Takeover

by Lisa Black

  Ms. Elliott hadn’t moved. “We have a staff lounge. Would you like to come and sit down for a while?”

  The woman’s gentle tone frightened Theresa. She must look like she was about to collapse. She straightened her back, brushed what curls the humidity had left her out of her eyes, and said, “No, thank you, I need to stay here,” in as firm a voice as she could muster.

  Cavanaugh then ruined the effect by asking her to stay away from the windows, in the same tone one would use to a child. It infuriated her, mostly because she knew he was right. She and Peggy Elliott moved back into the reading nook, and Theresa sat across from the hostage negotiator as he got Lucas on the phone.

  “What happened to that young woman?” Cavanaugh asked. He might as well have been discussing copier toner or the need to order more coffee.

  “Which young woman would that be, Chris?” If recent events had rattled Lucas, he did a masterful job of hiding it. His voice flowed from the speaker like melted butter.

  Cavanaugh looked at Kessler, still on his own phone with the Fed security unit.

  “Cherise,” the vice president said. “Shur-EESE. It’s her name.”

  Cavanaugh repeated it and asked Lucas again what had happened to her.

  “What makes you think anything has?”

  “As I said before, Lucas, this has to work on trust. Everything we’ve talked about so far, I’ve told you the truth. But it has to be a two-way street.”

  A voice sounded in the background, over the speaker.

  “Lucas, what was that?”

  “That was Bobby. He don’t trust cops much, as I think I told you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You got a few hours, Chris?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I don’t.”

  Cavanaugh went on. “I have to be able to believe that you’re going to tell me the truth, if we’re going to be able to work out a comfortable solution here, Lucas. You and Cherise went back into the cages and only you came out, so I have to ask you. Where is Cherise? Is she all right?”

  “Are you watching me, Chris? You have hidden cameras in here?”

  “I’m beginning to think you’re jerking me around, Lucas.”

  The pace of the conversation wore on Theresa. “Why does he say his name with almost every single sentence?” she whispered to Jason. “More humanizing?”

  “Yeah. Getting him to think of the hostages as human beings instead of objects sometimes means getting him to think of himself as a human being—capable of choice and compassion. It also might make him feel special, that Chris is focusing just on him.”

  “But he uses Cavanaugh’s name all the time, too.”

  “Yeah. That’s kind of odd.”

  Cavanaugh continued, “There’s a camera in every corner of that lobby, Lucas, in plain sight. You know they’re there, so you know bloody well we’re watching you. Why wouldn’t we be? So why are you wasting time talking about the cameras instead of telling me what happened to Cherise?”

  “I would have taken the cameras out,” Lucas said. “But they’re at least twenty feet off the ground, and I’m not that good a shot.”

  Ha, Theresa thought. Like I believe that.

  “What happened to Cherise?”

  “Cherise,” Lucas stated, “was not cooperating. You know how important cooperation is in an exercise like this. If anyone knows, Chris, you do.”

  “I don’t like this guy,” Jason muttered, in what should have been an almost inane comment; instead it chilled Theresa down to her veins. “Calm is one thing, but he’s actually cool. He’s so cool he’s flat-out cold.”

  “So Cherise—”

  “Cherise is dead,” Lucas said. “See what I mean about cooperating?”

  Cavanaugh paused. “Why did you kill her, Lucas?” He seemed to be fighting to keep his voice calm, but Theresa couldn’t be sure if that was part of the act. He had to make Lucas aware of how serious the situation had become, but he couldn’t yell at the robber and possibly antagonize him further. This way it sounded as though he was fighting his inner feelings to stay fair and evenhanded, to continue to assist Lucas through this crisis. She began to see why the police department held him in such high regard. But had he met his match?

  “Why did you have to shoot her?” Cavanaugh was saying. “Why couldn’t we have worked things out? I said I’d get you the money and I’d get you the car. Why did you give up on that plan, Lucas? Now that innocent girl has lost her life, and for nothing.”

