10th Anniversary (12 page)

I said to Willy, “Apart from these pictures, is there anything else you can tell me? Did Avis say anything to you about Mr. Ritter? Have you ever seen them alone together?”

Willy Steihl shrugged, then shook her head no. She looked as though she were trying to disappear through the back of the chair.

“Willy, this is very helpful and it’s also very serious. Could Mr. Ritter be the father of Avis’s baby?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted you to see the pictures and draw your own conclusions, okay?”

Not okay.

“A baby is
missing,
Willy. Try to imagine what Avis must be feeling. What her parents are going through. That little boy is helpless. He may be alone. He may be dying. If you know anything that could help us find him, you have to tell me. It’s your obligation. In fact, if you know something and don’t tell me, that makes you an accessory to a crime.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” said the girl in black, scrambling out of the chair, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. “I don’t know anything. I have to get out of here.”

I hadn’t been subtle. I’d hammered the kid and threatened her, and now she was done. I wished for the thousandth time that I had even 10 percent of Conklin’s tact. I offered Willy a lift back to school, but she said, “I’ll get a taxi. Don’t mention me to anyone, please.”

“I have to use my judgment, Willy.”

She looked at me like I was going to sink my fangs into her neck and then left the squad room without closing out her Facebook account.

Sergeant Nardone swooped in like a condor. I told him to keep his pants on, then took the opportunity to pry.

I tapped on the keyboard, did a search for photo tags for Ritter, and found more pictures of the English teacher on Willy’s home pages and on those of her friends.

According to the Web chat and notes written on virtual walls, Ritter was frequently discussed by the girls in Willy’s circle. Many of them commented on his good looks and his
manner in class and speculated about what he’d be like in bed.

I clicked on the link to Avis Richardson’s home page. I’d seen her page when Joe suggested it, but now I was looking with a specific purpose. I scrutinized photos of Avis mugging with Larry Foster, doing shots with girlfriends at parties, and cheering at sporting events—but there was not one picture of her with Jordan Ritter.

I cut and pasted what I might need later into an e-mail that I then sent to myself. After that, I closed down the computer and gave Nardone back his chair.

“You’re a gent, Nardone.”

“Don’t mention it, Boxer. By the way, I ate your Cheetos in the bottom drawer.”

“I knew that,” I said, pointing to the orange prints on a drawer pull. Nardone laughed. “You’re good,” he said.

I called Richie twice on my way out to my car. Both times I got his voice mail, and after the second time, I left a message. “I’ve got a lead, Rich. Good one. Call me.”

Next, I called Jordan Ritter. I told Ritter I was working the abduction of Avis Richardson and hoped he could give me some insights into her personality.

Ritter said, “I don’t know her all that well, but sure, I’ll be happy to help.”

Jordan Ritter lived only a few blocks from Brighton Academy. I drove Martha home, then headed east along California to Broderick.

It was still early on Sunday afternoon when I parked my car on the pretty residential block near the corner of Broderick
and Pine. The building where Ritter lived was a three-story apartment house, Italianate, clay-colored, trimmed in white, with two columns of bay windows.

He lived on the ground floor.

I rang the bell in the alcove and said my name into the speaker. Ritter’s footsteps got louder as he came to the door.

JORDAN RITTER OPENED THE DOOR of his apartment, placed one palm on the doorjamb, and, taking his time, looked me over.

I was doing the same to him.

Ritter was in his early thirties, fit, unshaven, good hair, good teeth, and was wearing a T-shirt and Burberry pajama bottoms. I’d seen Avis Richardson wearing pajamas just like those.

A trend? A coincidence? Or had Avis been wearing her boyfriend’s pj’s?

“Well, look at you,” he said.

The nervy bastard was hitting on me.

“Mr. Ritter? I’m Sergeant Boxer,” I snapped. I also flashed my badge.

“Come in. Can I get you some coffee? I just made it.”

I said, “Sure,” and walked around him into the apartment.

The place had a prepackaged look, as if it had been rented furnished or bought all in one day in a department store. I followed Ritter through the living room, noticing the Sunday paper on the floor and a couple of coffee mugs on the low table in front of the couch.

