The Million Dollar Detective (8)
Bart observed, "That's a nice thing about working with the Foamy Brained Imbeciles. If you need manpower to follow a hundred leads, they can do it. On the other hand, I hate to expose so many people, most of whom will be innocent, to the Feds' hostile scrutiny." "George," Bart said, "you might want to consider which of these people isn't really very smart, but thinks he is. That's your typical criminal profile. And in this case, especially, these guys know a few kidnapper clichés, but didn't work out all the details." While George pondered that, Bart pondered another question. "Where would half-stupid criminals, maybe rookie criminals, steal a van?" "What are you thinking?" Dolty asked. "I'm wondering if any vans have been stolen from the company parking lot." "None reported," Dolty said. "We did check that." "They might have returned it to the lot. Or they might have used their own." "You think they're that stupid?" "I hate to think anyone is that stupid," Bart said. "Still, could you spare a couple of agents to cruise the parking lot? It might save time versus cross-referencing all the database hits on the van and the Harley." "The Harley?" someone said and made a quick phone call. "Well," Dolty said with a shrug, "we could send a couple of guys. Most of the employees will have gone home by now. You want to wait 'til tomorrow?" "I'd rather not," Bart said. "Tomorrow, the people to watch for will be the ones who call in sick." Dolty squinted and nodded. "Why call in sick?" asked another agent. "Because," Dolty answered, "if you have a hostage to watch, do you go in to work?" Dolty smiled at Bart for the first time. To the agent, he said, "Call X and Y (he named two agents). Have them cruise the lot right now." To Bart, he said, "I like your reasoning so far. I think you might have the luck." "Oh, no question, I'm a lucky guy," Bart said (and gave Meredith a squeeze). "And, really, who needs to be good if you're lucky?" When George finished listing names, he asked Bart, "What happens now?" "This is really hard, George," Bart answered, "but now we wait. I’m out of ideas. If we catch a break, we'll jump on it. However, we may have to wait for the kidnappers to contact us again. I'm sorry. You want to fire me?" "No! No! You've made more progress in an hour than the goddam FBI has all day." Dolty opened his mouth to protest, then changed his mind. Bart rose to his defense. "George, they are helping. They're doing all the legwork. I haven't left your house." To Dolty, he said, "You want to discuss what we should do when they contact us again?" Meredith said, "I like how you went from making fun of the FBI to making friends with them. That's quite mature of you." "Thanks, I think," Bart said. He wondered if surprise at his maturity implied an insult. "A man in my circumstances--rich, tall, unreasonably lucky-- has to continually fight the temptation to act like an ass. I gave in to it when I first walked in there. People expect private investigators to make sarcastic wisecracks, too. I feel guilty after a while, though, because I really do respect the professionals. And I prefer to work with them, not against them." "Hmm, yes. Still, you can't expect everyone to like you and respect you." "No, I suppose not," Bart said. "But you like me and respect me, right?" Meredith smiled up at him. "Of course. I'm quite impressed. Though you haven't yet made it to 'They all lived happily ever after to the end of their days.'" "Well," he said, "we had to wait while poor George went slowly insane. Dolty and I got to arguing again. . . ." Bart said, "I'd like to speak to the kidnappers if they call." "No way," Dolty said. "Standard SOP is for the ransom payer to take the call while we listen in and trace it." "'Standard SOP' is redundant," Bart pointed out. "The 'S' in SOP stands for standard." "Yeah, whatever." "Plus, technically I'm going to pay part of the ransom." "You are?" "Sure. I've got two million in my safe for just--" Meredith blurted, "You keep TWO MILLION DOLLARS in your safe? Are you insane? Burglars and safecrackers will be lining up at your door!" "And going straight to prison if they try it," Bart said. "Besides, I can afford to lose it." This last statement made Meredith gape at him. She said, "How rich are you? No, don't answer. It was a rude question and I don't really want to know." "That's good," Bart said, "because I don't really know. I never make anyone's list of wealthiest people, and that's about my best hope for getting a decent estimate." Special Agent Dolty said, incredulously, "You keep TWO MILLION DOLLARS in your safe? Are you insane?" "He did not," Meredith said. Bart laughed. "No, not exactly. He did say something like it, though." Special Agent Dolty said, "Two million dollars? In your safe? And you're gonna kick that in for the ransom?" "That's what I keep it around for. It's in hundreds, though, so tomorrow we'll have to get it changed to twenties. And then we'll need to record the serial numbers." "Two million dollars," Dolty said again. "Two million dollars." Bart grimaced. He forgot how large amounts of money affected people who didn't have large amounts of money. He explained, "Bad guys often want the payoff quickly. They get mad, think you're stalling if you tell them it will take a few days to raise the money. They think you can just go to the bank and withdraw millions whenever