Stranger in the Room: A Novel (35 page)

I pulled on a summer robe, filled the teakettle with water, and dumped coffee into the French press. There was a love note from Rauser on the counter. I squinted to read his backward-tilted scrawl. White Trash skidded around the corner, batting at a catnip-filled mouse with the dexterity of a midfielder. Later, she’d carry it back under the table, where she hoarded all her toys and occasionally circled them menacingly. My alley cat had the heart of a predator.

Rauser called. I put him on speaker while I fed White Trash and made my coffee. “When did you leave? You were so quiet.” I barely remembered him slipping into bed with me. I didn’t remember him getting up to leave.

“I tried not to wake you. You had a rough night. You woke me up talking about the men yelling again,” Rauser said. “I guess getting shot at has a way of stirring up memories.”

I sat down on a stool with my coffee. “I was dreaming about my grandparents again. And then I woke realizing there was only one male voice that day. He kept yelling at them to hand over the money. The second man didn’t come into the store until later. I think the second man tried to stop it. Then I heard the shots.”

“So maybe the second guy was just a customer who walked in.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Why would he run?”

“Man, would I love to snag the sonsofbitches that did this to your family. No statute on murder. You’ve been having weird dreams since I’ve known you.”

“It’s only been thirty years,” I said, and poured more coffee. “I could probably stretch out the misery a few more years.”

“And your mother says you’re afraid of commitment.” Rauser laughed. “Hey, wanna know about the phone that called you yesterday? It’s a no-contract prepaid with a couple thousand minutes. Purchased at Lenox Square Mall, which is coincidentally where the hot dog man happens to have one of his two stationary locations.”

“How about GPS? Can you location-track it?”

“Phone must be powered down. Maybe he dumped it already. Emergency location tracking can’t be disabled, but if there’s no power to it, you can’t find it. Last location was right where you thought he was. Up on North Highland over your office parking lot four minutes before your call to nine-one-one.”

“I was trying to keep him talking. I told him Miki wasn’t like Fatu. I might as well have fired a detonator in a wad of C-4. He lost it completely. Screamed at me that she was a different kind of whore. That’s when my window shattered. The bastard.” I took my coffee and headed for the television. “I can’t get that creepy voice disguiser out of my head.”

“We’ve got Crammer coming in later this morning. He thinks he’s
coming to look at photos to see if he recognizes anybody from the ballpark.”

“You still like him for it,” I said, and clicked on the TV. I wanted to check on the weather where Miki was.

“Don’t you? Opportunity, location, timing, physicality—what’s not to like? He’s divorced, lives with a couple rescue dogs, drives a two-year-old forty-five-thousand-dollar BMW, which he still owes a ton on. And get this: He leased an apartment in Midtown a couple of years ago. Leased it for a year. Didn’t renew. Unclear at the moment what he used it for. But he was going through a divorce at the time.”

“Nice car, Midtown apartment. Might have looked like a way out to someone like Fatu. On the other hand, I don’t think his moods are manageable enough to run a business. The guy is incredibly torqued up.”

“We’ll see which way Crammer bounces in the interview room. By the way, big storms came through Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri last night. Alabama’s in the crosshairs now. Towers are down. Power’s knocked out.”

“That explains why I haven’t heard back from Miki, I guess. I sent her Crammer’s picture.”

“There’s another line developing to the southwest. That one’s coming this way. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon. All emergency services and personnel are on alert.”

I glanced at the window and saw blue skies in Atlanta. I clicked the remote, found the Weather Channel, and was immediately bombarded with images of storm-ravaged landscape. A forecaster explained why atmospheric conditions were perfect for the first super-outbreak in forty years. Tornado warnings and watches covered the entire southern United States. I switched to CNN and watched bobbing, grainy cell phone video of a giant, filthy cloud chewing up and spitting out everything in its path. Fourteen people had been killed and hundreds were missing in Mississippi. As many as sixty tornadoes were currently on the ground in Alabama.
Sixty
. One of them was a real bad boy.

“Jesus, an EF-Five hit Tuscaloosa.” The city looked like it had been shelled. Houses, mailboxes, street signs, office buildings, hospitals—everything was leveled.

“Don’t worry,” Rauser said. “Miki’s a pro. She’ll call when she has service. Hey, I gotta head downstairs. Televised briefing with the new boss. What’s your plan?”

