Forgotten (25 page)

“Got it.” She nodded. “Any of these people doing ‘stuff’ with kids?”

“Sometimes.”

“Keith, how do you know how to find these places on the computer, the places we just talked about?”

“Sheldon told me.”

“Sheldon told you?”

“Uh-huh. He said he’d help me understand what my dreams were about if I’d go to these places and watch and then come back and tell him what they were doing.”

“Let me get this straight.” Portia tried to remain calm. “Sheldon Woods told you where to go on the Internet to find child pornography, told you to watch it, and then come back and tell him what you saw?”

Keith nodded.

“Does he ever tell you to do other things, things involving live kids?”

Keith’s eyes shifted from her face to the floor.

“Keith?”

“I don’t want to talk about that. Sheldon said if anyone asked I didn’t have to talk about the things he told me to do.”

Portia took a deep breath.

“I’m warm, Keith, are you? Thirsty? Let me get us something to drink.” She stood. “I’ll be right back.”

Her head felt as if it were about to explode. That Keith Patterson possessed a low IQ was apparent, but how low, she couldn’t be sure. Had Sheldon Woods played on the man’s weak intellect, taken advantage of the fact that he was easily influenced, and set him up to continue the kind of madness that Woods had relished for so many years? Were Patterson’s bad dreams not dreams at all, but killings he’d been talked into by Woods?

Maybe. She played with the idea for a few moments, then ran upstairs and turned on her computer. She ran a search for Keith Patterson’s criminal records, driver’s license, and sent out quick queries to the arresting departments for more information.

She ran back downstairs, grabbed two Styrofoam cups from the breakroom and filled them with cold water.
At least let’s get his DNA,
she thought,
see if it matches anything we already have.

On her way back, she passed the room where Eloise Gorman was waiting for Livy. The door was open, and Portia couldn’t resist having a word with her.

“Hello, Ms. Gorman,” she said from the doorway.

The woman turned in her chair and gave Portia a once-over. “Your shoes have dirt on them. Dirt and grass. You should take more pride in the way you dress.”

She turned her back to Portia, who looked down at her feet. She was wearing the same black driving loafers she’d had on the night before. As Eloise Gorman had pointed out, bits of mud and grass were clinging to the sides. She lifted her right foot to inspect the sole of the shoe and found red-brown dirt and blades of grass imbedded in the treads. The park had been muddy from an afternoon shower, and the grass that had been cut earlier in the day had washed down to the area where Justin had been buried. Remembering struck her heart all over again.

She walked back down the hall, her shoes forgotten, wondering if the killer of that sweet little boy was sitting behind the closed door of interrogation room D.

TWENTY-NINE

“L
et me get this straight,” Livy said. “Patterson told you that Woods told him to do ‘stuff’ to kids and come back and share it with him?”

“That’s what the man said.” Portia was on her way to the prison, loaded for bear, talking to Livy on her cell phone.

“You think he did it?”

“Sure looks that way. This guy Patterson is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Right before I left the office, I got a call from one of the officers who recently arrested him for peeping. Says the guy is slow but not stupid, knows right from wrong. Said he’s smart enough to
play
stupid, and he might have been doing that to throw me off.”

“Which would make him not stupid at all,” Livy noted.

“Exactly. I gave him a cup of water and sent it to the lab to test the saliva for DNA, so we’ll see if he matches up with anything we have on file.”

“Where is he now?”

“Waiting in D for his hometown boys in blue to pick him up. He has an outstanding warrant for peeping. They’re going to hold him for as long as they can while we check into his whereabouts last night.” Portia changed lanes and sped up. She couldn’t wait to confront Woods. “Did you get any thing useful from Miss Eloise?”

“She’s one strong lady, that one. I’ll bet she drags out that weight bench at night and presses a couple hundred pounds without breaking a sweat.”

Portia laughed.

“Seriously, she’s got a grip on her. She could be a contender, Portia.”

“For what?”

“She could be the killer. She spends a lot of time with Woods. I’m willing to bet that she knows where it all went down and where he hid everything. She’s strong enough to do some serious damage with those hands. And Annie said the killer is trying to get Woods’s attention, right? So who wants his attention more than Eloise?”

“Good point. Have someone keep an eye on her. You learn anything else?”

“Only that she’s really off the wall with all this soul mate stuff. Which I already knew from you.” Livy laughed, then added, “Bless her heart.”

“I’m hearing the Carolina coast in your voice again,” Portia said.

“You can take the girl out of the South, Cahill, but…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” There was a barely audible beep on Portia’s phone. She looked at the number.

“That your phone or mine?” Livy asked.

“Mine.”

“Do you want to take the call?”

Portia took a few seconds to consider.

“Someone you’re avoiding?” Livy asked.

“It’s Jim.”

“Why’re you avoiding him? He’s the good guy.”

