High Noon (37 page)

He shut the phone, shoved it into his pocket. “Wants me to shut everything down, go home and hide like some dickless coward. Threatens to sic cops on me to haul me in, for my own safety. Screw that.”

“Who're you calling?” Ma demanded when he yanked the phone out again.

“Your son, my lawyer. We'll just see how she likes—”

“Hang that up, you fool. Just close that up. You go yank those weeds till you cool off a little.”

“I'm not having—”

“You're not having, she's not having. Fine, fine, fine. Talk about it later, in person, like you said. Meanwhile, there's no use stinking up the pot by calling lawyers. You find cops on your doorstep, that's the time to call Phineas. Right now, that bed needs weeding.”

Children, Ma thought as Duncan strode grumbling over to do what he was told. People in love were like squabbling children half the time.

She sure missed that part of having a man.

In the squad room,
Phoebe used a large whiteboard to create a chart. As she built the diagrams, added names, she struggled to keep her conversation with Duncan from playing back in her head.

Stubborn, macho idiot. Going off on a tangent about his precious balls because she expected him to take proper and reasonable precautions.

She'd never have thought it of him. It just went to show how wrong you could be about someone.

If he got his head, or his damn balls, blown off, it was his own fault.

She had to stop, shut her eyes and order herself to calm down.

That wasn't going to happen. If she didn't know just where to find Duncan, how the hell would Roy's killer? And why would he waste his time and energy cruising around the city looking for Duncan, and then risk exposure by trying something stupid?

He was too smart for that.

He had a plan, of that she was certain. And he wouldn't have tipped his hand to her if Duncan was his primary and immediate target. Duncan might very well be one, but there was time.

She'd let herself panic, and she knew better.

Calm, rational thinking was the way to find the answers.

She'd pulled another detective and an experienced uniformed officer into the case.

“We believe,” she began as she continued to write on the board, “that the UNSUB is connected to one of the female victims of a previous hostage situation, suicide or crisis in which I sat as negotiator. What we know is he targeted, abducted and killed Roy Squire, specifically because of the victim's connection to me. We know he has knowledge of explosives. We know he traveled to Hilton Head, and returned to Savannah with Roy in Roy's car, which was found abandoned and wiped clean in the long-term lot at the airport, where we can assume he had his own car parked or took a cab. We do not know, yet, how he got to Hilton Head.”

She turned around. “Detective Peters, I need you to check on one-way car rentals that were picked up in Savannah, dropped off in Hilton Head. One-way railway and bus tickets, air tickets. Or any round-trips purchased that were used only one way. He may have chartered private. We don't know how deep his pockets are. Find out what you can from private planes, destination Hilton Head, within the last week.”

“Why didn't he use his own car, coming and going?” Sykes wondered. “If he has one. Drive's not that far from here to there. Why use the victim's to transport?”

“We don't know that either. It's possible he doesn't own a car.”

“Or,” the new team member, Nably, began, “the one he owns, or has access to, isn't geared for hauling a full-grown man, bound and gagged, forty, fifty miles.”

“Too small,” Phoebe mused.

“Or a hatchback SUV with no trunk, no place to conceal the abductee.” Nably pulled on his prominent bottom lip. “Or maybe he just likes the idea of having us puzzle on it, and spend the time finding out.”

“Very possible.” She paused to drink from her bottle of water. “It's also possible, and I believe probable, that the subject has had police or military training. He knows how we work, so yes, he might have done things this way to add to the legwork. He's had training. He was able to slip through the perimeter on the Johnson situation, dispatch his target and slip back out without a ripple.”

“Maybe he was in uniform,” Sykes suggested. “Or had ID.”

“Yes. He got through the posts, into the building and into Reeanna Curtis's apartment. It had been cleared, and she rushed out with her children—doesn't remember if she locked the door or not. Either way, he got in. He chose that apartment, that window. Why?”

“Because he knew enough to know it wasn't optimum angle, and SWAT wouldn't use it.”

“I agree.” She turned back. “The pink roses on the grave—which we have not been able to trace—indicate the UNSUB's attachment to a woman, most likely a dead woman. These are the names of all female casualties in any negotiations in which I took part, both for this department and previously for the FBI.

