The Baby Mission Read online

  “Thank God for paranoid people,” C.J. commented. Taking her purse out, she kicked the drawer shut again. “Let’s go see that witness and get that picture.”

  “You don’t really think there’s anything to this, do you?” Culpepper had walked in just in time to get the general gist of the story. He looked dubious now.

  “Hey, Son of Sam was caught because of unpaid traffic tickets,” C.J. reminded him. “Stranger things have happened. Solving a case requires hundreds of hours of dedicated work—and one lucky, totally unrelated break. I hope this is ours.” She looked at Warrick. “Wanna join me?”

  “As if you could stop me,” he rejoined, heading out the door right behind her.

  “Hey, it was my phone call,” Rodriguez called after them.

  “And we’ll see that you get full credit,” C.J. promised. “All I want,” she told Warrick as he pressed for the elevator, “is this guy’s head on a platter.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me.”

  “First time for everything,” she quipped as she got into the elevator.

  Chapter 12

  Harry Maxwell was a quiet, soft-spoken man in his midthirties. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a run-down building that was situated in the heart of Santa Ana. A trace through the DMV using the photograph of the rear of the vehicle with its license plate supplied by their paranoid witness had led them to Maxwell’s door.

  After they had identified themselves, Maxwell had hesitantly let them come in. It was clear that the mild-mannered man was not at his best with people. He told them that he liked dogs best. There were three of no particular breed in the apartment that C.J. could see. Possibly more in another room.

  He’d led them to his postage-size living room and offered them a seat on his sagging corduroy sofa. Harry perched on the coffee table, the only other furniture in the room besides an old TV mounted on a shipping barrel older than he was.

  Small brown eyes bounded back and forth from C.J.’s face to Warrick’s as he patiently answered their questions about his vehicle.

  He nodded twice at the last question. “Yes, my car was parked by William Mason Park three nights ago. I’m not sure about the time.” The admission was made fearfully. “Was that illegal?” His voice was hurried, breathless as he made his apology. “I’m sorry, I stop there all the time. Mostly at night. To think. There’s nobody there then. I like it better that way. I won’t do it again if it’s wrong.”

  He made C.J. think of someone who had the word victim painted in neon colors on his forehead. The kind of man who, when he was a boy, everyone ridiculed. Even the geeks.

  Was it an act? Or the truth?

  Warrick was incredibly patient as he calmed the man down. “We just want to find out if you saw anyone there that night.”

  After taking a moment to think, Harry shook his head vigorously. “No. Some ducks, but that’s all. Should I stop going there?” he pressed. It was clear that he hoped the answer was no.

  C.J. smiled at him kindly. “It might be a good idea to go when the park’s open. There’s no attendant at night.”

  At night the gate was closed, but it didn’t really offer much of a deterrent. Except for a small three-foot wooden fence around the perimeter, the park was wide-open, easily accessible from the road on foot. Bedford had a low crime rate. People tended to feel safer there.

  Until they were killed, C.J. thought.

  A shy smile twisted the man’s lips as he looked at C.J.. “Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

  C.J. exchanged glances with Warrick, then took out her card. “If you happen to think of anything unusual you might have seen that night after we leave, please give me a call.”

  He read the card intently. “Yes, ma’am, um, Special Agent…” Harry’s voice trailed off as he looked at her hesitantly again, obviously at a loss as to what to call her.

  “Agent Jones will do,” C.J. told him. She rose to her feet. Warrick followed suit. She nodded at Harry. “Thank you for your time.”

  C.J. waited until she and Warrick were back inside their own vehicle before turning to him and asking, “What do you think?”

  “Could be an act,” he allowed. “But right off the top of my head, I’d say he’s genuine, which means he’s not our guy.”

  She buckled up as he started up the car. “He looks about as harmless as an anesthetized flea.”

  There was a break in traffic and Warrick darted in. Someone honked impatiently behind him. He glanced at C.J. “I’m trying to picture that.”

  If he wasn’t their man, then they were back to where they started, wading through the endless phone tips that came in with nothing else to go on. “Never mind, let’s just drive back.”

  The streets in that part of Santa Ana were narrow, barely allowing enough room for the flow of single-lane traffic and parked cars by the curb. Warrick waited until they were stopped at a light. There seemed to be one every few hundred yards. “So, any news about the christening?”

  Father Gannon was still in Ireland. It seemed, miracle of miracles, that his eighty-three-year-old mother had rallied and was on the mend. C.J. had spoken with the secretary, who seemed very hopeful about the priest’s pending return. C.J. was keeping her fingers crossed. Father Gannon had been the one to marry her parents and had officiated at all five of their christenings. She was determined that he would baptize her daughter, as well. No one else would do.

  “Tentatively it’s set for two weeks from Saturday.”

  Warrick took his foot off the brake. They began inching their way to the next light. “Your daughter’s going to be applying to college before she ever gets baptized. Or a middle name.” He slanted a quick look at her profile. “You haven’t by any chance—”

  “No,” C.J. snapped, knowing exactly what he was going to ask. “I haven’t.”

  Warrick grinned as he shook his head. “Touchy.”

