Dead Wrong (30 page)

“Why was that?”

“Because of what he’d gone through, they knew he’d have . . . troubles.” Claire Channing looked at Mara, who had not spoken since they’d entered the house. “He’d had a terrible start in life, that boy did.”

“We know about his mother, Mrs. Channing,” Mara told her.

“Then you know how damaged that poor child was. We were determined, Marshall and I were, to make it up to him as best we could. To give him as normal a home as we could. But nothing we could do for him would ever make right what had happened to him. I think we both understood that.” She smiled sadly at Mara. “I used to tell the social worker, it’s just a matter of time before it all catches up with him. Oh, we sent him for therapy—he was in therapy for years—but in my heart I knew that no amount of therapy could undo what had been done to that boy. All he’d been through, all he’d seen . . .”

Tears had formed in her eyes. “He was such a good boy, Agent Shields. Studied hard and helped around the house . . .” Her eyes wandered to the window, and she looked outside as if searching for something lost long ago. “We had a little garden together out there, him and me. He helped Marshall with all the yard work. Helped him build a grape arbor out back, planted the grapes.” She smiled even as the tears fell over her cheeks. “We used to make grape jam together. Curtis would help me pick, and we’d get out the canning equipment. . . .”

She rose and pulled a tissue from the top of a nearby box. “But all the same, we knew that he’d never gotten over it. How could he have? All the things that had happened to him. All he’d seen . . .”

It was the second time in less than two minutes that she’d used that expression.
All he’d seen . . .

“What are you referring to, Mrs. Channing? What had he seen?” Aidan asked.

The woman lowered herself slowly onto an ottoman close to Mara’s chair and leaned forward slightly.

“Didn’t you know?” Her voice dropped as if she were about to speak the unspeakable. “All the while that man was raping Curtis’s mother, while he was stabbing her to death . . . Curtis was watching from the closet.”

Mara and Aidan exchanged a long look.

“Chief Tanner told us that Curtis had been found hiding in the closet—” Aidan began.

“He saw the whole thing. Can you imagine what that did to that child?” The tissue twisted in her hands. “The police told us that when they found him there on the closet floor, he was covered with blood. That he must have touched her, maybe to see if she was still alive. As best we could piece together, he’d probably watched from the closet, then when the man who killed her—that man, Unger—you believe they’ve let him out of prison?—left the house to wait for the police, Curtis crept out and went to her.” She shuddered. “They said he had her blood on his clothes, on his face . . . his hands. . . .”

Claire Channing held her hands up in front of her. “I just couldn’t imagine that sweet little boy having to watch that terrible thing. We thought if we gave him a good home . . .”

“I’m sure that you did, Mrs. Channing. I’m sure that you and Mr. Channing were the best thing that ever happened to Curtis.” Mara tried to comfort the woman who now wept openly.

“But you have no idea where he is now?” Aidan asked.

Mrs. Channing shook her head. “No. As I told you, I haven’t heard from him in years. After he graduated from high school, he came to us, thanked us for giving him a home. Thanked us for all we did for him. But he said he had to go. He said it would be for the best.”

“And there’s been no word since?”

“None. I would tell you if—” She paused to search their faces. “Has he done something bad?”

“We don’t know, Mrs. Channing. We’re just trying to follow up on something that’s come to our attention.”

“I’ve always feared that someday . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. It hung in the air. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what she feared would eventually happen.

“Do you know if he had any friends in the area, any family, someone who would be in contact with him?”

“No. There’s no one. Curtis didn’t have many friends. He wasn’t very outgoing.”

“Do you have any pictures of him?” Aidan asked.

“Only from years ago. I think the last would be his high school graduation picture.”

“May we see?”

“Certainly.” She opened the drawer of a chest that stood against the front wall and pulled out a box. “There are some in here, I think.”

She sat back on the ottoman and crossed her legs to balance the box while she sorted through a stack of photos.

“This was the first year that he was with us.” She passed a photo to Mara, who was seated closest to her.

Mara glanced at it before passing it to Aidan. The face in the photo was that of a sad, solemn little boy with dark, haunted eyes.

“And these are a few years later.” Mrs. Channing handed Mara a whole stack.

“He looks happier in these,” Mara murmured aloud as she gave the photos to Aidan.

“Oh, thank you.” Mrs. Channing teared up again. “We like to think . . . well, he seemed happy, after a time. Here, here’s a few more.”

Mara shuffled briefly through the pile, then paused. She held up one photo and asked, “You had a Jack Russell terrier?”

“Oh, yes. Curtis’s dog. We got it for him for Christmas the second year he was here. Oh, how he loved that dog.”

“They are wonderful dogs,” Mara agreed. “I have one.”

“Do you?”

Mara nodded, about to mention that Spike was right out in the car, but Aidan picked up the questioning.

“He liked animals?” he asked, well aware that the typical profile for serial killers often included cruelty to animals from a young age.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Channing assured him.

“There were never any incidents of abusing animals or . . .”

“Oh, no.” Her eyes widened at the thought. “No, no. Curtis loved animals. He was very good with them.”

Aidan proceeded through the usual serial killer profile while he had the chance. “Was he a bed wetter?”

