Leading the Witness Read online

  Catherine nearly growled at the misperception, but it was her own fault for not being clear. “No, my memories aren’t stressing me out. Russell Pratt is back. He’s here in Austin, or at least he was, and he’s taken Hannah. I don’t know why, but I’m certain it’s not a coincidence.”

  Dr. M set her notebook down. “Tell me how you know.”

  Catherine had a choice. She could take offense that Dr. M didn’t take her at her word, or she could take this opportunity to confide her fears to the only person currently in her life who knew for certain who she really was, including all the sordid details of her past. She relayed the information about the news conference and the bow, including her meeting with Starr the night before.

  “Talk to me about the bow. I remember you mentioning it, but it’s been a while since we talked specifics. Pretend I’m hearing this for the first time.”

  Catherine cleared her throat and fixed on a spot on the far wall. “The bow was for the ceremony. He would bring it out every day and tell me that when I was ready, I would wear the bow in my hair and walk down the aisle to marry him for all eternity.”

  “When you were ready?”

  “That’s what he said, but what he really meant was when he was ready. He was waiting for me to get a little bit older, have my first period so I’d be able to bear children. We weren’t supposed to have sex except to make babies, so marrying me aka raping me had to wait until there was a religiously justifiable reason to do so. He was such a prude about it, he wouldn’t even look at me when I was changing clothes or using the bathroom.” She heard the bitterness in her own voice, but she embraced it. She’d earned the right to be angry, and as much as she wished she could push it all away in the back of her head, never to be thought of again, she knew that wasn’t realistic. So she owned it.

  “You sound awfully matter-of-fact about it all. Is that a factor of how many times you’ve had to tell the story or is it because you’re shutting down the emotional side of it all?”

  “Why do you ask questions when you already know the answer?” Catherine didn’t bother trying to hide the edge in her voice. “It’s annoying.”

  Dr. M smiled. “And yet you keep coming back. Even without an appointment.”

  Catherine half rose. “I can leave.”

  “You can, but you shouldn’t unless you want to. You may not realize this on a conscious level, but you’re reliving your own experience through this case. You were already feeling the similarities before, but now that the bow has come to light, it’s clear this case is directly related to what happened to you.” Dr. M paused and stared intently at her. “What are you thinking right now?”

  “I’m wondering what his next move will be. Did he leave the bow on purpose? Was he the one who called the police? He had to be. No one else would find anything significant about the clue. But why would he risk exposure when he clearly has Hannah hidden away where none of us can find her? It doesn’t make sense. Unless…”

  “Unless?”

  “Could he know I’m here? Did he leave the clue for me, knowing that even if no one else remembered, I would know it meant he was back?”

  “What would his goal be?”

  “I don’t know. Deal with unfinished business?” Catherine shook her head. “It still doesn’t make sense that he would risk exposure after all these years just to taunt me.” She tried to let the thought go, but it lingered, digging its claws into her subconscious.

  “Okay, now that we’ve talked about what you think, let’s talk about how this makes you feel, you know, because that’s my specialty.”

  Catherine shifted in her chair and wondered if she would ever be okay talking about her feelings. Probably not, but she knew firsthand the consequences of ignoring them. Still. “I’m okay.”

  “What does that mean? Describe it to me.”

  She sighed. “I can function. I’m not shutting down.” She looked down at her hands which were frenetically twisting a pen, and then back up at Dr. M whose expression was knowing. “Okay, so I’m a little agitated, but I think that’s pretty normal under the circumstances.”

  “Definitely.” Dr. M looked down at her notes. “It’s been a while since you stopped taking the Celexa. Do you think you might need some to get through this patch?”

  “No.” Catherine wasn’t averse to medication. She’d spent years on various medication regimes trying to find the best method of staving off the side effects of having been kidnapped, losing her only parent, and being thrust into the spotlight of a world starved for the intimate details of the crime that had been perpetrated against her. At first, the medicine had helped her deal with her new reality—she wasn’t sure she could’ve gotten through life without it—but it came with its own set of issues in the form of side effects, and after carefully easing off it, she had no desire to go back. “I want to try to get through this without meds, but I promise I’ll let you know if I need some extra help.”

  “Fair enough. I won’t press, but I am going to ask you to tell me more about your feelings. I’ve got agitated. What else?”

  Damn. Catherine knew there was no getting anything by her, but she didn’t feel like sorting through the swirl of emotions churning in her mind. What do you call the feeling for not wanting to talk about your feelings? She suppressed a laugh at the thought and focused on what she was indeed feeling because Dr. M was unlikely to let up. Breathing was difficult, her limbs were leaden, and her usually sharp mind was dulled by the onslaught of too many thoughts coming at her from all directions. These feelings were undeniably familiar, but she feared speaking them out loud would give them more power despite the fact that years of therapy had taught her the reverse was true.

