Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel Read online

  “Not my intention, I assure you.”

  “I’m having a little trouble not staring myself,” he said. His eyes landed on me, browner and warmer than I remembered them. My first thought was: I must have something in my teeth. And then it hit me. He was flirting. I was completely unprepared for him to swing that door open. I decided ignoring it would be the best strategy. I picked up my phone and found the photograph I wanted to show him, handed it to the sheriff. He stared at it for a while. His long lashes made his eyes seem closed when he looked down. He lifted his head. “Looks like a tree.”

  “It’s the poplar tree you told me to use as a landmark when I walked from the campground to the crime scene,” I told him. “Now go to the next couple of shots.”

  He advanced the screen with his piano player’s fingers, graceful and lean but strong and tan like his arms. I liked the square jaw and the leanness in his face, the long, sharp dents in both cheeks, the tuft of hair like a triangle under his bottom lip. He must have felt me admiring him because he looked up at me with knowing eyes, the smile I’d seen a lot this morning beginning to form. The heat hit my brain first, then bungee-jumped through my system. So unwelcome. So inappropriate. That’s the thing about chemicals. They don’t care about proper. They don’t care about timing. They don’t give a damn if you’re talking about how a killer marks his path to dispose of a young body. I reached for the untouched glass of water Molly Cochran had put on the table and took a long, cold drink.

  The sheriff went back to the photographs, finally saw what I wanted him to see. It wasn’t easy to spot. It was knee-high on the trunk of the tree—slices made in the woody four-inch-thick vines that had severed them perfectly. A section had been removed. “That’s a clean cut. That’s not natural. A vine will die all the way up when you cut them like that.”

  I knew this all too well thanks to the volume of information available on the topic. I’d spent some time last night in my hotel room following one link after another on the subject. “Something that thick can live off the tree for months even when it’s severed. But eventually it starts to die. And when it does it’s the perfect landmark.”

  “You think the suspect did this,” Meltzer said.

  I nodded. “I started to wonder why a healthy tree had a dead vine that size. It didn’t make sense. See how dry the vine is. It looks like old driftwood. It’s been dead for years.”

  Meltzer was advancing the screen again, looking at all the photos I’d taken in the woods. It occurred to me he might go beyond them and find personal pictures, photos of Rauser, of White Trash and Hank, of Neil, my office, snapshots of my life. “A hunter could have done it.”

  “It’s possible,” I conceded. I had no physical evidence to the contrary. “But wouldn’t a hunter flag the path, or make a mark on the tree, do something overt? This wasn’t that, Sheriff. This was camouflaged.” I leaned forward over the table and so did he. “I think he planned Tracy’s murder well in advance and scouted out a place to dispose of the body. He knew the embankment was a perfect place to hide her in order to keep the body from turning up in the creek or the lake. So he cut those vines as a landmark. He didn’t want it to look like someone had marked it. It was just for him. I bet by the time he walked out there with Tracy, those vines were browning out. He never wanted those bodies discovered. He’s a planner, this guy. He’s confident, and he’s detached. He’d have to be.”

  The sheriff’s eyes moved from the photos to me. He put my phone down. “But there’s something else, isn’t there?”

  I reached across and retrieved my phone. “Both girls had serious enamel defects, according to the forensic odontologist’s report.” Meltzer turned the ring on his right hand a half revolution, then another, then another. “It’s one indicator of poor nutrition. It’s not uncommon in cases where the victim has been held for months or years. Could be about control. It’s a way to keep them weak and dependent. There may be practical considerations that contributed to their bad health. For example, wherever he’s keeping them only allows access at certain times or on certain days without being seen. By the way, my office was able to gain access to Melinda’s social media contacts. That would be one of the emails you didn’t want messing up your day.”

  “I can see I’m going to have to up my game,” he said, and again let his eyes linger too long.

