Rapture: Where are our Children (A Serial Novel) Episode 3 of 9

by Gary Sapp

our relationship went far beyond a long childhood friendship and an occasional professional one.”

  “Stop it, Christopher.” Angel stopped just short of where he others were and stroked his cheek with some affection. “I’m a difficult woman to live with. I know this. But I’m sure our situation will work itself out in the manner that it was always intended. These things always do.”

  “You’re the Doc.”

  They joined Sheridan and the others by the crime scene. He caught Sheridan’s eye and his boss greeted him and nodded curtly at Angel. He doesn’t appreciate being kept waiting but it couldn’t be helped. Chris could feel the tension between them. And the aftermath of Xavier’s bold decision to take Carver from the Choir Boys hasn’t scored any points for the Prince family with authority figures either. Blue flashed a brief, sympathetic smile at him. He knew all of this had been tough on his partner. He appreciated her gesture.

  “So it’s another doll?”

  Sheridan nodded. If there was to be a reprimand coming it would be handled later and in private. “And if I know my history, I would say this one mirrors another episode from the early 1980’s.”

  It was Angel who was nodding. Blue planted her hands on her hips. Chris stooped down for a closer look.

  “Has anyone else noticed the texture of this doll’s face and hands? And what about the exaggerated length of his extremities...I believe that his arms and legs are far too long to belong to this body.”

  “Yea, Christopher.” Angel agreed. “I did notice.”

  Blue said, “What about it?”

  “I believe that this doll is a representation of a child that is older than the first. And although Mathew Clifton’s disappearance doesn’t put him officially missing for several more hours we can bet that this doll is a representation of him.”

  “Interesting,” Sheridan got eye level with Chris. “And this texture you mentioned, it’s older, it’s dirtier. We do know that the Jackson kid was taken first right?”

  “He was, Agent Sheridan.” Angel said over both their shoulders. “In my time that I spent with Louis Keaton I took him to be very methodical, very organized when it came to his passions. My belief is that although he kidnapped Moses Jackson first, he actually had his eye trained on the Clifton child before he took Moses.”

  Sheridan nodded at the doctor—and then snapped his fingers in remembrance. “My apologies, Agent Christopher Prince, Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree, this is officer Bucky Branch of the Atlanta Police Department.” The big man nodded a hello to the two of them. “Would you mind repeating what your witnesses told you before?”

  “Sure,” He said and pulled out his notes. “Two of them said they saw a two door pickup, Probably a F150, casing this neighborhood over the past two or three weeks. I don’t have to tell you people what goes in the woods around here, especially at night. Both of the witnesses just assumed it was a white guy looking for some crack or some head.” His red cheeks reddened further as he peered at the two women who were present. “Sorry.”

  “A F150, huh,” Chris asked and stooped down again. “There were tire tracks to and from the scene. “It’s clean. There aren’t any oil leaks.”

  Blue said, “The width of the track would verify a SUV or pickup truck of some type, but probably nothing more than that.”

  “And since it hasn’t rained up here or anywhere else in a year, tracking this makes it even more difficult.” Sheridan said. “Are you sure that none of your witnesses saw the perpetrator make his move? We are talking a very high profile case. We are talking the likely involvement of Pandora. Those facts may scare some folks out of fully cooperating if their afraid of some type of reprisal as a result of speaking with the police.”

  Branch shook his head.

  Chris used the silence to say: “Moses was taken in the early evening. Mathew was told to be home just before the street lights came on…and his parents said they noted he hadn’t returned about 30 minutes after that.”

  Sheridan looked as if he were getting a fresh measurement of the scene’s perimeter. He looked at his Rolex. “Yea, but as important as those two boys are I’m as interested in when he staged this scene. First, he had to practice over and over again to get it just right. Secondly, once he set this up, he had to escape without being seen.” He said. “Another bullet is incased in this dolls head. There is the presence of the rope just like before. This, boys and girls, is not an accident. There is a serpent somewhere in the ruins here. He’s telling us something.”

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Christopher?”

