He looked down at his hands, debating how much to tell her. He had so little to go on, and the implications…“I’ll take you back to your car,” he said.
He could see that she wanted to tell him to go to hell, but after studying him for another moment, said, “Okay.” They argued over the payment of the bill, which allowed her to discover that he was a little old-fashioned in some matters, and very stubborn.
“Do you have to go in early tomorrow?” he asked after they had driven in silence for a while.
“No, sleeping in. I have a late-night surveillance with Hitch on one of our other cases.”
Again he fell silent, thinking he should apologize to her, but not wanting to reopen the topic of the Dane case. He dropped her off at her car and watched her drive away. He had not been able to think of the sort of words that might have tempted her to stay with him a little longer, and deciding that it was useless to wish for what was beyond his reach, he started to get out of the car. He noticed something small and white on his passenger seat. A business card. He picked it up and saw that it was hers. In bold blue strokes, she had written her home address and phone number on the back. He sat for a long time, tracing its edges with his fingertips, then started to put it away in his wallet. He hesitated, then tucked it into his shirt pocket instead.
“Anyone come by?” he asked the guard.
“No, sir. And I’ve checked on him a couple times — he’s asleep.”
Just as Lefebvre was about to enter Seth’s room, he saw the door to the patio open slightly, then quickly close, as if someone had started through it and changed his mind. He walked with quick strides toward the patio, stepping outside just as the far door closed. He ran to it, yanking it open. He could see no one, but again heard footsteps on the stairs. This time, they were hurried. He followed as quietly as possible. The footsteps stopped, and Lefebvre slowed his own steps, creeping closer to his prey. A series of small, high-pitched sounds filled the stairwelclass="underline"
Do-re-mi-do-re-mi-do-re-mi
Lefebvre ran toward the sounds, heedless of any noise he was making.
He reached the bottom of the stairwell and came out into the hospital lobby. He quickly scanned the room: A pair of doctors, wearing scrubs, talking to each other. A receptionist. Five people huddled together in one set of chairs, as if praying together; a family, it seemed. None of them looked as if he or she had just sat down. He turned around and saw a bank of elevators — one car just starting to ascend. And beyond the elevators, a series of hallways. He made a quick check of these, but realized his quarry was long gone.
Or was he? He thought of the elevator and ran back up the stairs. If the attacker had returned while Lefebvre searched the lobby and hallways — how much resistance would that guard offer?
Heart pounding, he raced to the fourth floor, immediately went out onto the patio and crossed it to the other door. Yanking it open, he looked toward the door to Seth’s room — the guard’s chair was empty.
“No!” he shouted, causing the nurses to stare at him as if he were a madman.
But in the next instant, the guard came out of the room, and seeing Lefebvre, said, “Oh, you’re back. He just woke up. I think he wanted me to find out if you were still here. Of course, since he can’t talk, I’m only guessing… hey!”
Lefebvre pushed past him into the room.
Seth smiled when he saw him, then raised a questioning brow.
“You’re okay?” Lefebvre asked, still shaken.
He nodded, then pointed to Lefebvre, asking a silent question in return.
“I’m fine.”
Seth seemed skeptical, but gestured toward a chair.
“Yes,” Lefebvre said. “Yes, I’ll stay awhile — I have a phone call to make, but I’ll be right back.”
Seth gestured to the phone next to his bed.
“What, you think you get to be privy to all police business now?” Lefebvre said, trying to keep his tone light. Seth smiled, but Lefebvre did not think he looked convinced.
He apologized brusquely to the guard, then using the phone at the nurses’ station, called the homicide desk and asked to be patched through to the team currently on surveillance of Dane. No, Dane had not left his house. Yes, they had seen him with their own eyes — had him in sight right now.
He had pissed them off with the last question. It could not be helped.
The guard’s replacement had come on duty in the meantime. Lefebvre felt more sure of this man’s alertness and abilities. He went back into Seth’s room and bent himself to the task of distracting Seth from his memories and fears. He failed miserably at this, until he began to tell him about his dinner with Elena.
7
Friday, June 22, 7:00 A.M.
Las Piernas Police Department
Homicide Division
Lefebvre nodded to Pete Baird as he went to his desk. Baird, the only other detective in the homicide room, nodded back and continued working, his head bent over a file. There was a thinning spot on his crown — Lefebvre dispassionately considered the likelihood that Baird would be bald within a few years.
He didn’t think Baird disliked him, but would not have worried if he did. He knew that his coworkers’ feelings about him were mixed. He was not a gregarious person, as Baird was. Among some of his fellow detectives, he knew, his success was probably more resented than admired, in part because he was a loner.
If he could cope with Baird’s talkativeness, Baird would make a good partner on this case. It was not that he would be especially interested in Baird’s thoughts about it — Baird did not solve cases with his mind, although Lefebvre was sure there was more going on under that thinning hair than most people believed. Baird solved cases with doggedness. Doggedness was undoubtedly what had brought him here so early in the morning. Many times Lefebvre had seen Baird’s persistence pay off; Baird often solved cases that had discouraged supposedly smarter detectives.
Lefebvre’s last assigned partner had been his mentor, Matthew Arden. When Arden retired, he convinced their lieutenant that Lefebvre would work best without a partner, and no lieutenant since then had insisted on pairing him with anyone.
But although there were a great many differences in their style of work and in their personalities, Lefebvre believed Pete Baird was trustworthy. Lefebvre did not for a moment doubt his honesty. Looking around the room at the other desks, he realized that there was no one else of whom he felt quite so sure. It would be good, Lefebvre thought, to tell someone else that perhaps Whitey Dane was not the one who had attacked the Randolphs.
But what would he say, after all?
Pete, I have no idea who the killer is, but it isn’t Dane — even though all the physical evidence and the witness’s description point to him. I know he’s a suspected crime boss we’ve been trying to arrest for several years, and probably has been involved in murder many times over, but he’s not the man we want for this one, the only one to which we can connect him. I base this on how frightened Seth became at the sound of a watch — a watch that many thousands of people may own, but which I believe may belong to a member of our own police department.
Ludicrous.
He would spend the day trying to learn more, to come up with something more solid — and answers to the questions that had plagued him all night. Those questions, and his fears for Seth’s safety, had denied him any sleep.
At least the guard who had come on duty at eleven was more capable than the previous man. Lefebvre was equally confident about the man who had the next rotation. He had called the officer who took over this morning, intimating that new threats had been made against Seth. He would try today to get the guard on Seth’s room doubled, and to get the hospital to lock the door between the patio and the stairwell. The hospital night-shift security guard had been unwilling to do so.