And Then There Was One (11 page)

Nine-Year-Old Sammie and Alex Monroe Missing with No Clue.
—
Radio News, Tuesday, June 14

Spanky was working his hand hard and fast over his crotch when the angry blast of a horn interrupted. With a jerk of the wheel, he pulled the eighteen wheeler back into the center lane, flipping the middle finger of his left hand to the unattractive female driver of the Lexus passing on the right.

“Slut,” he growled over the background of the Tampa news station, a sexy female radio voice had been going on and on about those missing girls. Nine year olds; one wearing a lavender outfit and the other a multicolored pattern. They had black, wavy hair and one had a ponytail. The reporter sounded sexy with a southern drawl that was too much. She was saying that the young girls had light brown, almost golden skin. What was that all about? He listened more carefully now.

Spanky knew that Scott Monroe had been a catcher for the Yankees and that he was white. He’d seen him in person one time when the Yankees played the Tigers, that time Mom had surprised him with a ticket to Tiger Stadium for his birthday. So if these missing girls were “brown” then Monroe musta married a black woman or maybe an Asian or even Hispanic. So what? Spanky was not prejudiced. Truth be told, he’d only had white girls, but he’d have nothing against taking a black girl or half-black in this case. And he’d never had two at once. Just the thought made him sweaty with anticipation.

Spanky — his real name was Samuel Spansky — was midway through the tedious Detroit-to-Miami haul. Couple days off and he’d be heading back. He could have driven I-75 in his sleep and sometimes he almost did. But anytime his boss had asked him if he wanted
another route, like to Texas, he’d turned it down. Miami was a hot city and Spanky knew where to go for action.

Spanky liked his women young. Usually he had to settle for teens on the road, but he preferred little girls. Girls the age of those missing triplets. Just the thought made him salivate, not to mention how hard it made his throbbing cock. Spanky prided himself on his discretion. He wasn’t one of those perverts who messed with real young ones. He liked his little girls old enough to know that he had something special for them and still young enough to be too scared to tell. And if they did? He’d be long gone.

By the time the Lexus had disappeared out of sight, the news was over and he started flipping the dial around for another one talking about the girls. What he was thinking about was their panties. He wondered whether they were cotton or nylon. Were they the same color as their outfits? Just pondering that question made his erection even stronger. He just had to jerk off. He’d need to pull over.

No, not now. He forced himself to keep his rig on the road. Pulling over would attract the Florida State Police. But tonight at the truck stop, he’d find negligent parents, ones that let their kid wander while they go to the bar for a couple of beers. Spanky knew that if he ever had kids of his own — and he did want them — eventually he’d find a good woman and settle down — he would watch them constantly.

Moving his right hand from his huge erection, he reached down under his seat. He pulled out the sandalwood box he kept there, well hidden and secured with a padlock. He couldn’t open it while driving on I-75 through Tampa, but just the sweet smell of the wood made him nearly ejaculate. Inside the scent would be overwhelming and he craved the smell and the touch inside. The silky, soft touch and the indescribable smell — not musky, like a woman’s, but more earthy or cloying or spicy, he never could exactly place it — of the mementos he’d collected from his little playmates. Tonight before he went out hunting, he’d touch each of them. There were nineteen now.

In his mind Spanky could remember each pretty little thing, how they’d struggled and tried to squeal through the monogrammed handkerchief he stuffed in their mouth. The same one he now had ready in the pocket of his pants. The initials were not his, but his stepfather’s, the only memento he had of the son of bitch. Pulling it out to finger
it, Spanky could feel the wetness of the tears that he’d wiped off their little faces when he was done, and he could see how big their eyes got when he threatened to strangle Mommy and Daddy if they ever told. Still fondling the ratty piece of cloth, with the chatter about the Monroe triplets in the background, Spanky knew he would take another tonight.

Twenty, a nice round number.

