The Last Argentine Mistress: And Other Stories from the Wasteland

By James Whitmer

The stories contained herein will take the reader through a real life obstacle course of choices that have to be made when confronting morality vs immorality, good vs evil, and social responsibility vs just deserts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781663237583

James Whitmer

Mr. Whitmer is a retired F.B.I. Agent, a College Professor, a High School Sports Official in 5 sports, and an Attorney. This is his 5th children’s book and 2nd about mermaids. His avocation is writing and he hopes this book will be as much fun to read as it was to write.

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Copyright © 2022 James Whitmer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-3757-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-3758-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022905242

iUniverse rev. date:  03/28/2022

Contents

1) Ashes of Life

2) Kiss Me In Paris

3) Mrs. Gavin’s Dilemma

4) Suture Lines

5) The Confessional

6) The Dancing Red Flamingo

7) The Last Argentine Mistress

8) The Maremma Fog Murders

9) The Narrow Door

10) The Odd Case of the Iberian Mentor

11) Illusions of Ambience

12) Soldier of Fortune

Presented for your consideration are more stories from the Wasteland where the Police Subculture, Forensic Science, Investigative Psychology and the Concepts of Religiosity confront the true essence of Evil, invariably melding into an amalgam of what one would term – The Ashes of Life.

ASHES OF LIFE

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Chapter 1

I T WASN’T ABOUT the money anymore, although that was a part of it early on. Now it was about them and their need for answers and, hopefully, for some semblance of closure. He had learned that the hard way through trial and error. Retirement from the Bureau was the catalyst, which had flattened his learning curve to a straight line; outcomes on one end and consequences on the other. It was really about them all along and now they had found him again; sought him out and did their homework and almost relentlessly, it seemed. So he picked up the letter again and began to read it for a third time under the dim light of his study.

It had been hand-delivered to him by old Wes, the caretaker he had hired to watch the place when he was back in the city. The letter had made it as far as Simpson’s General Store, just a few miles from the cabin, and old Wes had fetched it proper-like, as he had said, and brung it forthwith. It now rested in gnarled hands and under the stare of hardened eyes that had witnessed the true nature of victim and offender on the plain of good and evil. Old Wes had seated himself in a corner of the cabin near the fireplace and was whittling a wood doll for his granddaughter, as Stone looked up.

Forthwith? Have you been reading my law books again? Stone asked.

Old Wes only grinned, the gap between his front teeth oozing Red Man chew. He had breathed deeply from the long uphill hike to Stone’s cabin and now he was curiously looking around and then he spat some chew on the dormant logs in the hearth. Smiling, he said, Theys found you again. then he spat a perfect bull’s eye on the charred log and went back to his whittling.

Stone wasn’t really listening. He was reading again, deeper into her hurt, a never-ending circle of pain and unforgiving despair. He glanced at the wall above the photograph of himself and the Director. Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity was neatly printed on an F.B.I. pennant. He set the letter down and picked up his cellular telephone. As Stone punched in the numbers, old Wes pricked up his ears.

Yes, ma’am, your next flight to Chicago? Stone asked.

Chapter 2

T HE BITING COLD from the north wind met him flush in the face, as he exited the terminal at Midway Airport and hailed a cab. Winter in Chicago was in full force. The dreariness of the sky, a cold, gray vacuum that stared down on him, mirrored his inner feelings. He knew from reading the letter that their main suspect was not responsible for the missing child. He knew somehow but, nonetheless, he knew, so he still would have to talk to him, an easy task in one respect because he was incarcerated at Cook County Jail; a difficult task, on the other hand, because the suspect hadn’t muttered a single word to the authorities in almost six months. So for the next half an hour, as the cab slowly weaved through heavy traffic on I-55, Stone rehearsed in his mind the interrogation that was about to take place with the incarcerated sociopath.

