“Adams, if you spot her, don't frighten her.”
After calling Faith's name out again, Winter dialed Kimberly Porter's cell phone again. This time Adams answered it.
“Third level. Inside the stairwell.”
Winter ran up the stairs and found Adams holding the phone in his raised hand.
“It was just sitting on the steps.”
“She left a false trail,” Winter told the federal agent. “She's long gone. I think she planted the pack on the floor below, then came up to dump the phone and went out or doubled back. She could have gone into the building next door.”
“She could be anywhere,” Adams said. “We need a psychic.”
“Exactly. Go down and tell Suggs we would like a K-9 and a handler.”
67
The small-framed, wiry German shepherd walked beside its handler, a thin NOPD officer who could have easily passed for a high-school student. Adams walked behind them. Winter wanted to start at the last place Faith Ann had been, for good reason. While Adams went for the animal, Winter had gone back down, gotten her cap from the backpack, and brought it back to the second-level stairwell where Adams had found the phone.
“Deputy Massey, this is Patrolman Gale,” Adams said. “And his partner Beaux-Beaux.”
“He's got a great nose,” the young cop said proudly.
Winter opened the door, reached in, and picked up the cap, which he had placed on the concrete floor. He handed it to Officer Gale, who held it down for the dog to sniff. Beaux-Beaux focused on the scent, made a quick circle, came straight back to the door, lowered his head and froze before the door, growling.
“He's alerting,” Gale said.
Beaux-Beaux started up the first riser, then whirled and came back down.
On the first level, the animal stopped at the door and signaled to go out. He found Faith Ann's backpack and led his handler toward the ramp down.
Winter directed the handler to take Beaux-Beaux back into the stairwell, and the animal excitedly began a descent.
“She doubled back,” Winter said.
At the bottom floor the dog led them through the double glass doors into Canal Place, but the dog didn't head straight into the area. He stopped at an unmarked steel door, put his nose to it, and barked.
Winter tried it. “Locked.”
“Beaux-Beaux says she went in there,” the handler assured them. “We can get maintenance to open it.”
“Allow me,” Adams said. “You better turn your back, Officer Gale.” He reached into his coat and took out what appeared to be a fountain pen. He popped it open and poured a pair of lock-picking tools into his palm. Using one as a tension bar, he worked the other one carefully. Within seconds Adams opened the door, and Beaux-Beaux pulled his handler through.
The animal worked its way down two hundred feet of hallway and through several doors, finally leading the trio through a physical plant packed with pieces of machinery working hard to perform tasks required to keep the building supplied with air and water.
The animal took them on a curving course between water pumps and around vents and pipes before coming to a pair of doors. They entered a wide companionway where a janitor, working within some plastic warning cones, was mopping what looked like vomit from the tiles. Beaux-Beaux sneezed violently. The scent of bleach had interrupted his trail.
Winter looked up the hallway, past where passing people hugged the wall to avoid the filthy mop water.
“Hold Beaux-Beaux here,” Winter told Gale. He and Adams walked down the hall and to an exit that opened into the lobby for the Wyndham Hotel. Faith Ann was nowhere to be seen.
Nicky's voice came over Winter's radio. “ Massey?”
“Go ahead, Nicky.”
“You alone?”
“Just me and Adams at the moment.”
“I spotted the kid. I mean I think it was her.”
“Where?”
“She crossed the street from the aquarium, went over to the ferry's pedestrian walkway, got onto the ferry. I went after her, but the boat was already leaving when I got there.”
“Drive. Take the bridge over,” Winter told him sharply. “See if you can spot her. We'll be there as fast as we can get loose without creating suspicion.”
68
Faith Ann had slipped out of the hotel, made her way around the power station, and crossed the intersection near the aquarium. Police cars were everywhere, but the cops were focused on Canal Place. Crossing the intersection along with a noisy group of tourists, she passed by the concrete benches. She went up the staircase to the pedestrian walkway to the ferry.
She couldn't have timed her escape better, because as she hurried onto the moored vessel the ferry's horn blasted and the deckhand closed the steel-wire door. Within seconds she was down the stairs to the car deck, standing at the bow of the USS Thomas Jefferson, gazing across the river at Algiers Point.
As the cool wind evaporated the sweat from her face, Faith Ann went back over the escape. She had hastily switched sweatshirts in the parking deck. She had run up to the fourth level and left her cell phone there. They had the number and were somehow able to track her down when she used it. Instinctively, she knew she needed to slow her pursuers, to keep them busy trailing her without getting too close, while she figured out how to get to Mr. Massey. She had seen enough television shows to know the cops could listen in on calls if they had a number, and they could track the phone's location.
She had escaped for the moment, but there could still be cops waiting for her. She had the strangest feeling that an angel had guided her steps. She would call Rush again as soon as she was near a phone.
The envelope was tucked inside her pants, hidden by the thick, hooded gray Tulane sweatshirt. Carrying the negatives and photocopies around was too risky. She needed to hide them somewhere safe. She only had eight hours until Horace Pond was going to die.
Without any plan in mind, she closed her eyes and prayed silently. She was aware that several teenagers had joined the crowd at the bow. She looked around and saw that the boys and girls were obviously not related, and they had all come from a stretched GMC passenger van parked thirty feet away. The side door of the vehicle said UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST, HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI. There were luggage cases in an aluminum cage on the van's roof and a ladder leading up from the rear bumper.
Faith Ann picked out a boy close to her own age and sidled over to him. “Hi there. You guys on a field trip?”
“Nah. A stupid Bible bee contest in Barataria, Louisiana.”
“Bible bee?”
“Like a spelling bee, but only with words from the Bible.” He shrugged. “Some trip to New Orleans. Like we go right to the French Quarter, and instead of going to see Bourbon Street or something cool, they march us through some church, get us some lame powdered doughnuts, then drag us to see a bunch of stupid fish. Now we're crossing the Big Muddy to enjoy some dumb scenery before the contest.”
“That's messed up,” Faith Ann said sympathetically.
“Tell me about it.”
“Can you do me a favor, you think?”
The boy eyed Faith Ann suspiciously. “Is it anything I could catch grief over?”
Faith Ann shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe.”
“Cool,” the boy said, smiling.
69
Winter knew Faith Ann would beat Nicky to Algiers Point by a good ten minutes, but since the girl was on foot there was a chance he might spot her on the sidewalks.
As long as the cops didn't know she was on the ferry, Nicky had an advantage.
Winter and Adams returned to find Gale waiting with his dog.
“She exit?” Gale asked.
“She didn't go that way,” Adams said with certainty.
Winter nodded his agreement. “Guy who's been there for the last fifteen minutes said nobody came through the lobby from here.”