“Brenda Anne Falk, suicide. Her husband is clear on this. She had a brother and a father, both of whom have been verified as in Mississippi during the time frame of Roy's abduction and murder. At this time, we have no leads on anyone else connected to her who has either motive or opportunity. Linked here are the other law enforcement personnel who are listed in the file on that incident. There is no known personal connection between any of them and Brenda Falk.”

“Maybe he doesn't have connections to any of them,” Sykes put in. “Maybe it's a cop or a fed who just went south. Picked up on any of those,” he continued with a nod toward the board. “And/or you, Lieutenant, because the voices said so.”

“Then it'll be a lot harder to find him. Victim two, chronologically, is Vendi, Christina. She was part of an organization called Sundown, a small, extreme fringe terrorist group. Poorly organized, poorly funded, and still they managed to invade the home of Gulfstream Aerospace's CEO during a dinner party, taking fifteen people hostage.”

“I remember that.” Nably pointed a finger. “You were on that.”

“I was. The demands were as radical and extreme as the group, and as poorly thought out. After twelve hours of negotiation, during which time it was known that at least one of the hostages was seriously injured if not dead, it was determined by tactical command to move in.”

“You talked them into letting the kids out, and a pregnant woman. I remember this.”

“They did agree to release the CEO's two minor children and a female guest who was seven months pregnant, taking the hostages down to twelve. Two members of Tactical were able to gain entry through a second-story window, and took out two of the hostage-takers. Vendi opened fire on law enforcement and was terminated. The single remaining terrorist was taken into custody. He's still inside.”

She could remember how horrible it was. The screams, the gunfire.

“Vendi's father was career army until his recent retirement. He has, always, disavowed her actions, and cannot be placed in Savannah nor in Hilton Head during the time frame. However, there would be any number of military connections there, and further connections to Vendi from any remaining members of the disbanded Sundown organization.”

She pushed at her hair. “I've asked the FBI to look into this angle. I know,” she said, reading the expressions. “This is our case. But the Bureau's resources for this kind of investigation are wider and deeper than ours.”

“Next is Delray, Phillipa, who was killed during a carjacking. Her five-year-old daughter was in the car, and was then taken by the two carjackers as hostage. They were pursued to a garage on the west side, managed to get inside. Negotiations were successful, the child released and the two men surrendered. Delray's brother was in the army, serving in Germany at the time of his sister's death. He now lives in Savannah, as does Delray's husband. Delray's brother, Ricardo Sanchez, is with the mounted patrol.”

“I know him.” The uniformed officer held up a hand. “I know Rick Sanchez. He's a good guy.”

“I hope you're right, but he'll have to be interviewed.”

Didn't sit well, she could see that, just didn't sit well for cops to poke at another cop. “I'll be speaking to him myself,” she decided on the spot. “We then have Brentine, Angela, killed during an attempted bank robbery. Her injuries were received during the initial phase, and initial attempts to secure medical attention for her were refused. She succumbed on the way to the hospital during hour four of negotiations, when we were able to secure her release. Her husband, Brentine, Joshua, was in New York on business. He remarried nineteen months after his first wife's death, since divorced. He has never served in the military or in any law enforcement capacity. Angela Brentine has no living male relations.”

“There was a lot of press on that one,” Sykes remembered. “Not only the bank-robbing spree that ended here, but Brentine's wife. He's old Savannah, money and status. Rumors floated around, as I recall, that her dying saved him a messy divorce.”

“I'll be talking to Brentine very soon. Officer Landow? I'd like you to re-interview Reeanna Curtis, from the Hitch Street incident. Any details she remembers before, during, after she was evacuated. Talk to neighboring apartments as well. Take another officer of your choosing. I'll authorize it. Detective Sykes, I'd like you to reach out to members of the tactical team on that same incident. I believe they'll be more…relaxed with you than with me. I'm not looking to cause trouble for any of them. I want to know if anyone caught so much as a glimpse of another officer—uniformed or just badged—that they might not have recognized right off. If anyone is reluctant to speak about this, I'd suggest you show them a couple of the crime-scene photos of Bonaventure. After Roy Squire was blown to pieces.”

“I'll take care of it, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you.” She nodded because she saw Dave step in. “Let's get started.”

