Forgotten (16 page)

“I thought you weren’t going to involve the parents until you knew for certain it was their son.”

“News travels fast in the Amish community. The Millers were at the farm before the coroner had time to bag the remains. They looked at the leg and said they knew it was their son and they wanted to take him immediately to bury him.”

“And the coroner let them?”

“He completed his exam right there in the field, and yes, out of respect for them, he permitted them to take the remains.”

“Cause of death?”

“He said he can’t tell for sure, though he suspects strangulation. The hyoid bone was in pieces, but since it hadn’t fused yet, he couldn’t say that it had been broken. Other than that, there was no sign of trauma. No cracks to the skull, no slash marks on the ribs or sternum that would indicate he’d been stabbed. So it’s a tough call.”

“Thanks. I appreciate you letting me know.” She made notes, then doodled around them with squiggly lines. “What about the other boy?”

“That’s gonna take some time. There’s a lot more to look at there. There were bruises on the neck—we both saw those—but if there was other trauma, we’ll have to wait to hear about it.” Heller paused.

“I was able to find out one thing, though. According to the coroner’s office, there was no sexual assault involved.”

“No assault?” Portia stopped doodling. “Is he positive?”

“Said he was. Said right now, that was the only thing he knew for certain. Feel free to give him a call if you want any other information, but that’s what he told me.”

“Thanks for the call. I really do appreciate it.”

“No problem. I’ll get back to you when we have a cause of death or an identification.”

Portia hung up the call, puzzled. Every known victim of Sheldon Woods had been sexually assaulted, a fact he’d freely admitted. The assaults had been his primary motive when he abducted his victims, the killing had been his means of disposing of the boys when he’d tired of them. For Woods, the assault was the motive.

So if this new killer was a copycat—someone following in Woods’s footsteps—why no sexual assault? And if assault was not the motive, what was?

SEVENTEEN

N
eal Harper lived in a first-floor apartment in a two-story building, not near Annapolis, as Jim Cannon’s research had indicated, but in Stokes, a small town thirty miles from Portia’s office. Portia obtained this information from a woman who identified herself as Harper’s ex-wife when Portia called the number that Danielle Bennett had faxed to her.

Agent Cahill,
the fax cover sheet had read,
Mr. Cannon asked that I fax this to you. D. Bennett.

Well, that’s certainly
short and sweet and to the point,
had been Portia’s reaction. The formality of the fax both annoyed and amused her. She couldn’t help but wonder how Danielle would have reacted if she’d taken Jim up on his offer to stay the night at their home the previous evening.
His sister is his problem,
she told herself as she dialed the number for Harper.
No need to make her mine.

Candace Harper had had little to say about her ex, but what she had said was intriguing.

“You’re welcome to him, if you like them creepy,” she’d told Portia before she’d identified herself as a federal agent.

“I’m with the FBI, Mrs. Harper.”

“Oh, what’s he done? Never mind, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. And it’s Miss Wilson. I’ve gone back to my maiden name. Hold on and I’ll get his new number and address for you.”

“When did he move, Miss Wilson?” Portia asked after the woman had given her the information.

“Last month. Good riddance.”

“May I ask why you referred to your ex-husband as creepy?” Portia asked before realizing the line had gone dead.

Road work added an extra fifteen minutes to what should have been no more than a forty-five-minute drive. Portia parked across the street from Harper’s building and took note of the neighborhood. Old shade trees on both sides of the street did what they could to screen out the blazing summer sun from the yards of the row of small houses, all attached twins. Except for a few small children toddling behind their mothers, there was no sign of life. Portia double-checked the house number, then walked over and rang the bell for the first-floor apartment.

Before she could ring it a second time, a man in a sleeveless T-shirt and baggy blue shorts opened the door. He was shorter than she, and his pale gray eyes looked up to meet hers.

“Second floor,” he told her.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Donte lives upstairs. You hit the wrong bell.” He started to shut the door and she stuck her foot out to keep it from closing.

“I’m looking for Neal Harper.”

“Why?” He raised one eyebrow.

“Are you Neal Harper?”

“Yeah.”

She held up her badge. “Special Agent Portia Cahill, FBI. I’d like a few minutes of your time.”

“What about?”

“May I come in?”

He hesitated, his uncertainty evident on his face. But a car pulled into the drive next door, and several men in their early twenties got out. Their eyes went from Portia to Harper and back again, and one of them whistled. Harper’s demeanor changed noticeably. He opened the door wide and stepped back to admit her.

“Sure. Why not?” He glanced over her shoulder, making sure the guys in the driveway saw her enter, his expression smug as he closed the door.