  “I feel trapped,” she blurted out. “It’s the same as when I wake up from a nightmare. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I’m paralyzed and I feel like I’ll never break free.” She met Dr. M’s steady gaze. “All these years, I’ve known he was out there somewhere, but I let myself assume he’d gone into hiding or died. I assumed he would never be able to have power over me again. But he’s here. I know it with every fiber of my being.” She clenched her fists so tightly her nails dug into her skin. “And I’m not that little girl anymore, but that doesn’t change the fact I feel as powerless as she did, which means I’m back where I started, and I cannot begin to tell you how much that frustrates me.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “There’s nothing I can do except show up here and pour my heart out to you on a regular basis. And pray the task force follows up on the lead.”

  “Have you thought about telling this prosecutor, what was her name?”

  “Starr. Starr Rio.” Catherine braced for what Dr. M was about to say.

  “Have you thought about telling Starr who you are?”

  “No.”

  “Would you like to talk about it?”

  “No.” Catherine didn’t elaborate, not wanting to provide an opening. She stood. “I should go. Thanks for meeting me. I know you didn’t have to and I appreciate it. I feel much better now,” she lied. What she felt was a strong desire to flee as quickly as possible.

  Dr. M mercifully refrained from mentioning her abrupt departure. Until she’d almost escaped. “Your personal safety is my greatest concern. Here.” Dr. M pointed at her head. “And here.” She pointed to her heart. “Whatever we need to do to support you. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Catherine ducked her head to hide her pain and hurried out, wishing she could as easily run away from her feelings and the terror of confronting them.

  * * *

  Starr paced in front of the whiteboard in the conference room they’d set up at police headquarters, her mind reviewing the evidence over and over. For the first time since the task force had been convened, she was alone in the room and she’d hoped the peace would give her added clarity, but all it did was stir up thoughts of inadequacy. Somewhere a little girl was frightened, separated from her family and friends, being subjected to God knows
what, and they were no closer to finding her than they had been when she’d first gone missing.

  Ricky Turner hadn’t left his apartment. The unit below his was vacant, and they’d gotten permission from the landlord to station someone there, but they hadn’t heard any strange noises or even a second set of footfalls to indicate there was anyone else in his apartment. Her gut told her Ricky was a dead end, but they didn’t have anyone else to focus on yet and they needed a lead, or they’d start to lose hope. The online and phone tip lines were a train wreck comprised of half-truths and lots of lies. Everyone claimed to know something, but nothing was verifiable. The cops assigned to the task force had spoken to everyone who’d had an opportunity to see Hannah before she disappeared, and they’d followed up on every lead, no matter how weak, and they had nothing to show for it.

  And then Catherine had shown up with her vague claims about the bow. Starr didn’t hold out much hope that a simple white satin bow could be traced to a child abductor from over twenty years ago. If there really was a connection, why had Catherine been the one to make it and not any of the dozen officers they had working on this case? As improbable as it seemed, Catherine’s clue was all they had to go on right now, and Pearson was on the phone with the FBI right now. Would the connection be clear to them?

  Starr wondered again if Catherine had some personal connection to the Winfield case. She’d spent some time on the internet last night running searches to familiarize herself with the facts. Jill Winfield had been taken from her home by a young man, likely early twenties. Jill didn’t know it at the time, but Russell Pratt had broken in to her home and smothered her mother with a pillow allowing him to take Jill with little fuss. Because the abduction had happened on the weekend, several days passed before anyone even noticed Jill was missing. The school had sent a counselor to check on her after a few missed days and no returned calls and found Jill’s mother’s dead body and no sign of Jill.

  Jill had been held by Pratt for just over a month before she escaped. During that time, he had groomed her for a future as his wife. The grooming had taken place only five miles from Jill’s home in a trailer in the woods. The local sheriff’s office had been out to the trailer, but they professed they’d seen nothing during their visit to make them suspicious that Pratt might be holding Jill captive, although further investigation conducted after the case was over proved they simply hadn’t looked hard enough.

  Starr recalled, and the internet backed her up, that Jill was the hero in the story. She’d managed to squirrel away a fork and used it to pick the lock of her chains, choosing to make her escape on one of the rare occasions that Pratt left her alone to get provisions in town. She’d wandered through the woods, hungry and alone, for over forty-eight hours before she finally stumbled on a campsite of some hunters who took her into town. No one was more surprised than the local sheriff and FBI who’d centered their focus on a teacher at the school who’d had a prior arrest he hadn’t disclosed to the administration.

  With Jill’s only parent dead, she was placed into the custody of her estranged aunt and her family. The family made a show of asking for time alone to deal with this situation, but they trotted Jill out on the regular morning show circuit, presumably collecting the large payouts associated with such appearances. Starr had played back some of the archived video and found that the family looked way more engaged in the interviews than Jill. From her time as a child abuse prosecutor, she recognized the familiar signs of withdrawal and mistrust in Jill’s mannerisms. She looked like she would rather be anyplace but where she was, and Starr couldn’t blame her. There was no benefit to this public display for anyone.