Anyone with an online degree in Forensics for Dummies could’ve figured out that Ritter had had a sleepover guest. Or else he was cagey and had staged a red herring for my benefit.

In the kitchen Ritter said, “Cream and sugar, Sergeant?”

“Black will be fine.”

“Like I said on the phone,” Ritter said, “I hardly know Avis. She’s in my class this year, but apart from her grades—which were excellent—I don’t know much about her.”

I followed Ritter back into the living room and took a chair opposite the one he sprawled in.

“I think we both know that’s not true,” I said.

Ritter laughed.

“You’re saying I’m lying? Golly. That’s bold.”

“Mr. Ritter, let’s just get to the point, okay? So I can get out of here and you can have your weekend back. How well did you know Avis Richardson? I have witnesses who say the two of you were very close.”

“Aw, come on. A lot of girls like me. It’s a cliché for schoolgirls to get crushes on their teachers. I didn’t even notice Avis. That’s the truth.”

“I have photos that show otherwise.”

“Photos. Of what? Oh, now I get it. Willy Steihl has been
talking to you. Don’t you know, Sergeant, how jealous these girls can get? Willy has been stalking me for most of the year.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so. There are no incriminating photos of me and Avis because I hardly know her. Is there anything else?”

“Yes. In case the baby shows up, I’d like to prove that it isn’t yours.” I pulled a buccal swab kit from my pocket and said, “It’s a cheek swab. Takes less than a second.”

“I can’t do something like that, Sergeant. I mean, if I’m a suspect, you should talk to my dad. He’s listed in the phone book under attorneys-at-law.”

“I’ll note that you didn’t want to cooperate. That’s all for now.”

“Well, thanks for stopping by, Sergeant.”

I put my card on his coffee table between the two coffee cups and left Ritter’s apartment. My phone rang as soon as I strapped into my car. Rich.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey-hey,” he sang into the phone.

“Congratulations, partner,” I said. “Don’t screw it up.”

He thanked me, told me that he was the happiest guy in the world. When I could get a couple of words in, I told him about my morning.

“You’re saying that you suspect Ritter of getting Avis pregnant?”

“I’ve got a picture on Facebook of Avis and Ritter holding hands. All that means is that he’s a liar, which is something and nothing at the same time. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

“You bet,” he said.

It was now a week since Avis had gotten into a black or dark blue sedan driven by a French-speaking man, taken a drive to somewhere or nowhere, and had her baby in a field by the lake or in a bed lit by an aluminum lamp.

It would be a miracle if her baby was still alive.

“AVIS ISN’T HERE,” Paul Richardson said when he let me into their suite. He invited me in and offered me a drink, which I turned down. It was only three in the afternoon, but he was swaying on his feet as he made his way around the coffee table to an armchair.

“Avis wanted to go out and see her friends,” Sonja told me. “She was feeling better and said she wanted to ‘hang out.’ ”

I wondered if she’d been hanging out with Jordan Ritter just before I arrived at his door.

“She’ll be back here for dinner,” her father said to me. “And she wants to go back to class tomorrow. I guess there’s no reason to say no.”

“Is there any news, Sergeant? Please give me some hope,”
Sonja Richardson said. Avis’s mother looked wrung out and had her arms wrapped tightly around her body as if to hold herself together.

“We have almost nothing to go on,” I told her. “There was no ad on Prattslist that matched the one your daughter said she answered. I can’t explain that, can you?”

“She’s like any kid. She makes things up. I don’t know if you should believe her or not.”

“Has she ever mentioned her English teacher? Mr. Jordan Ritter.”

“Dear?” Sonja Richardson asked her husband. “Has Avis mentioned Jordan Ritter?”

Paul Richardson was swirling his drink and didn’t look up or answer.

“I don’t think I’ve heard her talking about him recently, although I remember she was happy about being in his class,” Sonja Richardson said. “He’s a novelist, you know. And Avis thinks she’d like to write someday. Why are you asking about Mr. Ritter? Does he know something?”

