by J W Becton
“A little girl?” Eddie repeated, his eyebrows drawn down in confusion. “What girl?”
“Dr. Keller’s daughter was abducted,” I repeated, watching him carefully for signs of deception. “Did you do it, Eddie? Do you have her hidden somewhere?”
“What?” Eddie asked, almost shouting. “No! Why would I take the doc’s kid?”
Vincent had enough, and he leaned toward Eddie, saying, “Damn it. I don’t care about your motives or your reasons at this moment. If you tell us where the girl is immediately and she is safe and alive, I will see to it that you get a fair shake.”
Eddie shook his head, eyes wide.
“I don’t know anything about any little girl,” he stuttered softly. “I swear. I don’t know anything.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed at him, and he took a step closer until the two of them were almost toe to toe.
“Let me tell you what we know,” he said. “We know that you have acted as a runner at staged accidents all over town, we know that Allred Racing is part of a large fraud ring, and we know that you solicited my partner here to bring her car to that establishment. Already, three strikes against your future freedom, and we haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet. We also know that you threatened Dr. Keller, and threats, well, Eddie, they make you a prime suspect for carrying out an abduction. And that’s serious jail time.”
“It would be in your best interests to tell us what you know,” I said more gently, approaching from the side. “We just want to know where Sasha is. She’s only three years old, you know. So if you know anything….”
Eddie scowled at me as if we were trying to play him, which, of course, we were.
“I already told you that I don’t know anything about a kidnapping,” he said. “And that’s the truth.”
“Well, what do you know, Eddie?” I asked. “Because obviously you know something, or you wouldn’t have threatened Dr. Keller in the first place.”
“Okay, okay,” Eddie said, his voice rising in panic. “I’m not going to give that bitch the satisfaction of seeing me carted off to jail for the crimes she did. You know she tortured me?”
Vincent stepped back so that he leaned against the apartment’s wall, leaving Eddie at the railing across from him.
“The burn?” I asked, making an educated guess.
Eddie nodded. “The boss,” he said, leaning over as if to look at his feet. “She burned the hell outta me with a pipe, and she’s the one behind everything. Runs the fraud and probably ordered the kidnapping too. It’s her style.”
I looked at Vincent.
“Who?” I asked, hoping we would finally have a solid lead on Sasha Keller’s location. “You’ve got to give us a name.”
“Shit,” Eddie said. “She doesn’t have a name. Just the boss.”
“You don’t know her name?” I asked, completely skeptical.
“She goes by a lot of names, and none at the same time. She’s everywhere and nowhere all at once. She runs things from a distance, sending people to do her dirty work. Unless it’s torture. She likes to do that herself.”
“Sounds like a bunch of half-assed poetic garbage to me,” Vincent said. “He’s not cooperating, is he, Special Agent Jackson?”
“Eddie, we need a description, something concrete,” I said. “What does she look like? Age, weight, height?”
“Middle aged,” Eddie began.
“Be as specific as you can,” I encouraged. “Can you estimate? Forties? Fifties?”
Eddie shrugged.
“I don’t know. Late forties, maybe? Dark hair and eyes. Sort of big, but not fat. Regular woman height. Nice cheekbones.”
“Regular woman height and nice cheekbones?” I repeated. “You expected us to find her based on that?”
If Eddie’s arms had been free, he probably would have flailed them in frustration. He managed only a tight shrug.
“That’s the thing about her,” Eddie said. “She blends. She don’t look like she’s the type of woman to rip your face off. Maybe a bit brash and blunt, but not a psycho torturer.”
“Is child abduction something the boss would do, you think?” I asked, changing tactics. Eddie obviously wasn’t responding well to the direct approach.
“Hell, yes,” Eddie said. “She got her rocks off when she burned my leg. She’d do more than just kidnap a little girl if it got her what she wanted. And she’d enjoy it.”
“Why didn’t you report her for the burn?” I asked.
“It looks just like a motorcycle exhaust pipe burn,” he said, nodding at his leg, “and she’d have fifty people to back up her claim that she’d seen me scorch myself on a bike.”
“How does she have so much power over so many people?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him in confusion. “You said they all do her dirty work, are willing to lie…. How is that possible?”
“She knows things,” Eddie said. “She’s got dirt on everyone who works for her. In fact, that’s how she chooses you. She already knows you’re dirty, comes to you saying she can either turn you in or you can work for her. Which one would you choose?”
That explained Dr. Keller’s involvement. He was already bilking the insurance system, and somehow this boss found out and used it against him. Only Dr. Keller came to the DOI, and she repaid him by taking Sasha.
“Then once you’re in her organization, you’re in for life,” Eddie continued. “You carry out her business, and she just has more dirt on you, to use against you. She’s always clean. She owns you. She owns everything. The garage where I work. I wouldn’t be surprised if she owned this apartment building too.”
There was our opening.
She owned Allred Racing and Repair. There would be records.
I grabbed my phone from my belt to call Ted, but Eddie interrupted me.
“I don’t know her name, but I know where she’ll be Friday night.”