“I’m going to take Neil’s computer and stuff to the hospital. Then I’m coming to the station.”

I sipped coffee and watched a storm chaser’s video on television. It was shot from a moving vehicle. I wondered if Miki was somewhere in that truck with her shutter humming. They were tracking the EF5 while trying to stay out of its path. Wide strips of landscape looked like a toothpick forest. The tiny things that people cherish had been sucked out of drawers and closets. Photos and memories. Gone. Clothes, furniture, pieces of houses and cars had been sent swirling, then dumped in piles that looked like rubbish. Whole lives in little pieces.

I muted the television. “Rauser, these nightmares I’ve had on and off all my life. I think he has too—the man Fatu called Mr. R. The stuff he’s leaving at the scenes—the ribbon, the red balloon, the wrapping paper. They’re linked to something for him, some trauma. He’s reenacting it in his own way, I think.”

“Honestly, Keye, I could give a shit about the crazy fuck’s childhood traumas. Not all of us grew up in Happy Town. I damn sure did not, and you had a shitty start. But neither one of us has the uncontrollable urge to fuck someone up.”

“Speak for yourself,” I said.

“You’re saying I should talk about that evidence?”

“The items could have been present in other situations. Maybe someone noticed. Maybe they’re all over his house or his dog. I don’t know. I’m just asking you not to overlook that aspect of the profile.”

“Opens the door for copycats when I start talking crime scenes.”

“I get it. Do what you need to do.”

“I gotta run. Be careful out there, darlin’. Eyes open, okay?”

I pressed in Miki’s number again. Straight to voice mail. “Hey. Just weather-watching. I guess you’re in the thick of it. This is what you like, right? Jesus, you’re a freak. Call your cousin. I’m worried. I love ya.” I pushed the phone off and thought about that. I did love her, my complicated, brave, self-absorbed, strung-out shutterbug of a cousin. Introspection not being my specialty, this was a bit of a revelation.
I had loved her when we were children. But our lives had forked off in very different directions.

I switched to a local station and caught the breaking news banner across the bottom of the screen, then APD’s pressroom and a walnut lectern with the official emblem on the front. I turned up the volume and sat back with my coffee. The voice of an unseen reporter told me in the hushed tones of a golf commentator that the Atlanta Police Department had an urgent announcement. He stressed the hurried nature of the press conference, then speculated on its meaning. In the background, other whispers from other journalists to other cameras, the occasional cleared throat, a cough, the rustle of paper or the clang of equipment, a metal chair leg scooting forward or back on tiled floors.

APD’s press liaison and official spokesperson, Jeanne Bascom, walked to the lectern flanked by Major Herman Hicks and Lieutenant Aaron Rauser. All of them were in their dress blues, gold piping, the embroidered APD emblem on their shoulders, gold buttons and cuff links. All of it sending an important message:
We’re competent and professional, and you’re safe in our hands
. It was the first time I’d seen Rauser in uniform since we’d attended an officer’s funeral a couple of months ago. He stood military straight.

Bascom pushed reading glasses onto a small, straight nose, glanced around the room, then at the notes she’d placed on the lectern in front of her. She straightened them. I’d seen Jeanne Bascom manage Atlanta’s hungry press corps during Olympic bombings, Super Bowl threats, serial rapists and killers, and a firestorm of backlash against APD’s own police chief after he was accused of allowing his own political goals to get in the way of a murder investigation. I’d seen her face pinched so tight she looked like she’d been sucking a lemon. Today her manner and expression reflected the gravity of the message she was about to deliver. The press room knew it had to be big to bring Bascom to the lectern in a hastily scheduled conference. She was a stickler for the regular briefings.

The glasses were removed, folded, and placed on the podium. “A Q-and-A will follow a brief prepared statement. Please withhold your questions until that time.” Bascom always set the ground rules first. “Through exhaustive investigative efforts and in coordination with
the state crime lab, the Atlanta Police Department has linked the homicides of a Clarkston woman to two male victims in the Midtown area.” The pressroom erupted. “Major Herman Hicks and Lieutenant Aaron Rauser will take your questions.”

