Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

by Karen Rose

  Oh. Something finally made sense. He’d demanded the old man tell him where the girl was. The guy’s eyes had flickered, like he was trying to figure out the best way to lie. I was talking about Kim. But his gut told him that the old man hadn’t been.

  Was Heather back there somewhere? Part of him screamed that he should go back to save her. But he needed help, and he’d passed none back in that direction. I can help her better if I move forward. If she’s still alive.

  It was possible that he was overreacting, that the old man had stolen this purse and that Heather was home right now, safe and sound. But Ford didn’t really think so.

  Her purse held a tube of red lipstick that looked brand new, five dollars, a folded piece of paper, and an unused concert ticket dated August 27 of that year.

  Ford blinked at the ticket. The band was hot, tickets incredibly hard to come by. Every show had been sold out weeks in advance. If Heather had missed this concert, something was seriously wrong. He unfolded the piece of paper and it all became clear.

  The paper was a receipt from Mountain Jack’s Towing and was dated the day of the concert ticket. On it was scrawled: Picked up, one 2004 Honda Civic, brown.

  Her car had broken down, Ford thought. With a ticket to the concert of the summer, Heather had probably decided to hitchhike. She’d never made it to the show.

  What should he do? Keep to the plan. Get help. He returned the items to the purse, except for the lipstick. For a moment he hesitated. What he had in mind would destroy it. What if there was DNA on the lipstick?

  If he died out here, the lipstick wouldn’t matter, so he twisted the lipstick tube and wrote on the windshield in big letters – HELP. Below it he wrote his name and the date. And his mother’s phone number. Finally he drew a big arrow down the middle of the truck’s hood, showing the direction he’d gone.

  With my luck the old man will find me first. Or the did-you-miss-me guy.

  At least he was somewhat armed. He had several knives in his pack. And a few strips of beef jerky and a couple cans of beans – the best of what he found in the old man’s cupboards. He took one of the jerky strips and started down the road, munching as he walked. He’d have to ration what was left. Who knew when he’d be found.

  I hope to God it’s soon. It’s getting really cold.

  Baltimore, Maryland, Tuesday, December 3, 1.05 P.M.

  Joseph arrived back at the movie theater to find the alley criss-crossed with twine, creating a precise grid that CSU would use to record the crime scene, layer by layer.

  In an alley filled with garbage, cataloging the evidence could take a very long time.

  We don’t have a long time. A search of the Millhouses’ home and their hardware store had yielded no sign of Ford or Kimberly. This hadn’t surprised Joseph. He hadn’t expected the Millhouses to stash the kids where they could be easily found. They didn’t have many leads. Yet. This crime scene was key.

  CSU had uncovered Isaac Zacharias’s body. Two pairs of taser electrodes were embedded in the victim, one pair in the abdomen and the other in his thigh. Joseph stopped at the red socks, studying the body. Didn’t appear to be any other wounds. If his throat was slashed post-mortem, then how did the man die?

  ‘Hear you had a close call,’ Dr Brodie said, appearing from behind the Dumpster.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Lots of folks aren’t.’

  ‘You’ll find who did it,’ she said simply.

  ‘I know who did it. Stevie Mazzetti killed who did it.’

  ‘Was that person connected to this death?’

  ‘I’d say that’s a fair assumption. Exactly how, I’m not yet certain.’

  Brodie walked around the body, shining a UV light at the walls and pavement. ‘What’s missing?’ she asked and he felt like he was in her class at the academy again.

  ‘No spatter,’ Joseph said. ‘He was dead or close to it when his throat was slit. The taser wouldn’t have killed him, so something else did.’

  ‘Why slit his throat if he was already dead or close to it? Seems like wasted effort.’

  Joseph had been mulling over that point as he’d driven from the ER. ‘I figure his killer wanted to be sure Zacharias didn’t survive to talk.’

  ‘Or his killer was just a sick sonofabitch who liked slitting throats,’ she said.

  ‘That too.’ He pointed to the AFID tags, discharged with every fired taser cartridge. ‘There are enough tags here for him to have fired at least two or three times.’

  ‘Four, actually.’ Brodie swept her UV light over the scene, revealing dozens of round disks. ‘I found four sets of serial numbers. Sets one and two are consecutive. Three and four are also consecutive, but nowhere near the one/two range.’

  ‘Two different cartridge lots. Two different tasers?’

