Abandoned: A Thriller

by Cody McFadyen

  “Money as the motive would explain the way in which he selects his targets,” James offers. “In Hollister’s case, the perpetrator didn’t choose Heather—the husband did. There’s no evidence of any personal ties, and I doubt we’ll find any.”

  “Impersonal fits with what we know so far about how he treats them too,” Alan says. “Granted, we’ve only heard from Heather, but I think we can take her at her word. The way she talked about him whipping her for punishment, it didn’t sound like he was getting off on it.”

  “As the doctor said—workmanlike,” Callie says.

  I nod. “That’s a good tag for this line of thinking.” I go over and write it on the whiteboard. “So, organized, methodical, everything he does he does for a purpose. That’s our current theory. The overriding purpose, for now, appears to be money. But is money just his excuse?” I shake my head. “What about keeping them in darkness and housing them for at least seven years. Is it sadistic?”

  “I don’t think so,” James says. “I—” He stops, pondering. “I think that was a good word,” he murmurs, staring at the whiteboard. “Workmanlike. Maybe that’s everything to him. Pragmatism. No wasted motion. Waste is the thing you don’t forgive.” He looks at me. “Darkness enforces compliance over time by making the prisoner insane. It’s incredibly efficient. It saves on electricity, it eliminates the need for assistance from others, and it breaks down the ability to resist. Heather Hollister said that he told her to exercise daily. Why? Because he knew he needed to keep her alive. Why? Because of the possibility Douglas Hollister might renege on their agreement.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s about sadism. I think it’s about maximum return on minimum effort.”

  “Heather said he didn’t even bother to speak to her when he punished her,” I allow, though I’m still cautious. “He took her, whipped her, told her it would be worse the next time, and stuck her back in her room. Where’s the enjoyment in that?”

  “There isn’t any,” James says. “Probably because it is a business, and she was just a commodity.”

  “Maybe,” I mutter. Something else occurs to me. “Why does he need to keep them alive as insurance against the husbands? If it’s all about efficiency, isn’t killing them more efficient than all the work involved in keeping them alive?”

  “I considered that,” James says. “I still think it fits. The whole point of releasing the victims, going with the financial theory, would be to punish the husbands. To draw attention back to them as suspects, similar to what just happened with Douglas Hollister. That being true, it’s a much safer hedge on his bets to keep the victims alive until he collects his money. It keeps doors of possibility open, in terms of exposure or threat of exposure, that would be permanently shut if he killed them.”

  “Could make sense,” Alan agrees. “If you think about it, the usual assumption would be that the victims were already dead, right?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  When a female is abducted and never shows up again, the odds are that she’s been killed. This holds true in almost every case, from simple kidnapping to rape attacks.

  “So, if their corpses turn up seven years or eight down the road, it’s a surprise, and it’ll get the gears of investigation turning, but it fits with the existing expectations. Showing up alive?” He raises his eyebrows. “That gets attention.”

  “It fits,” I say, “but I think there’s something else here. Exposure may be a part of the reason he keeps them alive, but it just doesn’t feel like the whole. I’m not sure why.”

  James nods. “I agree.”

  I mark all this surmise down in abbreviated form, including the question mark that stands for the thing James and I both sense but can’t prove. These are things we feel, not things we know, but that’s the way of it.

  “Why lobotomize them?” Callie asks.

  I cock my head, considering. “Could be pragmatism, again,” I say, continuing James’s theory of our perpetrator’s mind-set. I’m still reluctant, but I can’t deny that it’s making more and more sense. “A lobotomized victim can’t be a witness.”

  Alan frowns. “But how does that guarantee the husbands get punished for not paying? They can’t talk about their abductor, but that means they can’t point the finger at their spouses either. Doesn’t seem to fit with the whole more-doors-left-open idea.”

  “We need more data on the prior victims he’s left for discovery,” Callie says, making a note. “My guess would be that he arranged the husbands’ downfall in some fashion. It’s not the kind of thing he’d leave to chance.”

