by Leslie Wolfe
The computer running the CODIS search chimed, and we both rushed to the screen. A message box was popped open, reading, “No matches found.”
“Bollocks,” I groaned. “Bloody bollocks… I need this case closed quickly.”
“Give me a sample to compare it against, and I’ll run it. We’ll know within minutes.”
If only I could get my hands on a suspect to rip some DNA off him and hand it to Anne.
15
Bad News
Twenty-six hours missing
When I left the morgue, the sun was already high. January could be cold in Las Vegas, frigid wind lowering the nightly temperatures well into the low forties, even high thirties. Okay, maybe weather wasn’t as severe as it was in other places that time of the year, but for a city that has palm trees lining its boulevards, temperatures close to freezing were unusual. Once the sun shone up high, the cold air blowing from the north lost its teeth, promising spring was not far away.
Back in my London days as a young constable, I’d learned an original way to keep my head riveted firmly on my shoulders, regardless of how terrifying the crime was that I was investigating. I’d seen one of the older inspectors do it; at first, I just copied his actions without fully understanding why.
We’d been called to a scene by a frantic neighbor who’d stumbled on a triple homicide. Someone had butchered a young mother and her two children, leaving the apartment covered in blood. The killer had dipped his fingers in the victims’ blood and scribbled messages on the walls, Bible verses, mainly Leviticus verses, 19:29, 21:7, and 21:9, and a slew of profanities and curses. I never forgot those verse numbers, although I had to look them up to understand the killer’s message, because he’d attempted to follow the instructions so clearly given in 21:9 and set the woman on fire but had failed. Interrupted by the neighbor who was returning a mixer, he’d fled the apartment.
That was the first homicide I was responding to, and I had pathetically faltered. I wasn’t calloused enough to take in such a horrific display and not feel sick, not have the urge to chunder my lunch. Moments later, I saw the chief inspector rushing out of the apartment to look at the sky, squinting into the sun. I did the same, although not really knowing why. Just as turning on a light could dissipate a night terror and clear the mind, the bright rays of sunshine and the blue sky erased some of the emotional trauma imparted by witnessing the horrors that came with the job. The facts remained, coldly carved into my memory, and that helped me catch the killer. Emotion, on the other hand, would’ve stood in everyone’s way.
Clear days were rare in London, but in Vegas, they’re almost a given. Coming out of the morgue, I stopped on the sidewalk for a moment and looked at the sky, squinting in the bright light, and I breathed in the refreshing morning air. Then I drove to the nearest Starbucks and ordered myself a venti latte at the drive-thru window.
I pulled into the nearby parking lot and turned my face to the sun again, inviting the healing light to erase the last of the unwanted emotions I still carried after understanding what Alyssa’s final days had been like. She didn’t need my empathy, my tears, or my internalized nightmares; she would’ve wanted me to catch her killer and bring him to justice.
I breathed some more, taking small sips of the hot liquid every two or three deep breaths until my heart rate normalized and I was a rational human being again.
There was one bit of information that could help me narrow a suspect list, once I’d have one. Tetrodotoxin wasn’t something that most people could pronounce, never mind understand. I’d been one of them until an hour ago. How does one go from raping women to building such an elaborate modus operandi? He had to be someone who’d learned about such toxins, maybe in his profession. I thought that was an excellent place to start.
I took another sip of coffee, pushing to the side an annoying little detail: the rapist was somehow involved with a human trafficking organization.
I called Fletcher.
“Good morning, Detective,” he greeted me. His voice filled the space in my vehicle, clear and close as if he were there, riding shotgun and drinking coffee with me.
A tiny, sad smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Good morning, Fletch. Got a bunch of questions for you.”
“And I got answers. Shoot.”
“Where would someone get, um, modified tetrodotoxin these days?”
“Doc called earlier, said you might want to know that.”
“Help me understand, what kind of person are we dealing with? An expert of sorts? A doctor? A chemist?”
