The Girls On Poppy Drive: A Detective London McKenna Novel

by Alex Gates

  Eddie regressed and sunk deeper into his own delusion. He stared at the handcuffs and plucked at the links of steel. His voice crashed, a timid, almost boy-like falsetto of panic.

  “Not fair…” he whispered. “I want out of here. Lemme go.”

  “Where you gonna go, asshole? You blew your own house up.”

  “Had to.”

  “Why?”

  Eddie rocked side to side. “Cause it was bad.”

  “How was your house bad?”

  Kirwin’s silence revealed more than his words. He refused to look at Ben, but my partner was in for a hell of a fight if he dared to get any closer. Aggression didn’t work. That made sense. Everything about him focused on childlike wonder and innocence. His obsessions. His vocabulary. His drawings. His fixation on children.

  I knew what I had to do. The thought curdled my stomach, but we were getting nowhere. Eddie was our only witness, and I couldn’t let him shut down.

  I let myself slouch and gentled my voice.

  “Eddie?” Every sentence ended with a gentle upwell of melodic sweetness. The words pouted from my lips, and I doodled imaginary lines on the table. “We were worried about you.”

  It worked.

  Kirwin relaxed, soothed by my childlike voice. Ben stared in horror, but Eddie talked.

  “You worried?” he asked.

  “Yep. We went to your house and everything. You weren’t there though. It was a good thing. You could have been hurt.”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “I wasn’t. I’m big and strong.”

  Spoken like a child.

  “We were really scared,” I said. “Why did you blow your house up?”

  “I had to stop it.”

  I tilted my head and twirled my hair with a finger. “Stop what?”

  “Touching myself.”

  The shudder rolled over me. Just another horror to repress. “How would blowing up a whole house do that?”

  “Cause it’d get rid of all the stuff.” He flipped the notebook to a fresh page. “Can I have my pen back?”

  I pulled mine from my pocket and rolled it over to him. He happily began to color once more.

  Ben waved for me to continue and stepped into the shadows. Kirwin seemed to forget he was there.

  I waited, resting my chin on my hand. “What sort of stuff did you wanna get rid of?”

  “Just stuff.”

  Prying was hard. I balanced a normal, childish curiosity with a mock interest. “Like clothes and stuff? Laundry and…” I glanced at Ben. “Toys?”

  “Yeah. And the videos.”

  The tension wove through me. “Videos of what? Anything fun?”

  He couldn’t fake that sadness. “Videos of her.”

  “Who?”

  “Kaitlyn.”

  “Oh.”

  On a whim, I pulled a notebook from my pocket. Ben gave me his pen, and I pretended to draw too, miming toward the camera. A few moments later, Adamski delivered a pack of crayons from the room we reserved for interviewed kids. Eddie beamed as I offered him the crayons.

  I kept the pink, but Eddie pointed.

  “I need that one,” he said. “It’s her favorite color.”

  “Kaitlyn’s?” I handed it to him without hesitation. Gained his trust. “I like pink too.”

  “Yeah.”

  I plucked a green crayon and busied myself with stars on the side of my paper. “So what kind of videos did you have of Kaitlyn?”

  Eddie shrugged. “Good ones.”

  “Yeah?” I smiled. “I like movies.”

  “I liked the movies too.”

  “What were they about?”

  Ben stared, hard. I pretended not to notice, not to feel the strain prickling sweat down my back.

  “She’s do stuff for me.”

  “Like sing? Dance?”

  “Oh, she was a good dancer.” Eddie licked his lips. His face flushed. I didn’t like the reaction, but we needed it. “She’d do anything I asked.”

  “Even like…stand on her head?”

  “Sometimes. Like…she touched herself. Showed me her places. Let me watch.”

  “Watch her do what?”

  “She didn’t do much. He always did the good stuff. I think she liked it. But she would have liked me better. That’s why I want to find her. It’s my turn. He said I’d get a turn. Not just in the movies either. She’d do what I wanted when she was in my own room.”

