The Tangerine Killer (20 page)

The little boy sleeps in the corner on a mattress. His blond hair is ruffled and he clutches a teddy bear tightly against his chest. He has been easily amused by the toys left for him in the special room and has seemed to view the whole abduction as a great game.

He is relieved. He has not wanted to hurt the child and views him as a precious, innocent soul that is not to be harmed. He is not like the cheap whore who deserved her punishment or the others that he plans to wreak havoc on. His kidnapping is merely a tool that will bring national attention to his brilliant movements to date and be sure to cut up the detective from the inside out.

After all, he has sacrificed his beloved reptilian pet for the greater cause. Why shouldn’t he have something else to dote on while he awaits the next phase of his plan?

He has made the boy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The kind his mother never made for him. There is a plastic cup of orange juice and a small chocolate pudding. Later, if the boy has settled, he will go out and buy him one of those fast food meals with the little toy inside. Then he will read him a bedtime story. One of the nice ones, not the horrible kind about wolves eating nice old grandmothers or giants terrorizing villages of tiny people. He will make up a story of his own, one that won’t scare the boy or harm his gentle psyche. One that will allow him to develop into a polite, well-adjusted adult. Not one that would make him turn out as he has done.

“You son of a bitch, how could you let this happen?”

We had barely stepped into the room when a flying whirl of blonde hair and high heels thrust itself at Olin and began pummeling him with bright red talons. He just stood there and took it, looking as though he was in some sort of trance. Finally a couple of the other cops stepped in and pulled her off him.

“Son of a bitch. You let him take my son.”

Olin’s ex-wife strained against the cops who held her back. I knew she was feeling the worst pain a mother could and I should have felt sorry for her but the only thing I saw was the woman who had kept Olin from his son. She’d used the kid to hurt him. Stopped him from taking the kid to ball games and movies. She hadn’t been fair and now she was experiencing some of that pain. But my stomach rolled over as I thought of a little boy enduring the torture that Jill had. I slumped into the nearest chair as the room began to swim around me.

“Take her to interview room one,” Captain Bright ordered.

She went with the cops who had extracted her from Olin but not quietly and I wondered where Dr. Carmichael was when you needed him. If anyone in the precinct needed his services, it was Olin’s hysterical ex-wife.

“Why don’t you come into my office,” Captain Bright offered again.

“No, let’s just do this. Now.”

Olin’s cheeks were clenched and a little muscle flexed in his jaw. The other cops in the room continued on with their work but a subdued hush now blanketed the room. This case had hit home for one of their own. That made it personal for everyone.

“Parker was abducted from the playground at the Little Tykes Daycare Center around 4:15pm. He was playing with three other boys all waiting for mothers who were running behind schedule. They were under the supervision of Mrs. Wilson, the daycare administrator. One of the boys fell from the jungle gym and scraped up his knee. When Mrs. Wilson had her back turned for a minute to tend to the boy, Parker was snatched.”

“Did she leave them alone?”

Olin’s voice sounded slightly robotic as he spoke. I wondered what it was going to take for him to snap.

“She swears that she never left the playground, just turned to tend to the boy’s knee and after she had finished, he was nowhere to be found.”

“Is she here?”

“In interview room two but you are not going to talk to her right now. We need to get every detail out of her as best we can. If you question her, she’ll be worthless to us.”

“Fine,” Olin said. “Then what can I do? That bastard has my son and the longer he has him the more likely something bad will happen.”

Olin’s voice faltered and then faded. Everyone knew what he was thinking. Parker was now at the mercy of a psycho who had a sick penchant for cutting through skin like it was tissue paper. We had to get him back and fast.

“Is there any chance that he just wandered off?” I asked.

Olin looked around with surprise as though he’d forgotten I was there. When his eyes connected with mine, I looked away. His priorities had changed and I knew that. I was no longer the one who needed protecting. I was the link that would lead him to his son and nothing more.

“The playground is fenced on all sides with one gate that is usually locked but it had been unlocked when the parents came to pick up their children. However the gate was closed and the latch is too high for the children to reach on their own.”

“So was the gate still open when Mrs. Wilson turned back around?” I said.

“No it was closed.”

“And the other boy?” I prodded.

“Just standing there.”

“So he saw him?” Olin’s voice rose. “He can ID the fucker?”

“He’s five years old and scared out of his mind.”

“So?”

“So he’s not talking to anyone at the moment, not even his own mother.”

“Get Carmichael in there then, make him talk, make him tell us who took my son.”

Olin’s voice rose angrily and the cops, who were really only pretending to be busy, gave up the ruse and turned to watch the cop they knew disintegrate into the distraught father. He stared wildly around the room, eyes flashing daggers before stalking off down the hallway.

I dithered for a moment, wondering whether my trailing after him would offend what little dignity and pride he had left. It was that or stay behind in a room full of cops who on a normal day viewed me as a murderer.

“It’s okay to let him go.”

