body, came to the space at the left side of the door, and crouched.
He glanced at Millikan, and Millikan nodded in agreement. “I think so. I think that’s where he waited for the second son to come to him. He stayed low, and put the shot through the spine just under the jaw.”
Prescott stepped around the wall into the next room, then hesitated. “Was that it? Two sons?”
“Nope. There’s a third body he got in the hallway. It seems he’s a son too.”
Prescott went out the door and stared. The blood was on the end of the hall farthest from the stairs. Prescott said, “Did the cops do all the searching in the big office, or was that him?”
“He did it,” said Millikan.
Prescott stepped along the hall back into the wholesale office, where the first body had been found. The vault at the end of the room was open. Desk drawers were open, papers were thrown on the floor, left that way, apparently, because something the forensics team planned to do had not yet been accomplished. Prescott could see money, too. A few hundred-dollar bills looked as though they had been spilled from a larger pile. “Any idea how much money was in the safe?”
Millikan shook his head. “I don’t even know if that’s where it came from. If you think it was him, though, it must have been a lot. He’s not the kind who would spill eight hundred on the floor and leave it, unless there was so much that carrying it was a problem.”
“It was him,” said Prescott.
“Agreed. He doesn’t panic, so it had to be the bulk of it. He didn’t take anything but cash. There was jewelry and stuff, but he didn’t touch it.”
“Still here?”
“No,” said Millikan. “They took it downtown to lock it up.”
Prescott walked closer to the desk and knelt beside the pile of papers on the floor. “Did the cops find any kind of customer list?”
“Like a hooker’s trick book?”
“They sent couriers all over, picking up stolen jewelry and stuff, then handing it off to other people. There were sales, consignment deals, trades, It’s kind of complicated to carry in your head.”
Millikan shrugged. “They haven’t found anything like that yet.” He let his eyes settle on the bloodstained carpet near the front desk. “Maybe that’s what the old lady did—bookkeeping.”
“I suppose,” said Prescott absently. He was staring closely at the pile of papers on the floor, craning his neck and leaning over them to read without touching them. He got to his feet and walked to a filing cabinet that had been opened, the contents of one drawer dumped on the floor. He looked closely at the pile, then used a handkerchief to open the other three file drawers, glanced inside, and closed them.
Millikan said, “What is it?”
Prescott was frowning. “This guy comes to this file cabinet. He opens a drawer, goes through it. He dumps papers on the floor. The other three drawers are untouched. What does that say?”
“He found what he wanted. Otherwise, he would have done the same to the others. It was probably the money, or part of it. I have a feeling this wasn’t the kind of operation where the cash is all neatly stacked in the vault. They’ll probably find it squirreled away all over the building.”
Prescott shook his head. “He found what he wanted, but I don’t think it was money. See? The spilled money all fell near that desk. None of it came from over here.” He stared at Millikan thoughtfully. Then he began to search through the papers that had been thrown from the filing cabinet drawer.
“What was in it?”
“Old bills. Power, water, janitorial service, gardening, telephone.”
“What do you suppose he thought he’d find in there?”
“Me. He’s looking for me.”
“And what are you looking for?”
“The most recent telephone bill. There should have been one within the last week or two, and I don’t see it.”
Millikan stepped closer. “Is there any way he could use that?”
Prescott said, “The number of the guy I used as a middleman to hire him is on the older bills, but so are a whole bunch of others. It’s a complicated operation, with a lot of couriers visiting businesses all over the map.” He stopped and squinted at the wall for a moment. “I set the whole thing up almost a month ago. My guy—Dick Hobart—called here and talked to somebody—say it was the mother—and she said she would have to talk to the shooter. A few days later she called Hobart back to say he had agreed.”
“I’m not following this,” said Millikan.
“I set this up so everything would be anonymous. I made Hobart insist that all communication be done on pay telephones. I pretended that was so there would be no record of the calls, and that would protect everybody if something went wrong. It was really to convince the shooter that the job was safe, and to keep him from trying to find out more about the client.”
“So what’s the problem? Didn’t they do it?”
“Yeah, they did it. Otherwise, he would have pulled out.”
“Then what is he going to use to figure out which number on a phone bill belongs to your middleman?”
Prescott said, “He can’t know when Dick Hobart called, and he wouldn’t have any way of getting that number. But he knows what day it was when Mom—or whoever it was—asked him if he wanted to go up to Minnesota and kill somebody. He said yes, and she called Dick Hobart back. Even if he wasn’t here listening, the killer knows when that was, probably to the minute.”
Millikan picked up one of the old telephone bills. “Oh, boy. Number, city, date, hour, time.” He looked up and saw Prescott pick up the telephone receiver on the desk. “Wait, you can’t . . .” but he saw the look on Prescott’s face. “Never mind.”
Prescott finished dialing a number. “Hello?” He was talking loudly, as though the person on the other end was in a noisy place. “Is Dick Hobart in? It’s Bob Greene, and I need to talk to him right away.” He listened, then said, “Do you know where I can reach him?” He paused, then sighed in frustration. “If he comes in, tell him to take the night off, and not come back until I get there.” He pushed down the button with his finger, then dialed a second number quickly. He waited impatiently, then rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Jeanie, this is Bob Greene. I don’t know if you’re scheduled to work tonight or not. I hope you’re in class. Do not go to Nolan’s until you’ve talked to me. It’s really important. Call in sick if you have to.” He hung up.
He took a card out of his wallet and dialed a third number. “Hello. My name is Roy Prescott. I need tickets from Cincinnati to St. Louis on the next available flight.” He looked at Millikan while the person on the other end spoke. “Two. And my companion is an off-duty police officer who will need to fly with a firearm. My card number is . . .”
39
Prescott stood beside the cluster of pay telephones at the edge of the waiting area for gate A-14 and listened to the electronic voice of his answering machine. “No messages,” it said. He had been hoping that the killer would have been angry enough to leave a message that would tell him something. He hung up and looked at the desk to see if the airline people were ready to begin letting passengers onto the plane, then turned to see how Millikan’s calls were coming.
Millikan was already hurrying toward him from the next set of telephones down the concourse. Prescott could see there was news. Millikan pulled him to the wall away from the other travelers, and said quietly, “The police in Louisville have been leaving messages on my phone all day, and I just reached Lieutenant Cowan.”
“Has somebody there seen him?”
“Worse. It’s Carter Rowland—Donna Halsey’s ex-husband. They found him in his house. He was shot in the head, but nobody heard.”
“He’s moving fast.”
Millikan turned to look at him. “You’re not surprised.”
Prescott shook his head. “He’s cutting all the strings. He’s getting everybody who had anything to do with the job that got him into trouble. I was afraid he might do that.”
