18th Abduction

by Patterson, James

  “Lucinda. Drucker.”

  He said, “We have a few questions for you, Ms. Drucker.”

  “Questions for me?”

  I stepped in and showed her the photo of Denny on my phone. I asked, “Do you know this man?”

  She scrutinized the photo, and I swiped the screen, showing more photos from the same set the ATM had shot of the parking lot. Finally she said, “I think that’s Denny.”

  “Last name?”

  “Lopez.”

  I said, “Denny works here?”

  “Denny’s my boyfriend. What’s wrong? Why do you need to know?”

  I said, “Denny was seen with a vehicle like the one across the street. It was parked near a crime scene. He may have seen something that could help us with our investigation.”

  A dark-haired man with a tattoo of a wolf on the side of his neck came out of the kitchen and into the small main room. He wore a stained white apron over his T-shirt and jeans and was drying his hands on a dish towel. This had to be Jose Martinez, the taco shop’s proprietor and owner of the matching SUV.

  Conklin and I were both wearing SFPD Windbreakers. Martinez noticed, scowled, and said, “Can I help you?”

  Lucinda said, “I got this, Jose. It’s personal. I need to take a smoke break, okay?”

  The boss said to me, “This is my shop. Did she do something wrong?”

  “We’re doing an investigation, and Lucinda may know a witness who can help us out.”

  He was going to go nuts when I told him we were going to impound his vehicle, but I wasn’t ready to disclose that yet. First we needed Lucinda to talk about Denny.

  He said to Lucinda, “Your boyfriend get into an accident with my car?”

  “No, no, Jose. No, he did not.”

  Martinez looked at her, walked to the front window, peered out until he saw the SUV. Then he flapped his dish towel over his shoulder and glared at Lucinda, saying, “Five minutes, Lucy. You gotta help me out here.”

  Martinez went to the cash register as the three men stood, balled up their trash, and dunked it into a bin. Lucy ducked under the counter and came around with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  Given Lucinda’s noticeable anxiety, I thought she might refuse to give Denny up. Regardless, I was betting that Carly Myers had left a print or a trace of DNA inside the SUV. Maybe Susan and Adele had also left some trace.

  I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be optimistic, but I felt this close to bagging Denny Lopez.

  CHAPTER 54

  I was high on hope as we followed Lucinda Drucker out to Valencia Street.

  I watched and waited as she fumbled with her lighter, lit her cigarette, and took a long drag. She exhaled. Then she said, “I don’t know where Denny is. I called him a couple times today and he didn’t call me back yet.”

  Conklin asked for Denny’s number and hers, and she reluctantly complied. He asked, “Under what circumstances did Denny use the company car?”

  “He does lunchtime deliveries. Sometimes I let him take it after we’re closed.”

  “Martinez is okay with that?”

  “Please don’t … look, he’ll fire me.”

  Conklin asked, “Do you know where Denny was last Tuesday at about this time?”

  “Oh, hell no. I don’t ask him his business.”

  She rubbed her shoulder as if she was remembering something that had happened when she’d asked him his business before. She asked, “What kind of crime was he supposed to have seen?”

  “Does Denny do other kinds of work?” I asked, sidestepping her question by inserting one of mine.

  “I told you, I don’t ask him his business. Here’s what I want to say: I love Denny. He loves me. I dropped out of high school ten years ago, and he was my first boyfriend and my only. I really know him. Understand? He would never do anything wrong.”

  I said, “But you don’t ask him his business.”

  She scowled, took a drag on her cigarette, flicked ashes.

  We weren’t alone on the street.

  Traffic came slowly up Valencia, and streetwalkers leaned into cars at the lights. Shopworkers walked to their cars. Bars opened and stores closed.

  It was getting dark, but the big white letters on our backs, spelling SFPD, were bright enough to draw attention from passersby. Drucker cast a look up the street, threw her cigarette down on the sidewalk, and stepped on it.

