Always Watching (9 page)

“
Helen, if you can’t do
this –”

“
Give me a minute.” 
I stepped away, turned my back and wiped the moisture from my
cheeks.  Devlin’s boots came into view in the sand in front of
me.  He reached out and tucked a damp strand of hair behind my
ear.

“
He’s fine.  I think
you scared him more than anything.  Scared the shit out of
more than Briscoe.  He was out of line, Helen, but
damn.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Are you all
right?”

I nodded.  “Is he pressing charges for
assault?”

“
I think he’s too scared
of pissing you off again,” Devlin chuckled.  “Did you see what
Maya wanted you to look at.”

“
Not yet.”

“
You don’t have to do
this.”

I sniffled and tucked my riotous emotions
into the pit of my stomach.  “Yes I do.  Whoever she is,
she deserves more than washing up on a filthy beach.”  I
turned around.  “Show me what you wanted me to see, Maya.”

She carefully pulled back enough of the
shroud for me to see the wisp of an arm.  Breath hitched in my
throat.  So tiny.  My lips rolled inward.

Maya shined a flashlight on the bluish
skin. 

“
What the hell?”  All
squeamishness evaporated.  I knelt beside the body for a
closer look.  “It looks like a UPC symbol.”

“
That’s what I thought,”
Maya said, “though for the life of me, I can’t figure out why
somebody would put one on a child.”

“
Is it a
tattoo?”

“
I won’t know for sure
until I get her back to the morgue for a better look.”

“
How old is she?”  It
looked like the arm size of a toddler, a little too thin.  I
wondered what sort of physical abuse would spring out if I pulled
the cover away from the girl’s body.

“
I’m going to say five to
seven years of age.”

“
Malnutrition? 
Neglect?”  Dev’s thoughts mirrored mine.  He thought she
was too small for that age too.

“
Asian,” Maya said. 
“From the look of her teeth, this little girl was very well cared
for.  At least until she was dumped in the bay and left to
wash up on shore.”

I cleared my throat.  “Can I have a
better look at her?”

Maya pulled back the sheet.  Black
glassy eyes stared up at me.  She was missing a front tooth,
the bud of its permanent replacement piercing the fleshy
gum. 

“
Her cause of death isn’t
jumping out at me, Helen.  It doesn’t look like some of the
other cases we’ve seen over the years.  No obvious
fractures.  No evidence of physical abuse.  She’s not
malnourished.”

“
Is she already out of
rigor?”

“
No,” Maya shook her
head.  “Her body temp indicates that she hasn’t been dead long
at all.  I’d say she was dumped within an hour of washing up
on shore.  She was probably dumped
close
to it in shallow water. 
Otherwise she would be on the bottom and we’d see all sorts of
predation in a few days when a body would be
discovered.”

Briscoe approached with extreme
caution.  An apology wasn’t forthcoming from either one of
us. 

I barely acknowledged his presence, but
asked a general question.  “Is there a missing person’s report
on an Asian girl that matches this victim?”

“
Are you aware of any
other Amber Alerts in the past twelve hours?”

I had to admire the balls on a man who would
be so openly antagonistic toward a woman that could’ve snapped his
windpipe not five minutes earlier.  “Somebody has to be
missing this child.  What about other states?”

“
He’ll look into it, or
someone from Bay View will,” Devlin said.  “I think we should
get back out to headquarters, Helen.  We’ve got a lot to do
that doesn’t appear to be related to this case.”

“
Don’t it?” Briscoe
sneered.  “You ain’t spoken to Puppy in awhile, have
ya?”

Devlin’s jaw tightened.  “Detective
Briscoe, if there is a link between this case and the missing baby
from Saint Mary’s, you can count on Darnell calling to put the case
in our hands.  Maya, good to see you again.  Let’s go,
Helen.”

“
Wait,” I said. 
“Briscoe, what makes you think this girl’s Amber Alert would’ve
been issued in the past twelve hours?”

“
First twenty-four are
critical, right?”

I nodded.

“
Winslow says this girl
ain’t been dead more’n an hour, two tops.  Don’t that fit with
your federal profile on how soon these pervos dump the victims
after they snatch ‘em?”

“
Yeah, actually, it does
fit.”

“
Does that matter?” Maya
asked.

“
Perhaps.  If there
was no alert in the past day for a five to seven year old Asian
girl, it could mean a number of things.  First could be that a
family member is responsible for this.  They’d be the first
line to report her missing.”

“
But she don’t look like
an abused kid,” Briscoe said.

“
No, she doesn’t. 
Which makes me wonder why her family wouldn’t have reported her
missing.  She could’ve been in the care of someone else,
someone the family trusted.”

“
Yet that don’t explain
the mark on her right arm,” Briscoe said.

“
You may as well spit it
out now before I get frustrated with you again.  What did
Crevan tell you?”

“
I never said he told me,”
he said, “but I did overhear him tellin’ Darnell before he left the
hospital for a chat with your suspect.”

“
And?” Devlin growled his
lost patience.

“
Your Florence Payette
came right unglued when the boys from OSI picked her up.”  He
paused, stared at the tiny arm of our victim.  “All they got
out of her was that she don’t have no choice but to do what
her
owner
tells
her to do.”

“
Jesus,” I rasped.  I
grabbed Dev’s hand and dragged him behind me on the
beach.

“
What?  Why are you
freaking out, Helen?”

“
That mark,” I said. 
“Maybe it looks like a UPC symbol because it is.”

“
Why would you
–”

“
Human trafficking,” I
wheezed the horrible thought from a constricted throat. 
“Selling human beings, Devlin.  If Payette is owned, and she
stole Datello’s daughter –”

“
And we have a dead child
on the beach with a weird mark on her arm, that baby could be far
out at sea by now.”

