Twisted

by Jeffery Deaver

  Thom headed down the hall with the bags.

  “Ah, Sachs, come on in here. It seems Detective Sellitto has volunteered our services. Amelia Sachs, Carly Thompson.”

  The women shook hands.

  Sellitto asked, “You want a cookie?”

  Carly demurred. Sachs too shook her head. “I decorated ’em, Lon—yeah, Santa looks like Boris Karloff, I know. If I never see another cookie again it’ll be too soon.”

  Thom appeared in the door, introduced himself to Carly and then walked toward the kitchen, from which Rhyme knew refreshments were about to appear. Unlike Rhyme, his aide loved the holidays, largely because they gave him the chance to play host nearly every day.

  As Sachs pulled off her jacket and hung it up, Rhyme explained the situation and what the girl had told them so far.

  The policewoman nodded, taking it in. She reiterated that a person’s missing for such a short time was no cause for alarm. But they’d be happy to help a friend of Lon’s and Rachel’s.

  “Indeed we will,” Rhyme said with an irony that everyone except Sachs missed.

  No good deed goes unpunished….

  Carly continued. “I got there about eight-thirty this morning. She wasn’t home. The car was in the garage. I checked all the neighbors’. She wasn’t there and nobody’s seen her.”

  “Could she have left the night before?” Sellitto asked.

  “No. She’d made coffee this morning. The pot was still warm.”

  Rhyme said, “Maybe something came up at work and she didn’t want to drive to the station, so she took a cab.”

  Carly shrugged. “Could be. I didn’t think about that. She’s in public relations and’s been working real hard lately. For one of those big Internet companies that went bankrupt. It’s been totally tense…. But I don’t know. We didn’t talk very much about her job.”

  Sellitto had a young detective downtown call all the cab companies in and around Glen Hollow; no taxis had been dispatched to the house that morning. They also called Susan’s company to see if she’d come in, but no one had seen her and her office was locked.

  Just then, as Rhyme had predicted, his slim aide, wearing a white shirt and a Jerry Garcia Christmas tie, carted in a large tray of coffee and tea and a huge plate of pastries and cookies. He poured drinks for everyone.

  “No figgy pudding?” Rhyme asked acerbically.

  Sachs asked Carly, “Has your mom been sad or moody?”

  Thinking for a minute, she said, “Well, my grandfather—her dad—died last February. Grandpa was a great guy and she was totally bummed for a while. But by the summer, she’d come out of it. She bought this really cool house and had a lot of fun fixing it up.”

  “How about other people in her life, friends, boyfriends?”

  “She’s got some good friends, sure.”

  “Names, phone numbers?”

  Again the girl fell quiet. “I know some of their names. Not exactly where they live. I don’t have any numbers.”

  “Anybody she was seeing romantically?”

  “She broke up with somebody about a month ago.”

  Sellitto asked, “Was this guy a problem, you think? A stalker? Upset about the breakup?”

  The girl replied, “No, I think it was his idea. Anyway, he lived in L.A. or Seattle or some place out west. So it wasn’t, you know, real serious. She just started seeing this new guy. About two weeks ago.” Carly looked from Sachs to the floor. “The thing is, I love Mom and everything. But we’re not real close. My folks were divorced seven, eight years ago, and that kind of changed a lot of things…. Sorry I don’t know more about her.”

  Ah, the wonderful family unit, thought Rhyme cynically. It was what made Park Avenue shrinks millionaires and kept police departments around the world busy answering calls at all hours of the day and night.

  “You’re doing fine,” Sachs encouraged. “Where’s your father?”

  “He lives in the city. Downtown.”

  “Do he and your mother see each other much?”

  “Not anymore. He wanted to get back together but Mom was lukewarm and I think he gave up.”

  “Do you see him much?”

  “I do, yeah. But he travels a lot. His company imports stuff, and he goes overseas to meet his suppliers.”

  “Is he in town now?”

  “Yep. I’m going to see him on Christmas, after Mom’s party.”

