Find Me

4

Lieutenant Coffey looked out his office window as the first tourist of the season was strafed with droppings from a low-flying pigeon, and now it was official: Springtime had come to New York City. On the street below, those happy pedestrians who had not been defecated upon were shrugging their arms out of sweaters and jackets and lifting their faces to the warmth of the sun at high noon. The sky was a brilliant blue, and it was a foul day in Special Crimes Unit. At the age of thirty-six, Jack Coffey was considered young for a command position, yet his mind was on his pension.

He pictured it circling a toilet bowl.

All morning long, he had done a frantic tap dance on the telephone, spinning lies and dodging questions, trying to give a good impression of a man in charge, though he had no idea why one of his detectives had traveled to Illinois. But now he was more at ease with the paperwork for Mallory’s e rstwhile houseguest, Savannah Sirus, and the official finding of suicide. If Detective Mallory had committed murder, she would not be reporting abandoned cars and found body parts to the local cops along her escape route.

The lieutenant’s second window was a sheet of glass spanning the upper half of one wall. It gave him a view of Police Commissioner Beale on the way to the stairs at the other end of the squad room. Men with guns were rising from their desks as the skinny old man passed by them. It was a rare day when the top cop visited the lower echelons, and he had come without his entourage-no witnesses. There had been no appointment, not even a warning telephone call, and there would be no record of the meeting just concluded. Commissioner Beale was planning to put the screws to the FBI-old grudges died hard-and he needed Mallory to do it.

The commissioner had assumed that Detective Mallory was on vacation in Illinois. If the old man ever thought to check, he would find no paperwork for any sanctioned leave time. She had been clocked in this morning as a cop on active duty. And, apparently, she was on the job today. She was just working for the wrong police department in a different city far from home. So, if the boys from Internal Affairs should drop by for a chat with her commanding officer, Jack Coffey could say, “Hey, the kid got confused.”

By a thousand miles.

Oh, yeah, that would work.

Given the chance, he would make the same mistake again. The Job had damaged his detective and made her unfit for duty-and the Job owed her something. His only other option had been to officially relieve her of duty, but Kathy Mallory could never have passed the psych evaluation necessary to get back her badge and gun.

Other cops had covered for her, and Riker had done more than most, working insane hours and getting results for two, himself and his missing partner. And now Commissioner Beale wanted to loan Mallory out to Chicago. Well, that would legalize her presence in the state of Illinois, but first the lieutenant would have to assess the damage to Mallory. And how was he going to do that from the distance of four states?

And where was her partner today?

Riker’s desk still had a deserted look about it, all tidied up by the cleaning staff and absent the usual mess. And the detective’s cell phone had been busy all morning, but at least the man had called in. Jack Coffey looked down at a slip of paper in his hand, a message jotted down by a civilian police aide during a busy hour. Only three words, and what the hell did they mean? Was Riker planning to be a day late or just another hour?

He picked up the phone for one last try, and his tardy detective responded with, “Yeah, boss, how’s it going?”

“Riker, where the hell are you?”

“In traffic. Didn’t you get my message?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m looking at it now. But it’s a little on the cryptic side.” He held up the note and read the three words aloud. “ ‘A family thing.’ Just a wild guess, Riker-does this mean your partner’s s t ill crazy? I know that’s a relative term with Mallory, but do the best you can.”

“She’s gonna be fine, boss, just fine.”

Gonna be? Oh, shit!

Was Riker in the dark or did he know what she was up to right now? Hardly expecting a straight answer, Coffey approached the problem sideways. “So you see a lot of your partner these days?”

“Well, boss, it’s funny you should ask. I’m on my way to see her right now.”

“No, Riker, I don’t t hink so. You’re just late for work. Mallory’s a thousand miles away in southwest Illinois.”

“Okay, you got me. I lied.” A surprised Riker negotiated the Illinois traffic. As he listened, he learned that even the police commissioner had a fix on Mallory’s location, and now his lieutenant was ordering him to take a plane to Chicago and do damage control. “Yeah, right, boss. I’ll get there as fast as I can… No, no problem. I can do the travel vouchers when I get back.” The Mercedes glided onto the exit ramp that would land him close to a Chicago gas station.

His lieutenant was still talking, and Riker only listened, never interrupting, as if this might be the first time he had heard the story of Gerald C. Linden’s d isembodied right hand. More details were added to what little Kronewald had already told him. According to Jack Coffey, civilians, a battalion of them, were on the road in downstate Illinois, all hunting for their missing children. Though this did not appear to work well with the Chicago murder of a grown man, Riker suspected that Mallory had tied them together. The late-breaking news was a turf war between Chicago Homicide and the FBI.

