by Nora Roberts
“How does that—Hold on.” Sykes angled away, listening to his own phone. “They had him on River Street,” he told Phoebe. “Moving west on River, and lost him.”
“He threw it in the water, that’s what he did. Small investment in a phone, big results. But he had to give me that one last needle. He didn’t say I could’ve shot your boyfriend, but I could’ve taken the shot. That’s cop speak, or military.”
She held up a hand before Sykes could answer, walked a few paces down the sidewalk and back while she thought it through. “And yeah, anyone who watches TV could pick up the jargon, but it was natural. I don’t think he planned to say it, he just had to push my buttons a little harder, so it came out. Green-light the shot. It’s not the usual term for a civilian to use. He’s a cop or military, or he was.”
“Arnie’s clear.”
“It goes back further than Arnie Meeks. And it goes deeper than just being a misogynistic asshole. It’s in those files. He’s in there, somewhere. I need to contact Duncan, make sure he’s covered. Then, goddamn son of a bitch, we’re going to find this bastard.”
Sykes watched her stride back to the car, punching viciously at her phone. It was tough not to appreciate a redheaded woman in full temper, he thought, so he only said, “Yes, ma’am.” And followed her.
Duncan walked into Ma Bee’s house without knocking. He’d never had to knock on that particular door. He called out for her, but since neither the TV nor the radio was on, he kept going through the house.
If she was inside, she’d have what she called her company on. She wasn’t much for silence. He moved through the house as casually as he would his own, and spotted her out the kitchen window.
She knelt in front of one of her flower beds, a big straw hat with a band of wildly colored flowers on her head and neon-pink gardening gloves on her wide and generous hands.
Love was a quick, warm spurt right through the heart.
She’d given him a mother when he’d already been a man, a family he’d never hoped to be a part of, and a home he’d never found anywhere else.
He knew there’d be a pitcher of tea in the refrigerator, and cookies in the grinning-cow cookie jar. He got out a couple of glasses, filled them with ice, a plate for the cookies. He carted everything out to the little table shaded by a red umbrella before crossing the yard to her.
She sang in her tumbled gravel voice. He recognized “The Dock of the Bay” and, spying the MP3 player clipped to her shirt, figured she was dueting with Otis.
He started to reach down, touch her shoulder, hoping not to startle her. Then he jumped when she spoke.
“Boy, why aren’t you working at something?”
“Didn’t think you heard me.”
“Didn’t.” She switched off the music as he squatted down. “But you still cast a shadow.” She gave him what he thought of as the hairy eyeball. “You a man of leisure today, Duncan?”
“I had a meeting on the warehouse project this morning, and I’ve got some things going on later. But if a man can’t take a little time out of the day to flirt with the love of his life, what’s living for?”
She flashed him a grin, gave him a poke. “Fancy talk. Well, flirt while you yank some of these cursed weeds.”
The hat might have shaded her face, but there were beads of sweat along her temples. Enough gardening in this heat for now, Duncan thought. “I’ll weed for you after we flirt over a couple glasses of tea and some cookies.”
Lips pursed, she looked over in the direction of the table. “That looks appealing. Help me up, then.”
When they were settled at the table, Ma’s pink gloves tucked into her gardening apron, she took a long drink of tea. “Close today,” she commented. “Going to be heavy by afternoon. Hope those couple of things you got going are inside.”
“Some are, some aren’t. Why don’t you let me send you on that cruise this summer, Ma Bee? Or anywhere else you’d like to go.”
“I like where I’m sitting well enough. What’s on your mind? You’re not here just to flirt with me. Worried about your redheaded girl? Phineas told me what happened to her ex-husband. Said you were right there when it did.”
“It was…I don’t have a word for what it was.” He drank deep.
“It’s evil’s what it is. People toss that word off so it loses the darkness of it. But that’s what it is. Are you having trouble sleeping? I can make you up some herb tea would help some.”
