one. Still, better to play it safe.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Anthony said.
She turned and took the gun from the shopping bag and shot him in the forehead. As Anthony went down, one of the men from the elevator stepped up and took the woman’s arm. He was wearing a
leather jacket and a long-billed low-crowned baseball hat.
By the time Anthony hit the floor the man and woman were walking
firmly past him and out the front door of the mall. As they reached the parking lot several people pushed past them, running toward a Paradise Police car. The people crowded around the car, all talking at once to Eddie Cox and gesturing toward the mall. The man and woman passed the crowd and got into a rented Volvo, and drove quietly away.
64
Jesse sat with Healy in the front seat of Healy’s unmarked
car.
“We found their other clothes in the washrooms,” Healy
said.
“Had the change of clothes in the shopping bags,” Jesse
said.
“Maybe you should have asked for help,”
Healy
said.
“We had all the exits covered,” Jesse said.
“Which means they walked right past one of your guys.”
“Simpson and I were the only ones really knew what they looked
like,” Jesse said.
“If you’d brought us in
…” Healy said.
“You wouldn’t have known what they looked like
either.”
“True, but we might have had more people at the elevator.”
“And your people couldn’t have started shooting,” Jesse said,
“any more than Anthony could. There were eight or ten people coming
off that elevator.”
“And he was probably a little less cautious because it was a
good-looking broad,” Healy said.
Jesse shrugged.
“Whether it would have gone better if you’d invited us in,”
Healy said. “It couldn’t have gone worse.”
“No. One of my guys is dead, and the Lincolns are gone.”
“You’re sure it was them,” Healy
said.
“It was them.”
“You recognized them.”
“It was them.”
Healy nodded and didn’t speak for a moment.
Then he said, “We’re covering their condo.
Their Saab is still
in their parking lot.”
Jesse nodded. “Maybe a rental,” he said.
“We’ll be checking the rental agencies, but it’s,” he glanced at
the digital clock on his dashboard, “two twenty-six in the morning.”
“If they used their own names,” Jesse said.
“Have to show a credit card.”
“These are people who could have had a whole other identity
waiting around in case they needed it,” Jesse said.
“Want to go take a look at their home?”
Healy
said.
“Warrant?” Jesse said.
“Already got that covered,” Healy said.
“Why you get the big bucks,” Jesse said.
“First I have to go see
Betty deAngelo.”
“The widow?” Healy said.
Jesse nodded.
“Lucky you,” Healy said.
“She has five kids,” Jesse said.
“Hard,” Healy said.
Jesse nodded.
“I’ll meet you at the Lincolns’
condo,” he said.
Jesse got out of the car and walked across the empty parking lot
to where his car sat alone near the east entrance of the mall.
Behind him Healy’s car drove away. Healy was right, Anthony would
have hesitated before shooting at a good-looking woman. And Healy was probably right about including the state cops. Jesse should have brought them in. He didn’t have enough people. He had more
people, maybe it wouldn’t have been Anthony. Maybe it wouldn’t have
been anybody. Maybe they’d have caught the Lincolns. His footsteps
were loud in the empty darkness. Maybe he overestimated himself and his men. Maybe thinking about it wasn’t useful. He unlocked his car
and got in and started it up. The headlights underscored how still and abandoned the parking lot was. He put the car in gear and drove.
He didn’t know the names of any of
Anthony’s children. There was
probably an Anthony Junior. He hoped the children wouldn’t be there
when he had to talk with Betty.
65
When Jesse got to the Lincolns’ condominium at 4:15
in the
morning, the state crime-scene people were beginning to wind down.
A couple of state homicide detectives were poking about.
“Talk to the widow?” Healy said.
Jesse nodded. Healy nodded with him.
“You ever see the den, here?”
“Lot of equipment,” Jesse said.
“Take a look,” Healy said and walked with Jesse into the
den.
On the computer screen was a candid head shot of Jesse that looked as if it had been taken when he was leaving the Paradise Police Station. The picture had apparently been cropped and blown up so that the background was hard to be sure of.
“We found it on the screen just like this when we came
in.”
“They thought I’d be dead,”
Jesse said.
“Yep.”
Healy turned and called into the living room.
“Rosario.”
One of the crime-scene technicians came into the room.
“Run these pictures through,” Healy said.
Rosario looked at the picture on the computer screen, and then at Jesse.
“Captain’s afraid of computers,”
Rosario said.
“I can’t even download porn,”
Healy said. “Run
them.”
“Yessir, Captain,” Rosario said and
clicked the
mouse.
A picture of Abby Taylor came up. Rosario clicked again. A picture of Garfield Kennedy. Click. Barbara Carey. Click. Kenneth Eisley. Click. Back to Jesse.
“They’re all blowups of candid
shots,” Rosario said. “One of
those digital cameras. You plug it into the computer and process it however you want.”
“And my picture was on the screen just like that when you came
in?”
“Yep.”
“Anything else interesting?”
“On the computer?” Rosario said.
“Nothing I can find. But maybe
the guys in the lab …”
“Make sure you don’t lose
anything,” Healy said, “when you shut it down.”
Jesse went back to the living room with Healy.
“Anything else interesting?” Jesse said.
“Place is immaculate. No sign of flight. Clothes, toothbrushes,
hair spray, all in place. Checkbooks show money in the bank. Couple credit cards in the drawer. Food in the refrigerator. Expiration dates suggest it was bought recently. Concierge doesn’t remember
them leaving yesterday. But you can take the elevator from their place direct to the lower level, and go out the side door to the parking lot.”
“Why are the pictures on the computer screen?” Jesse
said.
“I know,” Healy said. “It
bothers me too.”
“It incriminates them,” Jesse said.
“Decisively,” Healy said.
“So why display them?”
“They didn’t expect us to be
here?” Healy said.
“Or they did.”
Healy walked to the window and looked out. There was nothing to
see but himself and the room reflected in the night-darkened glass.
“They wanted us to know?” Healy said.
“Maybe.”
Jesse walked over and stood beside Healy, staring at the darkness.
“So how did they know we’d be
here?” he said.
“They had no reason to think they wouldn’t kill me,” Jesse
said.
“And if they had killed you,” Healy said,
“they had no reason to
think we’d suspect them.”
“But they left what amounts to a confession in plain view,”
Jesse said.
“To five murders,” Healy said.
“Or so they
expected.”
Behind them the specialists were packing up.
“We’re about done here,