Redemption

by Laurel Dewey

  Kit observed Jane like a suspect. “Why are you so afraid to talk to him?”

  Jane told Kit about Weyler’s offer to return to DH as a sergeant.

  “‘Sergeant Perry calling from Denver Headquarters,’” Kit enthusiastically mimicked. “I think it’s got a helluva nice ring to it! Call him back and say yes.”

  “You don’t think I can make it on my own?” Jane was seriously insulted.

  “Stop acting like a child! You can make it on your own, but maybe you can make it better in a larger organization and with the support of this Sergeant Weyler. And I bet they give you one helluva good dental plan!”

  “Kit, enough!”

  Kit finished her spirulina ball and changed the subject, wanting to know what happened with Bartosh and if he was still practicing paint-by-numbers piety.

  “It went fine. He felt my article was a sign from God.”

  “What happens when your article never appears in the magazine?”

  “C’est la vie, as they say in France,” Jane replied in a cavalier tone.

  “Well, ‘Cover your ass,’ as they say in the U.S. You should call him back to follow-up with more questions. Makes the whole thing look aboveboard. Then maybe a call down the road to say the article’s not going to happen. Blame it on your editor.”

  “Shit happens. Stories get shelved all the time.” Jane gunned the Mustang onto I-70, heading westbound. “Did you know the Bartoshs had a daughter named Mary?”

  “No. Why?”

  “She left home at seventeen quite suddenly. She was pregnant.”

  Kit turned to Jane, stunned. “Bartosh told you this?”

  “No. Ingrid.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “Who knows. They haven’t heard a word from her since she left.”

  Kit tried to piece together a timeline. “She must have left before Lou’s trial, because I never saw any teenage girl that belonged to the Bartoshs in the courtroom.”

  Jane weighed the pros and cons of her next move and decided it was worth the risk. She dug the five-by-seven photo out of her shirt and handed it to Kit. “Take a look at the girl on the far left-hand side.”

  Kit’s eyes bugged out. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was one of many photos in a collage in their hallway—”

  “You stole this photo?!”

  “That hallway was so dark, you couldn’t see your future. They’ll never miss it!”

  “Jane P., they will miss this!”

  “You don’t understand the feeling when your gut twists and you just know you’re on to something but you can’t put your finger right on it—”

  “You mean it felt hinky?”

  Jane was seriously taken aback. It was the last word she ever thought Kit would bandy around, let alone use correctly in a sentence. “Yeah...exactly...that’s exactly it.”

  Kit seemed satisfied by Jane’s response and studied the photo. “Okay. So, what about the girl on the far left side?”

  “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen.... Maybe seventeen.”

  “I’m saying seventeen. What do you bet that’s Mary?”

  Kit looked closer at the photo, this time with more interest. “It could be anyone.”

  “Look closely. She’s got Ingrid’s features. And just that part of the photo where she appears was covered up.” Jane started factoring the timeline in her head. If Mary was seventeen in that photo, then she left home in 1990. Since Kit didn’t see her at Lou’s trial, Jane figured Mary left home sometime between Easter and that summer.

  Kit saw the written reference to Pico Blanco on the photo. “That’s the cabin.”

  Jane inwardly grimaced. She kicked herself mentally for forgetting the significance of the cabin and handing it to Kit. “Here,” she said, reaching for the photo.

  “No,” Kit said, holding on tightly to the photo. Her eyes fixated on Lou. “You see how handsome he is? Is it any wonder he enticed girls?” Kit fell into a trancelike state. “I wonder what he looks like now. He was clean-shaven with an army haircut at the bond hearing last year. Prison took away some of his youthfulness. But he still had that blue-eyed come hither look that traps and tricks the unsuspecting child....”

  Jane gently took the photo out of Kit’s hand, securing it in her satchel. “I’m sorry.”

  “So many memories....” Kit contained her emotions and asked what Jane thought of Bartosh. When Jane said she agreed with much of what he said in relation to the sexualizing of young girls, Jane noted how Kit took it as a blatant defense of a man she could never respect.

