“No,” she said firmly. “How do we get started?”
That’s my gal.
Thirty-two
SUNDAY MORNING PJ AND Thomas got up early and ate a breakfast of fruit, cheese, and crackers. Megabite graciously accepted bites of cheese. The cat hopped up on one of the empty kitchen chairs and put her paws on the edge, poised there like a polite diner keeping her elbows off the table. PJ and Thomas had given up all pretense of not feeding Megabite during their own meals.
Megabite was gray tiger-striped on top, white on her belly and paws, with a band of orange fur making a circle around each leg. PJ thought about how much enjoyment the cat added to her life. Her ex-husband, Stephen, had been allergic to cats, or so he said. She had gone years without one, and vowed never to do it again.
She watched the white tip of Megabite’s tail flick in metronomic appreciation as the cat pinned down a piece of cheese that Thomas had sent rolling toward her.
After breakfast she and Thomas took off for the Missouri Botanical Gardens, called Shaw’s Garden by longtime residents of the city, after its original owner. She had used some of her limited funds to buy a family membership so that they could indulge themselves in a stroll around the gardens whenever they wished.
They each had their favorite spots. Thomas, much to her surprise, loved the ordered serenity of the extensive Japanese Garden. PJ liked the profusion of blooms in the perennial beds that flanked the Linnean House. The Linnean House used to be the greenhouse of the old Shaw estate. It had huge windows that gathered light, and it was filled with fragrant camellias. It was too early in the year for the camellias to be at their best, but the perennial gardens right outside were lovely. Reflecting pools mirrored lily and lotus blossoms held grandly above the surface of the water. Morning dew was bright with trapped sunshine, like handfuls of diamonds cast over the plants. The air was smooth against her skin, and the mixed scent of the flowers was intoxicating.
PJ gave herself over to the moment. She found a bench in the sun. Later the heat would be oppressive, but in the early morning it was comforting. Her muscles relaxed and her thoughts flowed easily, like melted chocolate.
An hour later she noticed a chill. Clouds were moving in. It looked as though the sun would be hidden the rest of the day. There was a breeze stirring, possibly bringing rain. Her delightful interlude was over. Thomas appeared on cue, having used up the coins he brought with him to buy food pellets for the koi in the Japanese Garden.
PJ congratulated herself on having gotten through the first morning of Schultz serving as bait, and in such a peaceful way. She dropped Thomas off at home with the promise of an early dinner together, if she could make it.
Schultz had gone back to his house the evening before, conspicuously arriving with bags of groceries to indicate he’d be in residence for a while. He was wearing a small tracking device fastened to his chest with first-aid tape. She knew he had a gun in the house and was probably eager for a chance to use it. To her consternation, Anita had reported that he had spent most of the evening parading himself outside, barbecuing hamburgers, slapping at mosquitoes, and sipping beer in his front yard.
Ramsey had checked out of the hotel where he had been spotted and moved to another in South County. His movements were being closely monitored by the St. Louis County Police.
She was still worried.
Ramsey was trained to kill. He was an expert in approaching by stealth. He had apparently taken Dave by surprise, and he had demonstrated that he was capable of putting together an elaborate plan.
She had given Schultz her cell phone, since his house phone was tapped and she wanted to be able to talk with him privately. So far, she’d resisted calling, but the tug was always there.
PJ decided the best way to spend the rest of the day was to refine her simulation of Eleanor’s murder. During her first immersion, there had been something that bothered her, but she was unable to pin it down. A few quiet hours in the office gave her the perfect time to work on it.
She closed her office door and went through the simulation again. She came out of it convinced that she was overlooking something.
The light on her fax machine was flashing. Thinking that it was becoming a tradition that she would receive a fax every time she put on the HMD and stepped into the VR world, she went over to pick up the single sheet of paper lying in the tray.
Cracker had found Darla Ramsey. The paper contained the woman’s assumed name, her address and phone number, place of employment, new social security number, and a description of the type of car she drove.
There was a cryptic typed note at the bottom.
She covered her tracks well, but she should have hired me to make her disappear. She had one weak link—a man of the cloth, no less. By the way, she has a high-quality alarm system on her house, so don’t try to break in. You’d blow it. I’ll be in touch about the favor. It could be a while before your number comes up.
C.
PJ tried not to think too much about the last two sentences of the note and concentrate on the good part: Darla was within reach.
She wondered if it still mattered. After all, Elijah Ramsey had been located. Did it matter what Darla had to say?
She thought about that, and decided that everything she could learn about the Ramsey family would be important. The very fact that Darla had gone to so much trouble to hide had to be significant.
The first thing she did was contact Merlin using a dial-up connection. Their conversation got off to an uncomfortable start. He didn’t use his usual perky greeting.
I know you’re mad at me, she typed. You think I took advantage of you. I did, and I want you to know I feel bad about that. But I had to, Merlin. Leo’s life was on the line.
There was a long pause, and she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. Finally words appeared on her screen.
So. You have any idea which of my “friends” is a killer?
So that’s bothering you, too?
