Finishing School (19 page)

A call from JJ came in not long after they left Detective Henry's. Prentiss took it, then passed the message along to Rossi. A little blonde girl had been abducted from a town east of Bemidji and, Garcia said, Hotchner was afraid the whole cycle of kidnapping and murder might be starting again.

Prentiss asked, ‘‘Should we be back up there?''

‘‘Our job is here,'' Rossi had said, matter-of-factly.

‘‘The UnSub did his abductions on the road. He may have already left Bemidji.''

Rossi nodded. ‘‘That's why we need to stay here. The more we find about the UnSub's past, the easier it'll be to predict his future.''

‘‘That makes sense,'' she admitted.

About Rossi's height and build, Sheriff Roger Okrent—an African-American in a black cowboy hat with the tan uniform of Wayne County—had short black hair, a black mustache, and brown eyes bright with intelligence. He was eager to help his FBI visitors.

Orkent led them to the spot in the woods—despite the lack of snow, a fair amount of green, and Georgia pines (not white-barked aspens), these cathedral-like, silently peaceful woods still much reminded Rossi of the Minnesota forest. But looking around the ground near where the girl had been found ten years ago, Rossi knew he might be standing near a hellish discovery.

Darkness settled into the Georgia woods before they could get the ground-penetrating radar down from Atlanta. That didn't stop Rossi. He found a company to rent them work lights and they illuminated the area like daylight.

The crime lab crew had worked the scene for four hours, midnight approaching, and Rossi was starting to wonder if he'd miscalculated. Prentiss wedged herself into the back of the SUV for a nap while Carlyle dozed in the driver's seat. Rossi stayed awake the whole time. He was thinking they would do one more grid, then call it a night.

‘‘Hey!'' the radar operator yelled. ‘‘I think we found something!''

Three hours of careful excavation later, the crime lab crew had opened two graves containing two plastic-wrapped skeletons that Rossi figured for teenage girls. They both wore dresses and both had wisps of blonde hair remaining.

Sheriff Okrent asked, ‘‘How the hell did you know they would be here?''

Rossi shook his head. ‘‘You have no idea how much I wish I'd been wrong. Tell me, who owns this forest?''

‘‘Clenteen Industries,'' Okrent said. ‘‘Biggest lumber company in the area. Their office is in Brunswick.''

‘‘How far is that?''

‘‘About thirty miles.''

‘‘We're going to need a motel in Brunswick,'' Rossi said. ‘‘The UnSub who killed these girls, and the three in Minnesota, worked there.''

Bemidji, Minnesota

D
erek Morgan had barely slept.

The trip to Hibbing had been both helpful and frustrating. Morgan and Garue had made the 105-mile drive in just over sixty minutes, Garue running the siren and pushing the gas pedal the whole way. They went directly to the police department on Twelfth Avenue E, were invited to join the investigation by Chief Nicole Barbaro, and then met with Detective Ian Hauser, a laconic, ruddy-faced, sad-eyed man who brought to mind a red-haired Abraham Lincoln.

Hauser filled them in on the information he had so far, which was scant. Even though the UnSub would have to have touched the SUV, the crime scene team had been unable to lift a single usable print that didn't belong to the Scheckel family. The only other hope was the store's security video.

After the catch-up meeting, Hauser joined Morgan and Garue for a ride to interview the missing child's parents, Thomas and Lisa Scheckel, at their log-cabin-style home on Lake Carey Road.

Mrs. Scheckel, Lisa—a blonde of twenty-five with even bangs, shoulder-length hair, and high, porcelain cheeks—wore an untucked pink button-down blouse with a wide belt at her jeans. Husband Thomas was a bearded bear of a man with brown hair as long as his wife's; his brown eyes burned in turns between rage and terror.

They sat in a living room whose log walls were home to leather furniture and a wall-mounted flat-screen TV above a glass shelving unit of electronic devices, with what were apparently mounted wireless surround-sound speakers. The Scheckels shared a sofa while Garue and Morgan sat in well-padded leather chairs at ninety-degree angles to the sofa. Detective Hauser stood at Garue's left shoulder.

