Blake Pierce - Once Gone

Bill shook his head. “I sure as hell don’t want to know what you do with them,” he said.

“It’s not what you think,” Cosgrove said. “They’re like my family. My only friends. They’re all I’ve got. I just stay home with them. It’s not like I can afford to go anywhere. They treat me right. They don’t judge me.”

Again, Riley worried. Was Cosgrove holding a victim right now?

“I want to check your sheds out back,” she told him.

“Go ahead,” he said. “There’s nothing there. I’ve got nothing to hide. The keys are right over there.”

He nodded toward a bunch of keys hanging next to the wounded door. Riley walked over and grabbed them.

“I’m going out there for a look,” she said.

“Not without me, you’re not,” Bill said.

Together, Bill and Riley used Bill’s cuffs to fasten Cosgrove to his refrigerator door. Then they stepped outside and walked around the trailer. They opened the first shed’s padlock and looked inside. There was nothing in there except a garden rake.

Bill stepped into the shed and looked around.

“Nothing,” he said. “Not even any sign of blood.”

They walked over to the next shed, unlocked it, and looked inside. Aside from a rusty hand lawnmower, the shed was completely empty.

“He must have held them somewhere else,” Bill said.

Bill and Riley went back to into the trailer. Cosgrove was still sitting there, gazing wretchedly at his family of dolls. Riley found him a troubling sight – a man with no real life of his own, and certainly no future.

Still, he struck her as an enigma. She decided to ask him a couple of questions.

“Gerald, where were you last Wednesday morning?”

“What?” Cosgrove replied. “What do you mean? I don’t know. I don’t remember Wednesday. Here, I guess. Where else would I be?”

Riley gazed at him with increasing curiosity.

“Gerald,” she said, “what day is today?”

Cosgrove’s eyes darted around in desperate confusion.

“I–I don’t know,” he stammered.

Riley wondered – could it possibly be true? Did he not know what day it was? He sounded perfectly sincere. He certainly didn’t seem bitter or angry. She saw no fight in him at all. Just fear and desperation.

Then she sternly reminded herself not to let him take her in. A true psychopath could sometimes fool even a seasoned veteran with a total lie.

Bill unfastened Cosgrove from the refrigerator. Cosgrove was still cuffed behind his back.

Bill barked out, “Gerald Cosgrove, you’re under arrest for the murders of three women…”

Bill and Riley escorted him roughly out of the trailer as Bill continued with the victims’ names and Cosgrove’s rights. Then they shoved him to the car Bill had driven here – a well-equipped Bureau vehicle with mesh caging between the back and front seats. Riley and Bill pushed him into the back seat. They strapped and cuffed him in securely. Afterwards they both just stood for a moment without saying a word.

“Damn it, Riley, you did it,” Bill muttered with admiration. “You caught the bastard – even without your badge. The Bureau’s going to welcome you back with open arms.”

“Do you want me to ride with you?” Riley asked.

Bill shrugged. “Naw, I’ve got him under control. I’ll get him into custody. You just take your own car back.”

Riley decided not to argue, wondering if Bill still harbored resentment toward her for the other night.

As she watched Bill pull away, Riley wanted to congratulate herself on her success, and her redemption. But any feeling of satisfaction evaded her. Something kept nagging at her. She kept hearing her father’s words.

You just keep following that gut of yours.

Little by little as she drove, Riley started to realize something.

Her gut was telling her that they’d gotten the wrong man.

The next morning Riley drove April to school, and as she dropped her off, that gut feeling was still nagging at her. It had bothered her all night, not letting her sleep.

Is he the guy? she kept asking herself.

Before April got out of the car, she turned to her with an expression of genuine concern.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” she asked.

Riley was a little taken aback by the question. She and her daughter seemed to have entered into a whole new phase of their relationship – a much better one than they’d had before. Still, Riley wasn’t used to having April worry about her feelings. It felt good, but strange.

“It shows, huh?” Riley said.

“It sure does,” April said. She gently held her mother’s hand. “Come on. Tell me.”

Riley thought for a moment. That feeling of hers still wasn’t easy to put into words.

“I…” she began, then trailed off, unsure what to say. “I’m not sure I arrested the right man.”

April’s eyes widened.

“I’m…not sure what to do,” Riley added.

April took a long breath.

“Don’t doubt yourself, Mom,” April replied. “You do it a lot. And you always wish you hadn’t. Isn’t that what you always tell me, too?”

April smiled, and Riley smiled back.

“I’ll be late if I don’t get to class,” April said. “We can talk about this later.”

April kissed Riley on the cheek, got out of the car, and dashed toward school.

Riley sat there, thinking. She didn’t drive away immediately. Instead, she called Bill.

“Anything?” she asked when she got him on the line.

She heard Bill heave a long sigh.

“Cosgrove is a strange character,” he said. “Right now he’s a real mess – exhausted and depressed, and crying a lot. I think he’ll probably crack soon. But…”

Bill paused. Riley sensed that he, too, was struggling with doubt.

“But what?” Riley asked.

“I don’t know, Riley. He seems so disoriented, and I’m not sure even knows what’s going on. He slips in and out of reality. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to understand that he’s been arrested. Maybe all those meds he’s taking are messing him up. Or maybe it’s just plain old psychosis.”

Riley’s own doubts kicked in again.

“What is he telling you?” she asked.

“Mostly, he just keeps asking for his dolls,” Bill said. “He’s worried about them, like they’re children or pets that he shouldn’t leave at home alone. He keeps saying they can’t do without him. He’s completely docile, not the least bit belligerent. But he’s not giving us any information. He’s not saying anything about the women, or whether he’s holding one right now.”

Riley turned Bill’s words over in her mind for a moment.

“So what do you think?” she finally asked. “Is he the one?”

Riley detected growing frustration in Bill’s voice.

“How could he not be? I mean, everything points to him and nobody else. The dolls, the criminal record, everything. He was in the store the same time as her. What more could you ask for? How could we have got it wrong?”

Riley said nothing. She couldn’t argue. But she could tell that Bill was struggling with his own instincts.

Then she asked: “Did somebody run a search on Madeline’s past employees?”

“Yeah,” Bill said. “But that didn’t lead anywhere. Madeline always hires high school girls to work the register. She’s been doing it pretty much since she’s been in business.”

Riley groaned with discouragement. When were they going to get a break in this case?

“Anyway,” Bill said, “a bureau psychologist will interview Cosgrove today. Maybe he can get some insights, tell us where we stand.”

“Okay,” Riley said. “Keep me in the loop.”

She ended the phone call. Her car engine was running, but she still hadn’t driven away from the school. Where was she going to go? If Newbrough really was trying to get her reinstated, he hadn’t gotten it done yet. She still didn’t have a badge – or a job.