you want. If we can offer them a partial ransom as a down payment, it may mollify them. Plus, it could give us two chances to catch them at a ransom drop." "Huh. Maybe," Special Agent Dolty opined. "It means negotiating with the kidnappers, though." He looked askance at George, then said quietly, "You don't think he can handle that, do you? That's why you want to take the call." "Yeah, that's about it," Bart quietly confirmed. "I can claim to be a trusted associate or close family friend. Well, really I am, so that's not even a lie." Bart lowered his voice further before continuing. "I can get tougher demanding proof of life, too." Dolty met Bart's eyes for a moment, then nodded sharply. There were some things you just didn't want to ask a father to do. The first break came an hour later. Dolty excitedly shouted, "They think they found the van!" It was in the company parking lot at that very moment. The registered owner, a middle-aged woman with no family, worked in George's building. A security guard discreetly determined that she was still at her desk, putting in overtime. The guard volunteered that it was common for her to work late. Bart frowned at the "middle-aged woman" part, the "still at her desk" part, and the "common for her to work late" part. That didn't sound like a kidnapper. Still, "no family" meant she probably had a nice private place to keep a hostage, and she might resent the demand for frequent overtime. Perhaps it indicated a need for extra money, perhaps too much for overtime to satisfy any longer. Dolty made quick arrangements to take her into custody and interrogate her. He offered Bart a ride to listen in on the proceedings. He also requested search warrants for the van, and the woman's house. Bart and Dolty listened from an observation room while two agents ganged up on the poor woman. To Bart's surprise and delight, she called them idiots, and demanded they let her get back to work. "I have deadlines to meet!" she snarled at them. "That damn department can't function without me. I don't know George's kid. Never met him." They tried to intimidate her by standing behind her, by moving in too close (intruding on her personal space), by talking loudly and angrily, and by threatening her with lengthy prison sentences. She didn't buy any of it. She continued to snap back at them, and expressed little sympathy for them or for George and his family. The only thing she seemed genuinely worried about was her work, languishing while her deadline ticked ever closer. Bart thought she was either the most determined liar he had ever seen, or a righteously indignant, and grumpy, workaholic. He pushed a button on the intercom and said, "Excuse me, ma'am, I'm Bart Manning. I'm in the next room. May I ask you a question?" Dolty gave him a "what-do-you-think-you're-doing?" look, to which Bart replied with a shrug. "If it gets me out of here and back to work, fine," the woman said. "Where do you keep your car keys?" Bart asked. "What? 'Where do I keep my car keys?' In my purse." She put exactly as much sarcasm into her tone as if her answer had been "up your ass." Bart smiled and asked, "Where do you keep your purse when you're at work?" "In my desk." "Do you lock the drawer?" "How could I lock the drawer when my keys are inside it?" "Do you take your purse with you when you leave your desk?" "No. I take my wallet. I wouldn't leave any money in there." Bart raised his eyebrows at Dolty. Dolty slowly closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead. Bart asked the woman, "Do you always park your van in the same spot?" "Yes. Well, usually." She identified her favorite parking space. One special agent in the interview room perked up at this and said to the one way glass, "That's not where we found it. It was two rows further out than that." "Who moved my van?" the woman demanded. "Ma'am, we think somebody borrowed your van without permission and used it in the commission of a crime," Bart said. "Would you mind if we looked it over for evidence as to who might have done that?" "If it gets me out of here and back to work, FINE," the woman said again. Meredith laughed, "She reminds me of a woman I work with, a real snapper, but one of our best workers." Chapter Thirteen Bart released the intercom button and said to Dolty, "Could we have one of your men drive her back to work?" "Are you nuts?" Dolty said. "She's a suspect in a kidnapping. Okay, maybe somebody lifted her keys, or made duplicates or some such, but we don't know that," Dolty pointed out. "Nah," Bart said. "It's not her. She just wants to do her work. She gave us permission to search her van. We don't even need that warrant. You could have an agent watch her." "For how long?" Dolty wanted to know. "'Til we crack the case? We could check her alibi, make sure she was working when the crime went down." "She said she was at work then? I don't remember that." "Do you really think she was anywhere else?" Bart said. "It's safer to hold her here," Dolty insisted. "Yeah, you're right," Bart said. "It's just I feel kind of bad keeping her from her work. I hear it's pretty important." Dolty, incredulous, simply stared at Bart. "Well, we can at least check with George. He knows her, and might even have seen her at work," Bart suggested. George laughed when they told him whose van they had found. He couldn't swear he had seen her during the critical time period, but