Collecting Cooper (25 page)

They had walked to an alley less than twenty seconds away. She had looked him over and then asked for the money first and he had paid it. Then she had undone the front of his pants. He had never been with a woman before and didn’t know what to do, but she seemed to know plenty.

“Don’t be shy,” she had said, but he was shy and his heart had been banging like a drum, so nervous he was that by the time he felt sick it was too late to warn her, his mouth had opened and a stream of vomit hit her in the middle of the chest.

“Ah, shit, you goddamn freak,” she screamed, jumping away from him.

“I’m sorry, Katie.”

She looked up from where she was wiping the vomit off with her hand and flicking it into the ground. “What did you just say?”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“You called me Katie.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“How much money do you have on you?”

“None.”

She stepped forward and poked him in the chest. He was afraid of her. “How much?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” he said. He had already given her sixty dollars. He pulled out his wallet and she snatched it from him. She took out all the cash that was in it and threw the wallet back.

“This is to cover the dry cleaning,” she said, “and don’t let me ever see you again.”

But he had seen her again, sometimes a few nights in a row, but he had never approached her.

Not until this week. She didn’t recognize him. She seemed
softer
for lack of a better word, and he suspected she was high. Plus he had a car—and last time he didn’t. She climbed into the car willingly and he Tasered her when they drove into an alley half a block away. He probably could have just held the rag over her face, but this way there was no struggle. It was the same Taser he would use on Cooper and she collapsed into the same kind of heap, only she was supported by the passenger seat.

The Taser came from the Twins, and so did the extra cartridges, a dozen of them in total, meaning he can shoot twelve people, or less people more than once. He also found the chemical they used to use on him sometimes. They would soak it into a rag and hold
it over his face and he’d fall asleep. He would have collected the Twins and listened to their stories if he hadn’t hated them so much. He considered putting the woman in one of the padded rooms and decided to rope her to one of the beds instead. The bedrooms got more air and he figured were more comfortable. He used rope and glue and she stayed asleep the entire time.

After that he went back out. Driving was amazing. Having a car was changing his life. He drove to the hospital. He waited outside. He followed his second mother home. He needed her help to look after all the people he was collecting. She called him a freak just like the street girl had, only this time she didn’t have any orderlies to back her up. He lashed out at her. She told him she would call the police and he would go to jail and that jail was far worse than anything she had ever done to him. So he lashed out again and, when he was finished with the lashing, he tied her to the bed, went out, and bought a container of petrol.

He slept in her house most of the night on the couch, waking up at five o’clock in the morning to load his car with all the food he could find. He took some of her dresses for the girls he would bring home for Cooper, said goodbye to his mother, and set her on fire.

It meant he was going to have to do everything by himself. He could handle that. After all, the last three years in the halfway house proved he was capable, and look at what he’s learned in that time—he’s learned how to drive, how to cook, how to clean up after himself, how to go into town and buy groceries and clothes. He’s been back at the Grove for a week now, and each morning he has sat on the wooden deck out front in the sun, sometimes for only a few minutes, other times for the entire day. This morning was a little different because of the rain, but it’s cleared up now pretty good. He drinks his orange juice and he thinks about Cooper and how, last night, the two men bonded over the killing of the woman. Violence is . . . is sit-u-ation-al, that’s what all the books say. That’s what makes criminals model prisoners in jail—there are no women to rape and murder in there. He knew when the situation changed, so would Cooper’s attitude. He’s read that somewhere.

Adrian also feels betrayed. He knew the woman would let Cooper out of his cell, and what Cooper did next was going to impact their relationship. If he tried to escape, it meant he didn’t really like Adrian at all, and that everything he had said was a lie. The killing brought them closer, but the betrayal has driven them apart. He guesses that means he’s exactly where he was in the beginning.

He finishes breakfast but doesn’t go downstairs. He cleaned up the mess last night. He wrapped the body in an old blanket and took her around the back to bury her with the others. He doesn’t want to face Cooper right now. He’s still too annoyed at him. And anyway, he’s got other plans for this morning—he has some digging to do, and maybe some collecting too.

