He gulped a breath and swallowed hard. Loren let him take his time.
"After a couple of hours, I picked Sam up and held him in my arms. I didn't sleep. I didn't put him down. I just kept holding him. My wife says it was three full days. I don't know. I just knew that if I kept Sam in my arms, if I kept watching him, then death couldn't take him away from me."
Yates seemed to drift off.
Loren spoke softly. "I still don't see the point."
"Well, here it is," he said, his voice back to normal. He locked eyes again. His pupils were pinpricks. "They threatened my family."
Yates put his hand to his face, then back down as if he wasn't sure where he wanted to put it. "When I first started this case," he went on, "they set their sights on my wife and kids. So you understand."
She opened her mouth, said nothing.
The phone on the desk rang. Loren picked it up.
Lance Banner said, "We lost Matt."
"What?"
"That kid who lives with them. Kyra, whatever. She started screaming and… Anyway, his wife is here. She says that she was driving the car, not him, and that she doesn't know where he is."
"That's crap."
"I know it."
"Bring her in."
"She refuses to come."
"Excuse me?"
"We have nothing on her."
"She's a material witness in a murder investigation."
"She's lawyering up. She says we either have to arrest her or let her go."
Her cell phone chirped. Loren checked the caller ID. The call was originating from Max Darrow's house.
"I'll get back to you." She hung up the office phone and clicked on the mobile. "Investigator Muse."
"This is Gertie Darrow. You left me a message?"
Loren could hear the tears in her voice. "I'm sorry about your loss."
"Thank you."
"I don't mean to disturb you at such a terrible time, but I really need to ask you a few questions."
"I understand."
"Thank you," Loren said. She grabbed a pen. "Do you know why your husband was in Newark, Mrs. Darrow?"
"No." She said it as though it was the most painful word she ever uttered. "He told me he was visiting a friend in Florida. A fishing trip, he said."
"I see. He was retired, yes?"
"That's right."
"Could you tell me if he was working on anything?"
"I don't understand. What does this have to do with his murder?"
"This is just routine-"
"Please, Investigator Muse," she interrupted, her voice up a notch. "My husband was a police officer, remember? You're not calling me at this hour for routine questions."
Loren said, "I'm trying to find a motive."
"A motive?"
"Yes."
"But…" And then she quieted down. "The other officer. The one who called before. Investigator Wine."
"Yes. He works in my office."
"He told me that Max was in a car, that"- there was a choke in the voice but she kept it together-"that he had his pants down."
Loren closed her eyes. So Wine had already told her. She understood, she guessed. In today's society of openness, you couldn't even spare a widow anymore. "Mrs. Darrow?"
"What?"
"I think that was a setup. I don't think there was any prostitute. I think your husband was murdered for some other reason. And I think it might involve an old case of his. So I'm asking you: Was he working on anything?"
There was a brief silence. Then: "That girl."
"What?"
"I knew it. I just knew it."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Darrow. I'm not sure what you mean."
"Max never talked about business. He never brought it home. And he was retired. She had no reason to come around."
"Who?"
"I don't know her name. She was a young thing. Maybe twenty."
"What did she want?"
"I told you. I don't know. But Max… after she left, he was like a madman. He started going through old files."
"Do you know what the files referred to?"
"No." Then: "Do you really think this could have something to do with Max's murder?"
"Yes, ma'am. I think it might have everything to do with it. Does the name Clyde Rangor mean anything to you?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"How about Emma Lemay or Charles Talley?"
"No."
"Candace Potter?"
Silence.
"Mrs. Darrow?"
"I saw that name."
"Where?"
"On his desk. There was a file. Must have been a month ago. I just saw the word 'Potter.' I remember because that was the name of the bad guy in It's a Wonderful Life. Remember? Mr. Potter?"
"Do you know where the file is now?"
"I'll go through the cabinets, Investigator Muse. If it's still here, I'll find it for you and call back."
Chapter 44
MATT LEARNED HOW to steal cars in prison. Or at least, that was what he thought.
There was a guy named Saul two cells over who had a fetish for joyriding with stolen cars. He was about as decent a guy as you'd meet in prison. He had his demons- his seemingly more innocuous than most- but the demons did him in. He got arrested for stealing a car when he was seventeen, then again when he was nineteen. On his third go-round, Saul lost control of the vehicle and killed someone. He'd already had two priors so he got a life sentence.
"All that stuff you see on TV?" Saul had told him. "That's all crap, unless you want a specific make. Otherwise, you don't jam the lock. You don't use tools. And you don't hot-wire. That only works on old cars anyway. And with all the alarms, you try most of that stuff, the car will lock down on you."
"So what do you do?" Matt asked.
"You use a person's car keys. You open the door like a human being. You drive away."
Matt made a face. "Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. What you do is, you go to a crowded parking lot. Malls work great, though you gotta look out for the rent-a-cops circling around. Those big superstores are even better. You find an area where people won't be watching you much. You just keep walking and running your hand over a front tire or under the bumper. People leave their keys there. They also keep them in those cute magnets under the driver's-side fender. Not everyone. But hey, at least one in fifty. You do that enough, you'll find a key. Voilà."
Matt wondered. His prison info was at least nine years old and perhaps obsolete. He had been on foot for more than an hour- first making his way through the woods and now keeping off main roads. When he reached the corner of Livingston Avenue, he grabbed a bus to the campus of Bergen Community College in Paramus. The ride took about an hour. Matt slept for all of it.
Bergen Community was a commuter school. There were tons of cars driven by carefree coeds. Security was almost nonexistent. Matt began his search. It took almost an hour, but as Saul promised, Matt eventually hit pay dirt in the form of a white Isuzu with a quarter tank of gas. Not bad. The keys had been hidden in one of those magnets above the front tire. Matt got into the car and drove toward Route 17. He didn't know Bergen County all that well. It might be smarter to go north over the Tappan Zee but he chose the route he knew over the George Washington Bridge.
He was on his way to Westport, Connecticut.
When he reached the GWB, he worried that the toll booth operator would recognize him- he even went so far as to rip the bandage off his head and replace it with a New York Rangers cap he found in the backseat- but that didn't happen. He switched on the radio and listened to the news- first, 1010 WINS for twenty-two minutes, then CBS 880. In the movies they always interrupt for a special bulletin when a man is at large. But neither station said anything about him. In fact, there was nothing on any of it- nothing about Max Darrow or Charles Talley or a fleeing suspect.
He needed money. He needed a place to sleep. He needed some meds. The pain had been held in check by the flow of adrenaline. That was ebbing now. He'd only slept about an hour in the past twenty-four, and the preceding night, what with the pictures on his camera phone, hadn't brought him much slumber either.