Forgotten (6 page)

Sorry, Christopher. So sorry it’s taken so long to find you.
She thought about that for a moment, then added,
If in fact we have found you. Your mother’s sick, Chris—did they call you Chris? She needs you. They sent me to find you, to bring you back to her, so that you could make the journey together. She’s holding on until we bring you home. I hope we can do that today.

Reminded of the recent death of her own mother, Portia was near tears. She pushed aside her grief and cleared her throat as the procession of vehicles began to climb the dirt road toward the monument and raised a hazy cloud of dust in the early-morning sun.

OLDBRIDGE TOWNSHIP POLICE DEPARTMENT
was painted in red on the side of the white vehicles. A tall, slender woman emerged from the second car in the line. She had latte-colored skin and wore a white baseball cap, brown slacks, and a tan T-shirt. She shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand as she gazed around the field. Seeing Portia, the woman slipped on a pair of dark glasses and walked toward her.

“Agent Cahill?” the woman called.

“Yes.” Portia met the woman halfway.

“I’m Elena Duffy. Chief of police here in the township. I got a call from your boss about ninety minutes ago. Something about a child being buried some years ago up here on Turner’s Hill? Previously unknown victim of Sheldon Woods?” The chief frowned. “What the hell’s that all about?”

Portia told her.

“Shit, and it has to be here, in my township?” Elena Duffy shook her head. “Okay, let’s get to it then.”

She turned and waved on several casually dressed members of her force. “Your guy said we needed some recovery, so I brought what personnel I could get on short notice. Joanna there is a real good crime scene tech, Alvin is as well. I do have a call into the ME’s office but haven’t heard back from him yet. I suppose we should start digging—carefully, of course.”

Portia nodded, eager to get on with it.

“I have to tell you straight out, we don’t have much of a crime lab here in the township,” the chief said. “Depending on what we find, we generally send it to the county or the state.”

“What’s their turnaround time?” Portia asked.

“Probably a lot longer than either of us would like.”

Portia pretended to mull that over for a moment. “There’s the FBI lab…that is, if you don’t mind…”

Elena Duffy waved a deeply tanned hand. “I don’t mind at all. The way I see it, you did me a courtesy by notifying me, respecting my jurisdiction. But there’s no case to be investigated, since you already know who the victim is.”

“Assuming that Woods is telling the truth.”

“Right. There is that.” Chief Duffy nodded. “But let’s assume he told you the truth. You know the victim, you know who killed him. The fact that Woods left the boy in my backyard doesn’t make the case mine. I have no problem with you taking it from here.”

“Thank you,” Portia said, grateful there would be no turf war. “Christopher Williams’s mother will thank you, I’m sure.”

“After all that lady’s been through, no way am I going to be the one to stand between her and her son now. So if you have someone you want in on this recovery, get them out here, let ’em work with my team. Let’s get this taken care of as soon as possible.”

“How’s your ME?”

“Top notch.”

“Then we’ll go with him to examine the remains and determine cause of death. The lab might not be necessary but we’ll need a death certificate and that’s going to have to come from the ME.”

“Good enough.” Elena Duffy turned and waved on her CSI’s.

“This is Special Agent Portia Cahill,” she told them. “She’s going to show you where she thinks you’re going to find some remains. Be real careful with them. It’s someone’s little boy.”

Portia led the pair to the spot where Woods had indicated the grave would be found, then stepped back while they began to carefully remove the dirt. She leaned against the stone wall next to Elena Duffy for a while, both women silently watching the painstaking dig. A half hour later, the perimeter of a makeshift grave had been uncovered. Elena had dismissed all of her crew except for one detective, who photographed every stage of the excavation, and the two crime scene techs.

“Man, I can’t even imagine what it’s like, waiting all these years, like this kid’s mom has had to do,” Elena said softly. “If it was my kid, I’d have dug up half the state by now.”

“You have children?” Portia asked.

“Two sons. Seven and twelve.” Elena shook her head. “Just about the same age as…” She pointed to the spot where the digging was under way.