You bet it is. I didn’t actually think it would work, that anyone would get in touch with you. I thought all my contacts could be trusted. My confidence is shaken.
I don’t know what to say.
She was encouraged by his light-hearted response and the use of her nickname. Am I back in your good graces, then?
No. But you’re on probation. Oh, let’s just skip the probation. You know I can’t stay mad at you.
I’ve got to go now. I just wanted you to know how helpful you’ve been.
In the interest of saving time and lives, I’ll spare you my list this time. But the next time we talk I expect the full low-down on this thing with Leo Schultz. Do you have stars in your eyes, my dear? Are you sleeping with him yet?
Bye, Merlin.
The next thing PJ did was tape a piece of blank paper across the bottom of the fax, covering Cracker’s note. She didn’t especially want Wall to know her source of information, and she particularly didn’t want him to see that line about the favor. She fed the sheet back through her fax and made a copy of it. She hid the original in her desk and dialed Wall’s number.
Not surprisingly, he was at his desk even though it was Sunday morning.
“I need to go to Dayton,” she said without preamble. “I want to talk to Darla Ramsey.”
“What makes you think she’s in Dayton? I’ve had people looking for her and they haven’t come up with anything.”
“I, uh, I have a source.”
There was a long silence. She could visualize him doodling on a piece of scratch paper, drawing tiny animals. She’d seen the discarded sheets in his trash can. She wondered if he’d press her to reveal how she’d located Darla. Nervously she jumped into the silence.
“You don’t ask your detectives to disclose their sources, do you?”
“Ordinarily, no.”
But you’re not a detective. She easily added on the sentence in her mind
.
It was her turn to let the silence stretch out. She was sure a lot of things were running through his mind, including whether she’d done anything illegal and whether he cared.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll get you on the first flight out. I don’t know anyone on the Dayton force, but I know somebody who does. I’ll set you up. We’ll do it right, get you wired. I think we’ve got cause.”
“I don’t like the idea of wearing a wire. I want to handle this my own way.”
“What, your ten dollar tape recorder in your purse?”
PJ stubbornly kept her silence.
Wall sighed. “All right. But you’re not going in there without backup.”
“I can’t just drive up to her house in a police car. She’ll get spooked.”
“So they’ll be subtle about it.”
“Lieutenant, I still don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Doctor, take it or leave it.” He’d reached the end of his willingness to go along.
“In that case, I guess I’ll take it. Your concern is touching.”
“Concern, hell. I just don’t want her to escape out the back door while you lumber up to the front door. She can probably smell a shrink coming.”
PJ laughed. “I’ll approach from downwind.”
She contacted Helen Boxwood, who was wonderfully free that evening and volunteered to stay overnight with Thomas, no questions asked, if PJ didn’t make it back in time. She phoned Thomas and canceled their dinner together. He didn’t seem upset with the substitution of Helen, blurting out that she would bring over great movies on tape for them to watch together. When asked exactly what movies, he got evasive. She remembered that Helen once said she enjoyed R-rated police thrillers, so it was no wonder Thomas clammed up. It wasn’t the type of entertainment PJ would have chosen, but in the spirit of her new attitude toward him, she didn’t press it.
She caught a ride to Lambert Airport with a couple of rookies who didn’t mind stopping at the hospital so that she could take some flowers to Dave. He was asleep, so she quietly left the flowers, patted his arm, and left.
Thirty-three
CUT LOOKED OUT THE window of the hotel, checking the logical vantage points for surveillance. His room was on the third floor, with a view of the parking lot as he’d requested. He had just finished watching local news. There had been a segment on the hit-and-run which indicated that Schultz was cleared of suspicion, although police weren’t releasing details of why he was cleared. The item hadn’t gotten much coverage in the first place, so he was surprised to see Schultz’s mug on the tube.
Then he figured it out. Schultz had left town, or so Cut thought, right after getting the message on his answering machine. Cut assumed he’d fled in blind fear. The fact that he was back meant he’d been ordered to serve as the sacrifice to bring Cut out into the open. They’d be making Schultz as visible as possible, probably have him dancing under the Arch downtown in a tutu any minute.
Most likely the police had not only figured out the pattern but located Cut and had him under observation. Without observation, they’d practically be throwing Schultz’s life away. Cut could come out of nowhere and vanish just about as fast, and they must be aware of that by now. If the police weren’t trailing him, they wouldn’t be able to get to him in time to stop a lightning attack on Schultz. Even with someone on his tail, Cut knew he stood a fair chance of getting the task done and escaping, as long as he only had to do it once.
A few more minutes of thought and a couple of peppermint candies led him to believe that the police probably assumed Arnold Cartwright was next on the hit list. That accounted for the timing. That was why they were waving Schultz around like a flag made out of red underwear, to divert Cut from another civilian target.
It was a wasted effort, because Cartwright wasn’t even on the list. Wasted.
Cut wondered how they’d found him, then realized his picture would be out on the street, and the clerk in his previous hotel had most likely turned him in for money.