  ‘Sounds right,’ she said. ‘There’s a small pool of blood near the alley entrance, about ten feet from Kimberly’s Toyota. A set of smeared handprints lead away from it.’

  ‘Ending on the handle of the girl’s car,’ Joseph said. ‘I saw the blood on the car handle when I first arrived this morning.’

  ‘Agent Novak found the handprints,’ Brodie told him. ‘He’s got a good eye.’

  Joseph looked around. ‘Where is Agent Novak?’

  ‘He went into the office to run phone records. Said he’d be back when he could.’

  ‘Okay, what about Ford’s SUV?’

  ‘No blood on the outside. I had it towed to the lab to check the outside for prints and the inside for blood. Oh, and I found one of the sets of taser electrodes against the far wall.’

  Joseph frowned. ‘He missed one of his shots.’

  ‘That’s my take.’

  ‘So how did this go down?’ Joseph muttered to himself. ‘Four serials, two lots. Could have been four separate tasers were fired or two, if they were X2s.’

  ‘With the back-up shot feature.’

  ‘Two X2s makes sense, especially if there was only one attacker.’ He glanced over at her. ‘You find anything suggesting we had multiple attackers?’

  ‘No, but also nothing suggesting it was only one. Run scenarios for one and two attackers. Start with one attacker and we’ll list the assumptions that have to be made.’

  ‘Okay. Firing two tasers would take skill and coordination, but one person firing four as quickly as they needed to would require too much juggling to make sense. So for one attacker we’re talking two X2s.’

  ‘I’m with you.’

  ‘Ford and Kim leave the theater, walk this way. Ford didn’t know about Zacharias, so I assume he was keeping some distance, staying in the shadows.’

  ‘If Ford didn’t know about him, maybe the shooter didn’t either,’ she said.

  ‘Possibly. Probably, even.’ Joseph visualized the scenario in his mind. ‘Four cartridges fired, two hit Zacharias. One misses. Kimberly makes it as far as her car. Blond hair and blood in the middle of the alley are probably Ford’s, so he goes down.’

  ‘Still with you,’ Brodie said.

  ‘So, I’m the shooter. I target Ford first, because he’s a big guy and I want to eliminate his threat.’ He lifted his left hand, forefinger pointed like a gun. ‘Bang. Ford falls. Bang, same taser because they’re next to each other, but he misses. Kimberly runs. Then there’s Zacharias, exploding from the shadows. Not expecting him.’ He turned ninety degrees, lifting his right hand, forefinger extended. ‘Bang, bang with the second taser and Zacharias falls.’

  ‘Maybe. I reserve the right to change the order. But I agree that Kimberly runs.’

  ‘She leaves a bloody handprint on the car door handle, but she’s injured ten feet away, still in the alley. How much blood did you find?’

  ‘More than she would have bled by falling down. She was stabbed, struck, or shot.’

  ‘Shit. Why do you think it’s a different order?’

  ‘Response time. We’re still talking one attacker. Unless he shot a gun, he had to catch up to her at the end of the alley to stab her
.’

  ‘Maybe he had a gun.’

  ‘Then why not shoot all of them?’

  ‘True. And later he uses a blade on the victim’s throat.’

  Brodie shrugged. ‘It might not matter in what order they were tased.’

  ‘But it’s bugging you and I learned a long time ago to respect that,’ Joseph said.

  ‘What’s bugging you, Joseph?’ she asked.

  ‘He had two X2s and cartridges. They’re only legally sold to cops and the military. Whoever did this was a cop, stole from a cop, or bought them on the black market, but he didn’t even make an attempt to gather up the AFID tags. It’s like he didn’t care.’

  ‘Maybe he was in a hurry,’ she said.

  ‘But he took the time to slit the throat of a man he’d already killed. Why? And how did Zacharias die? Unless he had a heart condition, the taser wouldn’t have killed him.’

  ‘And even then, it’d have to be one hell of a heart condition,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see any evidence of trauma other than the slit throat and the two pairs of electrodes.’

  That were still stuck In Zacharias’s thigh and abdomen. Joseph crouched, studying the victim’s knees. ‘His trousers are dirty. He crawled. He kept coming, even after getting tased.’

  ‘So the killer tased him again,’ Brodie said slowly. ‘Where are you going with this?’

