“In that block are there connecting basements?”
“I don’t know.” Madigan said this slowly and hit a button on the landline. A tone filled the room, then the rapid eleven digits of a phone number being dialed.
“Fuentes.”
Without identifying himself, Madigan barked, “We’re thinking he might’ve snuck out through the basement. The hardware store next door? They share a basement?”
A pause. “Let me check. I’ll get right back.”
Three minutes later they got the news that Dance suspected they would. “Yep, Chief. I went down there. There’s a door. It’s unlocked.”
“Evacuate the theater,” Dance said. “We need to be sure.”
“Evacuate?” Fuentes asked.
Madigan was staring at her. Then he said firmly, “You heard Agent Dance, Gabe. Get the lights on and evacuate.”
“The theater isn’t really going to want to …” His voice faded and he realized this wasn’t the time to be worried about business relations in economically challenged Fresno. “I’ll get on it.”
Ten minutes later, Fuentes came back on the line. Dance knew from the first word, “Chief,” what the story was going to be.
Madigan sighed. “You’re sure he’s gone?”
“There weren’t that many people inside, it being early. Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Damn,” Stanning muttered.
But the limp in Fuentes’s voice came from another source as well. “And I have to tell you…. While I was keeping an eye on the theater? I was in the restaurant?”
“I know, you told me. What?” Madigan growled.
“Somebody broke into my cruiser.”
“Go on.”
“I wasn’t thinking, I had a Glock in the backseat. It was in a box and under my jacket. I don’t know how anybody could’ve seen it or thought it was there.”
Dance knew from the way he volunteered the information that the gun hadn’t been hidden at all.
“Goddamn it!” Madigan shouted.
“I’m sorry. It should’ve been in the trunk. But it was completely hid.”
“It shoulda been home. That’s your personal weapon. It shoulda been at home.”
“I was going to the range tonight,” the deputy said miserably.
“You know what I gotta do, Gabe. Don’t have any options.”
“I know. You want my service piece and shield?”
“Need ’em. Yeah. I’ll get the paperwork done today. We’ll have the inquiry as fast as we can but it’ll be three or four days. You’re out of commission till then.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Bring your stuff in.” He stabbed the speakerphone button.
Harutyun said in his low, stress-free voice, “It could be one of the gangs.”
“It’s not one of the gangs,” Madigan snapped. “It’s our fucking stalker. At least if we find it on him, he’ll go to jail for a long, long time. Hell, this’s one clever son of a bitch. He got Fuentes suspended and a nice big gun, to boot.”
Dance looked at the lyric sheet they had pinned up on a badly mounted corkboard.
“Where’s he going to strike? A river … a river.”
“And,” Crystal Stanning added, “who’s he got in mind for the next victim?”
Chapter 23
“MARY-GORDON, STAY OFF that. See the sign?”
“It’s not moving, Mommy,” the six-year-old pointed out. Suellyn Sanchez reflected what perfect logic that was. The warning sign on the baggage carousel: STAY OFF THE MOVING BELT.
“It could start at any minute.”
“But when the light comes on I can get off.”
How they tested the limits.
The mother and daughter were at the arrivals area in Fresno–Yosemite airport, their flight from Portland having arrived twenty minutes early. Suellyn looked around for their ride. Saw no one yet and turned back to the girl. “And it’s filthy. You’ll get your dress stained.”
That risk apparently didn’t carry much weight either. But all it took was one “Mary-Gordon,” uttered in a certain tone, that very special tone, and the cute blonde stepped back immediately. Funny, Suellyn thought, she and her husband never laid a hand on the girl, never even threatened spanking, and their daughter was far better behaved than the children of neighbors who did wallop their kids—all in the name of raising them right.
Sadists, she thought.
And then reminded herself to chill. Bobby Prescott’s death had cast a pall over everything. And how was Kayleigh holding up? She and Bobby had quite a history, of course, and Suellyn knew that her kid sister would be reeling from the loss.
The poor thing …
And the possibility that he’d been murdered?
Maybe by that gross stalker who’d been bothering Kayleigh for the past few months. Terrible.
She remembered Bishop’s call that morning, after she’d learned the sad news from Kayleigh. The conversation with her father had been conducted in the clumsy way he bobbled nearly everything personal. Suellyn was thinking it was odd that he’d called in the first place, much less to ask if she’d come to Fresno to support her sister during this tough time … until Suellyn realized: Bishop would want to share the bereavement duty with someone else. Anyone else. Well, no, he’d want to hand off the job completely if he could.
But who knew his real motive? Their father was both transparent and unreadable.
And where was the luggage? She was impatient.
Suellyn resembled her younger sister in a vague way. She had a wholly unsupported theory that the greater the distance in age, the less siblings looked like each other. Eight years separated the two, and Suellyn was taller, of broader build and fuller face, which couldn’t be traced to the fifteen pounds she had on her sister. Her nose was longer and her chin stronger, she felt, though her light brown hair was of the same fine, flowing texture, light as air. Today she was prepared for the assault of a late Fresno summer, in a burgundy sundress, cut low in front and back, and Brighton sandals, whose silver hearts covering the first two toes fascinated Mary-Gordon.
Even in this outfit, though, she was uncomfortably hot. Portland had clocked in at 62 degrees that morning.