David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

Faith couldn’t help but smile as well. In the space of a couple of minutes, Rob Cain had shattered every possible stereotype about urban cops. She could see why he and Hendler would like each other-they were both inherently decent human beings. In the murky world Faith had inhabited for the last few years, something as simple as a white ribbon denoting a father’s pride had the power to move her enormously.

Her smile faded. If only Joe Kelly-another father, another cop-had worn a few white ribbons in his time, maybe things would be a lot different. Maybe…

Their names were called, one by one, and they went to the counter to get huge burgers-a chicken mushroom sandwich, equally huge, for Cain-and baskets of thick-cut French fries.

“This may kill me,” Hendler said, “but I’ll die happy.”

Cain snorted. “Don’t give me that. You haven’t put on a pound in at least five years, Hendler.”

Hendler shrugged and dug into his burger. They ate in silence, with both Cain and Faith adding liberal jolts of Louisiana Hot Sauce to their burgers.

“Good stuff,” Hendler said after they’d eaten.

“Yup,” Cain said. “Down to business?”

Hendler and Faith both nodded.

“Well, Sleepy Scott Hendler doesn’t call me on cases every day,” Cain said. “And even though he’s Sleepy Scott, he’s still a fed, so I’m required by law to pay attention.”

Hendler laughed. Even though the tension between local police forces and the FBI was legendary, the Oklahoma City Police Department had a good and solid working relationship with the local FBI field office. “Right you are, Rob. Tell me about this strange little missing persons case.”

“Two nights ago, just after ten o’clock, we get a 911 call of a disturbance at this apartment complex on Fiftieth near Portland. The neighbors to the apartment in question are a couple in their eighties, a Mr. and Mrs. Holzbauer. They were at home watching the ten o’clock news when Mrs. Holzbauer heard what sounded like the door being broken down next door, followed by loud voices. We had units rolling immediately, but before they got there, according to the neighbor lady, there was something of a scuffle, then a gunshot. One single shot.”

“She didn’t go outside?” Faith said. “Stayed in her own apartment the whole time?”

“I see where you’re headed,” Cain said. “The walls in these apartments are basically made of plywood and chewing gum. They’re so thin you could probably hear your neighbor getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. No, she stayed put. Smart lady. Her husband is mostly deaf, by the way, and heard none of this. Just sat there watching Gary England’s weather forecast like nothing was happening. Mrs. Holzbauer hears a car start up and roar out of the parking lot. Then it’s quiet for a little while. She goes to the window and peeks out in time to see two men coming out of the next-door apartment, arms around each other, sort of helping each other move. It was dark, but she swears she saw blood on one guy’s shirt.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Hendler said, glancing at Faith.

“Yep,” Cain said. “The two guys get into a dark four-door and drive off fast. They just pass our unit as it’s turning into the parking lot.”

“The girl who lived in the apartment,” Faith said. “What about her?”

Cain shifted a little on his seat and took a drink of Diet Coke. “You know, I hate diet drinks. They’re nasty, vile, awful stuff. Nutrasweet is evil. But my doc says I’m prediabetic, have to cut down on the calories.” He took another drink and made a face. “The apartment was leased to a Katherine J. Hall, age twenty-four. She’d just lived there about a month. Mrs. Holzbauer said she was friendly enough, but she didn’t see her very often. The girl, Hall, was supposedly a writer working on a book. At least that’s what she told the neighbors, and that’s what she put on her rental application. She paid the first three months rent in cash, in advance.”

“Any other leads on her?” Hendler said.

“She’s not real,” Cain said.

“What?”

“She’s a phantom. We couldn’t reach any of her rent references. The landlord says they all checked out a month ago, but all we got were post office boxes and disconnected phones. Her Oklahoma driver’s license was issued just last month, and-get this-her Social Security card was only issued two months ago. Her credit history is all bogus. She has no credit cards, no employment records, hasn’t paid taxes or paid into Social Security. The girl’s a ghost. A ghost who’s missing. How do you find someone like that?”

They all looked at each other.

“One theory that I’ve floated,” Cain said after a long moment, “is that she was in some sort of witness protection.”

Faith shifted on her seat, bumping her knee against the bottom of the table.

Cain looked at her.

“Sorry,” she said.

Cain appraised both of them. “Neither of you know anything about that, do you?”

“WITSEC is run by the U.S. Marshals Service,” Faith said.

“I know that,” Cain said quickly. “I’ve already talked to them. The chief deputy in the local office is a guy named Mark Raines. He checked up the line, and to his knowledge, they have no jurisdiction in the case. That’s his way of telling me the girl’s not theirs.”

“Any lead on the two men?” Hendler said.

Cain shifted again. Faith marveled at how the man had given them every bit of information without once referring to written notes.

“Oh, this all gets better,” Cain said. “Have you been watching TV and listening to the radio on this?”

“A little,” Hendler said.

“The media’s loving it. They’ve fallen in love with the neighbor lady. Refugee from Nazi Germany, she’s lived in Oklahoma for sixty years but still sounds like she’s just off the boat from Munich. Sweet face, probably bakes cookies for the reporters. They love her, so they love the story. Mrs. Holzbauer talks about how she viewed ‘poor dear Katherine’ as a surrogate grand-daughter, since all her own grandkids live in California. Literally wrings her hands on camera.”

Faith smiled.

“Anyway, she got a partial license plate on the dark four-door that the two guys left in. Wasn’t hard to find, though. We found it in the parking lot of French Market, over at Sixty-third and May.”

“That’s barely a mile from the apartment complex,” Faith said.

“Right. Theory was, they had another car ready and waiting for them there.”

“Did you run the car?” Faith asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Cain said. “The plot thickens, as they say. It was a rental, and it was rented to a Franklin Sanborn, with an address in Bloomington, Indiana. So we track him, and he’s a ghost too. His address is fake, so’s his phone number. You get a time and temp recording from Indiana if you call the number he left with the car rental place.”

“One ghost going after another,” Faith said quietly.

Sounds like Department Thirty business, she thought, then had to remind herself that not all strangeness in the world was centered on her little corner of the Department of Justice.

“There were bloodstains in the rental car,” Cain said. “The lab’s working on them now, along with the fingerprints.” He spread his hands apart. “That’s all we have. Chasing shadows while the TV stations wonder what we’re doing to find ‘poor, dear Katherine.’ ” Cain leaned back against the back of the booth. “So what’s your interest here? I’ll take all the help I can get, but I admit that I’m not quite sure why you called me, Scott.”

Hendler nodded at Faith.

Faith sat motionless.

Franklin Sanborn.