First Offense (19 page)

Jess decided to work on a report before he nodded off, something he had to finish by nine the next morning or be called on the carpet. Turning on the map light and using his clipboard to write, he was about to start when he saw the Porsche lurching forward. “Shit,” he said, springing into action. He tossed the clipboard onto the floorboard and cranked the ignition. He hadn’t even seen the guy with the rain, and the windshield was fogged over. If he lost the Porsche, there’d be hell to catch from Tommy Reed.

What in the world was wrong with this guy? Jess soon wondered. He was popping the clutch, driving like an idiot. While he watched, the Porsche lunged forward, stopped, lunged forward. He could hear the transmission straining. “You’re in the wrong fucking gear, asshole,” he said. This little creep didn’t know shit about driving a fine machine. Had his doctor daddy just given it to him?

The Porsche managed to get out of the parking lot and onto the rain-pelted street. It was moving slowly, but at least it wasn’t lurching anymore. Navigating through the residential areas, it began ascending into the foothills, Rodriguez right on its tail. Few streetlights illuminated the area. It was dark, and with the rain, Jess figured there was no way Sawyer could see who was behind him. Again the Porsche started straining and lurching. “Downshift, you motherfucker. You can’t go up this hill in fourth gear.”

A while later, the car parked and a bulky short person stepped out. Rodriguez, stopping several doors down, looked and then did a second take as the driver walked to the front door of a house and passed under the entry light.

It wasn’t Sawyer.

“Shit,” he said as the person went inside. Had he followed the wrong car like a fool? Quickly he verified the license plate on the paper next to his seat. The car was definitely Sawyer’s, but where was Sawyer? He had to go back to the mall immediately and find out if his subject was still around. Right before he turned down a side street, he saw the Porsche moving in his rearview mirror. The driver hadn’t engaged the parking brake, and the car was rolling right down the hill into a parked car.

“Serves you right, motherfucker,” Jess said, roaring off. “Serves you right for switching cars on me. Hope you end up with a great big dent in your pretty little Porsche.”

Almost two hours had passed since the intruder had fled. Ann was standing in her bedroom, assessing the damage with Noah Abrams, as an evidence team picked its way through the house. Two narcotics officers, Greenberg and Miller, had arrived on the scene right behind the first patrol unit. Furniture was toppled, things were tossed all over the floors, and muddy footprints outlined a path from the front door to the bedroom where the police officers had traipsed in and out of the house. A war zone, Ann thought, shaking her head as she surveyed the damage.

Noah’s eyes followed her as she walked around the room. She was still wearing the black trench coat, buttoned up to her neck. Her pale blond hair was damp from the rain, and she was badly shaken.

The men’s heels were crunching on glass fragments as they searched the room for evidence. Abrams had already collected a mask from the driveway, like the type doctors wear in surgery, and he was showing it to Ann. She understood now that the mask was the reason the man’s voice had been muffled and distorted. Because Sawyer’s father was a surgeon, it also indicated that Sawyer was the culprit.

“But it can’t be Sawyer,” Ann said, unable to get her frazzled nerves to settle down. “Tommy told me you had him under surveillance, and he wouldn’t get within a mile of my house.”

“Jess Rodriguez lost him,” Abrams said, grimacing. “He says Sawyer went inside the mall around six o’clock, and Jess thought he had him in the Porsche at around ten, but the asshole switched cars on him.”

“Great,” Ann said. “So we don’t know where he is right now? What about the parked car that got rear-ended? Is there a paint transfer?”

“Maybe,” Abrams said.

“What does that mean?” Ann snapped. “There’s either a paint transfer or there’s not a paint transfer. Can’t you tell?”

Dropping the mask into a plastic evidence bag, Abrams moved closer. “I’m sorry about this, Ann,” he said. “I was home when I got the call. If I’d been working, I would have assigned a unit to watch your house.”

The guilty look on his face deflated her anger. “I know it isn’t your fault,” Ann said, lowering her voice. “I just can’t believe they lost him.”

“Well, trust me, Jess is going to catch hell.” Anger flashed in his eyes, and he slammed a fist into his open palm. Then his expression changed to concern again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Ann said. “The paint transfer, Noah?”

“Oh,” he said quickly, “we’ve got a tow truck en route to transport the parked car to the lab. With the rain, we’ll make more headway there.”

