I opened my door. The rain came down heavier.
“The Ice Queen,” I said when I found my voice. “That’s her rep.”
“Since you’ve worked with her, it might be good to have you observe the interview.”
Stern the litigation lawyer, who had left SFCO for DPC only six months earlier, just as the battle for the bullet train was heating up. I thought of her coldness that morning—it no longer seemed mildly humorous or even annoying.
Now it felt ominous.
The rain turned into a downpour as I drove. Traffic snarled, and pedestrians darted around the vehicles on their way toward shelter. Clyde watched warily out the window. To the east, dark clouds towered on the horizon like piles of dirty laundry, the gray shot through with a sickly yellow.
I’d learned a trick or two living with Cohen and now I channeled his ability to compartmentalize. I put aside all thought of Stern and the child’s clothing and dialed Tom O’Hara, the journalist whose business card had been paper clipped to the MoMA file in Ben’s office. Tom had moved from features to crime six months ago, but we’d stayed casually in touch. Meaning every couple of weeks he called and bugged me about doing a follow-up to my earlier interview with him. Especially, he said, since I was now a big hotshot investigator, having worked with Denver PD to solve a homicide.
“Tell me about Denver’s Museum of Modern Art,” I said when he answered.
“What, no foreplay?”
“I’m not that kind of girl.”
“I can keep hoping, though.”
I braked as a stoplight turned red and pedestrians poured into the crosswalk. I forced myself to put aside all the horrors of the day and kept my voice light. “Hope and four bucks will get you a latte at Starbucks.”
“Ha! Does that mean I can buy you a coffee?”
“I’m not that kind of girl, either.”
When Tom interviewed me more than a year and a half ago, he’d caught me when I still carried a burning need to tell Americans what was happening on the other side of the world. I hadn’t told Tom everything, of course. But, for me, I’d been pretty talkative. It had worked out great for Tom; he got a national journalism award. But for me, not so much. My grandmother read it and said that turning the contents of your heart into a headline was not something a Parnell did.
No one can shame you like family.
At the moment, of course, all of that was beside the point. I needed Tom.
“So we talking trade, Sydney?” he asked. “Hold on. Don’t answer that. Back in a sec.”
“Wait—”
But he was gone. Elevator music piped drearily in my ear.
Rain pelted the roof, and I turned up the speaker volume. Clyde’s window was completely fogged and now he was working on the windshield. I shook my head at him and hit the defroster. Thanks to Clyde’s work in Iraq, my partner hated thunder even more than most dogs. But he loved the rain.
The traffic light turned green and I nudged the truck forward.
The music stopped and Tom said, “I’m back. So what’s our deal?”
“We’ll keep it simple,” I said. “You’re going to tell me everything you know. And in exchange, I will let you live.”
“You always were a sweet-talker.”
“Sweet talk is the only kind of bullshit Marines don’t have to do. So tell me about MoMA.”
“What makes you think I know anything about it?”
“You’re Tom O’Hara.”
“Well played. But c’mon, Sydney. You’re killing me. You are cognizant of the fact that I’m off features and on crime, right? I know this is about the Davenport case. I saw you on media footage from that old cement factory. Talking it up with the Feds and the police. Give me something before my boss switches me to international and sends me to Nigeria.”
I tried to remember if I’d heard a helicopter overhead. “There was media footage?”
“At least promise that you’ll give me an exclusive when they’re ready to let something go to the press. Denver PD’s playing hardball on this one. They didn’t even go through me with that sketch.”
I was starting to feel like the last kid picked for the team. “What sketch?”
“Ha! You, either.”
“Tell me.”
“See, now you want me. Some dead guy they found at the cement factory. They’re trying to use the media to get an ID on him.”
I gave a satisfied nod—Cohen had jumped on the photo I’d taken. Power of the press. Maybe they’d shake something loose.
“Tell me about Ben Davenport,” I said. “Did he contact you?”
