Voices Carry Read online

Decker was standing in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips, staring at the television that sat upon the credenza opposite the desk. Genna took the chair he motioned her toward, and sat down, leaning toward the screen to see what crisis had developed while she was typing up her report that morning.

  “What’s going on?” Genna asked. “What’s happened?”

  Ignoring her questions as if he hadn’t heard her, Decker reached for the remote control and increased the volume.

  “Sir?” She repeated. “What’s going on?”

  “The shit, as they say, Agent Snow, is about to hit the fan.”

  A trim man in his forties—obviously a law enforcement type, with his close cropped hair and the requisite dark suit—stood at a podium, adjusting the microphone even as he spoke.

  “. . . in touch with the other police departments and will be sharing what little information we have with each other and with the FBI. Yes. . . the gentleman in the red tie in the second row. . .”

  The man at the podium pointed with his index finger, and the camera followed, resting on the man who stood in the center of the row of folding chairs, each of which was occupied. The man’s lips moved, and he gestured several times with his arms, but the microphone failed to pick up his words.

  “The question is,” the man at the podium repeated for the sake of those not close enough to have heard, “why has it taken the FBI so long to figure out that there is a serial killer running loose at will all around the country. I think I’ll let the FBI answer that.”

  He stepped aside and was replaced at the podium with a tall, thin man with a faint dusting of light brown hair on the crown of his head.

  “That’s Rex Egan,” Decker told her.

  “Yes, I know. What is he—”

  “Shhhh,” Decker hushed her. “Listen.”

  “First of all, no one. . . let me repeat that emphatically, no one has said that any of the missing women have been killed, so your use of the term ‘serial killer’ is irresponsible and inaccurate. We believe what we have here is a series of abductions which may or may not turn out to be related. But no one has come forward with any evidence to suggest that any of these women are dead. There are, however, striking similarities common to all of the disappearances that have led us to believe they are related, and we are proceeding on that theory.”

  “What are those similarities?” a reporter close to the podium asked. “What evidence do you have to indicate that there is in fact a. . . let’s use the term serial abductor, for lack of something better.”

  “Actually, the most striking bit of evidence is that there is no evidence at all.” Egan cleared his throat as the murmur from the crowd began to rise. “Each of the victims has disappeared into thin air, literally, while in the course of their own daily, well-established routines.”

  “But I thought Chief Halloran said earlier that these abductions have taken place all over the country, in no particular order,” a woman near the back of the seating area rose to ask. “How can a random series of kidnappings—”

  Egan interrupted her.

  “No one used the word random. On the contrary, we believe that the abductor is following a very highly organized plan in a very specific order.”

  “And that plan is. . . ?” a man in a brown sports jacket and casual khaki pants asked.

  “Known only to the abductor.”

  “But if he’s not killing them, what’s he doing with them?”

  “That’s an excellent question. Unfortunately, we don’t know.”

  “Have you been able to develop a profile?”

  “Only a very sketchy one. We believe that he’s white—all of his victims are white, and as you all know from all the law enforcement TV you watch, crimes such as these are usually perpetrated within the same race. He’s male, between the ages of thirty and fifty. Physically strong enough to overcome the victims with no apparent struggle. He’s very smart, and very adaptable. A chameleon of sorts. He’s been able to fit in every place he’s been without being seen. On not one occasion has a witness come forward with a description. Which means he’s studied his victims well, well enough to know exactly how to blend in completely enough as to become invisible. He’s patient enough to plan things through and choose his moment. We believe that he’s researched the routines of his victims over a period of time so that he knows where they go and what they do and when they will be most vulnerable. That would imply that he has mobility, time on his hands, and a source of income or enough cash that he can travel around the country at will. He’s probably a loner—lives alone, there’d be too much explaining to do. There’s been no gap between abductions longer than a week, and that only in the beginning.”

  A long, dull silence spread throughout the room as Egan’s words sunk in.

  A question was asked off camera.

  “The question is, How many victims have there been?” Egan repeated. “Seven, that we know of. But there could have been more. One of the reasons why we’re here talking about this today is so that other police departments across the country who may be investigating similar disappearances will get in touch with us and share what information they have.”

  “But with the number of people who go missing on any given day. . .” someone said.

  “This is different,” Egan shook his head. “These have been very specific, deliberate acts. These are not runaway teenagers or women who have run off with the pool boy. Many are solid, professional women, most of them happily married with young children to whom they are devoted, with absolutely no apparent reason to leave home. So you can eliminate many of the other unfortunate missing persons reports because they don’t fit the pattern.”

  “Couldn’t it be a coincidence? I mean, don’t you always look to the spouse first? Maybe the husbands of these women—”

  Egan held up a hand to stop him.

  “Have all been carefully investigated. All were at work or elsewhere, clearly documented and witnessed, when their wives disappeared. Believe me, the local law enforcement agencies that investigated the disappearances were very thorough. They are to be commended, each and every one of them, for the manner in which these investigations were conducted.”

