by Sandra Brown
Mike gave a grunt of contempt. “Sammy would sell out his own mother.”
“He did. Late last night. Let’s go, Mr. Mallory.”
“Wait, my friend is—”
“Agent Rudkowski is being kept apprised of Lewis’s condition. By last report, he’s stable. You’ll be notified if he takes a downturn.”
Mike saw no point in arguing with these two, who were merely carrying out their orders. His fight was with Rudkowski. He heaved himself off the love seat and tucked his laptop under his arm. Just then, his cell phone chimed. “May I?”
Again the pair silently consulted each other. The man came back to him. “Make it quick.”
He answered. Drex said, “Rudkowski got to the deputy in Key West. He’s clammed up, and there was no cracking him. We’ve lost that resource.”
Mike sighed. “That’s the good news.”
Drex pitched the phone onto the bar, where it landed with an unheeded clatter. But even before that display of temper, Talia knew that Mike had relayed something Drex hadn’t wanted to hear.
With a sinking feeling, she said, “Bad news about Gif? Please say no.”
“No, he’s still doing okay.”
“Then what?”
When Drex had awakened her and told her about his breakthrough, he’d been humming like an overloaded electrical circuit. The call to the deputy in Florida had dimmed the wattage. But this call to Mike had taken all the sizzle out of him.
“In terms of helping, Gif was lost to me as of last night. Now Mike’s been hamstrung. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Fate was working against us. Dammit!” He picked up his coffee cup and hefted it like a baseball pitcher on the mound. He even looked at the far wall as though gauging the distance.
Before he could pitch it, she walked over, took the cup from him, and set it back down on the bar. “What’s happened with Mike?”
He gave her a run-down, after which she asked, “Was the car stolen?”
“Probably.”
“Did Mike know?”
“He didn’t ask. Sammy won’t incriminate him because he’ll want him as a future ally, which it appears he’ll need. But the point is, Mike is mired in this now and unavailable to me.”
“What can I do?”
He was about to reply when one of his cell phones rang. He looked at the readout. “Locke.” He answered and put it on speaker so she could listen in. “Morning.”
Locke said, “You’re still answering this number.”
“For the time being. Did you hear about Mike?”
“No. What about him?”
“Long story, and it will keep. What’s up?”
“Remember me telling you that one of the people we talked to last night noticed a man walking away from where Lewis fell?”
“Witness said he seemed to be in a hurry.”
“We’ve isolated him on two security cameras.”
Drex glanced over at Talia. “Jasper?”
“Since we never met him, and you say he’ll have altered his appearance, we don’t know. We need you to take a look.”
“Absolutely. I’ve got a breakthrough for you, too.”
“What?”
“I want to confirm it first. Soon. Now.”
“Is Mrs. Ford still with you?”
“Hello, detective,” she said. “I’m here.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Ford. Are you all right?”
Drex said, “You know, every time you talk to her when she’s in my company, the first thing you ask is if she’s all right. It’s beginning to hurt my feelings, in addition to pissing me off.”
“Well, is she?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Where should we meet you?”
“Not here at the department.”
“Rudkowski is still in residence?” Drex asked.
“We suggested he relocate to the FBI office. He says his business is with us.”
“I doubt the local agents would welcome him.”
“Anyway, we’re stuck with him. Menundez and I will come to you.”
Drex laughed shortly. “I don’t think so.”
“You told me where I could find you last night, and good thing you did.”
“Yeah, but this could be a trap baited with a bogus security camera video.”
“It isn’t. But I wish I had thought of doing that yesterday.”
Drex looked at Talia, who gave a quasi-shrug of consent.
“Okay,” he said. “But I have a favor to ask. Two favors.”
Sounding put out, the detective said, “I’m already doing you a favor.”
“These are small ones, and nothing compromising.” He asked him to call Deputy Gray in Key West. “Request the coroner’s report on Marian Harris.”
“I already did. Yesterday. It was emailed.”
“Good man!”
“It relates to your breakthrough?”
“If I’m guessing right.”
“I’ll forward it to you.”
As eager as he was to see that report, Drex scotched that idea. Emails left a trail. He needed Locke working for him on the inside. If the detective was called on abetting him, he would lose that vital connection to the cases. “Print it out and bring it with you.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you’re looking for?”
“No need to get you excited if I’m wrong. Besides, I want to see it for myself.”
The detective sighed with exasperation. “What’s the second favor?”
“Food. A couple of breakfast sandwiches.”
“Okay. Where are you?”
Drex told him the name of the suite hotel and the street it was on.
“We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Oh, Locke.” Drex stopped the detective before he could disconnect. Holding Talia’s gaze, he said, “Talia goes by Shafer.”
Chapter 34
Drex opened the door to their knock. “That was twenty-five minutes.”
“There was a long line at the drive-through.” Menundez came inside and passed a carryout sack to Talia, who set it on the dining table.
“What was your breakthrough?” Locke asked.
Drex said, “Let’s see that report from Florida.”
The four of them gathered around the table. Menundez withdrew from his breast pocket a sheaf of documents that had been paperclipped and folded together. He passed them to Drex, who hastily thumbed through them.