“He doesn’t have to be that sophisticated,” Fletcher replied, crushing my hopes with only a few words.
“Then how? I didn’t know such a thing existed until now.”
“The times are changing, Detective. All he needs is an internet connection, nothing more.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can go on the Dark Web and ask for a certain chemical formulation, describing the outcome you desire. He could be as clueless about fish toxins as you and me.”
“You’re saying he could go out there and ask specifically for what? Stuff that renders women paralyzed but doesn’t kill them?”
“Yeah, like that.”
I shuddered. “And then what would happen? People would bid for the gig?” I couldn’t help the sarcasm that seeped in my voice.
“And he’d pay using some untraceable cryptocurrency. A few days later, he’d take delivery with instructions on how to use the product.”
“This can’t be legal,” I blurted, although I already knew the answer. It wasn’t legal; it had never been.
“It’s not. We’re fighting it the best we can, all law enforcement agencies do.”
My thoughts wandered for a moment, forgetting I had Fletcher on the line. If we couldn’t use the toxin to narrow a suspect list, what did we really have, if anything?
His DNA, for starters.
His propensity for violence; people didn’t shift between phases like werewolves. If the suspect had been that brutal with Alyssa, he must’ve been a known violent offender or at least have a reputation for violence if he hadn’t been caught yet.
The perp had visited the crime scene at several particular moments in time, and when people went somewhere, they usually took two traceable components along for the ride: their vehicles and their phones. To start my investigation on that route, I had to wait for Anne to finish her postmortem and provide me with the timeline of his visits.
I found myself smiling, anticipating the moment I’d lay eyes on that creep. Maybe there’d be no one around and he’d attempt to flee or otherwise resist arrest. In that case, my only dilemma would be Glock or Sig? I routinely carried both.
“Victim background?” Fletcher asked, snapping me out of my reverie.
There was a tension in his voice I hadn’t heard before. My smile vanished.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Your vic, Alyssa Conway, disappeared on December nineteenth from her school. There’s an open missing persons case for her. She’s the daughter of Harold and Geraldine Conway. No juvie record, no priors for either parent. No former marriages, no disgruntlement that I could find in any of their lives. They are the typical, middle-class family. Dad’s a financial advisor. Mom’s a real estate agent.”
“Okay, Fletch, if they’re squeaky clean, then what’s on your mind?”
There was a moment of silence on the call.
“Where’s Holt? Is he there with you?”
That was an excellent question. I hadn’t heard from him since last night. He’d ignored my calls and texts, and I’d stopped trying sometime after two in the morning, thinking I was only depleting his phone battery. All I could do was hope he was all right, making progress in finding his daughter.
I hadn’t slept a wink, wondering if the kidnappers had called again with instructions, if that stubborn mule I had for a partner had surrendered himself to his daughter’s kidnappers in the off chance they’d keep their word and
return her safely. I wondered if I was ever going to see him again.
It was funny how, in only a few weeks, our lives had become so intertwined that I couldn’t think of a future where he wouldn’t play a role, even if only to drive me completely insane.
“He’s not here, Fletch,” I eventually replied. “I don’t know where he is. Why?”
“I have some bad news, Baxter,” he said, then stopped talking again.
“Spill it already,” I reacted.
“Alyssa Conway was taken the exact same way as Holt’s kid was. Two men, posing as cops, lifted her from volleyball practice.”
No, no, no, I thought, my mind racing. I wasn’t hearing that. It couldn’t be true.
“How come we’re just hearing about this now?”
“There are hundreds of missing persons cases still open in Vegas. We can’t keep up with all of them.”
“Why wasn’t there a BOLO on the two suspects and their car? You’d think anyone impersonating police officers would warrant a BOLO.”
“When they took Alyssa, they didn’t speak with anyone. Witnesses saw them from a distance. The perps waited for her to leave practice and approached her on the sidewalk. No one had any descriptions, and there were no street cameras near that location.”
