“Your witness is going to turn out to be our best lead on the shooter. The initial interviews of those around the jewelry store are coming up dry, and the security tapes from the store and mall aren’t offering much.”
Luke suspected that too. “She saw enough to give us the shooter—I’m convinced of that. Stress that ‘do not approach’ when she’s spotted; have me paged.”
“Will do.”
Luke stopped beside the mall security guard Parker. “Does the mall have a regular bus stop?”
“One by the movie theater and the other by Sears. The blue bus line stops at both every thirty minutes.”
Luke headed over to the movie-theater entrance. The bus was on time. He stepped aboard, confirmed the driver had been on this route the last two hours, and got a negative when he described Kelly Brown.
Luke stepped back off. It had been a long shot. He flagged down a mall-security patrol car and got in beside Roberts. “Show me the van I tagged.” As they drove the lot, Luke flipped pages in the license-plate list. They’d been recorded by section. “Three hundred cars, give or take?”
“Yes. The lot can hold seven hundred, and we’ve been under half most of today. That’s it.” Roberts came to a stop behind the vehicle.
Luke got out. The windows showed him two white shopping sacks on the passenger seat and an open soda in the cup holder. Nothing suggested she had been back to the vehicle; nothing suggested someone else had carpooled with her to work. “I’ll walk from here.”
Roberts nodded and returned to recording license plates.
Had Kelly headed out into the parking lot only to change where she was going when she realized she didn’t have her keys? Had she tried for a cab ride to a friend’s who could pay the bill for her?
Luke rejoined his officers. “Marsh?”
“Sorry, Boss, so far the canvas is coming up dry. Her friends working at other stores have caucused and can’t come up with a name who might have given her a ride home. She didn’t catch a bus?”
“No.”
Connor joined them and passed over the list of victims’ names and addresses. “She lives nearby; she could have walked home. Or she could have called someone to come get her.”
“She could have. Or the guy who did this was waiting for her to reappear.” Luke didn’t like the time passing on him. Whatever was going through Kelly’s mind right now was going to be dominated by the image of coworkers dead, and that shock wasn’t going to pass easily. Besides the fact he needed her help to move this investigation forward, he personally needed to know she wasn’t sliding into a worse shock reaction than when he’d last seen her. He scanned the list of victims. “Have next of kin been identified for the victims?” Most would have spouses and children; some would have parents and siblings still living; all would have friends. Which one also had an enemy?
“Next of kin have been located for two of the four,” Connor replied. “We’ve set up a secure conference room for family members who feel they need to come to the scene. Riker is five minutes out, and he’s bringing enough staff along to set up for a briefing outside the west entrance.”
Luke nodded at the news. “Profiles on our victims?”
“Not as far along as I would like. Give me another thirty minutes and I should have preliminary workups done. The personnel files gave us five former employees that raised concern, two of them red flags for having made recent threats. Mayfield and St. James are heading out to check them personally, and Marsh has got officers working the rest as priorities. Forensics pulled a slug from the wall and should be able to tell us within an hour if this gun has been used in other shootings.”
“Good. Did you find Kelly’s purse?”
“Yes. Hold on.” Connor went to get it.
The bag was basic black, soft sided, and smaller than Luke had expected. The wallet held thirty-two in cash, her driver’s license, two credit cards, and a handful of business cards for the local bank, florist, insurance agent. The checkbook had a few checks remaining on the pad; the check registry went back three years and showed a couple thousand currently in her account. Luke opened an address book and found most pages covered in names and phone numbers with only a few addresses. A number of the entries had been marked through and updated with new phone numbers. Luke had a feeling he was holding most of Kelly Brown’s life for the last several years. “This will help.”
A look through the first page, the last, and the tab marked B showed no other Browns listed. No family, Kelly? Or are they listed here under married names? He glanced at his watch. “This lady went to somewhere she felt safe, and we need to find it. Keep working the mall canvas: employee lounges, dressing rooms, restrooms, anywhere she might go to get out of view. I’m going to check her place again. If we don’t locate her in the next hour, I’ll want her photo going out to the public. Marsh, you’ve got enough hands to get the former employees tracked down?”
“Yes.”
“Call me if you hit any roadblocks.”
“I’ll do that, Boss.”
Luke took the purse with him and headed back to his car. He drove toward Kelly’s home again. He remembered the look in her eyes—where do you feel most safe, Kelly? If not home, where? When traffic paused, he tugged out the address book and flipped pages. If she wasn’t found soon, he’d be calling most of the people she’d listed. If he put her photo out to the public, he risked the shooter finding her first. Time was not an asset right now.
Her driveway remained empty. This time he pulled into the drive and parked there, intentionally blocking the garage. The possibility existed that she’d acquired a rental car or borrowed a friend’s car, and if she didn’t wish to speak to him, leaving was one way to accomplish that. He walked around to her front door.
The frog planter had moved from the top step down a riser since his first visit—a subtle change, but he noticed the brushed-away dirt on the step. A spare house key hidden underneath? She could exit on him out the side door by the kitchen, but her house had no alley and her neighbors’ yards were fenced. She’d have to come within view.
