Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (12 page)

“That car of yours is easy to spot.”

“You go over the medical records?” I asked.

“Your instincts were right. Looks like neither vic had broken bones prior to their
disappearance,” Raymond said. “Guess that’s gonna give you some ideas about who did
this?”

I took another sip of burned coffee. “Says something about his psychological requirements.
And physical requirements. As in what kind of space he’d need to do what he does.”

Gene put a mug in front of Raymond and filled it up. “Hey, Gene,” Raymond said. “This
is that hotshot investigator from Atlanta I told you the sheriff hired.”

Gene gave me a nod. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” He moved quietly around the counter
with his coffeepot. I heard him checking on the couple in the booth.

I looked at Raymond. The scarlet veins under the skin on his cheeks looked like tiny
explosions under the harsh diner light. I picked up the folder, opened it, took a
minute to look it over. My phone jangled on the counter. The display lit up with Kenneth
Meltzer’s name and mobile number. I picked it up. “Good evening, Sheriff.”

Raymond swiveled on his stool and stalked out of the diner.

“Evening, Dr. Street … Keye,” the sheriff said. “Sorry I had to bail on you today.
Had to be in court. Let’s meet in the morning. You probably have some things to discuss
by now.”

After nine hours on the job I hadn’t exactly kicked in any doors. But I did have ideas.
I told the sheriff that quietly while Gene hovered around the counter and did a bad
job of disguising his interest.

“You an early riser? Let’s say breakfast at seven-thirty. Silver Spoon makes a good
one. You know where it is?”

I didn’t mention I was sitting at the diner’s counter. “See you then.” I clicked off
and put my debit card on the counter. Gene collected it. I watched him work the card
reader with fingers that looked arthritic. He came back with my ticket. I wrote in
the tip and stood up. “Great pancake,” I said loud enough for the cook to hear. He
gave another nod from the back. I headed for the door.

“Excuse me there, little lady.” I stopped and turned. Gene came around the counter.
“Rob Raymond was a bully growing up too. Most people around here are scared of him.
For good reason, I reckon. I wouldn’t get on his bad side.”

“Too late.” I smiled, thanked him, and pushed through the glass door.

10

The Whispering Pines Inn was part motor lodge, part fake southern mansion. My room
was upstairs. I didn’t mind the climb. I’d packed light—something I’d gotten good
at all those years with the Bureau when I had to be ready to jump on a helicopter
or a plane anytime the phone rang.

I set my bag on a chair and pulled the bedspread and mattress pad up at the bottom
corners, inspected all the crevasses and seams in the mattress. I put the bottom corners
back on, took the pillows off, and repeated this process at the top. Hey, don’t judge.
The whole bedbug thing is terrifying. The little fuckers are indestructible. If they
get in your bags and go home with you, you might as well douse everything you own
in gasoline and set fire to it.

I showered and slipped into one of Rauser’s T-shirts I’d stuffed in my suitcase on
the way out that morning. I’d found it in a pile on the bed he’d left unmade. It was
his favorite shirt, navy blue with
ATLANTA POLICE DEPARTMENT
embroidered in gold on the edge of the left sleeve. He’d worn it around the house
for a couple of days and it smelled like him—shaving cream and aftershave around the
collar, his natural scent everywhere else. I pulled it up to my face and closed my
eyes. It was the kind of smell that makes you think cognac, something warm and woody
and musky. And then I thought about the
blouse that had washed up with Melinda Cochran’s skin cells trapped in the collar.
And Josey Davidson’s regrets. And the dead bugs. And Raymond standing too close to
me as I looked down into the disposal site, the old server’s warnings after dinner.
And all my warm fuzzies evaporated.

I glanced at my phone and saw emails from Neil, all of them with attachments, so I
pulled the laptop out of my case and found the wireless key for the hotel. He’d sent
me the list of the eight registered sex offenders who met the criteria we’d outlined.
They lived within a thirty-mile circle we’d drawn around Whisper where Melinda Cochran
lived, and the town of Silas where Tracy Davidson lived. They had been in the area
when both girls were abducted and when Melinda’s body was dumped two months ago, and
they had garages, basements, freestanding sheds, or barns on their property. There
were a variety of charges. One of them had been busted in an online sting with child
pornography. Two had been found guilty of indecent exposure and were considered low
risk. I skipped over names and scanned crimes, read the details of the ones that interested
me until I narrowed it down to two offenders who had exhibited extreme predatory behaviors,
watched and groomed their prey, been convicted of aggravated child molestation, aggravated
sexual battery, and aggravated assault with rape or intent to rape, and were designated
as sexually violent. Most astounding was that both were classified as midlevel offenders.
Their known victims were female and between the ages of eleven and sixteen. The files
included statements in which both offenders, Lewis Freeman and Logan Peele, had first
denied, then finally owned their crimes, while minimizing the effects of their behaviors
on their victims. That should have been a big red flag. These offenders were likely
to reoffend, if they hadn’t already. They were subject to impromptu visits from law
enforcement, but the truth is, this doesn’t happen often enough. The department was
probably as overwhelmed as most departments are around the country.