When Portia didn’t respond, Livy said, “Oh, okay. I get it. You don’t want to talk to him because of what happened to his nephew’s friend, right? Because somehow, that’s all your fault, isn’t it?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“So you’re going to guilt yourself into letting go of someone you care about because you feel guilty over something that someone else did? That makes a lot of sense, Cahill. Honestly, I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Until we catch this guy, yes, I think it’s better that Jim and I don’t see each other. I don’t want to run the risk of putting Finn in any more danger than I already have.”

“Did you discuss this with Jim? That you’re dumping him?”

“I’m not dumping him. I’m just backing off for now. But no, I haven’t had time to have that conversation with him. This all just happened last night.”

“Make time. And do it now. Today. Tonight. If you’re not going to take his calls, you’re not even going to return them, at least have the decency to tell him why and let him have his say.”

“I can’t imagine that he’d even want to be around me after what happened to Justin.”

“Don’t you think you should let him decide what he wants?”

“You’re right. As soon as I leave the prison, I’ll call him.”

There was another beep on her line, and she glanced at the screen.

“This one I do have to take. It’s the farm where Sheldon used to ride horses when he was a kid. I’ll get back to you.” She hung up one call and picked up the other.

“This is Eliza Cawley returning a call from Agent Cahill,” the voice on the line said.

“Agent Cahill here, ma’am. Thanks for getting back to me.”

“You wanted some information on a former student, I understand. Who would that be?”

“Sheldon Woods.”

The silence was deafening.

“Miz Cawley? Are you there?” Portia asked.

“Yes, I’m here. I was just…surprised. No one’s ever asked about him. Not that I’ve forgotten him, though. The boy crosses my mind every now and then.”

“Because of what he did, you mean?”

“That, certainly, but when I think about him, it isn’t his crimes I think about. Sheldon was one of the best students I ever had. He had an exceptional seat, wonderful hands. Loved the horses he rode, always treated them gently and with respect. Never came to the stables without something for the horse he would ride that day. Helped the younger students. Volunteered to help muck the stalls, clean the tack, groom the horses. Around maybe his third year with us, he said he’d be quitting because his mother said they could no longer afford the lessons, so I started giving him credit for all the work he’d been doing around the stables for free. I even gave him extra lessons. He had such promise, and he was such a nice kid. I always felt he could have been a great equestrian, Agent Cahill.”

Portia was almost speechless. This was a Sheldon Woods she hadn’t heard about before. “What happened?”

“Wouldn’t I like to know?” the riding instructor said. “He just stopped showing up. I called his house several times and left messages, but he never called me back and he never came back to the farm. Everyone missed him. Me, the other riders, and the instructors. I believe even the horses missed him.”

“You never saw him again?”

“Not until I turned on the TV one day years later and there he was, being led from a police car in handcuffs and that unbelievable story about him…” Portia could almost hear a shiver in her voice. “I still can’t believe that was really him.”

“How old was Sheldon when he started taking lessons from you, do you remember?”

“Five or six. He was around twelve when he stopped.”

“Had you noticed anything different about him, any change in his behavior around that time?”

“Actually, I did. He was always a friendly boy, if quiet. For a few months before he stopped coming, he began to withdraw more and more. Looking back, I should have probably tried to talk to him about it, or called his mother…” Her voice trailed away.

“You’ve no thoughts on what might have been causing him to withdraw?”

“None. I’m afraid I haven’t been of any help to you.”

“You’ve filled in a few blanks, Miz Cawley. I appreciate the callback.”

“He’s still in prison, isn’t he?”

“Yes. He will be for many, many years.”

“If you see him, please tell him I was asking about him.”

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

Well,
Portia thought,
here’s a picture of Sheldon we didn’t have before, and a time frame within which things started going south for him.
She tried to recall the reports she’d read weeks ago. By the time he was twelve, he’d already been arrested for something, hadn’t he? Peeping? Assaulting a younger boy? She’d have to look it up when she got back from the prison. And she’d need to confirm who the stepfather was around the time he was twelve.

Right now, however, she had other things on her mind: Justin McAfee, Keith Patterson, and how the two might be connected to Sheldon Woods.

It was late afternoon when she reached the prison. She was waved through the gate and handed her pass without having to show ID. Portia drove up to the main building and parked under some trees near the back of the lot where it was shady, to keep the car cool while she was inside.

She found her favorite guard on duty when she checked in at the desk and handed over her bag and gun without being asked. The halls were familiar to her now and she could have found her way through the maze by herself, but was accompanied by a guard to the interview room. She thanked the young man. As she sat down, she reminded herself that she was here for a purpose. There were things to accomplish before she flipped out on Woods.

“What is it going to take to make this stop, Sheldon?” she asked when he came through the door, CO DeLuca closing the door behind them. “How do we stop this ‘fan’ of yours from killing again?”