  The last three customers came out the door, accompanied by the jingling of the bell. She stepped out of their way.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Jose is waiting. I have to close up the front—”

  “I’ve got a better idea, Lucinda,” I said. “Let’s take a ride to the station and talk where there’s less distraction.”

  “I’m cooperating. I’ve told you everything I know.”

  I said, “Do you know if Denny runs girls?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I showed her my phone. I pulled up pictures of Carly and her friends. “Have you ever seen this woman? Or her? Or her? Is Denny pimping these women?”

  “No way. Jeez. I don’t know them. I just said I don’t ask Denny his business.”

  Funny thing. I believed her and I even felt sorry for her. She showed signs of emotional abuse. She was fearful and pretty clearly lying to herself. But we weren’t done here.

  I said to my partner, “Let’s serve the warrant on Mr. Martinez and get the vehicle to the lab.”

  “Wait,” Lucinda Drucker said. “You have to understand. If you tell Jose that I let Denny drive the car after hours, I’m going to lose my job.”

  “Look, Ms. Drucker. We don’t want you to get fired, but see it from our side. We’re investigating a homicide. A woman was killed. Two more are missing. If Denny has seen something, he has to tell us.”

  I thought I saw tears in her eyes, but I turned away from her and called Dale Culver in Impound at the lab. I gave him the location, the warrant number, the description of the vehicle, and the tag number. Culver said, “It’s gonna be twenty-five to thirty minutes to get a flatbed out there.”

  I was looking up Twentieth Street as I spoke with Culver, when I saw someone who might be Denny Lopez approaching on foot. He was smaller than I’d pictured him, maybe five seven, narrow shoulders. He had his hands in his pant pockets, head down, apparently deep in thought.

  Lucinda saw him at the same time.

  That was Denny. That was him.

  I turned to Conklin, and that’s when Lucinda yelled, “Denny! Cops! Run!”

  CHAPTER 55

  Lopez looked up, saw us, and split, turning on his heel and running back the way he’d come.

  I yelled, “Stop! Police!”

  He kept going. I was the law, and by running, he’d crossed a legal line right into a gray area called reasonable suspicion.

  I yelled again for him to stop. He didn’t even turn his head. Conklin and I ran behind him, and then after streaking along Twentieth, he ditched down Lexington. Although Conklin had a couple of inches on me, my legs were as long as his, and I was fit from running with Joe and Martha.

  But I knew we couldn’t risk Drucker or Martinez disappearing with the possible evidence inside that vehicle. I had enough air to yell to Conklin, “Rich. Here. Take the warrant and wait for the lab.”

  Conklin faded back and I picked up speed.

  I was fast, and on a straightaway I would have had the advantage, but Denny Lopez could pivot like a quarter horse. One minute he was pounding the asphalt ahead of me, and then he was just gone.

  He seemed to have slipped into another dimension.

  Did he live on this block? I thought about Susan and Adele. Where had he stashed them? Were they only yards away?

  I checked out the back doors on Lexington Street. Some were gated with iron grilles, some were wood, one was a roll-up garage door. Next to that one was a pair of double doors with metal studs, and beside that was a slim metal grille with peeling green paint and a dead bolt. Behind
the grille was a matching green-painted wooden door.

  But the dead bolt was unlocked, the grille slightly ajar—as if someone had run through and hadn’t had time to throw the bolt.

  I pulled my gun, yanked open the grille, and kicked in the wooden door.

  I was expecting anything. A gun pointed at me. A room full of naked men weighing heroin, packing glassine envelopes. But it was nothing like that. I was inside a basement room lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. It looked like something between a knickknack shop and a hoarder’s lair.

  I called out, “Lopez. This is the police. Come out with your hands up.”

  Something stirred from behind a six-foot-tall stack of newspapers. I had a two-handed grip on my Glock, hoping like hell I wouldn’t have to use it.

  A woman’s voice called out, “Helloooo, Janice?”

  A weedy-looking faerie of a woman wearing a gauzy floral frock, looking between seventy and ninety years old, appeared from between the newspapers and a rickety china closet.