Silence.
“Have I ever let you down, Tom?”
“There was that time we were in bed . . . no, wait. That was a dream.” Neither of us laughed. “I am still waiting on that follow-up, Sydney. Now that our women are home from the war, people want to know how they’re doing, what life is like after witnessing all that death and destruction. You remember that one?”
“You remember that I gave you my story last spring? The one about the skinheads and all the dead people?”
“So we’re even for the moment. Just say those three little words I’m dying to hear and our journey will continue. Three little words. Quid pro quo.”
“We’re talking about a little girl.”
“Quid. Pro. Quo.”
I made a left-hand turn onto 13th Avenue. A gust of wind slapped the rain against the windshield, and for a moment water ran so thickly over the glass that it looked like the world had fallen into the sea. “Fine. Quid pro quo. You’ll get your exclusive. But with your full awareness that all I am is a railroad cop, bound by the legalities of working for a private company. And I don’t know who the Denver PD brass will talk to.”
“What I hear is that you got some influence with someone in the Major Crimes unit.”
“Now you’re a gossip columnist? How the mighty have fallen. Look, you know you’re going to get this. You’re pretty much the only guy around who knows his ass from his elbow. So help me out here. What’s at stake”—I dropped into my do-not-fuck-with-me Marine voice—“is a little girl’s life. Do not make me waste time hunting you down.”
“You know you scare me sometimes, right?”
“That’s what I count on.”
“Okay, fine. Ben Davenport called me two months ago, around the middle of May. He asked if I knew anything about a new museum going up in Thornton near the South Platte. Wanted to know if I’d be willing to do a puff piece on it—folks bringing culture to the Wild West. Told him it wasn’t my bailiwick anymore. But then he called back a couple of weeks after that, asked if I’d be more interested in MoMA if there was something illegal going on. Of course, I told him yes.”
“And?”
“And, that’s it. He said he’d get the ball rolling, but then I didn’t hear anything more. Mention of the land popped up with all the talk of a bullet train—apparently that acreage has got great right-of-way. So I looked at the public records—title and deed of transfer. Denver Pacific donated a nice chunk of that parcel to the museum. But when I tried to dig deeper into things like the tax records and appraisals, they shut me down. I pleaded the Open Records Act, and they said that releasing that information was under the discretion of the custodian. But the custodian claimed there was an ongoing investigation. When I couldn’t find anything about that, either, I called Davenport back a few times. But he never took my calls. You’re thinking the Davenport murders are about a piece of land?” He paused. “Is this about the bullet train?”
I pulled to a stop in front of Denver PD headquarters and squeezed into a space that others had avoided—right next to a fire hydrant. I figured I had bigger problems.
“I’m not connecting anything at the moment,” I said. “And if you print what we talked about, I will roast your cojones. Davenport had a copy of the deed in his office, with your business card clipped to it. That’s as much as I know. If he found anything illegal, he didn’t leave any paperwork that I
could find.”
Sometimes, especially when talking to the press, it’s okay to lie. Quid pro quo.
“Therefore,” Tom said, “it’s time for me to work my journalistic superpowers.” I could almost feel his smile—he would relish the battle now that he knew there was something to fight for. And despite our banter, I knew he was as worried about Lucy as the rest of us.
“Make it good,” I said. “You owe me. And don’t tell anyone what you’re working on.”
“What kind of journalist do you think I am?”
“A good one. Let me know what you find.”
“Then maybe I’ll be the man of your dreams?”
I shut off the engine. “You don’t want to be the man of my dreams, Tom. Trust me.”
The lobby of the Denver PD headquarters was a madhouse.
The first thing I noticed was the din, a rumble of voices that pushed out into the rainy afternoon as soon as I opened the outer glass doors. Clyde and I stepped inside, helped by a slap of wind.
“Press is going nuts,” said a voice.
I turned to see a twenty-something man in jeans and a hoodie standing in the small antechamber, dismally eyeballing the rain.
