Did You Miss Me? (15 page)

CSU had uncovered Isaac Zacharias’s body. Two pairs of taser electrodes were embedded in the victim, one pair in the abdomen and the other in his thigh. Joseph stopped at the red socks, studying the body. Didn’t appear to be any other wounds. If his throat was slashed post-mortem, then how did the man die?

‘Hear you had a close call,’ Dr Brodie said, appearing from behind the Dumpster.

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Lots of folks aren’t.’

‘You’ll find who did it,’ she said simply.

‘I know who did it. Stevie Mazzetti killed who did it.’

‘Was that person connected to this death?’

‘I’d say that’s a fair assumption. Exactly how, I’m not yet certain.’

Brodie walked around the body, shining a UV light at the walls and pavement. ‘What’s missing?’ she asked and he felt like he was in her class at the academy again.

‘No spatter,’ Joseph said. ‘He was dead or close to it when his throat was slit. The taser wouldn’t have killed him, so something else did.’

‘Why slit his throat if he was already dead or close to it? Seems like wasted effort.’

Joseph had been mulling over that point as he’d driven from the ER. ‘I figure his killer wanted to be sure Zacharias didn’t survive to talk.’

‘Or his killer was just a sick sonofabitch who liked slitting throats,’ she said.

‘That too.’ He pointed to the AFID tags, discharged with every fired taser cartridge. ‘There are enough tags here for him to have fired at least two or three times.’

‘Four, actually.’ Brodie swept her UV light over the scene, revealing dozens of round disks. ‘I found four sets of serial numbers. Sets one and two are consecutive. Three and four are also consecutive, but nowhere near the one/two range.’

‘Two different cartridge lots. Two different tasers?’

‘Sounds right,’ she said. ‘There’s a small pool of blood near the alley entrance, about ten feet from Kimberly’s Toyota. A set of smeared handprints lead away from it.’

‘Ending on the handle of the girl’s car,’ Joseph said. ‘I saw the blood on the car handle when I first arrived this morning.’

‘Agent Novak found the handprints,’ Brodie told him. ‘He’s got a good eye.’

Joseph looked around. ‘Where is Agent Novak?’

‘He went into the office to run phone records. Said he’d be back when he could.’

‘Okay, what about Ford’s SUV?’

‘No blood on the outside. I had it towed to the lab to check the outside for prints and the inside for blood. Oh, and I found one of the sets of taser electrodes against the far wall.’

Joseph frowned. ‘He missed one of his shots.’

‘That’s my take.’

‘So how did this go down?’ Joseph muttered to himself. ‘Four serials, two lots. Could have been four separate tasers were fired or two, if they were X2s.’

‘With the back-up shot feature.’

‘Two X2s makes sense, especially if there was only one attacker.’ He glanced over at her. ‘You find anything suggesting we had multiple attackers?’

‘No, but also nothing suggesting it was only one. Run scenarios for one and two attackers. Start with one attacker and we’ll list the assumptions that have to be made.’

‘Okay. Firing two tasers would take skill and coordination, but one person firing four as quickly as they needed to would require too much juggling to make sense. So for one attacker we’re talking two X2s.’

‘I’m with you.’

‘Ford and Kim leave the theater, walk this way. Ford didn’t know about Zacharias, so I assume he was keeping some distance, staying in the shadows.’

‘If Ford didn’t know about him, maybe the shooter didn’t either,’ she said.

‘Possibly. Probably, even.’ Joseph visualized the scenario in his mind. ‘Four cartridges fired, two hit Zacharias. One misses. Kimberly makes it as far as her car. Blond hair and blood in the middle of the alley are probably Ford’s, so he goes down.’

‘Still with you,’ Brodie said.

‘So, I’m the shooter. I target Ford first, because he’s a big guy and I want to eliminate his threat.’ He lifted his left hand, forefinger pointed like a gun. ‘Bang. Ford falls. Bang, same taser because they’re next to each other, but he misses. Kimberly runs. Then there’s Zacharias, exploding from the shadows. Not expecting him.’ He turned ninety degrees, lifting his right hand, forefinger extended. ‘Bang, bang with the second taser and Zacharias falls.’

‘Maybe. I reserve the right to change the order. But I agree that Kimberly runs.’

‘She leaves a bloody handprint on the car door handle, but she’s injured ten feet away, still in the alley. How much blood did you find?’

‘More than she would have bled by falling down. She was stabbed, struck, or shot.’

‘Shit. Why do you think it’s a different order?’