After the introductions and Lisa's retelling the story of their daughter Sophie's disappearance, Morgan worked to get more details.

‘‘Mr. Scheckel, what do you do for a living?''

‘‘I'm an architect.''

‘‘For?''

Scheckel shook his head. ‘‘I guess you'd say I'm self-employed.''

‘‘Interesting work, architecture. Isn't this a pre-fab?''

‘‘Yes. Which I designed for the company I co-own.''

‘‘Any trouble at work?'' The profiler sat forward a little now.

‘‘No. Not that I know of. My partners all seem happy.''

‘‘Clients?''

‘‘I don't have anything to do with the clients who order our fabricated homes. And I haven't taken a private client on since we started the company.''

Morgan gave the missing girl's mother a serious, supportive smile. ‘‘And, Mrs. Scheckel, do you work outside the home?''

She shrugged. ‘‘Just part-time at an independent bookstore.''

‘‘No trouble with relatives or friends?''

‘‘This,'' Scheckel said tightly, ‘‘was a
stranger
—no one in our lives would do a thing like this.''

Morgan kept his voice even. ‘‘We're just covering all the possibilities, sir. Mrs. Scheckel, have you noticed anyone suspicious hanging around your bookstore—following you, maybe?''

She frowned at that, thought for a moment, then shook her head.

Morgan turned to the husband. ‘‘Anything strange on your end, sir? Had the sense you were being followed in your car, maybe? A new face that's turned up where you take lunch, perhaps?''

‘‘No. Everything in our life was just fine . . . until yesterday morning.''

Morgan returned his attention to the mother. ‘‘Do you stop at that convenience store every day?''

‘‘More like once or twice a week. Once a week anyway, for gas. They're the cheapest around here. Then, maybe once or twice more for a latte.''

‘‘Before or after you drop your daughter off?''

‘‘Usually, when it's just coffee? After. But my gas tank was in the red and I noticed the pumps were free, so I pulled in. Really just a spur-of-the-moment decision.''

‘‘So, do you stop for lattes the same days each week?''

‘‘No. I don't think so anyway.''

‘‘Do you always take the same route to the day care?''

Mrs. Scheckel nodded. ‘‘Yes. There's really only one easy route, efficient route. Why?''

‘‘I'm trying to establish if you have patterns someone watching you, over time, might ascertain. The individual we're tracking targets young girls who are of a type your daughter fits. That makes it less likely that an individual would have abducted your daughter on impulse.''

Scheckel squeezed his wife's hand. ‘‘How much danger is Sophie in?''

‘‘We do not believe she is in any immediate danger.''

‘‘Is this . . . is this a sexual predator?''

‘‘Based upon the information we have, no. We believe this Unknown Subject takes children to essentially
adopt
and raise them.''

Morgan did not add that, after a certain number of years, the girls would turn up murdered and buried in the woods.

Though he talked to the parents for another thirty minutes, Morgan learned nothing else new. That had been the frustrating part of the trip. The helpful part had been being able to send all the convenience store security video to Garcia. At least that held the possibility of a break.

Nothing else seemed to be working. The AMBER Alert that went out within thirty minutes of little Sophie's abduction had turned nothing up except that the usual cranks saw missing children the way other crazies saw UFOs.

Morgan already knew they were dealing with a ghost. Assuming this was their UnSub, he had kidnapped at least seven girls over the last twenty years, and not left so much as a fingerprint.

At the convenience store, Morgan studied the building, the parking lot, the gas pumps, everything about the place. Though the crime had gone down over four hours ago, the CSI van was still in the parking lot and traffic was crawling by as gawkers took it all in. Hauser went off to chat with the crime scene supervisor while Garue stayed with Morgan.

If Mrs. Scheckel had made such a spur-of-the-moment decision, how could the UnSub know the mother would be at the convenience store? The UnSub
must
have been following her. From where? Her house? The Scheckels lived out in the sticks.

