Don’t Talk to Strangers: A Novel (40 page)

“He’s thinking about
you
thinking about him,” Meltzer reminded me. “The letters are addressed to you.”

“He wants to be understood. He thinks I can. It’s a kind of transference. Happens
in therapy. Patients fixate, sometimes even eroticize the person they think accepts
their actions without judgment. He probably believes I have the empathy for him he
lacks for his victims.” I thought for a minute while Meltzer sped up the two-lane.
“He’s come full circle. He very carefully and quietly captured, held captive, and
murdered Tracy Davidson. Her body lies there for a decade and he doesn’t need attention,
doesn’t even need to reoffend, as far as we can tell. Then something triggered him
and he took Melinda Cochran. There was an escalation in violence, evidence of torture.
Melinda’s death was bloodier, more fantastic, an attempted decapitation. Now Skylar.
And the letters. Leaving the card today was clever, but he’s not brilliant. He simply
knows the routines of the town.”

“I keep thinking about the people I know here in this county,” Meltzer said. “You
know, the person who could walk down Main Street talking to people or whatever after
he put that card under the door with a picture like that. And I can’t seem to put
the pieces together. To think someone around here is responsible boggles the mind.
We have some characters. And we have some troublemakers. But none of them could do
this.”

“Yeah, well, back to the liar thing,” I said as we pulled onto the side road to the
judicial center. “This ability to compartmentalize, to brutalize a victim without
guilt, then be kind to the family and the neighbors, it’s just a magnified extension
of the way we separate from events and behaviors every day. Cops compartmentalize.
You have to. That’s what allows a psychopath to fit in to his surroundings. Look at
Ariel Castro, just a guy in the neighborhood. He liked music. He was quiet. His friends
liked him. At trial he said he was a good person, that he wasn’t a monster.”

“Back to the self-reflection thing,” Meltzer said.

“Who was on Main Street today that absolutely no one would think twice about?”

“Shopkeepers,” Meltzer replied. “Regular customers.”

“The minister’s wife,” I said, and Meltzer’s head whipped around. I held up palms.
“Hey, just an example. Everyone saw Mrs. Hutchins but no one mentioned her because
they knew the questioning related to the kidnapped and murdered girls.” I sat there
staring down at the letter on my phone. An idea crossed my mind. “You said a lot of
hunters use those woods around the crime scene, right?”

Meltzer nodded, and pulled into the slot on the side of the building marked with his
title. “Why?”

“When I was at Whisper Lanes, some guys at the bar were talking about hunting. One
of them said something about his cams.”

“Cameras,” he said. “Trail cameras. Sure. You know who the guys were?”

“No.”

“I’ve never seen any cameras out there,” he said, and called Raymond. “Rob, you see
any hunters’ cameras out there in the woods where we found the bodies?”

“Wasn’t looking,” Raymond’s breath sounded labored. Hot day. Sunny park. Sour stomach.
I almost smiled. “Not that easy to see anyway. Hunters camouflage them.”

“You know anyone that uses cameras?” Meltzer asked.

“No, but Bryant’s place gets packed with hunters in season,” Raymond answered. “He
might know. Why you thinking trail cams?”

Meltzer explained what I’d heard.

“Want me to follow it?” Raymond asked. “Not much of a lead, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”

And you can get out of the sun and into a nice, cool bar for a beer
, I thought. Meltzer said, “Stay in town. Things don’t happen in a vacuum. Somebody
saw something. I want Skylar home, Detective. Alive.”

38

I passed the city limits sign on 441 and saw the white bowling pin on the front of
the building, glowing white in the sun as if it had been dipped in bleach. I parked
in front of the red-and-white oblong building and saw the lavender neon on the door
—
COCKTAILS
. I took a long drink from bottled water that had lost its chill in my car and thought
about vodka and soda, a tall glass, lots of ice, a twist. A handwritten sign on the
entrance said:
FRIDAY NIGHT WESTERN NIGHT CANCELED. COME PRAY FOR OUR CHILDREN IN WHISPER PARK
.

