Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (27 page)

“I know you,” the technician said. She glanced up at me. A strand of hair fell on
her forehead. She blew it back. “We studied a case you worked on in school. The Marshland
Murders. Master class in nailing an offender with trace.”

It had been my first case with BAU-2. I’d produced a profile that differed from the
working profile at the Bureau. I didn’t believe the offender was someone who cruised
I-95 in Florida waiting for an opportunity.
I was convinced he made his own opportunities and that he wasn’t a stranger to his
victims. I took a lot of heat for arguing my theory against more experienced agents
and behavioral analysts. But I had known I was right. I
knew
him. Some cases, it’s like the stars align. Everything makes sense. That’s what happened
for me with the Marshland Murders. In the end, I’d fingered a suspect and shadowed
him on my own time. One blazing Florida afternoon I’d followed him out of the city
and watched him back his truck into what I would later discover was his dump site.
I watched him roll a barrel off his truck. I surprised him that day. He didn’t fight.
He could see my hand trembling on the Glock and the sweat from my hairline. He knew
I’d fire and he was right. The FBI pulled nine bodies from the marsh fifteen yards
away, each of them in a fifty-five-gallon steel drum—a bobbing, shifting, floating
graveyard. The killer was a landscaper and handyman, the kind of guy who’d volunteer
to clean a neighbor’s gutters, an all-around great guy, a husband, father, friend,
who had been slitting the throats of boys and women and stuffing them in metal barrels
and dumping them in the glades for years. Scientists were able to connect him to all
the murders with tiny particles from the cypress mulch he used in his business. It
was on his clothing and shoes and in his vehicle and on the victims and inside the
barrels. And the steel drums he was using left more trace evidence: Tiny, nearly invisible
flecks of paint had chipped off the drums when he’d loaded them or when a drum tipped
over and rolled on his truck bed. They sealed the killer’s fate in the trial phase
as tightly as if they’d closed the lid of one of his steel drums. Good old-fashioned
police work, as Rauser would say, is usually what leads you to your suspect. It was
the case that sent my career and my reputation soaring.

“I remember it,” I told the tech.

“I’d shake your hand if I could,” she said. “I’m Sam.”

“Nice to meet you, Sam. Listen, that phone case you tagged into evidence—I noticed
a smudge of some kind on it.” I handed her my phone and she studied the picture I’d
snapped of the case and the shiny smudge. “It’s some kind of oily substance. Really
interested in what it is.”

“Sure thing,” she said. She had the kind of southern accent that made
thing
sound like
thang
.

“I want to have Melinda Cochran’s phone pulled from evidence and rechecked as well,”
I told her.

Sam nodded. “Will do.”

The sheriff joined us. Sam stood up holding an evidence bag full of glass in one gloved
hand and tweezers with a tiny piece of black glass in the other. She slipped the tiny
piece of glass into a separate small bag and laid it on top of something that looked
like a toolbox, hit it with bright light. We leaned in to have a look. “I think we
have a serial number.” She read off the number. The sheriff jotted it down, then walked
over to where his detective was still walking the area with his eyes locked on the
road. I saw Raymond get on his phone immediately, and I knew he was contacting the
manufacturer—the advantages of a 24/7 world.

Sam returned to the place in the road where she’d been collecting evidence. Luke whined
at my left leg. “We’ve got blood evidence,” Sam announced a moment later. I followed
her light to a single spot in the dirt, smaller than a dime, rusty brown under the
artificial light. She took pictures of the stain with a bright flash.

“What can you tell about the stain?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “I’m not a spatter analyst but it’s a drip stain. Edge characteristics
and directionality says it came straight down. Careful where you walk, Dr. Street.
Maybe we got the offender here too. Whatever happened, it didn’t involve a lot of
blood. I’d say he probably hit her here, though.”

Luke whined again, stuck his nose to the ground. He could smell the blood on the road.
He’d gone around in circles at something I couldn’t see. His owner’s blood. Skylar’s
scent. I decided to walk him home. He’d had enough, and I needed to clear out while
the scene was being processed.

