Into The Fire jb-4

by David Wiltse

  Becker stood at a large map of the Southeastern States that were covered by the Nashville office, atop of which had been placed a clear plastic overlay showing Browne's selection of probable caves.

  "She was last seen in Hazard?" he asked.

  "Yes. She was supposedly going to choir practice, never showed up."

  "Hazard is just a bit too far from either of the closest possible caves.

  Mark her as marginal."

  Pegeen stared at the map.

  "What is it?" he asked when she hesitated.

  "It — seems so… hit and miss. This girl sounds exactly like the kind of person he takes. So she's a few miles too far away from one of the caves which we don't know he's going to in the first place. We don't even know that he is going to a cave, much less one of those. We don't know how far away from the cave he's willing to drive with someone. We don't even know he's anywhere on that map. It's not even a needle in a haystack. That assumes you've got all your hay in one place. This is like a needle in a whole field of alfalfa-and we're not sure there is a needle in the first place. We don't know Swann is doing anything."

  "Some fun, eh?"

  "Do you always work this way?"

  "I've had harder cases."

  "Harder? How?"

  "You're wrong about one thing. We do know there's a needle that we're looking for. At least I know it. Swann is at work, believe me."

  "But how do you know that?"

  "How do you know a thirsty man will drink?"

  "It can't be as simple as that."

  Becker looked at her for a moment. She felt herself squirming under his gaze.

  "It's not simple," he said at last. "It's very complicated, but it comes out the same way in the end. The thingss he goes through before he acts is actually very prolonged and tortured. I'll explain it to you someday if you really want to know."

  "We studied it at the academy," Pegeen said. "I know some thing about it."

  Becker smiled ruefully.

  Be grateful that you don't. Not the first thing. You're fortunate that you haven't got a clue."

  "What a lucky girl," she said.

  "Sometime, when you've got about six hours to kill, I'll tell you about it."

  How about tonight, she thought, trying to keep her smile from spreading from the back of her throat to her lips.

  "Whenever you feel like talking, I'm happy to listen,' she said. She nodded slightly, attempting to convey serious empathy while keeping it all in the framework of business. She wondered how'good she was at it; she certainly felt clumsy and obvious, but maybe not obvious for Becker.

  He had seemed mildly annoyed with her since she met him at the airport a few days ago, sometimes downright angry.

  "Thanks," he said, turning back to the map, placing no weight of any kind on his thank-you.

  "Do you know what really surprises me?" Pegeen asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

  He raised his eyebrows slightly, waiting.

  "That it works this way," she said. "I mean the whole process. Look at this: we're after a serial killer, one man in the whole country who has the potential to kill dozens of people. We're a part of a huge, professional, highly organized organization, and what does this manhunt consist of? You and me and a computer and a map. Before I entered the Bureau, even during the academy, for that matter, I had this image of the FBI, this massive organization hurling itself into battle all at once. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

  "I've been in a while," Becker said. "I'm used to it, but go on."

  "Well, I don't know, I just always had this notion that if the Federal Bureau of Investigation was after you, you were in trouble, you were in really deep shit."

  "We've got good public relations people," Becker said.

  "I don't mean that we're not good," she said.

  "Sometimes."

  "This is not a disloyal statement, you understand. It's just-it's us, isn't it? I mean, I know we can call on agents all over the country if we have to. We can have a lot of people knocking on a lot of doors and we've got all that great scientific stuff, it does amazing things-but really, when you get down to it, this case is just you and me going over a list of names."

  "Not quite what you envisioned, is it?"

  "No."

  "In fact, most of the time it's boring as hell, right?" Becker asked.

  "I didn't say that; it's not really boring, it's morepainstaking.". "Tedious, I'd say. But that's the way it works. It's all the nuts and bolts; you've got to sort them by hand. The only intuition comes in knowing what kind of nut you're looking for in the first place."

  "At least we know our nut," Pegeen said. "We're lucky in that."

  "We know him," Becker said, his attitude suddenly dark. "Know him well.

