Don't Lose Her Page 2

  I knew Diane was a creature of habit. She ran her life like clockwork. As she’d risen in the ranks from West Palm Beach lawyer to statewide prosecutor and then on to the federal bench, she prided herself on efficiency, keeping ahead of the docket, taking on the toughest cases with the clear-eyed view of justice that her father, a lifelong judge himself from a prominent, third-generation Florida family, had instilled in her practically from the womb.

  The only time she’d blinked in her life was when she fell in love with Billy, an equally prominent attorney in his own right. But Billy was a black lawyer from Philadelphia who, though brilliant, rarely tried cases and preferred to work behind the scenes, juggling law and investment work for a bevy of clients. Their mixed-race marriage had ruffled the feathers of Palm Beach society, but they had weathered the initial storm. The more they acted as if it didn’t matter, the more their friends adopted the same attitude. When Diane announced her pregnancy, the family finally softened. A grandchild will do that.

  “One of her aides came across an officer on the sidewalk in front of Nature’s Way, where Diane goes for salad. The patrolman was taking a report from a bystander,” Billy had said.

  “The woman said she’d seen someone pulled against their will into a white van and she’d called 911 on her cell.”

  “It was Diane, Max. Same clothes, same description, same timeline. Someone abducted her. I need you at the scene. I’m at her office. The FBI is already setting up a tap on all the phones here in case a ransom demand is made. But I need your eyes on the street.”

  I was still recalling the words and involuntarily scanning the southbound lanes for a glimpse of a white van when I ran up on the tail of an SUV doing the speed limit in the left lane. I hit the brakes and the horn. No movement. I flashed my headlights. No movement.

  I turned on the side spotlight mounted on the left side of the door of my 1989 Plymouth Gran Fury and aimed the beam into the SUV’s driver’s side rearview. He finally slid over and I punched up the four-barrel police pursuit engine and leaped up to ninety miles an hour.

  The car, a classic, was a present from Billy after the resolution of a case we’d worked on a year earlier. I’d nearly destroyed my F-150 pickup truck during a chase, and Billy’s often subtle humor prompted the gift. Replete with old blackwall tires and small hubcaps, the car is anything but inconspicuous. I can’t use it on surveillances, but it’s often invaluable when getting from place to place on South Florida’s interstates and the turnpike. Back in the day, it was a standard highway patrol car across the nation. It weighs a ton and is very, very fast.

  A quarter mile from the Okeechobee exit, I flipped on my right turn signal and started working my way across four lanes of 70-mph traffic. I cut people off. I came dangerously close to back bumpers. I did the kinds of things I detest in other drivers and I apologized under my breath and kept going.

  When I got to Federal Highway, I cruised through a yellow left-turn light and headed north again. When Billy had given me the address of Diane’s abduction, I knew exactly where I was going. The spot was right next to Centennial Park at the east end of Clematis. At lunchtime, the downtown streets would have been thick with pedestrian traffic, folks walking to lunch, window-shopping, living life on a warm South Florida afternoon.

  I knew the area because the World of Beer is just around the corner. Before I could make the turn onto Datura, I saw the spinning red-and-blue police lights that sealed off the crime scene on the next block. I spent ten bucks to park in a local lot and walked the rest of the way. I was already scanning the walls of retail stores for video cameras set up by the various businesses and spotted two on the south side—none on the north. But I was encouraged by the presence of multiple cameras on the PNC banking center and one mounted on top of the traffic signal above the intersection up on North Dixie Highway. There was hope.

  “Max Freeman,” I said to the uniform who stopped me at the orange-and-white striped barricade blocking all pedestrians and vehicles from entering the eastside block.

  I flipped open my ID case with my private investigator license displayed. “FBI Agent Howard is expecting me.”

  The West Palm Beach cop couldn’t have been much into his twenties. He took the license and did a full-body scan of me, practically putting the photo on the ID up to my face for comparison before pulling back the barricade to let me pass. Maybe he was being careful and maybe he was doing a pre-application act for the feds. He pointed out a tall, blond-haired man in the requisite dark suit of the FBI and passed me on. I thanked him.

  Agent Howard was standing, head down, speaking into a cell phone as I approached. He was a couple of inches shorter than me, a few pounds lighter in that slim way that FBI agents are. He was wearing the standard-issue sunglasses through which I knew he would have been checking my approach, sizing me up, wondering who the hell I was from behind those dark-tinted lenses.

  He ended his phone conversation just before I got within hearing range.

  “Agent Howard, my name is Max Freeman,” I said, offering my hand. I could only see a slight movement of his eyes behind the glasses, impossible to read. He did not take my hand and remained silent, as though measuring his response.

  “You’re the private dick,” he finally said. It was a statement rather than a question, with a slight emphasis on “dick.”

  It is my policy not to answer rhetorical statements. Ask me a question, I’ll respond. Otherwise, I’ll wait you out. I stood silently.

  “Well, you’ve got a lot of pull, Mr., uh, Freeman,” he said as if he was already forgetting my name. “Word from up the line is that I should give you some cooperation in my own investigation. That’s breaking policy. You must have some connections.”