“They wanna snatch a body from Kronewald?… Okay, but I’m gonna need Charles Butler on this one.” Riker made a right turn as he listened to his lieutenant’s arguments against hiring an outsider: the strain on the budget and the overkill factor of using a psychologist with more than one Ph.D.; plus, Jack Coffey knew for a fact that Charles Butler flew only first class.

“I think I can get him to kick in the airfare.” Riker pulled up in front of the gas station where Mallory had used her credit card last night. And now he lost the threads to what his lieutenant was saying. The detective was focused on a tired soul in the greasy clothes of a mechanic. The man was unlocking a metal gate that protected the door of a garage bay. This was the way a workingman should look at the end of a shift, not at the beginning. And what kind of gas station blew off the commuter traffic to open this late in the day?

On the cell phone, Jack Coffey was saying that the Chicago Police Department was crawling with shrinks, and one of them would be just as useful-and free of charge to NYPD.

“Just a few problems,” said Riker. “One-department shrinks always suck, and two-Mallory knows that. The kid won’t w o rk with ’em. But she likes Charles Butler, and her old man liked him, too… No, I think Commissioner Beale’s gonna go for it.” He knew it would take a few minutes for his lieutenant to appreciate this scheme, but it was going to happen. The boss knew Charles Butler as a man who could keep his mouth shut if Mallory proved unfit for duty-and she was. Sending in his own psychologist would keep the Illinois shrinks at a safe distance from one very messed-up young cop.

“Boss? Think it over. Get back to me, okay?” Riker folded his cell phone into his pocket as he watched the mechanic raise the garage door to expose a large party of men inside. Their ties were undone, and suit jackets were slung over their arms as they shook hands all around. And now the suits came outside, wincing and blinking into the sunlight. Riker could see tools racked on the back wall, but no oil stains on the cement, just the debris of liquor bottles, cigarette and cigar butts, what any cop might expect to find after a marathon crap game. This was not a gas station, not a repair shop- it was a damn casino.

Oh, this was going to be way too easy.

Riker left the car at the curb and stood in the small parking lot in front of the open garage. Hands in his pockets, like he had all the time in the world, he watched the gamblers, and they watched him. Everything about Riker said cop. Though his nature was laid-back, his stance had the easy confidence of a man who carried a gun everywhere he went. He never even had to show the badge. The gamblers scattered in all directions. The only one with nowhere to go was their host in the greasy coveralls.

Mallory stared out the window on the diner’s parking lot, where State Tr ooper Hoffman sat on the fender of his car. He cradled a collection of cigarette butts and sundry trash that had probably blown in from the road during the night. Apparently his crime-scene training had been incomplete. Everything picked up off the ground had gone into a single garbage sack instead of separate evidence bags with helpful notes to say where he had found each object. What he had was next to useless, but at least he had collected his finds before the caravan’s arrival. They were indeed a neat crowd. They had cleaned up after themselves, and evidence might have been lost if Hoffman had not gotten to it first.

An hour had passed since her last phone call to Chicago, but she had not yet given this trooper the news that, up north, a war was being waged in Copland-and that the FBI was en route to this diner with a plan to take his garbage bag away from him.

Back in Chicago, Detective Kronewald was fighting to hold onto his case, and he had made it clear to Mallory that he was counting on her.

Tough luck, old man.

In her mind, the debt that NYPD owed to the Chicago detective had been paid in full.

She looked up to the ceiling, listening to the sound of aircraft hovering over the diner. Outside, the whirling rotors of the helicopter were creating a windstorm in the parking lot, and the garbage bag was blown from the trooper’s arms. He ran across the lot, chasing his precious evidence and his hat. Mallory looked up to see the FBI marking on the descending helicopter, surprised that any field agent would direct a landing so close to the green Ford. Why would they dust up a crime scene for a grand entrance to impress a lone state trooper? This told her that the war over the Chicago corpse was not yet won.

Detective Riker held out the wallet at the arm’s length of a man too vain to wear reading glasses in public. He handed it back to the garage mechanic, who was now identified as a former Chicago policeman with thirty-five years on the Job. All the leverage of illicit gambling was gone. Retired or not, there was etiquette to be observed, good manners learned at police cotillion: No cop wanted to know that another one was breaking the law.

Any conversation between them would be a waltz around the giant turd; you could smell it but never speak its name.

