What Comes Next (22 page)

The trouble was, it did. They just didn’t know it.

She watched as her son plopped down in a chair, ignored the television, and picked up a picture book. She wondered,
Did I get away in time?
What kept her awake at night was the thought that somehow her ex-husband had left an infection within the child, and that it was biding its time, waiting for the right moment to burst forth violently. Every day she waited for the phone call from the school, the
We think there’s a problem
call. And, every night, when it had not come, she felt relief and then renewed fear that the next day would be the day it arrived.

She had managed to flee, packing and running when she knew he was wrapped up for a few hours. She had been cautious, giving no signs of flight in the weeks leading up to her escape, performing every boring, routine chore she could, so that when she fled it would be unexpected. She left behind most everything except some pocket money and the children. He could have everything else. She didn’t care.

She had a single mantra, which she had repeated endlessly to herself:
Start over. Start over.

In the time that followed, she had obtained the restraining order keeping him away and the divorce settlement that limited his access to the children and had filed all the necessary papers with his commanding officer down in North Carolina at the base where the First Airborne was housed. She had endured more than one session with military counselors, who subtly and not so subtly tried to talk her into returning to her husband. She had refused, no matter how many times they called him “an American hero.”

We have altogether too many heroes,
she thought.

But there was never a full and complete escape, at least not one that didn’t involve hiding, false identities, and moving from place to place, trying to be anonymous in a world that seems devoted to publicizing something about everybody. He would never be fully out of their lives. It was, in part, why she had gone back to school and worked so hard to become a policewoman. The semiautomatic in her satchel and the badge she wore carried an implicit message that she hoped served as a barrier between him and whatever poison he wanted to deliver.

She hugged both children and at the same time offered up a small prayer: another safe day. She wanted to light a candle in a church and ask for her ex to become an alcoholic, a drug addict, or to be redeployed into Iraq or Afghanistan, someplace where there were bullets and bombs and indiscriminate death.

This was cruel, heartless thinking, not in any way charitable. She didn’t care.

Terri settled the kids into kid tasks—drawing, reading, watching the tube—and then walked into the kitchen. Laurie, who had been totally reliable since the first moment that Terri had received the call about the missing Jennifer, was putting together a plate of food.

“I figured you weren’t exactly telling the truth,” she said.

Terri looked down at the warmed-up meat loaf and cold salad. She took the plate, gathered a fork and knife, and still standing leaned back against the cabinets and started to eat.

“You should be the detective,” she said between mouthfuls.

Laurie nodded. This was a significant compliment to anyone who spent as much time with Raymond Chandler, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and James Ellroy as she did.

In the other room, the two children occupied themselves quietly, which was something of a victory. Terri started to pour herself a glass of milk, then thought better and found a half-empty bottle of white wine. She took two glasses from a shelf. “Stay for a little bit?”

Laurie nodded. “Sure. White wine and putting kids to bed. I can’t think of a better evening as long as I get back to the tube before
CSI
comes on.”

“Those shows—you know they’re not real.”

“Yeah. But they’re like little morality plays. In medieval times all the peasants gathered in front of the steps of whatever church and watched actors perform Bible stories in order to teach lessons like
Thou shalt not kill.
Today, we flick on the tube to watch Horatio What’s His Name in Miami or Gus in Las Vegas inform us of more or less the same thing in a more modern fashion.”

They both laughed. “Ten minutes!” Terri called out to the kids in the other room, an announcement met with predictable groans.

Terri knew that Laurie was eager to ask about the case but was too polite to broach the subject without an opening.

She took a bite of meat loaf. “A runaway,” she said in answer to the question not spoken. “But we can’t be sure. Maybe a kidnapping. Or maybe someone helped her run away. It’s just not clear yet.”

“What do you think?” Laurie asked.

Terri hesitated. “Most children that disappear are taken for a reason. And usually they show up again. At least that’s what the stats tell us.”

“But…”

Terri looked into the other room to make sure that her children remained out of earshot. “I’m not an optimist,” she said quietly. She forked some of the salad and took a long swig of wine. “I’m a realist. Hope for the best. Expect the worst.”

Laurie nodded. “Happy endings…”

“You want a happy ending, watch television,” Terri said briskly. She sounded much harsher than she thought she should, but her conversation with the professor had left her seeing only gray and dark possibilities. “More likely to find one there.”

It was, she thought, an unusual way of investigating crime.

It had turned late, Laurie had departed with her usual plea to call any time, day or night… the kids were asleep and Terri was on her third glass of white wine, surrounded by books and articles, a laptop computer near her elbow. She was in the strange realm between exhaustion and fascination.

“
You see, detective, the crime that happened, right in front of me—it was only a beginning. Scene one. Act one. Enter the antagonists. And what little we know about it probably leads nowhere. Especially if the criminals are experienced in what they did.”

She could hear the old professor’s voice echoing in the sanctuary of her small, trim, toy-cluttered house.
Experienced.
She had not told him about the stolen truck and the torch job that in all likelihood eradicated any evidence inadvertently left behind. Someone who
knew
what he was doing would take those precautions.

“We have to consider the crime that is taking place, even as we talk.”

The professor, she thought, was wild with suppositions, crazed with ideas. But lurking within were notions that made sense to her. She had listened to him carefully, trying to see a path through two mysteries. The first was the obvious one:
What was wrong with him?
The second was far more complicated:
How do you find a Jennifer that has been snatched out of the world?

