Into the Black Nowhere

by Meg Gardiner

  Caitlin leaned back, thinking, Is that what you said to Teri Drinkall right before you clubbed her in the head?

  Detrick sighed and finally looked at her. “I don’t mean to sound facetious. But come on.”

  She tilted her head, as though perplexed and even regretful. “You think I’ve been too tough with you?”

  “You’re a wildcat.”

  She didn’t react.

  He took it as encouragement. “You’re a player, I get that now. Whoever put you on to me, they have some ulterior motive. And I can even see how you’d be ethically obligated to follow up. But my God, under that gun belt, you’re a demon.”

  Heat filled her chest. It was half shock, half excitement. He thought he could get to her with insults that had an undertone of sexual come-on.

  “These charges are bogus,” he said. “You know that. I see that you want me to sit here and sweat it, but we both know we’re doing a dance. Right?”

  “What kind of dance do you think you’re doing?”

  She let soft curiosity color her expression. He was trying to beguile her into dropping the charges. He truly thought he could wing this and woo her.

  She’d seen men attempt this strategy before: frat boys she pulled over for speeding; drunks on a park bench who thought that slurring, “Hey, baby,” would convince her and other runners to give them a kiss. But she’d never seen it from a man facing felony charges.

  Detrick gave her a Don Juan smile.

  His sexual attraction to her was so overt, and his smile so confident and hungry, that a cold feeling of doom descended on her. She saw his instinct to manipulate and toy with people. She saw how he’d used it in the hotline call she’d made. Her stomach hollowed.

  Emmerich flipped through the case file. “You know this is about more than attempted kidnapping.”

  Detrick leaned back and ran a hand through his dark hair. “I know that’s what you think.”

  Emmerich read a note in the file. “Teri Drinkall. Where is she?”

  “No idea who that is.”

  Emmerich looked up. “Please.”

  Kyle raised his hands, like You got me. “I’m not going to admit to anything. You know that.”

  “Six women, six disappearances. So slick, so smooth. It took exquisite planning.” Emmerich pondered it. “I do admit, these crimes took daring.”

  Detrick’s eyes flashed. “Whoever’s doing it is a prodigy.”

  Emmerich nodded pensively. His long pause signaled Caitlin to take the lead.

  She waited a moment. She needed Detrick to think he had the upper hand on her. He wanted to see himself as Emmerich’s equal but would want to squash her—in front of her boss.

  Quietly, thoughtfully, she asked him, “So who do you think did it?”

  Detrick scoffed. “You want my opinion?”

  “I do.”

  “You’ve played dirty with me from the beginning. And now you want my help?”

  “You studied psychology. You’re trained to talk people through their most extreme, darkest moments—including people who threaten violence. Yeah, I think you can supply insights into the killer’s mind.”

  He eyed her skeptically.

  Caitlin said, “The white nightgowns. What do they symbolize?”

  Detrick didn’t move, but his attention zeroed on her. His voice quieted, as hers had.

  “You want me to say the white symbolizes purity?”

  She held his stare. He breathed in, and out.

  “That’s not what this guy is about,” he said.

  Her pulse ticked up.

  “Study the psychology of fairy tales,” Detrick said. “The Maiden represents innocence, yes—but also naïveté. Which gets her into trouble.”

  “Snow White eating the poisoned apple.”

  “They fall for it every time.”

  Caitlin heard, They brought it on themselves. “But the Maiden also represents desire. That’s why the hero is out to rescue her.” She leaned in. “Tell me about the suicide hotline.”

  He eyed her up and down. The warmth returned to his voice. It went beyond seductive to heart grabbing.

  “You came close, didn’t you?” he said.

  For a terrible second, she thought he knew she had phoned him on the crisis hotline. She fought to keep her face blank. But she knew that microexpressions couldn’t be hidden.

  Then she realized something worse: Detrick didn’t know she had called the hotline. He had no idea. He didn’t recognize her voice from the call; he wasn’t fishing to get her to confess.

