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A sample from my first book. |
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He noticed how at home she seemed to be as she walked through the park, occasionally stopping to touch a flower or watch the other children who were playing ball or swinging on the swing sets, but mostly she just kept walking, oblivious to anything that was going on around her. The bangs of her straight brown hair were long and hung low enough to keep him from actually seeing her face, but he knew that it was her. She was always there, and he always came to watch over her while she played. He hadn't been asked to do it. But since no one else ever did, he'd arbitrarily appointed himself to the job. It was all a little strange, and even knowing that it was for her own good didn't help to alleviate the nagging feeling that he was nothing more than your ordinary voyeuristic pervert. Everything felt strange; he could hear all the sounds one would expect to hear in a crowded park: the kids laughing, joggers trotting by, radios playing, car horns honking, even the incessant ringing of the ice cream trucks bell - but they were all muffled and distant; all except for the music, and he couldn't tell where it was coming from. He could hear Michael Mc Donald lamenting, "I keep forgetting we're not in love anymore," but no matter which way he turned, he couldn't find the radio that was playing it. The smell of freshly cut grass rode the wind under his nose, but he couldn't find the tracks that the mower would have surely left, just like when they used to mow the ball field early Saturday mornings before his little league games. The radio, every now and then, sounded muffled like someone had their hands cupped over the speaker, clamored on, but no matter where he looked, he couldn't find it. He looked from one rolling hill to the other, and from his feet to the front gate, no one had a radio with them. Finally, he gave up. When he looked back her way, she was skipping about in circles, causing her curly blond hair to bounce up off her shoulders and dance about her face. It looked alive, like a very close friend playing along with her. Suddenly, she stopped, the hair falling lifelessly over her shoulders, and started walking toward the woods at the other end of the park. The woods were forbidden. He had to stop her. The music wasn't loud, but it drowned out his cries for her to stop. He was screaming, "get back here", but all he could hear was Phil Collins's voice, “It's against all odds. But it’s the chance I'll have to take." He had given up screaming and was just about to run down and get her when she suddenly stopped and turned back toward the center of the park. He wiped his head perfunctorily and sat back down, noticing how the sweat glittered like hot oil on the back of his hand. "It's too late, baby; now it's too late": the voice was soothing, and he began wondering who sang the song. "Something inside has died, and I can't hide, and I just can't take it.” He looked around again, trying to find the radio. He couldn't. The smell of fresh-cut grass was gone now, just like the fresh-cut tracks that had never been there. He looked around for both, and a cab caught his wandering eye as it pulled in on the other side of the park. It was his ride: just like clockwork. He looked back at her. She'd knelt down in the grass and was plucking dandelions from a bright green clover patch. He looked back at the cab: it'd barely moved. He looked back at her again. She had a hand full of the dandelions and was raising them to her mouth. With one hard breath, thousands of tiny white specks were floating around her head, and nothing was left of the dandelions but their stems. The tiny white seeds looked like snow on a dark untraveled road as they began falling to rest in her jet-black hair. He thought that today, maybe, he would tell his ride to go on, and he would just sit and watch. The honk of the horn startled him, and he was surprised when he turned and saw the cab sitting by the curb directly behind him - waiting, impatiently. Without thinking, he got up, walked over to it and got in. The wheels had just begun to spin when he remembered the girl. With a jerk, he turned to look out the side window, his nose and palms pressed flat against the glass as his eyes searched the park. He couldn't find her at first and immediately knew that he must look, the one place that he didn't want to look. The one place where he knew he would find her - the woods. That's where she was; standing not more than two feet from the tree line, peering in. Her head was cocked to the side, apparently out of curiosity, and she appeared to be shyly avoiding someone, or thing, that was standing behind the trees, just out of sight. The cab pulled away from the curb and quickly picked up speed as it headed out of the park. He was going to scream at her, but there was no way to get the windows down - the handles weren't missing, they'd never been installed. The glass fogged quickly from his heavy breathing and within seconds became a gray curtain that prevented him from seeing anything. Using his elbow, he began rubbing the glass