While they drove, Dana read the preliminary report, restating Kevin’s comments about the cousin’s coming in from Seattle and the husband’s coming home early and finding signs of a break-in and his wife missing.
Mac raised an eyebrow, wondering if the husband might somehow be involved in his wife’s disappearance. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Kevin said the husband was at work when the day care called.We’ll have to verify that.What time did he call 911?”
“About four fifteen.”
“No kidding. How’d the feds get involved that fast? Us, too, for that matter.”
“I have no idea. According to this report, Sara had called him around two to let him know her car had been broken into.”
“Hmm.That explains the broken window the cousin found.”
“Right. He was in a meeting at that time, and Sara told his secretary not to bother him. He left work as soon as he got that message and the one from their day care. Sara was supposed to pick up their little girl at three, but she never showed up. The responding officers suspect kidnapping, but there hasn’t been any contact regarding a ransom.”
“Wonder how they determined kidnapping? Maybe the feds will have more information.” Mac made a right and started up a steep hill.
The Watsons lived in a nice neighborhood in northwest Portland near the University of Portland, in an older but roomy Victorian-style home. The hills afforded lovely views, but the homes were too close together to suit Mac. There were a number of vehicles parked on the street, including two cruisers, a van from the OSP crime lab, a minivan, a green Pontiac, and a BMW convertible. They pulled into the wide circle driveway and stepped out. If he were buying a home, it would have to come with either an oversized yard or acreage.
“The two suits by the car in front of the door must be the FBI agents.” Mac adjusted his tie and grabbed his suit jacket from the backseat.
“Must be.” Dana looked apprehensive.
“Are you nervous?” Mac asked.
“A little. I haven’t worked with the feds before.” Dana straightened and grinned.
He didn’t say so, but that dimpled smile of hers would have those guys melting all over her within minutes. “I haven’t worked with them directly, but from what I hear, we’re in for a treat.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“Sorry. I’ve heard they can be a pain.” Mac tried to rein in his preconceived notions about the feds. A lot of the guys he worked with had nothing good to say about them, but he needed to keep an open mind, especially if he was going to do the job Kevin expected of them. He and Dana showed their badges to the uniformed officer outside the crime scene, signed the sheet on his clipboard, and slipped under the crime-scene tape.
Dana opened her notebook, noting the time and weather conditions. Warm evening, fading light, FBI and OSP crime lab on scene.
“What do you make of it?” One of the two men in suits asked as he fingered some hard, white fragments on the floorboard of the car.
The second man leaned into the Audi. “Looks like some kind of shell or something.”
“Probably a busted spark plug,” Mac offered.
“A what?” The second guy, a heavyset man with a paunch, whipped around to face him.
“It’s a piece of an automotive spark plug,” Mac repeated as he pulled on his latex gloves.
Both men stepped away from the car, eyeing Mac and Dana as if they were onlookers rather than official investigators. Mac and Dana produced their badge wallets, displaying their credentials. Then with his hand extended, Mac said, “Detective McAllister with the Oregon State Police. This is my partner, Dana Bennett.”
“I’m Agent Jim Miller.” Miller, a well-proportioned man with a receding hairline, shook Mac’s hand, then Dana’s, and nodded to the larger man. “This is Agent Mel Lauden.”
Once the introductions were made, Agent Miller cast a dubious eye on the two detectives. “What’s the deal? You two with the crime lab or something?”
“Not the lab,” Mac explained. “But we are OSP.We’re assigned to the Violent Offender Unit out of our Portland office. We were dispatched at the request of the governor’s office to act as a liaison between our agencies.”
“I don’t remember requesting OSP involvement, other than the crime lab. Ms. Watson is apparently a missing person, and so far there’s every indication this is a kidnap investigation. You know that falls under our jurisdiction, not yours or the Portland Police Bureau.”
“We are well aware of your authority,” Mac said, annoyed by Miller’s arrogance. “But we need to make you aware of some political ties that Ms.Watson has to a member of our state government. Sara is Senator Dale Wilde’s niece. She’s the only daughter of the senator’s deceased brother. The senator is Oregon’s state senate majority leader, and the governor requested we offer our full cooperation and assistance. So, if you have no objection, we would like to be involved.”
