Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

“That shouldn’t take too long,” I said.

He shrugged. “I have to work this myself, not get anyone else involved. Anyway, your turn. Tell me.”

He didn’t have to convince me. I was dying to tell him about my day.

Chapter 28

Joe and I changed positions on the sofa. I lay down with my head in Joe’s lap, and he stroked my hair. I told him how good it felt. He smiled, but it didn’t quite take. He looked as wrung out as I felt.

I put it out there; that we’d found Carly’s dead body, that it appeared to be homicide.

“I heard something about a dead woman found in the Big Four.”

“That’s her.”

“Oh, man. Too bad, Linds.”

I filled Joe in on the details, including the shocker that she’d checked into the motel alone, and that according to the manager, she’d done it before.

“He said she was a prostitute.”

“No kidding. The schoolteacher?”

“So said the manager. Right now I have nothing to support that. But, Joe, if Carly was a party girl, anyone could have killed her.”

Joe commiserated, encouraged me to keep talking.

I said, “The manager says he may have seen her date, but only from the back. He says Carly had a pimp named Danny or Denny, he doesn’t know. Our night shift is showing Carly’s picture around, talking to their CIs about her and this possible Danny or Denny. And here’s a surprise. None of the motel guests heard or saw anything suspicious while Carly was at the Big Four.

“These three women were having good lives by nearly any standard. What am I missing?”

Joe said, “Maybe it wasn’t them. It was him. What kind of person would have done this?” His anger was right there, just below the surface. Was he thinking about Petrović and Anna? What kind of man had committed this shocking crime?

I said, “I think her killer was careful. Organized. This wasn’t an amateur job. My guess is he’s killed before.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

I pictured the three women leaving the Bridge feeling happy, maybe a little tired, tipsy…what had happened?

“Joe, there’s no sign of a struggle in the parking lot outside the Bridge. Assuming the women were offered a lift back to the school after dinner. Say the driver saw an opportunity. Why did these women get into that car?”

“Was it raining?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe they trusted him.”

I smiled at him, squeezed his hand.

“Or one of them did.”

He said, “You’re in the early stages of the investigation. You need more information, Linds. Want to go to bed and sleep on it?”

Sounded good to me. I cleaned up while Joe stacked the dishes in the dishwasher. A few minutes later I met the man I loved in the bedroom. We got under the covers, and Martha climbed in between us.

We all slept.

Chapter 29

My eyes flashed open at some dark hour.

I couldn’t remember the whole of my dream, but the fragment that remained was a picture of Carly, Adele, and Susan climbing into a vehicle outside the Bridge.

Now my conscious mind kicked in.

If the three women had gotten into a car with a killer, how was it that twenty-four hours later, Carly had checked into the Big Four Motel alone?

Big question: Where had she been during that time?

If Carly had been tricking, any smart and careful psychopath could have killed her in room 212.

I was scared.

I was afraid that this case could be an endless ball of string that would be unsolved for the next twenty years. Or it could go cold forever.

Next unrelenting question: Where were Adele and Susan?

Joe said, “You can’t sleep, either?”

“Oh, damn. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“I was awake. I can’t turn off my brain.”

Martha rolled onto her back and I mindlessly rubbed her belly.

“I’ve got unsolved murders running through my head,” I said.

“And I’ve got voices talking to me,” said Joe.

He rolled toward me. “The voices are saying, ‘Get it together, you dumb shit.’”

“That’s just mean of your voices.”

Joe sighed and reached for me.

Martha jumped off the bed and I went into Joe’s arms.

We comforted each other, and then we made love, and fell asleep again until sun came through the bedroom window.

It was Friday morning. I was primary on a sickening case, and I still had no clues. I had to go to work.

Chapter 30

By eight thirty that morning Conklin and I were at our facing desks trying to get a lead on Nancy Koebel, the housekeeper who’d come upon the gruesome scene in room 212.

Then she’d vanished.

Her phone number came up as a prepaid phone, a burner. I called Tuohy, and he told me once again that it was the only number he had for her.

“She’s only been here for a coupla months.”

“Thanks,” I barked at him. This guy really pissed me off.

I went back to my computer.

Koebel’s name was absent from the DMV, SFPD, NCIC, and other available criminal databases. Did she get payroll checks from the Big Four—or was she paid off the books? Did she pay taxes? I doubted it. I couldn’t find a trace of her.

“She’s undocumented,” I said to Conklin. I was taking an educated guess.

That’s when Clapper called.

Maybe he’d found evidence on Carly Myers’s body.

“Hold a sec,” I said, “I’m putting you on speaker.”

I stabbed the button on my phone console.

Hellos were exchanged, then Clapper said, “What do you want first? Bad news or good?”

“Bad,” I said. “Don’t cushion it.”

“Inventory of Carly’s handbag: Two textbooks, American history, Western civ. Hefty makeup kit. Pair of sneakers and two white socks. Miscellaneous pads and pens. A strip of condoms. Phone and charger. Laptop and charger. We’ve run down the numbers and email; she shops and pays her bills online. Nothing pops.”

“Shit.”

Clapper kept going.

“Meanwhile, here’s something to keep hope alive. We’ve impounded the ATM from the Stop ’n Go facing across Polk toward the back of the motel,” he said. “We’re taking it apart and should know shortly if the camera was working, the disk was usable, the lens was clean. If all that’s a go, we’ll see if it captured anything useful.”

“Good,” I said, crossing my fingers.

Clapper said, “I’m being paged, but we finished processing Carly Myers’s body down at the morgue last night. Claire has my detailed notes. Call me if you have questions.”

I had questions. Lots of them.

I shouted, “Charlie, wait!”

“Can’t,” he said. “Boxer. Go to the morgue. Claire’s waiting for you. And keep the faith.”

He hung up.

I looked at my partner. “Ready?”

“You go. Take notes. I’ll keep working on Koebel.”

Fine.

I jogged down the four flights of stairs to the lobby and out the back door, and then power walked three hundred yards to the ME’s office. I pulled open the heavy glass door.

It was closing in on 9:00 a.m., and the waiting room was filled with several cops and civilians who were likely family members waiting for autopsy results.

I opened my jacket, flashed my badge at the new receptionist, and told her that Dr. Washburn was waiting for me.

The receptionist pressed the intercom button on her phone and said, “Doctor, Sergeant Boxer is here.” Then, to me, “Go ahead.”

She buzzed open the inner door.

Several people who were waiting their turn saw this exchange and gave me hard looks.

Well. I was on the job.

I headed back to the autopsy suite. It was still early in the investigation, but maybe Claire would give me one tidbit or even, God willing, a eureka that would lead us to a killer and maybe from there to the two still-missing women.