“No, we thought she was cutting. Lisa said she didn’t answer her texts, she thought maybe her mom took her phone away.”
“Bethany, just lock the door when I leave, and do not leave this house. Do you understand?” I instructed her.
I was grateful she didn’t argue. She just nodded as I told her I loved her.
I glanced over at Roxy, silently hoping that if there were ever a threat to my daughter, the big dog would rise to the occasion and show some teeth if it became necessary.
***
The mayor’s residence was located outside of town on the edge of the lake. The huge, colonial-style, three-story home was constructed mostly of river rock and slate. It had been converted and restored from a once-popular hotel. In the past, it had served as a getaway for young families looking for an escape from the humid summers of the city, until it became more of a status symbol to spend the summers at the Hamptons or the Jersey Shore.
Immediately after Marty arrived, the circular driveway in front of the estate started to light up like a Christmas tree, with blue and red flashing lights from vehicles representing every law enforcement agency for miles around. Every state, county, and city official in the immediate area had been put on notice that Mayor Knox’s kid was missing and a serial killer was at large.
News vans were setting up satellite dishes and portable lamps, getting ready to broadcast from the location. Reporters, trying to get someone to make a statement, stuck microphones in the face of anyone who happened to pass by. Radio dispatchers called out codes to unoccupied vehicles. Ringtones would go off and everyone in the crowd would raise their phones to their ears, thinking it was a call for them.
***
The air was thick with humidity, serving as a reminder that summer was on its way. The moon, not quite full, occasionally peeked out from behind a parade of dark clouds looming in the night sky. It looked as if evening showers threatened to burst out at any moment.
Marty looked around to see if Jean had arrived. Blinded at first by the intense halogen lights of the media, he finally managed to focus on a couple of familiar faces. He caught sight of the red hair of his friend Justin, who was standing on the other side of the crowd, talking to one of the New York state troopers.
Marty carefully made his way around a spider web of cables and camera equipment and walked toward them.
“What a circus,” Justin said to Marty, when he got close enough that he didn’t have to shout.
Marty nodded in agreement and extended his hand to the short, bulky state cop, who he knew from a softball league they both had played on.
“Terry,” Marty welcomed him as they both looked around at the crowd starting to accumulate.
“Think the girl’s dead?” the trooper asked, shifting his slightly bulging brown eyes from Marty to Justin.
“If you ask me, the kid’s dead,” Terry told him. “And we’re going to find her just like the other two,” he said loudly, not caring who was listening.
Marty flashed back on the memory of the first victim, Jamie, her body lying partially nude in the woods, her charred face still smoldering. He never got a chance to know Jamie, but he did get to know Katie Hepburn. He wasn’t terribly fond of the girl, he found her to be narcissistic and self-absorbed. And yet, there was some sort of vulnerability that gave the teenager a type of charm.
He remembered how her personality seemed to adjust to accommodate the people she was around. He thought about how disappointed she had looked when he told her that her father couldn’t be reached. He recalled how uncomfortable she seemed when her stepfather had entered the room.
Marty wondered if her emotional void was nothing more than a defense mechanism the girl had developed. Then he wondered if he was starting to think like a psychiatrist. Had Hope been that much of an influence on him? Before he met her, he never would have even considered something so complex.
Just as Marty was about to ask Justin if he had been in the house, he caught the sight of Jean walking up the circular driveway, pushing a horde of reporters’ microphones away from her face.
“No comment,” she snarled at Marilyn Tams, the blonde, statuesque, sometime quirky reporter from the local television station.
They kept bombarding her with questions.
Marty excused himself, walked over to Jean, and grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the line of fire. Sometimes, being six foot three and built like a brick wall had its advantages. The crowd opened up like the Red Sea to let them walk through. At least, that’s what Marty thought at first.
The truth was, the crowd’s attention had shifted. The mayor and his wife had come out of the house and stood in front of a makeshift podium.
Marty and Jean looked at each other, the same thought in their minds. Had Mayor Knox waited to notify them about the girl being missing? Had his first call been made to the media?
“You think this is a media stunt?” Marty asked her.
“No, but I wouldn’t put it past that jerk to take advantage of it politically. Let’s go,” she said, as she pushed her way through the crowd.
The mayor was flushed and sweating. He was in the middle of adjusting the microphone when Marty grabbed him and pulled him away. He ignored the chunky man’s protests and pulled him back into the house.
