Джеймс Паттерсон - Unsolved

“She didn’t tell you where she was from?”

“No. Or, like, I remember asking her what brought her to Virginia? Y’know, I thought she’d say something like family or a boyfriend or school or something.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she needed a change of scenery. And then she kinda started talking about something else. So I didn’t push it.” He raises a hand. “She’s a great therapist, though, and, really, she’s a very sweet lady.”

I understand. I also understand that she’s apparently not accepting Tom’s invitation to join us. I look at the clock. It’s now twenty past three. I want to get back soon. This wasn’t supposed to take more than a few minutes. I show the video, people either recognize him or not, and we move on.

I’m anxious to hear from Books, but it will take him some time to reach the apartment building in Huntington, get everyone in strike formation, and then execute the search of Mary Ann Stoddard’s apartment.

I ask Tom, “Have you had a chance to think about whether you might have seen Sergeant Petty?”

“Yeah, I mean—well, the video will be good to see. But I told you some of the people who’d listen to Lew in the courtyard weren’t patients?”

“Right. You said others would come. Other veterans.”

“Yeah. I mean, a guy who’s bald and in his forties—I wouldn’t say he was one of the regulars. But there was a guy who came around sometimes, and he might be the guy you’re talking about. He was very serious. Like, this was all just guys sitting around talking politics, y’know? Lew was definitely doing most of the talking, but it was, like, banter. But this guy, he seemed like he was concentrating more, if that makes sense. Like it was super-serious to him. And he didn’t really seem like he was part of the group, I guess you’d say. Like he was this outsider who’d come around and listen really closely and leave.”

This could be helpful. I need to get this video footage in front of Tom.

“Is there a DVD player around here?” I ask. “Maybe we’d hear Michelle come in.”

“Yeah, there’s one here in Louise’s office.”

Tom leads me into one of the administrative offices, a spacious one, neatly arranged, the walls lined with photos of family and diplomas and certificates. In the corner is a television and a DVD player. “I’ve never used this, but how hard can it be?” he says.

I hand him the DVD of the surveillance footage, and he puts it in. The TV screen goes from black to…fuzz.

“Hang on.” Tom tries buttons on the DVD player. He picks up one remote, points it, and pushes buttons. He changes channels. He changes the source. He puts down the remote and tries another one. “This will do it, I think.” But no, it doesn’t.

I sigh. “Is there another DVD player around?”

Tom thinks for a moment. “Maybe the assistant director’s office.” We try that. The door’s locked, so Tom has to retrieve the master keys and open it. No TV inside, no DVD player.

Ultimately, he tries every administrative office, including Payroll and HR. No functioning DVD player, at least not one we can make work.

It’s now three forty. We are way beyond the time I wanted to leave. I need to go. “Tom, wasn’t there a DVD player in that conference room up on the second floor where I was talking yesterday?”

“Oh yeah, there is,” he says. “And I’ve used that one. I can use that one. C’mon.” We pass through the administrative offices and go back to reception.

Tom looks out the front door. “Still no Michelle,” he says. “I just…don’t know where she’d be.”

124

BOOKS MEETS with the bomb squad and SWAT team a block from the location in downtown Huntington. The SWAT team is dispatched to the rooftops of the adjacent buildings. The bomb squad will keep its distance but stand ready to respond on Books’s command.

The agents fan out around the Meredith Court and Gardens. Books enters the lobby with several agents. Two of them will secure the area and make sure the elevator service is cut after Books reaches the seventh floor. Two others will secure the underground parking garage. The rest will go with him.

They show the lobby clerk their badges and explain the situation. The man, young and wet behind the ears, nods his head in compliance and can barely speak. The assistant manager comes into the lobby. After more conversation, he hands Books a key that will open unit 719 and probably all the others too.

Books and four agents—one of them Hendricks—take the elevator up to the seventh floor. “We’re here,” Books says into the collar of his coat. “Bring the elevator down to the ground floor and kill it.”

“Roger that,” he hears through his earpiece.

The agents hold their weapons out but low as they jog along the tattered carpeting and past the gray walls toward the southeast corner, unit 719.

They spread out, two to a side, flanking the door. Books pushes the buzzer and waits. The agents have their weapons up now, stern expressions, masses of bundled energy.

Books pushes the buzzer again. “Mary Ann Stoddard!” he calls out. He pushes it again. “Mary Ann Stoddard! This is the FBI! Open up!”

Nothing.

Books nods at one of the agents, who takes the key, places it firmly in the lock, and turns it. The door opens but is caught by a chain.

The agents look at one another, catching the significance. You couldn’t put the chain on the door from the outside.

Someone’s inside that apartment.

“Mary Ann Stoddard!” Books calls out again, this time through a partially opened door.

He waits, trying to hear inside over the pounding of his pulse.

Finally he steps back and kicks the door, popping the chain. The agents swarm inside, weapons aimed at the various corners of vulnerability, sweeping the front room.

Nothing. A dingy open room with old furniture and a large window facing east. A kitchenette with coffee cups in the sink and the smell of something fried in the air.

Next to it, a closed door—must be the single bedroom.

“Mary Ann Stoddard!” Books calls out.

He hears something inside the room, glass breaking.

“South,” Books says quietly into his collar, speaking to the SWAT sniper on the roof to the south of the building, “do you have a visual?”

“Negative. Blinds are pulled.”

“East, a visual?”

“Negative, Books. Blinds are pulled on this side too.”

His heart races. He reaches his hand out for the door. Nods to the other agents, who gather behind him. Turns the knob. It isn’t locked.

He pushes the door open, rushes in, weapon up—

A woman in a hospital bed is struggling to sit up; a glass has shattered on the floor next to the nightstand. Her head is wrapped in a bandanna; her skin is pale, her eyes sunken. She looks frail, and her movements are shaky. The rest of the room’s empty. The other agents confirm the bathroom is unoccupied.

“FBI, ma’am,” says Books. “Mary Ann Stoddard?”

“Yes. I…heard you. I was…sleeping.”

“Where is he, ma’am?”

She squints at him. “Are you Agent…Bookman? Books?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The woman’s head falls back against the pillow.

“Agent Bookman,” she says, “do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

125

TOM MILLER and I climb the stairs to the conference room on the second floor. We enter the room, which is the same as yesterday, with the nice table and AV equipment surrounded by drop cloths, roller pans, and paint cans, partially painted walls, and the pack of water bottles, minus one bottle I took yesterday. The heat here is just as oppressive as it was yesterday, the sunlight blazing through the windows.

“Okay, this shouldn’t take long,” says Tom. “ This machine, I know how to use.”