The two men had yet to exchange a single word when Riker said, “The pretty blonde with the green eyes and the silver Beetle-you filled up her gas tank.”

“Last night,” said the mechanic, who was even more economical with words. He pointed west. “She went thataway toward Adams and Michigan.”

Riker smiled. Cowboy directions, such as thataway, so seldom included cross streets. “So she told you where she was going?” Not likely. He watched the older man retreat to the garage and return with two cold cans of beer.

Ah, Chicago hospitality.

The mechanic popped the tab on his beer can, then took a long draught and wiped his face with the least greasy sleeve. “She didn’t s ay much, but cops don’t s how up to dish out information, do they? And her car had New York plates. So how big is this case?”

“What made you think she wasn’t just passing through?”

“I asked her if she turned out for the murder on Michigan and Adams. That’s when she said there was something peculiar about the body.” He tapped his head, then frowned. “Or maybe she asked me about it.”

“She pumped you for information?”

“Nope. The girl never said another word-like she didn’t c are. But I saw the police scanner in her car. Same frequency as mine. Now, I don’t s hoot craps myself. I leave that to my customers. So, all night long, I listened to the cop chatter on the air. When your friend Mallory mentioned the body, I figured she just wanted to know how much that rookie cop spilled out over the radio before they shut him down.”

“And how much did this kid spill?”

“A lot. He was the first cop on the scene, and, like I said, he sounded young. Had to be a rookie. I know he was scared shitless when he saw what was laid out on that road. You could hear it in his voice. Stupid kid. Instead of just calling in a code-well, I guess there isn’t a code to cover a thing like that-he was babbling about the crime scene. Didn’t get real specific about the damage to the man-some carving on the face was all I heard- two lines and a circle. Something like that. I was pretty wasted last night. Anyway, the corpse was a full-grown man, fresh kill, but this rookie on the radio went on and on about the little bones.”

“Little bones,” said Riker.

“Baby bones,” said the mechanic. “That’s what the rookie called them.”

Mallory kept her seat by the window, preferring to watch the action from a comfortable distance. Outside in the parking lot, the state trooper was facing off against a federal agent, the only man in a suit and tie. The pilot of the helicopter had wisely remained inside the aircraft. A small gallery of FBI civilian employees watched from the sidelines; these four men wore jackets identifying them as crime-scene technicians.

The fed’s thinning red hair was cut short, and his scalp was even more sunburned than his face-lots of hours spent out of doors on this case. His arms were waving, sometimes pointing to the cruiser, and no doubt telling the young officer to get his ass on the road. But T r ooper Hoffman was making a stand. He had been through a hard morning of humiliation and degradation-compliments of herself-all for that damned green Ford, and he was not going to give it away to the FBI.

The trooper dropped his guard and turned to look at his own vehicle. The cruiser’s radio was calling him, and he ran toward it. Pulling the door open, he reached inside to press a receiver to one ear so he could listen to his communication in private.

No need for Mallory to hear the spoken words.

The trooper banged one fist on the roof of the car, and that said it all. The war between cops and feds had been lost in Chicago. Hoffman put on a stoic face, carried his garbage bag to the FBI agent and attempted a graceful surrender of evidence.

The redheaded fed, in Mallory’s o pinion, was not so graceful. He was going off on the younger man, and this was not normal FBI behavior, not after winning a major battle over turf rights.These two should be kissing and making up by now. She left the comfort of the booth to stand in the open doorway of the diner and only drew the attention of the four technicians.

The federal agent was facing the trooper and shaking his head at the sorry garbage bag that was being held out to him. It continued to hang in the air between them.

“Thank you,” said the frustrated FBI man. “Thank you for this worthless bag of crap that wouldn’t s t and up as court evidence if it had the killer’s name and address on every item. Did you sleep through all your classes on crime-scene protocols?”

Mallory came up behind the agent so quietly that she made the man jump when she spoke to the trooper. “Never mind him,” she said, indicating the FBI man with a dismissive wave of one hand. “Give your bag to the crime-scene techs.” Still ignoring the agent, she turned to the oldest technician, the one she had picked for the senior man on the forensics team. Pointing to the bag, she said, “That’s what the helicopter would’ve blown away-if the trooper hadn’t policed the area before you landed.” When the senior tech smiled, she said, “I thought you’d appreciate that. Yo u didn’t w ant to land in the parking lot, did you?” And now she turned to the FBI agent. “That would’ve been your idea, right?”