Donovan Green doesn’t look like he’s had any sleep since the last time I saw him. He hasn’t changed either. His hair is a mess and his eyes are red and keep flicking left and right as if he’s being followed. He looks like he’s just walked out of a bar where he’s been holed up for the last twelve hours drinking hard.

“Here’s the money,” he says, handing me an envelope. When it comes to finding your daughter, there’s no limit to what you’ll spend. “What’s the lead?”

“Cooper Riley wrote a book,” I tell him. “It may have something in it we can use.”

“It’s five thousand dollars for a book?”

“It is for this one. I’ll call you later on today.”

He seems about to argue the point, that he wants to hang around and watch me work, but in the end he just nods slowly. He’s a broken man holding out the kind of hope that may kill him if things don’t work out the way he needs them to.

“The sketch in the news,” I say, “you recognize him?”

“Looks like the prime minister.”

“You know if the police have shown it to Emma’s flatmates and friends?”

“One of them thought it was their cousin Larry. I told you she was still alive, and the photos prove it,” he says. “I know you think things might have changed since they were taken, but they haven’t. She’s alive and I can feel it,” he says, and I really hope that he can. “She’s strong,” he tells me. “You know that for a fact. She survived what you did to her, and she’ll survive what’s being done to her now. She can talk her way out of anything.”

I hope she can. I hope she has the ability to talk.

“My wife, Hillary,” he says, “she was always the strong one. Last year, when you hurt Emma, my wife was a rock. I was the one falling apart. This time, Jesus, she’s a mess. All she does is sit in Emma’s old room holding on to some of the clothes Emma left behind when she moved out. Hillary is the strongest woman I know, but this . . . if we don’t get Emma back alive,” he says, “she’s . . . she’s . . . I don’t know. I just don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “Just . . . just find her, okay? Find her alive. Please, I’m begging you, find my daughter alive.”

I want to tell him that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I want to tell him he can tell his wife everything is going to be okay, because by the end of the day, tomorrow at the latest, they’ll have their daughter back. I can see in his tired face and tired features that he wants me to tell him this, that hearing it would make him feel a whole lot better.

And I almost tell him.

I nod, and he takes meaning in that nod because he nods back, turns around, and I watch him walk away, maybe he’s going to head back home, maybe to the hospital, maybe to go and see Jonas Jones Psychic or a priest because he’s desperate to try anything.

I head back into the corridor. The idea of money isn’t as powerful as money itself, which is why I hold up two thousand dollars in the window of the door to the computer server room and knock on it. I could try holding up fifty dollars and hope for the same result, but the risk of having him call the police fades more with every
hundred I hold up. The door is locked and the guy comes over and stares at the money then at me and then back at the money.

Keeping his eyes on the money, he asks “What do you want?”

“To ask you some questions,” I answer. “About Cooper Riley.”

“You a reporter?”

“Come on, this is cash I’ve got here, not a check that’s going to bounce.”

“What are you then?”

“I’m somebody trying to find Cooper Riley and you’re somebody who looks like they could do with some cash.”

“How much is that?”

“Two thousand,” I say, beginning to grow impatient. “It’ll only take two minutes. You ever earned a thousand dollars a minute before?”

He unlocks the door. The room is the coldest room I’ve been in since getting out of jail. There are fans blowing and an air-conditioning unit running hard with small ribbons taped to it fluttering in the breeze. There are LED lights coming from every surface and lots of light radiating into the room from a dozen switched-on computer monitors and overhead fluorescent lights that I can hear humming. Throw in the sound of a hundred ticking hard drives and we’re listening to an IT symphony. The door swings closed behind me. He can’t take his eyes off the cash.

“Okay, so what’s the deal?” he asks. Then he adds, “You shouldn’t be in here,” almost as though he’s reading off a cue card.

“I need some information.”

“I’m not at liberty to . . . to . . . this is two thousand?”