Here we are, said the cabbie, a disheveled, wreck of a human being, dark-haired, unkempt and smelling of curry. He was from Karachi and was studying at night to become a mechanical engineer, at least that’s what he had told Stone during the ride to the jail. He sat in the front seat of his cab among a plethora of debris, including old newspapers with mathematical formulas scribbled on them. He appeared to be middle-aged, maybe forty years old, but, no doubt, a hard forty.

Twenty-four dollars, he demanded, as if he was expecting an argument.

Stone handed him the fare plus a modest tip. The ride had been monotonous at best with no appreciable conversation, the one part of a cab ride that Stone enjoyed. It passed the time and, oftentimes, proved to be educational. Hell, half of his informants while working the streets in the Bureau as an Agent were cab drivers. As he exited the cab he remembered the advice his father had given him when he had graduated from high school – Son, spend a year driving a cab. You’ll never get a better education. It was a piece of advice that Stone had ignored and oftentimes had regretted.

So as he exited the cab after paying the fare he spotted her. She was waiting for him on the steps of the jail. Shivering, attempting to smile, she appeared relieved that he had come. Gesturing frantically, she called out to him in a high-pitched and squeaky voice.

Mr. Stone, I’m over here!

She was alone and appeared anxious. He could smell trepidation and apprehension in the frigid air.

Hi, it’s me, Karen. I’m so relieved you said yes. I recognized you from your photographs on the Internet.

It was a simple statement from a simple-looking woman, her eyes fixed on his, shallow eyes, sad eyes.

You’ve been doing your homework, I see, said Stone, casually smiling while gazing into the stagnant pool of loneliness in her dead eyes.

They’re waiting in there, she said, pointing to the east entrance to the jail.

Stone had been here many times. He glanced at his watch -10:30 a.m. - and just enough time before lockdown started. Stone grabbed his bag with one hand and took her frail hand in the other. Limp, listless, it felt as if it was drained of the will to go on. Her skin was dry and cracked, possibly from the weather, he thought, or possibly from exhaustion and fear. A smile fought its way out from a frozen face, while she clutched his hand a little tighter, as they approached the cold and callous and hard steps of Cook County’s excuse for a dungeon.

I know you can help us, she said softly, her whispers lost in the desperate swirls of the wind that ushered them into the building, a hard and bitter wind, and whipping at their backs, as they ascended the steps to hell.

Chapter 3

K AREN STOOD BEHIND the two-way window as Stone entered the room. It was a large room, as far as interrogation rooms go, but the small man seated at the table in the center of the room made it appear even larger. Stone sat down across from the man and began talking almost before he was settled. The room was soundproof and Stone imagined that Karen could only see his lips moving, imagining the questions, if they were questions at all.

The small man sat motionless, his lips tight, as if they were stapled together but he appeared to be listening to Stone. Squinting at times, his small bloodshot eyes appeared as temples of deceit. His face twitched occasionally. His dancing eyes, followed by slight hand movements and odd facial expressions, completed a portrait of deceit waiting to be deciphered. The lines in his bent-in forehead expanded exponentially and then gradually contracted, as Stone gestured erratically.

The small man’s left hand was handcuffed to the chair where he sat but his right hand was visibly moving. Now tapping the table and then held up in midair, it remained motionless for a moment and then the small man began tapping again to some unknown beat. The innate rhythm of a psychopathic killer was at play, Stone imagined, and he also imagined that Karen was convinced of it, as well; and if it was him all along, Karen would expect Stone to finally get it out of the small man, a confession that would locate her daughter and finally put an end to her relentless nightmare.

Twenty minutes passed in the bat of an eye and still the little man stoically sat on his gunmetal prison chair, rarely changing facial expressions but occasionally tapping his stubby fingers on the dull, gray metal table. His lips were dead weight, leaden anchors of despair that hid a small tongue, which lashed in and out like a lizard’s eating a fly and that singularly matched his batrachian features.