“Fucking zoo in there,” he said to me, shaking his head. “I got things I gotta take care of. But ain’t no business going on today.”
I peered through the next set of doors where a throng of men and women milled about the large space. They wore suits and dress shoes, with damp raincoats slung over their shoulders. A lot of them carried cameras or held up smartphones. Reporters.
I glanced at my watch. The press conference was more than an hour away. Which explained why Tom O’Hara was still at his desk.
The man in the hoodie muttered something that sounded halfway between a curse and a prayer and launched himself into the storm. I wiped my boots on the damp carpet, took a firm grip on Clyde’s lead, then, with Mauer’s sealed cardboard box balanced on my hip, pulled open the next set of doors.
The din became a roar. The smell of perfume, hairspray, and wet clothes hit like the draft downwind of a shopping mall, the restless mood somewhere between a basketball game and a wake. Police headquarters was, for the moment, the epicenter of the tragedy that had exploded into the Davenports’ lives. The rain and police barricades would have sent all but the most optimistic reporters away from the tracks where Samantha had died and the cement factory where Lucy had vanished. No doubt a few reporters were in Wash Park, filming the Davenport home from a distance and talking to any neighbors who were willing. Some might be at the ME’s office, hoping for early word on the autopsies, or at the hospital, trying to ambush a nurse or surgeon about Ben.
But it looked like most of them had shown up here.
Off to my left, an anchorwoman with coiffed hair and a pale-pink suit stood in front of a camera, speaking into a microphone.
“. . . in this developing tragedy. Eight-year-old Lucy Davenport has been missing for approximately twelve hours, according to a police spokesperson, who offered little additional information. We do know that police have been talking all morning to Lucy’s grandfather, billionaire businessman Hiram Davenport.”
I shifted the box against my hip. Clyde’s eyes were everywhere, he and I equally uncomfortable in the throng. We spent most of our hours alone, often in the wild open spaces of northern Colorado and Wyoming, where the only evidence of humans were the train tracks we patrolled. Crowds were places where people hid guns and bombs and moved with murderous intent. Crowds were Iraq.
I pushed down my unease, knowing Clyde would read it through his lead and take his cue from me.
“No worries,” I told him.
I spotted Special Agent McConnell on the far side of the room, standing against the windows. She’d geared up from composed to intense, maybe feeling the weight of minutes ticking by. Her eyes met mine and she waved for me to join her. Clyde and I pushed through the crowd.
“Special Agent McConnell,” I said. “Are reporters usually so early for a press conference?”
“Please, call me Mac.” Her face was pale in the dull afternoon light, her injured eye a smoky blue-black. Behind her, rain washed down the windows. “Word is they’ve finished getting a list of possible suspects from Hiram Davenport and he’s on his way down.”
I fished in my duffel, handed her a copy of the CD. “Video from the train recorder.”
“Ah. Thank you.”
I tipped my chin toward her face. “You tried bilberry for that?”
“What?”
“Your eye. Bilberry extract. It’s got antioxidants that strengthen the capillaries. Reduces the bruising.”
An eyebrow went up. “You have a lot of experience with black eyes?”
“I used to trip a lot.”
“Ah.”
“Yours?”
“Sometimes I trip, too.”
Above the noise, the clear ping of an elevator sounded on the other side of the lobby.
“Speak of the devil,” McConnell said.
The anchorwoman gestured to her cameraman. “It looks like he’s coming down.”
The din quieted to the rustle of clothing and an occasional cough, the mob tightly focused, everyone straining forward. The anchorwoman murmured something to her cameraman, and he jostled to move a few feet closer to the elevators. For a moment the mob—with their bright eyes and eager faces—made me think of a pack of hounds about to fall on a fox.
The moment broke into a buzz of voices as the elevator doors opened.
“Any word on your granddaughter, Mr. Davenport?”
“Is your son out of surgery?”
