Diana Palmer - Lawman

Miss Jane also said that Grace didn’t get out much. She didn’t elaborate. He didn’t ask anything else about her. He wasn’t interested. He liked an occasional night out with an attractive woman, preferably a modern, educated one. Miss Carver was the sort of woman he’d never found interesting.

He checked his watch, closed the front door and climbed into his black Bucar for the drive to San Antonio. He was entitled to use a Bucar—the FBI’s term for a bureau conveyance—even though a new black Jaguar sat in the garage next to his big Ford Expedition. He carried all his gear and accessories in the Bucar. So he drove it to work. It was going to be something of a commute, but no more than twenty minutes either way. Besides, he was tired of apartment living. Miss Turner was astringent, but she was a hell of a good cook, and she kept house without talking his ear off. He considered himself fortunate.

He set off down the driveway, casting a curious glance after Grace’s choking engine. He wondered if she knew that her car had a mechanical problem, and reasoned that she probably didn’t. He glimpsed her from time to time mulching and pruning her roses. She had several bushes of them. That was one thing they did have in common. He loved roses, and during his brief marriage, he’d grown several varieties. It was a hobby he enjoyed, and he had plenty of room to practice it again here at the ranch. Of course, it was February. Not many roses would bloom this time of year.

THE OFFICE WAS BUZZING when he got there. A local homicide detective with San Antonio P.D. was waiting for him, in his office.

“I haven’t even had time to brief the SAC about the workshop, yet,” Garon muttered to the secretary he shared with another agent. “What’s he want?” he added, nodding toward the tall, dark-headed man standing at the window with his hands in his pockets and his black hair in a long ponytail, even longer than the one Garon’s brother Cash, wore. It designated a renegade.

“Something about an abducted child case he’s working on.”

“I don’t do missing person cases unless they end as homicides,” he reminded her.

She gave him a knowing look. “I work here,” she pointed out. “I know what you do.”

He glared at her. “Don’t get smart.”

“Don’t get snippy,” she shot back. “I could be making twenty dollars an hour as a plumber.”

“Joceline, you can’t even put a washer in a faucet,” he replied patiently. “Or don’t you remember what happened when you tried to fix the leaky one in the women’s restroom?”

She pushed back her short, dark hair. “The floor needed mopping anyway,” she told him haughtily. “Now, if you want to know what Detective Marquez wants, why don’t you go and ask him?”

He sighed irritably. “Okay. How about a cup of coffee?”

“Already had one, thanks,” she said. She gave him a smile.

“I hate liberated women,” he grumbled.

“Gee, can’t you lift a coffee cup all by yourself?” she asked with mock surprise.

“When you come asking for a raise, see what happens,” he said.

“When you want a case report typed, see what happens,” was the smug reply.

He muttered in gutter Spanish all the way into his office. He hoped Joceline understood every single nasty word. But if she did, she didn’t let on.

The detective heard his footsteps and turned. He had black eyes and an olive complexion, and a worried expression.

“I’m Marquez,” he introduced himself, shaking hands. “You’d be Special Agent Grier, I assume?”

“If I’m not, I don’t have to look at all that paperwork piled on my desk,” Garon replied dryly. “Have a seat. Like a cup of coffee?” he added, then grimaced.

“We’ll have to go get it ourselves, of course, because my secretary is a liberated woman!” he raised his voice as she went past the door.

“The computer is about to eat your six-page letter to the attorney general about your proposed new legislation,” she called merrily. “Sorry, but I’m sure you can draft a new one…”

“If you ever get married, I’ll give you away!”

“If I ever get married, I’ll give you away,” she retorted and kept walking.

He sat down behind his desk with a rough sound in his throat. “She and my housekeeper must be sisters,” he told the visitor. “I hired them and they tell me what to do.”

Marquez only smiled. “I was told that you head a squad that deals with violent crimes against children,” he said.

Garon leaned back in his chair, and all the humor went out of his face. “Technically I head a squad that deals with violent crime, up to and including serial murder. I’ve never worked child murders.”

Marquez frowned. “Then who does?”

“Special Agent Trent Jones was our crimes against children specialist,” he replied. “But he just got transferred back to Quantico to work on a high profile case. We haven’t had time to replace him.” He frowned. “I thought Joceline said you had a missing person case?”

Marquez nodded. He looked as solemn as Garon did. “It started out as a missing person case. Now it’s a homicide; a ten-year-old girl,” he said quietly. “We’ve checked out everyone close to her, including both parents, and we can’t turn a perpetrator. Now we think it might have been a stranger.”

This was serious business. The news had been full of abducted children who were murdered by convicted sex offenders, all over the country. The case was, sadly, not that unique.

“Do you have any leads?”

Marquez shook his head. “We only found the body yesterday. That’s why I’m here. I found a similar case. I think it’s a serial crime. That means I can ask you for help.”

Garon leaned back in his chair. “When was she abducted?”

“Three days ago,” Marquez said quietly.

“Any latents at the scene?” Garon asked.

“No, and we had the criminologists on their hands and knees all over her bedroom with blue lights. Nothing. Not a single latent fingerprint.”

“He took her out of her bedroom?” he asked, surprised.

“In the middle of the night, and nobody heard anything,” Marquez replied.

“Footprints, tire tracks…?”

Marquez shook his head. “Either this guy is very lucky, or…”

“…or he’s done this before,” Garon finished for him.

Marquez drew in a long breath. “Exactly. Of course, my lieutenant doesn’t buy that. He thinks we’ve got a pedophile who carried the kid away and killed her. I told him that this is the second case of bedroom abduction we’ve seen in the past two years. The last one was over in Palo Verde, and the child was murdered in a similar manner. I found it listed on VICAP, the FBI’s violent criminal apprehension program. I showed it to the lieutenant. He told me I was chasing ghosts.”

Garon’s eyebrow lifted. “Did you check for other unsolved child homicides?”

“I did,” Marquez said somberly. “I found two in Oklahoma eight years ago. They happened about a year apart, and the children were abducted from their homes, but in daylight. I showed the cases to my lieutenant. He said it was coincidence, that there were no real similarities except the kids were strangled and stabbed.”

“The victims,” Garon replied. “How old were they?”

Marquez pulled out a BlackBerry and brought up a screen. “Between ten and twelve years of age. They were raped, strangled and then stabbed.”

“God!” Garon burst out. “What kind of animal would do that to a child?”

“A really nasty one.”

“I’d hoped that the red ribbon would show up in those VICAP postings that matched this homicide. But I had no luck.” Marquez looked up from the BlackBerry. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an evidence bag. He handed it to Garon.