The Only Suspect

by Jonnie Jacobs

  Hannah’s mind had followed the stranger into his truck. Reluctantly, she brought it back. “We shouldn’t rule out other possibilities, but yeah, the garage is a good bet.”

  “You realize that implicates Sam?”

  She nodded and chewed on a bite of salad. She was sure Sam recognized that fact as well.

  Suddenly Hannah had a thought. “What if it was a rental car?” she asked.

  “What if what was a rental car?”

  “The car she left in. If she had a rental car, she might well have parked it in the garage.”

  “You’re still thinking she might have gone of her own free will? Without leaving a note and without telling anyone?”

  “If she was running away and didn’t want anyone to find her, she might. And if that was the case, she couldn’t very well take her own car.”

  “You watch too many bad movies.” But he pulled out his cell phone then popped a couple of french fries into his mouth before punching in the number. “It ought to be easy enough to find out,” he said. “There’s only one big rental outfit in town.” Then into the phone, “Lucy, it’s me, Dallas.”

  Hannah listened to several renditions of “What d’ya mean?” “Of course I did.” “No way.” He had the same soft, flirtatious tone to his voice no matter what the words.

  “Listen, Lucy, I need some information for a case we’re working on. Can you check to see if a Sam or Maureen Russell rented a car in the last couple of weeks? Sure can.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and smiled at Hannah. “She’s checking.”

  “If Maureen wanted to cover her tracks, she might have rented it someplace besides Monte Vista,” Hannah pointed out.

  Dallas took another bite of burger. Catsup dribbled down his chin, and he wiped it with the back of his hand. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

  Hannah caught his eye, and Dallas shook his head. He mouthed, “She read about Maureen’s disappearance in the newspaper.” Into the phone again, “Okay, thanks Lucy. Yeah, we will. Sometime soon.”

  “No record of a rental?” Hannah asked when he’d disconnected.

  “Nope. We can try the nearby towns when we get back to the office. But I don’t think you’re going to find she rented a car. In fact, I don’t think she went anywhere voluntarily.”

  They spent the afternoon on the phones. No record of any rental car and, despite nearly a dozen calls to the tip line, nothing in the way of useful information.

  “How about we ask Sam to take a lie-detector test,” Dallas suggested finally.

  “You know he’s not going to agree to it. It wouldn’t be admissible in court anyway.” She checked her watch. Twenty minutes until cigarette time.

  “Wouldn’t let us look around the house, wouldn’t let us look at his car. Refuses to take a lie-detector test. Does that sound like an innocent man to you?”

  “Doesn’t sound unreasonable, given his history,” Hannah said.

  “We need to search his house and car.”

  “Any luck finding a judge who’ll give us a warrant?”

  “Not yet.” Dallas was tapping his pen on the desk. Metal on metal. The sound was tinny and annoying. “You believe Sam’s story about going by the hospital the morning she disappeared?” he asked.

  “He’s a doctor.”

  “There’s no way to confirm that’s where he was though. The daughter was away at a friend’s house. The woman who was watching the daughter ...” Dallas checked his notes. “Sherri Moore. She said Maureen brought the girl over Saturday afternoon, right? That’s the last time anyone besides Sam saw her.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, we don’t actually know what happened after that. All we’ve got is Sam’s word about what happened.”

  Hannah took her cigarette break six minutes late. She felt virtuous, maybe even a little smug. She’d kick the habit yet.

  She took the case file with her, got a can of diet soda from the machine, then went outside—the only place you could smoke these days aside from your own home. She sat on the concrete bench in the plaza across the street from the police station and reviewed the reports. A neighbor had seen Sam come home around noon on Sunday, just as he’d said, then leave again about half an hour later. Another neighbor remembered seeing Maureen sometime on Saturday but couldn’t say when. No one had seen anything suspicious around the house the entire weekend. No strange cars, no door-to-door solicitors, no unusual deliveries. There’d been reports of a plumber’s truck and a Sears delivery van in the vicinity Sunday morning, and both had checked out as legitimate.

  If Maureen Russell had come to harm at the hands of a stranger, he’d managed to slip past a lot of eyes. On the other hand, Hannah had trouble fathoming a woman just up and walking away, even from a rocky marriage. Much as she hated to admit it, she was beginning to think Dallas just might be headed in the right direction.

  CHAPTER 13

  The call came at ten Wednesday evening. Maureen had been missing for four days. With all the scenarios that had played through my mind, and there’d been plenty, you’d think I wouldn’t have been surprised. But this was one possibility I’d completely overlooked.

  Molly had gone to bed. Not willingly, but I’d insisted. The uncertainty and worry were taking their toll on her. I thought she’d slept as little as I had in the last few days.

  I was nursing a Diet Coke, longing for a stiff martini. And wondering again if I’d been drinking last Saturday. The television was on—a new reality show set somewhere in the tropics—but I wasn’t paying attention. I had too much reality in my own life right then.