  No remorse.

  No shame.

  No inkling that what he spoke about was wrong, illegal, and absolutely unredeemable.

  “Wow.” My voice trembled. I struggled to maintain my character, but every passing second teased the urge to bash his head into the table. “Was she all naked?”

  “Yeah. She was pretty.”

  “And what’d he do to her?”

  “Laid on her a lot.”

  Oh God. Kirwin lost interest in the crayons and reached below the table.

  I had to change the subject. I asked to borrow his crayon, and he went back to his drawing.

  “How d'you talk to her?” I asked.

  “Email. She’s real good on the computer.”

  I doubted Kaitlyn had access to any sort of communication. It must have been the kidnapper. He contacted Eddie directly.

  But why?

  “So you’d email her, and she’d do anything you wanted?” I asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  “She ever ask you to do anything?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “She sounds bossy,” I pouted.

  Eddie smiled. “But I like helping her.”

  “What’d she make you do?”

  “Favors. Then she’d give me presents.”

  Presents? My heart sunk. “Her teddy bear?”

  “Oh, that’s my favorite present. She left it for me.”

  No. No, no, no.

  “Left it?” I asked. “You didn’t see her?”

  “Nah. She needed some help. She wanted to fix her wall cause it was all wet. I told her I knew how to drywall cause I did it after jail. So, I got her the stuff, and she gave me the teddy.”

  A wall repair? Not something a child would ask for. But supplies for a renovation of her cell? Definitely a project given by the kidnapper. Christ, no wonder we couldn’t find him. He didn’t even buy his own supplies.

  “Wow, you can build a house!” I complimented him with raw enthusiasm. “What else did you bring?”

  “Gas. And lots of it.”

  Gasoline? For a car? But why hide that? We had nothing in our files about a suspicious vehicle, and the kidnapper must have known that. So what else would need gasoline?

  A generator took diesel, but would Kirwin know the difference? Maybe he’d taken them somewhere without electricity.

  My hands trembled. We were so close. I stared at my doodles. “Where d’you put all that stuff?”

  “At the spot.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Changed. All the time. All over the city. I had to drive a lot, but I wanted to help her. And she gave me loads of presents anytime she needed something.”

  “What else did she need?”

  “Cold medicine. Clothes. Food. I told her she could stay with me and I’d get her everything she needed, but she didn’t want to leave her home. She’s real shy.”

  “And you got the bear at the drop off?”

  “Left it there with a bow for me. Smelled like her too.” Eddie sighed. “I got some other good stuff from her too, but I like the bear the best, especially since she dressed him in her stuff. He was wearing her panties. It was funny.”

  Right. My head pounded. A layer of imaginary filth rose in the room. My skin tingled with disgust, but I couldn’t escape. Not yet.

  “So where is Kaitlyn?” I asked.

  “Here.” Eddie frowned. “You have her.”

  “Nope.” I kept coloring, my voice a sing-song. “Can’t find her either.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep.”r />
  “But I want to see her.”

  “Me too.” I borrowed the red from him. “But I’m not allowed to email anyone. I have to see her outside of the computer. Know where she might be?”

  Kirwin whined. “No. I don’t know. I was supposed to get to see her. But then you came along.”

  I hummed and mocked a pout. “What did I do? How come you tried to hurt me? That was mean.”

  I didn’t expect his apology. He ducked his face down, flushing. “Sophia said to.”

  “Then Sophia is mean.”

  “No!” Eddie leapt to her defense, rapidly shaking his head. “No. Don’t hate her. She’s just little. She’s a baby, like how Kaitlyn was. She thought she was playing. She’s so sweet.”

  “All I wanted to do was talk to them.” I shrugged. “Just like now.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s okay.”

  “I’m kinda scared too.” I gave a worried sigh. “I think someone wants to hurt Sophia. I think she might go away forever.”

