The Killing: Uncommon Denominator

by Karen Dionne

  “I’m sorry,” the foster mother said.

  “It’s okay. She’s young. Don’t worry about it.” Goddard stood up, shook the woman’s hand and gave her his card. Linden stood as well. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call. And don’t worry about Hugo,” he added. “We’ll get him back.”

  A promise he probably shouldn’t have made, he reflected as he followed Linden down the sidewalk to the car. But a little boy was in trouble. Goddard had been charged with bringing him back. What else was he supposed to say?

  36

  Holder had almost finished doing the first aid thing on his burned hand when he caught a report on his police scanner. A boy had disappeared from the front yard of a foster house. Blond, thirty inches tall, two-and-a-half years old, last seen wearing Power Rangers boots, a red scarf, red mittens, and a navy blue snowsuit. Name: Hugo Campbell.

  He froze. It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

  Yesterday’s conversation replayed instantly in his head. Claire talking about how much she loved Hugo. That she’d take care of him if anything happened to Campbell. “I’d take him,” she’d said.

  I’d take him. And now she had.

  He felt like he was going to puke. Claire was a sweet kid. Totally messed up as far as the meth use was concerned, but she wasn’t the first person to get caught up in something that she couldn’t control. But this—taking Hugo from the foster home was an absolutely crazy thing to do. As in “lock me up and throw away the key” crazy. She had to have been totally out of her mind on crank to try a stunt like this. He couldn’t even ask “What was she thinking?” because she wasn’t. She’d just gotten an idea and acted on it. He had to find her before the cops did. And yeah, he got the irony.

  He finished taping off the bandage, then grabbed his service weapon from the breakfast counter and stuck it in the back of his jeans. His right hand was useless, but he could hit a target reasonably well with his left.

  Claire as a target. No. He was the one who was crazy. He could never shoot her. He shouldn’t even go looking for her. Gil had warned him not to get involved. He should let the cops handle it. Let it play out without him.

  But the little dude was in trouble. And Holder knew where he might be. He couldn’t look away any more than he could when the little man was well on his way to becoming a crispy critter. Gil was just going to have to deal. Holder didn’t become a cop to look the other way.

  He took his service weapon from his jeans and put it back on the counter. Tried to think of where Claire would go, and realized that other than Logic’s place and the underpass by the river, he had no idea where she hung out. Claire had always been one of the secondary players. A tweaker who came around with Tiffany once in a while. He hadn’t paid her much attention until she’d started coming on to him.

  Claire was friends with Tiffany. Tiffany might know where Claire had taken the boy. He’d have to play it cool. He couldn’t let her know why he was asking because Claire and Tiffany were friends. Friends helped each other. Looked out for each other. Lied for each other if they had to.

  He shrugged on his jacket and grabbed his car keys. Hurried down the hallway, opened the front door of his apartment building, and stopped. The weather dudes had been talking about a big storm, but he hadn’t been expecting this. His car was buried to the point where he wouldn’t have known it was there if he hadn’t parked it yesterday in his usual spot. Even if he managed to dig the car out, there was still the problem of driving it down the unplowed streets. His car was as heavy as a tank, which was good, since it wouldn’t slide around so much on the ice and snow. But it rode low. With six inches of wet snow on the ground and more coming down, he’d be scraping bottom all the way. He’d be lucky to make it to the end of the block. But he had to try. For Claire, and for Hugo. He went back inside for a broom.

  Ten minutes later he tossed the broom on top of the junk in the back seat and headed out, gunning and fishtailing through the empty streets toward Rainier Valley. Another ten had him at the trailer park. As he started to turn left, he saw that the end of the drive was blocked with snow, thrown up by a passing plow. He revved the engine and stepped on the accelerator hoping to blast through, hit the snowbank, and immediately got stuck.

  He got out and dropped to his hands and knees to take a look. There was no way his vehicle was going to move without a tow. The undercarriage was resting on top of the snow. The wheels weren’t even touching the ground.