  While she was online, Starr had done a little digging on Catherine Landauer, but the information was shallow. She’d gone to both undergraduate and law school at UT. She’d graduated near the top of her class, and, after a brief internship at the DA’s office, had immediately started working for Neil Daniels, who’d been a fairly prominent criminal defense attorney before he’d died of a heart attack about seven years ago. Catherine now owned the practice, and according to the county records, she also owned the building where her law firm was located, free and clear. A quick search showed the building was now prime real estate, which meant she must be doing well.

  Starr pushed a little further to see if Catherine came from a rich family, but she found nothing referencing a family of any kind or even where Catherine was from. All her online professional bios merely listed her education and career accomplishments, including no personal details. No family, no hobbies, nothing to tell her more than Catherine was a hard-working lawyer with a singular focus on her career.

  The door to the conference room burst open, and Pearson strode through with a sheaf of papers in one hand. “I got something. FBI coughed up their file on the Winfield case, and I printed out a copy for us to review.”

  Starr minimized the screen before he could see what she’d been researching. Catherine Landauer was a mystery, but one that she didn’t have the time to solve right now, and she didn’t want to have to explain her obsessive interest in her because she couldn’t even explain it to herself. She reached out a hand for the file. “Have you looked at it yet?”

  “Barely. Figured you’d bite my head off if you didn’t get equal time with it. But there was a bow, and based on the picture in here, it’s identical to the one we found.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Holy shit is right,” he said. “You okay with releasing the one we found to them for analysis?”

  Starr considered the question carefully. Too many horror stories of evidence being lost or compromised were fresh in her mind, but the feds had access to labs they could only dream about. And they’d be quick, and quick was essential. “What’s your gut say?”

  “I say we do it. We’re running out of options.”

  “Okay, but make sure we get lots of photos. And I want it hand-delivered, no courier service or mail service. I’ll find the money in our budget if we have to. Send someone you trust.”

  “On it.”

  Pearson shoved the file at her while he made a call to make the arrangements. Starr tuned him out and started reading. Each word she took in stirred memories of the case. She’d been just a few years older than Jill had when she’d been kidnapped, and she and every other child in the country had lived through the stress of their parents’ collective nightmare that the same fate could befall them. Obsessive warnings not to talk to strangers and early curfews abounded despite the fact neither would have made a difference in this particular case. Jill’s captor had crept into her house in the dead of night and smothered her mother with a pillow before abducting Jill and holding her captive at his trailer only five miles away. It wasn’t until Jill escaped that she learned her mother had died. The news hailed Jill as a hero, but Starr had seen enough crime victims to know that she might have physically escaped, but she was not unscathed. The fact that Pratt had never been apprehended likely only added to the trauma.

  Starr remembered her parents talking to her about what she should do if a stranger approached her and how to call 911 if someone entered the house who didn’t belong there. It had been and still was surreal, but Starr had seen so many horrible things in her career as a prosecutor, she was sad to say the facts of this case didn’t shock her. But they would have then, back when abductions and sexual abuse weren’t regular features in the daily news. She didn’t know if these crimes were more prevalent now or if they just were highlighted by the constant barrage of news and information as a result of the internet.

  Pearson hung up the phone. “See anything helpful yet?”

  Starr pushed the papers aside. “Let’s talk about this for a sec. Even if the bow is substantially the same, what’s to say Hannah’s kidnapping is not a copycat? I mean don’t you think that’s more realistic than thinking that Russell Pratt, who has eluded capture for all these years suddenly decided to emerge in another state to snatch the mayor’s daughter? What would his motive be to
come out of hiding now and risk arrest? I don’t see anything in here about other connected crimes. Do you think there’s some connection between him and the mayor? Why Austin? It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Pearson grunted. “Don’t ask me about the connection. I’m not the one who insisted that these crimes are connected, but if someone was going to do a copycat, why pick this one? It’s been years. Usually the copycats are trying to bank off the notoriety of the original crime. Hell, we’ve all forgotten about this case.”

  “Except for Catherine,” Starr muttered.

  “What?”

  “Catherine Landauer. Why was this case on her radar?”

  “Dateline junkie? She wouldn’t be the first attorney who practices criminal law to use it as a hobby too.”

  “Sure, but don’t you think it’s a weird coincidence that it was this particular case she remembered?”

  “I guess.”

  Despite Pearson’s uncommitted response, Starr was convinced she was on to something. She did a quick mental run through all of her interactions with Catherine the last few days about this case. Catherine had been overbearing, anxious, and insistent, none of which were signs of a news junkie high on the familiarity of stumbling on a copycat case. No, something about this particular case had burrowed under Catherine’s skin, and the desire to know what it was nagged at Starr as well. The desire pressed her to ask Pearson if he would run a background check on Catherine.

  “You’re kidding right?”

  “No,” she said. “If you had someone else on the outside who was this interested in the case and wasn’t an attorney, you’d have no problem running a check on them to make sure there was nothing strange about their obsession. Why is this any different?”

  “Because if she ever finds out, there will be hell to pay. She’ll claim the cops and the DA’s office are out to get her, and that will be the main point she raises in every motion hearing, every bond decision, every trial from here on out.”