  “Janice,” she said, looking delighted to see me. “You’re early, aren’t you? Is it time for bed?”

  I lowered my gun and said, “I’m Sergeant Boxer, ma’am. Did you see a man come in here a moment ago?”

  I was breathing hard, managing to speak to the elderly woman while taking in the whole room. I wasn’t sure that Lopez was here. He could have gone through any door and out the other side. I pictured him fleeing on Eighteenth, circling back for his girlfriend, who might still be standing outside the Taqueria del Lobo.

  I tapped the radio on my shoulder mike and called Conklin, gave him my location, and told him to call for backup.

  And then a lamp toppled and crashed at the back of the jumbled room. I yelled, “Hands in the air!”

  A slight man of about thirty, with regular features and wearing a pullover, worn jeans, and run-down sneakers, stood up and showed me his palms.

  This was the guy from the ATM photo. I was positive.

  I said, “Denny Lopez, put your hands on the top of your head and turn around.”

  “You have the wrong guy. You have the totally wrong guy.”

  “You’re not Denny Lopez?”

  “I’m Denny Lopez, but I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Are you carrying a weapon?”

  “No,” he said. “I have a ballpoint pen in my shirt pocket.” I said, “Running from the police is breaking the law. I’m bringing you in on reasonable suspicion of committing or about to commit a crime.”

  “Bullshit!” he shouted.

  “Don’t make this hard on yourself, Denny. Do not move, or I’ll add resisting arrest to the charges.”

  I patted him down; found the pen, keys, phone, wallet. I put the wallet on a wobbly end table, pulled Lopez’s hands behind his back, and cuffed him for my safety.

  I opened the wallet. Bank card. Credit card. Driver’s license. All in the name of Dennis L. Lopez.

  When he spoke again, his tone was conciliatory. He said, “Believe me, Officer. I’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing.”

  And I was suddenly filled with doubt.

  I could say with some certainty that he was Carly’s pimp, that he’d been seen near the scene of the murder. But had he killed Carly? Had he kidnapped and maybe killed the two other women? Had this puny guy done all of that?

  He’d run from me.

  Reasonable suspicion was a gray area, and that’s how the courts had ruled. Sometimes yes. Sometimes reasonable suspicion was an excuse for a bad cop to fire on an innocent person.

  I weighed it all—quickly.

  Was Denny Lopez’s flight from police cause enough to bring him in? Or was I grasping at the only available straw?

  CHAPTER 56

  Joe was at his desk that evening with all the lights on, going over photos while he waited for Anna to arrive for their meeting.

  Twelve hours ago, at seven thirty this morning, Anna had called him at home to confess that she’d been doing her own stakeout of Petrović’s house, against Joe’s express directions to leave surveillance to the FBI.

  She said, “I have to tell you what happened.”

  Her Bosnian accent weighed down her English, but Joe listened hard and understood that Anna had been watching the Victorian house when Petrović arrived home last night at around midnight. She described the gray-haired man who had visited. “He looked well off, Joe. He had very good posture and a strong step.”

  Anna then recounted what he’d done.

  She said, “I disguised myself. I had a scarf on, and there was no moon. But still, he saw me and stopped his car.”

  “He stopped next to you?”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “Jesus,” Joe said. “What did he want?”

  “He asked if I needed help. Pure evil was … radiating? Radiating off him. I know what you’re thinking. I have a panic fear of evil. But I tell you, it was as if he could see through me and wanted me to know that he had all the power.”

  Joe could almost see the dominant smile Anna had described. He muttered “Jesus Christ” again, then said, “You told him that you didn’t need any help.”

  “Yes. Just shook my head. I started my car and drove to my house, and then, you would be proud, Joe. I parked several blocks away in case he was following me. I watched carefully. No one was following me.”

