"Have You Seen Her?" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rose Karen)Chapter Sixteen "Anything?" Lennie asked. Steven stared at the untouched paperwork on his desk, still ripped up from his fight with Brad. / "Steven?" Steven dragged his eyes up to Lennie's worried face. Steven pulled his brain to the topic at hand. Two girls. One dead, one missing. Lennie had a right to be worried. They didn't have shit. Steven threw his pen on his desk. "We found a tire print that could have come from Samantha's bike, but the kids use that area as a stunt park, so there's a better than even chance that it didn't." "So we have nothing." "Pretty much." He handed Lennie a sheet of paper from his desk. "We brainstormed this morning on who could have been the ballplayer Serena overheard Sammie mention." "All of these games were played the day Samantha disappeared?" "Up to four days prior. Nancy has a bigger list of games for the week prior, but we figured it would have been within a few days." Lennie scanned the page, then lowered it enough to see Steven over the top. "You've included pro games on this list." "An adult sports figure with a yen for young girls would have an easy time attracting them." "Pro games, college games, high school games… "But necessary."' With a sigh Lennie laid the paper on the desk. "That's why it's sick. How will you narrow down this list? You've got over a hundred games and each one will have twenty-plus participants." "We eliminated college teams that played nontelevised away games. As for the pros, the only televised or home game in the last four days was hockey. The Hurricanes played last Wednesday." "I know," Lennie said. "I had sixth row seats. Nearly caught a puck in my teeth." "Which would have ruined your dazzling smile and ended your modeling career," Steven returned sarcastically and Lennie's lips curved. "Harry and Sandra are getting team rosters," Steven continued, "and Nancy's running background checks. We'll look for anybody with a prior." "This will take weeks," Lennie said heavily. "It can't." Steven's fists clenched on top of his desk. "Meg thinks he'll strike again soon." "Do you have to do that?" Casey asked irritably as Jenna paced the length of the teachers' lounge for the hundredth time. "You're making me crazy." Jenna shot her a hostile look. "Forgive me if I' in a bit preoccupied. It's not like the police are upstairs in my classroom or anything. How can you sit and grade papers like nothing happened?" Casey scrawled a grade on the top of one theme paper and plucked another from the pile that didn't seem to diminish over time. "Because if I don't get these Friday. Jenna's brain kicked back into gear. It was a teacher in-service day where faculty prepared report cards and students got a day off. All in all, a really raw deal all the way around. "You still want to borrow my car for the trip?" "Of course. Ned's salivating over it already." Jenna winced. The thought of Ned driving Adam's car was not a pleasant one. Casey's smile was wry. "Don't worry, Jenna. I'll drive." She frowned. "Unless you don't want me to take Adam's car. I know how attached you are to it." Attached to a car of all things. It should be silly, a grown woman attached to a car. But Jenna remembered the raw fury she'd felt the night before when Rudy and his friends tampered with the gas tank. Of course she was attached. It had been Adam's. Still, it was just a car, she told herself. A grownup toy to be enjoyed. Life was too short after all. "Don't be silly," she said and watched Casey's frown relax. 'Take the car and have fun. Besides, if you've got it, Rudy and his friends can't touch it, right? I need your truck this weekend anyway. I promised to take Steven's son Nicky to the park to teach his sheepdog how to sit." Casey's frown snapped back into place. "You're going to entertain his son after last night?" Jenna shrugged. What She expected Casey to make some witty retort, but there was quiet at the table where Casey sat staring down at the theme paper she was grading, her pixie face troubled. "What's wrong, Case?" Casey glanced up, then back down at the paper. "This is the first unique theme I've read." Jenna lifted her brows. "And that's a problem… why?" Casey bit at her lip. "Because this student seems to identify with the story's main character a little too much." Jenna rewound her brain. She'd been forced to read "Wait a minute. Didn't the main character in Casey nodded, still staring down at the theme with a troubled frown. "Because she annoyed him and because he wanted to know what it felt like to take another life." Now frowning herself, Jenna walked over to where Casey sat. "Which kid is this?" "Dr. Marshall?" Officer Pullman asked from the doorway and both Jenna and Casey whipped their heads around to see him. "What did you find?" Jenna asked. Pullman pulled a chair from the table. "Sit down, Dr. Marshall." Her nerves jangled. "I'd really rather stand if you don't mind." "Listen to the nice man with the shiny badge, Jen," Casey commanded sharply. "Sit your ass down in the chair." Casey looked over at Pullman with a sour grimace. "She's been driving me nuts with the pacing ever since you arrived." Pullman's lips twitched as Jenna flopped into the chair he provided. He took the chair next to her and brought out his little notepad. "Well, the animal hanging from your ceiling was a possum at one time. It was most likely a roadkill somebody picked up from the side of the road this morning." Relief shot