  He got back in the car, shut off the engine and took the key out of the ignition. Not that anyone else would be able to drive the car away, but still. The park had a reputation. He locked the car and started walking in the direction of Tiffany’s trailer. His car was blocking the park’s entrance, but that didn’t matter. He seriously doubted anyone was going to try driving in or out. And if they did, well, his vehicle would serve as a warning.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets. His cheeks stung, his eyes watered and his jeans were soaked. Good thing he didn’t have far to go. He thought about Hugo. Wherever the little dude was, he hoped he was inside out of the storm.

  Two blocks to Tiffany’s street. He turned down it and wiped his eyes with his jacket sleeve and raised his head and saw that her car wasn’t there.

  Strike two. Or was that strike three? He’d lost count. He studied the tire tracks in her driveway. It looked like her car had backed out, gotten stuck, and then managed to drive off. The tracks were filled in. The car had been gone for a while. Which explained why she’d been able to drive out of the park when he hadn’t been able to drive in.

  He slogged up the sidewalk and knocked. “Yo, Tiff! You in there? Open the door. It’s Steve.” He didn’t expect an answer. Just being thorough, like a good cop.

  Except that the door opened. Claire. Thank god.

  She smiled and leaned over and kissed his frozen cheek. “Hey, baby! You came to see me!”

  Higher than he’d ever seen her, her eyes glazed and unfocused, her hair tangled and matted, wearing nothing except a wide-necked T-shirt that had slid off one shoulder.

  She giggled and opened the door wide. He stepped inside and quickly closed the door behind him. Not that it was going to make much difference. The trailer was freezing, almost as cold as outside. Dark, too, what with the curtains closed. He flicked a light switch. Nothing happened. Of course the power was out.

  “Got a smoke?” she asked. Jittery, rubbing her arms. She was so high she didn’t even know she was freezing. If he hadn’t come along, she might’ve died from hypothermia.

  “Put some clothes on. Where are your clothes?”

  She looked down at her bare feet and legs, then giggled and reached up to grab the cigarette he kept behind his ear. He pulled her hand away. Her hand was so cold.

  “Go put some clothes on, darlin’,” he said again. “You’re gonna freeze.”

  “What? Oh. No, I’m okay.” She started shaking. From the meth, or from the cold, or from both. He headed for the bedrooms. There had to be something of Tiffany’s that she could wear.

  “How come you hangin’ out here?” he called out to keep her talking, so she wouldn’t lay down on the couch and go to sleep and never wake up. Makin’ conversation like he wasn’t in a trailer with a tweaker who may or may not be hiding a kidnapped little boy. “Where’s Tiff?” He opened the dresser drawer. Pulled out jeans and a sweatshirt. Looked in another drawer and found a pair of socks. Looked in the closet for a little boy, found nothing.

  “I don’t know.” Claire’s voice drifted back from the living room. “She was gone when I got here.”

  Holder went back into the living room and handed her Tiffany’s clothes. “Put these on. I’ll be right back.”

  He searched the rest of the trailer. If Claire had been hanging out for most of the night, it was doubtful that Hugo would be here. The timing was wrong. Still, he had to check. He looked in the other bedroom and the bathroom. Called Hugo’s name. Softly, so Claire wouldn’t catch on to what
he was doing. Loud enough for the boy to hear.

  Nothing. He went back to the living room. At least he’d proven that Claire hadn’t taken the boy. Wherever the little man was, it wasn’t here.

  Outside, he heard voices coming up the sidewalk. Footsteps on the porch. A knock on the side of the trailer that was so loud, it startled them both.

  “Police!” a man’s voice called. “Open up!”

  37

  It took Sarah and Goddard twice as long as it should have to drive from the foster home to Rutz’s home. When the GPS directed them to a modest two-story in a neighborhood that a realtor might have described as “mature,” but which was in reality declining, Sarah was surprised. She’d expected a high-ranking GenMod employee to live somewhere better. An outsider wouldn’t have seen anything amiss; tree-lined streets, tidy houses. But Sarah saw trees in need of trimming, roofs requiring shingling, porches gone too long without paint.

