[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

hours or less to stop the next homicide.
To make the impossible situation even worse, we couldn't be everywhere at
once, not even with hundreds of agents and detectives on the case.
One lead in particular had emerged, and we were going to run with it. That's
all Fred Van Allsburg had told us. I wasn't sure we needed another meeting to
discuss it, but I showed up, and now I was glad I did.
We'd managed an end run around Maddux Fielding's unofficial closed-door
policy at LAPD. A member of their blue-Suburban detail was on the phone when I
got there.
The LAPD detail consisted of two lead detectives, two-dozen field agents, and
a clue coordinator, Merrill Snyder, who was on the line with us.
Snyder started with his overview of the search. His voice had a subtle touch
of New England. "As you know, DMVs don't track by color, which is the only
specification we have on Mary Smith's alleged Suburban," he told the group.
"That's left us with just over two thousand possible matches in Los Angeles
County. As a matter of triage, we've been focusing on civilian call-ins. We're
still getting dozens every day  people who own a blue Suburban and don't know
what to do about it; or people who've seen one, or thought they might have
seen one, or maybe just know someone who's seen one. The hard part is
recognizing the worthwhile point zero zero one percent of calls from the other
ninety-nine point ninety-nine."
"So why did this one spike?" I asked.
It was a combination of things, Snyder told us. Plenty of leads had some
individual compelling detail to them, but this one had a convergence of
suspicious factors.
"This guy called in about his neighbor, who's also his tenant. She drives a
blue Suburban, of course  and goes by the name Mary Wagner."
Eyebrows bobbed around the room. This was the stuff coincidence was made of,
but it wouldn't have shocked me to know that our killer  with her penchant
for public attention  was actually using her own first name.
"She's a virtual Jane Doe," Snyder went on. "No driver's license here, or in
any state for that matter. The plates on the car are California, but guess
Page 120
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
what?"
"They're stolen," someone muttered from the rear.
"They'restolen, " said Snyder. "And they don't track. She probably got them
off an abandoned car somewhere.
"And then, lastly, there's her address. Mammoth Avenue in Van Nuys. It's only
about ten blocks from that cyber cafe where the one aborted e-mail was found."
"What else do we know about the woman herself?" Van Allsburg asked Snyder.
"Any surveillance on her?"
An agent in front tapped some keys on a laptop, and a slide came up on the
conference room screen.
It showed a tall, middle-aged white woman, from a vantage point across a
parking lot. She wore what looked like a pink maid's uniform. Her body was
neither thin nor fat; the uniform fit but still looked too small for her
mannish frame. I put her age at about forty-five.
"This is from earlier this morning," Fred said. "She works in housekeeping at
the Beverly Hills Hotel."
"Hang on.Housekeeping? Did you say housekeeping?"
Several heads turned to where Agent Page was sitting perched on the window
ledge.
"What about it?" Van Allsburg asked.
"I don't know. Maybe this sounds crazy  "
"Go ahead."
"Actually, it was something in Dr. Cross's report," Page said. "At the hotel
where Suzie Cartoulis and Brian Conver were found.Someone made the bed .
Perfectly." He shrugged. "It's almost too neat, but& I don't know. Hotel maid& "
The silence in the room seemed to intimidate him, and the young agent shut
up. I imagined that with more experience, Page would come to recognize this
kind of response as interest, not skepticism. Everyone took the theory in, and
Van Allsburg moved on to the next slide.
A tight shot of Mary Wagner.
In close up, I could see the beginnings of gray in her dark, wiry hair, which
was tamed at the nape of her neck in an unfashionable kind of bun. Her face
was round and matronly, but her expression neutral and distant. She seemed to
be somewhere else.
The mutterer from the rear spoke up again. "She sure doesn't look like much."
And she didn't. She was no one you'd notice on the street.
Practically invisible.
Chapter 86
Page 121
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
AT 6:20 THAT NIGHT, I was parked up the block from Mary Wagner's house.This
could definitely be something, our big break, and we all knew it. So far, we'd
been able to keep the press away.
A second team was in the alley behind the house, and a third one had trailed
Wagner from work at the Beverly Hills Hotel. They had just sent word that
she'd stopped for groceries and was nearly home.
Sure enough, a blue Suburban, puffing smoke from the exhaust pipe, pulled
into the driveway a couple of minutes later.
Ms. Wagner hoisted two plastic bags from the truck and went inside. She
appeared to be a strong woman. It also looked as though she was talking to
herself, but I couldn't tell for sure.
Once she'd gone inside, we pulled down the street for a better view.
My partner for the evening was Manny Baker, an agent about my age. Manny had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

glaz.keep.pl