Outfox
Page 25
“When we met, he hadn’t been a foodie for long,” she said. “It was a hobby he began after his retirement.”
“Books are good hiding places. I’ll have Gif tear into them.” She seemed on the verge of protesting, and he pounced on that.
“Do you want him caught, Talia?”
The file held her interest for a ponderous moment, then she looked up at him. “If he did what you allege, then, yes, of course. Those women deserve justice.”
He said nothing, just looked at her.
“You don’t believe I’m sincere?”
“You married him, Talia, and shared all that the state of matrimony implies. I think you’ll have a difficult time convincing Rudkowski, et al., that you never felt something was off about your husband.”
“I felt he kept secrets,” she said softly and with reluctance. “More lately than at first. I attributed it to an affair.”
“Had you ever accused him prior to night before last?”
“No.”
“You showed your hand with that accusation. You’re lucky he went after Elaine first. When I came tearing down here to South Carolina, I thought I was rushing in to save you. You’re loaded. All of us figured you were next. But you weren’t.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“No, I just want you to understand what that means to you. If the authorities don’t find his body, and they won’t, they’ll keep their eye on you. They may not call you a suspect, but there’ll always be that shadow of doubt as to what you knew or didn’t know, what your level of participation was, if you had any compliance whatsoever.”
“I didn’t!”
“Okay.”
“You don’t believe me,” she exclaimed. “What do I have to do to prove I’m innocent?”
“Die.”
She slumped against the back of her chair and looked at him with incredulity over his bluntness.
He said, “If you turn up dead, the authorities will reason that he killed you to shut you up, whether or not you were culpable. If you go on living, untouched, there’ll forever be that question mark beside your name.”
She looked around her, taking in various perspectives of the room as though it had become alien territory. When she came back to him, she said, “I realized this last night, although I didn’t want to acknowledge it.”
“Realized what?”
“That no matter how this ends, I’ll never regain the life I lived before. Will I?” He didn’t say anything, but she got the message. She nodded, then straightened her spine and asked, “Will they hold me in jail?”
“I don’t know.”
“If it were up to you?”
“It won’t be. Not entirely.”
“If it were. Entirely.”
“I would rather have your full cooperation with the investigation. I’d want your input, your gut instinct, your recollections, your unconditional help in catching him.”
“What if I offered my unconditional help?”
“That would go a long way with them.”
She looked down at her lap in which her hands rested. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”
“At what?”
“Manipulation. Bending people to your will.”
“Yes. I’m very good at it. But I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m telling you like it is.”
“Why should I trust that that’s true?”
He couldn’t come up with an answer. “The clock is ticking, Talia.”
She looked at him with appeal. “Are you a good guy?”
“I could tell you I am. I could cross my heart and hope to die. Swear to my goodness on a stack of Bibles. But you’d be crazy to take my word for it.”
“Who was Weston Graham to you?”
The question took him aback, but he answered without pause. “Not was, is.”
“Who is he to you?”
“The man who killed my mother. Lyndsay Cummings.” She registered wordless shock. He let it sink in before adding, “That’s why I want him, Talia. I want to see him burn. And whether that makes me a good guy or a bad one, I really don’t give a shit.”
He was aware of the seconds passing as she stared into his eyes. Finally she said, “I offer my unconditional help.”
He pushed out of the chair. “I’m sure they’ll be glad to have it.”
“I don’t offer it to them. I offer it to you.”
Mike, Gif, and the two young cops trooped single file up the exterior stairs to the apartment. The patrolmen took turns using the bathroom, then Mike and Gif doled out bottles of water from the refrigerator. They raided the cabinet and found an unopened box of Nutter Butters, which the cops took with thanks. The four trooped single file down the staircase. Mike and Gif waved the officers back to their squad car and started toward the house.
As they crossed the lawn, Gif admired the rear perspective of the Ford’s house. “Pretty place, isn’t it? Makes me question my life choices.”
“Not me. All this grass to mow? No thanks.”
“Do you have one aesthetic inclination, Mike?”
He thought on it. “I like my steak tartare garnished with fresh parsley.”
Gif laughed, but as they got closer to the screened porch, he lowered his voice and asked, “What do you think they’re talking about?”
“He’s trying to squeeze as much information out of her as he can before she lawyers up.”
“You think she’s dirty, don’t you?”
“Dirty or not, she’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous how?”
“To Drex,” Mike grumbled. “His head is under her skirt. That makes a man stupid.”
“About that, I think we should back off.”
Mike stopped and turned to him. “Back off?”
“Stop nagging him about it.”
“Let him screw her and pretend not to notice?”
“That’s right, Mike. It’s not our business.”
“Since when?”
“Since he hasn’t screwed her already. When have you known him not to when he wanted to?”
Reading between the lines of what Gif had said, Mike grunted a sound to express his contempt for the frailties of human beings since the fall of Adam, then continued on without further comment.