  “Do you think there will be more? More abductions?”

  “I think there will be as many as it takes for him to accomplish his goal,” Egan said carefully.

  “And what would that be?”

  “I wish we knew.”

  Egan motioned off camera, and two men rolled a large map close to the podium. Egan walked to it, one hand in his pocket.

  “Wilmington, North Carolina. Kansas City, Missouri. Omaha, Nebraska. Chicago, Illinois. Mystic, Connecticut. Wheeling, West Virginia. Dawson Springs, Kentucky. Rome, New York.” With each name that he called, he placed a yellow flag, affixed to a large pushpin, onto the map to mark the place.

  When he concluded, he stood aside, looking out across the small sea of reporters who had leaned forward to watch.

  Finally, someone broke the silence.

  “Why did he skip around like that? Wouldn’t it have been easier to, say, start in Chicago, go to Omaha, then Kansas City, maybe Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, then New York and Connecticut? Doesn’t sound to me that he’s all that organized, if he jumps around like that. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if he’s following a specific agenda,” Egan said quietly.

  “You mean, like maybe a list?”

  Egan nodded.

  “You think maybe there’s a list of names and he’s taking them in some kind of order?” A woman asked.

  “It’s starting to look that way.”

  “How do you know he’s not a traveling salesman who just happens to be in these places?”

  “We are looking into that possibility, but we believe that the information that we have gathered points in another direction.”

  “Supposing there is a list. . . you think there are other names on it?”

  “That’s one of the thin
gs we hope to learn by going public with the information we have. We’re hoping that someone will know of some connection between one or more of these women. We’ve been unable to determine what these women have in common. We’re hoping someone out there,” Egan looked directly into the camera, “will know what that link might be.”

  He walked slowly back to the podium, both hands in his pocket.

  “We’ve called together the investigating officers from each of the departments that has been handling one of these disappearances. We’ll be meeting together over the next few days to pool our information. Hopefully, something someone says will spark a memory or an image in someone else, perhaps something that had heretofore appeared unimportant.”

  “What’s the FBI’s role in this?” someone asked.

  “We’ve appointed some of our best, most experienced agents to a special field team to investigate the matter. Our people will participate in the discussions this week. Hopefully, between the information shared by the investigating officers, and the information that we hope to gather from the public, we’ll have enough to track this person. . . this chameleon. . . before he gets any farther down the list.”

  “And this special team is in place?”

  “Yes,” Egan nodded, then motioned off to the side for someone to join him.

  Genna was not the least surprised to see John join Egan at the podium.

  “Some of you may know Special Agent John Mancini. He’s been selected to lead this team, and he’s been given free range to choose his people. You’ve got, what, John, three, four men lined up?”

  “It’s a team of four,” John nodded. “Three men—Adam Stark from Phoenix, Dale Hunter from Birmingham, and me—and one woman. Genna Snow, from our northern New Jersey office. All well experienced with missing persons and cases involving abductions.”

  Genna sat back in her seat and looked up at Decker. “You knew?”

  “Yes, but I thought I’d let John tell you,” Decker said as he clicked a button on the remote to turn off the television. “And now that he has, I suggest you go home and pack.”

  Decker reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope.

  “Your plane leaves at three.” He handed the envelope to Genna even as he walked to the door and opened it for her. “Keep in touch, hear?”

  15

  The jaunty tune—the theme song for a favorite game show—began to play, and he turned up the volume, filling every corner and crevice of the small motel room with the catchy little ditty. Humming along, he snapped off his laptop and settled himself on the bed, leaning back against the cushions, the remote control held between both hands much the way a child might hold a popsicle. The camera scanned the audience, and as always, he made his own game out of guessing who would be that day’s contestants. When the host—he just loved that they called the emcee the host, as if they were all his guests—called down the first lucky player, he grinned broadly and laughed out loud. He’d picked her, that plump little middle-aged redhead, the first time the camera had made its way across the left side of the studio.

  It was just another sign that everything was right in his world.

  Okay, he conceded as the host promised he’d be right back after this brief commercial break, maybe everything wasn’t quite right. He was having a little bit of a problem on account of this blasted heat. He’d tried to make allowances for it, tried his best to figure out how much water and when it would be needed. So he’d miscalculated a little. It wasn’t as if he’d set out to let them die. Goodness, no. Didn’t the Bible say Thou shalt not kill?

  And hadn’t he compensated by giving the others extra water, even bringing them oranges, as had been requested?

  Bold piece of business that was, her telling him to bring them fruit. But he’d felt weak that day, after discovering that he’d lost yet another one, and he’d given in. Of course, the lost ones were of no use to him, and he’d had to find a way to dispose of them. After all, he couldn’t very well take them back.

