The Dead of Winter (The Jacob Lomax Mysteries Book 3)

by Michael Allegretto

  Angela said, “Joseph had set up a money market account for us. Also, he bought some long-term CDs. I’ll cash them in.”

  “Banks are often reluctant to hand over that much cash. At least right away.”

  “It’s her money,” Tony told me.

  “Right.” I didn’t see any point in arguing. “Whose car were you planning to take?”

  Tony shrugged at Rivers, and Rivers shrugged back.

  “Take yours,” I said to Rivers.

  “Any special reason?”

  “You’ve got a car phone, right? So do I. That might come in handy later if we need to keep in touch on the road.”

  “What’ve you got in mind?” Tony asked me.

  “Maybe nothing. Let’s see what the kidnappers have to say. And one other thing—you’d better be careful driving around today. You’re going to be carrying a lot of cash.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tony said. “I’m bringing a gun.”

  “Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

  After breakfast, they all left in a group—Angela with her rosary, Tony with his pistol, and Rivers with his briefcase for the money. I felt like a kid the grown-ups had left behind. I went back to the kitchen and washed the dishes.

  I watched daytime TV for a while. Finally, out of boredom, I snooped around the house.

  Joseph’s den looked the same as it had the last time I’d seen it—unused. I walked into the master bedroom. It had dark mahogany furnishings, with a large wooden crucifix over the bed and a painting of the Virgin Mary and Child beside the dresser mirror. The next bedroom had no personality and looked to be for guests. Tony had probably spent a few nights there lately. My guess was it had once belonged to Diane Bellano.

  The last room was obviously Stephanie’s. The dressing table held carefully arranged bottles of cologne and lotions. The bedspread was white, with pink and yellow ruffles. There was a small pewter crucifix on the wall at the head of the bed. Maybe she should have had one of those big wooden ones, like her parents’. Although it hadn’t done Joseph much good.

  The phone rang.

  It was ringing in the living room and kitchen. I hustled into the kitchen, because it would be easier to copy down demands and instructions while standing at the counter. I got out a pen and pad and picked up the receiver. It was Rivers.

  “Has anyone called yet?” he asked.

  “No. Any problems?”

  “Nothing serious,” he said, “but it’s taking longer than we thought. So far we’ve only collected my money and the stations’—twenty-five thousand. Talk to you later.”

  “Later” turned out to be four o’clock, when they all trooped in. I could see by their faces that all was not well.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Did he call?” Tony asked.

  “No.”

  He brushed past me toward the kitchen.

  “We only got fifty-eight thousand,” Angela said, worry etched deeply in her face. “What are we going to do? What if the man wants it all tonight?”

  Rivers and I dumbly shook our heads. She joined her brother in the kitchen.

  “We spent all day at her bank,” Rivers explained. “They let her cash in her money market account, but the hassle was getting it in cash. They finally came across, though—thirty-three thousand in fifties and hundreds. But the CDs are a different story. They said she’d have to wait twenty-four hours. Bank policy, and there’s no way around it.”

  I nodded and started toward the kitchen. He stopped me.

  “This business about the car phones,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “For the ransom drop. When it comes time to pay off the kidnappers, they’re probably going to tell Angela to take it someplace and leave it. I want to be able to follow her and stay out of sight.”

  “Wait a minute. Do you intend to try something during the payoff?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Jesus, Lomax, are you sure about this?”

  “I’ll make sure Angela is safely out of the way.”

  “I’m thinking about Stephanie.”

  “I’ll be blunt, Rivers,” I said, keeping my voice down. “There’s a chance Stephanie may be dead.”

  He looked shocked. “Why do you say that?”

  “The kidnappers didn’t let Angela talk to Stephanie. In my mind that means only one of two things: They don’t have her, or she’s dead. Either way, we risk nothing by trying to grab them. If we don’t try, or if we miss, we may never find out what happened to Stephanie.”

  “But what if she really is alive and being held captive?”