‘Response time. We’re still talking one attacker. Unless he shot a gun, he had to catch up to her at the end of the alley to stab her.’

‘Maybe he had a gun.’

‘Then why not shoot all of them?’

‘True. And later he uses a blade on the victim’s throat.’

Brodie shrugged. ‘It might not matter in what order they were tased.’

‘But it’s bugging you and I learned a long time ago to respect that,’ Joseph said.

‘What’s bugging you, Joseph?’ she asked.

‘He had two X2s and cartridges. They’re only legally sold to cops and the military. Whoever did this was a cop, stole from a cop, or bought them on the black market, but he didn’t even make an attempt to gather up the AFID tags. It’s like he didn’t care.’

‘Maybe he was in a hurry,’ she said.

‘But he took the time to slit the throat of a man he’d already killed. Why? And how did Zacharias die? Unless he had a heart condition, the taser wouldn’t have killed him.’

‘And even then, it’d have to be one hell of a heart condition,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see any evidence of trauma other than the slit throat and the two pairs of electrodes.’

That were still stuck In Zacharias’s thigh and abdomen. Joseph crouched, studying the victim’s knees. ‘His trousers are dirty. He crawled. He kept coming, even after getting tased.’

‘So the killer tased him again,’ Brodie said slowly. ‘Where are you going with this?’

He glanced up at her. ‘Once he was down, he didn’t get up again because Ford and Kimberly are gone. He didn’t stop it. What kept him down?’

‘He died?’ Brodie asked, a touch of sarcasm in her response.

‘Lucky break for the killer,’ Joseph returned with equal sarcasm. ‘Even two taser blasts shouldn’t have kept Zacharias down that long. A few minutes at the outside and he would have at least been able to fight. There’s no sign of a struggle. No abrasions or ligature marks to indicated that he was restrained. He went down and stayed down, giving the killer time to get Ford and Kim to his getaway vehicle.’

‘At some point between going down and staying down and getting his throat slit, Zacharias died,’ Brodie said.

‘Exactly. Death by taser is less than one in a thousand. Maybe one in a hundred thousand. If it happened just when Zacharias’s killer needed it to . . .’

‘Then I want him picking my lottery tickets,’ she said.

‘Exactly,’ Joseph said again. ‘Then there’s Ford, the target. He’s a big guy and he would have been trying to protect Kim. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to drag him off, fully conscious, even if I’d cuffed him – especially if I was going for stealth.’

A healthy, young man fighting for his life would put up a hell of a lot of resistance. If he was protecting his lover’s life as well, he’d be as unstoppable as a fucking freight train. Unless he’d been drugged. Then he’d be rendered as helpless as a newborn baby.

This Joseph knew firsthand. The ropes had hurt. The blows he’d taken resisting hurt more. But the helplessness . . . That had been sheer agony. It still was.

He cleared his throat. ‘If I’d been kidnapping Ford Elkhart, I’d have wanted him heavily sedated. I’d have come prepared.’

Brodie leveled him a long look and Joseph wondered how much she knew about his past. She’d never mentioned it, in all the years she’d known him. To her credit she didn’t mention it now.

‘So let’s say Zacharias was drugged,’ she said. ‘Maybe his killer OD’d him. Maybe that’s why he was dead before his throat was slit.’

Joseph rose, even more troubled now. ‘ODing on a sedative is a lot more likely than a heart attack from the taser.’

Frowning, Brodie said what he was thinking. ‘Zacharias died. Is Ford dead too?’

‘That depends on why he was taken. I’m not going to borrow trouble till I have to.’

‘Agent Carter? Dr Brodie?’ The voice came from the alley entrance where ME tech Ruby Gomez was waving to get their attention. ‘You ready for me to take him?’

Brodie motioned her in. ‘Come on in, Ruby. We’re done with him.’ She looked up at Joseph. ‘What will you tell Ford’s mother?’

Joseph cringed at the thought of sharing any of this with Daphne. ‘As little as I can get away with. She doesn’t need to know how Zacharias died or that his throat was slit.’

Brodie sighed. ‘Agreed.’

Chapter Six

Tuesday, December 3, 1.20
P.M.

J
oseph stepped back to give the ME tech room to work. He’d been glad to see Ruby pushing the stretcher into the alley. Skilled at her job, she ensured that evidence was preserved while showing compassion for the victim. She’d increase their chances of finding Ford and his girlfriend while still taking good care of Maynard’s dead friend.

