Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

I thanked Sam for his time and went on to a witness found after I’d left the scene. This one was high on drugs and had not seen the crazed, bloodsucking psycho. Of the six men and women I questioned, only Sam had seen the actual assault, and his eyewitness report was almost useless.

To my great relief, Sergeant Correa arrived with lights and sirens on full blast and a cruiser drafting behind her. The ambulance pulled up, and after a moment the victim was lifted in and the bus took off.

Once the victim was gone, the crowd dispersed, and Frazer, Correa, and I waited for CSI with our hands on our guns. Correa went back to her car and took the call from dispatch, who informed her that Rona had died in the bus en route to the hospital.

Correa told Frazer, “I hope yours was the last face Rona saw before she died, not her killer’s.”

I felt sad and mad. He’d been right here, and for all any of us knew, he was still here, one of the shadowy figures just out of reach.

He was never caught. The killings of this type stopped, and that meant that the Bloodsucker had gotten scared, or married, or moved on. But unless he was dead, the odds were good that his blood lust was only dormant.

Another killer the SFPD chased, a sadist, committed a dozen murders. Then he put himself on the shelf for thirty full years, holding a regular job, belonging to the neighborhood watch and family-type organizations. Until he missed the attention and began to kill again.

Had the Bloodsucker retired? Or was he still living in the Mission, hiding out, working as a barber or a librarian, watching cartoons with his kids on the weekends, biding his time?

“Lindsay! Look!” Was he watching us now?

My reverie dissolved when Rich shouted my name, then said, “Chevy Tahoe at three o’clock.”

The Tahoe was dark blue, a full-size SUV with logos spelling out the taqueria’s name and phone number on the side doors. Across the street from the vehicle was the Taqueria del Lobo, a small walk-in take-out taco shop.

“That’s it,” I said.

I called in our location, and my partner double-parked beside the Tahoe, blocking it in its spot.

Conklin and I got out of our car into a neighborhood of bad old memories and ghosts that were still quite alive in my mind.

We waded through the fog.

Chapter 53

The blue Tahoe had the Taqueria del Lobo logo on both sides.

The vehicle was locked, but I shined my light through the windows to look all around the interior. It was clean and tidy. There wasn’t even a taco wrapper in the footwell. Richie checked the tags and called out to me that the number was the same as what we’d gotten from the DMV.

Across the street and down a few doors was the taco shop. The sign overhead was a line drawing of a grinning wolf saying “Bite me” in a voice balloon. The sign hanging in the window read OPEN. We crossed the street and Rich pushed the door. A bell tinkled and I followed him in.

The place was small and brightly lit, and smelled delicious. That reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything since coffee and toast with Joe this morning, eleven long hours ago. Something dancy was playing over the sound system, and three men in work clothes were hunched over one of the small tables, eating tacos and refried beans.

The woman behind the counter was in her late twenties, with auburn hair in a ponytail and various tats on what I could see of her arms, mostly of the hearts-and-butterflies variety.

She looked at us, but her big brown eyes swung to my partner.

“What can I get for you?” she asked.

“We’re with the SFPD.” Conklin smiled, introduced us, asked the woman for her name.

“Lucinda. Drucker.”

He said, “We have a few questions for you, Ms. Drucker.”

“Questions for me?  ”

I stepped in and showed her the photo of Denny on my phone. I asked, “Do you know this man?”

She scrutinized the photo, and I swiped the screen, showing more photos from the same set the ATM had shot of the parking lot. Finally she said, “I think that’s Denny.”

“Last name?”

“Lopez.”

I said, “Denny works here?”

“Denny’s my boyfriend. What’s wrong? Why do you need to know?”

I said, “Denny was seen with a vehicle like the one across the street. It was parked near a crime scene. He may have seen something that could help us with our investigation.”

A dark-haired man with a tattoo of a wolf on the side of his neck came out of the kitchen and into the small main room. He wore a stained white apron over his T-shirt and jeans and was drying his hands on a dish towel. This had to be Jose Martinez, the taco shop’s proprietor and owner of the matching SUV.

Conklin and I were both wearing SFPD Windbreakers. Martinez noticed, scowled, and said, “Can I help you?”

Lucinda said, “I got this, Jose. It’s personal. I need to take a smoke break, okay?”

The boss said to me, “This is my shop. Did she do something wrong?”

“We’re doing an investigation, and Lucinda may know a witness who can help us out.”

He was going to go nuts when I told him we were going to impound his vehicle, but I wasn’t ready to disclose that yet. First we needed Lucinda to talk about Denny.

He said to Lucinda, “Your boyfriend get into an accident with my car?”

“No, no, Jose. No, he did not.”

Martinez looked at her, walked to the front window, peered out until he saw the SUV. Then he flapped his dish towel over his shoulder and glared at Lucinda, saying, “Five minutes, Lucy. You gotta help me out here.”

Martinez went to the cash register as the three men stood, balled up their trash, and dunked it into a bin. Lucy ducked under the counter and came around with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Given Lucinda’s noticeable anxiety, I thought she might refuse to give Denny up. Regardless, I was betting that Carly Myers had left a print or a trace of DNA inside the SUV. Maybe Susan and Adele had also left some trace.

I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be optimistic, but I felt this close to bagging Denny Lopez.

Chapter 54

I was high on hope as we followed Lucinda Drucker out to Valencia Street.

I watched and waited as she fumbled with her lighter, lit her cigarette, and took a long drag. She exhaled. Then she said, “I don’t know where Denny is. I called him a couple times today and he didn’t call me back yet.”

Conklin asked for Denny’s number and hers, and she reluctantly complied. He asked, “Under what circumstances did Denny use the company car?”

“He does lunchtime deliveries. Sometimes I let him take it after we’re closed.”

“Martinez is okay with that?”

“Please don’t…look, he’ll fire me.”

Conklin asked, “Do you know where Denny was last Tuesday at about this time?”

“Oh, hell no. I don’t ask him his business.”

She rubbed her shoulder as if she was remembering something that had happened when she’d asked him his business before. She asked, “What kind of crime was he supposed to have seen?”

“Does Denny do other kinds of work?” I asked, sidestepping her question by inserting one of mine.

“I told you, I don’t ask him his business. Here’s what I want to say: I love Denny. He loves me. I dropped out of high school ten years ago, and he was my first boyfriend and my only. I really know him. Understand? He would never do anything wrong.”

I said, “But you don’t ask him his business.”

She scowled, took a drag on her cigarette, flicked ashes.

We weren’t alone on the street.

Traffic came slowly up Valencia, and streetwalkers leaned into cars at the lights. Shopworkers walked to their cars. Bars opened and stores closed.