by Jan Burke
“We will most likely be handing the photos out in a press conference anyway — this evening, if I don’t miss my guess.”
“Okay, but let me give the Express just a little more. The other media will assume that the Express is going to have some advantage with the great good fortune of having a reporter on the inside.”
“All hell is going to break loose out here, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “They’ll catch wind of this any time now anyway. Brandon’s probably calling an editor at the Californian while we sit here. But we still don’t know what Hocus wants, and I’m not likely to tell anyone other than the Express — unless it’s to Frank’s benefit to do so.”
“Why, Ms. Kelly, you surprise me.”
He didn’t look so surprised. “Do you have any problem with what I’ve proposed?”
He shook his head. “No, not really.”
I realized what I had been sensing in him for the last few moments. “You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you? You’re asking yourself how I could be thinking of writing a story about my own husband’s abduction.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Well, I don’t want to write about it. I wish I could just leave the reporting to somebody else. I wish I could believe for a minute that all of the media coverage will only be helpful, that none of my colleagues will do anything that will bring harm to Frank. But that’s not the way it works.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“John Walters won’t give up. I’ve worked with the man for years. He didn’t get to where he is today by backing down. He’ll be after me every ten minutes if I don’t beat him to the punch. I don’t need that distraction. I need to stay focused on Frank. The only way I can buy a little breathing room is to make John an offer.”
After a moment he said, “Ever hear of the Hickman case?”
I shook my head.
“Took place in L.A. in the late 1920s. One of California’s most notorious kidnapping cases, up until Patty Hearst was taken. Hickman abducted a banker’s daughter, Marian Parker. When he collected the ransom from the banker, Hickman was in a car, and Marian — she was twelve — seemed to be asleep on the seat next to him. Hickman told the girl’s father that he was just going to drive down the street a ways, and then he’d release the girl. He did. But when Marian’s father unwrapped the blanket she was in, he discovered she was dead, and that Hickman had amputated her legs.”
“This is not the kind of story I need to hear right now.”
“I’ve already told you that we don’t always have happy endings in this kind of situation — you need to accept that anything can happen. But that’s not my point. There’s more to the story.”
“Please—”
“Needless to say, there was a great hue and cry, and when Hickman was arrested in Oregon and brought back to Los Angeles, thousands of angry citizens were waiting at the train. For one week at a vaudeville stage in L.A., you could pay to hear the Oregon detectives tell the story of Hickman’s arrest. Every paper in the country sent a reporter to cover the trial.
“But one writer who was asked to cover the trial didn’t accept the invitation. Will Rogers. He wrote a letter to the New York Times. He said he wanted to die claiming only one distinction — that of being the only writer to refuse newspaper offers to cover the Hickman trial. He thought each town ought to be ashamed of the crimes that were committed there. Instead, he said, ‘Every town tries to make their murder the biggest one of the year….’ ”
I looked away from him, then said, “Yeah? Well, I can’t do rope tricks worth a shit, either.”
He laughed. “I don’t know many myself.”
I stirred my soup again. “Tell me what’s being done — I’m not asking this as a reporter, I’m asking as Frank’s wife.”
“What’s being done? You mean, aside from what you and I are doing?”
“Yes.”
“There are several teams involved in this case, some specialized, some doing basic police work — basic, but essential. You only see me and Hank, but there are dozens of other folks working on it. For example, some are working on pinning down Hocus’s location, trying to figure out where they may be keeping Frank.”
“You haven’t been able to trace the calls. How can they be found?”
“They’ve got an injured person with them — Frank, or maybe a member of Hocus. We should know more about the bloodwork soon. In any case, we’re checking hospitals and clinics. We’ve got some time frames to study — the amount of time that passed from the last time anyone saw Frank until we found the car back in Las Piernas, and so on. We know they’ve been active in Riverside and Las Piernas, so we’ll keep looking for someone who might have seen them in one place or another, maybe sold them something — the tape recorder they left in the phone booth, the tape itself, anything like that.”
“Where would they get the morphine?”
“We aren’t assuming they’ve been truthful when they’ve told us that morphine is what they’re using to sedate him — but we’ve got people checking into every report of stolen Versed and morphine in Southern California. There’s another angle we’re working on — maybe someone saw a couple of fellows who had a ‘drunken’ friend with them. A man as big as Frank isn’t easy to cart around. He’s six four, right?”
“Yes. Do you know the heights of all the LPPD detectives?”
“No, ma’am. Starting about ten minutes after the captain handed the case to me, whenever I’ve had a chance, I’ve been reading about your husband. Certain questions arose, and even before you were asked to come out here to Bakersfield, it looked like Frank was a specifically chosen target, not just a man who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Because the informant was his, right?”
“Right. Dana Ross. So whatever we learn about Frank helps us to know more about why he was taken. Now, given what we’ve just read, we have more to go on, even if their motives aren’t very clear. We’ll be able to look these two up in DMV files and other records, and — as you guessed we would want to do — circulate their photos. We’ll have all sorts of folks studying their histories, profiling them, helping us to anticipate how they may react in various circumstances, and so on.”
