  Well, good solution-cleaving her prime suspect in two. So simple. He poured another glass of wine. “It’s a bit of a stretch,” he said, somewhat charitably. “That little man-”

  “They always turn out to be little men.”

  She seemed to take no offense that he still doubted her. Or was she setting him up for a pratfall? It was so hard to tell with her-just like old times.

  “Only the maps belonged to the Pattern Man,” she said. “He was driving Kayhill’s mobile home when he wasn’t stealing cars. But then he had to get rid of it. Now that was Riker’s doing when he organized a search for Kayhill. The Pattern Man would’ve picked that up on his police scanner. He thought Riker was on to him. Panic time. He couldn’t risk a photograph of the real Kayhill showing up on the evening news. The body-what was left of it-had to be found. So he ditched the mobile home at the crime scene-a beacon for the searchers. Good plan. The feds had no interest in Horace Kayhill, and the local police never met the Pattern Man.” She retrieved the canvas tote bag from a chair by the door. “When Riker saw this, I know it only took him six seconds to figure it out. But he gave the evidence to you. Why?”

  Charles now regarded the bag as a dangerous thing, and he shook his head in denial. Fortunately, in Mallory’s e yes, this passed for confusion instead of a challenge. He could never tell her that her partner’s only suspect had been Peyton Hale-that Riker believed she had killed her own father. Lies were not his forte, and so he countered with the truth. “I’m not sure that he ever looked that closely at the bag when-”

  “Riker’s no screwup,” said Mallory, insistent. “He saw the evidence. Hard evidence.” She pulled two maps from the bag. “But he could’ve worked it out if all he had were these. While I was in the hospital, the state police found the graves on the Seligman loop.” She spread the Arizona map on the bed.

  Had Riker done more than glance at the folded maps? Doubtful.

  “Look,” said Mallory. “See the little crosses on that segment?”

  “Yes… because the children were buried on the old trucker’s route.”

  “Right. Now the Pattern Man claimed to be a Route 66 buff. But look at this.” She unfolded the map for New Mexico and handed it to him. “All the hardcore fanatics take the road north to Santa Fe.”

  Charles stared at the Santa Fe loop-no graves. But this was not evidence of an alias, not proof enough to split one man in two. “Kayhill could’ve worked it out. He was one of Dr. Magritte’s patients.”

  “No, Magritte’s patient was the Pattern Man. That was his Internet name. Kayhill was just some poor tourist he met up with on the road.”

  Mallory upended the canvas tote bag, spilling the remaining contents on the bedspread in a pile of maps, credit-card receipts and sundry items. She picked up a driver’s license and placed it in his hand. “That’s what the real Kayhill looked like.”

  Charles stared at the license photo. It was a face he had never seen before. It resembled the man he had known as Horace Kayhill only in the broadest sense of hair color, height and weight. “Well, license photos are always bad. The
killer probably showed this to lots of people, agents, troopers, and no one noticed that it wasn’t him.”

  “But you noticed right away,” she said, as if she had caught him in a lie. “I promise you, Riker would never miss a thing like that.”

  Oh, but he had. Riker had only glanced inside the trooper’s plastic sack, just a quick look to see a familiar canvas bag and the markings on a wadded map. The detective’s own theory of Mallory’s father as a serial murderer was proof that the man had indeed overlooked this driver’s license.

  “Think carefully, Charles. You said you were there when the cops gave it to Riker. Did you see him sign a receipt? Any paperwork at all?”

  Charles shook his head, hardly paying attention.

  “Good,” she said. “Then it never happened. Are we clear on that?”

  He was staring at the damning canvas bag. So much had happened on the day when Riker had received it, but Charles could see no way that his friend would ever recover from this-oversight.

  Then Mallory showed him the way.

  “We don’t have to turn it over to Kronewald,” she said. Anticipating him, she added, “So the freak is never identified-so what? It’s better this way.” She snatched the license from his hand and then gathered up the maps and bits of paper on the bed. “The reporters probably have film of the fake Kayhill. They’d s plash his face all over the tube.” She jammed the contents back into the bag. “They’d turn up leads and backtrack his life all the way to Illinois. Then there’d be the books and movies-TV specials- all for a child killer.” She seemed indignant over these events that had not happened yet. “And the public-they just love their killers. They wouldn’t be able to get enough of this one. And all those murdered kids. Can you see the media chewing on their bones?” She dropped the tote bag into a metal wastebasket. “You think that’s why Riker ditched the evidence?”

  What?

  Not waiting for an answer, she carried the wastebasket out to the balcony. “It fits. I’ve never heard Riker use a child killer’s name. He always calls them cockroaches.” She turned to the neighboring balcony, leaning over the rail for a better look at the windows of the next room.

  Checking for eavesdroppers-witnesses?

  She looked down at the contents of the wastebasket. “If the chain of possession ever led back to Riker, he’d lose his badge. But he couldn’t destroy evidence-he just couldn’t go that far.” She came back inside and walked up to Charles. “So he gave it to you. But you’re not the type to collect souvenirs from a murder.”

  What now? Was she accusing him of something?

  “I told you,” he said, “Riker thought the California map might be useful.”

  “He knew you’d throw away the rest of it.”

  What rubbish. However, in a twisted way, he looked upon this rationale of hers as a sign of healing; Mallory was more herself, for only a truly paranoid personality could come up with a contrivance as tortured and far-flung as this one.

  No-that was unfair.

  Her bedrock for this cracked idea was her absolute faith in her partner. She would never come up with any scenario where that man could make an error as careless and costly as this one. She must believe the bag had been given to Riker after the case was closed. Or did she?

  “What if the New Mexico police come looking for their evidence?”