“No objections here. Just so you know who’s calling the shots.” Agent Miller sounded more like a man making a personal challenge than an agent having a professional conversation with colleagues.
Mac swallowed back the urge to confront him. He didn’t like playing a second-fiddle role in his own town, especially not to the “Famous But Incompetent,” as Philly generally referred to the FBI. But then, Philly did tend to accentuate the negative. As much as Mac hated to admit it, the feds were the best when it came to kidnappings and ransom negotiations.
“So what was this about a spark plug?” Agent Lauden gestured to the white material on the floorboard.
Mac suspected the question was more to break up the awkward silence than to make an inquiry. He moved closer to the car, taking a moment to scan the interior before answering the question and before accepting a piece of the hard, white fragment from Agent Lauden. “It’s an old auto thief trick.” Mac rolled the tiny fragment in his gloved fingers. “Car clouts take a spark plug or shattered pieces of a plug and pack them for easy concealment for breaking into cars. The porcelain is dense in these plugs, designed to withstand some serious heat and friction. That makes the material a phenomenal tool for shattering glass. The thief throws a little piece of this, and the glass shatters like a bullet hit it. The beauty is that there’s very little sound. Once the glass is broken, all the perp has to do is peck out the safety glass, and he has entry. The good ones will put duct tape on the glass before breaking it so they can lift the pieces away.”
The agents glanced at each other, and Mel raised an eyebrow. He seemed impressed but didn’t say so. Mac let the opportunity for some cockiness slide. FBI agents had their strengths, but they often lacked the street-crimes investigative skills that being in uniform and working the streets afforded. Mac noticed that these guys were at least wearing gloves and seemed to be preserving the crime scene.
“Can you bring us up to speed?” Mac asked.
Mel shrugged. “Sure. Looks like our victim was taken from the house. According to her husband’s secretary, Mrs.Watson called to talk to her husband early this afternoon. Apparently her car had been broken into in the garage near her office. The secretary says that Mrs.Watson seemed OK and was planning to call the insurance company about arrangements to repair the car.”
“She didn’t call the police?” Dana asked.
Miller turned his gaze on Dana, his features softening. “There’s no record that she did.”
“And she came home to make the calls?” Dana frowned.
“That would be my guess. Your CSI technicians are inside right now. There may have been a struggle in the kitchen.” He glanced over at the reporters who’d gathered at the scene and lowered his voice. “The vultures are here.”
“As always,” Mac mused. “The disappearance of a popular socialite with political ties would be impossible to keep from the press. I wouldn’t be surprised if the senator himself briefed them.”
Not many politicians would be able to pass up a chance for this kind of exposure.
Miller shook his head. “Just makes the job harder.”
“What makes you think we are dealing with a kidnapping?” Mac asked. “No disrespect, but I’ve never seen you guys get involved this quickly in the game without some hard evidence.”
Agent Miller looked around behind him before answering. “So far, we’ve seen no obvious blood evidence or signs of trauma or anything that would give any indication she was killed inside the residence. We are well aware of Mrs. Watson’s relationship to Senator Wilde.Word is that Senator Wilde has been receiving some threatening letters. He’s afraid Sara’s disappearance is related somehow to those threats, which is why we’re here.”
“Understood. Looks like we both received this assignment through political channels.” Mac looked at Dana and thought about the stack of files on his desk, pending court cases, and personal plans that would need to be placed on hold so he could stand around with the FBI on a case that would more than likely never fall under their authority. On the other hand, the case could turn out to be a murder, which would land it in their laps. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case. Regardless, Mac intended to stay on top of the investigation.
“Any leads on the abductor?” Dana asked. “Any witnesses or physical evidence?”
“No witnesses to the possible abduction that we know of. We have some uniformed officers checking at the victim’s place of work to see if there were any witnesses or possibly a video surveillance of the original break-in. If we’re dealing with pros here, I doubt they left anything behind.There doesn’t appear to be anything obvious in the car other than what you’d expect for a break-in, but your lab people are having it towed to a garage to check for forensic evidence.”
“Have you talked to the husband?” Mac leaned against one of the pillars holding up the wraparound porch.
“Yeah. He’s inside with his little girl and the senator and his wife,” Miller said. “There’s a cousin in there too. Guess they were planning a big family get-together this weekend. We thought it best to give them some space for the time being.”
