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Authors: Deirdre Savoy

Tags: #Romance

Body of Lies (23 page)

BOOK: Body of Lies
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“Man, I was just rolling down on Waring. It got this sweet set of bumps good for tricking out, you know. I see this white dude by a white delivery truck. It didn't have any kind of name on it, though. He was fiddling with the engine. Then he gets inside trying to start it and nothing. He calls me over, but I don't go, you know. Don't talk to strangers,” he said, making quote marks in the air.
“What did he look like?”
“A white dude.” Zach cast him a droll look and the kid continued. “I don't know, dark hair, kinda long, glasses. He was on the short side, skinny.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked me if I knew where that address was, you know, the doctor's office. I said sure. We were like two blocks away. So he said he had one delivery left but the van wouldn't start and his boss was going to fire him if he didn't get it there and he couldn't leave the van.”
“I thought you weren't speaking to strangers.”
The kid shrugged. “The guy offered me a fifty if I would take the box over there for him. Who's gonna turn down a free fifty?”
That's what this perp counted on. “What were you doing out that morning?”
“I deliver the papers, the
News
. Then I hang out. That is, if my mom doesn't call me and make me come home.”
In other words the kid had a pattern that might be observed. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“I told the dude I liked his cap and he put it on me, said I could have it. I felt bad after. I mean, I didn't mean for the guy to give me his cap, especially after he gave me the fifty up front. I went back to give it back to him but he was gone.”
He'd probably hightailed it out of there the moment the kid rolled off. “Do you still have the hat?”
“It's in my locker.”
They went with the boy to retrieve it. It was as Alice described it, white with a Rockford Reds logo on it. He'd already checked to find that the Rockford Reds were a girls' softball league that played for a high school about 150 miles upstate. As far as he could tell, there was nothing remarkable about either the team or the location, but then he'd been too sidetracked to do too much digging.
After securing the permission of the boy's principal and his mother, they brought him back to the station house to work on a sketch. When it was complete Zach surveyed the sketch. He looked like ... a white dude. Dark hair, dark eyes, and nothing remarkable about his features, complexion, or expression. No distinguishing marks, aside from a bushy mustache, like scars or tattoos. He looked like every other thirty-something white guy out there. Maybe someone out there in the public would see something special in him when the sketch hit the news.
Twenty-one
By noon, Alex had finished calling all of her patients to let them know she wouldn't be in the office this week. She hoped it didn't take any longer than that to find out who was committing the murders, but her hopes had been higher before they'd discovered it couldn't possibly be Walter Thorpe.
Next she'd tackle the files Captain Craig had sent over—so many cases, boxes of them. She didn't think she'd been at the hospital all that long to have acquired so many. She wasn't looking forward to it, mostly because she held out little hope she'd find something there. She'd always seen Walter alone, never in a group. If he'd struck up any sort of waiting room friendships with one of the other men, this would be the first she'd heard of it. She'd never noticed any of her other patients fixating on Walter's crimes in a way that suggested they'd want to emulate him.
Then again, Thorpe's crimes were part of the public record. Anyone reading the newspapers could have copied him. But then there would have been no need to get rid of him or to sew his mouth shut—another example of overkill. Or did that action serve some other purpose?
If there was one, Alex couldn't think of it. After a while, she put aside her papers and called Roberta. “How are things in I-Love-a-Lawyerland?” she asked when Roberta picked up the phone.
“No too shabby. Believe it or not, he wants me to meet his mother.” Roberta sighed dramatically.
“When?”
“Tonight. I broke out in hives ten minutes after he asked me.”
Laughing, Alex said, “I'd be happy to go with you as a buffer of sorts, only the cops outside my door might have something to say about that.”
“Don't you mean Zach's door? How's that going, by the way?”
Alex sighed. For once she felt like sharing, but didn't know how. She blurted out, “We slept together last night. Twice.”
Roberta whooped. “So I was right about you still having feelings for him.”
“Yeah, I told you that already.”
“So,” Roberta prompted. “What was it like?”
If Alex had answered she would have said hot, sweaty, and sexy the first time. But the second time was different, slower, more sensual, more connected in some indefinable way. Afterward, she'd fallen asleep in his arms far more contented than she'd felt in a long time. In other words, she was in way over her head, just what she'd feared. “Let's just say the man knows what he's doing.”
“Do you?”
Ever the social worker, that Roberta. “Nope. I haven't a clue. If I wanted to be honest with myself I'd probably say that sleeping with him was a mistake when we have so much history between us and I don't know what either of us is looking for. There's absolutely nothing settled between us. All I know is that I wanted to be with him, so I was.”
“Well then, welcome to the human race, kiddo. You forget I met Devon a few times, that walking stick. He didn't deserve you and what he did to you in the end was unconscionable. If Zach makes you happy, you should go for it.”
Happy. She didn't know if that word applied to how she felt. Right now, there was so much going on that it seemed absurd to describe anything in positive terms. Especially when she knew the time would come eventually when Zach would seek answers she didn't want to give him. But she also knew she couldn't go back. One way or another she had to free herself from the emotionally barren life she'd exiled herself to.
“We'll see,” she told Roberta. But for the first time in a long while an alien feeling built inside her: hope.
 
