Collared

by David Rosenfelt

  “Thanks, boss,” he says. “No coincidences, right?”

  I nod. “No coincidences.”

  It’s become clear that it was Teresa Mullins, a.k.a. Linda Sanford, who left Cody at the shelter. We don’t know why yet; that is still to be determined. It may or may not have been her that contacted Stanley Butler and gave him a tip that made him hopeful he could secure Keith’s release.

  Teresa must have been fearful in the years since the abduction, since she changed her name and assumed an entirely new identity. And that fear was obviously justified.

  The killers were either watching her, or more likely saw the publicity about Cody in the papers. Teresa may have thought they did not know where she was, living in that out-of-the-way cabin in South Carolina.

  But they knew, and they killed her. And now she is not available to tell us what she knows, and what she did.

  No coincidences.

  ll crimes happen for a reason. That may seem obvious. In fact, you could claim that everything, criminal or not, happens for a reason, but it remains a crucial fact in conducting an investigation.

  In my world, the reason is the motive, and the common ones are money, sex, or power … sometimes all three. Even irrational crimes have a reason, though that reason may obviously be an irrational one.

  The Son of Sam murdered people because he believed his dog told him to. Totally nutso, obviously, but the reason for the crimes was the imagined conversation between David Berkowitz and his dog, and the motive was to do the dog’s perceived bidding.

  Since I talk to Tara all the time, perhaps this isn’t the best example for me to provide. But the most crucial step in uncovering a perpetrator is uncovering the reason for the crime.

  What makes this case so difficult is that we don’t even know who the target was, which makes it much, much harder to discover the motive. There are three target possibilities, and a case can be made for each of them.

  Jill Hickman might well have been the intended victim; if you want to get revenge on, or simply hurt, a mother, there could be no more effective way than to take her child.

  As a very successful businesswoman, and a person simply living on this planet, Jill might well have a lot of enemies, people who could hate her for reasons real or imagined. It’s highly unlikely that money was the pure motive, since even with her considerable fortune, no ransom demand was ever made.

  Another potential target is the child, Dylan Hickman. At this point it’s impossible to know if there was something about his identity that specifically led to his being abducted. Further complicating the matter, and complicating it considerably, is the fact that he was initially abandoned and then adopted. Who are the natural parents, and could their identities have played a role?

  Were the kidnappers after any baby or this baby in particular? And if it was this one, was it because of who his adoptive mother is or maybe who his natural parents are?

  Then there is Keith himself, in my eyes another victim of this crime. I believe he was set up to take the fall, but could that have been the purpose all along? Could the entire thing have been done simply to punish him? This seems the least likely of the three to me, but it’s still possible, which means it’s something we have to consider.

  One thing is certain: this was not a random crime. Random criminals rarely, if ever, take the next step of framing someone to take the fall. And they don’t track Teresa Mullins for years, despite all her efforts to disappear, and then kill her.

  And there is another thing that is certain: Keith Wachtel did not kill Teresa Mullins in South Carolina this week. I can check, but it’s very unlikely that the warden of East Jersey State Prison gave him a three-day pass.

  I call Phyllis Butler, Stanley’s widow, to ask her if she has any idea where his missing file on the Wachtel case could be. Laurie and I have taken Phyllis to dinner a few times since Stanley’s death, and she is one of those people that you instantly like.

  She’s happy to hear that I’m taking over one of Stanley’s cases but cannot help me with this one. “Everything went to the public defender,” she says. “I cleaned out the office myself.”

  I thank her and hang up. I’m afraid I’ve run into another dead end; there is simply no place else for me to look for the file. I don’t know whether or not it was somehow stolen, but the way things are going, I sure wouldn’t bet against it.

  My next call is to Hike, who answers with a “Hello” that sounds like he’s cowering in fear that I am going to give him an unpleasant assignment. The bad news for him is that I am.

  “I need you to go to South Carolina,” I say.

  He repeats my words, but with an incredulous tone. “South Carolina?”

  “South Carolina,” I say. The conversation is not quite advancing at the rate I’d like it to.

  “The actual South Carolina?”

  “I wasn’t aware that there is a virtual one,” I say. “But just to be clear, if you look at a map and find North Carolina, I’m talking about the state that is slightly below it.”

  “What for?”

  “A woman that we believe is Teresa Mullins died in a fire in her cabin in the woods. We have no details, and I want all of them.”

  “You want me to go into the woods in South Carolina?”

  “What’s the problem with that?” I ask.

  “Did you see Deliverance?”

  “I did, Hike. I don’t want to nitpick this, but it took place in Georgia.”

  “Talk about your six of one, half a dozen of the other. You ever see the bugs in those woods?”

  “I don’t think I have,” I say.

  “You know why everybody has a pickup truck down there? Because they have bugs so big that they carry off regular cars. A couple of years ago, two beetles dragged off a Winnebago with an entire family still in it. They were never heard from again.”

