Harlan Coben: Don’t Let Go

Bates gives me the narrow eyes. “Even if the cop killer is your old flame?”

Especially if. But I don’t say that out loud.

They take another minute to pretend to be difficult, and then Reynolds starts in. “Officer Rex Canton pulls over a Toyota Corolla in this area at approximately one fifteen A.M., purportedly for a DUI.”

“I assume Rex radioed it in?”

“He did, yes.”

That is protocol. If you stop a car, you radio in or look up the license plate number, see if the car is stolen, if there are any priors, that kind of thing. You also get the name of the car owner.

“So who owned the car?” I ask.

“It was a rental.”

That bothers me, but a lot about this bothers me.

I say, “It wasn’t one of the big chains, was it?”

“Pardon?”

“The rental company. It wasn’t, like, Hertz or Avis.”

“No, it was a small place called Sal’s.”

“Let me guess,” I say. “It was near an airport. No advance reservation.”

Reynolds and Bates share a glance. Bates says, “How do you know that?”

I ignore him and look at Reynolds.

“It was rented by a guy named Dale Miller from Portland, Maine,” Reynolds says.

“The ID,” I ask. “Was it fake or stolen?”

Another glance exchanged. “Stolen.”

I touch the blood. It’s dry. “CCTV cameras at the rental agency?”

“We should be getting the footage soon, but the guy working the desk said Dale Miller was an older man, sixties, maybe seventy.”

“Where was the rental car found?” I ask.

“Half mile from Philadelphia airport.”

“How many sets of fingerprints?”

“In the front seat? Just Maura Wells’s. The rental agency does a pretty thorough cleaning between customers.”

I nod. A truck makes the turn and cruises past us. This is the first vehicle I’ve seen on this road.

“Front seat,” I repeat.

“Pardon?”

“You said fingerprints in the front seat. Which side — passenger side or driver’s?”

Yet another glance exchanged.

“Both.”

I study the road, the position of the fallen body in chalk, try to piece it together. Then I turn and face them. “Theories?” I ask.

“Two people, a man and your ex, Maura, are in the car,” Reynolds says. “Officer Canton pulls them over for a DUI. Something spooks them. They panic, shoot Officer Canton twice in the back of the head, take off.”

“The man probably does the shooting,” Bates adds. “He’s out of the car. He fires, your ex slides to the driver’s side, he jumps in as a passenger. That would explain her fingerprints as both a passenger and a driver.”

“As we said before, the car was rented with a stolen ID,” Reynolds continues. “So we assume the man at the very least had something to hide. Canton pulls them over, figures something isn’t right — and it gets him killed.”

I nod as though I admire their handiwork. Their theory is wrong, but since I don’t yet have a better answer, there is no reason to antagonize them. They are holding out on me. I would probably do the same if the roles were reversed. I need to find out exactly what they aren’t telling me, and the only way to do that is to be nice.

I force up my most charming smile and say, “May I see the dash cam?”

That would be the key, of course. They don’t often show everything, but in this case, it would show enough. I wait for them to answer — they would have every right to stop cooperating now — but this time when they do the exchange-a-glance thing I sense something different.

They appear uncomfortable.

Bates says, “Why don’t you stop jerking us around first?”

So much for the charming smile.

“I was eighteen,” I say. “A senior in high school. Maura was my girlfriend.”

“And she broke up with you,” Bates says. “You told us this.”

Reynolds shushes him with a hand gesture. “What happened, Nap?”

“Maura’s mother,” I say. “You must have tracked her down. What did she say?”

“We’re asking the questions, Dumas,” Bates replies.

But again Reynolds gets that I want to help. “We found the mother, yes.”

“And?”

“And she claims she hasn’t spoken to her daughter in years. That she has no idea where she is.”

“You talked to Mrs. Wells directly?”

Reynolds shakes her head. “She refused to speak with us. She issued this statement via counsel.”

So Mrs. Wells hired an attorney. “You buy her story?” I ask.

“Do you?”

“No.”

I’m not ready to tell them this part yet. After Maura dumped me, I broke into her house. Yep, stupid, impulsive. Or maybe not. I was feeling lost and confused with the double whammy of losing a brother and then the love of my life. So maybe that explains it.

Why did I break in? I was searching for clues to Maura’s whereabouts. Me, an eighteen-year-old kid, playing detective. I didn’t find much, but I stole two things from her bathroom: a toothbrush and a glass. I had no inkling I was going to become a cop at the time, but I saved them, just in case. Don’t ask me why. But that’s how I got Maura’s prints and DNA into the system when I could.

Oh, and I got caught.

By the police nonetheless. Specifically, Captain Augie Styles.

You liked Augie, didn’t you, Leo?

Augie became something of a mentor to me after that night. He’s the reason I’m a cop now. He and Dad became friends too. Drinking buddies, I guess you’d call them. We all bonded in tragedy. It makes you grow close — someone else who gets what you’re going through — and yet pain is always there. A carrot-stick relationship, the pure definition of bittersweet.

“Why don’t you believe the mom?” Reynolds says.

“I kept tabs.”

“On your ex’s mother?” Bates is incredulous. “Christ, Dumas, you’re a full-fledged, card-carrying stalker.”

I pretend Bates isn’t here. “The mother gets calls from throwaway phones. Or at least, she used to.”

“And you know this how?” Bates asks.

I don’t reply.

“Did you have a warrant for checking her phone records?”

I don’t reply. I stare at Reynolds.

Reynolds says, “You figure it’s Maura calling her?”

I shrug.

“So why is your ex working so hard to stay hidden?”

I shrug again.

“You must have a thought,” Reynolds says.

I do. But I’m not ready to go there quite yet. The thought is, at first blush, both obvious and impossible. It took me a long time to accept it. I have run it by two people — Augie and Ellie — and both think I’m nuts.

“Show me the dash cam,” I say to her.

“We’re still asking questions,” Bates says.

“Show me the dash cam,” I say again, “and I think I can get to the bottom of this.”

Reynolds and Bates share another uncomfortable glance.

Reynolds steps toward me. “There is none.”

This surprises me. I can see that it surprises them too.

“It wasn’t on,” Bates says, like that explains it. “Canton was off duty.”

“We assume Officer Canton switched it off,” Reynolds says, “because he was heading back to the station.”

“What time does he get off?” I ask.

“Midnight.”

“How far is the station from here?”

“Three miles.”

“So what was Rex doing from midnight until one fifteen?”

“We are still trying to put his last hours together,” Reynolds says. “Near as we can tell, he just kept the cruiser out late.”

“That’s not unusual,” Bates adds quickly. “You know the deal. If you have a day shift, you just take the squad car home.”

“And while turning off the dash cam is not protocol,” Reynolds says, “it’s done.”