said he didn't have to. "You didn't seriously suspect her, did you? No way. She lives for work. She's one of those people who, if she won the lottery, would keep her job. And she's a real stickler for the rules. If the cashier gives her too much change, she'll force her to take the extra three cents back." He laughed again, then cut it short to say, "Hey, you aren't keeping her from her work, are you? She's one of the few indispensable people in my department. She's got a project due. You gotta let her get back to that." This made Bart chuckle and Dolty mutter. He agreed to take her back to the office, supervised by two agents. "Dammit," Dolty complained. "We got nothing." "Maybe we'll get lucky, and the bad guys left prints in the van," Bart said. "And the security cameras in the parking lot might show us something." The very poor quality security tapes showed a blurry person in a hooded sweatshirt climb into the van and drive away. Two hours later, they reappeared. The driver never exposed his face to a camera. The feds tried to enhance the videotapes, but the technician eventually told them, "We can enhance, but we can't invent. If the data's not there, it's just not there." The successful evasion of the cameras suggested the car thief knew about them. More evidence of inside knowledge. Security rules did not require employees with proper ID badges to sign in or out during normal working hours. The crime scene techs found no prints of the kidnappers in the van. They did, however, find the boy's fingerprints-- Bart said, "Instead of calling him 'the boy' or 'the kid,' do you mind if I call him Tommy?" "No, it's your story, feel free," Meredith said. They found fingerprints in the back of the van that matched prints they lifted from Tommy's room. They found a number of suspicious fibers and hairs, some of which might one day help convict the criminals, but did not come with names or addresses attached. One good thing, they found no traces of blood. Depression set in as they found themselves waiting once more. A detective tried cross-referencing the employees still on the suspect list with owners of Harleys, but this yielded no hits. The Harley rider either wasn't the inside guy, or didn't own a Harley registered in the state of Michigan. Since Bart wanted to take the kidnappers' call, he couldn't go home. He had put that plan on hold when they found the van, but once determining it was a false lead, he worried the whole way back to George's house that the kidnappers would call while he was out. Henderson brought over his toothbrush, a neck pillow for sleeping in a chair, and two large cases of money. The money impressed the police and FBI agents very much. Henderson also brought a money- counting machine with a computer hookup for recording the serial numbers while it counted. Bart delicately broached the plan to George. George's eyes grew wide, but he said, "If you're sure, Bart, I'll go along." "Well, George, that's the problem. We can't be sure. I'm willing to talk to them, and to pay them the two million. I think I can handle it more calmly than you. But this is one thing that's really your decision." George made as if to speak, then stopped and thought about it. How he could possibly think clearly with his son in the hands of kidnappers, Bart did not know. Perhaps George realized this himself. He said, "Bart, if you can do this, I think I'd rather you did. I don't know what I'd say. I might blurt out the wrong thing. If I did and my son . . . How could I live with myself?" George was a tough businessman who made multi-million dollar decisions with confidence. Now, he visibly trembled and had tears in his eyes. It was not lost on Bart that George had essentially said, "I'm trusting you with my son's life." Bart couldn't speak in reply. He put his hand on George's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. In a low voice, Meredith said, "Bart, you assured me this story has a happy ending. But the risks were so great. Do your cases often have such high stakes?" "My minimum fee is a million dollars. The stakes are high by definition." In reply to this, she squeezed him tighter around the waist and said, "Do get to the happy part soon, if you can." "I promise," Bart promised, "it does get happier. It even gets funny, in a pathetic, stupid way." The kidnappers called at eight the next morning. The caller ID unit indicated it came from a cell phone (recently stolen) belonging to a person George had never heard of. Bart answered the call with half a dozen FBI agents and police detectives gathered around, taping it and listening on headphones. They made George wait in another room. Bart said, "Hello. This is Ryan Pitt," making up a name by combining two fictional action heroes. The voice on the other end, a man's voice, sounding muffled, said, "What? Who? Where's George?" "I'm sorry, George is indisposed. I'm a family friend, and his financial advisor. Are you one of the guys who took Tommy?" "What? Yeah, we got the kid. Why can't George come to the phone? What's wrong with him?" Trying not to sound too sarcastic, Bart said, "Someone kidnapped his son. He's pretty messed up. He was hysterical and the doctor sedated him." "Oh," the voice said, "yeah, right. Okay. Hang on a sec." The listeners could hear indistinct voices, as if the caller were discussing this wrinkle
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