Whoa,” Holmberg said as they drove past Miss Delilah’s house.
“Keep going,” Lupe told him. “Turn at the corner.”
As soon as they were out of sight of the house, Holmberg pulled over.
“A dark blue PT Cruiser,” Lupe said. “And the porch light is on. That means trouble. Run the plates. Wisconsin.” She repeated the numbers.
She called in. Almost as soon as she said they had a possible hostage situation, Lieutenant Nicholson came on the line.
“A possible hostage situation, Torres?” she scoffed. “Here, in Lincoln Prairie? When’s the last time that happened?”
“I’ve got one, possibly two senior citizens, in a house in Bullfrog Bog.” She gave the exact location and intersecting streets. “There’s a car parked outside that could be connected with the Jones homicide.”
“You’re basing a hostage situation on that? Did anyone see anything?”
“Not that I know of.”
“The sergeant says nobody has called in a complaint.”
“The porch light is on,” Lupe told her.
“The porch light?”
“Yes, they know that if they have a problem during the daytime they put it on, and if it’s at night, they turn it off. We set that up last year as a signal when we were having those home invasions.”
“I wasn’t here then,” said the lieutenant. “We don’t have a hostage team, Torres. I’d have to call the sheriff’s office. I suggest you get more substantial information before you ask me to authorize a thirty-man team to go out on a ’possible’ hostage situation. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” The last thing she said was, “Porch light. If someone that old lives there they probably forgot to turn it off this morning.”
Lupe didn’t bother to tell her that most of the people who lived here had to watch their utility bills to keep their gas and electricity from being turned off. It had taken a lot of convincing to get them to leave a light on at night. She put a call in to Marti and Vik.
“We’ll be right there,” Vik said. “Don’t do anything until we get there. Did you run the plates?”
“Car belongs to a Jennifer Hunt Cooper,” Lupe told him.
Marti shook her head. The name meant nothing. “That’s one that’s not on our radar,” she said. “If this is the same car, and the same woman, what on earth is she doing there?”
Lupe told them about making a copy of the The People’s Voice article that Elroy had e-mailed and leaving it with Delilah and Cornelius. “Bullfrog Bog was where all the black folk lived in the forties. These two are neighbors. Both of them were young and recently married back then, but not to each other. I thought the photo might jog their memory. I didn’t expect anything like this.”
“I’m going to have Vik talk to the lieutenant again. Sit tight; we’re on our way.”
When Marti and Vik arrived, Slim and Cowboy were with them, along with two TAC officers.
“Nicholson made one hell of a call,” Vik said. “Insists that we don’t have a witness or anything substantial enough to warrant deploying a thirty-man hostage team. Technically, she’s right. It just pisses me off that she doesn’t think you’re street-smart enough to make the right call. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, but if something goes wrong here, it’s her ass, not ours.”
“I want to go in,” Lupe said. “If anything is wrong, Delilah and Cornelius will need a familiar face to keep them calm. They trust me and Delilah’s smart enough to follow my lead and kick Cornelius in the shins if he doesn’t.”
“You think they’re both in there?”
“All they’ve got is each other. Evenings she likes to listen to the radio and he likes to watch TV, but during the day they are all the company they’ve got.”
The TAC team gave Lupe a few instructions. “Do not focus on the hostages. Give the subject your entire attention. You want to try to figure her out. What gets her excited, what calms her down. Play with it, test it, and bring her up and down. Remember, you’re in charge. She only thinks she is. Do not take your weapon with you. She might be in a position to disarm you. Once you go in there, all you’ve got is guts, instinct, and common sense.”
“You’ve done a couple of those hostage-training weekends,” Marti reminded her. “Remember what you practiced.”
“Draw me a floor plan,” the TAC officer told her. “Show me the windows and the doors.”
Lupe drew a quick but detailed sketch. “My guess is that they are in the kitchen. That’s where I always find them if they’re not sitting on the porch or working in the garden.”
“How are you going in?” the TAC officer asked.
“If she’s done what I told them to, leaving that light on, the door isn’t locked. I’m just going to walk in, call out that it’s Lupe from the visiting nurses come to see how they are. They’ll catch on and not let anyone know I’m a cop.”
“Sounds like a plan,” the TAC officer agreed. “If it is a hostage situation and the front door is not in their line of vision, I’m going in right behind you. I’ll stay in this front room as backup until I can figure out what’s going on. Do not focus on anyone but the hostage taker,” he cautioned. “Whoever it is, you’ve got to hold their attention and figure out how to play them.”