Find Me (33 page)

There was silence on the other end. Guessing games annoyed her. He gave her a broad hint. “The Assistant Director of Criminal Investigations.”

“Harry Mars,” said Mallory. “He can’t be running this circus.”

“He’s not, and I’ll tell you how I know. Mars’s office sent a whole slew of these damn form letters. It looks like a stall. I don’t think the FBI knows where Dale stashed the bodies of any of those kids. Interesting, huh? But I know he’s been digging them up for almost a year.”

“All right,” said Mallory. “So we’re looking for a makeshift morgue somewhere in Dale’s comfort zone-near a Texas field office. Not all of the remains are skeletons. He’d want a place with refrigeration. Get the body count from Horace Kayhill’s maps.”

“I can’t,” said Riker. “The Pattern Man defected. I’ve got agents and troopers out looking for the little guy. I even used a news helicopter. No luck. But all this new coverage might scare the freak off till we can find Horace.”

“No,” said Mallory, “the perp is loving this. Imagine the thrill.”

Riker could not, but he deferred to Mallory in all things sociopathic. “Oh, the feds finally ran a check against vehicle registration. One of the parents, Darwinia Sohlo-”

“The name’s a fake,” said Mallory.

The connection went dead, and it would be no use to call her back. His partner’s cell phone worked only one way-at her convenience.

Riker was not inclined to trust the moles with the lives of any more people. He ordered Charles Butler to change lanes and drop back to the end of a parade that stretched out for more than a mile. And now he watched for exit signs and more defections to Route 66, but all the parents seemed content to drive I-40 to their next interview with the reporters.

The radio was tuned to a news station, and the broadcaster was giving a traffic report on the caravan,
“-so travelers should avoid that stretch of the interstate. Our helicopter counts two hundred and seventy-five cars going slower than the legal limit.”

Understatement.

The speedometer on the Mercedes was showing forty-five miles an hour and falling. The highway was hemorrhaging with the caravan, yet the traffic report had not deterred the local residents. All along the road were groups of people lining the prairie with cars and trucks, picnic baskets and babies in arms, young and old, waving at the cars driving by. Some held up signs of good luck and God love you lettered in bold print that Riker could read without glasses; there was nothing wrong with his long-distance vision, and so he was also able to see the first paper airplane take flight. It was caught by a tall man standing with his family. As the Mercedes rolled by, the airplane was unfolded in the Texan’s hands. It was a poster of a missing child.

The news helicopter relayed this sight to the radio broadcaster as more paper planes took flight. Flocks of them sailed out from the windows of the caravan vehicles. The reporter was calling it a swarm-so many of them. Some soared upward, and others were captured by high-reaching hands and the lower reach of chasing children. Little ships with big hopes.

Mallory’s store
of coveted cell-phone numbers included one for Harry Mars, and her call went through to voice mail. She planned to trade on a cop’s good name-not her name, and so she left the message, “It’s Markowitz’s daughter.”

She felt a pang, and supposed that it was guilt or something like it, and this was not the first time since leaving New York City. Now and again, she felt that she was cheating on the man who had raised her from the age of ten. It was the music that called him to mind, again and again, all along this road.

Music was all her two fathers had in common. Louis Markowitz had never been young-except late in the evening after supper, when the volume on the stereo was cranked up high, and the old man had taught her to dance to rock ’n’ roll. His wife, gentle Helen, had called him a dancing fool and took her own turns with him on a floor with a pulled-back rug. Some of Mallory’s favorite memories were the dancing nights.

Lou Markowitz had lived to dance.

Peyton Hale had lived to drive. Cassandra had told her that defining detail about her real father, but not much else. Or had she? Mallory had been six going on seven the day her mother died. How many memories had been lost? She had always known her father’s name and where her green eyes had come from, though her mother had not kept any photographs, probably wanting no reminder of parting with him and the loss of him.

Before the visit from Savannah Sirus, she had known nothing of her mother’s pain. It must have been reborn every morning when young Kathy jumped up and down on her mother’s bed, waking Cassandra with Peyton’s green eyes.

Another pang.

Her cell phone beeped.