The fed had no response, nor did he find it necessary to ask for Mallory’s identification. Her denim jacket had been discarded on the steps of the diner, and he was looking at the cannon parked in her shoulder holster. The gun and a state trooper who was obviously under her command- this was all that was needed to make her the highest-ranking police officer on the scene.

Tr ooper Hoffman quietly made his transfer of evidence, signing the paperwork and accepting the receipt for his garbage bag. Then it was a surprise to see him hand over a thick packet of photographs taken with an instant camera. She had underestimated him. The boy had been very busy during her morning nap in the tourist cabin. And she even approved of him holding out on her.

“I shot every square inch of the lot on a grid,” said the trooper. “On the backs, you’ll find the location where I found every item in the bag.” He pointed to an area on the top photograph. “That dollar bill is mine. I put it there to give some scale for the tire track.”

Mallory smiled. Early this morning, after her first failed meeting with this trooper, she had borrowed Sally’s o ld Polaroid camera to make her own record of the tire tread on the dusty pavement before it could blow away. Her shot was clearer, but, in many ways, his was better. And the second photograph would remain in her knapsack.

“I know that tire tread was there at sunrise,” said the trooper. “That’s when the waitress opened the diner. She didn’t see any vehicles parked in that same spot before I got here. The tread mark was real close to the green Ford.”

All four of the technicians showed great interest in this picture.

And the FBI agent kept his silence.

Wise choice.

The trooper signed receipts for the photographs, then handed the technicians another surprise, a diagram of the parking lot and every item found. Hoffman had even marked it by compass points.

The senior technician nodded his approval. “Nice job, son-especially if it goes to court. Made by the first officer on the scene.” Alongside this diagram, he held up the trooper’s best photograph and openly admired it. “Doesn’t get much better than this.”

And that was all that was needed to make the FBI agent look like a complete fool, but Mallory had one last touch. “Don’t forget the marks you found on the Ford’s bumper.”

They had not been on speaking terms for the past hour, and it took a moment for the trooper to understand that her find now belonged to him-a present. “Chain marks,” he said. “Looks like the Ford might’ve been towed into this lot by the other car.”

The FBI agent stepped forward to break up this festival of love between his people-traitors-and the local cop. “Thanks for your help, kid. We can take it from here.”

The trooper stood his ground, all but digging his heels into the asphalt.

“Hey,” said the fed, “we’re gonna dust the car for prints, maybe cut out some upholstery. We are not going to load the whole fucking car into that helicopter. So you can hit the road, okay? I’ll give you a call when we’re done. You can have it towed anyplace you like. Fair enough?”

“No, sir,” said Hoffman. “My captain told me to stay. And he wants an inventory of everything you take with you.” He looked to Mallory for backup.

She sighed. It might be hours instead of minutes before she got back on the road. But now she realized that Chicago Homicide had not surrendered gracefully-not at all. She had already guessed that Kronewald had a bigger stake in this than one dead body found in his hometown.

“Back off,” said Mallory. Every pair of eyes was on her as she spoke to the FBI agent. “The trooper stays, and that’s not negotiable. You’re outnumbered here. So play nice.”

“Well, math isn’t my strong point,” said the fed. He turned his smile on the crime-scene technicians. They did not smile back. “I count-”

“They’re civilians-no weapons,” said Mallory. “I misspoke. I should’ve said you were outgunned.” Turning to the technicians, she said to them, ordered them, “Wait by the helicopter.”

The four men turned around and walked toward the far side of the lot until the startled fed found his voice and yelled, “Just stop right there!” He turned to Mallory, his voice strained but calmer when he said, “I need to see your badge. I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

The detective pulled a black wallet from the pocket of her jeans, opened it and held up her gold shield, as if it were a talisman for warding off fools. Cops were dirt to this man, and she knew that, but the fed already had his little smile in place for settling minor turf wars with local cops ranking higher than a trooper. He leaned down for a closer look at her badge and ID card so that he could use her name in a sentence and win her heart- she knew this drill too well.

“A New York detective?” He held up his own badge and the card that identified him as Special Agent Bradley Cadwaller of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Mine trumps yours, Detective Mallory.”

“Not in the real world,” she said. “You’re from the Freak Squad, right?” This was the only scenario that would resolve the odd problem of a middle-aged FBI agent who made rookie errors. Before he could confirm or deny that he was with the Behavioral Science Unit, she rolled over the first words out of his mouth. “They don’t let you out much, do they? No, your people just want to look at photographs of the crime scene.” She waved one hand at the green Ford. “Nothing like the real thing. Too bad you’ve forgotten every crime-scene protocol. I can’t believe you landed that damn helicopter in the parking lot. And don’t e ver forget that Hoffman saved your ass before you could blow the evidence away.”

