David Wiltse: The Edge of Sleep

“I don’t remember you being quite so much fun to work with the last time,” he said.

“That’s because you were so busy humping me.”

“Humping you? I thought we were ‘half in love.’ ”

“Maybe you were, maybe you weren’t,” she said. “I just said that.”

“Were you?”

Karen shrugged. “Half, a quarter, an eighth. Some, John, okay? Some.”

“So then what’s with the humping?”

“That’s what we did on the bed.”

Karen met the pilot’s gaze directly and defiantly. The pilot looked away as if he had just been casually surveying the room. Once his back was safely turned he grinned at the owner.

“I get the impression I’m being blamed for that part,” Becker said. “For you it was being some fraction in love and for me it was humping. Is that how you remember it?”

“To tell you the truth, John. I scarcely remember at all… Oh, yeah, I did nearly get killed and spent a month in the hospital. I remember that part. What do you want me to say? Something that lets you off the hook? You’re off the hook. You’re not responsible for any of it.”

“Graciously done.”

“You’re not responsible for seducing a twenty-six-year-old rookie agent. You’re not…”

“Seducing! Seducing? What kind of archaic notion is that?”

“I said you didn’t.”

“Does seducing mean I tricked you into doing something that you didn’t want to do? Is that what that means? You’d already been married and divorced by twenty-six. How did I seduce you? Put drugs in your drink? Did I charm you out of your pants? I think we’ve already established that I don’t have any charm.”

“I believe we agree on that point, yes. The pilot is laughing at us, if that interests you.”

Becker turned toward the pilot, who was now openly staring and trying unsuccessfully to assume a straight face.

“Can you imagine anyone seducing Deputy Assistant Director Crist?” Becker demanded.

The pilot coughed and turned back to the owner again. They became suddenly involved in a weather chart. In fact, the pilot had spent the better part of his trip to the mountains trying to figure a way to make a move on Deputy Assistant Director Crist without endangering his career. If Becker had ever seduced her, the pilot would have loved to know how. So would most of the men in the Bureau. If the Deputy Director had had any private life at all following her divorce, it was exceedingly private. Her brief affair with Becker ten years ago was well known, of course, because Deputy Director Hatcher had flirted briefly with the intention of making an issue of it. But, as with most things involving Agent Becker, this case had fallen into a special category. Becker, it was rumored, literally got away with murder. Like most of the other agents, the pilot did not hold it against him.

Still fuming, Becker strode to the soft-drink machine, kicked it, and returned to the table. The owner thought briefly of saying something, but a glance from the pilot persuaded him otherwise. Becker sat abruptly.

“Feel better?” Karen asked.

“Soda’s bad for your teeth, anyway,” Becker said.

Fighting a smile, Karen said, “I’m supposed to command these people, John. It doesn’t help if you have these little tantrums and involve me in them.”

“Is that the voice you use to keep your son in line? Stern but reasonable?”

“Jack doesn’t kick things,” she said. “And he doesn’t embarrass me in public.”

“Sounds like a dull kid.”

“Never say that to a parent,” she said sharply. “Not if you want to continue the conversation. Jack is a wonderful child, a bright and sensitive and creative boy who doesn’t need to get violent to express himself.”

Becker muttered something unintelligible and then, with an effort, gave her a wan smile. “Sorry,” he said.

Karen straightened the file so that it was directly parallel to the edge of the table. “We seem to have drifted a bit from the point.”

Folding his hands on the table in a parody of a well-mannered schoolboy, Becker relieved himself of a shuddering sigh.

“Ready.”

“The sixth victim… ” Karen said, pausing until Becker dropped his overly attentive act. She knew that when it came to work, Becker was serious and unemotional, but he was seldom detached when it came to her. The trick was to keep herself out of the work while still directing and controlling it.

“Number six,” she continued, “was Craig Masoon, who vanished from a school trip to the natural history museum in Quincy, Massachusetts.”

“How soon after the previous victim?”

“Two and a half months.”

“Christ. He’s not just hungry anymore. He’s ravenous. How long did he keep this one?”

“A month.”

“And how long ago did you find the body?”

“A week.”

“He’s about due to strike again.”

“That’s another reason I’m here.”

“You expect me to stop him before he takes another kid? You don’t need me, you need a miracle. Try prayer.”

“I have,” she said. “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”

“Glad to hear He helps someone.” Becker said. “What kind of profile do you have on the kids?”

“All boys, nine or ten years old. Caucasian, brown hair, eyes either blue or brown-four brown, two blue. All boys next door.”

“Next door to whom, though? You’ve seen their pictures, I mean the ones from home, not the morgue shots. What do they look like, Karen? Are they ethnic-looking? Beautiful, male model types? Tall, short for their age; do they all wear glasses, were they all wearing baseball caps? Give me something to work with.”

“They’re white-bread,” she said. “Norman Rockwell kids, snub-nosed, freckle-faced-without the actual freckles, if you know what I mean. Nice-looking, nothing extraordinary. None of these kids were living in a slum, they weren’t runners for drug dealers, they weren’t gang members.” A bitterness had crept into her tone. “They look wholesome, if you remember what that’s like. Hell, John, they look sweet. They look innocent.”

There were tears in her eyes, but Becker heard no trace of them in her voice.

“They look the way you probably looked as a kid,” she said.

“At that age, I looked scared,” Becker said.

Karen paused. Then, gently, “I know, John. I remember you told me. These kids must all have looked awfully scared for the last weeks of their lives, too.”

Becker nodded, looking at the table, his vision turned inwards.

“You survived it,“ Karen said, her voice still low and gentle. “They didn’t. In a couple of weeks another one won’t.”

“Cause of death?” Karen thought his voice sounded brittle, as if it might crack at any moment, and he with it. He was still looking at the table.

“Asphyxiation.”

Becker came to himself abruptly. “Asphyxiation? Not the beatings?”

Karen shook her head. “Medical thinks the prolonged and repeated trauma must have brought them pretty close to death, but at the end he smothered them.”

“Smothered, not strangled?”

“Medical thinks it was probably a pillow, blanket, something like that. There was no real sign of struggle at the end. But then there wouldn’t have been any hair or skin or blood under the nails, anyway.”

“Why not?”

“They were washed thoroughly after death. ‘Cleansed’ is how Medical put it. Nails cleaned, hair combed, bodies scrubbed. Not a fingerprint on them, not a trace of anything.”

“Hair combed?”

Karen nodded. “Parted and combed… And cut.”

“Cut? He gave them a haircut after he killed them?”

“It looks that way.”

Becker thought for a moment. “He may be saving the hair. We may be looking for someone with a bag full of trimmings.”