  He had intuitively found her vulnerability.

  She couldn’t expose her soft underbelly to Detrick. He’d already glimpsed it—she had to stay opaque. She tried to close herself off. She feared that if she spoke, the slightest quaver in her voice would give him another opening. But she couldn’t sit there like a ball of putty. And she couldn’t let Emmerich think she had something to hide, which she damn well did.

  “You mean I came close to playing the Maiden?” she said.

  “No. You’ve been fixated on my volunteer work since I first mentioned it. As if offering a hand to people who are drowning is something to be suspicious of,” Detrick said. “That fascinates me.”

  “Really?”

  She wanted to reel out the line, to let him grab the hook. But she was seeing exactly how deft he was at creeping past emotional defenses. He was probing, trying to get her story out of her, seeking soft spots, trying to sink the hook into her instead.

  “My pastor is the one who urges his congregation to volunteer with the needy,” he said. “It’s fortunate that my background in psychology made me the right person for the hotline job.”

  “The suicidal ideation in the Solace murders has disturbing echoes for me,” she said.

  “What’s your story?”

  “The Polaroids of the killer’s other victims indicate he’s possessed by fantasies of suicide. What do you make of that?”

  “Your cheeks are flushed,” he said.

  “Do you think the people who call the hotline are naive?” she said.

  “You wouldn’t have used a firearm. You’re a tough chick, but that’s too messy even for you,” he said.

  “What do you say to women who are in pain?”

  “Pills, maybe.”

  Power. That was it. That was what he loved. She could see it—the brightness in his gray eyes, the way he licked his lips, the color in his handsome face—power was what made him feel. He could pull people to safety or kick them into the abyss with a sharply worded response. He held them in his hands. Exhilaration and rage. Hero and destroyer. He was both. He was God.

  He leaned forward on his elbows. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”

  “Is this how you treat hotline callers—you pepper them with accusations? Do you actually know anything about young women’s emotional lives?” She tried to look thoughtful. “As a crisis hotline volunteer, you’re supposed to be good at listening. But do you have any clue how to discern real despair from a passing bout of the blues?” she said. “You think you can dig out my darkest secrets? You want me to say I thought about ending my own life? Way back when, after a breakup, crying in my dorm room, listening to Death Cab for Cutie?” She managed to smile. “Once upon a time, I was sad. I cheered up.”

  He steepled his fingers. “The pull never goes away. Ever.”

  She kept a poker face. The heat in her chest had turned caustic.

  Detrick didn’t want to help the anguished people who called the hotline. He wanted to control them.

  Quietly, he said, “I know nothing about the killer’s victims. But the way you’re talking, they never saw it coming.”

  Liar. She wanted to shout it at him.

  He knew. They all saw it coming, if only for a fraction of a second. That was what he wa
nted, above all else.

  “No,” she said. “They saw themselves betrayed. You stole their lives from them.”

  “That’s your fairy tale.” Detrick leaned back, smiling with satisfaction. “I want a lawyer.”

  That was the falling blade. After a moment, Emmerich and Caitlin stood.

  Detrick leaned toward her again, smiling darkly. “I’m going to leave this place a free man. I’m going to waltz out of here with a smile and a wave, and you’re going to have to swallow it.”

  36

  Crying Call was the county seat, and Monday morning the county courthouse on the town square dominated a piercing blue sky, red brick against the blinding white snow on the surrounding mountains. Caitlin and her colleagues walked in at ten forty-five for Detrick’s arraignment.

  Caitlin was buzzing with an adrenaline hangover from his arrest and interrogation. She jogged up the courthouse steps ahead of Emmerich and Rainey and pulled the door open as if she wanted to Hulk-rip it from its hinges.

  “Know you’re still angry about how Detrick ended the interview,” Rainey said, “but cool your jets.”

  They headed inside. Caitlin shot her a look. “He toyed with us.”

  “He’s in jail, and we’re about to watch him enter a plea, then be hauled straight back to a cell. This is a win.”

