There was silence. Then, “What’s this guy do for a living again?”
“He’s a journalist. Works freelance for
“Huh.”
“Huh what? I didn’t call you for grunting, I called you for expertise.”
She could practically see him rolling his eyes in bed. “Well, here’s the thing: For most tactical unit situations in policing, you are activated and deployed pretty much simultaneously. But I know what he means-couple of guys on my team were former military special forces. Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, that kind of thing. And yeah, I’ve watched those guys fall asleep in the middle of cow fields, school gymnasiums, and flatbed trucks. There does seem to be some kind of rule for military types-if you’re not doing, you’d better be sleeping, so you can do later.”
“Shit,” D.D. said, and chewed her bottom lip.
“You think he’s former military?”
“I think he could play poker with the devil himself. Son of a bitch.”
A yawn now. “Want me to take a run at him?” Bobby offered.
“Hey, I don’t need no state suit nosing into my investigation,” D.D. bristled.
“Easy, blondie. You called me.”
“Here’s the kicker,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “The wife is AWOL, and of course we suspect him, so we seized his trash. We found a pregnancy test. Marked positive.”
“Really?”
“Really. So I decide to ambush him with it tonight. See how he responds. Because he’s never mentioned this, and you’d think a husband would tell you if his missing wife was pregnant.”
“Speaking of which…”
She paused. Blinked. Felt her stomach drop away. “Holey moley,” she said at last. “I mean, when, how, where?”
He laughed. “How and where probably aren’t necessary, but Annabelle’s due August first. She’s nervous, but doing well.”
“Well, crap. I mean, congratulations. To both of you. That’s… awesome.” And it was. And she did mean it. Or would mean it. Goddamn, she needed to get laid.
“So okay,” she cleared her throat, did her best to sound brisk.
“You told him his wife was pregnant.”
“Exactly.”
“But how do you know that the test strip belonged to the wife?”
“I don’t. But she’s the only adult female in the house, and they don’t entertain, I mean
“Just asking,” Bobby said.
“So, being
“And?”
“He doesn’t react. Nothing. Nada. His face was so blank I could’ve told him it was raining outside.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. You gotta figure if he’s surprised, well then, he should choke up, because now both his wife and unborn child might be in danger. He should jump off the couch, start asking more questions, hell, start demanding more answers. Do anything but sit there like we’re talking about the weather.”
“In other words, he probably did know,” Bobby filled in. “His wife got pregnant by another man, he kills her, now he’s covering his tracks. That’s not rocket science, D.D. Hell, that’s a national trend.”
“And if we were talking about a normal person, I’d agree with you.”
“Define ‘normal,’”Bobby said.
She sighed heavily. This is where things got murky. “Okay, so I’ve been dealing with this guy for two days now. And he’s cool. Arctic cold. Miswired in some deep fundamental way that probably should involve a lifetime of therapy, six kinds of pharmaceuticals, and a total personality transplant. But he is who he is, and I’ve noticed a pattern to his deep freeze.”
“Which is?” Bobby was starting to sound impatient. Okay, so it was almost midnight.
“The more personal something is, the more he shuts down. Like this morning. We’re interrogating his four- year-old daughter in front of him. She’s recounting her mother’s last words, which don’t sound promising, let me tell you. And this guy is leaning against the back wall as if a switch has been disconnected. He’s there, but he’s not there. That’s what I thought tonight when I told him his wife was pregnant. He disappeared. Just like that. We were both in the room together, but he’s gone.”
“Sure I can’t take a crack at him?”
“Fuck you,” D.D. informed him.
“Love you, too, babe.” She heard him yawn again, then rub his face on the other end of the phone. “Okay, so you have one really cool customer who seems to have some kind of tactical background and knows how to hold up under extreme duress. You think he’s former special ops?”
“We ran his prints through the system, but didn’t get any hits. I mean, even if he did top secret, deeply classified James Bond crap, the missions would be off the radar, but military service would put him in the system, right? We’d see that piece of the puzzle.”
“True. What does he look like?”
D.D. shrugged. “Kind of like Patrick Dempsey. Thick wavy hair, deep dark eyes-”
“Oh for heaven’s sake. I’m looking for a suspect, not a blind date.”
She blushed. Definitely, definitely needed to get laid. “Five foot eleven, hundred and seventy pounds, early thirties, dark hair and eyes, no distinguishing marks or facial hair.”
“Build?”
“Fit.”
“Now, see, that does sound like special ops. Big guys can’t make it through the endurance training, which is why you should always look out for the small guy in the room.” Bobby sounded smug as he said this. A former sniper, he fit the small, dangerous model perfectly.
“But he’d have a record,” she singsonged.
“Shit.” Bobby was starting to sound tired. “All right, what kinds of things did light up?”
“Marriage certificate, driver’s license, Social Security number, and bank accounts. Basic stuff.”
“Birth certificate?”
“Still digging.”
“Speeding tickets, traffic citations?”
“Nada.”
“Credit cards?”
“One.”
“When was it opened?”
“Ummm…” D.D. had to think about it, trying to recall what she’d read in the report. “Within the past five years.”
“Let me guess, around the same time as the bank accounts,” Bobby said.
“Now that you mention it, most of the financial activity fell around the same time Jason and his wife moved to Boston.”
“Sure, but where’d the money come from?”
“Again, we’re still digging.”
Longer pause now. “In summary,” Bobby said slowly, “you got a name, a driver’s license, and a Social Security number, with no activity before the past five years.”
D.D. jolted. She hadn’t quite thought of it that way, but now that he mentioned it… “Yeah. Okay. Only activity is from the past five years.”
“Come on, D.D., you tell me. What’s wrong with that picture?”
“Crap,” D.D. exclaimed. She whacked her steering wheel. “‘Jones’ is an alias, isn’t it? I knew it. I just knew it.