“What about prints?”

“Ann,” the man said softly, “why don’t you let us conduct the investigation? Sit down or even lie down for a few minutes. You don’t look good.” She was pale normally. Right now she looked as white as the wall behind her. “Hey, maybe you should let me take you to the emergency room.”

“No,” Ann said, wanting Tommy, not Abrams. “Can’t anyone raise Tommy and Phil Whittaker?”

Abrams kicked a piece of glass with his shoe, stung because she didn’t want him. He was the investigating officer on this case, not Reed and Whittaker. “Guess they must be out of radio range,” he answered, shrugging. “We tried to reach them on their cellular, but it was turned off.”

“Tommy told me he was going to Los Angeles with Phil to check out some leads,” Ann said. “Have you been able to find out who Sawyer’s roommates were? Maybe we can pick them up. They’ve got to know where Sawyer is.”

“Ann,” Abrams said, wanting to reassure her, “we’re doing the best we can. We have the names and descriptions of the two other boys and have already issued attempt-to-locates to pick them up for questioning. One is a Chinese guy named Peter Chen. All we know is he’s never been arrested, and someone said he went to Long Beach State and studied physics or something. The other guy was a local, Brett Wilkinson. Sawyer’s known him since high school.”

Ann glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock, yet it seemed like hours had passed since the attack. The brush with the intruder had probably lasted only a few minutes.

“I thought you said it wasn’t Sawyer,” Abrams asked. “Did you get a good look at the guy?”

“I don’t know,” Ann said wearily, having been asked this before. “All I know is the man was big, tall, you know, and he was wearing a heavy coat of some kind. It was too dark to make out the color. And he was wearing the mask you found, but I got the impression that he had a beard. I’m not certain. When he was next to me, something like hair or a beard brushed up against my face. I saw him for only a second in the light. If he did have a beard, it wasn’t Sawyer. Sawyer doesn’t have a beard.”

“But you’re not sure, right?” Jesus, Noah thought, this woman had been a cop, and she couldn’t even provide a decent description. How would she ever identify the guy in court? He wanted this guy bad, and she was giving him little or nothing to work with.

Ann suddenly remembered David and was instantly frantic. She rushed across the room to the phone while Abrams trailed behind her. “I have to check on David,” she told him, the phone in her hand. “He said David’s name. The man was looking for David, asked for David. I should have called before.”

Abrams kept looking at Ann, eyeing her suspiciously, not sure if she was going to keel over on him. Finally he walked out into the living room while Ann called her son.

“Freddy?” she said. “Were you guys asleep?”

“No. Who’s this?”

“Ann Carlisle. Can I speak to David?”

“Hey, David,” the boy yelled. “Your mom’s on the phone.”

Ann heard giggling and a television set blasting in the background. It sounded like a rock video on MTV.

“What d’you want?” David said, as if she had embarrassed him by calling and checking up on him like a baby.

“Where are Freddy’s parents?”

“In their room. Where do you think they are?”

Ann felt a wave of relief. She was close friends with Louise Litsky and her husband. “Okay, David, how far is their room from your room?”

“Right down the hall, but we’re in the living room. Why are you asking me all these stupid questions?” He stopped and yelled at Freddy, “Turn it down. Your parents are going to come in and bust us.” Then he started giggling.

Ann could hear a woman moaning in the background. “What is that? I hear a woman. Is something going on, David?”

“No, no,” he protested, more giggles coming out over the line. “Nothing’s going on, Mom.” David covered the phone with his hand and yelled out to his friend. “Hey, Freddy, I said turn it down. Now. My mom can hear, man. She can hear.”

As mothers sometimes do, Ann suddenly felt she had X-ray vision and could see into the room. Hearing David’s voice, knowing he was safe, was an enormous relief, but it didn’t mean the kid could do anything he wanted. “You’re watching porno movies, aren’t you, you little shit? That’s a porno movie I’m hearing.” She knew she was right. All that phony moaning. It was one of the reasons Ann generally didn’t allow him to stay overnight at people’s houses. “You’re watching the Playboy Channel, aren’t you?”

“No, Mom, I swear,” David whined, his voice elevating and cracking. “It was nothing. Turn it down now, Freddy.” The sound in the background disappeared.

