by Mike Omer
“Shall we?” Clint asked. He stood by her side, his eyes intent on the glass.
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “Let’s go.” She glanced at Mitchell. “Five minutes,” she said. He nodded.
She walked into the interrogation room, Clint following behind her. She sat down in front of Koche. His lawyer didn’t bluster, didn’t demand his immediate release, didn’t claim they were holding his client illegally. This usually meant she was dealing with a professional. It made sense. When it came to lawyers, the richer you were, the better they were.
“Gentlemen,” Hannah said. “Mr. Koche has already met us. I’m Detective Shor. This is Agent Ward from the FBI.”
“And I’m Gideon Bates,” the lawyer said. “I’m representing Mr. Koche, of course.”
“Mr. Koche,” Hannah said. “Where is Abigail Lisman?”
“I don’t know,” he said, stony-faced.
“I think you do,” Hannah said. “After all, you are the one who had her kidnapped.”
“I think we’re done here,” Bates said.
“We’re not, Mr. Bates. Your client kidnapped a twelve-year-old girl from her mother, and I intend to find her,” Hannah said.
“I can see that’s what you think, which is why I say we’re done. My client kidnapped no one, and I’m not going to sit here, letting you twist what my client has to say to match your mistaken theory.”
“If your client kidnapped no one, and can prove it, he can go home tonight and sleep in his own bed,” Clint said. “But if you terminate this interview, he’ll go to federal prison to await his trial.”
“It’s difficult to prove a negative, Agent Ward,” Bates said. “My client is innocent. What proof do you have that he kidnapped the girl?”
“We have enough,” Clint said.
“Well, I think that isn’t sufficient,” Bates said.
“Tell me what you have,” Koche interrupted. “I’ll answer your questions.”
“Well, we have the private detective you hired to investigate your biological daughter,” Hannah said.
“You had that before.”
“We know Darrel Simmons was one of the kidnappers,” Hannah said. “Do you know him, Mr. Koche?”
Koche frowned. “Darrel Simmons?” he asked. “The porter?”
“So you do know him.”
“Of course I do. I employed him for a few weeks. He’s one of the kidnappers?”
“That’s right,” Hannah said carefully. She had made a foolish mistake, and said was when she talked about Darrel Simmons. But now that Koche was talking about him in present tense, she wondered if Koche hadn’t been informed about Simmons’ death. She was certain the person who murdered Simmons wasn’t Koche, but a third accomplice. Perhaps Koche had been double-crossed as well.
“Darrel Simmons hasn’t worked for me for the past month,” Koche said. “This is… very unsettling. Are you sure he’s involved?”
“Our turn to ask questions,” Clint said. “When did you hire Darrel Simmons?”
“I’m not sure,” Koche said, frowning. “Two months ago, I think.”
“Interesting, that you chose to hire a man with a criminal background,” Clint said. “Do you believe in second chances, Mr. Koche?”
“I wasn’t aware he had a criminal background,” Koche said. “I don’t hire criminals.”
“You don’t run a background check on your future employees?”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, Simmons just got out of jail six months ago.”
Koche’s lips tightened, and he said nothing.
“Is your business in difficulty, Mr. Koche?” Clint asked
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“Let me answer that for you. It is. You owe a lot of money to a lot of people.”
“How do you know that?” Koche asked, his face reddening.
“I’m with the FBI,” Clint said. “It’s my job to know. I’d even say you were about to go bankrupt. Maybe the idea of a sudden duffel bag full of money began to sound attractive.”
“Don’t say anything,” Bates said. “They’re just fishing.”
“I am not about to go bankrupt,” Koche said. “We’re resizing. I sold my entire inventory of disc sanders and jackhammers to a competitor last month. I don’t need to kidnap a child to get some emergency funds.”
“We can offer you a deal right now if you give us Abigail Lisman’s location,” Hannah said point blank.
“I can’t do that; I don’t know where she is. I had nothing to do with her kidnapping.”
