Stolen (Episode Three: The Nightshade Cases)

by Larsen, Patti

  “Fine,” Ray said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Gerri hung up, standing, the bag dangling from her gloved fingertips. If that key matched the safe… she might just have her murderer after all.

  ***

  INT. – 9th PRECINCT BULLPEN to SILVER CITY COLLEGE – AFTERNOON

  Ray stepped off the elevator onto the fourth floor of the 9th Precinct, hazel eyes searching the bullpen on the other side of the glass for Gerri and finding her, not at her desk, but striding down the side hall toward her. The tall redhead looked relaxed, like she did when she was sure she had her man. Ray was happy to help, if handing over this evidence meant the end of a case this fast.

  Gerri took the plastic bag, signing the chain of evidence sheet, pulling out her own plastic from inside her jacket and holding the two pieces of evidence up to the light. Even Ray could tell with her naked eye the impression on the family photo and the key she’d just retrieved from John Sonnicker’s throat were a match.

  “I sent swabs to trace,” Ray said, following her friend back down the hallway toward the interrogation rooms. “No fingerprints, for obvious reasons.”

  Gerri grunted. “Hopefully, this makes a slam dunk,” she said. Though, Ray thought she heard hesitation in her friend’s voice.

  “Something wrong?” Ray entered the observation room ahead of Gerri who waited to answer until after she closed the door.

  “Dunno.” Gerri’s right toe tapped the floor, hands on hips, her favorite thinking pose. “This feels too easy.”

  “Sometimes the crooks make it easy.” The door opened, Jackson Pierce poking his head in. “You going to talk to this yahoo, or what?”

  Gerri waved off her irritating partner. He ignored her, winking at Ray with his usual leer. Even if she was straight, he’d be the last man in the world she’d let touch her. She hoped his nose healed crooked.

  “Well, you’re too late,” Jackson said, sounding like that made him happy, the wanker. “He’s lawyered up.”

  Gerri spun on him. “You tried to question him without me, didn’t you?”

  Jackson just shrugged and left the room. Gerri swore softly under her breath. Nothing Ray could make out clearly and she was glad. She didn’t mind swearing, mind you, but some of Gerri’s were rather inventive and made even Ray blush.

  Gerri turned to glare through the one-way glass at the huddled form of Abel Crombie. “I could prod him anyway.”

  Ray joined her at the glass, shrugging. “He’s not going anywhere, is he?”

  Gerri didn’t say anything. At least, not about that. She held up the key again. “Any safes you know of use a key?”

  Ray frowned, thinking. “Some,” she said. “The smaller, cheap models. But I think most use tumblers. You have an idea?”

  “Crombie claims there’s a safe at the Sonnicker house. That John Sonnicker wouldn’t sign a deal with some partners of his.”

  “So much for their amiable connection.” Ray crossed her arms over her chest, wishing she had more to give Gerri to make her friend’s job easier. But the dead only gave up what they carried with them.

  “I was thinking Abel somehow lured John into trouble with people he shouldn’t have been dealing with.” Gerri let out a sharp gust of air. “I’m going to have the techs track down this key’s origins. See if I can find what was so important to John Sonnicker he would use his last act to swallow it.”

  Ray followed Gerri out of the observation room and waited by her desk as the detective spoke to one of the uniforms, a young woman. Mills, she thought it was. When Gerri returned, the officer was leaving with the plastic bag, heading for the stairs and Gerri was frowning.

  “Listen,” she said, nervous trill in her voice only Ray would recognize. “I have the computer geeks looking into Abel’s backers. Until they turn up anything… I promised Kinsey I’d go talk to her. About the necklace.”

  Ray sighed. “And you want me to go with you, is that it?” She almost teased her friend about being a big baby, but the distress in Gerri’s face was real. What was it that held her back from believing as Ray and Kinsey did, that there was a distinct possibility more was going on in Silver City than the ordinary?

  Whatever it was, Gerri refused to talk about it. Ray was willing to let it go, at least for now. Maybe if Kinsey was able to offer some insight into the necklace and the symbols that had plagued the three of them for three cases now, the detective might stop being so bloody stubborn.

