In the Shadow of the Arch Page 7

  He hesitated a moment, then said, "The way I reconstructed things at the house, he's alive."

  "If he is," she said, "you'll find him."

  "I'll do my best."

  "Keep in touch with me, okay?"

  "I will."

  "Together, maybe we can help this little boy."

  "He's lucky to have you in his corner, Valerie."

  She smiled and said, "I've been thinking that about you all evening, Joe. Goodnight."

  She closed the door and he watched her walk to her car, a Toyota Camry, get in, and drive away. He almost decided to follow her to see where she lived, but decided against it. His third week in town, second day on the job, he really shouldn't have been thinking about a woman.

  Not even one as attractive and interesting as Valerie Speck.

  18

  When Keough got home he took his mail out of the mailbox and carried it inside with him. He leafed through the ads and the bills, looking for something interesting. There were two items that caught his eye. The first was a letter from a little girl in Brooklyn. The other was a package from his friend, Mike O'Donnell.

  O'Donnell had been a columnist for the New York Post while Keough was a New York cop. The same case had cost both of them their jobs. While Keough had come to St. Louis, O'Donnell had gone south to Florida-Key West. His aim at the time was to write the book about the case. He'd written true crime books before, and had made the best seller list once. His publisher was looking for him to do it again, and O'Donnell was hoping that the Kopykat case would do it.

  Keough opened the brown envelope and took a book out. O'Donnell had called it Kopykat. The cover showed two silhouettes facing away from each other. They represented the two serial killers Keough had caught, the Lover and Kopykat.

  Keough was surprised that the book was out already. It had only been a year since the two killers had been caught.

  Inside the book he found a publicity release and a letter from O'Donnell. The release told Keough that what he had in his hands was an early copy of the book. The official publication date of the book was still a month away.

  The letter from O'Donnell was two typed paragraphs:

  Dear Joe,

  Here it is, buddy. Just so you know all that effort wasn't for nothing. I appreciated your help. You'll notice that you are mentioned; although, as you asked, I didn't make you into a supercop-I don't think. Let me know what you think.

  Hope all is well for you in St. Louis. Key West is quiet-maybe too quiet. I guess the same might be true for the Midwest, huh? Keep in touch. I should be at this address for another few months-I think.

  Take care,

  Mike

  Keough turned the book over and looked at the back cover. There were some reviews and quotes from O'Donnell's past books. He looked at the front cover and saw a quote from another true crime writer saying how he enjoyed it.

  Inside he saw more reviews and quotes: The New York Times, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Mike McAlary, Anthony Bruno, John Dillman, and others. Keough was glad for his friend that the book had been received so well. Now he only hoped that it would sell well and get O'Donnell back on the best-seller list.

  He put the book aside, vowing to read it later-or at least leaf through it to find his name and see what kind of treatment his friend had given him.

  Now he turned his attention to the other letter.

  It was from Cindy Valentine. She and her mother, Nancy, had lived in the apartment across from Keough's in his building in Brooklyn. He and the little girl had formed a friendship before the Kopykat case, but during it he and Nancy had grown closer. When the case was over it seemed like they were going to have something, but it quickly soured, and Keough knew why.

  It only took a couple of weeks for O'Donnell to take the material Keough supplied him to his publisher and get the okay to do the book. It was a month later when the department found out that O'Donnell was doing the book. They tried to squash it, but O'Donnell's publisher stood behind him all the way.

  Keough went through the motions of putting through his papers for early retirement, but he knew the checks would never arrive. Somehow they got fouled in the system. He could have hired a lawyer and taken the New York City Police Department to court, but he decided against it. O'Donnell told him he was nuts, and even Nancy Valentine told him he should fight, but in the end Keough just let it go. Thanks to O'Donnell cutting him in on twenty percent of his advance, he was able to relax for a while, until he decided what he was going to do.

  "There'll be more, once the royalties and foreign sales start coming in-and if there's a movie," O'Donnell told him, "you'll be rich."

  Keough didn't care much about the money, though. That wasn't what his life was about. He loved being a cop, specifically being a detective, but he couldn't do that anymore, not in New York.

  From the point in time when he ceased being a cop he stopped being the Joe Keough who Nancy Valentine fell in love with. By the time he was ready to leave New York for St. Louis they were done. Cindy Valentine, however, did not give up as easily, as evidenced by the letter he held.

  He read it quickly, two long, single-spaced paragraphs of sloppy typing telling him how much she missed him, what she was doing with her life, and asking him to write back.

  He put the letter aside and picked up the book. What he held in his hand was the reason he was no longer a New York City detective. It was a conscious decision on his part. He did what he thought was right, knowing full well that it would cost him the job he loved. He'd lucked out getting this job in St. Louis, but what would he do if the same situation arose here? Would he do the right thing, or would he keep his job?

  He put the book down next to the letter and went to the kitchen.

  19

  August 24, 1997

  He was in the mall twenty minutes before he picked her out. She was a fine specimen, tall, firmly built, sporting just a little bit of belly, probably left over from her pregnancy. Given time he knew she'd firm that up.

