The Samaritan (17 page)

Blake seemed to consider this. “Well, for starters, I don’t think he’s stupid enough to walk up to you and introduce himself. Unfortunately.” He nodded at the guns, one at a time. “Any chance of . . . ?”

“Turn around—slowly—and put your hands on the roof of the car,” Mazzucco barked.

Blake did as asked, and Mazzucco moved in close, Allen covering him this time. He kicked Blake’s legs apart and frisked him one-handed, quickly and efficiently. He pulled a sheet of folded paper out of his pocket, examined it with a thoughtful look, and held on to it. He found a wallet in Blake’s back pocket, took it out, and examined the contents. He looked back at Allen and nodded.

“Okay, turn around,” she called.

He did as asked once again, and Allen lowered the gun. She kept it cocked, with her finger on the trigger, ready to bring it back into play should the need arise.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Blake?” she said, adopting a more conversational tone.

“I’m sorry if I startled you. The television said anyone who could help with the investigation should contact Detectives Allen or Mazzucco.”

“You know what they mean when they say that, Blake?”

“Phone the hotline?”

“Bingo. Running a tail on the lead detectives is not what we’d call our preferred contact method.”

“My apologies,” he said. “It seemed like it might be the best way to get your attention. Stand out from the crowd.”

Mazzucco’s eyes narrowed with incredulity. “Are you saying you let us catch you following us?”

Blake nodded, as if that were obvious. “Why else would I drive myself into a dead end?” He lowered his hands slowly and placed them in his pockets loosely before he continued. “Going by experience, I didn’t think it would be easy to get an appointment with you the conventional way. But here we are.”

“Here we are,” Allen repeated evenly.

“What’s this?” Mazzucco said, holding up the sheet of paper he’d taken from Blake. Allen glanced at it and saw there were a couple of pencil sketches of a man’s face on it.

Blake shrugged. “A hobby. You can keep that if you like.”

“Very generous of you.”

“So what can you tell us about the killer?” Allen said. “I guess we might as well ask; otherwise the three of us came all the way up here for nothing at all.”

“I can help you catch him.”

“You don’t think we can handle that on our own?” Mazzucco asked sharply.

“I think we can get this guy sooner by working together,” Blake answered, plainly anticipating the question.

Mazzucco shook his head. “We don’t need any help from armchair detectives. Thank you anyway.”

Allen knew from his tone that he was fishing for more background on Blake, hoping to goad him into a reveal. Whatever else this guy was, he didn’t give off amateur vibes. He didn’t even seem like a private detective. Despite herself, Allen was curious to get to the bottom of this new puzzle.

“Actually,” Blake said, unfazed, “I’m a professional. As in, I do this for a living.”

“You assist with homicide investigations?” Allen asked. Was he some kind of civilian consultant? If so, why the distinctly unorthodox approach?

“I find people. Usually, people who’d rather not be found. Let me in on this, and I’ll find you the Samaritan.” He said it flatly, not as a brag or a sales pitch, just with the easy confidence of someone stating the grass is green. That worried Allen for some reason.

She looked at Mazzucco, raising her eyebrows to ask wordlessly if he wanted to say anything else. His expression was passive and slightly bemused. He didn’t know what to think of this guy either.

Allen clicked the safety on her Beretta and slid it back into her holster. Whatever else this guy was, he didn’t present an immediate danger to either of them—she trusted her instincts that far. So what now? They couldn’t very well remain on the rooftop staring at each other, not when there was work to be done. Blake was giving as little away as possible, even when asked questions at gunpoint. He was assuming he’d piqued their interest enough. Two could play that game. She affected a bland customer-service smile and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Blake. Even assuming your credentials are as impressive as you seem to believe, I’m afraid we don’t have room in the budget for additional consultants. I guess we’re going to have to make do with our own meager talents.”

She glanced at Mazzucco for confirmation and he shrugged.
Too bad
.

“Now,” she continued, “if you’d be kind enough to give us a contact number and an address where we can find you if we need to talk to you further, we won’t take up any more of your time today.”

