Chris Carter - I Am Death

‘In reality I was ready to give up,’ Hunter took over. ‘This was just a long shot, anyway. I was just throwing things up in the air, hoping for a sniff of a result.’

‘But the new search made sense,’ Sanders said, paused, then corrected himself. ‘Actually, it wasn’t a new search, it was the same search, but Robert figured out what we were doing wrong — we were searching only through closed MP investigations.’

If an investigation was tagged as ‘concluded’ by Missing Persons, it meant that the perpetrator/s had either been apprehended or shot dead. Of the ones apprehended, only a very small number, the least dangerous ones, the ones least likely to reoffend, would’ve made parole. The rest would still be inside. The very few who’d manage to break out of prison were again either shot dead or re-apprehended within days. If the search was only factoring investigations that had been concluded by Missing Persons, it was no wonder they were getting poor results.

‘So I take it that Mr. Mathew Hade over here is the result of that search,’ Garcia said, nodding at the photograph. ‘Or, at least, one of the results.’

‘He is indeed,’ Sanders confirmed it. ‘The case follows,’ he said, indicating the file.

As Hunter turned the page, Sanders began relating it.

‘In February two thousand and nine, while house-sitting for a friend, a twenty-one-year-old college student named Tracy Dillard went missing in Fresno. The friend had gone back to Arizona on her college break to visit her parents for a couple of weeks. Ms. Dillard was asked to housesit mainly so her friend’s cats would be properly fed in her absence. Until this day, Ms. Dillard has never been found.

‘Despite no signs of forced entry, the investigators concluded that she had actually been abducted from inside the house. There were no signs of a struggle either. Forensics found no fingerprints, but they did find a few fabric fibers that seemed to belong to some sort of coat. Unfortunately, the fibers were matched to a very common brand of workman’s jacket. At the time, you could pick one up at Wal-Mart for under fifty bucks. They also found a couple of male boot prints in the house’s backyard.’

Hunter and Garcia, who’d been following Sanders’ accounts on paper, flipped over the page.

‘The investigation led Fresno PD’s Missing Persons Unit to interview a number of “persons of interest”,’ Sanders continued. ‘Mathew Hade was one of them.’

‘How come?’ Garcia asked.

‘He was a sort of a jack-of-all-trades. A handyman. Extremely clever and adaptable. His IQ was up in the 130s. He was good at just about anything — plumbing, electronics, mechanics, carpentry, roofing, bricklaying, gardening, decorating... you name it. If it needed fixing, he could probably do it. He could also build you stuff, if that was the requirement, and apparently he did it all very well.’ There was a short pause. ‘He was also a trained locksmith.’

Sanders’ last few words got Hunter and Garcia’s attention.

‘On the week of Ms. Dillard’s disappearance, Mathew Hade had been doing some roofing work on the same road where she was housesitting, two houses away, actually. That same week, he was also seen out on the street, talking to Ms. Dillard on one or two occasions. He completed all the roofing work a day before she went missing. The boot prints found in the garden matched Hade’s shoe size, but the sole pattern didn’t match any of the shoes the police found in his house.’

‘What shoe size was he?’

‘Eleven,’ Sanders replied and made a face. ‘Yeah, I know, the most common male shoe size in the US.’

‘How about the jacket fibers?’ Garcia asked.

‘Mr. Hade told the police that he did have one of those exact jackets, but it was old and torn, so he had thrown it away a few days prior to his interview.’

‘Convenient,’ Garcia commented.

‘Was he ever arrested?’ Hunter asked.

‘No. Despite suspicions, police didn’t have enough to justify an arrest.’ Sanders regarded both detectives for a quick second. ‘I know what you’re thinking — so this Mathew Hade was a person of interest in a missing persons investigation in Fresno, so what, right?’

Neither detective replied. Their silence spoke for itself.

‘Well, I don’t blame you, because I thought the same. But there’s more,’ Sanders added. ‘Just turn the page. And here is where it starts to get interesting.’

Despite still being completely confused by what was happening, Squirm drew in a courageous breath and took a couple of wary steps in the direction of the breakfast table. The boy’s eyes were fixed on the man sitting at its head. Part of him was still expecting this whole thing to be a trick. He kept anticipating ‘The Monster’ jumping up from his seat and punching him hard enough to shatter bone, then laughing at how easy it had been to trick him.

But that never happened.

‘C’mon, Squirm,’ ‘The Monster’ said, once again tapping the tabletop twice with his right hand. ‘Have a seat. Eat your breakfast.’ He reached for the newspaper and pushed it across the table as well. ‘Have a look at the paper if you like. It makes no difference to me.’

As Squirm got closer, the man pulled out the chair next to him.

‘It’s not a trick, Squirm,’ the man said, reading the fear in the boy’s eyes. ‘I give you my word. I understand why you’re so hesitant. I would’ve reacted the same way, but this is for real. The food is yours if you want it.’

Squirm’s gaze finally moved from the man’s face to the breakfast plate and he immediately started salivating. His stomach growled like a sick dog.

‘I can actually hear how hungry you are,’ the man said, placing his plastic cutlery by the plate. ‘Here, today you also don’t have to eat using your hands. You can use these.’

At last, Squirm took a seat at the table. Still very concerned, the boy kept his gaze on the man and his hands in his lap.

‘It’s not going to magically jump from the plate into your mouth, Squirm. And I sure as hell am not going to put it there for you.’

Squirm’s hunger finally won the battle and the boy reached for the knife and fork. As he did, the heavy metal chain that shackled his wrists together rattled against the tabletop, almost tipping over the plastic cereal bowl and pushing the breakfast plate off the table.

‘Here,’ the man said, reaching inside his trouser pocket for a key. ‘Let me help you with that.’

He took the boy by the arm and unlocked one of the metal rings around his wrists.

Squirm looked down at his hands. The skin around his free wrist, where the thick metal ring had hugged it for so long, was red, raw and inflamed. Instinctively, he touched it with the fingertips of his opposite hand and as they grazed the ugly wound a burning, stinging pain shot up his arms, but boy, did it feel good?

OK. This must be a dream. This just can’t be happening.

The man looked down at the breakfast plate, and followed the look with a jerk of his head. ‘Eat.’

Squirm gripped the fork with his free right hand. His good eye scanned the contents of the plate, trying to decide what to go for first. He could barely remember the last time he’d had a civilized hot meal. His hand shot toward the plate and he scooped up as much scrambled eggs as the tiny fork could possibly hold. A millisecond later, the fork was in his mouth. The process was repeated once again, almost too fast for the eye to see. His scrawny cheeks puffed up like inflated balloons from the amount of food the boy had shoved inside his mouth. He could hardly chew it all.

‘Wow, hey,’ the man said, lifting a hand. ‘Easy, Squirm. You’re going to make yourself sick. The food isn’t going to go anywhere. I told you, you can have it all. I’m not going to take it away from you.’