  Though the thought of it did amuse him greatly, of returning them to the same places where he’d found them. In the case of the unfortunate Carin Whitten, that would have meant driving back to West Virginia and dumping her at a precise point behind the track at the high school where she’d been running so very early on that summer morning. She had been one of the easier ones, Carin had. He’d watched her for days, enough days to determine that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she left the track by the back gate, rather than the front, as she did on the others, and headed to the backyard of a house that edged up to the tennis courts. To do this, she had to walk along a very narrow path between the fence on the court side, and a row of arborvitae on the other. Once at her destination, she would slip through the hedge and spend a half hour to forty-five minutes visiting before leaving by the front door to return home. Several times he’d seen her in the doorway leisurely chatting to her friend, as if she had all the time in the world.

  She hadn’t.

  But she’d been a pretty thing, that’s for certain. Mother would have said that Carin had grown up nicely.

  He’d felt badly that he’d had to dispose of her the way he had, but, well, she’d live on, in a sense. He had to think of it as recycling in its truest form. He found himself smiling at the thought of it, in spite of his very real sorrow at having lost her and the few others who had succumbed.

  The commercials having ended, he focused again on the screen, readying himself for the first round of play. But instead of the familiar face of his favorite game show host, he saw, instead, the face of a well-known news commentator.

  “. . . interrupt our programming to bring you the following breaking news. We’re joining our local affiliate station. . .”

  He barely heard the rest.

  “What?!” He screamed at the TV, then growled.

  He hated when they did this. Hated it.

  “. . . press conference is underway. Let’s listen. . .”

  A man in a dark suit—with that hair, he was obviously some type of politician or in law enforcement—was standing at a podium, a look of deep concern on his face. Someone from the audience was asking a question, but with the air conditioner on there in the motel room, he hadn’t heard it. The whole thing just made him even more annoyed. It was bad enough that they broke into his favorite show, but to not know why, why, that just. . .

  What was that, what did the cop-type say. . . ?

  Why, he’s talking about. . . he’s talking about. . .

  ME!!

  He moved to the end of the bed, the better to hear.

  A press conference, about him! On national TV!

  He’d expected some media coverage, eventually, but a full press conference! Important enough to preempt the morning game shows!

  And so soon!

  Could it really be?

  His heart began to beat with the excitement of the moment. He increased the volume yet again, lest he miss a single word.

  “. . . no one has said that any of the missing women have been killed, so your use of the term ‘serial killer’ is irresponsible and inaccurate. . .” The blue suit was saying with great emphasis and sincerity.

  Hmmmm. He pondered this. He had lost several of them so far, but he hadn’t really thought of himself as having killed them. Did this make him a serial killer? The thought disturbed him.

  Thou shalt not kill.

  “. . . most striking bit of evidence is that there is no evidence at all. . .”

  “Yes, of course there’s no evidence,” he muttered. “How can you find evidence when you don’t know where the crime scene is?”

  “How can a random series of kidnappings—” a woman was asking.

  “Random?” He laughed out loud. “My dear, my dear, nothing has been random.”

  “. . . a very highly organized plan in a very specific order.”

  “Well, you got that much right.” He nodded appreciatively.

  “But if he’s not killing them, what’s he
doing with them?” Another question from the audience.

  “Ha!” He whooped when the police-type at the podium responded to the question with an admission that he hadn’t a clue. “And you’re dying to know, aren’t you? You’re all just dying to know!”

  He leaned forward again when the profile was read off, nodding his head in agreement. “Right there. . . and there. . . right again.”

  “Oh, please, no! UGH!” He cried aloud when he was referred to as a chameleon. Chameleons were slimy little, what, amphibians? Reptiles?

  Disgusting. He shivered just to think of it.

  He couldn’t help but swell with a kind of pride when the FBI began to pin up the little flags marking off the sites of his accomplishments.

  It truly was his finest hour.

  And it was taking place right there, on network television.

  That the FBI was going to such trouble for him. . . well, it humbled him, to be sure. To know that he had them so baffled was a tribute to his cleverness, an affirmation that his actions were righteous. He grinned as the FBI asked for help from the public. As if there was anyone smart enough to put it together.

  And then, there, on the screen, was the legendary John Mancini.

  Legendary because his name was well known throughout the nation’s prison system after he’d taken such a beating—mentally, that is—from Sheldon Woods. Anyone who’d been in a federal prison at any time over the past few years had heard about it. And in his own last home, hadn’t he been two cells away from someone who knew someone who had once had a cell on the same block as Woods and who’d heard the talk. About how tough Mancini was, but how Woods’s persistence broke him down. And here he was, back again, like that little pink bunny on the battery commercials. Woods had said that Mancini had been really hard to break, but the fact that he had been able to get to him would have assured him a certain status in prison had it not been for the fact that he was, among other things, a child murderer.

  And what was this Mancini saying? Something about a special unit being formed to track him down?

  A team of four. Three men, and one woman.

  He sat stunned, even after the press conference had ended. Could anything be more perfect?