  She wasn’t touchy, she was desperate. And it wasn’t as if she had a clear head and could concentrate on nothing else. There was the added complication of the serial killer they were trying to catch, not to mention that her personal life had been set on its ear because of one fatal slip in a motel room. She was as afraid as ever of getting hurt, but now not quite so sure that she was swearing off all men for life.

  C.J. concentrated on the dilemma under discussion. “Look, this is getting worse, not better. Every time I think I have a name, I use it a couple of times and it just doesn’t feel right calling her that.” She shrugged. He was a man, he wouldn’t understand. Men understood very little.

  Warrick blew out a breath. “You’re making this way more complicated than it is. Names don’t have to feel, C.J., they just have to be.”

  She frowned deeply. Why did she ever think she’d get any support from him? “You’re beginning to sound like my mother.”

  Warrick laughed at the comparison. “I’m not insulted. I like your mother.”

  “A little support wouldn’t hurt, you know.”

  “I gave you support,” he reminded her. “I came over with not one names-for-the-baby book, but two. Any normal person…” His voice trailed off. “Sorry, forgot who I was talking to.”

  “Very funny. I’ll come up with a name and it’ll be perfect.” She sighed as she looked out the window. They were still going nowhere. In so many ways. “Back to canvassing,” she murmured, sliding down a little in her seat. She hated going around in circles, ending up where she’d started.

  His sigh was an echo of her own. “Yeah.”

  C.J. rubbed her temples. Everything was getting blurry.

  She’d been at it for the past four hours straight, staring at screen after screen of inmate names. It felt as if she was going cross-eyed. This was probably going to lead nowhere, just like everything else. She began to doubt the validity of her initial premise, that the killer had been locked away for three years, unable to continue his gruesome spree.

  Maybe she should just knock it off for the time being, do something more usefu
l. C.J. started to close the program when a name caught her eye.

  She blinked and looked at it again, then blinked one more time, almost convinced that she was imagining it. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time she’d misread a name.

  The name remained where it was. In the center of the list of inmates released from the county jail in the last six months.

  She was afraid to raise her eyes, afraid the name would disappear. This was too good to be true. Too good to be a coincidence. “Hey, Warrick?”

  “What?”

  He realized that he’d snapped the word at her. The combination of sifting through endless “tips,” all of which had to be investigated before being disregarded, and the tension that had all but become a permanent part of his day had momentarily gotten the better of him.

  He had help with the sifting, everyone on the task force was taking turns at that. But the tension, well, that was a whole different matter entirely. That was his own damn fault.

  His and C.J.’s.

  He should never have followed through on his curiosity that night. If you don’t know, you don’t miss. And he did. Missed the feel of her. Missed making love with her. Missed it a great deal.

  Could that kind of thing happen after just one night together?

  He didn’t think it could, but then, if it couldn’t, why did he feel this way? As if he’d been turned inside out and every part of him was aching to have her again. He hadn’t even felt this way when he’d slept with his ex-wife the first time.

  The memory of his ex-wife threw cold water on his thoughts. Now there was one hell of a mistake, marrying her. His ego wasn’t inflated, but he knew he was sharp when it came to working his cases, sharp when it came to picking through clues. But he was hopelessly inept when it came to relationships that didn’t involve a Bureau-issued vehicle or weapon.

  “Sorry,” he apologized, running his hand over his forehead. “Just tired. What have you got?”

  She knew she shouldn’t allow herself to get carried away, but there had been so many dead ends that the slightest glimmer of something turned into a veritable rainbow of multicolored lights.

  She put her finger on the screen, marking her place and looked over toward Warrick. “Guess who was released five months ago from the county jail?”

  “The Easter Bunny, I don’t know, C.J. It’s a little late to be playing games.” Despite his less-than-cheerful mood, he got up and came up behind her to see what her sudden burst of excitement was all about.

  “Harry Maxwell.” She read what was on the screen despite the fact that Warrick was standing behind her and could see for himself. “He was convicted of driving around in a stolen vehicle. Claimed he thought it was his. First-time offense, extenuating circumstances and a little creative lawyering got him a reduced sentence.”

  “What is it about Maxwell and cars?” Warrick commented. Unlike C.J. he reserved his excitement until they could come up with something more tangible.

  “I don’t know.” She was beaming at him. “But guess how long he was in prison?”

  Warrick skimmed down the screen, reading. “Three years.”

  “Bingo.” She swung her chair around to face him. “Give the man a prize.”

  Because the change in position placed her practically against him, C.J. moved her chair back again. Spears of heat went through her. Stupid time for a carnal reaction, she upbraided herself. She was getting paid to work on the case, not foster the hots for Warrick.

  “So, what do we have here?” Warrick reviewed the situation out loud. “A man who’s been out of circulation for three years—”

  C.J. held up a finger. This was not to be shrugged off. “The length of time that the killings stopped,” she emphasized.

  “And his car is seen near the vicinity where the body of the last victim was found.” He looked at C.J. She knew better. “Circumstantial evidence, nothing more. The grand jury would never indict on this.”

  She sighed, deflated. “I know, I know, we need something else.”