  “I don’t buy the religious end,” Jane argued, “but I agree with him when he talks about how young girls are enticed to act older and sexier than they should. It sets the stage for chaos and sexual predators. Sexual predators are always looking for the perfect victim.”

  Kit bristled. “Perfect victim?”

  Jane took it down a notch. “A cop sees three types of people in this world: victims, predators, and none of the above. Victims put off an energy—” Jane knew she was treading on dangerous ground. She didn’t want to dredge up more painful memories for Kit. But she wished she could explain clearly what her years as a cop had proven to her: some people put off either a conscious or unconscious vibe to predators. Her experience showed that there was always an inherent weakness in the victim. The predator hones in on that weakness and takes full advantage of it. Sometimes, that weakness was sheer ignorance; ignorance that provocative clothing, actions, or behavior tripped a predator’s senses. It didn’t mean the crime was justified. But from Jane’s perspective, there were many cases where the victim was either drunk, stoned, in known dangerous locations, or fraternizing with people who had, in Jane’s estimation, obvious criminal intent. But to try and explain this to Kit was pointless. And the last thing Jane wanted to do was give Kit the impression that Ashlee asked for what she got.

  “Are you talking about free spirits?” Kit asked.

  Jane couched her response carefully. “To a sexual predator, a ‘free spirit’ is asking for it, especially if the predator is coming from some warped religious point of view. Bartosh made a comment that I agree with: ‘Where there’s no self-discipline there’s no self-rule.’ Self-rule and self-discipline work both ways. Free spirits usually don’t have either.”

  “What do you suggest we do? Shove everyone into a box and crush their vitality, only letting them out to breathe and stretch before slamming them back in the box? Isn’t that what Bartosh tells parents to do with their children? Create little robotic drones who can’t think for themselves, let alone act without first consulting with the Great Master in Grand Junction? That technique obviously didn’t work on his own kid!”

  “There’s a place between the box and infinity, Kit.”

  Kit considered Jane’s words. “Children should be allowed to make mistakes and not pay with their lives as punishment.”

  “That reasoning works in a perfect world. Charlotte Walker made a conscious decision to look a certain way when she left her house on December 25—”

  “That’s an unfair statement, Jane!”

  “You watched that goddamned birthday video, what? A hundred times? Did you really look at it with an eye of perception? I bet Charlotte knows how to get exactly what she wants. She learned how to use a wink, a smile, a turn of her head to get attention from boys. I imagine there are a lot of teenage boys in Oakhurst, California, who could tell me how hard it is to keep their dicks soft around her.”

  “You’re walking a fine line right now, Jane P. When you insult Charlotte like that, you insult my Ashlee and her memory!”

  This was exactly the reaction Jane wanted to avoid. “I am not disrespecting Ashlee’s memory.” Jane reworked her approach. “Look, what I’m saying is that Mrs. Walker doesn’t get it. I’ve seen a million Charlottes. No dad in her life—”

  “You don’t know that for sure—”

  “Trust me, she’s an only child with a single working mom.
Close ties to female family members. Remember Aunt Donna who ran the video? Where were the men in that video?”

  “It was a five minute clip. You can’t delineate Charlotte’s life based on that!

  “I’d bet you a million bucks that when I probe into this kid’s world, there will be an insignificant number of men in her life compared to women. No men. No positive male role models. No balance.” Jane could feel herself melting into Charlotte’s private world. “Mrs. Walker lets her kid dress and act older than her years because, bless her ignorant soul, she would rather be Charlotte’s best friend than her parent. The irony is, deep down, Charlotte doesn’t want her mother to be her best friend. She wants her to be her mother. And what Charlotte doesn’t realize is that Mom is vicariously living through her daughter. She thinks it’s cool when Charlotte dresses up in her red jacket and tight jeans and the boys stare at her. Because before Charlotte’s mom packed on the extra hundred pounds, she was quite the looker and the boys loved her. But her looks faded. She got hard, and after the boys and men left her, Charlotte’s mom decided to hate men because, in her mind, men are just fucked up, useless trash. Sperm donors. Heavy lifters. But to little Charlotte, men are a mystery. They’re a color she’s never seen. So she goes out looking. But she goes out with only half the information in her hip pocket. She doesn’t know who she is because we are only as strong as where we come from and who rocked our cradle. She’s missing half the puzzle—a father. She unconsciously searches for that missing puzzle piece. But because she’s so needy and desperate for that male energy, she thinks that all guys want to help her and be her friend. That’s the vibe that attracts the predator. But she doesn’t recognize the monster when he pulls up and says, ‘Need a ride?’”

