Joseph Finder - Vanished

I knew what that meant. The case had been deemed low-priority. Only one cop on it now.

“Thanks for taking the time to see me,” I said. Cops are overworked and underpaid, overstressed and undervalued, and I always try to let them know I appreciate them. They also tend to be resentful of people who do roughly the same work they do but get paid a lot more. I can’t blame them.

He sneezed again. “Ah, Jeez,” he said. He took out his handkerchief and went through his ritual all over again, right down to the furtive inspection.

“I’m grateful for everything you’re doing to find my brother. I want to help anyway I can.”

“You and your brother are pretty close, huh?”

He peered at me for a few seconds over the rim of his coffee mug. The thick lenses of his eyeglasses magnified his eyes, made them look weird, like some space alien’s. If I had been guilty of something, I would definitely have been intimidated. He was probably quite effective in interrogations.

I shook my head. “Not in years.”

“Must be hard, living in the same town and all.”

“We travel in different circles.”

“Uh-huh.” He put down his mug, turned his chair to face his computer monitor. “How about you and Mrs. Heller? Don’t get along with her either?”

“We get along great. I like her kid.”

“Her kid? You mean, their kid?”

“Well, Roger’s stepson. But Roger’s been his dad since Gabe was two or three.”

“So you’re in touch with her?”

“From time to time. Gabe and I talk about once a week.”

The thought crossed my mind that he might consider me a suspect. Ex-Special Forces, which meant that I was capable of scary stuff. Unmarried and not currently in a relationship. So naturally I must have conspired with my brother’s wife to kill her husband and set this whole elaborate thing up.

But fortunately he didn’t seem to be going down that path. “She ever talk about their marriage?”

“No. She and I don’t really have that kind of relationship.”

“I assume your brother never talked about that sort of stuff with you either.”

“Right.”

“So there could be serious problems between the two of them that you might not know about.”

“Theoretically, sure. But I’d probably have noticed.”

“Any drug use?”

“Not that I know of.”

He tapped at his keyboard. “Do you know if he was involved with bookies?”

“Bookies? Roger? I don’t think he’s ever seen a horse race. Lieutenant, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“What tree should I be barking up, Mr. Heller?”

“My brother was involved in some complicated financial arrangements at Gifford Industries. The stakes are pretty high-business partners, competitors, all that. Wouldn’t surprise me if he made some enemies. Bad actors.”

“He have any enemies that you know of?”

“I don’t want to give you carpal tunnel syndrome.”

“That many, huh?”

“Roger has an abrasive manner. I’m sure he pissed people off all the time.”

“Maybe the wrong people.”

“Could be.”

“People he’d want to run away from.”

“It’s possible.” I watched him tap at the keys for a few seconds, then said, “I assume you’ve flagged all his credit-card accounts.”

He typed a while longer, sniffled, then turned to me. “Huh. Hadn’t thought of that.” His sarcasm was bone-dry. I liked that.

I let it pass. “Nothing popped up, I take it. You ran his name through all the standard databases-NCIC and so on?”

“Another excellent suggestion,” he said. “So glad you stopped by. Wouldn’t have thought of that either.” He sneezed, and blew his nose, but this time he didn’t bother with the examination. “Any other tips for me?”

“How about checking those closed-circuit crime cameras you guys have all over the place?”

“Actually, Mr. Heller, we don’t have a single crime camera in Georgetown.”

That was news to me. “No crime in Georgetown, huh?”

“No budget,” Garvin said. “I think this is what they call backseat driving.”

I ignored him. “Then what about traffic cameras? I’ve seen plenty of them around Georgetown.”

“They don’t record anything. They’re monitored, but only for traffic-related incidents.”

“Like running a red light.”

“Like that.”

“Still, there have to be dozens, maybe even hundreds, of private security cameras in that part of Georgetown. Businesses, embassies, probably some apartment buildings, too. Anyone canvass the area?”

He gave me one of his styptic, space-alien glares. “Maybe we can bring in the National Guard to assist us. I don’t think we put in that kind of effort to look for Osama Bin Laden. What makes you think we’ve got that kind of manpower for a missing-persons case?”

“Of course you don’t,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. “But let’s speak frankly, Lieutenant. This is probably a homicide.”

“Think so?”

“The odds of my brother being alive at this point are negligible. You know it as well as I do.”

“Hmph. Interesting. Well, you’re the expert.” He sneezed twice, did his handkerchief thing. “Being a high-priced investigator with Stoddard and all.”

“Lieutenant Garvin,” I said, “this is your case, not mine. I get that. I just want to help.”

“Yeah? Then maybe you could explain something to me.”

“Okay.”

“Since you’re so sure your brother was abducted by unnamed ‘enemies’ and probably killed. How do you explain the fact that about half an hour after he and his wife were attacked, he went to a Wachovia Bank ATM and made a withdrawal?”

I stared at him.

“Kinda raises the odds of your brother’s being alive, doesn’t it?” he said, and he sneezed again.

You don’t seem surprised.”

“Because it wasn’t him,” I said. In fact, I was pretty much blown away at first, but I’ve got a decent poker face. So Garvin had put a flag on Roger’s bank accounts. “You might want to ask for the ATM videotape,” I said, just to watch his reaction.

Garvin began to sputter with indignation, but then he grinned. “Got me,” he said. “Wachovia’s sending it over as soon as they pull it.”

“Whoever abducted my brother grabbed his card and forced his PIN out of him. He didn’t withdraw the money of his own volition.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Nothing else makes sense. I’m sure my brother has several bank accounts. Which one?”

“His personal checking account. The one he uses most often to get cash.”

“What time was this?”

“Eleven oh-nine P.M. Sixteen minutes after we got the nine-one-one call from someone who saw his wife lying on the ground.”

“Gotta be a holdup, then,” I said. “If someone abducted him for some reason, they’d never jeopardize it for, what-a thousand bucks? The maximum Roger could withdraw at any time?”

“Probably.”

“A holdup that went bad, then.”

“If by ‘went bad,’ you mean they killed him, where’s the body?”

“You tell me.”

“Right,” Garvin said with muted disgust.

“It’s also possible they’re still holding him.”

“Your big kidnapping theory again, that it?”

“Look, Lieutenant, you guys are stretched way too thin. You don’t have half the resources my firm has. It’s not fair, but it’s true.” I ignored his cold stare. “We’ve got access to some very powerful, and very expensive, investigative databases. How about I put some of that firepower to work? Case like this, I figure you can use all the help you can get.”

Garvin took off his glasses and set them down on top of a neatly stacked pile of folders. He closed his eyes and massaged his eyelids with his fingertips, pressing hard. “Believe it or not, Mr. Heller, this ain’t my first rodeo.”