Little Girls Lost (15 page)

He believed he was saving the girls. Saving them by killing them. Saving them by mutilating their already-dead bodies.

Sam shook his head. That was the point where the thread broke and nothing made sense. He could, if he tried, get his head around the idea that someone twisted enough might come to believe that death, even murder, is a form of salvation. More than one religious cult had engaged in ritual suicide, which their members could not have done unless they believed something very similar to the delusions Pasco suffered from. But mutilation? How did that make any sense?

He knew what Bud would say. Bud would remind him that he was asking these questions of a crazy man, a psychopath. Bud would say that it's stupid to expect someone else's crazy thoughts and actions to make any sense to anyone else.
 

But still. The facts of the case didn't fit together, no matter how he twisted them around in his mind. They were like notes in a song that was being played out of tune. And no matter how he worked it, he could only find one way to make the music sound right.

There had to be a second killer.

Every time Sam looked at Lieutenant Garvey, he took it as a warning. Everything about the man sagged, from the skin on his face to the limp hair that dangled over his eyes and drooped down from his upper lip.

The man sat behind a faux-wood desk in a small office with walls a shade of yellow that might have been an original coat of white yellowed with age and neglect.
 

Sam knew that, if he did a good job and applied himself, some day he could be sitting in that chair. He was ready to do almost anything to avoid that fate.

Pleasantries exchanged, the two men eyed each other without affection. Sam thought that his lieutenant was a small-minded bureaucrat who was more invested in filing paperwork correctly than he was in seeing that justice being done. He knew that his supervisor thought he was an obsessive-compulsive pain in the ass who needlessly caused trouble and created work for others.
 

They both were right.

Sam didn't have high hopes for this conversation, but procrastinating would only make it worse. He opened his mouth and started reciting the speech he had rehearsed in his car on the way to work that morning.

"I've been thinking about the abduction case."

His supervisor squinted at him. Clearly he knew where this conversation was headed, and he didn't care for it. "Congratulations on the collar. You got the man."

"Yeah," Sam said without enthusiasm. "That's the thing. I don't think he was working alone."

The lieutenant leaned back in his chair. "You have evidence to support that?"

Sam sighed. "No physical evidence, not yet. But..."

"No evidence means no case. You have a suspect, you have a confession. You have three dead girls."

"Two dead girls," Sam interrupted.

"Two dead girls and one presumed dead," his supervisor allowed. "Terrible thing. Horrible crimes. The sort of thing that frightens people, keeps them up at night. The community wants us to close the book on this thing."

"We can't close the book if we haven't fully investigated the possibility that Tyrone Pasco was not acting alone."

"You said yourself that you have no evidence for that."

"No, but Pasco could not have done this alone. He lacked the capacity to..."

The lieutenant rolled his eyes. "So you're a psychiatrist now?"

"No, but..."

"The case is closed until such time as new physical evidence mandates that it be re-opened."

Sam glared in anger and frustration, but the other man had turned his attention to the stack of papers in front of him. Sam departed, unnoticed.

In his heart Sam knew what the report would say before he opened the manila envelope and read the papers inside. Now that they had Pasco in custody, they could check his blood for a match with the blood that had been found under Betsy's nails.

Sam knew that most cops wouldn't have bothered running the check if the case was already closed. It was like checking to make sure that you had turned off the lights when leaving your house in the middle of a power outage. Sam knew that there was a reason, sometimes, for not asking questions. No laboratory test was 100% accurate, and so if you already had a man you knew was guilty, why would you risk running a test that, by chance, carelessness, or incompetence might actually aid the defense's case?

Sam was not a man to leave stones unturned, however. He knew that his chances of sleeping at night were dependent on asking questions and collecting evidence until the itch in the back of his mind went away.

He opened the envelope and scanned the top-most page, then released a sigh. The blood found under Betsy's nails were not a match for the man they had in custody.

Not a match. Which meant that, either someone in the evidence chain had screwed up, or there was still a killer on the loose. In the former case, Sam's duty as a police officer was to burn this report and bury the ashes for fear that it might allow a monster to escape justice. In the latter case, his duty as an officer and a man was to get out there and look for the man they had missed the first time.

It was no contest. He stood from his chair, swung his jacket over his shoulders, and headed for the door. He had questions to ask and a good idea of who might be able to answer them.

Sam walked up the sidewalk to Warren Sundquist's office and wondered what they should discuss. The first possible subject of conversation was the case against Tyrone Pasco, and Sam's belief that someone else must have been involved.

The second, and possibly more fruitful discussion, would be of Sam's obsessive tendencies and inability to leave well enough alone.
 

No one knew that he was here today. If his lieutenant discovered it, Sam had no doubt that he would end up on suspension. On the drive over he considered stopping and turning around any number of times, but he simply couldn't do it. The case was solved, they had their man, and they had a confession, but Sam could not bring himself to leave it at that, not so long as he had questions.

He arrived on Sundquist's doorstep to see the doctor showing a male patient out. The doctor gave him a guarded look, which Sam took to be protective instincts: clearly any man who was seeing a psychiatrist would not be happy to see the police sniffing around his doctor's office. He gave the doctor a quick smile and moved past the two of them, inside and up the staircase towards the doctor's office. He had no reason to violate doctor/patient privacy, so he intended to give the two of them their space.

He found the doctor's office much as he had remembered it. He was impressed once again with how carefully arranged the contents of the office seemed to be. The doctor's office seemed not so much a workspace as an idealized vision of what a workspace might look like. The desk was immaculate, the art on the wall was impeccably chosen, and he got the distinct impression that dust had not been observed in this room for many years. He wondered how the doctor managed to keep everything so clean, so perfect. All Sam had to do was sit at his own desk, and in a moment's time everything started to fall into disarray.

