The Stolen Hours

by Allen Eskens

  Niki assumed that they would go into the house, but Spencer came out, shutting the door behind him.

  “What can I help you with?” he said, his delivery again slow and controlled.

  “Mind if we talk inside?” Niki asked.

  “I do,” he said. Then he looked at the sky and added, “Beautiful evening.”

  Niki gave Matty a quick glance, which he returned. “Okay. Were you the photographer at the wedding of Darrel and Janelle Halloway on Sunday?”

  “Uh-huh,” he replied.

  “Is that a yes?” Matty asked.

  Spencer looked at Matty as though bored and said, “Yeah.”

  Niki asked, “Did you happen to meet a woman named Sadie Vauk at that wedding?”

  Spencer chewed on his cheek and looked up in a thoughtful squint. “I met quite a few people.”

  “She was a bridesmaid.”

  “I may recall her, never got her name, though.” Spencer looked back and forth between Niki and Matty then said, “Why do you want to know?”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Here. I live alone.”

  Niki looked at Spencer’s bald head. “How long have you been”—she pointed at his head— “without hair?”

  “Am I…?” Spencer paused as though to collect himself. “Do I need a lawyer? Why are you here?”

  He hadn’t asked for a lawyer, but he had come close to the line. If he crossed it, all communication would cease and they would have to walk away. They didn’t have enough to arrest him or search his house, not without Sadie’s identification. They could still do the photo lineup, but it would give Spencer time alone in the house, where he’d be able to clean things up.

  Seeing no point to dragging things out, Niki asked the question she had come to ask. “There was an incident involving one of the bridesmaids. A witness thought you might have some information. We were hoping you’d be willing to talk to us about it, maybe come down and do a lineup so we can rule you out. It’s routine. Won’t take long.”

  “A lineup? I didn’t do anything that would warrant a lineup, but…if it might help, I’ll do it.”

  Niki exchanged another glance with Matty. Spencer hadn’t bothered asking what had happened to Sadie. His demeanor and the slow cadence of his speech were odd, almost unnerving. Where was the nervous twitching? The shifting eyes? Gavin Spencer seemed as calm as a man feeding his fish.

  Matty said, “You want to follow us down—”

  “I’ll take an Uber,” he said.

  They’d hoped to get a look into his garage, to see if he had the black Bronco parked there. Had Spencer seen through that?

  “We can give you a lift,” Matty said. “That is, if you don’t mind riding in back.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I’ll need to pat you down, though. Rules.”

  “Fine.” Spencer lifted his arms and turned his back to Matty, who patted him down thoroughly.

  The three of them walked to Matty’s squad car and put Spencer in the back. After securing his door, Niki and Matty convened at the rear of the car, where they spoke in whispers.

  “This is weird, right?” Matty said. “What’s with the bald head?”

  “A bald man wouldn’t go to Queen Bebe’s for a haircut. And did you notice, he hasn’t yet said a single word with the letter S in it?”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  “He knows why we’re here.”

  “So why is he willing to do the lineup?” Matty said. “You barely got the words out and he was on board.”

  “Because he doesn’t look like he did when he went to the salon.”

  “He’s playing us?”

  Niki considered it and could find no better explanation. “If Sadie can’t pick him out of a lineup…”

  “We got no search warrant,” Matty said. “Maybe we should cut him loose. Go with a photo lineup.”

  Niki looked at Gavin’s head in the back of the unmarked car, giving thought to various scenarios. “We can get members of the wedding party to verify that he changed his appearance between Sunday and today. We can argue it shows his consciousness of guilt.”

  “What about the lineup, though?”

  “We do it in person. If Sadie picks him out after all he did to change his appearance, it’ll be catnip for the jury.”

  “But what if she doesn’t pick him out?”

  Niki tapped a finger to her lips as she played out that possibility. “Then we do the photo lineup later and hope the jury understands. But don’t forget.” A small smile crept across Niki’s lips. “We have an ace in the hole.”