  Molly returned to top off our coffee. We were quiet until she was gone. “Sheriff, I emailed a contact at the GBI last night because I had a question about the lab reports on Tracy. He put me in touch via email with the forensic anthropologist who worked Tracy’s case.” I pulled the lab reports out, found the one I wanted. “See these measurements and notes right here? Women, and girls once they’ve been through puberty, are generally wider and shallower than men in the pelvis area. It’s one way a scientist can determine gender from bones. But I was curious about these notations.” I pointed them out on the report.

  “Cartilage damage,” Meltzer read.

  “I wrote and asked for clarification,” I told him. “The scientist responded this morning. That kind of soft bone damage around the pelvis joint most likely occurred during childbirth.”

  12

  Sheriff Ken Meltzer glanced around, kept his voice low. His forearms were on the tabletop and his hands were clasped. “There’s nothing in those old interviews with Tracy’s friends or her family that says anything about her ever being pregnant.”

  “There was nothing in her medical reports either,” I noted. “And I met Tracy’s mother yesterday. She doesn’t believe Tracy ever had a boyfriend. I didn’t tell her about any of this, naturally.”

  “That little girl was only thirteen.” Meltzer took off the wire-rimmed glasses he’d used to read the lab report and folded them back into his uniform shirt pocket, pushed his longish hair off his forehead with both hands. He turned back to the windows and the full parking lot. He was going to need a minute. I looked away, waited, drank some bad coffee. “We didn’t find an infant out there,” he said finally. “And we used trained dogs.”

  “I know.”

  “So what happened to the baby?”

  “We can only speculate,” I said quietly.

  “Could have died or been sold. Or he could have kept it,” Meltzer said. “That’s a horrible thought. The child would be about ten now.”

  “You’ll have to consider all those scenarios when you’re looking at suspects,” I said. Breakfast had taken a decidedly dark turn. “Do you recognize the names Logan Peele and Lewis Freeman?”

  He nodded. “We interviewed most of our registered sex offenders when Melinda disappeared and again when we found the bodies. You like one of them for this?”

  “Peele and Freeman look interesting. We started with over a hundred offenders in the general area and narrowed it down.” I talked to the sheriff about the criteria I’d used to narrow the list. “Also, based on statements to the parole board before release and to their parole officers after release, neither of these men seems capable of comprehending the damage he’s done. I think they are highly likely to reoffend. If they haven’t already. They’re listed as level-two offenders, which means the state thinks there’s a thirty-four percent probability they will reoffend. I think it’s much more likely than that. They haven’t taken any personal responsibility for their actions and from their statements it doesn’t appear they’ve experienced remorse.”

  “These men have never murdered. That we know of.”

  “True,” I agreed. “And no one mentioned seeing them in the area around the time the girls were abducted. But I think it’s important to exclude them before moving forward. They’ve demonstrated predatory behaviors in the past. The MO fits. They’ve watched and baited and conned their victims. The known victims are all female and close in age to both your vics.”

  Meltzer nodded. “We’ll circulate their photographs—family, friends, the schools. Registered sex offenders have to submit to a warrantless search here, but the courts can be finicky later. Think I
’ll cross some t’s right now.” He punched a number in his phone, spoke with someone he called Dave. He explained the circumstances, asked for search warrants, then made a date to go fishing. He hung up, and looked at me. “Judge friend of mine,” he explained. “Lot of friendships built over a fishing pole down here.”

  “Two terms so far,” I said. “You must have made a few friends.”

  He studied me for a second. I think he was trying to decide if it was a criticism. I remembered Raymond calling him an ass-kisser. Perhaps his criminal investigators’ petty jealousies had made him sensitive. He used his thumb to punch in another number. “Major Brolin, we’re going to execute warrants on a couple of registered sex offenders this morning. Lewis Freeman and Logan Peele. Meet me at Freeman’s in about half an hour. Bring a search team. I’m getting warrants so we can confiscate and examine electronic devices.” He listened, answered a couple of questions, hung up, and looked at me. “The major says Freeman isn’t allowed to have a computer since it was the primary way he contacted kids and because he doesn’t need it to make a living. He’s a grease monkey in maintenance at the Swedish chain saw factory up the road. Peele is allowed a computer but he has to bring it in on his quarterly check-ins for examination. Might be time to take a closer look at his machine.” He paused. “Listen, Dr. Street … Keye, I’m not sure how it usually works after you produce a profile. I assume that’s when your job is done?”

