Dying in Detroit (A Bright & Fletcher Mystery) Page 12

  “You were the judge who sustained Darren’s motion,” she said. “The motion that destroyed the case against James Klodd. The man who abducted Shoshanna.”

  “I was, yes.”

  Judge Hodgens settled back into the big leather chair behind her desk. She was not a tall woman, and her frame appeared narrow under the voluminous robes. Her expression had become drawn and bleak, so that she looked vulnerable and frail in the oversized chair.

  “The motion was correct,” she said, and it had the rote note of a sentiment she had repeated to herself a thousand times. “The search warrant was garbage on its face. An anonymous tip, with no attempt to establish its credibility. The prosecutor brought up the good faith exception and hung his hat on that. And Darren—” Here the judge laughed softly and shook her head “Well, Darren Fletcher can be persuasive, despite his eccentricities.”

  Issabella nodded along. Darren had never gone into much detail about the court proceedings that had freed his client. She only knew that Klodd had disappeared and, ever since, the kidnapper had been amusing himself by periodically mailing Darren green envelopes, each one of them containing one of Shoshanna’s teeth.

  “And you likely know the rest. Mr. Klodd vanished. And your friend fell into a very troubled state. He became a drunk in a little bar on the west side.”

  “And you?” Issabella probed, unconcerned if she sounded brazen. She wanted to know.

  Judge Hodgens shrugged.

  “I fell to pieces,” she admitted. “I knew what Darren and everybody else knew. We had done our little dance in court, and a child killer walked free. I took a medical leave and spent a year beating myself up alone at home. I drank. I let every single thing I’d built fall to ruin, and kept the drapes drawn shut and waited to...”

  Die. Issabella finished the judge’s thought to herself.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be,” Judge Hodgens said, and waived a dismissive hand. “It was self-indulgent twaddle. The motion was correct. Anyway, I didn’t stay a shambles. I came back to the bench and resumed my life. Because Darren Fletcher showed up at my door and refused to leave. He stayed there two weeks, sleeping on the couch, and got me sober. For a month after that he came by every morning and cleaned up after me until I started cleaning up after myself. He brought me bagels in the morning and talked about how he was taking cases again. Not the paying sort. Court appointed work. Defending the indigent. He talked about a way to live with himself, but what he was really doing was trying to show me a way to live with myself. And it worked. It worked and here I am.”

  She gestured around at the chambers and the slew of awards and certificates that hung about the room. In the silence that followed, Judge Hodgens stared at her and Issabella felt like she was being appraised.

  “I think he must care about you a lot.”

  “He does. I know he does.”

  “Issabella, if your roles were reversed—if you were in the hands of this detestable man—what would Darren do?”

  Without hesitation, she knew the answer.

  “He’d find me.”

  Judge Hodgens nodded once, satisfied in the truth of it. She stood, and Issabella stood with her. The judge put a hand lightly on her arm and guided her toward the door.

  “Then no more crying,” she told Issabella. “Open the drapes and clean up the mess. Go find Darren. And when you do, remind him he is to appear here before me to take his medicine for getting thrown in the drunk tank that last time.”

  And just like that, Issabella was ushered out of the judge’s chambers, back to the world and the anxieties that filled it. As she wound her way down through the marble-halled labyrinth of the Frank J. Murphy Hall of Justice, she plucked her phone out of her bag.

  It was time to stop hiding and start reaching out.

  Chapter Ten

  Schultz put his department-issued sedan in gear and pulled out into the downtown noon hour rush. His face was still a map of frustrations.

  “What it is, is a wasted hour,” he continued, picking up the fuming complaint he’d begun as soon as he and Issabella had reunited at the courthouse entrance. “Hours are precious. And she should know that, damn it. Hell, every minute is precious in this sort of thing...”

  He trailed off and regarded the stop-and-go traffic in front of him with open hostility. Beside him in the passenger seat, Issabella felt a twinge of sympathy for the FBI agent. In the initial hours after Darren had disappeared, she had overheard more than one heated phone call between Schultz and his superiors in the field office. He had cajoled and wrestled until they’d agreed to appoint him as the lead agent on the case. From what she could guess from only hearing his side of those conversations, Agent Schultz had pulled in all his favors to ensure he was the point of the spear aimed at finding Darren.

  “Isaac.”

  “It was a waste of time.”

  “Isaac.”

  “I’m sorry. Christ. Look, we’ll get you back and—”

  “Thank you. Thank you for what you’re doing.”

  They were stopped at a light, and Schultz spared her a pained look. For the first time since they’d met a year before, the man looked every bit his age. Lines of exhaustion hung beneath his eyes. Issabella doubted Schultz had slept a wink since Darren’s kidnapper had called. “It’s my job,” he said.

  “It’s more than that. You’ve been doing everything you can to find Darren. And that means something to me. It means a lot.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. The exhaustion seemed to lift just slightly, and Schultz offered her a faint smile.

  The light turned green and they were moving again.

  “Has my father woken up yet?” she asked after a minute had slowly passed in silence.

  “I doubt it. We’ve got a man standing by at the hospital. Soon as he’s coherent, we’ll know.”