“Well, yes. He was. Marshall and me, we decided not to make a big deal out of it, you know, after all the boy had been through.”

“How about fire, Mrs. Channing? Did Curtis like fire, like to start fires?”

“He and my husband used to burn brush out back, years ago. Burn leaves and such, but that’s all I can recall . . .”

“What happened to the dog?” Mara asked.

“Oh, poor little Jake. He died the year Curtis was a junior in high school.”

“Did the dog have . . . an accident?” Aidan asked cautiously.

“No, no. Cancer. And Curtis just cried and cried. Only time I ever saw that boy cry was when his dog died. He never even cried, they said, when they found him in the closet. If he ever cried for his mother, I never saw it. But he sure did cry over that dog.”

“Do you have anything that belonged to him?” A hairbrush or hat that would have DNA on it would be too much to ask, Aidan knew, but maybe there was something. . . .

“No, no, not anymore.” She shook her head.

“May I take this with me?” Aidan held up Curtis’s senior year photograph by one corner. He turned it over.
Curtis Alan Channing
was written in pencil across the back.

“Of course.” Mrs. Channing nodded. “Can you tell me what you think he might have done, Agent Shields?”

“Not at this time, I’m sorry.” Aidan took her hands in his. “If we’re wrong, you’d have been upset for no reason, and I know that just having us here, asking after him, has upset you enough.”

Claire Channing smiled. “Agent Shields, I’ve been upset for Curtis’s sake every day since the day we brought him home.” She rose, understanding that there were no more questions. “I still pray for him every morning, every evening.”

“You just keep on doing that, Mrs. Channing.” Aidan squeezed her hands gently. “You just keep on praying for him. . . .”

Aidan was on the phone with John Mancini almost before they got back to the car.

“Sounds like you struck gold, Shields,” John exclaimed after Aidan laid out the entire story.

“It’s actually Cahill’s gold,” Aidan reminded him. “She was the one who remembered the Ohio case and gave us that lead.”

“You know, I always say to trust your intuition. Follow your gut. Good work, Shields. We’ll get this out on the wires. Now, if we can get a good description of what he looks like . . .”

“We were able to get one of his high school graduation photos. I think a good compositor could probably do a fairly accurate projection on what he’d look like now.”

“We have one of the best. Get that photo to me as quickly as you can, and we’ll get it to her immediately.”

“I’ll take it to Chief Lanigan at the Lake Grove PD and ask him to fax it to you.”

“Excellent. With any luck, we’ll be able to get that sketch completed and out within twenty-four hours. Do I understand that Ms. Douglas is still with you?”

“Yes. She’s here.”

“Stay with her, Shields.” Mancini related the details of what had happened the night before in Lyndon. “It looks like someone—Channing or otherwise—may have tried to get to her last night, but we don’t have the details yet. Keep her out of sight, if you can, while we try to piece this whole thing together.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

Aidan returned the phone to his jacket pocket while he filled Mara in on the attempted break-in.

“So the boss thinks I should stick with you for a while,” Aidan said.

“And what do you think?”

“I think I’m sticking, regardless.” He leaned across the console and kissed her. “If that’s okay with you . . .”

“It’s more than okay.” She drew closer, meeting him halfway, kissing him back.

“It may be a while. . . .” he told her, his lips brushing against hers.

“It just so happens I have some time on my hands right now. . . .”

“Then maybe we should make the best of it.” He kissed her again, and her head began to swim.

How long had it been, she asked herself, since she’d felt this rush of heat and pleasure and anticipation at the mere touch of lips?

She couldn’t recall, gave up trying to remember, and gave in to what he offered her.

Until her cell phone began to ring.

She sighed and dug the phone out of her purse and checked the caller ID. It was Annie.

“Hey,” Mara said as she answered the phone.

“Hey, yourself. What’s doing?”

“Aidan and I are in Ohio.”

“So John tells me. He says you might have identified our killer.”

“Looks like we might have.”

“They’re bringing in the best sketch artist we have to try to age the photo that Aidan is sending us.”

“I thought that was all done digitally these days.”

“It can be, yes. And they’ll do that, no doubt, as well, but John likes the human touch. And once we get a bead on this guy, the sketch can be updated with hard facts so it can be released to the media. I’m also going to take a good look at this guy Channing from a psychological standpoint, see if he fits the profile.”

“He’s had a horrific background.”

“So I understand. Listen, John told me that he asked you to hang with Aidan for a while. Is that all right with you?”

“Perfectly fine.”

“Oh? Perfectly fine?”

“Um-hmm.”

“Oh, my,” Annie laughed softly. “From ‘perfectly fine’ to ‘um-hmm’ in under ten seconds. Are you
fraternizing
with my almost brother-in-law?”

“Somewhat.”

“Somewhat fraternizing. Well, well, well. Who’d have ever . . .”

Mara could all but see her sister shaking her head and smiling while she did so.

“Mara, are you still there?” Annie asked.

“Yes, I’m here. It’s this damned phone.” Mara frowned as the connection grew fuzzy.

“Look, I’ll talk fast. I don’t think you should come back to Lyndon until we find Channing. Can you find something to do for a while until we get a handle on all this out here?”