 
“What have you got for me?” Zach asked Darryl Ferguson after settling into a chair beside his desk. He'd been surprised to hear from Darryl so soon. He and Smitty had been on their way back to the precinct when Zach's cell phone rang. Zach had dropped Smitty off and continued here.
“After you left last night, my youngest, a girl, comes and sits in my lap and looks up at me with those big brown eyes. I'm thinking if someone hurt her one day I'd want to know as soon as possible who the son of a bitch was. So I came back in and started working on it. My wife was ready to kill me. Needless to say, you are not welcome in the Ferguson house again.”
Zach chuckled, but he thought of all the times he'd left Sherry under similar circumstances or those even less pressing. It was easy to imagine that when you were out making the world safe for other people the ones who loved you should always understand. It made a great excuse anyway for doing exactly what he wanted. He hoped Darryl wasn't on the way to making the same mistake.
While they spoke, Darryl had picked up a file from his desk and opened it. “I subpoenaed the subscriber information from your guy's Internet service providers, the ones I knew about. Three of them were from one company. That came in. Here's your problem, though. Four of these guys had free accounts that don't bother to check subscriber information. You could put down you were Count Dracula from Transylvania and they'd be none the wiser. I did track the IPs back to their originating computers. Two are private homes in New Jersey. One is a library in Westchester.”
Darryl leaned toward him and turned over the top page. “Here's something interesting, though. Either this is new or your guy missed it. Hercules 912 has a home page and a picture.”
Darryl turned one more page and Zach's entire body went on alert. Staring back at him was the flesh-and-blood version of the sketch the kid had worked on that afternoon.
 
 
Virgil Williams had no criminal record, had lived in the same apartment building on Paulding Avenue for the last ten years, and according to his driving record had never received so much as a parking ticket. That didn't mean anything. Lots of bad guys were good at not getting caught at anything minor. According to the financial records from his credit card company, Williams had bought a Dell laptop over a year ago.
Darkness had already fallen by the time Zach sat in his car outside the apartment with Smitty beside him. Soon the ESU team would go in first, the detectives after, to bring in Williams and any evidence they could secure to help nail this guy. According to the super, Williams was home, but seemed perplexed why all these cops were interested in him. They were just waiting for Captain Craig to give the go-ahead.
“This could be it,” Smitty said.
Zach grunted an agreement, but the adrenaline rush that had seized him at first seeing Williams's picture had fled. Something about this seemed too easy or maybe directed. Why the sudden appearance of the photo right after they'd come up with their own sketch? Something told him they wouldn't find what they expected on the other side of Williams's door.
Craig gave the command, and ESU swarmed inside. They'd secured a no-knock warrant for Williams's arrest, which meant they'd just ram his door down and go in. They wanted him contained in the apartment without a chance to hit the fire escape before they got to him. It only took a few minutes for them to get the all-clear sign. Had they taken Williams by surprise or had he gone down without a fight? Zach wouldn't know until he got up there to see for himself.
Williams's apartment was on the third floor in the corner directly across from the stairs. The door was open, hanging on its hinges. Several members of the ESU team were standing about. The only other person in the room seemed to be an old man in a wheelchair, breathing heavily as if a heart attack were imminent.
“Where the hell is Williams?” Zach heard Craig say behind him.
“I'm Virgil Williams,” the old man said. “You can check my wallet.” He extended it toward Craig with shaky hands. “What do you officers want?”
Craig took the wallet and surveyed its contents before passing it to Zack. “Do you have a son, Mr. Williams?”
“He's in Iraq. Has been for the past year and a half.”
Zack surveyed the contents of the wallet. Not a single credit card, only a few bucks and a driver's license that expired in 1972, long before pictures were required. Zach passed the wallet to Smitty, who surveyed it quickly and snapped it shut.
Craig pulled out a copy of the sketch and handed it to Williams. “Do you recognize this man?”
Williams pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and looked down at the photograph. “He's the one on the TV.” Williams glanced up at Craig, new lines of worry creasing his forehead. “You thought
I
was
him
?”
An expression of displeased annoyance came over the captain's face. “We're sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Williams. We can see we've made a mistake.”
Williams harrumphed. “Where were you a year ago when my apartment was broken into? Nobody ever showed up to take the complaint.”
“Was anything taken?”
“Just the TV, but they left the place a mess.”
“I apologize for that, too,” Craig said. He turned and nodded to Zach and the detectives for them to follow.
Once they were outside, Zach leaned his back against one of the patrol cars waiting for whatever Craig had to say. But it was Smitty who spoke first. “How long do you think it will take for him to file a lawsuit against the city?”
Craig's frown deepened. “We'll keep a car on this place in case the fake Williams shows up. We'll check on the son. That guy isn't going anywhere.”
Zach had noticed too that the man's legs were shriveled inside his pants legs. He couldn't have killed anybody if he wanted to.
“Anyone else have any brilliant suggestions?”
Zach had only one, which meant he and Alex would have to leave early the next morning.
 