The crime-scene technicians were smiling again. They were enjoying this-a lot. She wondered how long they had been riding with this man. It took a while to break down the tight chain of FBI command, even among the civilian employees. They must have been traveling with him for longer than the time it took to snatch one body part-maybe months. Kronewald might find that useful.

She turned away from the agent and called out to his technicians, “You can come back now.” One of the techs gave her a mock salute as he stepped forward with the others. The federal agent was speechless for all the passing seconds it took to understand that he was not in charge anymore.

When the senior technician stood beside her, Mallory issued her last orders of the day. “The trooper will observe and take notes. Make sure you give him a complete inventory of everything you take.” With that, she returned to the diner, knowing that the FBI agent would follow her inside.

A folded newspaper hit the gas station’s door with the crack of distant gunfire, and the drive-by artist pedaled away to make deliveries to other doors. The mechanic opened his copy of the Chicago Tribune and shook his head. “Amazing. It never made the papers.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Riker. “Amazing. I need to know how much you figured out.”

“So you’re on damage control, right?”

“That’s my job today.” And that was no lie. “So… baby bones.”

“Yeah, well, the dispatcher says to the rookie, ‘You found a baby, too?’ And the kid tells her no, just some real small bones, a kid’s hand. And that’s when the dispatcher shut him down.” The mechanic grinned. “Don’t t ake much to make a connection with the federal body snatchers.”

“The feds took everything?”

“You mean last night’s murder? How would I know?”

“You know how this works,” said Riker. “I ask the questions and you talk.”

“Well, I’m talking about the old cases-cold cases-those missing kids. The damn grave-robbing FBI made off with their bones. I know there’s real hard feelings between the cops and the feds around here, and it’s been going on for a long time.”

Without thanks, the FBI agent accepted coffee from the waitress, then cut short her cheerful speech on how the first cup was always free. He waved Sally off to the other side of the diner, then fiddled with the knot in his tie and turned a smile on Mallory. “Call me Brad.”

She preferred the man’s s u rname, Cadwaller. It vaguely reminded her of a species of fish.

“I’ll call you Kathy,” he said.

“You’ll call me Mallory,” she said, correcting him, “or Detective.”

“Is this a feminist thing, the use of-”

“It’s a cop thing,” she said. “More like a superstition. If a fed gets close enough to your case to use your first name, it’s considered bad luck.” She did not hate all feds. There were New York agents, a few, who would not be shot on sight if she found them at one of her crime scenes. It was the Freak Squad that offended her most, and this man was certainly a profiler, a witch doctor without the credential of a Ph.D. “Now tell me who’s in charge of your operation.”

“I am.” Agent Cadwaller polished a spoon with his napkin, the better to see his reflection in the stainless steel, and now he smoothed back his hair. “I’m in charge.”

Mallory thought otherwise, and she took him for a poseur. The FBI would never let the Behavioral Science Unit run an investigation. Cadwaller’s people were an embarrassment best kept in the basement. It was surprising that they had allowed this man in the outside world long enough to alienate an entire forensics team. But she had already guessed that the case was large, and field agents would be spread thin.

“And you’re a New York cop,” he said. “So we know this isn’t your case.”

Mallory was annoyed by this statement of the obvious, and he would have to pay for that as well as other sins: his smirk, his arrogance, his lies. “Cadwaller, you know how many bodies we’re talking about?” Detective Kronewald had not mentioned more bodies. Cagey old bastard, he had given her nothing to work with beyond the skeletal hand left in place of the one that was cut away from Linden’s body. But now she could make more sense of a frantic rookie’s ramblings on the police scanner last night- the lines and the circle carved into the dead man’s flesh. “The serial killer who murdered Gerald Linden was a-”

“Hold it,” he said. “No one’s calling the Linden murder as a serial.”

“Really? Well, let me clear that up for you. I know you’ll never be allowed near that body. But maybe you’ll get to look at the photographs.”

His smile was smug, and he took some satisfaction in saying, “I’ve seen the body.”

“Good. Then you saw the number carved into Linden’s face.” She was bluffing with only the description of two lines and a circle on the dead man’s forehead, but now Cadwaller’s e yes were rounding, and she knew he had never seen that corpse.