  “You’re breaking my heart. I love the ‘innocent girl’ part. You never even met the bitch, so how would you know how innocent she was?”

  “Had you met her? Before today?”

  Everyone in the room fell silent, waiting for this answer.

  “We had an acquaintance of about, all told, ten minutes. With some people that’s enough.”

  “This changes things, Lucas. You see that, don’t you? My boss is going to be a lot less inclined to deal with you if thinks you’re going to shoot people no matter what, for no reason.”

  “Tell him to imagine how many I’ll shoot when I do have a reason.”

  “I don’t understand you, Lucas. You stay so calm through this whole thing, you take over the lobby without spilling a drop, and then, without motive, you shoot a woman.”

  “You don’t need to understand me, Chris. I understand you.”

  “Then understand this: Before we go any further, I need your word that you won’t hurt anyone without giving me a chance to work with you on it first. No more surprises. If you are considering hurting someone, tell me about it first, and we can work it out. Can I have your word on that?”

  “No.”

  “They usually go for that,” Jason said.

  Theresa had thought her stomach couldn’t sink any lower, and now she discovered she’d been wrong. She also wished Frank or Don were there with her. Or Paul. Especially Paul.

  “No one out here is going to give you what you want if they think you’re going to shoot people anyway. You’re not giving us any incentive to work with you, is what I’m saying.”

  “I understand that perfectly, Chris. So here’s your incentive: I want that car parked and running, with the keys in it, outside the door in twenty minutes, or I shoot another hostage. How about that for incentive? I bet that will work.”

  “You can have the car, Lucas. You just can’t take a hostage away in it, that’s all.”

  “And how are we supposed to get to the car without your snipers taking us out? You worked that one out, Chris?”

  “If you leave that bank, just the two of you, no one is going to shoot you. I can one hundred percent assure you of that.”

  “We can get in the car and drive away? And how far are we going to get?”

  “That, I can’t answer. I can only handle what’s happening on this block of East Sixth.”

  “Not good enough,” Lucas told him, and hung up.

  Cavanaugh thought for a moment, then redialed.

  “Now what?” Theresa asked Jason.

  “He’ll keep talking to him. As cool as Lucas plays it, he’s got to be uptight or he wouldn’t have shot that woman. He needs a deal, he needs a way out, but he’s going to play hard to get so that he can look like a hero to Bobby and himself. Chris will just keep talking and talking until he wears him down.”

  “My ex-husband used to do that. Especially when he wanted to buy something expensive.”

  Jason laughed, startling her. She hadn’t meant it to be funny.

  Frank appeared next to a matching set of Vital Records of Concord, Massachusetts and beckoned to Jason and Theresa. They followed him out of earshot to the glass-walled map room at the north corner of the building. Ms. Elliott or one of her staff had set up a second television next to a glossy blue globe; Assistant Chief Viancourt watched Channel 15’s coverage of the secretary of state luncheon. He sat on an antiqued wooden bench with two other men in suits, like overgrown boys in a class they hadn’t wanted to take.r />
  “I’ve got the brother here.” Frank kept his voice low. “Bobby’s brother.”

  “Here?” Jason asked. “You brought him here?”

  “He’s the closest thing we’ve got to insight into these two guys. He doesn’t know Lucas, never heard of him. But he knows his brother. Can’t stand him either, but that’s not my problem.”

  “Yes it is,” the young man insisted. “If he hates Bobby, the feeling’s probably mutual.”

  “He can still talk to him,” Theresa said. “If Lucas will even put him on the phone.”

  Jason shook his head so hard his tie shifted. “No, you don’t get it. This isn’t TV, where the criminal melts into tears when his sainted mother tells him to come out. These guys are losers who blame everything that’s gone bad in their lives on other people, and most often the people closest to them. He isn’t going to feel sentimental about his family members. He’ll probably hold them responsible for every problem he has.”

  “Especially this one,” Frank said. “Eric turned him in. Said he did it to save the aforementioned sainted mother. Her baby’s wild ways wore out her heart.”

