Find Me (49 page)

“Gimme more,” said Kronewald, slipping into the interrogation tone.

“I can string together a line of logic for you. Best guess?”

“Anything.”

“He definitely plans to kill the child-that’s hardly guesswork. The plan will be well thought out. Dodie Finn’s death will cap off his monument, and he’s planning something spectacular. That’s the most logical reason for keeping that little girl alive this long.”

“So he’s got a thing for Mallory?”

“She probably fascinates him, but it’s nothing sexual, no fantasizing in that direction. This man is repulsed by the whole idea of physical contact with a living person.”

“But the guy takes big risks. He’s not afraid she’ll catch him after he kills this kid?”

“I think he’s counting on it. Mallory thought he got sloppy with the murder of Dr. Magritte-when he left the old man’s bloody knife behind. It was the killer’s blood,
his
DNA. What if that was deliberate?”

Kronewald nodded. “He wants credit.”

“Right. Now, if he wants us to know who he is-then he’ll escalate his personal risk for the grand finale. He won’t c are if he lives through this night.”

“Back in Chicago,” said Kronewald, “we call that suicide by cop. So he’s planning to take that little kid with him?”

Charles nodded. “But not Mallory.” His eyes were on the road, searching for a familiar pair of taillights. “He called her out because he needs an audience tonight-someone who can appreciate his work.”

And what would that do to Mallory, who did not take well to failure?

Some people had reoccurring flying dreams. Charles had the toppling dream. An object would be about to fall, and he would startle himself awake by physically reaching out for it. Lately, he dreamed not of objects but a toppling woman, and it was always Mallory he reached for. And now he truly understood why Riker had brought him along. The police did not require his help to catch a serial killer. His job was to catch Mallory-when she fell.

The two detectives
had found the first abandoned segment of Route 66 inside the national park and just beyond the ranger station. It had gone to ruin, crumbles only-fruitless and disappointing.

And now Riker had the ride of his life, a dizzy run of turns and curves for miles and miles of dark road.

Mallory said, “Watch for a sign. We’re looking for Lacy Point.”

Riker shouted, “There!”

The car stopped on the park road, and Mallory stepped out, flashlight in hand, to show him a sight he would never forget.

“I had no idea this was here.” Riker stood beside her and, disbelieving, head shaking, stared at a road that was not there. It had vanished long ago. Ghosty telephone poles, all stripped of their wires, trailed off into the desert and disappeared in the dark of night beyond the flashlight’s beam. Nature had reclaimed every bit of land and replanted it with scrub. There was no sign of pavement anymore, nothing left to say that millions of cars had gone this way. All that remained was a straight march of tall wooden poles- grave markers all of them-to show him where an old highway had died.

Mallory blinked her flashlight twice. They waited in the dark, counting off the passing minutes, time enough for despair to settle in. They would not find Dodie out here.

“I guessed wrong,” said Mallory.

“Kid, it was a world-class guess,” said Riker. “Your knapsack is beeping.”

Mallory’s caller wanted
to voice a complaint. He was still waiting in the dark, and he would not wait for long.

So much time had been lost on the park road through the Painted Desert, and the silver convertible was making up for it in speed, flying westward again on the interstate.

“He says he can see for miles and miles,” said Mallory. “So I know he’s not sitting in the pine trees around Flagstaff. He’ll be near the old road. No lights, lots of open ground. He’s laying out a murder scene with maneuvering room. He wants me to see him kill Dodie, but he doesn’t w ant me to get close enough to stop it.” She waited for feedback, but her partner evidently had no better theory. Riker would always defer to her in all things sociopathic and monstrous. Mallory gripped the wheel a little tighter.

“Did you hear the kid this time?”

“No.” During that last call, she had not heard Dodie humming in the background.

Riker pulled a beeping phone from his shirt pocket and pressed it to one ear. He turned to her, saying, “The Arizona cops turned up a report on a missing pickup truck, the only old junker stolen all day.” The detective continued to listen and relay what he was told. “Good news and bad news, kid. There’s no airbag on the passenger side. The guy who owns it has an elderly mother-brittle bones-so he had the thing taken out.”