She had decided that she would simply bear with the professor. He was smart, perceptive, and extremely well educated. That he rapidly faded in and out of attention, seemed to drift into other lands, and responded to questions and statements that hadn’t been voiced, well, as far as Terri was concerned this was all fairly benign. Somewhere in all his ramblings might be a path that she could follow.

On her lap, spread out, was the
Encyclopedia of Modern Murder.
She had read through the segment on the Moors Murders twice and then done a thorough Internet examination of the crime. It never ceased to amaze her what one could find lurking in odd corners of the cyber world. She came across autopsy photographs, crime scene maps, and original police documents, all posted on various websites devoted to serial killing and sexual depravity. She was tempted to order one of the several books about Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, but she didn’t want this sort of material taking up bookshelf space next to
The Cat in the Hat
and
The Wind in the Willows
and
Winnie the Pooh.

She was careful to clear her computer’s memory of each of the murder-driven websites she examined. No sense in leaving behind something that her oldest just might know how to click on and open up.
Children are natural voyeurs,
she thought,
but all curiosity should have its limits.

Even after she had moused and clicked everything away into computer purgatory, what she had read lingered within her.

The professor’s point, she understood, was that what tripped up the homicidal couple was the need to share their excesses.

“
That’s the key,
” Adrian had said. “
They needed to reach beyond the two of them. If they had simply shared their love of torture with each other, well, then they would have been able to go on more or less indefinitely.
”

Terri had written down a few notes as the professor had lectured her.
Short of making a mistake in planning, being spotted by some random person, they could have continued for years.

She knew very little about this sort of crime, despite having spent some classroom time on celebrated murders and serial killings. A few years engaged in the routine of college town crime, with its very limited spectrum, had removed most of her recollections.

“If I take two identical white rats and place them in the same psychological situation, it’s possible to assess their different responses to identical stimuli. But there will still be a baseline of similarity that we can measure from.”

He had been energized. She had imagined that, as he spoke, he could see himself surrounded by students, jammed into a darkened laboratory, watching the behavior of animals, carefully assessing behaviors.

“
It is when the similar rats in the identical situation start to deviate from those norms that things become interesting.
”

But Jennifer’s disappearance wasn’t a lab experiment.

At least, she thought, leaning back in her chair,
I don’t think it is.

She was in a difficult position. She reminded herself to be cautious. She loved her job but she understood that each case was career defining. Screw up a campus rape and she’d be back driving a patrol car. Mess up a drug investigation or a burglary and in a small department such as hers the black mark on her record would be magnified. Instead of waving her gold shield at petty crooks and students who had drunk their way into a felony she’d be answering telephones.

A part of her burst into anger at Jennifer.
Goddammit! Why couldn’t you just smoke pot and stay out late like every other disaffected teenager. Why not drink and have unprotected and far too early sex and get through your teenage years that way? Why did you have to run away?

She was exhausted. She would already have dozed off if not for the combined images of two dead murderers from half a century earlier and Jennifer. She wanted to promise
I’ll find you
but she knew that was still unlikely.

The chief of her department sat behind his desk. There was a picture on the wall behind him of the chief in a baseball uniform surrounded by children. A Little League championship season. Not far away were a cheap but glistening trophy and a framed plaque that declared him
The Best Coach Ever
that was signed by many barely formed signatures. The rest of the wall was devoted to diplomas from many training courses: an FBI professional development program, Fitchburg State College, and a graduate degree from John Jay College in New York—she knew this last was fairly prestigious. The chief liked to wear a uniform to work, but this day he was in a suit that seemed far too tight for his expansive stomach or for his weight lifter’s arms. It gave her the impression that he was about to burst out in a number of directions, like a carton character filling up with balloon air.

He was nursing coffee and drumming a pencil against the modest report that she’d filed.

“Terri,” he said slowly, “more questions here than answers.”

“Yes sir.”

“Are you suggesting we call in the state guys or the feds?”

Terri had anticipated this question. “I think we should inform them of the situation, as best as we can tell. But without any firm evidence they’re just going to be as frustrated as I am.”

He wore glasses. He had the habit of putting them on and then taking them off—removing them when he spoke, replacing them when he read—so that he was constantly in motion.

“So what you’re saying…”

“A teenager with an established history of running away runs away for a third time. An unreliable witness says he saw her snatched from a street. Further investigation uncovers that a stolen vehicle similar to that he spotted may have been torched in the hours after the disappearance.”

“Yes, and?”

“Yes, and that’s it. No ransom request. No contact from the missing girl or anyone else. In other words, if there was a crime it stops right there.”

“Jesus. What do you think?”

“I think…” Terri hesitated. She was prepared to rush into her answer when she abruptly realized that what she would say next was dangerous. She wanted to make certain that she protected her position cautiously.

“I think we should proceed carefully.”

“How?”

“Well, the witness—Professor Thomas, he’s emeritus from the U; I put his bona fides in the report—thinks we should examine possible abduction for sexual abuse cases. Go through all potential sex offenders. Try to find some avenue to pursue there. At the same time, we should increase the Missing Persons requests. If you want to inform your liaison with the Springfield FBI office, that might make sense. See if they want to get involved—”

“I doubt it,” the chief said. “Not without something more concrete to go on.”

Terri didn’t continue. She knew the chief would.

“Okay, keep working the case. Keep it on the top of your platter. You know most of these runaways eventually show up. Let’s hope that maybe the people the professor spotted were some friends that the mother doesn’t know about. Let’s just keep collecting information while we’re waiting for an
I’m broke and I wanna come home
phone call.”