  “Depends on the job,” I said.

  “I was hoping you’d stick around. I’d like you to be there when we search these two offenders. And, like I said when we talked on the phone the first time, I really could use another pair of eyes and ears. Brolin and Raymond don’t have the luxury of focusing on just these two cases.”

  “They’re not going to like it,” I cautioned.

  “Brolin’s a hater, but she makes up for it by being hard to get along with.” We both laughed. “Honestly, neither of them is as bad as they seem. They’ve both helped develop important programs at the jail. I don’t want to just store prisoners. I want to figure out how to make honest-to-God good citizens out of these men. Brolin designed a family program. The prisoners get a few hours without windows or cuffs with their families once a month. Picnic kind of setting. Kids running everywhere. It reminds them what’s at stake and makes them want to do better. We’ve had a lot of them tell us later it was what made them want to turn it around. Brolin’s smart. She has ideas. I think she wants to run this department.”

  I thought about Raymond going off on me in the woods about track records and elections. “You’re not planning on running again?”

  He picked up the recorder and switched it off. “Not for sheriff.”

  “Ah.” I smiled. “Political aspirations.”

  “There may be a seat opening up. I’ve been approached.”

  “How are you, Ken?” I looked up to see a slim, dark-haired man in jeans and an untucked buttondown.

  “Morning,” the sheriff replied. “Ethan, this is Dr. Keye Street. Keye, this is Reverend Ethan Hutchins.”

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Street.” Hutchins’s hand was warm and dry when he shook mine.

  “Nice to meet you, Reverend. Care to join us?” I asked, and made one of those moves that lets people know you’re willing to slide over.

  “I’m meeting someone this morning, but if you’re still in Whisper on Sunday have the sheriff bring you along to Sunday sermon.”

  I had visions of lightning striking the church and burning it to the ground. “Couldn’t keep me away,” I answered.

  Ethan Hutchins smiled down at me. He had a gentle face, the kind that made you feel approved of, accepted. Whether it was natural or practiced, it was calming. I had the feeling I could have told him anything.

  “Dinner at our place after church, Ken,” he said. “You’re invited too, Dr. Street. My wife makes the best buttermilk fried chicken in the state and I’m not a bad baker if you like warm biscuits.” He smiled again. “See you Sunday, Ken. God bless, Ms. Street.”

  I watched him being greeted by several people as he passed through the diner. “I hang around their house Sunday afternoons when I can,” Ken Meltzer told me. “They love to cook. Nice family. And the pastor’s not opposed to a beer and a ball game now and then. They’ve been good friends to me. And a lot of support to the community through this. Especially Molly and Bryant. They have a daughter too. They understand how difficult it is.”

  I remembered when Rauser was shot, when he’d gone limp in my arms and I’d watched his blood soaking into the red earth. He’d just said he loved me for the first time. And then a bullet ripped into him. Life can give just that sweetly and in the very next instant take away just that ruthlessly. I think I’d cried out to God that afternoon, maybe for the first time since I was a child. “I guess faith comes in handy when there’s a tragedy,” I said quietly.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “You a regular at church, Sheriff?”

  “My father was Jewish. My mother is a Christian. They decided to educate me in as many religions as they could and let me decide. Naturally, this was not popular with either set of grandparents, but I think it saved their marriage. I never had a desire to go to synagogue or church, though.” He paused, thought it over, said, “Then I moved here. Mom was getting worse. I guess I was pretty lonely. And I began to believe in something outside myself. It filled the void. They say faith is the evidence of things unseen. It’s not logical. It’s something that happens in your heart.”

  “Actually it happens in your brain,” I said. “Like déjà vu. You think you’re re-experiencing an event when in fact it’s just a neuron misfiring.”

  A loud laugh came rolling out of him and surprised me. More heads turned. “That’s a very clinical view of spirituality. Is that why you’re okay with lying to a man of God about coming to church?”