  “True,” Caitlin said, less sharply.

  They walked briskly along the hall toward the courtroom. Their heels clacked on the polished tile floor.

  “It would be great to see him hauled back to his cell with a cattle prod up his ass.” Caitlin instantly raised a hand. “I’m joking.”

  “No, you’re not.” But Rainey’s glance was amused. “You did okay, interrogating him.”

  “He admitted nothing.”

  “Didn’t he?” Emmerich said.

  When Detrick had asked for a lawyer, they’d left the interview room. Emmerich had maintained a Zen calm. First move in a long game, he’d said. Good job. But Caitlin had been fuming. More than a day later, she still was. Impatience was a flaw of hers.

  Chill. Out, she thought.

  She knew intellectually that the interrogation had been productive. That wasn’t what was eating at her.

  Detrick’s smile seemed to follow her everywhere, even when she shut her eyes. And he knew. He sensed that she’d nearly committed suicide all those years ago. Sensed that it was her greatest fear. He was waiting for her to come back to him, to discuss it, to let him lure her into the longing, the desire, the heavy cloak of depression, and the desire to end it.

  She spoke through gritted teeth. “He forces young women to die watching their blood run from their own veins. He uses them as surrogates for whoever twisted him to begin with. It revolts me.”

  Rainey said, “Focus on the how. Don’t try to figure out the why. You won’t cure him or stop others from becoming him.”

  “I know.”

  Emmerich smoothed his tie. “We’re here to see that he stays behind bars. We want our presence to add weight to the prosecutor’s request for maximum bail.”

  They rounded a corner. Morning light fell through a tall window at the end of the hallway, stinging their eyes. The courtroom doors were ahead.

  Emmerich slowed. “Caitlin? A minute, please.” He told Rainey, “We’ll be right in.”

  Rainey nodded curtly and headed down the hall. Emmerich stepped to the window. Caitlin thought, Uh-oh.

  He kept his expression neutral. “You’d better tell me everything.”

  The poker face didn’t work with Emmerich. She knew her cheeks had flushed a deep red.

  “It’s old news. Not an issue. I . . .”

  “Not right this minute. But Detrick managed to get under your skin. When we have more time, I need to know what pushed your buttons. So you can strategize a way to deflect him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He held her gaze a second. She nodded tightly. After a freighted pause, he headed toward the courtroom.

  He held the heavy wooden door for her. Inside, the room was full. They took seats on pew-style benches beside Rainey and Special Agent Arinda Sayers, who had driven in from Flagstaff.

  Reporters filled the back half of the public gallery. A public defender sat at the defense table with a stack of files a foot tall. The county criminal attorney—the prosecutor—entered, hauling a heavy briefcase. He was tan and looked like he spent his off hours tossing hay bales from the back of a pickup truck. He shook hands with the police officers in the room, then with the FBI group. The court reporter entered.

  The clerk came in from the judge’s chambers and said, “All rise.”

  They stood and the judge entered, his robe flaring, his face a flatiron as he surveyed the packed room. They sat.

  The doors opened and the morning’s prisoners were brought in. The crowd stirred. The prisoners were shackled together, dressed in baggy orange. They shuffled up the aisle, escorted by uniformed sheriff’s deputies.

  People rose in their seats. Reporters scribbled. An artist began frantically sketching.

  Kyle Detrick walked in the center of the hobbling line like a playboy prince stuck boarding economy on a long-haul flight. His shoulders were thrown back, his cuffed hands loosely clasped in front of him. He looked world-weary and above it all.

  Women in the gallery, and a few men, put their heads together, murmuring excitedly. Caitlin heard someone whisper, “Omigod, he’s gorgeous.”

  The judge cracked his gavel. “Quiet in the court. We will have no eruptions, no commentary, no talk from the gallery. Or you’ll be ejected.”

  The women behind Caitlin quieted down, but she still heard them squirming on the bench, straining to get a good look at Detrick.

  This was going to be a circus.

