He still looked a little lost.
I looked at my watch. “Probably still in the second quarter.”
That seemed to help him focus. “Well, I came out of the mall, right, and um, I saw this girl who looked pretty cute and so-”
“You were following her,” interrupted Ralph.
I glared at him, and he backed off.
“No, I mean, why would you say that?” Then he turned to me. “Why would he accuse me of that?”
“Andy, you’re rubbing your fingers together. You’re shifting your weight back and forth from one leg to the other. You won’t look me in the eye. You’re nervous, maybe scared that if you admit you were following her, you’ll become a suspect. But you’re not in trouble with us. We have no reason to think you wanted to harm her; but someone might have hurt her, Andy. Her name is Jolene. The girl’s name is Jolene.”
He looked back and forth from me to Ralph, then sighed heavily. “OK. I was following her, but I wasn’t trying to do nothin’. I was just, you know, I thought she was cute and stuff.”
“Tell me about the guy you saw. The one who was standing over here”-I walked toward the fifteen-year-old sedan-“by her car.”
He looked confused. “Yeah, that’s where he was standing. How did you know?”
“Sightlines,” I said. “Here you’re not in the pool of light from the parking lot lights, but you can see both directions on the road, and you have easy access to Jolene’s car.” I glanced at Ralph. I knew he was thinking, This is a waste of time, Pat. Get the kid to talk or let me at him. I’ll make him talk.
I walked back over to Andy. “Now, please. Just tell me what you saw-”
“He killed her, didn’t he?” Andy started shaking.
At first I thought I should lie, tell him that everything was OK, that the girl was fine. But then I decided to play it straight and give him the God-honest truth. Every minute we wasted meant less chance of finding her alive. “He might have, Andy. Or he might want to. Help us find him. Please. Help us protect her.”
A look of horror swept over his face. “Oh, man. She’s dead. I can’t do this.”
Lien-hua put her hand on his shoulder. “My name is Lien-hua, Andy, and I know you think that you didn’t see anything important. But I want you to think back. How tall do you think the man was? Was he much taller than her or the same height? Was he Caucasian or black, or maybe Hispanic? Did you maybe see his face?”
He finally seemed to regain his composure. “He looked big. Tall, I mean. And I think he was white. He was wearing some kind of uniform.”
“A uniform?” I said. “Like a police officer?”
“Sort of.” Andy pointed toward one of the uniformed men nearby. “Like that.”
“Mall security,” I mumbled. “That’s it. That’s how he was able to get close to her.” I turned to the officers who had driven us here. “Get me a list of all the mall security personnel. And custodians too. Anyone who might have access to their uniforms.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s good, Andy,” said Lien-hua. “Is there anything else? Anything at all?”
He glanced at the crowd and then back at me. “I don’t know. She was looking through her purse, I think. That’s it. That’s all. She pointed at me, and I saw the guy turn his head toward me, but his face was all in the shadows. When I saw the uniform, I thought maybe I was in trouble or something, so I cut between some cars.”
I looked at her car. It was an old beat-up Toyota Camry, typical college student car, probably with more than two hundred thousand miles. I knelt down and shone the beam of my Mini Maglite under her car and then the one next to it. I caught the glint of something behind the tire. I pulled on a latex glove, reached into the shadows, and grabbed the object. Lipstick.
Ralph walked toward me. “Whatcha got?”
I showed it to him.
He turned to Andy. “You said she was looking through her purse?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would a girl be standing by her car looking through her purse?” I asked Ralph. “What would she be looking for?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Lien-hua spoke up. “Her keys. Maybe she was looking for her keys.”
Why? Why here? Why then?
“Her keys. She was looking for her keys,” I whispered, “but she couldn’t find them because they weren’t there.”
“So where were they?” Lien-hua.
I pointed to an empty parking spot about five meters away. “He had them. He had her keys. And he was ready for her at her car. Her car is older, probably doesn’t have keyless entry. People without keyless entry tend to take their keys out later, when they’re right next to their car. The lipstick tells me she was here when she tried to find them. Otherwise, if she had keyless entry, she would have pulled out her keys earlier, maybe halfway across this parking lot. Our guy knew that. Maybe he chose her just because of the age of her car. This guy is good.”
“But why would he take her keys?” asked Lien-hua. “If he knew which car was hers, why not just grab her when she was getting into it?”
I slipped the lipstick into an evidence bag and thought for a moment before answering. “Because he wanted to watch her look for them. He’s into it for the game. He likes to watch.” As I said the words, a shiver snaked down my back. “He likes to watch,” I whispered again.
“And?” she said. “So?”
I spun around. A crowd of people stood behind a police line about a hundred meters away. There were already half a dozen plainclothes men sweeping the crowd. So many murderers and arsonists return to the scene of the crime that it’s standard operating procedure to photograph the crowds. But our guy would know that. He wouldn’t be in the crowd.
Where else? A car, maybe? Was he in one of the cars in the parking lot? I stepped onto the hood of the car next to me and scanned the other side of the parking lot. An Applebee’s restaurant. A couple fast-food joints. A Jiffy Lube. “I want this entire area closed down. Do it quietly. I don’t want to spook him. He’s here.”
“In the crowd?” asked Ralph.
“No, not the crowd. Somewhere else.”
“How do you know?” said Lien-hua.
“Because if I were him, that’s where I’d be.” I pointed toward the row of restaurants. “I want a sweep of every one of those restaurants. And we need to make sure there isn’t anyone in any of these cars.”
That’s when I saw it. A walkway leading from the mall to a parking garage. It was perfect. You could look across the whole parking lot but then slide down and escape in either direction, to a car in the garage or back into the mall. Perfect exit route.
As I trained my eyes on the footbridge, a man in a leather jacket and a baseball cap turned suddenly and began to walk back toward the parking complex.
I pointed and jumped down from the car. “That’s him.”
The guy was hurrying now, almost out of sight.
“Where?” shouted Ralph, pulling out his weapon.
“The walkway. There. Cut him off!” Even as I said the words I was sprinting across the parking lot, barking out orders to the officers standing around us. “Seal off the parking garage. Don’t let anyone out!”
A few officers gawked at me for a moment and then joined me in pursuit. “Cut him off in the mall!” I hollered. The officers split off and raced to the mall entrance.
I burst through the door to the parking garage and scanned the area. Nothing. Then I heard footsteps in the stairwell. I leaned over, looked up, and glimpsed movement on the landing above me. “Stop! I’m a federal agent!”
He didn’t stop but stepped through the doorway and disappeared.
I exploded up the stairwell and pulled out my. 357 SIG P229. I threw open the door and stared at the rows of cars. No one. He had to be behind a car somewhere. Or inside one.
“Step out with your hands in the air!” I swung the gun in front of me, leveling it with both hands, looking for a flicker of shadow, a trace of movement, anything. “I said, step out with your hands up!” My words echoed off the cement walls. No reply. My heart was hammering. He was here. He was close. I didn’t know if he was armed or not, but I had to assume he was.