Unsolved (Invisible #2) - James Patterson Page 0,83
whole task force knew as of last night.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I just wanted you to know. We have one focus today, team, and that’s catching our Darwin.”
Our area goes quiet save for the sounds of our fingers on our keyboards, the efficient hum of team members fully in sync, jumping right in where we left off yesterday. We call out updates as we review the data from the different states, crossing people off our lists, separating out promising possibilities for further review.
Two hours pass like that, and then the first wave of employees enter. My cell rings. I look at the screen and answer so quickly, I nearly drop the phone in the process.
“Robert,” I say to Detective Crescenzo, New Orleans PD, the man investigating Nora Connolley’s murder.
“I just got some additional video,” he says. “You remember we saw the wheelchair guy put the GPS device under the fender of Nora Connolley’s car and wheel out of the parking lot? We lost sight of him. Never saw his vehicle.”
“Right…”
“I got it. A pawnshop, three blocks away. You want good security cameras, visit a pawnshop.”
“He parked at a pawnshop?”
“No, he parked on the street, but their camera got it. Black-and-white, but we got it. I’m sending it to you.”
My pulse is hammering. “Cut to the chase, Robert.”
“We got no better look at his face. This guy is careful. Head down, jacket collar up, the sunglasses on, baseball cap pulled low. We never got a look at his face the whole time he came down the rear ramp and wheeled himself onto the sidewalk. We couldn’t get his license plates either. It was a profile shot of the vehicle.”
I take a deep breath.
“But you got the make and model of the vehicle,” I say.
“I sure did,” he says.
83
MY TEAM is buzzing on the final sprint.
A Dodge Caravan, Robert Crescenzo said. A Dodge Caravan converted for wheelchair mobility, not to be confused with the Dodge vans originally manufactured for wheelchair use.
We’re looking for a Dodge Caravan registered with disability license plates.
With that additional characteristic thrown in, the data set for the state I’m working on—Virginia—is narrowed considerably. I shoot through each data point, cross-referencing with tollway cameras in and around the time of Nora Connolley’s death in New Orleans. Nothing.
I try the highways surrounding Chicago on the relevant dates. No hits.
Okay—so when he traveled to New Orleans and Chicago, he didn’t use the toll roads. Disappointing but not surprising.
But with the small data set, I can afford to run through each one of the individuals. I scroll through the alphabetical list of Virginia residents, looking at each of the driver’s-license photos.
I feel the onset of disappointment but I’m buoyed by the notion that if he’s not registered in Virginia, he’s in one of the other states.
No…no…no…
No…no…no…
The last one alphabetically: Wagner, Martin Charleston. Residing in Annandale, Virginia, not thirty minutes from where I’m sitting. Only ten minutes from my apartment.
I almost bounce out of my chair. A driver’s-license photo of a white male with hair pulled back into a ponytail. No smile.
By his right eye, a small, curved scar. The shape of a crescent moon.
“Everybody, stop!” I shout, my voice trembling.
My hands shaking, my vision swimming, the gong of my pulse drowning out everything but that face looking back at me.
I’ve been hunting you for a year. It cost me the man I love. It almost cost me my job. I’ve lost weeks’ worth, maybe months’ worth, of sleep.
But now I’ve found you, Mr. Martin Charleston Wagner of Annandale, Virginia.
84
MICHELLE FONTAINE braces herself, as she always does before a morning session with Lieutenant Wagner. She’s handled all sorts of personalities as a physical therapist—compliant, good-natured, stubborn, flustered, bitter, despondent; it’s part of the job. Especially difficult are the older patients, the ones from a different generation. The men call her honey or sweetie, ask her why she doesn’t have a husband. Some of the older women don’t want to take orders from her because she’s a woman. But she lets it all slide. Takes nothing personally.
But something about Lew. That horrific comment he made in their last session about the homeless people murdered in the Chicago bombing—Two hundred people off the welfare rolls? I wouldn’t call that a tragedy. I’d call it a good start—and just the way he carries himself, the way he looks at her, the whole…creepy vibe he gives off.