Catch Me

  “He was building a manual,” Neil said flatly. “A fucking perverts manual on his hard drive. Complete with photos.”

  O reached over and lightly touched the back of Neil’s hand. The redheaded detective flinched, sat up straighter.

  “You want help?” O asked kindly. “I’ve gone through those kinds of photos before. I can assist if you’d like.”

  “I can’t see ’em anymore. It’s just…I’ve stopped viewing them as kids. And that’s wrong. Too wrong. I can’t do it anymore.” Neil turned his stare to D.D. “I’m done.”

  She nodded immediately. “You’re done. Absolutely. And you’re right, Neil. They’re kids. They deserve to be seen as kids. The fact you recognize you’ve hit your limit is a good thing. It does right by them. Thank you.”

  “I don’t think they’re his victims,” Neil said.

  Phil looked at him. “What d’you mean?”

  “Made it through four out of six boxes. The photos themselves are too eclectic. There are Polaroids from the eighties, faded shots from the seventies. Subjects are boys, girls, young kids, teenagers, black, white, Hispanic, urban, house, hotel. I think Laurent collected the shots—I don’t know, bought them online, traded for them from other collectors…” He looked at Detective O.

  She nodded. “Sure, pedophiles have always traded graphic images, videos, etc. For some predators, visual aids even do the trick for them. You’d be amazed how many ‘family men’ we’ve busted for owning child porn, who claim the porn was ‘good for them.’ Kept them from committing the actual act.”

  “I hate this case,” Neil muttered.

  D.D. didn’t disagree with him, but she was getting confused. “So are you saying Stephen Laurent might not have been an active child molester, but a porn collector?”

  “I’m saying that model exists,” Detective O stated, “but I doubt Laurent was a passive pedophile. He was not only downloading transcripts on how to engage in illegal behaviors, but remember, he’d also gotten a puppy.”

  “Do pedophiles escalate?” D.D. asked. “So maybe Laurent started with child porn, but was now graduating to child molestation?”

  “Sure. And to a large extent, that’s what these chat rooms are all about. Giving a weak, low-self-esteem, usually male perpetrator the acceptance, tools, and coaching to finally act out his sexually deviant fantasies. There are chat rooms for rapists, too, by the way. Probably serial killers as well.”

  “I hate this case,” Neil said again.

  But D.D. had an idea. “So judging from that cycle, what is Stephen Laurent? The mentor or the intern?”

  “Intern,” O said without missing a beat. She turned to look at Phil. “That’s basically what we saw on his computer, right? The understudy gathering information on his next, starring role.”

  Phil nodded his agreement.

  “And the first shooting victim,” D.D. asked quickly. “Antiholde. He went to these chat rooms, too?”

  “Same chat room,” Phil provided.

  “Trainer or trainee?”

  “Trainer,” Phil said flatly. “Given his criminal history. The second victim, Laurent, hadn’t been caught yet. Our first victim, Antiholde had already been caught and paroled. I bet he visited the chat room for two reasons—to brag about past exploits, while trying to improve his technique for future offenses. Definitely a more experienced predator than Laurent.”

  “But still seeking more information, guidance,” D.D. said.

  “Pedophiles are always seeking more information,” O said bluntly. “It’s a high-risk lifestyle, where they feel victimized by their own impulses and live in constant fear of being caught. It keeps them logging on.”

  “And how many users in this chat room?” D.D. asked.

  “Can’t get on to find out. Transcript from Laurent’s computer shows a few dozen active posters.”

  “We need to track them down.”

  “Obviously working on that,” O said dryly. “Unfortunately, pedophiles are a suspicious bunch, and very sophisticated with their computer skills.”

  “But our victims have a common link—this chat room. Identify the users, identify the killer…or the next victims.”

  “But again,” Phil reminded D.D., “we only have copies of a chat, not access to the chat room itself. While the transcripts show a couple dozen posters, that’s probably only the tip of the iceberg. Most members ‘lurk’ in these kinds of forums. Meaning there’s probably hundreds if not thousands of other users who don’t actively post, meaning they remain invisible to us. We’ll work on tracing the user names we can identify from the transcripts, but bear in mind, it’s probably a needle-in-the-haystack kind of exercise.”