“So what can I do for you, Agent Cahill?” He grabbed a pile of papers from a chair and gestured for her to sit while he looked for a spot to place the stack before giving up and dumping it on the floor.

“Talk to me about your fascination with Sheldon Woods,” she said as she sat.

“My what?” His face flushed. “Who?”

“Neal…may I call you Neal? Please don’t play games with me.” She opened her bag and withdrew several sheets of paper, and began reading off dates and times he’d signed in to the prison as Woods’s visitor. She stopped after the first half-dozen dates. “Do I need to go on?” She waved the papers at him. “There’s a record of every time you visited Woods at Arrowhead Prison.”

“Okay, so I visited him a couple of times.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“More than a couple,” he admitted. “So what?”

“So what did you talk about?”

“Why is it any of your business?”

She pulled an envelope from her bag and handed it to him.

“Open it,” she told him, and he did as he was instructed, a curious look on his face.

“Those are pictures of a young boy whose body was found yesterday on a farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He’d been dead about eight hours before we found him. Which means he was probably abducted and murdered earlier in the morning.”

His face froze in obvious horror, and he averted his eyes from her and the pictures.

“So where were you yesterday morning, Neal?” Portia asked, her hand held out to take back the packet of photos he so clearly wanted to get rid of.

“I was here. Home.”

“Can anyone verify that?”

“I was here by myself. Why are you asking me…” His eyes suddenly went wide. “You’re thinking I…you think that I…” He began to shake his head. “Uh-uh. No. Why would you think that I…no way could I…”

“Sit down, Neal.” She pointed to the sofa and he sat as if hypnotized. “That boy was found buried in a grave where Sheldon Woods told me I’d find a victim of his from nineteen ninety-seven. I did find that boy, but only after we found this one.”

She placed the photos on the table between them and tapped her index finger on the image of the boy they’d found buried with Joseph Miller.

“So the question comes up: How would anyone know to bury a fresh kill in an old grave? An old grave where Sheldon Woods had buried one of his more than a decade ago. Got any thoughts on that, Neal?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head stiffly, as if still in shock.

“Well, then, here’s mine. The only way anyone could know that one of Woods’s victims was buried in that exact spot would be if Woods told him. I mean, that’s too much of a coincidence for anyone to buy. You with me so far, Neal?”

He nodded, less stiffly now, as if understanding where this was leading.

“So we have to look at who Woods talks to, who his visitors are. Did you know that over the past year, no one has put in as many visitors hours with Sheldon Woods than you have?”

“I don’t know anything about that boy. I wouldn’t—”

“What exactly do you and Woods talk about, Neal?”

“What difference does it make?”

“You’re kidding, right? Give me a break, Neal. I know you’re not stupid. You’re a journalist, right?”

“Yes.”

“So I have to assume you’re smart enough to put this together.”

“Look.” He appeared to relax slightly. “Like I said, I don’t know anything about that boy, I swear I don’t.”

“Tell me what you and Woods talked about during all those visits.”

“Okay,” he sighed deeply, resigned to having a conversation he’d rather avoid. “I’m writing a book about Woods. I read everything I could get my hands on and I realized that none of it answered the big question.”

“Which is?”

“Why he did it. Why he killed those kids.”

“I can answer that, Neal. He did it because he liked it. He did it because that’s what gets him off.

All the time you spent talking to him, you didn’t figure that out?”

Portia sensed a change in his attitude before he opened his mouth.

“I said I wanted to ask the question. I didn’t say I didn’t get an answer.”

“So you do understand what drove him.”

“He didn’t make a secret of it.” Neal shrugged. “He liked talking about it, actually.”

“And how ’bout you, did you like listening to all Sheldon’s stories?” She leaned in his direction, catching his gaze and holding it, refusing to allow him to look away. “Did it turn you on, make you wonder what it would be like to—”

“No!” he growled. “No. I didn’t like it. It made me sick.
He
made me sick.”

“Then why go back so many times?”

“Because I wanted to write the book.”

“Ah, Neal? At last count, there were forty-something books about Sheldon Woods.” She lowered her voice to a whisper as if sharing a confidence. “It’s been done, pal. The story’s been told.”

“Not the whole story. No one’s written that.” He shook his head. His demeanor had changed; his attitude was cocky. “Those other books? All pieced together from other sources. No one knows the whole true story, no one’s gotten it directly from Woods himself.”

“But you have.”

“Yes. I have the story—the whole story—in Woods’s own words, Agent Whatever-your-name-is.”

“So did he tell you about how he was molested as a boy? Did he tell you who his molester was?”

He stared at her blankly. “He never said anything about that.”

“How about his family? Did he talk to you about them?”

