Opening Moves

she needed to know, then asked her to get some officers to start calling moving companies that had trucks out today. She informed him that Richard Basque had been transported to the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center for surgery on his broken jaw.

“Do we know the name of the victim yet?”

“Not yet. But she has a tattoo on her left ankle. A custom job. We’re calling parlors now to try to find out who did the artwork.”

Ralph thought about Tod, about the victim, about what he could do right now. He told Gabriele, “I’m gonna go talk to Basque.”

Then he hung up and took off.

Joshua left the boy in the moving truck in the parking lot of the Kohl’s department store where he’d purchased the shoes earlier in the day and where his car was waiting for him.

An anonymous phone call to the police would lead them to the truck, which he’d rented under a false name. They would find Tod Walker in the back, safe and sound.

Once in his own vehicle, Joshua turned on the police scanner and heard that a man named Richard Basque had been arrested at a slaughterhouse in Milwaukee. By the sound of it, by the description of what he’d done to the woman, Joshua realized it was almost certainly the man who’d killed the women in Ohio and Illinois, the Maneater.

The suspect had been transported to the medical center to be treated for “injuries sustained during his apprehension.”

Joshua had a decision to make: stay clear of Basque or go and meet him.

If he’s transferred to jail, you might not get another chance.

Perhaps the safer choice would be to lie low, see how things played out, but the desire that’d been lurking inside him for so long, the one that’d led him to orchestrate all of this-that overriding longing to meet someone like himself, a partner, someone who would understand him-was so overpowering that in the end Joshua couldn’t hold himself back.

Once he was on the road, he called in Tod’s location from his portable phone, then directed his car toward the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center.

While we flew to the hospital, I tried to piece the case together.

Who was capable of doing something like this? Committing these crimes this week?

Everyone is capable of the unthinkable, Pat. All of us are, you told Taci that yourself.

Motives.

You can never untangle people’s motives.

But who? Who was he?

He knows the city, knows that neighborhood near the train yards…He went to Pewaukee to steal the Taurus…He got the mattresses from the mission…

According to Calvin, our guy used that boxcar as his anchor point and most likely lives or has an activity node in the Franklin Heights area.

Everything matters.

Yes, and he knows drugs, had access to Propotol, could’ve met Adele when she was in Milwaukee after that fender bender.

After she was taken to the hospital.

Wait.

The kidnapper got his hands on an amputation saw, had a connection to the homeless mission- they offer free medical care.

A doctor could’ve gotten into the school, convinced that secretary that he needed to talk to the Walker children.

Oh, there was definitely something I needed to check on.

We were close to the medical center. I could call it in as soon as we landed.

98

The helicopter nestled onto the landing pad.

The paramedics had bandaged my shoulder and my leg and given me some saline solution in an IV, and I was much less dizzy now than I’d been outside the bank.

As soon as we were in the building, I told them unequivocally that I needed a phone. They tried to hold me back and get me a hospital gown since I had no shirt on, but I hobbled to the nurses’ station, and, despite the objections of the woman behind the desk, I picked up the receiver.

I reached Officer Gabriele Holdren at HQ. Apparently, she’d already spoken with Ralph and he hadn’t been able to get to the moving truck before it got away.

“Gabriele, pull up the accident report of when Adele Westin had the traffic incident last summer and had to spend the night at the medical center. See if you can find out who the doctor was who treated her-we might not have it, but the hospital will if you can find the date.”

But even as I said the words, other thoughts about the case caught me, carried me in another direction entirely.

Tod’s kidnapper had referred to Radar by his nickname, but only people at the department did that. He hadn’t drawn undue attention when he dropped off the shoebox. It had to be-

Someone who knows Radar…who knew to switch the plates on the stolen car to bypass an APB, someone who’s been to crime scenes and knows how to avoid leaving prints, DNA.

I thought again of big guys on the force. Caucasians approximately six feet tall.

Wait.

Thompson was the one who first dug up the copy of Griffin’s catalog, he goes to church in the Franklin Heights area…

I could hardly believe what I was considering.

He used to patrol over by the train yards. He was there at the bank just now … He was the one standing sentry by Colleen’s door on Monday…

Thompson had left this morning to check on the Franklin Heights addresses. The next time I saw him was at the bank. He would’ve had time to get Tod and drive over there. The timing worked.

Timing and location. It’s always about timing and location.

We were looking for a person who could get access to the children in the school…

Who could do that? A social worker? A doctor? A counselor?

Or a police officer.

I told Gabriele, “And find out who the responding officer was at the accident.”

A pause. “The responding officer? You think our guy is a cop?”

“Just do it. And locate Thompson. I’ll stay on the phone. Is there any word on the victim from the slaughterhouse? Who she is?”

“Not yet. But we’re looking into it.”

“Where’s Basque?”

“Should be there at the hospital by now. Ellen and Lyrie are guarding him. Ralph is on his way.”

“Okay, radio Thompson and pull those accident reports ASAP.”

I asked the nurse at the desk where Basque’s room was and she looked it up while I waited for Gabriele to get back on the line.

Joshua arrived at the hospital.

It wasn’t hard for a man with his credentials to find out where they were treating the suspect from the