“I think you’re a private citizen, Elliot. And that was your choice.”
Elliot refused to take the bait. “I think this message lends credence to the theory that there’s a connection between these two boys.” Granted, he preferred that theory to the idea of his father being involved even incidentally in Terry Baker’s death.
Tucker didn’t say anything for so long, Elliot thought they might have been cut off. He said at last, “I think somebody is yanking your chain.”
“No shit.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that somebody is a killer or a kidnapper. You’re a little on the intense side, Mills, in case you never noticed. Maybe someone is getting a kick out of rattling your cage.”
“Come on, Lance. Only a handful of people know I was even peripherally involved in the Baker case.”
“And those people talked to how many other people? You don’t know. You have no idea.”
“I’m telling you, this is someone who I interviewed. This is a challenge. But more than that, it’s confirmation Gordie Lyle didn’t run away from home to make beautiful art. And Terry Baker didn’t pick up an anvil and walk out into a lake to shoot himself.”
Tucker barely waited for him to complete his sentence before he was rasping, “You want to know what I think? I’ll tell you what I think.” The barely contained anger caught Elliot off guard. “I think you’ve managed to pick up a stalker. I hope I’m wrong. I hope one of your pals in the ivory tower is having some fun with you, but that’s probably not it. You probably
Elliot gave a disbelieving laugh. “It’s too late for that and we both know it.”
“I don’t know that. Neither do you.”
“‘Elliot, are you enjoying our game?’ He’s challenging me.”
“So what? You don’t pick up the challenge. You don’t play the game. That’s how it ends right where it begins. You don’t respond.”
“I can’t do that.” Elliot couldn’t believe Tucker was even suggesting it. “This is a lead. The best lead we’ve had so far.”
“Tomorrow I’ll contact Anontxt.net and get the IPS of your stranger danger. We’ll have the sonofabitch.”
They were both talking over each other by now, neither listening, and both getting more frustrated and angry. “Never mind that. This might be the Lyle kid’s last chance—”
“And even if it was, this isn’t proof that the two cases are tied together—”
“He could still be alive. Where was Terry Baker for those three weeks before he went into the lake—”
“Hard, physical evidence—”
“Where did he get the gun?”
“And even if it
“Where did he get the fucking anvil? We—”
“There is no goddamned
The silence was louder than the shouting.
“You need to let it go,” Tucker said at last. His voice sounded compressed with the effort to control it. “Leave it alone. Leave it alone before…”
Elliot waited for him to finish it, but he didn’t. Finally, Elliot said, “Got it. Thanks for your help.”
After he’d walked back to retrieve his drink, he began to seriously analyze that unfinished statement of Tucker’s. For all the anger and unresolved tension between them, Tucker really wasn’t a bad-tempered guy. Maybe he hadn’t been kidding when he said Elliot brought out the worst in him.
Elliot nodded grimly. He watched her splashing through the deep puddles in her high-heeled red boots as she tried not to spill her drink on the way to her Jeep Cherokee.
Godawful weather. It suited his mood perfectly.
“Mills,” called the girl behind the counter, and he retrieved his cafe mocha and went out to his own car.
A night’s rest had not done a lot for his spirits. Every time he remembered his father’s face, he felt guilty. Why had he done that? Why had he pushed? That was another part of his old life he hadn’t liked. Law enforcement hardened you. It made you cynical about people. Even people you loved. The people who deserved your unconditional trust.
Maybe Tucker had a point about his being too intense. Why the hell
Tucker sure didn’t see it.
And, when Elliot arrived at his office and called Tacoma PD, neither did they.
The folks at the Investigation Bureau were polite and they took his information, but they were not about to share their own findings. Why would they? He was no longer with the FBI, which made him merely another annoying busybody with a theory. They would call SAC Montgomery who would reassure them the Bureau had no further interest in their case. They would call President Oppenheimer who would assure them the university was happy with the way they had handled this sensitive matter.
Elliot was well on his way to establishing his reputation as a local crank. And deservedly so. What next? Would he start cutting out newspaper clippings of local crimes and start writing letters to the editor with his theories?
Maybe he should have taken that desk job. Was he honest-to-God that bored with teaching?
He stopped and considered this question carefully.
No. He wasn’t. He
admit it
Relieved with his decision, Elliot spent the morning sloshing to and from the lecture hall to his office. He talked about revisionist Westerns and feminist spies in the Civil War. He glanced over essays and graded test papers. Kyle had not shown up, and Elliot spared him a few seconds’ concern. Kyle had not been his normal upbeat, energetic self for the last couple of weeks, and it was not like him to fail to show up without leaving word. But maybe it was just as well Kyle had missed today. It gave Elliot more to do and less time to think.
As he’d expected, Charlotte phoned. She rang around one-thirty as he was trying to decide whether to go out for lunch or work straight through.
“Elliot, my dear. I received a call from a very nice detective from the police department. I don’t understand why you’re still…” She let that trail as though she couldn’t quite put a name to whatever it was she feared he was doing.
He thought of and discarded several responses. “I’m sorry, Charlotte,” he said at last. “They shouldn’t have bothered you. There were one or two discrepancies in Terry’s death that I was hoping to have cleared up.”
“But Detective Lawrence said that you were suggesting there was a connection between Terry’s death and Gordie Lyle’s disappearance. Surely you’re not still thinking that’s the case?”
Hell.
He opened his mouth, but was forestalled by the buzzing of his cell phone. He frowned at the screen. Another text message from Anonymous Caller.
Eyes on the icon, he said slowly, distractedly, “Sorry? Er, no. I don’t know. Can I call you back, Charlotte?”
“Elliot, I want to make it perfectly clear that as far as the university is concerned, the matter is closed. We want to put this tragedy behind us. For the sake of the students. For all of our sakes.”