“Perhaps you were frustrated,” Hannah said. “Felt like all those years with your daughter had been stolen? Decided to give Naamit Lisman a taste of her own medicine and take her daughter, earn some money to save your business on the side?”
“That’s ridiculous! I never wanted a child, and if I had known the woman was pregnant I would have insisted that she get an abortion! Besides, what money? Naamit Lisman doesn’t have a dime to her name. Why would I ask her for ransom?”
“That’s why you did it on Instagram,” Clint said, leaning forward. “You knew someone would pay the ransom.”
“Enough!” Bates said sharply. “My client—”
The door to the interrogation room opened, and Bates stopped talking. Mitchell walked in with several sheets of paper in his hand and gave them to Hannah. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “There you go. Like we saw before, he has four warehouses and a small cabin by the beach. We haven’t found anything else yet.”
His warm breath tickled her ear. He was incredibly close, and she tried to ignore his smell as she lowered her face to the pages, hoping that no one noticed the sudden flush in her cheeks. Mitchell left the room.
“Detective Lonnie just informed me that we have the addresses of your warehouses, as well as that nice cabin you own,” she said. “Our people are on their way to search them as we speak.”
Bates spoke up. “You need a search warrant to—”
“We have one,” she said. “Judge Roth was very sympathetic. And I’m sure that if you have anything else in your papers, we’ll find it, Mr. Koche. Tell us now where Abigail is, and we’ll cut a deal.”
There was a moment of silence, and Koche’s eyes shifted downward, his jaw clenching.
“I have nothing to add,” he finally said.
The thumping on Jurgen Adler’s door woke him up with a start. He blinked in his bed, confused, existential questions like “Who am I,” “Where am I,” and “What is that noise” running through his mind. The first two questions were easily answered; the third took longer.
Once he realized that it was the noise of a fist thumping on a door—and even worse, his own door, not one of the neighbors’—he considered going back to sleep. He’d had some unpleasant encounters with the landlady lately, and he suspected this might be one of those. If not her, it could be the FBI again. He had just been released two days ago. He wasn’t keen to get into federal custody again.
Eventually he got up and opened the door, mostly because he didn’t want the neighbors to wake up from the noise. His right-side neighbor was a young, single mother of two, and had once told Jurgen she slept about ten minutes every night.
Detective Hannah Shor stood at his doorstep. She looked terrible. She was wet, her hair matted on her head in a tangled mess, her face pale. Her coat was completely drenched. For the first time, he noticed the sound of rain outside. It was pouring.
“Hannah,” he said. Then, after a moment of contemplation, added, “What time is it?”
“It’s half past two,” Hannah said.
“Oh. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for Abigail Lisman.”
“I didn’t kidnap her, Hannah.”
“I know you didn’t, you idiot,” she said irritably. “Koche did. I need you to help me figure out how, and where he’s holding her.”
Jurgen’s brain struggled to understand what the hell was going on. “Koche? You mean Lance
Koche?”
“Yeah.” She looked at him. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Uh… sure. Come in. I’ll make a shitload of coffee.”
“Good. I need it,” Hannah said, stepping inside. Jurgen closed the door. She took off her coat. Her clothes underneath were mostly dry, though her pants seemed soggy at the bottom.
“It’s almost colder in here than outside,” Hannah said, staring at him. He wore his cotton pajamas. “Aren’t you cold?”
“I don’t get cold,” Jurgen said. “Not easily, at least. Must be my Norwegian half.”
He walked to the kitchen and began preparing coffee. “So why do you think Lance Koche kidnapped Abigail?”
“That’s where the evidence led me,” she said, sitting on one of the three chairs in the kitchen. “He had you following her. A man named Darrel Simmons was involved in the kidnapping. He also worked for Koche. And he told a friend he was planning a big job with his employer. We know Koche is on the verge of bankruptcy, so he needs some extra money. And we suspect he wanted to get back at Naamit Lisman for keeping Abigail a secret from him all those years.”