  The reaction wasn’t what I expected. Eddie’s eyes watered, a genuine fear gripping him. He nodded, the crayons dropping.

  “Like Alyssa,” he said.

  I stiffened. “What happened to Alyssa?”

  “She’s gone too. I met her first. Long ago. She was funny, and I liked her cause she never wore clothes.” He went quiet. “Then one day she went away. It was hard to talk to her.” The mood switched. His voice warmed. “Then I found Kaitlyn. And I love Kaitlyn. And she said she loved me. She’d do a lot of things for me cause she loved me. But…”

  I knew the answer before he said it. Our video chronology matched his story. “But now Kaitlyn’s gone too?”

  “Yeah. Now I just have Sophia.” He wept. “And I don’t want Sophia to disappear too!”

  Me either.

  But I already feared the worst.

  Alyssa must have hit puberty at age thirteen. Kaitlyn developed faster at twelve.

  What did they do with the girls once they got too old?

  Were they even alive?

  “Eddie, you know you weren’t supposed to hit me, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You might still get in trouble…” I grinned before he could panic. “But maybe I can help!”

  “How?”

  “You can work with me! You can help me find Kaitlyn!”

  He seemed skeptical. Rightly so. He was crazy, but he wasn’t a complete idiot. On some level, he knew exactly what had happened to his favorite starlet.

  “Cause we got all these computers here,” I said. “All these people who work all day to try and find people who get lost. That’s what I do. I find missing people.” I shrugged. “But I might need your help. Think you can remember some things for me? Places you’ve been? Emails you sent?”

  He lowered the crayon. “And that’ll help you get Kaitlyn back?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He sucked in a breath but nodded. “Okay. Cause I gotta talk to her.”

  “Me too, Eddie.” I slowly stood. “You sit here. I’ll get us some more crayons.”

  “Kay.”

  Dread and disgust rolled through me. I slid out of the chair and fought a wave of nausea.

  I’d never, ever use that voice again.

  Not even to talk to a puppy.

  Ben closed the door behind us, waiting for the click before issuing a string of profanity I only wished I had uttered first.

  “What do you think he knows?” Ben dove for his pack of cigarettes. Didn’t look like he’d make it to the parking lot to light it. He offered me one, but I needed a shower, not a new bad habit. “Think he’ll lead us to the kidnapper?”

  I wished it were true. I begged any deity listening, bargained with every demon laughing, and fought every ounce of rationality screaming the truth through my head.

  “He knows nothing.” The words hurt. “He’s got the IQ of a child and is suffering from any number of mental illnesses.”

  “So now what?”

  Now? We had nothing.

  No leads. No suspects.

  Only the gut-clenching realization that Alyssa and Kaitlyn were probably dead and buried.

  12

  Are you getting scared now?

  It’ll only get worse.

  -Him

  “He’s not the kidnapper.”

  Didn’t matter that Adamski had closed the door. The entire station eavesdropped outside his office, waiting for my assessment of the crazed pervert coloring in our interrogation room.

  Everyone was listening.

  And now they all knew I’d been wrong.

  I plunked into a chair and tried to stay as professional as the internal screaming in my head permitted. I wanted to yell. To kick the desk. Toss the files into the garbage.

  What were we supposed to do now?

  Especially as Chief Jonathan Esposto had joined us for this meeting.

  Tensions were high, especially since Esposto believed I should have remained on disability until Internal Affairs found a good enough reason to fire me. So far, I was lucky.

  Esposto was the sort of man who’d weathered a hip replacement, cataract surgery, and six different medications—blood pressure to impotence—without retiring, just for the opportunity to earn the title of Chief. All it took was forty years of ass-kissing and a massive sex scandal that threatened to envelope the entire department and half of the state government before the old chief retired and allowed him to take his rightful throne.

  As his interest in the case was purely political, Esposto wasn’t thrilled by my revelation. “He’s not the kidnapper? But he has intimate knowledge of the Gibson girl. Direct contact.”