The Big 5 Health Care Dilemmas.
— Time
magazine, Wednesday, June 15, 2009

Norman was not sure why he’d done that. Faked a convulsion. Now as he lay shackled to the bed in Detroit General Hospital, he knew that it had been a mistake, offering him only a temporary reprieve. He should have waited to make his move. His brain wave test and the MRI would be negative, and then they’d know. He’d done this once before, after he’d been inside for a year, and needed to escape an attack from the cell block bully. Copying the jerking movements and tongue lolling from his first cell mate who had authentic epileptic fits, Norman had plunked to the floor and violently contracted his right side in a rapid rhythmic motion, tighten, release, tighten, release. He’d held his breath and bit his tongue until it bled. His attacker held back, but not before kicking him viciously in the flank. After that he’d peed blood for days, but did the penal system get him any medical aid for that? No. He was convinced that he must have a bum kidney. Today he planned to ask that foreign doctor to be sure to check out his kidneys as long as he was in the hospital anyway.

“Mr. Watkins.”

Norman rolled over on his side so suddenly that his left wrist restraint ripped the skin on his wrist. “Shit, get this thing off me. It’s tearin’ me up.”

The dark-skinned doctor — neurology resident according to his name tag — with an unpronounceable name and a singsong voice nodded.

Encouraged, Norman said. “Hey while I’m here, can you check out my kidneys?”

“All your tests are negative.” The guy had ignored his question.

“So what’s wrong with me, doc?”

“No seizure,” the doctor said as he wrote in the chart. “Soon as my attending gets here, you go.”

“I asked about my kidney. I got a bum kidney. Pee blood, that sort of thing.” Not true about the blood. That was years ago.

Norman wondered what language he was writing in. Pakistani? Iraqi? Did he even comprehend the word, “kidney”?

“My kidney?” Norman repeated.

The freaking doctor didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at him. The asshole simply walked out of the room.

Shackled to the bed by one ankle manacle and two leather wrist restraints, Norman could not even take a leak without calling one of those hags at the nursing station. Not for a minute did he think any of them were real nurses. Except for the one massive stud of a male nurse, the rest were just minimum-wage bag ladies they pulled in off the streets.

Then there was a tap at the door and a tall, black man, dressed in black pants and a black button-down shirt walked in. “Chaplain Henry,” he announced in a booming voice. “Okay if I come in for a chat?”

“Yeah, sure,” Norman said, wondering if a visit from the chaplain boded well for him. Maybe his reputation at the prison was paying off. “Sure, Reverend.”

“Your wife suggested that maybe you’d like to pray with me,” said the man of the cloth.

“Uh, sure. Hey, Rev, you know when they’re gonna spring me outta here? All I did was skip parole to see my ma? You know?”

“Your wife says you’re in real deep. Those missing kids. Daughters of Scott Monroe. I remember when Scott played for the University of Michigan. Fine catcher. Nice man. Too bad he got injured. But Norman, if you know something about those little girls, I pray to Jesus that you tell the police where they are.”

“I’m not saying nothin’ about that bitch’s kids.”

“For your wife’s sake and your daughter’s, if you tell the police where they are, it’ll go easier for you, son.”

Norman gaped at the preacher. So Connie suspected? She’d sent
the reverend in to get him to talk. Well, it wasn’t going to work that way. No one could prove that he was
not
just driving around or sleeping in his car.

FBI Press Conference Not Encouraging —
Where Are Sammie and Alex?
—
Morning News
, Wednesday, June 15

Katie and Scott did not return to the FBI field office Tuesday evening. Instead, they’d participated in a conference call led by Streeter and included agents from Detroit and Tampa. At the end of the call at nine p.m., they could not detect even a trace of optimism. The team kept repeating that as time passed, so did the hope of finding Sammie and Alex alive. Fifty-three hours: no ransom, no concrete connection linking any suspects to the Monroe girls, no new witnesses, lots of unsubstantiated sightings all the way from Florida to Michigan, from California to New York.

Scott had asked for an update on the prime suspects. Maxwell Cutty: continued surveillance in Tampa, no evidence linking to Alex and Sammie other than he’d recently withdrawn a large sum of money, no sign of his boyfriend, Adam Kaninsky. Norman Watkins: seemingly faked a convulsion, being held in a hospital prison ward for observation. Keith Franklin: admitted an ongoing infatuation with Katie, would leave his wife in an instant if Katie would have him, admitted to an extramarital affair with a white woman, no evidence to hold him, released but under surveillance in Detroit.