“That’s right. And I’m not after anything illegal,” I say, which is a complete lie. “Listen, all I need you to do is access any files belonging to Cooper Riley.”

“I thought you only wanted me to answer some questions.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I tell him.

“Police have already had me access them.”

“Then this shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

“I’m looking for something in particular. I need to know if he’s backed something up. You take a look, and you get this,” I say, waving the cash.

“Just for looking?”

“Just for looking.”

“Okay. Okay, that doesn’t seem too illegal,” he says, justifying it to himself and holding out his hand. I give him the cash.

He walks over to one of the terminals. It only takes him thirty seconds to punch up the information he needs, having accessed it yesterday. A list of files and folders comes up.

“He was writing a book,” I tell him.

“What kind of book?”

“About criminals.”

“Hang on,” he says, and starts scrolling through the files. “Yeah, there’s a word processing document here that looks pretty big that the cops took a copy of yesterday. Let me check,” he says, and double clicks on the icon. Page one of a manuscript appears. “This looks like it could be it,” he says, and when he turns back around I’m holding out another thousand dollars in my bandaged hand.

“I need it printed,” I say.

“I don’t know . . .”

“Nobody will ever know.”

“If it comes back I did this . . .”

“It won’t. Trust me. There’s no way I’ll get caught with it, and it’s not like Cooper Riley is going to be in any position to complain about his book being printed out—even if he ever does find out, and since the police have a copy anyway, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes public. I just need a head start on it.”

“I don’t . . .” he says, but keeps looking at the money.

“Just print it out and I’m gone.”

“And nobody ever has to know?”

“Not from me.”

He turns back to the computer. He reaches into his pocket and grabs a flash drive and slots it into a USB port. “Printing will leave
a record,” he says, “plus it’ll take too long. It’s about three hundred pages. It’d take close to fifteen minutes.”

He copies the file, which takes about two seconds and hands me the flash drive. I’m halfway out the door when I turn back toward him. “One more thing,” I ask. “Can you tell me when he last accessed the file?”

“I can only tell you when he last backed up this particular one. He may have been working on it at home, or have a different version saved somewhere. But this one was last saved three years ago.”

Three years ago. The same time Natalie went missing. The same time Cooper got divorced.

The dashboard of the rental tells me it’s almost eleven o’clock and one hundred and six degrees. Traffic starts to back up from the north where there’s another house fire. Hardly anybody is walking the streets. A few stray dogs are sniffing the gutters for food, the gutters having dried out now and full of fresh litter. I get past the fire only to get boxed in by traffic a few intersections later where two taxis have collided, the drivers both unhurt but yelling at each other in different foreign languages neither of them can understand. It takes ten minutes to get past them, glass pooled out over the road like diamonds.

When I get home I leave the front door open and crack open the windows in the study and try to get some airflow going. I get the fan up and running and plug the flash drive into my computer. It takes a few minutes for my computer to boot up, it takes longer than last time and will take longer next time, the eighteen-month-old components inside making it an antique. I sit in front of it and massage my knee, which is feeling better and bending more than it did this morning. Three hundred pages is a lot to read through, but I’m only going to be scanning it for a connection between Pamela Deans and Cooper Riley and Grover Hills. I set it printing and pick up the first few pages as they come out. Before the pages have even cooled off I can see the connection. It’s in the introduction Cooper Riley has written. Riley was visiting Grover Hills. He was interviewing some of the criminals out there for his work. Nurse
Deans was helping him. He was building up a study and writing this book and I imagine at some point was going to approach some publishers, or maybe he did and was rejected. He was heading out there on a weekly basis, Nurse Deans the liaison between him and the patients. More warm pages are ejected from the printer. I pick them up. It looks like Riley interviewed at least a dozen or so patients. A couple of things come to mind. First off, how far down the path was Cooper Riley toward abducting Natalie Flowers, killing Jane Tyrone, and abducting Emma Green when he conducted these interviews? Second, was the thought of torturing and killing a young woman something he never thought he’d do back then, or something he was dying to do? Impossible to know whether these interviews brought his desire forward or repressed it.