Chapter Twenty
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Marty asked the mayor. I slammed the double entrance doors behind me, accompanied by Mrs. Knox, obviously upset and disheveled.
“I am trying to save my stepdaughter’s life, that’s what I’m doing! Your department is worthless! I told you there was a serial killer out there!” Spittle came flying out of his mouth. The man’s face became red with anger, blood corpuscles at risk of bursting on either side of his nose.
“Look Paul, calm down,” Marty told him. He let loose of the fat man’s arm, afraid that the mayor was in danger of having a heart attack. Sweat was pouring down the man’s forehead, despite the fact that the temperature in the house was more than comfortable.
“Paul, please.” This time it was Katie’s mother requesting some decorum from her husband. “Please, they’re here to help.”
Knox
looked at his wife, sadness in his eyes. I was surprised to find myself actually thinking that the man was capable of compassion.
“I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry, I should have protected her.” He fell back into a large cushioned chair, defeated. His wife’s face was black with mascara-stained tears.
Marty saw a dining room chair not far away. He grabbed hold of it and dragged it over. Facing the chair backwards, he threw his leg over it and sat facing Knox.
“Listen, we are going to find her, Paul,” he told him.
I was desperately trying to keep my own doubts from invading my thoughts. I glanced up at Mrs. Knox.
I reiterated what Marty said. “We will find her, I promise.” I told her.
The woman closed her eyes and just nodded her head.
Marty turned back to the mayor.
“When was the last time you saw Katie? When did you hear from her last?” he asked.
Mrs.
Knox
answered.
“When she left for school. She came into my room about seven o’clock this morning. She said she was getting a ride from someone… I… I don’t remember who she said—I thought it was one of her friends.” She broke down crying again.
I could almost smell the emotion and fear coming from the woman. I had been there just a few days ago. My story turned out fine, I wanted hers to turn out the same way.
A few seconds later, she managed to compose herself. “She never got to school. Her friends said she wasn’t in school. She won’t answer my calls or texts. Her friends say they haven’t heard from her.”
She grabbed a tissue and made another attempt to wipe away her tears. They were falling faster now.
Marty looked up.
“What about Cameron? Have you spoken to him, Paul?”
The mayor looked at his wife, trying to compose himself before he spoke.
“He’s out looking for her. I called him as soon as we realized. He said… he was going to go look for her. I…” Knox was gasping for breath as he spoke, each word taking a tremendous effort.
Just as Marty was about to ask another question, a loud, musical tone came from a cell phone sitting on a long, narrow coffee table. Donna Knox reached out to grab it, knocking over a glass of wine in the process. Ignoring the mess, she hollered into the phone.
“Hello! Katie?” she screamed in anticipation, only to get quiet as she listened, to the response.
“Hold on…” She handed the mayor the phone, obviously disillusioned. It wasn’t the call she had been hoping for.
She made a halfhearted attempt at cleaning up the mess, only to be gently pushed aside by a short, squat, dark-haired domestic worker, who seemingly appeared from nowhere, equipped with cleaning rag and bucket.
Knox
mostly listened before informing the caller of the detectives’ presence. He handed Marty the phone. “It’s Cameron, he wants to talk to you.”
Even before Marty put the phone to his ear, he could hear an obviously distraught Cameron.
“I can’t find her, Marty, I can’t find her. I’ve looked everywhere. She isn’t answering my calls, Marty. Something’s real wrong—you’ve got to find her,” he pleaded between sobs.
“Cameron, where are you?” Marty asked, holding the phone slightly away from his ear, allowing me to hear a bit of the conversation on Cameron’s end. Marty listened intently for a few moments before speaking again.
“Listen Cameron, just stay where you are, we’ll be out there in a little bit.”
A loud ruckus was coming from outside. The door opened and Donna Knox became almost breathless in anticipation of seeing her daughter walk in. Instead, she became disappointed again when she realized it was Justin. He handed me a piece of paper.
Paul
Knox
got up from his seat.
“What? What is it? Is it about Katie?” He tried pushing his way past Justin to see what was in my hands.
“It’s not about Katie, Paul, it’s a phone tip about one of the other girls. It could be nothing, just something we’re going to check into,” I told him, folding the paper and pocketing it.
I turned my attention back to the lanky redhead, who was almost as tall as Marty.
“Are they running the plate number?” I asked him.
“Yeah, they’re doing that now.” He watched as Marty finished his phone call to Cameron. He nodded compassionately to Katie’s mom and turned back to me.