I kept thinking about that school picture, the smiling, brown-eyed girl in a sweater
vest. I didn’t want her to be on a hard floor in some dark basement. I didn’t want
to think about those bright eyes growing dark and hollow. But the similarities with
the other cases were
too great to ignore—the MO, the missing battery, the crushed phone, the time of day,
the age, race, gender, hair color.

I started down the road. I felt Luke’s tail hitting my leg, heard him panting, felt
his pace quickening. He was excited to be going home.

Fast footfalls on the pebbly road caused both Luke and me to turn. Luke growled. “It’s
okay, boy,” Meltzer crooned. He held out a hand for Luke to sniff. “It’s just me.
Thought I’d walk you. Good idea using the dog, by the way. Gave us a jump on finding
that phone case.”

“He found the blood too. But it wasn’t my idea. Brooks Barbour showed up with Luke.”

“Barbour walked up there?” the sheriff asked.

“Made my antenna go up too,” I said. Luke stayed close to my leg.

“What did he want?”

“Wanted me to know how much he loved his daughter. Said he wanted to help.”

“Interesting.” Meltzer was frowning. “You buy it?”

“He confirmed he can’t stand his wife. I believed that part. Jury’s still out on the
rest.”

Meltzer’s phone rang. He answered and listened, then said, “Okay, thanks. First thing
tomorrow, cross-check all the teachers at Skylar’s school with the school in Silas
that Tracy Davidson attended. Run home addresses too. Let’s see if any of them made
the move from one area to the other. Start with Daniel Tray, the music teacher. Keye’s
going to talk to him tomorrow. I want her to have whatever we can get first.” He disconnected.
“Using your investigative strategy, Dr. Street.” I saw his white teeth in the dark
and heard the grin in his voice.

“Hence the exorbitant consulting fee,” I reminded him.

“That was Rob,” he said. His deep, fireside voice grew serious again. “It confirmed
the serial number is one of three active devices registered to Brooks Barbour’s account.
We’ll check the Barbours’ phones but I think there’s little doubt it was Skylar’s.”

We walked for a couple of minutes. I could hear the rustle of his uniform, his breathing,
feel his hips lightly bump into me as we walked. And I felt all those dueling emotions
too—exhaustion, excitement at new evidence, sadness at what the evidence meant, guilt
at
my attraction to a small-town sheriff, and astonishment that the physical pull of
his body so close to mine was enough to stir me even in the middle of an investigation.
Nothing an addict’s brain enjoys more than a little inner chaos. It’s like jet fuel.
Those pathways had been carved out years ago, and they opened up wide for just about
any emotional roller-coaster ride I wanted to take. But what rose to the top was sorrow.
I felt sick over Skylar, worried, bombarded with images of other victims, dozens of
other children in dozens of other cases. I didn’t even know this child and I couldn’t
bear to think about her suffering. Life isn’t always kind to the most fragile among
us. It’s the hardest injustice to contemplate.

I tapped on the door and Mrs. Barbour opened it. Luke ran inside, positioned himself
immediately at her ankles. She patted him, still looking at us, then at the road behind
us ablaze in light, lamps weaving through the woods behind the scene like skiers on
a downhill course.

“Did you find anything?” I saw again the stunned, shattered look in her eyes I’d seen
when she was huddled in her kitchen.

“No,” we lied in unison. Tomorrow at the judicial center, after their polygraph tests,
they would be brought up to date. But not tonight. Too much was uncertain tonight.
Hayley looked again at the road and the lights, then back at us. She’d registered
our withholding with the built-in lie detector of a mother. Tears and betrayal filled
her eyes again. She might even have understood the significance of our lie—that we’d
found something and the news was not good, and for all those mystical reasons law
enforcement uses in lieu of full disclosure, she wasn’t being told the truth. But
the world is full of suspects. Even glistening-eyed mothers were not free from suspicion.
We had to be careful.

“For our records,” the sheriff asked casually, “do you know Skylar’s blood type?”

“B-positive,” she answered, faintly.