furiously to clear a spot so that he could look through. He could only watch as a stranger, dressed entirely in black, walked up beside her, and started to lead her into the woods. She walked with him at first but stopped and started to try to get away when her foot broke the plane between grass and woods. The cabby ignored his pleas to stop. Trapped in the cab, he felt helpless and started beating on the back window as he watched the stranger pick her up and throw her over his shoulder. There was no pain when his knuckles, and then the glass, began to shatter from his punches. The skin around his knuckles split, allowing the blood to flow freely from his fist. It accented the spider-webbed patterns of splintering glass with an erratic outline of crimson smudges. The window wouldn't give, no matter how hard he hit it. The girl, the park, the stranger, and the cab disappeared as Mathew struggled to open his eyes. Sitting up, he realized that he had been dreaming, and the incessant music soundtracking his dreams was being performed by his alarm clock. With what looked to be his last breath of life, he slapped its snooze button and, without removing his hand, dropped back to his pillow and went right back to sleep. Time for work. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? This ritual had become commonplace in the past three months - oversleep, work late, get home late, get drunk and sleep in, then it was back to work again, hungover. The toll on Mathew was more than obvious to all his friends and co-workers. He hadn't been sober in three months. He had taken up smoking and traded eight hours of sound sleep for a few hours of drunken unconsciousness. Physically, he looked to be beyond help: though he was only 35; Mathew had the countenance of a man rapidly approaching 50. The next time he was wrested from his dreams, it was not by his alarm clock. It was the shrill ring of his phone that made him bolt upright in his bed. His mind was spinning, and it wasn't until his eyes focused on his feet, which were sticking out from under the covers, that he was able to comprehend what was going on. The phone blasted another ring that sounded like a police siren to his throbbing head. After lifting the receiver and propping his face against it, he mumbled, "Hello?" "Dammit! Braxton, wherein the hell are you!?" The voice on the other end screamed malignantly, and without pausing for an answer continued. "We've got another letter and two more missing kids. I'm going to bust your ass if you aren't here in 20 minutes. Do you hear me?!" There was a click followed by a dial tone. The voice on the other end hadn't waited for an answer. Recognizing the voice, Mathew knew no answer was expected, his boss had had to make that call far too often in the past few months, and it seemed to be getting more frequent by the day. After stumbling out of bed and over to the closet, he began trying to remember when he'd come home and gone to bed. He couldn't. Without paying much attention, he pulled a shirt and pair of slacks off a hanger. While dressing, he became more focused and began to think about his wakeup call. His boss had said there were two more missing kids and another letter -another letter. Visions of the first letter glittered in his mind as clear as if he were standing at his desk looking at it. It was as vivid as another memory he'd known and lugged around all his life. He thought of the phone call again and began dressing faster, slipping on his tie while walking into the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror had a rat’s nest sitting on its head. A few handfuls of water and a stroke or two from his comb fixed that. Two mouthfuls of Scope took the place of his toothbrush. Deeming himself suitable enough for work, he left his bedroom and headed toward the front door of his apartment. Passing through the kitchen, his errant gaze caught sight of the half-empty vodka bottle that sat alone in the middle of his kitchen table. He thought for a second, then went over, picked it up, tucked it under his arm and exited through the front door. The brisk, cold air was a benevolent shock to his face as he walked across the parking lot to his car. When he reached it, he noticed that it was unlocked. He opened the door, cursed himself for forgetting to lock it, and got in. After tossing his briefcase and bottle into the passenger’s seat, he started the engine and pulled out. The afternoon news droned from the radio, and he began thinking back to August and the first letter that the department had received. The envelope had contained several of the "Have you seen me?" fliers that are sent out with the everyday mail. There was also a poem. It had been written using individual letters, cut from various children’s books, that'd been pasted to the back of a sheet of paper, the kind of paper with the big lines that elementary school kids use. It read - “These kids they all are missing - but they won't be hard to find - I buried them neat on a lonely street - and now I have peace of mind." At first, they had tossed the letter aside, thinking that it was nothing more than a prank. Mathew remembered thinking there was really no reason