  “We should call him. See if he’s heard from her,” Sachs said.

  Rhyme nodded and Carly gave them the man’s number. Rhyme said, “I’ll get in touch with him…. Okay, get going, Sachs. Over to Susan’s house. Carly, you go with her. Move fast.”

  “Sure, Rhyme. But what’s the hurry?”

  He glanced out the window, as if the answer were hovering there in plain view.

  Sachs shook her head, perplexed. Rhyme was often piqued that people didn’t tumble to things as quickly as he did. “Because the snow might tell us something about what happened there this morning.” And, as he often liked to do, he added a dramatic coda: “But if it keeps coming down like this, there won’t be any story left to read.”

  A half hour later Amelia Sachs pulled up on a quiet, tree-lined street in Glen Hollow, Long Island, parking the bright red Camaro three doors from Susan Thompson’s house.

  “No, it’s up there,” Carly pointed out.

  “Here’s better,” Sachs said. Rhyme had drummed into her that access routes to and from the site of the crime could be crime scenes in their own right and could yield valuable information. She was ever-mindful about contaminating scenes.

  Carly grimaced when she noticed that the car was still in the garage.

  “I’d hoped…”

  Sachs looked at the girl’s face and saw raw concern. The policewoman understood: Mother and daughter had a tough relationship, that was obvious. But you never cut parental ties altogether—can’t be done—and there’s nothing like a missing mother to set off primal alarms.

  “We’ll find her,” Sachs whispered.

  Carly gave a faint smile and pulled her jacket tighter around her. It was stylish and obviously expensive but useless against the cold. Sachs had been a fashion model for a time but when not on the runway or at a shoot she’d dressed like a real person, to hell with what was in vogue.

  Sachs looked over the house, a new, rambling two-story Colonial on a small but well-groomed lot, and called Rhyme. On a real case she’d be patched through to him on her Motorola. Since this wasn’t official business, though, she simply used her hands-free cord and cell phone, which was clipped to her belt a few inches away from her Glock automatic pistol.

  “I’m at the house,” she told him. “What’s that music?”

  After a moment “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” went silent.

  “Sorry. Thom insists on being in the spirit. What do you see, Sachs?”

  She explained where she was and the layout of the place. “The snow’s not too bad here but you’re right: in another hour it’ll cover up any prints.”

  “Stay off the walks and check out if there’s been any surveillance.”

  “Got it.”

  Sachs asked Carly what prints were hers. The girl explained that she had parked in front of the garage—Sachs could see the tread marks in the snow—and then had gone through the kitchen door.

  Carly behind her, Sachs made a circuit of the property.

  “Nothing in the back or side yard, except for Carly’s footprints,” she told Rhyme.

  “There are no visible prints, you mean,” he corrected. “That’s not necessarily ‘nothing.’ ”

  “Okay, Rhyme. That’s what I meant. Damn, it’s cold.”

  They circled to the front of the house. Sachs found footsteps in the snow on the path between the street and the house. A car had stopped at the curb. There was one set of prints walking toward the house and two walking back, suggesting the driver had picked Susan up. She told Rhyme this. He asked, “Can you tell anything from the shoes? Size, sol
e prints, weight distribution?”

  “Nothing’s clear.” She winced as she bent down; her arthritic joints ached in the cold and damp. “But one thing’s odd—they’re real close together.”

  “As if one of them had an arm around the other person.”

  “Right.”

  “Could be affection. Could be coercion. We’ll assume—hope—the second set is Susan’s, and that, whatever happened, at least she’s alive. Or was a few hours ago.”

  Then Sachs noticed a curious indentation in the snow, next to one of the front windows. It was as if somebody had stepped off the sidewalk and knelt on the ground. In this spot you could see clearly into the living room and kitchen beyond. She sent Carly to open the front door and then whispered into the microphone, “May have a problem, Rhyme…It looks like somebody was kneeling down, looking through the window.”