Hicks was five-ten, African American, with the pockmarked skin of a man who’d had ravaging acne as a boy. The questions came in a bombardment.
What are the victims’ names? Is there physical evidence? How much time between murders? What is cause of death? Is this linked to other serial murder cases?

“The first homicide took place approximately eleven months ago,” Hicks told the pressroom. “The first victim appears to be a twenty-one-year-old female named Fatu Doe, a resident of Clarkston. The second and third known victims are Troy Delgado, a thirteen-year-old male, and Donald Kelly, a ninety-year-old male. Both are—were—Atlanta residents. Physical evidence at all the crime scenes has been collected and sent to the state crime lab. According to witness statements, the unidentified suspect is a Caucasian male between six feet two and six feet four inches tall, with brown hair. He wears black thick-soled shoes, size thirteen. They may be worn in his profession or because of an orthopedic condition.” Hicks gave his Homicide lieutenant a nod, then stepped aside.

This was a part of Rauser’s job he absolutely hated. He took in the room, leaned forward to a microphone that was set too low for him. “Think about your friends and neighbors. Ask yourself if someone has had unexplained absences lately. Have their habits changed? Have they become erratic? The suspect may exhibit obsessive behaviors, some of which could be focused on these images.” He held up a photograph of the ribbon that had been tied like a bow around Fatu Doe’s ankle and the balloon from the Delgado scene, then continued reading off the psychological sketch I’d prepared in the hospital waiting room. “The suspect is between twenty-five and thirty years old. He might have had a severe trauma as a child and been in a neglectful or violent situation. The suspect may exhibit symptoms of paranoia, thinks he’s being criticized, judged. He’s hypersensitive. He’s an introvert and prefers working alone. He may have an inappropriately explosive reaction to perceived insult or disrespect. He has periods of depression. He likes to read. He has difficulty in social situations.
He’s good with dogs and may frequent places like dog parks or dog-friendly settings, such as public parks or sidewalk cafés where dogs are allowed. One of the victims was sexually assaulted, and we believe the suspect has sexually assaulted other women as well. If this man sounds familiar in any way, please contact our tip lines immediately. Your identity will be protected.” Rauser’s eyes raked the room. “He owns or has access to a nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson M-and-P. He’s known to have recently driven a blue 2010 Honda Element. We believe he works and may live in the Midtown area.”

The pressroom exploded with questions. Rauser remained vague. He stood for five minutes and answered follow-up questions. There was a lot of panic these murders might be connected to the Wishbone murders last year or other known active serials working in this country. Rauser dispelled this notion unequivocally.

“Lieutenant Rauser, has the FBI been brought in?” a reporter asked. “Who prepared that profile you’re reading from?”

Uh-oh
. I sucked in my breath. Major Hicks stepped to the lectern. “The FBI is not currently involved in the case. As you are well aware, we rely on forensic scientists to analyze the physical evidence. It’s not unusual for this department and other departments to seek out qualified analysts to compile psychological profiles. We’ve done that in these cases in an effort to reveal sooner the identity of the offender.”

“What about DNA evidence?”

“Budget constraints and the high volume of cases now depending on DNA evidence mean lab results take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.” Hicks turned on his heel, and all three of them left the pressroom. The door behind the lectern had barely closed before my phone rang.

“This is Monica Roberts, WXIA-TV. Are you profiling on these cases?”

“I’ve consulted with APD in the past, you know that, Monica.” I’d met Monica Roberts in a parking garage last year. She’d chased Rauser and me wearing high heels. And caught us.

“Did you compile the profile they’re working from?”

“I think it’s APD’s call to release the names of their consultants. Or not.”

“That’s not a no,” she said.

I didn’t answer. Okay, so maybe there is a little ambition in me. Favorable speculation from someone like Roberts would bring in a lot of business. Big business. Paying business. Not just bail jumpers and background checks and subpoenas. I’d lost my biggest client last year, a big-money law firm that paid me a few thousand every month. I’m one of the little guys. A few thousand makes a huge difference in quality of living. I was feeling it.

“Listen, how about we get together and talk?” Roberts pressed. “About everything. On camera. The alcoholism, what went wrong at the FBI, consulting on the Wishbone cases and what that cost you, Northeast Georgia Crematorium, these new cases, your relationship with Aaron Rauser, your life sober. Even better—how about the two of you do the interview? You and the lieutenant together. You’re a fascinating couple.”