“It was a large number.” Mallory leaned back and regarded him through half-closed eyes, as if this subject might be boring to her. “The first cop on the scene took one look at that body and figured it for a serial killing,” she lied. “He was fresh out of the academy, and twenty Chicago detectives agreed with him. But you’re not sure yet? And they put you in charge?”

Cadwaller’s professional smile was showing some wear, and it was obvious that he was hearing about the number for the first time. He slugged back his coffee and studied her face for a moment before he spoke. “So New York has an interest in this case?”

“The victims come from everywhere.” This was more guesswork based on Gerald Linden’s C o lorado plates, but she was onto something here. The agent’s eyes darted to the menu, as if his next tactic might be posted alongside Sally’s special of the day.

“So, yeah,” she said. “New York has an interest. Now give me the name of the SAC on this case.”

“Mallory, all you need to know is that the FBI has officially taken over.”

“And now I know you don’t get out much. That idea only works on paper.” She planned her next bluff with the link between the caravan parents, the old highway they traveled-and the FBI man’s sunburn. “You’ve been on the road awhile. You’re working Route 66-that’s eight states.” Right again. The proof was in this man’s startled eyes. “Lots of cops to deal with along the way.” She turned to the window on the parking lot, pleased to see the trooper only nodding while the technicians did the talking. All the boy had to do from now on was listen to their gripes and sympathize. Mallory cared nothing about the forensic inventory-only the job complaints, one working stiff to another.

The federal agent was having a quiet time-out, probably regrouping for another round with her and maybe trying to remember some useful line from an old psychology class. But, no-the man was rising from the table, ready to end this now.

Mallory broke the silence only to keep him inside the diner and away from his crew. “Can I assume the FBI will protect the caravan?”

The agent slowly settled back into the booth.

Nodding toward the green Ford beyond the window glass, she said, “Gerald Linden was one of the parents, but you already knew that, right?”

Cadwaller winced. Apparently the caravan was a connection he wished she had not made. He could only stare at her, unwilling to confirm or deny anymore.

“The caravan’s in Missouri by now,” said Mallory. “Since this is your case-” Yeah, right. “I guess you’ll be asking Missouri troopers to guard those people. Before you try that, you might want to clean up the mess you made here in Illinois.” She turned back to the window. “I suggest you suck up to that state cop before you leave.”

Detective Riker held the cell phone to his ear as he walked back to the Mercedes. “Yeah, boss. What’s the word?” He listened for a moment. “Oh, sure. I’ll touch base with Kronewald… Yeah, as soon I get there.” In fact he had already set up that meeting. “I got Charles Butler? Great… No, that’s okay. I’ll talk to him… No problem. He’ll be in Chicago today.”

Riker opened the car door and spoke to his sleepy passenger, a man fifteen years his junior, who stood six-four in stocking feet-when he could stand. The passenger had awakened as they were crossing Indiana, but he was still groggy, and now it was all he could do to push strands of curly brown hair away from his eyes.

“Hey, Charles, you’re gonna get paid for this little vacation.”

“Vacation… Yes.” Charles Butler nodded, then stared into a bag of cheeseburgers with a look of wonder, as if it might contain moon rocks instead of greasy food. But the man always looked that way; it was his eyes- small blue irises floating in the center of heavy-lidded hen’s eggs. Charles went everywhere with that same look of surprise, the aftermath of a popped balloon. Adding to the comedy that was his face, the hooked nose was of eagle-beak proportions. However, from the neck down, this forty-year-old man might pass for a rumpled model from a magazine ad for Savile Row tweed and Oxford linen.

Riker took the bag of burgers away from his friend. “Never mind that. I’m gonna get you some real food.” He put the car in gear and rolled westward. “You can’t s t art a road trip like this one without a good meal.”

Charles Butler had been slow to wake, slower to grasp the fact that Riker had taken him eight hundred miles from his home, and now he said, “Another … road trip?”

The state trooper entered the diner and approached the booth that Mallory shared with the FBI agent. Hoffman hesitated, probably sensing that the atmosphere had been poisoned. As he came forward, he looked back over one shoulder to make sure that the waitress was out of earshot. “What’s up, kid?” asked Agent Cadwaller.

Trooper Hoffman spoke only to Mallory. “I got the inventory. Those guys are ready to leave. They just have to pack up a tire.”

“A tire?” The fed slapped his hand on the table, perhaps with the idea that this would call the younger man’s attention back to himself. It did not.

The trooper was facing Mallory when he said, “It’s the flat tire from the trunk.”