Stone imagined that Karen was forcing herself to look at him, the alleged murderer of her child. He hoped that she was focused on the good that would come of it and so he glanced at the two-way window and imagined her biting her lower lip, waiting for a breakthrough that was sure to come, waiting patiently for the movement of the little man’s lips.

He was an ugly little man and just over five feet tall and maybe about Karen’s weight but most of it was in his lower torso. His brow was weather-beaten and resembled a road map with all of the geometrical symbols imprinted on it. A large scar in the shape of a fishhook jutted out from under his chin. Small, anxious eyes were set wide apart, giving his face a relatively flat look. His nose was almost invisible and covered by a thick, bristly moustache, which protruded in all directions. His hair was blotchy and unkempt like the hair of the cabbie who had delivered Stone to the jail, gray mixed with brown but mostly an ugly, plain gray. Short, stubby arms hung from his upper torso like sawed-off billiard sticks. He wore the requisite Cook County Jail jumpsuit, bright orange in color, and white, laceless sneakers. On one of the billiard sticks, his left forearm, was a large tattoo of a skull and crossbones inked with a sickly blue color and with some lettering underneath it that Stone could not quite make out.

Stone imagined that the little man’s looks repulsed Karen, as she most assuredly prayed for a miracle. Thirty minutes later it came. The little man accepted a cigarette from Stone with his free hand and became visibly animated, inhaling, then exhaling thick, whitish smoke and talking while the smoke oozed from his nostrils like snakes escaping from under a hot rock, and then blowing out more smoke, as if releasing tension. The smoke circled his head like a cheapened halo. For the next hour or so he continued his spastic-like animations, at times attempting to stand but only to be sucked back down by his unkind restraints, as if he was entrapped in a swirling whirlpool of half-truths. Stone, arms folded, remained silent, as the little man continued his monologue and then it happened; Stone edging closer, his knees touching those of the sociopath’s and closing the interrogative gap that separated truth seeker from sociopathic liar, and then engaging the little man in conversation.

They had been in there for almost four hours, just Stone and the little man, through lunch and through lockdown and now Stone was standing and shaking the little man’s hand. Approaching the door, Stone waved toward the window, his linear smile belying what had actually occurred. He exited the room, not looking back, as the guard opened the heavy metal door but the little man remained motionless, puffing and smiling, an obscure and deformed little smile adorning his otherwise nondescript face.

Chapter 4

S TONE WAS OUTSIDE now among them.

He confessed! Where is she? Did he tell you where? Karen panted, choking back her tears and fumbling for something to hold onto.

I’m sorry. He’s not your man, said Stone, focusing on her eyes, tired eyes, sad eyes, and the hollowness they assuredly contained of which he could only begin to imagine.

Silence held center stage, only the thickness of the institution permeating the distance between them. Stone then addressed the chief investigator assigned to the case, Detective Brent Wilkins of the Chicago Police Department’s Homicide Unit.

You’ll have my report in the morning, Brent. Have some deputies placed on standby. We’ll have to dig. But we’ll do it in the morning and at first light. And he’s going, said Stone, pointing toward the interrogation room and the little man who appeared to be casually whistling and methodically tapping his stubby little fingers on the metal table.

Stone looked at Karen. Blanched and chaffed hands covered her face. Weeping silent tears, dry like her hands, like the merciless Chicago wind that howled outside, her face appeared as an avenue to the undead.

I’m sorry, Stone said.

But she appeared not to hear him.

Chapter 5

T HERE WERE THREE bodies in all and just where the little man had said they would be. They were shallow graves and not much digging was required. Out behind an abandoned railroad shack where the Chicago River intersected with the industrial outskirts of the South Loop, it was a desolate and unforgiving area. Hoboes lived there, along with stray dogs, and the occasional coyote that frequented the area. Stone had been there before on other cases. But now it seemed altogether different because it wasn’t really his case at all. An independent contractor, no more than a consultant following investigative leads, is what he was and the case was theirs now. He just got them to the field of death.