  I don't call that lucky."

  By the second day of sifting reports, they had a list of manageable size. Pegeen drove the backroads from one small town to the next while Becker lapsed into darker and darker moods. Now that they were actually in the field, interviewing acquaintances of the missing women, Pegeen thought that Becker was sinking somehow, as if the presence of Swann underground with a victim was creating a special gravity that drew him down deeper and deeper into himself, into some black pit of his inner being.

  He was still crisp and alert when interviewing people, using that curious blend of detached efficiency and sudden knowing intimacy that worked so effectively for him, but afterwards, when he was alone in the car again with Pegeen, Becker would slump into the seat and seem to slump in his spirit as well.

  On the second day of driving, she asked him if it was her fault.

  "What?"

  "Are you mad at me about something? Have I done something to annoy you?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You haven't realy spoken to me except to grunt in two days. In fact, you've seem pissed off at me ever since you showed up."

  "I'm not mad at you, Haddad. Why would I be?"

  "I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

  "I'm not. You're doing a fine job."

  "I haven't done anything yet."

  "You're doing it well, though."

  "I thought there was something about me that rubbed you the wrong way."

  "I'd rather be doing this with you than anyone else I know," Becker said. "Any other agent would be trying to get me to cheer up."

  "Fuck you, sorry I asked."

  "Would it help if I told you that I'm quiet because I'm thinking?"

  "Shouldn't we think together? I might be able to help My brain works sometimes, too."

  "I guess it wouldn't help to tell you that, then. The fact is, I'm not thinking. I'm just depressed."

  "What about?"

  "What's going to happen," he said.

  "What's going to happen? What is going to happen?"

  Becker scrunched into the passenger seat so far that his knees rested on the dashboard. "We're going to find him," he said.

  "How do you know?"

  Becker did not answer. He rolled his head to one side and looked at the pine trees moving past the window.

  "Are you sure we're going to find him?" Pegeen insisted.

  "Yeah."

  "Well, that's great, isn't it? That's what we want, isn't it?"

  Becker grunted, but she was not certain it was in assent.

  "Why does that depress you?"

  "Because of what comes after that."

  "What?. What comes after that?… What do you mean?"

  "Pegeen, I like you," he said, startling her with the use of her first name. "I like you a lot. One of the things I like most about you is your innocence. You'll lose that eventually, but I'll be sorry to see it go."

  "Could you be a little more patronizing, do you think?

  I've been around a little bit, you know. I just look innocent. It's my goddamned complexion."

  "I like your complexion."

  "Yeah, I'll bet."

  "I do. It makes you look innocent."

&n
bsp; "Very funny. Look, Becker, I'm an agent, I'm trained, I have a badge, I have a gun, I'm legally authorized to shoot people. I'm not innocent, I'm not a child. You chose me to come along with you on this assignment; you could have had anyone but you chose me. You didn't do it because of my innocence."

  "You haven't figured out why I chose you yet?"

  "I have suspicions."

  "What do you think?"

  "So you can make fun of me, is what it looks like. Tell me what you're talking about."

  "Let it go."

  "You know what passive-aggressive is, don't you?" she demanded. "It's not very becoming."

  "You checked me out, right?" Becker asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I said you were innocent, not dumb. You asked around to find out about me. If not last time, sure as hell this time."

  "Okay. I just thought…

  "Don't apologize. I would have done the same thing."

  "Did you?" she asked.

  Becker laughed. "Yeah. I checked you out."

  "What did you find out?"

  "Not much. You broke up with your boyfriend."

  "Somebody told you that? How the hell does anybody know? I didn't tell anybody. Are they spying on me?"

  Becker laughed.

  "Welcome to the club, kiddo."

  "It's hardly the same, and don't call me kiddo, either."

  "What's hardly the same?"

  "Never mind. I'm just shocked that… who was it, who told you?

  Kinnock? He's been trying to get his hand up my skirt since I joined up."