‘Pretty exciting morning you’ve had, Agent Carter,’ Ruby remarked as she prepared the body bag. ‘Glad to see my favorite FBI guy still in one very nice piece.’

Ruby’s flirtation was more about her personal style than any come-on. She flirted like most women breathed. ‘Gotta love Kevlar,’ he said pleasantly.

‘Absolutely. I have to say, I held my breath while all those bullets flew. And when you leaped through the air to save Daphne . . .’ Ruby fanned her face. ‘Majorly hot. Especially in slow mo. And Daphne’s my favorite prosecutor, too, so it was all good. I’d hate for anything to happen to her.’ She winked. ‘The woman’s muffins are to die for.’

Joseph frowned. How many TV stations were showing the courthouse crime scene anyway? Because every time they did, they were compromising his investigation.
I should have grabbed the cameras
. Except shooting video wasn’t a crime.
Dammit
.

‘Where did you see it?’

‘Her muffins? She brings us a basket every time she attends an autopsy.’

‘Not the muffins,’ Joseph said, annoyed. ‘The leap. Which TV station showed it?’

‘All of them. But that’s not where I saw it.’ Ruby glanced up at him, her eyes twinkling. ‘I saw it on the Internet.’

Joseph’s frown became a snarl. ‘I’m on the Internet?’

‘All of you cops are, but you, Agent Carter, are a bona fide sensation.’

‘But I don’t want to be on the Internet,’ he said, sounding like a disgruntled child.

Ruby lifted a brow. ‘It could be a whole lot worse,
papi
. You might have missed.’

‘Good point,’ he muttered, chastised.

‘I thought so.’ Turning her attention to the body, she looked at it from different angles as if studying pool balls on a billiards table, her mouth bent in sad concentration. ‘
Dios
. How do we move you?’ Then abruptly she rose and looked toward the street, her posture shifting as she eyed the man hurrying toward them. ‘Oh, yeah. That’ll work.’

The man wore a distracted expression on a face that looked like it belonged in a photographer’s studio, not a crime scene. Both Ruby and Brodie stood straighter, staring with undisguised appreciation. Joseph’s eyes narrowed in irritation. With a pretty face like that, the guy had to be a reporter. Which meant he was leaving.

Joseph stepped in front of him, blocking his view. ‘No media. You have to leave.’

‘But Agent Carter—’ Ruby started and Joseph cut her off with a harsh look.

‘No media, Ms Gomez.’

‘I’m not media. I’m Dr Quartermaine, the new ME. Here’s my ID.’

Joseph studied the seemingly legit ID. ‘What happened to the old ME?’

Ruby blinked up at him, incredulous. ‘You mean Lucy Fitzpatrick, who’s on maternity leave because she’s big as a goddamn house? She’ll be out for at least six months and our old department head just retired. Neil is the new boss.’

Feeling a little foolish, Joseph returned the man’s ID. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor. Reporters make me crazy. I’m Agent Carter and this is Dr Brodie. We’re with VCET.’

Quartermaine’s brow bunched slightly. ‘VCET?’

‘Violent Crimes Enforcement Team,’ Ruby murmured to him.

‘Oh, right. The acronym was in the join-up materials Lucy Fitzpatrick left for me to read. The FBI/BPD joint task force.’ He turned back to Joseph with a nod. ‘No worries. I hate reporters, too. So what’s the situation here?’

Joseph stood back to let him pass. ‘Victim’s a cop. Was a cop.’

‘Then we’ll take good care of him.’ He tugged on the gloves Ruby handed him. ‘You said it would be exciting, Ms Gomez. I had no idea it would start my first day.’

‘Your first day?’ Brodie was sympathetic. ‘Hell of a way to start.’

‘Better than being my last day,’ Quartermaine said soberly. ‘Like this man’s.’ He crouched beside the body, brows knit. ‘This victim was dead before his throat was slit.’

‘We know,’ Joseph said. ‘We’re just not sure why.’ Joseph’s phone began to ring. ‘Excuse me. I have to take this.’ It was Deacon Novak. He stepped away from the group and answered. ‘What do you have?’

‘A lot,’ Deacon said. ‘But I’ll give you the top four – Kimberly MacGregor’s parents have been trying to reach her since yesterday evening. Seems Kimberly’s fourteen-year-old sister, Pamela, is missing. Philly PD put out an AMBER at ten last night.’

Joseph truly hadn’t seen that coming. ‘So it
is
about the girl?’

