Carol O’Connell: Find Me

She shook her head. No, he was mistaken about that, though these items most certainly belonged to her. “The killer stole them. They belong with the rest of the evidence.”

And now, as Mallory would say, they had a game.

Charles carried their bags into the Santa Barbara Hotel, prime beachfront property and room service; his world was complete. All the people in the lobby were dressed to the nines, and, though blue jeans and denim shirts were acceptable attire among wealthy travelers, he made the error of laying the car keys on the reception desk. The Volkswagen emblem branded him as scurvy middle class in the eyes of the hotel clerk. The young woman said nothing in response to his request for two of her best rooms. Instead, she wrote down a price, and he fancied that her frosty little nose actually tilted up as she pushed the slip of paper across the desk. She was no doubt certain that this would send him on his way to some lesser establishment and a room without a view.

Hardly.

But it was Mallory who snatched up the paper, read the price and found it not nearly exorbitant enough, saying, “You must have better rooms than these.” Her hand was on one hip, the denim jacket incidentally drawn back, the gun exposed, the clerk surprised, and now it seemed that deluxe suites were available.

When they stood alone on the balcony overlooking the sea, Charles took this romantic moment to say, “I know it wasn’t Horace Kayhill.” Was she even listening to him? No. She was inspecting the label on a complimentary wine bottle. He tried a different tact. “I wonder why the killer left your sunglasses and pen with Horace’s body.”

Mallory took her own time pouring the wine. She sipped from a glass and seemed to be considering the taste. “So Riker never told you who the killer was. That’s interesting.” She scrutinized his face, looking there for signs of lies.

This test-this torture was proof enough that she was back in form. This was a cause for celebration, and he wanted to throttle her. “Who was he?” If she did not tell him now, his head might explode.

“You met him, Charles.” She sipped her wine slowly. “I think you even liked him.”

“So he was with the caravan.”

She nodded. “He was the Pattern Man.”

All right. That was interesting, though it could not possibly be true. It would be a grave error to question her logic. She hated that-and he could do miles better. He poured himself a glass of wine and courted a more hostile response, saying, “You’re wrong. The Pattern Man-Mr. Kayhill died in New Mexico. His bones were picked clean by wild animals.” Failing to get a rise out of her, he added, “Horace was quite dead.” He slugged back the wine in one swallow and said, “ Extremely dead.”

Mallory’s voice had no inflection when she volleyed. “That’s right, but you can’t tell the time of death from skeletal remains. Horace Kayhill died before you met the Pattern Man back in Missouri. ”

Well, good solution-cleaving her prime suspect in two. So simple. He poured another glass of wine. “It’s a bit of a stretch,” he said, somewhat charitably. “That little man-”

“They always turn out to be little men.”

She seemed to take no offense that he still doubted her. Or was she setting him up for a pratfall? It was so hard to tell with her-just like old times.

“Only the maps belonged to the Pattern Man,” she said. “He was driving Kayhill’s mobile home when he wasn’t stealing cars. But then he had to get rid of it. Now that was Riker’s doing when he organized a search for Kayhill. The Pattern Man would’ve picked that up on his police scanner. He thought Riker was on to him. Panic time. He couldn’t risk a photograph of the real Kayhill showing up on the evening news. The body-what was left of it-had to be found. So he ditched the mobile home at the crime scene-a beacon for the searchers. Good plan. The feds had no interest in Horace Kayhill, and the local police never met the Pattern Man.” She retrieved the canvas tote bag from a chair by the door. “When Riker saw this, I know it only took him six seconds to figure it out. But he gave the evidence to you. Why?”

Charles now regarded the bag as a dangerous thing, and he shook his head in denial. Fortunately, in Mallory’s e yes, this passed for confusion instead of a challenge. He could never tell her that her partner’s only suspect had been Peyton Hale-that Riker believed she had killed her own father. Lies were not his forte, and so he countered with the truth. “I’m not sure that he ever looked that closely at the bag when-”

“Riker’s no screwup,” said Mallory, insistent. “He saw the evidence. Hard evidence.” She pulled two maps from the bag. “But he could’ve worked it out if all he had were these. While I was in the hospital, the state police found the graves on the Seligman loop.” She spread the Arizona map on the bed.

Had Riker done more than glance at the folded maps? Doubtful.

“Look,” said Mallory. “See the little crosses on that segment?”

“Yes… because the children were buried on the old trucker’s route.”

“Right. Now the Pattern Man claimed to be a Route 66 buff. But look at this.” She unfolded the map for New Mexico and handed it to him. “All the hardcore fanatics take the road north to Santa Fe.”

Charles stared at the Santa Fe loop-no graves. But this was not evidence of an alias, not proof enough to split one man in two. “Kayhill could’ve worked it out. He was one of Dr. Magritte’s patients.”

“No, Magritte’s patient was the Pattern Man. That was his Internet name. Kayhill was just some poor tourist he met up with on the road.”

Mallory upended the canvas tote bag, spilling the remaining contents on the bedspread in a pile of maps, credit-card receipts and sundry items. She picked up a driver’s license and placed it in his hand. “That’s what the real Kayhill looked like.”

Charles stared at the license photo. It was a face he had never seen before. It resembled the man he had known as Horace Kayhill only in the broadest sense of hair color, height and weight. “Well, license photos are always bad. The killer probably showed this to lots of people, agents, troopers, and no one noticed that it wasn’t him.”

“But you noticed right away,” she said, as if she had caught him in a lie. “I promise you, Riker would never miss a thing like that.”

Oh, but he had. Riker had only glanced inside the trooper’s plastic sack, just a quick look to see a familiar canvas bag and the markings on a wadded map. The detective’s own theory of Mallory’s father as a serial murderer was proof that the man had indeed overlooked this driver’s license.

“Think carefully, Charles. You said you were there when the cops gave it to Riker. Did you see him sign a receipt? Any paperwork at all?”

Charles shook his head, hardly paying attention.

“Good,” she said. “Then it never happened. Are we clear on that?”

He was staring at the damning canvas bag. So much had happened on the day when Riker had received it, but Charles could see no way that his friend would ever recover from this-oversight.

Then Mallory showed him the way.

“We don’t have to turn it over to Kronewald,” she said. Anticipating him, she added, “So the freak is never identified-so what? It’s better this way.” She snatched the license from his hand and then gathered up the maps and bits of paper on the bed. “The reporters probably have film of the fake Kayhill. They’d s plash his face all over the tube.” She jammed the contents back into the bag. “They’d turn up leads and backtrack his life all the way to Illinois. Then there’d be the books and movies-TV specials- all for a child killer.” She seemed indignant over these events that had not happened yet. “And the public-they just love their killers. They wouldn’t be able to get enough of this one. And all those murdered kids. Can you see the media chewing on their bones?” She dropped the tote bag into a metal wastebasket. “You think that’s why Riker ditched the evidence?”