  “That woman who visited him has to be involved,” Issabella murmured to herself as she puzzled over the little she knew. The deputies had described the mystery visitor as a “good-looking woman, you know? Like she spent a lot on hair and make-up. Real put together. Hispanic, maybe.” No explanations were offered as to why the woman’s log-in sheet was missing from the service window.

  “It’s too early to know who she is or if she’s involved,” Schultz said. “People like the one who took Darren, they do their thing alone. But, either way. The office has the jail’s video. Her face will go up tonight on the local news stations. We just have to wait and—”

  “I want to see that tape.”

  “What? That’s not possible.”

  “Of course it’s possible,” she prodded, though she had known his answer before she made the request. If anything was clear to her now—after being assigned the status of passive safe house prisoner and after watching Schultz explode over the idea of a sitting judge making inquiries about the case—it was that he considered this his show. She wasn’t a player.

  “Look, Issabella, I’ve already lost too much time.” He sounded weary and not of a mind to discuss the whys and wherefores of his job. “We’re going to get you back to the house and then, I promise you, I will not stop until we’ve found Darren.”

  “I can help. If I can see what she looks like, I can—”

  “The only thing you’re doing is staying put in the safe house, Issabella.”

  “And what if I don’t want protective custody anymore?”

  “Forget it,” he snapped. “Okay? I will not let you put yourself in jeopardy. Until this guy is caught, you’re under my care. I’m not about to let you out of my sight.”

  “Let me?”

  Schultz let out a groan and rolled his eyes.

  “Can we skip the independent woman routine? Please? It won’t change anything.”

  Issabella bristled bu
t remained silent. She stopped watching him, stopped gauging to see if there was any way to work with him. She stared out the windshield of the sedan with level resignation. She had all the answers she needed from Agent Schultz.

  “I need to pee,” she said after a minute, and pointed out the window. “Pull over there. The Gas Light has clean bathrooms.”

  “I have to keep an eye on you at all times.”

  “You’re not coming in the bathroom with me, Isaac.”

  “I didn’t mean...inside there. Inside the restaurant is all. I can’t let you just run in there by yourself.”

  “Oh, good,” she chirped, with an easy smile that she didn’t feel at all, but which she put on for the agent just the same. “We can get something to eat.”

  Schultz’s scowl deepened.

  * * *

  Schultz leaned on the bar and a long, deep yawn shuddered up and out of him.

  “Late night?” the old man behind the bar said, busy cutting limes into tiny triangles.

  “Something like that.”

  “You want another coffee?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do. Thanks.”

  Schultz kept his back against the bar, his eyes on the broad restaurant dining room and, beyond it, the little hallway where Issabella had disappeared into the restroom. The Gas Light was a fixture of the downtown landscape, and lunch hour professionals had been frequenting it for decades. Schultz looked around in the warm half-light of the place and settled on describing the decor as “Bavarian Village.” All the surfaces were thick, solid wood. The lamps had heavy stained-glass shrouds, and the walls were covered in a marching line of old family crests—lions clutching spears, eagles wearing crowns and stags in flight.

  Half the tables were occupied, and the cute little hostess who had greeted them when they came in was busy filling the other half as Isaac checked his watch and sipped his coffee.

  She’s pissed off.

  Well, so what if she was? It wasn’t about her anymore. The only reason he’d raced over to Issabella’s office after hearing the Detroit dispatch call out her address were thoughts of her safety. And checking her home? Tracking her down to Darren’s? All to satisfy himself she was safe. That and an excuse to see her. Sure.

  But that had changed as soon as he heard the singsong voice of the thing on the phone. It wasn’t just feelings for her that animated him anymore. Tracking down and capturing the sort of beast that had taken Darren was his job. More than any bank robbery, even more than murders that fell under federal jurisdiction, the hunting of predators like the one he’d heard on the other end of Issabella’s phone was a specialization of one entity alone: the FBI.

  “I’ll wait for the girl.”

  Schultz sipped at the coffee and thought, The hell you will, freak.

  If Schultz had his way, the thing that had grabbed Darren would very soon stop waiting and start running. Schultz would listen to the guy from Behavioral Sciences and follow his advice. He’d follow every little possibility of a lead, too. But primarily, he was going to apply pressure. The kidnapper would be in the news every day, his description and the computer composite of him plastered up in as many local publications as Schultz could manage. Soon, the mystery woman’s face would be everywhere, too. Agents were sent out to poke through every hotel within fifteen miles of the city, in case he’d gone to ground in another one. They were monitoring the bus terminals, hospital emergency rooms, taxi service logs and the airport. Fingerprints lifted from the hotel room were being processed. Blood, skin and hair was being expedited through the Dearborn Police Department’s Forensics Lab. The Phoenix field office had eyes on the offices and phones of the two developers, Roland Burton and Gunther Kriegs, and had approved Schultz’s recommendations about taking an antagonistic, confrontational tact when they made contact with the two builders.

  All of it was a broad net meant to tighten as more leads and worthwhile information came in. Schultz would tighten the entire investigation, narrow it, focus it. He would apply pressure.