Nice gesture, Mac thought. Maybe these guys wouldn’t be so bad to work with after all. “What’s his story?”
“Name’s Lester Scott Watson, goes by his middle name,” Agent Lauden read from his notebook. The husband is the one who reported her missing after coming home and finding the evidence of a struggle in the kitchen. The cousin was here a few minutes before that. She found the door unlocked and looked around but didn’t find any signs of Sara. She’s the one who called Senator Wilde.”
“What’s the cousin’s name?” Dana asked.
“Claire Montgomery. She’s the senator’s daughter.”
“What kind of mess are you talking about?” Mac peered past the open front door.
“A few items on the floor, nothing gory,” Agent Miller responded. “No signs of forced entry, no evidence of a weapon or any obvious blood spatter noted on the floor or walls. The only thing out of place is the car break-in and the mess in the kitchen. The pictures that had been magnetically attached to the refrigerator door were all over the floor, along with some keys, a canister of mace, and a remote phone. The phone cord is missing on the kitchen base unit, and there’s a broken vase near the entry. Unless the scene was staged, we think Sara fought with her attacker in the kitchen and in the entry area. No witnesses, no tire tracks or skid marks leaving the house, nothing to go on right now. We’ll be checking with neighbors to see if they saw anything, though.”
“You said no sign of forced entry. Any keys missing or theories about how the guy got in the house?” Mac asked.
“Nothing much to go on so far. All the keys were accounted for, and the victim’s own set was among the items found on the kitchen floor. The husband said they often go into the house through the garage, but the victim’s car was parked out front. We think the victim may have left the front door unlocked. Or, she may have used the remote keypad on the door, which makes it possible the suspect had the door code also.”
“Is Sara’s car remote for the garage door accounted for?” Dana asked. “A lot of these car clouters grab the car registration and remote control for the garage when they bust into a car.”
“That’s right,” Mac said, appreciating Dana’s thoroughness. “The suspects get the address off the vehicle registration and burglarize the house while they know the victim is at work or school. We’ve had a number of local scumbags working that angle lately.”
Agent Miller leaned inside the car, pulling down the driver side visor. “There’s an indentation on the visor where a remote-control clip would have been. I bet you’re right, Detective Bennett. Having the remote would allow our suspect easy entrance.”
“Which may mean that Sara interrupted a burglary.” Dana finished his thought.
“Possible,” Agent Lauden said. “Unless the reason for stealing the remote was to gain access in order to pull off a kidnapping.”
“Or a murder,” Dana said. “That’s why I never leave my remote in the car or give my entire set of keys to the repair shops when they have my car. Remember that rapist a few months ago who worked as a mechanic here in town, Mac?”
“Yeah.” Mac remembered the case all too well.
The agents looked at them to elaborate, and Mac let Dana do the honors.
“We had a serial rapist/killer working the area, a few months back. It turned out he was a mechanic at a local car dealership. The guy would select his victims when they came in to have their cars serviced. He’d make a copy of their house keys on his break. The guy would then return the original set of keys to the customer and pay them a visit a few days later.”
“How’d you catch him?”
“We didn’t,” Mac answered. “The guy picked the wrong victim. The woman who nailed him was a martial arts expert. She beat the guy within an inch of his life and called the police. Who knows how long the case might have dragged on without her? This guy was prolific and showed no signs of slowing down.”
“I’d like to think we’d have found him anyway,” Dana said. “Eventually we’d have come up with the mechanic as being the common denominator.”
“I hope that’s not the case here,” Agent Lauden grumbled. “Your guy is off the street, isn’t he?”
“Yep, he’s in the county lockup awaiting trial,” Mac said. “That only leaves thirty-five hundred sex offenders here in the greater Portland metro area to eliminate.”
“Wonderful.”
MAC AND DANA SPENT THE NEXT HOUR looking over the scene and talking with their CSI techs, but they gained little more than what the FBI agents had told them. The techs found a couple of blood smears in the entry as well as a long, black hair. They would run DNA tests and call Mac and Dana with the results. They’d also determined that the garage door opener had not been stolen but was sitting in a drawer in the upstairs office. There was no sign of forced entry, so she may have known her abductor, or she’d been careless and left a door or window unlocked.
