“If you do anything other than what I tell you,” he said, as if reading her mind, “I’ll kill you. Turn right.” He was sitting in the backseat, right behind her, so she couldn’t see him in the rearview mirror.
She turned right, and now they were driving around in what appeared to her to be an aimless fashion. They were on Brentwood Boulevard, approaching the Galleria Mall.
“Where to?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” he said, gesturing with the gun. She caught sight of it briefly in the mirror. “Just drive around—but not in a circle. Just . . . keep going.”
The only thing she could think of was to stay on main streets, so the police could locate them. She came to Clayton Road and made a right. She’d take that all the way through to Lindbergh, if he would let her, and then she’d make a left on Lindbergh and take that through Kirkwood, or maybe get on Manchester.. . .
Chapter 48
Very slowly, Holliday explained everything to Gil about what had led up to this moment. How Longfellow had acted on her instincts—not soon enough, Gil thought; how she had run to the front of the building, only to find the doorman unconscious and blocking the entrance. He described how she’d had to smash the glass door to get inside. Finally, how they’d found the apartment door open, and then checked the garage, only to discover Claire’s car was gone.
“Where’s Harry now?” Gil asked, feeling calmer.
“He was taken to the hospital with a pretty deep gash on his head.”
“Too bad.” Gil wasn’t in the mood to feel sorry for the man who had let Whitey Belmont into the building. Wait until Christmas, he thought.
“Tell me something, Holliday.”
“What?”
“Why didn’t he just kill her here?”
“I don’t know, Gil,” Holliday said, “but we can be glad he didn’t. Obviously, he’s got something planned. And the more elaborate his plan is, the longer it takes him to put it into effect, the better chance we have of catching him.”
“What have you done so far?”
“Well, we put the description of your wife, her car, and the license plate number out on the air. We got the plate number from her registration, which we found in her purse.”
Gil looked around at the mention of Claire’s purse and saw it on the dining room table. She never went anywhere without it.
“Hope you don’t mind us going through—”
“Don’t be stupid,” Gil snapped, “I want you to do everything you can.” Immediately, he added, “Sorry.”
“Forget it. The other thing we can be thankful for is that there’s no sign of a struggle. Apparently, your wife played it very smart and went along with him.”
“She’s a smart girl.”
“Yes, she is. How do you think she’ll be reacting now?” Holliday asked.
Gil thought a moment. “Calmly.”
“She won’t panic?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good,” Holliday said. “Then she won’t push him into doing anything before he’s ready.”
“I don’t understand,” Gil said, “how can you possibly find them? I mean, who knows what’s going on in this lunatic’s head? He’s killed four women, including his own wife. He’s a goddamned psycho!”
“Gil . . . Claire needs you to be calm, too.”
“I know, I know,” Gil said, putting his head in his hands. “It’s just that if anything happens to her . . .”
Holliday patted Gil’s shoulder. “Believe me, we’re doing everything we can. Somebody will spot that car.”
“Jesus, her car . . .” Gil said.
“What about it?”
He looked at Holliday. “Do you know how many of them we see in one day? And in that same shade of blue?”
“We’ve got the license plate number. We’ll find her.”
“Yeah,” Gil said, “but will you find her in time?”
Holliday didn’t have an answer for that one.
“And what if he doesn’t have a plan?” Gil asked.
“He had to have—”
“No, what if he came up here, grabbed her, and then didn’t know what to do?”
“So you’re saying they might just be driving around aimlessly?”
“Why not? Is this Whitey Belmont some kind of career criminal?”
“No,” Holliday said, “he’s got no priors at all. He’s been at the same job for years and seemed like a pretty normal guy— until he started killing.”
Before Gil could say anything else, Longfellow came rushing in.
“It just came over the radio,” she said. “They’ve spotted the car.”
“Where?” Holliday asked.
“Right now they’re on Brentwood.”
“Doing what?”
She shrugged. “The word we got is that they just seem to be driving around. Come on, we gotta go.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know something, Gil,” Holliday said.
“Uh-uh. I’m coming with you.”
Holliday hesitated just a moment, then decided not to argue. “Okay, come on, then.”
Chapter 49
Claire could feel her hands sweating as she gripped the steering wheel. She resented the complete control Whitey Belmont had exerted over her life the past weeks, and especially now. If she was going to die, at least she would do it talking, calmly, instead of pleading or crying.
“Come on, Whitey,” she said, “talk to me.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said. He was slumped down in the backseat, looking out the window. “I hate that name. Judy always called me that.”
“Sorry. What do you want to be called?”
“My name,” he said. “George. My girlfriend, she calls me George.”
“You have a girlfriend?”
“Aw, does that offend the perfect Claire Hunt? I’ve killed three women, plus my devoted wife, and the fact that I have a girlfriend offends you?”
“No, I’m not offen—”
“If you were a man and married to Judy, you’d have a girlfriend, too, just to survive.”