“Usually we’ve found the body by now,” Alvin said to no one in particular after they’d dug for another twenty minutes. “Most of the time, the body’s in a shallow grave. We’re two feet down, and there’s nothing.” He glanced up at Portia. “You sure this is the right place?”

Portia removed the tape recorder from her bag. After rewinding for a moment, she played back Woods’s words.

“There’s a cluster of pine trees off to the left, and a sort of rock pile behind the trees. Again, you can’t miss it. You’ll find what you’re after between the tallest two trees, right in front of the rocks. They sit about ten feet apart.”

“Okay,” the tech nodded. “Asked and answered.” The digging resumed.

Portia noticed a light-colored SUV approaching the top of the hill and parking near the monument.

“That your ME?” she asked the chief.

“That would be him.” Elena got off the wall where she’d been sitting for the past fifteen minutes and waved to the man who was exiting the car, but he didn’t appear to notice.

She took off in the direction of the new arrival. Portia squatted and sat on her heels, watching the techs remove shovel after shovel of dirt.

If he lied about this, if this is all a game to him, I will personally find a way to make that little shit fry,
she thought.
If he thinks putting Madeline Williams through this is fun…shit, if doing this to John is his idea of a good time, I will…

“Agent Cahill, meet Tom Patton, the county medical examiner.” Elena returned, leading the way for a portly man in his sixties for whom the walk up the hill had not been an easy one.

“Thanks for coming out.” Portia stood and extended her hand. He took it in his own fleshy, overly warm one.

“That’s the job.” He took a deep breath and tried to get his breathing under control. “Asthma,” he told her. “Asthma and allergies. All these damned dandelions, the wildflowers, tossing their damned pollen in the air, this blasted humidity…”

“Dr. Patton…” Elena began.

“Tom. How many times have I told you all to call me Tom?” He grumbled and stared down at the hole in the ground. “Where’s the body?”

“It’s still in there,” Portia said, gesturing toward the hole. “We think it’s in there.”

“This is the emergency that had me tracked down at the dentist’s office?” He raised an eyebrow.

“We thought the remains would have been closer to the surface,” Portia told him.

The ME frowned at Elena across the open excavation. “What makes you so sure there’s a body here?”

“The killer told Agent Cahill he’d buried a boy here,” Elena explained.

“How long ago?” he asked.

“Sometime between 1997 and 1999,” Portia responded.

“We’re looking for old bones?”

“Yes.”

“Well, for cryin’ out loud, Elena, you brought me out here to look at something that may or may not even be here, that may be ten, eleven years old?” He glared equally at the two women.

“Got something,” Joanna said, and three heads turned to look at the same time. “Looks like a hand. A very small hand.”

The detective, who’d been sitting on the wall watching the dig, picked up the camera and began to shoot as each new bone was uncovered.

“Gonna get my people out here to get the remains ready for transport,” Patton said. He took the phone from his pocket and made his call.

“Yeah, Harve, I’m up here on Turner’s Hill with Chief Duffy and a couple ’a her people and the FBI. Got us some bones. Bring me up a bag to bring them back in.”

“Two,” Joanna said. “Tell him to bring two bags.”

“What?” Patton turned to the grave where the techs had stopped digging.

“Two sets of remains, two bags.” Joanna stood and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her right hand. She glanced from the ME to the police chief to Portia. “There’s a second body in here.”

“Are you sure?” Portia leaned into the grave.

“Yes, ma’am.” Joanna nodded certainly. “Unless the boy you’re looking for had two heads, there’re two people buried here.”

SEVEN

“Y
es, I’m serious. Two bodies.” Portia paced on the hillside, barely able to contain her anger and all but spitting her words into the phone. “He knew. That little fucking bastard knew there were two.”

“Both children?” John asked.

“Yes. The one on the bottom looks to be considerably smaller than the one on top—the one we think is the Williams boy because there’s what’s left of a leather belt with a large C on the buckle. Neither of the skulls appear to be completely fused, which you’d expect to see in young children, but the shape of both indicates male.”