“You think that I’m somehow orchestrating this, that I know who it is? I don’t know.” He shook his head and for a moment, she almost believed he was telling the truth. Then she remembered who she was talking to. “I do think it’s ingenious and that must be driving you insane right about now, am I right, Agent Cahill? For that reason alone, I wouldn’t tell you, even if I knew.”

“Keith Patterson.”

“What about him?”

She stared at him darkly, and after a moment, he began to laugh.

“You think Keith…? Oh, that’s rich.”

“Those dreams of his sound an awful lot like the real thing.”

“That’s all they are. Dreams. Daydreams, maybe, but they’re not original, and they’re not the real thing. He goes to the library and takes out books about serial killers and reads all about it and then comes in and tells me he dreamed it.” Woods shook his head. “You think he’s capable of doing the stuff that’s going on out there?”

“Why not?”

“He’s not smart enough to pull it off, for one thing.”

“He’s smart enough to find the porn sites you send him to,” she snapped. “Smart enough to watch and report back to you on what he sees.”

A flush crept up Woods’s neck. “That was all just in fun. I have to do something to entertain myself.”

“You took advantage of him,” she said.

“Oh, dear, I did, didn’t I?” He sighed deeply. “That’ll be the sin that puts me over my limit, I guess. One free pass, straight to hell, for taking advantage of Keith Patterson.”

He laughed and stood with help from the CO, his chains limiting his movements.

“I can’t take any more of you.” She got up and started toward the door.

“See you next time, Agent Cahill,” he called to her as DeLuca led him away.

“By the way, Miz Cawley sends her best.”

He froze in midstride, then turned to look back over his shoulder.

“She was sorry you left when you did. She thought you had tremendous promise. Apparently she had high hopes for you.”

“Yes. Well.”

“Why’d you stop going to the stables, Woods? Why’d you leave without telling her why?”

“It was…complicated.”

“Too complicated to even say good-bye to someone who cared about you, who believed in you?”

“Way too complicated, Agent Cahill.” A wave of true sadness crossed his face, and he looked as if he was about to say something more. He continued making his way to the door, his head down, his shoulders slumped.

Portia was halfway to the door when she noticed a clump of grass and reddish clay on the floor. She reached down to pick it up, chiding herself for having forgotten to clean off her shoes before she came into the prison. Then Portia realized she hadn’t walked beyond the table. She mentally retraced her steps…from the door to the table, from the table to the door. She replayed it over and over in her mind, but couldn’t recall having taken steps in any other direction. She sat back down at the table and turned her foot over to compare. The color and the texture of the dirt was the same.

There had been three people in the room. Woods was the only one who would not have been outside over the past twenty-four hours since it had rained.

She headed toward the front desk, the clump of dirt still in one hand and the other in her pocket, wrapped around her cell phone. She was eager to get outside to call in and request a background check on CO DeLuca. She was almost to the first turn of the corridor when she heard footsteps behind her.

“Agent Cahill,” DeLuca called to her from ten feet back.
He must have hustled some to have caught up,
Portia thought.

“You pick up something from the floor back there in that little room?”

She held out her hand, where the clump of grass and dirt lay flat on her palm.

“Housekeeping’s getting sloppy,” she told him.

CO DeLuca shoved her around so her back was to him. Something sharp and hard poked between her shoulder blades.

“I saw that mess of dirt there, went back to pick it up but it was gone. Nobody in there but you, me, and Woods, and he didn’t bend over the whole time we were in there. So I guess that narrows it down, doesn’t it?” He took her arm and twisted it. “You know, the whole time you were in there, I kept looking at that spot of grass on the floor, and looking at that little bit of grass on the sides of your shoes. Didn’t seem like you noticed it, but I guess I was wrong.” He jerked her arm so that she was walking directly in front of him. “Now, nice and casual, we’re going out through the front door.”

“With you holding a knife in my back? I don’t think so.”

Portia jumped slightly as the tip of the knife cut through her shirt and into her back. She felt a wet trickle run down into her waistband.

“I think so, Agent Cahill. As a matter of fact, I know so.” He gave her arm another twist as they approached the front desk. “You just keep on walking, right through that door there. One word out of your mouth and you are a dead woman.”

They walked past the desk where the guard was on the phone. When she looked up, she covered the phone’s mouthpiece and called, “Agent Cahill, your bag…your gun…”

“We’ll be right back,” DeLuca told the guard without breaking stride, the knife sharp against the flesh over Portia’s right kidney.

They went through the front doors and into the humidity that often follows a summer storm.

“We’ll take my car.” He led her toward an ancient Oldsmobile the color of dirt, opened the driver’s door, and shoved her across the front seat.

He reached under his seat and held up a forty-four. “You touch the door handle, you make any move at all, and I’ll shoot your knees out.” Then he smiled. “Just so we understand each other.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, all thoughts of going for the knife now moot.