The little man stood next to Stone, chaotically pointing, as they lifted the bodies from the graves. Stone, arms folded, nodded occasionally, as the little man gestured with cuffed hands and with furtive eyes darting from left to right. Frequent spastic puffs on the cigarette Stone had given him left a pungent odor in the stale air.

The bodies were small and laid out in a row with their heads facing north and away from the railroad tracks. They were small bodies, kids’ bodies, and Karen watched morosely, as the deputies silently worked. Methodically, wordlessly, the victims were unearthed and lined in a neat little row and then suddenly the wind rushed in, blowing dead leaves across her feet, and abruptly distracting her from the somber death scene.

Three small bundles, nondescript in form from where she stood; it was impossible to know if they were male or female. She started to approach the neatly placed row of death but Wilkins stopped her, his firm hand on her wrist. She hesitated and then retreated to her original position, precariously leaning against his squad car.

Not just yet, Wilkins said cautiously. Let them finish up here. We’ll know soon enough.

It had been six months since Sylvia’s disappearance. Another few hours wouldn’t matter, Stone reasoned, glancing at Wilkins and nodding. The wind was sharp, stabbing at their faces like an icepick chipping ice. It was a raw wind impinging on Karen’s raw face.

She looked at Stone, appearing to wonder how he knew, wondering how he had made the little man talk. It must be something special, a gift, she was probably thinking. Others had intimated as much to Stone on other cases. Perhaps she was thinking the same thing.

All boys, said the deputy, who was detailed from County and working under the auspices of Wilkins. The deputy approached Stone and then slowly turned away and looked back toward the bundles.

All boys, he repeated.

It was almost a whisper, as if he was trying to make it all go away.

Karen sucked in deep, cold air, clutching nothingness, reaching for Wilkins’ outstretched hand. Finding it, she squeezed hard, vice-like.

All boys, she repeated, whispering like the deputy had and not looking up.

Stone was right again. It isn’t him, said Wilkins, looking at the little man who was sucking incessantly on the butt of a spent cigarette.

The deputy, John Rascher, a tall man but of slight build and fortyish, turned away from Stone and walked toward the little man.

Stone could barely see him when he turned sideways. It took only seconds and Rascher was now marching the little man toward the bundles of death for a positive I.D. Stone, now free of his charge, walked toward Karen.

You were right, she said. It’s not him. But where is Sylvia? Damn all this! Where is she?

Tears began to form, pooling on her face in small puddles and only held back by the merciless wind. Stone addressed Wilkins, who was making notes in a small notepad.

I’ll need to look at the file again, he said flatly, as if his work with the matter at hand was concluded, and the search for Karen’s daughter was just beginning.

You’ll find her, won’t you? she pleaded.

Stone touched her cheeks with large hands, gentle hands. The sticky, salty puddles were scattered into droplets. She wiped them clean with the backs of her hands. Trembling hands, white like alabaster, attempted to stifle the flow of her misgivings. And as Stone smiled, she appeared to understand. No promises would be forthcoming. He would do his best and that was all she could expect.

Chapter 6

T HE RAIN PLAYED on his windshield like broken sheet music. He tried to make out the patterns just to pass the time. The thunderstorm was odd for this time of year. So he started again, a square here, a rhombus there, and jagged streaks of cold rain forming curves and arcs. The rain was parallel to the ground now and the wind, funnel-like, was pushing it along. He stopped his quaint analysis, as the windshield became a blur of wet and fading images, and as his car rocked with the storm like a baby’s cradle. He enjoyed storms, especially violent ones. Waiting and listening for the next thunderous explosion gave him a rush in his loins.

He fondled the strands of her hair between his thumb and forefinger, Sylvia’s hair, young and pristine, and just the way he liked it, and without a blemish as the Bible had said. And so he casually passed the afternoon, waiting and listening to the storm.

