"Oh-h-h," she draws out. "Tenderly. Like a woman."
She plays with the idea that maybe a woman was involved. A woman who assisted in getting the kids and dumping them, then felt bad and at least left their little bodies neatly arranged. The perp would have wanted them well hidden but the woman would have wanted them found quickly. She could commiserate with the parents, wanting them to find their children quickly and in decent condition. By concealing them in the lot, they buy time, but not too much.
And Ladeenia appeared to have been raped in a kitchen, or someplace where food was served. During the autopsy the ME had collected dozens of bread crumbs and salt and sugar grains from Ladeenia's skin and from under her nails. A stain on her wrist skin turned out to be coffee mixed with sugar and creamer. Noah had noted that both parents drank their coffee black.
Frank imagines the couple taking the kids into or through the kitchen, maybe to get the duct tape, and the woman getting nervous or balking. The perp's excited. He wants to maintain control of the situation so he doesn't even give the woman a chance to protest. He rapes Ladeenia right there and then. Maybe she reaches out to hang onto something and hits the stove. Burns her thumb.
Two perps explain the crime's inconsistencies. It makes it easier to see how the kids could disappear off the sidewalk at three in the afternoon. She's pretty sure the perp is black. He likes a certain degree of regularity, control in his life. She speculates that a guy like that would want to date within his race and stick to what he knows.
"So a black couple."
The theory elicits the welcome tingle of a good lead, and Frank follows it.
"Maybe they're involved with the community."
Church-goers. The type you'd never suspect, otherwise they'd have been the first for people to point fingers at. She still thinks they're local. They have a house or apartment close to where the kids were taken. Or maybe a restaurant. That would explain the food particles, but she can't think of any food joints along the abduction route. Somehow, the couple is in the vicinity when the kids are. Their presence wouldn't be suspicious. They belonged there. No one would notice them. The woman may even have known the kids. If the man did, he didn't seem to care. And he's clearly in charge.
"A manly man."
Frank nods. It jibes with the power-assertive classification. A guy like that would have a very feminine woman. He'd tell her what to do, how to do it and when. She might have wanted children but he wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't want to share her. His woman would be petite, attractive and subservient. Well-groomed and well-dressed. Her femininity would make him look even more masculine. He'd have a macho ride, something souped up and tricked out, a late-model muscle car. Image is a big deal to this guy.
"But such a big deal," she argues with herself, "that he probably wouldn't bother attacking children."
It would make him look small. He would probably prey on well-developed older girls or young women. Unless he's got that stressor going on. Has a fight with the little woman. Sees the kids and is in a good position to take them. Wants to do something to feel good about himself, reassert his power and authority, his manliness. Ladeenia's little, but what a coup snatching two kids would be. That'd show everyone what a stud he was.
Frank tips her chair again, pleased as a kid with a new toy. A good profiler needs to be flexible. Frank learned that during her sabbatical at Quantico. Getting fixed on a single track usually derails a profiling effort. Rigidity makes it impossible to tweak and rearrange data. Frank's been profiling a single perp. Now she has to switch tracks and look for a couple. She drums the chair's arm with the pencil.
"No problema," she tells the ceiling. The case is six years old and Frank has nothing but time. Amused at her folly, she smiles. Of course there is no one to see it.
Chapter 14
Gail has to run downtown and she calls Frank to meet her for lunch.
Frank lies, "I'm kind of tied up, but thanks for asking."
"Okay. I'll see you tonight then. Want me to get dinner?"
"Actually, I'm going to have dinner with Trace and the kids."
"Oh."
Gail's disappointment is obvious in that one, small word. For the merest second, Frank feels like a real shit. Then she feels nothing.
"Well, I guess I'll see you when you get here."
"Yeah. Don't wait up. I'll slip in next to you."
Frank is glad to hang up. Gail's voice used to be enough to soothe the cold, dark places inside of Frank, but lately not even Gail's touch can penetrate those lonely hollows. She saw a stone quarry once, in upstate New York. It was winter. She was on a school field trip. The quarry was fenced off and abandoned. Steep, gray pits had been left to fill with snow. Dark pines brooded above the holes. The bloodless sky matched the cold rock. Her classmates went quiet, hushed by the stillness of wind on stone. Frank wonders if a surgeon were to cut her open, would he find just rock and snow?
Irritated, Frank shakes away the image. She has things to do before dinner. When she arrives at Noah's, Tracey is overjoyed.
Frank says, "You've lost weight, mama."
"Yeah. One of the advantages of grief," Tracey replies, not without rancor. Frank plays Munch's Oddysee with the younger kids while Tracey puts dinner out. When she goes upstairs to get Leslie, she returns without her.
"Not eating?" Frank asks. Tracey shakes her head with a helplessness that breaks Frank's heart. She wrestles with her cowardice before asking, "Can I go talk to her?"
"What are you gonna say?"
Markie sits at the table playing with army men and Jamie meticulously lays out napkins.
"That I know how it feels."
Memory surfaces in Tracey's eyes. She nods and Frank slips up the stairs.
"Yeah?" Leslie says to the knock on her door.
"Hey. Not hungry?"
Leslie wags her head and Frank balances next to her on the edge of the bed. Noah's oldest daughter is all giraffe legs and stick arms, skinny like her dad. She'll bust hearts someday and Frank hates that Noah won't be there to fret over her first date or give his daughter away when she marries. She hates this whole fucked-up situation and cuts straight to the point.
"You miss your dad pretty bad?" Leslie shrugs. She doesn't look up from the book in her lap, so Frank admits, "I do. He was my best friend."
The admission gets her nowhere. But for Noah's sake Frank tries another tack. She pulls in a deep, silent breath, sounding before she dives into the benthic mess of emotion.
"I know how you feel, Les. When I was about your age, maybe a little younger, more like Jamie's age, my dad died, too. It was real quick. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. I felt like the whole world had ended. I thought I was gonna die too. I wanted to."
Leslie's hair hangs over her face. Frank tucks a curtain of it behind a rather large ear. Les is a beauty but she got her daddy's ears. This vestige of Noah is sharp and wickedly painful, but Frank pushes through her discomfort. She will see this through, for Leslie and for Noah.
"You ever feel like that?"
The head bobs.
"Yeah. You will for a while. It feels bad for a long time. But then one day, and you don't know which day it'll be, you'll wake up and you'll forget to feel bad. You'll remember later in the day, and you'll feel bad, but then it'll go away again. The hurt gets softer and softer."
Leslie offers no indication she's heard.
Frank asks, "Remember when you broke your ankle, how bad it hurt?"
"Yeah."
"Does it hurt today?"
"No."
"But it hurt for a while after you broke it, didn't it?"
"Yeah."
"That's what this is like. I know it sucks big-time, but I promise it'll get better someday."