  • • •

  Detrick’s moment in the spotlight took two minutes. His name was called. The bailiff unshackled him from the chained prisoners. He sauntered through the gate, took a contemptuous look at his young public defender, and stood at the defense table like a prophet beleaguered by petty fools.

  The clerk read his case number. The judge asked if he was ready to enter a plea. Detrick raised his chin and said, slowly and firmly: “Completely. Thoroughly. Not. Guilty.”

  Titters and hubbub. Rainey muttered, “Lord have mercy, he thinks he’s O.J.” The judge smacked his gavel again.

  The prosecutor asked for maximum bail. The court-appointed defense attorney got nowhere arguing against it. Detrick lowered his head, shaking it sadly. Caitlin wondered why he hadn’t hired his own attorney. Insufficient funds? Or did he think this was a game and that his lawyer didn’t matter?

  She glanced around. She didn’t see Emma Lane in the gallery. But she saw more clearly the other wide-eyed women in attendance. She saw their fascination and excitement and adjusted her opinion. Detrick’s arrest wasn’t going to be a circus. It was going to be a spectacle.

  The judge bound him over for a preliminary hearing.

  The bailiff approached, took his elbow, and led him from the defense table back to the chain gang. At that point, Detrick got a panoramic view of the crowd. The women, the reporters, the heat, the barely contained frenzy.

  He managed to keep his face flat, but his posture seemed to shift. From Caitlin’s seat, he looked like he actually grew taller.

  His gaze landed on her. She couldn’t read it. But she felt the chill emanating from him, like she’d been dumped in a snowbank.

  The bailiff sat him down and shackled him. Emmerich stood. He led the other agents from the courtroom.

  A TV crew was waiting in the hallway. Caitlin stutter-stepped, caught off guard, but Emmerich forged ahead. When a national correspondent put a mic in his face, Emmerich said, “The Crying Call Police Department will have a statement for you soon.”

  Caitlin followed him out of the courthouse to a Bureau
SUV. When they got in, she let out an audible breath.

  Emmerich said, “Buckle up. It’s only starting.”

  37

  Emmerich and Rainey flew back to Virginia Monday afternoon, while Caitlin stayed an extra day to confer with the Crying Call police and the prosecutor’s office. In Flagstaff, Special Agent Sayers executed a search warrant on Detrick’s motel room and tried to interview Emma Lane. She found nothing probative in the room. Emma refused to talk.

  Tuesday morning Caitlin drove to Phoenix to catch her flight to Washington. She planned to return to Arizona in just under two weeks’ time for Detrick’s preliminary hearing.

  The day was crystalline. On the way to the Phoenix airport, she detoured to the offices of Crandall McGill.

  She found Lia Fox behind the front desk, her inch-short hair the black of a broken television screen.

  Lia nearly jumped from her chair. “I left you messages. You’ve been in Crying Call. Jesus. What the hell.”

  “I wanted to speak to you in person,” Caitlin said.

  Lia glanced past Caitlin’s shoulder at the parking lot outside. “Did you come alone? Were you followed?”

  “By whom?”

  “Anybody. His friends. The media.”

  Caitlin couldn’t believe that Lia was always this stunned and jumpy. Even on Wall Street trading floors where brokers ran on cocaine, nobody was this stunned and jumpy.

  “Nobody followed me. I came to thank you.”

  “Thank me?” Lia spoke in a stage whisper. “I asked you to keep my identity confidential.”

  “I have.”

  Lia’s eye twitched.

  Caitlin had been certain, the first time she spoke to her, that Lia was withholding something. This wasn’t dissuading her.

  She softened her expression. Gently, she said, “I’m here to express my appreciation. Your information was vital in allowing us to arrest Kyle Detrick. But I’m concerned—something’s upsetting you. Detrick is behind bars. That should reassure you, but it’s not. Please, tell me.”

  Lia pressed her lips tight. Her eyes were as dark as her hair, pupils wide. Looking at them was like staring into nothing. She scanned the parking lot again and nodded Caitlin into a break room.