“No, I’m all right. It’s bad business, Ma. This guy, he says he killed that kid. The one over on the east side who had those people in the liquor store. Shot him after Phoebe talked him into surrendering. So yeah, I’m worried about her. She knows what she’s doing, but…”
“When somebody matters, you’ve got to worry.”
“She’s got her family pretty much locked up in her house on Jones while she’s out there knowing what she’s doing. Her mother…Well, she’s had some hard knocks.”
He began to tell her, found himself going through all of it. What he knew, what he’d deduced, what he’d observed.
“Girl’s got a lot on her plate. ’Course any woman raising a child without its father’s got an extra serving right there. And her mother having that condition.” Thoughtful, Ma looked out over her yard. “I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t go where I wanted when I wanted. Walk down to the neighbor’s, or drive to the market. Fear’s a hard burden to carry. Responsibility’s a heavy one. That’s a complicated business, Duncan, even without this awful, ugly business heaped on it.”
“They seem to have a system, and it mostly works for them. But Phoebe—she’s the glue, you know? She knows what to do. That’s what I saw in her the minute she walked into Suicide Joe’s apartment that day. It’s…magnetic.”
“You got the moon on for her, do you?”
He smiled a little as he lifted his glass. “I guess I do. Bad timing, as it turns out. Hard to romance a woman under these particular circumstances.” He shrugged. “That can wait. Finding the son of a bitch who’s after her, that can’t.”
“It’s her job to find him.” Fanning her face with her hat, she studied him. “Hard for you to sit back and let her do her job.”
“Yeah. Okay, yeah. In this particular situation anyway. I mean Jesus—sorry—jeez,” he corrected when she narrowed her eyes. “This guy wants her dead. More, he wants her to suffer first. If somebody matters, are you supposed to sit back while somebody else wants to hurt them?”
Ma broke a cookie in half, passed a share to him. “Is that what you’re here for? You want me to tell you what to do?”
“No. Not exactly. She’s a lot like you. She does what has to be done, she takes care of her family. And she sure as hell doesn’t like to be told what to do—or what she can’t do. I guess I’m trying to work out a way to help her without putting her back up—got a temper on her—so she gives me the boot out of pride or mad.”
“Mmm-hmm. Like you coming here, and thinking: Ma Bee’s probably been out in the sun long enough for now. She should sit down and have a cold drink. So you fix that all up so you don’t have to tell me to stop and sit, and don’t get an argument.”
He grinned as he bit into his cookie. “Something like that.”
“You’ve got a sly mind in there, boy. I always admired it. You’ll figure it out. Now, go yank those weeds while I have another glass of tea.”
“Yes’m.”
His phone signaled as he rose. “It’s Phoebe,” he said as he read the display. “Hey. I was just…”
As she poured more tea, Ma watched Duncan’s face. She knew her boy and saw the flash of irritation in his eyes. Phoebe, she thought, wasn’t the only one with a temper.
“I’ve got a couple things going today. No, I’m not rescheduling. For…Phoebe, stop. Hold it. Let’s remember, first off, you don’t outrank me because I don’t work for you. No,you be quiet for a damn minute. I’m not rescheduling because some psychomight try to track me down somewhere in the city of Savann
ah and then decidemaybe to try to do me some harm, and I’m sure as hell not running home to lock myself in like some hysterical girl. In case you failed to notice, I’ve got a pair.”
Ma lowered her head, shook it and sighed.
“Sexist, my ass. Protective custody?Your ass. You go ahead and try it and yeah, you’re right. We’ll see who’s got the biggest pair. You want to talk about this, we damn well will. Face-to-face. Later. Right now, Lieutenant Mac Namara, I’m busy. I’ll see you later.”
He shut the phone, shoved it into his pocket. “Wants me to shut everything down, go home and hide like some dickless coward. Threatens to sic cops on me to haul me in, for my own safety. Screw that.”
“Who’re you calling?” Ma demanded when he yanked the phone out again.
“Your son, my lawyer. We’ll just see how she likes—”
“Hang that up, you fool. Just close that up. You go yank those weeds till you cool off a little.”
