Madman on a Drum (2 page)

“McKenzie.”

Bobby's voice was low and firm. He must have been hanging on by his fingernails, only you wouldn't have known it to look at him. I had no idea what emotional strength it took for him to keep it together. The least I could do was make an effort.

“McKenzie.”

There are five stages of grief. Somehow I had skipped directly to the fourth stage, depression. I had to get back to stage two—anger. Anger was good. Anger was motivation. You could work with anger.

“We're going to kill that sonuvabitch,” I said. I glared at all four law enforcement officers in the room. None of them offered an argument.

I grabbed Harry's forearm and used him as a crutch to straighten up. The nausea was now in my throat. I forced it back down.

“You need to hear the entire tape,” Bobby said.

“Tell me what happened first.”

He did. When he finished it occurred to me that I hadn't seen any cars parked in front of Bobby's house when I drove up. Or anyone above the age of fourteen loitering at the park across the street.

“We have someone in the back and two agents in the front watching for anyone who might be watching the house,” Harry assured me. “All the license plates are being checked, including those in the lot at the park. So far our biggest problem has been keeping the St. Paul Police Department away. Everyone wants to help.”

“We're canvassing the neighborhood,” Honsa said.

“You're what? You're not supposed to be here,” I said.

“We're not,” Honsa said. “McKenzie, we don't wear black suits and sunglasses. We don't drive Lincolns with U.S. government license plates. Canvassing around the abduction point is covert. It's discreet. We know what we're doing.”

I nodded in agreement, more than a little embarrassed. TV and movies always got it wrong about cops and federal agents. There was very little animosity, jealousy, and distrust between them—probably because there were actually very few FBI agents who were arrogant, imperious, incompetent jerks with my-way-or-the-highway attitudes and even fewer rogue cops who played by their own rules. Especially these days with mutual need—and budget cuts—resulting in so many joint task forces. Maybe things were different in New York or Miami or Washington, D.C. In the Twin Cities everyone got along pretty well. Still, I watched a lot of TV and movies, and sometimes it was hard to shake off the fiction.

“The van was reported stolen two weeks ago,” Honsa said in case I required more convincing. “We have a team on the owner. However, we do not consider him a suspect at this time. The description of the van and the license plate number are being circulated using hard messaging systems—MDT screens in squad cars, briefings during shift changes— so it won't be intercepted by someone's police scanner. Our own lines are encrypted, of course.”

I nodded some more.

“Young Ms. Katherine did well getting us the plate—all the numbers were correct. Very smart, very brave.” That last part was for Bobby.

“She blames herself for leaving Tory,” he said.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Upstairs with Shelby.”

“May I see them?”

“Listen to the tape first.”

They started it from the top.

“Yes?” Bobby said.

“Dunston?” asked the caller.

“Yes.”

“Victoria's fine, your daughter's fine, okay? I didn't hurt her. She keeps struggling against the ropes, and I tell her to quit it. Other than that there's not a mark on her. I'm telling you so you shouldn't worry, okay? We're not sexual deviants or anything like that, okay? As long as you do what you're told, as long as you don't call the Feds, the girl'll be fine.”

“I want to talk to her.”

“Later.”

“I want—”

“Shuddup and listen. Are you listening?”

“I'm listening.”

“I don't want no shit from you, Bobby.”

He knows Bobby,
my inner voice informed me.
They have a relationship.

“Your girl'll be fine long as you do what I say.”

“What do you want?”

“Did you call the cops, call the Feds?”

“You told my wife not to.”

“Yeah, your wife. We almost went for her but decided not to. Thought the temptation would be too much, know what I'm saying?”

“We.” He said “we.”

“No, I don't,” Bobby said.

The caller chuckled. There was something about it. Despite the metallic sound, I knew I had heard the laugh before, only I couldn't place it.

“Want me to spell it out?” he asked.

“Go 'head.”

More laughter.

“You ain't tryin' to draw this out, are you, Bobby? Tryin' to keep me on the phone longer than I need to be? Maybe you got some people workin' a trace. Feds maybe.”