The air inside was dry and cold and lit for a lounge. The lanes stretched out empty
today, like gleaming runways, abandoned and polished and waiting. No balls rumbling
down the alley and cracking into pins, just the croon of country music coming softly
through speakers and the inconstant murmur of voices from the bar.

I tried to remember the men I’d seen when I was here. Two men with caps and T-shirts,
redneck-looking guys with some bulk and scruff. I couldn’t have picked either out
of a lineup right now, and that irritated me. But I remembered the woman in skinny
jeans and a curly perm. I spotted her now at the bar with a glass of white wine in
front of her. The fingers on her left hand were busy flicking at her nails. She missed
having a cigarette in her hand, I thought, and
immediately remembered Rauser’s nicotine cravings blasting over him.

I took the stool beside her, nodded when she glanced at me. Bryant Cochran saw me
and came over. His hair was combed and his beard was trimmed. “Ms. Street, how can
I help you?”

Movement caught my eye. Molly Cochran came out of the back. She was in western boots
and a skirt. She was pretty and curvy, a small-town Miranda Lambert. “What is it?
Did they find the girl? Did they get him?”

“No. I’m sorry,” I said. Curly Perm leaned in closer. “But we’re very close,” I lied.
Bryant moved on, to serve someone at the end of the bar. “I just had a couple of questions
for your husband when he’s free. About a customer.” I smiled. “You doing double duty?”

“I’m always here on Friday, darlin’.” She spoke with the same open friendliness she’d
shown me at the diner. “It’s his busy night. Nothing to do in Whisper on a Friday
night except come here for dancing and drinking and bowling. Parking lot’s usually
packed by seven. And the kids fill up the alleys.” She ran a soft white towel around
the inside of a beer glass, held it to the light, saw a spot, and used the towel again.
“Not tonight, though.”

“This must be hard,” I told her. “It’s so fresh. I know it brings up a lot of emotion.”

“Every ache those parents are feeling while they wait for their little girl to come
home, we’ve ached,” Molly said. “Whisper supported us, we want to be there for it.
You coming?”

Yes
, I wanted to say,
because he’ll be there. Because he’ll have to be there. He has to appear normal
. “Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

Bryant set a club soda in front of me, a twisty bit of lemon attached to the rim,
lots of ice. A good bartender always remembers. I thanked him and took it gratefully.
“There were a couple of customers here yesterday,” I told him, then glanced at Curly
Perm. “They were talking about hunting. Both had ball caps, scruffy beards.”

“That’s about half our customers,” Bryant said. Molly slid the polished glass in the
rack and picked up another one.

“I heard you talking to them,” I said to Curly Perm.

“Could be Tom and Will,” she said. She was trying to be careful
with her tongue but she was overcompensating, like a drunk walking down the sidewalk.
“ ’Member what they were talking about?”

“Trail cameras,” I said. “Hunters’ cams.”

“It does sound like Tom Watson and Will Rawlins,” Bryant said. “They were here a couple
of times this week. Big-time hunters.”

“You know how to get in touch with them?” The club soda felt good in my hand, natural.
I took a drink and let the soda burn my throat.

Curly Perm giggled and slid her empty glass to the edge of the bar. I figured it was
her third. “I didn’t even know their last names.”

Bryant pulled a clean glass from the hanging rack and poured from an uncorked bottle
of white wine. “Tom lives in Whisper. Has some land on the other side of the bridge
out there near the national forest.” His voice faltered. That wasn’t far from where
his daughter’s body had been found in a crater in the woods. “You think a camera got
something?”

“Just following every angle,” I said noncommittally. “Is that common knowledge? This
trail camera thing? Lot of hunters use them?”

“I didn’t know about them until Tom mentioned he’d set some up last year so he could
see where the deer hang out. I thought it was stupid,” Bryant told me. “Like cheating.
Like fishing with firecrackers. Tom says his wife and kids really like watching the
footage too, ’cause the deer are so beautiful and all. And he can track their patterns.”

