Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

Daphne Matthews spoke in a near whisper, thereby commanding everyone’s attention. As if reviewing the fundamentals, she said, “A task force is assembled to facilitate an open-minded exchange. The FBI can run an investigation without us-as we can without them. The point, the intention, of such a task force is to bring us all under one tent,” she looked at Flemming, “so that we don’t double up the lab work,” to LaMoia, “so we don’t monopolize a witness. The daily four o’clock is our chance as a team to share our progress and our hurdles, to communicate, to facilitate a more efficient investigation.”

Mulwright interrupted, “They withheld critical information.”

“The AFIDs, the penny flute,” LaMoia said, “we would have withheld those as well.”

The lack of team support angered Mulwright. True to form, he had not heard a word of what Matthews had to say.

Flemming said, “I think I’ve made my position perfectly clear. Or are there questions?”

Dunkin Hale, a thirty-five-year-old red-headed jock with an attitude, chewed gum violently and wore a thick gold wedding ring on his left hand. They didn’t make ties to fit necks like his; the silk knot stood out like a large thumb protruding from his Adam’s apple. His attention remained primarily on Flemming, a dog awaiting a scrap, his loyalty unmistakable.

Flemming informed them, “We are looking for this Taurus.”

He nodded to Hale, who said, “We’re running rental car contracts-all contracts made here in the past four days compared against all rentals contracted in the week prior to the Portland and San Francisco kidnappings. Credit card comparison, model requests. It’s slow going, but maybe it kicks a match.”

“Who informed the press of the hundred-thousand-dollar reward?” Mulwright challenged. “The phone number in that release was the task force hot line, not an FBI number I noticed, which means it’s us getting a couple hundred calls an hour , all of which have to be followed up, meaning we’re out chasing ghost stories while you guys are working real leads. Is that cooperation?”

“Lieutenant!” Hill chided. “Although we were in fact blind-sided by the reward and the flood of calls it caused, let none of us forget that the task force phone number was our idea. We asked for this.”

Flemming spoke in his low, warm voice, “Special Agent Kalidja is our research expert and our fact-finder.” Delegate the problems: what every bureaucrat learns early on.

Kay Kalidja’s parents had immigrated from the Caribbean. She had lighter skin than Flemming and widely set, Asian eyes. Bone thin, she looked more like a runway model than an FBI agent. She wore a starched white shirt and crisp gray suit. Her tobacco-colored hair was done in corn rows with terra-cotta beads that clicked if she shook her head quickly. She kept her attention on Flemming like a benched athlete watching her coach, and took her cue.

Her voice was musical, her accent vaguely British. The moment she spoke, she captivated everyone. “The press release was our doing, it is true. We have case history to support that an informed public, an alert public, a motivated public, can and does lead to arrests. Also, although there is no apparent direct link between widespread publicity and the abrupt end to the kidnappings in the prior cities, its influence cannot be discounted. In each case, the louder the cry of the press, the quicker the kidnapper moved on.”

Daphne Matthews objected, “Moved on, yes. But that’s all.”

Flemming reminded, “It’s to our benefit if we keep this guy on the run.”

Daphne Matthews contested, “The penny flutes indicate a person intent on making a statement. We put him between twenty-five and forty. High school graduate at least. Organized-he knows what the hell he’s doing; what comes next. Most likely scenario: He never met his father, mother died before he was fifteen. He’s never known any family. If he’s using the children sexually, then he will have been arrested on similar though lesser offenses-he may or may not have served time. If he’s selling the children, then we can be fairly certain he was an only child, and that his mother either sexually abused, physically mistreated or abandoned him. We have a disturbed but rational individual who suffers no remorse. The children are either a form of company-we call it the Boo Radley Syndrome; a source of physical pleasure for him-a diddler; or a means to financial enrichment. He’s a con artist-”

“Now wait just a minute!” Flemming said, cutting her off. “This is where you and five of this agency’s best criminal behaviorists happen to disagree, Ms. Matthews.”

“Lieutenant,” she corrected.

It won a grin from Flemming, an act that seemed foreign to his face. “Irrespective of your profile, our people give great weight to the influence of publicity on the perpetrator’s behavior.”

“He’s monitoring the press,” Daphne confirmed. “I have no argument there. But allowing it to dictate his actions? He’s an organized personality, a control freak. He’s not going to let the news services, the FBI or the police run his show. There is no consistent thread linking news reporting and his abandoning a city. To the contrary, the decision seems random-designed to keep law enforcement off guard.” She paused, the silence in the room suffocating. “How thoroughly have you investigated known confidence men?”

“Con men?” Dunkin Hale asked, chiding her. “These are kidnappers.”

Flemming focused on Daphne, clearly interested.

“Our man is an actor,” she explained. “He enjoys playing roles. It’s the one consistent element to every kidnapping. A person doesn’t develop such abilities overnight. Only a con man has such talents.”

“Forget it,” Hale said rudely, his wide neck florid and bulging like a blowfish.

“What we will do,” Flemming answered her calmly, ignoring Hale and nodding toward Kalidja, “is check for releases from correctional facilities, six months and prior. The Club Feds, and state minimum security facilities.” Kalidja copied all this down.

Sheila Hill spoke up for the first time in several minutes. “We’re crossing the forty-eight-hour mark, a mark none of us wanted to see. Some of us are preciously low on sleep. We need to pull together if we’re going to be an effective task force. Judging by his history, we have another five to fifteen days before he’s back for another one. If we’re not going to work as a task force then let’s drop the charade right now, issue a joint press release and go to our corners. S-A-C Flemming?” she said, knowing that with the evidence controlled by SPD, Flemming had little choice.

Flemming looked up and said, “We’re in.”

LaMoia reviewed all this as he left the office, scrawling LUNCH onto the scheduling board between the numbers 12 and 1. He took the stairs, not the elevator, an act that had nothing to do with fitness and everything with impatience. He had never been a person to wait. His motto was, This Ain’t No Dress Rehearsal, and he lived accordingly.

The air, heavy with fog, delivered a bone-cutting chill. Every person’s face advertised their eagerness for spring. LaMoia charged through this malaise like a beam of light through darkness, grinning to himself, his long legs stretching out before him in defiant strides. To hell with those poor slobs-you either swam with them or against them, and LaMoia had made his choice a long time ago.

He jumped a bus and rode it eight blocks and walked the rest of the way to the Mayflower, a corner hotel with a lot of class. The last three digits on his pager referred to the room number. Codes. Little games. He’d been doing this for months. An unfamiliar feeling blossomed in the heart of a cynic formerly confused by easy sex and his own silver tongue. Attracting women had never been a problem for LaMoia, only staying interested in them. He rode them hard, put them away wet, and rarely returned. The first attempt at hand holding or sweet talking and LaMoia launched into his litany of excuses, only to find himself in a bar or the gym or a coffee shop working his magic all over again.