The Murder Artist

by John Case

  “There’s this fella runs a little shop – does face-painting, sells candles and magic wands, that kind of thing. Computer turned up a pedophile conviction.”

  “Who?” I demand. “What’s his name?”

  “Whoa,” Shoffler says. “Just because he has a prior doesn’t mean the guy’s culpable here. We’re checking out his account of his time and whereabouts, and so far it’s holding up solid.”

  “Is he in custody?” Liz asks. “Does he know where the boys are? Can we talk to him?”

  “We’ll know for sure about him real soon,” Shoffler says, “but like I said, Mrs. Callahan, I don’t think he’s involved. I just didn’t want the press to spring this on you. Wanted to make you aware.”

  I know from the snuffling sound that Liz is crying again.

  “I’ll be by sometime today,” Shoffler tells us.

  “Jesus,” Liz’s father says as he plunges through the front door. “They’re like a pack of vultures. Where’s my daughter?”

  She comes through the door from the kitchen, gives a little cry, and then he takes her clumsily into his arms, patting at her shoulder. “Liz,” he says, “it’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

  After a minute, they separate and he extends his hand to me. “Alex,” he says. “Hell of a thing.”

  “Thanks for coming, Jack.” It’s an effort to address my father-in-law by his first name. What comes naturally is “Mr. Taggart,” a form of address that the man himself, with his parade-ground posture and stiff manners, might prefer. Jack is a high-school principal. He’s conditioned to expect deference from anyone younger than he is.

  It is Liz who either mistrusts or fails to grasp her father’s profound sense of formality, Liz who insists on the tokens of chummy intimacy. On their own, the boys would call Jack “Grandfather” and greet him with handshakes, but when Kevin and Sean were toddlers, Liz decreed that they should call him “Poppy.” She insists on this, and also mandates hugs and kisses. To please her, everyone complies – but only when she’s present. She looks on now, frowning, as her father and husband engage in something that – were it not so brief – might be called an embrace.

  “Marguerite – this thing was just too much for her,” my father-in-law says, stepping out of our statutory hug. He shakes his head, disappointment with his wife clear on his strong features. “High-strung,” he mutters, “but” – he claps his hands together – “she’ll be fine.”

  Marguerite Taggart is a sweet and warm woman, the yin to Jack’s yang. Now she’s under sedation in the MidCoast Medical Center in Rockland, Maine.

  Liz may have wanted her dad to stay with her mother, but I can see that she’s buoyed by Jack’s presence. Jack Taggart is one of those supremely self-confident men who believes he can do anything. This clearly includes finding his grandchildren. He truly believes that once events have been placed in his capable hands, he can promise a positive outcome. It’s irrational to put faith in Jack’s can-do attitude, but Liz is not alone in finding comfort in his presence. I feel it, too.

  My own parents are scheduled to arrive about an hour after Jack. I’d pick them up at the airport, but Shoffler and the search unit are due to come by and I don’t want to leave Liz here to deal with them. On the other hand, although Jack blew through the crowd with no problems, my folks lack his imperious presence. They’ll be swallowed alive.

  When Dad calls from baggage claim, I suggest he tell the cab to come the back way. All these old blocks in Cleveland Park have service alleys that run parallel to the streets. “I’ll unlock the gate.”

  “Okeydoke,” my dad says. “Hey, I see the bags. We’ll be there in a jiffy.”

  The plan doesn’t work. My parents’ arrival is heralded by a stampede from the front of the house to the end of the block and then down the alley and into our backyard. From inside we can hear the pounding feet, the ruckus of shouted questions. Jack and I rush out the back door, finding my mother – whose manners do not permit hanging up on a telemarketer – engulfed by reporters and microphones. A blonde with a predatory smile has seized Mom by the arm and wields her huge microphone like a weapon. With a deer-in-the-headlights expression, Mom’s doing her best to answer questions. A few feet from the gate, Dad, grim-faced and tight-lipped, is trying to get through the crowd with his suitcases.

  “Any word on the boys’ welfare?”

