Pursuit (12 page)

“Come on, Devlin, for Christ's sake,” Julie rattled. “Let's hear it. Who is it?”

“We don't know, but this blood type from the truck matches the one on traces located on the chain.”

“What? You mean the chain holding the ring?”

“That's what I'm saying, Sarge.”

Julie couldn't put it together. If it were true, whoever was driving the truck could have been in the woods abducting the Preston child all those years ago. But it didn't make sense. She didn't have any connection to the Preston case other than simply looking into it. How and why would the driver connect her? “Todd, this is wacky. You're saying it's a match, the blood?”

“The labs always give you that one-in-a-thousand crap but yeah, it's a match. Walker's gonna push the envelope on the lab business; splurged on a private company out of Chicago. For DNA, it'll take a while. What do you think? Does this jar your rehab efforts?”

“Too bizarre. I'll check with you later. Thanks for the info.” Julie didn't believe in coincidence. In her job, it didn't pay. It was too easy. Also, how did the ring and chain get to the site if they weren't in the man's pocket or around his neck, and how did blood—evidence—get onto the chain?

Julie rubbed her thigh, trying to coax circulation back to her leg. She thought there might have been a struggle, and perhaps the kid grasped at the man's eyes or throat and came away with the chain, scraping the man's neck, leaving DNA.

Gonna get you, mister.

H
e watched as
Julie limped to her car. He laughed, amused that she was disabled. She backed out of her drive, the right rear wheel of her Jeep bouncing over the curb, just missing the garbage can. If there were more time at the crash site, he could have rendered her persona non grata. A simple ninety-second choke hold seemed more in keeping with his intent.

Staying back several hundred feet, he tried to keep a two- or three-car separation between them. She drove across town, to a modest suburban community bordering a wooded area. Idyllic. Children playing ball in the winding streets, housewives conferring with neighbors, a genuine all-American homespun atmosphere.

He settled in next to a grassy dog park. Julie parked on a dead-end road in the midst of several other vehicles dotting the long, clean street. Taking a map from his glove box, he watched over the top of it as she made her way up the walkway to a frame house. Halfway there, a teenaged girl and a heavyset woman of Julie's age came out to greet her. A half-pint brown-and-white dog jumped around the trio as they drifted into the house. Charles drove around the nearby
blocks several times, coming back to Julie's car. Continuing a bit farther to the end of the street, he parked at a For Sale sign in front of a new home. A sign reading Thousand Pines Estates, Phase Two hung on a nearby gated barrier.

While waiting, he surveyed the empty house. Trees and shrubs both in back and front provided good cover. A large yard at the rear of the house faded into a dense wooded area. He took down the name and number of the broker from the sign. He settled into his seat, keeping an eye on the street. Nearly an hour passed.

He watched the activity on the sidewalk near her car. The girl hugged his new favorite detective while the other woman looked on. It seemed as if the girl he'd seen at night darting in and out of the isolated house at North Point was probably the daughter, whom he thought might be staying with a friend while Miss Pain in the Ass Worth recuperated.

The dog scampered about, darting across the street and returning when called back by the heavyset woman. “Here, Scoot! Scooter, come boy!”

He enjoyed watching the tall woman's hampered movements; she seemed vulnerable getting into her car. He stopped at a Walgreens to call the Realtor.

“Hey, Sergeant, howzit goin'? You're looking pretty fit.” Several of the officers in the unit working desk came over to say hello and wish Julie well. She tried walking without a limp or a shuffle, squaring her shoulders as if she just came back from vacation.

Captain Walker wasn't in, so she called Todd. “Devlin, what are you up to?”

“One eighty-five and holding.” He seemed surprised to hear from her. “How about you?”

“Good, good. Hey, can you run me out to that Preston woman's house? I need to ask her a question.”

“You want to speak to
el jefe
, or should we just wing it?”

“I'll leave him a note. Can you meet me out front in ten?”

They drove out without calling, Julie not wanting to deal with Preston on the phone. Todd was full of questions about her recuperation and when she would be back.

“I'm back. Just not officially or full-time, okay?”

They pulled up to the Preston house, which looked the same as the last visit. Tired and neglected. The yard, a combination of foot-high weeds and dandelions gone wild. She wondered how Miss Preston made do, living out in the country, so isolated, and especially after what had happened to her sister. Julie thought that Beverly Preston's run-down yard reflected the woman's state of mind.

“Hi, Miss Preston, remember me? Sergeant Julie Worth, State Patrol. This is my partner, Detective Todd Devlin. May we come in?”

Once again without answering, the woman left the door open and turned away.

Todd looked at Julie and shrugged. They followed Preston into the living room, where a musty combination of mildew and sauerkraut settled in the air.

“I won't take up much of your time. Just one question, if you will.”

The woman nodded.

