The Drowning Child

46

There was a subdued atmosphere in the command center all day. Under the buzz of activity, was the pulsing fear that Beckman could call to tell them that another child had been murdered, that they would now have to look at the possibility that Caleb Veir could have, or was set to, succumb to the same fate.

Later in the afternoon, Paul came over to Ren’s desk. ‘In the absence of Wiley, I got one of the other Tate guys to trace the vehicles that were spotted at the Lister Creek rest area – no one with a record, no name that’s come up before in the investigation.’

‘Have they called them all to see if they saw anything?’ said Ren.

‘They’re still going through the list,’ said Paul. ‘On the rental cars, I got the details from Avis: one car was a family from Vermont on vacation, another was a student couple on vacation, the third was a lawyer—’

‘Lawyer?’ said Ren, sitting up. ‘Alice Veir?’

‘No such luck,’ said Paul. ‘Lawyer’s name is Paula Leon, forty-nine years old, visiting from Maine. I couldn’t reach her, so I left her a message.’

‘OK,’ said Ren.

Investigators who were supposed to go home that day, stayed late, pizza was ordered, conversations moved to brighter places, until silence brought everyone back again to what could lie ahead.

At nine p.m. Ren’s phone rang. She looked down. Beckman. She walked out of the command center into the quiet of the Tate PD foyer. Beckman hung up before Ren answered.

Shit.

Ren tried her again. The line was busy. She texted her.

Ren stayed in the foyer, her gaze moving to the photographs.

I can’t believe I only arrived here four days ago.

Ruddock and Wiley featured in some of the photos, as did some of the investigators from the command center, most of them looking a little thinner in the face, thicker in the hair. Then there was a group of kids standing by a pool, all wearing medals around their necks. She wouldn’t have stopped except she saw something familiar in a little boy with auburn hair to his shoulders, standing proud, his chest out.

Bless your heart, Seth Fuller. And you used to have hair! And smile...

Her phone rang again. She picked up right away.

‘Beckman...’

‘Hi, Ren. Sorry about that. I’ve called to confirm your worst fears.’

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

‘The choking was staged,’ said Beckman. ‘Luke Monroe was drowned. I looked at the lung-tissue samples. It’s clear there are diatoms, so I can tell you for sure that the drowning happened in fresh or salt water, not, for example, in the bathtub, kitchen sink, etc. I’m sorry I missed this.’

‘Don’t be,’ said Ren. ‘This was not an easy call. I get how it works. I did a seminar on water deaths. People make a whole lot of assumptions about fluid in the lungs meaning that someone drowned, but we both know there are lots of reasons why someone could have fluid in the lungs. Luke Monroe was found in his garden. There was no water—’

‘Thank you,’ said Beckman.

I’ll shut up now. ‘I’ll share this with the team. We’ll gather water samples from around the area and send them your way.’

Ren went to Ruddock’s office first to tell him the news. He sat at his desk, white-faced, his gaze traveling far beyond the walls of his office.

‘I can’t help thinking,’ he said, ‘that this is my town...’ He paused. ‘And I have failed my town.’

Ren was sitting on the edge of his desk. She looked down at him.

Oh my God... he’s going to cry.

No fucking way. No, no, no. ‘That’s not how this works,’ said Ren. She reached out, squeezed his forearm. ‘Absolutely not. This is the last thing anyone would have expected somewhere like here.’

‘You did,’ said Ruddock. There was a gentle respect in his tone. ‘You were here a couple of days and you knew something wasn’t right.’

‘I’m an outsider,’ said Ren, ‘from... a darker world, unfortunately.’ And with a darker shitshow of a mind. I would hate for you to have this mind, you sweet, adorable man.

‘I don’t know how you do this all the time,’ said Ruddock.

‘Neither do I,’ said Ren. ‘I guess it’s all about getting a missing person safely home and saving the next person from an encounter with a psycho.’

He nodded.

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Ren. ‘I think we should call in an expert on this. There’s a woman called Deb McLean – she specializes in aquatic deaths and homicidal drownings – I went to one of her seminars. She’s outstanding.’

‘You do that,’ said Ruddock. ‘Get her here as soon as you can.’ He paused, looked up at Ren, studied her face. ‘Ren, I was wondering, would you like to join me for dinner tomorrow night?’

Oh. Um...

‘Just – you did mention you’d like roast chicken,’ said Ruddock, ‘and as luck would have it, the butcher in town sent me a nice big organic one... to thank me for getting him off a nasty murder charge.’

Ren laughed.

‘The chicken part is true, though,’ said Ruddock. ‘And what I did was catch the brat who threw a rock through his store window.’

‘Did you ever think your butcher was offloading a chicken because it was showered with glass?’ said Ren.

‘That’s exactly what I said to him, but he assured me this chicken was alive and clucking on a farm when the attack happened.’

Ren smiled. ‘Well, if the chicken has a solid alibi, count me in.’

‘This won’t be a long dinner, don’t worry – I know we’ve got a lot to get through,’ said Ruddock. ‘I just don’t know if I could stand cooking a whole roast chicken for one.’

Aw, maan.

‘Well, I would be very grateful to bypass the hotel restaurant,’ said Ren. ‘And I can’t face pizza again. Thank you.’

She could see Ruddock drift back into the brutal reality he had just been trying to escape. A profound sadness swept across his face.

‘I went in to talk to Luke Monroe’s class about my job,’ he said. ‘It was a few months back. He was sitting right at the front, and he hung on my every word. He asked the most questions, he told me he wanted to be a doctor or a police officer or a firefighter when he grew up. All jobs to help other people. He stood out – he was one of those kids people are drawn to, they have something special, you think “they’re going to be a star”, “the world will know this child.”’ He paused. ‘And the world will never get to know Luke Monroe. For most people, he’ll just be a face from a news report about a killer. Just like Aaron Fuller’s.’ He looked up at Ren. ‘I don’t want Caleb Veir’s to be alongside them.’