‘Maybe. Second item – Kimberly has a record. Felony theft. She was cleaning houses and helped herself to a diamond ring. Guess who the prosecutor was?’

Joseph’s heart sank. ‘Not Daphne.’

‘Yep,’ Deacon said. ‘Didn’t she recognize the girl?’

‘She probably would have, but Kimberly didn’t want Ford to introduce them. He told his mother about her, but asked for a little space.’

‘Hm. Shouldn’t the bodyguard have checked her out?’ Deacon asked.

‘Somebody in Maynard’s organization definitely should’ve, since Ford was their responsibility to protect. That Maynard didn’t mention that Kim had a record, especially given the connection to Daphne, makes me think that he didn’t know.’

‘I totally stand on my “Not much of a bodyguard” statement from before.’

Joseph sighed. ‘I’m actually inclined to agree with you. Whether Maynard’s group didn’t bother to check or somebody did check and somehow fucked it up, I don’t know. But they should have had that information. Not knowing might have cost Isaac Zacharias his life.’
What a waste
. ‘What’s the third item?’

‘We dumped Ford’s and Kimberly’s cell phones. Kim got a text at seven last night.’

Joseph checked his notes. ‘She told Ford about the movie about fifteen minutes later, according to Ford’s Facebook post.’

‘How’d you get access to his Facebook page? I couldn’t guess his password.’

‘I didn’t. One of the other interns at my father’s company is Ford’s Facebook friend. He showed the post to my father this morning when Ford failed to pick him up for work. Ford posted that he wished Kim had given him more notice about the movie, because he had to bail on plans to watch the hockey game on TV with the guys.’

‘The text to Kimberly’s cell came with a large data attachment.’

‘A photo,’ Joseph murmured. ‘Of her abducted sister, maybe?’

‘That’d be my guess.’

‘Hell, she set Ford up. What’s number four?’

‘Ford’s cell phone record showed a text was sent to his mother at ten this morning.’

Joseph frowned. ‘
This
morning? Are you sure? What the hell?’

‘I’m sure. There’s been no other activity on either phone, Ford’s or Kimberly’s. Both phones are turned off, not responding to pings.’

Joseph’s neck tensed. ‘Did you get a location on that last text?’

‘Yes. I’m there now. It’s an alley a few blocks from the courthouse. Nobody here but me. I texted you the address.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that one first?’ Joseph demanded, exasperated.

‘The facts flowed more logically my way. Should I wait for you?’

‘No!’ Joseph barked, then took a breath, calmed his voice. ‘No. Start searching.’

‘Good, because that’s what I did. I found a backpack and that’s it. No ID.’

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ Joseph hung up and re-joined the others. ‘We have another missing person – Kimberly’s younger sister. Dr Brodie, I need a taser fire scenario that assumes Kimberly knew the abduction would occur.’

Brodie’s face fell. ‘Don’t tell me she set him up.’

‘For the missing sister,’ Ruby murmured.

‘Possibly,’ Joseph said. ‘Probably. Dr Quartermaine, if you could provide an analysis of any drugs in the victim’s system as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it.’

‘You think Zacharias was using?’ Ruby asked.

‘No, I think that’s how the attacker kept him down.’ Joseph needed to get to Novak, but the scene was cooking in his mind and he needed to get it straight. ‘He planned to hit Ford first, but the taser would have kept him down for thirty seconds at the outside.’

Tasers used by police didn’t incapacitate as long as those used by civilians. Police needed the suspect quiet only long enough to cuff him. Civilians needed time to escape.

‘Based on his firing skill,’ Brodie said, ‘I’d assume that the attacker knew this.’

‘Agreed. He needed something to knock Ford out that acted fast – before the taser effects wore off – and lasted for as long as it took to transport them.’

‘Not many things act that fast and last a long time,’ Quartermaine said. ‘It would have to be a cocktail, with a second medication taking effect before the first wears off.’

‘That makes sense,’ Joseph said. ‘Let’s assume Zacharias was a surprise. Our shooter tases Ford, then is startled. He shoots Zacharias twice because he keeps coming.’ He looked to where the missed electrodes had landed. ‘That leaves the girl.’

‘Who’d already started to run,’ Brodie said. ‘That’s what was bothering me – where those electrodes landed. He aimed for her when she was several feet from where Ford already lay. She’d gotten a good head start.’

‘Because she knew it was coming,’ Ruby said.

‘Exactly,’ Brodie murmured. ‘He probably stabs her. She’s bleeding, but crawls to her car and grabs the door handle. He had to have left her alone after stabbing her.’

