The Stranger You Seek

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  “Your mother’s gone for some coffee. She’ll be right back. Diane’s with her.”

  “You let Mother have coffee? Oh, good. That should help my headache.”

  “I shoulda had some decent seat belts put in that old car,” my dad went on. “I didn’t even think about it. Those old lap belts just don’t do the job.”

  After almost forty years with my mother, my father had learned to accept responsibility for everything. If it went wrong, Dad was to blame. There were rarely exceptions. Guilt was just part of life with Mother.

  “This isn’t your fault.” I held his hand—it hurt to move—and looked into his pale, watery blue eyes. “Teaching me to drive like a redneck, now that’s your fault. How’s my car?”

  “Beat up bad as you are,” he said, and tilted his head toward Rauser. “Aaron had it towed over to the police station until we send it somewhere for fixin’. Sure is a good thing he saw you on the road.”

  Rauser gave me a wink and I realized he had lied to my parents about what had happened out there on the interstate. But what exactly had happened out there? An accident? Or had the Impala been tampered with? Had I been followed? Had they captured a stalker? Was it Wishbone? I wouldn’t get the answers until I had some time alone with Rauser. And that wasn’t going to happen as long as my parents were hanging around. Might as well settle in and let everyone fall all over themselves to care for me.

  A muffled ring came from Rauser’s pocket. He pulled out his phone and answered, listened, said “Give me a half hour,” and snapped the phone shut.

  He leaned over me and brushed my cheek with his fingertips. “Chief wants to see me,” he said, and rolled his eyes again. Rauser never liked being invited to Chief Connor’s office. He said it was never good news. He respected Connor but their paths had split years ago. Jefferson Connor understood the politics of success, knew instinctively when and where to insert himself. Rauser had done quite the opposite thing, butting his head up against rank and policy a little too often. Connor not only enjoyed the privileges of position, the guy clearly loved the responsibilities of a bureaucracy. Rauser had resisted anything that might prevent him from working a case hands-on. When he had finally accepted the promotion and the responsibility of the Homicide unit, he’d made the chief agree that he wouldn’t be chained to the establishment. Connor had reluctantly agreed. Jeff Connor had not finished his climb, Rauser said. Connor intended to be attorney general one day and Rauser believed he’d get there.

  “I’ll check on you later,” Rauser told me. “Howard, you make sure she stays in bed, okay?”

  “You bet,” my dad answered as the door opened and my mother walked in balancing coffee cups. Behind her, Diane had a stack of vending-machine doughnuts in cellophane. Rauser grabbed one out of her hands on his way out.

  “Oh, you poor darling. You look just awful!” Mother exclaimed. She had a beaming round cherub face, Debbie Reynolds on prednisone. She set the coffee down and patted my hand. “Bless your little heart.”

  Diane was smiling down at me. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked her.

  “Not when my best friend is in a car wreck. Margaret’s fine with it. How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve been dipped in shit and rolled in cornflakes.”

  Everyone laughed except my mother, who slapped my father’s arm and scolded, “My Lord, Howard, do you see what you’ve taught your children?”

  “Jimmy doesn’t talk like that, Mother. Just me,” I said.

  “Yes, but Jimmy’s gay,” Mother cried, and, inexplicably, hit my father again.

  My convalescing came abruptly to an end two days later. Having found nothing more in my condition to cause concern, Piedmont Hospital was kicking me out. Weary of daytime television and Jell-O, I had decided to leave peacefully.

  I was moving slowly, packing the few things I had into a small roll-on. My head ached, and the bite on my shoulder from the yappy accountant still burned. I slipped into the shorts, black sleeveless V-neck, and sandals that Rauser had thoughtfully retrieved from my apartment along with a few essentials—notebook, pens, toothpaste, hairbrush, underwear, and tampons. I hadn’t asked for the tampons, but Rauser assumed, as he always did, that when I appeared grumpy, I needed tampons. I decided to present him with a box of his very own the next time he so much as raised an eyebrow at me.

  I brushed my teeth and looked in the mirror at the scrapes and bruises on my forehead, chin, cheeks, and arms. Had I rubbed elbows with the killer that night at the airport? Had I made eye contact, maybe even smiled at him?