  "'You mean there's good reason for people to keep tabs on me but not on you? Because of my history it's all right? But it's not all right for you?"

  I didn't mean anything in particular."

  "So what did they tell you about me, Haddad? What gory stories did they tell you?"

  "Just, you know, it's mostly very complimentary.

  Everyone says you're fantastically good at it."

  "But what?"

  "But nothing. Everyone respects you enormously."

  "But I'm what, a bit unstable? A bit crazy? A bit dangerous? Or do, they go further?"

  "No."

  "Do they tell you why they think I'm so good? Do they say why I seem to have such a knack for finding these psychopaths?" 4 'No. I I "Yes, they do, sure they do. Why wouldn't they, they don't-know nothing about it, what better time to speculate?"

  "No, honest..

  "Christ, let's not be honest with each other, Haddad.

  Let's keep things just the way they are; we're getting along fine… listen, kid, fair warning. Everything they told you is true as far as it goes. If not in specifics, then in spirit. As far as it goes. It's all true… It just doesn't go far enough."

  Pegeen did not know what to make of his statement, and she got no further help from him. Becker fell into a silence that remained unbroken until she pulled their car into an empty field where a large tent was being erected.

  The Reverend Tommy R. Walker was uncomfortable in the presence of any police authorities, and FBI.agents made him doubly ill-at-ease.

  Authorities had plagued Tommy's life. Cops and sheriffs treated him like he was running a damned carnival instead of a respectable healing and revival meeting, and even after he had paid their bribes and followed their laws Tommy felt guilty whenever they were around. The fact that one of the agents was a girl, probably no older than Aural, didn't help matters, either. She was a kind of goofy-looking creature with her funny ears and all that red hair, but kind of attractive, too, in an unusual way. Still, she had flashed a badge at him, and that meant she had authority. Ceding some sort of power to the man was bad enough, but granting it to a woman was something else, something he didn't like at all. Rae had taken enough control over him since Aural left, haranguin him with questions and accusations and using her body like it was some special treat that she would dole out only if he gave her the proper information.

  He had become quite dependent on her sexual favors in the past few weeks, he found. The more eager, the more inventive she became, the deeper he fell into her thrall.

  He didn't know how, exactly, but he seemed to have slipped into a form of vassalage to her body which had given her emotional and intellectual primacy as well. In ways he could not pin down, and by methods he could not adequately name, Rae had become the boss.

  She even took charge now, talking freely with the agents while Tommy hung back warily.

  "I reported her missing, yes, I did," Rae said.

  Tommy noticed that she spoke primarily to the male agent, addressing him with a level of flirtatiousness he had not seen in her before.

  "She was a dear friend," Rae continued. "A very dear friend and I was worried about her."

  "Did you have any particular reason to worry?"

  Becker asked. "Couldn't she have run off with a boyfriend, for instance?",

  "Aural was off men; she didn't want a boyfriend."

  "Why was that?" Pegeen asked.

  "Bad experiences," Rae said. "You know how they are.

  Pegeen nodded, feeling momentarily sisterly. She did indeed know how they were. Awful at the worst of times, and at the best, still difficult.

  "Believe me, if she had wanted any boyfriends, she wouldn't have had to look very far," Rae said. Becker and Pegeen both noticed her glance at the Reverend Tommy that didn't quite take place. The Reverend stirred uneasily. "She set her last boyfriend on fire, that's how fed up she was."

  "Set him on fire?"

  Rae nodded proudly. "Yes, sir, right on fire."

  "Wasn't on fire," Tommy said.

  "Certainly was," Rae returned sharply.

  "Nope. She tried to burn up the bathroom of the trailer and Kershaw was inside it. He never got burned. at all.

  She's just telling you cow flop."

  "No such a thing." Rae was indignant. "She set that man ablaze, and he deserved it, too."

  "First off, no man deserves that," Tommy said, appealing to Becker as a fellow male.

  "I've seen a few," Becker said.

  Tommy acted as if he didn't hear the contradiction.

