Urbi and Mr. Shama, and said, “Mr. Patil, I plan to help Detective Raven find out who did this to you.”
“Detective Raven told me the robber last Tuesday night is just above my head on the fourth floor, recovering from the wound in his shoulder. He said there were complications following surgery but the man is doing better. Have you talked to him, Agent Savich?”
“I’m going up to talk to him now. You rest, sir. I will speak to you tomorrow.”
“I remember that Mr. Raditch was there with Michael and Crissy on Tuesday evening, the night of the attempted robbery. I called him when I was able, and he said they were fine. Are they still all right? Do you know?”
“I spoke to Mr. Raditch two nights ago. There have been a couple of scary dreams for the kids, and one really bad one for him, he said. He and his wife are being very careful with them. My wife set them up with a child psychiatrist.”
“That is good. I will tell you, Agent Savich, I was so scared for the children when that man walked in and pointed that gun at me. Now, you will tell me, Agent Savich, why is there a guard at my door?”
“What did Detective Raven tell you, sir?”
“Nothing at all, merely that since this was the second robbery so very soon after the first, there might be some connection between the two robberies, and that concerned him. Like my wife, Detective Raven does not appear to like coincidences, either.”
Mr. Patil looked very alert now, and there was such intelligence in his dark eyes that Savich pushed ahead. “Mr. Patil, think back to that Tuesday night. Do you believe the man with the stocking over his face was really there only to rob you?”
“You are thinking perhaps that he meant to kill me? And since he failed, another came to kill me two days ago?”
Savich said, “That is why the guard is outside your door.”
“But who would want to kill me? I am an old man. I have no enemies that I am aware of. It is my wife who should be in danger, for she flays alive anyone who criticizes me or her children or her grandchildren. She is brutal. I am quite terrified of her.” Mr. Patil shook his head, and Savich saw a small smile.
Minutes later, Savich went to the fourth floor to see Thomas Wenkel, a former resident of Ossining, in for ten years for armed robbery, paroled after eight years, and released eight months ago. He was a career felon. Did that include murder?
There was a guard outside his room as well. His name was Officer Ritter. No, Savich was told, no visitors, nothing out of the ordinary. Officer Ritter looked, frankly, bored. Ben had best change out the guard.
Savich paused in the doorway. Thomas Wenkel was watching TV, his eyes glued to the small set high on the opposite wall. It was a soap opera.
“Mr. Wenkel.”
Thomas Wenkel brought his narrow, watery eyes to Savich. “You ain’t my lawyer—go away.”
When Savich stuck his creds under Wenkel’s nose, he ignored them. Savich saw his long, thick fingers drum against the bedsheet. Then he turned to face Savich. “You’re the guy who shot me.”
“Yes. I could have killed you, but I didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, thanks for that, you bastard. Go away.”
“Did you know Mr. Patil was shot this past Wednesday night, during another supposed robbery?”
“Stupid old fool. Did he bite the big one this time?”
“You know he didn’t, since Detective Raven doubtless came to speak to you about it.”
Wenkel shrugged, convulsively swallowed at a hit of pain in his shoulder, and concentrated on the soap opera.
“Were you going to kill Mr. Patil?”
“You ain’t my lawyer—go away.”
“Tell me, Mr. Wenkel, when you hooked up with Elsa Heinz.”
“I don’t know no Elsa Heinz.” He shouted at the TV. “Hey, Erica, don’t cheat on your husband with that yahoo! Don’t you got no brain?”
Savich’s eyes flicked to the soap opera, then back to Mr. Wenkel. “Elsa Heinz was forty-three years old, in and out of prison for years, just like you, Mr. Wenkel. Why did she come running in to save your bacon? Were you more than criminals together? Were you lovers, Mr. Wenkel?”
Wenkel started humming. There was a commercial on TV.
“She’s dead. I had to kill her.”
Wenkel never looked away from the television. He only shrugged, but Savich would swear he saw Wenkel’s mouth tighten.
“Who hired the two of you to kill Mr. Patil?”
“You ain’t my lawyer—go away.”
The D.A. had offered Wenkel a deal to roll, but he’d said he didn’t rat nobody out, ever.
Savich left. This was interesting indeed. Someone like Wenkel, he should have rolled. Something was wrong with that picture.
CHAPTER 14
Coop said, “I gotta tell you, Savich, Inspector Delion was so excited this morning when I called San Francisco and told him the serial killer is Ted Bundy’s daughter, he nearly hyperventilated. I gave him her probable age, sent him the most recent sketch, told him we were betting she lived and attended school in the San Francisco Bay Area since that’s where the murders started. I told him we’d have a name for him soon. He’d already done some work on the first two murders committed in San Francisco, and he said a lot of people in the SFPD would be hyped with this news.
“He called me a couple of minutes ago, said they’d already looked through their unsolved murders but there weren’t any good matches, but he found six unsolved missing persons—all women—who might fit the ticket. None of the six missing women have ever showed up, anywhere, and the young ones they didn’t consider runaways.”
Savich waved Coop to a seat. “Over what period of time?”
“He said the first one was a missing teenager, seventeen years ago, then another missing female every couple of years to the present, when the two women were murdered in their homes in San Francisco and, naturally, found pretty quickly. If Bundy’s daughter is responsible for the missing women, she didn’t want them found.”
Savich punched a couple of keys on MAX, then frowned. “It seems to me if she killed those missing women, what she was doing was working all the kinks out, fine-tuning her craft. But why did she change everything when she took her show on the road?”
MAX beeped.
“Ah, here we go.” Savich typed a couple more keys. “Come here, Coop, take a look at this.”
Both men stared down at a series of high-school yearbook photos of three young women, sixteen or seventeen years old, at three different high schools in San Francisco, eighteen years ago. “Looks like that one, doesn’t it?” Coop said, and pointed to a girl’s photo in the Mount Elysium High School yearbook. “Look at that dead white face. The hair’s blond and the clothes are red, but hair and clothing are easy to change. She’s pretty, but there’s a sort of indifference about her, maybe a remoteness, you know what I mean?”
Savich said, “As if she’s not really plugged into this world, and she doesn’t give a crap about any of its inhabitants.” A couple more key taps and the screen filled with the face of the girl called Kirsten Bolger. Another couple of keys, and her hair became black. “Look at those eyes, Savich, dark as a pit. Black hair looks natural—bet she dyed her hair blond for the yearbook picture.”
