Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (31 page)

Victoria Pope rose from her chair and came around her desk to greet me. She was slim,
African American, with straight shoulder-length hair. “You must be Dr. Street.” She
extended a thin hand. Short mauve-colored nails precisely matched the color of her
blouse. “Please.” She gestured me to the corner of the office where there were two
chairs with a small walnut table between them. It was an interior room in the judicial
center complex. No windows. But bookcases and vases of dried flowers, a couple of
paintings, and walls of deep saffron warmed the office. She took one of the chairs,
crossed long brown legs that looked like they spent some time at the gym. “Ken Meltzer
asked me to speak with you about the participants in our sex offender counseling and
treatment program.”

“Thank you for seeing me so quickly,” I said.

“Normally, only a review committee would be privy to information regarding our sessions.”
Her voice was tentative. Almond-shaped eyes studied my face.

“I understand,” I said. “It’s also my understanding that given your position as an
in-house psychologist with the state, the privacy that normally exists between doctor
and patient is forfeited in a criminal investigation. There’s also a clear-and-present-danger
exception. And I wouldn’t disturb you if I didn’t believe that exception applies here.”

“I am compelled to provide certain information, yes,” she conceded.

“A thirteen-year-old girl was abducted yesterday just a few miles from here. She was
last seen walking home from Whisper Middle School at three o’clock. We believe her
disappearance is connected to the unsolved murders of Tracy Davidson and Melinda Cochran.”

“The bodies that were found in the woods.” She said it without emotion.

“Yes. The suspect is using a lure to attract the victim. Physical evidence tells us
he’s pretending his vehicle has broken down. After he overpowers the girls, he disassembles
their phones and GPS, wipes his fingerprints. That sound like any of your guys?”

She thought for a moment before replying, her eyes on one of the paintings, a landscape
of a river. “The purpose of treatment is to break the chain of behaviors that lead
to sexual reoffending, Dr. Street. With work, it provides skill sets to live productive,
prosocial lives without the offending behaviors. That’s what we’re trying to do here.
We’ve had good results.”

“Uh-huh. So are any of your guys right for this?” I pressed.

“They are not unlike addicts. Most of them are one bad decision away from a relapse
and—”

“Let’s talk about the ones you think are making bad decisions right now,” I interrupted.

“I have the feeling you’re not particularly interested in the work we’re doing here.”
She spoke in that polite, nonreactive tone every counselor I’ve ever known uses.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful.” I matched her polite and raised her some of my
southern mama. “I just don’t have time to care about your program, Dr. Pope, or whatever
it is you’re trying so hard to protect. What interests me is narrowing the suspect
pool as quickly as possible in order to get this child home alive, and with the minimum
physical and psychological damage.”

“I understand but—”

I interrupted again and saw her surprise. “Every hour that ticks by increases the
likelihood that a thirteen-year-old child will be brutalized and raped by a sexual
sadist. The two murder victims found in
the woods were that age. Before they died, they had suffered significant malnutrition.”
I saw Victoria Pope’s lips twitch. “He starved them before he killed them. They had
bone injuries. They had been tortured. I’m not here to cast a shadow on your treatment
program. I fully understand the value of counseling in breaking destructive chains
of behavior.” I decided not to tell her just how intimately I comprehended destructive
chains of behavior.

“What makes you think one of my group is involved?” Again her tone was devoid of resentment
or anything that resembled emotion.

“In an interview this morning, Logan Peele mentioned a girl disappearing before we’d
given him that information. He claimed he’d seen it on the news. Maybe he did. But
it has to be explored. His alibi is soft for the time the girl disappeared. He says
he was here later.”

“Logan was the first one here last night,” she said. “I found him alone in the conference
room where we meet.”

“How did you find his demeanor?”

That mouth twitch again. If we were playing poker I’d watch for that. And maybe we
were. She didn’t answer my question. “Have you met Logan Peele?” she asked me instead.

“Yes, I have.”

“He can be quite aggressive and arrogant. He made sexual remarks to me before group.
He wants to believe—and he wants me to believe—that he is attracted to adult women.
And he wants to frighten me. But I didn’t notice anything different about him last
night.”

“He have any friends in the group?”

“My patients aren’t supposed to have any contact with one another outside our sessions.
Or with any other convicted felon. To my knowledge, they don’t communicate outside
group.”

“Three victims have been abducted sometime after leaving their school. As I said,
the physical evidence suggests the con is probably engine trouble. Anything familiar
about that scenario? Maybe something someone talked about in group?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“How about the names? Tracy, Melinda, Skylar.”

“No,” she said again. “I require my patients not to use real names here. We have to
consider the victims’ privacy and safety.”

I thought about Peele saying they used therapy as a way to brag about their crimes
and get a sexual charge. “Logan Peele told us that some of your members talk about
their offenses in some detail during these sessions,” I said.

“That’s true. But I monitor this extremely closely. I pay attention to the details
and how they are delivered. I stop it immediately if it begins to sound like anything
but contrition.”

“What do you think about Mr. Peele?” I asked her.

“One of the ways we measure progress is how willing a sexual offender is to acknowledge
and accept responsibility for his behaviors and for the repercussions of his behaviors,”
she responded. “I have three members of my group who have a long ways to go in that
regard. Logan is one of them.”

I agreed. “Peele blamed his ex-wife for turning him in.”

“Exactly. Some offenders can learn to take responsibility for their actions and control
sexually abusive behaviors. But Logan was grossly underclassified as a medium-risk
offender,” Victoria Pope told me. It was exactly what I’d thought when I’d read his
file. “If he was upgraded to high risk he could be electronically monitored. I’ve
made that recommendation for three of these men. Logan only comes to group because
it’s part of his contract to stay out of jail. The same was true with Lewis Freeman.
But the system is overwhelmed. Some offenders slip through the cracks.” She paused.
“I’m glad Lewis is back in jail, Dr. Street. I’ve talked to his parole officer twice
in six months with concerns about his likelihood of reoffending and the unlikelihood
he can be rehabilitated. I would never put the success of the program above the lives
of children.”