  He glanced up at her. ‘Once he was down, he didn’t get up again because Ford and Kimberly are gone. He didn’t stop it. What kept him down?’

  ‘He died?’ Brodie asked, a touch of sarcasm in her response.

  ‘Lucky break for the killer,’ Joseph returned with equal sarcasm. ‘Even two taser blasts shouldn’t have kept Zacharias down that long. A few minutes at the outside and he would have at least been able to fight. There’s no sign of a struggle. No abrasions or ligature marks to indicated that he was restrained. He went down and stayed down, giving the killer time to get Ford and Kim to his getaway vehicle.’

  ‘At some point between going down and staying down and getting his throat slit, Zacharias died,’ Brodie said.

  ‘Exactly. Death by taser is less than one in a thousand. Maybe one in a hundred thousand. If it happened just when Zacharias’s killer needed it to . . .’

  ‘Then I want him picking my lottery tickets,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Joseph said again. ‘Then there’s Ford, the target. He’s a big guy and he would have been trying to protect Kim. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to drag him off, fully conscious, even if I’d cuffed him – especially if I was going for stealth.’

  A healthy, young man fighting for his life would put up a hell of a lot of resistance. If he was protecting his lover’s life as well, he’d be as unstoppable as a fucking freight train. Unless he’d been drugged. Then he’d be rendered as helpless as a newborn baby.

  This Joseph knew firsthand. The ropes had hurt. The blows he’d taken resisting hurt more. But the helplessness . . . That had been sheer agony. It still was.

  He cleared his throat. ‘If I’d been kidnapping Ford Elkhart, I’d have wanted him heavily sedated. I’d have come prepared.’

  Brodie leveled him a long look and Joseph wondered how much she knew about his past. She’d never mentioned it, in all the years she’d known him. To her credit she didn’t mention it now.

  ‘So let’s say Zacharias was drugged,’ she said. ‘Maybe his killer OD’d him. Maybe that’s why he was dead before his throat was slit.’

  Joseph rose, even more troubled now. ‘ODing on a sedative is a lot more likely than a heart attack from the taser.’

  Frowning, Brodie said what he was thinking. ‘Zacharias died. Is Ford dead too?’

  ‘That depends on why he was taken. I’m not going to borrow trouble till I have to.’

  ‘Agent Carter? Dr Brodie?’ The voice came from the alley entrance where ME tech Ruby Gomez was waving to get their attention. ‘You ready for me to take him?’

  Brodie motioned her in. ‘Come on in, Ruby. We’re done with him.’ She looked up at Joseph. ‘What will you tell Ford’s mother?’

  Joseph cringed at the thought of sharing any of this with Daphne. ‘As little as I can get away with. She doesn’t need to know how Zacharias died or that his throat was slit.’

  Brodie sighed. ‘Agreed.’

  Chapter Six

  Tuesday, December 3, 1.20 P.M.

  Joseph stepped back to give the ME tech room to work. He’d been glad to see Ruby pushing the stretcher into the alley. Skilled at her job, she ensured that evidence was preserved while showing compassion for the victim. She’d increase their chances of finding Ford and his girlfriend while still taking good care of Maynard’s dead friend.

  ‘Pretty exciting morning you’ve had, Agent Carter,’ Ruby remarked as she prepared the body bag. ‘Glad to see my favorite FBI guy still in one very nice piece.’

  Ruby’s flirtation was more about her personal style than any come-on. She flirted like most women breathed. ‘Gotta love Kevlar,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘Absolutely. I have to say, I held my breath while all those bullets flew. And when you leaped through the air to save Daphne . . .’ Ruby fanned her face. ‘Majorly hot. Especially in slow mo. And Daphne’s my favorite prosecutor, too, so it was all good. I’d hate for anything to happen to her.’ She winked. ‘The woman’s muffins are to die for.’

  Joseph frowned. How many TV stations were showing the courthouse crime scene anyway? Because every time they did, they were compromising his investigation. I should have grabbed the cameras. Except shooting video wasn’t a crime. Dammit.

  ‘Where did you see it?’

  ‘Her muffins? She brings us a basket every time she attends an autopsy.’

  ‘Not the muffins,’ Joseph said, annoyed. ‘The leap. Which TV station showed it?’

  ‘All of them. But that’s not where I saw it.’ Ruby glanced up at him, her eyes twinkling. ‘I saw it on the Internet.’