  “Let the kidnappers prove it.”

  “And if they do?”

  “Then we proceed more cautiously,” I said.

  He nodded. “I take it you’ve dropped your earlier theory about Stephanie being a willing accomplice to all this.”

  “I’m keeping an open mind. Remember, when she left Wray, it was willingly with a man.”

  Rivers and I went in the kitchen. Tony was helping Angela fix dinner. I asked if they needed any help. They gave me withering looks. I sat down and shut up.

  During dinner I explained a few things to Angela and Tony. Not as bluntly as I had to Rivers but just as assertively. Tony balked at first but eventually agreed with Rivers and me. Angela wasn’t sure. But she did agree to tell the kidnappers that she didn’t know how to drive a car. Then we all sat around and sipped coffee and waited for the call.

  It came at nine o’clock.

  CHAPTER 26

  ANGELA BELLANO WAITED UNTIL I was ready by the phone in the living room. Then she picked up the extension in the kitchen.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Bellano?” It was a man.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you get the money?” His voice was fuzzy and distorted, as if he were holding a piece of cloth or paper between his mouth and the telephone.

  “We got fifty-eight thousand, but we can’t get the rest until tomorrow.”

  “I told you to get it all today.” He sounded angry.

  “I know. We tried. But our bank is making us wait twenty-four hours before they’ll—”

  “You’re lying. You’re trying to stall.”

  “No, I swear to God. We begged them. If you don’t believe me, call the bank and—”

  “Wait a minute. You said ‘we.’ Didn’t I tell you to keep your mouth shut if you wanted your daughter back?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Did you think I was kidding about that?”

  “No, of course not.” Angela’s voice was surprisingly calm. “My brother Tony has been staying with me. He was here when you called the first time. I had to tell him what was going on because I needed his help with the bank. And for another thing, I can’t drive a car,” she lied. “He had to take me around. He and I are the only ones who know. I swear.”

  Hell, even I believed her. But the caller was silent. Angela looked at me from the kitchen doorway, a pleading question on her face.

  We waited.

  “You’re sure he’s the only one?” the man said finally.

  “Yes, I swear.”

  “All right, I’ll call tomorrow night, and you’d better have the money. And I mean all of it.”

  “Wait. Please let me talk to Stephanie.”

  “Put the money in a gym bag and have your car gassed up and ready to roll, you understand?”

  “Yes, of course, but I want to talk to Stephanie. How do I know she’s—”

  “When you get the money, you can talk to her. And you’d better not screw up, lady.” The line went dead.

  I hung up the phone.

  “What did he say?” Rivers asked me. “Did he put Stephanie on the phone?”

  I waved him off as Angela came toward us from the kitchen.

  “Did I do all right?”

  “You did fine,” I told her.

  Then Tony and I discussed how we should proceed. Fi
rst, we assumed that he and Angela might be watched all day. Therefore, Rivers agreed to let them use his car, starting now. Tomorrow I’d stay close by in the Olds, but out of sight. Tony would drive Angela and stay in constant communication with me. He wouldn’t be seen with the phone to his ear because of the BMW’s dark windows.

  It sounded easy enough. I could think of only a hundred and twelve things that could go wrong.

  Then Rivers wanted to know where he’d be during all this.

  “As far away as possible,” I said.

  “Absolutely,” Tony agreed.

  “Now, wait just a minute,” Rivers said.

  He tried to argue that he was just as much a part of this as any of us. Tony and I quickly voted him down. But Angela said yea, and that was that. Hers was the only vote that counted. After all, it was her daughter who’d been kidnapped.

  Tony and I agreed that Rivers could do the least damage if he rode with me. I didn’t like it, but there it was.

  Rivers and I left the house by the back door. It was snowing again. Which I’m sure delighted all the children in town, since Christmas Eve was only ten nights away and Santa needed a slick surface for his sleigh. The Olds, however, did not have runners, and this weather could only make things more difficult.

