“Not only did Capelli get a hit on our guy, but CSU just found Brittany’s hair in the back of that utility truck. Which means everything is fucking stellar, because with those two leads, we just might catch this bastard after all.”
Despite her best efforts to stay both rational and calm, Isabella destroyed her personal land-speed record between Station Seventeen and the Thirty-Third. She flashed her badge at the desk sergeant, her heart climbing the back of her throat as she swiped her ID card and hustled her way first through the metal detectors, then up the stairs leading to the intelligence office.
“What’ve we got?” she asked Capelli, shouldering her way out of her leather jacket on her way past the threshold.
“A definite match.” He pointed to the crime scene board, and if he was shocked to see her back so soon after he’d texted her with the update, he didn’t show it. “Gerald McManus, age forty-one. Currently an auditor for a large tech company in Memphis.”
“Tennessee?” Can’t say she’d seen that coming.
“Looks like it,” Sinclair said, entering the otherwise empty work space from the hallway leading to his office. He’d been equal opportunity about sending them all out for some down time. Of course, Isabella wasn’t really shocked that he and Capelli had—judging by the pair of empty takeout cartons peeking out of the trash can—stayed behind to monitor things while the rest of them refueled.
She ordered her confusion into questions, starting with, “Then how did he pop in our database?”
“It seems Gerald used to be a Remington resident,” Capelli said. “I had to reach pretty far into the DMV’s database, and he’s obviously older now, but the photo on his old driver’s license is a match. He’s our fake utility worker.”
With a few keystrokes, the DMV photo of a definitely younger McManus appeared next to the enhanced cell phone image their neighborhood watch lady had taken, and wait… “How much older?”
Capelli hesitated, but only long enough to send a lightning-fast glance at Sinclair, who lifted his chin in the barest nod. “Twelve years.”
Oh…God. “So, this guy lived here twelve years ago. When Marisol disappeared.”
Isabella flattened her damp palms over her desk, trying to let the coolness of the metal anchor her as she pulled in a slow, deep breath. She couldn’t jump to conclusions. She couldn’t.
No matter how much her heart was screaming at her to find this guy and drag him to the precinct by his teeth to find out if he’d murdered her cousin.
“I’m still piecing everything together,” Capelli said. “But yes. According to the DMV, not only did McManus live in Remington when Marisol disappeared, but the address listed on his Remington driver’s license is a block away from where Brittany Martin was last seen.”
“Moreno,” Sinclair said quietly, but she shook her head, adamant.
“Are you telling me this man, who strongly appears to have stolen a utility vehicle in which our murder victim’s hair was found and been the last person to see her alive, also lived on the route my cousin was walking when she was kidnapped, raped, and strangled to death?”
Sinclair’s nod barely registered past the dizzying whoosh of her pulse in her veins. “Yes. I just got off the phone with the lead tech at the crime scene unit. They’ll have to run more extensive DNA tests to reach federal standards for scientific certainty, but as of right now, the three strands of long blond hair that were found in the back of the utility truck are a preliminary match to Brittany Martin.”
“Uh, Sarge?” Capelli said, his shoulders hitting the back of his desk chair with a thump. “You’re going to want to see this.”
“What?” Isabella asked, her adrenal gland pumping at maximum capacity as Sinclair read whatever was on Capelli’s laptop screen, his shoulders snapping together beneath his plaid button-down.
“Call everybody back here and get ready to go for a ride. The address on McManus’s old driver’s license is a brownstone currently belonging to a Pauline McManus.”
Isabella’s lungs turned to sand. “Pauline McManus? Is that…”
“His mother. And chances are, if he’s visiting from out of town, he’s at her place right now.”
Chapter 7
“You’re backup only on this one.”
Isabella froze against the passenger seat of the unmarked Dodge Charger, unable to keep her shock from morphing into extreme irritation as she swung toward her boss. “You cannot be serious.”