He pressed the buzzer and then opened the screen door and knocked. “Ms. Brown. Kelly. It’s Officer Granger. Please open the door. I know you’re home.”
He waited.
The dead bolt finally slid away. The door opened enough for him to see her. Wary. Haunted. Stressed. But no tears showing.
She was his age, but he had no idea how to relate to this woman. “May I speak with you?”
She stepped back and let him enter her home.
She’d changed from the blouse and slacks to a red sweater and faded jeans. A slender woman, the clothes hung on her. She walked back into a room off the hall. He followed, only to stop at the door to her bedroom. The bed had a rose-print spread neatly tucked under matching pillows and a large open suitcase sitting on the left side.
She picked up a shirt from an open dresser drawer. “It was Paula Grant’s ex. I saw him leaving the store, and I saw the gun. She had a restraining order against him—what good that did her. He came out of the back office and hallway, walked past the ladies’ watches, then turned east in the mall toward RadioShack. I saw the butt of the gun as he closed his jacket.” She stopped moving. “I went to look.” She stood still as the image hit her again, then briskly resumed folding a shirt for the suitcase.
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“Because I’ve got a guy in my life not unlike her ex who is going to love to hear where I’m now living.” She crossed to the closet and pulled out items en masse.
“Ms. Brown—”
“Please, it’s miss or just Kelly.”
“Kelly—you can’t run. You’re a material witness to a multiple murder.”
“My name is going to be in the news soon if it isn’t already. A dead witness isn’t going to do you any good.” She reached over to the dresser and tossed him the area phone book. “You pick the town and hotel. My cab arrives in five minutes.” She shoved aside the mattress and pulle
d a thick envelope taped to the box spring free. “I’ll stay put for forty-eight hours while you figure something out. That’s all I’m promising. But you give me your word you’re the only one who knows that information.”
“Who’s the guy you’re running from?”
“I give you the name, you’re going to run it, and that curiosity is what got the last cop in my life killed.”
He would have said she was over-blowing conclusions, but watching her pack and the matter-of-fact way she’d delivered the news suggested it was merely the barest of the facts. There hadn’t been a cop killed in his city in twelve years; she’d moved here from where? He’d know before the evening was out. “The Radisson in Park Heights.”
“I’ll check in under the name Ann Walsh.” She shoved money from the envelope into her pocket, then looked at him. “I’m sorry about what happened to them. They were friends. But I have to go.”
“Order room service and don’t call people.”
“I’ve been this route a few times now.” She closed her suitcase. “I’ve got to go.”
“Why didn’t you say who it was earlier?”
The question stopped her. “I thought I had.” She sighed. “I remember the running water, your blue eyes, and being cold. It’s blurry from when I left the storeroom.”
“Okay.”
“Lock up behind me please; use the key that’s on the kitchen table and put it back under the frog.”
“I’ve got your purse in my car.”
“If I have it I would just use something that could inadvertently get me tracked down.” She walked out to catch her cab.
He watched her go and wondered just what he’d walked into today. The multiple homicide might turn out to be the easier of the two problems to solve.
Luke locked the house and restored the key to its guardian frog. From his car he placed a call to Marsh. “You can call off the search for Kelly Brown; I found her. She saw the shooter and knew him. We need an all points for Paula Grant’s ex. There’s a restraining order against him. Find the paper on it. Get the vehicle information and put it out as armed and deadly. We’ve got an arrest to make tonight.”
“10-4.”
He set down the radio, knowing the flurry of activity he’d just triggered. He headed back to the mall. If Paula’s ex was still in this city, odds were good they would have an arrest in twenty-four hours. And unless they got a confession and a guilty plea, this case was going to need Kelly’s testimony. In the next forty-eight hours he had to make sure he understood the trouble that she was in and how he could best neutralize it. He didn’t need her bolting on him again.
There were problems. Kelly Brown wasn’t her name any more than Ann Walsh was. The phone book she’d tossed him now rested on the seat beside him, and a full set of fingerprints should help him with her name if he could figure out a safe way to run the check. A list of cops killed in the Midwest was a phone call away. The employment application she’d filled out and her address book would close a few more loopholes. The lady was running scared, but running smart. Piercing the secrecy of her past without also piercing her carefully constructed anonymity would take some care. Staying under everyone’s radar screen had probably been keeping her alive.
She would be hiding out in a strange hotel room tonight, trying to sleep after walking into that storeroom to confirm her friends were dead. “They’re all dead. I checked.” She’d checked. She wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight.
And neither would he. Arrest this guy, then he was going to drive out to Park Heights. It didn’t really matter what her name was. She had landed in his life and become his responsibility. She probably wouldn’t like it much, but it wouldn’t change things. She was running from someone, and he’d never been one to avoid trouble. To listen to his sister, he went looking for it.
