The Murder Artist

CHAPTER 17

McCafferty comes through. Emma Sandling, neé Whalen, lives in Florida. The next morning, at seven A.M., I’m on a Delta flight to Daytona Beach.

The drive into town from the airport takes me past the enormous Daytona International Speedway. Then I’m coasting along Highway A-1-A, a sun-bleached strip flanked on both sides by an unending succession of fast-food outlets, motels, miniature golf courses, and bowling alleys. Everything’s paved. The only flora, apart from the landscaped oases in the elaborate mini-golf parks, is the occasional wind-lashed palm. Every once in a while, between the giant hotels and condos on the oceanside, I catch a glimpse of why all this exists: white sand and the hard glitter of the Atlantic.

After several miles, I spot the landmark I’ve been looking for, the huge sprawl of the Adam’s Mark Hotel. My room at the Drop Anchor Inn is a block away on the other, less desirable, side of the road. Its giant anchor-shaped sign advertises VACANCY SPECIAL WKLY RATES AARP AAA STUDENTS SENIORS.

According to the Weather Channel, the difference in temperature and humidity between Washington and Daytona Beach is incremental, but that’s not the way it feels when I step out of my rented Hyundai Sonata. Heat radiates from the pavement, so dense and humid and hot, it’s like an assault. A stiff offshore breeze is no cooling zephyr, either. It’s like a blast from a giant hair dryer.

The room is what you’d expect for thirty-two bucks a day: the dark stripes of cigarette burns mar several surfaces, television and lamps are bolted to their tables, and I had to put down a twenty-dollar deposit for the remote. Stale cigarette smoke suffuses every fabric behind an olfactory haze of air freshener. But the room is big, with an air-conditioning unit that seems to be up to the task. And it has a telephone, so I can plug in my laptop.

Emma Sandling, now Susie Whalen, works near here, right on the famous beach itself. She operates a concession stand called the Beach Bunny, a couple hundred yards from the Adam’s Mark. She’s also a part-time student at the Daytona Beach Community College, halfway through a program in “respiratory therapy.” Her boys currently attend the fifth in a string of free vacation Bible schools, this one sponsored by the Word of God church in Ormond Beach. Whalen drives a red ’84 Subaru wagon with Save-the-Manatee plates. She and the boys live in a tiny rental apartment in Port Orange, where she gets a break on the rent in return for janitorial work, which includes mopping down the halls and stairs and keeping the laundry room and storage area clean. All per an e-mail from McCafferty, who billed me for just two hours. “Glories of the information age,” she noted.

I sit on the bed and after a minute, stretch out and stare up at the textured ceiling. Ever since I received McCafferty’s e-mail, I’ve been trying to figure out how I’m going to get close to Emma Sandling.

My plan is to go to the Beach Bunny, rent a chair and umbrella, buy a tube of sunscreen, and chat her up. I’m good at this kind of thing; most reporters are.

I pay for a day ticket, put the receipt on the dash, and turn my car onto the beach, falling in line behind a black Explorer. We roll along the sand at the posted ten-miles-per-hour pace. To my right, an endless parade of buildings and parked cars, the sparkle of hotel and condo swimming pools. To my left the white beach, the forest of umbrellas, towels and beach blankets and people, the expanse of ocean and sky.

I spot the van where Emma Sandling works, which is easy enough. It’s under a huge inflated rabbit – dressed in a bikini. The thing bobs and snaps against its guy wires in the stiff breeze. A short line of customers stretches out from the service window, skinny teenaged boys in board shorts, bulky retirees. A deeply tanned girl peels away from the window with a paper basket of fries.

And then I’m past the van, my first glimpse of Emma Sandling that of a figure inside the service window, counting out change. I exit next to the Adam’s Mark and make my way up A-1-A to the entrance ramp for a second pass. This time, Sandling is outside the van, clipboard in hand, talking to a couple of boys holding lime green boogie boards. She’s a small woman with coppery hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. She wears pink shorts and a white halter top and flip-flops. A flash of a smile, an impression of freckles, and I’ve cruised past again.

The guy at the entry point recognizes me this time and waves me through. About a hundred yards from the Beach Bunny, I nose the Sonata into a space between a white pickup and a rusting Blazer.

“Help you?” She has an engaging smile. Dimples.

“Just a bottle of water.”

“Sure thing. The small one or the one-liter size?”

“I’ll take the liter.”

“That’s good,” she says, pulling a bottle of Dasani from the cooler behind her. “It’s hot out here. You want to stay hydrated.”

She puts the change on the counter, looking past me to the woman next in line, but I hesitate, immobilized by her nonchalance and vulnerability. “Somethin’ else, sir?” she asks with a little frown.

“No, I’m all set,” I tell her, and move out of the way.

