Chapter 32
After dropping Ryan at the airport, I went directly to the LEC to begin the tedious search that I’d described to him. I returned home late that day, and the next, back aching and eyes burning from plowing through thousands of mug shots and voice recordings.
The countless negative updates I gave to Slidell only served to irritate him.
In other words, I accomplished zip.
Ruthie phoned to say she was in Boone, having left for the mountains with friends.
I didn’t ask but assumed that negotiations between Harry and Katy had resulted in their green-lighting the trip.
Given that Meloy and Hall were in jail, I did wonder briefly who these new mountaineering buddies might be.
I dialed Katy several times but she failed to answer her phone. I left messages, saying I was sorry for my recent unavailability and requesting a call back.
When I was finally free to return to the MCME, two new forensic anthropology requests had landed in my inbox.
The first case was easy. A hunk of pelvis, unearthed by a farmer plowing the north forty, was that of an elderly horse or cow.
The second case required a more detailed analysis. Dried and discolored bones had been found by a railroad worker in a wooden crate stashed in the far corner of an empty freight car. The skeleton, undoubtedly human, appeared to be old.
At six that evening, too beat to write a report on the remains of the long-dead traveler, I tried Katy again.
This time she answered, apologizing for being incommunicado and explaining that she’d had a technology mishap.
Forgotten in a back pocket, her cell phone had dropped into a toilet, thus necessitating a drying-out session in rice.
She was just leaving work. Since Ruthie was out of town, she hadn’t made a grocery run. Still, she invited me to join her for dinner.
Dinner that I would purchase on my way to her house.
In the mood for Vietnamese, I swung by Lang Van and picked up double helpings of sweet and sour soup and chicken lemongrass curry, thinking those were Katy’s favorites.
Making a left onto my daughter’s street, I belatedly remembered that the actual dish Katy always ordered was a spicy concoction involving noodles.
Whatever. I’d tried.
Turned out my menu choices wouldn’t matter.
For emergencies, I have a key to Katy’s home. Out of courtesy, I always ring before entering.
I did so then.
No one came to the door.
I rang again.
Same result.
Thinking Katy might be outside on the rooftop terrace, I let myself in.
The place was cemetery quiet.
I checked the living and dining rooms, then called up the stairs.
Nothing.
Had I misunderstood?
Digging my mobile from my shoulder bag, I thumbed an entry on my list of family numbers. Somewhere in the rear, a rooster crowed.
Finding that strange, since Katy owned no poultry, I followed the sound to the kitchen.
The cock-a-doodle-doo-ing was coming from a mobile lying on a countertop by the back door. Crossing to it, I saw my number filling the screen. The digits disappeared as the crowing stopped.
Puzzled, I disconnected, pocketed my cell, and looked around. A crusted fry pan sat on the stovetop. Dirty dishes formed a wobbly stack in the sink.
Odd. Though somewhat disorganized in her day-to-day dealings, my daughter keeps an uncharacteristically tidy house. She claims that disorder in her personal space makes her itchy.
Returning to the front hall, I hollered up the stairs again.
“Katy?” Louder than before.
Crickets.
Feeling the first stirrings of unease, I climbed to the second floor and checked each of the bedrooms. Ditto the third floor, then the terrace.
The town house was deserted.
I stood silently for a moment, a listless breeze halfheartedly teasing my bangs. Four floors down, rush-hour drivers impatiently accelerated and braked, irked with the same jam-up they faced every day.
My emotions ping-ponged, unsure whether to land on anxious or angry.
Had some unexpected issue arisen after my conversation with Katy? We’d spoken less than an hour ago, so that seemed doubtful. And, were that the case, surely my daughter would have texted or phoned.
Perhaps left a note?
Seeing that possibility as likely, I double-stepped down to the first floor.
The sideboard by the front door was empty. Ditto the dining room and kitchen tables. The counters. I spotted no scribbled message taped to a mirror or wall.
Peering out through the kitchen window, I checked the backyard but noted nothing amiss. Through the row of small glass squares on the garage door I saw a dark silhouette I knew to be Katy’s Volvo.
Baffled, I stood with my hand on the sill, unsure of my next move.
Wait?
Leave the food and go?
Stepping back from the sink, I unpocketed my mobile and, somewhat nonsensically, tried Katy’s number again.
With the same result as before. More cockle-doodle-doo-ing from the phone on the countertop.
I was standing with my mobile pressed to my chest, undecided, when the thing shrilled in my hand.
I tilted and glanced at the screen.
Unknown number.
Nevertheless, certain that the caller was Katy, I clicked on.
“Hey.”
My greeting failed to elicit the usual reciprocal “hey.”
“I’ve arrived bearing chow.”
A hollow silence hummed across the line.
“Katy?”
More silence.
“Where are you?” I asked, voice more sharply edged than normal. “Are you okay?”
Click.
Dead air.
What the hell?
My mind fired scenarios, each more horrendous than its predecessor.
I held a moment, heart hammering.