  “Any other evidence there, Sachs? Discernible prints, cigarette butts, other impressions, trace?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Check the house, Sachs. And, just for the fun of it, pretend it’s hot.”

  “But how could a perp be inside?”

  “Humor me.”

  The policewoman stepped to the front door, unzipping her leather jacket to give her fast access to her weapon. She found the girl in the entryway, looking around the house. It was still, except for the tapping and whirs of household machinery. The lights were on—though Sachs found this more troubling than if it’d been dark; it suggested that Susan had left in a hurry. You don’t shut out the lights when you’re being abducted.

  Sachs told the girl to stay close and she started through the place, praying she wouldn’t find a body. But, no; they looked everywhere the woman might be. Nothing. And no signs of a struggle.

  “The scene’s clear, Rhyme.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “I’m going to do a fast grid here, see if we can find any clue where she went. I’ll call you back if I find anything.”

  On the main floor Sachs paused at the mantel and looked over a number of framed photographs. Susan Thompson was a tall, solidly built woman with short blonde hair, feathered back. She had an agreeable smile. Most of the pictures were of her with Carly or with an older couple, probably her parents. Many had been taken out-of-doors, apparently on hiking or camping trips.

  They looked for any clue that might indicate where the woman was. Sachs studied the calendar next to the phone in the kitchen. The only note in today’s square said C here.

  The girl gave a sad laugh. Were the single letter and terse notation an emblem of how Carly believed the woman saw her? Sachs wondered what exactly the problems were between daughter and mother. She herself had always had a complex relationship with her own mother. “Challenging” was how she’d described it to Rhyme.

  “Day-Timer? Palm Pilot?”

  Carly looked around. “Her purse is gone. She keeps them in there…. I’ll try her cell again.” The girl did and the frustrated, troubled look told Sachs that there was no answer. “Goes right to voice mail.”

  Sachs tried all three phones in the house, hitting “redial.” Two got her directory assistance. The other was the number for a local branch of North Shore Bank. Sachs asked to speak to the manager and told her they were trying to locate Susan Thompson. The woman said she’d been in about two hours ago.

  Sachs told this to Carly, who closed her eyes in relief. “Where did she go after that?”

  The policewoman asked the manager the question and the woman responded that she had no idea. Then she asked hesitantly, “Are you calling because she wasn’t feeling well?”

  “What do you mean?” Sachs asked.

  “It’s just that she didn’t look very good when she was in. That man she was with…well, he had his arm around her the whole time. I was thinking maybe she was sick.”

  Sachs asked if they could come in and speak with her.

  “Of course. If I can help.”

  Sachs told Carly what the woman had said.

  “Not feeling well? And some man?” The girl frowned. “Who?”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  As they approached the door, though, Sachs stopped. “Do me a favor,” she said to the girl.

  “Sure. What?”

  “Borrow one of your mother’s jackets. You’re making me cold just looking at you.”

  The branch manager of the bank explained to Sachs and Carly, “She went into her safety deposit box downstairs and then cashed a check.”

  “You don’t know what she did down there, I assume?” the policewoman asked.

  “No, no, employees are never around when customers go into their boxes.”

  “And that man? Any idea who he was?”

  “No.”

  “What did he look like?” Sachs asked.

  “He was big. Six-two, six-three. Balding. Didn’t smile much.”

  The police detective glanced at Carly, who shook her head. “I’ve never seen her with anybody like that.”

  They found the teller who’d cashed the check but Susan hadn’t said anything to her either, except how she’d like the money.

  “How much was the check for?” Sachs asked.

  The manager hesitated—probably some confidentiality issue—but Carly said, “Please. We’re worried about her.” The woman nodded to the teller, who said, “A thousand.”

  Sachs stepped aside and called Rhyme on her cell. She explained what had happened at the bank.

  “Getting troubling now, Sachs. A thousand doesn’t seem like much for a robbery or kidnapping, but wealth’s relative. Maybe that’s a lot of money to this guy.”

  “I’m more curious about the safe deposit box.”