  The two of them—the freak and this mystery jail visitor, if she was involved—would run, simple as that. Schultz would turn them into prey animals, and drive them from the brush. When they broke and bolted for safety, Schultz and his men would be there to pull the trigger.

  He was checking his watch again when his phone rang.

  “Schultz.”

  “Hey, it’s Smitty.”

  A thrill of anticipation bloomed in Schultz and he set the coffee cup down on the bar. David “Smitty” Smith was the man monitoring Issabella’s cell.

  Did the freak make a mistake? Was he so far gone he couldn’t resist the impulse to reach out and try to contact her? Schultz’s mind raced with possibilities.

  “Tell me we’re moving on him now. Tell me that, Smitty, and I will crown you a fucking king.”

  “It’s your witness. The lawyer. She put a call out fifteen minutes ago that we should have contacted you on. I’m sorry, Boss. The kid from downstairs was covering it while I got a bite and took a crap. He fucking waited for me to get back instead of calling it out. Look, I’ve already got his nuts in my vice. But—”

  “Who did she call?” he snapped, his mounting exhilaration melting into outrage—at Smitty, the kid, Issabella, and most of all at himself. He let her keep the phone. He let her sit alone in the judge’s chamber while he stewed outside. He let her go to the...

  His vision telescoped, blacking out the diners and the broad expanse of the restaurant, focusing in on the little dimly lit hallway that lead to the restrooms.

  “She called the other witness. Theresa Winkle. Five-minute conversation. Schultz, you there?”

  He was not. He was flying on his feet, knocking the hostess aside. He was down the hall, throwing the bathroom door wide, wild-eyed and infused with a panicked certainty of what he had allowed to happen.

  He was looking at an open window in an empty women’s restroom.

  No no no no goddamn it no.

  “Schultz? You there, Boss?”

  He let his arms fall limp at his sides, his shoulders drooping, the life draining from his expression. He stared in bleak resignation at the mirror above the row of sinks.

  In lipstick (a rather tasteful and subdued shade of pink) she’d scrawled a parting message to him in big letters across the glass: Sorry, but I’m nobody’s hostage.

  Schultz swallowed his outrage. He whirled around, ran back out and toward the entrance. The hostess and the patrons seated about the room stared at him like he had transformed into a charging rhino. As he bolted, he pressed the phone back against his ear.

  “Trap Winkle’s phone!” he shouted. “Skip approval. We have more than enough to sway a judge later. Just get her phone tracked, now! Hers and Bright’s. Both of them. You hear me, Smitty?”

  “On it, Boss.”

  He was on the sidewalk, then the parking lot. He fumbled for his keys, his eyes roaming in every direction, hoping against hope to pick her out amid the landscape.

  He came to a halt several feet from his department-issued sedan. All four of its tires were limp, deflated lumps.

  The squeal of an engine pushed to its limit erupted behind him, followed by the bark of car horns. Schultz turned slowly on his heel to watch. With heavy-lidded eyes and a sick, hopeless feeling in his stomach, Agent Schultz watched as a rusted, rumbling van sporting a rearing unicorn emblazoned on its side raced wildly away. It weaved crazily between lanes, pouring black smoke and chugging loudly.

  Schultz watched it until it took a corner and the garish, rearing unicorn disappeared entirely from view. He remained like that for a long moment as he digested just how badly everything was going to go for him when he was called before the Agent in Charge of the field office. That interrogation would be coming very soon.

  Finally, he raised the phone back to his
ear.

  “Smitty?”

  “I’m here, Boss. We’re on the trap. I’ll—”

  “Shut up a second, Smitty, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “What’s the kid’s name?”

  “I don’t—”

  “The one who just fucked me in the ass, Smitty. That kid.”

  “Oh. Lorenz. Probationary.”

  “Mmhmm. Tell Probationary Agent Lorenz to drive on down to the Gas Light restaurant and pick me up. Can you do that?”

  “You bet.”

  “Smitty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell him if he says a word to me—one fucking word—I will beat him within an inch of his life. Try and make that as clear as possible.”

  “Okay. I better go catch him, then. Hang tight, Boss.”

  Schultz slipped the phone into his suit coat, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and wondered if this was the day he would later be able to pinpoint as the last time his career was considered something other than a train wreck.

  * * *

  They hit the Lodge Freeway and Theresa aimed the shuddering heap north, an unfiltered Pall Mall wedged between her lips. She was hunched over the steering column, focused and alert. As Issabella watched, Theresa kept her eyes patrolling the rear and side mirrors for any sign of flashing lights.

  “You can be my wingman any time, Maverick,” Issabella said.

  Theresa smiled around the cigarette.

  “Thelma and Louise quote would fit better.”

  “Gah! You’re right. That would have been perfect.”

  “I watch a lot of movies.”

  “Give me your phone. We have to get rid of them.”

  Theresa must have understood why, or already have considered it herself, because she just nodded and pointed a finger at the cup holder in the console between them. Her phone was sitting there amid a pile of candy wrappers and empty cigarette packs.

  Issabella cranked her window down—the tired old van’s only modern luxury was that it had functioning seat belts—and tossed Theresa’s cell phone out the window. She pulled her own out and held it in her hands. She hesitated.