Дэвид Балдаччи - No Man's Land

“It’s not your fault, Carol. It’s their job to ask. Thanks.”

He put away his phone and looked at Knox.

“Cause and effect?” she said. “She gets the phone call and decides to go out. She calls the babysitter and dresses in her Sunday best.”

“I wonder if they checked the phone records back then?”

“You’d think it would have been in the report if they had. And I don’t remember seeing anything like that. And there’s no way those phone records would be around now. Thirty years ago I think it was one of the Baby Bells running the phone service down here.”

“So she got a call that made her change her plans and go out. And she never came back.”

“You’re sure you heard nothing that was said on that call?”

He shook his head. “I came in as she was hanging up. I just saw her face. She looked upset. But when she saw me she smiled. Then she had me help with making dinner.”

“Your memory is definitely coming back since you walked in that door.”

He nodded. “But I can’t remember what I never knew. And I don’t know who made that call or what was said.” He looked at Knox. “I know it’s a long shot, but can you check with some of your people and see if there’s any way in the world we could get the phone number of who called her on that day?”

“I can try, Puller. But, like I said, it’s a really long shot.”

“And sometimes those pay off.”

“But why not have CID do it? They can pull those records, if they exist, as easily as I can.”

Puller didn’t answer her.

Knox moved closer to him. “Do you think it’s your sole responsibility to solve this case?”

“Well, I didn’t do much work on it over the last thirty years,” he shot back.

“You were a kid when it happened.”

“But I haven’t been a kid for a long time.”

“And when you were in a position to do something about it, the case was long since cold. And it seems to me you had other things on your plate. Like fighting in two wars for starters. And then the Army isn’t really well known for letting its people go off on a lark and try to solve a case on their own just because they want to.”

“You can make all the excuses in the world, Knox, and so can I, but it still won’t change things.”

“But Father Rooney pretty much cleared your father of any involvement in her disappearance.”

“No he didn’t. He doesn’t know that for a fact, and neither do I. My father was here on that day. He came back early and didn’t tell anyone. And even if he is innocent I still don’t know what happened to my mother. I let this mess sit for thirty years. No more, Knox. No more. Buck stops here. I get this done or die trying.”

“But Puller, this could take a long time. You have a job. The Army is not going to let you indefinitely–”

He barked, “To hell with the Army, I’ll resign if I have to, but this case is getting solved.”

She looked to be about to make a response but then seemed to catch herself. She took a breath and stepped out of the room to make the call.

Puller went back into the bathroom and looked out the window.

Where did you go, Mom? Where?

She just walked down the street and disappeared.

Puller looked down at his phone. He and his brother and father had left Fort Monroe shortly after Jackie Puller disappeared. He had been back to the post a few times on official business, but never for more than a few hours at a time.

He did a search on his phone. The relevant search terms were “crime,” “disappearance,” “murder,” “women,” the year, and “Hampton, Virginia.”

The search did its thing and Puller gaped at the result.

The first item said it all.

Police suspect serial killer in murders of four women in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The story was from the same year and month his mother disappeared.

And Williamsburg was thirty minutes from Fort Monroe.

Son of a bitch!

KNOX WALKED BACK into the room and said, “Okay, I’ve got the ball in motion on the phone call and we’ll see what they can find.”

She stopped because Puller was hunkered over his phone and hadn’t even looked up when she had spoken.

“What’s up?”

“Give me a sec.”

He finished reading the screen and put his phone away. He quickly explained what he’d found.

“Serial murders in Williamsburg?” she said, her eyes wide in amazement.

“Same time period, and Williamsburg is only about a half an hour from here.”

“But we can’t know that they’re connected.”

“And we can’t know that they’re not,” he retorted.

“Why’d you even think to look into something like that?”

“First rule of investigating a cold case: Were there other crimes in the area that might be connected to yours? I should have done it a long time ago.”

“So a serial killer gets on a military installation, kills your mother, and, what, carries off the body?”

“I don’t know. I just know that there’s a possible lead there. And yes, it was an active military installation. But at that time of year when my mother left, it was already dark. And there were never many people on the streets. The officer quarters weren’t always full and there weren’t a lot of young kids who would be out playing. My dad was an exception. He got married later. I can’t think of many one-stars with really little kids. They tended to be older. The fact is this area was pretty isolated and away from the busy part of the post. And back then some of the buildings weren’t used. She could have been dragged into one of them. So it might not seem that a killer could strike here, but he could.”

“But how would he get on the post?”

“He might have already been on the post.”

“You mean in uniform?”

“There were lots of people who worked at Fort Monroe that were not in uniform. But yes, he could have been in uniform.”

“I take it the serial killings in Williamsburg were never solved?”

“They never even found a suspect to charge. Four murders. All women.”

“And the bodies?”

“Found scattered around the area, mostly in isolated places and shallow graves.”

“But if your mother was killed her remains were never found.”

“No. But if he did kill her he might have done a better job disposing of her body.”

“What was the timing of the murders? Meaning any after your mother disappeared?”

“No. They stopped. The last victim was three nights before my mother vanished.”

“Was there any regularity to the attacks?”

“A couple weeks or so in between each.”

“So your mother would have been an anomaly in that pattern?”

“Yes, but serial killers don’t always stick to a pattern. Sometimes they seize an opportunity.”

“Which you may be doing by latching on to this, Puller.”

He stared down at her. “It’s a potential lead, Knox. That’s all.”

“And it’s a very cold case, so how do you propose chasing this lead down?”

“The police file would be a good start.”

“And will you approach the local police in your official CID capacity?”

Puller didn’t answer.

Knox added, “Because you’re not officially tasked to take on that case. And you’re not officially working on this one, so I’m not sure how that would fly.”

“You could get those files.”

“I probably could, but I’m not officially tasked to do this either. I have superiors to answer to, just like you.”

“Really? So you’re here on vacation time and nothing else?”

She stared at him and he just as resolutely glared back at her.

“We could run that in circles for days,” she finally said.