The 18th Abduction

by James Patterson

  Joe hoped that the Butcher wasn’t having a big laugh on him. But he couldn’t dismiss the possibility.

  If Petrović had anything to do with the murdered schoolteachers, he was winning. And to prove it, he’d just given the Bureau a big fat middle finger.

  Chapter 79

  Fifteen minutes later Joe was with Steinmetz in his corner office, updating him on the day’s chase.

  “I have a team on Petrović’s house. I have the second team watching the restaurant where Tony is now overseeing the lunchtime service.”

  Joe told Steinmetz about the wedding party roadblock caused by newlywed celebrities and attendant paparazzi, the frustration of seeing a renowned mass murderer drive around San Francisco with impunity.

  Joe said, “How can I stop him?”

  Steinmetz muttered, “We’re a nation of laws.”

  Joe nodded his agreement, then told his supervisor what he’d learned about the murder of Adele Saran.

  Steinmetz said, “I’m on top of that case. The bottom line is that there were lots of footprints in the woods, no forensic evidence, no witnesses to the crime, and no video recorders out in the middle of Sierra Azul Open Space.”

  “Correct,” Joe said. “Lindsay is of the opinion that Petrović may be involved in the schoolteacher murders.”

  “Because?”

  “Because Petrović liked to hang his victims.”

  Steinmetz cracked a smile. “That would almost be too good to be true. You had eyes on him at the time of the Saran girl’s murder?”

  “We had eyes on his house.”

  “So no. He wasn’t sighted here in town. What do you know about his associates?”

  “Guy who runs his restaurant, Marko Vladic, has no record. Petrović has some kitchen help that are also squeaky clean. No one wants to get caught up in an ICE sweep. The Boy Scouts have nothing on Petrović’s crew.”

  Steinmetz said, “You’re not seriously thinking of bringing him in as a suspect in the Saran murder?”

  “I’m waiting for him to give me any kind of excuse,” Joe said. “Littering. Jaywalking. Parking in a no-parking zone.”

  “You get something resembling probable cause, get back to me,” said Steinmetz.

  Joe said, “Will do,” and feeling totally ineffectual, he walked down the hall to his office, went in, and closed the door. He checked the GPS: Petrović’s car was still parked in front of the restaurant. The car staking out the back of the restaurant had been switched out for another bland-looking repurposed sedan, American brand this time. Team two was parked near the intersection of Fell and Scott in an old hippy bus, painted with swirls and flowers.

  Joe checked in with the guys, got zippo, gave encouragement, and got off the phone. A moment later it rang.

  Joe grabbed for the receiver. It was the security guard at the ground-floor desk saying, “She’s baaaaack.”

  “Who?”

  “Ms. Sotovina.”

  Chapter 80

  Joe met Anna at the elevator, then walked her back to his office, hoping that she had remembered something important or that Petrović had threatened her, something that would rise to the level of probable cause to investigate him with the full force of FBI resources.

  He asked Anna if she had news for him as she took a seat.

  She said, “No. I don’t have anything new, Joe. I thought you might have something for me.”

  She looked expectant and very vulnerable. The tough “don’t tell me what to do” version of Anna wasn’t apparent today.

  “Anna, do you have any friends in town?”

  “A few. Why?”

  “Because I know I’d worry less if you moved in with a friend instead of living in that house where Petrović can get to you at any time. He can simply cut through a few backyards.”

  “You think he’s going to come after me?” Anna asked him. “He couldn’t care less about me, Joe. He’s had me. Many times. He could have killed me, many times. Petrović isn’t afraid of me. And he has no reason to fear, because if he doesn’t lay a hand on me now, I can’t touch him. He got a pass for all of his old crimes.”

  “I’ve told you what I think,” Joe said. “He’s a criminal in search of a target, and you make a pretty good one.”

  “It’s my birthday, Joe. Forty today.”

  “Oh. Well. Happy birthday. Did your coworkers give you a cake?”