Talia scooted closer to him so she, too, could read the report, which described in detail the contents of the wooden crate as the coroner had first examined it where it had been unearthed. There was no mention of a button. Fighting disappointment, Drex shuffled through the other documents until he found the autopsy report.
He scanned it so rapidly, it was Talia who saw the notation first and pointed it out to him. Under his breath, he exclaimed with a bit of anticlimactic wonder, “Damn. It’s actually there.”
“Documenting that you were right,” she whispered.
Smiling at her, he mentally did a fist pump, but then realized what he was celebrating. “Hell of a thing to be glad about, though.”
Beneath the table, she placed her hand on his thigh.
Locke made a sound of impatience. “I hate to interrupt your private moment, but can we please be filled in?”
“Have either of you read this?” Without waiting for them to answer, Drex turned the report around and stabbed the notation. “Missing button.”
Locke immediately made the connection. He blinked across at Drex. “Both Conner and Barker had a button missing from their clothing.”
“That’s his souvenir,” Drex said. “That’s the connecting link I haven’t had before now.”
Menundez beamed.
Locke was less elated. “It supports your hypothesis of a serial killer, but it doesn’t prove that he’s Jasper Ford.”
“I realize that, which dims my jubilation a bit,” Drex admitted. “Without concrete proof, this similarity could still be dismissed
as a coincidence. Maybe the security video will help.”
He took a bite of the sandwich Talia had unwrapped and passed to him. Noticing the detectives’ sudden and obvious dejection, he stopped chewing, swallowed, and said, “What?”
“The video doesn’t help us, but I’ll show it to you anyway.” Locke opened the laptop and turned it around so Drex and Talia could see the freeze-framed shot. “This is the guy we were curious about.”
The form Locke pointed out to them was draped in a plastic souvenir-shop rain poncho and looked like a ghostly blob. Only a portion of his face was visible. Drex said, “I don’t even recognize Gif in this shot.”
“Here’s Gif. We had to zoom to find him.”
The individual in question was walking toward Gif.
“His body type is wrong,” Talia said. “He’s too tall and thin. I don’t believe it’s Jasper.”
“It isn’t,” Locke said glumly. “The witness we talked to last night picked him out of this freeze-frame early this morning. He recognized the poncho. Turns out that the poncho man was picked up on several cameras, not just two. One on a nearby parking lot showed him with his wife and three kids climbing into an SUV. Car tag was clear as a bell. Menundez followed up.”
The younger detective picked up from there. “We got a home address from his car registration. A couple of uniforms were dispatched to screen him. He admitted to being in that mob. He’d gotten separated from his family as they disembarked the tour boat. He was anxious to catch up with them. Except for those few minutes when they were separated, he was with his family all evening on an outing planned weeks ago.”
Drex pushed his half-eaten sandwich aside. “So he really was just a man in a hurry.”
“Looks like,” Locke said. “Which leaves us with pretty much nothing.”
“The search of our house yesterday must have yielded Jasper’s fingerprints,” Talia said.
“But we don’t have those of Daniel Knolls or any of his previous personas,” Drex said. “There’s nothing to match.” After a short silence, he asked if Rudkowski had been told about their went-nowhere lead on the poncho man.
Locke nodded with unconcealed distaste.
“His reaction?” Drex asked.
Menundez was at the ready to tell him. “He called you delusional and paranoid, and said that you’d made Jasper Ford a suspect only so you could get a shot at his wife.” The young detective glanced in Talia’s general direction. “Sorry.”
“No apology necessary,” she said. “I couldn’t care less about that horrid man’s opinion.”
Drex didn’t comment except to murmur an epithet directed at Rudkowski.
“There’s something else,” Locke said.
Drex sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Let’s have it.”
“This morning some guys fishing just off shore hauled in a man’s shoe.” Locke looked at Talia. “It matches the description you gave us of what your husband was wearing when you last saw him. Size ten, brown loafer with tassel.” Going back to Drex, he added, “Rescue teams, including the Coast Guard, are inclined to think that’s all they’ll find of him.”
“Sort of shoots down my theory that he’s still alive, doesn’t it?”
“If nothing else turns up by dark tonight, they’re calling off the search.”
“Shouldn’t his wife have been notified of that?” Talia said.
“Attempts have been made. No one has been able to reach you,” Locke reminded her, sliding a look toward Drex. He let that settle, then said, “There’s more.”
“Jesus,” Drex said. “I don’t know how much more good news I can stand.”
Locke gave him a grim smile. “Both Elaine Conner’s and Ms. Shafer’s financial portfolios are—”
“Let me guess,” Drex interrupted. “Intact. No recent activity. No sizeable withdrawals. Every cent accounted for.”
Locke shrugged. “I guess if he’s playing dead, he can’t be cleaning out bank accounts. Either he’s prepared to wait for things to blow over before he cashes in, or he’s sacrificing the money altogether in order to avoid capture.”
“Priceless.” Drex laughed, but without humor. “You’re right, of course, but he also knew that I would look to see if money was missing. That’s why he left it alone.”
Leaning forward again, he addressed the other three earnestly. “Don’t you see? Jasper knew what I would allege, because that’s been his MO. He made certain that I would be proved wrong. More than anything he wants me discredited and humiliated.”