  “Hike…”

  “And people get malaria down there like we get a cold. The doctors have given up; they can’t handle it. The drugstores stock over-the-counter malaria medicine. That’s why Steve Spurrier left.”

  Steve Spurrier was the football coach at South Carolina for years. I had no idea that Hike had any football knowledge; he’s pulling out all the stops.

  “Spurrier was there for eleven years,” I say, “and he retired when he was seventy. I don’t think malaria was a factor.”

  “Is there anyone else you can get to go?” Hike asks.

  “Hike, you’ll get twice your hourly rate, even when you’re asleep.”

  “When do I leave?”

  “Does that mean you’re willing to go?”

  Hike is always sure the world is coming to an end, but he wants to have enough money to deal with the fallout.

  “You know me, Andy. I’m a team player.”

  “Good. You leave right away. And, Hike?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s great having you on the team.”

  inding Home sounds like the name of a small, intimate company that might run schmaltzy TV commercials. In real life, it is anything but that. Located in Park Ridge, it is a gleaming, modern, four-story building, with four satellite buildings, each of them quite substantial, spread out on what looks like a college campus.

  It would remind me of my college days except for the fact that I went to NYU, in Greenwich Village, and there aren’t enough drugs in the world to make someone confuse Park Ridge, New Jersey, with Greenwich Village.

  I don’t see many employees around, but maybe they’re all in the buildings doing whatever it is that chemists do. I’m here to see one particular employee, Zachary Alford, CEO of Finding Home. He’s been with the company for more than three years; he arrived while Jill was doing the crucial fund-raising.

  When Jill elevated herself to chairman and stepped back from day-to-day involvement, Alford became CEO. I assume that if Jill ever decides she wants the title of Emperor of the Realm, then CEO Zachary Alford will become Chairman Zachary Alford.

  I’ve gotten an ins
tant appointment with Alford mainly because Jill asked him to see me. Laurie asked her to make the call, and she reported that Jill wasn’t pleased. As I predicted, she is not taking particularly well to the new arrangement, in which we are working for Keith and not reporting details to her.

  Her attitude is certainly understandable. She is desperate to know everything, in the hope that it could lead her to her missing son. Making matters worse, we are now working for the very person she believes is responsible for her personal agony.

  She didn’t verbalize it to Laurie, but Laurie thinks Jill sees it as a betrayal of sorts. I suspect the reason that she didn’t speak out about it is to avoid antagonizing us. We are still Jill’s best chance to finally get closure. She doesn’t want to blow that chance.

  It is a very tough spot for her to be in, and it’s no walk in the park for Laurie and me either.

  Alford sets the ground rules as soon as I walk into his office. “I’m willing to speak with you, Mr. Carpenter, but I do have another meeting in thirty minutes, so let’s get right to it.”

  I’m not liking this guy already, probably for the wrong reasons. He has a frown on his face, as if I walked into his white-carpeted office with shit on my shoes. It also bugs me that he said thirty minutes, rather than a half hour, but I don’t know why it does.

  “Sure. No problem,” I say. “I’m interested in knowing the details of Keith Wachtel’s departure from the company.”

  He seems a bit taken aback. “The only reason we are meeting is that Ms. Hickman said that I should be forthcoming with you.”

  I nod. “Good advice; she’s a smart lady. It’s no wonder she’s made it all the way to chairman. Or chairwoman. Or chairperson.”

  “We use chairman.”

  “Okay. Good. Glad we got that cleared up. Now, about Keith Wachtel.”

  “Keith is a fine chemist. Outstanding, really.”

  “If you’ve got a meeting in twenty-eight minutes, it might be helpful if you could answer my questions. For example, had my question been, ‘What kind of a chemist is Keith?’ then your answer would have been directly on point. And I’m not counting, but I think I’ve asked twice about the circumstances leading to his departure from the company.”

  “So you did. We had credible evidence that Mr. Wachtel was engaging in unethical behavior. And that is putting it mildly.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He was removing sensitive documents from the premises in violation of company policy,” he says. “It was a policy that he was quite familiar with; in fact, he was instrumental in creating it in the first place.”

  “What was he doing with the documents?”

  “We believe he was sharing them with a competitor.”

  “Do you have proof of that?” I ask

  “If we did, he would have gone to jail for it.” He hesitates and then adds, “And if he had, Ms. Hickman might still have her child.”

  “How did you discover the theft of the documents?”

  “It was reported anonymously to our security department, who in turn followed up and confirmed it,” he said. Then, “I assure you that there is no doubt about what happened.”

  His answer is interesting to me. If Keith is telling the truth that he did not steal documents, and Keith’s truth-telling is increasing in credibility by the moment, then someone within the company already had it in for him. That same person could have set Keith up to take the fall for the kidnapping and might even have been the kidnapper himself.

  “Who replaced Mr. Wachtel in the position of chief chemist?” I ask.

  “Steven Emmonds,” he says.

  “Was he already here when Mr. Wachtel left?”

  He shakes his head. “No, he was not. The circumstances that led to Mr. Wachtel’s departure made it prudent to bring in a fresh team. We did not want to retain anyone who had a misguided loyalty to him.”