“Cause of death?”

“Tough to tell. The one on the bottom hasn’t been examined because they’re still removing the top one. I can tell you that in the first one—the one I think might be Christopher—the hyoid bones are in three pieces, but the ME said he’d expect that if we’re looking at kids, that it starts out in pieces. The bones don’t fuse together into one until sometime later.”

“Woods maintained that he’d strangled all his victims, and the ones we recovered—his ‘Baker’s Dozen’—had all been strangled. I wouldn’t expect to see any deviation.”

“Yes, and these victims might have been as well. We just don’t know by looking at the hyoid, as you could with an adult.” Portia paused. “The reports I read in the file indicated that Woods had used different methods of strangulation for different victims.”

“Make sure the ME knows to look for other signs. Fractured vertebrae, maybe.”

“Will do.” Portia noticed a black van heading up the dirt road. “Looks like the ME’s people are here. They’re going to try to separate the remains. Could take a while, they’re so close in the grave.”

“Are the remains intact?”

“Mostly, but some of the smaller bones are commingled, and a few of them are missing. Probably small animals took off with them. The techs will continue to dig around after the bodies are removed, see if they can find the digits.” Portia set her bag down on the hood of her rental car and removed a bottle of water. She twisted off the cap, then took a quick drink. “We’re going to need Christopher’s dental records for a positive ID.”

“I’ll call Lisa Williams immediately,” John said.

“Let’s have them sent directly to Tom Patton, the ME. I realize that time is working against us here, so if this is Christopher, I know everyone wants to see him returned to his family as quickly as possible. I’ll let the ME know to expect them, then I’m out of here,” Portia said. “Sheldon Woods and I are going to have a little chat.”

“N
o.” Sheldon Woods sat back in his chair in the little interview room and stared blankly at Portia.

“Don’t fuck with me, Woods, I am seriously not in the mood.”

“Your moods are irrelevant, Agent Cahill. You wanted Christopher Williams, and I gave him to you. I’m not obligated to give you anything or anyone else.”

“What will it take, Woods?” She sighed deeply. “What do you want this time?”

“Nothing. I’m not giving you this one,” he snapped. “This one is mine.”

“Odd choice of words, Woods.” Her eyebrows knit in thought. “Very odd.”

“Do feel free to run it past your behavior people, your profiler, whatever you’re calling your mindbenders these days.” He waved a hand breezily. “It won’t be the first time the FBI has tried to analyze me.”

“This boy’s family has been waiting years to find out what happened to their son.”

“Then surely by now they’ve accepted the fact that he isn’t coming back,” Woods said calmly. “And don’t try to play on my sympathies, I haven’t any. It only serves to annoy me.”

“Annoy you?” She laughed hoarsely. “Trust me, Woods, before I’m through with you, you’re going to be more than
annoyed.
”

“CO DeLuca?” Woods said over his shoulder. “I’d like to go back now. Agent Cahill is being a pain in the ass today.”

The guard glanced at Portia with empathy. She watched Woods shuffle out, envisioning herself wrapping both hands around his neck and holding him off the floor, his short legs kicking wildly, until he gave her the name of the boy who’d shared a grave with Christopher Williams for the past decade. She’d never been one to act out against a prisoner, but if there was ever a man who had earned her wrath and disgust, it was Sheldon Woods.

Okay, you little bastard. Don’t want to tell me his name? Fine. I’ll find out on my own, and then I’ll prosecute you for his murder. Think you’re going to play games with me? Think again, pal. This is one you will not win.

P
ortia sat at her sister’s kitchen table and toyed with a spear of asparagus. Given everyone’s work schedule, it was the first time since she’d arrived in town that she, Miranda, and Will had been able to have dinner together.

“I hear Woods is a first-class asshole,” Miranda said after Portia brought her up to date on the case. “I know he got to John big-time. Genna told me once he still has nightmares about that case.”