“And a kid Dodie’s size might get killed by an airbag,” said Mallory. “So that must be the good news.”

“There’s a loaded rifle in the roof rack,” said Riker, cupping one hand over his cell. “And it’s no squirrel gun. I’ve got the owner on the phone. He says it’s a damned good gun. He can shoot a flea off the head of an eagle a mile up and in the dark. Infrared. Now that fits. With a rifle sight like that, the perp can see us coming, just like he said. In a car, on foot-no difference. And he can pick us off.”

“If he even knows how to fire a rifle,” said Mallory. “Most people can’t shoot worth a damn. Find out if the sight is accurate.”

After a moment on the phone, Riker said, “It’s not. This owner has to shoot low and to the left.”

Dodie Finn was motionless
and dead quiet. The wind was blowing cold, but she did not complain. Her eyes were open, and she saw nothing, only darkness all around. The leash to her harness was loosely wrapped on a piece of rusted chrome, and she could so easily undo it-but she did not. Something small was crawling up her arm, a thing with many legs, and she did not brush it off, nor even glance down at it. Dodie played the children’s game of statue, and all that betrayed her imitation of stone was the prickling of her skin, every downy hair standing on end.

She was on best behavior tonight so that her father and brother would not be hurt like Ariel, who had disappeared, leaving only her blood behind-so much blood.

The many-legged insect was crawling on Dodie’s face, but she continued to look straight ahead, staring at the world through unfocussed doll’s eyes. Inside her head, where she truly lived, she flitted from one side of her brain to the other, screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!” Her thin arms flapping like white wings in the dark. But outwardly, Dodie so loved her family-she never moved at all.

Charles Butler was running
the portable siren as he changed lanes, proposing to take the Crookton Road, Exit 93, heading north toward Seligman, Arizona.

“No, not that way.” Kronewald waved him over to the side of the road, and obediently, the Mercedes came to a stop.

The Chicago detective put his phone away, giving up on Riker’s b u s y signal. “We’re not gonna find them up there.” Kronewald had his personal map of dead children spread on his lap. “I got an inventory from Harry Mars. Berman’s crews dug up all the graves in Arizona months ago. That road’s just like the Santa Fe loop. No bodies were ever found north of I- 40.”

“Then the FBI missed a few, or perhaps they never looked for them there.” Charles nodded to the guidebooks piling up on the floor mat at the detective’s feet. “My favorite is the Route 66 trivia lovers’ guide. The Seligman loop is not quite the same as the Santa Fe segment. You’re sure the killer’s father was a truck driver, right?”

“Yeah, and the kid used to ride with his old man.”

“And Mallory believes that he’s following his father’s route. Well, Route 40 connects the two ends of the Seligman loop, but it wasn’t finished until the nineteen eighties. When your killer was a child, his father would’ve driven the old road north and around the Seligman loop. Now consider this. Those undiscovered graves might be the reason he picked that area. He wants full credit for
all
of his kills-or his work won’t be complete.”

“Why couldn’t he just phone in the grave locations?”

“Maybe he did.”

“While Dale Berman was in charge of the case. That incompetent prick.” Frustrated, Kronewald turned his face to the passenger window. “Okay, I see the problem.”

“And there are other good reasons,” said Charles. “It’s a dark segment. No lights from the interstate, very little traffic this time of night-”

“Hey, look!” Kronewald pointed to the road as Mallory’s car sped past them and then changed lanes for the exit that would lead her to the northern loop of Route 66.

“So,” said Charles, “on toward Seligman?”

Up ahead was
the Black Cat bar, one of Riker’s fond memories of the road through Seligman. He could not recall the cattle ranges that Mallory spoke of. In his teenage days, grazing land had not been on his mind so much as booze and girls and good times that could not be had in the company of cows. The old saloon slid past his window, and he looked out on the scattered lights of small buildings near and far.

“Look behind us.” Mallory was staring at the rearview mirror, and she was not wearing her happy face. “It’s the Mercedes-Charles.”