Blake didn’t say anything. His expression was unreadable behind the dark glasses. He took a couple of steps away from the Ford, paused, and started to walk back toward the blue Chevy. He held out a palm as he approached Allen, and she realized she still had his keys. She thought about holding on to them and then realized with annoyance that she had no reason to detain him—she couldn’t even get him on speeding, for Christ’s sake. She tossed them to him.

Blake caught them in his right hand and his left hand went into an inside pocket. He handed her a plain white business card with a cell number handwritten on it in black ink.

“I’m staying in a hotel,” he said. “Just flew into town last night. I’m not sure where I’ll be tonight, but I’ll answer that number when you’re ready to call.”

Allen took the card and rubbed it between two of her fingers. The card stock was heavy, expensive-feeling. Apart from that, it gave nothing away beyond the minimum information volunteered by its owner.

Blake looked from Allen to Mazzucco and back again. He removed his sunglasses and looked at Allen. His eyes took her by surprise. They were green, and instead of the amused, playful look she’d expected from the sound of his voice, there was only cold purpose in his gaze.

“I don’t want to waste any time, yours or mine, so I’ll cut to the chase. If you need a reference, call Special Agent Elaine Banner at the Chicago field office of the FBI. Ask her how she caught Caleb Wardell.”

Allen tensed at the mention of the name. It was familiar to her not just as a law enforcement officer, but as someone who owned a television.

Blake continued. “If you want proof I can help you, I’ll give you a taster up front. Look up Sergeant Willis Peterson, listed as missing in North Carolina. See if he matches the pattern. Then see if you want to add another state to the Samaritan’s travel history.”

Allen felt Mazzucco’s eyes burn into her. He was thinking the same thing she was: how the hell did this guy know about this? Nobody knew this went beyond LA yet.
Peterson
. She filed the name away even as she opened her mouth to remind Blake that they’d already turned down his offer. He didn’t let her get the objection out.

“I’ll let you make your inquiries, and then you can give me a call.” He started walking toward his car again. “And, by the way, I’m not proposing to charge for my services on this occasion, Detectives. This one’s on the house.”

32

An hour later, they were back on the sixth floor of the PAB, watching as Lieutenant Lawrence closed his eyes and massaged his right temple with two fingers.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re telling me that this killer was active in six other states before he got to us. Is that right?”

Allen nodded. “Six at least, sir. I have a bad feeling that once we start looking, we’ll find more.”
Like in North Carolina, maybe
, she thought.

Lawrence opened his eyes and stared at her hard. “Only it won’t be us who’ll be looking. Will it? When did you start to suspect this guy was killing across state lines?”

Allen opened her mouth to reply, but Mazzucco cleared his throat and spoke first. “We found out about the other cases a couple of hours ago, when we got—”

Lawrence raised his voice subtly as he cut him off. “The question wasn’t addressed to you, Detective, and that didn’t answer it in any case. Allen, when did you first suspect this?”

Allen swallowed. “Yesterday, sir. When we saw the first body.”

“Yesterday.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lawrence consulted his watch. “So you sat on this for more than thirty hours.”

“I couldn’t . . .”

Lawrence silenced her with a hand wave. “Explain. What got your attention about the body?”

“The wounds on the Boden girl. They were . . . unusual. I’d seen similar marks on a body in Washington, DC, a couple of years back.”

“Then a similar blade was used. So what?”

Allen shook her head. “I’ve never seen a wound pattern like this. And anyway, it wasn’t just the wounds. A lot about the two cases felt similar, even with all of the differences. I called one of my contacts back in Washington, asked him to do a little research. Meantime, I checked out Metro PD’s open and unsolved cases online and came up with another couple of murders that fit right in with the pattern.”

Mazzucco spoke up again. “We agreed that it would be best to make sure of our suspicions before taking it to you.”

Lawrence turned his head to Mazzucco. “You went along with this?”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to Allen. “That true?”