  “So you fired all those people just for knowing him?”

  “We did so on the advice of counsel.”

  “Please tell Mr. Emmonds that I’ll be wanting to talk to him.”

  He frowns, not pleased to be taking orders from the likes of me. “Mr. Emmonds is a busy man.”

  “Good for him. Please tell him I’ll be wanting to talk to him.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll call him directly. I just have a couple of additional questions for you. Are you aware if Jill Hickman’s nanny, Teresa Mullins, ever came into these offices? Is it possible she knew someone here?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” he says. “But Ms. Hickman could better answer that.”

  “Fine; I’ll ask her. Last question: Who hired you?”

  “I believe it was a joint decision between the co-owners.”

  “Meaning Jill Hickman and Ted Parsons?”

  “Yes.”

  I look at my watch and stand up. “We’re done here. You’ll make your next meeting with time to spare. I’m so relieved.”

  am, did Linda Sanford have a cell phone?”

  “Obviously,” he answers, without hesitation. “Everybody has a cell phone.”

  “Can you get the number?”

  “Why do you hurt me?” he asks.

  “That means you have it?”

  “Of course I have it. But she made very few calls in the last months, mostly to businesses, car service places, that kind of thing. If she had any friends, they didn’t chat much on the phone.”

  “Did she have the phone when the kidnapping happened?”

  “No, not until much later. She got it after she changed her name.”

  “What about e-mails? Can you access any e-mails she sent?”

  “Sorry, can’t help you there. I’d have to have the actual devices.”

  “What about tracking her movements?” Every phone has a GPS in it, and the phone company knows where it is at all times. Sam has the ability to access their computers, which is how he got Mullins’s phone information in the first place.

  Of course, he’s doing it illegally, a fact I am willing to overlook. We can’t use the fruits of that illegal labor in court, but if he finds helpful information, I can always subpoena it legally later on.

  If I ever get in front of a judge or jury in this matter, it could be helpful to place Teresa Mullins at the foundation building on the morning Cody was left there. Technically, I’d only be putting her phone at the scene, but that should be good enough.

  Uh-oh … I’m thinking like a lawyer.

  “I can definitely get the GPS data,” Sam says. “They usually keep that information going back six months.”

  “That’s more than enough. Most important is whether she was at the foundation the morning Cody was dropped off. And I hate to pile this on, but can you get me her financial information?”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I want to know where her income has come from since the day of the abduction.”

  “You got it.”

  I ask him to get right on it, and then I place a call to Hike down in South Carolina. I could ask Laurie to call him, but that might technically be considered spousal abuse.

  Hike doesn’t answer his cell phone, and though I want to hear what’s going on, my inability to talk to him in the moment doesn’t exactly crush me.

  I leave a message on his voice mail, and fortunately, or unfortunately, he calls me back ten minutes later.

  “You called?” he asks. “I was in with the chief.”

  “Of police?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Billy’s a good guy. We’re going out for beers when he gets off.”

  I move the phone away from my ear and look at it, not believing the noise that’s coming through. Hike is making friends?

  “You’re going out for beers with the chief of police?”

  “Billy, yeah, and some of the other cops. Great group of guys; I like it down here.”

  I have never heard Hike say he liked something or someone, not ever. The closest I’ve ever heard him come to saying s
omething positive about anything was when he said that the chicken wings at Charlie’s “don’t taste like shit.”

  “Hike, have you been taken hostage? Are they forcing you to say these things?”

  “Come on, Andy, you know me. I’m a fun-loving guy.”

  Clearly, a pod has taken over Hike’s body, leaving me unsure as to how to continue the conversation. I’ve never actually spoken to a pod before.

  I decide to proceed as if I’m talking to the actual Hike, not the Pod Hike. That way the pod people won’t know I’m onto them.

  “Have you been out to the cabin?” I ask.

  “I went straight there from the airport; really nice drive.”

  “Really nice drive? What did you find?”

  “A burned cabin.”

  “Has it been declared arson?”

  “That’s what the chief thinks, but they’re not ready to say so for sure.”

  “The police chief?”

  “No, Richie, the fire chief.”

  “Richie going out drinking with you tonight as well?” I ask.

  “Good idea. I’ll call him,” says Pod Hike.

  “So what do we know?”

  “Well, they obviously know that Linda Sanford doesn’t exist, or at least hasn’t existed since the real Linda Sanford died. They’re trying to figure out who this new victim really is, but I haven’t told them.”

  “Good. Don’t.” It’s a chip I want to play when I need it.

  “The body was pretty badly burned, but the coroner sees an indentation in her skull, as if she was hit over the head.”

  “It would be good if you could bring back a copy of the coroner’s report,” I say. “Do you know him also? Are you guys on the same bowling team?”

  “No, his wife doesn’t like him going out with the guys. You know how it is,” Pod Hike says.

  “Have you talked to the dead woman’s neighbors? It would be helpful to know if she had a dog.”