Билл Пронзини - In an Evil Time

“If she harms him, I swear to God I’ll kill her.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I mean it. I’ll rip her fucking eyes out.” She pinched her lip again; her eyes were haunted. “I should have seen her there. But I didn’t, I just didn’t.”

“Seen her where?”

“Safeway lot. I looked around when we came out... so did Angela, but she had Kenny to contend with. It was my responsibility.”

“Don’t keep beating yourself up,” he said. “If you’d been able to stop her, you would have.”

“You weren’t there, you don’t know.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Cassie squeezed her eyes shut; shuddered and popped them open. “Everything seemed all right in the lot,” she said. “The van was in the end row, on the Main Street side. When we got to it I unlocked the side door... Angela was taking one of the bags out of the cart, Kenny right there beside her. All of a sudden she cried out, ‘No, don’t!’ Burke... it was as though she materialized out of nowhere. Except she’d been there all along. She had hold of Kenny’s arm, he was squirming and trying to pull free. In her other hand... a gun, a little automatic. She said something like, ‘Don’t either of you move or yell, I’ll shoot the kid if you do.’ Then she told me to put my car keys into her coat pocket. I had to do it, the gun was only a few inches from Kenny’s head. Then she dragged him to her car, shoved him inside — the door was wide open — and slid in after him and I heard the door locks click. The engine must’ve been running, as fast as she drove away, but I don’t remember hearing that. Just the door locks clicking. Kenny’s face... I’ll never forget the way he looked. Pressed to the window glass, his mouth open as if he was screaming...”

“Easy.”

“It all happened so fast. Just a few seconds. And then she was gone onto North Main. Angela was yelling, people were staring, but not one of them came over to try to help. I ran and got the spare key out of the bumper case, but I was so wild I dropped it and had trouble picking it up. By the time we were in the van and moving, there was no sign of them. I thought we might be able to catch up at one of the stoplights... my Lord, I must’ve driven like a maniac all the way to Corona Road. She must’ve turned off somewhere... I don’t know. Angela was hysterical. Screaming at me to keep going to the freeway interchange. But it was too late, we were just wasting time. She tried to grab the wheel when I turned around at Corona and I had to slap her to get her off me.”

“You said Burke was there all along in the lot. Where?”

“In the space next to the van. Not when we arrived, when we came out with the groceries. Either she followed us from home, or found out somehow Saturday morning is when I shop and was waiting there for us.”

“Cass, how could she’ve been parked next to the van and you didn’t notice? A white Nissan—”

“That’s just it. We were looking for a white Nissan, but she was driving a silver BMW.”

“A silver—”

“Rakubian’s car. Her Nissan must be in his garage.”

Saturday Noon

Pierce got there just as the paramedics were about to leave. As upset as he was, he handled the situation far better than he would have when he was younger. Took charge of Angela, and as soon as he’d been briefed, bundled her into his pickup and drove her home.

Hollis met with Lieutenant Davidson, Police Chief Reese, who’d been summoned from home, and two ranking county cops from Santa Rosa. The FBI hadn’t been called in yet and he wanted them to do it right away. Premature, they said. But the plain truth was, local law didn’t like federal law; they intimated that the feds took over, pushed everyone around, and exacerbated the jurisdictional problems that already existed between city and county law enforcement. Angrily he insisted on the family’s behalf, and because he was considered a prominent citizen and they were all scared to death of adverse publicity, they gave in. If Burke and Kenny weren’t found by one o’clock, the FBI office in San Francisco would be notified. The one issue they all agreed on was that a media lid should be kept on the kidnapping as long as possible. Reporters, TV remote crews, crowds of sensation seekers would make matters even more difficult for everybody.

When the meeting broke up, he and Cassie drove home separately. To be with Angela. To wait.

Saturday Afternoon

One o’clock.

Neither the phone nor the doorbell had rung.

At 1:10 Hollis called Chief Reese. Yes, the FBI had been informed on schedule. Agents were on their way from the city; they’d be by to talk to the family within a couple of hours if the status remained unchanged. Reese tried to sound confident; he succeeded only in sounding grim.

Time, accelerated at first, ground down until each minute was like a slow-forming, slow-falling droplet of water. The four of them waited in the house, in the backyard, in the house again. Even after the effects of the sedative began to wear off, Angela stayed more or less calm. Pierce’s presence, even more than his and Cassie’s, seemed to have a soothing effect on her; she sat clinging to his hand and staring at the phone as if willing it to ring. Hollis had called Eric shortly after their return, gotten his answering machine, left a message to call his father’s cell number; that phone, too, remained silent. They drank too much coffee, talked little because the only things left to say were too painful to express. Hollis’s prostate started to bother him; he kept going in to stand at the toilet and dribbling as slowly as the time was passing, unable to relieve much of the pressure.

Two o’clock. 2:15. 2:30. And the phone didn’t sound and no one came and the minutes continued to drip, drip, drip away.

3:05. Doorbell. They all jumped and Hollis hurried to open the door. The FBI, but not to tell them what they needed to hear. One sixtyish Jewish male, one fortyish black female: the Hoover days of young, crew-cut, blank-faced, Anglo-Saxon clones were long gone. Special Agents Feldman and Lincoln. No-bullshit types — polite, businesslike, efficient. Half an hour’s worth of detailed Q & A, all of it recorded. The only information they had to impart was that they’d been in touch with McCone Investigations; there were still no leads as to Burke’s whereabouts, but the profile that had been compiled might prove helpful. Exit Feldman and Lincoln, leaving cold comfort behind.

Four o’clock.

Four-thirty.

Five o’clock.

No word from anybody, including Eric.

Five-thirty. Cassie heated soup, set out a plate of sliced bread. None of them ate more than a few mouthfuls, Angela nothing at all.

Six o’clock.

And Pierce said abruptly, “I can’t take any more of this sitting around, it’s driving me nuts. I’ve got to do something. Drive out by Corona Road, check some of the back roads... maybe the cops missed seeing that BMW. For all we know, Burke’s holding Kenny somewhere around here.”

Hollis thought it was a good idea. “We’ll both go,” he said.

“Together or separately?”

“Two cars cover twice as much territory.”

Angela didn’t want them to leave; the cocooning was what had been getting her through this. Pierce soft-talked her into accepting it. All Cassie said was, “Don’t stay out past dark unless there’s a good reason,” and they both agreed to that.

She gave Ryan her cell phone and Hollis wrote down the number of his so they’d all be connected. Then he and Pierce divided the ground to be covered — Ryan the east side from North Main to the Paloma Mountains, Hollis the west side as far out as Two Rock Valley. They were in their cars and rolling by 6:15.