  “Yes. And cards. And this,” she said, showing him a chain with a little sparkly pendant. “It’s my birthstone. But I haven’t had lunch. How about taking me out for something, Joe? I haven’t had steak in a long time.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Small joke. Not steak. Pasta maybe.”

  “Sorry, Anna. I’ve got work to do here at the office.”

  She tried to hide her disappointment, but her face colored. She picked up her handbag.

  “I apologize for being…inappropriate. I’ll be going now.”

  Joe said, “Don’t worry, Anna. Really. It’s okay.”

  He knew she was lonely. That he was a large figure in her life. He walked Anna to the elevator and told her, as he always did, that he would be in touch if he learned anything useful and she should do the same.

  Later that afternoon, Joe checked in with his teams and their night shift replacements. Petrović’s car was still parked in his spot in front of Tony’s Place. All was quiet.

  Joe turned it all over in his mind as he drove toward Lake Street. Was Petrović up to something? Or was he on his best behavior, taking part in the American dream?

  He thought about Lindsay and hoped she’d be waiting for him when he opened the front door.

  He longed for a regular evening at home with Lindsay.

  Chapter 81

  It was Friday morning, eleven days since the schoolteachers had been abducted—two of them subsequently murdered—and we were clueless in the truest sense of the word.

  I stared down at the mess of papers on my desk while I was on the phone with Clapper, thanking him for getting back to me so fast on Adele Saran.

  He said, “I think you mean, ‘Thanks for nothing.’”

  “No. I mean one door closes, another opens—if I can only find that other one.”

  Clapper chuckled, said, “You’ll find it, Boxer. I’ve got faith.”

  I put down the receiver and threw a category-five sigh, blowing a pile of message slips across my desk onto Conklin’s.

  Conklin said, “Tell me. I can take it.”

  “Okay. Welcome back to square one, partner. The only DNA on Adele’s body was hers. Nothing under her nails. No trace or prints on the wire used to bind and hang her. No prints on the throwing stars, and the only evidence in the woods was scuffled leaves from hither to thither, starting and ending at Hicks Road. Oh. On the other hand, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of prints on the tacomobile.”

  Conklin leaned back in his chair, ran both hands through his hair, and sighed. “Oh, happy day.”

  I went on.

  “Carly’s prints were on the door handles and the dashboard—corroborating what Denny Lopez told us. He drove Carly to the motel a few times. Most of the other prints were his and his girlfriend’s—remember her? Three days ago seems like a year. Lucinda Drucker. But there was a match to a Barbara Fines, a prostitute, goes by the name of Daisy.”

  Conklin said, “Corroborating Denny’s story again.”

  I said, “Clapper will release the taco truck to its owner, or he’ll hold on to it if we want to jerk Denny around a little more.”

  “He’s all we’ve got. Let’s do it,” said my partner. “Maybe we’ll shake something loose.”

  I called Lopez with a burner phone so that my name didn’t come up on his screen, and he picked up. He was mad about my little trick but said that he was at a bar called Bud’s on Twenty-Second and Mission. I told him to hang tight, then Conklin and I were on our way in a cruiser.

  Conklin pointed to Lopez, standing on the corner outside the bar. He was unkempt
, with dirty hair and clothes, clearly out of work—our fault—since we’d taken the SUV away.

  Lopez looked pained as we double-parked the black-and-white, and even more so as Conklin got out, opened the rear door, steered Denny into the back, then got in beside him.

  “For God’s sake,” the pimp slurred. “You’re going to get me killed, you know?”

  Conklin said, “Killed, why?”

  “You know why,” Denny said, like he was talking to four-year-olds. “I could be seen talking to cops.”

  “If you help us out, Martinez could have the SUV in a few hours. You’ll get your job back. Okay?”

  Lopez said, “Let’s talk fast. I have a lunch date with a young lady. If you get my meaning.”

  I slid over to the wheel, started up the car, pulled out onto Mission without tearing up the asphalt. I parked four blocks away in front of a nail salon and a donut shop, set the brake, and leaned over the seat back.

