Last Breath (20 page)

A wash of perspiration spread over her face. Her breathing came fast and shallow through her nostrils; her mouth was blocked by the gag.

Finally she maneuvered the needle into position. She felt the needle dimpling the tape. She pushed upward, and the needle punched through.

A minuscule hole. Hardly enough to matter. But if she could punch another hole and another and another, eventually the tape would give way. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it wasn’t going to be fast.

She worked the needle up and down, shoulders and arms trembling with strain. Her thoughts returned to Adam.

What was his motive? Simple anger? Was that all? Was it enough?

Maybe it was. Just look at the people she arrested every day—gangbangers, drunken brawlers, angry husbands like Ramon Sanchez.

Angry husbands ...

How much did Adam hate her? How deeply had the divorce wounded his masculine pride, his sense of self?

Yes, he had precipitated the divorce by cheating on her. But he had never intended to get caught. Even after she had filed the papers, he’d done his best to talk her out of it.

She remembered their last argument, in the apartment he’d rented in Venice after moving out of the bungalow. It was a sad little studio apartment with thin walls and noisy neighbors and cheap, rented furniture. She knew he hated the place and hated what had happened to his life.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he kept saying in a desperate, pleading voice she didn’t want to hear.

“You already did,” she replied, fighting off any surrender to sympathy.

“C.J.”—his arms outstretched, hands open—“you don’t understand. I need you. I’ll fall apart without you.”

He looked so wan and forlorn in the dim lamplight. She turned away, refusing to meet his gaze.

“You won’t fall apart, Adam. You always manage to keep it together so you can look after your number one priority—yourself.”

“That’s not fair.”

She looked at him then, and whatever was in her eyes made him shrink from her. “Now
I’m
the one not being fair? Funny, I thought that would be you. Was it
fair
to take Ashley to bed behind my back?”

“It only happened once.”

He said it with complete sincerity, but she knew it was untrue. She had already tracked down Ashley on the UCLA campus and asked her how long the affair had lasted. The girl had been too startled and intimidated to lie. “Four months,” she had blurted.

“Only once,” she echoed, watching Adam’s face for any trace of shame. She saw nothing but guileless candor, and the thought flashed in her mind that her husband—soon to be ex-husband—was an awfully skilled liar, better than she’d ever known.

She didn’t speak again, merely turned away from him in disgust and walked out the door. His plaintive voice pursued her down the hallway of the apartment building, then down the graffiti-scarred stairwell to the lobby.

“Don’t do this, C.J. Please, you
can’t
do this to me.”

She noticed the irony of his utter self-absorption. He thought
she
had wronged
him
.

And of course he still thought so. She had walked out of his life. She had reduced him to the humiliating posture of a beggar—and worse, she had not even listened to his pleas. She was the villain. She had taken his manhood, his dignity.

So now he intended to get even—by taking her life.

She had succeeded in puncturing the tape three or four more times. But when she tested it, it felt as strong as ever. How much time had passed? A half hour already? Adam might be talking with a detective even now. If he wasn’t a suspect, the interview would be brief. Then he would be back for that last dance.

Not gonna happen, she promised herself. You’ll get out of this, Killer.

Bet your life you will.

“Dead end.”

Cellini shook her head slowly as she switched off her cell phone. Walsh, standing in C.J. Osborn’s kitchen, lifted a quizzical eyebrow.

“The stuff in the garage,” she explained, sounding weary. “I thought for sure it would be a breakthrough. But this is one clever son of a bitch we’re up against.”

“The computer couldn’t be traced?”

“He filed off the serial number.”

“How about the cell phone? Couldn’t you track down the account?”

“Oh, I tracked it down, all right.” She gave a bitter laugh. “It’s registered to Pacific Bell. They’re paying the bills.”

Walsh looked at her blankly.

“Don’t you get it, Morrie? It’s a hacker’s joke. He tapped into the PacBell system and put the account in their name. He’s got the phone company paying his phone bill for him.”

“So,” Walsh said, “we’re no closer to ID’ing him than we were before.”

“That’s what ‘dead end’ means,” Cellini snapped, then apologized. “I’m sort of wrung out. I really thought we had him.”