to take it seriously. Each of the fliers asked for help in finding young girls that had all went missing in June of the same year. No one believed that one man could be responsible for all the children pictured on the fliers, much less get his hands on a flier for each of them. Two of the six weren't even from Georgia. Everyone agreed that it was nothing more than a prank, and he'd been instructed by his chief to file it away with the other sundry threats and ransoms they received daily that never amounted to anything. So, it was forgotten until a few weeks later when the Atlanta Journal and Constitution received a similar letter. The missing children’s fliers were copies of the same ones that the police had received, but the poem was new. It read, "I told the cops where to find them - on a lonely street I said - they gave up a shot in the dark when they didn't try stark - and now some more are dead." Mathew had been sitting at home when the paper reporting that the police had received a similar letter hit the street. He could remember how the public exploded. Groups formed to discharge the entire police staff. Hewing cries came not only from the people of Georgia but most of the surrounding states also. Mathew and everyone else on the staff received one death threat after another - by mail and phone. The castigation they received, they accepted as warranted because of the arduous days that had followed. The letter the newspaper had received was immediately turned over to Mathew's department. He and the rest of his staff were specialists in serial killers and other types of murderers who used cryptic notes and riddles to lead and confuse the police. A specialist was no longer needed. The first letter had told them of a burial on a lonely street, and the second had admonished them of not trying Stark. Within minutes they started organizing a plan for searching Stark Road. Every available officer and a few volunteers had been sent to search the open fields on Stark Road. They'd split into groups of five, each with a map of the area that they had been designated to search, and a walkie talkie to report their progress. Their instructions were simple "Leave no stone unturned and report immediately if you find something. Don't touch it if you don't have to. We don't want any possible evidence being screwed up! Get moving." A little more than a hundred yards from, and running parallel to, the road was a thirty-foot wide strip of bare land. It separated the woods from the waist-high brush that kept it hidden from the motorist view. It was in this dirt ravine that Mathew's group discovered a square-shaped mound of dirt that resembled a fairly new burial site. He radioed in what he had found and where he was. After getting the go ahead, he and a volunteer began to dig. One by one the other groups began to show up and started forming a circle around him and the volunteer. The grunts of physical strain and the sound of their shovels slicing into the dirt were almost deafening to everyone who stood silently by, watching and waiting to see what would be dug up. The hot rays of the sun combined with their efforts and quickly soaked their clothes straight through with sweat. The humidity only helped to shorten the nervous breaths of anticipation in everyone, and keeping their lungs satisfied became a noticeable chore. It was very apparent that both men were struggling, but no one moved to offer a helping hand. Mathew continued digging, unaware of the crowd that had gathered around him. He, like everyone else, wanted to find something that he hoped he wouldn't find. He, like everyone else, wanted answers; and he, like everyone else, was about to get an answer that would never be forgotten. There was a dull thud as the volunteer drove his shovel into the dirt for the last time. He dropped it instinctively like it had suddenly become too hot to hold and, keeping eye contact with Mathew, climbed backward out of the three-foot hole. Watching incredulously, Mathew detected the pure unmitigated fear that had suddenly gripped the man and pushed him back into the protection of the crowd, and, for the first time he noticed everyone that had gathered around him. He turned full circle looking each and every one of them straight in the eye. All the braveness, anger and anxiety they'd brought into this field was now being quailed by fear, and he knew that no one, including the police officers, would be stepping forward to take the volunteer’s place. He felt like a little boy being called a sissy by his friends for not daring to walk through a graveyard at midnight or ring a stranger’s doorbell, for no reason, at two in the morning and then run off, laughing. He felt it, only this time it wasn't his friends daring him to do something innocuous to prove that he wasn't a sissy: this time it was co-workers and volunteers and strangers hoping that he would take the unknown step and save them from having to prove themselves. Searching every set of eyes in the crowd for help proved futile; no one was going to move without a command, and he was too proud to issue it. Contemptuously, he tossed his shovel out of the hole and, using his hands, started to