  We walked through the snowy yard, past the ruined garage, down the alley, and around the block to my car. I asked Rivers where he lived. He gave me an address in an upper-middle-class neighborhood just off South University Boulevard. I drove east on Thirty-eighth and winced only slightly when we passed Giancio’s Italian Restaurant. Then I got on I-25 heading south.

  “I’m pretty nervous about this,” Rivers said. “I mean, it could be dangerous tomorrow, couldn’t it?”

  “It could be.”

  “Then maybe we should call in the police, no matter what Angela and Tony say.”

  “Maybe we should.”

  We rode for a few minutes in silence.

  “I have a gun at home,” Rivers said. “A hunting rifle.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Maybe I should bring it tomorrow. I admit I haven’t fired it in years, but—”

  “Forget about it.”

  “But maybe—”

  “Forget it, Rivers. The last thing I want tomorrow is an amateur in my car with a loaded gun.”

  The next morning, on my way to pick up Rivers, I decided to try out my car phone. Sure, I’d used it right after the guy had installed it. I’d called my office answering machine. But I’d been parked, for chrissake. Now I was on the move. A happening guy. Just like all the other people who had car phones—big shots or people who wanted to be big shots or people who thought they were big shots. Or traveling salesmen.

  I tried hard not to look like a salesman. I picked up the phone. I nearly ran into the guy in front of me.

  Okay, so when this was over, I’d rip out the damn phone.

  I called Rivers and told him I was on my way.

  When I pulled into his driveway, he came out the front door. He was cradling a long, narrow bundle wrapped in a blanket. It was obvious what he had, but at least he wouldn’t scare the neighbors. He laid the bundle in the backseat.

  “I thought I told you to forget about the rifle.”

  “I know,” he said. “But maybe we can use it.”

  “Well, we can’t use it.”

  I drove to the Bellano residence. When we were a few blocks away, I pulled over and used the phone. Tony answered. I gave him my number and told him we’d follow them to the bank.

  “Call me along the way,” I said. “I want to see how these phones work in traffic.”

  “They work fine,” Rivers told me.

  “What’s that?” Tony asked.

  “Nothing. Just call me as soon as you and Angela get started.” I hung up.

  “They work fine in traffic,” Rivers said.

  “Okay, okay.” Big shot.

  Tony and Angela got the cash from the bank without a hitch. Then we all went back to the house to wait for the call. We waited through lunch and through dinner.

  The call came at six-thirty. Rivers and I listened in on the extension.

  “Mrs. Bellano?” It was the same voice that I’d heard last night—muffled and distorted.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you get the money?”

  “Yes. It’s in fifties and hundreds, just like you wanted. I have it in an athletic bag.”

  “Good. Now I’m going to bounce you around the city to make sure you’re not being followed. You won’t know when I’ll be watching, but believe me, I will be, and if I see anything that looks even a little bit suspicious, you’ll never see your daughter again. Understand?”

  “Yes, of course. Let me talk to her now, please.”

  “When I have the money in my hands, you can talk to her all you want.”

  “But you said when—”

  “Shut up and listen. There’s a pay phone in front of the 7 Eleven on Thirty-eighth and Irving. It’ll start ringing in five minutes. You’d better be there to answer it.”

  “Wait. Don’t hang up. I want to talk to Stephanie before I leave the house.”

  “Bring the money,” he said. “You’re down to four and a half minutes.” He hung up.

  “I don’t like it,” Rivers said to me.

  “Neither do I. Let’s go.”

  Tony and Angela went out the front door. Rivers and I slipped out the back and hustled down the alley to my car. The convenience store was only six blocks away. I drove slowly, giving Tony and Angela time to get there. When I crossed Thirty-eighth, I saw Angela huddled against one of the pay phones in front of the store. She was spotlighted by the headlights of Rivers’s car. The windows were so dark I could barely see Tony inside. But I could see customers inside the store—a man standing by the news rack and two kids playing a video game. And they could see Angela.