Of course, he looked like he’d been born serious and had never let up. “I can, and I am,” Sinclair said, tipping his chin at the row of brownstones in front of them. The rest of the unit was assembled casually in front of the second house from the end, and apparently she was the last one to the here’s-how-this-is-going-to-go-down party. “Maxwell and Hale are doing the knock and talk to get McManus to the station, and Garza and Hollister are covering the exits just in case he gets squirrely and tries to bolt. But I want you in the shadows.”
Not willing to go down without a fight, Isabella tried again. “I’m perfectly capable of bringing a person of interest down to the precinct.”
“So are your colleagues,” Sinclair said, and hell. It wasn’t as if she could really argue that.
Time for angle number two. “I’ve already told you I’m right side up on this case.”
Sinclair nodded, double-checking his Glock before putting the thing safely back in its side holster and getting out of the car. “And I believe you, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But your team has your back here, Moreno. Do me a favor and let them.”
“Fine,” she muttered. Slumping against her seat, she took in her surroundings with care, watching as Sinclair and the rest of the team took their positions. Enough lights were shining on the main and second levels to suggest that at least one person was home, and Isabella’s heart pounded faster in her chest as she watched Maxwell place a solid knock over the brownstone’s glass and wood front door.
I’ve got you, Mari. We’ve got you.
The door opened. The glare of the streetlights thickened the shadows on the brownstone’s threshold, but she knew Sinclair, Garza, and Hollister had a better vantage point. God, she wanted nothing more than to get out of the freaking car, if for no other reason than to at least get better eyes on what the hell was happening. But the team was silent over the radio, more than half of them hidden neatly near any possible exit points, and any movement from her would only distract everyone and screw with the plan.
Sinclair had told her she was backup. As much as she hated it—and oh, right now, she really fucking hated it—she needed to trust her team.
Hale’s dark blond ponytail bobbed, an indicator that she was speaking with whomever had answered the door. Her demeanor was relaxed on the surface, but Isabella saw the subtle alertness in her fellow detective’s stance, knew how seamlessly Hale could give up a Vogue-worthy smile as she reached for her weapon to neutralize even the meanest threat. The conversation lasted for a few beats, and even though Isabella couldn’t hear it, she could probably recite it, syllable for syllable.
We’ve just got a few questions for you. It would be so much easier if you came down to the station with us. Would you mind terribly? My boss is a stickler, really likes to make sure we stick to protocol. I’m sure you know how it goes.
Maxwell turned on the threshold, the movement sending a pop of adrenaline through Isabella’s system. But he calmly stepped back, ushering an ordinary-looking, middle-aged man down the steps, and oh God.
They got him.
Isabella looked through the business end of the two-way mirror in the intelligence unit’s interrogation room, torn between disbelief and red-hot anger. With his sandy brown hair, average height and build, and nice-but-not-terribly-expensive slacks and button-down shirt, the man sitting at the table looked like he could be anyone. A teacher. Construction foreman. Accountant.
But he wasn’t just anyone. He was the prime suspect in a brutal kidnapping/rape/murder, and there was a good ch
ance he’d killed her cousin with his bare hands.
Just like that, red-hot anger took the win.
“Okay,” Sinclair said, sending his gaze around the narrow stretch of hall space where the team was currently assembled. “Just because McManus came in quietly doesn’t mean he’s a slam dunk. If he’s done what we think he’s done, he’s been outsmarting us for a very long time, and he knows it. Maxwell, Hale”—he swung toward the pair—“go at him carefully, but hard.”
“Have you talked to the D.A.?” Isabella asked, and Sinclair’s nod wasn’t encouraging.
“He wants something concrete to hold him on. So do me a favor, you two? Go get it.”
“Copy that,” Maxwell said. Stepping forward, he moved into the interrogation room, waiting for Hale to follow before closing the door with a firm thump. Frustration burned in Isabella’s rib cage as the three of them went through the pleasantries, with Hale thanking McManus for coming down and Maxwell telling him they needed help with a case.