“I’m not having—”
“You’re not having, she’s not having. Fine, fine, fine. Talk about it later, in person, like you said. Meanwhile, there’s no use stinking up the pot by calling lawyers. You find cops on your doorstep, that’s the time to call Phineas. Right now, that bed needs weeding.”
Children, Ma thought as Duncan strode grumbling over to do what he was told. People in love were like squabbling children half the time.
She sure missed that part of having a man.
26
In the squad room, Phoebe used a large whiteboard to create a chart. As she built the diagrams, added names, she struggled to keep her conversation with Duncan from playing back in her head.
Stubborn, macho idiot. Going off on a tangent about his precious balls because she expected him to take proper and reasonable precautions.
She’d never have thought it of him. It just went to show how wrong you could be about someone.
If he got his head, or his damn balls, blown off, it was his own fault.
She had to stop, shut her eyes and order herself to calm down.
That wasn’t going to happen. If she didn’t know just where to find Duncan, how the hell would Roy’s killer? And why would he waste his time and energy cruising around the city looking for Duncan, and then risk exposure by trying something stupid?
He was too smart for that.
He had a plan, of that she was certain. And he wouldn’t have tipped his hand to her if Duncan was his primary and immediate target. Duncan might very well be one, but there was time.
She’d let herself panic, and she knew better.
Calm, rational thinking was the way to find the answers.
She’d pulled another detective and an experienced uniformed officer into the case.
“We believe,” she began as she continued to write on the board, “that the UNSUB is connected to one of the female victims of a previous hostage situation, suicide or crisis in which I sat as negotiator. What we know is he targeted, abducted and killed Roy Squire, specifically because of the victim’s connection to me. We know he has knowledge of explosives. We know he traveled to Hilton Head, and returned to Savannah with Roy in Roy’s car, which was found abandoned and wiped clean in the long-term lot at the airport, where we can assume he had his own car parked or took a cab. We do not know, yet, how he got to Hilton Head.”
She turned around. “Detective Peters, I need you to check on one-way car rentals that were picked up in Savannah, dropped off in Hilton Head. One-way railway and bus tickets, air tickets. Or any round-trips purchased that were used only one way. He may have chartered private. We don’t know how deep his pockets are. Find out what you can from private planes, destination Hilton Head, within the last week.”
“Why didn’t he use his own car, coming and going?” Sykes wondered. “If he has one. Drive’s not that far from here to there. Why use the victim’s to transport?”
“We don’t know that either. It’s possible he doesn’t own a car.”
“Or,” the new team member, Nably, began, “the one he owns, or has access to, isn’t geared for hauling a full-grown man, bound and gagged, forty, fifty miles.”
“Too small,” Phoebe mused.
“Or a hatchback SUV with no trunk, no place to conceal the abductee.” Nably pulled on his prominent bottom lip. “Or maybe he just likes the idea of having us puzzle on it, and spend the time finding out.”
“Very possible.” She paused to drink from her bottle of water. “It’s also possible, and I believe probable, that the subject has had police or military training. He knows how we work, so yes, he might have done things this way to add to the legwork. He’s had training. He was able to slip through the perimeter on the Johnson situation, dispatch his target and slip back out without a ripple.”
“Maybe he was in uniform,” Sykes suggested. “Or had ID.”
“Yes. He got through the posts, into the building and into Reeanna Curtis’s apartment. It had been cleared, and she rushed out with her children—doesn’t remember if she locked the door or not. Either way, he got in. He chose that apartment, that window. Why?”
“Because he knew enough to know it wasn’t optimum angle, and SWAT wouldn’t use it.”
“I agree.” She turned back. “The pink roses on the grave—which we have not been able to trace—indicate the UNSUB’s attachment to a woman, most likely a dead woman. These are the names of all female casualties in any negotiations in which I took part, both for this department and previously for the FBI.