  “Were the boys upset over their parents’ separation?”

  “What about the suspect?”

  “Was it a contentious separation?”

  Once they spot me, the crowd of reporters abandons my parents and converges, circling in fast and instinctively cutting off exit routes, like a pack of dogs. The four of us barely avoid being trapped, blocked from reentering the house.

  “Good Lord,” my mother says once we’re inside, letting out a weird little giggle. Her eyes are slightly out of focus, and when we hug each other, I realize she’s out of it, so zonked on Xanax she feels boneless in my arms. Dad gives me a buck-up abrazo, but looks terrible. “We’ll find them,” he says firmly, but his voice is tinny and unsubstantial.

  “We will,” I say. “We will find them.” Listening to myself, my voice forced but full of conviction, I realize I’m falling into a weird form of magical thinking. If only I can get the right tone and – like Jack – speak with unassailable assurance, what I say will come true.

  Late that afternoon, we stand just outside the front door, elevated a few steps above the jostling crowd of reporters and cameramen. There’s a forest of microphones, a sea of cameras. The hubbub of human voices rises and falls, supplemented by the mechanized chatter of the cameras. The lights flicker in their own crazed rhythm.

  Liz stands next to me, flinching from the noise and dazzle. “I’m Alex Callahan,” I begin. I plead with whoever has taken Kevin and Sean to return them, I plead with the public to be our eyes and ears, to call the hotline with any information.

  I realize too late that I should have insisted Liz do most of the talking. Even to me my voice sounds polished and composed – my on-camera voice. I try to project my honest civilian desperation, but it doesn’t work. I’m left with a feeling that I know quite well. It’s hard to predict on-camera interviews, who will come off, and who doesn’t work. Today, I fit into the second category. I’m left with the perception of having given a performance, and not a particularly good one.

  Liz makes up for it. She can hardly manage a sentence without breaking down in the middle of it, but she goes on anyway, a forced march of bravery so moving I spot the glitter of tears in the eyes of some of the female reporters. At the end, she speaks directly to the boys. “Kevin? Sean? If you’re watching… hang in there, guys. We love you. Daddy and I… we just love you… so much. And we’re going to find you! Wherever you are. I promise! We’ll come and find you. You just… hang on.”

  That’s it, she’s wrecked, she can’t go on. She turns hard into me, ramming her face into my chest, crossing her arms over the top of her head as if she’s expecting a physical blow. She sags against me, and I realize after a moment that I’m actually holding her up. Reporters continue to shout questions and the cameras continue their disorienting barrage of light as I half drag my wife back in through the door to our home.

  It doesn’t feel like much of a sanctuary.

  Fortunately Liz is asleep when the two K-9 officers arrive at the door. Their task is to pick up an assortment of Kevin and Sean’s dirty clothes, including the sheets from the boys’ beds. Duchess – who wears an intricate leather harness – sits at her handlers’ feet, breathing heavily while they divide the clothing into two plastic bags.

  “Why are you doing that?” Jack asks, indicating the two bags. “Is one bag supposed to be Kevin’s stuff and the other one Sean’s? Because I think you got things mixed up.”

  “Not exactly,” the policewoman replies.

  “Well?” Jack demands.

  She strokes Duchess. “There’s another dog,” she says, almost in a whisper. “Corky. Anoth
er handler works him.”

  “Come again?” Jack says. “Could you speak up, young lady?”

  Her eyes drift over to her partner and he takes over. “Duchess here is a tracking dog, pure and simple,” he explains. “Goes by scent. I imagine you’ve seen bloodhounds in the movies?”

  Jack nods.

  “But there’s another type of canine, sir, that’s deployed in these situations, specially trained to detect… well, their expertise is to detect… remains, sir. They can even locate remains in ponds and streams – you know, underwater. It’s amazing.” He looks at the floor.

  Jack’s eyes snap shut, and for a moment, I’m afraid he’s going to break down. “My God,” he says, and looks at me. “Not a word to Lizzie about this.”