I find an open spot on the uncrowded beach, stretch out my towel on the hard sand, and watch the waves roll in, the endless ebb and flow. Little kids play tag with the leading edge of the water, build sand castles, present shells to their mothers. Gulls cry, planes cruise by overhead, hauling advertisements. Women intent on tanning lie inert on their towels, like basking sea lions. Teenagers in bikinis squeal as they tiptoe into the water. Behind me, a parade of cars crawls by at the subdued pace of a funeral cortege.

I sit there with the sun beating down on my back and the image of Emma Sandling in my mind. My skin feels too hot, and when I close my eyes, there’s a sort of thudding in my head, like a heavy door slamming shut over and over. By the time I get back to the car, the thudding sensation is gone and in its place is this single depressing thought: It won’t work.

I must have been kidding myself – because how could I ever have thought it would work? Sure I can get close to Emma Sandling, maybe even make friends with her. But what about when I get around to the subject at hand? When her new friend starts talking about the abduction of her sons – an incident she’s gone to such lengths to bury in the past?

The interior of the car is so hot I have to put my sandy towel on the seat. The steering wheel burns my hands. Back in the motel, I take a look at my notebook, reviewing the information McCafferty sent about Emma Sandling’s schedule. I jot down a few questions I want to ask. Then I stare at the ceiling for a long time thinking about how I can get Emma Sandling to talk to me.

Finally, I get into my shorts and T-shirt and head out, running along the sidewalk flanking A-1-A in a trance of heat and motion. Maybe running will spring an idea loose. I go half an hour out and half an hour back, then drag myself back into my icy motel room. Take a shower.

I think about it. I do have some leverage over Emma Sandling. She’s in hiding. I know where she is. I could expose her. She’ll understand that. She’s got a life here; she won’t want to pick up stakes again.

But leverage doesn’t exactly amount to Plan B. Not really. There’s only one thing to do: throw myself on her mercy.

Thanks to McCafferty’s e-mail, I know Emma’s schedule. She’ll close the Beach Bunny at five, then drive to Ormond Beach to pick up the boys from vacation Bible school. Some fast food, I’d guess, and then she’ll drop the kids at the baby-sitter’s in Port Orange, leaving just enough time to get to her seven o’clock class at the Daytona Beach Community College. That goes until nine-thirty, after which she picks up the kids and heads home. A long day.

I could just show up at her apartment, but I sense that I’ll do better if I can talk to her without the kids being around. She won’t feel as threatened. If I had more patience, I might wait for the morning, wait at the Beach Bunny before she opens up. But I’m impatient. If I can find her car in the parking lot at the community college, I’ll wait for her there.

In the meantime, I check my e-mail. There’s one from Petrich, appending the police files about the dimes and the origami rabbit. I read these over, but the only new bit of information is a paragraph- long expert opinion from an origami scholar.

Without destroying the specimen, I cannot examine the folding techniques, but from exterior study, it is my opinion that the specimen is a modified Lang rabbit, a piece of moderate difficulty adapted from one of the many rabbits created by noted origamist Dr. Joseph Lang.

I try watching television, but that drives me crazy – ads and laugh tracks and news bites like fingernails on a blackboard. Turning it off is worse; I’m left with my own adrenalized dread and the glacial passage of time. After a while I head to the beach and walk, somewhat soothed by the crash of the surf. Still, I check my watch every few minutes.

At nine, I’m heading down Clyde Morris Boulevard, the sky a streaky pink above. I turn onto International Speedway Drive, then hang a right into the college’s huge parking area. The lot’s half empty now, but it must have been crowded when Emma got here, because I find her red Subaru way out on the periphery. I’m sure it’s hers because of the Save-the-Manatee plates, but I check the number against the one on McCafferty’s e-mail anyway. Yes.

It’s nine-fifteen. I park a few spaces away from the Subaru. I listen to the radio for a while, but after a few minutes, I have to get out of the car. I’m edgy and restless. But then I feel conspicuous just standing there, so I gravitate toward a small strip of vegetation that separates the parking lot from a service road. This is where I wait, in the midst of palmettos and reedy bushes, muttering to myself as the leaves rustle and clatter in the breeze.

I realize what I’m doing: I’m rehearsing. It’s as if I’m practicing a stand-up before the camera rolls. I know it’s stupid, as if there’s any right way to say what I’m going to say – but I keep trying out different phrases anyway, because it fills my mind.

“Emma – my name is Alex Callahan. We have a tragedy in common…”

“Emma Sandling, I need your help.”

“Emma…”

It’s full dark now. Light fixtures stand at regular intervals in the lot, each creating a cone of light that’s alive with orbiting bugs. More cars depart. In this section, only a dozen or so remain.

A figure approaches, but soon I know it’s not her. It’s a kid, baggy pants and earphones. He shuffles toward his rusted-out Toyota and then drives away.

Five minutes later, I see her, hurrying in my direction. It occurs to me it might seem creepy, the way I’m standing in the bushes, so before she gets too close I walk toward my car. I have the vague idea of opening the trunk, to give me an excuse for standing outside the car. At the last moment I change my mind and open the hood instead. Instantly, this seems like a mistake.

