False Positive

by Andrew Grant

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Sunday. Early Morning.

  Ethan missing for thirty-six hours

  In the closet. In the hallway. Just me and the bugs and the spiders. Why’s Daddy so late?

  The front door creaks open.

  “This is the police.”

  It’s not Daddy’s voice. It’s a stranger’s. Coming to hurt me?

  “Show yourself. Right now.”

  I hold my breath. Lie extra still.

  “Come on. The kid’s got to be here, somewhere. We’ve got to find him.”

  Footsteps come closer. The closet door opens. The light switches on. Coats swish on the rail. One of Daddy’s boots falls over. The thump’s real loud. Right above my head. I don’t breathe at all. I squeeze my eyes shut. Any second now the board will lift up…

  The stranger’s phone starts to ring. If he goes to answer it, he might not find me.

  Go! Answer it! Go! Answer it!

  The phone keeps ringing. The stranger stays where he is.

  The phone keeps ringing. It’s playing Guns N’ Roses. The intro to “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” Over and over…

  —

  Wait. A phone? Playing Guns N’ Roses? In 1976? Relieved, Devereaux slowly floated back to consciousness. Then he reached out a hand, groping around on the nightstand for his cell.

  “Detective Devereaux?” The civilian aide from headquarters sounded agitated when Devereaux finally answered.

  “Yes. What?”

  “Lieutenant Hale wants you in the office. Fourth floor. Right now.”

  —

  Hale was standing in the corridor, talking on her phone, when Devereaux emerged from the elevator. He nodded and started to squeeze between her and the line of gold-framed portraits of past chiefs of the Birmingham PD, which were screwed to the wall behind her, but she ended her call, grabbed his elbow, and led him away from the conference room door.

  “Cooper—quick heads-up before we go in. We’ve got company this morning. The FBI’s here. Two agents. Both trained in profiling. Are you comfortable with that?”

  Two years earlier the Birmingham PD had been stumped by a series of murders. Someone had killed the wives of three prominent businessmen, apparently vanishing into thin air between each crime. The media was doing its best to whip the public up into a frenzy of outrage, going all-out to portray the authorities as lead-footed incompetents. More and more manpower was thrown at the case, and eventually a possible suspect emerged. A locksmith who’d worked at each of the victim’s houses over the last ten months, and who’d allegedly clashed with the women over the exorbitant unexpected extras he’d tried to charge them for.

  Everyone in the department was delighted with this long-awaited, face-saving breakthrough. Everyone except Devereaux.

  Devereaux had spent hours at the crime scenes, trying to put himself in the killer’s shoes, and had come up with an alternative explanation for the murders. He’d noticed that the three victims looked very similar, and had developed a theory that they’d been targeted by a local doctor whose own wife—who also resembled the three dead women—had abruptly left him, the previous Christmas Eve.

  No one would listen to Devereaux. No one wanted to burst the sudden bubble of optimism surrounding the investigation. His idea was dismissed as psychobabble. So while the rest of the detectives were out chasing the wrong man, Devereaux followed his instincts. He staked out the doctor’s house, on his own time, and one night followed him to a mansion belonging to the owner of a chain of cell phone stores. The guy was away in Atlanta, negotiating the purchase of a rival operation. His wife—who could have passed for the doctor’s ex’s younger sister—was home alone. Devereaux broke into the premises and found her kicking and scratching, the doctor’s hands still locked around her throat.

  Following this success, Devereaux had been inspired to join the FBI. He’d aced the written exams. Passed the physical. Taken a couple of college courses, to plug some gaps in his résumé. Shone at the interviews. Been told on the phone he was in. Had set his heart on working his way into the legendary Behavioral Science Unit. But at the last moment the rug had been pulled from under him. No one had been able to explain what had happened. No one had even been willing to try. But regardless, Devereaux had found himself back in Birmingham with bridges to rebuild with the police department. And resentment to burn with the Bureau.