Killing time, he moved through the room, looking casually at the artwork and reading the titles of the books in the bookcase. None of the books interested him, but Sam had never been able to be in the presence of a bookcase without carefully inspecting its contents.
 

A framed letter caught his attention. It was written on the letterhead of a local school district, and in three flowery sentences recognized the doctor for his work with local teens, delivering a series of lectures on depression and suicide prevention. Sam smiled wistfully at the thought of that. It must be nice, he thought, to have the sort of professional skills that can help people like that. Not for the first time, he wished he had stayed in school longer. Maybe he would have been able to....

A thought passed through his mind, and with it he could feel his pulse skip a beat. His eyes remained glued to the yellowed letterhead and the too-earnest congratulation. The good doctor had delivered his lectures, the letter said, at a number of area schools. There was a good chance, Sam realized, that Dr. Warren had delivered these lectures to groups of students that included, by turns Jasmine Martin, Betsy Patterson, and Pamela Wilson.

His breathing sped up. The doctor could have encountered all three girls. He may even have spoken to them. This same doctor had a close professional relationship with Tyrone, the self-confessed abductor of the girls, and his office contained the files that documented sexual sadist methods.
 

He heard a sound, and turned to see the doctor enter the room. Warren Sundquist's eyes flitted from him to the framed letter, and for the briefest of instances a small smile played over his face before it was replaced by a doctor's impassive mask.

"How can I help you?" he asked smoothly.

Sam felt a jolt of adrenaline that was a mixture of excitement and a dawning awareness that he might be in danger. "I'd like to ask a favor of you, doctor," he said, moving to the center of the room.

"And what's that?"

"Would you please remove your jacket and roll up the sleeves on your shirt?"

Warren smiled at him again, but there was no human emotion in the gesture. "And why should I do that?"

"I am interested to see whether you have scratches on your arm."

"And these scratches would have been inflicted by whom, or what?"

"By Betsy Patterson."

Warren smiled more deeply. "I see. I'm afraid that I cannot oblige you until I've spoken to my attorney. I'm sure you understand."

It was Sam's turn to smile. The game was afoot. "Of course I do. Thank you for your time, doctor."

Walking to the office doorway was one of the most uncomfortable periods of his life. At any moment, he expected Warren to leap at him with a scream. There was no yell, though, nor was there a wild attack. Despite his anxiety, Sam was not really surprised. He was now convinced that he had found Tyrone Pasco's accomplice in the killings, but attacking him now was not Sundquist's style. He would stop, think, and plan like a spider in its web.

Let him, Sam thought as he hurried to his car. While he's coming up with a new and horrible plan, Sam would be bringing the full power of the police down on his head.

As Sam drove the rain-slicked streets, he muttered a prayer to an uncaring God. He prayed that he wasn't too late. He prayed that his blindness and caution hadn't cost a young girl her life.

He prayed that he would have no more blood on his hands. He prayed that Pamela Wilson was still alive.

Sam wished that he lived in a different world. He wished that he lived in a place where, once he realized that Warren Sundquist was a cold-blooded killer, he could simply pull a gun from his holster and keep shooting until the bad guy was dead and the girl was safe. That wasn't the world he lived in, though. The world he lived in required warrants and paperwork, and if these requirements were not filled the bad guys went free. If he didn't do the things he hated to do, people died.
 

Now the warrant was on the seat next to him and, if he had rolled down his window, he might have heard the sirens of the cop cars that were coming to arrest Warren. Sam hadn't waited for backup, though. That was the one last delay he was not ready to make, and now he was driving at suicide speeds through dark and wet streets. He didn't care anymore. He had a girl to save, and nothing else could matter nearly as much.

Warren knew that Sam recognized him for what he was. He knew that he had been caught, and he knew that he didn't have much time left. If he was smart, he would just run, but there was a chance that he would try to silence any eyewitnesses before he disappeared. If Pamela Wilson was still alive, she might have only a few minutes left.

His car squealed around the final turn and lurched as if it might go up on two wheels, then settled roughly back onto its chassis. Sam threw open the door while the engine was still wheezing its way to silence.

Sam had one more prayer on his lips as he hurried out into the night.

No more death tonight.

Warren Sundquist sat at his desk and fought for inner quiet. His desk was correctly aligned now, with the pen aligned with the paper and both parallel to the edge of the desk.

From where he sat in his Aero office chair, the furniture and artwork were perfectly balanced. Sundquist had worked for many years to make his office perfect, not just in the way it met the eye but across all the senses: sight, touch, smell, even sound. This was his refuge from the shrieking, stinking, rotting insanity of the outside world.

Now his refuge had been invaded and polluted. Now his safe space had been made into a place of danger. Sundquist was enraged at that, and he savored the anger like a man warming his hands over a fire. Still, though, he knew that it was his own fault. He had grown careless, and Sundquist was a man who despised carelessness. Success had made him overconfident, and overconfidence had allowed sloppiness to slip into his world. He shook his head in chagrin. The plan had been perfect. The plan deserved better.

It had been a long time in taking shape, forming slowly from the ideas floating in the back of his mind. In a way, Sundquist had been working on the plan for his entire life. He majored in psychology at college because even his teenaged self had known that he didn't know enough. Carefully, incrementally, over the years he had pieced the plan together, examined the risks, and found solutions.
 

The plan was the great work of his life, and now it was at risk. That was unacceptable. Sundquist knew that some day he would fall. His body would falter, his mind would fail. He would die, but the plan was eternal.