“I believe you, Whi—George.”
There was a moment of hesitation before he spoke again. “Got your attention now, don’t I?”
“What?”
“You and all the rest of the idiots out there are finally starting to see the real problem.”
“Which is?” Claire asked.
“We’re a nation of giant sponges,” he ranted. “We eat too much, buy too much; all of a sudden, we’re this ‘Big Gulp’ supersized society. There isn’t one house out there with just one phone or one television set inside. Kids have to have their own extensions or it’s almost considered cruel and unusual punishment. The old farts, guys who can’t even walk gotta have a car—it’s their right! And it can’t be just any car. No, it has to be a big one so the blind bat won’t hurt himself too much when he runs into something. Someone had to start somewhere . . . to stop it.”
“So you started with Kathleen Sands?”
“Give the girl a gold star!” he shouted sarcastically.
“But when the papers got all over the story and started implicating me, you should have been happy,” Claire pointed out. “Why did you have to kill Susie Kennedy?”
“They just weren’t getting it. No one was! The message I was trying to send got all lost in your publicity. But now, I’ve got you and if I can . . .” As if suddenly remembering where he was, he asked, “Where are we?”
“We just turned right onto Clayton. We’re driving through Ladue.”
“Why?”
“Because you told me to drive where I wanted, and I like the big homes here.”
“Big homes,” he repeated, “rich people. You know, I work for these people.”
“You do?”
“I make decent money, too, but I ended up with a woman who could spend it faster than I could make it. Her and her friends—sponges—soaking up all the money, all the effort, taking, taking. And it all l
eads back to you. Isn’t that ironic?”
Claire didn’t see the irony of it just then. Maybe she would later. But now she had him talking. She took that as a good sign that he wouldn’t shoot her . . . at least for a while.
“All right, Gil, you’re here so earn your keep,” Holliday said. They were in his car. Longfellow sat next to him; Gil was in the back.
“How do I do that?”
“They turned right on Clayton Road. What will she do when she gets to Lindbergh?”
“What makes you think—”
“The report we have is that she’s driving the vehicle. If Belmont doesn’t have any kind of plan, then he doesn’t know where he wants to go. That puts Claire in charge until he comes up with something. So which way will she go when she gets to Lindbergh?”
Gil closed his eyes and flashed on Kirkwood.
“What?”
“If she has a choice, she’ll make a left on Lindbergh and take it through Kirkwood.”
Holliday got on the radio and started organizing cars. He wanted one at the corner of Manchester, where Lindbergh became Kirkwood Road. He wanted one in the center of Kirkwood, near the train station, and he wanted one on Big Bend, just before Kirkwood Road got to Highway 44.
“What happens if they get on Forty-four?” Longfellow asked.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Holliday said. “Right now we need a shortcut to Kirkwood.”
“Go to Big Bend,” Gil said immediately. “Take it right to Kirkwood.”
“Big Bend.”
They were on Brentwood, approaching Manchester. “Make a left,” he said. “Manchester will take you to Big Bend, and then you make a right. If they’re going to end up in Kirkwood, they’re doing it in a roundabout way. We can get there first . . . if you’ve got a siren in this thing.”
“I’ve got a siren,” Holliday said, “and a bubble. Don’t worry, we’ll get there.”
He produced a red light, which he stuck out the window and affixed to the top of the car. Then he turned on the siren.
Claire maintained her concentration while trying desperately to send Gil a message mentally.
“Where are we now?”
She tried stalling. “I’m not sure. There’s Manchester. I think we’re coming to Kirkwood.”
“The city or the street? How stupid is that to change the name of Lindbergh to Kirkwood just while you’re inside their precious city limits. Don’t get on Manchester,” he growled. “I hate Manchester. It’s always crowded with assholes driving vans or pickup trucks.”
“I know what you mean,” she said.
“I mean, women driving pickup trucks, they’re the worst!”
“Not worse than van ladies,” Claire said. “I hate van ladies.”
She couldn’t believe it, but she was starting to form a rapport with her captor. According to psychologists, the next thing she’d do was fall in love with him. Yeah, right.
Chapter 50
Gil and Longfellow arrived at Lindbergh and 44 and took refuge in the Steak ’n Shake parking lot. Holliday got on the radio, making contact with the Kirkwood police car situated at Big Bend, hidden behind a gas station.
“Any sign of them yet?”
“No, sir,” came the reply. “No sign.”
He checked in with the car by the Kirkwood train station and got the same answer. Hanging up his radio mike, he turned in his seat to look at Gil.
“We beat ’em, unless they turned off.”
“What do we do when they get here?” Gil asked.
“We’ll fall in behind them. We should be able to do that without arousing suspicion.”
“And then?”
“And then we’ll follow them until we can make a move.”
“What if he spots us?”
“Then he’ll have to make a deal.”
“Why? He’s got Claire.”