  “What about Heather?” I ask. “I realize I’m the one who put up the idea, but if the whole point of the lobotomies is to leave no witnesses, why’d he let her walk whole? Conversely, why do it to Dana? Up to this point, so far as we know, he hasn’t engaged in any collateral damage.”

  “‘So far as we know’ is a key phrase there,” Alan points out. “Also, maybe Dana wasn’t collateral damage. Maybe she was in on it.” I think about that and nod. “Possible.”

  “He might just think he has nothing to fear,” Alan continues. “Look, he had Heather for eight years, and what does she remember about him? Nothing. That might change if she ever gets back into her right mind, but I doubt it.”

  “Doubt isn’t certainty, though,” James observes, “and that doesn’t fit with the profile we hypothesized. That kind of pragmatism wouldn’t allow for any risk of discovery at all.”

  “Perhaps it does,” Callie demurs. “Pragmatism and logic should allow for an evolving paradigm.”

  James frowns. “So?”

  “Assuming the motive is financial, our boy would be constantly examining his existing paradigm, with particular attention to risk and reward.”

  “Again, I ask: so?”

  “So, sweet James, letting someone rip you off is a high-risk, zero return endeavor. It breeds future rebellion and thus lowers income. He’s apparently dealt with this kind of defiance before, yet here it is again, in the form of Douglas Hollister. He could have taken stock and decided a different approach was needed.”

  “Such as?”

  “Heather is free. Whatever state she’s in, she’s no longer imprisoned. Douglas, in the meantime, is heading for jail. Think about that. These men are driven by their hatred of these women. What better punishment than to change places with them?” She looks at the whiteboard. “How much would you like to bet that current customers got an email, or a phone call, or a text message, telling them what’s happening to Douglas Hollister and to keep an eye on the news for confirmation? The risk is increased, certainly, but so is the reward.”

  “It’s an interesting theory,” James says, his voice grudging.

  “Brilliant is a better word, honey-love. Go ahead, say it: brilliant.”

  “We haven’t talked about the biggest anomaly,” he says, ignoring her.

  I raise an eyebrow. “Which is?”

  “Why confirm his existence by sending a text message, leaving a note with Heather, and dropping off a card at your home? If he just wanted to harm Douglas, why reveal himself at all?”

  It is an excellent question. Possibly the best question.

  “Maybe we’ll get a better idea from finding out more about the prior victims,” I say. “Callie, I want you to take that. Call up the departments involved and see if you can get them to send us the case files.”

  “It’ll be my pleasure.”

  “The quickest way to a disorganized offender is through what drives him,” James says. “Victimology. The quickest path to this kind of offender is going to be method.”

  “Good,” I agree. “So let’s examine the requisites for our boy.” I walk over to the whiteboard and find a clean section. METHOD/REQUIRED, I write. “Let’s stick with the financial motivation and look at the most basic factors. What does he need to do what he does? What’s the foundation?”

  “A client,” James says.

  “Good.” I write CLIENT on the whiteboard under
METHOD/REQUIRED. “How does he find a client?”

  Alan scratches his head. “He found Douglas Hollister in a chat room for dissatisfied men. He finds them on the Internet?”

  “That’s the most logical route these days,” I say, writing it down. “The Internet’s a big place. How does he decide where to start?”

  “All kinds of ways,” a voice says, interrupting us.

  I glance over and grin when I see Leo Carnes. “Hey, Leo!” I walk over to him and give him a hug. It’s not big-boss professional, but Leo is a friend. He’s also one of the best computer-crimes agents we have.

  “Got rid of the earring, I see,” Callie teases.

  He gives his left earlobe a self-conscious tug. “They’re not really very cool anymore, unless you’re Tommy Lee or someone like that.”

  “Suits you,” Alan says. “Welcome back.”