  “So this means that Ethan was kidnapped?” The cogs were spinning in Devereaux’s head. “What happened? What did they find?”

  “More about that in a minute.” Hale squeezed his elbow. “Don’t jump to conclusions. What I need to know is, can you handle being in this meeting? I only want cool heads in there. I can brief you later, if that would be more…productive.”

  “No. Of course not. I’m glad the Bureau’s here.”

  “Good. In that case, there’s just one other thing before we go in. The text you sent me last night? About geriatric homicide victims? I did as you asked. I checked. And there are no records of any. Not in the last month. So whatever that was about, forget it. Focus on getting Ethan back. Nothing else. Are we clear?”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Sunday. Morning.

  Ethan missing for thirty-seven hours

  Devereaux had always thought of the fourth floor conference room as the place where enthusiasm went to die.

  He visited it as infrequently as he could get away with—usually he just went there for mandatory briefings about departmental reorganizations, which invariably made his job harder—and whenever he did set foot inside he was half expecting to find a team of scientists under the table, searching for the black hole that sucked all the initiative and optimism out of the room’s occupants.

  That morning, Devereaux felt like he’d walked into a completely different room. Large sheets of lining paper had been taped to the walls from floor to ceiling, creating fifteen separate focus areas. Twelve already had headings, handwritten in thick black ink—Ethan Crane, Mary Lynne & Joseph Crane, Crane Friends, Crane Family, School, UAB, UAB Hospital, Triazolam, Honda Odyssey, Pedophiles, Cults, Threats / Demands—and three were blank, held in reserve for future breakthroughs.

  Most of the items pinned up so far related to the missing boy, his parents, and their workplaces, but Devereaux knew the sheets would quickly fill up as the investigation continued to gain pace. All the information was processed electronically, too, but computer logic can’t entirely replace detectives’ intuition. Plus these physical displays gave the case a sense of tangible momentum. They linked all the investigators with everything that was happening and helped to ensure that no clue was ignored and that no connection—however tenuous—was missed.

  Loflin was already in the room, sitting at the right-hand end of the beaten-up rectangular conference table. She’d changed into jeans and a white blouse since Devereaux had seen her at the hospital, but the beginnings of dark circles were showing beneath her eyes and she’d clearly taken less time arranging her hair than usual. Devereaux was about to head to the opposite end of the room but she discreetly gestured for him to join her. He paused for a moment, eyeing the two extra-large Styrofoam coffee cups on the table in front of her, then took the adjacent seat.

  There were two other people in the room beside Lieutenant Hale, and neither matched Hollywood’s typical portrayal of dyed-in-the-wool FBI agents. Neither looked much like a young, thrusting, climb-the-ladder-at-all-costs type, fresh from the assault course at Quantico. Instead, they were older guys, in their early fifties, and both had a calm, safe-pair-of-hands vibe about them. They were wearing chinos and polo shirts, rather than expensive suits. And they were locked in battle with the laptop computer that sat in front of them.

  Loflin slid one of the coffee cups across to Devereaux, catching its base on a gap in the veneer and almost spilling it. The room should have been refurbished years ago, and there were competing rumors circulating to explain its continued run-down state. One said that the department’s entire decorat
ing budget had been spent on remodeling the commissioner’s office. The other, that a meeting room in a different building had been fixed up by mistake. It was a classic example of chaos or conspiracy, but Devereaux didn’t care which was true. He didn’t even care if either was true.

  Lieutenant Hale settled herself at the head of the table and got straight down to the introductions. The agent with the computer had a shaved head and an inch-long scar to the side of his left eye. His name was Derek Bruckner. The other one, Stephen Grandison, had a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. Devereaux could have pictured him as a boxer in his younger days.

  “OK.” Hale cleared her throat. “Now that we know one another, let’s start by bringing my detectives up to speed.”