“
Dammit!”

The corruption in Darkwater Bay apparently
knew no bounds. 

“
We should expand the
search for missing Asian children to the international stage,”
Devlin said. 

“
Prepare to be
sickened.  It’s not a pretty picture, Devlin.”

Chapter 8

My leg bounced.  I chewed the cuticle
of a thumbnail until it bled onto my lower lip.  That
particular pound of flesh was next in line for abuse.

“
Helen, we don’t know that
these cases are related.”

“
Dev, as much as I hate
Tony Briscoe right now, he made a valid point.  And who the
hell refers to someone as their
owner
?  I’d bet my life savings
that Crevan hasn’t gotten a coherent word out of Florence
Payette.”

“
Try to call him
again.”

“
If he didn’t answer the
first three times, what makes you think he’ll pick up if I call him
again?”

“
Maybe he’s reached the
same conclusion you did by now.”

“
No,” I said.  “He
won’t give up that easily.”

“
You
won’t give up that easily.  Crevan knows when he’s
beating his head against a wall.  Plus, he’s gotta know that
this woman is probably going to be more likely to open up to a
woman than a man.  Hate to break it to you, cupcake, but women
aren’t as threatening as men.”

“
Don’t call me
cupcake.  And did you miss my little non-threatening outburst
at the bay?  I bet Briscoe would give you a different opinion
right about now.”

“
Well, I’ve never thought
you were an average girl.  I still think you’ll have a better
shot at getting information out of Payette than the rest of
us.”

“
I doubt it.  Are you
familiar with Stockholm Syndrome?”

“
In a very vague
sense.  Isn’t that where victims begin to identify with their
captors to the point of cooperation?”

“
It’s a little more
complex than that.  Say I kidnap you.  And every day, I
come into the dungeon where I’ve got you chained to a wall without
even the most basic of creature comforts.  I repeatedly tell
you that today, I might kill you.”

“
After what I just saw, I
think I can almost picture that scenario,” he grinned.

“
Knock it off.  I’m
serious.  So I’m constantly threatening to kill you. 
Maybe I even smack you around a little bit.  But I always end
the interaction with some act of mercy.  Say I give you food
and water.  I don’t speak kindly.  But my actions are a
stark contrast to the threat of death and physical
abuse.”

“
I think I’d be wondering
if the food and water were poisoned.”

“
You think like a
cop.  A normal human being is going to latch onto that
unspoken kindness.  It creates a situation where the captive
is willing to do just about anything to please the captor. 
The survival instinct kicks in.  They start convincing
themselves that maybe this horrible person isn’t so
terrible.”

“
And all victims of
kidnapping experience this?”

“
No,” I said.  “But
imagine a lifetime of systematic abuse like that, threats followed
by kindness.  It bonds the captive to the captor in ways that
are often impossible to work through.  If Florence Payette is
in her mid to late fifties and still identifies herself as the
property of another human being, it doesn’t bode well for even the
most gifted psychologist to break through that bond.”

“
So you’re saying this is
a dead end.”

“
No, but I don’t expect
her to open up and suddenly cooperate.  If we’re going to get
anything out of her, we’re going to have to take the approach that
she’s going to help her tormentor.  If she thinks she’s doing
the right thing for this person, we might glean a clue that helps
us find out who she stole that baby for.”

When we arrived at OSI, Crevan met us with
tufts of hair standing on end.  He shook his head. 
“She’s not talking.”

I shot Devlin a knowing glance.  “How
long did you try?”

“
Fifteen minutes of dead
silence other than the sobbing was enough.  I don’t know how
you’re gonna get past her defenses, Helen.  I sure couldn’t do
it.”

We discussed her comment to the arresting
state police officers.

“
They’re sure she said
her
owner
?”

“
Yeah, Dev.  But how
the hell did you guys hear about it?”

“
Briscoe,” I
muttered.  “We should probably expect him to pop out from
behind a filing cabinet any minute now.”

Crevan stared at the floor.  “Did he
want to talk to me about the case?”

“
Smug bastard,” I
muttered.

Devlin intervened with the facts. “He heard
you talking to Chris before you came out here.  I assume he
was on his way to the victim they found by the bay tonight. 
He’s treading on thin ice right now with a lot of people. 
Best to keep focused on the case.”

One of Johnny’s men stepped into the
conference room adjacent to Johnny’s office.  “Ms.
Eriksson?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Phone call for you on
line three.  It’s Commander Orion.”

“
Why is he calling me here
instead of my cell?”  I reached for the phone on the table and
depressed the blinking button.  “Johnny?”

“
Helen, what the hell are
you doing?”

I groaned.  “He called you, didn’t
he?  That whining little troublemaker couldn’t call you fast
enough.”

“
Did you try to kill
him?”

“
No!”

“
Helen, he says there were
half a dozen witnesses, that you almost choked him to
death.”

“
Do you want to hear my
side of this or not?”

“
If it includes any type
of justification for assaulting a police detective, one who happens
to be a very old friend –”

“
I’m not saying another
word.  If you want me arrested, I’ve got two of your men
standing right here, Johnny.  If you want to hear how your
good pal accused me of not caring about a dead child because she
wasn’t white with blonde hair and blue eyes, you know where to find
me.  Until then, I don’t think I want to see you or talk to
you!”  I slammed the receiver down into its cradle.

“
You wanna arrest me
Devlin?  Or do you need to wait until he makes it an official
order?”

“
Uh… I’d like to talk
about how we’re gonna approach this problem with getting Florence
Payette to talk,” he said.  “Any suggestions,
Crevan?”