Robert Crais - Hostage

“I need help.”

“That’s why we rolled out, Chief.”

“Do you know the name Sonny Benza?”

She searched his face, Talley thinking that she couldn’t place the name, but then she did.

“That’s the mob guy, right?”

“Smith works for him. Smith has something in that house that can put Benza away, and Benza wants it.”

“Jesus.”

Talley looked at her, and felt his eyes go wet.

“He has my wife and daughter.”

Martin looked away.

Talley told her about the disks, the Watchman, and Jones. He told her how he had played it, and how he intended to play it. She listened without question or comment until he finished, then she crushed her cigarette beneath her heel and stared at the two vans where Jones’s people waited.

“You have to bring this to the Bureau.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Turn it over to Organized Crime. With what you have they could move on Benza right now, pull him straight out of bed and hang him by his thumbs. We breach into that house, get these disks he wants, and that’s all she wrote. That’s how you save your family.”

“It’s not your family.”

She considered the dead cigarette, and sighed.

“No, I guess not.”

“All I have is a voice on a phone, Martin. I don’t know where they are, I don’t know who has them. Benza has people out here; he knows what we’re doing. He could make Jane and Amanda vanish even before we read him his rights, and what do I have? Three men I can’t identify in cars I can’t identify, and Jones over there. I don’t give a shit about making a case. I just want my family.”

Martin stared at the two vans, and sighed again. It was getting to be a long night for all of them.

“I am not going to let murder happen out here, Talley. I can’t do that.”

“Me neither. Jesus.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I can’t let those disks go into evidence. They’re the only leverage I have.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Help me. Keep it between us, but help me get those disks. I can’t let Jones go into that house alone.”

Talley watched her, hoping that she would go along. He couldn’t stop her from going upstairs. All he could do was trust her. She looked back at him, and nodded.

“I’ll do what I can. You keep me informed, Talley. I don’t want to get shot in the back. I can’t let my people get hurt, either.”

Talley felt better, the load lessened because now she helped bear it.

“All I need are those damned disks. I get those disks, and then I’ll have something to trade.”

She considered him, then put her cigarettes back into her jumpsuit. Talley knew what she was going to say before she said it.

“You need more than that. You know too much for Benza to leave you alive. You realize that, don’t you? You, your family, Smith; he can’t leave any of you alive. What are you going to do about that?”

“I’ll deal with it when I have the disks.”

Talley’s cell phone rang, loud in the silence of the night. Martin jumped.

“Shit.”

Talley thought it might be Thomas, but it was Mikkelson, sounding far away and strange.

“Chief, Dreyer and I are still out here at Krupchek’s trailer with detectives from the Sheriff’s Bureau. We got some stuff to report.”

Talley had forgotten about Mikkelson and Dreyer. It took a moment for him to gather his thoughts.

“Go, Mikkelson.”

“Krupchek isn’t Krupchek. His real name is Alvin Marshall Bonnier. His mother’s head is in the freezer.”

Saturday, 12:52 A.M.

TALLEY

Alvin Marshall Bonnier, age twenty-seven, also known as Mars Krupchek, was wanted in connection with four counts of homicide in Tigard, Oregon. The local authorities theorized the following chain of events based on witness interviews and forensic evidence: Bonnier, who lived alone with his mother at the time of the murders, abducted and raped his next-door neighbor, Helene Getty, age seventeen, and disposed of her body in a wooded streambed near their homes. She had been strangled and repeatedly stabbed in the chest, abdomen, and vaginal area. Mrs. Bonnier, an invalid suffering from crippling arthritis, subsequently discovered Getty’s bloodstained panties and left Reebok tennis shoe, also splattered with blood, in her son’s bedroom. She confronted her son, at which time Alvin stabbed his mother to death in the living room, then carried her body to the bathroom, where he dismembered it. Bonnier wrapped the limbs and torso in newspapers and plastic trash bags, then buried these remains in Mrs. Bonnier’s rose bed. Neighbors stated that when the boy was young, Mrs. Bonnier made switches from the thorny rose branches with which she beat the boy. Bonnier kept his mother’s head in the refrigerator, but transferred the head to the trunk of the family car several days later. With his mother’s head along for company, he befriended sixteen-year-old Stephen Stilwell at a local shopping mall and enticed the boy to take a drive, probably offering cigarettes and beer. Instead, Bonnier drove Stilwell to a nearby abandoned drive-in movie theater, where he sodomized the boy, then stabbed him repeatedly. He placed Stilwell in the trunk with his mother’s head, then drove to the same area where he had disposed of Helene Getty’s body. Upon arrival at that location, he discovered that Stilwell was still alive, whereupon he cut the young man’s throat, mutilated his genitals, and abandoned the body without attempting to conceal it. Witnesses at the shopping mall were able to provide a description of Bonnier and his automobile. Twelve days later, an eighteen-year-old high school senior named Anita Brooks hitched a ride with Bonnier after missing her bus. Instead of bringing her to school, Bonnier drove to a nearby lake, where he strangled her before branding the victim’s breasts and vagina with her own cigarettes. Evidence gathered at the scene indicated that he had placed his mother’s head on a nearby picnic table, probably so that she could watch the mutilation. Bonnier immediately returned home, parked his car in its usual spot, then, so far as the police know, departed the area. Authorities discovered Anita Brooks’s body first. Alvin Marshall Bonnier was not identified as the suspect until two days later when neighbors investigated the foul smell coming from the Bonnier residence and summoned the police, who located his mother’s body between the roses. Stilwell and Getty were found within the following week.

Talley listened to Mikkelson’s recitation of the facts with a growing sense of urgency that Martin read in his expression.

“What in hell is happening?”

Talley raised his hand, telling her to wait.

“Mikki, they’re positive that Bonnier and Krupchek are the same person?”

“That’s affirm, Chief. The palm print he left in Kim’s matched dead on, and the Bureau guys brought a copy of the warrants fax from Oregon. I saw the photo. It’s Krupchek.”

“What’s happening out there now?”

“The VICAP hit automatically notified the FBI. The detectives here have locked down the scene to wait for a team from the LA field office.”

Talley checked his watch.

“What’s their ETA?”

“I dunno. You want me to check?”

“Yeah.”

Talley filled in Martin while he waited for Mikkelson. As Martin listened, her face grew closed and uncertain, but Mikkelson was back on the line before she could respond.

“Chief?”

“Go, Mikki.”

“The Feds should be here within a couple of hours. You want us to wait for them or come back to York?”

Talley told her to come back, then snapped the phone shut. He ran his hand across his head and stared toward the cul-de-sac.