  God, I wished I was wrong. “No. He never talked to the girls, only the kidnapper. He used Kirwin—and possibly others—to do tasks for him. Collect supplies, construction materials, medicine, toys, and anything else the girls required.”

  “Why?” The lines creasing Esposto’s face had deepened in the past five months. Apparently, the promotion also came with an alcohol addiction. “Why risk using a secondary party to collect supplies?”

  “So the kidnapper didn’t need to buy anything,” I said. “Maybe he couldn’t leave the kids unattended. Or maybe he’s childless. Buying clothes and toys for little girls would have left a trail on his credit card or placed him in a store where he believed he’d be easily identified as someone who didn’t belong.”

  “And he uses the girls’…” Ben tensed. “Their fans to run the errands. Always choosing a new and different drop-off location, and rewarding them with their clothing, drawings, anything sentimental.”

  “Which means the kidnapper must be local,” I said. “Near the city or even inside. It doesn’t appear that he took the girls across state lines or out of the country.”

  Adamski offered the chief a shrug. “That’s a solid piece of information we didn’t have before.”

  “And that’s it.” Esposto exhaled. “You talked to him for an hour, McKenna. That’s all you have?”

  Kirwin was lucky if he could tell us his name and address. I sighed. “We’ve learned that the kidnapper is paranoid. Insanely paranoid and, unfortunately, cautious. He’s smart about his videos, about his victims, and his privacy. He leaves no identifying evidence in the footage—always wearing the same clothing and mask. Everything is covered except his…” I wouldn’t say it. “He won’t put himself in any danger of being revealed, be it in the videos or in public.”

  “But you have Kirwin. He has to be worth something.”

  “Not much,” Ben said.

  I hated admitting defeat. “Eddie’s given us all he can for now. We’ll watch the recording of the interview again and think of more questions. The FBI might have more information for us too. For all we know, we might just need to ask the questions in a…different manner. He’s not exactly stable.”

  Ben snorted. “He’s a fucking lunatic. A remorseless pedophile who doesn’t realize the damage he’d do to these gi
rls if he was allowed contact with them. Hell, he’s served time for a crime that would make your skin crawl.”

  Esposto pointed at me. “And so you’re asking to work out a deal between him and the DA?”

  “It’s leverage,” I said. “If we can offer help to him, maybe he’ll trust us. Open up to us.”

  “If he’s as crazy as you think, what are the odds we could even get him on the stand?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “How?”

  “If he can help us find the girls—”

  “Christ.” Esposto turned to Adamski. “Don’t let her blow an investigation because she’s too obsessed with the victims. You’ve cause enough goddamned trouble for the department, McKenna. You wanted this case, and you got it. That means following procedure to the letter. No dicking around, no chasing some lead that’ll poison the goddamned well and make this case absolutely worthless in the courts.”

  I frowned. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “But it always seems to happen with you.” He held my stare. “What will you tell the families on Poppy Drive? You’ve spent three weeks chasing your only suspect, and he ended up being a lunatic who can offer nothing of value to your investigation.”

  “I’ll tell them the truth—I’m not going to quit until I find their girls.”

  He wasn’t impressed. “We brought you on to fix this mess. I’ve got the mayor, the governor, the media, and the FBI breathing down my neck on this, McKenna. You’ve given me nothing. Just a couple crayon drawings from some pervert who thinks one of the missing girls is in love with him.”

  “Eddie might still help us,” I said. “I’ll talk to him again. No one is this perfect. The kidnapper must have made a mistake—most likely when he was in contact with men like Eddie.”

  “You better hope so.” Esposto dismissed us with a threat. “Screw this up, and you’re not getting another chance.”

  I ground my teeth. Ben tapped my shoulder. Enough of a warning. Time to go.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I followed Ben, but his attention had shifted. He frowned as three officers raced through the station. I flinched as the security alarm blared.