They went in through the back porch. The kitchen was empty. The two looked at each other. Gif called, “Drex?”
The name echoed throughout the house. Mike elbowed past Gif and went as fast as his waddle allowed into the dining room and then beyond into the living area. “Check upstairs.”
Gif mounted the staircase in a run. He checked all the rooms—empty rooms—before coming back down and shaking his head at Mike, who was returning from an inspection of all the first floor rooms. “Damn!” he said, wheezing. “It’s a friggin’ curse, being right all the time.”
Gif stepped past him. “What’s this?”
On the dining table was a cookbook with a note in Drex’s handwriting lying on top of it. Gif read it aloud. “Tear apart all the cookbooks. Hiding place for souvenirs?”
In addition to the cookbook was a manila envelope with a brass clasp. Drex had written on the envelope: Special Agent Rudkowski, congratulations. You’re getting your heart’s desire.
Mike and Gif looked at each other with dread. Gif unfastened the clasp and shook out the contents of the envelope.
It was the wallet containing Drex’s badge and ID.
A sheet of notepaper drifted out along with it. On it was written: P.S. I’m keeping my gun and the girl.
Chapter 26
His resignation?” Locke exclaimed.
Gif and Mike regretted having to lay this on the detective, who seemed like a conscientious cop and overall nice guy. They had anticipated the disbelief he expressed. It matched their own.
Gif said, “There’s more.” He then read aloud the last line of Drex’s note.
“You’re telling me he left and took Mrs. Ford with him?”
“Looks like.”
“Looks like.”
“Where would they have gone?”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” Gif said. “Last we saw of them, he was trying to wear her down, and I think making progress. Maybe he thought if he got her alone—”
“He gave up his authority to do that when he surrendered his badge. Which car did they take?”
“They didn’t. All four are still here. Hers, her husband’s, Drex’s, and mine.”
“They left on foot?”
“Unless they sprouted wings.”
“How in hell did they manage it? Why?”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.”
“There is,” Locke said, speaking with more vexation than they’d heard from him before. “Easton is either harboring a material witness who requested him to do so or he’s kidnaped her, and I lean toward the latter.”
“Drex wouldn’t force or coerce her to go with him. I’m certain of that.” Gif looked over at Mike, who gave him a telling look back, and Gif amended his statement. “Fairly certain.”
Locke said, “Last night that woman was afraid of him.”
“She was apprehensive of all of us, not just Drex.” Gif didn’t share that Drex had spent a good half hour in a bedroom alone with her. “But he has impressed upon her that it’s her missing husband she should be scared of.”
Locke heaved a sigh. “On that, I’m afraid Easton is right. Following the autopsy, the coroner ruled Elaine Conner’s death a homicide. She didn’t drown; she was choked to death.”
Gif received the news without comment. Mike muttered a string of obscenities. Neither took pleasure in having foretold her fate.
Locke was saying, “When your call came in, I had my phone in my hand about to call Easton with this update. We don’t know that the perp was Jasper Ford—”
“We do.”
“The search-and-rescue for him is still on.”
“You won’t find him.”
“Well, right now I need to locate his wife,” Locke said with asperity. “She is key to this investigation. Pass this latest info along to Easton. He’s bound to come to his senses and bring her back before anyone else notices that they’re gone.”
“We’ve called his phone a dozen times,” Gif said. “He isn’t answering.”
“Do you have Mrs. Ford’s number? If not, I do. I’ll call her.”
“Won’t do you any good. We’ve tried it. Out of service.”
Locke said, “He would’ve removed the battery so it can’t be used to lead us to her.”
“In all probability.”
“That’s not something an innocent person does, Agent Lewis.”
“An innocent person would if they were frightened enough of a guilty person. If we can’t track her phone, neither can Ford. To us, to Drex, he isn’t missing. He’s at large. The difference in terminology is significant.”
“It hasn’t been established that he was the man on the yacht. ”
“Who else could it have been?”
“Anybody.”
“You don’t believe that. Fingerprints?”
“We lifted them from the wheel. But even if we match them to Ford’s, he had steered the boat many times. The circuit solicitor would tell us to try again.”
“Who?” Gif asked.
“DA. That’s what they call them in South Carolina,” Mike explained. He’d been listening on speaker, but until now hadn’t spoken. “Locke, if you need something on Ford to take to the prosecutor, get a warrant to search this house, inside out.”
“We tried,” Locke said. “Judge declined to issue one. Ford hasn’t been positively identified as the man on the yacht. Mrs. Ford’s alibi checks out. The waiter remembers her just like she said. There’s no probable cause. But maybe, now that she’s made herself scarce, I’ll go back to him. Press it.”
Gif could tell that Locke was beginning to feel the pressure of what this turnabout with Talia meant to him. He would get a lot of departmental backlash for losing a material witness and possible suspect.
In addition to that, Rudkowski was going to blow a gasket. He would require appeasement, and the only appeasement that would satisfy him would be to have Drex’s head served on a platter.