  Chapter 19

  From his seat in the back of the unmarked police car, Gavin watched the two bootlicking public servants through the rearview mirror. He wanted to think of his interaction with the detectives like a chess match, but that would be a mischaracterization. In chess, you watch your opponent move each piece—their tactics exposing a strategy. But this was like playing chess blindfolded. For each move he could discern there had to be dozens kept from him. The challenge was to figure out the moves that took place in the dark.

  And so far, from what little he could deduce, they didn’t know as much as he’d thought they might.

  Sadie must have been able to draw a line from the salon to the wedding, but she didn’t remember being at his house, or in his Bronco; otherwise they would have shown up with a search warrant. That told him that the drug had done its job.

  Gavin understood GHB. He had researched the subject at a level reserved for PhD candidates. On the street, they called it liquid ecstasy. Colorless, odorless, and tasteless, a capful in your drink and the world became a wonderful, euphoric place. A few capfuls in someone else’s drink and you had complete control over them. Afterward, amnesia set in and covered your tracks.

  A part of him wished that the detectives could see the true depth of his work. They would surely admire his attention to detail. But he knew it was for the best if they didn’t. Now all he had to do was get through the lineup without Sadie recognizing him. If he could manage that, their case would come crashing down.

  The male detective, Lopez, drove Gavin to the lineup, but at the house it had been the female who seemed in charge. At first Gavin hadn’t been sure how he felt about sparring with a woman; he wanted to fight a giant. But the more he thought about it, the more he wished that they had put him in her squad car. It might have been fun to play a little cat-and-mouse with her on the drive.

  At the jail, Detective Lopez gave Gavin a form to read, advising him that he had the right to have an attorney present. Gavin gave some thought to that option but decided against it. The lineup was part of the plan regardless of how it turned out. Gavin signed the waiver.

  After that, they waited in a small room with plastic chairs and a metal table anchored to the floor. The female detective, Vang, would be rounding up decoys to stand in the lineup with Gavin. But would she get men with shaved heads or men that looked more like Gavin’s driver’s license photo—the Gavin Sadie knew?

  After more than an hour, Lopez received a phone call and ushered Gavin down a hallway of cinder block and thick glass. A heavy door slammed somewhere in the distance, and the sound rattled Gavin’s nerves a bit. His heart thumped in his chest, and for a split second, Gavin felt that most poisonous of all emotions—doubt.

  A memory flashed in his mind, a video he had seen of some idiot in the Everglades sticking his head inside the mouth of an alligator, part of a roadside attraction. The man had done it a thousand times and never once did the alligator bite him—until it did. In a way, Gavin was about to put his head into that proverbial alligator’s mouth. He could not let his guard down. Stay focused. Don’t mess this up. Everything depends on getting it right.

  He returned to the only thought that mattered. He had to be someone other than Kevin the Picture Boy. Sadie had to see no hint of the man who’d sat in her salon chair. He had to be perfect in his performance or the alligator’s jaws might just snap shu
t.

  He and Detective Lopez turned a corner and came upon five men dressed in civilian clothing, all about his age, height, and build—the decoys. Three of them looked reasonably similar to what Gavin had looked like before he shaved his head. The other two were bald. The detective placed Gavin second from the front of the line and gave them their instructions.

  “Walk to the numbers on the floor and face the mirror. You’re number six.” Lopez pointed at the man in front of Gavin and counted them down, making Gavin number five. “Then just do what they ask.”

  A jailer opened the door for the men, and they filed in.

  The room was smaller than what he had expected, gray walls with a panel of one-way glass. Gavin walked to where a number five was painted on the floor and turned to face the glass, keeping his expression blank.

  Through the speakers, a man’s voice asked for number one to step forward. The man did. There was a pause of about ten seconds and the man was told to return to his spot.

  Then number two was told the same thing. This man looked like Gavin did before the shave, the same lumpy build and light-brown hair, not a doppelgänger, but satisfyingly close. He remained forward for a good thirty seconds before being asked to step back.