  “All right.” Grandison had a deep, gravelly voice. “Here’s what we know. Two minutes after six this morning, a maid went to service a room at a hotel called the Roadside Rendezvous off I-65, near Cullman, Alabama. In the bathroom she found two things: A hydrogen peroxide bottle, which was empty, and a bunch of hairs. Some were bleached. The others were chestnut brown, like Ethan Crane’s. And they were curly, also like Ethan’s. The maid had heard that the boy was missing, and she’d seen his picture on the news, so she told her boss. He called 911. The evidence was collected, and we’re running the hair against a DNA sample from the kid’s house to be sure. But there’s also this. A description of the car the woman who paid for the room was driving. A Honda Odyssey. White. Same as the one reported on Ethan’s street Friday night.”

  “Anything on its license plate?” Hale asked.

  “Nothing useful.” Grandison shook his head. “We ran what the driver wrote down when she registered, but it shows as belonging to a silver Jaguar in New York. We called the owner, and he confirmed his car’s still in his garage. We’ve put out an alert on the plates, in case she cloned them, but it’s more likely she wrote something down at random rather than give us the license number she’s really using.”

  “What about the desk clerk?” Devereaux put his coffee cup down. “Didn’t he or she recognize the boy from when they checked in? Didn’t the local police show them pictures?”

  “There was no point.” Grandison spread his hands, palms-up. “They showed up in the early hours of Saturday morning. The night clerk was on duty, and he said that a woman checked into the room. On her own. Their security tapes confirm this, but the woman avoided her face being picked up on camera so we can’t compare her image against Ethan’s teachers, or any of the other adults in his life. We’re sitting the clerk down with an artist, and we’ll circulate the woman’s image ASAP. Try and get a match that way.”

  “Did he give much of a description?”

  Bruckner consulted the notes on his computer. “He said she was Caucasian. Slim. Five foot four to five-eight. Straight, shoulder-length red hair. When he was pressed he couldn’t swear it wasn’t a wig, which suggests a possible disguise. And he couldn’t pin down her age.”

  “What about a name?”

  “We have a name from the credit card she used. We’re running it, but the odds are, it’s phony. I’m not holding my breath.”

  “So where was Ethan at this point?” Devereaux rotated his cup as he thought out loud. “Outside in her car, I guess. On his own? He could have been, if she’d drugged him. Or there could have been a second adult with him. How many room keys did the woman ask for?”

  Bruckner rattled his laptop’s keys again. “One. But a woman, working alone? That’s unusual. Especially if she’s planning on killing the kid.”

  “One key doesn’t necessarily equal one adult,” Grandison reasoned.

  “True,” Bruckner conceded.

  “And there were signs that both beds had been slept in.” Grandison picked up his thread again. “One by an adult. One by a child.”

  “When did they check out?” Devereaux spun the cup the opposite way.

  “They didn’t.” Grandison shrugged. “But we figure they’ve left, because their car and all their stuff’s gone.”

  “This hotel’s where?” Hale stood up and started to close the blinds over the room’s nine windows. “Near Huntsville? Have we got any idea why this woman would take Ethan in that direction?”

  “Have you guys checked on his relatives?” Bruckner turned back to his computer. “Do we know where they are? And Ethan’s adopted, right? What about his birth mother?”

  “Both natural parents are dead.” Devereaux didn’t have to check any notes to answer that one. “He has no other relatives.”

  “What about a crazy woman?” Loflin suggested. “One whose own baby died? Maybe around the time Ethan was born?”

  “That’s possible.” Bruckner nodded. “It’s worth following up on.”

  “If we’re lucky, something like that will shake out.” Hale turned to Bruckner. “But we can’t count on it. What else do you have for us?”

  “We got very little of value from either scene, so we’re focusing on victimology. That’s our best bet right now. We got nothing back from VICAP in terms of known offenders with similar MOs. Our next move will be to revisit the profile we’re building, taking out the possibility that the kid ran away, and factoring in the tranquilizer, the prominent role of the woman, and the potential manipulation of her appearance.”

