Little Girls Lost (7 page)

For now, though, he was here with her, and he didn't want to sleep. He wanted to stay awake and listen to her breathing. Every moment with her was precious and unexpected. Sam stroked her hair and felt her warmth. He would need to sleep sometime, but for now this was enough.

The alleyway would have been depressing on a good day, but this was not a good day. Sam felt a pit of blackness in his chest as he walked toward the cluster of police personnel that marked the crime scene more effectively than yellow tape ever could.

The center of their attention was a green dumpster that was filled with trash and one more thing that Sam had hoped not to see.

Bud was leaning up against a soot-stained brick wall, giving Sam an appraising look. "Hey, buddy," he said. "I called you at home last night, but you weren't there. Did you have a date?"

Sam's stomach gave a twist. There was no way that his partner could know where he was last night. He was joking, Sam was sure, but he still felt uncomfortable within Bud's gaze. "Nothing you'd be interested in," he lied, and then brought the conversation back to a safer place. "What have we got?"

Bud inclined his head to the dumpster. "We've got a dead teenage girl, and I'll give you three guesses which one."

Of course Sam already knew. He wouldn't be here right now if he didn't know. "Damn it," he muttered.

Betsy Patterson was splayed awkwardly across the trash that filled the dumpster, and as her body began its inexorable breakdown her scent combined with the stink of the garbage in a way that Sam knew would haunt him for a long time to come.

There was blood, but not as much as there would be if the girl had been killed on the scene. Sam's eyes were drawn to the wounds, and he didn't like what he saw.
 

"Multiple stab wounds," said the forensics examiner at Sam's side. He was removing his latex gloves, his initial examination complete. "Some bruising around the neck, as if she had been choked, though I won't know the cause of death until I can take a closer look. There are signs of a struggle—there's some blood under her nails, probably belongs to the perpetrator. And then the big news: we have mutilation around the abdomen."

Sam barely heard the words. His attention was claimed by Betsy's stomach area, where someone had carved a word with a hasty, sloppy hand. Her killer had one word for her to share with the world: "Slut."

"He's decorating them now," Bud said at his side.

"It's different. Jasmine's body was different," Sam protested.

"Yeah," Bud said. "Maybe he's changing his methods?"

"Serial killers don't do that. They find a method and they stick to it. They find meaning in the patterns."

"Yeah, well, now the pattern is different."

Sam shook his head. "We've got nothing," he said as much to himself as to his partner.

"We've got two bodies, and now we've got the asshole's DNA."
 

"We've got nothing! We were basing everything on the pattern of mutilation. The only reason we have a suspect is because of the pattern. The DNA is only good once we have someone in custody, and we have nothing. No M.O., no primary suspect, nothing."

Frustrated, he turned on his heel and stalked away from the dumpster. He could feel Bud at his heel.

"You'll find it," Bud said, as if soothing an upset child.

"Find what?"

"The pattern. You'll find it. You always do."

It was a warm day, sunny with the fragrance of grass heavy on the wind, and Patty breathed a sigh of relief. It was already so fucking hard to be here, and to do it without getting a drink first was so hard it almost made her cry.

So Patty took what consolation she could in the warmth of the sun on her cheek as she took a deep breath and crossed the street to the cemetery.

The place was full of headstones, but Patty could only see one of them. She could have walked there with her eyes shut. Missy's grave lay beneath a tree, at the center of a family plot that someday was supposed to hold her parents as well. Today Patty felt like that might not be so far away.

She crouched down at the grave and placed her gift—a teddy bear—next to the plastic flowers she'd brought the last time she was here. She took a seat in the grass and brushed her fingers across the cold stone, spelling out the lettering of her daughter's name.

"Hi, baby. I missed you this week. I saw Peggy's mother in the supermarket and I almost lost it. I had to sneak out the back before she saw me," she said, laughing weakly and brushing a tear from her cheek.

"I've been thinking about what I needed to tell you today. I thought it about it all week. And I need you to know how sorry I am. I'm sorry, baby, for so many things."

Patty choked up for a while. It was a moment before she was able to speak again.

"I'm sorry for not being a better mother. I'm sorry for not getting you that Barbie you wanted. I'm sorry I got you a cheaper doll instead and told myself that it was just as good. It wasn't. You should have had the doll you wanted."

She brushed some dirt from her daughter's headstone, then continued.
 

"And most of all I'm sorry that I wasn't there when you needed me. I'm sorry that I didn't protect you. And every day it tears me apart to think of what you must have been thinking at the end. Were you wondering where I was? Were you sad? Because I'm sad, baby. I'm sad all the time, and I'm so sorry."

Then there was nothing but the tears, and Patty gave into them. In her heart she knew that the tears were half the reason she came here so often. They felt terrible coming up, but when they were out of her they were replaced by a weary sense of peace that was better than anything else she felt these days.
 

When she was done and walking back to her car, she caught a sight of the man who was waiting for her and cursed beneath her breath.

"Hey Patty," Bud said. He was leaning up against her car, his arms crossed.
 

"What do you want?" she muttered, pushing past him and walking to the driver's side door.

"Well for one, I'd like to know how you're doing. I haven't seen you in a while."

"I'm fine," she said, fumbling for her keys. This conversation could not be over soon enough to suit her.

"Are you?" Bud asked. "You don't look great, Patty."

She let out a breath and shook her head. "Like you care," she said, finally finding the car key and putting it to the lock.

Bud put his hand on the door frame to prevent her from opening it. "I do care," Patty. "Maybe not as much as you wanted me to, but I do care."

"Don't flatter yourself," she snarled, getting angry. "It was a one-time thing. You were the one who couldn't seem to understand that."