  “You said we can’t access the real chat room,” D.D. spoke up. “That it’s encrypted eighty ways to Sunday, invitation only. So how can we get an invite?”

  “Don’t know,” O said. “Probably friend of a friend kind of thing. Meet in other forums, perhaps swapping porn, and once enough trust is gained, eventually a member of the chat room will extend an invitation.”

  “But they must get new members, these teenagers, like you said.”

  “Sure, and one possibility is that we could go ‘undercover’ as a teenage boy. Build a virtual identity that surfs the right places on the net, engages in the kind of Internet searches that might catch a fellow pedophile’s eyes. There are ‘undercover’ operators on the Internet, you know. But that kind of thing can take months to fully execute. Given our shooter’s time line, we have more like weeks.”

  “We need a hacker,” D.D. said bluntly.

  “Agreed.”

  “Or…” D.D. thought a moment. “Do they know two of their users are dead? What if we claimed their user names and passwords? Could we log on as Stephen Laurent and/or Douglas Antiholde?”

  “We’d have to identify their user names and passwords,” Phil said.

  “Which our fine computer forensic experts should be able to do, right? Mine it out of the hard drive of the victims’ computers?”

  Slowly, Phil nodded. O, as well.

  “Yeah,” Phil considered. “Might take them a couple of days, but the computer pros should be able to do that.”

  “All right, so forget building an undercover identity. We’ll simply steal Stephen Laurent’s user name, log on, and recon. We’ll listen, we’ll learn, and with any luck, we’ll find our man…or woman as the case might be.”

  “Woman?” O asked.

  D.D. hadn’t mentioned her conversation with the forensic handwriting expert before. She figured it was probably time. “The notes left at both scenes: Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave. Based on penmanship, our note writer is most likely female. Tightly wound, probably private school–educated, and prone to wearing plaid. Which is another question, I suppose: How much ‘personality’ can you tell from chat room logs? Any of the users come across as a type A female? Or can you even distinguish male users from female users?”

  Phil shook his head. O, too. Both detectives were thinking, however. D.D. had that feeling between her shoulder blades, the one that as a detective she liked to get. They were on to something. Finally gaining ground.

  Case would crack. Soon. Suddenly.

  They would get their man…or woman.

  “Anything else I need to know?” she asked.

  Her case team shook their tired heads. “O,” D.D. said, “how about you meet with Neil, take over photos?”

  O nodded. Neil looked embarrassed to surrender his assignment but didn’t argue.

  “Neil,” D.D. continued, “in my office at ten. Phil, you’re off duty at noon. Go home, get some rest. O, you can finish today, but I don’t want to see you tomorrow before noon. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

  Phil looked at her strangely. “You never send us home.”

  “Are you complaining?”

  He shut up.

  D.D. adjourned the meeting, returning to her office, where she picked up a second crime scene report and prepared for her
second major case of the day: the soon-to-be murder of Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant.

  D.D. lifted the phone and dialed.

  Chapter 19

  TRAINING EQUALS PREPAREDNESS. You drill a pattern of movements over and over again, so that when the moment of attack occurs, rather than freezing in shock, you fall back into a series of instinctive responses that quickly renders your opponent useless.

  That’s the theory at least.

  Tulip and I left the Grovesnor PD a little after 8 A.M. No Officer Mackereth to drive us home. The morning sun was weak, barely penetrating the thickening clouds. I could already taste the snow building on the horizon, feel the frosty bite through my coat, hat, and gloves.

  Within a matter of minutes, Tulip, with her short tan-and-white fur, was shivering.

  It distracted me. That was my excuse as I hustled us both to the corner, where I began the competitive game of hailing a taxi at the height of the morning commute.

  After five minutes, I’d had no luck, and Tulip was shivering harder.

  Bus pulled up. Number was right for my purposes, so I boarded, hefting Tulip up with me.

  The bus driver, a heavyset black woman with crimped gray hair and a face that had seen it all, shook her head. “Service dogs only.”