  Kit took it all in before speaking. “Well, your theory doesn’t wash completely. My Ashlee had a father!”

  “Was he present in her life?”

  “Paul was a good provider—”

  “You didn’t answer my question. Was there any emotional involvement?”

  “Paul is complicated. He prefers to take the path of least resistance. I’d say he is emotionally challenged. Now more than ever.”

  “So Paul wasn’t a strong presence in Ashlee’s life. Doesn’t that fit what I said? Physical or emotional absence, it makes no difference. Mom was the strong one.”

  “I wouldn’t call Barbara strong. I’d call her reliable. Structured. Unbending. Unforgiving. Hateful....” Kit’s voice trailed off. “Nobody tells Barbara what to do. I think Paul decided it was easier to just go along rather than argue with her.” Kit looked at Jane. “What about you? Did you have a strong father figure?”

  Jane moved into the fast lane and accelerated to eighty-five miles per hour as she neared the Colorado/Utah border. “Strong in what sense? Physical strength? Yeah, in spades. Strong in the emotional sense...no.”

  “Yes, we touched on this briefly in your office. Your childhood wasn’t comforting.”

  Jane shook her head at Kit’s careful adjective. “My brother and I shared a childhood that was as comforting as fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.”

  “You mentioned there was physical abuse. What happened?”

  “This is not about me.”

  “You were a victim, Jane. And your father was a predator. So, based on what you’ve told me, what weakness did your father see in you that sparked his rage?”

  “I am not a victim! I’m a survivor—”

  “Who began as a victim! What did you represent to your father?” Kit wasn’t going to let it go. “You had to represent something to him for him to go off on you!”

  “I won’t be psychologically analyzed with bumper sticker philosophies!”

  “I think it’s a question worth investigating! You talk about patterns. You’re right. We all have patterns we repeat. You spend so much time analyzing and observing others, but you’ve never taken the time to observe yourself! Isn’t that part of the AA platform? ‘Make a searching and fearless moral inventory.’ Step Three, is it?”

  “Step Four,” Jane said, pulling in her emotional wall.

  “But that’s where you get stuck, right?” There was a sting in Kit’s voice.

  Jane accelerated to ninety miles per hour. There was stony silence until, “I’m going to say it once and then we’re never gonna talk about it again. I got beatings all the time protecting my little brother because that’s what my mother asked me to do on her deathbed. I would have died for my brother and I nearly did one night when I was fourteen. My dad dragged me out to his workshop behind the house and beat me with his belt and punched me until I fell against his worktable and cracked my head open.” Jane pointed to a visible scar on her right temple. “So I figured one of us needed to die. I grabbed a gun that was on the table and pointed it at him. I should have shot the son of a bitch, but I froze. And that cost me.” Jane revved the Mustang past ninety-five miles per hour. “He beat me to the ground and then kicked me in my groin until I passed out. I woke up alone, still on that same floor and soaked in my own blood. I didn’t get help because my dad was a cop and I knew if I told anybody, he’d kill me the next time. And as much as I wanted to die, I couldn’t risk it because I’d promised my mother I’d take care of my brother. And you see, Kit, I keep my promises, no matter the cost. So there it is. My dad was a fucking, twisted nutcase. But he’s a fucking dead nutcase now thanks to a stroke and a boozed up liver.” Jane’s voice was taut with bile. She moved uncomfortably. “I want to get out of this outfit and get a smoke. There’s a gas station and convenience store up ahead. We’re stopping.”