Elliot pressed the text icon. The words flashed up.
A serial killer. The very words he had avoided thinking, let alone speaking.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got a call coming in that I’ve got to take.”
“
“It’s…I apologize. I really do have to take this.” He clattered the handset back into the cradle and stared at the screen of his cell phone.
Not a coincidence. Not a mistake. There was a connection between Gordie Lyle and Terry Baker all right. He’d stake his life that he or she was sitting on the other end of this call.
Elliot texted back.
Do you?
Another small delay, and then,
“No, you didn’t,” Tucker said. “No. You did not. Because one thing you’re not is stupid, and you would
“All right,” Elliot returned irritably—mostly because he knew Tucker was right. “I admit to a moment of macho posturing bullshit, okay? Let it go. Anyway, ignoring the calls isn’t going to stop them. In fact, the caller may escalate if he or she thinks she can’t get a response.”
Tucker was driving while talking on his cell phone. Elliot could hear the background music of crackling white noise. It didn’t muffle Tucker’s anger; that came through loud and clear.
“Escalate how? According to you, he or she has already committed two murders. Besides which, I already told you
“Who asked you to? I could have handled that myself. I’m not helpless, whatever you think.”
“You’re welcome!” Tucker snapped back. “And for your information, I don’t think you’re helpless. I think as an employee of the federal government I can get results a lot faster than you can.”
Maybe so, but it was still galling that Tucker believed a blown knee meant Elliot could no longer take care of himself.
“Anyway, the damage is done—” Elliot became aware that two men in raincoats were standing in his office doorway listening to his conversation.
Cops. Plainclothes detectives.
“I’ll say it sure as shit is,” Tucker retorted. “You’ve apparently got a death wish.”
Elliot clicked off, ignoring the brief flash of satisfaction in having the last word, even if it was merely dial tone. “Can I help you?”
“Professor Mills?” The senior partner was middle-aged: fair, square and red faced. Too many fast food meals and not enough exercise. “I’m Detective Anderson. This is Detective Pine. We’re with Tacoma Homicide. We’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Come in.” Elliot didn’t need to tell them to shut the door behind them. They took the chairs in front of his desk. Detective Anderson smiled. It was a polite, noncommittal smile. His partner—young, short, dark and Anderson’s opposite in every way—gazed disparagingly about Elliot’s office. It didn’t bother Elliot. He had worked with a lot of cops in his time. It took all kinds to keep the world safe.
“Are you one of these Civil War reenactment dudes?” Pine asked, picking up the cannon paperweight on Elliot’s desk. He glanced meaningfully at the map of Civil War battles on the wall.
Elliot considered telling Pine no, certainly not. He preferred to play with toy soldiers.
“You placed a call to the Persons Crime Section this morning,” Anderson was saying with a cautioning look at his subordinate.
“That’s right.” Elliot leaned forward, picking up a pen. “I know it’s not a popular theory, but I think there could be a link between the recent death of a PSU student and another student’s disappearance.”
“You’re referring to the suicide of Terence Baker, the son of Attorney Thomas Baker?”
“Correct.”
“And the other student is one Francis Gordon Lyle?”
“Also correct.”
“I see. What’s your interest in this investigation, Professor Mills?”
“I became involved when the Bakers asked me to look into Terry’s disappearance.”
Pine put the paperweight back on Elliot’s desk with a bang. “You used to be feeb?” Elliot nodded. Pine questioned, “What happened?”
Elliot gave a bare bones accounting of exactly what had happened. Pine’s body language and expression communicated clearly that if Elliot had been half the cop Pine was, it
Anderson, however, looked unwillingly sympathetic. “I remember reading about that courthouse shooting and then the pursuit through the Square. You got the bastard. That’s something.”
“Yeah, I got him. Not before he got me, though.” For an instant, Elliot was back there lying on the ice cold bricks in the stinging rain, staring dizzily up at the silently roaring copper dragon atop the thirty-three-foot column of the Weather Machine.
Forecast: gloomy.
He shook off his preoccupation. “So why are you here?” A bleak thought occurred to him. “Did you find the Lyle kid?”
“No. Are we going to?” Pine asked.
Anderson threw his partner another of those much-tried looks. “No. We’re here, Professor Mills, because it looks like you might be right.”
“About?”
“About the fact that these boys are being abducted.”
They were watching him very closely, watching his every reaction. And good luck with that because, like them, Elliot had been trained to hide his emotions. Occasionally even from himself.
He said slowly, “There’s been another abduction?”
“Didn’t your anonymous friend text you?” Pine asked.
Elliot absorbed that. The good news was that the Persons Crime Section desk had taken down all his information that morning, including the part about receiving anonymous text messages from someone who might or might not be the Unsub—or “perp” as the cops called unknown bad guys.
The bad news was that Elliot was apparently also in the running for homicidal maniac of the year.
He stared at their set, suspicious faces. In their position, he’d have been suspicious too. It wasn’t fair, but retired and ex-cops made as good cranks and crazies as the next citizen.
“Who?” he asked without emotion. “Who did he snatch?” He had a bad feeling and unconsciously held his breath, waiting for their answer.
“Your teaching assistant. A kid by the name of Kyle Kanza.”
Maybe he wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he’d once been because Anderson unbent enough to say, “It’s not that bad. The kid managed to get away. He’s banged up, but he’s okay. He’s at St. Anne’s Hospital.”
* * *
Minus the multiple piercings and elaborate hair, Kyle looked very young and very fragile in his hospital bed. His right arm was in a cast. He had a black eye and the left side of his face looked like someone had run a cheese grater over it, but he smiled a wan greeting to Elliot.