  When the phone rang, I almost didn’t answer it. The local paper had run a front-page story about Maureen’s disappearance, and it had been picked up yesterday by the evening news out of Sacramento. The calls had been coming steadily all day—psychics, well-wishers, people who had missing loved ones of their own. I’d resorted to screening the calls by letting my answering machine kick in before I picked up. There’d been three calls in the last half hour with no message. Clearly, someone didn’t want to talk to the machine.

  Finally, on the fourth ring, I caved in and answered.

  “Listen to me and don’t interrupt.” The voice was toneless and mechanical. It took me a moment to realize it was electronically altered. “I’ve got your wife. If you want to see her alive, do exactly what I say. Nothing more, nothing less. Do not contact the police. Do not tell anyone about this call. I’ll be in touch again in forty-eight hours. Be at the pay phone outside the Washhouse at eight in the evening. Bring two hundred fifty thousand in cash. Nothing bigger than hundreds. No dye packs, no transmitters, no tricks.”

  The ground rocked. My heart skipped.

  Maureen was alive!

  That was my first thought. Relief and joy flooded through me. The second thought was the staggering amount of the ransom.

  “I don’t have that kind of money. I can’t—”

  The voice overrode my own. “You bring in the cops, and your wife dies.” The line went dead.

  A recording. Not a live person on the other end. There was no way to plead with a recording.

  I stood frozen in place, gripping the phone as if holding on to it might keep the possibility for dialogue open. Finally another recording came on. “If you want to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you need help, call the operator.”

  I needed help big time. Unfortunately, it was beyond what the operator could provide. I hung up.

  Maureen was alive, I told myself. I’d be able to hold her again and tell her how much I loved her. She would come home and everything would be fine.

  A huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Maureen was alive.

  I didn’t want to think about what she must be living through, but the images came anyway. Maureen bound and gagged. In a filthy basement with beady-eyed rats. Or in a box. I’d read about someone who’d been held prisoner in a buried coffin.

  Hold on, Maureen. Just a bit longer. Don’t despair. Everything is
going to work out.

  But how?

  Two hundred fifty thousand dollars in forty-eight hours. Impossible. I didn’t have that kind of money, and I sure the hell couldn’t borrow it. Between the loan I’d taken to pay my defense attorney and what I owed Dad for the business—not to speak of what I still owed for medical school—my net worth was in the negative numbers. Even a loan shark would brush me off.

  My heart was racing, my palms sweaty. Should I contact the police? The message had been clear, but what alternative did I have? I’d never be able to come up with the money.

  I felt sick to my stomach.

  The phone rang again, and I almost jumped from my skin. I picked up right away.

  It was Chase. “Don’t you hate back-to-back calls?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You just got off the phone, right? I tried your line a minute ago, and it was busy. I hate that.”

  “It was a short call.”

  “Anything new about Maureen?”

  Yeah, she’s alive, in the hands of kidnappers who want a quarter of a million dollars to let her go. I swallowed the urge to tell him about the call. “Nothing.”

  “Did you catch the ten o’clock news?” Chase asked. “They did another short piece about Maureen. Showed her photo again.”

  “That’s good.” Only now I wasn’t sure if it was good. Wouldn’t publicity put pressure on the kidnappers?

  “It was only a minute or so,” Chase added. “Same stuff as before. They mentioned the reward though. That should help.”

  The reward. I’d stretched to offer ten thousand, and now I had to come up with more than twenty times the amount. My stomach rolled over again.

  “You okay?” Chase asked. “You sound kind of ... funny.”

  “Of course I sound funny,” I snapped. “My wife’s missing.”

  “Hey, I’m not the enemy here.”

  “Sorry. I’m tired and my nerves are shot.”

  “I bet.” Chase didn’t seem put off by my outburst. He’d received enough flak from me over the years that he’d probably stopped paying attention. “You sure you don’t want company? I can be there in—”

  “I’m sure. But thanks.”

  “It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  I felt bad taking my frustration out on him. “I appreciate it, Chase. Really. I’m going to go to bed soon anyway.”

  “I’ll be around if you change your mind.”

  I was tired. Exhausted, in fact. I climbed into bed but didn’t sleep. Too much was on my mind. The money, of course. And whether to tell the cops about the ransom call.

  The law-abiding citizen in me said Yes, tell them. I’d had the lesson hammered into me since I was a kid—walk away from trouble and let the law handle it. But I’d also seen first hand how often the law totally fucked up. And in this case, with the law being Dallas Pryor, I wasn’t sure I trusted it at all.

  Okay, so no cops. Several hours into sleeplessness, I finally decided that. Which meant I had to come up with the money. Sure. How was I going to do that?

  I tossed back the covers and padded into the bathroom for a glass of water. Idiot kidnapper. Why target us? There were people with more money, lots more, even in Monte Vista. There were people who were better known or who lived a more extravagant lifestyle. So why kidnap Maureen?

  There had to be some reason. Some connection to us, or more likely me. An angry patient? A jealous colleague? Someone I’d managed to royally piss off for some obscure reason?