  Joe sighed. She couldn’t know that for sure. Petrović knew that Anna was watching him. He might well know her as a survivor of his atrocities in Djoba and his personal attacks against her. Her scar, the size of a handprint, was unforgettable. Petrović might have had someone surveilling her house, and he might have a plan to take out this witness to his old life who knew his real name. It was possible, and it made Joe angry and frightened for this woman he hardly knew.

  He said to her in this early-morning phone call, “Do you understand me now, Anna? Stay the fuck away from Petrović.”

  “Joe. No shouting.”

  “Sorry. Please. Anna, you’re looking for trouble.”

  “Joe, listen to me. I woke up at dawn with my heart pounding. I knew the man in the Escalade. I’ve seen him before.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I think so. I think he was in the Serbian Army. I don’t know his name and I never knew his name. I think he was a regular soldier. But I also think he was one of the men who came to the hotel.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Joe had ended the call by saying, “Stop by my office when you get off work. I’ll pull up as many pictures as I can of the invading force in Djoba. Maybe you can pick out that man in the Escalade. Are you up for that, Anna?”

  “Yes. I get off at six.”

  “So you can be here by six thirty or so,” he said. “Call me if you get hung up at work. I’ll let security know I’m expecting you.”

  It was now 7:30 p.m. No call from Anna.

  Damn it. Goddamnit. She’d been confronted by someone she thought might be a man who had attacked her, and he’d let her know that he’d seen her hiding in the dark.

  Now she was late. Where the hell was she? Had something happened to Anna?

  Joe called down to security to double-check that she wasn’t waiting downstairs. The guard at the desk was sure. No one had come to see him.

  Joe went back to the photos.

  They were still shots printed from videos of the Serbian troops entering Djoba in tanks and trucks and on foot. The soldiers wore fatigues and helmets, carried Zastava machine guns, and had bandoliers strapped across their chests. Most of the footage had been taken by civilians.

  One of the videos had been shot from a balcony thirty feet up, showing soldiers mowing down fleeing civilians, shooting at random, the bodies jerking, falling, dust coming up on the street like a brown cloud. Women in head scarves held up their arms and cried out at the sight of the slaughter.

  The still shots lacked sound, and for that Joe thanked God.

  The last piece of footage felt like a jackpot.

  It was a g
roup shot of a hundred men gathered around a monument on the main street. The troops had formed rows, like a class photo, the tallest in the line at the back, others seated on the lower three tiers of steps around the monument.

  At one end of the grouping, taking a strong stance, was Slobodan Petrović. He was red-faced, uniformed, in a gold-braided hat, and heavily armed. He waved at the camera, grinning and proud.

  Joe was staring at Petrović when a thought struck him.

  He pictured the gray-haired man in Tony’s Place, walking a half pace behind Petrović. He’d had a mustache, and he’d been speaking with Petrović in Serbian.

  Could this be the same man who’d paid a call on Petrović at oh dark hundred last night? The same one Anna thought she recognized from the prison brothel?

  Joe couldn’t help but remember in crisp detail when Petrović had called him out in the restaurant last week. He had mentioned Anna, referring to her as his “girlfriend.”

  Maybe, as Anna suspected, the gray-haired man knew her, too.

  Joe grabbed his phone and called Anna’s cell phone again. Still no answer. He got the number of San Francisco Tesla, where Anna worked as a bookkeeper, and called there. He asked the woman who answered the phone to put him through to Anna Sotovina.

  The receptionist said that Anna wasn’t there. She thought that Anna had gone to lunch at one and hadn’t come back. The dealership was closing now for the night.

  Joe said, “Was anyone concerned that she didn’t come back from lunch?”

  The woman said, “Not really. If she finished her work, no one would care if she went home. It was a slow day. Is there anything I can do to help you? Shall I leave a message for Anna?”

  Joe said, “No. Thanks anyway.”

  Anna wouldn’t have stood Joe up without calling. Had she been abducted by Petrović or the man in the Escalade?

  Joe folded his hands on his desk.

  This was unusual for him. He didn’t know what to do.

  CHAPTER 58