“Let’s just . . . play this by ear for now, Gil. The first thing you want to do is spot them and see that she’s okay, am I right?”
“You’re definitely right.”
“Okay, then,” Holliday said, turning in his seat to face forward, “we sit tight.”
“But how can we see them from here? What if they get on Forty-four?”
“The car on the other side will let us know. If they take Forty-four downtown, the exit is on our side. We’ll see them. If they keep going south, they have to drive right by us and we’ll see them.”
“If Claire has the choice, they’ll head downtown.”
“How do you know all this?” Longfellow asked. She turned and looked at him, a puzzled frown on her face. “How’d you know she’d go through Kirkwood, and what makes you think she’ll go downtown?”
“When I fell in love with her, Detective, I was determined to learn everything about Claire. She felt the same about me. It didn’t take long before we each knew how the other thinks. We can even—”
“What?” Longfellow asked, interested. “You what?”
“Well . . . sometimes we . . . communicate.”
“Come on!” she said.
“Okay, maybe that’s the wrong word. But there are many times when we know what the other is thinking.”
“I’ve heard people who are married twenty years say that,” Holliday said. “I think it’s true.” He still faced forward, keeping his eyes on the street.
“But you two have only been married—what?” Longfellow asked. “A few years?”
“Four.”
“How can you form that kind of bond in four years?”
“Because,” Gil said, “we were ready for it. Everything that’s happened to us in our lives prepared us to meet and know each other. When we fell in love, we opened up completely. It’s that simple.”
Longfellow stared at him a few moments longer, then turned in her seat and faced forward. She probably didn’t believe a word of it.
Gil didn’t care.
As they went through Kirkwood, Claire noticed the police car parked near the train station. A coincidence? She hoped George Belmont hadn’t seen it.
He’d been quiet for so long that she wondered if he’d fallen asleep. Did she dare slow down and jump out?
“What are you doing?” he demanded suddenly.
“What? I’m not doing anything.”
“You were slowing down.”
“Just for the light.”
“Don’t even think about jumping out of this car,” he warned her. “I’ll shoot you before you could even open the door.”
“I won’t jump.”
He poked at the wire-framed glasses that kept sliding down his nose. “Where are we now?”
Had he fallen asleep? Or did he just have a bad sense of direction?
“Kirkwood. We just passed the train station.”
“I know that,” he said. “We’ll be coming up on Forty-four soon.”
“Yes, and if we don’t take it, we’ll end up going through Sunset Hills and maybe as far as South County.”
“I don’t want to do that.”
“We can go west on Forty-four, head out toward Meramec—”
“No, I don’t like that, either.”
“Downtown, then?” she asked. “Is that where you want to go?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” he said, “downtown. Head downtown and get off at Eighteenth Street.”
She knew if they got off there and turned right on Jefferson, they would be heading into a sparsely populated area. Turning left would take them toward Market Street, where there were more people. Did she dare do that when the time came?
They reached the entrance to Highway 44 and she took the ramp heading east. The steering wheel was getting slick in her hands; butterflies fluttered inside her stomach.
She was finally starting to feel scared.
Gil, where are you?
They got word when the car passed the train station and were ready when it got to the highway.
“There she is!” Gil shouted.
“I see her.”
“Well, go!”
“Let them get on the ramp first,” Holliday said. “We don’t want him to see us.”
Once Claire’s car cleared the ramp, Holliday pulled out and got on the highway also. He drove into the middle lane and accelerated.
“Get in the left lane,” Gil said. “Claire never drives there; she always stays in the middle.”
“Why?” Longfellow asked.
“She says the left is only for passing,” Gil answered. “People who stay there drive her crazy.”
“Like you?” Holliday asked.
“Like me.”
“There they are.” Longfellow pointed.
Claire and Belmont were about four car lengths ahead of them, in the center lane.
“This is no good,” Holliday said. “If we stay in this lane, we’ll have to pass them. I’ll have to move into the middle, try to keep a car between us.”
He steered over without signaling, positioning a Le Baron between them and Claire’s car. Abruptly, the Le Baron switched to the right lane, leaving them with no cover.
“He won’t notice us,” Longfellow said.
“Don’t you hate assholes who don’t signal?” Holliday grumbled.
Chapter 51
Claire recognized Holliday immediately, and then she saw Gil in the backseat. How they had managed to end up behind her, she had no idea, but she was so glad to see them, she almost said something. She had to bite her lip and gulp back her excitement. If she hadn’t constantly been looking in the rearview mirror to try to catch a glimpse of Whitey in case he moved, she never would have noticed them.
Suddenly, she found herself worrying about Gil. What if something happened and he got shot? She’d never be able to live with that.
“George, what’s going to happen after?”
“After what?”
“After you . . . kill me. What will you do, then? The police are looking for you. Do you think you can get away?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about your girlfriend? Will she help you?”
Murder Is the Deal of the Day Page 18
