False Positive

by Andrew Grant

  “No? Why not?”

  “The guy who strangled all those folks in Birmingham? Mitchell Burke? Were you driving when you Googled him? Or did the website use very small letters?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Burke didn’t kill Nesbitt’s father. Burke was Nesbitt’s father. It took the Bureau about three nanoseconds to shoot me down.”

  “Seriously? But—”

  “It doesn’t matter, Cooper. Because Madison Nesbitt is dead, too. She died in 1975, when she was sixteen years old. She was killed in a fire. At the foster home she’d been sent to. The whole place burned to the ground.”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I had no idea. I hope—”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m not calling to give you a hard time. Wait till you hear the next thing. The real news is, we don’t need Nesbitt. We have another suspect. The FBI received an anonymous tip, an hour ago. They followed up on it right away. They raided a home. And recovered a T-shirt, which Mrs. Crane has confirmed belongs to Ethan. They also found a vial containing traces of triazolam.”

  “Was the homeowner there?”

  “No.”

  “Do we at least have a name?”

  “We do. Jan Loflin.”

  “Detective Loflin?”

  “The same.”

  “No way.” Devereaux switched the phone to his other ear. “Someone’s made a mistake. Or they’re framing her. This is crazy. It’s bullshit. Loflin’s not old enough. The first little girl disappeared sixteen years ago.”

  “I don’t know about the other kids, Cooper. Maybe the Bureau’s wrong about them. But it’s definitely Loflin who took Ethan Crane. The FBI got hold of the clerk at that hotel where the hair dye was found. David Day. They emailed a picture of Loflin to him. He positively ID’d her as the woman he’d checked in. Her hair was different and so on, but her missing earlobe? That was the key. That jogged his memory.”

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Tuesday. Early Morning.

  Ethan missing for eighty-four hours

  Devereaux had climbed out of bed and started to pull on clothes while he was still on the phone.

  His first impulse was to get out on the street and help hunt Loflin down. Hale appreciated the sentiment—she felt as betrayed as Devereaux did, if not more so—but she told him to stay at home and stand by. His apartment was centrally located. She wanted her people evenly distributed and ready to respond to any sightings at a moment’s notice. Not scattered all over the city and having to race back from whatever far-flung shadow they’d found themselves chasing. Loflin might have been on loan from Vice, but in the Bureau’s eyes the new chief suspect was one of Hale’s detectives. That was embarrassing enough. It would be worse still if the police department couldn’t bring her in, and she ended up being tracked down by an agent.

  Devereaux hung up the phone and lay down on the bed, but he couldn’t get back to sleep. He couldn’t get Loflin’s lies out of his head. How had he not seen through her? He started to run through the time line of events in his head. She must have snatched Ethan Friday night and taken him to the motel, then rushed back to headquarters on Saturday morning when the balloon went up. Looking back, she had been a little jumpy at the briefing in Hale’s office. But then so cool at the Crane house. Sitting in on the meetings with the FBI. Driving to the Roadside Rendezvous. Interviewing the nurses with him. Talking about her time in Vice. Vice, which was the division that had contact with Sean Carver’s organization. And had been about to blow that organization wide open, until Loflin had shot Carver and stopped the raid in its tracks…

  The thought of Loflin’s account of working undercover triggered another memory:

  You’re always working. Working to get accepted. Working to make your mark interested in you. Working to make him want you around.

  The ice-cold bitch had been taunting him. She’d described exactly what she’d been doing. She had made him want her in his life. He’d even asked her to stay for a beer at his cabin when she’d seemed so upset. But the real question was, what had she done with Ethan? Where had she hidden him while she was worming her way into their investigation? And where was the boy now?

  Devereaux wanted to ask her, in person. He was willing his phone to ring. But then another thought hit him. A few variables had changed, but their working theory was that whoever had taken Ethan had also dumped the hooker’s body. That person was a small woman with blond hair, according to Tom Vernon’s contact. And that person killed Hayden Tomcik.

  Devereaux stood up and moved to his bedroom window. He looked at the city stretched out below him, distant and gray without the warmth of the sun’s first rays. Loflin may be the one who’d murdered Tomcik. Tortured and murdered him. He was going to find out. He would make absolutely sure. And if she had, Devereaux was going to follow his old guardian angel’s lead.

  He was going to begin a second set of files.

  And Loflin’s would be the first entry.

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Tuesday. Early Morning.

  Ethan missing for eighty-four and a quarter hours

  Devereaux stayed at his bedroom window until the sun began to stain the eastern face of the Wells Fargo Tower with pink. Then he wandered to the kitchen and started to make coffee. He gave up before it was ready to brew. He opened the fridge. There was nothing he wanted to eat. He went and sat on the couch. He looked for something to watch on TV. Nothing appealed to him. He searched his bookshelves. Pulled out a new paperback he’d been dying to read. And couldn’t get through the first paragraph.

  His sense of calm had disappeared and now something disconcerting was scrambling his brain, stopping him from settling to any task. At first he thought it was Loflin’s treachery that was throwing him off balance. Then he wondered if it was because his theory about Mitchell Burke and Madison Nesbitt had been so far off the mark. He wasn’t used to being that badly wrong. Or it could be his concern for Ethan Crane, now that the lifeline he hoped they’d found had turned to dust in their hands.

