Deadly Pursuit

42

It was four a.m. when the big Bell 204B chopper, a commercial variant of the UH-1 Huey, touched down on Blackwood Drive.

Lovejoy and Moore stood outside the condemned restaurant, squinting against the rush of wind from the twenty-foot rotor blades. A few yards behind them, the two deputies, Parker and Ross, leaned on the hood of their patrol car and watched also.

The helicopter squatted like an immense insect on the asphalt, blocking both lanes. There was no traffic at this hour anyway.

Before the blades had finished spinning, the side door slid open, and five men and two women disembarked. They wore FBI jackets and carried equipment cases. The search team.

“That looks like a Miami P.D. chopper,” Lovejoy remarked as he and Moore led the group to the rear of the restaurant, where the junked Sunbird sat forlornly on its rims.

The team leader nodded. “Field office keeps a Bell Jet Ranger at the heliport on MacArthur Causeway, but that bird doesn’t have sufficient passenger capacity for the eight of us. Miami P.D. uses the Huey for utility work. We borrowed it, with pilot, for the trip to Fort Myers.”

“I assume Jack’s presence there has still not been absolutely confirmed.”

“Haven’t you heard? The news isn’t even that good. The whole Fort Myers angle turned out to be a dead end.”

Lovejoy glanced at Moore and raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Our Prints people found clean latents on the Dynasty’s door handles, matched them with two juveniles in the Miami area. Repeat offenders, real losers; must’ve lifted the car for a joyride, and they were too stupid-or too wasted-to wear gloves.”

“From what I understand, Dance was seen in a convenience store.”

“Another red herring. The local cops got a little overexcited on the basis of a very preliminary report. When one of our street agents showed the eyewitnesses a photo six-pack, they failed to select Jack’s mug shot. Upshot is, there’s no longer any reason to believe he was ever near Fort Myers. I hope this lead will pay off.”

“My feeling also,” Lovejoy allowed, imagining how nice it would be to inform Deputy Associate Director Drury of that particular turn of events.

The car’s license plates had been removed; the VIN plaque had been pried off the dash; and the vehicle certification sticker and safety parts label had been scraped off. In short, there was no way to ID the Sunbird or tie it to Jack unless the missing items could be recovered or fingerprints on the vehicle could be matched to him.

While the two latent-prints technicians dusted the Pontiac and the photographer popped flashcubes, the team leader, recorder, and two finders began searching the area for discarded tags or anything else that could be linked to the car. Having found nothing in the immediate vicinity, the team leader conscripted the deputies, split up the group into two-person squads, and expanded the search to cover Blackwood Drive, a half mile of Route 1 in either direction, and all intersecting streets within that perimeter.

By five-thirty, the prints technicians were thoroughly frustrated. The Sunbird, they informed Lovejoy and Moore, had been wiped clean. Dashboard, door handles, steering wheel, gear selector, trunk lid, hood-all polished and immaculate. The only items not yet dusted were the ashtray and rearview mirror, both of which had been removed at the start of the procedure for close inspection later.

Nothing in the ashtray. “Jack doesn’t smoke,” Moore observed in an undertone.

Lovejoy frowned. “Neither do approximately two hundred million other Americans.”

Application of gray fingerprint powder to the rearview mirror revealed a partial latent in the lower left-hand corner. Enough of the pattern area was intact to permit a comparison.

The first technician photographed the impression with a Folmer-Graflex fingerprint camera, shooting a roll of 120 Tri-X and carefully bracketing the exposures. His partner lifted the print on a strip of Scotch tape and smoothed it onto a glossy white card. Together they examined it in the glare of a portable arc lamp, then compared it with a faxed copy of Jack’s prints.

“Right index,” the first technician said.

His partner nodded. “Central pocket loop, eleven ridges from delta to core.”

“He must have adjusted the mirror when he started driving. Wiped it later, but missed a spot.”

The second technician remembered Lovejoy and Moore. “It’s a match,” he reported in the tone of an afterthought.

Lovejoy wanted to turn handstands. The thrill of vindication was intoxicating, an electric charge. Looking at Moore, he saw the same heady exhilaration in her eyes.

They were still wordlessly congratulating each other with smiles and traded glances when the searchers returned. The team leader carried three plastic evidence bags filled with what looked like trash.

“It is trash,” he said in response to Moore’s question. “At least that’s where Parker found it. In a dumper outside a warehouse half a mile south of here, on a side street called Industrial Drive.”

Parker, the deputy, was trying hard not to look smug.

The recorder read off the items on the evidence inventory. Auto registration form, proof-of-insurance form, and other glove-compartment documents consistent with the Pontiac Sunbird stolen from Miami International. A vehicle identification number matching that of the stolen Sunbird. And a single license plate-not from the Sunbird but from some other car.

“He switched plates.” The team leader shrugged. “Probably saved him from being pulled over. We can locate the other vehicle easily enough to confirm that part of the story. For identification purposes the VIN is all we really need.”

Lovejoy consulted with Moore while the search team packed up their equipment and the deputies made arrangements to have the car towed. In the east the sky was brightening, the long night at an end.

“We’ve almost got him.” Lovejoy felt himself shaking, literally shaking, with excitement. “He’s very close.”

“Close.” Moore ran her hands over her hair, a nervous, distracted gesture. “But still one step ahead. Where’s that map we borrowed from the sheriff’s station?”

“In the car.”

They turned on the sedan’s reading light and studied the map of Upper Matecumbe Key.

“He walked to that trash bin from here.” Moore traced Jack’s probable route with her finger. “A half mile south, just off Route One. Industrial Drive’s a dead end. Let’s assume he returned to the highway and continued south…”

Her fingernail reached a narrow inlet labeled marina. She raised her head to look at Lovejoy.

Both of them were thinking of Albert Dance’s trips to Florida in the Light Fantastic, the postcard that began, “Jack and Steve and I took the boat out yesterday,” the snapshot of young Jack and his friend posed casually at the end of a dock.

“Boats,” Moore whispered.

Lovejoy nodded, his hands closing slowly into fists. “Boats.”