God, there are times I wish I was better at this job; this is one of them. Figuring out what I do next is going to take wisdom I don’t have right now. How do I help her without causing more trouble for her? She reminds me of Renee Lewis, and that case still bothers me. I’ll need ideas before I see her tonight. I’ve got to ask about the shooting today and then double the stress on her by asking about her own situation. That’s not exactly the way to help a lady end a traumatic day. My job is colliding with how I’d handle the situation if I were off duty—and I don’t want to be making her situation worse just to do my job. There’s got to be some options.
She carried herself well; under stress she had pushed past the shock to make decisions and move fast—that spoke of a lot of internal strength. He remembered faces easily because it went with his job, and he already knew her face was going to be lingering in his mind for a long time to come. Maybe it was her age or the fact she was on a course of action that meant trouble was around, but she’d already clicked as someone to worry about. It was why he’d long ago chosen to be a cop: to do some good when it needed to be done. He’d have to figure something out in the next couple hours.
He pulled into the mall. Paul Riker waved him over to where the press had assembled. Luke pocketed his car keys and made his way toward the department’s press spokesman. The reporters’ shouted questions arrived as the microphones on long booms did, and Luke knew his face was going live across television sets throughout the city. This trouble he would gladly avoid if possible. “Just a moment, people. Riker and I talk privately first.”
He walked through the crowd, and they parted out of habit. He’d been around this job too long; he recognized nearly every face in the crowd. A few were vultures out to exploit the story for the local and national tabloids, but most were solid reporters wanting to be first with the news. Luke walked with Riker away from the podium, saw Connor coming toward them, and he changed course, taking Riker with him to meet up with his detective.
Connor offered a folder. “We’ve got a decent photo on the shooter, and we’ve confirmed he did not return to his residence. I vote we put it out on the air now.”
“Riker?” Luke looked at the photo, memorizing the guy he was after.
“Yes, let me broadcast it. We’re set up to absorb the call volume. And for what it’s worth it may keep the press busy enough to help us suppress the witness information with a cover story—we’ve got security video now and can use it as the way we made the ID.”
Luke appreciated the suggestion, for while keeping Kelly’s name out of the paper wasn’t a concern, keeping her photo from being published was. He would prefer another hour of just officers searching for the shooter, but his name would be out on the rumor mill already as reporters talked with friends of the victims and learned Paula had a restraining order against the man. “Stress the do-not-approach warning. I don’t want another civilian crossing paths with him.”
Riker nodded and accepted the folder. He took it with him to the podium.
Luke tucked Kelly Brown back into the corner of his thoughts and turned his attention to the manhunt before him. One problem at a time. For now she was safe.
Chapter Two
LUKE KNOCKED on the hotel door for room 202, aware the time was uncomfortably late. He’d been at the office at 6 a.m. before a day in court, and the shooting and manhunt had layered adrenaline in on top of already long hours; this day needed to end sometime soon. He knocked again. He suspected the hotel-room location on the second floor next to the stairwell was no accident. “Kelly, it’s Officer Granger.”
She opened the door a few inches, her foot braced behind it. “You’re the deputy chief of police. What are you doing babysitting a witness?”
Over her shoulder he saw the television on and muted. It was a reasonable question, but he could do without the combative tone. “Making a choice.”
She looked coiled up to him, tension having tightened the lines around her face, and doubts clouded her eyes. She looked at him as if debating the value of that answer, then opened the door and stepped back. “I’m sorry; I just didn’t need the surprise of seeing you on TV with reporters shoving microphones i
n your direction. Anonymous you are not.”
It was the first time he’d ever had a lady complain about that fact; he let himself smile at the charge. And because he understood the reason and knew it wasn’t personal, he chose to overlook the raw mood she was in. “I wasn’t followed here, and the night shift downstairs doesn’t look old enough to care about the news,” he reassured. “I brought salad, breadsticks, and lasagna. It will beat whatever room service offered.”
Her gaze shifted to the sack. “It does.” He saw her begin to relax, her weight shifting on her sock feet and the tension in her face fading toward deep tiredness. She offered a smile. “What would you like to drink? Vending is at the end of the hall.”
“Something diet and caffeine free.”
She nodded and left the room. He watched her walk away, wondering briefly just how deep that fatigue he could see went. She didn’t reach a hand out to run along the wall for balance, and at its worst she probably would have. They both needed this day to be over.
He turned his attention back to the hotel room. A small, round table and chairs overlooked the parking lot; he walked over to the table and set down the briefcase and sack he carried. He moved aside the jacket tossed over a chair and set it down on the nearest of the two beds. She’d folded a newspaper back together into a rough neatness, and he moved it from the table as well.
The aspirin bottle on the nightstand looked new, the broken seal resting beside the alarm clock. She’d been for a walk to one of the area stores, he suspected; he’d seen a couple down the block from the hotel. He was surprised to see a thriller resting facedown on the bed—reading to pass the time didn’t surprise him, but the subject matter did.
He began unpacking the sack he had brought. She came back into the room and set cold sodas on the table, then slid into the chair opposite him. He studied her, trying to get a read on her underlying mood. Brittle was going to take a finesse he didn’t naturally have. “It’s late, but I didn’t figure you would be sleeping much yet.”