Chapter 7

S TONE SAT ACROSS from Wilkins marking the file with paperclips. It was a small room with no windows. Wilkins’ makeshift office dwelled in the bowels of the Chicago Police Department’s evidence warehouse. The lighting was poor and Stone strained as he continued to read the file.

Damn if I can understand how you got that little prick to confess. We’ve been trying for six months and got exactly shit, said Wilkins.

He who has nothing to assert has no style and can have none, wrote George Bernard Shaw. It’s all in the style, thought Stone.

Detective Brent Wilkins had been around the block. You had to be to be in Homicide but did he have style? He certainly was rough around the edges and needed some fine-tuning but style, Stone would have to wait and see about that fleeting concept.

Wilkins was younger than Stone but not by much. His face was taut, like dried rope pulling a barge full of iron ore. Sharp creases at the corners of his eyes seemed to stretch his face flat. He had a broad smile when he wanted to and an exaggerated laugh to go with it. When he grimaced it looked painful, his front teeth protruding from his mouth like small fangs. He wasn’t attractive by any stretch of the imagination and appeared facially rather plain most of the time. But Stone liked him, especially his tenacity, and that’s what counted in this business.

He didn’t confess, Brent. He only said that he knew where the bodies were. There’s a big difference. It’s a different game on a different field now but it’s still your ball, Stone said.

Not mine. The big boys downtown jumped all over that shit. I’m still assigned to this one, said Wilkins, squinting and pointing to the file Stone was reading.

Stone looked up.

And with you, partner, Wilkins continued, casually winking.

Maybe he does have style. Stone continued to focus on the file and simply nodded. The file lay open on the small table in front of him with Wilkins’ size 13’s precariously propped up next to it. Stone knew from Karen’s letter that the man they had in custody, the little man, was not Sylvia’s abductor. He knew it from how she had described him. He knew it from his follow-up call to the Chicago F.B.I . Office and his subsequent analysis of the little man’s criminal history. The little man’s sheet just didn’t fit the crime. He was a sexual sociopath all right, a pedophile for sure, but all of his past victims had been boys. Little girls just didn’t fit into the picture. Why hadn’t Wilkins seen that? Was he too anxious to close the thing out? Stone marked another page with a bent and rusty paperclip compliments of the Chicago Police Department’s expended budget.

You knew it wasn’t him all along, didn’t you? asked Wilkins, now standing, stretching his tired limbs.

His past behavior was critical. It just didn’t fit the scenario that presented itself to us, said Stone, looking up.

Yeah, I seen that too but we had witnesses who put him at the store talking to her before she disappeared. You know, a young girl talking to a guy like that with a sheet like his. So what if he likes little boys? Maybe he likes little girls too. Hell, we didn’t know for sure but when we found him and scooped him up on that outstanding warrant out of Boston, well, we just figured we had our guy. Just couldn’t get the little prick to talk. That’s when she called you. Karen saw your bio in the newspaper or in some magazine or over the Internet, I imagine.

The New Yorker, said Stone, still listening.

Yeah and thought you could make him talk. I really didn’t think you’d come, her having no money and all to pay you.

I told her that we’d worry about that later, said Stone.

Yeah, said Wilkins, pacing in the small room like a caged animal. Later.

Bad timing, bad luck and a real bad sheet, that’s apparently what had got the little man to where he was right now. Stone now knew they’d have to go back to square one and start over. Starting with Sylvia was the ticket now. Victimology, plain and simple, her movements, her contacts, her likes and dislikes, her favorite color, everything about her, just do it all over again.

Well, where do we start, partner? asked Wilkins, crushing a cockroach with his size 13’s and grinding it to nothingness.

We start with Sylvia.

Huh?

Victimology. We start with the victim.

Okay.

And then with the cockroaches.

I hate those cocksuckers, said Wilkins.

Me too, said Stone.

Maybe he did have style

Chapter 8

H E LIKED SHOES, always had. He especially liked women’s shoes. Doctor Ramos said it was a fetish. He said it was a need. So they compromised and agreed that it was a necessary fetish.