Captain Bright stepped closer and I smelt his cologne mixed with cigarette smoke and sweat. I realized that it had been a while since I had lit one up myself and that I hadn’t even thought about it until that very moment. Guess it just went to show that I didn’t really need them after all. Only suddenly it was all I could think about. That and where the nearest liquor store might be.

“Who is his partner?” I asked as I scanned the room.

None of the cops seemed in the least bit inclined to follow after Olin and in fact now that he had gone, the tension had considerably diminished.

“Dead.”

“Oh.”

As soon as the careless comment passed my lips I regretted how stupid it made me look.

“Killed in the line of duty?” I quickly added.

“Not exactly.”

I didn’t ask what not exactly meant. I didn’t want to know.

“Why hasn’t he got a new one?”

Captain Bright didn’t answer.

I rubbed my forehead with my fingers, wondering when the cryptic clues would end. If I couldn’t get a straight answer from the sick freak who was playing games with me then the least I could hope for was straight talk from the police. But it didn’t seem as though I was going to get that either.

“So he doesn’t have anyone to watch his back and I’m just supposed to let him go off on his own?”

“You’re in my precinct. You do as I say.”

“And yet I don’t work for you.”

Despite the captain’s initial kindness, I’d just run straight into the man of steel hidden beneath that warm, fuzzy exterior.

“But you have been privy to certain aspects of this investigation that you otherwise wouldn’t have been. Who do you think gave Olin the go ahead to tell you things that suspects usually wouldn’t be told?”

“Hang on a minute. I thought I was the victim?”

“Victim of what? All I have evidence of is friends of yours dropping like flies and circumstances that point to the fact that if you are not the actual killer, you may very well be his accomplice.”

By now the captain’s voice had risen and several of the cops had once again stopped what they were doing to watch the show. For a fleeting moment I had been jealous that certain circumstances prevented me from joining the police force. Longed to be part of a bigger group that banded together in times of crisis. Now I was reminded of all the reasons why I was better off on my own.

Fuck that. I left. Following the footsteps that Olin had taken, hoping desperately that I could catch up to the one person I still hoped would believe in me. As I got further and further away from the captain, I half expected his voice to ring out with orders to arrest me. To tell me that I couldn’t leave because I was a suspect. Perhaps Will hadn’t been so far off after all when he said I was being taken back to the station to be interrogated.

I couldn’t find Olin anywhere and I felt about as unwelcome at the station as I had at my mother’s house. I hoped to find him mulling around the interrogation rooms, waiting to have a crack at his ex-wife or Mrs. Wilson the inept daycare worker. When that didn’t pan out I hoped to see him outside, venting his frustrations on the punching bag the cops had strung from a tree in the courtyard. A makeshift gym to circumvent the budget cuts. He wasn’t there either.

As I stood in the late afternoon sun it dawned on me that I had no transportation. I was stranded. Plus the cops were probably still crawling all over my disgusting motel room, combing for hairs and fibers and whatever other insinuating particles they could find. I had nowhere to go.

I sank onto a wooden bench that was set in the shade of the trees. It had a little brass plaque attached that said, ‘Donated in loving memory of Barbara, who loved these trees more than life itself.’ I wondered who Barbara was and what had drawn her to the decidedly unremarkable trees I now sat below.

The sun filtered through the leaves and painted speckled shapes on my skin and as I closed my eyes, the sound of their leaves brought back vague memories of waves lapping upon the sand. Perhaps that was what Barbara had loved about them. My limbs grew heavy and I felt myself drifting off. I fought to stay awake, afraid I’d slip back into the nightmare I had before. The naked party and the man who wanted to carve me up. He was out there in the world and now he was inside my head as well. I felt myself struggling like a swimmer for air but I couldn’t stop myself from slipping away. Then a voice brought me back with a sharp snap.

“Don’t make a sound.”

“What is it?” I whispered.

I knew it was Olin who had shaken me awake and before I even asked what was wrong, my hand was on the gun that nestled next to my calf.

“Is it him? Is he here?”

I scanned the now gloomy light, looking for the one man I longed to shoot more than anything in my entire life.

“No, it’s Captain Bright. He’s looking for you.”

“You shit!” I slapped Olin with my gun. “I could have shot you.”

“Put me out of my misery I suppose.”

He sank onto the bench beside me, all loose and dejected. I wanted to punch some sense into him, tell him to buck his ideas up. That the only way to get his son back was to fight like hell, not lie down and give up. Instead I tried the more tactical approach, something I wasn’t really very good at.

“We’ll get him back. We can do this.”

“I just don’t think I can do it on my own,” he shook his head.

“Well it’s a good job you don’t have to then. I’m not that easy to get rid of.”

In the distance uniformed officers were leaving the old brick building and going home to their families. Right there at that very moment, sitting on the wooden bench under the trees that Barbara loved more than life itself, Olin and I only had each other. Everything else had been stolen from us in one way or another. I was going to make sure that at least one of us got back what was rightfully ours.

