Jessica saw the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department vehicle over Don’s shoulder, through the large picture window on the far side of the restaurant’s main dining room.
It might be nothing, really. Police cars were summoned to hotels all the time. Jessica knew as much from watching reality television. Sometimes they came to handle complaints about drunken guests who were partying too loudly, or reports of domestic violence. And they would probably be called to handle druggies and hookers, too.
The odds of the cop car having any connection to her meeting with Don were infinitesimally small. But—then she remembered Mark Quinn, who had known that her entire story was a complete concoction. Maybe Mark Quinn had called the police, after all.
Now that she considered the situation from that angle, it wasn't such a long shot. The man, Don, who was now standing to greet her, might not be a computer tech at a small business consulting firm, like he claimed to be. He might very well be a cop. And maybe the cops outside the window were here because he had signaled them. They were going to wait until she’d sat down. Then they would rush in and nab her.
And once that happened, the entire thing would unravel, wouldn’t it? They would immediately know her identity. She had been foolish enough to carry her real driver’s license—the one that named her as Jessica Knox—in her purse.
This could be the end, then.
Maybe and maybe not. But she had to make a decision. And that decision had to be made right now.
Without giving Don any further acknowledgement, Jessica spun on her heels and headed back the way she had come. It was suddenly difficult for her to think straight, but she thought that she remembered the layout of the hotel parking lot.
She could make it into the adjacent field, probably. From there she would be able to make it back to the Big Lots parking lot and the Jeep.
Unless the police saw her first.
Jessica heard “Don” call out her name—her fake name, Lilith. But Don might not really be Don, so she didn't bother to look back.
She walked quickly past the hostess podium where the restaurant hostess—a young woman barely out of high school—stood. The young woman gave her a brief look of puzzlement, but she didn't call out. Jessica tried to remember that by all external appearances, she was just a woman leaving a restaurant in a hurry. People walked out of restaurants in a hurry all the time, she imagined—when they were sick, when they received an emergency phone call, or maybe when they were suddenly sure that they’d left the oven on or the front door unlocked.
Once outside, she walked quickly along the face of the restaurant, into the hotel parking area. At the edge of the parking lot she saw a copse of trees. She was more or less certain that she could disappear into those trees, navigate left, and eventually she would return to the Jeep via the empty field and the Big Lots parking lot.
Jessica ran the final twenty yards to the trees. As she had hoped, there was a little trail that allowed her to disappear almost immediately.
She was certain that any second now, she would hear the sound of sirens, or the police ordering her to stop on one of their bullhorns. Maybe they would even fire their guns at her. Well, probably not—but if they knew that she was connected to three murders and was planning another one, then possibly they would. Surely the police had shot people for lesser crimes.
And Travis? What about Travis?
There was nothing she could do. He had made such a secret of his whereabouts, that she would have difficulty finding him even under less pressing circumstances.
About ten minutes later, Jessica arrived at the Jeep. That gave her the first surge of relief. When Travis stepped out from the opposite side of the vehicle, relief came in a second wave.
“Why aren’t you—?” she began.
“Because you’ve got the key, baby,” Travis said, answering the obvious question.
“Of course.” Jessica dug around in her pants pocket, thankful when her fingers found the key fob in her right pocket.
She double clicked the fob and they both got into the Jeep, Travis in the driver’s seat.
“Did you see that cop car?” he asked.
“Yeah, I saw the cop car,” she said. “Do you think—”
“No,” Travis said. “I think that if the police had been looking for either of us, they would have seen us. And I think that right now they’d be closing in on us. We’d be surrounded, and they’d be yelling for us to come out with our hands up. The police aren’t stupid, baby.”
“So that means that maybe we are. What will Don think?” Jessica reflected that Don had been proven to be Don, after all.
Travis paused to consider this.
“It doesn't really matter what that Don guy thinks. What matters is that it’s always better to be safe than sorry when the police are involved. Maybe you can call him later and say that you got sick, or that you got cold feet, and you’d like to take a rain check. Did the two of you talk? Did he see you?”
“He saw me. But we didn't have a chance to introduce ourselves. I saw the cop car as soon as I walked into the restaurant.”
Travis placed a possessive hand on her thigh. “If he saw you, then he’ll be willing to go for a rain check, I think. But if he won’t, then we just say to hell with him and move on to someone else. Remember what I said.”
“Yeah. Better safe than sorry.”
“Damn right.”
“When can we leave?”
“Let’s give it a few more minutes, baby. We can be pretty sure they aren’t looking for us, in particular. But if we take off right now, we might catch their attention. Remember: we’ve got to drive right past them.” Travis was referring to the fact that the access road to the Big Lots ran right past the Terrace View’s parking lot. “Besides, I’m a little shaken up and I could use a minute or two to chill out. That was a bit of excitement. Couldn't you use a few minutes to just chill?”
“Damn right,” she said with a smile. She leaned toward Travis and took his hand.
30.
“What the hell?” Alan exclaimed when he saw the flashing lights of the police car.