  “The chance is pretty slim.” She took his arm and led him through the open door to the balcony. “Kronewald helped them close out Kayhill’s murder, and they pinned it on the right man. No harm done. Odds are, they think one of their own guys lost the bag. And they’d b e right about that. No receipt-that’s really sloppy police work.” Mallory looked down and nudged the wastebasket with her shoe. “I’m a cop. I can’t destroy evidence.”

  However, Charles apparently could, for now she handed him a book of matches.

  “Up to you,” she said. “If you burn it, Riker can never know about this. Nobody can. You understand that, right?”

  Indeed.

  Mallory would continue to believe the worst of her partner and trust him less because of that-if Charles could only keep his silence and commit a crime to obfuscate Riker’s innocence.

  She walked back inside, closing the glass door behind her, and now the drapes were also closing. No need to watch-to witness. She had every confidence that he would break the law for her.

  Left alone on the balcony, he looked down at the metal wastebasket- and the evidence. After railing against Dale Berman’s incompetence, Riker would be destroyed by this oversight of his own-a detail missed, a life lost. Armed with the identity of a serial killer, a man known on sight, the Finns’ FBI escort would have been searching faces instead of shadows, and they would have detected the fugitive in their midst. If not for Riker’s failure to inspect a small bag-Christine Nahlman would not have died.

  Was Mallory convinced that her partner had committed the crime of concealing evidence? Or did she guess the truth in that moment when she handed over the driver’s license with its damning photograph? Had she detected a flicker of horror on Charles’s face-his tell-all face? He could never risk posing the question to her, and she knew it. Or did she? He would never know. But this was a knot worthy of Mallory, tied with threads of truth and lies and loyalty, and it could not be undone.

  Everyone was tainted except for Charles Butler, the last one standing with clean hands-until he struck the match.

  Epilogue

  They continued on a northern route up the coast highway, fairylands of woods breaking into dazzling vistas of rock cliffs and crashing ocean waves. Charles was beginning to enjoy the road. The scary, hairy turns made it more like a carnival ride with a view. When he gave the wheel over to Mallory, her malaise seemed to brighten, and he picked this lighter moment to ask about her father’s eyeglasses.

  No, she did not remember if he had been wearing glasses when she saw him all those years ago. “Probably not. Ray Adler said he never wore them.”

  And now Charles had her permission to ransack her knapsack for the old photographs and the letters. He sifted through the pictures of young Peyton Hale, studying them by the poor light of the dashboard. In every snapshot, a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles rested in the man’s shirt pocket. “He always kept them close-the glasses.”

  But he never wore them. Neither did Riker. Did Peyton Hale also have the flaw of vanity? That would explain so much.

  Mallory’s concentration was elsewhere. Her eyes were on the twisty road, the ride. She simply did not care why Peyton Hale had passed her by on that faraway beach in her childhood. Charles might as well be talking to himself when he said, “He’s very young in these photos. His prescription for glasses would’ve been much stronger by the time you met him. You could be mistaken about-”

  Oh, no. She was listening that time, and how dare he challenge her? She turned to glare at him while completing a sharp turn with the precision of a missile guidance system, no sign of human fear for the inch-away trees and rocks in the headlights. “He saw me, Charles. He was as close as you are now. He looked right at me. But he didn’t recognize my face, my mother’s face.”

  Well-Mallory the Machine was back.

  Charles sensed more progress in these moments when he irritated her the most. She was rebuilding herself, taking back all the flyaway pieces, the paranoia, the suspicion and her cold calculation for debit columns of cheats and losses. Cold as stone, but such a lovely face-unforgettable. In the old black-and-white photographs, it might well be Mallory standing beside Peyton Hale, so alike were mother and daughter.

  With the aid of her penlight, Charles read the letters written for O.B. They had been authored by a deeply romantic man, though there was nothing to say that Peyton had ever taken a lover and not one word about Cassandra’s coming child. The letters were all about Route 66, the man’s only passion. In one context, they comprised a book of rules on how to live in a world of constant motion, where the road could suddenly shift beneath the traveler’s w heels or vanish fr
om sight. Every line was polished prose and suitable for publication.

  And the opening-for O.B.? A book title perhaps, or the initials of an editor.

  Mallory must have been so disappointed in these pages, for her theory was vindicated here: When the letters were all one had to go by, it seemed that she and her mother had never existed.

  The silver convertible drove on in a winding fashion, climbing, climbing, and then came a sensation approaching freefall as they dropped down the roller-coaster road in the dark, kissing mountainside then leafy branches. They were heading toward that far patch of coastline once visited by fourteen-year-old Kathy Mallory. He could see her as she was then, a girl poised on a beach at the edge of the world-so young to have no safety net-so full of hope for this meeting of father and child. Then came the moment. And the child had walked away alone.

  It was a rare road that had three endings and one resolution.

  They had arrived in this small coastal community at an unnatural hour for visiting. And so it was morning when the silver car pulled away from the hotel on Main Street and rolled through the fog that shrouded Mendocino, California. The sun had risen hours ago; Charles took this on faith since he could not see it.

  Not an auspicious beginning for the day.

  The road climbed up through cloudland, and the car broke into bright sunlight and lush green forest thick with fern and flowering plants. There were no houses visible from the road, only lot numbers to tell him that the more reclusive citizens of Mendocino were in there somewhere. These outlying rural householders seemed to like their privacy. The car approached a small dirt road that could only be a private driveway, and here Charles slowed a bit for there was no number to be read on the mailbox-in fact no mailbox, only a broken post. Half of it protruded from the ground, and the rest of it lay on the grass, having fallen victim to wood rot.