She should be in there. She should be doing something other than standing here in the back hallway of their office, watching.
She should be getting justice for Brittany, for her cousin.
Please, let there be justice.
“Do you live in Remington, Gerald?” Hale asked, her tone so innocent you’d never have a clue she was already up close and personal with the answer. “I’m sorry, is it okay if I call you Gerald? Mr. McManus seems so formal.”
“Gerald is fine. And no. I’m currently living in Memphis,” he said with a polite smile.
“Oh, I have family in Collierville. It’s so pretty there.” Damn, Hale was good. She’d even gotten her eyes to sparkle as she set up the whole of-course-you-can-trust-me angle. “So, if you live in Memphis, how come you’re in town?”
McManus didn’t blink or budge, his hands folded calmly on the table in front of him. “My mother lives here. She fell and broke her hip two weeks ago, and I’m visiting through the holidays, helping make arrangements for her care and therapy while she recovers. Speaking of which, I still have a few things to take care of this evening, so…how can I help you?”
Isabella’s gut twisted. This guy wasn’t going to be lured into a false sense of security. He was smart—calm and cordial, giving up just enough details to appear cooperative while not telling them anything they didn’t already know or couldn’t easily find out.
Thankfully, Maxwell was…well, Maxwell. “There was a kidnapping in your mother’s neighborhood last week. Know anything about that?”
“I don’t,” McManus said, his expression just concerned enough to pass muster. “Hopefully everything turned out alright?”
“Were you at your mother’s house on Monday the twelfth?” Maxwell asked, and McManus bristled—just a fraction, but Isabella saw it—at Maxwell’s blatant non-answer.
He sat up taller in his utilitarian metal chair. “I was in town.”
Speaking of a non-answer. Maxwell arched a brow. “Yes, but what I asked was, were you at your mother’s house?”
After a two-ton pause turned into ten tons of silence, Hale dug back in on the good-cop side of things. “Listen, Gerald, we’re just talking to residents and people who were in the area that evening. You know, trying to piece things together. Anything you can tell us might help.”
“I’m sorry, Detective.” McManus’s smile made the hairs on the back of Isabella’s neck stand at full attention as he shifted his attention back toward Hale. “I wish I could assist with your case, but I’m sure I was at Remington Memorial with my mother on the twelfth.”
“Have you ever worked for a power company? You know, like Hutton Gas and Electric, here in the city?” Maxwell asked, and Isabella had to hand it to McManus. He didn’t even flinch at the swerve in topic before shaking his head.
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Huh.” Maxwell lifted a file folder, pulling out an eight-by-ten printout of the photo snapped by the neighborhood watch lady and placing it face-up in the center of the table. “That’s weird, because that looks like you, wearing HGE coveralls and a baseball hat with their company logo on it. And you wanna know what’s even weirder? The lady who took this says she saw you loitering in front of her house on the evening of the twelfth, in the very same time window when that kidnapping went down.”
“You mean she saw the man in the photo,” McManus said.
“Looks an awful lot like you,” Maxwell replied through his teeth, sliding McManus’s DMV photo from the file folder for a side-by-side comparison with the picture Capelli had enhanced.
But McManus just shrugged. “This picture looks pretty fuzzy to me. And comparing it to a twelve-year-old image from, what? An old driver’s license? Is that why I’m sitting here? Because it seems like there’s a lot of gray area if all you’ve got is a picture of someone who”—he frowned down at the photo—“may or may not really look like me and, as far as I can tell, isn’t doing anything illegal.”
Dread filled Isabella’s belly like ice water. “Sam,” she started, but Sinclair shook his head as Maxwell continued.
“Our facial recognition software didn’t seem to think there was a lot of gray area between the photos at all. In fact, it listed them as a match.”
“Hmm. Certainly those facial recognition programs aren’t foolproof?” McManus asked, the haughty lift of his light brown brows saying he knew the answer before Maxwell answered.