  I had been reading the Wishbone letters obsessively and I was more convinced than ever that the next murder would come soon. The killer was in a ramped-up state, writing, taunting, feeling invincible. And because I had appeared at a crime scene with Rauser, because I had been hired to help explain the killer, he was trying to pull me in too. He wanted to show me, and everyone, that we weren’t so smart after all.

  Neil had delivered background files on Anne Chambers, Bob Shelby, Elicia Richardson, Lei Koto, David Brooks, and William LaBrecque. Six victims now that we could name. Six victims! Six human beings slaughtered to satisfy a psychopath’s appetite for blood. It made my heart ache. Reading the files, I trolled the information we had to piece together psychological sketches and risk assessments based on each victim’s lifestyle—friends, social gatherings, professional life, habits, even illnesses. Notes on three-by-five cards clung to the hospital wall with pieces of blue painter’s tape someone on the hospital housekeeping staff had turned up for me.

  APD was not able to determine if I’d been followed from the airport the night the wheel came off my car and took off without me across the interstate. By the time the first officer arrived, followed minutes later by Rauser, it was all over. A civilian had seen the accident and pulled over to help me. The police, knowing they were there to intercept whoever might be following and intending me harm, assumed the worst when they found a man opening my car door. They forced the good samaritan to the ground on his stomach, cuffed him, and hauled him into the station, where he was questioned so thoroughly and for so long we are all certain he will never again commit a good deed. He said he saw the Impala swerve without warning and run off the road into the bridge railing. No one else had stopped, he swore, although several cars had shot by, not even slowing. He might have saved my life that night by stopping. I would probably never know, but I imagined the killer driving past the scene, disappointed by the presence of a do-gooder he hadn’t counted on.

  The crime lab concluded that my left front wheel had been tampered with. Not surprisingly, they hadn’t found any physical evidence beyond the marks that suggested tampering with a tool that wasn’t made to fit the nuts on my wheel. No DNA. No prints.

  We knew now that while the hourly parking decks at the airport are under constant surveillance, the long-term parking decks have cameras placed only in strategic areas—the entrance, the exit, the elevator and stairs. Cameras at the entrances and exits are pointed in two directions—at the driver and down, to record the rear of the vehicle and plate numbers. All those tapes would be carefully examined. However, there were dozens of other ways to get into and out of Hartsfield-Jackson. MARTA trains ran directly into the airport, and of course there were taxicabs and shuttle buses.

  We were hopeful about something else, though. Inside, the Hartsfield-Jackson terminals are like a Vegas casino, Rauser said. No place to hide. The tapes from several cameras and locations inside and out of the airport were at APD, and Rauser had a couple of cops going over them, following my route from the gate to the exit, studying the crowds milling around me. Anything of interest would come to Rauser’s attention.

  I was beginning to think about the piles of mail that would be waiting at my office and the voice messages. I still had not even delivered the tapes I’d confiscated from Roy Echeverria in Denver to the rightful owners. I so did not want to do that looking like I’d been in an automobile accident. Bribing Neil into tucking in h
is shirttail and delivering the tapes seemed like a good idea. Old-fashioned chocolate cake from Southern Sweets usually broke him down.

  “Hey, you,” Rauser said from behind me. I spun away from the notes on my hospital room wall. “Let’s sit down and talk for a minute before I take you home, okay?”

  Uh-oh. Nowhere in my memory had Rauser ever uttered those words. He was standing in the door looking massively serious. “So you know what the political climate’s like here, right? These cases are attracting a lot of attention and everybody’s upset and worried.”

  “About me?” I asked, and felt myself sinking. I’d always felt a little outside the circle anyway. It didn’t take much to make me feel even more outside. It suddenly occurred to me perhaps that’s why I’d agreed to get involved at all—my own insecurities. Was I trying to patch up my own ego, prove at last to myself and everyone else that I wasn’t really the fraud I felt like deep down? “This is what the chief wanted to see you about?”