The restaurant’s parking lot
would not hold all the vehicles. Reporters and FBI agents had arrived first to take up most of the spaces. Riker left the Mercedes to play traffic cop, and Charles Butler watched his friend unwind the mess of backed-up traffic on the road, steering cars onto adjoining land, shouting instructions to form neat rows, yelling, “Fake it! Just pretend you’re at the shopping mall!”

In search of his own parking space, Charles was looking out over the herd of media in the parking lot when the cacophony of beeping began. The reporters were all answering cell phones.

Oh,
stampede.

They were running for their vehicles. He saw the small fleet of news helicopters stirring up dust down the road, rotors whirring, lifting. FBI agents swarmed out of the restaurant, all heading for their vehicles. The sick sound of one fender hitting another could be heard as cars and vans crowded the narrow road leading back to the highway.

Charles now had his choice of prime parking spaces and selected one by the front door. A pleasant surprise awaited him inside-no long line to order food. While he filled a tray for two, Riker had procured a table by the window, and the parents were still filing in the front door-only the parents. Outside in the nearly empty lot, Dr. Magritte was flanked by the FBI moles, the only agents left behind.

Odd.

Well, what could happen here? It was broad daylight. The caravan was perfectly safe. Yet a sense of abandonment pervaded the dining room. All eyes were on the parking lot, though the exodus of FBI and media was over.

Riker held a cell phone to one ear as his fingers drummed the tabletop, the sure sign of a man left on hold. “Still here,” he said to the phone, “you bastard.”

Ah, the man must be speaking with Kronewald.

Riker jotted down a few lines on a napkin and ended the call.

Charles was looking out the window when he asked, “Where do you suppose they went-the agents and reporters?”

“They’re heading down the road about ten miles.” The detective dropped the cell phone into his shirt pocket.

Charles set down the tray of fast food, and then turned back to the window. “But I couldn’t help noticing that they went off in different directions.”

“Yeah.” Riker waved one hand toward the east. “According to Kronewald, in that direction, you’ve got local cops digging up a dirt parking lot. To the west-a grave across the street from a nursing home. Most of the feds will be back soon. The media won’t. Digging up little bones makes a better lead on the evening news. Two gravesites, no waiting. So much more entertaining than parents holding up their posters and begging for help.”

“This is Mallory’s work?”

“No, this time it’s Chicago PD. They got a new toy, geographic profiling. They’re giving grave locations to local police. Now the feds are playing catch-up with the cops. Police in eight states report directly to Kronewald. That old bastard’s just rolling in glory. So he finally won the war-he’s running the show. Oh, and he tells me the sun rises and sets on Kathy Mallory. That kid really knows how to stock up the Favor Bank.”

Both men were looking at the nearly empty parking lot when one of the FBI vehicles returned. Cadwaller stepped out of the car and pulled his suit jacket from a hanger in the rear seat. He approached the window near Charles and Riker’s t able and used the glass reflection to smooth down his red hair, not caring that this toilette was being performed only inches from their faces.

“A coat hanger,” said Riker, whose own suit jacket was wadded up in his duffel bag. “Not a hook but a hanger.” For some reason, this made the detective suspicious. “And check out his car. See the little beads of water on the trunk? Crimes scenes east and west of here, and this guy stops off to get his car washed.”

Charles nodded. Perhaps that was excessively tidy. Even
Mallory
had allowed her car to accumulate streaks and dirt, not to mention the bugs on her windshield.

Cadwaller turned around to look over the surrounding ten cars, all that remained in a lot that boasted a hundred parking spaces. The agent watched Mallory’s car roll into a parking space, and then, with a moue of distaste for her dirty windshield, he turned back to his own vehicle to get a briefcase from the front seat.

“Ah,” said Riker, with great satisfaction. His eyes were fixed on the silver convertible. “The champ of neat freaks has arrived.”

Mallory slowly stepped out of the car, her attention already riveted on the FBI agent.

“And now,” said Riker, with the flair of a sports announcer, “she’s spotted the contender. It’s a match made in hell. She just noticed that his car’s cleaner than hers.”