through her. At least no one had purposely tortured the poor animal. "Did you find any evidence of who did this?" Pullman shook his head, much as Jenna had expected him to. "Looks like whoever did this wore gloves. But it also looks like this isn't the only trouble you've had since your tires got slashed. I couldn't help but notice the artwork on your walls. I take it the QB hasn't brought up his grade?" Jenna scowled. "The QB is waiting for me to fold." "The QB will be waiting a good long time," Casey added darkly. Pullman flipped his notepad closed. "Well, we dusted for prints, but I doubt we'll get anything concrete. You've just got too many people going in and out of your classroom." He stood up and looked down. "I'll tell you the same thing that I told you Friday night. Watch your back." Harry threw his notebook on the conference-room table and dropped into the chair directly across from Steven's, disgust all over his face. Sandra took the chair next to Harry, looking tired. "We've been checking perps with sex priors all day," Harry complained. "I need to bathe." Sandra looked over at him with amused sympathy. Sex perps were her niche forte. Nancy rubbed her forehead with one hand while sliding her half-glasses off her nose with the other. "How long will that take? To develop the Teflon coating, I mean.'' Sandra shrugged. "Five or six years." Steven watched them all from his own chair. "But how about the vics, Sandra? How long before you develop a Teflon coating so that they don't stick in your mind?" Sandra's face sobered. "Never." Steven sighed. "Me either." He looked around. "Has anyone seen Kent or Meg?" "Meg said she had an appointment," Nancy said. "Haven't seen Kent since this morning." "Here I am," said Kent, huffing a little bit. He plopped into a chair. "Sorry I'm late." "Well, let's get started, folks. Thanks for coming back this afternoon. We've got news." "From the McDonald's search this morning?" Sandra asked, leaning forward. "I wish," Steven replied grimly. He placed a sheet of paper on the center of the table. "Look." His team gathered around the paper he'd already had analyzed six ways to Tuesday. "No prints, no identifying marks," he told them. "Just rather general directions on where to find Samantha Eggleston. It was dropped off with the mail this afternoon. I got it an hour ago." "In the mail?" Harry asked sharply. Steven shook his head. "Nope, just with it. No utilization of the U.S. Postal Service." "Good," said Harry. "I agree," said Steven. If their killer had used the U.S. Postal Service or even a fax they would have found themselves tangled ass-deep in Feds. "It's a printed sheet-came off a standard laser jet printer, just like the one in our office." "And hundreds of other offices," Sandra muttered. " 'Find her before it's too late. If you can,'" Nancy read and looked up at Steven. "Too late for what, I wonder." "I wondered the same thing," Steven said. "Either she's still alive, or-" "Or she's dead and he wants us to find her before the animals do," Harry finished grimly. "This is nowhere near the two other clearings," Sandra commented. "Is there a pattern? Like that nutcase who bombed mailboxes picking cities that made a happy face on the map?" Steven winced. He hadn't considered that. He'd ask Meg if a map pattern like that matched the profile she'd created of their killer. "I marked them on the map. No pattern yet that I can see." "But we only have three points," Harry said. "Let's pray we don't have four," Steven returned. "I've sent some state uniforms over to secure the site and informed the local town sheriff. He's going to meet us there. He says the indicated area is huge, so we've got a long night ahead of us. Harry, I'd like you to come with me." Harry sighed. "I'll grab some barf bags." Steven almost smiled. "Sandra and Nancy, keep plugging away at the list of ballplayers." "We've contacted ten of the players with priors so far," Sandra said. "They've all got alibis for Thursday night and the night Lorraine went missing." "Keep going. When you've exhausted the list of priors, start in on the gentle folk." Steven looked over at Kent who hadn't taken his eyes from the note. "What, Kent?" Kent glanced up, then reglued his eyes to the paper. "This, right here." He pointed to a small mark in the lower left corner of the page. "I saw that," Steven said. "It's some kind of design. Why, does it mean something to you?" Kent nodded and tilted his head to one side, taking in the design from a different angle. "This side of it, right here. This looks like it might match the tattoo on Lorraine Rush's scalp." "The one that was mostly gone," Harry said thinly and Kent looked up with a nod. "That's the one." Steven got up and stood behind Kent, looking over the young man's shoulder. He squinted, trying to focus. "How can you tell, Kent? There wasn't a hell of a lot left of that tattoo." "I had the ME take some photos and I had them blown up. Posted them above my desk and I've been looking at them every chance I get. I'm pretty sure, Steven. This is the mark." Kent turned in his chair so that he could meet Steven's eyes and once again Steven was impressed with the intelligence mixed with compassion he saw there. "And when you find Samantha's body-if you find it before it's scavenged-I'll bet you find this mark on her scalp, too." Steven blew out a breath. "It'll be dark soon. Kent, come with me and Harry. If we find something I want you to be able to start on the scene before dark. Nancy, run that mark