“I didn't call—”

“Yeah, sure. It don't matter none. If 'n you're tryin' for a trace, know that I'm callin' on a stolen cell phone and I'm drivin' on the freeway in a stolen car and as soon as I'm done talkin' I'm throwin' the cell out the window and ditchin' the car.”

“What do you want?”

“Just so you know you ain't dealin' with no fool, okay?”

“Yes.”

“First, you gotta know anything bad happens it's your kid tha's gonna get hurt, okay?”

“I understand.”

“Okay, then. Let's make it simple. You want your kid back, not a scratch on her, it's gonna cost one million dollars. Simple.”

“A million—I don't have a million dollars. I have no way of getting a million dollars.”

“Sure you do.”

“How?”

“McKenzie.”

“What?”

“Rushmore fuckin' McKenzie.”

“McKenzie?”

“You ask 'im. Tight the way you guys are, I bet he gives it to you without even battin' an eyelash.”

“McKenzie isn't going to—”

“Ask 'im. I'll call back later.”

The connection was broken. The agent sitting at the table flicked off the tape machine.

“He's right about the cell phone,” the agent said. “It belonged to a woman who lives in Inver Grove Heights. She thought she had lost the phone a week and a half ago, she doesn't know where. We were able to triangulate the suspect's position using the cell provider's communications towers, but he was moving. He stopped moving the moment the conversation ended. We found the cell in a ditch off Interstate 694 near the intersection with Highway 65.”

My hand went to my own cell phone attached to my belt. I un-clipped it and activated it and searched for the number I wanted using the cell's memory. I found it easily and hit the call button. My financial adviser was named H. B. Sutton. She lived on a house boat on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River. Only she didn't answer. I glanced at my watch. It was nearly five. The markets had been closed for two hours. I left a message on her voice mail.

“This is McKenzie. I need cash right away. Call me. Call me right now. I don't care what time it is.”

I recited my cell number and collapsed the phone. I wasn't trying to be Joe Cool; wasn't trying to impress anyone. I just didn't want Bobby to have to ask for the money. I wanted him to know that he didn't need to ask.

I slipped the cell into my pocket. Everyone in the room was watching me. I looked at Harry. “What do we do now?” I asked.

“We wait,” Honsa said. “Time is on our side.” He looked Bobby in the eye. His smile was reassuring. “It's about money.”

Bobby nodded.

We were all thinking about Victoria. “We're not sexual deviants,” the man had said, and we took him at his word. We had to. The alternative was too terrifying—a freak with a digital camera and a mailing list of pedophiles. We wanted Victoria to be scared when we found her. We wanted her to be angry. We'd even be happy if she was screaming bloody murder. Our greatest fear was that instead she'd have the quiet, vacant-eyed, used-up look of a child who had been drained of her humanity, who was irretrievably lost. I had seen that look in children before. So had Bobby Dunston.

I pointed at the tape machine. “He knows us,” I said.

“Which means we know him,” Bobby said.

“From where?”

“I don't know. The voice…”

“You can get a decent voice changer off the Internet for forty-nine ninety-nine,” said the agent sitting at the table. I never did learn his name. “This sounds like an ST-JC-007, but that's just a guess.” I was told later that he was a “tech agent.” It was he who brought all the additional phone lines into Bobby's dining room. He was also the agent who dealt with the phone companies, setting up traps and traces.

“Even disguised there's something about it,” Bobby said.

“The patterns, the way he uses words,” I said.

“And the laugh.”

“I know that laugh.”

“We have people at the St. Paul PD pulling files,” Harry said. “We're in the process of reviewing every case you two ever worked on.”

“Don't bother,” I said.

“We never worked together,” Bobby said.

“Never?”

“No.”

“Not once?”

“No.”

“We were never even in the same district,” I said. “When I was working out of Central, Bobby was in the Western District. When he was working Central, I was in the Eastern District. We never worked the same cases. We were never in on the same busts.”