“Get used to it, kid,” said Riker. “Every time you turn around, he’ll be there. I think sometimes he forgets that you’re the one with the gun.” Riker reached for his cell phone. “I’ll get ahold of Kronewald.”

“Get them off this road. If the perp spots a tail-”

“Even if he’s seen Charles’s car, he won’t know one Mercedes from another. The perp’s looking out for cop cars, not tourists.”

Past Seligman, the land opened up. It was dotted with the occasional lights of houses and then nothing but darkness-until he saw the black cow in the headlights, and yelled, “Oh, God-they’re all over the road.”

The brakes were screeching, smoking, dust clouds rising all around them. Mallory swerved to graze one animal, rocking the car onto two wheels. It slammed back to earth on all four tires, and she cut a hard right to miss the next cow. Riker was lurching the other way, and now back again toward Mallory, rolling as the car rolled over. The air bags imploded, massing up in an instant and blinding him with white; it felt like a punch from a giant fist large enough to pound his chest and his gut with one mighty shot. Just as quickly, the bag deflated, and the last thing Riker saw was a fence pole coming through the windshield, missing Mallory and snapping his arm bone. A second pole hit his head.

And the car rolled on.

Charles Butler was
the first out of the Mercedes. The Volkswagen convertible had flipped over and the passengers hung upside down, held in place by seat belts. The ragtop was badly damaged, but the roll bar had held. Mallory and Riker still had their heads. As Charles wrenched a door open, Kronewald’s hands were reaching inside to undo Riker’s seatbelt, and the unconscious man was eased out in Charles’s arms and then laid upon the ground.

Running to Mallory’s side of the car, Charles heard Kronewald sing out, “Riker’s still breathing, but his arm’s broken and he’s out cold.”

Mallory’s door hung open, and she was working her own belt loose as Charles reached inside to cradle her body and keep her from falling head first. When she was on her feet again, she looked around at the cows milling about on the road. Kronewald was doing traffic control, his arms spinning, his screams full of obscenities to move the animals away from Riker’s prone body.

“Somebody opened a gate,” she said.

“It would seem so.” Charles was staring at the damage her convertible had done to the barbwire fence that lined the road. “Or maybe another car had a mishap.” He returned to the road, where Riker lay motionless and wheezing with one arm bent at an unnatural angle. “I think his ribs are bro- ken, too.” When Charles looked up again, he saw Mallory wandering off, preceded by the beam of her flashlight.

Kronewald held up his cell phone, saying. “The ambulance is on the way from Kingman, but there’s a wreck on the interstate, and it might take a while.” He turned to see the back of Mallory. “Where does she think she’s going?”

“You might keep an eye on her-in case she’s in shock.”

“Got it.”

A few minutes later, the Chicago detective returned. “Mallory sent me back. Says our perp’s got an infrared sight on his rifle. He won’t wanna see her with company.” The old man held up one hand. “Hold on, Charles. He’s not gonna shoot her. You know he didn’t d rag Mallory all the way out here for that.” The detective paced near a ditch on the other side of the road. “There’s some rusty metal piled up here. Same stuff the fence posts are made of. She needs that car back on the road.” The detective climbed down into the ditch and lifted a length of pipe, yelling, “Give me a hand!”

A short way up the road,
Mallory found the source of the wandering cows. She stood before an open gate and faced a dirt road leading off across flat open land in the direction of distant foothills. It was the gate that held her interest. Two strong metal poles supported a high crossbar that displayed the name of the ranch and its brand. But was the crossbar welded on? She looked down at the ground, wondering if the supporting poles were footed in cement. Her flashlight picked out loose lengths of well casing piled up on the other side of the gate, but these were obviously meant for mending fences. She turned back to the gate posts. No shorter section of pipe would do. Back down the road, she had tools for this job-and Charles Butler was one of them.

She turned her eyes upward to consider the problem of a welded crossbar, and the flashlight dropped from her hand. So surprised was she to see her father’s million stars in the sky above-just as he had promised and right where he had left them, his
“-brilliant stars and lesser ones, millions beyond counting, beautiful-mesmerizing.”