scrape the dirt off the object that the volunteer’s shovel had struck. With each hand full it became more and more apparent that they'd uncovered some sort of a wooden crate, and when enough dirt had been cleared away, he could see that its lid was not latched. Before reaching down to pull it off, he looked once more into everyone’s eyes, hoping to find a helping hand. Once more he saw nothing but dreadful stares of fear. Every set of eyes chanted, "MATHEW, MATHEW, MATHEW!" Finally, he gave up, took one last breath, and with a vigorous snap that took everything he had, pulled the lid off the crate. The smell alone had induced vomiting so quick that he'd lept from the hole and gotten sick before even seeing what he'd found. The movement was so fast and uncontrollable that he sprayed many of the onlookers with his undigested breakfast before getting into an all-fours stance. After a few minutes, the muscle contractions stopped, allowing him to roll over onto his back. The beaming rays of the sun forced his eyes shut, preventing him from seeing what was happening, but he could hear gasps of disbelief and the sounds of other men being physically affected in the same manner he had. All this coupled with nerves, a hangover and more than slight dehydration, swept him into unconsciousness. HAVE YOU SEEN ME? When he awoke again, Mathew was lying in the back of a moving patrol car. Sitting up, he shook the haze from his head and tried to remember what was happening. He could remember the field, the search, and the digging; after that everything was like a dream that consciousness was about to erase. "Where are we going?" he mumbled. The officer that was driving looked at him through the rear-view mirror, "Braxton!? I was starting to get worried about you. Jesus! You passed out cold back there in that field. I'm running you to the hospital for a little checkup. Man, I thought that you were really fucked up. Guess it was a little too much for you to handle. I'm glad that I didn't have to see it. From what I heard, it would have made Charlie Manson sick to his stomach." "What was it? What was in the crate?" "They told me that is was five little girls. They think that it's the ones from the letters, but they'll have to wait on the autopsies before they know for sure. Some of the bodies were damn near skeletons and some of them looked like they'd just been killed. " Mathew could still taste the vomit in his mouth and tried swallowing to get rid of it, but his throat was too dry and swallowing only caused pain. "They only found five?" "Yea. They're still looking for the other one. It's a freakin' catastrophe. Don't worry about it now, though; just relax till I get you to the hospital. After they check you out, someone will fill you in on all the details." "Ok." "Hey Braxton," the fear in the officer’s voice was ominous. "You guys are gonna catch this bastard, aren't you?" "He's going down in the biggest way possible." "I've got two girls of my own. And, I.. uh..," Mathew didn't need to hear anymore, "We'll get him. Don't worry." He recognized the officer but had no idea what his name was. The dizziness and nausea returned, and he began to gag. "Hey, ya' want me to pull over." "No,” Mathew struggled to keep his eyes open as he leaned over in the seat and rested his head on the cool glass of the door’s window. "I'm all right. Just get me to the hospital and out of this Goddamn car." A billboard advertising "The Vasectomy Clinic" was the last thing that he saw before conciseness left him again. Brake lights from the car in front of him snapped Mathew out of his recollective daydream. He brought his car to a stop and changed the radio from news to music. A taxi rolled up beside him, and an advertisement on its side caught his attention immediately. It pictured the face of a young girl. Above it was the words "Have you seen me" printed in bold blue letters, and below it were all the pertinent facts on the child. Quickly looking away, he turned up the car stereo to try and drown out the incessant phrase that was now pounding in his head. "HAVE YOU SEEN ME? HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Have you seen... " Reaching down and opening the glove box, he fumbled around for a second before retrieving a coffee mug. One hand placed the mug on a flat part of the seat, and the other opened the vodka bottle. After filling the mug to its rim, he screwed the lid back on the bottle and tossed it into the floorboard. Trying carefully to pick up the mug without spilling anything, he noticed the red light turning green and, acting quickly, was able to down a few gulps before having to move, thus preventing a spill. Billy Joel was intoning "Leave a tender moment alone" as his car went under the green light. The vodka began doing its job, and, as the anxiety left, he started going over the events of the first letter again. He had been treated and released from the hospital and then briefed on what had been found on Stark Road. Five girls, presumably the ones on the fliers, were what was in the crate he'd dug up. The crate, and bodies had been sent to the lab for testing. The causes of death weren't immediately apparent. That was all