  There was hope.

  The ride to the college was a quiet one, Ray struggling with the need to ask questions, Gerri so silent and brooding it seemed the worst possible timing for such a conversation. By the time they reached Kinsey’s office, Gerri was a bundle of nerves wound up tight enough Ray worried what might happen in the next few minutes.

  To her surprise, the visit didn’t go according to plan. Then again, life rarely did. When Ray walked through Kinsey’s door after a short knock, she was startled to find her friend wasn’t alone. And not with a student or another faculty member, either. Instead, the anxious blonde comforted a weeping woman.

  Kinsey looked up as the pair entered, desperate need on her face. “Gerri,” she said, breathless. “Thank God. I need to talk to you.”

  Gerri seemed as surprised as Ray was, but she nodded, moving closer, her cop instincts clearly kicking in. “What’s going on?”

  The woman looked up from her crumpled tissue, middle-aged face lovely despite the redness of her cheeks and the bloodshot color of her blue eyes. “My son,” she whispered. “Dr. DanAllart says you know where he is.”

  Ray sat on the edge of Kinsey’s desk, staying out of the way, confused by this turn of events. What son?

  “I posted the image of the necklace on a closed site.” Ray instantly recognized the tension in Gerri’s shoulders. Surely Kinsey knew better than to share crime scene photos with the public? “Don’t worry, I didn’t show the scene. Just the necklace, specifically. And Monique contacted me almost immediately.”

  “I know that necklace.” The woman’s hands shook, voice a vibrating mess as she snuffled past her distress. Her free hand clutched her black purse on her lap, her blue-jean encased knees bouncing, leather coat swinging at the hem beneath her with the motion. “It’s mine.”

  Gerri’s jaw jumped, but she was civil at least when she spoke. “You’re sure it’s not just a replica?”

  Monique shook her head, short, brown curls bobbing. “No, it’s mine, I know it.” She exhaled with a soft whimper before going on, digging in her purse for a photograph she pressed into Gerri’s hands. “My son was kidnapped when he was just a baby, only one year old. And the necklace my mother gave me was taken at the same time.” Ray caught a glimpse around Gerri’s arm of an infant in a smiling woman’s arms. “I still don’t know who took him. But if that woman had it, she might know where my son is.” Deeper, more aching hurt appeared on her face as her lips trembled. “Please, can you help me find him?”

  Gerri reached into her jacket. “How long ago did your son disappear?” She activated her smart phone as Monique answered.

  “Twenty years ago,” she said, barely above a whisper. “And not a day goes by I don’t look for him.”

  Gerri held out her phone, showed the woman a picture. She jerked it from Gerri’s hand, staring down at the image. “That’s him!” Monique leaped to her feet, sorrow turning to the most painful hope Ray had ever seen. “He looks just like his father.” She hugged the phone to her chest, laughing and crying. “I can’t believe it. Have I finally found him? Where is he?”

  Gerri took her phone back, gently, turning it just enough Ray caught the image on the screen. Wait a moment, she knew that young man. Encountered him just this morning at the crime scene.

  But wasn’t he the Sonnicker’s son?

  Oh, dear God.

  ***

  INT. – 9th PRECINCT BULLPEN - AFTERNOON

  Gerri watched from her desk as Kinsey comforted Monique Entremande. Their ride to the precinct left G
erri troubled in more ways than just the suspected theft of a child twenty years ago. If Patrick Sonnicker really was this woman’s long-lost son, that left the murder investigation open to more possibilities than robbery or a disgruntled business partner.

  It meant there was definitely a chance this woman had something to do with their deaths. Gerri didn’t buy for a second the woman somehow stumbled on Kinsey’s private post. It was a site strictly for anthropologists, from what Kinsey told her just a moment ago before disappearing behind the glass door to sit with Monique. How did this woman get access?

  Her excuse she’d been watching the internet for instances of the necklace appearing just wasn’t washing with Gerri. But, without any kind of proof, she was stuck with few answers and a messy family reunion to mediate.

  Maybe she’d get lucky and the woman’s fingerprints would show up somewhere at the crime scene.