That blue sedan in the southwest quadrant of the parking lot—the driver had pulled in an hour ago but hadn’t gotten out of the car. That had to be one of them. And if there was one in view, there were probably three or four hidden. Just like cockroaches. It didn’t make things easy for Cut, but he never expected to set his feet on the easy path anyway.
He felt a little stab of liking for Schultz, who was obviously following orders to return and had conquered his fear to do so. That was an admirable thing to do, but it wasn’t going to earn him a pardon.
Cut propped himself up with pillows on the bed to watch TV. He didn’t like being stuck in his room, even for a little while, because the one thing he hated most to waste was time.
He consoled himself with the thought that by this time tomorrow Schultz would be dead.
Thirty-four
PJ GOT A PUDDLE-JUMPER flight to Dayton. It was a noisy prop plane that made two stops on what would otherwise have been a short flight. By the time she got into Dayton Municipal Airport it was almost two in the afternoon. The three segments of her flight had each been too short to serve any lunch, so even the food in the vending machines looked good.
She was met outside the security gate by an officer of the Dayton Police Department, Robert call-me-Rob Winnings. He was younger than Anita, and all smiles. She found it hard to take him seriously, and hoped that she might find an opportunity to dump him. It was nice getting a ride from the airport, though, and at least the vehicle was unmarked. The subtlety Wall had promised was getting off to a fair start.
She asked Rob to stop for lunch, so he went through the drive-up lane of a McDonald’s on the busy strip near the airport. She had noticed the signs for the Wright Brothers Memorial and the Air Force Museum, and wished it had been possible to bring Thomas on the trip. She could have dropped him off and he would have been happily occupied all day. But it certainly wasn’t a vacation, and the purpose of her trip was deadly serious.
The drive in on Interstate 75 was uneventful. She balanced her Quarter Pounder in its wrapper on her lap, and shared her fries with the driver. Farther in, Rob pointed out other sights like the fairgrounds that attracted events from nearby counties and the placid, at least in August, Great Miami River that Interstate 75 crossed. There were other rivers in town. She didn’t catch the other names, but had the impression that there must be a lot of bridges. He seemed to want to treat her like a tourist, so she obliged and asked the usual questions about what made the town distinctive. It seemed Dayton had a decidedly military flavor, with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on the edge of town and the Air Force Institute of Technology soaking up young talent.
Darla lived just outside the city of Dayton, in a southeast suburb called Oakwood. Rob drove her past the house. It was a typical suburban ranch—brick front, two-car garage, evergreen bushes planted under the front windows, and a shade tree in the center of the lawn. Nothing distinguished it from the others on the block, and PJ was sure that was exactly what Darla had in mind. There was no car in the driveway.
“Do you know if she’s home?”
Rob slurped on the soda he’d bought for himself. “Yeah. She went to church this morning, got back around noon. No visitors. She’s alone in the house, as far as we know.”
He circled the block and pulled up to the curb a few houses away. It was just as hot and humid in Dayton as it had been in St. Louis. There was a small group of kids down the block writing with sidewalk chalk, and the buzz of a lawnmower running somewhere out of sight, but everyone else was inside staying cool. It was eerily similar to Libby’s neighborhood in Jefferson City.
PJ took a deep breath and reached for the door handle to let herself out of the car. Rob put his hand on her arm.
“I did a little reading up on this after my dad called. He works for the SLPD, you know.”
Lieutenant Wall had said he knew someone who was with the Dayton Police. Evidently that was Rob’s father. She wondered about this fathe
r-son, and more rarely, father-daughter, thing she kept running into in law enforcement. Did children so admire their parent’s line of work that they wanted to go into it themselves, or was there pressure? With more women in law enforcement, would there be a similar pattern in the future of the children of female officers entering law enforcement? The psychologist in her was stirred, and she filed away the thought. Research and publishing hadn’t been on her plate for some time, but if she got the chance, that would make an interesting long-term study.
She realized Rob was staring at her, expecting some answer. “Uh, how was that again? I’m sorry, my thoughts strayed.”
He frowned at her, and she saw a young Schultz in the making. “This isn’t a time for scattered thoughts, Dr. Gray. You’d better focus real tight on this. I said, are you carrying?”
“I don’t suppose you mean a purse?”
The frown deepened, and his brow wrinkled. “A weapon. You do have a weapon?”
“I left in a hurry,” she said. “No time to pack.”
The sarcasm flew right over his head. He reached underneath his seat and removed a handgun.
“You are qualified, right? I checked out a .38 for you, just in case you came unprepared.”
It didn’t seem like the time to admit that she had never gotten around to the weapons qualification course Wall had urged her to take.
“Uh, sure.”
She took the gun and tucked it into her purse with what she hoped were confident moves. Rob’s face reflected no suspicion. He assumed anyone referred by his dad came with built-in credibility. Sweet, but gullible.
No harm done. I’ll just return the thing when I’m finished.
“There’s another officer watching the rear of the house from the next block over. You can see right through the backyards to her back door. If you get in a bind, make a dash for either door, or fire a shot if you absolutely have to. We’ll be in there fast.”
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