Abandoned: A Thriller

by Cody McFadyen

  Leo types:

  I hope so. I could really do with feeling good about myself.

  Another member types:

  Hey, I read your story. You just put it up today, right?

  Yeah.

  Wow, man. That was a hell of an account. I really appreciated your honesty, and I definitely felt your pain.

  Thanks. It was tough to write all that, but … I don’t know. I felt better after too. Not fixed, but better. Anyway, I have to go now, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate you guys being here, and the site, and what you have to say.

  KingEnergy 12 types:

  Come back anytime, brother. You’re welcome here, and you won’t be judged.

  Leo leaves the chat without replying.

  “Good touch,” Alan says. “Being a little bit nervous at the end.”

  “It’s not like I’m totally clueless when it comes to online undercover work,” Leo says. “I’ve played a pedophile before. This is harder.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Being a pedophile was nothing like being me. It was an act from start to finish.”

  “Whereas this …?”

  “I don’t see things the way these guys do, I’m not saying that. But … it’s a little too easy to slip into this role.”

  “Dance with the devil, son,” Alan says.

  “Yeah.” Leo sighs. “I like computer work better.”

  “You’re doing fine,” I say. “So what’s the plan now?”

  “He needs to do some day trading,” Alan says. “Slow and easy.”

  “Give me a call when you go back into chat.”

  “You got it. Bye.”

  The microphone clicks off. A moment later, the connection to Leo’s PC is severed.

  I think about what I’ve read, what I’ve watched being typed in that chat room. Part of me feels for these men. I don’t sense rage in all of them. Some simply seem confused, hurt. My hand finds my belly and I wonder: What if I have a son? Should I think about these hurting men, worry about what role model my boy should look up to?

  The only answer I can find is Tommy. Tommy is unassertive about being a man. He just is one. His masculinity is a part of him, as natural as breathing, unconfused. I could do worse than raising a son to emulate such a man.

  My cell phone rings.

  “Barrett,” I answer.

  “Hey, boss woman.” Kirby’s cheerful voice—not much different from her killing voice, but comforting nonetheless. “Thought I’d report in, give you a little update on where your money’s going.”

  “Tommy’s money, you mean.”

  “It’s all one big green pile now that you’re married, right?”

  I don’t bother asking her how she knows about the marriage. “What’s the briefing, Kirby?”

  “So far, so nada. Nothing happening. No signs anyone is following her or even has eyes on her.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “But not really, right?”

  When a threat is out there and we know it, we’d rather it come out to fight than hide. We can win a fight. All we can do about the other is worry.

  “No, not really.”

  “Well, don’t fret about it, boss woman. We’re on the job. Raymond’s not much for company, but he’s a good listener.”

  “You’re not taking shifts?”

  “I decided to add a few people. Raymond and I are on the evening watch, and a couple of my other buddies are there during the day. Nighttime is the right time when it comes to killing people, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose.” I consider asking her about her “buddies” but realize maybe I don’t want to know. Raymond was creepy enough. “I appreciate you taking the night shift, Kirby. You’re right, it’s the time of greatest threat.”

  And it’ll let me sleep, knowing you’re out there, watching us.

  “No problema. Well, not no problema—it’s cutting into my sex life, I have to be honest, but that’s what friends are for, right? The guys’ll just have to come in the daytime and get some afternoon delight. Law of supply and demand.”

  “You being the supply, I take it.”

  “Of course! Hey, did you see how I did that, a little intentional pun? ‘Come’ in the daytime?” She giggles.

  “Good-bye, Kirby.”

  “Later, alligator!”

  I hang up, shaking my head.

  “Have we heard anything from Earl Cooper?” I ask James.

  “He said he’ll have something for us by late afternoon. He also said not to expect very much.”

  “Reassuring.”

  “Collecting facts,” he replies, either missing the light humor or ignoring it.

  “On that note: Tell me about the other victims.”

  “All women,” Callie says, picking up a file from her desk and opening it. “Eight years ago, on June thirteenth, Elizabeth Harris was found on the steps of the Chatsworth police station, prefrontal lobes mutilated in the same way as our current victims. She’d been abducted a little more than seven years earlier, and her husband was the prime suspect.”

  “But the investigation stalled because a body was never found.” I deliver it as a statement.

  “That’s correct. Her husband, one Marcus Harris, killed himself a few days after the discovery of his wife. He left a note, saying that he was ‘sorry.’ It was assumed that he was responsible for the mutilation as well as the abduction, and the case was closed.”

  “Strange.” I frown. “If he was willing to kill himself, why didn’t he say anything about Dali? What did he have to lose?”

  “He had a daughter. She was twenty at the time. She went missing the day after her mother was found.”

  Something inside my stomach plummets into an icy abyss. “Was she ever recovered?”

  Callie consults the file. “No.”

  “Dali probably gave him a choice,” James says. “Keep your mouth shut about me and take the blame, or your daughter suffers the same fate as your ex-wife.”

  “He would have killed her after Marcus’s suicide,” I say. “She was no longer ‘necessary.’” I exhale. “Well, we have an answer to the question of how Dali ensured Marcus would take the fall. What happened to Elizabeth?”