‘Because Ford and Zacharias are only down temporarily,’ Joseph said. ‘He’s got two hundred pounds of angry cop that he wasn’t expecting. So he adapts. This guy thinks fast on his feet. He’d planned to knock out Ford and the girl for transport.’

‘He can’t give the girl’s cocktail to the cop,’ Quartermaine said. ‘She’s too small. I listened to the BOLO details on my way over here – Asian female, five-feet-one-inch tall, one hundred five pounds. She weighs about half what the cop did. Her dose wouldn’t have kept the cop down. He had to give the cop Ford’s cocktail.’

‘And Ford got the girl’s dose,’ Joseph said slowly. ‘It slows him down, but not enough, so the attacker grabs his hair and smacks his head on the pavement.’

‘Thus the blood and blond hair,’ Brodie said.

‘So why did the cop die?’ Ruby asked. ‘Did the attacker intend for Ford to die? And why slit the cop’s throat if he was already dead?’

‘Good questions,’ Joseph said. ‘And how did he get Ford and Kimberly out of the alley? Where was his vehicle parked? Did he roll them out? Dolly, cart, wheelchair?’ He saluted the doctor. ‘Welcome to Baltimore, Dr Quartermaine. Call me as soon as you have anything. Dr Brodie has my contact info. I have to meet Agent Novak.’

Tuesday, December 3, 1.20
P.M.

‘Watch your head, Daphne.’ Detective Hector Rivera hovered over her as a nurse transferred her from a wheelchair to the backseat of an FBI unmarked car. Black, of course. She’d protested the damn wheelchair, but it was ‘policy’ and she’d finally given up, too weary to argue any more.

A decorated Baltimore PD vice detective, Hector was clean-shaven today, but dirtied up he made the most convincing drug addict she’d ever seen. She’d been relieved to see his familiar face on her security detail.

I have a security detail
. Before, it had been Paige and Clay providing security ‘just in case’ the Millhouses were serious. It hadn’t seemed real. But they were serious. It was real.
They have my son
.

Obediently she slid into the backseat of Hector’s sedan. Leaned back. Closed her eyes. Tried not to be sick.
Ford
.

‘Daphne, wait!’

Recognizing Grayson’s voice, Daphne leaned forward and out the door. Grayson was jogging across the hospital parking lot.

Hector immediately blocked her view, pushing her back into the car. ‘Don’t
do
that.’

‘But it’s only Grayson,’ she said quietly.

‘“Only Grayson” could be the break a lurking gunman out there is waiting for.’

She nodded dully. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’

He crouched in the open doorway, his face creased in sympathy. ‘I don’t mean to bark at you, Daphne. It’s my job to keep you alive for when your son comes home.’

He stepped aside and Grayson took his place, holding out his hand palm up. ‘I brought you this.’

‘My phone.’ She took it, feeling the return of a small level of control. ‘Thank you.’

‘JD found it in the pocket of your coat. These are from me.’ He handed her a thick folder. ‘A copy of your Millhouse file. VCET has the original. If you need to keep busy, you might want to look for connections. Maybe something only you’ll recognize.’

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘For everything.’

‘I should be thanking you. You risked your life, throwing that camera bag at Marina. If there’s anything I can do to help you, just name it.’

‘Where are you going from here?’ she asked.

‘To draw up the arrest warrants, then on to Interview. I want first crack at Bill.’

Fury bubbled up from her gut. ‘Then make him tell you where he’s taken my son.’

‘If it can be gotten, I’ll get it,’ he promised. ‘Paige will be coming to stay with you. Please,’ he said when she started to protest. ‘I need to know you’re okay. Clay can’t protect you right now. He’s too distracted. Paige can carry his load for a little while.’

Poor Clay
. Daphne hadn’t had a chance to think about him. He’d lost a colleague and a friend. And he’d hold himself personally accountable for Ford’s abduction.

Shouldn’t he?
Daphne was disturbed to realize that she held Clay accountable as well. She needed to deal with that before she saw him again. ‘It will be good to have Paige there, for me and Mama, too. And if you see your brother, thank him for me.’

‘We need to go.’ Hector slid behind the wheel. He pointed to the woman in the passenger seat, a striking redhead who oozed sex appeal, despite the heavy SWAT-style bullet-proof vest she wore over the jacket of her FBI-standard black suit. ‘Riding shotgun is Special Agent Kate Coppola. From Iowa.’