Opening Moves (6 page)

She was not dead.

No, she was not.

And then I’m awake, my blankets wound around my legs, a tight, tangled cocoon.

A terrible, terrible cocoon.

Sickly light seeps through the curtains. Reluctant sunlight from a day that does not want to be born.

I wrestle free of the blankets and stand, my breathing harsh and heavy.

Somehow, I can still smell the pine trees of the forest, still hear the terrible lullaby:
“Daddy’s gonna buy you a looking glass.”

No, I hadn’t dreamt of Colleen Hayes, hadn’t dreamt of the terrible things that might have happened to her, that might have evoked the scream I heard on the phone. Instead, I’d dreamt of Jenna Natara, a seven-year-old girl who disappeared three years ago—one of the first homicide cases I worked as a detective. When she was found, forensics verified that she’d been buried alive in that sleeping bag after she’d been raped.

The lyrics to that lullaby, from a ripped-out page of a nursery rhyme book, were found tucked beneath Jenna’s pillow the night she was taken, after her parents discovered that she was missing. They’d been asleep in the room at the end of the hall when she was abducted.

We never caught Jenna’s killer, but the semen found on her underwear led me to tie that homicide to the abduction and murder of another girl, one in my hometown of Horicon, when I was a teenager. I was the one who’d found Mindy Wells’s body in the old tree house near the edge of the marsh just outside of town.

Suspects had surfaced and been cleared, nothing solid. No answers.

Those kinds of cases never go away.

Not when they involve children.

It sounds cliché, but the images do haunt you. Never let you go.

Not even in your dreams.

DAY 2

Monday, November 17

The Train Yard

7

At 6:58 a.m. I was doing pull-ups when I got the call.

A dockworker had found Colleen Hayes, unconscious, by a shipping container on one of Milwaukee’s piers jutting into Lake Michigan. Her hands had been cut off, heavy-duty plastic ties cinched tightly around her wrists to stop her from bleeding to death.

When I heard the news, I felt ready to crush the phone with my hand. As thankful as I was that Colleen was alive, I was also enraged that this had happened and I told myself that, unlike what had happened to me with the unsolved cases of Jenna Natara and Mindy Wells, I was not going to be haunted by the thought that the man who’d done this had gotten away. I have enough images for my nightmares, and so does the rest of the world—enough victims too.

As I hung up, I wondered if it was a good sign or a bad one that Colleen’s abductor had not carried out his threat to take her life. It might mean that he didn’t have the stomach for murder. Or it might mean that he enjoyed watching people suffer more than he enjoyed watching them die.

Evil.

Man’s inhumanity to man.

I wish I could claim that I’ve never understood how people could do the unspeakable things that I see in my cases, but there’s a part of me that does understand. I think everyone who’s honest about his own base, primal instincts has to, at least to some degree, see mirrored images of his own desires in the brutality of others.

It seems to be there, inside of us, from an early age. We don’t need to be taught to lie, or to be selfish or cruel or vindictive—we need to be taught how not to. And given the right circumstances, those impulses might rise, might blossom into something dark and uncontrollable.

One time, Taci asked me why I did what I did, why I’d chosen to be a homicide detective. At the time I didn’t think she was being completely serious, and I’d said lightly, “To catch the bad guys.”

“No, I’m not joking around, Pat.” Though her tone wasn’t sharp, I could tell she really was being serious. “There’s more. I know there is.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, words came to me. Perhaps I’d heard them in a movie, or maybe they escaped from a private, reflective place I wasn’t even aware of before that moment, but they came, and they surprised me when they did: “To keep the demons at bay.”

“What demons?”

I’d gone to church as a child—my parents had taken me—but I’m not very religious. Still, the word “demons” was the one that’d come to mind. I had to think about what exactly I’d meant. “Um…I’m not sure. I just feel it sometimes—the darkness tugging at me. When the things you despise the most about human nature call to you, whisper for you to take a step closer to them. You know what I mean?”