  “She is a service dog. Lost her collar. Some jerk took it off her right outside the police station. How d’you like that? Now look at her. She’s out of uniform and freezing to death.”

  Tulip helped me out by giving the driver a particularly pathetic glance.

  Four other people shoved up behind me, trying to board, impatient with the holdup, particularly given the freezing temperature.

  Bus the driver ignored them, stared at me.

  “What’s your disability?” she demanded.

  “Peanut allergy.”

  “There’s no dogs for peanut allergies.”

  “Are too.”

  “Are not.”

  “Are too,” muttered the man behind me. “Come on. Let her on or kick her off. It’s fucking cold out here.”

  I glared at him, then took in the row of passengers already filling the seats. “Anyone eat peanut butter this morning?” I called out. “Or have peanuts in your purse?”

  Couple of tentative hands went up. I turned triumphantly to the bus driver. “See, I need my dog. Otherwise, I might die on your bus, and think about the paperwork. Nobody wants to do that kind of paperwork.”

  I swiped my commuter card and dropped Tulip into the aisle, as if that decided the matter. As I headed toward the back of the bus with Tulip in tow, I could tell the bus driver still didn’t believe me. But it was fucking freezing out, and nobody liked paperwork.

  I lied. I got away with it. It made me a little triumphant, a little cocky. Second mistake for the morning.

  Really, it was only a matter of time.

  I had to stand. Right hand up, holding the overhead bar for balance. I had the end of Tulip’s leash encircled around my left wrist, with my left hand pressed flat against the closed flap of my messenger bag. Protecting the contents, particularly my weapon.

  Now, here’s a rule of mass transit: The colder it is outside, the hotter it will be inside.

  Heat blasted through the vents, and pretty quickly, the wool coats and fleece-lined hats that made so much sense outside, became suffocating inside. Tulip started to pant. I started to sweat. More people jammed in, hot bodies pressing together, adding to the sauna.

  Twenty minutes into my fifty-five-minute ride, I started to feel nauseous. The swaying suspension system, rolling beneath my feet. The beads of sweat, rolling down my hairline to pool on my overheated neck. The stench of too many bodies crowded too close together, only some of whom had bothered to shower recently.

  Another five minutes, and I raised my hand from my messenger bag long enough to loosen my scarf, remove my hat. I breathed marginally easier, then the bus was off and bouncing again, passengers bobbing, windows fogging.

  I managed to stuff my hat in my coat pocket, then I had to move my left hand again. Unbutton the top button of my jacket, second, third, fourth.

  I wore an oversized navy blue fleece pullover beneath my coat. The kind of soft, bulky sweatshirt perfect for cozying up with a good book on Sunday afternoon. It was strangling me now, the collar damp with sweat, the compressed sleeves squeezing my arms.

  Thirty minutes down, twenty-five more to go.

  Bus stopped. Passengers got off. More passengers got on. Tulip whined and panted. I loosened my grip on the sweat-slicked metal bar, wiped my forearm over my brow.

  Bus lurched forward and so did my stomach.

  Was I still holding on to the messenger bag? Maybe. Maybe not. I was hot, uncomfortable, fighting motion sickness. So first distracted, then cocky, and now partially incapacitated.

  Cities operate by jungle rules, you know: The weak and infirm are immediately targeted to be culled from the herd.

  Stop after stop. Block after block. With me panting almost as hard as Tulip. Not paying attention to my fellow passengers. Not noticing my surroundings. Just counting down the blocks. Wishing desperately to get off that damn bus.

  Finally, as my face went from overheated red, to unsightly pale, to alarming green, the stop. Doors opened in the front. I started the forward charge, leading with Tulip, who weaved effortlessly through a sea of heavy boots and flapping overcoats.

  “Excuse me, excuse me, coming through.” Pushing, shoving, and shimmying. Following the siren’s song of fresh air, beckoning through the open door. At last, we made it. The bus driver and I exchanged final scowls, then Tulip and I clambered down the steep bus stairs onto hard-frozen terra firma. We jogged a couple of steps away from the metal sauna.