they knew and, after gleaning all he could from the criminalist, Mathew had immediately rejoined the search for the remaining missing girl. They combed the area for three more days without finding anything and finally called the search off. The people of Atlanta protested vehemently but to no avail. The land on Stark Road had been turned over three times, and if another body were there, they would have found it. The girl that they couldn't find was a six-year-old named Lisa Ann Jones of Chamblee, Georgia. He remembered thinking how odd it was that the two girls from out of state were buried with the rest of the bodies, but one of the ones from Georgia wasn't. Day after day, he'd spread the fliers out on his desk and studied them. Mary Gaines, 5yrs, 2ft 35lbs, blond hair, hazel eyes; last seen leaving school, June 5, 1992. Tracy Holcombe, 6 yrs., 3ft 4in, black hair, blue eyes; last seen playing in the park, June 18, 1992 Sandy Hazelwood, 6yrs 4 ft. blond hair, green eyes; last seen outside of her house, June 23, 1992 Lisa Barons, 5yrs 4ft, brown hair blue eyes; last seen leaving school, June 22, 1992 Amy Smith, 6yrs 4ft,4in., brown hair, green eyes; last seen at daycare center, June 9, 1992. Tennessee. Julie North, 3yrs 3ft. red hair, blue eyes, last seen leaving school, June 28, 1992. North Carolina. Lisa Ann Jones, 5 yrs, 3ft 2 inches brown hair, hazel eyes, last seen at the city pool, June 17, 1992. After looking over the cases, he'd found only two common denominators. They were all girls, and they all went missing in June. Everyone agreed that this was probably the work of a serial killer and that he liked little girls - that was the easy part. Now they had to try and find some pattern, and or, motive in his abduction practices. The autopsies had shown that the girls weren't sexually molested, but there were signs of torture, starvation, and beating. Three of the girls had died from traumatic blows to the head with a blunt instrument. Death was instantaneous. One had been choked to death using an undeveloped roll of film. The film was removed from her esophagus during the autopsy and sent to the lab for developing. What they got back was more confusing than helpful. Pictures of densely wooded areas, back streets, a hallway that could have been from any house, or apartment in the state, and a shot of the old Sears building that was now being used as storage by the city. They were unable to determine when the pictures had been taken, or why. The fifth girl had died from suffocation. She hadn't just been deprived of oxygen; she had somehow been squeezed to death. Common denominator - no known motive. Judging from the reported missing dates, some of the girls had been killed immediately, and others had been kept alive for weeks. Maybe some cooperated more than others. Maybe some of them had to be killed during the abduction. They could only speculate. Again, no apparent motive or pattern. All the families were questioned by Mathew, his boss, or someone in his force: nothing was found. No one had received pre-abduction threats. No one had been called about ransoms, and no one could say they had reason to believe that someone would want to abduct their child - no jealous boyfriends or ex-husbands or wives. The investigation wasn't easy. Every household that they went to had already been badgered by the press and were seething from the incessant questions and request for exclusive interviews, so they didn't get exceptional cooperation. The most devastating part for the families was the finality of the recent events. Most of them had still held onto the tiny hope that their loved one would turn up alive and unharmed. Things get lost, and you sometimes feel foolish when you finally find them; that was the ending that they'd hoped for and stringently held onto. They'd sought refuge in the unknown, and now that it had been erased, they were forced to face the cold hard truth. Their child wouldn't be coming back home. Ever. It wasn't easy. Mathew and his force were looking for clues when they questioned the families, but they didn't get much of anything because the press, looking for scoops or slants, had unfortunately beaten them to the punch by getting to every single family before they could. They'd not only dubiously driven mothers of the dead girls into tears, but had also turned them against the police with mindless questions like: "Do you think a police force that ignores a death letter will really give a concentrated effort to find the person who killed your child?, and "Do you have anything that you would like to say to the policemen that thought your child’s abduction was just a prank?". No one asked if the families hoped for a swift trial. No one asked if they were hoping for guilty verdicts. Not one question was asked about whether or not they hoped the state would seek the death penalty when the perpetrator was caught. The reporters didn't want to know how the families felt about the person that had murdered their daughters, and they didn't want to know what the cops thought. The only thing they wanted to know was how each family member felt about the cops not taking the case seriously at first. This was what