Carol O’Connell - Find Me

He shook his head.

“The law won’t protect you, Magritte. You’re not a priest anymore.” She waved the yellow paper like a small flag. “And this note wasn’t written inside a confessional.”

He kept his silence.

“Thank you,” said Mallory. “So now I know you’ve got a long history with this freak.” She looked down at the old note and its words of confession, then slipped the small piece of paper into the pouch with the bones. “When the feds see this, they’ll take you away. Who’s going look after your parish on wheels?”

You will.

He had such great faith in Detective Mallory even as she planned to bring him down.

“It’s too bad Special Agent Berman never saw you as a suspect,” she said. “He might’ve run a better background check. Now me-I suspect everybody. When you were with the Church, I know you treated other priests. Does that narrow down my list? Am I looking for an ex-priest like you?”

He finally understood the intensity of her eyes as she stared at his face: she was looking there for tells and tics and other signs of truth or lies.

“Don’t s mile at me, Magritte.”

He had not meant to do that. “I’m so sorry.” He held up his hands in supplication to tell her that he was helpless, as if she did not already know that-on several levels. And now she seemed to tire of playing with him.

Oh, no-not quite yet.

She raised his grandfather’s rusty old gun, aimed at the altar and fired. The air exploded. The vase shattered, water splattered, flower stalks went flying, and-in a special little moment of horror-he fancied that he could hear torn petals softly falling on the stone floor. And then the silence was absolute. All his bones were shaking, legs failing him. He sank to his knees-alone again.

Mallory was gone.

Agent Christine Nahlman was waiting beside the open door as Mallory left the church.

The detective handed her the blue pouch of bones and Magritte’s nylon sack. “Satisfied? Now feed him to Dale Berman. They deserve each other.”

“Wait,” said Nahlman, but Mallory waited for no one, and now the agent followed her down the church stairs, saying, “You know the old man’s not guilty.”

“Yes, he is.” The detective paused on the bottom step and turned around. “He’s holding out on me. So arrest him and charge him with obstruction. Keep him in custody till this case is wrapped.” Mallory snatched the pouch from the agent’s hand and removed the confessor’s note. “There,” she said, handing back the pouch with only the bones inside. “That should make it easier to hold Magritte for a while. Now you can nail him as a murder suspect. He’ll never make bail.”

“Mallory, I can’t-”

“You can’t do anything, can you? If the feds had only cooperated with the Illinois cops, this case would’ve been wrapped by now. Kronewald’s a good detective. But your boss is just a jacked-up PR man-worthless out in the field. And what’s your problem, Nahlman? Are you just too damn polite to stomp Dale Berman into the ground?”

“I was assigned to work on-”

“Don’t feed me any lines about following orders. I robbed your laptop, remember? I read your personal case notes. One of the Illinois graves was deeper than all the rest-very deep. You knew that one had to be his first kill. Kid stuff. He was so afraid of getting caught-he couldn’t bury that little girl deep enough . So you know the perp started young-when he lived near that road. With Kronewald’s help, you would’ve had a name for him by now. Fledgling killers have comfort zones-close to home. He was still murdering kids when he moved away from Route 66. And then, when he was old enough to drive, he went back there and replanted those kills on that road. And that’s why you found two different types of soil in some of the Illinois graves-the shallow ones.”

“You gave all of this to Kronewald?”

“You know I did. He’s working the data now. All the missing little girls from Illinois won’t be in a federal database. The FBI just can’t be bothered with every lost kid. But Kronewald’s got access to all of them, decades of missing little girls. Feeling the pressure now, Nahlman? Maybe it’s time for you to take charge of this mess.”

“Mallory, do you know what I see when I look past Dale Berman to the next link in the chain of command?”

“Another incompetent bureaucrat. And you wonder why cops hate feds. Ta k e over. At least, get rid of Berman.”

“What do you expect me to do-shoot him?”

“It’s a start.”

Riker hunkered next to the bedroll of Darwinia Sohlo, alias Miriam Rainard. What passed for her tent was an old canvas tarp anchored to the door handle of her ten-year-old car. The detective took over the chore of making a fire to keep her warm. The wood and the kindling twigs were damp, and the woman was in tears, saying, “It’s no use. No fire tonight.”

“Just you wait.” He held up a road flare he had found in the trunk of the car. “You can set fire to water with one of these.” He torched the kindling.

The fire burned bright. The woman smiled.

“I’ve got some bad news,” he said.

One hand flew up to her mouth. “My daughter?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s not about your kid.” He settled one more log on the fire. “I was watching the TV coverage. I know you always hide from the cameramen, but one of those bastards got you on film. Your face made national news tonight. If your husband was watching that-”

No need to finish. She was nodding. If the wife beater had seen that news program back in Wisconsin, he would be coming for her soon, coming to collect his runaway property. Riker watched her face by firelight. He had expected fear, but she seemed resigned to this news of a beating in her future. He had come prepared with a six-pack of beer to medicate her jitters, but there was no need for that now. He offered her a bottle more in the spirit of companionship, and, when she was done with it, she told him her story.

“I sent my daughter away with the rescue mission. It’s like an underground railroad for women and children.”

“I know what they do.” Riker was familiar with groups who assisted in the escape from abusive spouses. “But you sent her alone.” And that was not normal.

“Yes, I wanted my husband to believe she’d been kidnapped. I stayed with him for two more years-until I was sure he’d given her up for dead. The police always thought she was dead. They watched my husband for a long time. Well, finally it was my turn to run. I didn’t even take a purse. I had this idea that I could just go out and meet up with my child. But you had to go from one contact to the next. If one link in the chain was gone, the trail was lost.”

“So one of your contacts disappeared?”

She nodded. “I’d waited too long to claim my daughter. So she was really lost-not a lie anymore. It’s been twelve years. I’ll never find her, will I?”

“It was brave to try,” said Riker. “You knew the risks, but you tried.”

“But I wasn’t b rave. The whole purpose of the caravan was publicity- getting attention for our lost kids-lost causes. The most I hoped for was local exposure, a few small-town reporters here and there. I never expected the story to get this big. I was afraid of the cameras, my only chance to find someone who would recognize my little girl. I’m a coward.”

“Well, tonight, her picture was on television from coast to coast- yours, too,” said Riker. “So now you should be thinking about your next move.”

“You mean leave the caravan? Oh, no. I can’t do that.”

Riker shook his head. “Darwinia, I only wish you were a coward. How many times have you left the caravan to paste up your posters?” And, so long as the media was not an option for her, he knew Darwinia would do it again and again. This was the lady’s j o b, going out into the dark, always looking over one shoulder to see if her bone-snapping husband was onto her-him or a serial killer.