  Joseph’s frown became a snarl. ‘I’m on the Internet?’

  ‘All of you cops are, but you, Agent Carter, are a bona fide sensation.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be on the Internet,’ he said, sounding like a disgruntled child.

  Ruby lifted a brow. ‘It could be a whole lot worse, papi. You might have missed.’

  ‘Good point,’ he muttered, chastised.

  ‘I thought so.’ Turning her attention to the body, she looked at it from different angles as if studying pool balls on a billiards table, her mouth bent in sad concentration. ‘Dios. How do we move you?’ Then abruptly she rose and looked toward the street, her posture shifting as she eyed the man hurrying toward them. ‘Oh, yeah. That’ll work.’

  The man wore a distracted expression on a face that looked like it belonged in a photographer’s studio, not a crime scene. Both Ruby and Brodie stood straighter, staring with undisguised appreciation. Joseph’s eyes narrowed in irritation. With a pretty face like that, the guy had to be a reporter. Which meant he was leaving.

  Joseph stepped in front of him, blocking his view. ‘No media. You have to leave.’

  ‘But Agent Carter—’ Ruby started and Joseph cut her off with a harsh look.

  ‘No media, Ms Gomez.’

  ‘I’m not media. I’m Dr Quartermaine, the new ME. Here’s my ID.’

  Joseph studied the seemingly legit ID. ‘What happened to the old ME?’

  Ruby blinked up at him, incredulous. ‘You mean Lucy Fitzpatrick, who’s on maternity leave because she’s big as a goddamn house? She’ll be out for at least six months and our old department head just retired. Neil is the new boss.’

  Feeling a little foolish, Joseph returned the man’s ID. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor. Reporters make me crazy. I’m Agent Carter and this is Dr Brodie. We’re with VCET.’

  Quartermaine’s brow bunched slightly. ‘VCET?’

  ‘Violent Crimes Enforcement Team,’ Ruby murmured to him.

  ‘Oh, right. The acronym was in the join-up materials Lucy Fitzpatri
ck left for me to read. The FBI/BPD joint task force.’ He turned back to Joseph with a nod. ‘No worries. I hate reporters, too. So what’s the situation here?’

  Joseph stood back to let him pass. ‘Victim’s a cop. Was a cop.’

  ‘Then we’ll take good care of him.’ He tugged on the gloves Ruby handed him. ‘You said it would be exciting, Ms Gomez. I had no idea it would start my first day.’

  ‘Your first day?’ Brodie was sympathetic. ‘Hell of a way to start.’

  ‘Better than being my last day,’ Quartermaine said soberly. ‘Like this man’s.’ He crouched beside the body, brows knit. ‘This victim was dead before his throat was slit.’

  ‘We know,’ Joseph said. ‘We’re just not sure why.’ Joseph’s phone began to ring. ‘Excuse me. I have to take this.’ It was Deacon Novak. He stepped away from the group and answered. ‘What do you have?’

  ‘A lot,’ Deacon said. ‘But I’ll give you the top four – Kimberly MacGregor’s parents have been trying to reach her since yesterday evening. Seems Kimberly’s fourteen-year-old sister, Pamela, is missing. Philly PD put out an AMBER at ten last night.’

  Joseph truly hadn’t seen that coming. ‘So it is about the girl?’

  ‘Maybe. Second item – Kimberly has a record. Felony theft. She was cleaning houses and helped herself to a diamond ring. Guess who the prosecutor was?’

  Joseph’s heart sank. ‘Not Daphne.’

  ‘Yep,’ Deacon said. ‘Didn’t she recognize the girl?’

  ‘She probably would have, but Kimberly didn’t want Ford to introduce them. He told his mother about her, but asked for a little space.’

  ‘Hm. Shouldn’t the bodyguard have checked her out?’ Deacon asked.

  ‘Somebody in Maynard’s organization definitely should’ve, since Ford was their responsibility to protect. That Maynard didn’t mention that Kim had a record, especially given the connection to Daphne, makes me think that he didn’t know.’

  ‘I totally stand on my “Not much of a bodyguard” statement from before.’

  Joseph sighed. ‘I’m actually inclined to agree with you. Whether Maynard’s group didn’t bother to check or somebody did check and somehow fucked it up, I don’t know. But they should have had that information. Not knowing might have cost Isaac Zacharias his life.’ What a waste. ‘What’s the third item?’