  I held to my own policy and waited for a question.

  The agent made a show of looking around me, up at the buildings across the street, around the corner on Narcissus where the crime scene techs were focused on something against the nearby curb. Finally, he gave in.

  “What can I answer for you, Freeman?”

  It was a legitimate question. I can answer questions.

  “I know you’re only a couple of hours into this,” I said, modulating my voice, purposely being deferential despite the fact that a very good friend of mine had apparently been abducted and thus was in imminent danger. But I knew where emotion fit into the profession­, and knew how not to show it.

  “I have no intention of getting in your way, or outguessing you, Agent Howard. The abducted judge is a close friend. I have worked for her husband for many years.”

  Howard did not nod or indicate in any way that he was listening. Maybe he had the same policy as I did in regard to statements.

  “The husband, my friend, is the one with connections in high places. And he will be more comfortable if I’m his eyes on the street, following your investigation. I believe he will thus be more cooperative. And I believe that cooperation can only aid you in finding Judge Manchester unharmed.”

  Again, the agent looked up to the buildings across the street. He was going to offer an opinion, and I frankly didn’t care as long as he didn’t order me away. I said nothing and instead followed his sightlines to do a quick inventory.

  The second floor of the facing buildings appeared to be offices or simply storage space above the commercial stores on the ground level. The blinds on most of the windows were closed. Howard would have already had agents or assisting officers canvas those rooms to talk with anyone who may have seen something relevant.

  There was one PNC surveillance camera mounted on the west-side wall that appeared to be focused on the sidewalk, but it could have caught something in the street. The other was on the south corner of the building, again pointed down. Howard would have already ordered the confiscation of any video from both sources. But that could take time depending on how frequently they were monitored, where their feeds went, and whether the compan
y that controlled them would be cooperative or ask for a warrant. Nothing happens as fast as it does on a television crime episode.

  The camera that was mounted on the traffic signal to the east was a better bet. It was a fairly new addition to South Florida law enforcement. The cameras were meant to capture a picture of the license plate of any vehicle that ran a red light; thus a violator could be ticketed for breaking the law even without an officer witnessing the act. The lawyers were still trying to overturn the use of such surveillance, saying it was somehow unconstitutional. If you break the law and no cop is there to see you, did you break the law? Some lawyers make money on such things.

  When I looked back at Howard, our eyes met.

  “We’re doing the cameras,” he said. He’d been watching me. “We got the description of a white Chevy van and a plate from the traffic camera already. The plate came back to an elderly couple in Delray Beach who didn’t know what we were talking about until we showed them the bare plate-holder on the back of their Seville still parked in their driveway. The video techs are trying to zoom the traffic cam photos to pick up the VIN plate under the windshield glass to ID the van, but good luck with that.”

  Howard was not completely unlike me. He didn’t totally believe in the magic of technology.

  “The witness on the street said she made out three men, including a driver. She said men because they all wore black and had ski masks over their heads and faces. Two of them pulled the judge into the open slide door of the van and they left in a screech, according to her.

  “Another wit, up there,” Howard pointed to an open window on the second floor across the street, “looked out at the sound of the screech and noted the van blowing through the light and heading west.”

  He then pointed down at the huddle of technicians at the curb.

  “Despite the shit you see on CSI, they’re not going to find tire tread size and the composite makeup of vulcanized rubber and then match it to the manufacturer and run down the purchaser and an address of the van owner before the next E*TRADE smartass baby commercial.”

  This I knew, believe me. I had also surmised the rest of it, or Howard wouldn’t still be standing here.

  “We’re still looking for the van, wherever they finally ditch the thing, but this scene is just about done, Mr. Freeman. You might as well join your friend over at the courthouse and wait with him for the ransom call.”

  I looked into the dark lenses of the agent’s glasses, maybe finding his eyes. The feds never tell you everything. Like good poker players, they always hold something back.

  “Was anything found here?” I said.

  The sunlight flickered on his lenses when he tilted his head, subtly looking away.

  “Diane was going to lunch, carrying her purse, and considering her court status, always kept a cell phone in that purse,” I said.

  Howard took his time.

  Even if Diane had turned her cell off—and she never turned it off—the signal could have been traced and triangulated to determine her location, sometimes within a few yards.

  “We found her purse three blocks away up past Quadrille,” Howard finally said. “It appeared to have been tossed out the window. The cell and her wallet with cash and cards were still inside. There was no indication they even opened it, but we’re having it printed just in case.”

  No chance of tracking the cell signal. No chance these were idiots who would stop at the 7-Eleven to buy beer with her charge cards. They’d gambled big, but they were not just your average thugs. They were smart and they didn’t care about small change. I knew those facts would take this abduction to a whole new level, a whole new motivation.

  I thanked Howard for being candid and for his time and he accepted my handshake.

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” he said. “We will get her back.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I answered. “I know we will.”