  “She never came out of it. She died of a blood clot to the brain three years ago.”

  “Nothing came up when Elizabeth was found about Dali? He didn’t text the cops or drop off a stray greeting card?”

  “Not a word. The police assumed, understandably, that Marcus Harris had been keeping her somewhere all that time. They chalked the mutilation and suicide up to an unbalanced mind. The disappearance of the daughter confirmed, more than disproved, this.”

  “I’m assuming he had an insurance policy?”

  “Four hundred thousand dollars. He’d recently collected, and all the money was accounted for. He hadn’t sent any of it away.”

  “No notes,” James muses. “Dali took care to remain hidden. The current circumstances remain a significant anomaly.”

  “Tell me about the next victim.”

  “Oregon, four years ago. November twelfth. Two patrolmen were on a coffee break. They came back out to find Kimberly Jensen in a body bag, which had been left in front of their cruiser.”

  “Bold,” James says.

  “Kimberly had been abducted from a supermarket parking lot—you guessed it—more than seven years earlier. She was thirty-five at the time. Her husband, Andrew, was—surprise—the prime suspect. She’d been having an affair and was seeing a divorce lawyer.”

  “I guess he’d collected on life insurance and kept the loot?”

  “Greed is a bitch.”

  “Kimberly?”

  “Inhaled her own saliva and developed pneumonia. She died.”

  “What about the husband?”

  “Evidence fell from the heavens. Very fortuitous.”

  “What?”

  “An electronic diary on his computer, filled with seven years of monthly entries, all about Kimberly and
how he’d kept her confined. A storage space in his name complete with chains in the floor and Kimberly’s DNA. Things like that.” She smiles. “Andrew killed himself before the cops could pick him up.”

  “Starting to see a pattern here with the suicides.”

  She shrugs. “Cowards are cowards, the whole day long.”

  “No notes left behind, I assume?” James asks.

  “Not a one.”

  I sigh. “Two for two on Dali staying off the radar. Next?”

  “Hillary Weber, forty-five, found by tourists on a side street leading off the Vegas strip three years ago. Hillary had been taken like the others, and the husband, Donald, was in the cross hairs. He’d been in the middle of a contentious divorce and had a very busy little penis.”

  “Tell me one or both is still living.”

  “I wish I could. Donald crept into the hospital three days after she’d been discovered and finished Hillary off with a pillow. Then he hopped into a car and crossed the border into Mexico. There was no contact until last year.”

  “And?”

  “They found what was left of Donald in the desert. His eyelids had been cut off and he’d been staked out nude, in the middle of the Mexican summer. There was no sign of the money.”

  “So,” James murmurs, “kill yourself or go to jail, but if you run, he finds you.”

  “Did Dali plant any evidence?” I ask.

  “Doesn’t appear that way, but then, Donald moved very quickly, didn’t he? I suppose he saved Dali the effort. And before you ask—no, Dali didn’t leave behind any clues to his existence that time either.”

  “Three for three,” I murmur. “The notes telling us he exists are the first.” I glance at Callie. “Circumstances on these three victims seem to contradict your ‘evolving paradigm’ theory about why he let Heather go with her brain in working order. Somehow, I think death would be a sufficient deterrent for most of these men.”

  James shakes his head. “Strange. He’s succeeded so far due to the simple elegance of what he does. Why change it now?”

  “You sound like you admire him.” Callie’s tone is disapproving.

  “Facts are facts, not admiration. Dali’s brilliance is in the complete simplicity of his plan and his actions.” He counts off on his fingers. “His clients never meet him. He makes them into coconspirators. He offers financial incentive. He limits his contact with the victims, so they can’t describe him even if they did somehow get away. Look at Heather Hollister. He let her go, and she’s unable to provide us with anything truly probative.

  “The time element is crucial and also brilliant. A lot changes in seven years. People move, people die. Cops retire, move on, die. By the time the insurance money is collected, who’s likely to be watching? Even in the instances where he’s been forced to punish for nonpayment, it’s low risk, high reward, and, as you said, we can be sure that he lets his existing client base know what’s happened, as insurance against similar actions on their part. Simple. Brilliant. Why change all that?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” I agree. “What are we missing?”

  “I have no idea. I do have another anomaly, though. I spent time hunting through the Internet, looking for sites that cater to symphorophiliacs. There aren’t many out there, and it took some looking. I didn’t find anything—no still photos, no video footage—from any of the locations where we think he engineered car crashes.”

  “Perhaps he pervs in private,” Callie says.

  “Maybe,” James allows, “but unusual. A paraphilia like that requires regular fulfillment. Sharing is a way of reliving. Something that unique … it’s odd. How does he feed it?”

  “So, no good news, then,” I mutter.

  “Not entirely true. I did a search for hotels nearby the crash sites—there was only one in a relevant mile radius. A room was rented there under the name of a Heather Hollister on the night of her abduction.”

  A thrill runs through me, picks up speed, then dies and blows away. “Seven years in a hotel room? There’s not going to be any evidence to find. Even if there was, it would be tainted.”

