James PATTERSON - Cross Fire

“No,” he said. “No.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am not required to talk to you. You have no reason to arrest me.”

His English was good, if a little stilted. And he obviously wasn’t as out of it as I’d thought, although he still wouldn’t look at us.

“How about this?” I said, indicating the knife. I handed it to Sampson. “Look, you just ran away from your dinner. You want a hot dog? Something to drink?”

“I am not required to talk to you,” he said again.

“Yeah, I got that. Coke okay?”

He nodded at the ground.

“One hot dog, one Coke,” Sampson said, and headed over to the carts on D Street. I could see Siegel and his guys on the sidewalk, waiting to find out what had happened. At least Max was keeping his distance; that was a welcome change.

“Listen,” I said. “You notice I haven’t asked for your name, right? All I want is to find the guy in the picture, and I think you know something you’re not saying.”

“No,” he insisted. “No. No. I am just a poor man.”

“Then why did you run?” I said.

But he wouldn’t answer, and I couldn’t force him. He was right about that. My hunch wasn’t enough to detain him.

Besides, there were other ways to get information.

When Sampson came back with the hot dog, the guy ate it in three bites, downed the soda, and stood up.

“I am free to go, yes?” he said.

“Take my card,” I said. “Just in case you change your mind.”

I gave it to him, and Sampson handed back the knife in the cardboard sheath. “You don’t need money for a call,” I said. “Just tell any cop on the street you want to talk to me. And stay out of trouble with that blade, okay?”

There was no good-bye, of course. He pocketed the knife and headed straight up D Street while we stood there watching him go.

“Talk to me, Sampson,” I said. “Are we thinking the same thing here?”

“I think we are,” he said. “He knows something. I’m just going to let him get around the corner first.”

“Sounds good. I’ll ask Siegel to finish up at the shelter. Then I want to get this Coke can over to the lab, see if it tells us anything.”

Our mystery man had just reached First Street. He turned left and continued on out of sight.

“All right, that’s my cue,” Sampson said. “I’ll call if there’s anything to tell.”

“Same here,” I said, and we split up.

WALKING AWAY from the police detectives, Stanislaw Wajda could feel his heart still bucking in his chest. This wasn’t over yet. No. No. Not at all.

In fact, when he reached the corner and chanced a quick look back, they were still watching. They’d probably follow him, too.

It had been a mistake to run like that. It only made things worse. Now there was nothing to do but keep moving. Yes. Figure it out later. Yes.

The grocery cart was right where he’d left it, in an alcove at the back of Lindholm. You weren’t supposed to use the back door here. In fact, very few people seemed to even know about it.

The alcove was just big enough to tuck the cart away – out of sight of the street – when he couldn’t keep an eye on it himself. He pulled it out now and proceeded up the road, slowly and cautiously, but ready to run again if he had to.

It felt good to move. The walking eased his mind. And the sound of the cart rattling and shimmying over the sidewalk was a kind of white noise that blocked out the other sounds of the city. It created a space where he could think clearly and focus on his work, and what to do next.

Now, if he could just remember where he’d been when he left off.

Mersenne 44, was that it? Yes. That was it. Mersenne 44.

It came back slowly, shimmering into his mind as if out of the shadows, until he could see it clearly.

See it and speak it.

The words tumbled out of him when they came, but quietly, in nothing more than a mumble. Nothing anyone would overhear, just enough to help make the number real once again.

“Two to the thirty-two million, five hundred eighty-two thousand, six hundred and fifty-seventh,” he said.

Yes. That was it precisely. Mersenne 44. Yes. Yes. Yes.

He picked up his pace now and continued up the street without looking back again.

IT WAS QUIET at the Fingerprint Analysis Section when I got there. The only person in the lab was one of the civilian staff, an analyst named Bernie Stringer who usually went by “Strings.” I could hear the heavy metal on his iPod blaring away while he worked.

“I hope that’s not priority!” he shouted, and then pulled out an earbud. “Narcotics is already kicking my ass here.” There were two full boxes of slides on the bench next to him.

“I just need some prints off of this,” I said, holding the Coke can up by the lip.

“Tonight?” he said.

“Yeah, actually. Now.”

“Knock yourself out, man. Cyanoacrylate’s in the drawer by the fuming chamber.”

That was fine by me. I like working in the lab every once in a while. It makes me feel smarter, even if printing is Forensics 101.

I went over to the fuming chamber and set the can upright inside. Then I put a few drops of cyanoacrylate, which is really just superglue, on a dish and sealed it all up to heat for a while.

In about fifteen minutes, I had a nice four-print set standing out on the surface of the can. Sampson’s paw print was there, too, but it was easy enough to differentiate, sizewise.

I dusted the ones I wanted with black powder and took a few pictures, just in case.

After that, it was only a matter of lifting them with clear tape and laying them back down on a card for scanning.

“Hey, Strings!” I shouted over. “Can I use your system?”

“Knock yourself out! Password’s B-I-G-B-U-T-Z.”

“Of course it is,” I said.

“Huh? What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

Once I got the prints onto the computer, it took IAFIS about half an hour to spit out four possible matches. A lot of the time, the final comparison is done by eye, which is good. It helps keep the process human.

And it didn’t take long for me to confirm one of the four.

The tented arch pattern on our man’s index finger was fairly distinctive, even as these little puzzles go.

With a few keystrokes, I had his name and record right there in front of me.

He was Stanislaw Wajda.

That explained the accent anyway. He’d been arrested just once, on a domestic assault charge in College Park, Maryland, a year and a half earlier. It didn’t seem like too much to go on.

But, in fact, I’d just stumbled onto a killer.

AN INITIAL ONLINE search for “Stanislaw Wajda” brought up all kinds of different results. When I filtered for news reports, I got a whole slew of year-old stories about a missing-persons case.

That seemed promising, and I clicked on the first one, from the Baltimore Sun.

Questions Persist in Professor’s Disappearance

April 12, College Park – The search continues for University of Maryland professor Stanislaw Wajda, 51, who was last seen leaving the A. V. Williams Building on the university campus the evening of April 7.

Wajda’s mental state at the time of his disappearance has since become a matter of widespread speculation. While local police and UM officials have declined to comment on the issue, the professor’s erratic behavior over the last six months is a matter of public record.

In October, police were summoned to Wajda’s home on Radcliffe Drive for a domestic-disturbance call. Wajda, who had no previous criminal record, was charged with aggravated assault and held overnight, until the charges were dropped.