“It’s possible. Again, this is the nickel assessment—I’ve never spoken to the Duvalls, let alone seventeen-year-old Telly. Now, we have to factor in that Telly was separated from his sister while also at an impressionable age, after a particularly traumatic event. I think that would’ve been incredibly damaging to him. He loved his sister. He killed his own father to protect her. Then the state tore them apart.”
Rainie hadn’t given it much thought, but now she saw the doctor’s point. Zero or hero, Telly had written. Proof that eight years later, he was still trying to work it out? What he’d really done that night, trying to save his sister, losing her anyway.
“But he did break her arm,” Rainie repeated. “I can see why the state might view that act less than favorably.”
“You said Telly is known for his explosive temper?”
“Yes.”
“I heard the same thing eight years ago. Which leads me to believe that Telly most likely suffers from intermittent explosive disorder. Do you know what that is, Mrs. Conner?”
“Rainie, please. And beyond guessing it has something to do with someone having a really bad temper, no.”
“A child or teenager with IED can’t control his own anger,” Dr. Dudkowiak said. “Things that you or I might consider small slights or disappointments will instead cause a disproportionate display of rage. At times, the anger, adrenaline, emotional intensity can reach levels where the person suffers short-term memory loss, or a blackout. For example, while Telly admitted that he attacked his father with a baseball bat, the details of the event were difficult for him to recall. He could remember his father stabbing his mother, then going after them. And he remembers Sharlah handing him the baseball bat—”
“Sharlah provided the baseball bat?”
“Telly had had her hide in a bedroom while he tried to lead their father away. Apparently, she reappeared with the bat and tossed it at him. Which he then used on his father. Please understand, Telly didn’t just hit his father once. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term overkill?”
“Yes.”
“Telly beat his father. Most likely so overwhelmed by adrenaline, fear, and rage he was having an out-of-body experience. At a certain point, Sharlah attempted to intervene. Which was when he turned on her.”
“Breaking her arm.” Rainie couldn’t help herself; she shuddered. She’d never met nine-year-old Telly. But she could imagine five-year-old Sharlah, having watched her father stab her mother, attack her brother. And then for Telly, her precious older brother, to turn on her . . .
If there were things Sharlah didn’t tell them, Rainie understood it now. That her daughter could love them at all, Rainie thought, was a huge act of courage.
“So eight years ago,” Dr. Dudkowiak continued now, “I would’ve said that Telly showed signs of attachment disorder and rage-impulse-control issues, as well as oppositional defiant disorder. But one of the reasons I recommended against pressing charges was because I also saw signs in him of having a protector’s personality. His relationship with his sister for one. The way he automatically assumed the mantle of adulthood at the age of four. And that night, he didn’t just kill his father out of rage or fear. He killed his father to save his sister. At least according to his account.”
“Okay,” Rainie said. Except, she wasn’t so sure that was okay at all. “But how did we get from protective Telly to the suspected spree shooter we have now?”
“Several possibilities. One, severing Telly’s only close relationship—the one he had with his sister—decreased his ability to bond. Two, his journey through the foster care system increased his distrust, lack of empathy, and indifference to violence, until by the time he reached the Duvalls, it didn’t matter anymore. Or three, perhaps even more interesting, Telly pulled a fast one eight years ago. He never was bonded to his sister. In fact, he was already a complete psychopath who manipulated the situation to get out of it exactly what he wanted—the death of both his parents.”
“He lied about the events that night?”
“He wouldn’t have had to lie, just manipulate events. For example, wait till his parents got drunk, then, knowing their triggers, say or do whatever would be necessary to set his father on the warpath. From there, a violent showdown would be inevitable, providing Telly with the excuse to take care of his abusive father once and for all. I would like to say I would see through such a ruse, but again, I talked to the boy three times over a period of five days. That’s it. The forensic evals . . . Experts such as myself are never given as much time and information as we would like. Maybe I should call them Lucy assessments as well.”
“So, eight years ago, Telly was either a protective older brother who got a really bad break in life, or was already a budding psychopath?”
“They’re not mutually exclusive opinions. Particularly in light of his current actions.”
“This intermittent explosive disorder—could it be as simple as something aggravating Telly’s temper? He opened fire first, realized what he’d done second?”
“Yes. Though there’s no way to determine what will be the triggering event for a mass murderer. We only wish we had that kind of data.”
“But he killed the Duvalls in their bed. Shouldn’t they have been awake? I don’t know. Arguing with him?”
“Not necessarily. They could’ve laid down some kind of punishment the night before. Telly spent all night churning over the judgment, becoming increasingly frustrated, angry, until first thing in the morning . . .”
“He’s driven to act. What about the aftermath?” Rainie asked, because Quincy had given her some questions to run by the professional. “If the first shooting was an act of rage, what about his command and control now? It’s been eight hours. He’s not only shot more victims, but he’s taken very smart steps to avoid the police. If he’s in some red haze of battle, shouldn’t he be making more mistakes, acting more impulsively?”
“Not necessarily. Someone with intermittent explosive disorder still has intelligence, coping skills, et cetera. The first act might have been the explosive element. But it’s entirely realistic for the person to utilize his other skill set in order to avoid capture. The human mind is complex. Telly can be both explosive and cunning. Impulsive and brilliant. One does not negate the other.”
