Michael Prescott: Next Victim

"Scared of cops, is he? Now why would that be?"

Payton snapped on his flashlight to get a look at the suspect, and Tess was instantly disappointed.

He was a white male. That much was good. But he wasn’t any older than twenty-five.

He was not the man she’d hoped for.

"I don’t know him," Payton said. "He put up any resistance?"

"Tried to cut me." She bobbed her head at the knife on the asphalt. The flashlight beam swung over to it, revealing it as a cheap switchblade.

"That wasn’t so smart, asshole. Up against the trash bin. Come on, move it."

Payton handcuffed the suspect, then made him spread his legs as he patted him down. In the pocket of the young man’s pants he found a bag of white powder.

"Coke," the patrolman said. "He was probably going into the bar to make a sale. Saw a uniform and freaked."

Tess had put her gun back into the special compartment in her purse now that Payton was in command of the situation. "Well, it’s your bust. Local crime."

"Unless you want to make it assault on a federal officer," Payton said, obviously hoping for a bigger collar.

"I’ll let it ride. The knife probably just slipped a little in my direction. Isn’t that right, sir?"

The suspect, who hadn’t said one word so far, looked at her and muttered, "Suck me off, bitch."

Payton told him that was no way to address a lady. Tess just laughed.

"LA’s one hell of a town, isn’t it?" Payton said wearily.

"I wouldn’t know. I’m just visiting."

"Lucky you."

"You didn’t really think it was him, did you?"

Tess looked at Special Agent Collins as she climbed back into the van. "You never know," she answered. "He was the right height, right build, and he ran from a cop. Thanks for backing me up, by the way."

Collins shrugged. Diaz, wearing headphones as he listened to the sounds in the bar, was more conciliatory. "We had to keep an eye on Barber." Julie Barber was the agent stationed inside Aspen, whose job was to fend off come-ons from patrons who didn’t match the profile, while encouraging anyone who looked like a possible suspect.

"Anything happen inside?" Tess asked.

"Not a thing," Collins said. "Like last night, and the night before that, and the night-"

"Point taken." Tess refused to be ruffled. "We’re not the only ones pulling this detail. Maybe one of the other squads will get lucky."

"Maybe pigs will fly. Face it, this son of a bitch is too smart to return to this neighborhood. He’ll show up someplace else next time. Santa Barbara, San Diego. Anywhere but here."

Tess was inclined to agree. Trouble was, they couldn’t watch every bar on the southern California coast. They had to make a stand somewhere.

She was about to point this out when her purse began to chirp. Her cell phone was ringing.

She answered it. "McCallum."

"You’d better get over to the field office," said a voice she recognized as belonging to Peter Larkin.

She disliked Larkin. And she didn’t intend to let him order her around. "I’m working surveillance, remember?"

"I remember. Let Collins and Diaz handle it. You got your own vehicle there?"

"Yes, but-"

"Stop wasting time, Agent McCallum. Just haul ass over here."

"What’s going on, Peter?" she asked in a more cautious voice.

"Nothing much. It’s just that we may have got him, that’s all. I really hope you can find time to join us."

He clicked off, and she was left staring at the silent phone in her hand.

We may have got him.

The words chased Tess McCallum like ghosts as she guided the bureau sedan west on Wilshire Boulevard, past the shops and palm trees of Beverly Hills. The sunset had faded out hours ago, and somewhere above the smog, the stars were shining.

She powered through an intersection as the stoplight cycled from yellow to red, ignoring a horn that blared at her. She would not be stopped by traffic lights.

She had to see him. Had to look at his face.

Could they really have caught him-finally, after two years? There was no way to be sure. But she wouldn’t have been pulled away from the undercover detail on Melrose if all they had was another "possible," like that one last week, the salesman who had turned out to be only a run-of-the-mill adulterer.

The streets were busy, as always, and she had to swing from lane to lane, passing slower cars. The bureau car-or "bucar" in the ridiculous terminology of the FBI-was a blue Crown Victoria, only two years old, with good acceleration and smooth handling. It invited her to take risks. She only hoped a cop didn’t pull her over. The FBI badge in her wallet would probably save her from a ticket, but a traffic stop would slow her down.

She reached the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica. Not far from Westwood now. The dashboard clock read 9:58.

She wondered if Andrus had been called. If he had been, then they must be really sure. It was March 29-Friday on Easter weekend-and although she didn’t think of Andrus as particularly religious, she knew they wouldn’t disturb an assistant director on Good Friday without cause.

On impulse she removed her cell phone from her purse and speed-dialed the field office’s switchboard, then asked for Larkin. "This is McCallum again," she said when Larkin came on. "I’m five, ten minutes out. What’s going on?"

"Nothing that can’t wait till you get here." As always, Larkin treated her with supercilious disrespect. It wasn’t possible to hear a man smirk over the phone, but Tess could swear she heard it anyway.

"Just give me the rundown," she said.

He sighed, perturbed at this misuse of his time. "The guy’s name, address, DL, and SSN all check out. No priors. They haven’t read him his rights yet." It was legal to obtain preliminary information on a suspect without a Miranda warning. "Right now we’ve got him cooling his heels."

This was standard procedure. Some suspects lost their nerve after as little as ten minutes alone in the bare institutional setting of the interrogation room. Then the Stockholm syndrome would kick in, and they would cooperate with their interrogators, sometimes even confess. The downside was that often these confessions were false.

"Are Gaines and Michaelson there?" she asked. Gaines was a profiler working the case. Michaelson was the squad supervisor, experienced at interrogation.

"Gaines just arrived. We’re expecting Michaelson any second."

"Who made the bust?"

"Tyler, Hart, and DiFranco. They’re in the surveillance room. Michaelson and Gaines may want Tyler in on the questioning at some point."

"And me? Do they want me in?"

"I don’t think that’s such a good idea."

She hadn’t asked for his opinion. "We’ll talk about it. How about Andrus?"

"He’s here."

So they had called him. "I guess he looks good for it, this guy?" she said, holding her voice steady.

"It’s still preliminary."

Obviously Larkin would tell her only the bare minimum. She ought to be angry, but all she felt was nervous tension. "Try to hold off the interview till I get there."

"Michaelson’s the case agent. He’s the one in charge."

Tess knew that. "Just take your time briefing him, okay?" She clicked off without waiting for an answer and dumped the phone back into her handbag.

She hated talking to Larkin. Hated talking to any of them, really, except Andrus. The others treated her with a mixture of pity and scorn. Pity for what had happened in Denver. Scorn because they liked to think they would have handled it better. They were men, after all. They didn’t let things get to them. But she was a woman-and women, well, they got emotional about these things.

Of course, they didn’t know the whole story. Only Andrus knew, and she had prevailed on him not to share it with the others. It was irrelevant to the case. It was her private life. She had given enough of her life to the bureau-more than enough. There were some things she meant to keep to herself.