through your database. I want to know where it came from. Sandra, I guess you have enough perps to question so that if Nancy takes a break to run this design you won't be twiddling your thumbs." "Unfortunately, I have plenty to do," Sandra said dryly and again Steven almost smiled. "Then let's go, folks. Everyone be on call." Everybody moved but Sandra who remained seated. As the room cleared, her face clouded and Steven felt his gut twist. Twist more, anyway. She had something to say she didn't want the rest of the team to know. Yet. Steven watched her look anywhere but at him. What Sandra had to say would be personal, then. His mind went to Brad, God help him, and for the first time he admitted that whatever was troubling his son could be more than emotional. It could be illegal. But not like this. He looked up to the bulletin board where he'd pinned the photo of Lorraine Rush's body. He refused to believe whatever was troubling Brad could be anything like this. When it was just the two of them, Sandra picked up her notebook and moved to the seat right next to him. "You want it sugar-coated or straight?" she asked. "Just spit it out, Sandra," he said, his voice coming out harsher than he intended. "Okay. When I looked at all the games that were played in the week before the disappearance and crossed it with people who had access to both victims one possibility popped up." Steven swallowed. Brad didn't know either girl. Did he? Steven realized he hadn't even asked himself the question. Sandra sighed. "Father Mike Leone." Shocked, Steven could only stare. "No." Sandra shrugged. "I'm sorry, Steven, but it lines up. Both girls were part of his parish. And there'd been some kind of church league tag football game the weekend before. I asked Anna Eggleston if Samantha was involved and she said that Samantha didn't normally go to those games, but that last weekend she did because it was a special game. Father Leone was there." The twisting in Steven's gut became full nausea. "He was Sandra looked as ripped up as he felt. "It was one of those special games, Steven. Old versus young. The priests and church faculty played the church's teen team. Father Leone played. And I understand from a few other teens who were there that he did play a pretty good game." Steven looked away, not sure how to manage this latest stress. "Does Harry know you were looking at Father Leone?" Sandra shook her head. "No. I thought you should know first. I asked everyone so that no one would know what I was really asking. If he's innocent-" "You could ruin one of the best men that ever lived," Steven finished bitterly. Sandra laid her hand on his arm. "I know, Steven," she said quietly. "But if he's guilty…" "He's not," Steven insisted. "I know this man. He's simply not capable." "But you'll let me investigate, won't you?" Sandra asked, just as quietly. Steven fixed his eyes on the photos of Lorraine Rush. Before, beautiful and vibrant. After… Someone had done this to her, had robbed a vibrant girl of her very life. Violently. It wasn't Mike. Steven knew it deep down. But he also knew he had a responsibility to Lorraine and Samantha and their families. And crazy as it sounded, Mike would agree. "Yes," he whispered, then cleared his throat. "Don't do anything without coming to me first." Helen set the casserole dish on the table. Tuna casserole. One of the boys' favorites and one of the easiest things to make. She hated it worse than liver, but two outa three wasn't bad. "Boys!" she yelled up the stairs. "Dinner!" Footsteps pounded on the stairs and Matt appeared and plopped in his chair. "I'm starving, Aunt Bea." "You're always starving, Matthew. That's hardly earth-shattering news." She turned toward the open doorway. "Brad! Nicholas!" "I'm here," Nicky said and slid into his chair. "Y' don't hafta yell." "Sorry," Helen said, appropriately chastised. "Where's Brad?" "Probably sulking in his room," Matt said cheerfully. "He's grounded for life, after all." Helen frowned at him. "Your brother is not grounded for life. It's only for a week." "Might as well be for life," Matt said, shoveling casserole on his plate. "And you would know," Helen said dryly. "You, who have experienced the joys and woes of grounding for many weeks of your own life." "Yep," Matt said, just as cheerfully, digging into his plate with a fork. "But not this week. I'm golden," he added, his mouth full. "Put down the fork and go tell your brother it's time for dinner." "Golly gee whiz, Aunt Bea," Matt whined and Helen lost control of her mouth and smiled. "Go," she said, popping him on the head with her oven mitt. "Now." Muttering, Matt complied and Helen turned to Nicky. "Well, how was your day, Nicky?" Nicky shrugged. "Okay, I guess." "Anything special happen?" "No, ma'am." He looked up and brightened and Helen felt a tug at her heart. "This weekend Jenna said she'd take me and Cindy Lou to the park to teach her to sit." "I remember," said Helen and told herself to call Jenna and remind her of her promise. There was no way she'd let Nicky become disappointed if she could help it. "Where are your brothers?" she demanded, craning her neck to see around the corner. She heard footsteps on the stairs, heavier this time, and Matt reappeared, his freckles standing out against his pale face. "I found this on Brad's bed," he said, quietly holding out a note. Helen scanned it and felt her heart stop. "Oh, Lord God. Your brother's run away." |
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