Cadwaller straightened his perfectly straight tie and headed for the restaurant door, unaware that Mallory was right behind him, her eyes narrowed and fixed on the back of his neck.

Riker smiled at Charles. “She’s very competitive.”

The FBI man had spotted them and walked up to the table, saying, “I’m looking for Darwinia Sohlo.”

“You don’t need to talk to her,” said Mallory at his back.

The agent jumped and spun around. Riker grinned.

“I’ve got orders to interview this woman,” said Cadwaller.

“Because she’s traveling under an alias?” Mallory folded her arms. “She’s got nothing to do with this case. If you’d bothered with a background check you’d know that.”

Charles scanned the crowd of parents and found Darwinia Sohlo in her customary corner chair. Her eyes were a bit fearful, but she always looked that way. Two parents with trays sat down at her table, and the woman’s shoulders rounded as she tried to make herself smaller.

Cadwaller ignored Mallory and turned to Riker, saying, “I’m not planning to shoot Mrs. Sohlo. I just want to talk to her. My orders-”

“Orders from Dale?” Riker shook his head. “You’ve been had, pal. It’s busywork.”

In Charles’s estimation, this was no surprise to Cadwaller. The agent scanned the crowd and walked off in Dr. Magritte’s direction. After a few words were exchanged, the older man pointed him toward the corner table. Now Cadwaller squared off his shoulders and advanced on Darwinia Sohlo with slow, measured steps, clearly regarding her as a criminal.

Mallory turned to her partner. “He’s playing a role.”

Riker nodded. “Christ, you’d think Darwinia was packing a machine gun.”

Cadwaller’s words carried a tone of authority, not shouted, but strong. It was the voice of an enforcer. “Miriam Rainard? Come with me.” He gestured toward the door.

Charles turned to Riker, who answered his unspoken question. “That’s her right name, but I like the fake name better.”

The woman, known to all as Darwinia, slowly moved her head from side to side, a gesture of awe and certainly not one of defiance. The man never touched her. No need. Charles could virtually see the strings that had been attached to this woman’s psyche long ago. She must have been some other enforcer’s property for years and years. She was rising from the table, not even pausing to consider his order. It was an automatic response. Oh, but now the strings had gone slack. Her head moved in another slow side-to-side as she backed up to the wall, and this time she meant no; she was not going anywhere with him.

Charles turned to Mallory. “You know what’s going on, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Darwinia’s cut-rate plastic surgery-that’s a repair job.”

Of course. The history of a battered woman fitted so well with the camera shyness-a runaway woman hiding from an abusive spouse. “So, all this time,” said Charles, “she’s been living with the constant fear of discovery?”

“And now,” said Riker, “Darwinia can’t decide what she wants most- to stay alive or find her kid.”

“If she’s not a suspect, then maybe you two could persuade Cadwaller to leave her alone?”

Well, that was a waste of breath.

Mallory pulled out a chair at the table and sat down with Riker to watch the ongoing show. Charles turned in time to see Darwinia’s resolve fade and die. The woman was turning toward the door, walking in tandem with the FBI man. Oh, but now she saw Mallory, the boxer’s champion, and Darwinia’s e yes were begging. It was Riker who rose to the lady’s defense. He moved in front of the pair before they could reach the door. Apparently, this detective’s intervention was not in Cadwaller’s script for the day. The agent stopped short, all authority dissipating-so like an actor with no clue to his next line.

“Cadwaller, she can’t help you.” Riker waved him toward the window table. “But we can, me and my partner. Sit down, and we’ll fill you in.” Turning to Darwinia, he said, “Everything’s fine. Go finish your meal.”

The FBI man joined Charles and the detectives at their table. He sat down and opened a notebook, unaware that he was now the subject of an interrogation. Charles could see it coming as the two detectives smiled in unison and leaned toward the agent.

Lunchtime.

“I get the feeling,” said Riker, “that you don’t know your boss all that well. How long have you been posted with Dale’s field office?”

“Three months.”

Mallory leaned in. “But you don’t spend much time with him. He keeps you on the road a lot, doesn’t he? Away from the younger agents? They’re all out at the crime scenes, and here you are-running a fake errand.”