Bud leaned in towards her. "Patty, look at yourself. You look like shit. Your breath could attract flies. You are not fine."

"I'm fine!" Patty near-shouted, jerking at the door.
 

Bud stepped back, letting her go. "Get your shit together, Patty. If you don't want to see me, that's fine. It's in the past. Over and done. No need for anyone to hear about it, ever."

Patty settled into the driver's seat and laughed bitterly. "Is that what you're afraid of, Bud? That your partner will find out what a piece of shit you are? I wouldn't worry. He probably already knows."

With that she pulled out with a squeal and drove off. Her chest felt tight and she was having trouble catching her breath. She wanted to turn the car around and punch Bud in the face. Instead she took a right and headed toward the bar.

The folder lay open for more than twenty minutes on Sam's desk while he tried to make sense of it.

He'd begun the search with mixed emotions. Everything had seemed so clear when Jasmine Martin's corpse bore a pattern of wounds that matched the modus operandi of a sexual predator who had already been tried and convicted. When it turned out that the rapist and murderer in question was out on the street, ready to kill again, it had all seemed like it was wrapped up in a neat little package. Sam was the sort of man who liked it when things made sense. In retrospect, he realized, he was also the sort of man who made mistakes when things were a little too tidy.

Now he had a second corpse with wounds that didn't fit the pattern. Sam returned to the files, looking without much hope for a second killer who murdered one of his victims in one way, and another in a different way. The idea was contrary to everything Sam had learned in his years on the force. Everything he knew told him that killers find a method and stick to it. Most murders are one-time things. They are crimes of passion that lack premeditation or precision. But the killers who liked it, the ones who came back to killing again and again, found a method that suited them and relied on it the way an old woman relies on her Bible.
 

So it was without much hope that Sam looked for a killer who had two methods. Instead he had found something that was in some ways worse than nothing.
 

Sam was looking at the case file of Stewart Smalls. Stewart was a quiet man, a loner who lived in his mother's basement until he was 35 years old. By day he worked in the post office, sorting mail. By night, he frequented pornographic theaters, spent his money on strippers, and sometimes, when the voices in his head got the better of him, he murdered prostitutes and carved the word "slut" on their stomachs.

By the time he was apprehended, Stewart Smalls had murdered at least five women, though under questioning he claimed that he had killed twelve others who were never identified.
 

Stewart Smalls had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to five consecutive life terms. He had spent seven years of that sentence in a maximum-security facility, until one day when there was a riot in the yard. Prisoners escaped from their cells, guards were taken hostage, and the media descended on a chaotic scene that took several days before order was finally restored. When the guards took count of their prisoners, they found one missing: Stewart Smalls. He had simply disappeared in the confusion, and no one knew what had happened to him.

Another killer at large, another modus operandi that had recently shown up in Sam's town, another suspect at large for him to chase. The coincidences were piling up in ways that made Sam suspicious. He was of the opinion that two suspects were quite a bit worse than one. He was beginning to believe that there was something about this case that he didn't understand at all.
 

There were other possibilities that Sam was just beginning to toy with in his mind. The first was that the two cases were unrelated, and that he was dealing with two killers operating on their own. In many ways that was the most rational explanation, but Sam couldn't bring himself to believe it. The two dead girls were too similar, to close in age and circumstance. It would be coincidental for two killers to independently choose victims at virtually the same time who were so similar, and Sam didn't believe in coincidence.

The second possibility was that the murders were committed by two killers working together. That would explain the similarity between the victims, but the whole idea seemed ridiculous. It was like a league of villains from a superhero comic book. Sam put that idea aside with a prayer to the powers that be. He hoped to die long before killers started banding together like that.

The third possibility was that he was dealing with a student of crime. Perhaps he was looking for someone who had spent time in prison, long enough to meet two or more murderers and learn from them. Maybe he felt driven by forces that no one but him could possibly understand, driven to pick up the work of murderers who had come before him and complete their work. Sam couldn't find a flaw in the idea, but neither could he find anything in the theory that aided the investigation. A killer who modeled himself on others gave police officers like himself very little to go on. He had no motive, since his motives were inherited from others.
 

With a sigh, Sam closed the folder. He had learned something tonight, but if anything he felt further away from cracking the case. He hated to admit it, but he needed more information to work with. More information meant more dead girls. More information meant that he hadn't done his job well enough to save the people who were depending on him.
 

He would still catch this killer. Sam hadn't given up hope of that. But his fear now was that he would find him and he would stop him far too late, after far too many were dead.

The hallway of St. Ignatius High School took on its customary din as students spilled out of their classrooms and converged on their lockers. Pamela Wilson walked with her books held against her chest like a shield.

She offered a shy smile to the occasional friendly face, but otherwise Pamela was accustomed to moving silently through the chaotic crowd of student bodies.
 

Near her locker she found refuge in her two closest friends. Jeannie and Katie were waiting for her to join them. She walked up with a smile.

"Hey, girl!" Jeannie said.
 

"Hey yourself," Pamela said. "What's up?"

"We were talking about you, actually," Katie said with an impish, sideways glance at Jeannie.
 

"Oh yeah?" Pamela replied, looking at them suspiciously.
 

"Yeah. We were making a bet. Jeannie thinks that you'll die a spinster virgin at the ripe old age of 97."

"You bitch!" Pamela sputtered at Jeannie, who had broken down into giggles.

"I think she's wrong, though," Katie said. "I think that you will die heroically while saving orphans from rising floodwaters ... as a spinster virgin at the age of 43."

Jeannie laughed even louder as Pamela crossed her arms across her chest and refused to look at them. "You are both such bitches. I don't know why I can't make better friends than your two sorry asses. Why are you so mean to me?"