She regarded me quietly. I saw love in her eyes, but also concern. “What things whisper to you, Pat?”

“Dark things.” I tried to say it in a tone that told her I preferred to be done with this topic.

But either she didn’t catch that, or she wasn’t ready to let the subject drop, because she said again, “What things, Pat?”

The things that lead us over the edge.

“The things I see in my cases.”

Even though I was closer to her emotionally than I’d ever been to anyone in my life, in that moment that was all I felt comfortable telling her. Her silence indicated to me that it might not have been enough. Or maybe it was too much.

The topic hadn’t come up again, but I sensed that the ghost of what I’d said was still there, had somehow crept between us, settled in, found a home, and wasn’t about to leave any time soon.

Colleen Hayes might have gotten a good look at her attacker, might be able to identify him, so before going to MPD headquarters for the nine o’clock briefing, the first order of business was paying her a visit at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center.

I left a message for Taci that I’d be at the hospital, asked if she could meet up with me for a minute or two while I was there, then hopped into my car and took off.

Thinking about Taci.

About evil.

About keeping the demons at bay.

8

The Milwaukee Regional Medical Center lies situated on a sprawling campus now littered with autumn leaves. Only a few of the trees still clung to their leaves, but those had turned brown in the dreary fall and only served to help give the campus a tired, weary feel. It was the biggest academic health-care center in the state, with six different care facilities all on the same campus. I knew it well. I’d been here on a lot of my cases, as well as to see Taci.

Four things concerning the abduction and mutilation of Colleen Hayes were on my mind:

(1) I was profoundly thankful she was alive.

(2) Her kidnapper’s choice of the location in the alley showed that he (or they, if there was more than one) had some interest in or connection with Jeffrey Dahmer.

(3) It was impossible at this point to discern her attacker’s original intent, whether that was to kill or to maim—or possibly even to let Colleen go free.

(4) Based on the grisly and flagrant nature of the crime, I could hardly believe that this was the kidnapper’s first offense. The stark brutality of his mutilation of Colleen might actually help us narrow down the suspect pool, might actually help us find him.

Radar was waiting for me when I arrived at the hospital, and he met me at the front door. After asking me about my jaw and my wrenched finger, and after I assured him, honestly, that they were feeling remarkably better, he said, “It’s gonna be a cold one today.” His eyes were on the spreading slabs of gray clouds blanketing the sky.

“Yeah.”

“I wish it would just snow and be done with it.”

Wisconsin winters are long enough for me as it is. Besides, I’d been hoping to squeeze in a few more weekends of rock climbing at Devil’s Lake State Park over near Baraboo before the snow and ice settled in for the next four months. But I didn’t really want to talk to Radar about the weather. The attack on Colleen and the dark residue of my dreams were weighing too heavily on my mind.

“How is she?” I asked.

“Doing pretty well. Considering.” He paused. “At least physically.”

We passed through the doors. “Has she said anything?”

“Not yet, no. You should know Captain Domyslawski contacted the FBI last night after the abduction. There are a couple agents from the NCAVC coming over this morning.”

Oh, great.

The FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime was the division of the Bureau dedicated to providing investigative support for tracking and capturing the country’s most violent offenders. I hadn’t worked with the Feds before, but I’d heard horror stories about doing so, and that didn’t give me a whole lot of confidence on how all this might play out. I trusted the officers I worked with here on the force, but consulting with a couple of desk jockeys from Quantico didn’t exactly thrill me.

Radar was on the same wavelength. “Let’s hope they don’t get in the way,” he said.

“You read my mind.”

There wasn’t a gentle way to frame the next question, but it had to be brought up and direct is usually best. “Do we know if Colleen was sexually assaulted?”

“The docs who helped her last night didn’t find any evidence that she had been. So at least there’s that to be thankful for.”

“Yes,” I said. “At least there’s that.”

We found Colleen Hayes’s room, showed our IDs to Thompson, the officer in our department who was stationed as a sentry outside it, knocked and, at her invitation, stepped inside. She’d been mute since she was found, so hearing her voice surprised me, but when we entered, I realized it wasn’t Colleen who’d called us in after all, but rather the stout nurse who stood beside the bed, checking the IV.

