Carol O’Connell - Find Me

“You didn’t t ake her gun away?”

“Naw. This wasn’t her regular gun. It was a small-caliber revolver, and Mallory was only picking off flies on the street-side walls-a double row of solid brick. A twenty-two caliber’s got no penetration.”

“A twenty-two penetrated Miss Sirus’s heart,” said Charles-just a reminder.

“I did tell the kid that they’d lock her up in Bellevue for sure if she didn’t keep the noise down.”

“A short hospital stay for observation might’ve been the best thing.”

“I couldn’t do that to her,” said Riker. “She’d never be a cop again, not after a turn in Bellevue. And I’ve done worse when I was drunk. Now Mallory’s problem is she does these things when she’s sober. Anyway, there was no more gunfire after that.”

“Until Savannah Sirus died,” said Charles-another reminder. “Any ideas about what might’ve set off the fly-shooting incident?”

“Just what Mallory told the doorman. Somebody opened a window and let in some bugs.”

“Well, I think we can guess who that was,” said Charles. “In order to let the flies in, you’d have to open a screen as well as a window. That might’ve been Miss Sirus’s first attempt at suicide-interrupted by Mallory, who then proceeded to teach her houseguest not to let in any more flies.”

“Good theory,” said Riker, biting back the sarcasm. “I like it.” He tossed his cigarette out the window. “So Mallory’s just doing this woman a good turn-preventing Savannah’s s u icide by scaring the crap out of her.”

“Here’s another thought,” said Charles. “Maybe it was Miss Sirus who tortured Mallory.”

Special Agent Dale Berman led Riker and Dr. Magritte away from the Cherokee Restaurant, past the statue of a giant Indian and down a narrow curving road and a chain-link pen with a small herd of buffalo.

“Ah, bison burgers on the hoof.” The detective was hungry and willing to eat wildflowers if this damn tour did not end very soon.

Dale was pointing out the amenities as they entered the public camp- ground at the bottom of the road. “The managers are great people. They opened the facilities to the caravan free of charge.”

On the other side of the paved lot, Riker saw Agent Nahlman riding herd on campers who formed a neat line outside a small building. The parents were holding towels and toiletries, waiting for their first hot shower in days.

Dr. Magritte was less than enthusiastic as he looked over the marked slots that accommodated motor homes and cars. “There’s not enough room to hold all of us.”

“But there is,” said Dale Berman, pointing toward the restaurant at the top of the road. “The parking lot up there is huge. It’ll take the overflow. And now, over there-” He was looking into the trees beyond the lot. “Six cabins. So,” he rubbed his hands together, “everything we need-food, lodging. And the reporters like the idea of a permanent base.”

“Spoken like a true PR man.” Riker turned to Dr. Magritte. “Public relations was Dale’s job a few years back. He’s not thinking this through. That’s a bad habit with him.”

“The restaurant has elevation,” said Berman. “We can see anyone approaching the caravan.”

“And that might work,” said Riker, “if we were expecting an Indian raid. You think you’ll recognize this freak when you see him coming?”

“You won’t,” said Dr. Magritte, raising his voice for the first time. Obviously regretting these words, the old man edged away from them and pretended interest in the bison pen.

The detective marched back up the hill. He was hungry, and a banner hanging outside of the restaurant had caught his eye and promised him homemade pies.

Dale Berman called after him. “We’ll stay the night. See how it goes.”

“No we won’t,” said Riker. He was hoping for blueberry pie, but he would settle for apple, and he planned to cross the state line into Texas before nightfall.

At the top of the road, he headed across the parking lot to the restaurant. A noise close by made him stop. His hand was on his gun as he turned to the passenger window of George Hastings’ pickup truck.

Thump.

The wolf ’s head hit the window. How many tries would it take before the glass broke? And now the animal drew back, eyes fixed on Riker, seeing him all of a piece, a single piece of meat. The detective’s hands were wet with sweat and clammy. Adrenaline iced his veins, and his heartbeat was jacked up to a faster rhythm. It was a lot like falling in love.

Thump.

The animal slammed his head into the glass again, but the window held.

Riker wondered if the man had stopped feeding the wolf yet.

Dale Berman accompanied Dr. Magritte back up the road to the parking lot. The FBI man drove away, and the doctor remained to watch his watchers. Back in Chicago, these two undercover agents had introduced themselves as the grieving parents of a missing child, but he had never found the couple credible. Neither had Riker, who alternately referred to them as the moles, or the mole people, and sometimes as Mr. and Mrs. Mole, though they were certainly unmarried.

It did not require his degrees in psychology to spot the early warning signs of love and lust, but theirs had not begun until that first night under the stars and a few hundred miles from Chicago. The moles’ mutual involvement had deepened every day since then. Now they were so taken with one another, feverish in their glances. They had even worked out a little language of their own-hand signals, nods, winks and blinks. The rest of the world did not exist for them, and Paul Magritte found it easy to slip away.

He walked back down the sloping road, past the bison pen and into the woods of pine trees, seeking solitude for his ritual.

Charles had completed his assignment to nail down a table with an ashtray for the smoking detective. Hardly a problem. It was the nonsmoking section that had the least seating. A teenager in a red T-shirt took his order and left him. He was content to sit alone.

After months of licking wounds in the solitude of European hotel rooms, he felt a sense of awakening to the sounds of clinking glassware and people talking all at once-so many voices-proof of life after Mallory. How he had missed her. And now he was chasing after her-again. However, he was resigned to this: Following her was a pleasure; catching up to her was pain. Yet he watched the windows on the parking lot, waiting for a glimpse of her car. At least there was no residual awkwardness on her part. He should have known that she would forget his proposal of mar- riage the day after he had uttered those foolish words. He died every time he saw her, and he could not wait to see her again.

He was distracted from his vigil at the window when a floorshow passed near his table. A middle-aged woman was being photographed each time she paused to strike a pose with one of the parents. A young man in the entourage handed Charles a flyer. According to the text, the woman was a “celebrated criminal profiler.” Apparently, she was interrupting a national book tour for a photo opportunity with the caravan.

Charles was presented with his own copy of her latest book. Agent Cadwaller dropped it on the table as he pulled up a chair. The garish dust jacket was splashed with the blood of printer’s ink, and another version of the lady’s c redentials was printed in large type. “A forensic psychiatrist?”

“That’s what she calls herself.” Agent Cadwaller smoothed back his hair, using a butter knife for his mirror.

Charles turned the book over and read the biography on the back, noting the third-rate medical school and the woman’s home state. It was lamentable that there were places where the most incompetent M.D. could hang out a shingle and call herself a psychiatrist.