“Woods could definitely have that kind of effect. He is in his own class of creepiness.” Portia pushed aside her plate and rested her forearms on the table. “There’s an aura about him, a malevolence that I’ve never encountered before, and I’ve dealt with some really sinister characters over the years. But this man has no soul. He reeks of depravity.” She looked at her sister and said, “I don’t know how else to say it.”

“I think you said it quite well.” Miranda stood and took her plate and Portia’s to the counter and set them down. “We’ve all had those cases where the suspect is so vile, so immoral, that they have a sort of malignant air about them. But from all I’ve heard about Sheldon Woods, he pretty much wins the malignancy trophy.”

“Are you thinking it might not have been Christopher Williams in that grave?” Will said as he got up from the table and started to make coffee.

“I have a feeling it is,” Portia told him. “They recovered a belt buckle with a
C
on it, which of course is not conclusive, but I think it’s him. We should know for certain tomorrow, though. The ME will have the dental records and that should make a positive ID easy. There will be a match, or there won’t be.” She looked up at her sister. “It’s the other boy that I keep thinking about. Woods would not—
would not
—discuss him. Said that one was his, whatever that meant. When I questioned him, he all but dared me to talk it over with a profiler.”

“Did you?” Miranda removed the remaining vestiges of their dinner.

“I have a call in to Annie. I’m curious to see what she has to say about him.” Portia got up, took mugs down from the cabinet, and placed them on the table.

“Surely someone has gone over his case before?” Will asked.

“There are several reports in the file from different psychiatrists. They all concurred that he’s a sociopath.” Portia sat back at the table and watched Will fill the coffeepot with water and pour it into the coffeemaker. “I still want Annie’s take on him, though. I mean, with all his kills, why would he be so protective of this one?”

“Maybe he’s just playing with you. Trying to piss you off, just because he can,” Will suggested.

“That’s a possibility, I suppose, but if you could have seen his face…” Portia shook her head. “I don’t know, Will. I can’t help but think there’s something more there.”

“What are you doing to identify the second boy from the grave?” Miranda asked.

“Well, that’s where I was hoping Will could give me a hand,” she said. “I was hoping I could sweet-talk you into running a list of all the missing male children that were reported to NCIC from nineteen ninety-five through ’ninety-nine from the states where Woods was active. Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania…”

“I know the territory,” Will grimaced. “I remember reading about the case while I was at the academy.”

“I don’t have a lot of identifiers for you to input,” Portia told him, “but I have enough to start out with. Once the ME is finished with his examination I can probably add to it.”

“You know the time frame, that’s good.” Will nodded. “And you know the sex.”

“We’ll go with the characteristics of the rest of Woods’s victims. All white males between the ages of seven and thirteen.” She paused and thought for a moment. “This boy did appear to be pretty small even for a seven-year-old, so maybe we should lower the range and start with missing five-year-olds. Of course, this one could be the exception. Or he could be really small for his age.”

“We’ll do five through fourteen. That should give us a lot of hits. You can narrow it down later if you have to,” Will said. “The ME probably isn’t going to be able to fill in some of the other blanks, like eye color and hair.” He paused. “Unless there was hair attached to the skull…”

“It was really hard to tell,” Portia told him. “The remains of the unknown boy were under those of the body we believe to be Christopher Williams, plus the bones were all brown from being in the soil for so long. If there was hair attached to either skull, it wasn’t readily apparent while I was there. They were still trying to extract them when I left.”

“I’ll bet John has a list of probable victims,” Miranda said, “though some of those could have been resolved by now. Of course, the NCIC report would show if the reporting agency removed the record.”

“Meaning that the person has been found, one way or another,” Will added.

“Good idea. John mentioned that he suspected Woods had killed a lot more kids than he gave up. Mrs. Williams probably was not the only parent of a missing boy who showed up at the courthouse.” Portia toyed with the spoon her sister had placed on the table next to her mug. “And I can ask the lawyer, Cannon, if he has names of any possible victims.”

