Unsolved

by James Patterson

  “Great.”

  He stops on his way out and turns to me. “Agent Dockery?” he says.

  “It’s Emmy. And I’m not an agent.”

  “Okay, Emmy,” he says. “Should I be worried about Michelle?”

  102

  MICHELLE FONTAINE parks her car in her designated spot. Walks up the back stairs to her apartment. Passes by her two suitcases, sitting by the back door, ready to be thrown into the car.

  In the kitchen, she picks up her landline phone and checks her voice mail. One new message.

  “Michelle, this is Louise at the clinic. I got your e-mail and I understand you’re leaving us. I won’t pretend I’m not disappointed that you didn’t give us some notice, but—there’s actually another reason I’m calling. The…the FBI is here, Michelle. They’re asking about Martin Wagner. Lieutenant Wagner? He’s gone missing, apparently, and he’s wanted for questioning. They said they’d like to—”

  Michelle drops the phone and rushes to the back door. She grabs her two suitcases and carries them with some difficulty down the steps, nearly tumbling forward in the process. She loads them into the trunk, starts up the car, and drives away.

  103

  “HERE WE go,” says Elizabeth Ashland. We’re on FaceTime. She turns her phone outward, capturing the scene for me.

  Multiple agents surround the storage shed, their weapons drawn, riot shields up, helmets on. Through a bullhorn, one of the agents calls out: “Martin Wagner, this is the FBI. We are entering the shed. If you have a weapon, drop it or we will shoot. Get down on your knees and put your hands on your head.”

  An agent approaches the shed from the side, turns the key in the lock, then steps away. The garage door slowly grinds open.

  Will Wagner be inside? I doubt it.

  What about Michelle Fontaine? More likely. My heart hammers in my chest.

  The only thing inside the garage, right in the middle, dominating the space, is a Dodge Caravan. The agents shuffle in, weapons trained on the vehicle, peer inside, then shout out after the inspection, “Vehicle is clear.”

  “It’s his van,” says Elizabeth, going closer now that the threat of gunfire is over, moving the camera in on the license plate.

  Yes. It’s his plate. The one the ALPRs caught last night.

  What about inside the van?

  As if someone is reading my thoughts, the image on the screen jumps back and the rear of the van lifts open. A hydraulic ramp rises, unfolds, and drops to the ground.

  “You see inside the van, Emmy?”

  I do. In the rear of the van are several open boxes filled with underwear and socks and T-shirts, a pile of shirts and pants, and what appears to be two storage crates, the ones whose dust outlines we saw in Wagner’s apartment this morning.

  This keeps getting stranger and stranger…

  The phone turns so that Elizabeth is looking at me. “He had a getaway planned all along,” she says. “He must have been in a hurry. Wait.” The screen is suddenly pointing downward, and agents are calling to Elizabeth. The jerkiness of the video would be nauseating if I weren’t so transfixed.

  I reach for the water bottle that Tom Miller gave me but then stop short.

  “Does this look familiar?” The screen shows the driver’s seat of the vehicle, which is Wagner’s wheelchair, complete with the American flag on the armrest.

  His van and his wheelchair, both left behind.

  “Elizabeth,” I say, “can you run the camera around the van? So I can see all sides of it?”

  “Sure.” She lowers the phone again; I’m staring at the side of her pants, then the floor, then the sky. I look away to avoid motion sickness. When the image stabilizes, I see that Elizabeth has backed up to give me an overall view of the van’s driver’s side. An agent is holding a mirror on an extension pole under the vehicle, searching for explosives. Another is doing the same thing over the top of the vehicle.

  “Wait,” I say, catching something in the top mirror’s reflection. “The roof of the van. I saw something. Some color. Something yellow.”

  Elizabeth calls out to the agent. She walks toward him—more queasiness-inducing movement of the phone—and fixes the camera right on the mirror hovering over the roof of the van.

  I see a yellow star on a black background, the words U.S. ARMY below it.

  A U.S. Army seal painted on the center of the roof of the Caravan.