He knew that neither he nor any member of his team had requested any sort of backup from the local police departments. Therefore, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department car had to be here for different reasons.
“I told you this wasn't the greatest place in town,” Maribel said.
“Come on,” Alan said, already getting out of the Explorer. “Let’s find out what this is about.”
Dave greeted them on the way in. Alan guessed what had happened—or at least the general lines of it—before Dave explained.
“Did you meet her? See her?”
“Oh, I saw her, all right,” Dave said. “But I didn't have time to meet her. I barely made eye contact. Then she saw the black-and-white and took off.”
“Did you go after her?”
“After a few minutes, yes. But she was already long gone.”
“Why did you wait?”
“Well, I wasn't sure what the problem was at first. At first I thought, well, maybe she forgot something and went back to get it. Maybe she felt suddenly ill.”
“And maybe she saw a police car,” Alan said, “and she knew that she was here to set someone up for a homicide, so she took off.”
“Hey, Alan, I’m sorry. I had to make a judgment call. If I had gone after her and there had been a more mundane explanation, I might have spooked her.”
Alan laid a hand on Dave’s shoulder. “That’s true. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do when you’re working undercover. And what are the chances? Did you talk to the deputies yet?”
“Briefly. They’re not here about Lilith, obviously. Apparently the manager called the Hamilton County line because he was concerned about possible drug activity. They’re talking to the manager now in his office. It’s back there.” Dave pointed to an area behind the cash register, where there was a closed door marked MANAGER.
“Let’s join them. I
want to find out why the deputies are here, and what they’ve found. I want to find out exactly what the manager saw that made him call the police.”
“Okay,” Dave said. “But I kind of doubt that Lilith was selling drugs here. I think it’s safe to say that the two calls are completely unrelated.”
“Maybe,” Alan allowed. “But there’s a coincidence here. I don't believe in coincidences.”
Dave shrugged as if to say that coincidences, in fact, happened all the time. But he offered no further protest. Alan could see that Dave was extremely disappointed at the outcome of the evening, and disappointed in himself. He should have run after Lilith, really, even though his reason for staying put was not completely flawed.
“It’s okay,” Maribel told Dave, as she followed Alan toward the manager’s office.
“It’s not okay,” Dave said. “We had her. I know we did.”
There was a general buzz in the restaurant dining area as Alan, Maribel, and Dave headed back toward the manager’s office. The patrons had just watched the arrival of the uniformed deputies. They had all come to the Terrace View for a quiet dinner, and they’d gotten much more than they’d bargained for.
Alan knocked on the office door and flashed his badge. There was a quick round of introductions between Alan’s team and Deputies Young and Shelton. Viktor Pudovkin, a tired-looking, visibly irritated man of short stature, receding hairline, and late middle age, sat behind his desk. He rose briefly to meet the new arrivals. Then he sat down again.
The law enforcement officers all huddled around the desk. The tiny office was crowded; it hadn’t been intended for meetings of six people.
“I’ll be lucky if any of my patrons return,” Pudovkin said. He uttered a word in Russian—presumably a curse word. “But I have to be paranoid, because the city and the county, they find out anything going wrong here, they shut me down!” He passed an imaginary knife across his throat for emphasis. “Just like that!”
“Mr. Pudovkin, no one wants to shut your hotel down,” Alan said.
“Oh, you don’t know this city!” Pudovkin countered.
“Well anyway,” Alan began. Many years of experience had taught Alan that if a person had a persecution complex about the authorities being “out to get him,” it was almost never a good idea to try to engage him in an argument on that point. Most of those types could drone on for hours. “If you could, Mr. Pudovkin, briefly tell us why you called the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department tonight. I know you’ve been through it already, but I’d appreciate it if you could tell it just one more time.”
Viktor Pudovkin complied. He repeated his description of a suspicious-looking man hanging out near the east wing of the hotel.
“He not doing anything,” Pudovkin said. “He just hang around, holding his gym bag.”
Alan then asked him to describe the man in detail. Most of what he got in return was generic: Height: roughly 6’3” or 6’4”, trim, athletic build, long hair. Nondescript clothes: jeans and a dark-colored windbreaker.
“Mr. Pudovkin, do you remember anything unique about him? Anything that would make him stand out in a crowd?”
Viktor paused to ponder this. When he spoke, he did so with some hesitation. “Well, he a good-looking guy. Like an actor or something. I mean—don’t get me wrong, I don’t like guys or anything, but—”
“No, Mr. Pudovkin, that’s not what we’re thinking. We understand.” Alan might have told Mr. Pudovkin that his sexual preferences were of zero interest to either of the law enforcement agencies represented here in the room. But that might involve another long tangent discussion. “Anything else? How about the gym bag he was carrying? Did you notice any brand marks? Any logos? Like the Nike ‘swish’ symbol.”
Pudovkin nodded. Apparently he was familiar with the Nike swish symbol.
“Ah!” the Russian said suddenly, as if a light bulb had been turned on. “There was a symbol on his gym bag. A—what you say—it look like a logo. But not the Nike sign.”