The session ended as all of the others had, a crisp handshake, a crumpled check, and an agreement to meet again on the second Tuesday of next month. He felt good about this session. There was something comforting in the way Doctor Ramos listened, listened about the shoes. It was somewhat comforting but he knew that Doctor Ramos was expendable and would have to be dealt with at a future date and, most assuredly, sooner rather than later. He had simply told Ramos too much, too much about himself, and way too much about the shoes, especially about the shoes.

Chapter 9

K AREN SAT ON the couch facing them. Wilkins was slouched in an armchair, worn and lime-green like the carpet. A small coffee table, scratched and wobbly, served as a repository for his size 13’s. Stone sat at the kitchen table flipping through the file, his boots, Malaysian crocodile, were hidden underneath. Stone broke the silence, focusing solely on Karen.

We need to go back to the beginning and look closer at Sylvia. We need to know everything about her, no matter how trivial. Something was missed. We need to go back to square one. Everything, no matter how minute, needs to be addressed; school, friends, her movements, her daily contacts, everything. Anything you can think of is important at this juncture in the investigation.

Her cell phone, especially, chimed in Wilkins.

Exactly, take a look at last year’s bills, okay? Stone asked Wilkins. And focus on the window of dates closest to the time she went missing.

I can get them, said Karen, as Wilkins nodded. But where should I start? There’s so much and we’ve been over this time after time.

She exhaled shallowly, and fell back into the clutches of the sofa, as her frail frame seemed to disappear in its deep crevices.

I have a theory but let’s just start with the day she disappeared. I have some preliminary questions for which I need verification.

Wilkins sat upright, searching for a pad and pen. Stone picked up the file, opening it to the page where the first paperclip was attached. The file’s worn edges reminded him of the futile efforts that had preceded him.

On the day she disappeared there is no indication in the file as to what the weather was like. I checked some old newspapers and it indicated that it was overcast and rainy. Is that correct?

Wilkins blushed a little, as if he had overlooked something that he assumed was trivial but that now pointed at him like a loaded gun. His size 13’s began to tap nervously on the floor.

Karen said, Yes, it was overcast all day and very humid. I sent her to the store for something I had forgotten to get. Milk, I believe it was. Does that matter?

Everything potentially matters, said Stone.

She hesitated for a moment, closing her eyes, and apparently returning to the day she had so desperately tried to erase from her memory.

Yes, milk and ice cream. She liked ice cream, especially chocolate.

And was it raining? asked Stone.

Yes, it had just started. Right after she left but the store wasn’t far, so I … it was only a block or two and it was still light, she said, her words drifting off into gentle sobbing.

Late June. It stays light pretty long around here, interjected Wilkins, appearing to sense the need to keep her on track.

Yes, it was still light, Karen continued, stifling the small sobs.

So I thought it would be okay. You know, it wasn’t a downpour or anything like that, just kind of like a drizzle.

But hard enough where she might have accepted a ride from someone? asked Stone.

Not a stranger. Never. Nothing like that, she said.

Exactly, not a stranger but someone she knew. Someone she trusted or had seen occasionally and didn’t fear. Yes, someone from whom she would accept a ride without a second thought.

Karen nodded, still wringing her hands, as if she could make it all go away.

So you think it’s somebody she knew? she asked.

With a missing person there’s usually not a whole lot to go on. We don’t have a crime scene here to coax answers out of. We really don’t have any evidence to speak of at all. So we have to focus on what we do have and develop a theory and then proceed from there, Stone said.

Well, what we do have is a fifteen-year-old girl who walked two blocks to the corner store just before dark and was seen with that little prick. Excuse my French, ma’am, and was never seen again. That’s what we do have, said Wilkins.

And it was raining, added Karen.

No crime scene. No physical evidence. Nothin’. A big fat nothin’. And now we know that little creep didn’t do it. At least he’ll fry for those other three, said Wilkins, appearing clearly agitated.

