Reason can wrestle and overthrow terror.
—Euripides
Morning’s sky was clear and so bright it made her squint. The sun rained down on a grassy border dotted with impatiens that led into Hoag Hospital Admissions. Cat waited, watching the time, then saw a blue Jaguar convertible speed by, Dr. Marsh’s hefty frame seemingly stuffed into the car’s small interior.
He honked the horn, acknowledging her presence, and she figured he’d park in the physician’s lot behind the ER. Personnel was tucked to the side of one of the admitting areas, a small series of offices done in warm rose and green tones, like most of Hoag. Colors meant to evoke a feeling of comfort, Cat thought, though she didn’t feel comfortable as her hands touched the first personnel file. She and Dr. Marsh had been ushered into a small room. They sat now with what looked like a hundred files in front of them, stacked high.
Cat separated the pile, gave half to Dr. Marsh, and began thumbing through. “Anyone that fits our profile goes here.” She pointed to a blank spot on the table. “Probably quickest to check the photo first.”
Dr. Marsh nodded.
She made short work of the first twenty files, each one not fitting for one reason or another, wrong height, wrong build, wrong race, wrong gender. Then she began to slow down and really look at the photographs. Could these be the eyes of the man that had her son? She scrutinized each photograph, looking for signs of what, she didn’t know, still having the feeling that the Marshes had to know the man. There had to be a connection.
Dr. Marsh did the same, taking his time, though quickly discarding those that obviously didn’t fit. He stopped at one longer than the others. “Wait, I know this man,” he said.
Cat looked over his shoulder at the photo. “Who is he?”
Dr. Marsh appeared shaken. “Nancy went out with him once or twice. I think we had him to her birthday. Nothing serious though. She said he wasn’t her type.”
“A colleague of yours?”
“Yes, a young ER physician—his name is Charles Dupont.”
Cat looked closely at the photograph. No blond short hair, but the eyes certainly conveyed something cold, elusive. They were a light, almost icy green. Cat fought a shudder as her fingers traced over the photo. She’d seen these eyes before but couldn’t place them. Yet she knew their shape. Maybe she did need some more sleep.
“All right, he’s our main guy, but keep looking.”
Four and a half hours later, they were left with twelve files. None of the others looked remotely like anyone that Dr. Marsh knew. Cat pushed all but the Dupont file aside and studied the photograph. From the looks of it, he was about the right build, wiry and long. Height average, hair color in the photo didn’t match the blond, close-cropped hair the boy in Virginia had described. But that could be changed, cut and dyed.
Cat flipped past the paper-clipped photo to the personnel file. It showed Dupont was an ER physician. His application paperwork was blank for the most part, making reference to his CV, which was clipped behind. Dr. Charles Dupont claimed to have studied at USC Medical School, done his residency at a hospital in Northern California, and then apparently decided to head south again. His hometown was listed as Willits, California. Cat had never heard of it, figuring it was in Northern California someplace.
“Ever heard of Willits?”
“Yeah, it’s up past Sacramento, in Bear Valley. Nancy and I took a ride up there once to check out the wildflowers off State Route 20. Pretty out of the way place really.”
“Want to take a trip up there with me?”
“Sure, what are we looking for?”
“We need to know if anyone’s ever heard of Charles Dupont. And in the meantime, you think someone can let us into his office?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Dr. Marsh was already out the door.
Within five minutes they were being let into Dupont’s office. Upon entering the space, Cat felt odd. The room looked as if it hadn’t been used, not like other doctors’ offices, with files stacked on the floor, reference books opened. Instead, this office was pristine, books carefully organized alphabetically on the shelves, everything neatly tucked away or in its place. On the desk sat a closed black week-at-a-glance calendar. Cat opened to the day Joey had been taken. It showed no appointments…three days earlier it indicated that Dupont was to be present at a physician’s conference in Atlanta. There, someone had jotted a phone number next to flight information.
Cat dialed. On the other end of the line a voice identified an affiliation with the American Academy of Emergency Physicians.
“Could you check for me whether Charles Dupont was in attendance?”
“We had him scheduled to be here, but he never arrived.”
“Did he leave any information about where he could be contacted, a forwarding number?”
“No.”
“Thanks.” Cat hung up and flipped pages in the calendar, cross-referencing each of the approximate kill dates. Dupont’s calendar was filled with appointments for those dates, but she wondered how many had been canceled.