“No. They’re not.”
“And things that aren’t foolproof can create…what’s the phrase you use? Ah, right. Reasonable doubt. Especially if there’s no other evidence to support a claim.”
Maxwell ground out, “Theoretically.”
“Well, then, there you have it. Even if I was on that street—and, for the record, I’m not saying I was—I’d bet dozens of other people were, too. You need a whole lot more than proximity to arrest me for something as serious as a kidnapping. Since I’m not under arrest…” McManus paused, his smile growing smug as hell when all Maxwell could do was gnash his teeth rather than whip out his bracelets. “I assume you don’t have anything other than highly circumstantial evidence that any lawyer worth his or her salt would be able to discredit in about ten minutes. So, if that’s all, am I free to go?”
“Not yet,” Maxwell bit out, turning toward the interrogation room door. He cursed his way through it a nanosecond later, with Hale on his heels.
“Tell me you got something while I was in there sharing air with that motherfucker,” Maxwell hissed.
Sinclair’s head shake made Isabella’s gut pitch. “Capelli’s leaning on CSU for more on the truck, but McManus’s prints aren’t on file anywhere. Even if we did have them, there are dozens of different prints in and on the truck, all of which have to be run and ruled out.”
“I talked to the head nurse at the rehab facility at Remington Memorial,” Hollister said, and only then did Isabella realize he’d slipped down the hallway to make the call, probably as soon as McManus had disclosed his reason for being back in town. “They don’t keep a log of when visitors come and go. The nurse said McManus has been there every day, but she couldn’t say for sure exactly when. Visiting hours go until eight PM.”
“So he’s got no alibi,” Isabella said. God, this was starting to smell worse and worse by the second.
“That’s not how he’s going to spin it.”
She turned toward Sinclair in shock. No way. No way. He couldn’t possibly be considering… “You can’t let him walk.”
“Well, I can’t arrest him, either,” Sinclair said quietly. “As sanctimonious as he is, he’s not wrong, and the D.A. was clear. She wants a clean arrest. We book him now, with what we’ve got? It’ll only strengthen the argument that we’re reaching.”
Isabella’s heart threatened to rip from her chest. “Brittany’s hair was found in the truck, Sam. And I don’t care what kind of bullshit he’s spinning about the reliability of facial recognition. That science is legit. He was right fucking there!”<
br />
“My gut knows that as well as yours does, Moreno. But we have no photos of him actually in that utility truck. No fingerprints anywhere on it. No DNA. Nothing. Unless CSU comes up with something new or by some miracle he confesses, the best we can do is let him stew for an hour before we have to cut him loose.”
“No.” Anger formed in her veins, hot and unrelenting. “That’s not the best we can do. We promised to find who killed this girl. We can’t let him walk. He’s done this before. He’ll do it again.”
Isabella’s hands shook as she did a desperate mental search for something—anything—that would prove what her instincts had been screaming ever since they’d started piecing this case together. The words she’d just spoken echoed in her head, bouncing around before settling in.
He’s done this before…before…before…
Her head whipped up. “Oh my God.”
“You have something?” Sinclair asked, and Isabella barely heard the words past the floodgates that had just been opened in her brain.
I promised to take care of you, Mari. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
“I think I have just what we need to nail this son of a bitch. But you’re going to have to trust me to get it.
Chapter 8
Isabella tucked the stack of file folders in the crook of her elbow and mashed down on her nerves with all her might. She might have come up with this plan quickly, but she knew it was sound. She knew it would work.
It had to.
“You ready?” Hollister asked, his voice low and his expression more serious than she’d ever seen it, and Isabella answered honestly.
“I am. I can do this.”
“Okay,” Sinclair said, walking down the hallway with a tall redhead in a stylish yet professional suit and heels beside him. “You remember A.D.A. Presley Winston.”
Isabella nodded at the woman. “Thanks for coming down on such short notice.”
Forever Deep: A Station Seventeen novella Page 6