  “That obvious?”

  “It was to me. But then I’m a trained law enforcement professional.” He winked, tossed a tip on the table, and picked up the breakfast tab I’d won fair and square. “Ride with me. Judge’s office is in the old courthouse. I’ll grab those warrants and we can shake up some sex offenders just for fun.”

  13

  The Hitchiti County courthouse was an ancient granite building with thick mortar between giant, square slabs. Elaborate masonry work curled around windows and doors. A raised goldletter sign out front announced its spot on the National Register of Historic Places. The lawn was as tended as the golf courses in the tourist areas, and cement pathways led to alcoves with garden benches. I waited in the Ford Police Interceptor, the sheriff’s roomy V6 utility. While he went inside, I checked out the driver’s cockpit, the equipment on the dash, the controls on the steering wheel, all the bells and whistles a cop needs to do almost everything hands-free except actually drive. The sheriff’s department must be doing okay, I decided. I leaned over and checked the mileage. Four thousand. Whatever Raymond’s beef with Ken Meltzer, it couldn’t have been that the sheriff failed at getting major expenditures approved for the department. I was pretty sure that required a board of supervisors somewhere. I thought again about what Detective Raymond had said in the woods. You think Meltzer is in a second term because he’s a good lawman? It’s because he’s a charming sonofabitch who knows what asses to kiss.

  I thought about Rauser and his leggy six-foot-two frame in the Crown Vic he loved. He wanted a police car that looked like a police car. He liked it when someone spotted him in the rearview and tapped the brakes.

  I sat there a minute, thinking, looking absently at the glove compartment. I glanced up at the courthouse steps. No sheriff. I popped open the glove box. Okay, so I wanted to know a little more about Mr. Clean who’d given up his work in Colorado to come to his mother’s rescue, who went to church on Sundays, who looked more like a park ranger than a county sheriff, and who had flirted with me this morning at the Silver Spoon diner.

  The glove compartment was neat. The usual stuff—a phone c
harger, registration, a pair of leather driving gloves, eyedrops, and a small stack of business cards. Local stuff mostly—the hardware store, a landscaper, an auto repair shop, a couple of take-out joints, the Silver Spoon.

  I looked up and saw Ken Meltzer jogging down the courthouse steps. Everything went back into the glove compartment as quickly and as neatly as possible. I remembered how the gloves were lying one on top of the other, left hand first, how the business cards were stacked, where the envelope with vehicle documents went. I pushed the glove compartment closed two seconds before the truck door opened.

  “Thanks for waiting,” Meltzer said cheerfully. He climbed in and snapped on the seatbelt. “Took longer than I thought. They weren’t ready. And the judge wanted to talk.”

  I noticed the morning light catching something on the floorboard. A white business card had fallen out when I’d tried to get everything back into the sheriff’s glove compartment. “No problem.” I covered the card with my foot.

  The sheriff turned toward the highway. “So tell me about Tracy Davidson’s mother,” he said.

  “She traps bugs in a glass aquarium and turns them into jewelry. Can you arrest her for that because it’s the stuff of nightmares.”

  A sideways glance, a grin. “County would be full if I arrested all the weirdos. Guy in the next town covers them in chocolate. Everyone has a story, I guess.”

  “Except the really boring people. They have a lot,” I said. I looked out and saw a tractor mowing an open field. A hay baler at the other end was doing its job. The air was sweet with the resiny scent of wheat and cut grass. “To be honest, Josey Davidson is a little bit of a heartbreaker. It’s clear she has a lot of regrets. The way she tells it, Tracy was the glue in a violent home. Two alcoholic parents at war with each other. The father was physically and verbally abusive. Sounds like Tracy was the cook and housecleaner and peacemaker. She and her brother were close. Kids cling to one another, they protect one another.” I thought about my own brother, Jimmy, about how we’d bonded as children. “Tracy wouldn’t have left her little brother. She wasn’t planning to run away. She got in the car with her killer because she was conned.”