  “Here’s the thing,” Rauser said. “Television journalist over at Channel Eleven got some background on you. Personnel records from the FBI, information about the rehab center you checked in to.”

  Oh boy!

  “File just showed up on the reporter’s car,” Rauser said. “It was enough to make them start digging.”

  “What do you mean just showed up? Who made it show up? Those records are confidential.”

  Rauser was silent for a few seconds and I knew there must be more. “Listen, Keye, Channel Eleven put together this, well, this goddamn report about the investigation and the individuals involved. They got an on-camera interview with Dan. He talked about your marriage and your drinking.”

  “Dan?” I repeated, and the fiery hot sting of betrayal burned my eyes.

  “If it helps at all, it’s not just you they’re slicing up,” Rauser said. “I look like a goddamned idiot. Channel Eleven was decent enough to send us a preview so we’d have time to patch together a response before the shit hits the fan. I gotta tell you that what I saw isn’t good. The chief’s pretty hot about it.” He poked at my pillow with his fingers. “We need you to not have a visible presence at all, but I could still use your advice … unofficially.”

  I was silent, sensing another shoe was about to drop.

  “The chief hired Jacob Dobbs to be the public face of the task force.” Rauser waited, just letting that hang in the air. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. “He the one you told me about at the Bureau?”

  “Yes. He’s the one.” I made a quick sweep of the room to be sure I had all my things.

  A woman in pink scrubs bustled through the door with white roses, a couple dozen of them, long-legged and stunning against dark green foliage. “I’m so glad I caught you,” she exclaimed, in the high sunshiny voice that volunteers use on the sick and injured. She looked like a blonde cupcake with pink icing. “Aren’t these gorgeous? Somebody must love you.”

  She set them on the table, beamed at Rauser and me. When neither of us smiled, her smile fizzled and she left the room. I felt like I’d just kicked a puppy. “What exactly does no visible presence mean?” I asked Rauser, and plucked the card from the center of the roses. “And unofficially—what does that mean, Rauser? Because you needing my unofficial advice sounds to me like I just stopped getting officially paid.” I tore open the envelope, getting a nasty paper cut for my efforts.

  “Now just hang on.” Rauser held up both palms. It was the only calming signal he seemed to know—palms up, body moving slowly backward as if he’d accidentally cornered a coyote.

  A gift certificate from Goodyear tumbled out of the card. It was for a tire rotation and inspection. I sighed. I fully expected to see my father’s scrawl for a signature, but I was wrong.

  Regular maintenance is so important.

  Sorry to hear about the accident, but congratulations on your prime-time debut!

  W.

  20

  Rauser and I barely spoke on the drive home. I was trying to shake off the news he’d flattened me with at the hospital—the investigative report, my ex-husband’s TV interview, Jacob Dobbs being hired to replace me now that I’d been officially removed from the case. Or was it unofficially? The two dozen white roses with the familiar W signature on the creepy card was the icing on the shittiest cake ever made.

  My phone rang. Rauser kept his eyes on the road. “Guess what I got?” Diane asked me. “Reservations at Bacchanalia. We’re overdue for a good, dirty gossip.”

  Bacchanalia is a five-star restaurant near 14th on the outskirts of Midtown and so far over my budget I need to stand on tiptoes, but Diane and I pool our funds and treat ourselves once a month, regardless.

  I looked in the mirror at my cuts and bruises. “I still look awful.”

  “Perfect.” Diane laughed. “I’ll pretend I’m your abusive lover.”

  A couple of hours later, we sat down to the white linen tablecloths and low lights at Bacchanalia, which is great for catching up but does nothing to disguise the sucking sound created by the arrival of the check and the departure of our disposable income. And it’s worth every penny. One bite tells you the chef is in love with her craft. The menu is big and bold, seasonal and local, and the meals are four courses.

  Diane ordered arugula salad, cured Virginia flounder with watermelon relish, ricotta cavatelli, and asparagus cake with lemon gelato. I started with the potato gnocchi, because when it comes to bad carbs, I like doubling up, and moved on to grilled snapper, a salad with Pecorino Romano, fava beans, and young fennel, and a blood orange soufflé for dessert—exactly what I wanted after fake eggs for breakfast, fake potatoes at dinner, and all the Jell-O I could hold at the hospital. I was starved.