He stopped talking for a moment, letting the silence set in, while my mind continued to scream. No! Please don’t let this happen.
“Do you think it’s a ser—” Fletcher started to ask.
“No,” I snapped. “Don’t you bloody say the words, all right? Don’t make it real.”
I breathed, trying to soothe my anger, my fears. I’d yelled at him for no reason. If we were to save Meredith, to catch those men, we needed to reason freely and say the words we needed to say, uncensored.
“I’m sorry, Fletch, I really am,” I whispered. I wanted to say more, but words died on my lips, unwilling to come out. “Yes, we might be looking at a serial killer,” I eventually said, my throat constricted and inexplicably dry. “We’ve only had one victim, but—”
“I’m getting the serial killer vibe,” he said.
That was one way of putting it.
“Will you tell Holt?” he asked.
“Yes, I will, as soon as I can find him.”
How the hell would I tell him? What words could I possibly use? The moment he heard what I had to say he’d fall apart, and for good reason.
“I don’t know where he is either. His phone’s off. Speaking of Holt, remember that warehouse on the Beltway?” Fletcher asked. “Were you there last night?”
“No,” I replied, closing my eyes, anticipating hearing that the place had been blown sky high.
“There was an active nine-one-one call at that address this morning. They found an ex-con with a rap sheet a mile long, a little banged up, with a nine-mil hole in his leg, tied to a tree.”
Holt.
“Is he talking?”
“Not a single word.”
“Okay,” I replied, not really thinking of what I was saying, not really able to gather my thoughts after hearing about Alyssa’s abduction. “Do we have the sketches for the two men yet? Fletch, I need those men identified. Have you tried facial recognition?”
“They’re running already. No hits in NCIC yet.”
16
Lies
Twenty-seven hours missing
Special Agent Glover watched his colleague, SA Rosales, gently pull the bedroom door shut, after persuading Meredith’s mother to lie down for a few minutes.
He didn’t like Rosales much, the way she looked down on him, even though she was almost a foot shorter, brought out the worst in him. Her arrogance was so palpable, it felt as if there was a stench of something acrid in the room whenever she was present, and he wanted to wrinkle his nose in disgust. That aside, the thirty-year-old woman had some serious skills. She was the absolute best with kidnapped victims’ families. Something in the way she talked to them instilled the confidence needed to calm the parents and get them out of the way, so the professionals could do their jobs. Hats off to Rosales for her diplomacy and her mannerisms, because the rest of her was insufferable.
She was smart, he’d give her that, but she was keenly aware of her superior brainpower. She wasn’t the only intelligent being in the room, yet she behaved as if she were. When explaining something, the woman spoke as if, between the lines, there was a question about to be voiced: “Do I really have to spell it out for you?”
He sighed, seeing her approach in silent steps entirely muffled by the thick, cut-pile carpeting. She was as irritating as a bad case of anal itch on an eighteen-hour stakeout, with her slightly tilted head and her chin thrust forward.
“How is she?” Glover asked.
“She’s finally asleep,” Rosales replied, rolling her eyes. “I can’t believe how long she lasted, pills and all.”
“I can,” Glover replied. “It’s her kid, what would you expect? Do you have children, Rosales?”
She didn’t bother to answer; she threw a side glance toward the kitchen table, where the landline phone gathered dust in complete silence, refusing to cooperate. Jennifer’s cell phone, wired to a recording device and plugged into the wall for power, was also silent. Neither had rung since Meredith had been taken, except for a few concerned friends and neighbors and, for the past few hours, not once had either device disturbed the tense and tear-filled gloom of the house.
“I’d expect a ransom call,” she muttered angrily. “And where’s the father in all this?”