Rainie sighed heavily. She understood the doctor’s point. Laypeople had a tendency to think of troubled kids as suffering from a single disorder, when more often than not, the diagnosis was all of the above. Hence the difficulty in treatment.
“There was one red flag eight years ago,” the doctor said now. “A question which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been answered.”
“Which was?”
“The mom. According to the ME, she had been stabbed, as both kids claimed. But she also suffered blunt-force trauma to the head sometime after the stabbing. Furthermore, she was still alive at that time, though given the severity of her knife wound, the ME doubted she would’ve made it.”
“Telly struck his dying mom with the bat? When? After he beat his father to death?”
“Sharlah wouldn’t answer the question. For the record, neither child was comfortable discussing their mother. The father clearly distressed them. He was all-powerful, frightening. In their minds, most likely evil. But the mom . . . I would say their relationship with her was more complex. As the passive partner in the marriage, maybe she appeared less fearful, more loving. The kids . . . They didn’t seem capable of talking about her, and, again, I wasn’t given enough time to press the subject. In the end, Telly said he must’ve struck the blow. Myself, I always wondered . . .”
“Wondered?”
“If that’s when Sharlah intervened. Not when he was beating their father to a pulp, but when he struck their mother. Maybe for Sharlah, that was the moment that was too much.”
“Telly is in the red haze of battle,” Rainie though
t out loud. “He hits his father over and over again, then moves on to his mother, except Sharlah gets between him and her after the first blow. At which point, Telly turns on his sister. She screams.”
“He snaps out of it. At least according to Telly,” Dr. Dudkowiak said. “The minute Sharlah screamed, he realized what he’d done. He put down the bat, then stood there unmoving until the police arrived.”
“But you doubt this story?” Rainie asked carefully.
“Doubt is a strong word. However . . . Telly’s father has the knife. Telly’s father is trying to kill them. There are all sorts of reasons for Telly to defend himself with the baseball bat. And once he starts swinging, you can argue that for a kid with his temperament, it’s difficult to stop.”
“Explosive rage.”
“And adrenaline and fear. In a household that volatile, it’s all mixed together. Except in this scenario, why turn on the mom? She’s on the floor. Unconscious, already dying. What would bring Telly’s attention to her? Why stop beating his father and move on to her?”
“I don’t know,” Rainie agreed. “Maybe she . . . moaned, exhaled.”
“Revealed she was still alive?” the doctor suggested.
In that moment, Rainie got where she was going. “The first murder, Telly’s father, that would’ve been explosive. But the second, hitting his mother over the head . . .”
“Calculating. Expedient. Because if their mother lived—their weak, passive, drug-addicted mom . . .”
“They’d never be safe.”
“You could say you have a pattern now: the shooting of the foster parents, which could fall under explosive rage, except then there are additional killings that clearly aren’t impulsive at all. Maybe this isn’t a new pattern. It’s simply Telly repeating what he learned eight years ago. Certainly, it would explain why he’s looking for his sister.”
“How so?” Rainie asked sharply.
“She’s the one who stopped him then. Maybe he secretly hopes she can stop him now. Or maybe . . .”
The doctor hesitated.
“What?”
“He wants it to be over. Once and for all. The world has been a cruel, harsh place for Telly Ray Nash and his sister. Now he will end it for both of them.”
Chapter 28
THE TRAIL LEADING UP TO Frank Duvall’s favorite campsite started at the roadside, cutting through a swath of high grass, then heading steadily deeper into the underbrush, till eventually it shot straight up two and a half miles to a rocky outcropping, which, according to his son Henry, offered one of the best views of the ocean. The trail wasn’t on any map. Most likely, it had originally been cut by deer during their own forays up and down the mountain. The forest was filled with such trails. As a kid, Cal had spent countless days exploring new routes in and out of the wilderness. Apparently, so had Frank Duvall.
Given this was a stealth operation, they had parked a single vehicle half a mile back at the turn-in for a bait shop. Second appealing feature of Frank’s favorite camping site—it overlooked a popular fishing stream, making dinner easy to catch.
One of the officers had already questioned the bait shop owner about seeing any kid matching Telly’s description. According to the owner, no. But Cal had watched the guy’s gaze slide away as he answered, then dash nervously to the TV screen.
Cal was no expert, being just a cheese-making tracker and all, but even he thought that was suspicious.
Not that it really mattered. The new search team—Cal, Deb the dog handler, Molly the dog, and fresh SWAT flankers Darren and Mitch—had a plan and they were sticking to it.
At the base of the trailhead, Molly had sat, which apparently meant she had picked up a human scent. Deb had then given the dog the signal to track and Molly had headed straight up the thin, snaking path.
According to Deb, Mollywogs would keep on going, with her curious rolling gait, until the human scent reached some kind of critical mass. At which time, Molly would lie down, alerting them that said human was straight ahead.
Hopefully, Molly would provide that signal before their suspect opened fire.