  I said, “Listen to me, Denny. You were present at the scene of the crime. Prior to that, you’d seen the schoolteachers at the Bridge and had a business relationship with Carly. She’s dead. Adele is dead. We could hold you as a person of interest for a loooong time.”

  “You shitting me?”

  “Dig deep, Denny. There’s always one forgotten thing. What haven’t you told us?”

  “Now that you mention it, I do remember something.”

  I said, “Go ahead. Blow me away.”

  “I actually remember a guy who came into the Bridge one time, not long ago. Sat at a table with another dude and bought drinks for those girls.”

  Lopez was sobering up a little bit and checking out the passersby, the customers carrying bags from Grand Mission Donuts, the usual motley collection of jobless, homeless, hopeless, and drugged-up denizens of the Mission, along with office workers getting their morning joe.

  Conklin grabbed the pimp’s arm and shook him to attention.

  “Denny. Tell us what the guy looked like, anything he may have said or done.”

  “Christ,” Denny said, throwing up his hands. “He was big. I only saw him sitting, but I’m guessing he was six three. Two eighty. Carried his weight here.” He put his hands on his abdomen. “He was at the Bridge and buying drinks for the girls, and Carly was shining on him. I was still hoping to get her back, so that’s why I noticed.”

  I started up the car.

  Conklin got out of the back seat, got in next to me.

  “Hey. You’re taking me back to Bud’s, right?” Denny asked.

  “Guess again,” I said.

  Chapter 82

  Conklin said to Denny, “We need you to look at some pictures at the Hall.”

  Lopez protested loudly.

  I told him to shut up and calm down. “Two women are dead, and you knew both of them. Odds are you saw their killer.”

  “You arresting me?” he asked, still slurring.

  “Only if you insist,” I said.

  He didn’t speak after that. We arrived back at the Hall in fifteen minutes, left the car on Bryant, and marched Denny Lopez straight up to the fourth floor, where I stashed him in Interview 1 and told him to sit tight.

  “Officer Krupky is behind the glass,” I said, pointing to the mirrored window. I waved at my image. Krupky was fictitious and the observation room was empty, but Denny didn’t know that. I said to him, “It’s going to take us a little while,” handing him a copy of the morning Examiner, which I’d grabbed off one of the chairs.

  “You should read this.”

  The front-page story was about Adele Saran. There was a picture of her beautiful face and another of the hanging tree. The headline couldn’t have been bolder or blacker.

  TORTURE AND DEATH OF A SCHOOLTEACHER.

  Denny didn’t strike me as a news junkie or a reader. From the way he grabbed the paper with his shaking hands, he was learning the details of Adele Saran’s murder right here and right now.

  Conklin brought Denny black coffee, then he and I went to our desks and put together a photo array of big guys. One was Petrović. Jacobi and Cappy McNeil were also included, as well as three convicts doing life in maximum-security prisons.

  When the glue had dried on the six-picture array, Conklin and I returned to the interview room.

  I put the photo array in front of Denny Lopez, and Conklin and I took our seats, my partner telling him to give the photos a good look. “Take your time.”

  Lopez recognized a picture instantly, stabbed it with his right index finger. “Him. That’s the guy.”

  “Be sure. Take another look,” said Conklin.

  Denny said he was sure. The camera in the corner of the ceiling duly recorded that he’d identified Lieutenant Warren Jacobi, our friend and commanding officer.

  Lopez asked me, “Is that him? Did I pick the right one?”

  I answered his question with a question of my own.

  “The big guy who bought the women drinks at the Bridge. Did he ever get lucky? Did any of those women ever leave with him?”

  “Jeez, I don’t know. You think a lot of my powers of observation, Sergeant. And I’m not sure why.”

  It was a funny remark, but I didn’t laugh.

  My gut told me that Petrović was our killer, but that hunch wasn’t backed by evidence of any kind.

  “Let’s go, Denny.”

  Conklin and I drove Lopez back to the vicinity of Bud’s Bar and left him on the corner where we’d found him.