  “Elizabeth, let me call you back in two minutes,” I say. I end the connection and pull up some of the videos that Officer Ciomek sent me from the Chicago POD cameras. The ones from the mounted camera with a downward angle.

  Each one, to varying degrees, shows the roof of the van. The video clips are grainy, and they’re in black-and-white, but they’re enough for me to see what’s on the van’s roof—and, more important, what is not.

  No yellow star. No U.S. Army seal.

  I call Elizabeth back. “It’s not the same van,” I tell her. I explain about the video clips I have from the POD cameras in Chicago.

  “Well, he might have a second van,” says Elizabeth Ashland. “In fact, that’s probably how he made his escape last night. He kept a second van here in the garage. He dropped off the one registered to him and drove off in the second one. I bet he has a second wheelchair too.”

  Maybe. It’s possible. But I don’t know what to think about anything Elizabeth says anymore.

  The cash. The Taser. The Garfield watch. And now the clothes. Four things that don’t make sense.

  Books. I need Books. It’s been about half an hour since he left; he’s probably just getting to the store to receive the load of new releases.

  I dial his number and wait. He doesn’t answer. It goes to voice mail. I don’t leave a message. He’s probably busy dealing with the new shipment.

  Maybe Petty’s there to help him.

  Petty.

  I breathe in and out.

  Maybe the cash, the Taser, the cartoon-cat watch, the clothes—maybe they make sense after all.

  I hang up and dial Rabbit. “Hey, kiddo.”

  “What’s the latest?” she asks.

  I give her my best one-minute update. With my free hand, I reach for the bottle of water Tom gave me, lift it by its blue top, and drop it into my bag. I need to eat and drink soon or I’m going to pass out.

  “I need some quick background, as fast as you can,” I say.

  “Hit me with it,” she says. “I’ll get Pully on it too.”

  I finish with Rabbit, hang up the phone, leave the conference room, and run down to the basement to find Tom Miller.

  He’s with an elderly patient, working on some kind of squatting exercise. He sees me and nods, gently helps the man into an upright position, and excuses himself. “Everything okay?” he asks me.

  “The patients here,” I say. “The people who Lieutenant Wagner preached to about politics.”

  “His disciples, sure,” Tom says.

  “Right,” I say. “Were any of them named Petty?”

  104

  “SORRY AGAIN that I kept you waiting,” Books says to the delivery guy as he’s leaving. He watches the man drive the truck out of the alley, then closes the heavy back door and stands in the back room of his bookstore looking at the gigantic crate of new releases.

  The thought of unloading them and switching out inventory makes him feel more exhausted than he already is. “Am I fighting an uphill battle?” he whispers to himself. The store’s basically a one-man operation now, his finances squeezed so tight he can scarcely afford even part-time employees.

  Well, there’s Petty, whom he doesn’t even have to pay, although he compensates him by letting him stay here. But even Petty doesn’t come every day. Books just doesn’t have enough help.

  He checks his phone. He felt a vibration a few minutes ago but he had his hands full. It’s Emmy, as he suspected. He calls her back.

  “Oh, good, you’re okay,” she says.

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay? What’s wrong?�
�

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yeah, I am. Where are—”

  “Petty’s not there?”

  “Sergeant Petty? No, he’s not here. Why?”

  “I—I think Petty might be our guy.”

  “Petty might be…what guy?”

  “Our guy, Books,” she says. “I think Petty might be Darwin.”

  “What?” Books chuckles. “Not Wagner?”

  “Not Wagner. Listen, they just opened the storage shed,” she says. She tells him about finding Wagner’s van inside, about the U.S. Army seal painted on its roof, and about how that doesn’t match the roof of the van they saw on the Chicago POD cameras.

  “Okay, so Wagner had two vans,” he says. “One was registered in his name, the other wasn’t. That’s the one he used for his crimes, and now he’s using it as his getaway vehicle. He probably kept the getaway van in the storage shed. He dumped the one registered to him, because he knew we’d be hunting for it, and drove off in the one we aren’t looking for.”

