“So they’re here already.”
“The feds?” He said it like it was a different four-letter word. “All over it. Might have been handy if we’d had them this morning, instead of now.”
“It looked like he was headed for Chicago.”
“So why were you here?”
“I had a hunch; the man in charge disagreed. Any witnesses? Anyone see the shooter?”
Smith turned his back, walked four paces, and opened the reinforced door of the interview room, holding it wide. “We’re done, Mr. Blake.”
“We’re working the same case, Detective Smith.”
That did it. Smith’s face creased and turned the color of a raspberry. “You listen to me, asshole. We aren’t working the same case. Because, as of twenty minutes ago, I’m not working the case. All I know is you and your FBI buddies let a killer run free in my town, and now we have to clean up your mess. Everything’s ‘You don’t need to know.’ Now, if you knew there was a threat, then why in the hell didn’t you contact the department?”
“Would you have listened to me? Would you have known where to look?”
That stopped Smith in his tracks. He changed tack: “We ran your prints too. Know what we came up with?”
As a matter of fact, I did know. That’s why I’d been relaxed about providing them. I said nothing.
“A big capital-letter fuck-you from Homeland Security, that’s what. Just who in the hell are you, Blake?”
24
“‘You don’t need to know,’” Banner repeated, unable to keep the grin out of her voice. “You actually said that?”
“Yes.”
“Did he hit you?”
“He managed to restrain himself.”
“Impressive.”
“So how come you’re not down here already?” Blake said.
“I’m not coming. The field team’s taking care of the investigation of this shooting, but…”
“But that’s just confirming what you already know.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “This is not a routine manhunt. We’re not trying to identify a suspect, just catch up with him. We’re focusing on his next move now. By sunup tomorrow, we need to be where he’s going, not where he’s been.”
“He’s probably in Nebraska already,” Blake said.
There was a pause. “I think that’s a possibility,” Banner said, a little bit of emphasis on the “I.”
“Castle’s still not going for it?”
“It’s not that. We got a lead on Wardell’s mode of transport: Somebody called in to report a man Wardell’s height leave the courthouse by the front entrance just after the shooting. He was carrying a long bag. We got a separate call from a news vendor who spotted him five minutes later, a few blocks away. Same description, same bag — he got into a red van parked on Fifth Avenue South and took off east.”
“East?”
“I know. It doesn’t fit,” she said. “That street turns into Route 20 farther along. We found a security camera in a gas station on the edge of town that covers a little of the road — a red Ford E-Series van passed by about four minutes after the second witness would have seen him. And before you ask, it was a cheap camera, so we didn’t get a sniff of the license plate.” She paused and gave him a moment to let it sink in. “That’s what doesn’t fit. If he was headed for Nebraska, he’d have been going south and west.”
Blake was silent for a moment as he absorbed the information. The front entrance: That didn’t chime with what he knew. Could the receptionist at the courthouse have missed him?
“Maybe he knew he was being observed,” he said. “He’s trying a misdirect again, like with the green T-shirt. You get names on those eyewitnesses?”
“Our people out there just got done questioning the news vendor. He couldn’t give us much more than what I told you, but he was consistent on the details. The first caller didn’t leave a name, used a pay phone.”
“So that could have been anybody, even Wardell himself.”
“Possible. But the details were consistent with the news vendor, and the timings match up perfectly with the first sighting and the security video too.”
“Did you bring Wardell’s father in?”
Banner put her hand on the APB in front of her. It displayed a two-year-old color photograph of Wardell’s father. Inside the investigation, they’d been referring to him as Wardell Senior, but that wasn’t really his name. Wardell was the mother’s name; this guy answered to Edward Allen Nolan, Eddie to anyone acquainted with him. It was the most recent image they could get ahold of — the man didn’t appear to have any family or close friends — and was culled from one of the last interviews he had given before the residual interest in the Chicago Sniper case dropped to a background hum.
The photograph showed a man who looked almost nothing like his son. He was overweight, unshaven, and unkempt. But the scruffy hair was the same dirty blond, the eyes the same cruel shade of blue. The picture showed a porch in the sun, a neglected front yard in the background. Nolan was sitting in a lawn chair on the porch, a hunting rifle across his lap. Banner wondered briefly if that had been the photographer’s idea or Nolan’s. Either way, it showed some nerve.
“We can’t find him,” Banner said in answer to Blake’s question. “Nobody can. Lincoln PD visited his apartment last night, no answer. Two of our guys went out there today; the super let them in. The place is cleared out — his rent is up to date, but it looks like he hasn’t been there in at least two weeks.”
“Two weeks,” Blake repeated. “Before any of this happened.”
“Do you think…?”
“That there’s a connection?” Blake finished. “No. I doubt it. But we need to find him.”
“We’re working on it,” Banner said.
“I’m going to head out there now.”
“What about the red van?” Banner asked, feeling like she was saying it only to play devil’s advocate.
“He’s going after Eddie Nolan,” Blake said. “Either I’ll find him, or Wardell will. I’ll call you when I get there.”
Banner replaced the handset on the cradle and looked at the Nolan APB again. She drummed her fingertips on the sheet of paper, then slammed her hand down as she made her mind up. She got up from her desk, exited her open office door, and walked the twelve paces across the open plan to Castle’s office. It was a glass-walled cubicle, like Banner’s office but a little bigger.
The blinds were shut tight. She knocked on the door sharply and entered, not waiting to be asked. Castle was on the phone, his chair facing away from his desk at the window. His head jerked around as he heard Banner’s entrance. Banner found that a literal open-door policy worked well for her: It relaxed people and encouraged a free flow of information. Castle, by contrast, was the kind of guy who expected you to knock and wait; so Banner was mildly surprised that he didn’t look irritated when she walked in. Instead, he looked preoccupied. He swiveled back to face the desk, nodded at Banner, and held up a finger: Just a minute.
“Yes, sir,” Castle said once, then again after a pause. His mouth stayed half open each time, as though he was trying to get a word in edgeways. Donaldson, Banner surmised. It had to be, because Banner couldn’t think of anyone else in the world Castle wouldn’t talk over to get his point across.
“Sir, with respect—” he began, and was cut off. His mouth closed as he realized he wasn’t going to get to say his piece. “Understood.” Castle hung up and raised his eyebrows at Banner. “The SAC,” he said unnecessarily.