  I was vaguely aware of the bus doors closing, the bus pulling away. I had both hands away from my messenger bag. Opening up my coat, gulping for icy, snow-laced air, trying to draw as much of it as I could into my overheated lungs, through my sweat-soaked fleece.

  My leather bag dangled at my hip, my open coat flapped around my thighs.

  I was all about the refreshingly frigid air, the feel of it against my face. I was finally off the bus. End of the road. From here, Tulip and I could jog the roughly mile and a half to our destination. Away from the densely packed urban sprawl, into the back roads and rolling countryside that still dotted random parts of Greater Boston.

  It felt good to be out of the city. I felt safe. Relieved. Optimistic even.

  Right until the instant I was attacked from behind.

  HE CAUGHT MY COAT LAPELS FIRST. Jerked the front flaps of my black wool coat back and down. In one second or less, he’d incapacitated my left arm, basically bound it to my side with my own coat. The strap of my messenger bag, however, slung diagonal across my body, trapped the right lapel at the side of my neck, tangling his hand.

  I used that second to stand perfectly still, my mouth caught soundlessly open, while my brain screamed (stupidly), But it’s not the twenty-first!

  While I made like a statue, my attacker grabbed the strap of my messenger bag, whipped it over my head, and tossed it aside. The weight of the bag tangled with Tulip’s leash. My fingers opened reflexively, releasing her leash, and that quickly, I’d lost my gun and my dog. To be sure about it, my attacker, still standing behind me, kicked my bag away.

  Then, his hands closed around my throat.

  Belatedly, my survival instinct kicked in. I stopped cataloguing what was happening and started responding. First, I fought against my own coat.

  While my attacker squeezed, slowly but surely obstructing my airways, I jerked my coat-bounded elbow backwards into his side. When he shimmied left, I used the air-starved moment to jerk off my coat, finally freeing my hands and arms.

  His grip tightened. My mouth gasped, I struggled for air. Could feel pressure growing in my chest, the weight of my own rising panic.

  But it’s not the twenty-first!

  Fight, I needed to fight. But I was expecting to punch forward. To squat, bl
ock, jab. Now I was left with self-defense 101, trying to stomp on my attacker’s instep, kick back into a kneecap. Hurt him, incapacitate him. Do something so that he’d have to let go.

  Barking. Tulip, running around our feet, leash trailing.

  Hands still squeezing, white spots appearing in front of my eyes.

  Forgetting to stomp, to fight. Succumbing to panic and clawing futilely at the fingers at my throat, as if that would make a difference.

  So this is how Randi had felt. This is how Jackie had felt.

  Such a crushing weight against my chest. The desire, the urge to breathe was so primal, so hardwired that the lack of oxygen led to the most peculiar kind of pain. As if I could feel the cells in my body dying one by one, screaming out their last desperate seconds.

  Baby, crying down the hall.

  I know, I know. I should’ve told. I should’ve.

  I was crying. He was killing me, and instead of fighting back, I was weighed down with old regrets. The baby I’d failed. The mother I’d let hurt me. The friends I’d loved with all my heart and buried one by one.

  Tulip barking, then suddenly, a yelp of pain. He’d kicked her. My attacker had hurt my dog.

  That pissed me off.

  I sagged. In a dimly remembered move from so many rounds of training, I stopped surging up with my legs and turned myself into dead weight instead. The sudden shift of my knees giving out threw my attacker off balance. He lurched forward, and I immediately countered by planting my feet and using my attacker’s own weight to flip him over my head.

  Then, I was on him. I kicked at his ribs, punched his unprotected head. This wasn’t boxing. This was street fighting. I inhaled ragged, desperate gasps of air into my searing lungs as I kicked and jabbed and chased my killer across the snowy ground.

  My attacker rolled, forearms over his face as he quickly put distance between us in order to regain his footing.

  No way. Not gonna happen. If he got up, no doubt he was gonna be bigger and stronger than me, with maybe a knife or gun or other tricks up his sleeve. So I had to keep him down, where I could loom over him, where I was the biggest badass in town.