“And this happened one year ago today?”
“Give or take a few days. It happened during the same annual medical convention that’s going on right now in Biloxi.”
Chalmers pursed his lips and gazed through the window, toward the old Standard Life Building, illuminated now by cold fluorescent light. After a few moments’ thought, he looked the heart surgeon directly in the eye.
“I’ve got to ask this, Doctor. Why did you folks wait a whole year to report this kidnapping?”
McDill had rehearsed his answer during the drive over. “They threatened to come back and kill our son. We’d paid the ransom. It was a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, which, frankly, isn’t much money to me. Especially weighed against the life of my son.”
“But didn’t you tell me the kidnappers told you they’d done the same thing before?”
“Yes.”
“So you must have feared from the first that they would do it again, to another child. Another family.”
McDill looked at the floor. “That’s true. The hard truth is, I’m more selfish than I’d like to think. If I had it to do again-”
“I was raped,” Margaret said quietly.
McDill froze with his mouth open, but Agent Chalmers settled back into his boss’s chair, as though the situation was at last becoming clear.
“I see,” he said. “Could you tell me a little more about that?”
McDill laid a hand on his wife’s forearm. “Margaret, you don’t have to do this.”
She waved off his hand, then gripped the arms of the chair. It was clear that she meant to tell the truth, no matter what it cost her. As she spoke, she did not quite look at Chalmers, but into some indeterminate space beyond him.
“I wouldn’t let James report what happened. I was alone with the man who was running the kidnapping, and my son was being held at another location. Peter was at the mercy of these people. My husband was also. The man with me… he was in telephone contact with his partners. He could have told them to hurt or kill either Peter or James. He made very sure that I understood that, that I believed he was capable of it. Then he used that fact to extort sex from me.”
McDill tried to comfort her, but she shrunk away and kept talking. “Very painful, dirty sex,” she said. “I was terrified that would be made public. I know now that I was wrong to keep it quiet, but-” She wiped one eye but kept going, like a marathon runner forcing herself to reach the finish line. “Combined with the threat to come back and kill Peter, I simply couldn’t deal with the idea. I couldn’t take that risk. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, either. I haven’t thought about anything else since it happened. I can’t even make love with my husband. I-I’m going to pieces, I think.”
McDill took her hand and squeezed it hard. This time she didn’t pull away.
Agent Chalmers picked up his pen and tapped it on the table. He suddenly seemed much more convinced by their story.
“The truth is,” said McDill, “it was just easier for us to try to forget it. To pretend it never happened. But it did.”
“And now you think it’s happening again.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me why.”
McDill took a deep breath and marshaled his thoughts. “I have no objective evidence. I admit that right up front. But the woman holding me at the hotel said they’d done the same thing before, more than once. I believed her. She also said no one had ever reported them. And knowing what I know now about the leader’s tactics, I believe that, too. I mean, we didn’t report it. The man who conceived of this damned scheme-Joe, or whatever his real name is-is clearly a psychopath. He kidnaps children to get money, and to commit rape as some sort of bonus. And so far he’s gotten way with it. I guess what I’m saying is, what reason does he have to stop?”
Chalmers put down his pen and laid his hands flat on the desk. McDill had the sense that the agent was deciding whether to engage the full resources of the FBI in the middle of the night, or to take a more conservative approach.
“Mrs. McDill, you were with this man for a considerable period of time. Did you have a feeling about whether the name he used was his real name?”
Margaret had begun weeping softly. McDill and Chalmers waited.
“I think Joe was his real name,” she said. “I think it was some perverse point of pride with him. Like he could do all this to us without any fear that we would report him. The fact that he used his real name demonstrated his superiority. That’s what I think, anyway.”
“Did he say anything about where he was from? What state, for example?”
“No.”
“Did he say the other kidnappings had taken place in Mississippi?”
“No. But I assumed they had.”
“Did you have any feeling about what part of the country he might be from?”
“The South,” Margaret said. “Definitely the South. I won’t say Mississippi for sure, because the accent was… too hard. Like he was from the South but had been away for a long time. Or maybe the reverse. A man who was from someplace else but had spent a lot of time in the South. Does that make any sense?”
“Yes,” Chalmers replied. “What about you, Doctor? Did the woman you were with say where she was from? Something about family, anything like that?”
“Nothing useful. She seemed frightened by the whole experience. But she was obviously committed enough to go through with it. I had the feeling she was dominated by this Joe character. I also thought-a couple of times, anyway-that the two of them might be married. She never said it in so many words, but the way she spoke about him gave me that impression.”
“How old was she?”
“Early to mid-twenties.”
“Really?”
“She was quite attractive, to be honest.” McDill gave his wife an uncomfortable look. “I mean, you wouldn’t have expected someone who looked like her to be involved in something like that. She looked like a Junior League wife, or even a model. Swimsuit model, anyway.”
Agent Chalmers turned to Mrs. McDill. “What about Joe? The leader. How old was he?”
“Fifty. Somewhere around there.”
“Could you give a good description of him?”
“Yes.”
“Recognize him from a photo?”
“Yes.”
“Any distinguishing marks?”
Margaret covered her face. “He had a tattoo on his arm. An eagle. Very crudely done.”
“Do you remember which arm?”
“Left. Yes, the left.”
“And the girl?” Chalmers asked McDill.
“I’d know her anywhere. If you want to put me on a plane and fly me down to the coast, I’ll go through that whole hotel looking for her.”
“I’m not sure that’s the most efficient way to go about it. If she is in the hotel, she’s probably in a room by now. We can’t go through every room in the place looking for someone we don’t even know is there.”
“Not even for a kidnapping?”
“The Beau Rivage has eighteen hundred rooms. No judge would give us a warrant for that. Not without more evidence.”
“What about a bomb threat?” McDill asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the FBI. You could say you had a bomb threat on the casino. They’d have to evacuate the hotel. I could stand outside, watching as you bring the people through the front door. You could videotape them.”
Chalmers looked at McDill with a combination of surprise and respect. “You’re talking about a felony, Doctor.