“You have a plan right?” I said. I reached for his hand and held it tight. This time neither of us pulled away and I fought the urge to kiss him.

“Actually, yes I do. Come on.”

Olin drove and I had no idea where we were going until he pulled up outside the Little Tykes Daycare Center. We sat across the street watching the three ringed circus play out. Crime scene tape zigzagged back and forth from the chain link fence that surrounded the playground. The colorful plastic slides and swings now held coffee cups and propped up weary cops instead of giggling children.

Olin bit one of his fingernails as he watched and I wondered just how vehemently the captain had forbidden him from going anywhere near the place where his son had been abducted. I sat and waited for him to make the call, ready to follow him into the pits of hell if it would bring his son back.

The daycare center was really just a converted house. It sat amongst ancient oaks whose Spanish moss dripped over the chain link fence and obstructed the view of passersby. The houses on either side were also once homes, now converted into a massage parlor and a divorce attorney. I wondered how many of the bickering parents who dropped their children off also used their services. Stopped in for a quickie divorce and then a soothing massage to ease the sting of alimony payments.

The sidewalk was narrow, the road barely wide enough for us to park safely and still allow cars to pass. The homes on the opposite side of the street sat well back from the road with large, sprawling lawns. There was little chance that any of them had seen anything of interest from their cocooned dwellings but the house beside the attorney’s office was set at an angle. Its lot lay directly where the road made a slight curve and the house sat so that from its vantage point you could see the entire length of the road and any activity that went on.

“There,” I pointed. “If anyone saw something it would be them.”

“I’m sure all the neighbors have been canvassed by now.”

“Well then it won’t be interfering if we ask them again.”

Olin grinned. “You know, I’ve never had a partner quite like you.”

“Don’t get too excited. I’m just on loan, remember?”

What I really meant was that I wasn’t so much on loan as a loner but then I was sure that Olin already knew that. Deep down I think he was too. Neither one of us wanted people getting too close. I guessed that was why he hadn’t pressured the captain to assign him a new partner. It just seemed slightly surreal to me that two people with such obvious solitary tendencies could actually work so well together.

He sighed and I knew he was afraid of what any potential witnesses would have to say about the abduction of his son.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said.

“You know better than that. Let’s get this over with.”

We rang the doorbell a couple of times before anyone answered and when someone finally did, it was an old woman who stared pointedly at our feet. For a moment I was convinced she was hiding something until I noticed the ravages of arthritis had claimed her body. Her gray hair was pinned up in rollers as though she was getting ready to go out, waiting endlessly for a time that never came.

“Ma’am. Is it all right if we come in and ask you a few questions?”

Olin was polite but forceful as he flashed his badge in the old woman’s line of sight and nudged his way in. He cast a wary glance at the playground that was still in full view from the old woman’s front door before slipping inside. I followed with a heavy heart. There was no way the old woman could have seen anything.

“I answered questions earlier,” she protested gruffly. “I told those stupid young fellas that if they didn’t write down what I said they’d forget.”

I flashed Olin a grimace.

“I’m Sam and this is Detective Olin. You have a lovely house
Mrs
?”

“Crumb. Gretchen Crumb.”

She motioned to the living room where two overweight Corgis were lounging on a sagging sofa. One of them had his eyes closed and his mouth open in a toothy grin, the other just raised his head lazily and gave a halfhearted growl.

“Sebastian! Hercules! Get down at once. We have guests.”

The dogs shifted position and the sleeping one momentarily opened an eye but neither made an effort to move. The couch was theirs and they were not going to give it up for anything, certainly not for strangers.

“It’s okay Mrs. Crumb, we can stand,” Olin offered.

“Yes you can but I can’t.”

Gretchen sank down on the cushions in-between the two dogs. One of them gave a yelp as she thrust it to the side and the other took the opportunity to snarl at us viciously, its hair raised and lips curled.

“So did you see anything out of the ordinary today?” I asked.

Now that she was sitting, Gretchen was able to look up at us. Her pale blue eyes were sunk amidst wrinkled folds of flesh and she squinted painfully. Glasses swung around her neck on an old tarnished chain, probably not even the appropriate prescription to correct her failing vision.

“I see the way you’re looking at me young lady,” she smiled. “I suppose you don’t think I could have seen anything or that I would even have noticed if something was happening right outside my front door.”

“Well if you did see something, anything, it sure would be helpful if you would tell us about it,” I coaxed.

Olin wandered over to the grimy window. It looked like he had already given up. Who knew how long she would keep us there, dangling the possibility of some shred of evidence that never existed before us just so we wouldn’t leave. Today was probably the first time she’d had company in ages and now she had two people who up until that moment had her undivided attention.

“The little boy who was taken is my son,” Olin suddenly spoke. His voice sounded far away as he stared out at the playground.

Her face fell a little. I hoped that meant she’d help us.

“I’m sorry young man but I never saw or heard a thing.”

Olin gulped coarsely.

“But I didn’t tell the other cops that my housekeeper, Ella did.”