had begun Mathew's downfall. He gave up sleep, started smoking and drinking and stayed buried in missing children files - both related and unrelated to the case. There were times when he stayed in his office for two and three days at a time, racking his brain to try to find a connection in the abductions. He couldn't. For each girl, he'd made copies of the "on scene" police photos and put them in an album next to the corresponding "Have you seen me" fliers. For hours he would sit at his desk and stare at the pictures of the decaying bodies, trying to replace the rotting, swollen black and blue flesh with the innocent faces in the pictures the parents had taken. The happy, unpretentious smiles didn't match up with the grinning skulls that he'd found buried in that crate on Stark Road. The only things they had in common were the words "HAVE YOU SEEN ME?" printed above them in big blue letters. It became harder and harder to believe that the sparsely flesh-covered skulls in the police photos had once been the faces of the unassuming little girls whose lives had ended before they'd even started. The smiling young faces on paper were now perpetually grinning skulls trapped under six feet of earth. Monuments of bone, which - if they were to see them - might make every mother squeeze their baby girl’s hand a little tighter next time they took them out of the house or look out the window one extra time next time they were out playing to make sure they were still in the yard. He was disturbed but also entranced by the photos, and this sickened him to the point of an almost total loss of appetite, so he stuck to smoking, drinking, and staying in his office. Looking. The traffic crawled through the streets of Atlanta, just like Mathew's memory of the case. The one day that he remembered could have been any day, because the routines were pretty much the same, with the same results. He had to pass a lot of people on the way to his office, and they all knew that he was late. Some simply said hello. Others sneered at him in righteous anger like his showing up late was somehow taking money out of their pockets. He was impervious to both,and as soon as he could get away without seeming rude or disconcerted, he did. He went to his office, closed the door and got out the files he had put together on the missing girls. Before opening them, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved a medium-sized box that had materialized into an integral part of the case. The box held his secret stash of vodka. He felt that this, more than anything else, had helped him in dealing with this case. After taking what he needed, he'd return the bottle to the box, and the box to the drawer and opened the files to ready himself for the task at hand. The phone usually rang, and without looking up from the pictures, he'd reach over and picked it up. "Hello." "Task meeting at 1:00, Braxton. Don't be late." He looked down at his watch (12:45) “I'll be there." His voice remained stolid, even though he knew what this meeting would entail. Group meetings were being held every day to update the force of the public’s concern and to give members of the task force a chance to parley possible connections or patterns of the deaths of one another. Every day they received information on the most recently reported missing children and records of criminals that fit the child and or serial killer mold. Lots of shots were fired into the dark. Mathew found these meetings redundant and a nuisance to his investigating time. This sort of murder was unprecedented in any form, be it a child or serial killer and the possibilities were limitless. These victims had all been girls who'd gone missing in the same month. More than thirty little girls across the United States fit that description, but they weren't stuffed into that crate and buried on Stark Road. This case didn't fit any mold. Coincidence could have been a viable explanation: but, two of them were not from Georgia. For all anyone knew, this could have been a onetime killing. A killing that could have been committed by one or one hundred people. A contrived plan or just someone’s one-month venture into the dark side, with no intention of ever doing it again. Maybe, telling everyone where to find the kids had acted as a catharsis to the killer and placated his feelings of guilt. It might never cross his mind again. To Mathew, all the different explanations became excuses for someone’s inability to solve the case and the more frustrated they became, the more outrageous, inane, and trite their explanations became. The more that his colleagues had tried to isolate this case or draw parallels between it and others, the more contemptuous Mathew grew toward them and the meetings. He knew that this case did not, and in the end, would not follow any other case. Seeing them getting nowhere, and wanting to keep this case to himself, he decided to reserve his theories and only profess an interest in what everyone else had to say. Before discussions began that day, every officer received information on the latest missing children. Looking at his, Mathew thought that he must have gotten two copies and incredulously began