She has her keys out and she cuts a wary glance my way before opening her door.

I feel paralyzed.

She rolls down the window – manually. She turns on the ignition. The car sounds as if the timing is off. It’s idling too fast. By the time I can get myself to move, she’s fastening her seat belt. I approach her, holding my hand up.

“Excuse me?” I say.

“I’m sorry, but I’m really in a hurry.”

“Wait.” And then I blurt out, in my newscaster’s voice: “We have a tragedy in common.”

My rehearsed words sound strange, very strange – even to me. Emma frowns, as if I’ve spoken in a foreign language and she’s trying to translate what I said.

“I’m Alex Callahan,” I say, talking too fast now, my words tumbling over one another. “You’ve seen it on the news. My sons Kevin and Sean have been abducted. Your tragedy’s over, Emma, but mine is ongoing. I need your help. I need-”

It’s the sound of her name, I think, that really does it. Nothing else I said really sank in until I used her name. The name she doesn’t use anymore.

I see the realization hit, recognition followed a nanosecond later by horror. Then she’s gone, driving away in a pebbly screech.

I blew it.

But the truth is I don’t feel panicked because I know she can’t get away from me. Not really. I know where she’s going. But just for this moment, I can’t seem to move, can’t seem to get my breath. The air presses in on me, heavy and dense. I’m still standing in exactly the same place when she comes back.

She stops her car, opens the door. Light spills out the open door and she sits there, in its illumination. “Look – I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t feel good about it. There’s a lot of negative energy – me being the one person who could really sympathize with you, but instead I did everything I could to keep away…”

Her voice trails away and for a minute or so she doesn’t say anything. The sound of the traffic seems to be getting louder, gathering force.

“And when I saw about your boys on the television – oh, God.” She takes a shuddery breath. “I knew it was him, I just knew it. And I thought – I actually thought… I thought…” Her voice is falling apart now and she’s starting to cry. “I thought… good, now he won’t come back. He’s got what he wants.” She chokes in a sob. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” I start, “that’s okay. I under-”

“No, it’s not,” she says, interrupting. “I’m so ashamed of myself.” A sigh. “The thing is,” she says, “when the kids showed up in Eureka – you’d think everybody would be sooooo happy. But they weren’t, not really. There was this big deal about how it was a miracle and all, and wasn’t it wonderful – but it’s like it wasn’t enough for them. The happy ending was good for… like… forty-eight hours. After that, they wanted to get back to tragedy and disaster, the nastier the better. And it was so hard. The kids came back, and then they took them away from me.”

“That must have been unbelievable.”

She shakes her head, taps her foot, taps out a cigarette and lights it. “I’m trying to quit,” she says. “I never smoke around the boys.”

“That’s good.”

“You have to understand,” she says, “I’m still afraid they’ll find some way to take the boys away. You know?”

“I understand.”

“See they still don’t believe I’m innocent. They never believed that Dalt just left, just spooked when I called from the police station and told him what happened. He’d had a kind of messy past; he spent some time in prison. I knew that, but I didn’t know he was on parole. And then when they couldn’t find him – they fixated on this theory. They just wouldn’t believe the truth – that he took off because he was afraid. They were always thinking they’d find the kids buried somewhere. Or Dalt would turn up and confess that he and I had sold my kids as sex slaves or something.”

“Really.”

“Really. And when the boys came back, it’s like they wanted the boys to be fucked-up. The fact that they were fine, really – I mean more or less fine – was a disappointment. And they just would not leave the little guys alone. They just kept picking away at them. I don’t know. I guess I wouldn’t have trusted me, either.”

“Look, I have a lot of sympathy for you. But the reason I came looking for you is because I’m desperate. I think whoever took your sons has my sons now.”

She looks away from me, and when she looks back, I see that she’s crying. She holds her face in her hands. “I know.”

“So-”

“I just don’t think I can help you. Part of it was that the police fixated on me and Dalt, but part of it was that they had no leads. The CCTV at the gas station had some footage of the trailer, but no license plate. A bunch of people at the gas station saw the guy, but he was wearing a uniform – coveralls and a cap, like a maintenance man. He didn’t show up on the station’s video.”

“Will you talk to me? Just tell me about it.”

She looks at me. “If I can do it without turning my life into a National Enquirer story – yes. I don’t know what I can tell you that’s going to help, but…” She shrugs.

“Thanks.”

She heaves a sigh, looks at her watch. “The babysitter’s going to be worried. Not to mention I’ve gotta get those boys to bed. Why don’t you come to the Bunny tomorrow?”

I don’t know why, but I play innocent. “The Bunny?”

“I saw you there – Orioles cap? You bought a bottle of water.” She taps her temple. “Too bad I didn’t see the guy who took the kids. I never forget a face.”