  As soon as Patrick Sonnicker stepped off the elevator, Gerri leaped up from her desk and headed directly for him, intercepting him and Natalie. From the confused looks on their faces, they had as yet to guess why they were called to the station, though Patrick’s closed-off grief held.

  “Thank you both for coming,” Gerri said, guiding them down the hall toward the door to the private room where Kinsey waited with Monique.

  “Anything we can do to cooperate, detective.” Natalie rubbed Patrick’s arm. He looked better than when she’d seen him earlier, more at peace, though Gerri wondered how much of that was shock and, from the slightly glazed look in his eyes, medication. “We’re both willing to do whatever we can to help you find who did this to Pat’s folks.”

  “I’ll have questions later,” Gerri said, clenching against what came next. “But first, Patrick, I have to ask you—are you adopted?”

  Natalie looked startled, but Patrick just shook his head, slow and deliberate. Definitely medicated. “No,” he said. “Why?”

  Monique had already shown Gerri a picture of Patrick’s father. And, when she reviewed the images of the Sonnickers in comparison, the young man’s lack of resemblance was striking. He even had his mother’s eyes. Not sure if she was making things worse or giving him something to hold onto, Gerri guided him to the door.

  “There’s someone here who wants to meet you.” She pushed it open, to the sight of Monique leaping to her feet, her hands outstretched toward Patrick.

  “Denis.” She said his name with a French accent, pronouncing it Denee. Patrick started, staring at her, before he started to shake.

  “Who are you?” He looked at Gerri with fear in his eyes. “Who is this?”

  “Patrick Sonnicker,” Gerri said, “this is Monique Entremande.” She could tell by the way he looked at her, he knew. In his heart, he understood who she was. “Do you remember her?” Would a one-year-old have the capacity to keep such memories of his birth mother after all these years?

  They should do DNA tests and confirm this before Gerri even allowed the two in the same room. But he’d lost his parents this morning. He might be the killer. As cold as that made her, Gerri knew something like this, exposure to the woman who was most likely his mother, revealing the people who raised him kidnapped him as a baby, might give her the weakness she needed to expose him.

  Sometimes she hated her job.

  Monique stumbled to his side, gripped his face in her hands. “My darling boy,” she said, before engulfing him in her arms. Patrick hugged her back after a moment of hesitation.

  Now, why, while Patrick looked so stunned and in total shock, did Natalie seem unsurprised? Gerri nodded to Kinsey. “Patrick, you’re certain you weren’t adopted?”

  When he turned to meet Gerri’s eyes, she saw it. He knew. “Oh, my God,” he said. Turned to Monique. “I always wondered. But they swore I was theirs.” His hesitation was as real as anything Gerri ever witnessed, his realization pure and uncomplicated. Her gut sighed at her. Innocent. She was sure of it. “Mom?”

  Monique’s low cry of pure joy was her only answer as she hugged him again. Gerri slipped past him, hand on Natalie’s arm, guiding her out into the hall, closing the door on the happy reunion. She’d seen enough to know the son wasn’t involved. But that said nothing about the girlfriend.

  “You knew?” No need to mince words.

  Natalie nodded, watching her boyfriend on the other side of the glass. “I suspected. All his friends did. He looks nothing like them, acted nothing like them.” She shrugged. “But he insisted they were his real parents. We just figured they were lying to him for whatever reason.” Her hazel eyes met Gerri’s. “Does that mean he’s not a suspect, or a bigger one?”

  Gerri ignored the question, countering with one of her own. “So, you two were both passed out at your place at the time of the murder?”

  Natalie didn’t comment, just rubbed her arms with both hands.

  “Convenient, wouldn’t you say? The fact you’re each other’s alibis, but neither of you were awake to confirm it?” Gerri knew she was pushing, that the girl would likely lawyer up at any second. Instead, she shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Are you protecting him, Natalie?” Maybe Gerri was wrong. She’d never known her gut to miss, but there was always a first time.

  “I told you,” Natalie said, looking away again, clear sign she was hiding something, and reminding her oddly of Abel Crombie. “I was passed out. And when I fell asleep, Pat was with me.”