  Kit remained silent as Jane exited the off-ramp and cruised to a stop in front of the store. After filling the tank with gas, Jane grabbed her jeans and shirt and headed into the store. Ducking into the bathroom, she quickly changed clothes and then returned to the cashier’s station. For a brief moment, her eyes scanned the magazine rack. She was suddenly aware of one cover shot after another of young girls in alluring poses and pouty close-ups.

  “Can I help you?” the clerk asked.

  Jane looked up in a slight daze. “Yeah, thirty bucks for the gas and a pack of Marlboros.”

  The clerk took Jane’s money, handed her the cigarettes, and then clicked the MUTE button on the TV remote to turn on the volume.

  “We’re here in Oakhurst, California with Clinton Fredericks....”

  Jane immediately focused on the television when she heard the name.

  “For those of you who are unaware, Fredericks is a self-proclaimed ‘Gonzo’ crime profiler,” the reporter continued. “A guy who likes to put himself firmly into the center of the action in many of the most disturbing cases. He’s the author of three bestselling books, including Profile of a Killer, which is based on the infamous—and some say tragic—capture of Rudy Weiss. Thanks for joining us, Mr. Fredericks!”

  As Jane stared at the TV screen, a foreboding suspicion came over her. The camera cut to the forty-something Clinton Fredericks, seated outside of what looked like a fast-food restaurant on the main drag in Oakhurst. He was dressed in drab olive slacks, a well-worn crewneck sweater, and a battered navy rain slicker. Fredericks looked as if he were reporting from the front line of a war-torn, Third World country. His intense blue eyes sparked to life the minute the camera hit him. “Media whore.” That’s what went through Jane’s mind when Fredericks addressed the reporter.

  “Good to be here!” Fredericks responded, dragging his thick fingers through his already tousled dirty blond hair. “I want everyone to know that I’m working exclusively with Charlotte’s mother and all those who love this child and want her safely returned to her happy home and the bosom of her dear mother. I made a personal promise to Mrs. Walker today. And that promise was that I would do whatever it took to analyze this horrific kidnapping, profile the individual who took her child, and bring her beloved daughter back into her loving arms.”

  Jane tuned out Fredericks’s brash voice. The Walker case was quickly turning into an unc
ontainable circus and Clinton Fredericks was the unofficial ringmaster. Based on what Jane knew about Fredericks’s method of operation, Mrs. Walker had made a dangerous choice in allowing this egocentric, self-serving ass into her private world. As with all headline-making crime cases, the vultures were descending. But based on Clinton’s dicey track record, this particular vulture could hasten Charlotte Walker’s death.

  If Jane was going to successfully work the Walker case, she would need to know how to stay four steps ahead of Clinton Fredericks. There was only one person who intimately knew how Fredericks operated. And he was less than eight hours away.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jane quickly inhaled sufficient nicotine into her lungs before getting back into the Mustang. “We’ve got a problem,” she stated, peeling out of the gas station and heading back onto westbound I-70. “Clinton Fredericks is now part of the Walker team.”

  “Why is that name familiar?” Kit asked with a troubled look.

  “Rudy Weiss? Eighteen months ago?”

  “Right. The psycho who kidnapped that bank teller in rural Arkansas.”

  Jane nodded. “Fredericks profiled him, tracked Weiss to his backwoods trailer, and then negotiated one-on-one for three days on live TV with Weiss to let the woman go and give himself up.”

  Kit’s eyes suddenly bugged out as she recalled the tragic ending. “That woman got killed!”

  “Yeah. A lot of people blamed Fredericks’s devil-may-care attitude for her death. He supposedly convinced the sheriff to storm the trailer. Weiss killed the woman when they blew down the door and nearly took his own life before they grabbed him.”

  “How did Fredericks get involved so quickly with Charlotte’s kidnapping?”

  “He’s an opportunist asshole. He sees a headline story involving a missing girl, a bevy of cameras, and the chance to take center stage and redeem himself. Fredericks didn’t waste a second getting in good with the mother. The idiot woman agreed to give him carte blanche on the case. She’s so fucked and she doesn’t even know it!”

  “You think Fredericks could get Charlotte killed, don’t you?”