Jackie had fallen asleep in her grandmother’s arms, and Scott had carried her into their room, laying her on the makeshift bed on the floor. Lucy had an extra bed in her room, but Katie would not allow Jackie out of her sight. Before they went to bed, Scott slipped the contents of one of Lucy’s post-surgery sleeping pills into Katie’s ginger
ale. Scott hated all drugs, but Katie had slept so well with the pill he’d given her earlier.

When Katie awoke Wednesday morning, she was surprised to find that it was already eight thirty and that Scott was not in bed. How could she have slept so late? The usual question for one accustomed to be up before dawn. But as she rolled over and saw Jackie asleep in her cocoon on the floor by her side of the bed, reality struck, erasing any trace of sleep, jolting her awake.

Sammie and Alex
? Had there been any news? It was all she could do to refrain from crying out. She looked down at Jackie, needing to see Alex and Sammie lying there, too. Just thinking about them made her heart pound so violently that she felt that she might be having a heart attack, and she struggled to breathe.
Where could they be
?
Were they safe or not?

Despite the sunlight pouring into the room, Katie’s world became totally dark and her body went still. She’d heard their voices inside her head last night, voices so familiar in their individuality. One loud, demanding: “Mom, wake up. You have to take care of Jackie.” The other, shy and trembling. “Mom, please, Jackie needs you.”

Katie felt her body stiffen, but her eyes remained closed and she stopped even trying to breathe. Sammie’s voice, Alex’s voice. Both mingling, pleading with her, and finally fading.

Katie sat up, trying to understand what Sammie and Alex were trying to tell her. The triplets had been so close, anticipating each other’s every move. Were they telling her that something would happen to Jackie, too? Ever since the triplets were born, a piece of Katie’s brain had been set in triplicate. Like an equilateral triangle she often thought, three identical angles making up a whole. An equal proportion allocated to Alex, Sammie, and Jackie. Holding her breath, Katie peered down on the floor to the nest of comforters. Jackie was still asleep, her head buried under the Yankee logo sheets that Scott had given Lucy for Christmas last year.

Katie climbed out of bed, lowered herself to the floor, and lay down by Jackie, placing her hand over her child’s chest just to make sure that it was moving, up and down.

“Please stay with me,” she whispered.

Jackie stirred and turned to face Katie, so close that Katie could feel the brush of air with each breath of her child.

“Mom, are you okay?” Jackie reached out to stroke Katie’s hair.

“Yes, sweetie, as long as you’re here with me.”

“I’ll never leave you and Dad.”

Katie was still cradling Jackie in her arms when Scott walked into the bedroom, a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a mug of hot chocolate in the other.

“Thought I heard voices up here,” he said. “Now let’s get you two up off the floor.”

Scott set down the hot drinks and offered his hand to help Katie, then Jackie, up.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, his gaze lingering on Katie as he handed her coffee.

Should she tell Scott about the dream?
You have to take care of Jackie.

When Katie did not answer, he repeated his question to Jackie as she sipped hot chocolate.

Before Jackie could answer, Katie said, “I think we should get Jackie a puppy.”

Both Scott’s and Jackie’s jaw dropped, and Scott had to help Jackie steady her hot drink.

Jackie was the first to speak. “A puppy? Mom, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“You’ve always wanted a dog. Remember that golden lab puppy you and Alex adored?”

“Mom? Sammie hates dogs. She got bit by one. Don’t you remember? On her leg. She still has the scar.” Jackie stared at Katie, “Hey, Mom, are you okay?”

No, I’m not okay. Maybe I’m going about this in the wrong way. In my dream, Alex and Sammie each said to take good care of you
.

“What do you think, Scott?” Katie said.

Scott said nothing, just shook his head.

Experts Probe Similarities of the Monroe Kidnapping to
That of Madeleine McCann in Portugal.
— Talk Show Circuit, Wednesday, June 17

Manny Gonzalos, beloved by his neighbors for his random acts of kindness, lived alone in a Spanish-style villa on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico in Clearwater Beach. He mostly kept to himself, but there were rumors that he was the anonymous philanthropist behind the many projects that benefited the beach community. There had also been rumors that he was gay, but they’d been squelched when his Clearwater neighbor ran into him at a restaurant on the island of St. Bart’s with a voluptuous dark-haired woman. Manny had graciously introduced her as Monique, and it was clear that their relationship was not platonic. No one knew how old he was, but with the spring in his step and his well-muscled physique, the guess was mid-fifties.