to flip through his sheets of paper. Unable to find a repetitive pattern, he looked at the officer sitting next to him. He also had an ordinarily large stack of papers. Within seconds everyone was looking at everyone else for a reason to the abnormally large stack paper that they had gotten. The task force leader noticed the confused looks and spoke up. "There is no mistake. These are the reported missing children for yesterday and the day before. And yes, there is defiantly a sizable increase. I've come up with two theories that might explain this. First, and I hope that this is the case: these children have been reported missing out of a sense of panic." For the first time, Mathew was listening to what was being said in a group meeting. He watched and listened intently to his boss. "As you know, this case has received national attention, and with that comes a sudden nationwide alarm and panic. In this case, it would be parents who used to think nothing of their kids disappearing for days or even weeks at a time." He raised a copy of the ATLANTA JOURNAL in one hand and the USA TODAY in another. Both had full front-page layouts on the mysterious missing children's case, "Then they see this, and start bouncing off the walls: calling the cops and swearing that their kids would never leave home without telling them where they were going and all that other bullshit. I pray that will end up explaining this sudden increase in missing children reports." He took a slow deep breath before offering his other conclusion, tossing the papers onto a table behind him. Then, after turning and looking down at the podium as if it were the body of one of the missing children, he started again in a low but stern voice. "Second, and God, I hope this is wrong. It could be the work of a bunch of copycat killers. We don't have anything that would suggest that's what’s happening, but we all know that it is a possibility. There are some crazy people walking around out there that shouldn't be. So, until we find out different, we will treat these kids as part of our case. And we'll keep the copycat theory in mind. "Now, we are bringing in experts from other states to work with us. And hopefully, by sharing some past experiences of this type, they will enable us to bring a swift end to this whole thing. Today, I want to show you a few things that the state has put together on serial killers and missing..." It was at this point that Mathew quit listening. Mostly because he could care less what the state "experts" thought, but partly because he'd become so engrossed in the photos of the missing children that he'd just been given. The faces looked so still, so peaceful and content. They didn't dredge up feelings of grief or regret. They didn't strike him as reminders that these people were, likely, dead. Things went just fine without any input from him, and before the meeting was concluded, he'd looked through the pictures three times. As he rose to leave, he had a feeling that none of these kids were related to the case but kept his ideas to himself as he left the room and went back to shut himself in his office. The office was cool and dark, save for the light on his desk, and that was how he liked it. He stood in the middle of the room for a moment, trying to fight the gut feeling that was telling him to forget about the pictures of the kids he'd just been given - they weren't related. Someone else took them if they were even missing. Get back to the original five. He'd been battling himself like this more and more each day - and more than not, his gut feeling would win. He ended up sticking today’s pictures in a large metal filing cabinet in the corner of his office that sat next to a window that faced the city. He had a picturesque view of the east side when the blinds were up, but they hadn't been up in weeks. For all he knew, they had torn down all the beautiful buildings that he used to sit at his desk and look at. And that's how he remembered every day being - show up late, take a drink, sleep through the meetings and then go back to the office to work privately on the case. He didn't need any help. He remembered thinking from day one that the entire staff was beating its head against a wall that wasn't going to move, and he still thought that today. A bitter sneer buckled his lips as he neared the station. The memory ran quickly, almost repulsively, through his mind one last time. Today things were going to change, and coasting into his parking space; he wondered where the new letter was going to send him. Would the next few months get better or worse? Would there still be more questions than answers, or would something finally give? The lack of sound the car produced when it was moving suddenly made him aware of the radio, which was still cranked to full blast. The local DJ, in a voice of mawkish utopia, was rambling - “... this is your "Star" for work and play. All your favorite tunes at all your favorite times! Keep it right here and don't touch that dial.! We're gonna warm you up a little with some Cindy Lauper and "Girls just want to have fun.” He gulped down the last bit of hope from his coffee mug and turned the car off. Detective