  “What about her? Would she—” Theresa began.

  “She’s dead. He really did wear out her heart.”

  “Then why did you bring Eric Moyers here?” Jason asked again.

  “Well, gee, I had nothing else to do, and he needed a ride home from work. And because my partner’s in there with an M4 carbine in his face, and this guy is the only life-form we have that can tell us anything about the guy holding the M4 carbine besides his age and ID number. Maybe that’s why.”

  “Okay, okay. Did he tell you anything else about Bobby that might help us?”

  “Just that’s he’s a lousy thief. I’m guessing Lucas is not only the mouthpiece here, he’s the brains.”

  “No surprise there. Okay, we’ll tell Chris what you’ve learned from the brother, but not that he’s on the premises.”

  “Wait, you’re not telling your own boss all the facts?”

  Jason mopped his forehead with one sleeve cuff. “It’s for his own sake. We don’t know how Bobby will react to even the mention of his brother, and what Chris doesn’t know, he can’t slip and reveal.”

  Theresa tried to imagine Leo’s take on this operating procedure. You keep things from me, MacLean, and you’ll spend a week in the deep freeze putting blood samples from 1994 in numerical order. Then I’ll fire you.

  “Hey.” Channel 15’s reporting turned to how Cleveland had finally won the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s induction ceremonies from New York City and Assistant Chief of Police Viancourt now tore himself away, clutching Theresa’s plastic evidence bag and a sheet of paper. “I’ve got that postage-meter information.”

  “That was fast,” Theresa said.

  The assistant chief beamed under her genuine praise; if he’d been born with a tail, he’d have been wagging it. “It was nothing. Hi—Patrick, isn’t it? You’re up for the chief of Homicide, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Theresa goggled. She’d never heard Frank call anyone “sir” before.

  “Best of luck to you. I’m glad you’re in on this—we need to keep a cop approach going here. Cavanaugh’s good, but these specialized units can get too wrapped up in themselves.”

  Theresa could see a sort of struggle pass over her cousin’s face, as if the desire to be honest—at the moment Cavanaugh seemed their only hope—warred with his desire to be the head of the Homicide unit. Jason said nothing. She intervened. “Could Pitney Bowes trace the postage meter?”

  Viancourt’s expression clouded. She could swear he had forgotten what they were talking about, finding the politics of the police department a far more fascinating topic. Then it cleared. “Yeah. They have over five hundred meters leased within city limits, did you know that? Just about any large office concern has one. Anyway, this machine is at a storage facility in Decatur, Georgia. Gray’s Store-All, on Forrest Avenue.”

  Frank had his radio in hand. “I’ll get the Georgia cops to send someone out there now.”

  “I thought of that. A unit’s on their way,” the assistant chief told him with a touch of reproach. Frank’s stock had just lost a few points on the Dow.

  Theresa butted in again, even batting an eyelash or two at Viancourt. “Bobby probably had his car in storage while he served his time. But I don’t understand how the car got to Decatur from here—they’d hardly let him drive himself to prison, would they?”

  “Not in this case. It was an interprison transfer, so he’d have gone by bus.”

  “Then maybe the storage facility can tell us who brought it there or who paid the bill.” She thanked the assistant chief profusely. He wandered back to the hypnotic waves of broadcast news as she turned to Frank. “Where’s his brother? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “So would I,” Jason said.

  Eric Moyers’s disposition had not improved greatly since he’d left his workplace. He had gone from one inhospitable climate with a partially stocked pop machine to another. He sat at an abandoned microfilm-viewing station, drinking Sprite without enthusiasm.

  Theresa planted her body in front of him and introduced herself. The guy looked exhausted and breathed with a raspy wheeze, but he gamely fielded questions from her and Jason without argument. Theresa had the feeling he’d answer questions from Peggy Elliott, should she care to ask any. An air of hopeless resignation bracketed every word.

  “Does Bobby have a white Mercedes?”

  “Not white,” the baggage handler corrected her bitterly. “Pearl.”