  Rhyme said, “Good point. Maybe she had something he wanted. But what? She’s just a businesswoman and mother. It’s not like she’s an investigative reporter or cop. And the bad news is, if that’s the case, he’s got what he was after. He might not need her anymore. I think it’s time to get Nassau County involved. Maybe…Wait, you’re at the bank?”

  “Right.”

  “The video! Get the video.”

  “Oh, at the teller cage, sure. But—”

  “No, no, no,” Rhyme snapped. “Of the parking lot. All banks have video surveillance of the lots. If they parked there it’ll have his car on tape. Maybe the tag number too.”

  Sachs returned to the manager and she called the security chief, who disappeared into a back office. A moment later he gestured them inside and ran the tape.

  “There!” Carly cried. “That’s her. And that guy? Look, he’s still holding on to her. He’s not letting her go.”

  “Looks pretty fishy, Rhyme.”

  “Can you see the car?” the criminalist asked.

  Sachs had the guard freeze the tape. “What kind of—”

  “Chevy Malibu,” the guard said. “This year’s model.”

  Sachs told this to Rhyme and, examining the screen, added, “It’s burgundy. And the last two numbers on the tag are seventy-eight. The one before it could be three or eight, maybe six. Hard to tell. It’s a New York plate.”

  “Good, Sachs. Okay. It’s up to the uniforms now. Lon’ll have them put out a locator. Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and the five boroughs. Jersey too. We’ll prioritize it. Oh, hold on a minute….” Sachs heard him speaking to someone. Rhyme came back on the line. “Susan’s ex is on his way over here. He’s worried about his daughter. He’d like to see her.”

  Sachs told Carly this. Her face brightened. The detective added, “There’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s go back to the city.”

  Amelia Sachs and Carly Thompson had just returned to the lab in Rhyme’s town house when Anthony Dalton arrived. Thom led him inside and he stopped abruptly, looking at his daughter. “Hello, honey.”

  “Dad! I’m so glad you came!”

  With both affection and concern in his eyes, he stepped toward the girl and hugged her hard.

  Dalton was a fit man in his late forties with a boy
ish flop of salt-and-pepper hair. He wore a complicated ski jacket, straps and flaps going every which way. He reminded Rhyme of the college professors he sometimes shared the podium with when he was lecturing on forensics at criminal justice colleges.

  “Do they know anything?” he asked, apparently only now realizing that Rhyme was in a wheelchair—and finding the fact unremarkable. Like his daughter, Anthony Dalton earned serious points with Rhyme for this.

  The criminalist explained exactly what had happened and what they knew.

  Dalton shook his head. “But it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s been kidnapped,” he said quickly.

  “No, no, not at all,” Sellitto said. “We’re just not taking any chances.”

  Rhyme asked, “Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt her?”

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen Susan in a year. But when we were together? No, everybody liked her. Even when some of her PR clients had done some pretty shady things, nobody had a problem with her personally. And she always seemed to have the particularly nasty clients.”

  Rhyme was troubled—for reasons beyond the danger to Susan Thompson. The problem was that this wasn’t a real case. They’d backed into it, doing a favor for someone; it was a Christmas present, as Sellitto had said. He needed more facts; he needed serious forensics. He’d always felt you run a case 110 percent or you don’t run it at all.

  Thom brought more coffee in and replenished the plate of ugly cookies. Dalton nodded at the aide and thanked him. Then the businessman poured coffee from the pot for himself. “You want some?” he asked Carly.

  “Sure, I guess.”

  He poured it and asked, “Anyone else?”

  No one else wanted anything. But Rhyme’s eyes flipped to the Macallan on the shelf and, lo and behold, without a syllable of protest, Thom took the bottle and walked to Rhyme’s Storm Arrow. He opened the tumbler, then frowned. He sniffed it. “Odd, I thought I washed this out last night. I guess I forgot,” he added wryly.

  “We can’t all be perfect, now,” Rhyme said.

  Thom poured a few fingers into the tumbler and replaced it in the holder.