Cal was nervous. He didn’t like it. Wasn’t accustomed to feeling this edgy out in the woods, the place he’d always felt most at home. And this deer trail, it was beautiful, everything there was to love about hiking in the Pacific Northwest. Within moments of leaving sun-bleached asphalt, they’d stepped into a shadowed sanctuary, dense with towering fir trees, carpets of thick moss, mounds of lush ferns. It felt cooler in the woods. Smelled better, too—green, which wasn’t even a smell but should have been. Because that’s how the woods always smelled to Cal: deep green.
Which made him resent the kid even more. For making Cal, in the temple of the great outdoors, still hear the echoing crack of rifle fire, followed by the screams of his fellow teammates.
Cal’s hands were shaking. Cal, whose hands never shook.
He spied a mark in the trunk of a tree ahead, motioned for the team to stop. The fir tree neighboring the trail was a relative youngster, tall and thin, having to grow up up up to find sun. Most of its lower branches were gone. Fallen off, maybe removed by other hikers to make the narrow trail more accessible. But none of that accounted for the white gouge near shoulder height.
Cal stuck his finger in the wound, discovering beads of sticky sap—a fir tree’s version of first aid. Fresh, no doubt about it.
The team waited, the two replacement SWAT snipers keeping their eyes on the woods, while Deb leaned down and scratched Molly’s ears. The dog had used the break to sit down, legs splayed in front, white throat exposed above her black vest as she arched her thick neck and leaned against her handler, rumbling happily.
“You sure that thing is a dog?” Cal asked, still inspecting the tree.
“Rescued her myself from the heroin den.”
“Might explain a few things.”
“Like what? That she’s a survivor? When I first saw Molly, she was nothing but skin and bones; huge head; emaciated, wiggly body. She reminded me of a pollywog, hence her nickname. She was also pregnant. Turned out she was carrying seven pups, which, given her condition, no one thought would make it. But Molly did it. Gave birth to seven beautiful puppies and tended them every day, no matter her own discomfort. The pups were easily adopted out. But a one-year-old pit bull mix? Molly’s road was harder. So I decided to take her in myself. Strictly as a pet. I was already working with my next search dog, a one-year-old Lab.
“I still have him, too. Except now he’s the pet, and Molly, who watched all my training sessions, has become the star. Breed is only a starting point when it comes to work dogs. Heart is what really matters, and Mollywogs here, she has the biggest heart I’ve ever known.”
“Bet you she snores,” Cal said.
“Like a Mack truck,” Deb assured him. “What’s with the gouge?”
“See the white wood? Fresh wound. Tree’s only begun the healing process. It’s the height that has me interested. Can you move forward?”
He didn’t want to step in front of them, ruin the incomparable Mollywogs’s scent trail. Deb obliged, walking her and Molly farther up the path. Now Cal could stand level with the fir tree, measuring where the mark on the trunk hit halfway between his elbow and shoulder height. It almost looked to him . . .
“Rifle tip,” Darren said behind him.
Cal turned to look at the SWAT team officer who’d replaced Antonio. “That’s what I was thinking. Kid’s hiking up this trail, lugging backpack, bedroll, multiple boxes of ammo. Add to that three rifles.” Cal grimaced. “Sure, he could be carrying two strapped to his back. But the third, bet he was cradling that one in his arms, at the ready. Which would place the tip right about . . .” He placed his fingertips in the fresh wood gouge.
None of them spoke for a moment, the two SWAT officers still on watch, scanning the woods.
“Stealth,”
Deb said at last.
“Yep,” Cal agreed. “Simply gotta sneak up on the campsite, seize the guns, grab the mass murderer. Nothing to it.”
They resumed their hike.
—
HALFWAY UP, Cal’s radio crackled to life. He motioned to the group to halt, stepping off to the side, where he could answer Sheriff Atkins’s summons, volume turned low.
“Progress?” Sheriff Atkins asked.
“The dog, Molly, seems to think she’s following a human. Airborne scent particles settle in eight to twelve hours, so according to Deb, that means someone must’ve passed this way earlier today.”
“What do you think?”
“Trail’s hard to read. Soft-packed pine needles. Great for hiking but not so good for footprints. Have found a fresh gouge in a tree, some depressions in mossy surfaces, so I suppose I agree with Molly: Sometime earlier today, a human being this way cameth.”
“We reviewed camera footage from a nearby trail, as you suggested. The Umatilla doesn’t access the campsite but passes just east of it. Unfortunately, the trail camera is set up to capture wildlife, meaning it records everything at ankle height. We’ve seen the feet of several hiking groups, some twosomes. But no lone hikers.”
“Which doesn’t mean Telly hasn’t returned to the campsite. Just means if he did, he used a different approach.”
“True.”
“Your camera trail, the Umatilla, on hiking maps?”
“Yes.”
“If I was him, I’d avoid it, too. Known trails are busy this time of year. Better to stick to lesser-known byways, such as this deer trail. Sounds like Frank Duvall knew plenty and shared his knowledge with his sons.”
The sheriff didn’t answer.
“Anything else I should know?” Cal asked.
“According to the son, there are a couple of sites after this one we can check out. They’re much farther away, but now that Telly has access to a four-wheeler, they’re possible.”