The Lonely Mile(14)
After she seemed satisfied with the description of the man’s physical characteristics and timeline of the crime, Canfield spent a long time questioning Bill about the vehicle he had seen the I-90 Killer driving. Bill had gotten a pretty close-up view of it as it passed him in the parking lot, and the authorities wanted as accurate a description as possible to add to the alert which had already been issued.
“It was pretty generic,” he said. “A standard truck with an enclosed, square cargo box on the back, like a small moving truck. It had clearly been repainted and its color was off-white. It looked like an amateur paint job to me. The coloring was uneven and beginning to fade.”
“What about identifying markings? Name of a business, telephone number, anything?”
“No,” he said. “There was nothing on the truck at all that I could see, either on the side of the cargo box or on the passenger side door when he drove by.”
“What about the license plate?”
Bill shook his head. “I tried to read it, but there was so much blue smoke pouring from the exhaust that it totally obscured the tags. I couldn’t even make out what state the vehicle was registered in. It could have been Massachusetts or New York. Or neither one, for that matter. In fact, I would say the smoke might represent the only real identifying characteristic of the truck. It needs a ring job badly. Aside from that, it’s completely anonymous. There are probably ten thousand trucks just like it all over the east coast.”
From there, the interview deviated into Bill’s perceptions of the attempted kidnapper. The man had successfully evaded capture by law enforcement for well over three years. Every time they got close, he would frustrate authorities by simply disappearing. “If you had to choose one word to describe this man, what would it be?” Canfield asked.
Bill sat quietly, thinking. The question had surprised him. The agent didn’t hurry him; she seemed to have all the time in the world.
“Arrogant,” he finally answered.
“How so?”
“Even when I had my weapon trained right on him, he seemed to feel he was in complete control. Looking back on it now, I suppose he was, considering how it turned out, but at no time did he ever seem to doubt his own ability to escape from a situation that had to have appeared pretty hopeless.”
“He wasn’t nervous?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Bill said. “He was definitely nervous. He was sweating up a storm and smelled like he hadn’t showered for days. I feel sorry for that poor girl—he was hugging her like a second skin. But even though he was nervous, he acted like he believed he was smarter than everyone else in the room and could use that intelligence any time he wanted to fashion his escape.”
Canfield paused, studying Bill. It had been a long time since an attractive woman looked at him that closely—definitely since before the divorce, probably since way before, if he was being honest with himself—and Bill wasn’t about to complain or hurry her along. It seemed clear her interest in him was strictly professional, but still, he had to admit that it felt kind of good. Plus, it was obvious she was trying to formulate a question she didn’t quite know how to ask, and he was more than happy to let her twist in the wind for a while as payback for leaning on him so hard about his gun at the beginning of the interview.
At last, she cleared her throat. “Why do you suppose…”
He thought he knew what she wanted to ask but waited her out. Finally she finished, rushing through the question as if embarrassed about asking. “Why do you suppose he didn’t just shoot you and take the girl? He was holding a human shield, but you had no such protection.”
Bill smiled. “I’ve been asking myself exactly that question since about five seconds after the guy drove away. I really don’t have a clue. The only thing I can guess is that maybe he was afraid shooting me would cause a mass panic and that the rest of the people inside the rest stop might stampede wildly toward the door in an attempt to escape, blocking him in. He must have known the cops were on their way and that he had a limited amount of time to get out. After all, this State Police barracks is only a mile or so away from the place.”
At last, Agent Canfield turned off the recorder and unplugged it, winding the cord around the machine. She reached into the breast pocket of her chambray shirt and pulled out a business card, handing it to Bill. “This has my office number as well as my private cell phone number on it. If you think of anything else, I don’t care how small or unimportant it seems, please call me. Any time, night or day, I don’t care. We need to catch this guy, and we need to do it before he takes another girl.”
“How is she?” Bill asked.
“Who?”
“The teenage girl the guy tried to kidnap. Allie, I think, was her name. How is she doing?”
Canfield thought about it and laughed. It made her whole face light up and Bill wanted to tell her she should do it more often. “The girl is fine,” she said. “She’s a tough kid. Her mother, though, that’s a different story. I don’t think she’s going to let that poor thing out of her sight again. Ever.”
Canfield stood and picked up the recorder, indicating the interview was over. “I’ll take you back to the rest stop to pick up your vehicle.”
“Isn’t that kind of a menial job for a big-shot FBI Special Agent?”