Before they left, Mac made it a point to introduce himself and Dana to the family: Scott Watson and his daughter, Chloe; Senator and Mrs. Wilde; Sara’s cousin, Claire Montgomery; and her daughter, Allysa. While they were offering their condolences, Jackie Palmer, Watson’s secretary, showed up. After the introductions, Jackie hugged Claire and Scott. From her apparent distress and the way she interacted with the family, Mac had the impression that she was a friend as well.
“If only I’d come home earlier,” Scott told the senator. “Maybe . . .”
“It’s not your fault, son.” Senator Wilde patted the man’s slumped shoulders.
Jackie dabbed at her eyes. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I should have interrupted your meeting.”
“It doesn’t do any good to blame ourselves.” Claire, who was holding Chloe, sat down beside Scott. Chloe immediately moved onto Scott’s lap and snuggled into his arms. Mac nearly lost it when he thought about that little girl losing her mother. He swallowed back the lump in his throat and forced himself to look at the other child. Allysa, whom Mac guessed to be around ten, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the television set playing a video game with the sound turned off.
Mac’s gaze moved to each of them. His contact with them had been brief, but they seemed genuinely grief-stricken. He wanted to hang around longer and conduct the interviews himself, but with the feds in charge, that wasn’t going to happen. Besides, they had a retirement party to go to.
The detectives left the scene at seven, making it to the Elks Lodge an hour late. Since the food service was just starting, all they had missed was happy hour. Russ signaled them, pointing to the two chairs between him and Philly. Mac glanced around, hoping to see Kristen, his sort-of girlfriend and the state’s medical examiner. He spotted several people from the crime lab and finally saw her sitting with some of the deputy medical examiners and her indispensable assistant, Henry.
Mac sat down next to Russ and directed his attention to the front. Kevin stood at the podium, his now-thin frame evident under his sport coat. Kevin’s bout with prostate cancer and chemo had not only stripped him of his hair, it seemed to have melted the muscles right off him. After asking everyone to take their seats, he waited until the noise subsided and led them in a prayer of thanks for their dinner.
The room was crammed full of Sergeant Evans’s friends, coworkers, and family, with both retired and active officers scattered all over the room. The brass was there in full force, but Frank had asked Kevin to serve as the master of ceremonies. After dinner had been served and consumed, the hundreds of guests settled in for coffee and the awards presentation section of Sarge’s retirement celebration.
Kevin read the usual list of letters from agency heads and commendation notes from Frank’s career. He read a special letter to Frank’s wife, Connie, thanking her for her service to the state and for sticking by her husband’s side through it all. The letter was a small token for a spouse who had to endure hundreds of wake-up calls and cancelled personal plans through the years. Yet Connie didn’t act like she minded one bit.
Mac couldn’t help but think of his fiasco of an engagement to Linda, a woman who couldn’t handle his crazy schedule—or lack of one. It took a special kind of woman to stay married to a cop for that many years. Frank had one of the best, and so did Kevin, as well as Mac’s cousin, Eric O’Rourke, who’d moved from detective to lieutenant. Philly and Russ hadn’t been so lucky in the love department. Both were divorced: Russ once and Philly—Mac couldn’t remember—at least three times.
Thoughts of Linda, his ex-fiancée, brought back thoughts of the latest women in his life, Dana and Kristen. Not that he was dating both of them. Dana had declared herself off-limits. Kristen was . . . questionable. Would his tenuous relationship with the quirky medical examiner go anywhere? Right now they were trying to get together whenever their busy schedules allowed, which wasn’t often.
Mac looked across the room and caught Kristen’s gaze. She winked at him, indicating she’d see him later. Mac smiled back. With Kristen, he never knew what to expect. Tonight she had bleached blonde hair with black roots, the ends turned up in a style that looked like she’d been in a windstorm. She had on a black dress with a fragile-looking shawl draped over her shoulders. He dragged his gaze from her to the front of the room.
Kevin hugged Connie after providing the form letter to her from the governor’s office. The time had come for the badge presentation, which was the one token all state troopers placed in high regard. Kevin presented Frank with his badge in a plaque shaped like the state of Oregon. Frank accepted the plaque with obvious gratitude, and he patiently posed for pictures.