  Chapter 5

  Now, she noted a slow turn, the way the van crawled, the screech of worn brake pads beneath her ear, still pressed against the floorboards. Diane had calmed herself. The knee that pinned her down had eased up when she stopped struggling and she’d curled herself up. She felt another inching right turn. The wheels bumped over a small ridge and then she heard the distinctive sound of metal sliding against metal coming from outside the van, the sound echoing. Garage door? Big one. In a large empty enclosure. Warehouse?

  Brains not brawn, Diane, she thought. You’re a 140-pound pregnant woman. You can’t fight them. You have to outsmart them.

  No one had said a word during the entire ordeal. No shout, no orders or directions given. She had seen two—no, three—men, including the driver, before they’d pulled the cloth over her head. But in her memory there were no distinguishing features. Dark clothes, maybe dark eyes inside the mask on the face of the one she did see. But were they the eyes of a white man? A black man? Asian, Hispanic? She couldn’t say for sure. It had all happened so fast; it was insane.

  She felt the van stop and heard the sliding van door through which they’d dragged her being opened. Again, hands came up under her arms and dragged her out, this time with two people, one on either side, holding her up. She gained her foothold and stood, realizing for the first time that her shoes were missing. They must have come off when they pulled her into the van. They were flats she’d bought when she was at six months and her ankles had begun to swell. It was a totally bizarre thought, one that came from some involuntary synapse in her brain, but damn, she’d liked those shoes.

  The surface she stood on now was cool to the bottoms of her feet, flat and hard like concrete. When the men pulled her forward roughly, she grunted in pain, her belly again feeling heavy, swinging a split-second behind each movement. It felt like it did when she rolled over in bed too quickly to answer the phone, or spun too quickly to catch an elevator door at the last moment.

  In the last month, it was as if her stomach was an attachment; the weight of the baby and swollen placenta sometimes seemed independent of her own body. She’d grinned at the feeling the first time she noticed it. She was not grinning now.

  They marched her across a hard flat floor, twenty-six paces. She was now counting, paying attention, determined to keep her head working instead of panicking. Then they hesitated a moment, and she could feel the hands under her armpits lift slightly, drawing her up. The top of her bare foot scraped across an immovable object. The hands continued to drag her up. She felt a flat surface, warmer like wood, and she stood on it. They were going up steps.

  When she hesitated, the man on her left yanked at her. She moaned, and the gesture of pain seemed to cause the man on the right to stop and ease his grip slightly. She needed to remember the reaction from the one on the right: Was it a sign of compassion? Keep a focus on him, she thought. Try to keep track of him.

  It took her a couple more steps up before she caught the rhythm and began to count: one, two, and three … seven. A landing, then a turn to the right, and then seven more.

  At the top, they turned left. She tried to see under the hood, but there was nothing but blackness. Maybe the lights were off. Maybe the place was windowless. Maybe there was some sort of loose elastic around the hood and they’d somehow cinched it, but she could feel it around her shoulders. It’s dark, just dark. But these guys are still moving as if they know each step without seeing. Where the hell are we?

  It was fifteen paces on another wood surface at the top of the stairs and then the sound of old hinges crying, followed by an abrupt turn to the right. When she was spun and pushed backward roughly, she panicked and thought they might actually be tossing her over the side of some elevated walkway. A bubble rose in her throat. But before she could scream, the backs of her knees hit something soft, and she sat heavily on some kind of chair … no, sofa … no, mattress.

  She heard the hinges again and then the clack of a door being closed. Silence.
She tried to calm herself on the mattress. She felt the roughness of the fabric beneath her with her fingertips: wool, scratchy, thick wool. She breathed in the air. She could smell the heat, the odor of old wood, stale air, dried cardboard, and a slight, pungent whiff of sweat. Not hers.

  She thought of her heartbeat, then of her baby’s heartbeat, then admonished herself to focus and went back to her own heart rhythm. Calm yourself and listen, she commanded. She breathed deeply several times. Had they dumped her alone in a closed room? Finally, she took in a lungful of air, held it, and concentrated. There was another breath in the room, a most subtle sound of air moving rhythmically, in and out, and in and out. Not far away and to her right.

  “Who are you, my keeper?” she suddenly said. “My captor?”

  Silence.

  “I know you’re here,” she said.

  She listened again to the nearby breath, but now it was gone or was being held.

  “I can see you there,” she lied, and tipped her head in the direction she thought the breathing had come from.

  “I can see through this stupid hood and I know exactly where we are. Do you really think you can kidnap a federal judge and not have every law enforcement agency in the United States coming after you?

  “They’ll find me, you know. And it will be very hard on you all. Do you know the penalty for abducting a federal judge?”

  This time, she was quiet for several seconds. You can’t hold your breath forever, she thought. After what seemed an impossibly long time, she heard it. The breath was louder, no doubt from the effort to hold it in the lungs for so long.

  Then Diane heard the creak of wood and the slightest swish of fabric. She thought she actually felt something. Was it her imagination or was that air against her? Was it the actual displacement of the oxygen in the room as her captor moved? She tried to sit up, to get her feet flat on the floor, but the baby made it impossible to use her stomach muscles. And with her arms bound at the wrists behind her, it was a hopeless task. She tried to roll over on her side to aid the effort and heard the structure beneath the mattress creak.