“Show me again, please, where you kept the ring and the chain?”

“By the by, when will I get it back—the ring? The smelly policeman that came for it with the foolish paper said he didn't know.”

Julie knew she needed to tread lightly. “Miss Preston,
the items you gave up might be pertinent to an official investigation, which could lead to prosecution if we can—”

“My sister, by the way, would be thirty-three, day after tomorrow.” She held her arms out in supplication, eyes moist, head cocked slightly.

Julie waited until Preston lowered her arms. “Please tell me the conditions in which the ring and chain were kept all these years.”

She walked back to the knickknack stand that Julie had noticed earlier, and with her back to them, busied herself with a few items. She turned, her hands cupped around the mason jar.

“I brought the preserve jar up from the room below. I knew you'd be coming for it.” She shoved the jar with its punctured holes in the top toward Julie. “Here.”

“Can we take this?”

“Hoo-hah, better take it now than later when your stinky policeman comes back with another piece of paper.” She paced. “As I said before, remember when you were here six months ago?”

It was four weeks
.

“The slippery devil left it so he'd have an excuse to come for me. When he does, I'll be waitin'.” She took a pair of household scissors from her apron pocket, making feeble stabbing motions in the air. “He crouched by the dogwood.”

Julie glanced at Todd, who gestured back to her with an open hand, as if to say, “She's all yours.”

“Miss Preston, what exactly do you mean when you say ‘He crouched by the tree'?”

“Dogwood.”

“Yes, of course, sorry. Dogwood. What did you mean?”

“I smelled him, his man scent.” She straightened up.
“He stunk of sweat, piss, and men's cologne. I sang and pretended, like always.” She hummed an off-key lament, breaking up the passage with a half-spoken “Fly home Betty Blue, fly home to your kin.”

“And where is this area, Miss Preston?”

She headed for the back door.

Julie and Todd followed. “What is that old ‘In for a penny' cliche?” he asked Julie.

“I'd give more than a penny for a pair of sneakers about now.”

They walked behind Beverly Preston, Julie needing to pause every fifty yards to rest her leg. Then Preston pointed her long hickory walking stick to a dogwood tree that sat some thirty feet back from the path.

“That's where I smelled the demon, so I sang and fooled about.”

Julie played along. “Let's take a look.”

Todd started up a narrow path. “How do you get to a dogwood?”

Julie stopped to poke around in a thicket of thorns. “I give up, how?”

“On an animal path. Get it? Animal path. Dogwood.”

“Yeah, yeah. Look at this, Mr. Funnyman.” Julie examined the end of a branch, noticing dark spots on the leaves.

“What have you got?”

“Looks like fresh blood to me—not much, but enough for an analysis.”

They searched the ground for footprints and then bagged the branch with the blood sample. When they looked up, they saw the back of Beverly Preston a hundred yards down the path, headed for home.

A long discussion began on the ride back to the station
about the mason jar and whether the cool basement preserved any possible DNA. They placed the glass container in a paper evidence bag. The blood sample was a long shot, and it might have been from an animal. But they would test it nevertheless.

G
ood afternoon, Watson
Real Estate.”

“My name is Phillips. I'm interested in purchasing a home—”

“Let me put you on with one of the brokers.”

He waited, subjected to a recording of Andy Williams singing something about a moon and a river and how wide the river was and—

“Hello. Cathy Watson. How may I help?”

“My name is Phillips, I'm new to town. My wife and I are interested in a home in the two-to-three-hundred-thousand-dollar-range.” He guessed at the figure. “Suburban, maybe.”

“Do you want a community feel or an individual home by itself?”

“Oh, definitely community. You know, dogs, cats, kids, trees, and such. Whatever, the full disaster.”

“I have a couple things I could show you both. Nice developments. When would you be available, Mr. Phil?”

“Phillips. Sooner the better for us. We've got a couple of rug rats and a teenager that we need to get into school. Hold for a minute; I have to ask my wife something.” He
covered the phone and then came back. “Ah yeah, thanks. Excuse the interruption. Today would be fine.”

“We have a three-bedroom in the Bristol Heights development, asking two-seventy-five, or a lovely two-story farmhouse-style new home in our own development on the west side.”

Bingo.

“At the end of the street, lovely trees, somewhat isolated and yet a real part of the Thousand Pines Estates settlement. Large one-acre lots—”

“That last one sounds fine. When can I see it?”

“My husband and I will meet you at the office or the home at three o'clock. Would that work?”

They agreed on the time, and, given that he didn't want to sit through a half-hour sales pitch in the broker's car, they would catch up at the house.

He had an hour before the appointment to do a bit of a makeover. Tucking a compact throw pillow under his dress shirt, his jacket stretched tight over his middle-aged potbelly. A pair of mild-strength reading glasses from Walgreens and a beat-up snap-brim fishing hat.