  I kept driving slowly south on Irving. The phone chirped a few blocks later. Rivers picked it up.

  He listened for a moment, then told me, “Tony says they’re being sent to another convenience store.”

  This one wasn’t too far, on Thirty-ninth and Tennyson. But then we got sent to another one across town on East Colfax. And the fourth one, also on Colfax, was nearly all the way to Aurora. There was a lot of traffic on Colfax. It was possible Tony and Angela were being followed. I paralleled their course but stayed one block over on Fourteenth.

  The phone chirped, and Rivers answered it.

  He listened, nodding. “Okay,” he said to me, “we’re driving back across town to the Southwest Plaza Mall. The guy wants Angela to walk alone through the southwest entrance and bring the bag. There’s a phone near the elevator. She’s to wait there for another call.”

  “Tell Tony to take his time so we can get there first.”

  I took Thirteenth back into town, then swung over to Eighth Avenue, and finally Sixth Avenue heading west. I’d been trying to visualize the mall.

  “Call Tony.”

  Rivers did.

  “Tell him to walk with Angela to the entrance, then wait there. He should keep his eyes open for anyone carrying the bag out. Not that it’ll do much good—there’s a dozen ways to get out of that mall. But I’ll come in from the other side and be watching the phones before Angela gets there.”

  Rivers relayed the instructions, then hung up.

  “Do you think they’ll try to take the bag in the mall?”

  “They might.”

  “With all those people around? The place will be jammed with Christmas shoppers.”

  “That’s the idea. Assuming they try it. They could grab the bag and get lost in the crowd. The other way—the way I was hoping they’d try—would be in a deserted area. That would make it easier for them to watch for cops. Of course, it would also expose them. Which is probably why they want the crowd.”

  I got off Sixth onto Wadsworth and drove south for twenty minutes to Cross Drive. I entered the shopping complex from the north side.


  The stores closed at nine, which was barely an hour from now. However, the parking area was as busy as if it were the middle of the day. I drove to the northeast entrance of the mall, between Joslins and Sears. There weren’t any empty parking slots. Not even Handicapped Only. I left the Olds in a red zone.

  “Should I bring that?” Rivers was indicating his lethal bundle in the back seat.

  “What, are you kidding? Just wait by the entrance and keep your eyes open.”

  I went inside with the rest of the happy shoppers. “Jingle Bells” was coming over the PA system. Oh, what fun. I pushed through the throng until I neared the elevator. It was beside the huge opening in the floor, which allowed one to see the crowds on the lower level. I could see kiddies and their moms lined up to talk to Santa. I stayed on this side and window-shopped at Merle Norman Cosmetics.

  Ten minutes later Angela Bellano walked hesitantly through the crowd.

  She spotted the pay phone by the elevator and walked directly to it. Either she didn’t see me, or she acted as if she didn’t. She stood nervously beside the phone.

  Finally, it rang. She answered and listened for a few moments. Then she nodded her head, hung up, and walked back the way she’d come, carrying the bag.

  I followed her to the exit and saw Tony meet her. She said something to him. He looked up and spotted me. Then he scratched his ear, mouthed the word phone, and led Angela out to the parking lot.

  I ran back the other way, dodging shoppers as if this were the big game and we were behind by six points.

  Rivers was waiting at the mall’s entrance. I sprinted past him to the car. The phone was chirping when we got there.

  “We’re going to Mile High Stadium,” Tony said in my ear. “There’s some pay phones near the south end of the east stands.”

  I drove north on Wadsworth and passed Tony and Angela before we got to Sixth Avenue.

  “How long do you think this will go on?” Rivers asked me.

  “Who knows? Until they feel safe.”

  “Do you think someone besides you was watching the telephone in the mall?”

  “It’s possible.”

  I took Sixth east to Federal Boulevard, then drove north to Seventeenth Avenue. I turned right and drove slowly down the hill between the parking areas for Mile High Stadium and McNichols Arena.