by B. J. Woster
Wilson clenched his jaw, and nodded tersely. “Fine, so why did you just drive by Bank of America Plaza? Isn’t that where we were headed? Does that mean you don’t think it’s necessary that we head to the crime scene? Is it a waste of time to ask why?”
“Not a waste of time, no. We’re not going to the crime scene, because it registered that it isn’t likely to reveal anything that Patterson wouldn’t let us know about, and any DNA evidence, which is unlikely to exist because of the conditions at the scene, won’t be processed tonight either. That reminds me,” Hardwick continued as he made a U-turn at the next intersection, “get on the com and have dispatch inform Patterson that we won’t be meeting him at the crime scene. He was expecting us.”
Wilson complied and then turned to address Hardwick, “Now what?” he asked.
Hardwick sighed, “Okay, Brooke Madison told the 911 operator that she was being held in what appeared to be a warehouse.”
“Yeah, but most of Atlanta’s warehouse districts have been revamped; modernized. Are there even any abandoned warehouses left standing where someone could hide a person away for thirty-six hours undetected?”
“This guy stashed McIntyre away somewhere for thirty-six hours, and there are kidnappers who manage to hide their victims away undetected in their own basements. Besides, revamped doesn’t mean inhabited. Many of the units are still vacant, making it a good hiding place, whether vacant or abandoned.”
“You aren’t building any confidence in our ability to find her, you know.”
Hardwick sighed loudly, “Atlanta is a big city and since the warehouse description is the best link we have right now, then it’s the lead we need to follow up on.”
“Where do you want me to have the officers dispatched? Unless you think we alone can search all of the warehouses in and around Atlanta?”
“I don’t think the whole of the APD Zone 5 has enough officers to cover all of the warehouses in Atlanta. Still, it’s the only place we have to start, so have a couple of black and whites meet us at Castleberry Hill. Then dispatch additional units to the west side to check out the Design District.”
“What about the Metropolitan District?”
“Yeah, may as well, and have a few police officers dispatched to the Diamond Street project. Then alert all other black and whites to investigate any abandoned building they may stumble upon during their routine patrols. No stone unturned. This guy may have killed before in other cities, and may have slipped one past us, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let another woman die on my watch. Oh, and make certain that each patrol denotes the address of warehouses searched. If we’re still at this tomorrow, I don’t want to be retracing our steps.”
Wilson contacted dispatch and made the request for units to be sent to search the warehouse districts still being overhauled, then turned back to talk to Hardwick, “Thirty-six hours isn’t a lot of time to wrap up an investigation, especially when it starts in the middle of the night. You and I know that he set us up for failure. It’s as if he wants us to fail; as if he wants her to die. Payback for his wife’s death, you figure?”
“No, I actually think he wants us to succeed,” Hardwick replied thoughtfully. “It’s as if he’s pushing us to perform at his expectations. If he knew how difficult detective work actually was, he may be of a mind to cut us some slack, but he’s a civilian on a mission, and he thinks we should all be brilliant the likes of Sherlock Holmes. Had the police apprehended the killer of his wife quickly, or at all even, he may have accepted the loss and moved on. Something tells me that the murderer got away and now he’s running drills on local departments, pushing them to succeed in a shorter span than they normally would.”
“Put a man on a clock…”
“…and he runs faster. Precisely,” Hardwick confirmed.
Wilson nodded, “Maybe we should include ex or current military personnel who lost a loved one in the last decade. If he’s running drills…”
Hardwick grinned, but it held no humor, “No, he’s too compassionate to be military. If he were military, he’d approach the drills in a more hardened fashion, kill with little-to-no remorse; potentially just shoot them first and inform the police later.”
“That’s compassionate?” Wilson retorted.
“Absolutely. He may have a shoot-first mentality, but he’d just go after those who kill, not make guiltless people pay for his own suffering. I can’t see a military man killing innocent women willy-nilly just to prove a point or accomplish a mission.”
“There are those bad apples…”
“We have enough parameters right now without adding speculations on whether we have a bad apple in a bushel of good ones. I’m of a mind that this isn’t a military man gone bad.”
“Okay, so all we’ve got to go on, besides the obvious connections, are one killed in a warehouse and one hostage being held in a warehouse district—possibly.”
“Yeah, and since there isn’t much we can accomplish in the middle of the night, we’ll help with the search until morning.”
“I know that searching for this latest victim is important, but why am I feeling as if this is a colossal waste of our time?”
“Because we have very little to go on? Because we’re understaffed and have too much territory to cover? Because we generally work to apprehend a criminal and hope they lead us to their hostage? Instead, we’re going about this ass—backwards. What I’d really like to do is head over to her place of employment and interview anyone who knew her, which we’ll do as soon as they open their offices,” Hardwick stated, pulling into the parking lot of a warehouse in the Castleberry Hill district, where two black and whites were already awaiting their arrival. “I can’t shake the feeling that the best way to find Brooke, is to apprehend Price. Maybe Cortez and Harding will turn up something during their computer search that will aid in that,” he concluded before climbing from his vehicle.
“We’re going to make a sweep of every warehouse in this area,” he began without preamble. “Radio in when a sweep is complete, along with the address, so we can make a note and mark it as clear.”