Mac couldn’t help but be sad, thinking of the hundreds of investigations the man had been involved with and the number of arrests he’d made. Frank had been in so many life-threatening situations, many of them worthy of a commendation. Now the memories would fade, and another officer would go his way after years of service. As he watched the proceedings, Mac thought about his own career, wondering about his own retirement someday. Would he even reach retirement? Would he have a wife to stand by him through the years and a family who loved him? He glanced across the room again, looking for Kristen, but her chair was empty. She’d probably been called out to a crime scene or to do an autopsy.
Disappointed, Mac tuned back into Frank’s speech, where he thanked the department and his family. He joked about taking up golf and fly-fishing, but from the laughs he got, no one in the room could imagine Frank doing anything relaxing.
After Frank’s speech, Kevin asked if anyone else in the room wanted to talk. A long cast of characters, mostly seasoned veterans, made their way to the microphone, telling childhood stories and funny memories. Finally, Philly ambled up to the front and took over the microphone. Russ, Mac, Kevin, and Dana groaned in mock protest.
“Thank you. Nice to see how much I’m appreciated around here.” Philly summoned Frank to the podium.
“Get it over with, Phil.” Frank rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, preparing himself for the king of roasts.
“Now, on the topic of Sergeant Frank Evans,” Philly began, “we’ve heard a lot of funny stories tonight. I didn’t want the evening to end without him hearing a thing or two from the detectives who worked with him every day.” Philly grinned, and Frank groaned, obviously expecting the worst.
Philly cleared his throat and continued, “I just wanted to tell the family here tonight that we really depended on your husband and father to get us home safely each day. Frank is a man of integrity, a role model to me and the other guys in the back room. Guys . . . and gals.” He glanced at Dana as he corrected himself. “Frank is a stern guy, but he’s fair. He’s a man of character and one of the finest detectives this outfit ever had. Frank, I just want you and your family to know how we feel about you. Please accept this gift certificate; the whole office chipped in.” Philly handed Frank an envelope with a gift certificate to a local home improvement store and gave his boss and longtime friend a bear hug. They both got choked up, and Mac swallowed past the lump in his own throat. Mac wouldn’t admit it, but he was a little disappointed that Philly had taken the high road.
“Thanks, Phil.” Frank patted Philly on the back. “You better quit hugging me now, or my wife’s going to get the wrong idea.”
“You wish.” Philly laughed and shook Frank’s hand. “Good luck, you old badger. I’ll be right behind you.”
Frank remained at the podium while the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Then he turned to shake Kevin’s hand before collecting his family and walking back into the crowd.
Kevin assumed his place behind the microphone once again to close the ceremony. “Thank you all for coming tonight. And on that note, Detectives McAllister and Bennett, please contact me ASAP.”
“What’s up?” Mac asked as he and Dana came forward. “Are we on cleanup detail?”
“You might say that.” Kevin rubbed the back of his neck. “I was just wondering how your visit with the feds went.”
Dana and Mac brought him up to speed while they gathered their jackets and headed for their cars. “I don’t think those guys are too happy about our being involved,” Mac said.
“I know they aren’t. I got a call on the way over here from their supervisor. He wanted to know if our involvement was really necessary, and I told him it was. I offered our services, so be prepared to do some hands-on stuff.”
“Such as?” Dana stopped at Mac’s car, her hand on the passenger side door handle.
“The usual. They’ll be in charge, but you’ll be able to do some interviews, follow up on the sex offender list, check on other such crimes to see if they might be related. Whatever you can do to stay on top of it. Don’t let these guys intimidate you. If this turns into a murder investigation, you’ll take over.”
“Whatever you say.” Mac paused. “You doing OK, Kev? You’re looking a little pale.”
“I’m fine. Just tired. See you guys in the morning.”
Mac dropped off Dana at the parking compound at the office and then headed home. He was a little tired himself and still wasn’t too happy having to work under the feds, but he told himself it wouldn’t be all that much different from being support investigators under Philly and Russ.
Mac shoved aside his concerns about the case and thought about the changes Frank’s retirement would bring to the department. Dynamics would change. Someone would get the coveted office that Kevin was vacating. Probably Dana, since she asked him about it, but if he could get into the office early enough tomorrow morning, maybe he still had a chance. After all, wasn’t possession nine-tenths of the law?