By wince and moan, the fed implied that his own men were idiots. He looked up at the trooper. “I want photographs and evidence bags. That’s it! Go back out there and tell them we’re not taking the damn tire on the helicopter.”

The trooper would not even look at the man. Mallory was his higher power in this room, and her next words to Agent Cadwaller were heavily laced with acid. “Does Hoffman impress you as the handmaid type?”

Eventually, the FBI man realized that he was his own messenger boy today, and he left the diner. The trooper waited until the door had closed on Cadwaller, and then sat down on the other side of the booth. “The techs seem to think that flat tire might be important.”

“And they’re right. Did they open up the cell phone they found in the car?”

“No, ma’am. It didn’t w o rk, and they were in a big hurry. They told me Cadwaller never gives them time to do the job right. So they just bagged the phone.”

“And what does that tell you?”

He did not answer right away, but gave it some thought. Over the course of one morning, she had taught him, by punishing sarcasm, to use his head. He held up both hands to say that he could not come up with any brilliant answer for her. “All I know is this. They’ve been riding with this guy for a long time, and they hate his guts. Oh, and they do all the digging. Agent Cadwaller just stands around and asks if they can’t d ig any faster. I don’t know what that was about. I just listened. They’re digging up bodies, aren’t t hey?”

Mallory nodded. “So they’ve all been on the same case for months.” It would take at least that much wear before the techs would gripe to anyone outside the FBI. “And they do the digging. That means they’re beating local cops to the bodies. Write that down.”

Obligingly enough, now that they had a common enemy, he was quick to do as he was told. He took out a small pad of lined paper and scribbled his notes. Done with this chore, he looked up, his pencil hovering, waiting for her next order. But Mallory was watching the action outside in the parking lot.

Something about Cadwaller bothered her, nagged at her. “You need a background check on that agent.” Before the trooper could ask why, she said, “The FBI never gives a crime-scene unit to the Freak Squad. You might see a profiler along as an observer, but that’s rare. You know why?” She pointed to the redheaded man in the suit. “Not one of those bastards ever solved a case. Field agents do that. The profilers sit in the cellar and look at pictures. Now write this down. And when you turn in your report, remember that this is what you came up with. All the bodies they’re digging up are buried on Route 66.”

He looked up at her. “And how did I figure that out?”

“The caravan parents, the posters of missing kids.” Beside her in the booth was a stack of flyers that she had helped the waitress take down from the windows. She laid them out on the table. “Our victim, Gerald Linden, was supposed to join those people back in Chicago. Detective Kronewald already knows about the caravan connection. I phoned it in. And maybe he’s figured out the rest, but he’ll like your report.” And she would be free to get back on the road.

“Kronewald?” The trooper put down his pencil. “No, you meant my captain.”

Mallory shook her head. “You’ll be filing a written report in Chicago tonight. I’ll clear it with your captain.”

While the trooper worked over his notes with much erasing, Mallory turned back to her view of the parking lot. The fed was reaming out the technicians as he stood over the bag containing the disputed flat tire. The senior forensics man had a defeated body language; he ripped off his latex gloves, tired and angry and beyond caring anymore. This told Mallory that the tire would be left behind, and the victim’s c e ll phone would not be opened for examination anytime soon. Telephone company records would be the source for Gerald C. Linden’s last phone call, and she doubted that it would have anything to do with the case.

Agent Cadwaller’s arms were in motion, and she could hear him hollering words guaranteed to drive the techs crazy. “Hurry up! Get a move on, people! Lift those feet!” One by one, the remaining bags were hauled across the parking lot and loaded onboard the chopper, all but the bag containing the tire.

Mallory wrote a telephone number on one of the posters of missing children, then passed the whole stack of them across the table. “That number is Kronewald’s direct line. Tell him the feds didn’t know about the victim’s missing cell-phone battery. So he’s got a sporting chance to find it first.” In answer to the trooper’s u nspoken question, she said, “The man was trying to charge his cell-phone battery before he died. That’s why he didn’t call for help when the tire went flat. After I popped the trunk, I opened up his phone-no battery. Tell Kronewald the tire was sabotaged at the last place Linden stopped to eat.”

“Or get gas?”

“No, too open,” she said. “A restaurant parking lot full of cars would leave the killer less exposed. When you talk to Detective Kronewald, you’re going to suggest-” She held up one finger in the air to stress this word. “Suggest that Kronewald does a credit-card trace to find that restaurant. He’ll want to get somebody out there to search the parking lot for the discarded battery. It might have fingerprints. He would’ve done that anyway, but he’ll like that touch. I know this man. And he’ll like you, too. Tell him you’re driving all the way to Chicago to bring him a flat tire. The crime lab should find a tool mark on the air valve.”