“Brenda Anne Falk, suicide. Her husband is clear on this. She had a brother and a father, both of whom have been verified as in Mississippi during the time frame of Roy’s abduction and murder. At this time, we have no leads on anyone else connected to her who has either motive or opportunity. Linked here are the other law enforcement personnel who are listed in the file on that incident. There is no known personal connection between any of them and Brenda Falk.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have connections to any of them,” Sykes put in. “Maybe it’s a cop or a fed who just went south. Picked up on any of those,” he continued with a nod toward the board. “And/or you, Lieutenant, because the voices said so.”
“Then it’ll be a lot harder to find him. Victim two, chronologically, is Vendi, Christina. She was part of an organization called Sundown, a small, extreme fringe terrorist group. Poorly organized, poorly funded, and still they managed to invade the home of Gulfstream Aerospace’s CEO during a dinner party, taking fifteen people hostage.”
“I remember that.” Nably pointed a finger. “You were on that.”
“I was. The demands were as radical and extreme as the group, and as poorly thought out. After twelve hours of negotiation, during which time it was known that at least one of the hostages was seriously injured if not dead, it was determined by tactical command to move in.”
“You talked them into letting the kids out, and a pregnant woman. I remember this.”
“They did agree to release the CEO’s two minor children and a female guest who was seven months pregnant, taking the hostages down to twelve. Two members of Tactical were able to gain entry through a second-story window, and took out two of the hostage-takers. Vendi opened fire on law enforcement and was terminated. The single remaining terrorist was taken into custody. He’s still inside.”
She could remember how horrible it was. The screams, the gunfire.
“Vendi’s father was career army until his recent retirement. He has, always, disavowed her actions, and cannot be placed in Savannah nor in Hilton Head during the time frame. However, there would be any number of military connections there, and further connections to Vendi from any remaining members of the disbanded Sundown organization.”
She pushed at her hair. “I’ve asked the FBI to look into this angle. I know,” she said, reading the expressions. “This is our case. But the Bureau’s resources for this kind of investigation are wider and deeper than ours.”
“Next is Delray, Phillipa, who was killed during a
carjacking. Her five-year-old daughter was in the car, and was then taken by the two carjackers as hostage. They were pursued to a garage on the west side, managed to get inside. Negotiations were successful, the child released and the two men surrendered. Delray’s brother was in the army, serving in Germany at the time of his sister’s death. He now lives in Savannah, as does Delray’s husband. Delray’s brother, Ricardo Sanchez, is with the mounted patrol.”
“I know him.” The uniformed officer held up a hand. “I know Rick Sanchez. He’s a good guy.”
“I hope you’re right, but he’ll have to be interviewed.”
Didn’t sit well, she could see that, just didn’t sit well for cops to poke at another cop. “I’ll be speaking to him myself,” she decided on the spot. “We then have Brentine, Angela, killed during an attempted bank robbery. Her injuries were received during the initial phase, and initial attempts to secure medical attention for her were refused. She succumbed on the way to the hospital during hour four of negotiations, when we were able to secure her release. Her husband, Brentine, Joshua, was in New York on business. He remarried nineteen months after his first wife’s death, since divorced. He has never served in the military or in any law enforcement capacity. Angela Brentine has no living male relations.”
“There was a lot of press on that one,” Sykes remembered. “Not only the bank-robbing spree that ended here, but Brentine’s wife. He’s old Savannah, money and status. Rumors floated around, as I recall, that her dying saved him a messy divorce.”
“I’ll be talking to Brentine very soon. Officer Landow? I’d like you to re-interview Reeanna Curtis, from the Hitch Street incident. Any details she remembers before, during, after she was evacuated. Talk to neighboring apartments as well. Take another officer of your choosing. I’ll authorize it. Detective Sykes, I’d like you to reach out to members of the tactical team on that same incident. I believe they’ll be more…relaxed with you than with me. I’m not looking to cause trouble for any of them. I want to know if anyone caught so much as a glimpse of another officer—uniformed or just badged—that they might not have recognized right off. If anyone is reluctant to speak about this, I’d suggest you show them a couple of the crime-scene photos of Bonaventure. After Roy Squire was blown to pieces.”