I slid my card onto the bar. Molly picked it up as fast as a dirty glass. “If he happens
to stop by, give him my card. See y’all tonight.”

I took another gulp of cold soda, then walked out into the blasting heat. I had Neil
on the phone before I reached my car. “I need an address and phone number in Whisper
for Tom Watson, probably Thomas. Mobile number, if you can get it. Text it to me.”

“About how old is this guy?” Neil wanted to know. “That’s a common name.”

“Late twenties. Thirty at most. And it’s Whisper, Neil. There’s like only two thousand
permanent residents here.”

“Just want to make sure I don’t hook you up with his dad. I’ll text. And don’t look
at your phone until you’re stopped. That boat you drive will end up in a ditch.”

I called Tom Watson’s home number as soon as the text came and got a recording. I
tried the mobile number and got voice mail there too. “Mr. Watson, my name is Keye
Street. I’m a consulting detective to the Hitchiti County Sheriff’s Department. You
may have information that would be helpful in an investigation. Would you call me
back as soon as possible?” I left my number as I pulled into Whisper and cruised around
until I found an empty parking space behind the hardware store.

The park was full of kids and teachers and parents. A long folding table displayed
clear plastic bags filled with new tea lights. A plywood stage had been set up. Another
plywood base had been covered with red velvet. Two girls about Skylar’s age knelt
there, each of them with a bag of tea lights. They set them in the base and squeezed
glue on the bottom, placing them carefully in a pattern I couldn’t make out. I saw
Brolin and Raymond talking to two kids. Robbie and one of the boys I’d seen come out
of the smoothie shop were setting up a lectern on the stage. A photo of Skylar was
taped to the front. Over the heads of strangers, I saw Pastor Hutchins and his wife.
Bernadette had her arm around the shoulder of a young girl. Her hair was blond and
long. Their daughter, Robin, I presumed, whom Skylar had mentioned in her diary—Skylar’s
perfect family.

I crossed to the school, stood at the double doors, and checked the time. Four-oh-five.
I walked at a leisurely pace down the steps, across the schoolyard, and through the
park, feeling the sun on my back as Skylar would have just yesterday, which felt like
a thousand years ago. The cool shade dropped down around me when I stepped onto the
path. It was well marked and well used. I imagined Skylar using this path every day,
walking home, thinking about school, her friends, her crushes, getting home to Luke.

Light flickered between the trees. When I stepped out of the tree line and reached
the center of Cottonwood Road it was four-seventeen. Twenty-five hours to the minute
since the call was placed from her mobile to the landline inside the house. It would
have taken Skylar twelve minutes to get from the school to the point where the offender
acquired her. It had taken another five minutes for the offender
to get her phone and make the call. They’d talked for a couple of minutes, I realized.
He’d been biding his time, running his con, probably messing with his engine, building
his courage, waiting for that moment, hoping it would be as terrible, as spectacular,
as he’d fantasized.

I crossed through the tangle of people preparing the park for the vigil to get my
car. Mr. Smith stood outside his hardware store talking to a couple I recognized from
their Main Street shops, the antiques dealer, the pharmacist. All grew quiet as I
neared. We exchanged a nod.

Six minutes later I was on Cottonwood Road looking at the mouth of the trail I’d just
used to retrace Skylar’s steps. The killer could have watched Skylar leave school
from just about anywhere in downtown Whisper, beat her here, and set up his fake breakdown
with minutes to spare. He would have wanted to do it that way, I thought. He’d want
his timing to be spot-on in order to minimize his time on the road and the possibility
of a witness. He had a coyote’s mind for gauging his risk.

I got out of my car and gazed down at the Barbours’ white-fenced home. Red dust from
the road drifted by. There were cars in the Barbours’ driveway, family and friends,
no doubt, huddling in close for comfort. Then I heard my phone buzzing on my seat
and reached in for it, hoping it would be a return call from the hunter Tom Watson.
It wasn’t. It was the deputy Meltzer had assigned to chart progress and relay developments.