  “Cadaver dogs,” the policewoman whispers. “That’s what they call them.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Somehow we get through the day, a maelstrom of emotion, interrupted by what seems like hundreds of telephone calls.

  I speak to Shoffler half a dozen times, but there’s nothing new except his change of schedule; instead of “sometime today,” he’ll come by “sometime tonight.”

  On the advice of several friends, I call an investigative agency and talk to a guy I interviewed once for a story about the Russian mob in Brighton Beach. Before I get to why I’m calling, he puts two and two together: “Oh, my god, the missing twins. Jesus, that’s you, I didn’t think…”

  He gives me the name of the firm’s best missing-person investigator – a woman named Mary McCafferty. We set up a meeting for the following day. She gives me a list of information she’d like. “We’re going to cut you a break,” she tells me, “and do the work for half the normal rate.”

  But it’s still not going to be cheap. Seventy-five dollars an hour instead of one hundred fifty dollars. Plus expenses.

  I speak several times to Krista at the station – which, she tells me breathlessly, has pledged ten grand to a reward fund. The boys’ pictures, an announcement of the reward, and the hotline number will be shown at the top of every hour.

  I talk to a woman at the missing children’s center. They’ve set into motion an e-mail “locater” search, which, through an elaborate network of electronic address books, might reach – with its attachment containing a picture of the boys, physical description, and hotline information – as many as three million people.

  Friends and acquaintances call by the dozen.

  At five o’clock, I realize that the boys have been missing for twenty-four hours. I don’t mention this to anyone.

  At six thirty, a bewildered Hispanic kid delivers the food Liz ordered from Sala Thai. My father regards the food with suspicion. Jack eats with gusto, encouraging his daughter to do the same: “Important to keep your strength up, sweetheart.” My mother takes a bite of the Pad Thai and says to my father, “Really, Bob, it’s just linguini.”

  It’s seven, it’s eight, it’s nine.

  Sleeping arrangements. I’ve been awake for so long, I’m approaching an altered state of consciousness, although I can’t imagine actually falling asleep. Liz bustles around, making up the sleep-sofa in the study for her father, changing the sheets in the master bedroom, which she has assigned to my folks. I trail her, carrying towels and sheets. It’s her intention to sleep in the boys’ room, but she stops in the doorway, frozen. “I can’t… I can’t sleep in here,” she says. “Oh, God… Alex…” She begins to sob and I put my arm around her shoulder, but she stiffens under my touch, pulls away, composes herself. “I’ll take the futon in the family room,” she announces. “You get the living room couch.”

  She heads into the bathroom. I follow, with my stack of towels. She stands in front of the vanity and looks into the mirror; then her eyes slide down toward the sink. I see the expression on her face in reflection for a moment before she turns and I see the puzzled frown straight on.

  “What’s the deal with these dimes?” she asks.

  The vanity has a faux-marble top with a backsplash. On the upper edge of that backsplash and perfectly centered between the faucets rests a row of Liberty head dimes. Seven of them, precisely aligned.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Do these belong to the boys? Did they start a collection?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  But the ambiguity is only notional. I’ve never seen the dimes before – and I would have seen them. It’s my habit to stand and watch Kev and Sean brush their teeth, to make sure they stay at it for more than two seconds, to see that they rinse their toothbrushes and sluice down the spit and toothpaste. It’s not that dental hygiene is such a big thing with me. My vigilance is due to Liz. I knew I’d be called to account for any evidence of a lapse. No way I would not have noticed a line of coins on the sink. And the sight of them spooks me. They seem like some kind of crazy sign or message.

  “Someone put them there,” I tell Liz.

  “Who? What?”

  “The kidnapper.”

  “Oh, God. Alex…?”

  “Come here for a sec,” I say, pulling her toward the boys’ bedroom. “I want you to take a look at something.” I point out the little origami rabbit on the dresser. “Does this belong to Kevin or Sean? Because I never noticed it before…”

  “No,” Liz says, “I never saw it before.” She looks at me with a little worried frown. “Alex… that rabbit. The dimes. What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tears well up in her eyes, but she shakes me off when I try to comfort her. I follow her back to the bathroom, where she blows her nose, splashes cold water on her face, buries her face in a towel.