  He turned her around to look at him. She had good hunches and he’d learned to listen to them, no matter what he said to the contrary. “Do you really think that guy’s our killer?”

  C.J. could tell by his tone that Warrick was highly skeptical. She could see his point, even agree with his point after meeting Maxwell, but something didn’t allow her to rule the man out.

  “Ted Bundy was gregarious,” she reminded him. “Nobody thought he did it, either. And he never fit any profile they came up with for the killer.”

  A noise in the doorway had them both looking in that direction. Rodriguez and Culpepper walked in, one more tired looking than the other. They sank down in their respective chairs, both sighing almost simultaneously.

  “Where’ve you been?” C.J. looked from one man to the other. “You both look as if someone wiped the floor with you.”

  Culpepper grumbled, digging into his pocket for another stick of nicotine gum. “Alberdeen’s got us talking to the families of the victims again, trying to find some kind of link between them other than their looks.”

  Warrick moved closer. “And?”

  Rodriguez looked disgusted. “Still zilch.” He nodded at C.J. “He’s got us asking questions you should be handling.”

  She knew he didn’t mean that as an insult, but Rodriguez, like Culpepper, had some very definite ideas about male and female territory. “Like?”

  He pulled the top off the soda can he’d brought in with him and drank deeply before answering. “Like where they shopped, what beauty parlor they went to, you know, girl stuff.”

  C.J. laughed. She could just hear what the two men had to say about the assignment when the A.D. had given it to them. “Consider it an education for when you get married.”

  “I don’t need an education.” He drank again, obviously totally parched. “Jane goes to a place called Nina’s. I don’t like her going because it’s not in the best neighborhood, but she raves about it. Wants me to go get my hair styled there, too,” he laughed incredulously, running a hand through his mop of curling black hair. “Can you just picture that, me in a place like that? I told her real men don’t get their hair styled.” He thumped his chest. “Just cut.”

  “Nina’s?” Culpepper echoed, chewing on the name. “Hey, wasn’t that the name of the beauty parlor the last victim went to the day she died?” His dull eyes brightened as he looked at his partner. “Her mother said something about her wanting to look her best for that party.” He glanced at the bulletin board where the young woman’s photograph had been added to the others. “Poor kid.”

  Warrick suddenly started riffling through his notes. Pads and loose pages began sliding down right and left, some falling on the floor. Culpepper stared at him, puzzled. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’ve heard that name before.” Finding the right set of notes seemed almost impossible. His desk had taken on the appearance of the aftermath of a particularly devastating tornado.

  “How?” C.J. pressed, getting up and crossing to his side. Offhand, she didn’t remember hearing the name. “One of the people we interviewed?”

  “No, one of the victims.” He was digging through things with both hands, stopping to read, then discard. “I think she was working there before she was killed.” He suddenly remembered the name and went to a different pile. Warrick scanned a couple of notes, then held the spiral pad aloft. “Yeah, here it is. Victim number one. Claire Farrel.” He read further. “No, I was wrong, she wasn’t working there, she’d quit the week before.”

  More coincidences? C.J. wondered. But something in her gut told her that they were more than just that. She stood on her toes, trying to read over Warrick’s shoulder. The man’s handwriting made chicken scratch look like perfect penmanship.

  “I give up,” she declared, then looked at him for the answer. “Do we know why she quit?”

  That wasn’t in there. Warrick flipped the pad closed. “Anybody’s guess.”

&nb
sp; Guessing right was the name of the game. For the second time that day, her enthusiasm began to build. She looked at the three men in the room. “How did we miss this before?”

  Rodriquez shrugged. “I dunno, it fell through the cracks, I guess. Probably didn’t seem important at the time. Hey, we’re only human.”

  She nodded. That they were. She tried to think positively. “What matters is that we found it now.” She looked at the three men. “Okay, we’ve got two victims who went to Nina’s. Let’s find out if the others went there, too.”

  “So what have we got here?” Culpepper grumbled. His tone indicated that he thought it was all a tempest in a teapot, one of his favorite expressions. “They were stalked by an irate beautician?”

  “We might have a connection,” C.J. emphasized. “Who knows where that’ll lead us?” She stopped and looked at the older man. “You have a better idea?”

  “Yeah,” Warrick cut in, “instead of pawing through illegible notes, why don’t we just go to Nina’s and get a client list?”

  “Brilliant.” C.J. already had her purse out of her drawer. She kicked it shut. Culpepper groaned. “Warrick and I’ll go. You two get your beauty rest.” She turned to her partner. “Last one to the car’s a rotten egg.”

  It occurred to him, as he hurried to catch up, that he liked the way her face lit up when she was being enthusiastic about something.

  The woman who owned and ran Nina’s was a still semi-attractive woman in her midsixties. She gave the impression of having been a knockout when she was younger and behaved as if she still believed that to be true. She’d all but devoured Warrick with her eyes as she listened to him.

  C.J. felt as if she might as well not be there, for all the attention the woman was paying to what she had to say.

  The owner balked at the idea of producing her client list until Warrick reiterated C.J.’s request. With a surrendering sigh and something about never being able to say no to a good-looking man, the woman pulled up her client list on the antiquated computer.