“I see,” Jurgen said, filling two gargantuan mugs. He put one in front of Hannah and sat down. “Did you catch Darrel Simmons?”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh,” Jurgen said, and sipped from his mug.
“Did you know him?”
“No. I didn’t know too many people at Koche Toolworks.”
“Anyway, Abigail was trapped in his house for a whole week. We got there today, Simmons was dead, and Abigail was gone.”
“You think Koche killed him?”
“No,” Hannah shook her head. “Not directly, at least. There’s a third person involved.”
Jurgen nodded, thoughtful. He looked at Hannah, who seemed less hostile than usual, a bit subdued. Mostly, when he met people from the Glenmore Park PD, he got dirty looks. He was the rotten apple in the barrel, the one who had made them all look bad. Bernard was even worse than most. The man had big eyes that must have belonged to a puppy in a previous life. Whenever they met, his eyes would fill up with hurt and disappointment, the eyes of a man who had been lied to by his best friend.
Well, such was life. But now Hannah just looked exhausted, and lost. It made him want to hug her, to tell her everything would be okay.
“So…” he said.
“Yeah?”
“What do you want from me?” he asked delicately. Hannah did not want his hug. Probably.
“I want you to turn on your detective brain, and figure out who Koche worked with,” Hannah said. “Or tell me where he’s keeping Abigail!”
“How?”
“Damn it, Jurgen! You worked for the man; you delivered those images of Abigail to him. Think! What was he interested in? Who did he talk to? Did you ever see him conferring with someone about something that wasn’t related to power tools? Did he have any shady contacts? Bernard said you were a brilliant detective!”
“He didn’t say that,” Jurgen said, wishing he could believe her.
“Well… he said you would have been a brilliant detective, if you hadn’t been so greedy and immoral.”
“Ah. That sounds more like him.”
“I think…” Hannah’s voice choked. “I think the third kidnapper took Abigail as a hostage. That he isn’t sure if he’s going to keep her alive, and he wants to see if things go badly for him. Once he figures out he’s safe, he’ll kill her. I don’t believe we have much time.”
She got up and paced the small kitchen. “We’re digging into Koche’s papers and files. But there are hundreds of thousands of e-mails, the bookkeeping of that company is staggering. There are more than thirty FBI agents going through it all, and they still haven’t covered more than five percent. It’s taking too long!”
“His warehouses!” Jurgen suddenly said. “He has a lot of warehouses; he might be keeping her in one of them!”
“We checked all his warehouses. Nothing there but stacks of power tools. We also checked his beach cabin. No one has been there for months.”
She grabbed the huge mug and took a large gulp. Jurgen began to worry. She didn’t look like she should be drinking coffee. How long could a person stay awake before having a nervous breakdown? He remembered reading the statistics somewhere.
“What else do you have on him?” he asked.
She eyed him, frowning. “Stuff. I can’t tell you everything.”
“Because I’m dirty?”
“No. Because you’re a civilian, and the FBI is already very unhappy with me, and—”
“Okay, okay,” he said, irritated. “What can you tell me?”
She thought for a moment. “Koche Toolworks has sixty-seven employees. Used to be more, but there was a round of layoffs recently. The company’s in debt, and Koche sold some of his inventory to pay part of it. He still has inventory worth two-point-eight million dollars, but his debt is over five million, so it won’t be enough to pay it—”
“It will be, if he has the ransom money,” Jurgen said.
“Right. That’s what we thought. Though that would mean he would have to obtain the entire ransom amount.”
“Maybe he has,” Jurgen suggested. “That might be why Simmons is dead. The other kidnapper could be dead as well.”
“Yeah.” Hannah nodded. She chewed her lip. “We know this job was planned for some months. Simmons told his friend about it six weeks ago.”
“Are you sure he was talking about the same job?” Jurgen asked. “He might have been talking about a different one.”