He shook his head. “He never wanted to talk about them, no.”

“Did he tell you how many children he raped and murdered? Did he tell you where he left all the bodies?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Have you committed a crime?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not under arrest.”

“You want to know what he told me?” All arrogance now, Neal Harper stood. “You can buy the book.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I told you not to play with me, Neal.”

“Anything else, Agent…” He made circles with his right hand as if to fill in the blank of her name, pointedly dismissing her as unimportant. “Next time you can talk to my lawyer, because I think we’re done.”

He walked to the door and opened it. She picked up her bag and walked outside.

“Have a nice day,” he said as he closed the door in her face.

“I’ll show you a nice day, you simpleminded fool,” she muttered as she walked back to her car, her cell phone in her hand.

She speed-dialed a number as she unlocked the car door and got in. When the call wasn’t answered, she waited for voice mail to pick up.

“Will, it’s Portia. Sorry to be such a pain in the ass, but as your future sister-in-law, I do feel entitled to take certain liberties. While you’re running down Rhona Lewis and Clark or whatever her name is, could you please run Neal Harper as well? I want everything—I mean, everything—you can come up with on this guy. Thanks, Will. You’re a peach. If my sister wasn’t going to marry you, I’d consider marrying you myself.”

She dropped the phone on the front seat and smiled. Neal Harper had no idea of how far from “done” they were.

“J
ohn, are you sure you’re all right?”

Genna Snow, John’s wife, stood in the doorway of their family room where John was sitting in semidarkness, the television on but the sound muted. His eyes were fixed not on the screen, where a leopard chased an antelope across a grassy plain, but at a spot on the opposite wall.

“You’ve been looking at that painting for the past twenty minutes. It isn’t likely to change.” She sat next to him on the sofa and draped her arm around his shoulders. “What is it?”

Her fingers caressed the back of his neck. “I know it’s something to do with Woods, because no one else puts you in this kind of a funk, so let’s talk it out and be done with it.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be done with it, Gen. Sometimes I feel that I’ll be carrying him with me for the rest of my life.”

“So talk and maybe we can exorcise him, if only for a little while. What specifically is bothering you?”

“Portia Cahill is back, did you know?”

“You told me.”

“Did I tell you that she’s handling the Woods case?”

“Bring me up to date on that.”

He did.

“So Sheldon’s telling someone where he buried his victims.” Genna shook her head in disgust. “He’s such a little prick. Nothing he does surprises me.”

“Portia wants to obtain DNA from the parents of all the boys who went missing back then and were never found or never turned up alive. She wants to try to find matches for the DNA we have on file from the house where Woods took his victims.”

“And…?”

“And I told her no, not now. I’m thinking, all those families have been grieving for all these years, you come in and ask for their DNA, their hopes rise again. They’re going to be on pins and needles waiting to hear that their child or brother has been found. I’m thinking it gets a lot of people riled up all over again. Gets everyone’s hopes up, most of them unnecessarily.”

“Understandable.” Genna nodded. “I take it Portia disagreed?”

“Yeah. And her reasons were good ones. Her thinking is that it’s a good way to determine which of those missing boys were victims of Sheldon Woods, that if she has the names, maybe she’ll be in a better position to bargain with him to find out where they are.”

“Okay. So we have good reasons pro, good reasons con. You’re still the boss. That makes you the tiebreaker. So what’s the problem?”

He placed his hand on her rounded belly, where their first child was growing.

“I don’t know if I’m trying to protect those parents because I honestly believe that it would be wrong for them to get their hopes up after all this time, or because I’m putting myself in their place. Would it be worse to know that maybe my son was a victim of a homicidal pedophile, or would it be easier for me to not have this possibility thrown in my face ten or eleven years after I lost him? Is it easier not to know these things? Am I projecting how I would feel as a father onto this situation, assuming everyone else would feel the way I feel, whether that’s right for this case or not? Is that fair?”

Genna’s hand slid over John’s. “You’re the most fair man I know. I don’t think there’s anything wrong in taking the feelings of the parents and siblings of these missing kids into consideration. Right now, would anyone benefit from knowing that Portia
might
be able to determine the names of some of Woods’s other victims? I honestly don’t know the answer to that.” She thought it over for a moment. “I think that losing a child would be the worst thing that could happen. To know for certain that my child had been the victim of a monster like Woods…” She shivered. “Unbearable. I don’t know that I could ever put that kind of pain out of my heart. But to be told there was a possibility, but to not know for certain, I agree, would dredge up all kinds of agony, so I can’t say that I think you’re wrong. I understand where Portia is coming from—she’s working a case—but sometimes you do have to put that human factor first.”