  "And second, it ain't true."

  "Aural told me so her own self," Rae said.

  "But Kershaw told me, " Tommy said triumphantly, then quickly realized he had said too much.

  Becker and Pegeen noticed the change in the relationship between the other two; it happened as palpably as a fifty-degree drop in temperature. The Bureau always wanted agents to interview subjects separately, but Becker had realized long ago that the guideline was often wrong.

  People who knew each other could send signals to keep the other from saying too much, it was true, but just as often they would react to the presence of an agent as if he were an intermediary in a long-running power struggle.

  Both would appeal to him to take their side and in the process reveal far more than they might alone. Like a couple before a marriage counselor, each would plead his or her own case in ways never done with the partner.

  "So that was Harold Kershaw I heard you talking to outside our trailer,"

  Rae said icily.

  "What?" Tommy said. Becker thought his guilt was so obvious he might as well have worn a signboard. Pegeen wondered if all men pretended not to hear whenever a woman asked them the question they didn't want to answer, or if it was just every man she had ever known.

  "You gave her over to Harold Kershaw?" Rae protested. "Do you know what that shikepoke'll do to her?

  How could you do that to that sweet thing?"

  "Kershaw ain't got her."

  "He might kill her, I can't believe you.

  "It ain't Kershaw," Tommy said. "I told you, he ain't got her.

  "You know where she is then, don't you? You know how worried I was, why didn't you tell me? You made me go to the police and everything and all the time you knew-"

  "Hey, I don't know. I don't know nothing."

  "He knows where Aural is," Rae said to Becker.
>
  "Hey!"

  "You might's well arrest him," Rae said. She looked at Pegeen, nodding vigorously. "He's as bad as the man who's got her."

  "Rae, Rae, calm down here…"

  "Take him to the station and beat him with your nightsticks@r I'll do it myself"

  "Hey! Rae. Honey. Sugar, what are you talking about?" He turned to the agents, appealing for sympathy.

  "I don't know where the girl is. I didn't snatch her. Kershaw didn't snatch her. It was this little weasel. Kershaw found him and kicked the shit out of him, but Kershaw didn't take Aural, he never got close enough to her, she ran right into this weasel's car, like he was waiting for her. I think she was planning on slipping out on us anyway, Rae, honest to God, she was going away with this little guy, I'm sure of it."

  Pegeen pulled a photograph from her purse.

  "Was it this man?"

  Tommy tried to square the grim-looking still-life of the mug shot with the face of the little man lying on the sidewalk, bleeding, cowering behind his upraised arm.

  "Could be, maybe. Sure."

  Becker slid an arm around Tommy's shoulders and turned him away from the women. Tommy felt a heat, a sudden urgency in the agent that frightened him. It had not been there before, but seemed to burst into combustion with the showing of the photograph. Tommy knew he was no longer being politely questioned-things had changed with the sudden bewildering fright of a nightmare. Becker smiled at him, but a fire was flashing in his eyes. For a second Tommy remembered the desperate need of the man who had grabbed him in the healing meeting, trying to confess his sins, the desire so strong that it read like a barely sheathed fury. Like something huge and hungry spotting its prey, immediately transformed into a carnivorous concentration so strong that it must act like a form of gravitational attraction, pulling the victim towards it.

  Tommy realized he would tell this FBI agent everything he wanted to know; he would be afraid not to. He knew that the agent was not after him personally, but he sensed a hunger so great that he might make a mouthful of anything close. Kershaw had frightened him with his potential for violence, but this man, with a single move, terrified him.

  "Let's you and me talk, Reverend," Becker said.

  "You bet," said the Reverend, turning his head to look back longingly at Rae. He realized with a sinking feeling that he would get no help from her.

  Pegeen had never seen Becker excited and she realized he had become a different person. Although he always gave the impression of contained strength, he now seemed as if the strength were breaking its bonds and were within seconds of bursting forth. Through no physical change that she could detect, he now seemed to be coiled and ready to strike.