  Number three looked nothing like Gavin and spent barely five seconds out of line before being asked to return.

  She’s not sure, Gavin thought. She must be the one determining how long each man stayed out front. She needed time to look at number two, which Gavin took to be a good sign. When his turn came, he could gage her level of recognition by how long they kept him forward.

  Number four stepped forward. He stayed out front for even longer than number two had.

  Now it was Gavin’s turn. It all came down to this—his life, his freedom…everything rested on her inability to remember him. Would she see past his ruse? A lesser man would have been praying that she not recognize him, but Gavin wasn’t a lesser man. Besides, what god would a murderer pray to? What god protects men such as him?

  “Number five, step forward.”

  Gavin took a step and counted. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi, six Mississippi, seven…

  “Number five, you can return.”

  Seven! She didn’t recognize him. Gavin’s heart hammered, and his chest rose and fell harder than it should have. He concentrated on slowing his breathing. Look bored. This has nothing to do with you.

  They went down the line again, this time asking each man to turn to the left and right before stepping back. Again, number two and number four spent additional seconds being scrutinized by the woman behind the glass. When his turn came, Gavin barely got his feet planted before being asked to return. It took all of his self-control to keep his elation from spilling out. He had won. Gavin wanted to crow, but he remained rock-still. No smiling, no twitching—nothing.

  Without a positive identification, they had nothing: no DNA, no hair, no Bronco—no evidence. If he walked out that door, unrecognized, it would be impossible to resurrect a case against him. The detectives would see his cunning but remain powerless to touch him. Gavin exhaled his relief in slow, calm breaths as he waited for the voice from the speaker to excuse them from the room—but it didn’t.

  “Number one, please step forward and repeat the following words: ‘All you had to do was be nice.’”

  And just like that, it felt as though someone had reached into Gavin’s chest and ripped his lungs out. Those words—he remembered them now. He’d said them to Sadie on the bank of the river. Gavin wanted to scream and punch the wall. He had forgotten all about that brief moment of hubris. He’d felt such a deep need to teach Sadie her lesson, explain the sin she had committed, the one that condemned her. He’d thought he was being benevolent—but he’d really just been shortsighted. No good deed goes unpunished.

  Of course, Gavin had already planned for the possibility that she might recognize him. He had worked out every detail of that contingency. But while he had absolute confidence in his backup plan, the thought of actually spending time in jail during its execution shook him. He needed to walk out of that room a free man.

  Number one stepped forward and repeated the line in a fake lisp. Of course he would use a lisp—the decoys would have to. If Gavin were the only one in line to talk with a lisp, it would taint the lineup and get it thrown out of court. This was what Detective Vang had been up to while he sat in the waiting room with brain-dead Lopez. Gavin felt strangely thrilled. She was smart—she was worthy.

  The lisp number one used was all wrong. He did a frontal lisp, sticking his tongue out between his teeth to replace the s with a th. It didn’t sound anything like Gavin’s lateral lisp, which resembled a wet slurp against his cheeks. Sadie would pick him out of the lineup on that alone. And if he refused to say anything, she would take a closer look at him and see past the shaved head.

  “Number two.”

  Gavin still had a chance to beat this thing. The speech therapist Gavin’s mother hired when he was in third grade had shown Gavin a technique. What did he call it? The butterfly technique.

  “Number three.”

  Gavin hated that doctor, and he hated his mother for forcing therapy on him. She wore her embarrassment of Gavin like a plaster cast. Gavin resisted her attempts to change him and gave the doctor a piss-poor effort at best. Eventually, Gavin’s mother quit trying and left him to his lisp.

  “Number four.”

  How did the butterfly technique work again? The air had to flow over the tongue, not around it.

  Number four stepped forward and said the line using the same incorrect technique as the first three.

  “Number five, step forward and say, ‘All you had to do was be nice.’”