Screw it.
I punched a number on my speed dial list.
“Yo. Lemme guess. You figured out it’s Clarabelle you got in your lab.”
“What?” Totally focused on Katy, I missed Slidell’s reference.
“The cow bone? That farmer’s big score?”
“Katy’s missing,” I said.
“Whadaya mean, missing?” I could hear the cadence of male banter in the background, the murmur of a crowd. Figured Slidell was watching baseball.
“She invited me to dinner at her place,” I said. “I’m here but she’s not.”
“That don’t seem—”
“She didn’t text or phone to cancel.”
Slidell said nothing.
“To take off without explanation is out of character for Katy. You know that.”
“Something musta come up.” Clearly distracted.
“Her car is in the garage. Her phone is here.”
“Maybe she—”
“Are you listening to me?”
The crowd murmur swelled to a roar. Leather groaned as Skinny’s ass scooched forward across it.
“Kill that damn TV,” I demanded.
“Christ a’mighty. Don’t get your shorts in a twist.”
I heard plastic scrape wood, then blessed silence. I suspected Slidell had muted but not abandoned the game.
“There. You happy? Now roll that by me again.”
I did.
“You checked her crib? Tried her—”
“I’m standing in her kitchen. Her phone is here but she’s not. That’s wrong. Katy never goes anywhere without it.”
“On my way,” Slidell said, tone unreadable.
Ten minutes of pacing and cuticle gnawing, then my mobile rang.
I snatched it up. Unknown number again.
“What do you want?” I said, trying to conceal the terror I was feeling.
“You haven’t figured it out yet?” The voice was high and nasal, the words clipped with noticeable spaces between. Mechanically altered?
“Who is this?” I asked.
“If I told you that, the game would be over.”
“I’m not playing your game.”
“But you are.”
“Is Katy there?”
“Oh, she’s here, all right.”
“May I speak to her?” Heart racing, voice calm.
“I don’t believe she’s up to conversation.”
I felt a hollowness open in the pit of my stomach.
“Tell me about this game,” I said, stalling, hoping to keep the caller engaged until Slidell arrived.
“You know the one.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“Already you’ve forgotten our little talk about phobias?” Delivered with a malevolent snicker.
My mind flashed to a recent underground conversation.
Dear God!
Was my captor now targeting Katy? Using my daughter to get at me?
Seeing Slidell’s Trailblazer pull onto the drive, I tiptoed across the room to open the door. As he approached, I silently mouthed the words “abductor” and “Katy.” Then, fearing a switch to speaker might alert the caller, I angled the phone so Skinny could hear the conversation.
“Tell me what it is you want,” I said as Slidell punched a number, then whispered into his cell.
“Acknowledgment that I’ve won.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Pure evil.”
“You’ll have to explain that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Help me out.”
Slidell’s mobile buzzed. Looking embarrassed, he strode off a few yards and answered.
“Who’s that?” the robotic voice demanded
“Someone is calling my cell,” I lied.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Dead air.
We’ve all watched the scene on TV—investigators trying to keep the bad guy on the phone long enough to trace a call. Good for suspense, but hardly accurate. Since the eighties, as soon as a landline connection is made, the phone company can immediately locate the origin.
Due to requirements that cellphone networks feature location-tracking technology, like GPS chips, to assist 911 services, the same holds true for mobile devices.
An IT cop once explained the tracing process, saying that pinpointing a call’s origin was based on triangulating which cell towers were pinged to allow the phone to pick up signal and transmit data.
Thanks to those FCC regs and that technology, thirty minutes later Slidell and I were racing, lights blazing, toward an address in the Marlwood neighborhood in east Charlotte.
Just past an outfit called Tim the Tile Man, Slidell hung a tire-squealing right, then another onto a modest residential street.
Quick take.
Every home was one story, with a long, narrow lawn hosting a curbside mailbox and a gravel driveway hosting a gaggle of cars. Most gaggles included at least one pickup, some appearing reasonably new, others looking like they’d last been driven in the eighties.
The usual chaos had already engulfed the block. Squad cars with their light bars flashing and radios spitting. Fire trucks with their hoses gushing and their engines rumbling. Onlookers with their cell phones raised above their adrenaline-pumped faces.
This time the focal point of the action was a brick ranch-style house with dingy white shutters and a dark-shingled roof. A sun-fried vegetable garden separated the home’s narrow front lawn from the street on the left. An old crepe myrtle was trying its best on the right.
Slidell screamed to a stop amid the hodgepodge of vehicles parked willy-nilly along the curb, jamming the brakes so hard I wondered if I’d broken ribs slamming forward into my belt.
We both flew out of the SUV, leaving the doors winging wide.
I smelled it before I saw it.
Not trusting my voice, I pointed.
A dark cloud was spiraling upward into the sky, a tiny smoke twister rising from the back of the house.
Heart pounding in my throat, I ran.
Skinny followed, wielding his badge like a crusader brandishing a sword.