“Oh, yeah,” Vincent said, arms crossed in front of his chest. “Where’s that?”
“At a drag race somewhere off highway 79 in Cranford County. Not sure where exactly because I’m not into that crap, but it’s a big deal. Supposedly, you’ll know it when you see it.”
I cut my eyes from Eddie to Vincent, and he gave me a quick nod. I knew where we would be the next night.
While Vincent officially put Eddie under arrest for his various crimes and escorted him to the MPD cruiser, I finished dialing Ted and headed down to the lot and into the bright winter day to wait for him to answer.
Our dear old boss might have skipped out on visiting Dr. Keller and shirked responsibility for his likely role in Sasha’s abduction, but he’d gotten us the pertinent warrants, and he’d fall over himself to make sure we got to the race with all the proper accoutrements.
“Ted,” I said when he answered, “I need you to research something for me.”
“Whatever you need,” Ted said, exaggerating his amenability. “I’m at your disposal.”
“I need you to track down the identity of the owner of Allred Racing and Repair,” I said. As an afterthought, I added, “And when you do, get me an arrest warrant. Then, find me a car that will fit in at a drag race. I’ll need it for tomorrow night.”
“Okay, I’ve got that,” Ted said before sputtering in comprehension. “Wait. A drag race?”
Twenty-four
The MPD officers had verified that Mary Fallsworthy was working at the Accident Care Clinic, so Vincent and I arranged for the officers to search her residence while we dealt with Mary herself. Just walking through the doors into the sterile waiting room, I felt my shoulders and back tense.
Probably a reaction to Zoren’s massage. Damn muscle memory.
I’d probably never be able to smell antiseptic again without turning into one giant cramp.
I glanced beside me to see that Vincent’s shoulders and back also looked tense, but certainly not for the same reason. No, he was ready to bash some skulls, starting with Nurse Practitioner Mary Fallsworthy.
We appro
ached the front desk and I flashed my badge at the young woman seated there. Her eyes darted from me to Vincent to the two uniformed officers behind us. I introduced myself as an investigator with the insurance department.
“We need to speak with Mary Fallsworthy,” I said.
“Oh, uh, okay, let me see if she’s here,” the receptionist said.
Vincent was having none of her hesitation.
“Don’t trouble yourself,” he said, pushing open the door that led to the examination rooms. “Mind if we find her ourselves?”
I smiled and shrugged at the receptionist, who gaped at me.
“Uh, Dr. Keller won’t like….”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “We have Dr. Keller’s permission to be here.”
And that was true. We had full access to the medical offices, and Vincent was already taking advantage of that.
I followed my partner down the hall with the two MPD officers behind me. Vincent’s large back disappeared through an open door, and I heard him say the nurse practitioner’s name.
I entered shortly behind him into a small break room that housed a mini refrigerator, two tables, and several uncomfortable-looking chairs.
I could see the back of the nurse practitioner’s blue scrubs, her mahogany hair tied in a bun. She turned from the counter where she had been brewing a fresh pot of coffee. Her cheekbones were highlighted with bright pink blush, and they stood out against her pale skin. Was this Eddie Wohl’s boss? She could possibly fit his description: average height, a little extra weight, dark hair, nice cheekbones.
Maybe.
But he also said that the boss liked to be aloof, separate from the day-to-day running of the fraud. And she seemed a little younger than late forties. As an employee at the Accident Care Clinic, Mary Fallsworthy was obviously directly involved.
“I’m Mary Fallsworthy,” she said, her face totally calm. She glanced at my face, seemed to recognize me, and then looked between the four of us. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”
“We already covered that with the receptionist,” Vincent growled at her.
After quickly identifying Vincent and myself as DOI agents, I said, “Ms. Fallsworthy, we need to ask you some questions.”
“Regarding what, exactly?” she asked, turning once more to the coffee and pouring herself a cup as if she couldn’t care less about our inquiries.
She didn’t offer us a cup.
How rude.
“The kidnapping of Sasha Keller,” I said to her back.
I saw her hands shake slightly, slopping coffee onto the countertop. She quickly mopped it up and then turned to us.
“Kidnapping?”
“Please,” I said. “It’s been all over the news. You cannot be unaware that your boss’s child has disappeared.”
She shrugged.
“I know it happened, but I don’t understand why you think I know anything about it.”
“Because you do,” Vincent said.
Mary Fallsworthy’s face registered surprise at this pronouncement, but the expression quickly returned to blandness.
“I—I hardly think so,” she said.
“Let me break it down for you,” Vincent said, looming over the woman now. “We know about the fraud being committed by this clinic, and we have reason to believe that Keller’s child was taken as retribution for his cooperation with our investigation. We have evidence that you informed the larger fraud ring of his communication with us, an action that led directly to Sasha’s Keller’s disappearance.”
Fallsworthy froze, staring up and Vincent, and I could practically see her brain shift into overtime as she tried to decide just how much trouble she was in.
“Are you arresting me?” she asked finally.
“Do you want us to arrest you?” Vincent returned.
“No.”