“Maybe Sotheby’s gotten somewhere with the receipts.”

But he hadn’t, as he explained when Walsh and Cellini joined him in the laundry room, where C.J. Osborn kept her bank books, canceled checks, and receipts. “I’ve looked through everything,” he said. “She hasn’t had any work done on her house in the past six months—or if she has, she paid cash for it. No plumbers, no electricians. And no computer repair guys. Nothing.”

Gary Boyle stuck his head in the doorway. “I’m skeptical about the computer-repair angle anyway.”

“Why?” Cellini asked. It had been her idea. “It makes sense. He’s obviously into computers.”

“Yeah, but Nikki Carter didn’t own one. I just checked the inventory of her possessions to be sure. No computer on the list.”

“How about Martha Eversol?” Walsh asked.

“She owned a PC.”

“See if there’s any record of her getting it serviced—especially at-home service. What’s it called again?”

“On-site,” Cellini answered.

“Right. Check that out.”

Boyle disappeared from the doorway. Sotheby stared after him. “Even if she did get her computer repaired,” Sotheby said, “it won’t prove much.”

“Think positive,” Walsh told him, though his own thinking was pretty negative at the moment.

He left the laundry room and returned to the front of the house, where Boyle was flipping through the case file. Walsh saw his lips moving as he scanned the pages. A mouth reader.

“Okay, here’s something,” Boyle said.

Walsh looked over his shoulder. Boyle stabbed at an entry with a ragged fingernail.

“Eversol got a house call from an on-site computer repair service on November twenty-second, about five weeks before her abduction, and about one week before her image went online. The guy could’ve planted the camera when he fixed her PC.”

“We must have checked out the repairman,” Walsh said.

“We did. He’s William Bowden. Married, two kids. Lives in Reseda. West Valley interviewed him, said he seemed okay.”

“But that was before we knew about the Webcam,” Cellini pointed out.

Walsh nodded. “Donna, I want
you
to talk to Bowden. Call him, see if he’s home. Don’t identify yourself as a cop. Act like you’re selling something or soliciting for charity. Don’t spook him. If he’s there, you and Sotheby go see him with at least two West Valley patrol cops as backup. Ride him hard. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling about this guy. I don’t trust these computer people.”

Cellini smiled. “You don’t trust any technology invented after the Eisenhower administration.”

“Just do it.”

“Shit, Morrie, you’re starting to sound like a TV commercial.” She jotted down Bowden’s phone number, listed in the case file, then pulled out her cell phone again.

Walsh told Boyle to search the LAPD’s database for other homicides and abductions with an Internet connection. “Get Lopez to help.”

“Local crimes only?” Boyle asked.

“No, statewide. Within the past five years. And—”

“Detective?” a voice interrupted.

Walsh glanced behind him and saw a uniformed cop standing there. “Yeah?”

“Watch commander at Wilshire says there’s a guy waiting for you at the station.”

“Name?” For a crazy moment Walsh imagined the patrol cop saying,
William Bowden—he’s waiting to make a full confession
.

But he answered, “Adam Nolan. I think he’s the victim’s ex-husband.”

“Hell.” Walsh had forgotten all about the man. “All right, I’ll head on over.”

He sketched a wave to Cellini, who was on the phone and barely acknowledged him.

The drive to Wilshire Station was short, but it gave Walsh sufficient time to consider his plan of attack. When interrogating a suspect, there must always be a plan of attack.

He decided to do his Peter Falk impression. That usually got results.

Most cops didn’t watch police shows, but Walsh liked them, and his favorite of all time was
Columbo
. Oh, sure, the show was totally unrealistic, but Walsh didn’t care about technical accuracy. He loved the show because Columbo was middle-aged and rumpled and eccentric, not unlike Walsh himself. Neither of them would ever be mistaken for Clint Eastwood. They both owned clunky old cars, although Columbo drove his when on-duty in contravention of LAPD policy, which required the use of a department-issue Caprice or Crown Victoria. They both came across as relics of an earlier, pretechnological age. They both loved their work and had little else in their lives.

