3rd Degree

Chapter 94

“LIEUTENANT!” I heard a loud knocking on my glass.

I bolted up. My watch read 6:30 A.M. I must have dozed off waiting for Molinari to report with more news on Danko.

Paul Chin was at my door. “Lieutenant, you better get on line three. Now...”

“Danko?” I blinked myself awake.

“Better. We got a woman from Wisconsin who thinks her daughter is tied up with Stephen Hardaway. I think she knows where she is!”

In the seconds it took to knock the sleep out of my brain, Chin went back to his desk and got a backup recording going. I picked up the phone.

“Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer,” I cleared my throat and said.

The woman started in as if she had left off in mid-sentence with Chin, her voice upset, maybe not too educated. Midwestern.

“I always told her something with this smart-ass guy didn't add up. She said he was so brilliant. Brilliant, my ass... She always wanted to do good, my Michelle. She was easy to take advantage of. I said, `Just go to the state school. You can be anything you want.'”

“Your daughter's name is Michelle?” I picked up a pen. “Ms....?”

“Fontieul. That's right, Michelle Fontieul.”

I scribbled down the name. “Why don't you just tell me what you know?”

“I seen him, you know,” the woman recounted. "That fel-low on TV. The one everybody's looking for. My Michelle's hooked up with him.

“Course his name wasn't Stephen then. What'd she call him on the phone? Malcolm? Mal. They drove through here heading out west. I think he was from Portland or Washing-ton. He got her into this `protesting' thing. I didn't even understand half of what it meant. I tried to warn her.”

“You're sure this was the same man you saw on TV?” I pressed.

“I'm sure. Course, his hair's different now. And he didn't have no beard. I knew -”

I interrupted. “When was the last time you spoke to your daughter, Ms. Fontieul?”

“I don't know, maybe three months. She always called. She'd never leave her numbers. This last time, though, she sounded a little strange. She said she was really doing some good for once. She comes out and tells me that I raised her well. That she loved me. I was thinking, maybe she'd got her-self knocked up is all.”

All this matched. What we knew about Hardaway and the description we'd gotten from the owner of the KGB Bar. “Do you have any way to contact your daughter? An address?”

“I had some address, I think it was maybe a friend's. I got this P.O. box. Michelle said I could always send something there if I needed to. Box three-three-three-eight. Care of Mail Boxes, Etc., on Broad Street, Oakland, California.”

I glanced at Chin, both of us scribbling at the same time. The place wouldn't open up for a couple of hours. We'd have to get the FBI out to her in Wisconsin. Get a photo of her daughter. In the meantime, I asked if she would describe her to me.

“Blond. Blue eyes.” The woman hesitated. “Michelle was always pretty, I'll grant her that. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. She's just a kid, Lieutenant.”

I thanked her for coming forward. And I told her I'd make sure her daughter was treated fairly, if she was mixed up in this, which I had no doubt she was.

“I'm going to put you on with another officer,” I told her, “but before I do, I need to ask you one more thing.” A thought had crept into my head, going back to that first day. “Did your daughter have any breathing ailments?”

“Why, yes,” she said, pausing, “she always did have asthma, Lieutenant. Been carrying around a puffer since she was ten years old.”

I looked at Chin through the glass. “I think we just found Wendy Raymore.”