The UnSub would be taking a hell of a risk parking anywhere near the house. Had he waited on a side road for them to pass, or had he waited in town somewhere? If she took the same route every day, the UnSub could easily wait anywhere along the route without being conspicuous.

If he knew the route,
how
did he know? How long had he been stalking this family?

‘‘And why
this
family?'' Morgan said aloud.

‘‘What?'' Garue asked.

‘‘This family, the Scheckels. Why them?''

Garue shrugged. ‘‘Because they had a blonde, three-year-old daughter.''

‘‘Right—but how did he
know
that?''

Garue shrugged again.

‘‘Because,'' Morgan said, ‘‘he had seen her. Where?''

The detective just stared this time, realizing he was not really part of the conversation.

‘‘The day care,'' Morgan said. ‘‘That makes the most sense.''

‘‘What?'' Garue asked.

‘‘He staked out the day care. When he found the blonde child he liked, he followed when the mother picked her up.''

‘‘You sound sure of yourself.''

Morgan gave the detective a curt nod. ‘‘I am. He staked them out, starting at the day care.''

‘‘For how long?''

With half a wry grin, Morgan said, ‘‘I'm a profiler, not a mystic. Now, let's figure out how he got the girl.''

Morgan pointed out the cameras mounted on the roof, pointed toward the gas pumps—plain as the ass on a goat, like his old man used to say.

‘‘The UnSub would have seen the security cams too,'' Morgan said to Garue, ‘‘and known not to park here. Cameras inside the store would catch the parking places near the front . . . difficult to tell, without going inside, whether they might catch other spots or not.''

‘‘Would our guy risk going inside to check?''

‘‘Probably not. Going inside, he'd definitely get caught on camera, and this UnSub's just too careful for that.''

‘‘Grabbing a kid in broad daylight is careful?''

‘‘In this instance, yes. Tell Detective Hauser to gather the security vids for the week preceding the abduction, just in case.''

Garue went off and did that, and Morgan kept prowling the exterior of the store, thinking, thinking. . . .

If the UnSub didn't park on the property, where
had
he parked? For the UnSub to disappear so completely, so quickly, he couldn't have done this on foot, not on a street as busy as Twenty-fifth.

The UnSub had a vehicle.

A ghost vehicle, Morgan reminded himself. Something so bland and ‘‘normal'' it would go unnoticed.

The side street west of the convenience store was less congested with traffic, but far from deserted. On the corner opposite was a gas station, with pumps on this side. Probably security cameras aimed this way, too, Morgan thought—another possibility to pass on to Detective Hauser, though Morgan figured the UnSub would likely have considered the same possibility.

As Morgan watched the gas station, his view was suddenly obstructed by a city bus that pulled up next to the convenience store, brakes whining, black exhaust affronting Morgan's nostrils. A bus stop on the corner—yet another reason not to park there; too much chance of a witness.

Morgan turned and saw, down the block, beyond the convenience store, a restaurant—a steak joint called Romano's. Nodding to himself, Morgan headed in that direction, along Twenty-fifth. The four-lane road had plenty of traffic. Crossing it, especially with a squirming, scared child, would be impossible without someone seeing the UnSub.

The restaurant was the only place that made sense.

The back of the restaurant faced the east side of the convenience store. As Morgan rounded the north side of the dark-wood-paneled exterior, he studied the perimeter of the building for any sort of security cameras. To his displeasure, he found nothing.

As he made his way around to the east side, Morgan saw a parking lot big enough for fifty cars. Was there a set of tire tracks here, belonging to the UnSub, taking off quickly with his prize?

The double glass doors into the restaurant were locked, the interior dark. The hours, listed on the glass, were four p.m. to eleven, and midnight Friday /Saturday.

Morgan went around front where the sign tried for elegance, ROMANO'S in red script, and below that, FOR THE BEST IN FINE DINING. Detracting from these upscale notions was a message board stating SATURDAY—ALL THE PRIME RIB YOU CAN EAT $19.99. Again, no cameras or security devices.