  “Still,” James insists, “it continues to confirm the profile. There’s no reason for him to rent that room—and more, to use Heather’s name—except to satisfy a desire.”

  “How does that help us?” Callie asks.

  “It will help with his prosecution, when we catch him. If his need was that strong, there’s no way he’ll get rid of the evidence. He can’t. Find him, and we’ll find the photographs and video footage too. It’s a fairly unique paraphilia, not something you’d find in the average household. It will tie him to the scene, and thus to Heather Hollister.”

  It’s a thin bit of optimism, hardly helpful in the moment, but it’s true nonetheless. As a prosecutor once told me, Catching the guy is only half the battle. Keeping him caught is the other half.

  “I have another bit of news,” Callie says. “We found a fingerprint on Dana Hollister’s body bag, on the inside. I ran it through AFIS, and it doesn’t match anyone known to be associated with this case.” She grimaces. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t match anyone else on file either.”

  “More strangeness,” James says. “Strange that he’d be that careless, if it’s him.”

  He and I stare at each other, more troubled than enlightened by this turn of events.

  “Maybe he’s decompensating?” I offer. “That makes no sense.”

  “Oh pish. What a bunch of wet blankets you two are,” Callie chides. “Maybe he’s finally grown too big for his britches. Sometimes they get stupid.”

  “Maybe,” I agree.

  But I don’t think so.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Go on. The words read: Say it. You’ll feel better when you do, I promise. It’s liberating.

  I don’t know. Leo-as-Robert-Long types: I just don’t feel right about calling her—or any woman—that.

  That’s just programming, brother. The radical feminist movement has conditioned men to be afraid. Let me give you an example. We all know the one word no man is allowed to say to a woman, right?

  Cunt. Someone else types: The word of death.

  That’s right. Now: Tell me what similar word exists in relation to men?

  No one types, the equivalent of dead silence in cyberspace.

  There you go. That’s what I’m talking about. How is that possible?

  There are also probably ten times the number of pejoratives for women as there are for men. Leo says: We’ve spent more time throughout history putting women down.

  Jesus. One of the men answers: You’re truly brainwashed, aren’t you?

  Screw you.

  Calm down, guys. The original typist soothes: We’ve all been where he is now, at least most of us have. Let me talk. You still there, Hurting?

  I’m here.

  Look, I read your story. Let me just ask you this: Are you angry at her? I want you to think for a minute before you answer. Really turn it over, and be honest. What’s the best word for the emotion you feel?

  Leo drags out the pause. He finally types:

  Hate.

  Good. Well, not good, of course, but it’s honest. Now, why do you hate her?

  Because. She stopped loving me for no good reason. She aborted my child without even consulting me. And she’s become an emotional stranger with no effort at all.

  Okay, Hurting. Now I’m going to ask you another question, and again I want you to really think about it. You ready?

  I’m ready.

  Here it is: What kind of woman does that?

  The silence again. The cursor blinks on the screen, and I get the sense of a group of men in a medium-size room, watching, waiting, eager.

  “Go ahead,” Alan tells him. “This is why we came into this room. Time to cross the line.”

  They’re in Bitch Chat. Alan had discussed with me whether I thought it was too early, but I dismissed this concern. “At the minimum, curiosity is normal.”

  Le
o types, continuing to play up his reluctance: I guess only a bitch would do that kind of thing.

  Good! You’re almost there, brother. Take a breath, and step back. Look at the logic of what you just said. If a woman who’d do that kind of thing is a bitch, and that’s true—then why on earth would you have any questions or qualms about calling her one?

  Cursor blinking silence.

  I’m starting to see what you mean.

  Of course you are, brother. It’s called truth. So?

  So what?

  So SAY IT. What is your ex-wife, brother? Not what kind of woman would do that, but what kind of a woman is she? What is she?

  She’s … a bitch.

  Say it again!

  She’s a bitch. A fucking bitch.

  What else?

  A cunt. A lying, coldhearted, baby-murdering cunt!

  Various encouragements are shouted by the others in the chat; at least, I imagine them as shouts. I see, in my mind’s eye, that same group of men in that medium-size room. Some have faces contorted by rage, others are crying. All of them are shaking a clenched fist and shouting the words, again, and again. Bitch! Bitch! Cunt!

  What about my personal favorite? I think.

  I search and I find.

  Whore. Someone has typed: Fucking whore.

  I’ve always hated that one, even more than the sacrilegious cunt. I’m not sure why.

  Leo types: God, I fucking hate her. I HATE HER SO GOD DAMN MUCH! I wish …

  He stops typing, waits.

  You wish what, brother?

  “Wait a little longer,” Alan coaches. “Make him pull it out of you. Don’t be too eager.”

  Go on, brother. It’s just us here. No one knows your face or your real name. Don’t hold back. What do you wish?

  Leo types in a blur of letters: I wish she’d fucking die.

  Silence. Then:

  We’ve all been in that place. Don’t be ashamed. The first part of reclaiming your masculinity is being honest about your feelings for women. You know how you feel; they don’t. Don’t let them tell you how you’re “allowed” to feel, right?