“He said it was one big job, and he was planning it with his employer.” Hannah shrugged. “Anyway, Koche asked you to start following Abigail about two months ago, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, that’s it. There’s a reference in his e-mail account about the lawsuit of an employee, over illegal termination. We checked into that; the employee is clean, has an alibi, and it isn’t likely that he’d be Koche’s accomplice. Koche got quite angry in that e-mail, though. All caps, a lot of threats, so it should probably be investigated further.”
“All that in his business e-mail account?” Jurgen lifted an eyebrow. “Or his private account?”
“What?”
“Which e-mail account? I mean, it’s a business lawsuit so I assume—”
“We only know of one e-mail account,” Hannah said, her eyes widening.
“He has two,” Jurgen said. “I found that out because I sent the pictures to the business account at first. Then he told me to send them to his private Gmail account. He said his personal assistant goes over his business e-mails, and he preferred to keep this private.”
“Shit!” Hannah said. “I need to tell Agent Ward. They can probably find a way to enter his private account from his computer!”
“Well…” Jurgen hesitated. “I know how to log in to his private account.”
There was a moment of silence. Uncomfortable, Jurgen took another sip from his mug.
“How do you know that?” Hannah asked.
“When we met, I stood behind him as he accessed his account to see the images I sent him. I saw him type his password.”
“It wasn’t hidden?”
“It was. I was looking at his fingers.”
Hannah blinked. “And you could figure it out just by looking at his fingers?”
“I have a very good memory,” Jurgen said. “And sharp eyesight.”
“And why did you look at his fingers when he typed?”
Jurgen grinned. “What did Bernard call me again? Greedy and immoral?”
Hannah smiled as well. “Okay, then,” she said.
Abigail’s arms hurt. The rope was chafing her wrists, and her shoulders ached from the unnatural angle forced on her for the past day. She had woken in a dark vast space, her hands tied behind her back, her legs tied as well. She was leaning against a cold metal wall, and could hear the rain outside, spattering on the wall. It filled the entire s
pace with a dull rumble.
The room was almost empty, dust covering every inch of the floor. The only thing in the room was an old-looking green car. There were no windows in the room; the dim light came from a neon lamp in the ceiling. Her kidnapper, the woman, paced the room, muttering to herself.
She wore no mask.
Time crawled by, each second feeling like a week. Abigail was nauseous at first, an after-effect of whatever it was the woman had used to knock her out. But over time the nausea passed, then returned, this time a result of her hunger and thirst. Her mouth was parched, her tongue swollen, her throat dry. At one point, the woman opened the trunk of the car and rummaged inside, pulling out a plastic-wrapped sandwich. Abigail’s hopes were dashed as the woman tore off the wrapper and began to eat it.
“Please,” she said, in a half-whisper. “Can I have some?”
The woman ignored her. Abigail repeated the request, and the woman glanced at her, her eyes cold and acidic. She had looked like that on the day she killed that boy. Abigail quickly lowered her head.
She shifted a bit, trying to find a position that would remove the tension from her shoulders. She suspected that if she laid down it would be slightly better, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to sit back up. For some reason, the thought scared her. Sitting up, even tied as she was, felt slightly safer than laying down on the floor.
The woman dug through her small handbag, and pulled out a small plastic water bottle. Abigail yearned for that bottle more than anything she’d ever wanted. She imagined the cold water running over her dry tongue, down her throat, taking away the terrible thirst that engulfed her.
“Please,” she croaked, her voice alien to her ears. “I need some water.”
The woman sipped from the bottle and screwed on the cap.
“Please!” Abigail half-sobbed. She didn’t care if the woman hit her. She just wanted to drink.
The woman’s head turned sharply. The same cold eyes looked at her, and Abigail could see something else in them: hate.
She walked over, her high heels tapping on the floor, the sound echoing in the empty space. She knelt by Abigail, and grabbed her chin like she had done before, forcing Abigail’s face up.