  He had become an expert on them, these young mothers with their long blond hair, fair skin, glowing embers of fine hairs on their arms and backs. He could tell from looking at them how long ago they had delivered, how old the child in the stroller was, without even looking at the child.

  This mother was wheeling a three-month-old around the Crestwood Mall. Crestwood was real handy to Shrewsbury and Webster Groves residents. It was not as large as some of the malls, but it was extremely popular because of the arcade on the lower level.

  He watched the woman for half an hour to be sure she was alone and there wasn't a husband, boyfriend, sister, or mother somewhere. Sometimes they were at the mall with a girlfriend, but this young mother seemed to be here all alone-just her and her baby.

  Perfect.

  ***

  Al Bennett was thirty-eight. He had worked for the Sumner Brothers' Hauling Company for the past eight years, and during those eight years he had learned to look before he dumped-especially when it came to Dumpsters in neighborhoods like Richmond Heights. In the past he'd found working televisions, VCRs, things people threw away you wouldn't believe.

  This day, though, was the first time he had ever found a baby.

  ***

  The phone on Keough's desk rang. He'd been sitting there hoping it would. It had been three days since a decent case had crossed his desk-and a month since the Brady Sanders case had been taken away from him. A month and still the father hadn't turned up, nor was there any sign of the mother, who he was still convinced was dead somewhere.

  He'd done some surveillance on Miss Bonny from Bill Sanders' office, hoping that maybe she'd lead him to Sanders, but nothing had come of it, and he had to suspend it after a few days. He couldn't justify spending his time on it, and he wasn't yet so deep into the case that he was willing to spend his own time working on it.

  All of that became moot, however, when he was called in by Detective Sergeant Bilcheck.

  "The Sanders case," Bilchec
k said.

  "What about it?"

  "It's being transferred over to Major Case."

  "Why?"

  "It's an obvious violent crime."

  "Do they take all violent crimes?"

  "Most of them."

  "Why this one?"

  "Because they want it."

  Bilcheck did not seem happy about this, so Keough was careful to voice his objection without snapping at the man.

  "It's been a violent crime right from the beginning," he said. "Why do they want it now?"

  "I don't know, Keough," Bilcheck said. "I've been informed by the chief that the case is now in the hands of the Major Case Squad. I told him I didn't like it. I told him that you've done all of the preliminary footwork and should be allowed to continue with the case. Apparently, he didn't agree."

  "Would it do any good to argue with him?"

  "No," Bilcheck said. "You can try, but no. He's usually pretty inflexible about things like this."

  And so the case went to Major Case, and it was no longer Keough's job to worry or wonder about Brady Sanders, his mother, and his dad.

  But he did…

  The ringing phone was insistant.

  "Detective Keough," he said into it.

  "Uh, yeah, this is Officer Foster, Detective, in Communications?" It was a woman's voice.

  "What do you need, Officer?"

  "Well, sir, somebody just called in that they found a body."

  "Did you send a car to check it out?"

  "I'm sending one, but, I thought you might be interested in this."

  "Why would I be?" Keough asked. Maybe it was a woman's body. Maybe Marian Sanders' body had finally surfaced. "Is the body male or female?"

  "I didn't say body," Foster said.

  "I could have sworn-" Keough started, then stopped. He looked around the empty room. He was still working with Detective Haywood, who had gone out on some kind of call. "If you didn't say body, Officer Foster, what did you say?"

  "Baby, sir," Foster replied. "I said somebody found a baby."

  Keough hung up and left his desk.

  ***

  He got the address from Foster in Communications and took his own car. He'd been using a department vehicle, an unmarked Crown Victoria, but there were only two of them, and one was a clunker. It was first come, first serve with the cars and Haywood had gotten the good one that day. Keough had a hand-held radio with him and set it down on the passenger seat as he started his car.

  The development was about a mile from the station house, across from the Galleria Mall, which was helpful. Keough had managed to learn the neighborhood pretty well during the past month-mostly because he'd been driving around the streets trying to find some sign of Bill or Marian Sanders.

  He hadn't seen Valerie Speck since their dinner, but he'd talked to her on the phone half a dozen times since then, mostly about Brady. Every once in a while, though, he managed to interject some personal information. He'd been pretty busy for a while, and then when things slowed down for him she became busy, and the time just never arrived for him to ask her out. He kept track of Brady, though, who had been placed with a foster family living in Arnold, wherever the hell that was.

  Keough arrived at the scene and pulled his car into the parking lot of the development. He spotted the big green refuse truck, with a Richmond Heights police car parked next to it, as well as a St. Louis County car, both with the lights flashing. Everybody responded when a child was involved, that was the same in St. Louis as well as New York. A crowd had gathered, so he couldn't get near the truck with his car. He pulled into a nearby parking space, didn't bother to straighten the car, and walked over to where the crowd was assembled.

  "… ought to get it out of there," someone was saying.

  As Keough got closer he heard the baby crying. The sound had probably been muffled by the Dumpster and the trash in it.