Donnie Mc Cart sat on the corner of his desk, eyes closed, holding the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. His bald head reflected light from every lamp in the office, giving it the look of a newly polished creme colored bowling ball. It was hard to picture that gruff, malevolent voice of his coming from such a small body. He stood barely five foot five and couldn't weigh more than 150 pounds if he were wearing concrete shoulder pads, but he'd earned the respect of his entire department, and then some, by simply putting his life into every facet of his job. His posture emitted an almost arrogant confidence, his shoulders never drooping, even when he was relaxed. Mathew had not only shown him that respect but had chided others for not showing the same. Those days were gone. The effect this case was having on Mathew had dumbfounded Donnie more than any other problem that he had run into over his 27-year career in law enforcement. Mathew's drinking habits alarmed him and made him start to wonder if he was about to lose one of his best men. He had seen this sort of thing happen to other cops over years of trying to solve a particularly harrowing or personal murder case, but never had he seen such a rapid onset of mental and physical infection. Mathew's frame of mind was immutable, and nothing Donnie tried, punishment or praise, seemed to help. He knew that Mathew had seen deaths much more inhumane than this. In one case he had watched Mathew pull the body of a man that had been skinned alive, out of a dryer in a public laundry mat. Other than the initial queasiness, it didn't bother him. He'd done the investigating he'd needed to do and solved the case, and it was never mentioned again. So, he couldn't figure out why this case had had such a virulent effect on his best detective, and this ate at his nerves more than the case itself. He'd begun to wonder how he'd ease the public’s fears about the case when he was unable to allay the effect it was having on one of his most trusted and stolid men. The door at the end of the hall opened, and he immediately looked up to see who it was. It was Mathew. His worries, lamenting, and fears quickly changed into a hateful rage. The oblong bloodshot slits and the bags that hung below them once contained the eyes of a soul that knew no limits. Now they contained what Donnie construed to be an insolent attitude toward everything and everybody: especially himself. He watched incredulously as Mathew entered the building, and silently side stepped everyone that neared him. Not even a friendly hello from a workmate got him to look up and acknowledge anyone else's existence in the building. Donnie was up and heading at Mathew like a charging bull who'd noticed that the matador had lost sight of him. He grabbed him by the shoulder as he was about to enter his own office and, without saying a word, began shoving him down the hall. Between shoves, Mathew looked back at Donnie for an explanation or command: each time all he got was another shove. Actually, he knew the reason that he was being treated this way. It was Donnie's silence and use of physical force that was puzzling to him. Donnie had always run his department with austerity but never had he shown any physical disrespect like he was right now. The last push sent Mathew stumbling to the front of Donnie's desk, where he stood silently, staring at the floor. He heard the door slam behind him and then silence. He knew that Donnie was standing behind him and that it would be best if he let him have the first word. It seemed that the seconds were counting themselves off like minutes as he stood there, feeling Donnie's eyes burn a hole in the back of his head. There had been quite a few times in the past months where he'd stood and listened to Donnie scream at him. He'd watched the veins in Donnie's head swell to the point of bursting, and his face turned blood red as spit formed in the corners of his mouth like a rabid dog, but this silence was unprecedented; and it bothered him more than any of the screaming. "Well," Donnie kept his voice low and, other than the insolence, pretty much emotionless. He was doing everything he could to keep his anger to himself and handle this maturely. "Would you like to see the letter, or would you rather go sit in your office and try to solve this whole damn thing on your own?" Mathew watched as Donnie came around him and took a seat behind his desk. Then, acting like everything was normal, he downplayed the situation and looked Donnie right in the eye, "What have you got?" he asked calmly. Donnie opened his desk and pulled out a large manila envelope and tossed it at him. "Everyone else has had a look at it. Why don't you take it to your office and look it over for a while? Make some notes and get a few ideas. A meeting is scheduled for four -thirty. Be there and be ready to work all night. This thing is going to be bigger than life within the next few days." Donnie grabbed a stack of papers and began to sift through them. Mathew took this as a sign that their meeting was over and picked up the envelope and paced out of the room. |
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