“I’m going to have Louise come in there right now. You hear me?” Ann was on a short fuse. People were breaking into her house, and her son was watching porno movies.

David’s voice was pleading now. “No, Mom, please don’t. It’s off. We turned it off. I promise we won’t watch it anymore. Please, Mom, Freddy will kill me if his parents find out. They invited me to go to Magic Mountain this weekend.”

Looking over, Ann saw a tiny strawberry-blond woman in the room, bent over as she picked through glass fragments on the floor. She recognized her at once. Melanie Chase was one of the finest forensic specialists in the county. “I have to go now. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

Ann knew Melanie well. Every law enforcement officer in the county knew the magic she could work with forensic evidence. When the highway patrol and other agencies had pulled out of the investigation into Hank’s disappearance, Ann and Tommy had coerced Melanie into trying her hand at the case. After eight months of poring over documents and sorting through evidence on her own time, with no compensation, the woman had finally given up. Because the suspect or suspects had evidently jumped Hank Carlisle before he got back to his police cruiser and then transported him to another location where they had presumably committed the murder, the case was a forensic vacuum. All they had were tire marks where the suspect’s vehicle had fled the scene and evidence collected on the ground, which might or might not have been left there by the suspects. According to Melanie Chase, it was the only time she had worked that hard for nothing.

Swimming in a department-issue yellow raincoat, Melanie saw Ann was off the phone and looked up. You okay?” she said.

Yeah,” Ann said, “I guess I’m okay. How have you been?”

“You know—I work and then I work some more. Such a deal, huh?”

Ann suddenly noticed Melanie’s feet. She was wearing rubber galoshes, but she was so short that the top of the boots reached her knees. Combined with the raincoat, at least four sizes too big, Melanie looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.

“Mel,” Ann said, “I really appreciate your coming out tonight, particularly on a night like this one.”

“No problem,” the woman said, straightening up and then bending backward to stretch her back. “We had a stabbing over on the west side of town, so I was already out and about.” Melanie was close to forty, how close no one knew. Diminutive in size, she was big in every other way: big mouth, big gestures, enormous smile when she felt like it. The men all loved her. Even more important was that their admiration was based on respect.

Wearing rubber gloves, she reached in the pocket of her raincoat and pulled out a Salem. A moment later, she flicked a gold lighter and fired it up. Then she let the cigarette dangle from her mouth, an unflattering and disgusting habit she had. Ann thought Melanie left her cigarette in her mouth because she wanted to keep her hands free. Every time she encountered the woman she was trying some other gimmick to quit smoking: patches, nicotine gum, devices attached to her ears. She had even gone to a hypnotist, but seeing her puffing away now, Ann had to assume the attempt had been in vain.

“How does it look?”

“Good,” Melanie said, giving Ann a quick glance and then emitting a puff. “We have saliva on the surgical mask.”

“What about fingerprints?” Ann said.

“I don’t think you’re going to find any prints,”

Melanie mumbled, clamping the cigarette between her teeth. She held up a plastic sack with an infinitesimal residue of white powder in the bottom. Then she removed her cigarette from her mouth and flicked the ashes into the palm of her hand. “I lifted this off several surfaces, places I think he came in contact with.”

“What is it?” Ann was staring inside the bag. “Looks like dust. I’m not the best housekeeper, Melanie, so don’t get excited.”

“No, it’s baby powder or cornstarch. Here,” she said, opening the plastic baggie so Ann could get a whiff of the contents. “What do you think?”

“I’m not sure,” Ann said. “It does smell a little like baby powder or talcum or something. What’s baby powder got to do with anything? I don’t have any powder in the house.”

“Whatever brand of rubber gloves this ape used had a residue of fine powder on them. The ones I use have cornstarch on them. It keeps the rubber soft and flexible, keeps it from cracking. Also, it makes the gloves easier to slip on.”

“So,” Ann said, disappointed, “he wore gloves.” She recalled how inhuman his touch had felt; it was the rubber she had felt against her skin.

“Yeah,” Melanie said, a hint of that fabulous smile appearing, “but don’t worry about it. We’ve got plenty to work with here.” She suddenly spotted something on the wall and yelled to the young officer working with her, “Alex, get the ladder.”