  "Excuse me," he said, flashing his badge, "can I get by, please?"

  Once he was through the crowd he hung his shield from his pocket and approached the two uniformed men.

  "Is that baby still in the Dumpster?" he demanded.

  "Yes, sir," one of the officers said.

  "Why, for God's sake?"

  "We were, uh, waiting for a supervisor," the other man said. He was the St. Louis County cop.

  "Jesus," Keough said. "Give me a hand, will you?"

  He approached the Dumpster and the two officers boosted him up into it. It was filled most of the way and solidly packed, so he was able to stand. The baby was lying on its back on a blanket, but it wasn't wrapped, the blanket was simply beneath it. It stopped crying when it saw Keough.

  "How you doing, little one?" he asked.

  The baby looked at him and started to cry again. The blanket was yellow, but the child's outfit was pink, which meant it was probably a girl.

  "Who did this to you, huh?" He bent over and lifted the child, leaving the blanket, which was soiled, behind. As he stood up, the crowd broke into applause.

  "What is it?" somebody yelled.

  "It's a girl," Keough called back.

  "Is she all right?" a woman asked.

  "She looks fine, for now." He looked at the officers. "Did you call for an ambulance?"

  "Uh, no," one of them said, "we were, uh, waiting for the captain."

  "Call an ambulance now," Keough said.

  They turned to go to their cars.

  "One of you!" he shouted. "The other one can help me out of here with this baby."

  The two men looked at each other, then one continued to his car while the other one turned back.

  "Take the baby," Keough said. The man was from Richmond Heights, but he didn't look familiar. He was going to need more time before he got to know the men in the Richmond Heights station, even though there was only a total of thirty-nine, including the supervisors and chiefs. He'd worked single tours of duty in Brooklyn where there were thirty-nine people on duty just for that tour.

  "Huh?" The man reacted as if Keough had asked him to hold a steaming turd.

  "Hold her while I get out."

  "I, uh, don't know how-"

  "Let me," a woman said, as she stepped forward and actually pushed the officer aside.

  "Thank you," Keough said, handing her the child and climbing out of the Dumpster.

  The woman was in her forties, and held the child with practiced ease.

  "Do you know her, ma'am?"

  "No, I don't," the woman said, "but I wish I did. She's a cute little thing."

  The child had stopped crying once Keough placed her in the woman's arms. He noticed that she had placed her fingers by the child's mouth, and the baby was avidly gnawing on them.

  "This child is starving," the woman said.

  "How about the rest of you?" he called out. "Does anyone know this child?"

  The crowd moved forward so everyone could take a look, but no one could identify the child.

  "What's going to happen to her?" the woman asked.

  "Well, she'll go to the hospital first, to be checked out, and then we'll try to identify her."

  "And if you can't?"

  "Then the child welfare department will have to take over."

  "Will you feed her?" the woman asked. "This child looks like she hasn't eaten in days."

  "I'll see she's fed as soon as we get to the hospital, ma'am."

  "Who would do such a thing to a child?" the woman asked. "It's a sin."

  "It's a crime, ma'am," Keough said, "and we'll find out who did it."

  20

  The anger that went through him was intense. He'd planned so carefully, watched her for the better part of an hour, and just when he thought she was perfect this had to happen.

  He'd followed the young, blond mother to the food court, thinking that she was going to have lunch alone, and suddenly she met another mother with a stroller. This one was not his type at all, though. She had black hair. He hated women with black hair, especially ones like this. Oh, she was
pretty enough. She had a solid body beneath a blue denim dress, worn short to show off her athlete's legs. But she was the type who had dark hairs on her arms, and when she reached out to feed her baby he saw that she also had dark hair in her armpits.

  This kind of woman made him sick, and now to top it off, she was in his way.

  He decided to take a seat at a nearby table and see if maybe they would split up again after lunch. He tried to control his anger while he watched them, but he knew the only thing that would make it go away was if that woman went away.

  ***

  "Geek alert," Marie Tobin said.

  "Where?"

  "Don't turn your head. He's sitting at a table to your right, behind the woman with the three screaming kids."

  Debra Morgan turned her head slightly and saw the man her friend was talking about. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and had long, lank hair and a rather intense look on his face. He had very high cheekbones, which hollowed out his cheeks a great deal, and a thin-lipped mouth that was made even thinner by his expression. He wasn't eating anything, but was just sitting by himself. He appeared to be looking around, but his gaze always came back to them. This didn't surprise Debra. She knew that both she and Marie were pretty, but he was probably looking at Marie. She even admitted herself that she was slutty-looking, while Debra was more genteel in appearance.

  "Of course," Marie had said to her once, "we could change all that with some makeup and an attitude adjustment."

  Debra had declined her friend's offer.

  "Oh, he doesn't look like such a geek," Debra said, kindly.

  "Take my word for it," Marie said. "The only thing I don't know is if he's looking at you or at me. I guess that depends on whether he likes blondes or brunettes." She touched her dark, shoulder-length hair.

  Her blond friend laughed and said, "I'm just as happy if he's looking at you, Marie."