Джеймс Паттерсон - The 18th Abduction

“I’ve told you what I think,” Joe said. “He’s a criminal in search of a target, and you make a pretty good one.”

“It’s my birthday, Joe. Forty today.”

“Oh. Well. Happy birthday. Did your coworkers give you a cake?”

“Yes. And cards. And this,” she said, showing him a chain with a little sparkly pendant. “It’s my birthstone. But I haven’t had lunch. How about taking me out for something, Joe? I haven’t had steak in a long time.”

“You’re joking.”

“Small joke. Not steak. Pasta maybe.”

“Sorry, Anna. I’ve got work to do here at the office.”

She tried to hide her disappointment, but her face colored. She picked up her handbag.

“I apologize for being…inappropriate. I’ll be going now.”

Joe said, “Don’t worry, Anna. Really. It’s okay.”

He knew she was lonely. That he was a large figure in her life. He walked Anna to the elevator and told her, as he always did, that he would be in touch if he learned anything useful and she should do the same.

Later that afternoon, Joe checked in with his teams and their night shift replacements. Petrović’s car was still parked in his spot in front of Tony’s Place. All was quiet.

Joe turned it all over in his mind as he drove toward Lake Street. Was Petrović up to something? Or was he on his best behavior, taking part in the American dream?

He thought about Lindsay and hoped she’d be waiting for him when he opened the front door.

He longed for a regular evening at home with Lindsay.

Chapter 81

It was Friday morning, eleven days since the schoolteachers had been abducted—two of them subsequently murdered—and we were clueless in the truest sense of the word.

I stared down at the mess of papers on my desk while I was on the phone with Clapper, thanking him for getting back to me so fast on Adele Saran.

He said, “I think you mean, ‘Thanks for nothing.’”

“No. I mean one door closes, another opens—if I can only find that other one.”

Clapper chuckled, said, “You’ll find it, Boxer. I’ve got faith.”

I put down the receiver and threw a category-five sigh, blowing a pile of message slips across my desk onto Conklin’s.

Conklin said, “Tell me. I can take it.”

“Okay. Welcome back to square one, partner. The only DNA on Adele’s body was hers. Nothing under her nails. No trace or prints on the wire used to bind and hang her. No prints on the throwing stars, and the only evidence in the woods was scuffled leaves from hither to thither, starting and ending at Hicks Road. Oh. On the other hand, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of prints on the tacomobile.”

Conklin leaned back in his chair, ran both hands through his hair, and sighed. “Oh, happy day.”

I went on.

“Carly’s prints were on the door handles and the dashboard—corroborating what Denny Lopez told us. He drove Carly to the motel a few times. Most of the other prints were his and his girlfriend’s—remember her? Three days ago seems like a year. Lucinda Drucker. But there was a match to a Barbara Fines, a prostitute, goes by the name of Daisy.”

Conklin said, “Corroborating Denny’s story again.”

I said, “Clapper will release the taco truck to its owner, or he’ll hold on to it if we want to jerk Denny around a little more.”

“He’s all we’ve got. Let’s do it,” said my partner. “Maybe we’ll shake something loose.”

I called Lopez with a burner phone so that my name didn’t come up on his screen, and he picked up. He was mad about my little trick but said that he was at a bar called Bud’s on Twenty-Second and Mission. I told him to hang tight, then Conklin and I were on our way in a cruiser.

Conklin pointed to Lopez, standing on the corner outside the bar. He was unkempt, with dirty hair and clothes, clearly out of work—our fault—since we’d taken the SUV away.

Lopez looked pained as we double-parked the black-and-white, and even more so as Conklin got out, opened the rear door, steered Denny into the back, then got in beside him.

“For God’s sake,” the pimp slurred. “You’re going to get me killed, you know?”

Conklin said, “Killed, why?”

“You know why,” Denny said, like he was talking to four-year-olds. “I could be seen talking to cops.”

“If you help us out, Martinez could have the SUV in a few hours. You’ll get your job back. Okay?”

Lopez said, “Let’s talk fast. I have a lunch date with a young lady. If you get my meaning.”

I slid over to the wheel, started up the car, pulled out onto Mission without tearing up the asphalt. I parked four blocks away in front of a nail salon and a donut shop, set the brake, and leaned over the seat back.

I said, “Listen to me, Denny. You were present at the scene of the crime. Prior to that, you’d seen the schoolteachers at the Bridge and had a business relationship with Carly. She’s dead. Adele is dead. We could hold you as a person of interest for a loooong time.”

“You shitting me?”

“Dig deep, Denny. There’s always one forgotten thing. What haven’t you told us?”

“Now that you mention it, I do remember something.”

I said, “Go ahead. Blow me away.”

“I actually remember a guy who came into the Bridge one time, not long ago. Sat at a table with another dude and bought drinks for those girls.”

Lopez was sobering up a little bit and checking out the passersby, the customers carrying bags from Grand Mission Donuts, the usual motley collection of jobless, homeless, hopeless, and drugged-up denizens of the Mission, along with office workers getting their morning joe.

Conklin grabbed the pimp’s arm and shook him to attention.

“Denny. Tell us what the guy looked like, anything he may have said or done.”

“Christ,” Denny said, throwing up his hands. “He was big. I only saw him sitting, but I’m guessing he was six three. Two eighty. Carried his weight here.” He put his hands on his abdomen. “He was at the Bridge and buying drinks for the girls, and Carly was shining on him. I was still hoping to get her back, so that’s why I noticed.”

I started up the car.

Conklin got out of the back seat, got in next to me.

“Hey. You’re taking me back to Bud’s, right?” Denny asked.

“Guess again,” I said.

Chapter 82

Conklin said to Denny, “We need you to look at some pictures at the Hall.”

Lopez protested loudly.

I told him to shut up and calm down. “Two women are dead, and you knew both of them. Odds are you saw their killer.”

“You arresting me?” he asked, still slurring.

“Only if you insist,” I said.

He didn’t speak after that. We arrived back at the Hall in fifteen minutes, left the car on Bryant, and marched Denny Lopez straight up to the fourth floor, where I stashed him in Interview 1 and told him to sit tight.

“Officer Krupky is behind the glass,” I said, pointing to the mirrored window. I waved at my image. Krupky was fictitious and the observation room was empty, but Denny didn’t know that. I said to him, “It’s going to take us a little while,” handing him a copy of the morning Examiner, which I’d grabbed off one of the chairs.

“You should read this.”

The front-page story was about Adele Saran. There was a picture of her beautiful face and another of the hanging tree. The headline couldn’t have been bolder or blacker.

TORTURE AND DEATH OF A SCHOOLTEACHER.

Denny didn’t strike me as a news junkie or a reader. From the way he grabbed the paper with his shaking hands, he was learning the details of Adele Saran’s murder right here and right now.

Conklin brought Denny black coffee, then he and I went to our desks and put together a photo array of big guys. One was Petrović. Jacobi and Cappy McNeil were also included, as well as three convicts doing life in maximum-security prisons.