The Abduction (11 page)

Room service at the Opry Land Hotel offered lunch as early as eleven, but Lincoln Howe was still too angry to eat. The photographs of him sobbing in the back of his limo had captured a side of himself that he didn’t think existed. Ed Muskie must be smiling, he thought. From now on, when the world spoke of weepy presidential candidates, they’d mean Lincoln Howe in 2000, not the late senator in the 1972 Democratic primaries.

Howe loathed public displays of emotion. Even when he was leaving for extended tours of duty with the army overseas, he had never let his wife see him off at the airport. They said their goodbyes at home, in private. No tears in public places. No hugs and kisses in front of the troops.

The thought of his teary face plastered on every newspaper in the country was enough to make him fall on his proverbial military sword. He needed someone to blame, and his anger was only fueled by his campaign director’s courageous confession that it was he who had hired the man who’d snapped the pictures.

Howe was pacing across LaBelle’s hotel suite, saying nothing, digesting everything he’d just heard. Blind with anger, he nearly tripped over an electrical cord that snaked across the oriental carpet. Since the abduction, the suite had been wired
like a satellite campaign headquarters with computers and extra fax machines, but not even the phone dared to ring as he formulated a response.

“Of all the stupid-assed ideas,” the general boomed, pacing more furiously and waving his arms as he spoke. “Where the hell do you come off hiring someone to take my photograph without me knowing it?”

LaBelle cowered in the armchair, staring blankly at the floor. “I wanted candid shots, so naturally I couldn’t tell you about it in advance. But I would never have actually used them without your approval.”

“You could at least have hired someone you could trust.”

“I thought I could trust him.”

Howe faced him squarely, sharpening his tone. “Does that mean you believe this Red Weber character? Did somebody really break into his hotel room and steal his negatives, or did he just double-cross you and sell them to somebody else?”

“I don’t know. Seems to me that if he had wanted to double-cross me he would have waited until after I paid him the fifty grand. Then he’d sell an extra set of photos to somebody else.”

Howe nodded, agreeing with the logic. He was pacing again. “So, suppose there was a break-in. And suppose we can even raise the inference that Leahy’s campaign was behind it. Where does that take us?”

LaBelle scratched his head, thinking. “It’s a two-edged sword, I think. We can’t really make much of it in the press. Sure, a break-in orchestrated by Leahy’s supporters makes them look bad. But once the cops or the media start to probe, it’s bound to come out that we hired Weber to photograph you.
That makes us look even worse than them.”

“Damn it, Buck! I thought you were fucking smarter than this.” He was more furious than ever, the veins bulging in his neck. “Don’t you see what kind of a bind this puts me in? I’ve been taking the high road with everybody. With the FBI, the press, even Allison Leahy. I’m on the record saying over and over again that I will not tolerate any manipulation of this kidnapping for political gain. How the hell is it going to look if it comes out that you hired a photographer to snag some candid Kodak moments of me mourning the loss of my granddaughter?”

“Sir, I—”

“Shut up, soldier!”

They exchanged glances, saying nothing about the general’s lapse into “soldier” talk.

His hands tightened into huge, angry fists. “I swear, Buck, if the election weren’t so close, I’d fire your ass. No, by God, I’d take you out and shoot you. This is a time bomb we’re sitting on. What’s to keep this low-life Weber from running to the press and telling them what you hired him to do? Tabloids would pay big money for a story like this.”

LaBelle sat in silence, as if the question were rhetorical. “I can think of one thing that might keep him quiet,” he said finally. “Pay Weber his fifty thousand dollars.”

The general froze in his tracks, stunned, like a man punched in the chest. “Hush money?”

“That’s such a negative term. But, yeah. I guess you’d call it hush money.”

The general made a face. “Are you serious?”

“Do you want Weber to keep quiet? Or do you want to go back to being five points
behind
Allison Leahy?”

Howe turned away, riddled with anguish, speaking aloud but to himself. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “I can’t believe this.” He leaned on the windowsill and stared out at the parking lot. A mother and young daughter were walking to their car, reminding him of his own offspring. An urge arose to fire LaBelle on the spot, but he knew of few things more dangerous than a disgruntled ex-campaign insider. The bastard would probably catch the next plane to New York and auction off his tell-all memoirs to the big publishing houses.

“Even if we pay,” he said with his back to LaBelle, “there’s no guarantee it won’t leak.”