“I can see the advantages of knowing who they are,” I said, “but if we don’t know where they are—”
“Knowing who they are will help us with that. We can look at their past patterns. People have habits. We won’t stop there. The lab guys in Riverside and Las Piernas are going to be turning the car and the Riverside house inside out — soil samples, fiber evidence, all kinds of things.”
“That still might make a pretty large circle.”
“But a circle all the same. We’ll keep tightening it as we go along. We have two people in custody, and we are going to be leaning on them as hard and as long as the law allows. We have psychologists with specialized backgrounds in criminal behavior looking at their profiles, too. We’ve got people working on building the criminal cases we will bring against Hocus — talking to people who knew the late Mr. Ross, to try to find out who asked him to lure Frank out to Riverside. Maybe Ross talked to someone about his deal with Hocus. And so on.”
“What about the police in Bakersfield?”
“We’ve had total cooperation from them. They’ve been very helpful — Frank was with this department for more years than he’s been with ours. They are just as concerned as we are. They’ve already got research going on the Ryan-Neukirk case. They will be working on setting up a trace on the call to your mother-in-law’s house. The newspaper is a little trickier, but the Bakersfield police will try to subpoena phone company records for Brandon North’s phone and fax machine for the calls from Hocus.”
After a moment he said, “I should also mention that the department may send more people out here, including another negotiator.”
“Why?”
“Relief, for one thing; I may need to catch a little sleep somewhere along the way.
Perspective, for another — no one should do this job alone. But also because there are those who think I’ve already allowed you to be too active in this case.”
I didn’t want to think about dealing with anyone other than Cassidy as a negotiator. He had irritated me at times, but he was starting to grow on me. “I don’t want to work with anyone else,” I said.
“I’m flattered. But it may not be your decision.”
Conversation dropped off again after that. Cassidy seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, and I was glad for the silence. I tried to go over what I had learned from the articles in the Californian.
I took my notebook out of my purse. It was opened to a set of notes I had made while working on two political stories the day before — a millennium or two ago, it seemed now. How mundane the notes were. A quote from a member of the city council on the redhot issue of permit-only parking for a residential area near a nightclub in his district. A series of questions I planned to ask a restaurant owner who wanted to expand his beachfront patio dining area — over the objections of his neighbors.
This is what you spent your time working on, I told myself, while he was being captured. While Frank bled in the trunk of the car. While someone shot him full of morphine.
Where are you?
I called to Frank from that place within myself where fear and hope were wrestling one another, each fighting dirty. I was willing to become a firm believer in psychic phenomena or a more devout Catholic or whatever it was that God might want in exchange for some timely miracle. (“Cassidy, I’ve just had a vision. He’s in the cellar of a small farmhouse with purple curtains on the kitchen windows. Wait, I also see — yes — they grow okra there.”) I’ve known for a couple of decades that God is not really into these kinds of bargains. I doubted even Cassidy could strike the deal. I didn’t really expect an answer, but I silently called to Frank anyway.
I turned to a clean page in my notebook and began writing, using a private form of shorthand I had been taught by O’Connor, my late mentor at the Express. To anyone else the notes wouldn’t mean much as written, but I could read them as quickly as my native tongue. Samuel and Bret weren’t the only ones who had developed a secret language.
Roughly translated, mine read:
Hocus:
Motives — Anarchists? Political? Revenge?
Computer expertise — Hacked into several different systems. Common thread in any?
Medical expertise — Used morphine, Versed. Robbery of hospital pharmacy?
Lang and Colson — Any Bakersfield connections?
Woman seen at Lang’s house — Any real connection to Hocus? Is she now with Bret and Samuel?
Contact:
Mothers — still in Bakersfield?
Regina Szal — speech therapist
Another name occurred to me, but Cassidy said it before I could write it down.
“Who’s Cecilia Parker?” he asked.
“I’ve never met her,” I said, not looking up from my notebook.
He waited a moment. I could hear the amusement in his voice when he said, “Okay. But you know who she is.”
I looked him right in the eye and said, “Frank’s exfiancée. She still lives around here, and, yes, we should probably try to talk to her.”
I half expected him to laugh, but he didn’t. If anything, he seemed to regret pressing me.
“I’m going to call Jack and Pete. They’ll be worried,” I said, and reached for my purse.
“Lunch is on me,” he said. “First time I ever bought a woman a teaspoon of soup.”
I made the call, did my best to reassure Pete. A hopeless task. Jack, on the other hand, did his best to encourage me, so I guess everything evened out. Cassidy used the pay phone to make a few reports, then let me drive to Bea Harriman’s place while he made other calls on his cell phone. Almost all of the calls were requests for current addresses and background information on the people I had on my own list.
“So why did Neukirk and Ryan let us know who they are?” I asked.
“If that’s who they are, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve been a little publicity mad all along, I’d say. They’re big on drama. They’re leading up to something. With luck, we’ll know soon.”