  Devereaux turned each possibility over in his mind. He dismissed them, one by one. And was left with a different conclusion altogether. He was being bothered by his dream. It went back to a seed that had been planted the night before, when he’d discovered that his father’s house had been demolished. Why had that been necessary? Why would no one buy it? His father had been a police officer. A hero. And it wasn’t like he’d been killed on the premises. There were no bloodstains or bullet holes for prospective buyers to get in a wad about.

  Computers weren’t really Devereaux’s thing, but he did keep an old white MacBook on a shelf under his coffee table, ready for ordering late-night pizza and Chinese food. He went back to the couch and pulled it out. He fired it up. Started its browser. Typed his father’s name and the date he was killed into Google. He sat with his finger poised over the keyboard for thirty long seconds. And finally hit Return.

  The search engine came up with surprisingly few hits. Far fewer than it would have done if a cop had been shot by a serial killer thirty-nine hours ago, rather than thirty-nine years. It only took Devereaux ten minutes to read the main articles that came up on the screen. The most detailed account was in a blog post written by an ex–Birmingham detective. He’d been trying to get a campaign for a new memorial for fallen officers off the ground, and had apparently known Devereaux’s father personally. Next came an article from the only one of the local newspapers to have digitized its back issues from so long ago. After that there was a passing mention in a piece written by a local amateur historian. The rest was dross, too vague and insubstantial to be any help at all.

  Devereaux closed the computer and shoved it back on its shelf. He was frustrated. Each account of his father’s death was basically the same. They all said that Kerr had shot him—the newspaper adding the speculation that his murder was in retaliation for the slaying of Kerr’s disciple—before being killed himself in a shoot-out with other officers.

  This didn’t tell
him anything he didn’t already know.

  And it did nothing to ease the mental itch that was driving him crazy.

  Chapter Seventy

  Tuesday. Morning.

  Ethan missing for eighty-five and a half hours

  Devereaux called Hale’s number from the car.

  He left her a message that he’d be at the police archive if she needed him. He knew she’d wanted him to stay home, but the archive wasn’t far from his building and he couldn’t risk not telling her where he was going. The older, pre-computer-era paper records are kept 160 feet underground in what used to be a nuclear bomb shelter, and there’s absolutely no hope of cell service there. The only way to contact someone who doesn’t have their own switchboard extension is to call the operator and have them paged.

  Devereaux couldn’t believe he was re-entering that place of his own free will. As he descended in the express elevator, the strange sensation that stems from being so far beneath the surface came rushing back to him. There were physical aspects—the lack of any natural light, the slight increase in pressure, and the bitter, metallic tinge to the artificially recirculated air. But for Devereaux, the psychological component of being buried so deep was the real problem. He tried not to think about the millions of tons of earth above him. Or what he’d do if there was a fire, and he had to reach the surface in a hurry. He had bad enough dreams already. And his mental state wasn’t helped by the memory of something an archivist had once told him. The little mole-like guy had gleefully pointed out that the level where they worked was twenty-five times lower than the bodies of the victims whose records they kept.

  Devereaux didn’t recognize the officer manning the reception desk, which helped to keep small talk to a minimum as he went through the rigmarole of signing in. He explained that he was looking for the files relating to officer-involved shootings from 1976, and even though he already knew where they should be, from his brief posting in the archives, he listened patiently to the directions he was given.

  Devereaux had wanted to read Tomcik’s report on his father’s death when he’d last been there, but the file that contained it had been missing. He was confident it would have been found by now so he hurried to the correct section of tall, green shelves. They were crammed with plain cardboard boxes, coded designations scrawled on their fronts with permanent marker. Except in one spot. The place where Devereaux’s father’s information should have been. It was still empty. Devereaux reached up and ran his finger along the chipped surface of the shelf, stirring up a thick layer of dust.

  Undeterred, Devereaux tried a different angle. He searched for records of officers killed in the line of duty. Again, he drew a blank. Next, he tried looking for information on Raymond Kerr. This time Devereaux did find a file, but all it contained was a list cross-referencing Kerr’s previous victims.

  There was absolutely nothing relating to his father.

  Devereaux was frustrated. With his previous experience of the archives he’d thought pulling one file would have been quick and easy. He was conscious of the search for Loflin taking place aboveground, and he didn’t want to let Lieutenant Hale—or Ethan Crane—down if there were urgent developments. But at the same time, the need to find out more about his father’s death and the events that followed it had taken hold of him like a fever.

  Swallowing his pride, Devereaux returned to the desk and asked for help. The officer rattled his keyboard, and a minute later turned back with a discouraging expression on his face.

  “There’s good news. And there’s bad news. The records you want are definitely here. But they’ve been ten-seventeened. I’m sorry, bud. There’s no way I can let you have them.”

  Devereaux knew what a 10-17 was. A file designation beginning with a 10 was an executive order restricting access to its contents. A 17 meant the information was only available to the rank of captain and above. If they’d been dealing with a 10-16—where a lieutenant could request access—Hale might have been persuaded to help Devereaux out. But Captain Emrich? Devereaux might as well ask to sleep with his daughter.