  She pulled up in front of a white clapboard identical to every other on the street and studied the house, trying to reconcile this humble home with the overbearing and presumably generously compensated Dr. Rutz. Decided this had been the Rutz family homestead and the doctor was its last caretaker.

  No tracks in the drive, and the sidewalk had not been shoveled. If Rutz was home, he hadn’t gone out today.

  “How do you want to play this?” she asked.

  “You can take this one,” Goddard said.

  “Am I good cop or bad cop this time?”

  “Oh, bad cop. Definitely bad.” He flashed her a grin.

  They got out and started up the sidewalk. The snow was deep. The bottoms of Sarah’s jeans were soaked in no time. At least her boots were keeping her feet dry. She stepped carefully over the snowy porch boards and knocked on the door.

  The door opened almost before she could take her hand away.

  Rutz was wearing a burgundy velour running suit. Or more accurately, a “lounge suit,” given that he didn’t look like he’d done anything more athletic than going out to the mailbox and back for years. Clearly, he hadn’t been outside today and he wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Sarah was ninety-nine percent certain they weren’t going to find a little boy in his house. But maybe he could give them a lead on who had taken Hugo.

  “Dr. Rutz,” she said. “May we come in? We need to ask you some questions.”

  “I told you I wasn’t going to speak with you any further without my lawyer.”

  “I understand. However, it’s a matter of some urgency. We’d appreciate your cooperation. We’ll only take a minute.”

  “Please,” Goddard added from behind her. “A little boy needs your help.”

  Rutz raised his eyebrows, then opened the door and stepped to one side.

  “Thank you,” Sarah said. Resting her hand lightly on her holstered weapon as she entered the house. Rutz was a person of interest and not a suspect, but you could never be too careful. Every house had a back door. Rutz might make a break for it. Someone else might have used the door to come in.

  “What’s this about a little boy?” Rutz asked after Goddard shut the door. Keeping them standing in the foyer. Not inviting them into the house any further than he had to. Sarah could see a living room to the left, a dining room lined with bookshelves to the right, and a flight of stairs straight ahead of them leading to the upstairs; three small bedrooms and a bathroom, if she didn’t miss her guess. A narrow hallway alongside the staircase led to the kitchen in the back of the house. Sarah had lived in a half-dozen houses just like this one.

  “May we sit down?” She gestured toward the living room.

  “You may not. Get to the point.” And then get out. Sarah could have read the subtext even if Rutz hadn’t been glowering. Her hand went to her gun again, just lightly resting her thumb on the grip. Rutz towered over her. He looked like a purple whale. A very angry whale.

  “Hugo Campbell is missing,” Sarah said evenly, watching carefully for Rutz’s reaction. “We have reason to believe he’s been kidnapped.”

  Rutz drew in his breath. Not an obvious gasp, but enough for Sarah to notice. An indication that he didn’t know about the kidnapping? Perhaps. But more importantly, it was obvious that he knew Campbell’s son personally, had some kind of relationship with him.

  She pressed. “We need your help.”

  “I can’t imagine how I could help you.” He drew himself up stiffly. “I don’t know anything about the boy.”

  “The boy’s father is dead,” Goddard said. “Please. We don’t have anywhere else to turn. Anything you can tell us about Hugo will help.”

  “Neil is dead,” Rutz repeated. A statement of fact, as if the outcome were inevitable. Given the extent of his burns, Sarah supposed it was. She noted his use of Campbell’s first name.

  “All right.” He led them not into the living room, but down the narrow hallway to the kitchen, a brightly lit, cheerful room with faded yellow gingham curtains framing a window over the sink that looked out into the back yard. Sarah looked to see if the rug in front of the back door was wet to determine whether anyone had gone in or out. It was not.

  “What can you tell us about Hugo?” she asked after the three of them were seated at a small wooden table.

  “Not much. I was aware that Neil Campbell had a son, but I’ve never seen the boy.”

  Sarah didn’t challenge the lie. “Can you tell us anything about the boy’s mother?” she asked. “We’re thinking this might be a parental abduction.”