He caught the two detectives exchanging a telling look and groaned, “What else?”
“We saved the best for last.” Locke withdrew a sheet of folded paper from the breast pocket of his sport jacket and laid it, still folded, on the table. “It’s a warrant for your arrest.”
“What?” Talia exclaimed.
“The deputy in Key West ratted you out for calling him this morning. Rudkowski wasted no time. He insisted. Our hands were tied.”
Drex flipped back the folds and scanned the warrant. “CID detectives were sent to handle this piddling misdemeanor shit?”
“Rudkowski figured that we would see you before anyone else could find you.”
“I can’t believe it,” Talia said.
“I can,” Drex said. “The man’s pettiness knows no bounds. He’ll put his one-sided rivalry above catching a man who would walk up behind a defenseless woman and break her neck.”
“Can he put you in jail?” Talia said.
Locke answered for Drex. “We don’t have to be in any rush to get him there.”
“Thanks for that.” Drex stood up and began to roam restlessly. “The thing is, the resentful jerk has effectively hobbled me. Now, when a single hour could make all the difference. Jasper may decide that Talia’s fortune and/or her life aren’t worth the risk of being captured. He’ll choose to disappear as he has before.
“Or, he could decide that he’s enjoying this killing spree and continue it in a frenzy until he’s finally treed. He would actually get off on that kind of notoriety. I guarantee you that wherever he is, he’s watching all the TV stories about the woman he killed last night. He’s feeling very proud of himself. The celebrity status fuels his ego, and when he’s good and stoked, he’ll act again.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“You’re not listening, Locke.” Drex returned to the table and, bracing on his hands, leaned in. “He’s beyond hope. Remember the Chi Omega sorority house? Bundy killed those girls, and minutes later attacked another only a few blocks away. Jasper is thumbing his nose at us in that same fashion. He proved it last night. He committed a random murder for no other reason except that he felt like it and wanted to yank my chain. The attack on Gif had to be spontaneous, because there’s no way he could have planned it.
“That kind of footloose violence may not make you nervous, but it scares the crap out of me. If he kills somebody else, you, Menundez, Rudkowski may be able to sleep nights, but I won’t.
“And if he says to hell with it, leaves the area, gets away, I’ll never get another crack at him, because now he knows me. From now on, he’ll be looking for me over his shoulder and will see me coming.”
He gave a hard shake of his head. “This is the time. We’ve got to stop him now. We’ve got to catch him plying his trade. We’ve got to catch him with those goddamn souvenir buttons in his possession.”
“Okay. I get it,” Locke said, returning some of Drex’s ire. “But you’ve been trying for years. We’ve been at it for two days. Any ideas?”
Drex yielded to the detective’s frustration. It matched his own. “No.”
Pushing away from the table, he walked through the living area to the far side of it and shoved open the panels of drapery. Outside, it continued to drizzle. For days now the skies had refused to clear. However, if it were sunny, Drex would resent it. The dreariness befitted the circumstances.
Behind him, Talia explained to the detectives the situation Mike was in. I
n cop-speak they answered her questions about the investigation into Sara Barker’s murder.
Drex listened to the conversation with one ear, latching onto key words, but tuning out the minutiae. Most of it was irrelevant, anyway. They weren’t going to apprehend Jasper using textbook police procedure.
In order to catch him, one couldn’t think like a cop. One had to think like him.
He asked himself if he were Jasper, if he were in Jasper’s situation, what would he do? What ploy would he use? A switchback? A prank? An irony? What would be the ultimate joke?
In a blinding instant, he had an inspiration.
He returned to the table, got on Locke’s laptop, pulled up the freeze-frame, and was immediately annoyed by its limitations. “Is the rest of the video on here?”
The question caught Locke in mid-sentence. He fell silent and looked at Drex, who continued with impatience, “The minutes leading up to and right after Gif was attacked. Are they on this laptop?”
“No. The video was jerky. Hard to tell up from down, so I just downloaded that freeze-frame. The whole of it is back at the department.”
“I need to see it. Right now. Have someone email it.”
Neither detective moved, their reluctance evident.
“What?” Drex said. “Earlier you offered to email it to me yourself.”
“That was before this.” Locke flicked his hand at the arrest warrant. “We could get into real Dutch by sending you evidence now.”
“Okay, then sneak me into the department. Let me watch it there.”
“Sneak you in? We’re supposed to be delivering you to Rudkowski. If we don’t, we’re sunk.”
“I get it, guys. But, God, this timing sucks.” He socked his palm with the other fist. “Jasper is escalating. Rudkowski is wound up like a top. Incredible. I have two enemies, and they want the same thing, which is to shut me down.”
“Discredited and humiliated,” Talia said, repeating the words he’d spoken minutes ago.
But hearing them now stopped him in his tracks. Slowly, softly, he said, “They want the same thing. They want me bested.”
A plan began to take shape. He grabbed hold of it before it could evaporate. Even as it formed and became clearer, he began appealing to the detectives. “Sneak me into the police department. Let me watch the video before my showdown with Rudkowski.”