Glover scratched his chin with tobacco-stained fingers. He let his fingernails grow longer than most men, not because of some fashion statement he wanted to make, and not by much, only one or two millimeters. He was rather averse to clippers, hated scissors, and nail files made his skin crawl. The veteran agent with two honorary medals in his file, who wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to jump in the line of fire to shield a child from bullets with his own body, dreaded cutting his nails. He also craved a cigarette, a real one, not the vape kind.
“He’s out there looking for her, Rosales; that’s what I’d do,” he replied, deciding to postpone taking another smoke break for at least a half hour.
Rosales stiffened, looking straight at him. He could’ve sworn she stretched and stood on her toes to appear taller, even if by only an inch.
“Would you also lie to the federal agents who are there to help you find your kid? Would you be so damn stupid?”
He didn’t know. Every time they landed a new case and he was faced with the tragedy of yet another family having to deal with the loss of a child, even if temporary, he silently said a prayer of thanks it wasn’t him going home to an empty crib or receiving the phone call that forever changed a parent’s life. He didn’t know how he’d react, or what he’d do, even with all his experience with kidnapping cases. He only knew he’d stop at nothing to get his child back. He guessed that Detective Jack Holt was busy out there somewhere, doing the same thing.
“We’re being played for fools, Glover,” Rosales hissed. “We’re watching this damn phone that’s never going to ring. And do you know why?”
“No, I don’t know why,” he mocked her, unable to refrain himself, seeing how entitled and presumptuous she was. “Go ahead, explain it to me.”
“I’m willing to bet a week’s pay that Holt already got the ransom call, and he’s busying himself dealing with it,” Rosales said, keeping her voice low. Only a thin door separated them from the former Mrs. Holt’s bedroom.
“He didn’t strike me as particularly rich, to handle a ransom demand on his own,” Glover replied, suspecting Rosales was right but unwilling to give her the satisfaction of admitting she might be on to something.
“Cops have their ways, you know that,” she said.
Glover didn’t reply; instead, he plunged his hands inside his pants pockets and paced aimlessly through the kitchen, looking at the pile of papers laid out on the table, then absent-mindedly at the laptop screen.
“He’s going to screw this up badly,” Rosales insisted. “He’s going to get that girl killed.”
Glover stopped abruptly, feeling like stomping his foot in anger. The woman was absolutely impossible with her manipulations and her twisted words. They didn’t know any of that; they didn’t know if Holt was screwing anything up. He would’ve preferred to have Holt right there in that kitchen, waiting impatiently as any other parent would do in his situation, but Holt wasn’t like any other parent. He was a cop.
“What do you want to do, huh? He’s an adult, a father, and he’s law enforcement. He deserves some credit. Even if he doesn’t, he didn’t break any laws. What would you do? Chain him to the wall?”
“Yes!” she asserted excitedly. “Throw him in jail under a temporary hold, do something, only don’t let him roam the streets like a madman, doing who knows what. Get him under control.”
Good thing she wasn’t foaming at the mouth. She was being ridiculous again; the same way she was every time he didn’t immediately comply with whatever crossed her mind to do. His seniority didn’t matter, nothing did. If the case went south for some reason, and that was a possibility, given no one had contacted the family in over twenty-four hours, she’d get to pontificate and tell everyone how she’d been adamant about this and that, making him look like a fool to everyone at the bureau.
Screw that… He wasn’t giving in to her whims either, no matter the consequences.
Doctors hated having other doctors for patients; law enforcement wasn’t any different. Working with their own kind was challenging. Glover was a stickler for procedure on any typical day, but this day was far from ordinary. Yes, ideally Holt would be compliant and let the CARD team locate the girl and bring her home. But the seasoned cop also knew the statistical odds, and those odds weren’t in favor of sitting and waiting. Over thirty-two thousand missing children cases were still showing open in the federal systems, probably never to be solved. The more time passed, the lower the chances for a happy ending. And time was running out for a scared, fifteen-year-old girl who might soon be dead if they couldn’t figure out a way to find her and bring her home.