Brandon Walker had forgotten he was a cop in all this, forgotten that there was another duty calling. Sitting there, he was nothing but a grieving son, a lost, abandoned, and nearly middle-aged child, facing his own bleak future in a universe suddenly devoid of its center, an unthinkable world where his father didn’t exist.
The three people waited together in a room where the silence was broken only by the old man’s shallow breathing. No words were necessary. They had all been spoken long ago, and Brandon was convinced that in that broken shell of a man on the bed, there was no one left to listen.
Detective G. T. Farrell was well outside his Pinal County jurisdiction. He should have contacted the local law-enforcement agencies, either Maricopa County, or, in this case, the Tempe Police Department to ask for backup, but that would have taken time. Farrell knew in his gut there was no time to lose. He was propelled forward by the common force that drives all those who pursue serial killers-the horrifying and inevitable knowledge that time itself is the enemy.
Refusing to be rushed, Farrell had systematically worked the problem, marching down the Spaulding column in the phone book, calling each number in turn, always asking for Andrew-a first name Andrew-rather than giving out any further information. He had tried Spauldings in Phoenix proper. Next he worked the suburbs. Halfway through that process, a frail-sounding old woman answered the phone.
As soon as he asked for Andrew and heard the sharp, involuntary intake of breath, he knew he had hit pay dirt. Even while he talked to her, making sure his voice on the phone stayed calm and noncommittal, he was frantically tearing the page with her name on it out of the book. This was no time for scribbling notes.
But once in the car, Farrell couldn’t risk lights or siren. That would have raised too many unpleasant questions had anyone stopped him. He drove only as fast as the traffic would bear.
A resourceful man who always carried a selection of maps in his car, Geet headed East on Camelback in the general direction of Tempe, using crosstown stops at lights and the usual rush-hour slowdowns to locate the exact whereabouts of Weber Drive and to pinpoint the address in his Thomas Guide. Farrell figured it would take him about forty-five minutes to get there. His actual elapsed time was thirty-eight minutes flat.
Getting out of the car on Weber Drive half a block away from the address, he patted his holster and felt the reassuring presence of his.38 Special. It was possible that the old woman had lied and that her son had been right there in the room with her all along, but Farrell doubted it. The old woman didn’t sound as though she was that glib or that fast on her feet. She wasn’t that capable a liar. At least Geet Farrell fervently hoped she wasn’t.
Taking a deep breath, Farrell opened the gate, strode up the long walkway, and rang the doorbell. Almost immediately, he heard movement inside the small house. He swallowed hard to calm himself as the door opened and an old woman peered nearsightedly out at him through a screen door. “Yes?” she asked.
Carefully, using deliberate gestures, he brought out his badge. “I’m a police officer,” he said, holding it up to the screen so she could see it. “I’m looking for Andrew Carlisle.”
The woman squinted at the badge without reading it. “He isn’t here,” she said.
“Could I talk to you then? Are you his mother?”
“For the time being,” she answered.
Farrell wondered what that meant. He wondered, too, if she recognized his voice from the phone. If so, her next question gave no hint of it. “What do you want with him?”
“We want to ask him some questions, that’s all,” Farrell answered. “There are a few matters we need to clear up.”
“Me, too,” the old woman added, opening the screen door, motioning him inside. “I have some matters I’d like Andrew to clear up for me, too.”
Something in the woman’s injured tone suggested a switch in tactics from investigator to sympathizer, from potential enemy to ally. “What kind of matters, ma’am?” Farrell asked innocently.
“He stole my money, for one thing,” she answered with ill-concealed fury, “my money and my bankbooks. Then, when he saw I was leaving, he was so angry that I think he would have killed me if he could have gotten close enough, but I fooled him. I drove away all by myself. I drove all the way here. Can you believe it? Andrew never thought I would, and neither did I. After all, I’m sixty-five years old and had never driven a car before in my life, but I did. So help me I did. I wouldn’t have done it, either, if he hadn’t treated me so badly.”
“Maybe you ought to tell me about it, ma’am,” Geet Farrell said. “This could be important.”
Davy was surprised when he saw the bald-headed man standing outside the glass patio door. The man was wearing funny brown-colored clothes, the kind with plants painted on them, that soldiers sometimes wore in the movies.
“Nana Dahd,” he called. “Someone’s here.”
Davy expected the man would wait outside until Rita came to the door to talk to him. Instead, he shoved the door open and stepped inside.
“Who are you?” Davy demanded. “What do you want?”
“You,” the man answered. “You’re what I want.”
The man lunged for him. Davy tried to dart out of the way, but the man was too quick. He caught Davy by one arm, spinning him around. He swung the child up in the air and held him two feet off the ground.
“You were talking to somebody, kid. Who was it? Where are they?”
“I’m right here,” a woman’s voice said behind him. “Don’t hurt him.”
“Nana Dahd,” the boy complained. “He just came right in the house. He didn’t even knock.”
Suddenly, the man’s arm clamped tight around Davy’s throat, choking off his air. He kicked and fought, but he couldn’t get away. The last thing he heard before he blacked out was the man saying, “I don’t have to knock, because as long as I have you, I own the place. Isn’t that right, old woman?”
Davy didn’t see Rita’s answering nod. It was true. As long as he had Davy, Andrew Carlisle could have anything else he wanted.
Around the Pinal County Sheriff’s Department, Detective Geet Farrell had a considerable reputation as a ladies’ man. With men he could be tough and hard-nosed as hell, but with women he gentled them along until even the bad ones offered to give him the shirts off their backs.
Slowly but urgently, Geet Farrell worked Myrna Louise Spaulding. He didn’t rush her, but he didn’t allow any unnecessary delays, either. Within minutes, he had talked her into showing him the contents of the battered Valiant’s packed trunk. He recognized Johnny Rivkin’s name as soon as he saw the tag on the luggage, but he didn’t let anything betray his exultation. Because it was too soon. He needed to know more.
So he led the garrulous old lady through her entire day, encouraging her to remember everything from the moment she woke up until he himself had arrived on her doorstep.
Myrna Louise loved having an appreciative audience. She warmed to the telling and was totally engrossed by the time she got to the part about going into the office in Tucson to pick up those mysterious papers with those two women’s names on it. Only then, as she was telling the detective about the papers, did she fully allow herself to know what those two names meant, what Andrew was really going to do. It hit Detective Farrell at the same time, like a fierce, double-fisted blow to the gut.
“Where is he now?” he demanded savagely. All gentleness disappeared from the man, transformed instantly into a single-minded intensity that was frightening to see.
“I don’t know,” Myrna Louise whimpered. “I don’t have any idea.”
“We’ve got to find him. Where was he when you left him?”
“I already told you. At the storage unit. In Tucson.”
“Can I use your phone?” he asked.