I pulled up addresses and zoomed in on satellite. Freeman lived between Whisper and
Silas on an isolated piece of farmland dotted with milking barns and equipment sheds.
Logan Peele lived in Whisper not a mile from where I was right now, in a redbrick
house off the
highway with an enclosed freestanding garage and a basement. I could see the garage
and the ground-level basement windows when I zoomed in. Both men had the space to
hold a captive. Both were known predators. I wondered if their private lives would
allow for the practical matters one would have to consider when kidnapping and sexually
abusing. How did they explain to family or wives the locked buildings and doors, food
and water going into that holding cell, all the extraordinary measures they’d have
to take to hold and keep a person alive for so long?

I went back through my photo stream, examined the photos I’d taken in the woods. Then
I went back over the lab reports, the sheriff’s department records I’d carried out
on a flash drive, and I began work on an offender sketch. It was another three hours
before I set the alarm and switched off the lamp.

11

He saw her coming, emerging from the shadows in the predawn. It jarred him. He wasn’t
expecting to see her this way under the streetlights. It was the kind of easy glide
that came with practice. He’d seen girls run like that, like butterflies just skimming
the surface. He liked her body, small, compact, tight little ass in jogging shorts.
And she was probably thinking about him right now, thinking about him every minute,
obsessing. Because that’s what she did. That was her dysfunction. It wasn’t unlike
his. He’d read every interview, every recorded word she’d uttered as soon as he’d
learned she was coming to Whisper. This woman had dedicated her life to studying people
like him.

He sank down low in the front seat as she passed the diner and cut across Main Street.
He caught himself smiling, felt a sudden and unexpected affection for her. He wasn’t
afraid. He wasn’t angry. To his great surprise he liked having her here. Though it
tempted him in dangerous ways, there was allure in letting her get close, in being
understood by a woman.

Careful
, he warned himself. But the temptation was too great. He reached in the backseat
for his laptop, opened it to a blank document, and began to type.
Dear Keye. I’m thinking about you too
.

——

Whisper was warm and still as I ran under streetlights past darkened shop windows
on Main Street, running shoes barely making a swish on dry sidewalks. I went through
downtown and cut over to the lake, where I found a lamp-lit running path that curled
around past boat docks with motionless herons and resorts where men in headlighted
golf carts whirred around on their predawn maintenance, and lawn mowers busy readying
the course for sunrise. The price of real estate took a steady climb the farther I
moved away from Whisper. I passed other joggers near nicer hotels—happy joggers who’d
slept on good pillows. I looped around a Marriott Resort and headed back for the last
couple of miles. My body had returned to running with an easy memory I didn’t know
it had for anything but booze and sugar.

I heard feet hitting the paved running path behind me and moved to the right to let
them pass. “Morning.” It was Ken Meltzer’s voice. I kept moving but slowed my pace.
I glanced over at him. He was smiling. His hair was soaked around the edges, hanging
on his neck. “I thought that was you.”

“How could you tell? It’s not like I’m the only Asian in Whisper. Oh wait. I am the
only Asian in Whisper.”

Meltzer laughed. I snuck a quick look at his running suit. You can tell a lot about
a person by how they get dressed for a workout. He was in long, baggy silk shorts
and a goofy oversize tank. His shoulders were tan and rounded. He’d worked on them,
and it showed. “I do a lot better being in the office after a run,” he said. “Calmer.”
He was winded. So was I. The sun was up and the temperature had spiked.

“Like a dog,” I said. “I mean, they behave better when they’re exercised.”

“Yeah, like a dog.” He laughed again, that easy, generous laugh. “Last one back buys
breakfast.” He waited for my answer.

“Why are cops so competitive?” I asked.

“You’re the analyst. You tell me,” he said, and blasted ahead of me like he’d been
slingshoted. The back of his shirt was drenched. He grinned over his shoulder. I couldn’t
resist. I turned on the steam and caught up with him. We ran hard like that all the
way back to Main
Street, where we stretched and caught our breath, then cooled down over bottles of
water the sheriff took from his SUV. I practically fell into my room at the Whispering
Pines Inn, showered and changed, checked my email. Neil had delivered on the social
media account for Melinda Cochran. There were 133 people on Melinda’s Facebook friends
list. Eighty-two of them were local. The list was complete with email and physical
addresses. I’d also sent GBI Special Agent Mike McMillan a couple of questions late
last night. He’d offered those kinds of favors if I ever needed them after I’d been
hired to investigate a crematory operator a few weeks ago. What I had found had the
GBI racing to the scene. McMillan had replied last night to say he’d routed my questions
to the proper expert. The reply from the forensic scientist was waiting.

I walked into the Silver Spoon diner at seven-thirty on the dot with a case hanging
off my shoulder and my hair still damp from the shower. The restaurant was buzzing.
The cook from last night was back on duty. He had help this morning. The kitchen was
busy. Servers were on the go, and the sound of dishes and forks and the murmur of
morning conversations had the place humming. And then I walked through. Conversations
trailed off as heads turned and for just a moment a hush as loud as a foghorn settled
over the room. Welcome to Whisper.

Kenneth Meltzer was sitting in a booth at the long window, his back to the door, steam
rising off a thick white coffee mug. “Morning again, Sheriff,” I said, and slid in
across from him. I took the case off my shoulder and put it next to me on bright blue
imitation leather. A server showed up with a mug and a thermal pot. She asked if I
wanted coffee. I certainly did. And I wanted food. Lots of it—scrambled eggs and white
cheddar grits, roasted potatoes and an English muffin. The sheriff ordered his over
medium with Virginia ham, a tall stack of blueberry pancakes, and a glass of milk.
Milk
. He was a Boy Scout.