It appeared to Stone that Wilkins had hit the wall on this one. Both Wilkins and Karen looked older than they were. Hard lines on hard faces matched their respective personas. Stone attempted to refocus them.

So she’s walking back home after she’s been to the store and after a chance encounter with your first suspect?

Yeah, it’s on the store’s videotape.

It’s raining lightly. Not a hard rain but maybe just hard enough to make her take a ride with someone.

Somebody she knew, said Karen,

Right, somebody she knew and with whom she was familiar. Someone she trusted, said Stone.

A teacher? A friend old enough to drive, maybe? Wilkins offered.

Someone she’s comfortable with. She gets into the car and then … said Karen, eyes wide open, appearing to imagine, as Stone spoke.

Her thoughts appeared to float off into space, dangling in thin air, seeking sustenance. Unfinished thoughts, Stone reasoned, and to be plucked up and inserted into inchoate scenarios, all of them having bad endings. Eyes wider, she continued to gape, hands affixed to the coffee table in front of her in a death grip, her knuckles the color of pale pearls.

Chicago’s a big town but we got no eyewitnesses. Nobody saw her get into a car. We ain’t got no car, Stone. What we got is a big fat zero and we ain’t got no luck, neither, said Wilkins.

Sometimes it happens that way, said Stone. That’s why we have to make our own luck.

Karen relaxed, a pinkish color returning to her knuckles, a soft pink, ebbing and flowing back like a slow tide.

Victimology, Wilkins, it is somebody she knows. We’re looking for a loner, a male and probably white. Someone old enough to have a driver’s license and own a car or have access to one. Probably knows the area well. He’s not mentally ill or retarded but most probably has well-defined psychopathic traits and certainly he’s calculating and methodical, as most sociopathic abductors of children are.

Average or low I.Q.? asked Wilkins.

Possibly but he’s a calculating son-of-bitch. He plans out his actions, otherwise we would have found the body by now. Those types with mental handicaps have no afterthoughts. The low I.Q. types simply commit the act and then dump the body anywhere without thinking to conceal it. The borderline I.Q. types are a little better in hiding the body but we’re probably looking for someone who isn’t retarded or mentally ill. He may not be the smartest guy on the block but he can think things out in some respect and probably works at some menial type of work, hourly or something like that. Let’s go by the law of averages.

Law of averages says he’s a creep, interrupted Wilkins.

Right. He’s creepy and past history in cases like these indicates he’s a white male, probably 18-35 years old, and has access to a vehicle. Sylvia knew him and felt comfortable with him. Our guy either lives or works in the area or both. He’s smart enough to conceal the crime and dispose of the body and not just dump it haphazardly along the side of a road.

It all appeared to be sinking in. Stone didn’t have to exactly say it but Sylvia was dead. The chance of finding her alive was next to zero and Karen appeared to have understood that simple fact. Hard lines on a hard face, drawn taut and ready to snap, it wasn’t about finding Sylvia anymore. It was about finding him and making him dead.

Stone glanced around the small apartment. Karen and Sylvia had lived alone here. The father, a non-factor, had run off fifteen years ago, whereabouts unknown. Stone glanced at the window above the kitchen sink, rose, and solemnly walked to it, as a priest would walk to a confessional. He looked out into the dead of the night. Lights twinkled in the apartment building directly across the alley. It stood out like the monolith from 2001, a Space Odyssey. Direct line-of-sight revealed a third-story window with the lights flickering on and off. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, Stone remembered from high school geometry class; outcomes on one end and consequences on the other sealed the bargain.

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As Stone walked away from the window, a lone figure in the apartment with the flickering lights switched them off and picked up a pair of binoculars.

Chapter 10

H E HAD READ about it in the newspapers. It was all over the television, the three bodies and the little man they had in custody. Couldn’t they get it right? If they were smart, they would have already figured it out; that it wasn’t the little man. But that would come in time and that meant that they would start looking again and he would