  “I doubt she took the boy. Hugo’s mother left as soon as he was weaned. The last anybody heard, she’d joined a biker gang in Florida. She’s never sent so much as a card.”

  Bingo. Rutz’s disdain for Hugo’s mother had just proven he’d had far more contact with Neil Campbell than he’d led them to believe. The truth always came out. You just had to wait for it, ask the right questions. And he thought he was smart.

  She shook her head and clucked her tongue at Hugo’s mother’s unmotherly behavior. Let him think they were sharing a moment. “I understand. I have a son. I could never stay away.” She paused. “Let’s go back to something you told us when we last met. You mentioned the boy’s father had contacted you recently wanting you to finance his research project. Do you think Hugo might have been kidnapped in connection with that?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “If Campbell needed money… let’s say he borrowed from the wrong people after you turned him down…” She let the sentence trail off, then picked it up again. “Guy was found dead in a shipyard. Shot in the back of the head. Looks to me like the brothers went to the Mob for financing and got in too deep.”

  “It was Campbell.” Rutz practically spat the hated name. “He’s the one with the unsavory connections, not Guy or Lance.”

  “So the three brothers were working together.”

  “They were.”

  “To develop a cure for polycystic kidney disease. The disease that killed the Marsees’ parents. The disease for which they carried a unique genetic mutation that prevented them from developing the disease. A mutation from which they hoped to develop a treatment. A very lucrative treatment in which you also saw potential, so you brought the project to GenMod.”

  Rutz’s mouth dropped.

  “We warned you not to lie to us, Dr. Rutz. Your name is on the research application. You knew about the project. You have not been straight with us.”

  Rutz’s shoulders sagged. He ran his hands through his hair, laid his head on the table, rested his head in his hands.

  “The brothers are dead,” she went on. “All three of them.” Ruthless. Going in for the kill. Not an ounce of sympathy for the man who had tried to derail their investigation not just once, but several times. “Thus the project died with them. No one can use their DNA to develop a treatment without their permission. They can’t give permission because they’re dead. There’s just one way the project can go forward.”

  Rutz raised his head.

  “Let’s
say Campbell’s son also carries the genetic mutation. Let’s say someone kidnapped the boy so they could obtain a sample of his DNA. Maybe they’re planning to raise the boy as their own, to take care of him now that his father is gone. Maybe they’re a good person, and they have only the best of intentions. Maybe they’re planning to become his guardian, or his godfather.”

  “That’s preposterous!” he sputtered. “I would never take the boy!”

  “Prove it,” Sarah said. “Let us search the house.”

  Rutz stood up, gestured widely. “Be my guest.”

  Sarah nodded, and Goddard moved off. She remained in the kitchen and kept eyes on Rutz. She could hear Goddard methodically searching the house, walking through the upstairs bedrooms, looking under beds, checking closets. Closets. She shuddered. She remembered another little boy, another closet… She pushed the thought away.

  Goddard returned to the kitchen without a little boy, but carrying a plastic bag. He pulled out a teddy bear. It was dusty but the tags were still attached. The toy was nothing like Hugo’s favorite stuffed rabbit. This bear was untouched. Unloved.

  A teddy bear. Rutz didn’t have children.

  “Want to tell us about this?” Goddard tossed the toy carelessly on the table.

  Rutz picked it up. He ran his hands over the toy and set it up carefully on the table. “It’s my fault. My fault.”

  “What?” Sarah pressed. “What’s your fault?”

  “Lance. Guy. I killed them.”

  Sarah’s gut clenched and her adrenaline pumped. Confession time. She and Goddard traded looks. Waited.

  “How did you kill them?” she asked.

  “I thought… I thought that the project could bring them together. I thought that after so many years apart, the boys could work together. They shared a mother. The disease killed her. Threatened them. They were all so smart… All of them. Lance and Guy were geniuses in their own right, but Neil was the smartest of all.” Tears streamed down his cheeks as he ran his hands through his hair. There was nothing comical about the gesture now.