Perfect Grave

Chapter Fifty-Six

T he 911 operator kept Bob Germain’s information off the air.

The kidnapping suspect could be monitoring police calls over a scanner.

Using the computer-aided dispatch system, the operator sent the call immediately to Officers Ron Lloyd and April Vossek, in the district’s nearest unmarked unit. Vossek read the call on the car’s Mobile Data Computer. The engine roared as they responded without activating their lights or siren, arriving along with paramedics, who examined Rhonda Boland.

They treated her face. She was hysterical. After calming her and taking stock of the bloodied sheets, the tape, the photograph, and other facts, Lloyd and Vossek quickly determined the gravity of what had happened and its link to Sister Anne Braxton’s murder.

Urgent calls were made.

In her downtown high-rise apartment, Grace Garner was stepping from her shower when Sergeant Stan Boulder phoned her.

“We’ve got a kidnapping of a boy in a case that looks to be linked to the Braxton homicide.”

“What? What do we know?”

Grace had wrapped a towel around herself and made a watery trail to her bedroom.

“Not much. The call’s hot. Only a few minutes old. Dom’s on his way to take you to the scene. Get there fast, Grace. Find out what you can before the FBI bigfoots this one.”

Grace dressed at top speed, grabbed her badge and gun, and trotted to the elevator. In the lobby she picked up a copy of the morning’s Mirror. Outside, she read Jason Wade’s stories and devoured a banana just as Perelli whipped the Malibu up her driveway. She got in and he left several feet of burning rubber.

At the Boland home, Lloyd and Vossek briefed Grace and Perelli. Crime-scene people were rolling. The caller’s number had come up as a public phone at a gas station at the edge of Renton.

“Renton PD and King County Sheriff’s Office are trying to get any surveillance video,” Vossek said. “It doesn’t look good. The place is pretty beat up.”

Kay Cataldo arrived with her crew from the Seattle Police Crime Scene Investigation Unit.

“I brought help,” Cataldo nodded to Chuck DePew, who had a team from Washington State Patrol’s Crime Lab.

“We’ll divide the load so we can move faster,” DePew said.

The vice section sent detectives from special and general investigations. They set up a trap on Rhonda’s phone, started searching through Brady’s computer files and e-mails. They got records to run urgent and extensive background checks on Rhonda Boland and her deceased husband Jack Boland. Then Special Agent Jim Crawson called from the Bureau’s Seattle Field Office to say agents were on their way.

Grace and Perelli didn’t wait.

They took Rhonda alone into her kitchen and had her go back to the previous night and give them a time line of how Brady’s kidnapping unfolded. All the while, Grace used a microrecorder and took careful notes.

“Why would he ask you for over a million dollars?” Grace asked.

Rhonda shook her head as tears rolled down her swollen face.

“We’re broke. I’m looking for a second job to pay for Brady’s operation.”

“What sort of operation?”

“He has a tumor.”

“Does he need medication?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll put that out now and in the alert,” Grace said.

“What about this ‘project’ the kidnapper claims to have been involved in with your husband?” Perelli asked.

“I don’t know anything about any project that would involve that much. Talk to the bankruptcy people. My husband’s biggest landscaping clients were in the range of five thousand a year, tops. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“What about former employees?”

“He was self-employed. He’d take Brady along, but he ran things on his own.”

“What about further back in your husband’s past? You said he gambled. Did he deal in drugs? Did he have any outstanding gambling debts?” Perelli asked.

“I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“What about his family?” Grace asked.

“He had no family. His parents died in a house fire when he was young.”

Grace looked hard at the photograph of Brady with Sister Anne.

According to Jason Wade’s article in today’s Mirror, Anne Braxton was also orphaned as a teen and donated one million dollars to the order.

Were these factors at play here?

“How could this guy figure into your husband’s business?” Grace asked

“I don’t know.”

“But before your husband started his landscaping business, he gambled.” Grace said.

“Yes, I told you, he said he was a professional gambler. When we met in Las Vegas he was playing the tables.”

“And before that?”

“I think he held quite a few jobs. He seemed to know a little about a lot of things.”

“Rhonda, did he ever do time in jail or prison?”

“If he did, I’m not aware.”

“And you never saw this kidnapper before?” Grace asked.

“No. I don’t know who the hell he is.”

“Not even in the neighborhood?” Perelli said. “Like, maybe he pretended to be lost, looking for directions?”

“No.” Rhonda put her face her hands and shook her head. Then she froze. “Wait! The park! ”

“What about it?”

“He said he met Brady in the park the other day.”

“Met? Was that the word he used? It implies they spoke.”

“Yes. Two, no, three days ago, Brady went to the park with his friends, Justin and Ryan.”

“Which park?”

“The community-pool park. It’s three blocks away.”

“We need to talk to the boys now, they may remember something.”

Rhonda pointed to her fridge and a list of numbers scrawled in Brady’s hand.

Perelli snatched the sheet and started dialing, just as Cataldo called Grace to join her outside. Cataldo was working at a rear window and pointed a latex finger to fresh markings made by a hard-edged tool used to pry open its weak wooden frame.

“Looks like he gained entry here.” Cataldo showed Grace the busted lock latch. “More important, look what he left.”

Under the window, in the soil bed, a full foot impression.

“Looks like a DOC-issued tennis shoe. We’re right behind this guy, Grace. We just need one piece of evidence to lock on to him. We’re breathing down his neck.”

Grace looked through the window and down the hall at Rhonda Boland.

“I pray we’re not too late.”