  A white-coated member of the waitstaff delivered a warm loaf of rosemary bread and sliced it at our table. Diane ordered an elderflower cosmopolitan for herself and coffee for me.

  She listened intently as I told her about my feeling of being followed, about how I really wrecked my car, about the white roses, about how some TV muckraker was about to splatter my tattered record and disemboweled marriage all over Atlanta’s TV screens. Her drink came and she sipped it, blue eyes steady on me. She was wearing a wrapped linen jacket cinched at the waist with a black pencil skirt and patent pumps with ankle straps. Diane had never minded getting a little attention. And she was dressed for it tonight. Her blonde hair was short and tucked behind her ears, with little wispy sideburns.

  “Do you feel safe?” she asked when I’d finished.

  That’s why I loved Diane. Since we’d met at age six, she worried about me. I ran my knife over a mound of softened butter and spread it over the warm, scented bread. “I know this may sound strange, but I don’t think he really wants to hurt me. I think he just wants to scare me away.”

  Our starters arrived and we dug in. The gnocchi was heaven.

  “So enough about me,” I said.

  Diane laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s always about you.” She drained her drink and signaled the waiter for another.

  “So? Tell me about the new guy,” I demanded.

  “It’s fantastic so far. Notice I have to qualify it? God knows it’s been forever.”

  I chuckled. “Um, I think it was only like six weeks ago you dumped Brad.”

  “Blake,” Diane corrected cheerfully. “What was that about anyway? He was so grungy.”

  I nodded my agreement. “It was a look.”

  “Great kisser, though.”

  “You look fabulous, by the way. Is that Armani? You get a raise or something?”

  Diane broke out her big white smile. “There’s more where this came from. We spent a whole day shopping last weekend.”

  “He took you shopping? Wow. That’s so … so Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, come on, Keye. Let me enjoy this, okay? I think it’s sweet.”

  The waiter delivered Diane’s second elderflower cosmo in a wide martini glass. It had a lovely lavender tint and a thin
layer of ice on the top. I could smell it. Diane held up her glass. “I drink for those who can’t,” she told me. “Cheers.”

  “So selfless.” I smiled.

  “This one’s different, Keye. It feels like the big one.”

  Diane believed fully in love, believed everyone had a soul mate, a perfect match—the big one. I had believed it once too, but that was a long time ago.

  “Tell me everything. Name, rank, serial—”

  “Good evening, Dr. Street.”

  “Jacob!” I dropped my fork. I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d hit my thumb with a hammer.

  “Pardon the intrusion, but I couldn’t let the opportunity pass.” Jacob Dobbs stood at our table, looked at Diane. “My, aren’t you lovely.” He was wearing a perfectly tailored suit with strong shoulders to project the power he so enjoyed. Dobbs was fair-skinned with light eyes. He looked like he’d just shaved. I could smell his cologne.

  Diane smiled and extended a hand to shake Jacob’s. Instead, he bent forward and kissed the top of her hand. Diane’s fair skin reddened.

  I intervened. “Diane Paulaskas, this is Jacob Dobbs. My old boss.”

  The information had to wade through the cosmos she was drinking, but I saw it register. Her smile withered.

  Jacob pulled a chair from the empty table next to us without asking, smoothed his shirt and tie as he sat. “Well, then, it’s nice to see you looking so well,” he said to me in his Masterpiece Theatre British accent.

  One of the staff arrived with our salad selections, and Dobbs announced in his showy way that our check should be delivered to his table. Diane ordered another twenty-dollar cosmo on Dobbs, then winked at me.

  It had been years since I’d spoken to Jacob Dobbs. I’d seen him, of course, like the rest of the country, when television needed a talking head with a photogenic face to explain why killers kill. The media loved to employ Dobbs as their expert witness. He specialized in sounding so sure of the labyrinthine ways of killers. Oh, what the hell, I decided. It had been a long time. Why not bury the axe? Besides, if I was rude now, after being thrown off the Wishbone case, I’d appear bitter and jealous.