  He wasn’t actually. He felt a moment of what exactly…déjà vu, vertigo, but for a moment he felt it he were on the outside of himself looking inwards. Now, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sheridan and Blue fixing their glares on him as well. Officer Branch looked confused.

  Angel tried to help. “Now that you’ve seen both scenes you’re convinced that Hugh Keaton is responsible for this.

  “Wait a sec,” Blue said. “You just called the suspect Hugh. All along we’ve been addressing as Louis or am I missing something?”

  “You’re not, Agent Blue. Keaton was burn with his legal name being Hugh. We got some updated information from his file a day or so. That is the name on his social security card and on his birth certificate.”

  Angel looked at Chris when she said, “Somewhere in the days after he turned 18 he turned in an application for a legal name change…and Louis Keaton was born. I had a half a dozen sessions with him during my stint in Pandora and I never could ascertain the absolute reasoning why he changed it.”

  Blue snorted. “That’s an easy one, Doctor; he was trying to escape his past.

  Angel rounded on her. “Or trying to embrace a new future perhaps?”

  She must have felt all of their eyes are on her.

  “That’s my theory.” She shrugged. “I don’t believe that he was escaping Hugh…he is embracing Louis, whoever that person may have been.”

  “I would love to catch him and ask him that question, Doctor.” Sheridan said.

  “But the problem about why we are here comes down to answering two questions?”

  Angel asked them for him. “Did Keaton set either of these models up for us to find and just importantly why did he do it?”

  Chris squatted down again. “With the notable exception of the local authorities involved, some historians, and a few hard core nutcases out there, no one knows the specifics of this case better than Keaton does.”

  He felt someone…Angel was standing over him. “You’re wrong, Christopher. There is one other person alive who would know, because he’s the only living witness left to the first round of these horrible abductions.”

  Now it was Sheridan’s turn to snort and he put his left hand in his pants pocket. “And he’s safely locked away down state.” Sheridan said, thanked Officer Branch for his time and testimony and dismissed him. The big man looked disappointed that he wouldn’t be allowed to hang around with the plain clothed types any longer. “I’ll vouch for the doctor on this one…and I know better than anyone what that surveillance around the Andrew Young Center told us on 411. I don’t believe Louis Keaton…or whatever we’re going to call him…I don’t believe that he’s a hardened killer.”

  Blue slammed her hands down on the hips of her tight pants. “That was years ago. I was barely born yet. Who’s to say, especially under the influence and guidance of Serena Tennyson what this man is capable of now.”

  Angel stepped away from Chris and towards the younger woman and fixed her with a stare that he recognized all too well. “I do know, Agent Blue. I supervised his therapy for over 90 days. I had his records in my hands. I studied and compared the notes of other physicians and therapist who treated him for his longings well before I did.” She softened her tone and decided that dressing down Agent Blue wasn’t really getting the group anywhere. “Louis Keaton is a troubled man. Both of the dolls we’ve discovered so far have a real bullet lodged into the doll’s head and
the extremities roped together. I would bet my life on him of not being a direct threat to the boys lives and I don’t believe he is strong enough, courageous enough, or organized enough to build these scenes.”

  “Are you prepared to gamble the life of these boys…and potentially others with your theories and conclusions, Doctor?”

  Chris watched Angel look away from Blue and her question. He wanted to help his friend but he would have called himself a liar if he hadn’t said that he was thinking along the same lines as his partner. The four of them stood in the awkward silence for a spell, sucking in the dry air, when Sheridan broke the silence at last.

  “Doctor, I’ve studied your notes on Bipolar Disorder and some of the other illnesses of the like. Your opinion seems to fall out of line with most of your colleagues.”

  Angel nodded.

  “You’ve written that some of the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder include depression, high anxiety, eating disorders and the victim having constant…sometimes recurring nightmares.”

  “I did.”

  “But you stated in one of your last papers, that he was as stable as you had witnessed, even when you spoke by phone to him recently. Have you considered the possibility that Keaton has had a major relapse?”

  Chris spoke up first. “I’ve thought about the possibility that he is going through even a further internal conversion.”

  “I would be irresponsible for ruling anything