“True. I suppose there’s only one sure thing. But you don’t look like a break-legs kind of guy, general. At least not in a civilian setting.”

Howe blinked hard, not sure what to do—then a faint image in the glass gave him pause. It was LaBelle, sitting behind him, watching him, unaware that the general could see his reflection on the window. He detected a certain gleam in his eye, a smirk on his lips, as if relishing the fact that the general was even considering the payment of hush money.

This was the nightmare General Howe had feared, the reason he’d refused to run for office in 1996, the reason he’d so reluctantly sought the nomination in 2000. A surge of anger swelled within—anger at himself for having entered this despicable arena called politics. He drew a deep breath and quelled the rage within, recognizing that, under the circumstances, there really was nothing else to do.

“All right,” said the candidate. “Pay the man his damn money.”

Johnny Delgado heard a noise.

He was half asleep, lying in bed. He checked the digital alarm clock: 12:20
P.M
.

He’d driven straight through from Nashville after dumping the body, arriving in Philadelphia around 4:00
A.M
. Wednesday. His brother had told him to take a circuitous route, to avoid being followed, so he figured he’d catch some sleep at his old girlfriend’s apartment in Philly, then press on to Maryland.

He sat up in bed, listening, wearing only boxer shorts. His shirt and pants lay on the floor beside the bed, next to Honey’s red nightgown. The black-out shades were shut tight, but a punishing beam of afternoon sunlight slashed through a missing panel, hitting Johnny squarely in the eyes.

“Did you hear something?” he asked.

Diane Combs—“Honey”—lay sprawled on her stomach on the other side of the bed. Last night’s heated reunion had been an unexpected but welcome loss of sleep. She rolled on her side and smiled. “Hear what?”

He didn’t return the smile. “I thought I heard voices out by the car.”

“Could be my neighbors.”

“Check the window, will ya, babe? See if it’s somebody you know.”

“What’s all the paranoia?”

“Just check it,” he said firmly.

Her eyes darted nervously. She didn’t like his tone. “All right,” she said, rising from the bed. She wrapped her naked body in the sheet, then stepped to the window and peeped through the blinds. She glanced back at Johnny. “It’s the cops.”

“Shit!” He jumped out of bed and frantically pulled on his trousers. “What are they doing?”

“Looks like they’re running some kind of check on your car.”

“Oh,
shit
!”

Her brow furrowed with concern. “What the hell’s going on?”

“It’s stolen.”

She stepped away from the window. “You bastard. I don’t hear from you for a month, then you show up in the middle of the night in a stolen car?”

He tucked his shirt, then zipped his fly. “This ain’t about stolen cars.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“It’s big.” He sat on the bed and pulled on his boots. “Very big.”

Her lips went dry. “Tell me. I want to know what you—”

He pulled a pistol from his bag, stopping her in mid-sentence. “Just shut your mouth and be still.” He stepped quickly to the window, peering out carefully with his back to the wall.

Honey started to shake.

“Is there a back way out of this rat hole?”

She nodded nervously. “Yeah. The kitchen. But you’ll need a key to get out.”

“Where is it?”

“My purse.”

“Get it.”

Still wrapped in the bedsheet, she tripped as she crossed the room, then grabbed her purse and removed the key from the ring. Her hand shook as she gave it to him.

“Johnny, are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Not yet.”

“Why’d you steal the car?”

“Just shut up!” He pointed the gun right at her.

“Johnny. Come on. You don’t have to point that thing at me.”

He winced, agonizing. “I can’t believe I gotta do this.”

“Do what?” Her voice was shaking.

“I stole the car in Nashville. They’ll know I was in Nashville yesterday.”

Her face went ashen. She’d watched last night’s news. “Are you saying you had something to do with the kidnapping of that little girl?”

He glanced out the window. The cop was writing down the license tag number. Johnny bit his lip and muttered, “I can’t fucking believe I gotta do this.”

Honey moved nervously to the edge of the bed. “Just go, right now. Out the back door. I won’t say you were here. I’ll tell them I don’t know who parked the car there. I woke up, and there it was.”

He grimaced and shook his head. “This is way too important for them to be stonewalled by some small-time ex-hooker.” He reached into his bag and affixed a silencer to his pistol.

She rose, taking three steps back. “Johnny,” her voice shook, “please. If you don’t think I can keep quiet, just take me with you. We can take my car. Gag me and throw me in the trunk, if you want. Just—God,
please
—don’t shoot me.”