“Who else besides Peele and Freeman was in the group you thought should be reevaluated?”

She hesitated again, then gave me the name Lamar Bailey. I’d seen it on the final
list of eight registered sex offenders Neil had compiled. I had read Bailey’s statements
to the parole board, and unlike with the cases of Peele and Freeman, I’d detected
an acceptance of his actions and their impact on his life and others. I’d thought
I’d heard remorse and a desire to change. But Dr. Pope had the opportunity to
observe him in life. Perhaps she was privy to information she wasn’t disclosing now.

“Did anyone fail to report for group last night?” I asked.

Her tiny black pupils widened, then returned to pinpoints. She went to her desk, tapped
at her keyboard, took up a notepad, and wrote something down. She brought the note
back to me.

“Lamar Bailey,” I read aloud. She’d also written Bailey’s DOB, address, phone, and
the name of his parole officer.

I said good-bye to Victoria Pope, then stood in the corridor outside her office and
pulled out my phone. “Good morning again, Detective Raymond,” I said with maximum
team spirit.

Raymond, however, skipped the pleasantries. “You get something at the shrink’s office?”
Obviously the sheriff had briefed him.

“A registered offender named Lamar Bailey didn’t show for group last night. He’s on
the doc’s most-likely-to-reoffend list. Need to check with his parole officer and
see if he called in the absence. And check his alibi for yesterday afternoon.”

“Sure,” Raymond said. “It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

So much for team spirit. I disconnected.

The heat was blasting off the baking parking lot in pungent, petroleum-based fumes.
By midafternoon on a cloudless day, the asphalt gets so hot it feels soft under your
shoes. The tar bubbles up out of it in shiny, sticky black patches. Kids poke at it
in the road on summer days. They’d twirl it around the tips of sticks and sword fight
with them, leaving black smears on their clothes and skin. I remembered racing home
with blackened hands that smelled like a road repair crew.

What would Skylar be doing now if she hadn’t been plucked out of her life? She’d be
in morning classes, looking forward to the lunch hour, social time in the cafeteria,
writing notes, dreaming about Robbie and his garage band.

The hungry fingers of a headache reached for my temples just as
my eye caught movement, a vehicle crossing over the bright yellow lines in the parking
lot. It was a dark gray F-150. Peele’s truck. Was he waiting for me? I felt myself
stiffen. His window was open, and the sun had turned the red hairs on the arm resting
there into glistening steel wool. He pulled into a parking space two slots away. He
stared at me, gave me a nod. That’s when I heard shoes hitting the paved lot behind
me.

“Dr. Street, do you have a minute?”

I turned, squinted against the bright morning. Brenda Roberts was headed for me, cameraman
in tow. Cameras used to scare the shit out of me. So did Brenda Roberts. But I’ve
learned from experience that if you look scared on camera, your friends will make
fun of you later. And what people need to see on television from the investigators
charged with bringing them justice is confidence. So I choke it back.

“Dr. Street, you’ve been asked to consult on the murders of two thirteen-year-old
females in Hitchiti County and the disappearance of another. Is this the work of a
serial killer?” Brenda had latte skin and the bearing of a lioness. An Armani silk
blouse I’d admired and hadn’t been able to afford at Phipps Plaza hung off her this
morning like it had been stitched only for her. She pushed the microphone at me.

“I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty,” I told her. “Statements regarding investigations
come only from the Hitchiti County Sheriff’s Department.” I kept moving.

“The department released your profile of the killer online. And now there is a third
victim.” The mike came back at me.

“I’d like to remind you that the incident yesterday in Whisper was an
abduction
.”

“You’re a freelance analyst, Dr. Street. Your specialty is violent serial offenders.
One would infer your presence here means there
is
a serial murderer at large.”

“Infer?” I repeated, incredulous. This is why police departments have spokespeople
with cool heads to handle the press. “I’m sure you’d prefer facts. And I’m sure they’re
forthcoming.”

My phone went off—the wailing of an Amber Alert, different from
any other alert on my phone and unmistakable. Brenda Roberts’s phone followed. “Stop
tape,” Roberts told her cameraman, her honeyed television voice sharpened by irritation.
We both looked at our phones.
Amber Alert: Abduction. Whisper, GA. 13 yr old WF. Hr: Blond. Eyes: Brn. Cottonwood
Rd 3pm. Name: Skylar Barbour
.

Roberts looked up from her phone. “They’re just getting an alert out?”

“There’s criteria,” I told her. “The system normally requires a description of the
offender or the offender’s vehicle.”

“So a witness hasn’t been located?”

“No comment,” I said.

“But they ran the alert anyway, which means there has to be evidence the child is
in imminent danger.” Roberts didn’t miss much. “So it is the same suspect. What’s
the evidence?”

“No comment,” I said again. I opened my car door. Heat rolled out like I’d broken
the window on a house fire. Roberts hovered around me as I lowered the top.

“What gives, Keye? We talked about a feature last month on the phone. You seemed open
to the possibility.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. She was holding the mike
at her side. “Listen, this could be all about you investigating with the clock ticking
on the third victim. The anatomy of an investigation, getting into the mind of a killer,
that kind of thing.” I got in my car. The steering wheel felt like a hot coal. “Any
viable suspects among the registered sex offenders you’ve been questioning?”

I looked at Logan Peele, sitting in his truck. He gave me a little salute. “No comment,”
I told Brenda Roberts.

28