The nurse seemed taken aback when she saw us; perhaps she’d been expecting a doctor on rounds or maybe another nurse. She didn’t hide her scowl when we showed her our badges, but she held back from making any sort of a scene, perhaps just to keep from upsetting her patient.

Colleen lay on the bed, her legs beneath a blanket, her arms also tucked beneath it, no doubt to hide the stumps where her hands used to be. She was conscious and was staring away from us at the shrouded window on the south side of the room. With the curtains drawn, there was no view, but I had the feeling she wouldn’t have really been seeing it if there was.

Once again I was struck by the horrifying nature of this crime. Without prosthetics she would never again comb her hair, type on a keyboard, flip the page of a book, slip a key into a lock—the little things we all take for granted.

And the big ones.

Like feeding herself. Or caressing her fingers across her lover’s cheek.

Radar and I introduced ourselves and took a seat beside her bed.

9

The nurse finished her duties and exited, leaving Radar and me alone with Colleen Hayes.

To me, hospitals don’t just smell sickly clean, they also seem to be permeated with the stench of death from those who’ve died inside them. And—

Man, there was just too much death on my mind today. With the weight of my job and my troubling dreams, the morning already felt heavy, too heavy. I needed to find a way to lighten things up.

But, unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen at the moment.

“First of all, Ms. Hayes…” I saw a rosary on her bedside table and was hit with the tragic truth that she would never be able to work her way through the beads again. “I’m very sorry you were attacked. I promise that we’re going to do everything we can to catch the man who did this and we’re going to put him away.”

She was quiet.

“I want you to know that Vincent is alright. He’s in—”

“What,” she said abruptly, “did he make Vinnie do?” The fact that she was already speaking to us took me aback. Her words were tight with concern, but also sharp with anger: “The guy who sawed off my hands.” She paused. “The doctors told me Vinnie is okay, but that he couldn’t come to visit me because he’s in jail. What did that man make my husband do?”

It was her right to know what Vincent had done and I summarized what’d happened last night concerning Lionel. I didn’t mention Vincent’s flight through the neighborhood or the fact that he’d physically assaulted me when I was apprehending him, but Colleen stared at the bruise on my jaw and I imagined she was able to put two and two together. I slid my left hand over my right to hide the swollen, discolored finger.

“So my husband is in jail.” It didn’t sound like a question.

“I understand you must be—”

“You understand what? Exactly?” She glared at me, then pulled her arms out from under the blankets and held them up in front of me. Where her hands used to be were nothing but thick bandages. That was all. “What is it you understand?”

I felt so underqualified to be here. She needed a minister or a psychiatrist rather than a detective. “I’m sorry,” I told her truthfully. “You’re right. I don’t understand. I couldn’t possibly.”

“And this man…” She fumbled to stick her arms under the blanket again. Radar was closer to her than I was and he quietly helped pull the blanket back for her. She finally got her arms beneath it. “… Lionel, he’s alright?”

“He is,” Radar answered. “He’s already back home and it doesn’t look like he’s going to press charges.”

She said nothing, looked toward the window again.

I waited a few moments to let her sort things through, then pulled out my notebook and said softly, “Mrs. Hayes, can you tell us anything about the man who hurt you?”

She took a deep breath but didn’t answer. I noticed the tear in her eye and felt even less qualified than before to be here. Thankfully, Radar put one hand on her shoulder, and with the other, he wiped away her tear. He was a married man, had a daughter and a son; I was neither a father nor a husband. He knew a lot more than I did about how to comfort hurting people and I was glad he was here.

Neither of us told her things would be okay; rather, both of us were silent and that seemed to be the better choice at the moment. She began to instinctively reach for her face to dry her tears, but stopped just short of removing her arm from beneath the blanket. I found some tissues, handed them to Radar, and he gently pressed away her tears.