Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

“Actually, I want to help,” said Denny.

I said, “Okay, good. Let’s get to it.”

So I asked Denny for the third time, “When was the last time you saw Carly Myers?”

“I don’t know her.”

I almost lost it. He was screwing with us, and I had no power to turn him around.

I leaned in, and speaking in a hard, cold voice, I said, “I swear, Denny, either you help us or you become the focus of my life until you’re in jail.”

Lopez used a minute of our precious time to think things over. Then he said, “The last time I saw Carly was a couple of weeks ago. I guess. I don’t keep a calendar.”

“You’re sure you didn’t see her last week? Let me give you a hint,” I said. “Carly and her two friends were seen leaving a bar called the Bridge on Monday night.”

“ I. Didn’t. See. Her. How am I supposed to prove that? I got a question for you. How many hookers get killed every year in this city? A dozen? Do you know? Do you want to grill me about them? Do you think I go around killing working girls? Are you out of your minds?”

When he’d finished venting, Conklin said, “Let me help you out. You were seen on Tuesday night at the Big Four, where Carly was murdered. Your taco ride has been seen there frequently. The Big Four manager knows you were pimping for Carly. That’s what the DA is going to tell the judge. You were the dead woman’s pimp. You were seen at the crime scene around the time she was killed. We’re asking you about a woman you knew and did business with. Follow me?”

Denny nodded and all of the air went out of his balloon.

Conklin said, “Right now our forensics lab is going over the tacomobile, and the DA is getting a warrant for your DNA. A foreign hair was found on Carly’s body, and if the DNA on that hair matches yours, you’re our guy. You’re it.”

“I didn’t kill Carly,” Lopez told my partner. “I’ve never had sex with her. I’ve never even touched her.”

“Then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by telling us every single thing you know,” I said.

Conklin asked, “How about it, Denny?”

Chapter 59

Denny thought over the win-win suggestion I’d made, while looking into my hard blue eyes—and he took it to heart.

He said, “I met Carly at the Bridge one night about three months ago. I was sitting at the bar. Carly was a couple stools down, and I started talking to her. She was very cute. I moved over next to her. I bought her a drink. I asked her what kind of work she did and she told me. She said she didn’t make a lot of money and was trying to pay off her college loans.”

He shrugged. I drummed my fingers on the table. I wanted him to get to it. Faster.

Lopez said, “I told her I’d be happy to help her work off the loan and I’d give her a pretty good deal, a fifty-fifty split after taking out for expenses. She laughed. Asked me what I meant. I told her and she told me I was crazy.

“So about a month after I made that offer, she called me and said she wanted to do it.”

Conklin said, “She agreed to be a prostitute?”

Lopez said, “She had decided . I didn’t pressure her. Not at all. She said she wanted to try. I made a date for her. I drove her to the Big Four. I like that place because they don’t ask any questions.

“I stayed in the parking lot while Carly was having her date. I had told her I would be lookout in case of trouble. She made a couple hundred bucks and told me to make another date for her.”

“And you did?” Conklin asked.

Lopez said, “Once or twice a month. That was all she would do. Hey. To be honest, Sergeant, I don’t know for sure that she even liked guys.”

“Explain,” I said.

“Just a feeling I had. Look. A lotta girls who turn tricks hate men, don’t you think?”

“Go on with your story, Denny. There’s a line forming outside, people waiting for this room.”

He looked up at the two-way mirror and waved.

I slapped my hand down on the table and his attention came back to me.

Lopez said, “I picked guys who weren’t too gross, and she seemed fine with it for a month or so. Then, a few weeks ago, she said she didn’t want to do it anymore.”

I said, “Is that right?”

I took out my phone, showed Denny the pictures of him coming down the stairs at the back of the motel.

“You recognize this guy?”

He looked at the picture, eyes moving over the small screen, pausing, clearing his throat, then saying, “That’s me.”

“That was a week ago,” I told him.

“I was there,” he said, “but not with Carly.”

I was ready with my follow-up questions. I asked him if he knew Adele Saran and Susan Jones. I showed him the picture I had of all three of them together at a table at the Bridge.

Lopez said he’d seen them there but never spoken to Adele or Susan.

He added, “Those are the missing women I heard about?”

“I think you know that.”

He stood up from his seat and yelled in my face, “You’ve got the wrong man. You’ve got the wrong man! I didn’t hurt anyone. And now I’m getting out of here. Adios.”

Chapter 60

Conklin stood up and said to Lopez in his very reasonable and patient voice, “Hey, Denny, you’re free to leave, okay? But come on. We’re not trying to pin anything on you. We’re trying to save some lives here.”

I left Denny to Conklin and went to get our person of interest a soft drink. By the time I had returned to the box, Lopez was chatting with Conklin as if they were old friends.

That was a good thing and I hated to break the mood, but I was still half crazy worrying about two missing schoolteachers. I took my seat, pushed the can of soda over to Lopez.

He popped the top, took a swig.

I pulled out my phone again and said, “Denny, here’s the timeline. Carly checked into the Big Four on Tuesday night a week ago. On Thursday she was found dead in room 212. Murdered. This picture of you is time-stamped 11:23 p.m. Tuesday, the night we think she was killed. You were coming down from her room. What were you doing there? Make me understand.”

Lopez heaved a sigh.

“I didn’t go to her room,” he said. “Actually, I was waiting for Daisy, my new girl. Daisy was in room 314, the top floor. I was in the parking lot, and I saw some man in a sports jacket leave 212, the room Carly always booked. It’s on the corner. She liked that because the room is a little bigger. I figured she might be in there alone. It was a hunch, that’s all. I knocked on the door. She didn’t answer. I went back down to the car and waited for Daisy.”

He looked at my face and said, “That’s the fucking truth. You want to talk to Daisy? Because I don’t have her number.”

Lopez was getting worked up again.

Conklin said, “Keep going, Denny. You waited for Daisy to be finished.”

“Yes. Thank you. When Daisy was done, we did our financial transaction inside the car, and I drove her back to Mission and Eighteenth Street.”

I said to Lopez, “Can you describe the man you saw leaving Carly’s room? The man in the sports jacket.”

“It was a nonevent. He was moving fast.”

“Did you see his car?” I asked.

“No. I was in the back lot, and I think what he did was walk around to the front. Sometimes I park in the front, too.”

I said, “Could you describe him to a sketch artist?”

“Doubtful. I could try. If I do that, will you kiss me good night and drive me home?”

Conklin said, “First, the sketch artist. Then I’ll talk to our lieutenant, and if you’ve been cooperative—no kisses. But we’ll get you a ride home.”

Denny spent a few minutes with our sketch artist, who showed us the resultant drawing of a rectangular face with regular features. It could be anyone.