2:00 AM The Embassy Suites, Roswell New Mexico
Sandra Fowler was third generation law enforcement. She was one of the new breed, that enforced the law through modern techniques and training. Although she had a .40 caliber service automatic, she’d never drawn it in the line of duty. She’d take it out a week or two before her quarterly qualification test, fire a few rounds to be sure she’d qualify, then put it away for another three months. Her main instrument for her work was her mind, and the understanding of the psychology of criminals that profilers come to know so well.
Her service automatic was also new age, a modern weapon with a 15 round magazine and the ability to knock a man down with a single round…even against light body armor. This was a far cry from the old 38 caliber revolvers that had been the stalwarts of her father’s time. Of course, iher service automatic was in the portable gun safe in her closet.
The little
five shot revolver under her pillow went farther back than even a .38 revolver. It fired a .32 S&W cartridge, an obsolete round with only a fifth the energy of her service .40 S&W. The little revolver was a notoriously unreliable manstopper, and no police department today would even issue it. But it had been her grandfather’s backup gun and he had given it to her when she’d graduated from the police academy, shortly before his death.
Sandra had fired the little gun only once….a decade ago..the ammo was rather hard to come by. The five rounds in it had come with the gun, the brass turning green in places over the decades, and the chrome of the gun itself starting to peel in spots. Sandra used it as a backup gun to a service automatic she never figured to use anyway.
Only here did the little gun truly have a purpose. Profilers spend a lot of time on the road, often to unpleasant places. In fact, the Embassy Suites in Roswell was a modern hotel, with good security, in an area of low crime. When Sandra had put the little gun under her pillow, it had been a matter of habit….a habit formed during her years of staying in hotels throughout the state …. because not all hotels were as safe as this one.
She had always been a light sleeper. The creak from the chair had awakened Sandra. The hotel was almost new, and the single fault she’d found with it was the desk chair…a chair that creaked with even her modest weight. But chairs didn’t creak by themselves, and Sandra’s hand moved slowly under her pillow as her ears heard the noise come a second time, her fear only slightly comforted by the little handgun she found there.
There was little light, just what came over the top of the curtains from the streetlights outside. She turned her eyes slowly…her head more slowly still…and at last she could see the chair. He was sitting quietly…unmoving, but he was staring at her. Sandra moved slowly, as if turning in her sleep, bringing the gun under the covers where they were tented up…aiming it at him through the bedclothes.
Sandra hoped he would just go away…take whatever he wanted and go. She didn’t want a confrontation…didn’t want to test the puny stopping power of the little revolver or the ancient ammunition. She would fight if she had to…to protect herself…to protect her service automatic…but if he kept his distance…if he just took her purse and left…then a phone call would bring the guys who dealt with this on a daily basis.
The voice was soft…but it still startled her…..
“I need to talk to you..”
“Max Evans..?”
She aimed the small revolver squarely at his center of mass…or as nearly as she could tell, without being able to use the sight. He reached slowly to the small desk lamp, and turned it on. Her fear grew when she saw his face.. he looked stressed…like he hadn’t slept…like he’d had far too much coffee, or too many drugs. In the shadows cast by the small desk lamp…the contrast of light and dark…he almost didn’t look human.
Sandra knew she’d locked the door…the windows…she always did. It was her routine. She looked at the telephone beside him…her cell phone even farther away….the fire alarm. She remembered when he’d attacked the sheriff…he’d moved with cat-like quickness. If he intended to do her harm…and why else would he be here…why else would he have broken into her room at two in the morning…he had every advantage…every advantage but the one little revolver he didn’t know about.
The boy had fooled her…she realized that as she saw him sitting there studying her. She’d been ready to believe him…ready to believe he had nothing to do with Liz Parker’s disappearance. All her experience as a profiler had told her that…but then..did innocent men break in to rooms at 2 AM? He was frightened…or excited. He was breathing heavily….hands shaking. Was this how it had been, just before he had attacked the girl?