Cat called Orange County’s John Wayne Airport and booked two seats on Southwest Air’s flight going to Sacramento. She looked at Dr. Marsh. “You mind sleeping in those clothes tonight?”
“Not at all.” She could see a fire in his eyes.
“Then let’s go,” Cat said, taking the photo.
The flight touched down in Sacramento three hours later. During the flight, Cat and Dr. Marsh had not talked much, as if the hunt was consuming their every thought. There was no time for small talk, no time for emotions.
Cat rented a four-wheel-drive Chevy Yukon.
How, she wondered, could there be this much traffic out of Sacramento? Heading out on Interstate 5, once they cleared traffic they clipped along at eighty past low rolling hills, shimmering in a sea of bright green.
Before long they turned off the freeway, passing through a tiny town called Willits.
“You want to stop? Get something to eat?” Cat asked.
“Yes.” Dr. Marsh still seemed immersed in thought.
Cat pulled into a roadside café, bought two sandwiches and two Diet Cokes. In five minutes they were back on the road, the knee-deep green fields turning gradually colorful, orange poppies invading like waves from an ocean, growing ever thicker. Cat lowered the window, letting the sweetness from blooming blue lupine caress her senses. The nineteen miles west on State Route 20 turned into pastures. She tried to forget about Joey. It was no use.
“Take a turn here.” Dr. Marsh pointed to a small street sign signaling Bear Valley Road. Another fourteen miles on a dusty, gravelly road through what seemed an endless array of purple owl’s clover and goldfields craning for sun among orange California poppies.
“It was like this when Nancy and I were here. She loved nature like I do.”
Passing by grazing cows, Cat wondered, “Don’t the cattle kill off all the flowers?”
“No, actually it’s carefully managed. The ranchers don’t plow over the fields, and they move the cows from pasture to pasture. It’s miraculous, but the flowers come back every year, year after year.”
Cat wondered if there would be a miracle waiting for them at the end of this journey.
“The town’s about another five miles up, from the looks of it.” Cat let the fresh air and blue sky distract her for only a moment. “We’ll be there soon.”
They turned off the road into the tiny town of Willits. The population couldn’t possibly exceed five hundred, and that was pushing it. There was one main drag, one main store, and lodging at a small hole in the wall that charged fifty bucks a night. Cat only intended a one-night stay.
She leaned into the young man at the check-in desk and asked, “Who would be able to tell me if someone was from this town? If somebody was a local?”
“That would be Carmine Carols. She’s lived in this town for eighty-two years. Seen everyone come and go.”
“You know where I can find her?”
“Sure, she’d be out fishing the creeks, like she is most clear days.”
“An eighty-two-year-old woman out fishing?”
“Yeah, says the outdoors keeps her young. Don’t have no time for a rocking chair.”
“Where can I find her, exactly?”
“There’s a dirt road ‘bout a half mile outside of town, takes you up into the forest. Head about five miles in and you’ll see a red ribbon tied on a post on the roadside. Turn down that road and keep going…” The boy paused and looked outside, as if assuring himself they had four-wheel drive. “Anyways, gets pretty rough riding, you know, but you’ll come to a lake and a clearin’ with a creek. You’ll find her there.”
Cat didn’t know whether to thank him or get better directions. But there wasn’t time. “You heard the man,” she said to Dr. Marsh. He nodded, sipping on his Diet Coke.
Before long, they were deep in the underbrush. Ferns, moss-covered rocks, the smell of wet earth took over from barren dirt roads. Cat could understand how a place like this could keep someone young. It was God’s country.
Below them, the four-wheel drive creaked to the rhythm from uneven wet roads. Cat kept a constant, if not fast, speed of thirty miles an hour, even with ruts in the road.
Though wearing his seat belt, Dr. Marsh clapped his head on the roof as the SUV crashed through a particularly hairy area. “Hold up there, don’t you think it’s best if we find her with our senses still intact?”
“Come on,” she laughed, “a little off-roading never hurt anyone.”
He rubbed his head. “Speak for yourself.”
Cat was going so fast she almost careened past the red ribbon.
Dr. Marsh slid forward in his seat as she hit the brakes and backed up the vehicle. “Did I miss something, or are we going to do it in reverse now?”