“There’s a hell of a lot of buildings around here,” one of the uniformed officers complained, “and not but six of us.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hardwick admitted, “but we’ve got units scouring the other warehouse districts. We’re spread thin, but we’ve got to start our search somewhere. Maybe, come morning, we’ll find more information that’ll assist in narrowing where we need to focus our resources, but until then, we’re going to make full use of the next nine hours. Or do you think your time would be better served sitting back at the station, twiddling your thumbs?”
“We’ll start with the buildings on the right,” the officer replied curtly, then nodded at his partner to head out.
“I don’t think I have to tell you guys to be thorough. Leave no nook or cranny unsearched,” Hardwick called after them, as they crossed the street. “Okay, Wilson. Let’s get this started.”
Chapter 7
7:30 a.m.
“I may be tired, but why are we coming here again? I vaguely remember you mentioning coming over here this morning, but if you wanted to visit the scene of the abduction, couldn’t we have done that last night, instead of scouring warehouses—I told you that would be a colossal waste of time, by the way. We barely made any headway,” Wilson stated, as they entered the lobby of the Bank of America Plaza. He stifled a yawn and rubbed his face, wishing that he had a cup of coffee to ward off the exhaustion.
“We’re not headed to the parking structure. Remember, I said that I wanted to head over to interview Brooke’s employer this morning? Oh, and while you were snoozing on the trip over here, Cortez radioed. Apparently, he found a connection between McIntyre and Madison. They worked together. That’s a new lead that can’t be overlooked.”
“Yeah, I’m just confused I guess. I get that interviewing the women’s employer may provide valuable intel that might prove useful down the road when we go
after Price, but, since we’re on a clock, is this really a good use of our time? Although, admittedly, I am kind of glad for the break from scouring warehouses. Do you think it could be a coincidence that the two women worked together? Do you think we could conduct the interviews in the lounge, so we could grab a cup of coffee?”
Hardwick sighed loudly, “We can hold off on the coffee a little longer; as for them working together…it is not coincidental, and you should know that coincidence is just a word for convenience used to overlook facts,” Hardwick stated sharply, as he punched the button on the nearest elevator. “I dislike that word immensely. Is anything ever truly coincidental? The two women working together is a fact, and the fact that they worked together presented an opportunity for the perp.”
Wilson just shook his head, as the doors slid open to the thirtieth floor. He’d not had the opportunity to respond, nor would he have been able to. He’d been on the police force for eight years, but only made detective grade six months prior. He’d been proud, because making detective grade meant he’d proven himself.
At first, he thought being partnered with Hardwick, a thirty-year veteran, and arguably, the most talented detective in Zone 5 of the APD, was the greatest honor of his career; but now, he was tired of being made to feel like a rookie over and over again. It was as though all of the tempering he’d gone through to make detective meant nothing. Of course, he only thought along those lines when Hardwick proved wiser than he was. In reality, he knew that when he’d been on the force as long as Hardwick, he’d likely be just as seasoned, just as capable, and just as smart.
“So, enlighten me?” Wilson asked as they walked toward Brooke’s office.
“The fact that the two women worked together and that both were targeted by Price, tells you what; aside from the fact that they knew him, which we’ve already established as highly probable?”
“That he frequented this office and, therefore, may be known by someone else, who can then point us in his direction?”
“Or, he was known by the two women outside of this office, but someone here may know in what capacity, and therefore, may be able to point us in his direction,” Hardwick quipped.
“Yeah, I can see how this may prove a more valuable lead,” Wilson stated, “but we’re still aiming our noses toward Price.”
“Maybe, but with time moving against us, we need to be where the investigation is most productive without compromising the primary objective—to save Brooke Madison. We have every available officer scouring the warehouses, so it isn’t hurting anything for us to be trying to pin down where Price is. If we arrest him, we may be able to compel him to tell us where Brooke is.”
Hardwick stopped his explanation and flagged down the first person they encountered when they stepped from the elevator and entered the P.R. Firm of Anderson & Mitchell.
“Excuse me. I’m Detective Hardwick and this is Detective Wilson. We’re with the Atlanta PD.”
“Here about Brooke?” the older gentleman queried.
“Yes, and Sandra McIntyre.”
“Ah, right, Sandra,” he acknowledged with a slight shake of his head. “Dear girls—both of them. Always a smile and a kind word. Hard to believe they won’t be returning…well, Sandra won’t. We can only hope and pray that Brooke will be back soon. I do hope y’all find her and the murdering son-of-a-bitch that took Sandra away.” He sighed in sadness. “Follow me. I’ll take you to Carissa Anderson. She’s the head honcho here. She’ll be the one to talk to.”
The older man rapped on a closed door and then pushed it open at the muffled, “Come in!”
“Detectives, Miss Anderson.”