  When I hear the loud rap at the door, I’m in the family room down on my hands and knees, still trying to get the rickety futon frame to fold down. Jack and my father have been taking turns on door duty, and I hear my father’s husky voice, and another voice, in counterpoint. I’m still extricating myself from behind the futon when my father and the detective arrive at the door.

  “How you holding up?” Shoffler asks me.

  I manage a sort of shrug. Shoffler himself looks terrible. He wears a crumpled linen sports jacket, one button dangling by a thread. A battered pair of khakis rides low on his hips, forced there by his belly. His weary eyes make it clear he needs sleep. A nap in the car on the way to Ordway Street, in fact, would explain the spiky explosion of hair on the right side of his head. “The press gives you too much trouble,” he says, “I can get D.C. to post an officer.”

  I shrug. “I’ll let you know.”

  “That the kind of thing you do?” he asks, nodding toward the front of the house.

  “I’ve done it,” I say. “It’s just their job.”

  “Bob – do I have that right?” Shoffler says, looking at my father. He hooks a finger in his belt and hitches up his pants.

  “Yes, you do. Robert J. Callahan.” My father gives a little whinny of high-pitched laughter, a sign of nerves to those of us who know him well.

  “You mind calling the others to come in here?”

  A gush of fear blooms in my chest. “You have something? You have… news?”

  Shoffler shakes his head, and bends to help me, yanking on one of the futon frame’s recalcitrant legs. The whole thing unfolds with a crash. “There you go,” he says.

  Between us, we manage to maneuver the awkward futon into position. “My son had one of these doohickeys when he was at Bowie State,” the detective says. “Slept on it once. Pretty comfortable.”

  Once Liz and the others are in the room and seated, Shoffler tells us he’s going to give us an update on what’s been happening. The search in the woods outside the fairgrounds proceeds, he tells us, with more volunteers than they can “shake a stick at.” The hotline is swamped with calls, but it’s going “to take time to sort things out.” The questioning of fair employees, he says, “is slow, but it’s coming along. As I told Alex earlier, we’re having some trouble finding reliable witnesses who remember seeing the boys, but
we’re making progress.”

  An image of Kevin and Sean at the fairgrounds, laughing at a comic juggler, swims up in my mind. I shake my head, as if this motion might dispel the picture. As the hours go on, I can no longer think of the boys without a panicked rush of loss. It’s like falling off a cliff, over and over again.

  The one bit of real news Shoffler offers is that the candle-selling pedophile has been cleared of suspicion. “Although the fair, of course, has closed him down. So he’s not going to be selling any magic wands to any little kids for a while. But as for abducting your boys, he can account for every minute of the time in question.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Liz says, pressing her hands against her thighs.

  “I thought if an alibi was too rock solid, that was suspicious,” Jack puts in. “In and of itself.”

  Shoffler exhales. He doesn’t dismiss Jack’s comment, but responds patiently, as he has to every question asked. In ten minutes, he’s managed to charm and reassure Liz and my mother and to impress Jack and my father. He has a knack for listening that would put most reporters to shame.

  “Too good an alibi?” he says. “Well, there’s really no such thing, Jack. I know what you mean, but in this case, we have a whole boatload of witnesses as to this guy’s whereabouts.”

  “And what was he doing?” my father asks. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Shoffler pats at the explosion of hair on the side of his head, manages a weary smile. “He wasn’t at the fair all day. He spent the entire afternoon from one to six at” – he opens his notebook, pages through – “the Bayside Motel in Annapolis, where he was participating in a defensive driving course.” He looks up at them. “After that, he went to” – again he consults his notebook – “a support group potluck for persons who’ve recently lost a parent – his mother died three weeks ago. This potluck was also in Annapolis. Trinity Episcopal Church.” Shoffler closes his notebook.

  “So this guy – he’s out of the picture,” Jack says.