Allen glanced at Mazzucco. His eyes were saying,
Go with it
. She couldn’t. “It’s not true, sir. Detective Mazzucco had no idea about this until a couple of hours ago.”

“I thought not. So then you accessed NCIC without authorization and turned up . . . what?”

“Another fourteen potential victims across six states.”

Lawrence sighed. “And these had not been connected before?”

“Two of them had been, but there was nothing concrete to link the cases: no fingerprints or DNA evidence. A reasonably diverse MO, except for the unique wound patterns. It’s not the kind of thing you can query a database on; it needed the same eyes on more than one victim. It needed instinct, not number-crunching.”

“So our three-time LA killer has in actuality bagged more than a dozen victims across the country. That is what you’re telling me, Detective Allen, isn’t it?”

“Possibly more. We have no way of knowing when or where he got started. Not without more manpower on this.”

“Which is the only reason you’ve brought it to me now.”

“I didn’t want to—”

“Detective Allen, I already told your partner to spare me the bullshit. You didn’t want to lose the case to the FBI.”

She was silent for a moment. “I wanted to make some headway before they took the whole thing away from us.”

“That’s not your call to make, Allen. The potential number of victims alone makes this a federal case, never mind the multistate element. We call them in immediately, and they’re not going to be happy when they find out you’ve burned a day of the investigation already.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“No, you’re not. You’ve done exactly what you intended to do. Wrapped yourself so closely in this case that you think you can’t be taken off it.”

Mazzucco glanced at Allen and back at Lawrence. “Come on, Lieutenant. She’s made good progress on this already. Even if she’d come to you yesterday, I doubt we’d be any further forward. She had nothing concrete yesterday. With all due respect, we have to stay involved.”

Lawrence glared back at him. “With all due respect, I don’t have to do a goddamn thing I don’t want to.” He stared at Mazzucco for a moment to make his point and then looked back to Allen. “You’ve been with us six months, Allen, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“You came here with some baggage. A reputation for insubordination, not to mention cutting a few corners.”

Allen suppressed a wince. It was the first time Lawrence had referenced her past since she’d been here.

“You probably came here with a lot of ideas about the LAPD, about how we do things. You probably thought you’d fit right in.”

“Not exactly.”

“I didn’t ask you to comment. I didn’t think I needed to say this, but clearly I was wrong. This crap won’t play, Allen. Not in this division and not on any case I’m involved with.”

Allen opened her mouth to apologize again and then thought better of it.

“If you have suspicions that a case is bigger than it appears, you come to me first. You don’t go cowboying on your own. I decide what we do and when. Is that clear?”

Allen nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Lawrence looked back at her for an uncomfortably long time and then gave Mazzucco the same treatment.

“That’ll be all.”

The two detectives exchanged a chastened glance and turned to leave the office, and the case. They stopped in their tracks as Lawrence spoke again.

“One more thing.”

They turned and waited for him to continue.

“Keep your phones on. I’ll need you back in here when I speak to the FBI. Which will probably be soon.”

Allen’s face brightened. “Does that mean—”

“That’ll be all.”

The two turned to leave again. Allen was unable to keep the smile from her face. Mazzucco looked exasperated with her, but she thought she saw the hint of a relieved smile around the corner of his mouth, too.

33

Briefing Lawrence had taken priority, but Allen and Mazzucco knew what they’d be checking out as soon as they got back to their desks, neither of them happy with themselves for wanting to do it. Carter Blake was an unknown quantity, but with the FBI moving in, Allen thought it might not hurt to have an ally that was a little removed from the investigation. On the other hand, she knew she had to be very careful here. What kind of cop would she be if she wasn’t suspicious of a guy who appeared from out of nowhere with highly specific information about a series of murders?

They sat down across from each other, and there was a silence that required filling as their respective computers woke from their slumbers.

“No,” Mazzucco said, shaking his head. “I don’t like him.”

“Neither do I,” Allen said breezily.

“Good.”

“Great.”

There was a pause, and then Mazzucco said, “I’ll check out North Carolina?”