Carol O’Connell - Find Me

By force of habit, he began the ritual of commending the dead man’s soul to God, though they were much estranged these days, himself and the Almighty.

Mallory slammed on the brakes, and stared at the open book lying on the ground, its pages rippling in the wind. She never had to leave her car to know that it was a Bible, an ex-priest’s version of the proverbial breadcrumb trail.

She drove over it.

A car was approaching from a distance, coming overland, just a dot on the horizon of mesa and desert brush. He watched it grow-his impending death-and when he could see it clearly, he yelled, “I never betrayed you!” And though vengeance was the province of God, one hand closed on the knife in his pocket.

Soon.

He had anticipated an exchange of words, but that was not to be. The jeep was not slowing down but gathering speed. Impact came with a sickening thud of the metal impacting on flesh and bone. The force knocked the air from the old man’s lungs and he was in flight, flying forever it seemed. He lost consciousness before his body hit the hard ground.

When he opened his eyes again, he tasted blood in his mouth-proof of life.

His assailant-soon to be his murderer-was standing not far away in some new incarnation so different from the misshapen child he had known all those years ago.

Paul Magritte’s resting place was a deep and narrow ditch, and now he could understand why he was still alive. It would not be possible to run him down a second time. And so this killer-loath to touch a living body-was helpless. He could only wait for an old man’s death rattle.

Wait a little longer.

Paul Magritte suffered much pain. It was agony only to lift one hand- to beckon his murderer-come a little closer.

Mallory looked down at the corpse in the trunk, a clear death by vehicular homicide. Gone were all the trappings of a ritual, a killer’s pretense of a twist in the game. Once his monument was finished and all the little girls were laid out in a row, he had simply turned his sights on advertising. But these attacks were different. The old man was a material witness, a loose end. And the dead parent in the trunk of the car? That was bait. But what was his agenda with the murder of Horace Kayhill?

The detective returned to the ditch and knelt down beside Paul Magritte. The old man had been fading in and out, but now he was conscious again. “The ambulance should be here any minute.” She was not looking at him but at the old dirt road, watching for the first sign of an emergency vehicle, listening for a siren.

“Mallory?” Dr. Magritte’s voice was weak. He was also staring at the road. “My faith doesn’t lie in that direction… It lies with you.” And now he turned his eyes to the great prize he had given her.

She looked down at the bloodied knife in her evidence bag. “It was a good try, old man. A good try.”

“No… a success.” His words came out with ragged breath and fresh red bubbles of spittle from his lips.

“Don’t talk,” she said.

“That blood on my knife… not mine… significant.”

Mallory decided not to tell the old man that it was all for nothing, that this DNA evidence was useful in court but not in the hunt. “It’s significant,” she said. “He’s getting reckless, careless. With any luck at all, he’s suicidal, too. That’s how it ends sometimes.”

“He can’t go back… to the caravan… I cut him.” Magritte’s moving finger drew a jagged line on his neck.

“You marked him for me.” Mallory smiled with something approaching real affection. “That’s why you carried the old revolver. A bullet wound would get some attention, wouldn’t it? Did Nahlman take the gun away from you?”

The old man nodded. “Not her fault… She couldn’t know.”

“So, you decided to knife him instead. That cut was your loophole in the seal of the confessional.”

This man had walked into a trap, knowing that he would be murdered. And the knife wound would pass for an act of self-defense-the only act that Paul Magritte’s faith had allowed.

“This time…” The old man’s lips moved in silence. His eyes were closing.

Mallory finished the sentence for him. “I’ll see it coming.”

Paramedics hooked the old man up to portable machines, and then they stabbed him with needles to fill his veins with drugs and plasma. Troopers were standing by for escort duty, and Paul Magritte was nearly stable enough for transport to a hospital.

When Mallory’s car reached the paved highway at the end of the dirt road, she was in a quandary. East or west? The New Mexico State Police now owned the manhunt, and the structure of her day had been lost. She could not even guess the time, for the days were getting longer-too long.

She turned east-one decision made. Now for the music. After fiddling with the iPod, she found her old Eagles album. The volume was turned up as high as it would go.

“-take it eeeeasy, take it eeeeeasy-”

On the way back to the caravan, she passed the cars of FBI agents trailed by news vans, all heading off in the direction of the new crime scene- her crime scene.

“-don’t let the sound of your own wheeeels make you craaazy-”

When the first sign for Clines Corners came into view, Mallory seemed to awaken in the moving car. How much time had passed? How much road? She could not say. The caravan parents were gathered in the parking lot, milling about in disarray like refugees from the end of the world. She parked at the far edge of the lot and watched them for a while. Should she stay or go? There was still time to get back on the road unseen. She could travel westward and rid herself of all these needy people.

To o late.

Agent Nahlman appeared at the side window, bending low to say, “I heard about Dr. Magritte. You knew he was a target, didn’t you? Is that why you told me to feed him to Berman?”

“Does it matter anymore?” The detective opened the door and stepped out of the car. “Magritte will be dead by morning.” Or he might live a bit longer if she trusted no more federal agents with his life. Back at the crime scene, she had arranged for local police to guard the old man’s hospital room.

Nahlman was behind her and talking to her back as they crossed the parking lot. The agent was almost indignant when she asked, “Why couldn’t you let me in on it? I would’ve turned the bones over to Berman as evidence. Dr. Magritte would’ve-”

“You didn’t turn in the bones?” Mallory leaned heavy on a tone of disbelief, though all the while the pouch of bones was resting in her knapsack. Some punishment was called for here.

The FBI woman’s understanding came with a look of pain. “If I had, Magritte would’ve been arrested. He’d be in custody instead of-”

“That was the plan,” said Mallory.

Riker stood at the edge of the crowd milling around in the parking lot. He turned to the tall man beside him. “Charles, I need help. The perp’s cleaning up his loose ends and Dodie’s one of them. The Finns have to go into custody. Kronewald’s working out a deal with Harry Mars.”

“What about the other parents?”

“As long as they stay on the road, our boy’s gonna pick them off one by one. He just loves all this media attention. And the reporters are so excited they’re pissing their pants. So, yeah, it’s time for the rest of these people to go back where they came from.”

“That’s a pity,” said Charles. “Most of them are better off here than they were at home.”

“Oh, sure.” Riker nodded, as if this made perfect sense to him. “You mean apart from the fact that they’re getting killed?”