“Would he be able to hand them over, even if he did?” Miranda asked.

“I guess it would depend on how he got the list. If Woods gave him the names while Cannon was representing him, I’d think Cannon would be violating attorney-client privilege if he gave them to me,” Portia said thoughtfully. “But maybe he has some thoughts on the case. It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“What’s he like?” Miranda asked. “The lawyer? I saw pictures of him in
Baltimore
magazine. He looks hot.”

Portia shrugged as if she hadn’t noticed, though in fact she had.

“He’s a criminal defense attorney. Bottom-feeder. His job is to keep his clients out of jail, guilty or innocent. He’s obviously successful at it, so I’d guess there could be a ‘six degrees of separation’ thing at work here between him and us.”

Miranda turned and gave Portia a blank look.

“There’s a good chance that he could have defended someone we busted our humps to bring in,” Portia explained.

Turning to Will, she said, “I know you have other cases that you’ve been working on. Your mad computer skills have made you a very popular guy within the Bureau. But if you could fit this in sometime soon, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Tonight soon enough?”

“Tonight would be awesome.”

“Ask and ye shall receive. Besides, it only takes a few minutes.” He started to fill Portia’s cup, then hesitated. “Would you rather have tea?”

“Coffee’s fine, thank you.”

He poured Miranda’s, then his own. Taking his mug, he told Miranda, “I think I’ll just go tinker in my office for a while.”

Knowing he’d be working on her request, Portia told him, “No, no, sit. Drink your coffee. I didn’t mean for you to—”

He waved away her protests. “Some people like an after-dinner mint, or a drink. Me, there’s nothing I like better with my coffee than a good puzzle.”

He leaned over to kiss the top of Miranda’s head. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”

She smiled and turned to watch him leave the room. “One thing about that man.” Miranda turned back to her sister. “He does have a good rear view.”

“That he does,” Portia agreed. “The front view isn’t bad, either.”

“If you like that slightly bookish type, which I do.” Miranda got up and locked the back door. “All this creepy-guys-I-have-known talk has me a bit antsy. Did I mention that I leave for Maine in the morning?”

“I heard about the case on the news. That’s yours?”

Miranda nodded. “Seven women in four months. John said when the call for an assist came in, the local sheriff told him they thought they might have a serial killer.” She shook her head. “Ya think?”

“You know the locals don’t like to panic too soon…”

“It’s never too soon to panic, not when the bodies are piling up like that,” Miranda noted.

“…And they don’t like to call us unless they have to.”

“That’s always been true. But now, with so many agents in counterterrorism, there aren’t as many agents available to be sent out. A lot more of the local agencies are having to deal with this stuff on their own,” Miranda reminded her. “Which makes our unit even more valuable than it had been. John set up this unit by handpicking his people, and he’s only taken the best from the field since then. Not too many of us have left, so we haven’t had too many new agents. There have been some over the past couple of years, of course…”

“Oh, right. The Shields thing.” Portia had heard about one rogue agent going bad and killing an other, who happened to be his own cousin. Since several members of the family were in John’s unit and had taken some time off to recover from the tragedy, they’d been shorthanded for a while. “I heard Andrew and Connor are back in the fold now.”

“Yeah, they’re both back, but Mia left. She’s a cop in some small town on the Chesapeake now.

Got herself a great guy, I hear, and is happy as a clam.”

“I wonder if John is going to assign some new cases to me now that it looks as if we have Christopher’s remains.” Portia stirred her coffee.

“You’re going to have to discuss that with him.”

“He hasn’t said anything to you?”

“He wouldn’t.” Miranda shook her head and looked away. “Not about his plans for you, any way.”

Portia put her mug down. “What is it that you’re not saying?”

Miranda stared into her mug as if searching for an answer. Finally she said, “Word is that you don’t want to be here.”

“That’s no secret. I didn’t want to come home. You know that.” Portia sipped her coffee. “It’s my own fault that I’m here, as John pointed out to me on Monday, but I’m not happy about it.”