The lobby of the Denver PD headquarters was a madhouse.
The first thing I noticed was the din, a rumble of voices that pushed out into the rainy afternoon as soon as I opened the outer glass doors. Clyde and I stepped inside, helped by a slap of wind.
“Press is going nuts,” said a voice.
I turned to see a twenty-something man in jeans and a hoodie standing in the small antechamber, dismally eyeballing the rain.
“Fucking zoo in there,” he said to me, shaking his head. “I got things I gotta take care of. But ain’t no business going on today.”
I peered through the next set of doors where a throng of men and women milled about the large space. They wore suits and dress shoes, with damp raincoats slung over their shoulders. A lot of them carried cameras or held up smartphones. Reporters.
I glanced at my watch. The press conference was more than an hour away. Which explained why Tom O’Hara was still at his desk.
The man in the hoodie muttered something that sounded halfway between a curse and a prayer and launched himself into the storm. I wiped my boots on the damp carpet, took a firm grip on Clyde’s lead, then, with Mauer’s sealed cardboard box balanced on my hip, pulled open the next set of doors.
The din became a roar. The smell of perfume, hairspray, and wet clothes hit like the draft downwind of a shopping mall, the restless mood somewhere between a basketball game and a wake. Police headquarters was, for the moment, the epicenter of the tragedy that had exploded into the Davenports’ lives. The rain and police barricades would have sent all but the most optimistic reporters away from the tracks where Samantha had died and the cement factory where Lucy had vanished. No doubt a few reporters were in Wash Park, filming the Davenport home from a distance and talking to any neighbors who were willing. Some might be at the ME’s office, hoping for early word on the autopsies, or at the hospital, trying to ambush a nurse or surgeon about Ben.
But it looked like most of them had shown up here.
Off to my left, an anchorwoman with coiffed hair and a pale-pink suit stood in front of a camera, speaking into a microphone.
“. . . in this developing tragedy. Eight-year-old Lucy Davenport has been missing for approximately twelve hours, according to a police spokesperson, who offered little additional information. We do know that police have been talking all morning to Lucy’s grandfather, billionaire businessman Hiram Davenport.”
I shifted the box against my hip. Clyde’s eyes were everywhere, he and I equally uncomfortable in the throng. We spent most of our hours alone, often in the wild open spaces of northern Colorado and Wyoming, where the only evidence of humans were the train tracks we patrolled. Crowds were places where people hid guns and bombs and moved with murderous intent. Crowds were Iraq.
I pushed down my unease, knowing Clyde would read it through his lead and take his cue from me.
“No worries,” I told him.
I spotted Special Agent McConnell on the far side of the room, standing against the windows. She’d geared up from composed to intense, maybe feeling the weight of minutes ticking by. Her eyes met mine and she waved for me to join her. Clyde and I pushed through the crowd.
“Special Agent McConnell,” I said. “Are reporters usually so early for a press conference?”
“Please, call me Mac.” Her face was pale in the dull afternoon light, her injured eye a smoky blue-black. Behind her, rain washed down the windows. “Word is they’ve finished getting a list of possible suspects from Hiram Davenport and he’s on his way down.”
I fished in my duffel, handed her a copy of the CD. “Video from the train recorder.”
“Ah. Thank you.”
I tipped my chin toward her face. “You tried bilberry for that?”
“What?”
“Your eye. Bilberry extract. It’s got antioxidants that strengthen the capillaries. Reduces the bruising.”
An eyebrow went up. “You have a lot of experience with black eyes?”
“I used to trip a lot.”
“Ah.”
“Yours?”
“Sometimes I trip, too.”
Above the noise, the clear ping of an elevator sounded on the other side of the lobby.
“Speak of the devil,” McConnell said.
The anchorwoman gestured to her cameraman. “It looks like he’s coming down.”
The din quieted to the rustle of clothing and an occasional cough, the mob tightly focused, everyone straining forward. The anchorwoman murmured something to her cameraman, and he jostled to move a few feet closer to the elevators. For a moment the mob—with their bright eyes and eager faces—made me think of a pack of hounds about to fall on a fox.
The moment broke into a buzz of voices as the elevator doors opened.
“Any word on your granddaughter, Mr. Davenport?”
“Is your son out of surgery?”
“What are you feeling right now, Mr. Davenport?”
“No questions,” a man said. I recognized Lieutenant Engel’s deep baritone. The crowd parted as Engel and three uniforms shouldered their way through, followed by Denver PD’s media coordinator. Engel and the officers had surrounded a sixth man and were hustling him in the direction of the doors. Hiram Davenport. All I could see of him was his high forehead and wavy gray hair.
But I knew that if they’d wanted to keep Hiram away from the reporters, they could have smuggled him out through the tunnel that runs underneath the plaza and comes out at the crime lab. There was a plan in play.
Halfway across the lobby, the group came to an abrupt stop. I had a better view now. Engel murmured something in Hiram’s ear, but the old man was shaking his head at whatever the lieutenant offered. Finally Engel nodded and motioned for the uniforms to step aside. Hiram stood suddenly alone in the center of a small space. The overhead lights shone down on him like a consecration, and the room went quiet again.
Dressed in gray slacks, a white polo shirt, and a navy nylon rain jacket, the first impression Hiram Davenport gave was of a wealthy man making his way from the golf course to the private dining room at the club.
But a closer inspection stripped him of that veneer. The titanic energy that had powered his presence on the podium during yesterday’s newscast had vanished; he looked like something tossed up on the beach by a storm and left to shrivel in the heat. He was gray under his tan, with a hollowness in his eyes that I recognized—the look of someone living through things no one should.
He cleared his throat. “Thank you for being here.”
Even his voice was different—just a ragged whisper. Only the quiet of the crowd made it possible to hear him. “I will not take any questions at the moment.”
A murmur rose, and Hiram raised his hands. He looked around the lobby as if measuring every man and woman there. The crowd quieted again, the faces earnest and willing. No matter his grief, Hiram could still manage a crowd.
“I am not at liberty to discuss my family’s case. That is not why I asked you here.”