  “That’s what Elizabeth said. That’s exactly what she said.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  He hears Emmy heave one of her patented sighs. “He left all his clothes inside,” she says. “What kind of getaway is that?”

  “A rushed one, I guess.”

  “He leaves behind over a hundred thousand dollars in cash in his apartment. Cash, Books. This guy’s on the run. He’s a fugitive. He can’t use credit cards. Cash is his lifeblood. He took the time to empty out his drawers so he could bring along socks and underwear. He pulled clothes out of his closet and dragged out storage files—but he leaves behind all that cash?”

  “He left behind the Taser too. And the Garfield watch.”

  “Right, and that’s weird too. He sticks the Taser under his bed. Like we won’t find that? Like we won’t look under his bed?”

  “And the watch in his garbage outside…”

  “Yeah, it looks like he’s trying to hide it. But didn’t you say trash is one of the first things you search? It’s a treasure trove, you said.”

  Right, he did say that. “What’s your point, Emmy?”

  “My point is our supposed criminal mastermind, our evil genius, forgot to take a boatload of cash that could have kept him afloat for years on the run. His socks and underwear and shirts and pants were apparently more important than a hundred grand in cash, but then he left the clothes behind in the storage shed too. Oh, and what else does he leave at his apartment? Highly incriminating evidence—the Taser, the watch—that he made only the feeblest of attempts to hide.”

  “You’re saying…” Books pushes his hair off his forehead, letting this wash over him.

  “Wagner is a patsy,” she says. “He was set up to take the fall.”

  “Wagner…isn’t Darwin,” Books says. “So where’s Wagner?”

  “Dead, I assume. Darwin made it look like Wagner escaped. He killed Wagner and took away his clothes, toiletries, whatever, so it would seem like Wagner fled.”

  “And he didn’t take the hundred grand in cash…”

  “Because he didn’t know it was there, Books. It wasn’t his apartment. It wasn’t his money. He didn’t know Wagner was using the bottom drawer of his stove as a piggy bank. He just grabbed the obvious stuff—clothes, toiletries, some boxes full of personal information—to make it look like the guy was on the run. Then he drove away in Wagner’s van with Wagner’s wheelchair. And Wagner’s body, which he must have dumped somewhere.”

  “Okay, Emmy, slow down.” Books starts pacing, a habit when his mind is racing. He walks into the main room. Nothing disturbed. The front door still locked, storefront window still secured.

  “What about the storage shed?” he says. “The clothes, like you said. It’s a clue that he didn’t really go. If he’s so smart—if Darwin is so clever—why would he leave those clothes there for us to find?”

  But he answers that question in his head before Emmy does.

  “He didn’t want us to find them,” she says. “We were never supposed to find that storage shed. He mapped out an entire route to that storage shed where there were no cameras, no license-plate readers. Right? He can look up the information about cameras and ALPRs online. He can do scouting runs and see for himself. He mapped out a perfect route. We never would’ve known.”

  “But then he caught some bad luck,” says Books. “That police barricade.”

  “Exactly. The squad car at the scene picked up his license plate with its reader. And then he had to alter his route, and an ALPR on Bell Road caught him too.”

  “So this whole thing…”

  “This whole thing was set up so Lieutenant Wagner would take the fall. It wouldn’t have been hard. Wagner publicizes where he goes, right? He has a damn tour schedule on his website. Wagner goes to Indianapolis, Darwin goes to Indianapolis—to kill some homeless advocate. Wagner goes to Charleston, Darwin goes too—and commits another murder.”

  “Wagner goes to Chicago,” says Books, “and Darwin does too. And blows up a homeless shelter.”

  “Right. I’ll bet Darwin got a van just like Wagner’s. He customized it, I’m sure, exactly the same way. Only he didn’t know that Wagner had a U.S. Army seal painted on top of his van. You can’t see it unless you have an extension mirror.”

  “Wow,” says Books. “Wow.” He shakes his head. “And what about the moon thing on his face? The long gray hair?”