He paused to consider, but the Reggie Miles disaster made taking another hostage unthinkable. “No can do, Honey.”

Her plea turned shrill as she fell to her knees, crying. “Johnny, I swear. I won’t say anything. Not to anyone. Ever.”

He closed one eye and aimed at her forehead. “I know you won’t,” he said, then squeezed the trigger.

Harley Abrams arrived in Philadelphia just before 3:00
P.M
. It had been his idea to put a nationwide trace on every vehicle that had been rented or stolen in Nashville in the past week. With virtually every law enforcement agency on alert, it had taken less than twenty-four hours to locate them. Only one trace, however, had led to the doorstep of a murder victim. Harley figured this one was worth a trip.

A young female agent from the Philadelphia field office met him at the airport in a four-door Mercury, a typical “Bucar,” the Bureau’s appellation for its vehicles. Harley sat in the passenger seat, deep in thought, jotting down notes on a yellow pad as they headed down the expressway. As they exited near downtown, he looked up, pen in hand.

“I don’t want any snags with any evidence pulled from this apartment,” he said. “You see any problems with the search warrant the Philadelphia police obtained?”

She shrugged, keeping her eyes on the road. “Our assistant U.S. attorney doesn’t think so. The patrolman ran a check on the license tag, confirmed it was reported stolen in Nashville just two hours after Kristen Howe was abducted. Police checked with the landlord, found the parking space was assigned to Diane Combs in apartment
two-oh-one. They knocked on the door, nobody answered. They called her work, found out she didn’t show up this morning. Didn’t call in sick, nothing. I think it all adds up to probable cause. Obviously the magistrate thinks so, too, or he wouldn’t have issued the warrant.”

Harley nodded, satisfied.

They turned at the main entrance to Chestnut Apartments, a sprawling collection of beige, low-rent, two-story units with red shingle roofs. A fence surrounded the complex, but it had no security gate. This afternoon, however, a patrolman was posted at the entrance. Harley rolled down his window and flashed his credentials.

“I’m looking for Detective Wyatt,” he said.

The patrolman pointed the way, then radioed ahead to let the crime scene investigation team know Abrams was coming.

Gawkers had gathered in the parking lot, and a police officer split the crowd, allowing the FBI car to pass. They parked at the yellow police tape, near a van marked
MEDICAL EXAMINER
. Three squad cars and two unmarked cars formed a semicircle around the stolen 1997 Chevy Camaro with Tennessee license tags. Forensic experts were checking for fingerprints and gathering fibers from the seats and carpet. Two men from the medical examiner’s office were wheeling a gurney through the open door to apartment 201.

Harley stepped down from the Bucar and buttoned his jacket, thinking it felt more like January than November. A tall black man wearing a frumpy brown trench coat and a five o’clock shadow approached.

“Detective Wyatt,” he said, introducing himself. “Homicide.”

“Harley Abrams, FBI. I’m the inspector overseeing the Howe kidnapping case.”

“I know who you are. What can I do for you?”

“I’m simply trying to coordinate our efforts. I recognize homicide is your jurisdiction, but this crime scene could yield some important evidence in our kidnapping case.”

Wyatt made a face. “You think the people who pulled off the kidnapping of Lincoln Howe’s granddaughter were actually stupid enough to steal a getaway car in Nashville and drive it all the way to Philly?”

“When you’re dealing with crimes this big, you often see a bravado that makes these guys think no matter what they do, they won’t get caught. Six years ago, we caught the World Trade Center bombers because they went back to the rental agency to claim the deposit on the truck they’d used to blow up the building. Stealing a getaway car doesn’t seem half that stupid.”

The detective nodded in apparent agreement.

“Tell me about the victim,” said Abrams.

“Diane Combs. Worked as a grocery store cashier most of the time, but dabbled in prostitution when she needed drugs. Been in and out of rehab eleven times in six years. If you ask me, she doesn’t seem much like the big-time kidnapper type.”

“You mind if I look inside the apartment?”

“Be my guest.”

Harley followed the cracked sidewalk to the open front door. A forensic evidence squad was scouring the living room carpet and furniture. Harley stepped by them without a word, turned down the hall, and headed straight for the bedroom. He stopped in the doorway.