“Are you here about my two employees?” she asked detached, a stiff level of professionalism that had Hardwick wondering if it were a mechanism to ward of stress or sadness. He nodded at her question, and tried not to cave to his impulse to give the woman more than a passing glance, something she probably wasn’t used to. A quick look at Wilson said he wasn’t of the same frame of mind, for he allowed his gaze to roam freely down the length of her tall, lithe form. That reaction she was probably more used to. She was the type of woman a man noticed. She was in her late thirties to early forties, but it was apparent that she hit the gym frequently and took care of her health, for her tanned skin glowed, a face devoid of makeup, except for a light application of mascara. He was impressed. She waved a hand at two chairs situated in front of her desk. He cleared his throat and settled onto the high-back chair. It wasn’t until she moved to sit that Wilson snapped from his trance, and settled onto the other chair.
“I’m not certain how I can help,” Carissa began without preamble. “They worked for me, but I knew little of their personal lives. I certainly don’t know of any reason why anyone would want to harm them.”
Hardwick sighed inwardly. All too often people rarely felt able or willing to assist because they didn’t dwell on the unpleasantness hard enough or long enough to have any recall. People weren’t trained to focus on the minute details, so tended to glance over them, forgetting them as soon as a crime scene was cleared or the local news stopped broadcasting the story.
He, on the other hand, focused continually on small details, and had spent a better part of his career learning how to get others to recall things they might not realize they even knew. He said as much to Carissa. “So, if I can ask you a few questions?” he concluded.
Carissa nodded, the look of uncertainty remaining on her features.
“Did Sandra and Brooke appear to spend a lot of time in conversation, here in the office? Were they friends?” He avoided asking about their after-hours social life, because Carissa had clearly stated she didn’t take an interest in her associates outside of work.
Carissa dwelt on the question a considerable time before returning her focus to Hardwick, “If my recollections are correct, I’d say yes. I often spotted them conversing at one or another’s desk during work hours.”
Hardwick grinned, for he knew what she hadn’t included in that statement—that she’d likely reprimanded them for conversing socially during work hours.
“Think back to the past two weeks only,” Hardwick continued. “Did you hear them talking about anything in particular? A common interest?”
Carissa immediately started to shake her head, which meant that she wasn’t making an effort on this question. Instead of pressing her, he asked another question, “After Sandra’s death, did Brooke return to work the next day?”
Carissa nodded.
“Good,” Hardwick encouraged. “What was her behavior like? Did it shift? Her behavior? Besides being sad over the loss, did she do anything different?”
“She was always leery of the parking structure; she had some sort of mild phobia. The next day, though, that phobia changed to an all-out fear. She was in tears when she arrived in the morning, partly over Sandra and partly because of her fear. She said she ran from the car to the elevator, scared senseless that someone would get to her too. Oh God, someone did get to her, and from the same parking structure. Dear Lord, she did have a reason to be afraid…”
“Miss Anderson, try taking a deep breath. We’re going to catch this guy, and he’s not going to hurt anyone else, okay? Can you keep going?”
“Yes, um, I suggested that she consider seeing a shrink.”
“Very good. Believe it or not, that information is important. Since she continued forward, parking where she was uncomfortable, she must have been very brave.”
“I’m not certain that bravery had much to do with it. It was the classes that were helping to some extent—I think. Seemed to be, until Sandra…well, Sandra had been taking self-defense classes and had talked Brooke into starting too. I remember, after Sandra was murdered, Brooke commented that she hoped that Christian did a better job—”
“Wait!” Hardwick’s head snapped up from his notepad, “Christian? Price?”
“I don’t know. I just remember Christian, because of the religious connection.”
&nbs
p; “May we look through Sandra’s desk or Brooke’s, please? If we knew where this self-defense place was located…”
“Oh, I can help with that,” Carissa commented, then stood and headed out of her office. Since she was walking away, Hardwick made no attempt to hide his appreciation of her form, his gaze pinned to her bottom as he followed her from the office. A nice, rounded, firm bottom, he noticed admiringly.
His gaze snapped up when he saw her pivot. She had stopped next to a community bulletin board and had a flyer in her hand. “Sandra posted this last month. I should have taken it down, since it’s obvious this Christian fellow was inept at training women to protect themselves, as promised.” It was the second tiny crack he witnessed in her polished veneer, which signaled that she wasn’t as detached as she wanted everyone to believe.
Wilson collected the flyer, reviewing the simplistic detail:
’Defend yourself against predators.
Self-defense for women.
Sign up today @ All Saints’ Episcopal Church’
“All Saints”? Hardwick murmured thoughtfully.
“It’s caddy-cornered from here,” Carissa volunteered. “Those who were interested in participating in the classes could simply walk over after work. It was a convenient—”
Hardwick interrupted her, “Thank you for your time. If you can think of anything else that may assist in our investigation, please give me a call.” He handed her one of his cards and then rushed off toward the row of elevators.
“Think the bishop there might remember Price?” Wilson asked as he raced after Hardwick.
“I’m counting on it, which is why I want you to head to the car first and radio for a sketch artist to meet us at the church ASAP.”
“Um, jumping the gun a bit, aren’t we? It’s possible the bishop won’t remember what Price looks like at all? Shouldn’t we wait?”
“Since we have less time than I’d care to admit to catch this guy, we don’t have the luxury of waiting. I thought I made that clear earlier,” Hardwick replied sharply as the elevator slid open.