  And then another thought hit me. What was to say the kidnapper was for real? Couldn’t someone who’d read about Maureen in the news simply have decided to play the situation to his own advantage? The caller had offered no proof he was holding Maureen. No proof that she was even alive.

  What if it was a hoax?

  It was as though I’d been punched hard in the gut. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, and then I started trembling. The elation I’d felt hours earlier at knowing she was alive turned to lead.

  I ended up on my knees, clasping the counter for support. And I sobbed.

  I got to the bank almost as soon as it opened. I was greeted by Maureen’s face. A flyer with her photo and the reward information was posted on the glass door at the entrance. Another was in the window by the ATM machine. Sherri and her team had been busy. I would have to make a point of thanking her.

  Most of the employees worked at the teller counter or from one of the four desks positioned out in the open, but branch manager Bob Twomey had his own office. I was grateful for that.

  He shook my hand by way of greeting then patted my shoulder sympathetically with his other hand. Bob was a contemporary of my dad’s and had a son who’d been a couple of years ahead of me in high school. Bob had been with the bank for as long as I could remember.

  “Sam. I’m so sorry about your wife. What you must be going through.” He had a face like a bulldog’s, with deep creases and heavy jowls. He shook his head, and his flesh shook too. “Awful. Just awful.”

  “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

  He gestured for me to sit. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I need to see about a loan.”

  “A loan.” He nodded, but his expression was puzzled. With a missing wife to worry about, why would I be sidetracked by something like a loan?

  “Expenses,” I explained. “Costs associated with publicizing Maureen’s disappearance, special investigations, that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, of course. How much were you thinking of borrowing?”

  “Two fifty.” I tossed the number out like it was no big deal. As though I were right at home in the world of high finance.

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars?”

  I cleared my throat. “Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

  Twomey stared at me without responding.

  “I was thinking a home equity loan might be the answer.”

  His fleshy face looked pained. “I’d like to be able to help, Sam, but your mortgage is already pushing the limits. I might be able to swing twenty or thirty thousand, but nothing near the amount you’re asking.”

  His answer was hardly a surprise. We’d stretched to buy the house because Maureen loved it. Not as much as she’d loved the fancy new ones outside of town, but even stretching, those had been out of our price range.

  We had roughly seven thousand put away in savings for a rainy day. I could cash out my IRA, pay the penalty, and come away with maybe another twenty thousand. With a cash advance on my VISA, I might be able to come up with another five thousand.

  Even with the loan Twomey was suggesting, that left me two hundred thousand short.

  “What about the practice?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Is there a way to borrow against that?”

  Twomey pressed his fingertips together. “It’s not really yours yet, is it?”

  “No, but it will be.”

  “When you finish buying out your dad.”

  I paid my father a monthly sum toward our agreed-upon price for the practice. I had a long way to go before it was actually mine, but neither of us really cared. With his savings depleted by my mother’s illness, the monthly income was what he wanted.

  “We could set up a special fund,” Twomey suggested. “I imagine there are people in town who would be happy to contribute. The bank will donate its services, so it won’t cost you anything.”

  But it wouldn’t get me the ransom money either. I stood to leave. “That’s an idea,” I told him. “I’ll think about it.”

  “I’m really sorry, Sam. My hands are tied.”

  “I understand.”

  “You think of anything else, come see me. And don’t forget the special fund idea. People in your situation do that all the time.”

  I left the bank feeling I was moving through molasses. Short of stealing the money, I couldn’t possibly meet the ransom demand.

  I could steal it, I thought suddenly. Not really steal it
, but borrow it.

  Molly’s trust fund.

  The money from Lisa’s life insurance and the inheritance from her grandmother. It was invested through a Boston brokerage in trust for Molly. I was listed as the trustee, though I’d turned the whole thing over to the investment company. They maintained actual control, but I could request funds for her benefit. I’d only done so twice—once to get us moved to California and then again last summer when she wanted to go to a very expensive horse camp. Mostly the money was for college and her future, and I’d promised myself after last summer that I wouldn’t touch it again.

  But the money was technically, if not morally, within my reach.

  I had only seven patients that morning. I didn’t know whether Debbie had canceled the rest or they’d canceled on their own, but I was grateful for the lighter-than-usual load. And Ira had covered morning rounds for me at the hospital. Although I liked to think I was a conscientious doctor, I doubted I could have handled anything more complex than a cold right then.

  When I’d finished with the last patient, I went into my office and called Mr. Garweather in Boston. I’d met him only once in person. A thin man with a receding chin and a pale complexion. His manner was terse and formal.

  “I want to close out the account,” I said.

  “Completely?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what is the reason for that?”

  I thought for a minute. “I’d like to move the money out of the market and into something more ... something less volatile.”

  “We can handle that for you. A bond portfolio perhaps, only high-grade municipals. But over the long haul, stocks are your best bet. Perhaps you could invest some—”

  “I’d also like to put it with someone here on the West Coast.”

  A beat of silence. Finally he must have sensed this was not the moment for salesmanship. “Certainly. We’ll need written authorization, notarized, and a completed substitution of trustee absolving us of further responsibility.”