  “Makeup and a wig,” she says. “On close inspection, sure, no one would think he was Martin Wagner. But generally? In passing? A guy in a wheelchair with long gray hair and a prominent crescent-moon-shaped scar on his face? That wouldn’t be so hard, would it?”

  “So this guy may not even be in a wheelchair.”

  “He probably isn’t.”

  “He did everything like he was in a wheelchair. Picking victims who lived in single-story homes, using the same customized Dodge Caravan, the same wheelchair with the same American-flag decal—he just mimicked Wagner in every way. But it was all fake.”

  “I’m sure he hoped we’d never catch on at all,” says Emmy. “But if we did, all trails would lead to Lieutenant Wagner.”

  105

  “OKAY, OKAY,” says Books. “What you’re saying is plausible. Maybe it isn’t Wagner. But Petty? Petty is…Darwin?”

  “Just listen to me, Books. And don’t say anything. Just hear me out.”

  “I thought I was already doing that.”

  She lays out her reasons. How little they actually know about Petty. And what they do know about Petty—his weekly comings-and-goings, when he arrived in Virginia the first time. “Petty’s bald,” she adds. “A wig would be easy to wear.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And Books, think about it—of all the places he could have chosen to sleep, he picks a spot right outside a store owned by the fiancé of the woman who’s tracking him, hunting him? That’s just a coincidence?”

  Books shakes his head, frustration mounting. “He was keeping an eye on you through me,” he says. He slams his fist on the counter. “And I fell for it.”

  His thoughts are interrupted by a noise from the inventory room.

  The unmistakable sound of the solid rear door opening from the alley.

  Only one person other than Books has a key to that door. Books gave it to him yesterday.

  “Hello?” Books calls out, his heart racing, adrenaline seizing him.

  “Is that Petty?” Emmy asks in his ear.

  Books walks into the back room, brushing the palm of his hand against the grip of his sidearm, secured in a slant holster at his right hip. Lucky, at least, that he took off his suit coat when he arrived to unload the new releases.

  “Agent Bookman,” says Petty. He’s dressed in his army jacket and jeans, the overloaded duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Didn’t think you’d be here.”

  “Do you have your weapon on you?” Emmy asks in a harsh whisper.

  He does. And Petty sees
it.

  “Hey, Sergeant Petty,” he says. If that’s your real name. If you really were a sergeant. “Emmy says hi,” he adds.

  “Oh, okay.” Petty nods. “How’s your big case? You catch your guy?”

  “Tell him he got away,” Emmy whispers. “Put him at ease.”

  “Not yet,” Books tells Petty.

  “Do you want me to send agents to the store?” Emmy asks.

  “No,” says Books.

  “No what?” Petty looks at him with a question on his face.

  “I’ll call you back, Emmy.”

  “Books, wait—”

  Books ends the call. Drops the phone in his left pocket. Keeps his right hand down, close to the holster. Petty watches him without comment. Sees Books’s right hand poised by the weapon.

  “We didn’t get our guy,” says Books. “But he couldn’t have gotten far. He’s in a wheelchair, so his options are limited.”

  “Your killer’s in a wheelchair?” Petty asks. “That’s kinda…unusual, isn’t it?” Petty looks Books in the eye, something he rarely does.

  “He’s an unusual guy,” says Books.

  Petty blinks, glances away. Looks at Books’s right hand again, the gun.

  “I stopped by last night,” says Books. “Thought you’d be here.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Busy killing Lieutenant Wagner last night? After I basically told you we were about to raid his house?

  “Is everything…okay?” Petty asks.

  He can imagine how he looks to Petty. Not in a casual polo shirt and jeans but wearing a suit and tie and carrying a sidearm. Not a bookseller but an FBI agent. An FBI agent who is clearly on edge, no matter how Books tries to hide it; his heart is drumming in his chest, adrenaline pumping through him.

  “Everything’s fine, Sergeant. Why wouldn’t it be?” He recognizes how strange his own voice sounds—unnatural, forced.

  Petty remains still, apparently uncertain of what to do. He doesn’t have a visible weapon. If he reached for one, Books could outdraw him, his right hand still dangling by his weapon.