Above all, Locke was confounded by what Drex had done, which to the detective would seem outlandish. It didn’t fit his code of professional conduct or conform to the rules of law enforcement.
Gif took pity. “Detective, listen. Drex isn’t playing a dirty trick on you, although it may feel like that. I guarantee that somehow he’ll make it up to you. Menundez, too. Believe me, he wouldn’t have surrendered his badge unless he was convinced that it was the best, maybe only, course of action left to him. Something compelled him to whisk Talia out of here, or he wouldn’t have done it.
“Don’t make the mistake of discrediting him, or questioning his commitment to capturing the serial criminal we acquainted you with last night. Drex has never been this close to getting him, and he won’t squander the chance. He’ll go for broke. He’ll go to any lengths, even if it means his own downfall.”
With reluctance, and what sounded like grudging respect, the detective said, “I sensed all that. The guy’s passionate. But you’ve worked with him for a long time. I just met him. Has he ever done anything this out of line before?”
Gif looked over at Mike, who gave a shrug that said Locke would hear of Drex’s shenanigans sooner or later. Gif said, “I’m sure Agent Rudkowski will be all too glad to fill you in.”
“I’ll relay this latest news to him on our way there.”
Gif started. “You’re coming here?”
“Rudkowski had already made up his mind not to wait on Easton to deliver Mrs. Ford. He was coming to the house to question her. After I break this news to him—”
“Duck when you tell him,” Mike said.
“—he’ll want to begin the search for her where she was last seen. How will he react to Easton’s resignation?”
“With glee. And he’ll want to kill him for pulling this stunt. I’m glad it’s you, not me, who has to tell him. Good luck. We’ll see you when you get here.” Gif clicked off.
“Poor guy.”
Mike had his back to the room, looking out the front window. In a low rumble, and a rare show of empathy, he said, “Chalk up another victim to this son of a bitch.”
“Number nine.”
“Shit, Gif.”
He sighed. “Yeah. And we have no way of knowing how many we’ve missed.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
Gif said, “I’ll text Drex about the coroner’s ruling. It won’t come as a shock. He already knew.” He sent the text to the last cell number he had for Drex, not knowing if that phone was still in existence.
The news about Elaine Conner had cast a pall over him and Mike. They maintained a lengthy silence, then Mike snorted with his customary disdain. “Those two uniforms are searching the bushes across the street.” They had asked the two young officers who’d been guarding the house to take a look around the immediate neighborhood for a sign of Drex and Talia. “Do they really think they’re going to find them in the thicket?”
It was a rhetorical question, which Gif didn’t bother answering. Mike turned away from the window and posed another. “How the hell did they disappear in such a short amount of time on foot? Even for Drex, it was slick as owl shit.”
“She knows the neighborhood, and you can bet he has committed it to memory in the time he’s been here. He got to my motel the other night by jogging to a local mini-mart and calling Uber. I dropped him back there the next morning.”
“Should we drive over, check it out?”
“He wouldn’t use the same location, and I doubt he’d use the same method.”
“I don’t think so, either,” Mike said. “I only suggested it because I’ve got nothing else.”
Gif did some rough calculation in his head. “When I came through the kitchen, they were nose-to-nose in conversation.”
“Was she still in her pajamas?”
“Yes, but they had a good ten, twelve minutes after I joined you,” Gif said.
“Enough time for them to make their getaway while we were waiting for peeing cops and fetching Nutter Butters. Jesus,” Mike said, ridiculing his own gullibility. “How did he talk you into leaving him alone with her?”
“He didn’t. I volunteered to check on you.”
“You only thought you volunteered,” Mike said. “You were manipulated.”
Gif shot him a grim smile. “And here just last night, he told me that we were too smart for him.”
“Not this morning, we weren’t.”
“What worries me?” Gif said, idly scratching his frowning forehead. “This time he might have been too smart for his own good.”
“Worries me, too,” Mike said. “I told you the woman was a hazard to Drex’s thinking. He’s off to God knows where with her, which, mark my words, will lead to nothing good. Not only that, he’s left us to Rudkowski.”
Gif’s gaze shifted to the cookbook still on the dining table. “He also left us with an assignment.”
The envelope addressed to Rudkowski was waiting for him on the dining table. He fingered the mocking note from Drex as he glared at the two young police officers who’d served as guards the night before.
“Where are they?”
His bellow made one of the officers jump. “We don’t know, sir. We’ve been combing the neighborhood. A lady down the street knows Mrs. Ford, but she—”
“Not them,” Rudkowski barked. “Mallory and Lewis.”
“Oh. They left. About—” The officer consulted his partner, who said, “Twenty minutes ago. About.”
Rudkowski looked over at Locke. “You told them we were on our way?”
“Lewis said they would see us when we got here.”
Rudkowski walked a tight circle, holding onto his temper by a thread. When he came back around to the young policemen, he asked, “Did they happen to say where they were going?”
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