It was impossible to predict whether Faith Ann would stay in the deck, maybe hide in or under a car, or if she had gone into the main complex, which was what he would have done. He didn't think the police could get her out of the building without Nicky seeing the activity, but he doubted Suggs would risk having the Feds catch them at it. Suggs was either going to be very cautious now, or act in the rash manner of a desperate man. Winter hoped the captain wasn't feeling desperate yet. But since he didn't know the man, nor how dirty Suggs's hands might be, there was no way to judge what he might do.
There were a lot of places for Faith Ann to hide, but if she tried to exit the building the cops would get her for sure.
On the first parking level, after he had yelled out several times, he spotted a backpack next to the stairwell door. There was nothing on its exterior to indicate that it belonged to Faith Ann, but he knew it was hers. As soon as he saw the dark red sweatshirt and zoo cap inside, he radioed to tell Adams and Nicky that Faith Ann had changed her clothes. He had no way of knowing why she'd abandoned the pack where it would be found, unless she'd decided that it had become part of the description of her that her pursuers were going by. He wondered if she had done it to lead her pursuers in the wrong direction. If she was older, more experienced, he would have assumed it was calculated misdirection.
There was nothing else in the backpack of help, and nothing to indicate that she had been lugging it for any reason other than to hold a change of clothes. He lifted out the new Walkman-the one whose packaging he had found under the porch. He opened the battery compartment and saw that the batteries were the same brand as the two she'd left behind under the house. He put it back. Before standing, he turned his head and spotted the earphones beneath a nearby car. He reached under and lifted them out. Why had Faith Ann thrown them there?
“Adams, if you spot her, don't frighten her.”
After calling Faith's name out again, Winter dialed Kimberly Porter's cell phone again. This time Adams answered it.
“Third level. Inside the stairwell.”
Winter ran up the stairs and found Adams holding the phone in his raised hand.
“It was just sitting on the steps.”
“She left a false trail,” Winter told the federal agent. “She's long gone. I think she planted the pack on the floor below, then came up to dump the phone and went out or doubled back. She could have gone into the building next door.”
“She could be anywhere,” Adams said. “We need a psychic.”
“Exactly. Go down and tell Suggs we would like a K-9 and a handler.”
67
The small-framed, wiry German shepherd walked beside its handler, a thin NOPD officer who could have easily passed for a high-school student. Adams walked behind them. Winter wanted to start at the last place Faith Ann had been, for good reason. While Adams went for the animal, Winter had gone back down, gotten her cap from the backpack, and brought it back to the second-level stairwell where Adams had found the phone.
“Deputy Massey, this is Patrolman Gale,” Adams said. “And his partner Beaux-Beaux.”
“He's got a great nose,” the young cop said proudly.
Winter opened the door, reached in, and picked up the cap, which he had placed on the concrete floor. He handed it to Officer Gale, who held it down for the dog to sniff. Beaux-Beaux focused on the scent, made a quick circle, came straight back to the door, lowered his head and froze before the door, growling.
“He's alerting,” Gale said.
Beaux-Beaux started up the first riser, then whirled and came back down.
On the first level, the animal stopped at the door and signaled to go out. He found Faith Ann's backpack and led his handler toward the ramp down.
Winter directed the handler to take Beaux-Beaux back into the stairwell, and the animal excitedly began a descent.
“She doubled back,” Winter said.
At the bottom floor the dog led them through the double glass doors into Canal Place, but the dog didn't head straight into the area. He stopped at an unmarked steel door, put his nose to it, and barked.
Winter tried it. “Locked.”
“Beaux-Beaux says she went in there,” the handler assured them. “We can get maintenance to open it.”
“Allow me,” Adams said. “You better turn your back, Officer Gale.” He reached into his coat and took out what appeared to be a fountain pen. He popped it open and poured a pair of lock-picking tools into his palm. Using one as a tension bar, he worked the other one carefully. Within seconds Adams opened the door, and Beaux-Beaux pulled his handler through.
The animal worked its way down two hundred feet of hallway and through several doors, finally leading the trio through a physical plant packed with pieces of machinery working hard to perform tasks required to keep the building supplied with air and water.
The animal took them on a curving course between water pumps and around vents and pipes before coming to a pair of doors. They entered a wide companionway where a janitor, working within some plastic warning cones, was mopping what looked like vomit from the tiles. Beaux-Beaux sneezed violently. The scent of bleach had interrupted his trail.
Winter looked up the hallway, past where passing people hugged the wall to avoid the filthy mop water.
“Hold Beaux-Beaux here,” Winter told Gale. He and Adams walked down the hall and to an exit that opened into the lobby for the Wyndham Hotel. Faith Ann was nowhere to be seen.
Nicky's voice came over Winter's radio. “ Massey?”
“Go ahead, Nicky.”
“You alone?”
“Just me and Adams at the moment.”
“I spotted the kid. I mean I think it was her.”
“Where?”
“She crossed the street from the aquarium, went over to the ferry's pedestrian walkway, got onto the ferry. I went after her, but the boat was already leaving when I got there.”
“Drive. Take the bridge over,” Winter told him sharply. “See if you can spot her. We'll be there as fast as we can get loose without creating suspicion.”
68
Faith Ann had slipped out of the hotel, made her way around the power station, and crossed the intersection near the aquarium. Police cars were everywhere, but the cops were focused on Canal Place. Crossing the intersection along with a noisy group of tourists, she passed by the concrete benches. She went up the staircase to the pedestrian walkway to the ferry.
She couldn't have timed her escape better, because as she hurried onto the moored vessel the ferry's horn blasted and the deckhand closed the steel-wire door. Within seconds she was down the stairs to the car deck, standing at the bow of the USS Thomas Jefferson, gazing across the river at Algiers Point.
As the cool wind evaporated the sweat from her face, Faith Ann went back over the escape. She had hastily switched sweatshirts in the parking deck. She had run up to the fourth level and left her cell phone there. They had the number and were somehow able to track her down when she used it. Instinctively, she knew she needed to slow her pursuers, to keep them busy trailing her without getting too close, while she figured out how to get to Mr. Massey. She had seen enough television shows to know the cops could listen in on calls if they had a number, and they could track the phone's location.