He smiled at her, and his voice stayed calm and smooth and reassuring. “There’s a
message in that, Mrs. Barbour. Stay positive. She could walk in any minute.”

We left her standing at the door with her missing daughter’s dog,
in the home she shared with a husband who couldn’t stand the sight of her.

“It’s going to be a long night in that house,” Meltzer remarked as we walked back
toward the road. “You think they’re for real?”

“Grief-stricken and guilt-stricken look a lot alike. Too soon to tell.”

“Listen, Keye, I wanted to thank you for tonight, for just going with the flow.”

“With your mom, you mean?”

“Yeah. She has a tendency lately to ditch Patricia and barge in.”

I laughed. “I for one am grateful for her timing.”

“I was going to kiss you,” he said, and I felt my heartbeat catch in my throat. “And
you were going to let me.”

Shadowy figures performed their strange rituals behind scene tape under the lights
ahead. We walked toward the scene—a desolate, weeping movie set.

“Can I be really honest, Ken?”

“Please,” he said.

“This chemistry thing—it’s going to be a distraction. And it’s not simple for me.
You know that. I’m just not ready to set off a stick of dynamite in my life right
now.”

“I understand,” he said quietly.

“I need to think about what happened on that road up there,” I told him. “I need to
think about digging this creep out of his filthy hole and bringing Skylar home.”

Our shoes cracked down on dirt and pebbles. Insects screamed from trees, deputies’
voices called for Skylar from the woods beyond and reminded me of the way it sounds
to search a house and hear “clear” after each room is secured. I saw a deputy moving
slowly through the ditch where Luke found the phone case.

“Mom liked you, by the way,” Ken said. “I’m told she may not remember me for much
longer. So I’m just trying to enjoy these moments with her. It gets crazy sometimes.
She thinks Ginger is a dog I had growing up. Half the time she thinks I’m my father.
It makes some people uncomfortable. You seemed okay with it.”

“Well, my business partner is a pot smoker. So I’m used to it.”

Meltzer laughed, that big, rumbly laugh, probably the first laugh on this road today.
He stopped and looked at me. “Christ, how can you make me laugh in the middle of all
this?”

The sheriff of Hitchiti County was a romantic, I realized, the kind of guy who’d fall
for you because you’re nice to his mom and his dog.

Deputies were piling out of the woods and moving into a field on the other side of
the road as we neared the scene. We knew Skylar wasn’t out there. But the search had
to be done. I squinted at the floodlights. I had to raise my voice over the generator.

“Interesting he removes the battery,” I said.

“He wants to disable GPS,” Meltzer said.

“But GPS told us exactly where the phone was disabled,” I argued. “He’d know that.
Plus, he’s leaving the device behind. It’s no threat. He’s wiped it down. So why take
the batteries? If he needs to disassemble the phone why not just toss the battery
in the ditch too?”

Raymond had lumbered up and pulled a cigarette out of his pocket. He didn’t light
it. “He has a thing for batteries?” he suggested sarcastically.

“That’s insightful for you, Detective,” I answered, not taking the bait. “I think
it’s a trophy. A memory. He likes this part.” I swept my hand in the direction of
the road. “The part where he overpowers his victim. He’s all jacked up on chemicals
then. It’s probably the only time in all his interaction with the victim he’s able
to get that rush. He wants to commemorate it.”

Raymond blinked heavy lids at me. “And you think we’re the creepy ones?”

“You find anything else?” the sheriff asked him, before I could reply.

“Found a few more drops of blood,” Raymond reported. “Drag marks too. Although we
fucked them up with our cars. If I had to guess from the marks and the blood, he hits
her there.” He pointed to where Sam was photographing the ground. “Lot of displaced
rock and dirt there, like maybe he was trying to get control of her. There’s some
kind of disabling blow, first blood hits the ground, then he drags her back around
to his vehicle.”

Meltzer nodded his agreement. “Sounds right.”

“Good news is, there’s not much blood,” Raymond added. “He wasn’t trying to kill her.
He just wanted to disable her.”

“And take her to his hole,” I said thickly.

Raymond threw up his hands and walked away.

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