“We just missed the red ribbon.”
“Right there.” Cat pointed to a muddied red ribbon tied to a stick, protruding from the brush.
She floored the truck, heading down a barely visible muddy side road, listening to the back tires spin out. Part of it had washed out from a creek that meandered on both sides of the road. As they went deeper into the brush, that meandering creek turned into a brook, then into a small whitewater river. Ahead, through the trees, a clearing of yellow tidy tips spread out like a sea. Dappled sunlight beat its way through the cypress. At the edge of the clearing, a small figure in a red shirt waved at them, as if she knew they were coming.
Cat parked near the woman, who was waving them off. “You’ll scare off the trout, dammit,” she yelled. Though in her eighties, this woman looked no older than sixty-five, her frame still straight, brown hair tinged with gray, long and braided in a ponytail that protruded from a cap. She looked like something out of Field & Stream magazine.
“What the hell you doing here?” the woman said.
“Sorry to scare off the fish. You Carmine?”
Hearing her name, the woman stopped cursing. “Yeah, that’s me. What brings you out here? From the looks of it, you ain’t here for the trout fishing.”
“No, ma’am, that’s right. My name’s Dr. Catherine Powers, Cat for short, and I’d just like to ask you a few questions if you’ve got the time.”
The woman lifted her arms over her shoulders. “Got all the time in the world. This country ain’t going nowhere; it’s been here just like this since I was a little girl.”
Cat took a softer tone with her. “Not to alarm you, but I work with the FBI tracking killers. This is Dr. Marsh. We just want to ask some questions about a man we’re trying to track down. He claims to be from this area, though we have reason to believe that’s not true. Someone in town told us you’d be the one to ask.”
“That’d be right.” The woman had a quickness about her, a wit that needed few words and even fewer questions. From the looks of it, Cat guessed she could size up a person pretty well from her first meeting. From all indications, she believed Cat was honest.
“What’s this man’s name?”
“Charles Dupont.”
The woman’s face wrinkled then resumed its easy glow. “Never heard of him.”
“Ever heard of a family Dupont?”
“Nope, no Duponts here.”
Just as Cat suspected, but she had to be sure.
“Let me show you a photograph. Maybe when he was here, he went by another name.” Reaching into her jeans pocket, she pulled out the Hoag personnel photograph of Charles Dupont and handed it to the woman.
She scowled at the photo for a full minute then handed it back. “Never seen him before in my life.”
“You sure, it’s real important.”
“How so?”
“This man may have kidnapped my son, killed his daughter.” Cat looked at Dr. Marsh and waited for the woman’s reaction.
“Let me see the picture one more time.” Carmine took it, scrutinized it harder this time. After a full five minutes, she gave it back to Cat, a sorrowful look in her eyes. “Never seen him, hon.”
“Don’t you see?” Cat talked quickly, her excitement obvious. “There’s only one conclusion. Jesus, I knew it when I laid my eyes on him. Charles Dupont doesn’t exist. Eric and Carl are the same person.”
“How can you be so sure, just because the woman doesn’t recognize him?” He wanted this just as badly, but they had to be rational, sure of what they were doing.
“Charles Dupont came on the scene physically just when Eric was released. I’ve had McGregor check on the med school references, the hospital he interned at. No one there remembers him. No one knows a Charles Dupont.”
“Then how come Hoag didn’t check him out?”
“Come on, Eric could have paid someone off to lie for him, say he went to med school. Transcripts, diplomas can be faked, especially with the kind of connections Eric had in jail and later in hospital.”
“So his entire past is a hoax?”
“I’d bet on it.” Cat thought out loud. “Matter of fact, I’ll prove it to you.” She pulled out her cell phone, checked for contact numbers, and dialed Dr. Stall in Illinois.
“Dr. Stall, this is Catherine Powers in California.” She smiled briefly. “Yes, I’m all right. No, we haven’t found anything yet. I need to ask you a favor. When Eric was incarcerated, did he ever use a pet name, a nickname? Did the others have a name for him?”
Dr. Stall thought briefly. “Yes, they did. Eric liked to call himself Charles. Thought it sounded more dignified. The others here just laughed at it”
“Thanks, Dr. Stall. Can you repeat what you just told me?” Cat handed her phone to Dr. Marsh, watching his incredulous expression as he hung up.