“I need to talk to you,” he said again.
‘
Talk? At 2 AM he wanted to talk? He broke into my room…to talk? I don’t think so,’ she thought as she pointed the little revolver at him through the bedding…feeling her hand shake unsteadily from the fear. She didn’t see or smell the ether…but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there…or would he even bother with a copycat crime this time…did he even need that?
She could feel the sweat start to form in her palms…and tightened her grip on the small revolver. It was double-action…the pull on the trigger would draw the hammer backwards and like many older pistols, the pull got just slightly greater before the sear released….she was slowly squeezing already..trying to find that spot.
“I need your help, doctor. Liz needs your help..”
The thought went through her mind as she felt the trigger come toward the end of the sear…what her father had said to her when her grandfather had given her the gun. ‘
It’s an antique. It really doesn’t have much punch. Don’t ever depend on it to stop anyone.’ And that was true she knew….and Max Edwards was a strong young man…she’d seen that. Even wounded by the little .32 caliber he could likely finish off a middle aged lady who was, after all, mainly a psychologist. Her brain was probably a better weapon….she’d been studying psychology for decades, both normal and abnormal, and however abnormal this boys psychology was…he was still only human.
“You shouldn’t be here, Max. You should come to the office in the morning….I can help you then.”
“I can’t wait…I can’t sleep…knowing that she is dying there in that damned box….knowing what she’s going through. She’s been in there three days….she was always afraid of tight places….even when we played hide and seek in the third grade. She has matches…did you know that? Like that first girl in Iowa…..She’s thinking about using them…burning herself up..”
The boy was shaking…whether it was anger…fright….anticipation…she couldn’t tell. But she had to calm him down, because as he got worked up…he came closer to her…one hand already closed in a fist…the other seeming to appeal to her. And the rest of his body language told her much the same….he feared her…but he needed her….was that how it was with him and the girl?
“OK, Max. Just go back to the chair and sit down. We can talk…you say you want my help…that Liz needs my help? How can I help you, Max. How can I help Liz?”
But the boy didn’t go back..he stood there…took a step closer…and the brown eyes looked down at her….they seemed to beg her…appeal to her…
“I need the records from the first case…from Iowa….the secret is in there…..he hated her…hated that girl….that’s how it all got started…”
Was the boy irrational? He’d already been told that case was investigated. Lieutenant Humboldt himself had gone back there……the box had been different, the whole MO had been different….that girl had intentionally been burned to death before being buried….it was all in Humboldt's report.
Or was the boy just looking for an alibi? Maybe the Sheriff had rattled him…maybe he needed to blame it on whoever had done the Iowa crime…eight years ago. If people believed that Liz’s abduction was committed by someone who had done the same eighteen years ago…when Max was only eight…he’d be off the hook. But that really didn’t make that much sense….it didn’t have to be that one…if it had been five years ago…or even three…Max would have been too young to drive…too young to commit those crimes. He would still have an alibi…but yet he spoke of the girl as if he knew…knew for sure she had the matches.
Suddenly it all crystallized for Sandra Fowler. Perhaps Max was totally irrational…..and very likely the person who had kidnapped the Parker girl, or he was almost certainly guilty of the kidnapping…and now trying to cover it up. Maybe he had given her some matches when he put her in a box….hoping she would set herself on fire to make it seem like the Iowa case…or more likely he actually did believe the three cases were somehow interlinked since he didn’t have Humboldt’s report.
It must have seemed so easy to him…make this appear to be a fourth case…make sure the young girl was burned to death so there was no chance of her identifying him…but the Sheriff’s tactics, illegal though they were, had shaken him. Maybe that was good news for justice, Sandra decided, but it put her at risk.
Sandra Fowler was scared, but she was a trained psychologist. The fact the boy was here now…here trying to talk to her…was evidence enough that if she pretended to listen to him…no….pretended to agree with him….he might back off and leave. And if he did that, a quick telephone call and the Sheriff’s department could get him.