  “And he put it in storage while he served this last sentence in Atlanta?”

  “I wouldn’t have any idea where he put it.”

  “Could he have paid to store it for six months?”

  “Sure. Bobby always had money—stolen money, of course, but he’d have it.” He snorted. “He put his car in storage? That’s probably the only time my brother thought ahead in his life.”

  Jason asked, “Did he live in Brookpark before he went to jail? The car is registered to a house there.”

  “We all lived there. That’s where Bobby and I grew up. But he was gone and Mom had died—no point me living there all by myself. I sold it months ago.”

  Jason’s phone rang, and he answered it, walking a few steps away and pulling out his notepad before he even flipped the receiver open.

  Theresa tried another tack with Eric Moyers. “Is Bobby good with mechanics? Did he work on the car, know how to modify it?”

  “Bobby couldn’t change a tire if his life depended on it. If he had any work done, he got someone else to do it. What are you guys doing about this anyway? Can’t I sit somewhere so I can see what’s going on?”

  “Unfortunately, we can’t all fit in the command center,” she told him, thinking, Damn, I’m learning to deflect people as smoothly as Chris Cavanaugh. “Does Bobby have a friend named Lucas?”

  “I told this guy here I don’t know any of Bobby’s friends. He always had plenty of them, I’ll admit that. Everyone liked Bobby, especially kids and dumb animals. But I don’t know his friends—I didn’t want to know them then, I don’t want to know them now.”

  “Has he called you since he got out?”

  “He might have tried, but I doubt it. I changed my address and phone, left no forwarding. We only had my aunt and uncle in common, and they died in a car accident. Truth is, lady,” Eric Moyers summed up, “I didn’t even know he was out.”

  CHAPTER 15

  12:05 P.M.

  Paul had stretched his legs out straight, Theresa noted, probably to release some of the pressure on his butt. He wasn’t used to sitting so much. He still wouldn’t look up at the camera, instead following Lucas’s pacing movements.

  I’m failing miserably at this investigating gig, honey. I haven’t discovered one useful fact, and we still have no idea how to get you out of there.

  Kessler had disappeared. The scribe, Irene, wrote
steadily now that Cavanaugh had Lucas back on the phone. He asked the bank robber, “Where are you from, by the way?”

  “I could say the depths of hell, but I hate to be overdramatic.”

  “Bobby is a Cleveland boy, born and raised, we know that—”

  “Really. What else do you know?”

  “—but where are you from, Lucas? Where did you two get to be friends?”

  “I fail to see how that’s relevant, Chris.”

  “Did you meet when Bobby served time in Atlanta?”

  A pause. Theresa could see him on the monitor, talking on the phone from the information desk. It had a cord and limited his movement to pacing in front of the hostages, the curly wire stretched over their heads. Any minute now he would tug the body of the phone down onto one of them. “I don’t see that car pulling up outside. And don’t give me any more lines about a tow-truck driver.”

  “That’s just it, Lucas. The last time you mentioned the tow-truck driver, you also mentioned Winn-Dixie, which is a chain of grocery stores, right?”

  “So?”

  “So there aren’t any in Cleveland. There aren’t any in Ohio. They’re a southern chain.”

  “That’s just fascinating, Chris. I guess your cops will have to get their coffee somewhere else, then, which is a pity, because they make pretty good stuff. I still don’t see that car. Who do you want me to shoot next?”

  “I just want to know where you’re from, Lucas.”

  “Is there a reason you’re wasting my time with this? Please tell me there’s a reason.”

  Cavanaugh sighed. Didn’t he ever get tired of these games? Theresa wondered. She could see herself yelling at people: Just spit it out already!

  Cavanaugh didn’t yell. “Bear with me here, Lucas.”

  Lucas’s sigh could be heard clearly over the speaker. “Okay. Since you ask all polite like, and since I’m obviously supposed to be impressed with your keen grocery-store reasoning here, I’ll just tell you if it will make you feel better: Bobby and I served time together in Atlanta. That’s where we met.”