Diane Combs’s body lay on the floor, still wrapped in a bedsheet, outlined in chalk. Her open eyes were beginning to flatten from loss of fluid. A trail of blood had oozed from the hole in her forehead, covering one eye, ending in a dark crimson stain on the carpet. Harley noticed that the blood had not yet completely dried. He knelt beside the body, laying the back of his hand against her cheek. It was still warm. Her head moved when he touched it, indicating that rigor mortis had yet to tighten her neck muscles. Probably dead less than three hours, he figured. The killer couldn’t be too far away.

Harley rose. “Any sign of struggle or break-in?”

“None,” said Wyatt.

Harley stepped toward the bed and pressed down on the mattress. Soft, he noticed. It retained his handprint. He knelt down so that his eyes were at eye level with the mattress.

“You can still see indentions on both sides of the bed,” he said. “Looks to me like there were two people sleeping here last night.” He rose and glanced at the victim, then at Wyatt. “We know who one of them is. Find out who the other one is, and you’ll solve your homicide. And we may solve my kidnapping.”

“What’s your theory?” asked Wyatt.

“Until now, we’ve favored the notion that this was a well-planned kidnapping by sophisticated criminals. But maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment fling by some small-time loser who smoked a joint, stole a car, got giddy with excitement, and decided he could actually be somebody if he did something important like kidnapping General Howe’s granddaughter. Maybe Ms. Combs is an old girlfriend. He stops here for the night and
brings Kristen inside, thinking it would impress the lady. Instead, she freaks out, says she wants no part of it. He freaks at her reaction, kills her. I’m just speculating at this point. But I want to bring an evidence team in to help you. Fortunately, Kristen’s mother had the foresight to use a DNA swab kit, so all we need is a single hair to confirm whether Kristen was here or not. I also want to make sure we gather every shred of evidence that will identify whoever it was who put the bullet in Ms. Combs’s head.”

“Sounds like this could be the break you’ve been looking for,” said Wyatt.

“Let’s hope so,” said Abrams. “In this business, there’s no time for dead ends.”

By Wednesday afternoon, Natalie Howe knew her way around her daughter’s kitchen. She was making tea for Tanya and the three Nashville FBI agents who were monitoring the house when the doorbell rang. Tanya rose from her chair in front of the television, but one of the agents stopped her.

“Let me check it,” he said.

Tanya turned back to the television. She’d been glued to CNN, which had replaced election coverage with frequent updates on the kidnapping.

The agent peered through the peephole. A white van with the familiar blue and red FedEx logo was parked at the curb. The deliverywoman was standing on the porch.

“Just a minute,” the agent said through the door. He pulled out his cellular phone and called FedEx to verify the delivery. It checked out. He opened the door.

“I have a letter-pak for Lincoln or Natalie Howe.”

“We’ll take it,” said the agent. He signed for it and closed the door.

Another agent stepped forward with a hand-held metal detector and passed it over the flat letter-pak. Nothing. He looked at Mrs. Howe and said, “We can run it over to the field office and have it X-rayed for you, even have dogs sniff it for explosives or poisons.”

“How long will that take?” she asked.

“Couple of hours. I strongly advise it.”

“But what if this has something to do with Kristen? We may not have a couple of hours.” Her eyes begged for someone to tell her what to do.

Tanya stepped forward. “I’ll open it.”

“No!” said Natalie. “It was addressed to me and Lincoln. If something’s going to happen, let it happen to us. I’ll open it.”

Natalie took the envelope, then retreated alone to the dining room and sat at the head of the table. She drew a deep breath and ripped it open. She paused, as if expecting a mushroom cloud or burst of cyanide gas, but nothing came. She removed a single sheet of paper. Her eyes darted nervously as she read the typewritten message:
ONE MILLION DOLLARS. HUNDRED-DOLLAR BILLS. BY FRIDAY. INSTRUCTIONS TO FOLLOW
.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, then flipped the message over. Taped to the backside was Kristen Howe’s identification card from Wharton Middle School.

She shivered, realizing the demand was no hoax.

Across the bottom, someone had scrawled a handwritten message—almost as if it were written as a postscript. “If the cops see this, Kristen dies.”

Her hand shook uncontrollably.

The FBI agent stepped forward. “What is it, Mrs. Howe?”

She pressed the message to her bosom, shielding it from all eyes but her own. “I can’t tell you,” she said in a quaking voice. “Not until I speak to Lincoln.”