  Leo helped on the case of Annie, Bonnie’s mother. He looked younger then than he does now. He’s only twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but he’s already getting that certain wariness. I showed him his first murders, helped him sidle up close with real evil. It changed him. Other things are different too. He’s wearing a tie now, and his dark hair is cut much shorter.

  Leo’s gone FBI on me, I think, and I’m both amused and saddened.

  “Anyway,” he says, embarrassed by the attention, “you wanted to know how he’d go about finding clients on the Internet. It’s not that hard if you’ve got time and patience.”

  “He’s got that in spades,” Alan says.

  “If I do a search on, let’s say …” He sits down at a workstation. His fingers fly over the keyboard, as comfortable with it as my hand used to be with a cigarette. He starts an Internet connection and opens a browser. “Let’s do a search on antifeminism forum.” He types it as soon as he says it, and the page loads. “See? Eighteen thousand four hundred possibles. Let’s scroll through these…. Here’s one: fightmisandry.com.”

  “Misandry?” I ask.

  “Hatred of men,” James says. “Or boys.”

  “What’s that got to do with feminism?” I ask. I recall Douglas Hollister’s rant from yesterday. “Ah … I understand. Feminists hate men, right?”

  “That’s an oversimplification,” James says. “The idea behind a site like fightmisandry.com is going to be based on the concept that feminism has ceased being about equal choice and has instead become a forum for being broadly ‘antiman.’”

  “And you know about this how, my dear homosexual?” Callie asks.

  James only recently came out to us, and if this were anyone other than Callie and James, I’d be terrified at the sexual-harassment suit possibilities. But Callie would never say it if she actually thought it would hurt James’s feelings.

  “Unlike some people,” he replies, not looking at her, “I’m constantly working on my academics. Intellectual stagnation isn’t just slothful, it’s unattractive.”

  Callie laughs. “Good one.”

  “Look at this,” I murmur, reading the menu of the site Leo called up. “There are options for real-time chat, forums, social groups, buddy listings—wow.” I stand back up, rubbing my lower back. “Lot of passion on this subject.”

  “I can understand it,” Alan says. “Equality is equality, and I’ve always been cool with that. But men as the villain? That’s not equality, it’s hate, and that seems to be the direction of radical feminism today.”

  “With everything we see,” Callie says, “how can you say that? When’s the last time we were chasing a woman who rapes and kills men?”

  Her back is up, and I see Alan ready to return the salvo.

  Here it is, I realize, bemused. A version of the argument that led Douglas Hollister to our mystery man. Watch and learn.

  Alan stabs a thick finger at her. “See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about! Serial murderers are not what I’d called a representative cross section of the male population. But, hey, since they’re usually men, men must be beasts at the core, right?”

  “If it walks like a duck …” Callie says, shrugging.

  I watch as Alan struggles to lower his blood pressure. The effort to do so is the essential difference between an Alan Washington and a Douglas Hollister.

  “Look,” he says, his tone reasonable without being conciliatory, “I’ve never bought into the boys-club mentality of law enforcement. I’ve never cared who carries the gun, man or woman, black or red or white. I’m fine with a female president and women CEOs. What I’m not fine with is being categorized by my gender. That’s no different than me assigning traits to you because you’re a woman, right?”

  “I suppose,” Callie allows.

  “Well, that’s what radical feminism has skewed toward, in my opinion.” He emphasizes the last three words, with more than a little bit of irony.

  “I love you, honey-love,” Callie says, reaching out to pat his cheek. “Always have, always will. And Lord knows I’m the last to ride the horse of political correctness. But—taking a cue from our current psycho, speaking pragmatically—a man criticizing feminism is always going to be suspect, just as a white man criticizing any black movement would be.”

  “I can see that.” He gives her a sly grin. “So, really, what you’re saying is that we’re brothers and sisters under the skin. We’ve both been oppressed by the white man, right?”

  Callie sniffs. “Speak for yourself.”

  Their differences resolve easily, because the element of psychosis is missing. Callie and Alan can argue, even on a subject they feel passionately about, and walk away friends. Douglas and his pals could not.