  “No problem.” Devereaux fought to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “It’s not your fault. My lieutenant didn’t know, either, or she wouldn’t have sent me down here. There are two more things she wants me to pick up, then—” Devereaux looked at his watch. “Shoot! I’m already late. I wasted so much time looking for that other information. My ass is in a sling, here, big-time. Is there any way you could help me? I could run and grab one set of files she wants, and you could get the other one? I’d really appreciate it.”

  “I guess.” The officer didn’t sound too enthusiastic. “What do you need?”

  “Motor vehicles. Moving violations. Mountain Brook. Second half of July 1967.”

  “Really? That section’s miles away. What else does she want?”

  “Grand larceny. Fine art. Specifically, Italian old master oil paintings. Everything from 1972.”

  “Oh. That’s even farther away. OK. I’ll handle the motor vehicles. You take the fancy stuff.”

  “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”

  Devereaux waited until the officer had disappeared into the valley between two great mountains of shelves, then darted around the desk. He opened the top left drawer. Lifted a plastic tray full of cheap ballpoint pens and paper clips and thumbtacks. Retrieved a small, shiny key from underneath the detritus. Used it to unlock the top right desk drawer. Pried the lid off an ancient Folger’s coffee can. Tipped out a much sturdier key. Took it. And sprinted down the last aisle on the left, all the way to the far wall, where the dull gray cabinets that held the restricted files were housed.

  Chapter Seventy-one

  Tuesday. Morning.

  Ethan missing for eighty-six hours

  Devereaux was back on the right side of the desk when the other officer reappeared.

  “Mountain Brook?” The guy was a little out of breath. “July ’67? Are you sure?”

  “That’s what my lieutenant told me.” Devereaux pulled a puzzled expression. “Why? Wasn’t anything there?”

  “Nope. Nada. Meaning I trailed across the length of a football field and back for no reason.”

  “This is weird.” Devereaux shook his head. “There were no records of stolen paintings in 1972, either. This whole trip was a wash.”

  “Is your lieutenant pissed with you?” The officer pushed past Devereaux and flopped back down in his chair. “Or does she have a mean sense of humor?”

  “She’s not. Yet. And she doesn’t, as far as I know.” Devereaux turned and started for the exit. “But I’m sure going to find out. Thanks for your help. And sorry for wasting your time.”

  Devereaux waited until he was hidden behind his Charger before loosening his shirt and producing the file he’d tucked hurriedly into his pants. He figured he could worry about how to return it later. Right then, his priority was finding out what it contained. He was tempted to snap the brittle, red seal immediately, but he knew that sitting in the archive parking lot reading a bunch of stolen official documents wouldn’t be his smartest move.

  By the time he’d driven back to his building, parked, and ridden up to his apartment, Devereaux’s mood had changed entirely. He didn’t even want to touch the file anymore, let alone look at its contents. Even after almost forty years, the memory of Tomcik breaking the news of his father’s death still haunted him. The intangible thought of it was bad enough. He didn’t know if he could face reading about it, blow by blow, right there in black and white.

  Devereaux dropped the file on his coffee table and turned his back on it. Then he sat on the couch and stared at its impersonal, typewritten label for ten long minutes. His mind was flipping one way, then the other. Read it. Smuggle it back, unopened. Read it. Smuggle it back…

  In the end, he decided to read it.

  The file was slim. Inside the coarse manila cover there were only five pages:

  • Tomcik’s report.

  • Detective Jenner’s report.
Jenner had been Tomcik’s partner, until he was killed trying to stop a convenience store robbery while off duty, three months later.

  • A forensic report, signed by the officer who’d examined the crime scene.

  • The medical examiner’s report, detailing the injuries to Devereaux’s father and Raymond Kerr.

  • A statement from the officer-involved-shooting inquiry board, confirming that Tomcik’s and Jenner’s use of fatal force had been fully justified.

  Devereaux started with Tomcik’s report. The style was terse and direct, as it had been in the files that Devereaux had read at his house. The narrative recounted how, acting on information received from a confidential informant, Tomcik and Jenner had gone to Detective Devereaux’s house because they believed his life to be in danger. Finding the front door open, they entered the premises. They encountered Raymond Kerr standing near Detective Devereaux’s prostrate body. They called out to Kerr, identifying themselves as police officers and ordering him to drop his weapon and get down on the floor. Kerr failed to comply, and instead turned and raised his weapon in a threatening manner. Acting solely in self-defense, Tomcik and Jenner opened fire. Paramedics were called, but arrived on the scene too late to save either Detective Devereaux or Raymond Kerr.

  Jenner’s report said essentially the same thing—it was obvious to Devereaux that they’d concocted them together—and their statements were backed up by the forensics report and the medical examiner’s conclusion. As far as the paperwork was concerned, there was no room for misunderstanding. It was a slam dunk. Devereaux was not surprised in the least that the firearms board had ruled the way it did.

  But he did have one other question.

  How could every single person involved in the case have been lying?

  Chapter Seventy-two