  “How long will that take?” Concern creased Hale’s forehead.

  “Too long, probably.” Bruckner laid his hands palms-down on the table and fanned out his fingers. “Three million kids run away every year. And sixty thousand get snatched by non-family members.”

  —

  Bruckner closed his computer and the two agents left the room. Devereaux wanted to follow their example, but Hale insisted he stay. She had to head upstairs to brief the captain in five minutes, so remaining on the fourth floor was convenient for her.

  “Thoughts?” She looked at Devereaux, then Loflin.

  “In a way, this could be good news.” Loflin sounded tentative. “If Ethan’s been kidnapped, he’s most likely still alive. For now, at least.”

  “I’m not convinced.” Devereaux frowned. “There’s not much real evidence here. Only the car, the hair, and the peroxide. Those things are suspicious, granted. Especially when this woman lied about the plates when she registered. But it’s not conclusive. It pretty much rules out the chance that Ethan ran away, but we shouldn’t stop looking at the parents. This hotel sighting’s the best lead we’ve had so far, but for all we know the woman could have been Mary Lynne, planting evidence to persuade us Ethan’s still alive. If only we had a better description. Of the woman, or the car. I need to go and look for myself. Poke around a little. Ask a few more questions.”

  “Agreed.” Hale checked her watch. “Both of you go. And hurry. Leave now.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The woman didn’t know which was worse: The swarms of screeching children. The endless lines. The inane rides. Or the guys stalking around in creepy character costumes. But all these things were minor irritants, next to the problem of the security cameras.

  It had been impossible to find out in advance how many there were, though not for a lack of trying. So she came up with an estimate, based on other places she’d taken kids for their treats in the past. At first, she thought her calculations were reasonably accurate. But she soon realized that there were way more cameras than she’d bargained for. They were well concealed, but once she got the hang of where to look, she saw they were everywhere. That was another strike against the place. If someone could sit in a bunker and watch the entire park on TV screens, it took away the advantage of its size. And made it harder to disappear into the crowd, should that become necessary.

  She decided that for the rest of their stay, she’d switch wigs and sunglasses four times a day. That might be overkill, but it never hurt to take precautions.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Sunday. Morning.

  Ethan missing for thirty-seven and a half hours

  Devereaux watched Vulcan�
�s bulky silhouette shrink in his mirror as he accelerated up the first straight stretch of I-65 as it led out of the city to the north, then he slowed to skirt around an ambulance that was tending to the victims of a collision. The future looked bleak for one of them, Devereaux thought. That reminded him of how Vulcan’s torch used to glow red on days when there’d been a traffic fatality, back when he was a kid. Although in those days his father had him convinced that the torch changed color every time he took down a particularly dangerous criminal. Smiling at the memory he turned to Loflin, but she had her phone pressed to her ear. She was holding for the manager of the Roadside Rendezvous, to arrange for the night clerk to be waiting for them when they arrived, along with the maid who’d made the original report.

  Thirty-three minutes later the detectives parked in the kidney-shaped lot outside the sprawling, single-story hotel and made their way to the reception area, where a tall miserable-looking man was watching out for them from the side of a bank of vending machines.

  “My name’s George O’Brien.” The man held a skinny hand out toward Devereaux, then Loflin. “We spoke on the phone. I’m really sorry about this, but Dave isn’t back yet. I really thought he would be, but—”

  “Dave’s the night clerk?” Loflin folded her arms.

  “Right. His name’s David Day, ironically. He’ll be here in a minute, I’m sure. He had to find someone to watch his kid, and—You don’t need to know about his personal issues. Geraldine is here, though. She’s the one who found the stuff in the room. It’s probably meaningless, right? She just watches too much TV and got a little crazy. Would you like to start with her?”

  “How long until Dave gets here?” Devereaux glanced at his watch. “No bull this time.”

  “Two minutes. Five at the outside.”