  Lying. Like Gerri needed her instincts to whisper to her. So, she was protecting him. Or thought she was?

  “You can think what you want,” Natalie snapped, “but this proves Pat’s folks were dirty. Maybe that woman killed them.” She pointed at Monique. “Found Pat and decided to do them in.”

  Gerri had thought of that, of the odd way the woman showed up at Kinsey’s office. And yet, it still didn’t feel right. Not with the weird murder scene. If Monique killed the Sonnickers then showed up pretending she didn’t know where Patrick was, it was in an attempt to distract her, and the other detectives. But Gerri couldn’t think of a better way to pique a cop’s interest than a weird crime scene. If that was Monique’s aim, it backfired.

  “Can I go now?” Natalie’s flat, angry glare told Gerri she was done talking. Coldness lived inside this young woman, a glimpse of it showing. Gerri’s gut rattled in response. But, it only lasted a second. Gerri let it go for the moment, chalking her reaction up to grief and stress. But, she’d be looking further into Natalie Street, if only to satisfy her curiosity.

  Rather than force the girl to call her lawyer, the next step if she was reading her right, Gerri stood back, gesturing at the door. Natalie pushed past her, entering to sit next to Patrick, holding his hand while he talked with Monique, head down, a smile on his face.

  “How quickly he forgets,” she muttered to Kinsey as her friend joined her.

  “Pain and grief are strange things,” the blonde said. “The human mind is geared toward salvation, protection. It sees sorrow and heartbreak as a physical threat. Any opportunity to save itself it takes. He’ll crash from this.” Not an accusation, just a comment. Gerri bristled a little anyway.

  “Captain approved it,” she grumbled, hating her gaze flickered to his closed office door, that she felt the need to justify the meet.

  Kinsey sighed. “I hope you got what you needed from him?”

  Gerri turned her back. “We’ll run DNA anyway,” she said. “But it looks like Patrick Sonnicker is Denis Entremande. Now, we just need to figure out why the Sonnickers kidnapped him and if that kidnapping is connected to their murders.”

  Jackson was on his way to her desk as she and Kinsey approached. He ignored the blonde, focusing on Gerri. He handed her a manila folder as he spoke.

  “Abel Crombie’s backers are all front companies and offshore accounts.” Gerri flipped through the file as he went on. “But no proof of illegal activity.”

  Outside of the suspicious obviousness of zero visibility. “Dead end?”

  “Looks that way.” Jackson handed her a second folder.
“The geeks are still digging, but they don’t sound optimistic. However.” He flashed a tight smile that wrinkled the white tape over his nose and made him wince. Brought a warm, fuzzy feeling to Gerri’s heart to know he still suffered, even if he wasn’t being a jackass at the moment. “Turns out the son’s statement doesn’t exactly mesh,” he said, lowering his voice, at least, gaze flickering to the private room where Patrick and his mother talked. “Found a receipt for a convenience store, marked 2:21AM in his apartment, just two blocks from the subdivision.” He handed it over. Gerri took a quick glance, confirmed the purchase of a caffeine boost drink and a pack of gum.

  You’re on the way to kill your parents. She could understand the rocket fuel. Though she’d pick whiskey over caffeine. But gum? Murderers were so random.

  Gerri felt her whole body tighten in disbelief, her cop training telling her this was logical and yet illogical while her gut rebelled, denying Patrick’s involvement in his parent’s murders. “Fourteen minutes before Doreen Brampson said she heard the scream.” What was wrong with her? Her insides were on fire with rejection. It wasn’t the son. And yet, this evidence said it could have been. “Get the video surveillance tape from the store,” she said, turning away from Jackson to catch her breath. Damn it, the tingle was stronger than ever, gut writhing against her orders. She’d never gone against it before, not like this. And though asking for proof he was there was just doing her job, it still felt like betraying her instincts to do so. Gerri clenched against it and shoved it down. She had to trust evidence over her instincts, follow through like the cop she was.

  Had to.

  Jackson saluted her with a flip gesture, turning and striding off. Gerri drew a shaky breath, tension easing. And into Kinsey’s careful, watchful blue eyes.

  “Gerri,” she said, voice cold. “We really need to talk.”