“Then you’d better tell us what you know about the fraud ring, and you’d better tell us fast. A child’s life is at stake, and I’m guessing you don’t want to be an accessory to murder if she were to turn up dead.”
Finally, Mary Fallsworthy blinked.
“Okay, fine, I’ll tell you what I know, but it isn’t much. The group is very compartmentalized, and I’ve only met one or two people involved.”
“Keep talking,” Vincent said.
“What’s your role here?” I asked.
“I watch, see how things are running, report back.”
“And you reported something this week, didn’t you?” I asked. “What?”
“Well, I noticed that Dr. Keller had been keeping a list of patient referrals, saw him make a copy and leave the office with it. I told Eddie. That’s all I did, I swear. I had nothing to do with Sasha’s disappearance, and I certainly didn’t kill anyone.”
“Eddie is your contact?” I asked.
“Yes, I was sent in here to watch and report back to him. Let him know how the operation was running from the inside.”
“Eddie was the only person in the ring with whom you had contact?” I asked.
“No, there was another guy I spoke with occasionally.”
“Who was that?”
“Mike Something,” she said. “His last name sounded sort of Italian.”
“You got anything more than Mike with the Italian last name?” Vincent demanded.
“He wore a mechanic’s shirt,” she said.
Mike the mechanic, the guy at Allred Racing who had done the estimate on my sedan.
Our investigation clearly centered on Allred Racing. The mysterious boss owned the garage, Eddie and Mike worked there, drag racing was involved. It was logical that Mike might be able to identify the boss.
But first we needed to identify and locate him, and we needed Fallsworthy out of the picture.
“Is anyone else in this office directly associated with the fraud ring? Anyone else talk to Eddie or Mike?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just me. Everyone else just does what I say.”
“Thank you for your cooperation,” I said, pulling my handcuffs from my belt. “Now we’re placing you under arrest for insurance fraud.”
“What?” Fallsworthy demanded, cutting her eyes to Vincent. “You said I wasn’t going to be arrested.”
“No,” Vincent corrected as I turned and cuffed her. “I asked if you wanted us to arrest you. Completely different.”
“You’ll be going with these nice officers from the MPD,” I said. “If you think of anything else that might help us find Sasha Keller, then you’ll be doing yourself a favor.”
I shoved her toward the MPD officers, wishing I could arrest Zoren too, but we had more important matters to tackle. We needed to find Mike the mechanic.
“This is absurd,” I said to Vincent as we followed the MPD officers out of the building. “Impossible to say if we’ve gotten even one step closer to the boss.”
“We’re doing what has to be done, eliminating one suspect after another. It’s all we can do. Besides, no one is perfect. She has to have made a mistake.”
“I know,” I said.
I didn’t add that I seriously doubted that Mike would know any more about the boss than Eddie or Mary had.
And we were running out of time.
Twenty-five
The situation had gone straight to hell when he couldn’t bring himself to mow the little girl down as if she were as insignificant as an orange roadside cone. He realized now that had been a mistake. At the time, he thought he had been doing the right thing, the thing that would get him out of trouble as quickly as possible, but once again, he was in deep shit.
He knew it the moment his cell phone rang early Friday morning.
“Michael, son,” the boss said, her harsh voice stinging his ears. “What is going on?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, trying to buy time and keep himself from panicking.
“Don’t play dumb,” said the boss. “I heard the Amber alert. You didn’t do what I asked.”
Lacarova
’s mind spun as he tried to latch on to one thought, one lie that would get him out of trouble.
“I didn’t do it the way you asked,” he said finally.
“What is that supposed to mean? Didn’t do it the way I asked.”
“I hid the body,” he said.
Technically, that was the truth. He had hidden the little girl, but he hadn’t killed her first.
“Why?” she demanded, her voice rough and forced, as if her jaw was clenched.
“It was too out in the open. I would have been seen. Had to do the next best thing, so I snatched her and took care of her.”
“You idiot,” the boss said. “I told you to make it look like an accident. A hit-and-run is an accident, but a disappearance…that’s different. That means cops and investigations and questions.”
He didn’t respond.
“Michael,” she said, “you realize what you’ve done, don’t you?”
“Uh,” he stammered, still trying to think.
“You’ve got the doc’s house surrounded by cops, who are all looking a lot harder at why this kid disappeared. That means they’re going to be looking a lot harder at us now, son, and that’s very bad. If you’ve screwed up my work—”
The boss’s voice ended on a strangled sound.
“Let’s just say that you’d better make sure no one can tie me to this, or I’m going to make sure that no one ever finds your body.”
The line went dead, and Lacarova stood there, staring at his phone.
Unless he disappeared fast, the boss was going to kill him.
Yeah, well, he refused to let that happen, and he was going to make sure she went down for the crime.
Snatching his keys from the table by the sofa, he was about to leave the house when he realized he should probably check on Sasha. The kid was turning out to be more trouble than he’d expected. Sure, she was potty trained, but she called him for help every time she had to use the toilet, and he’d be damned if he was going to get accused of molestation on top of kidnapping if this all went to hell.
