"You believe Pam was abducted from here, Detective? You think something happened to her before she left?"
"I'm thinking nothing good, pal," Mike called over his shoulder.
Then he put his head down and one hand on top of it to hold his thick black hair out of his eyes. "Don't know if she's here or in the deep blue yonder or in a better place. But we've got a maniac on the loose- or two."
He turned to Mercer and me. "We're looking for a serial rapist who likes to torture his victims and thinks he's safer by killing them. And a despondent Dylan-or his old man-who probably used this park as a playground."
I could see Dickie Draper through the open side of the former offi cers' club. His weight served him well today. He was anchored upright to the ground despite the wind, while the rest of us were fighting it head-on.
Before I could reach the covered building, there was a huge clap of thunder and a streak of lightning off in the distance. The cloud overhead burst and the rain poured down in torrents. I dashed the rest of the way for cover.
In the far corner of the windowless room, a thin young woman sat alone on a bench, wrapped in a trenchcoat. A policewoman wearing a Suffolk County uniform stood behind her.
"You and me will have to share this one," Draper said. "No need to bring in someone from the Queens DA's office till we know what we got."
"I'd be happy for help, Dickie. But we might as well get right on it."
Mike turned to Ranger Barrett as I approached the girl. "Nobody stops. I don't care if they're soaked to the bone. The search goes on until your men find every underground bunker and whatever else is hiding in the sand. I want this girl alive."
Mercer was on the phone to Peterson to demand more backup. "I'm Alex Cooper," I said. "I'm with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office."
"This here's Lydia," Draper said.
I sat opposite her, on another old bench with wobbly legs. She kept looking at Draper as though he had a second head, less than charmed by his manner.
"She's been telling me about Pam. She says that-"
"I think it's better if we back up a bit." I wanted this information from Lydia, not filtered through Draper in the retelling.
Lydia's eyes darted back and forth between the two of us. "Do you understand what this is all about?"
"I'm beginning to, I think."
"There's no detail too insignificant for what the detectives need to do. Every word, every description, every fact you know about Pam might be useful," I said. I needed the most critical information first, but I also needed to know something about Pam-her judgment, her strengths, and her vulnerability.
"I don't know her well," Lydia said. "She's a student at Stony Brook. She had an ad on MySpace for an apartment rental for the summer. I- um-I answered the ad. I had to make up some classes at summer school."
The two had gotten along well as casual acquaintances but were not close friends. Pam was a serious student, majoring in history, who loved her internship with the Park Service because it combined her interest in American history with her desire to spend time outdoors. "Tell me about this weekend. About Sunday," I said. "Did you see Pam?"
"No. No, I didn't. She had to be at the park-I mean here-by eight o'clock. I had dinner with her on Saturday. But then I went out for a while, so I slept in on Sunday morning."
Lydia's long brown hair hung on her shoulders. Her hands were in the pockets of her coat. Every time a roll of thunder sounded in the distance, she seemed to get more agitated.
"Did you speak to her after that?"
"Yeah, yeah, I told Mr. Draper that I did."
"How many times?"
"Twice. Twice more."
"When?"
"I guess the first time was around noon. She was supposed to turn in a bunch of things that the NPS had given her to use during the summer, for orientation. Pamphlets and stuff. She also had to return her ID and her uniforms," Lydia said. "But she accidentally left her backpack somewhere, so she called to ask me if it was in the kitchen, 'cause if not she was afraid she had lost it on the bus."
"How long was the conversation?"
"Like a minute or two. I went to look around the apartment, and the backpack was still on the floor, near the front door. Pam told me she was relieved-she could always turn the stuff in on Monday. She asked if I wanted to go out for dinner, you know, to celebrate the end of her job. I told her I had to study for a final exam on Monday morning and I wasn't in the mood to celebrate. That I'd let her know if I changed my mind."
"Did she say anything else in that first phone call? Anything about who she was with or what she was doing?"
Lydia shrugged. "No."
"The second call, did you make that one or did she?"
"It was Pam who called me again."
"What time? Why?"
Lydia looked past me at the roiling surf. "I'm not sure. Maybe two thirty. Maybe three. I was curled up in my bedroom with the door closed," she said plaintively, trying to explain what now seemed like indifference to Pam's situation. "I was cramming for a chemistry test. I resented every interruption, every phone call."
"Why did Pam call?"
"I don't know that either." Lydia's fingers were nervously scratching the inside pockets of her trenchcoat.
"What did she say, exactly?"
"She was all hyper, like excited. Sort of talking fast. Some of it making no sense."
"About what?"
"The first thing she asked me was what time did she have to be home for dinner. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about, that I'd already told her I couldn't go out with her. But she repeated something about our dinner date-looking forward to it and all. Then she said for sure she'd be home by eight."
"Do you know what Pam meant?" I asked.
"I thought she was showing off for someone, pretending she had a date. That's why I was kind of annoyed with her. I asked her what was going on, and that's when she told me she was with a guy."
"What guy? Did she tell you anything about him?"
The men had formed a semicircle behind me. Lydia looked around at their faces and hunched her shoulders as the thunder boomed again.
"You're all staring at me like I'm supposed to solve this for you," she said. "I barely know the girl, and I have no idea who she was talking to. I didn't know anything about a serial killer when she was on the phone."
Lydia removed her hands from her pocket. I took them between mine, clasped them together, and tried to keep her engaged and cooperative.
"We understand you had no reason to connect any of this to Pam.
Please keep talking, Lydia. Please tell us everything she said to you.
What did she tell you about the guy?"
"Weird. I even asked her, 'What guy?' Twice she said to me, 'You know, the one who comes to the fort every week.' "
"That's great, Lydia. Pam had talked to you about this young man before Sunday."
"That's what's so odd, Miss Cooper. She had never mentioned him to me. Pam talked about her job, about the other interns. She loved anything that had to do with history. But she didn't have a single date these two months, much less say anything about a guy she met at work."
"You're certain? You just didn't miss something while you were studying?"
"Pam never talked about a guy. Not once the entire summer.
I mean, she was hoping to meet someone interesting, but it didn't happen."
Either Lydia had been too deeply immersed in her periodic table of elements to listen to the earlier references or Pam was trying to make a point during that second phone call.
"What did she say?"
"I told you. She was with somebody, like I was supposed to know about who she meant," Lydia said. "Only I didn't."
"What were her words, her exact words?"
Lydia took her hands from mine and tucked her feet under the bench. She seemed to be trying to think.
I pushed her. "The words Pam used, tell me those."
" 'I haven't forgotten about dinner. I'll for sure be home by eight.' That's how she started. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about. Then she said. 'You know that guy I told you about? The one who comes here every week? Knows all these hidden places in the old fort?' 'What the hell are you talking about?' I asked. Then it was something about history. That he wanted to show her something historical.