When Dave gestured to her office, she walked into it ahead of him.

“You've got a lot laid out in a short time, Phoebe. Get any sleep in there?”

“Some. Truth? It kept coming back when I drifted off. Roy chained on that grave, the explosion. I was better off awake and doing. I'm not so scared when I'm doing as I am when I stop.”

“Your family?”

“I don't know. How long can I keep them shut up in that house? Fine for my mother,” she said with a tired laugh that wanted to turn bitter. “But the rest? I just don't know. I'm going to go out, start talking to witnesses, connections to those four female victims. Something's going to break out of it. I know it will.”

“Take one of the men with you.”

“I don't have anyone to spare. We're already spread thin with the details on my house, the ones taking Josie and Carter to work and sitting on them.”

It made her sick to think of it, sick in mind, in heart, in the belly. “And I know that can't go on much longer either. I know we don't have the manpower or the budget for unlimited babysitting.”

“They're there today, so we think about today. How's Ava…everyone handling it?”

“Everyone, including Ava, is handling it as best they can. You might call her, or go by. It might ease her mind.”

“Well. Hmm.” He slipped his hands into his pockets. “About the interviews, I'd go with you myself, but I've got a meeting at City Hall. If you could pick someone out of the hat, not just the squad, who would it be?”

Maybe,
maybe
either he or Ava would make a move before they were both collecting Social Security, but she wasn't putting money on it. “Sykes is solid, and that's why I want him tugging on the tactical team. Liz Alberta. She's SV, I know, but she's got a good ear. But I don't know what her case load is, or—”

“I'll find out, see if it can be worked. Take ten minutes, call home. You'll feel better, clearer in your mind.”

“You're right. You take five, call yourself, it would do the same for you.”

 

They met Sanchez in Forsythe Park, and stood in the shade with his wise-eyed horse. The thick air of the morning had turned oppressive, so the rich brown hide of the horse gleamed damp.

Close to Mac Namara House, Phoebe thought. Close enough that in uniform, mounted on his pretty horse, he could watch her home without anyone noticing.

Sanchez stood about five-feet-eight by Phoebe's gauge, with a tough, scrapper's build. There was a little hook-shaped scar under the corner of his left eye, and a hard, stubborn line to his jaw.

Was the man in the ball cap, the whistler, taller? She thought by an inch or two. But had she paid enough attention to be certain?

“She didn't care about the car,” Sanchez said, speaking of his sister. “She just wanted to get Marissa out. She fought them because she wouldn't leave her baby, so they put a knife in her and left her bleeding to death on the street.”

“You were in Germany when it happened?”

He nodded at Liz. “They gave me hardship leave, let me come home for her funeral. My mother, I thought it would kill her, too. And my brother-in-law, he was like a dead man for days.”

“You were only nineteen when it happened. You were training as a weapons specialist.”

“I thought I'd make the army a career. See the world, fight the fight. But after Philli…I finished my tour and came home.”

“And joined the mounted unit about two years after.”

“That's right.” His eyes narrowed. “What's this about, Lieutenant Mac Namara? The one who put that knife in her, he's still in. Have you come to tell me he's getting out?”

“No. Can you tell me where you were last night, Officer Sanchez? Between eleven and three?”

“I could,” he said evenly. “I'd want to know why. I'd want to know why you're asking me where I was around the time a man was blown up in Bonaventure.”

“I'm asking you because a man was blown up in Bonaventure.”

“What does it have to do with me?”

“Let me ask you this first. You didn't say how your niece was spared that day while your sister was killed.”

“I told you, the bastards killed Philli because she fought them. Cops caught up with them at a garage; they'd locked themselves in with Marissa. Cops surrounded the place, got them to let the baby go and surrender.”

“Who got them to surrender?” Phoebe asked him.

“The cops.” His horse tossed its head at the impatience in Sanchez's voice, and automatically he stroked a hand over its cheek to soothe. “The cops saved her life. Men like that? Men who'd kill a mother trying to protect her baby? What's to stop them from doing the same to a little girl? Cops saved Marissa. It's why I'm a cop.”

No possible way this is the guy, Phoebe thought, and when she exchanged a look with Liz, saw they were in agreement. “I was the hostage negotiator in the crisis situation with your niece.”