  Touch tongue to teeth. Push the air over the top. Gavin stepped forward, swallowed—and spoke.

  Chapter 20

  Sadie Vauk had been discharged from the hospital hours earlier, so Niki had picked her up at her father’s house to bring her to the lineup. She’d looked healthier than she had in her hospital bed, with styled hair and makeup to give her face some color, but behind it, Niki could still see the battered woman from that morning.

  Niki activated her squad camera for the drive in with Sadie, recording their conversation so that she would have proof that nothing was said to sway Sadie’s opinion. The case against Gavin Spencer would live or die with the lineup, and Gavin’s attorney would fight hard to keep it out, so it had to be done by the book.

  “You’ll be behind a one-way mirror,” Niki said. “The men in the lineup won’t be able to see you.”

  “Will he be one of them?”

  “All we’re asking is that you look at these men, and if you recognize one as the man who came to your salon, let us know. If you don’t, that’s okay too. There is no right or wrong answer.”

  Sadie nodded her understanding while folding her finger into knots on her lap.

  “It’ll be okay,” Niki said. “Just do your best.”

  The room where Sadie would stand had a single sixty-watt bulb to keep things somewhat dim behind the one-way mirror. Niki positioned Sadie, then stepped behind her so that there could be no claim that a nonverbal cue had exposed Niki’s preference for Gavin. Then Niki called Detective Tony Voss, who had collected the men to stand with Gavin in the lineup. When they were all in place, she called Matty to bring Gavin to the party.

  As they waited, Niki thought about something that had been bothering her. She had worked in the Sex Crimes unit for years before moving to Homicide, and in that time, she had handled scores of lineups, but the weight of this one seemed out of proportion. Rapes tended to be impulsive and sloppy, a crime of opportunity driven by urges and anger. This case had none of those hallmarks.

  If Niki’s theory held true, Gavin Spencer had never laid eyes on Sadie Vauk until the wedding, and in the span of a day, he had stalked her, kidnapped her, assaulted her, and tossed her into the river. Gavin’s speed and proficiency made
him a whole new order of evil. And he was smart. She and Matty had yet to find a single piece of corroborating evidence: no DNA, no witnesses, no footprint or fingerprint.

  All they had was a tire track from Nicollet Island and some grainy camera footage of a Bronco near both the island and the salon. And if he had been this careful with Sadie, how were they going to prove murder in the other cases, going back six years? If Sadie failed to pick Spencer out of the lineup, the case would fall apart. It would become just one more unsolved file. Niki couldn’t let this be shelved next to the other “low priority” women pulled from the river.

  As the jailer escorted the men into the lineup room, Niki went out of her way not to focus on Gavin, just in case Sadie could see Niki’s reflection in the glass. Each man stood facing Sadie, who again twisted her fingers together in a knot, pressing her hand tightly to her stomach. She studied the faces of the men, going from left to right. Niki watched as Sadie glanced at Gavin and moved on.

  The jailer spoke. “If you want, I can have them step forward.”

  “Maybe number two…and four.”

  Two and four, but not five? Niki thought. “We’ll ask them to each step forward, one at a time,” she said. “What we asked of one, we have to ask of them all.”

  The jailer pushed a button on an intercom beside the window. “Number one, take a step forward.”

  The man did as he was instructed and Sadie gave him a look, her head moving, almost imperceptibly, from side to side in a no, before she whispered, “Okay.”

  “Number one, step back. Number two, step forward.”

  Sadie narrowed her gaze on number two, looking hard at the man as though struggling to connect his face to a memory. The jailer reached for the button on the intercom and Sadie said, “Wait.” The man remained ahead of the line for several seconds, an eternity that caused Niki’s pulse to quicken.

  Then Sadie nodded to the jailer. “Okay.”

  The jailer returned number two to his place in line. Number three’s turn came and went quickly and Sadie paused again when number four stepped out of line. Sadie scrutinized his face the way she had with number two.