He just stared at her in lieu of asking any more questions.

“The killer loosened the tire’s air valve,” she said. “Then he replaced the cap. He needed to disable the car, but he wanted it to stop down the road and away from witnesses. So the victim pulls over with a flat tire and checks it out with that little flashlight. He’s on a dark road, no lampposts. He can’t find any holes in his tire. Probably figures the problem is wear. The other three tires looked due for a change. And he couldn’t see much with that little flashlight of his. You’ve got the size of the broken bulb on your inventory?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s a small one.”

“Close enough.”

“But won’t Detective Kronewald have to turn all of this over to the FBI?”

“He will-a piece at a time-every screwup Cadwaller made today, and Kronewald’s going to love every minute of it. Then he’ll probably solve the case for the feds. He’s a good detective.” She picked up her knapsack and rose from the table. “I’m out of here.”

“Wait, ma’am. Please? One more question? Why didn’t t he killer just steal Mr. Linden’s c e ll phone?”

“Good question,” said Mallory-with no sarcasm. “It helps if you know the murder weapon’s not a gun. It’s a sharp object. Kronewald wouldn’t like it if he knew I told you that.”

The trooper shook his head to say he would never betray her.

The lesson went on. “The killer went to a lot of trouble to remove that battery, and that was risky. He probably borrowed the phone from Linden, then told him it wasn’t working. That’s why Linden had it plugged into the car charger. He thought the battery was dead.”

“What about the tire? Why didn’t he just slash it? Or a puncture-a small hole for a slow leak. Why risk being seen fooling with that air valve?”

Mallory waited for the trooper to answer his own question. He had a good brain, and he must learn to use it.

The trooper nodded his understanding. “The killer wanted everything to look normal when Mr. Linden stopped on that road. If the phone was stolen-if the tire was slashed-”

Mallory was nodding, prompting him. “And don’t forget the caravan connection. The victim was on his way to join them. Gerald Linden already had murder on his mind. If he was suspicious, maybe scared-”

“The killer wouldn’t have gotten close enough to do him in-not without a fight.”

“That’s right.” Mallory was making her escape as she spoke-almost free. “So Linden’s out on a dark road with a flat tire, a weak flashlight and a dead cell phone. And suddenly-a dream come true.”

“Along comes a Good Samaritan-to kill him.”

“Now you’ve got it.” Her eye was on the clock; her hand was on the door. “And it was a familiar face. This was the man who borrowed his cell phone. Linden walked right up to his killer and shook the man’s hand.”

“Wait.” The trooper was rising from the booth as Mallory was backing out of the diner. “Where can I reach you?”

“You can’t. ”

The door closed on the New York detective, and the trooper settled back into the booth to gather up his notes and posters. He looked out the win- dow in time to see the silver convertible when it was only aiming at the road. A second later, a fly had found him. In the time it took to swat an insect, Mallory was gone. He could see over a fairly long stretch of open country, but he could not see her car. She had just traveled from zero miles per hour to gone.

This vanishing act was the only event of the day that did not have a clear explanation-considering the vehicle that she was driving-and it would color his permanent memory of her. Over the years to come, whenever he told his best story of old Route 66, he would not make Mallory any taller than she was, and even the size of her gun would remain the same. Nothing would need to be exaggerated.

Hours and miles west of the Illinois diner, one vehicle changed lanes to glide up alongside another, and now the encroaching driver was close enough to the Finns’ old Chevy to see the silhouette of a little girl in the back seat.

The six-year-old had been facing the other side of the family car when she turned suddenly to peer through her own window, as if she had felt a breath on the back of her neck. The watcher’s c ar dropped further behind and blended into the line of the caravan. Dodie Finn turned toward the front seat and a reassuring sight, the back of her father’s head. She rocked and hummed.

Her brother, Peter, rifled the glove compartment, then reached over his seat to pass her a stick of gum, asking, “Everything okay, Dodie?”

Inside she was screaming; outside she was smiling, unwrapping her gum.

“Seat belt,” said their father.

Peter obediently pulled back and disappeared with the click of the belt fastener.

Dodie hummed her little song; it quieted her heart, this same refrain, over and over-all that she could remember. She raised one small hand to rub the back of her neck, still sensing a touch of something nasty.