She had years of training at this…she was almost sure she could do it. And that was a much better option than depending on the meager stopping power of the .32 and its questionable ammunition. Still keeping the gun pointed at him under the covers, Sandra Fowler began to lie like her life depended on it….because she figured it probably did.
“You know, Max,…I trusted you…trusted you from the very beginning. I thought what the Sheriff was doing was wrong….I told him that. But you need to tell me exactly what you need…exactly what I can do to help you with this.”
“She was an honor student….somehow he hated her for that. He was mad at her…that’s why he did it…the first abduction….that was the important one. Liz…Liz was just random….he didn’t even know her. He was a big man…he taunted her….said he was doing this to her…just because he could. I need for you to get the records from the first case…have them sent to you….the other officer…he must have missed something…something will be in the records…there has to be…something that will save Liz.”
It was strange…a trick of light most likely, but when Max had talked about the abductor …it had almost seemed like his brown eyes had glowed with some sort of inner yellow fire…or maybe, Sandra decided, it was just her imagination.
The boy seemed incredibly agitated…struggling to control his emotions…even to talk. The fury when he’d talked about the abductor had almost seemed inhuman, and it had frightened Sandra even more.
“I’ll do that, Max,’” she lied. "I’ll go in as soon as you leave….make the call…get them to fax that case file right here to the Sheriff’s Office. We can go over it together if you’d like…maybe the Sheriff and Lieutenant Humboldt if you’d like….just to make sure we don’t miss anything.”
She watched him nod his head.
“Yes…yes, that would be good….How quick can you do that? Do you need a ride to the Sheriff’s Office?” he asked, taking two steps forward.
Sandra started to pull the trigger as he came closer…feeling the sear start to resist…praying that he’d go back…or that the little revolver would be enough.
“No, Max…I can’t go in like this…I have to get dressed….the Sheriff’s office has rules and I can’t go in dressed in a night gown. But I have a rental car. You go…let me get dressed. We can meet at the Sheriff’s office at 9 AM. It will take them that long to pull the files and fax them here…we won’t have anything before that. You go ahead and go…I’ll get up and get dressed. Max…it’ll be OK…you can trust me.”
He looked disappointed but nodded his head…taking a step back toward the door. Sandra started to breath again…all she had to do was wait until the boy was outside…put the security lock back into place…grab a telephone and call 911 while she was getting her service automatic out of the gun safe, and she’d be safe from Max Evans…Max Evans the stalker…abductor and likely killer of Liz Parker.
As he retreated another step toward the door, she breathed easier at last….but the breath stopped as the boy turned and stared at her.
As he walked up to the foot of the bed she could barely keep the little revolver from shaking with fear. She squeezed again on the trigger…feeling the sear tighten once more…hoping that the gun was aimed at his heart, knowing that anywhere else, the small slug probably would not stop him…..
“Thank you for trusting me,” he said. His brown eyes looked down at her..filled with tears. “I’ve never been good at trusting people…someone I care for told me that only a few hours ago….I never really trusted you….and I’m sorry for that. I’ll see you at nine. Thank you, Doctor Fowler.”
He held his fist out and opened it, the contents falling unnoticed on the blanket between her legs as her eyes never moved from his, her grip never easing on the little gun. She didn’t look down…not even after he had gone, until she’d locked the door, gotten her service automatic from the closet, and grabbed her cell phone…her eyes still on the door.
‘
Thank you grandpa,’ she thought as she put the revolver down on the blanket…..only then did she see them…laying on the blanket…shining up at her.
They looked new…or at least polished brightly. Her hands were shaking as she broke open the little revolver…saw the empty chambers…and looked back toward the door. One by one she put the shiny cartridges back in the little revolver…
Her hands still shaking, she got out her address book and looked up the telephone number.
“Iowa State Police? This is Dr. Sandra Fowler, I’m a profiler with the New Mexico State Police. I really need for you to fax a case file to me at the Roswell New Mexico Sheriff’s Office. Let me give you their fax number…”
