“How about one of his jailbird pals? You think he might have mentioned to one of them that there’s this beautiful widow in Florida, has two kids, and has just come into two hundred and fifty grand?”
“You’re scaring me, Mr. Sloate.”
“I don’t mean to be doing that. I’m just trying to figure out who could’ve got it in his head that kidnapping your kids might be a way to get at those big bucks you’re supposed to’ve come into. Which you haven’t come into yet, by the way. But they don’t know that, do they?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Come on, let’s take you home. Get this thing rolling. Find out who these damn people are,” he says, and rises briskly from behind his desk.
If anyone is watching the house on Oleander Street, he will see only a dark-haired woman driving a black Mercedes ML320 up the street. He will see the car pulling into the driveway and stopping to wait for the garage doors to go up. The dark-haired woman is Alice herself. The Mercedes is the car supplied to her by Lane Realty, one of the perks of being a real estate broker.
If anyone is watching the house, he will see the garage doors going up. He will see Alice driving the car in. To anyone watching, Alice seems to be alone in the car. The garage doors roll down again. After a short interval, anyone watching the house will see lights coming on in the living room. He will see the dark-haired woman — Alice again — approaching the windows, looking out at the street, and then drawing the drapes.
In the garage, Wilbur Sloate gets up from where he is lying on the floor in the backseat of the Mercedes, climbs out of the car, and comes around to the hatchback at the rear. He yanks that open, and offers his hand to Detective Marcia Di Luca, one of the sixteen detectives assigned to the Criminal Investigations Division. Marcia’s specialty is communications, but she looks somewhat like a barmaid, wide in the behind, big in the chest, unruly red hair trailing to below her shoulders. She is wearing a tan skirt and a lime green blouse and a nine-millimeter Glock. Looking at Marcia, Alice gets the impression that she wouldn’t particularly like to get in a catfight with her. She gets the impression that Marcia wouldn’t mind shooting someone right between the eyes if the opportunity presented itself.
“What we’re going to do,” Sloate explains, “what Marcia’s going to do, as a matter of fact, is place a tap on your phone before that call comes in at noon tomorrow. This way we can listen to and record any calls you get…”
“We call it a Tap and Tape,” Marcia says.
“She’s also going to set up equipment that’ll be able to locate the caller’s phone numbe—”
“We call that a Trap and Trace.”
“And she’ll put in a second line so we can call the captain direct downtown.”
“That’ll be Captain Roger Steele,” Marcia says.
“He’s in charge of the department’s CID.”
Alice nods.
“So, what you can do, ma’am, you can go to sleep now, while Marcia and me get started. No sense you pacing the floor all night, we’re not going to hear from them again till noon tomorrow. Okay?”
“Yes, fine,” Alice says.
“G’night then, ma’am.”
“Good night,” Marcia says, and goes out to the garage for her equipment.
The phone rings at a little before midnight.
Alice is not yet asleep. She doesn’t know if she should pick up the bedroom extension or not. She throws on a robe and comes out into the living room, where Marcia and Sloate are still working.
“You ready on that trace?” Sloate asks Marcia.
“Nope,” she says.
“What should I do?” Alice asks.
“Let it ring a few more times. Tell her you were asleep,” Sloate says. “We can at least listen and record, get some information that way, do a voice profile later. Tell her you’re selling all your stock. Tell her you’ll have the money tomorrow afternoon sometime. Tell her to take a Polaroid picture of your kids holding tomorrow morning’s edition of the Cape October Trib. Tell her to Fed Ex it to you.”
“She won’t do all that.”
“Just keep her talking, see what she has to say for herself.” He sits in front of the wiretap equipment, puts on the earphones. “Go on, pick up,” he says.
“Hello?” Alice says.
“Al? It’s me. Charlie.”
“Charlie?”
“Did I wake you?”
“No.”
“What have you heard?”
Sloate shakes his head, wags his finger at her.
“Nothing,” she says.
Sloate runs his finger across his throat.
For a moment, Alice is puzzled.
Then she understands that he wants her to end the conversation.
“Charlie, I just got out of bed,” she says, “can you excuse me a minute? I’ll call you right back.”
“Sure, honey, I’ll be here.”
She puts the phone back on its cradle.
“Why?” she asks Sloate.
“I wanted to brief you. I don’t want you to tell him anything. Don’t tell him we’re here, don’t tell him a thing, not a single thing. Just say we asked you a few questions downtown and let you go. You didn’t tell us anything about your kids being missing.”
“Charlie’s my best friend. Why can’t I…?”
“They may know that, too. Nothing. Tell him nothing.”
“Suppose he wants to come here?”
“Tell him no.”
Alice looks at him.
“You want to see your kids alive again?”
“You’re beginning to sound like her.”
“Better call him back,” Marcia says.
“Make it short,” Sloate says. “Tell him you want to keep the line clear, case anybody calls.”
“He’ll smell a rat.”
“He’ll smell a rat if you don’t call back pretty damn soon,” Sloate says.
Alice picks up the receiver and begins dialing.
“Hello?”
“Charlie?”
“Yes, hi. What happened with the cops?”
“They asked me a lot of questions, and then let me go.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Well, you know, Rosie told them all about the kids being gone…”
“Yeah, so?”
“I told them they were mistaken. They said, Okay, it’s your funeral, lady, and let me go.”
“Were those their exact words?”
“More or less. Charlie, I hate to cut you short, but I want to keep the line free. In case they call again.”
“You haven’t heard from them again, huh?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s strange, don’t you think?” he asks.
“Well, they said noon tomorrow.”
“Even so.”
“Charlie, I really have to—”
“I know, okay. Call me if you need me, okay? Do you want me to come over?”
“No, I don’t think that would be smart. They may be watching the house.”
“Right, right.”
“Charlie…”
“I’m gone. Talk to you later.”
Alice hangs up.
“Okay?” she asks Sloate.
There is an edge to her voice.
“Fine, ma’am. You did just fine.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Alice says.
“We know what we’re doing, ma’am.”
“I hope so. Because if anything happens to my kids…”
“Nothing will happen to your kids.”
She looks him dead in the eye.
The look says, Nothing had better happen, Detective Sloate.
“Good night,” she says, and goes off to bed.
Thursday
May 13