“Never?”

Bobby's voice was filled with frustration. “How many times do we have to say it?” he said.

Honsa stepped between Harry and Bobby. He was still smiling his reassuring smile. “The unsub knows you both from somewhere,” he said.

The unidentified subject.
Yeah, think about him,
I told myself.
Don't think about Victoria. If you think about her
—everything had happened so fast since I entered the house that I hadn't had time to get my head around it. Not the way Shelby and Bobby had. That was probably for the best. If I thought about it—I was the one who taught Victoria how to keep her hands back while waiting for a pitch, taught her how to stride into the ball as she swung the bat…

I looked at the hardwood staircase leading upstairs.

“I'll be right back,” I said.

 

I was surprised at how loudly the steps creaked under my weight. The house, so alive throughout my life, now felt silent and empty. You wouldn't think a four-foot-eleven girl could take up that much space, but she had. In Victoria's absence every sound, every conversation now reverberated like an echo in an abandoned mine.

I peeked into the room at the top of the stairs. Katie and Shelby were lying in Katie's bed. Katie was asleep in her mother's arms. Shelby gave me a head shake, warning me not to speak. I nodded in return. Big, prominent, solemn green eyes stared back at me. If I had not known her, I would never have guessed that those eyes had ever winked at anything, had ever smiled.

I continued down the corridor to Victoria's room. There were posters on the walls. Angelina Jolie as Lady Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider movies and Jennifer Garner as Elektra—both armed to the teeth, both kicking butt. The bed was unmade. Along with the floor, dresser, and chairs, it was littered with clothes, some washed, some unwashed. Books and magazines with the creased, smudged look of the heavily read were scattered among them. At least two dozen stuffed animals— dusty and neglected—were heaped in a mesh hammock stretched high across one corner of the bedroom. Beneath the hammock was a small desk stacked with books. Perched precariously on top of the books were a soccer ball, shin guards, and soccer cleats. Draped over the back of the desk chair was a nylon jersey, number 4. Four had been Bobby's number growing up and playing baseball and hockey. Katie wore number 3. That had been my number.

The room breathed uneasily. The window curtains moved in and flattened against the screen and then billowed out with the breeze. Outside the window, children danced on the hills of Merriam Park. They were probably wondering when Victoria and Katie were coming out to play. I could almost feel the passing of time as I watched the children, could hear the snap, snap, snap it made as each second was stretched to its limit.

“This, believe it or not, is Victoria's idea of clean,” a voice said behind me. “I swear, that girl…”

Shelby closed her eyes and went far away without moving from where she stood just inside the doorway. When she returned, she smiled slightly and said, “It's always something, isn't it?”

“What is it they say? If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

She cautioned me with a wave of her finger. “I'm not a big fan of God right now,” she said. “I pray and pray and nothing happens.”

Shelby slowly sat down, her back against Victoria's dresser. I had often accused her of being the most beautiful woman I knew. Not today. Today she looked like she had been trampled in a stampede.

I found an empty spot on the floor and sat across from her, leaning against the wall beneath Angelina.

“Katie's asleep,” Shelby said. “The FBI agent downstairs, what's his name?”

“Honsa?”

“He says that a wave of sleepiness can wash over you in a crisis. I don't know why that is, but I believe it. I'm exhausted.”

“Maybe you should try to get some sleep.”

“Sleep, perchance to dream. What dreams may come, do you think, McKenzie, if I should sleep?”

“They could give you something…”

“Do you think I'm going to take drugs to make me sleep, to make me feel better, when, when my daughter—”

“Shelby—”

“Why is this happening to us?” Her voice was jagged yet clear. “Why did they take my girl?”

“For the money.”

“There are a lot of people with more money than we have. Just about everyone has more money than we have. So why us? Is it because of you, McKenzie? Did they kidnap my baby to get back at you, to get back at you through us? At first I thought it was Bobby, because he's a cop. Then I heard the voice on the tape. One million dollars, they asked for. Get it from McKenzie, they said.”