“Okay,” Alan said, “that might help us. Can you describe it? What did it look like? Any letters?”
“There were some words, but I couldn't read them. I only see one shape. The symbol—the logo—it looks like a—what do you say?” Pudovkin said a word in Russian, which no one else in the room understood.
“Hold a second,” he said. “I have a translator.”
Alan thought that Pudovkin was going to call in another person—perhaps a younger Russian who had grown up in the United States. However, Pudovkin instead opened the topmost drawer of his desk. He removed a small electronic item that resembled a large cell phone or Blackberry.
“’Shell’,” Pudovkin said emphatically after pushing a few buttons on the front of the device. “The logo look like a shell.” Now Alan understood what the man had meant by “translator”. Pudovkin nodded and returned the electronic translator to the desk drawer.
But Alan was more interested in what Pudovkin had said.
“A shell, you said.”
“That’s right. And wait! Wait—there was one other thing.”
The five law enforcement officers all waited for Pudovkin to get it out.
Pudovkin traced his finger down the left side of his neck, from his ear to his collar line. “I think he have a tattoo, right here. Only a line.”
“You didn't mention anything about a tattoo before,” Deputy Young cut in.
“Well, I just now remember it.”
“Did you see the tattoo in detail? What you’re describing sounds like a vine, or maybe a barbed wire.”
But Pudovkin had no more to offer in that regard. “I don’t know,” he said. The Russian shook his head. “I didn't see it very good.”
Alan allowed Deputies Young and Shelton to ask Mr. Pudovkin a few more routine questions. They were mostly traversing the same ground by this point. After the interview, Alan, Dave, and Maribel walked out to the parking lot with Young and Shelton. The five of them stood beside the black-and-white, talking in the chilly evening air. The early drizzle had mostly stopped, but there was still a cold mist.
Alan filled the deputies in on the undercover operation that the ODCI had carried out tonight. Although the Lilith investigation was technically an interdepartmental effort, these deputies hadn’t heard of it.
“I’ll be damned,” Young said, shaking his head, “we come out here for a routine call, and we end up botching your hunt for a serial killer. Sorry about that, detectives. Sometimes it falls that way, you know?”
“Yeah, well, anyway. Thanks for your assistance, deputies.”
“Not much to thank us for,” Young said. He and Shelton climbed back into their car.
When the Hamilton County deputies pulled away, Maribel said, half to herself, “Should we have set up a road block?”
“We don’t have any description of her vehicle,” Alan replied gently. “We’d have to close down this entire part of the city. Impossible after dark on a Saturday night.”
“Yeah, dumb idea.”
“It wasn't a dumb idea. Sometimes we have to churn through ideas that don’t work before we get to the ones that do work. That’s the way police work is done. This is as much an art as a science. Like I’ve told you.”
“Like you’ve told us,” Maribel said, with a faint smile.
“Anyway, let’s call it a night. It’s Saturday, and if that was Lilith, we aren’t going to catch her today. She’s probably long gone by now. We’ll regroup on Monday.”
31.
Travis and Jessica were feeling cautious, but not outright frightened, as they made their way down the access road in Jessica’s Jeep. They both held the belief that neither one of them had done anything but an amateurish job of evading the police. Had the police been looking specifically for them, they would already be in custody.
Nevertheless, there was something a little unnerving about driving within perhaps twenty yards of the black and white parked outside the Terrace View. The car’s lights were now turned off
, but there were two uniformed cops standing outside the vehicle.
The cops were talking to three other people who were dressed in plainclothes: two men and a woman. Neither Jessica nor Travis had much difficulty in extrapolating that the three people in street clothes were cops.
“Must be a drug bust,” Travis said. “They brought in two boys in blue and three undercover agents.”
What Travis failed to notice was that there were no suspects in custody, so there was no real proof regarding the aim of the police presence here. Jessica didn't think too much of this, until she took a second look at one of the plainclothes detectives.
“Hold on,” she said, grabbing Travis’s arm. “Stop the car!”
“Jess, I really don’t think that would be a good idea. They might not be after us, but we don't want to press our luck. If we get stopped—”
“That’s Don!” she said, in a loud whisper. At the same time, she shrank back against her seat.
“Don?”
“Just go!” Jessica said.
Travis shook his head. First she wanted him to slow down; then she wanted him to speed up. But he complied.
Then, as he neared the end of the access road, now a safe distance away from the police car, he understood.
“’Don?’ What are you saying, baby? Wasn't Don the name of that guy you were supposed to meet with tonight?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” she said, her face now gone pale. “That was Don standing out there with those cops.”
Her worst suspicions about “Don” had been confirmed, after all.
“That means—”
“That means Don is a cop. And his real name probably isn’t even Don.”
Alan drove Maribel back to the ODCI office north of town, where she had left her personal vehicle. Dave was not far behind them, driving the ODCI undercover vehicle that he had driven to his abortive date with Lilith.
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