At night Columbo went home to his invisible and presumably dowdy wife, and Walsh went home to a house that had been empty since his wife left him, to a phone that never rang because his three grown kids were always too busy to call, to bowls of microwaved chili and reruns of
Columbo
on cable TV.

He parked behind the Wilshire divisional station on Venice Boulevard and entered through the rear door, then quickly made his way through to the reception area in front, where he asked the desk officer for Adam Nolan. He was directed to an unused office on a side corridor. Good thing the watch commander had been smart enough not to put Nolan in an interrogation room. He didn’t want the man thinking of himself as a suspect.

He pushed open the office door and saw a man of about thirty seated in a metal chair, wearing dark chinos and a tan, zippered windbreaker.

“Mr. Nolan? I’m Detective Walsh, Robbery-Homicide.”

Walsh regretted the introduction as soon as he saw the look of cold dread pass over Nolan’s face at the mention of the word
homicide
. He held up a reassuring hand. “Your wife isn’t dead. That is, we believe she isn’t.”

“Ex-wife,” Nolan mumbled, rising from his chair.

“Sorry.”

“C.J.’s alive?”

“We think so, yes.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“She’s missing, Mr. Nolan.” Walsh closed the door, then took his time moving around the desk and seating himself behind it. “She’s been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped?” Nolan echoed. He sat down, facing the desk. “Who the hell would
kidnap
her? She hasn’t got any money. She’s not involved in anything political.” He blinked. “Is it—could it be somebody she arrested? A revenge thing?”

“Anything’s possible at this stage. The person responsible could be anyone.” Including you, Walsh added silently.

He didn’t think Adam Nolan was implicated in this crime, but until he had more facts, he wasn’t making any assumptions.

“When did this happen?” Nolan asked.

“We’re not sure.” Walsh leaned forward, asserting himself. “Mr. Nolan, I’m afraid you’ll have to let me ask the questions.”

“Right,” Nolan said. “Of course.” He ran a hand over his blond hair, mussing it distractedly. He was a good-looking guy, Walsh noted, with crisp, regular features, a light suntan, and smoky eyes tinged with blue. Women would go for him.

“When did you and C.J. get divorced?” Walsh asked.

“A year ago, approximately. Why is that relevant?”

“I’m just getting some background information,” Walsh answered vaguely. “Have you kept in touch with her?”

“As I said over the phone, I saw her just a few hours ago.”

“It wasn’t me you talked to on the phone. It was Detective Boyle.” Walsh spread his hands apologetically and cocked his head in ingenuous humility. “Sorry if I’m covering some of the same ground.”

Nolan seemed disarmed by these overtures. “It’s all right. Ask whatever you want.”

Walsh nodded. Thank you, Lieutenant Columbo. “You saw your ex-wife today?”

Nolan said yes. “At Newton Station. She was coming off duty. We went for coffee down the street.”

“Where?”

“I don’t remember the name of the place. It was run by a Filipino couple—she told me that.”

“Why did you see her?”

“To invite her out.”

“Tonight?”

“No, she does volunteer work tonight. I mean, normally she does. I mean—”

“I understand. Go on.”

“It was for Friday. I thought we might go to a club, hear some music.”

“You do that often? Get together with her?” He was fully absorbed in his Columbo persona now—polite, apologetic, gently probing.

“No, not really. We try to keep in touch. But it’s a strain, you know. The divorce wasn’t entirely amicable.”

“I guess they never are,” Walsh said, thinking of his own divorce ten years ago. “Can I ask why you split up?”

“We were just going in different directions. She became a cop. I became a lawyer.”

“Criminal law?”

“Corporate.”

“Good money in that.”

“So they tell me.” A brief, forced laugh.

“Did C.J. express any concerns about her safety?”

“Today?”

“Ever.”

Nolan thought about it. “No, I’m sure I’d remember if she had.”

“Did she mention an e-mail she’d received?”

“E-mail?”

Walsh waved off the issue. “Never mind.”

“Did someone send her—”

“I can’t go into it.” Another Columbo moment. “I’m sorry. Really.” He let his sympathy mollify Nolan, then continued. “Did you leave the coffee shop together?”

“We parted outside. She walked back to the station for her car.”

“What did you do?”

“Drove to the office. It’s Brigham and Garner in Century City.”