“I’ll let you know as soon as they pull it up. They’re having some internal server problems and they have techs trying to solve some issues.”
Marty handed the phone back to the mayor.
“Look, Paul, stay here, give your interview, and talk to the state guys when they get here. We’re going up to Cameron’s place to talk to him.”
He turned to Mrs. Knox.
“We’ll find her,” he told her, trying to convince himself just as much as her. He turned back to me.
“Let’s go talk to Cameron.” He walked out and I followed closely behind him.
***
The crowd outside hadn’t dissipated. In fact, it had gotten worse, and certainly more chaotic. More media had arrived, and now the area was crowded with ordinary neighbors and citizens trying to find out what all the commotion was about. The scene was starting to resemble a rock concert. I was concerned that now would we have to waste critical personnel on crowd control.
Two canine handlers were waiting off to the side while their four-legged partners sniffed the ground and paced nervously. The canine officers were waiting patiently for instructions, while their dogs appeared anxious to be let loose to hunt down their target. Just as we pulled out, I saw the dogs let go, their noses to the ground, walking in circles.
***
Marty led me toward his car as he explained the content of his conversation with Cameron. I turned back to Justin and handed him my car keys. I arranged for him to have my ride driven back to the station. I got into Marty’s car and buckled myself in.
He turned on the lights and siren as he sped away from the mayor’s mansion. I started to open the window, but thought twice and changed my mind.
I already felt like I needed a long shower. The humidity was hanging in the air as if we were deep into the summer months, instead of it being a June night. The moon was out, but dark storm clouds floated rapidly past the not quite full bright white disk. An evening storm was brewing, and I realized that whatever rain gear I had left in my car was not going to be an option.
“You think he knows where she is?” I asked.
“No.” He shook his head as he answered me. “I think he’s seriously worried. I think he may know something, he just doesn’t remember what it is. He kept on berating himself… kept talking to himself, repeating, ‘Think, Cameron, think,’ as if he was trying to pull something out from his memory.”
Ten minutes later, we pulled up to the cottage. The door was open and Cameron was sitting on the doorstep, bare chested, wearing only a pair of shorts, his muscular bare legs stretched out before him while moths swarmed, attracted by the light in the room behind him. Totally oblivious to them, he had his hand knotted into a fist, and he was slamming it into his forehead over and over again.
He looked up and watched us get out of the car, but he continued the violent hand motion until Marty grabbed hold of his wrist, forcing him to stop.
If I’d had any doubts up till now, they were now gone. This guy was definitely missing a few crayons from the box.
Shaking his head, he looked up at Marty.
“I should be with her, if I was with her, this wouldn’t be happening. They shouldn’t have kept her from me, I could have protected her, Marty, I could have!”
I suddenly felt sorry for the man. I don’t know, call it a mother’s instinct. Either he was a very competent actor or he was in some serious emotional pain.
I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I remained wary. Besides, my instinctive powers left a little to be desired lately. I was concerned that he was acting like she was dead already. I wasn’t ready to go there yet. I knew to be suspicious of anyone that had her dead and buried.
I closed the door halfway, in an effort to keep the moths at bay, and sat down next to him, barely fitting in the space of the doorway. I could smell the pungent aroma of cannabis coming from the house. I chose to ignore it.
“Cameron, when was the last time you spoke to Katie? Do you remember?” He had his cell phone in his fist, as if he was waiting for it to ring at any moment, but it remained silent.
He loosened the fingers that held the portable device, his white knuckles turned a pale pink as his circulation began to flow. He handed me the phone.
“She called me this morning, before school. She said something about getting a ride. She told me—I think she did—but I just wasn’t listening, I wasn’t listening,” he sniffled. “I was… I was talking to her, but I was just waking up. I had a rough night.”
His nose was twitching and his right hand kept swiping the bottom of it. I wondered if marijuana was the only substance he had indulged in. I suspected he might have ingested something a little stronger than cannabis. I glanced around inside the cottage, and noted an empty bottle of Johnny Walker Red lay empty on the table.
Taking the phone from him, I studied the menu until I was able to find the correct icon that would let me pull up his recent calls. The first call he made to her number was at 12:15 p.m. It went unanswered. He placed another call at 2:30 p.m., about the time school let out. One more attempt at contacting her showed up at 3:00 p.m., then 3:40, then at 4:00. Over the next hour and a half, there were thirty unsuccessful outgoing calls to Katie’s cell number, each one closer in intervals, some not allowing a minute between them.