  “Thank you for the live case study,” I say to them. “Now let’s refocus. What you were saying, Leo, is that he could search for clients any number of ways.”

  “Yep,” he says, bobbing his head. It makes him look young in spite of his suit and tie. “The Internet is about a limited number of things, at its core: information, communication, and community. You can find anything on the Internet if you know how and where to look and are patient. Anything,” he says.

  “There’s a big difference between venting and taking action,” James says. “Most of the men in those forums are going to be talking, not doing. It seems very needle-in-a-haystack, even if he did narrow it down to a site like this one.”

  Leo considers this. “He could write a program, have it do searches against a set of regular keywords within the chat. For example, bitch, cunt, dead, kill her—anything that might point to an interest in or intent to harm. He could also put out bait—forum posts or, in the live chat, hints that he wishes he could do away with his spouse, and wait for kindred spirits to reply.”

  “Possible, but unlikely,” I say. “That leaves too much of a trail.”

  “Then I’d go with the ’bot concept,” he says.

  “’bot?”

  “Sorry. Short for robot. In this case, an automated software program. It runs on its own, either on a timer, being told to perform a specific function every x seconds, or in response to input. For example, you can insert a ’bot into a chat room. It’ll look like a live person, but it’s not. It’s just a program. It can be set up to give a response to a query, so that if someone initiates contact, the ’bot would have a canned reply ready.”

  “Like?”

  “It’s been popular in promoting porn sites. You create a profile for a hot twenty-year-old with big gazoongas.” He reddens. “Sorry.”

  “No, I think ‘gazoongas’ is the technical term,” Callie says. “Please continue.”

  He clears his throat. “You create a profile for an attractive young woman. She’s not real. It’s fiction. The ’bot is inserted into a chat room full of single guys looking for girls, and you assign that profile to the ’bot.”

  “They think the program is the girl,” Alan says, catching on.

  “That’s right. So, of course, all eighty of the guys in the chat room send her a hey, you come here often? instant message. The ’bot is programmed to respond to any query wit
h: Hi, sorry, I’m away from my computer for a sec, but you can come and see my naked pics and chat with me live at… You see?”

  “Men are stupid, that’s what you’re saying?” Callie asks. “A sound hypothesis.”

  “How would that approach benefit our guy?” Alan asks. “Well, it wouldn’t, not really,” Leo allows, “but there are other things the ’bot can do once it’s in the chat room.”

  “Searches,” James supplies.

  “Exactly. Back to the timer concept. The ’bot is inserted into the chat room and told to search every five milliseconds for any of the following terms: bitch, cunt, whore, hit man, death, and to alert the program operator if one is used by anyone in chat. If he really wanted to be advanced about it, he could have the ’bot send a generic reply to the originator of the keyword. Something like I hear that. It’s not that hard.”

  “How secure would that be for him?” I ask.

  “If you do it right? Very. If we’re watching and waiting and the ISP is cooperative, maybe we could trace something like that—maybe. But you have to understand, most providers don’t keep any logs of chats at all. Privacy is a huge issue, and you can’t be competitive if you’re not providing it. Many providers who have instant-messaging services, for example, have option settings for full encryption, and these days, full usually means full, as in government grade.”

  “But we can wiretap if we need to, right?” Alan asks.

  “Not necessarily. There are two different services out right now in the instant-messaging arena that are essentially impossible to, quote, ‘wiretap.’ They use a combination of encryption and peer-to-peer architecture—” He waves his hands in a gesture of dismissal. “I don’t need to get too technical. Suffice it to say that in those two cases, even if the company wanted to cooperate with us, they wouldn’t be able to.”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “Those two are the most popular.”

  He nods. “Anonymity is everything. Most of it isn’t illicit. People just like their privacy. They want to talk and not worry about Big Brother—us—listening in on them. The problem is, the pedophiles and terrorists support it too.”