Carol O’Connell - Find Me

Mallory slapped one hand down on the coffee-stained map, and now she had the little man’s attention. “You’re a statistician, right?”

“Yes. I used to work for an insurance company.”

“Give me some odds. It’s a country of three hundred million people, and only a hundred of them have something in common. What are the odds that they meet?”

He adjusted his glasses, preparing to launch into another lecture. “Perhaps you’re referring to a theory of six degrees of separation-that we’re all six connections away from everyone else on the planet. Well, that really won’t apply here, not if you’re looking for a chance meeting. You see, someone has to follow the threads to force the outcome and prove the-”

“I don’t believe in chance,” said Mallory. “I don’t believe in accident or coincidence. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Yes. The caravan parents.”

“Not all of them, just the ones with little girls buried on Route 66.”

“Well, before the advent of computers,” said Kayhill, “those people never would’ve met. But now you have variables that didn’t exist in the past. Today, it’s possible to cross-index every aspect of your life with the whole earth. If you have an odd tic, a rare disease, or, in my case, migraine auras without the headaches, you can find a chat room for that, a website-”

“Or a therapy group.”

“Exactly. I belong to lots of them.” He tapped his head to indicate a problem there. “I’m a bit on the compulsive side. But I spend most of my time compiling statistics and information on Route 66. That’s how I met the first caravan parent-Gerry Linden. An FBI agent called to tell him his child’s body had been found, and this woman gave him the location of the gravesite. But his daughter’s remains were never returned to him.”

Mallory nodded. Last night, she had seen Gerald Linden’s daughter in Dale Berman’s Nursery. The remains had been identified by a small gold pin, a distinctive heirloom.

“So,” said Mr. Kayhill, “Gerry Linden went to visit the burial site. He told me it was the only place he had to leave his flowers-this bit of road where his child had been found.” The Pattern Man leaned forward and smiled. “This is the part where chance comes in.”

And perhaps now he recalled that she was not a big believer in chance, for he dropped the smile and spilled more coffee. “Let’s call it a forced link for the six-degree theory,” he said. “Mr. Linden stayed in the area for a few days-talking to the locals-and he heard a strange story about another grave forty miles down the road. You see, years ago, a man was trying to bury a dog and inadvertently dug up a child. Now that grave was across a state line, and the road was known by a different name, but it was also part of the old highway. So Mr. Linden hooked up with a lot of Route 66 websites. Well, I monitor all of them, and his name cropped up quite a few times. He wanted information on murdered children found along that road.”

“He was the one who told you about Dr. Magritte’s therapy group?”

“Yes, and I joined it. I collected more data from another one of Dr. Magritte’s patients. Now, two such parents with the same psychologist- well, the odds of that happening are just remarkable. That was when I realized that I was onto something huge.”

“But you never had a child,” said Mallory, as if this might be a defect in him. “Magritte’s sessions were only for the parents of missing and murdered children.”

“Oh, no. Where did you get that idea? The only criterion was a computer. The doctor never turned anybody away.” And now, no doubt feeling the need for immediate therapy, Horace Kayhill packed up his maps and fled.

After flopping down in the recently vacated chair at his partner’s t able, Riker handed her a cell phone. “It’s Kronewald. He’s got some news.” Riker’s o w n conversation with the Chicago detective had been illuminating and disheartening.

She held the cell phone to her ear. “It’s Mallory… Right… No, that’s all I need.” After opening the laptop computer, she flicked the keys until she was looking at a map of the continental United States. A route was marked in a thick red line. “Got it,” she said.

Riker could hear Kronewald’s rising voice as Mallory depressed the button that would end the call. The old man was shouting toward the end, as if he knew she was going to hang up on him.

Charles Butler was in flight from Cadwaller’s t able, and seeking sanctuary with the two detectives. He stared at Mallory’s computer screen as he pulled up a chair. “That seems a bit different from the other Route 66 maps. What happened to Santa Fe?”

“This is a route from the sixties,” said Riker, “after the ends of the Santa Fe loop were connected.” The detective gave his partner a disingenuous smile. “I just thought I’d save you the trouble of sharing that.” Turning back to Charles, he said, “It’s a long-haul truck driver’s route from Chicago to L.A.”

“So,” said Charles, “you think the killer is a truck driver.”

“No, but his father was.” Riker turned to Mallory, still smiling but hardly meaning it. “And you were gonna tell me that, right?” And now he told the story of the trucker and his wife abandoning their son after the disappearance of five-year-old Mary Egram. “That’s right, Charles. Our boy didn’t start with small furry animals. He killed his own sister. But I’m sure my partner was gonna mention that-eventually.”

Mallory turned her chair to face away from Riker.

Oh, was his voice getting a little testy? Well, tough.

She spoke only to Charles. “I hope you got something useful off that agent.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Riker was now an invisible man as far as she was concerned. He moved his chair around the table until he was once more in her line of sight. “Cadwaller probably bored poor Charles with his expertise on serial killers. But at least that worthless fed tries to communicate with-”

“Cadwaller has no expertise,” said Charles. “He’s a fraud.”

Okay, playtime with Mallory was over. Riker made a rolling motion with one hand to ask the man to continue that thought.

“Perhaps I was harsh,” said Charles. “I’d s ay, at best, he ’s an expert on bad psychology books written by incompetent hacks for mass consumption. But he’s not a profiler.”

“Kronewald ran a background check,” said Riker. “Cadwaller’s got a history with Behavioral Science Unit.”

“Sometimes,” said Charles, “history gets rewritten. I can only tell you the man is not what he seems.”

This information came as no surprise to Mallory, and Riker had to wonder what else the brat had forgotten to share with him.

“Well,” said Charles, “at least now you have a name for the killer.”

Riker nodded. “For all the good it does. No pictures, no prints, no idea what name the perp’s using now. He’s good at stealing cars. That’s all we know.” He shot a glance at his partner as he corrected himself. “That’s all I know.”

Dr. Magritte passed close to their table, and Mallory turned an accusing eye on Riker, asking, demanding, “Why isn’t t hat old man in custody?”

“What? Back up,” said Riker. “Where does Magritte come in? What did he do? And what the hell did I do wrong?”

Mallory stared at him, incredulous. “Doesn’t Agent Nahlman tell you anything ?”

They met by chance -or this would be Riker’s story. He rehearsed it as he followed Agent Nahlman’s car down a side road that led him far south of Route 66. This was a part of the world where people thought nothing of driving fifty or a hundred miles to do a simple errand. In the dark, the two vehicles might be passing through any small American town of windows lighted by the glow of televisions sets.