I hadn’t been to Bea Harriman’s home very often, but I remembered the way. I did the driving, while Cassidy tried to coach me in preparation for the call. He would play the role of the caller, I would try to respond in a way that kept him talking and would also gradually allow me to hand off the call to a hostage negotiator.
“Your work as a reporter will help you in one way,” he said. “You’re used to asking open-ended questions, ones that encourage longer responses. Same thing with silences; you know to let them stretch. But you won’t find it easy to stay calm if they start making threats against your husband — and that’s very common at first. That’s one reason we prefer not to let family members be involved. Your fear for Frank is likely to heighten the tension, which we are trying to lower. More than anything, you’ve got to try to stay calm, no matter what’s said or threatened. And remember — if you keep dwelling on the subject of Frank’s well-being, your concern for him may only make him seem more valuable as a hostage. We want to know his condition, but we don’t want to focus the conversation on him.”
I tried to set aside my fears, to imagine myself behaving just as I should when the time came. I tried not to contemplate the price of failure.
“I’ll be right there with you,” Cassidy said, watching me. “You won’t be alone.”
I made the turn onto Bea Harriman’s street. The house was a Craftsman, built in the late 1920s on a large lot. It was painted white, as if it intended to provide a canvas for the flowers blooming all around it in a wide spectrum of colors — blues, reds, oranges, yellows, purples, and lush green foliage. The big wooden swing on the front porch was still and empty.
Lots of cars were parked in front of the house, so I had to park a few houses down the street. Cassidy took the keys and opened the trunk of the car, which had a number of hard-shell and soft cases of varying sizes in it. He pulled one out; it was a silver-colored hard-shell case, about the size of a briefcase.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Cassette recorder for the call,” he said. “Not as fancy as the reel-to-reel Hank was using at your place, but easier to hook up. If we end up being here for a while, I’ll bring in the fax and computer and other equipment. But for now, this will do.”
Birds sang as we walked to the house, and I tried to listen to them rather than to the worst of my thoughts.
“Now, that swing makes me think of summer nights back home,” Cassidy said as we approached.
At that moment the front door opened, and Bea Harriman walked out. An attractive, dark-haired woman accompanied her. The woman had her arm around Bea’s shoulder, and their heads were bent together in a tête-à-tête. They looked up at us and straightened suddenly. As Cassidy and I came closer, the stranger didn’t spare more than a quick glance toward him — but her eyes raked over me. Sizing me up, I realized.
I knew in that instant who she was.
Somewhere in the mess of words that was Bea Harriman’s stumbling introduction, she confirmed that I could no longer say I had never met Cecilia Parker.
15
“ANY FURTHER WORD ON FRANK?” Cecilia asked without preamble, continuing to stare at me.
“Nothing new,” Cassidy said before I could answer. I had been dreading trying to come up with some social nicety if she had said, “So glad to meet you,” and now, oddly, I was miffed that she hadn’t.
“And you are?” Cecilia said to him, apparently irritated that she had to make eye contact with anyone else.
“Detective Tom Cassidy, Las Piernas Police Department,” he said easily. “Now, this has been an extremely difficult day for Mrs. Harriman,” he continued, and when Cecilia’s eyes slewed to Bea, he put a firm hand on my shoulder. “Oh, for everyone, but e
specially Mrs. Frank Harriman. So I’ll just take her on in while you two say your good-byes.”
Bea floundered only for a second. Her own initial reaction to Frank’s kidnapping having passed, she snapped into a role in which she excelled — taking care of someone else in a crisis. I could see her home in on me like a smart bomb. “Thanks for coming by, Cecilia,” she said, and turned and started to lead the way in.
“Excuse me,” I said, halting the parade. Cassidy loosened his grip, and I straightened my spine as I turned back to Cecilia.
She was still standing on the sidewalk, tight-lipped and unmoving.
“Do you really have to leave now?” I asked.
Her eyes widened (long-lashed, beautiful, big brown eyes — damn them). She relaxed out of her combat stance, though, and said, “Yes. I’m sorry, I can’t stay.”
“Will you be at home later?”
Openly puzzled, she said, “Yes.”
“Mind if I call you?”
She almost asked, “Why?” I saw the word begin to form on her lips, but she stopped herself and said, “Of course not. Bea has my number.”
She turned and walked away. When I looked back at Cassidy, he appeared to be amused. Bea was holding open the screen door. With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked between them and into the house.
I was met by Mike O’Brien, Frank’s brother-in-law, who simply said, “Oh, Irene,” and pulled me into a big, comforting hug; I felt tears well up. When Frank’s sister, Cassie, joined us, it was nearly too much. I might have broken down in their embrace had I not heard a gruff voice say, “Here, now, don’t smother the girl.”
When I saw the man who spoke those words, I smiled. I hadn’t seen him in years, and he was a little thinner and a little grayer, but I knew him right away. “You’re looking good, Bear.”