  Chapter 83

  Anna was at the Tesla dealership on Bush Street, off Van Ness, inside the office she shared with the copy machine.

  At just before 5:00 p.m., she was finishing up the monthly books, entering last week’s expenses onto the spreadsheet. The numbers were facts: sales minus dollars spent on salaries, supplies, rent, advertising, even the birthday parties, including hers.

  Anna excelled in this job, but socially she was a disaster. She understood all the reasons why. But setting her own catastrophic damage aside, other people were too peculiar for her. Too not from her world.

  She’d tried and failed to explain this to Dale.

  Dale Winston was behind his desk in the showroom, doing some paperwork. He liked her, and she liked him, too, but not in the way he wanted. She walked across the showroom floor in time to the bouncy music coming over the sound system.

  “Hiya, Dale.”

  He looked up. “Anna. Hey. You look good in purple. You know that?”

  She thanked him, rearranged her coat and scarf, then said, “Dale, I need a favor.”

  “Anything. I’m all yours.”

  She smiled and said, “Seriously.”

  “What do you need?”

  She told him, and he was reluctant, very, but in the end he caved, telling her to bring back the vehicle before the shop opened in the morning.

  “Not a problem.”

  “It can’t be, or we’re both getting fired—or worse.”

  “Do not worry, Dale. You can trust me.”

  “I do trust you, Anna. Do you trust me? Wait. Hear me out. Maybe we could have dinner together this week. Just to celebrate your birthday.”

  “Uh, you know we’re not allowed to fraternize, Dale. I’m sorry.”

  He opened the drawer and took out a key ring. He waited for her to hold out her hand, then he gave her the keys, making a point of pressing her palm with his fingers.

  She clutched the keys.

  “Before 9:00 a.m.,” he said unnecessarily.

  She nodded. “And will you call Roger? Say I’m on my way?”

  Anna went back to her office, got her bag, and waved good-bye to Dale. She walked a block to the service department. Roger was behind the counter, phones ringing in the office behind him, the service bays still busy at the end of the day.

  Roger looked through her without seeing her—her scar did that to people—but she was glad he didn’t want to make small talk.

  She just wanted to go.

  “You need pointers on the car, Anna?�
��

  Anna told him she knew the Model X and had taken a couple of test-drives with Dale. That part was a lie, but Roger seemed satisfied. He pointed to the black Tesla Model X parked outside the service center. It was a prototype with a dinged-up front fender, and while Anna usually liked things to be perfect, she only cared that this car was fast and wasn’t her red Kia.

  Roger said, “Have fun. But not too much.”

  Anna nodded and touched the door handle, and the falcon wing rose silently, majestically, revealing the car’s sleek interior. Wow. Just wow. She took off her coat, placed it with her handbag in the passenger seat, and slipped in behind the wheel.

  The car automatically adjusted the mirrors, the seat.

  Anna buckled in, touched the button that started up the engine, and was rewarded by a subaudible hum and the sense that the car was alive and attuned to her.

  It was magical.

  Chapter 84

  Because it was only 5:15 p.m. and the Butcher didn’t leave his house until 6:30 on weeknights, Anna decided to take the long way to Fell Street.

  It wasn’t every day that she got to drive a hundred-thousand-dollar car. In fact, this might be the first, last, and only.

  Smiling to herself, feeling self-indulgent and rich, she set her course for the Panhandle and pulled out of the garage. The engine was surprisingly silent, accelerating and decelerating like nothing she’d ever experienced. Like the car was reading her mind.

  It did everything fast, so fast.

  Anna wished she’d had the Model X that first day she saw Petrović and had chased him on her old bike. Now she had an urge to reverse course, take Highway 101 out of the city and up the coast, burn off all her frustration and anger, and let the Tesla out for an unforgettable run.

  But she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t avoid what seemed to be her appointment with Petrović.

  Traffic parted for her as she drove through Pacific Heights to Fillmore, flying along in the perfect car, swooping downhill toward the Marina District. She gave the Tesla more pedal and felt the city blocks falling behind, becoming only faint images in her rearview mirror.