Chapter 41

As Darrell walked down the hall after the door closed to the Junior Medical Examiner’s office he felt a sense of camaraderie as well as sadness for the man. Darrell felt that this man would be easy to work with, however there was that feeling of trepidation that he had in the bottom of his gut. Maybe it was because he saw Gayle’s folder open on the desk, or maybe it was something else. He didn’t know. On the way up in the elevator he thought about the notes Dr. Deveroux had made.

“Detailed, very detailed.”

Was the thought that first popped into Darrell’s head, but then the next thought justified that comment,

“Duh! Medical Examiner…Doctor! They are trained for detailed work.” Darrell came out of the elevator shaking his head. Darrell ran into Agent McLaughlin on his way back to the task force room.

“There is a woman here to see you.” Was the only thing the agent said as he pointed to Interrogation Room #3.

“Who?” Darrell asked but the Agent was already out the door into the hallway heading to the elevators.

Darrell grabbed his jacket, a pad of paper and a pen then plodded over to meet his mystery woman. He opened the door and as he closed the door he introduced himself. He sat beside the woman in the room instead of sitting across from her.

“I’m Norma Westholm.” The woman said meekly

“My daughter…” she tried to swallow back tears. “My daughter, she’s been missing…” the woman broke into sobs.

Darrell grabbed the woman’s hand and let her cry out her fears. When the older woman started to compose herself, she looked at Darrell with red eyes and spoke.

“Bridgette has been missing for almost two days.” As the woman wiped her eyes with a tissue she kept speaking,

“She’s a good girl; well she has been for the past 5 years. There was that awful dealing with that boy but after that she straightened up and she’s been a good girl ever since. She’s going to be a nun. She is supposed to leave for Cloisters tomorrow.”

The woman took a long breath and before she could start again, Darrell asked

“Do you have a photo I can use?”

The woman grabbed her handbag and started to dig; she grabbed her wallet and took out the most recent photo which happened to be one of those mother/daughter photos from one of those mall photo booths.

“We took those four days ago. When we went shopping.” The woman’s eyes teared up again.

“I’ll be right back! I promise!” Darrell spoke as he grabbed the mother’s hand again.

Darrell took the photo with him, ran over to the copier, enlarged the photo and then took the larger photo to the task force room. He placed the photo on the last blank board and underneath in red pen wrote:

BRIDGETTE WESTHOLM

MISSING 2 DAYS

FUTURE NUN

He left the room as quickly as he had entered, went back to the copier, grabbed the smaller picture Mrs. Westholm had given him and re-entered the interrogation room which was stifling.

“I took a copy so you could have this back.” Darrell handed the photo back to the teary woman.

“Thank you,” the woman replied in a monotone voice as she clutched the photo.

“We will find her!” Darrell said as he sat beside the woman and looked into her eyes. The woman’s tears started to roll out of her eyes again.

Darrell sat with her, got her address, phone number and all the other information needed as well as some other pertinent information about her daughter. When the two had said all there was to say, Detective Darker escorted Mrs. Westholm out of the Police Station.

“Find my baby, please?!” Norma Westholm pleaded.

“We will, I promise.” Darrell repeated. He watched the woman walk to the bus stop and sit on the bench. Suddenly she looked about 20 years older than she had only 45 minutes earlier. Darrell hung his head as he stormed back into the station. His thoughts were racing. He needed to catch this…

“BASTARD!” He spoke aloud as he walked up the flights of stairs. He stayed with his thoughts until he reached the task force room where he grabbed the list of women from the clinic and found Bridgette Westholms name. He wrote next to her name on the board

Joanne Horne

Kimberley Doyle MISSING 2 DAYS

Pamela Schmidt

Darrell had suspected that these were the four the Whisperer had taken; now he knew. And if everything they had discovered was true, at least two of these girls would be dead in less than twelve hours.