“What are you feeling right now, Mr. Davenport?”
“No questions,” a man said. I recognized Lieutenant Engel’s deep baritone. The crowd parted as Engel and three uniforms shouldered their way through, followed by Denver PD’s media coordinator. Engel and the officers had surrounded a sixth man and were hustling him in the direction of the doors. Hiram Davenport. All I could see of him was his high forehead and wavy gray hair.
But I knew that if they’d wanted to keep Hiram away from the reporters, they could have smuggled him out through the tunnel that runs underneath the plaza and comes out at the crime lab. There was a plan in play.
Halfway across the lobby, the group came to an abrupt stop. I had a better view now. Engel murmured something in Hiram’s ear, but the old man was shaking his head at whatever the lieutenant offered. Finally Engel nodded and motioned for the uniforms to step aside. Hiram stood suddenly alone in the center of a small space. The overhead lights shone down on him like a consecration, and the room went quiet again.
Dressed in gray slacks, a white polo shirt, and a navy nylon rain jacket, the first impression Hiram Davenport gave was of a wealthy man making his way from the golf course to the private dining room at the club.
But a closer inspection stripped him of that veneer. The titanic energy that had powered his presence on the podium during yesterday’s newscast had vanished; he looked like something tossed up on the beach by a storm and left to shrivel in the heat. He was gray under his tan, with a hollowness in his eyes that I recognized—the look of someone living through things no one should.
He cleared his throat. “Thank you for being here.”
Even his voice was different—just a ragged whisper. Only the quiet of the crowd made it possible to hear him. “I will not take any questions at the moment.”
A murmur rose, and Hiram raised his hands. He looked around the lobby as if measuring every man and woman there. The crowd quieted again, the faces earnest and willing. No matter his grief, Hiram could still manage a crowd.
“I am not at liberty to discuss my family’s case. That is not why I asked you here.”
I leaned in close to Mac. “He called the media?”
She shook her head. “Maybe a few. But the police would have made the first calls. The media is the best way to get people looking for Lucy and generating leads.”
Hiram cont
inued. “I stand before you, and through you the world, to offer a heartfelt plea for the return of my granddaughter.”
Now the only sound was the rain.
“We have excellent police in Denver,” he said. “Our men and women in blue are the very finest. And I know they’re doing everything they can to find Lucy and bring her safely home. But—” His voice broke on the last word and moisture filmed his eyes. He blinked. A flash popped. “My little Lucy is only eight. She’s small for her age. To look at her, you might think she’s fragile. But . . . Lucy is tough. She’s brave. She’s just—she’s just like her grandfather. She loves horses and books and she loves”—another blink—“loved playing with her brothers. Now my son, Ben, lies in a hospital bed close to death. The only thing that can save him is the return of his daughter. The only thing that can save me is Lucy’s return.”
He lifted his chin, picked a video camera, and spoke directly into it. “Please. Whoever has my granddaughter, please bring her home to me.”
Lieutenant Engel laid a hand on Hiram’s arm. He ignored it.
“I’m confident Denver won’t let me down. I’ve given my entire life to this city, as some of you know. Now, I will give again. I’m offering a reward of ten million dollars for Lucy’s safe return.”
The crowd erupted. Clyde surged to his feet, unsure where to direct his focus. The uniforms closed in around Hiram as the reporters pushed forward, their mics lifted. Engel once again took point, shoving his way through the throng.
The media coordinator lifted her hands, waving to get attention. “Denver PD and the FBI will offer a joint press conference here in one hour. We ask that you please stand by for that so that we can get information out to the public.”
Mac touched my elbow. “Let’s get out of here.”
We moved toward the elevators, passing Hiram’s group. As we approached, my eyes met his, then his gaze dropped to my uniform.
“You,” he said.
Everyone stopped. The uniforms jostled in place. The journalists close by looked at me.
Dead Stop (Sydney Rose Parnell Series Book 2) Page 14