 
Zach got out of his car in front of his house, relieved to find the two officers in the unmarked car still outside his house. That meant she was all right. He hadn't spoken to her much that day, except to tell her he would be home late. She hadn't asked what he was working on and he hadn't volunteered it, not wanting to get her hopes up about catching Williams. Now he was glad he hadn't since the whole thing had been a bust.
She opened the door to him as he headed up the walk. Had she been waiting for him? He hoped so, and for a better reason than she wanted to hear what he'd been up to on the case. He'd missed her and hoped she'd felt a tinge of that emotion herself. Though with Alex it was difficult to tell what she was feeling unless she told him.
He opened the screen door and pulled her into his arms, unheedful of the two cops parked across the street. He doubted either of them would believe he hadn't touched her until last night anyway. He buried his nose against her neck as her arms closed around his neck. With his hands at her waist he lifted her and carried her inside, kicking the door closed behind them.
He brought them to the sofa, sat, and pulled her onto his lap. She leaned back to survey his face. Her fingers, cool and gentle, brushed his forehead and cheek. “I guess I don't have to ask you how your day went.”
No, she didn't have to ask. He was sure it was there on his face, but he wanted to tell her anyway. “We thought we had him tonight. Turns out he used an old man's Social Security number to get a driver's license and credit cards.”
“How is that possible? Wouldn't the old man keep getting the bills?”
“Not necessarily. Once the first one showed up, he could have switched the mailing address to a PO box, which he did. Williams didn't remember seeing this guy, but a couple of the other neighbors remember him hanging around the lobby a while ago. All he'd have to do is pry open the one mailbox or wait for the mailman to deliver and claim he was from that apartment. We'll check with the post office tomorrow.”
“Where does that leave you?”
He stroked his hand over her hair. “It looks like you get your wish. I want to leave at six for Thorpe's sister's house.”
She nodded. “I saved you some dinner.”
He smiled, pleased that she'd thought of him, but he wasn't hungry, not for food anyway. He wanted her, but he needed to move slow. In his bed, she'd given him everything, held nothing back. Outside it, he knew she withheld part of herself from him. Not that he didn't expect that. Only two days ago they were barely speaking. But, perhaps selfishly, he wanted all of her, and not just for the present. He never should have walked out on her in the first place and never would again, if he could help it.
Despite the cautions ringing in his ears, he pulled her closer and brought her mouth down to his. God, she tasted sweet, but the kiss they shared was nothing but wicked. Her hands went to his tie, loosening it so that she could undo the buttons on his shirt. Then her fingertips touched down on his bare flesh. Her thumbs strummed his nipples and her tongue mated with his. He felt as he always did with her: as if he were being consumed by fire. His heartbeat picked up and his breathing shallowed.
BOOK: Body of Lies
5.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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