“His name came up. I met him. He says he hardly knows Avis. Which is what she says about him, too.”

Sonja Richardson touched the corner of an eye with a tissue. “I guess we just have to get used to the idea that the baby is gone. But it’s hard, Sergeant. We never saw him. We don’t even know for sure if he’s alive or dead.”

When I got home at dusk, Joe was on the doorstep. I saw his wonderful smile from a hundred feet away. I ran and threw my arms around his neck and jumped into his arms,
locking my legs around his waist. Joe’s hug was the warmest, safest place in my world.

“Let’s make a baby,” I said.

“If it involves sex, I’m in,” Joe said.

It did. And he was.

AFTER CINDY TOOK a couple of giddy laps around the office to show off her sparkly new engagement ring, she closed her office door and got to work. Line one was flashing, and she answered it as she logged on to her crime-tipsters blog.

She announced her name into the mouthpiece, and the man on the other end of the line announced his.

“This is Red Sanchez.”

“Ray Sanchez?”

“Red. The color. I think I saw something that could help you with that story you wrote about the guy raping women.”

“Okay, I’m listening. Whatcha got?”

Cindy adjusted her headphones and mic, opened a blank page in Word, and typed Red Sanchez in the top-left-hand corner with the phone number she took off the caller ID.

“That large woman who was on the TV?”

“I know who you mean,” Cindy said.

Sanchez was talking about Inez Fleming.

“They didn’t show her face, but I recognized her anyway.”

“When did you see her?” Cindy asked.

“It was night before last. I was walking my dog on Baker Street, right near the corner of Clay. Sadie is old. If I don’t walk her when she whines, it’s a mess on the carpet and my wife goes crazy—”

“Mr. Sanchez.”

“Call me Red.”

“Red, when you saw the woman you think might have been the one who was interviewed on TV, what was she doing?”

“She was doing nothing. That woman was out. I mean O-U-T. I thought she was drunk. Maybe she
was
drunk. The driver was half holding her up, half dragging her toward an apartment building. Here. I got the address. It’s not too far from my place.”

Sanchez read off the numbers of a house address on Baker Street. It was a few numbers from Inez Fleming’s home address, but then, Inez had woken up in an alley near her building. Cindy typed the house number on her file.

“Red, what do you mean ‘driver’? Driver of what?”

“Sorry. I thought I said it was a taxi. Like one of those minivan types.”

”What color was this minivan?” she asked. “Any marks or signs, or maybe you saw a phone number on the van’s door?”

Sanchez said, “It was a regular yellow-cab-color minivan.
I think I did see something, like an ad on the back of it. Like for a movie. The name eludes me. I’ll think about it.”

“What about the driver? Did you get a good look at him?”

“Nah. I was putting my newspaper down for Sadie. I saw this man, he had dark hair, I think. Yeah, I know, that’s quite a clue. Anyway, this man was half dragging this lady along the sidewalk. I thought, ‘Man, is she drunk,’ and by the time my dog had done her business, both of them were gone.”

Cindy thanked Sanchez and asked him to call again if he remembered anything else. Then she called Richie.

“Sweetheart? I think I’ve got a lead on the serial rapist.”

YUKI AND NICK Gaines were leaving her office on the way to court that Monday morning, a half hour early, as Yuki insisted they be.

Nick looked Yuki up and down and said, “Something’s different about you this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling,” he said.

“You’re saying I don’t smile?”

“You don’t smile on the way to court. Huh. I know what it is. You had
sex,
didn’t you? I’m staring at post–boom boom glow, right?”

Yuki laughed. “No. Shut up. I had a doughnut. I’m on a sugar high and you’re not the Mentalist. I hope Angela
Walker shows up. What did you think? Did she sound solid to you?”

“She sounded eager. It would be crazy if she didn’t show.”

They were now walking the long green-floored corridor that was the feeder artery to the courtrooms. Panels of fluorescent buzzed overhead. Yuki tipped her chin up to signal Nicky as she passed the woman sitting on one of the backless benches along the wall, talking to a bailiff.

It was Angela Walker, their surprise witness.

Walker was forty, had spun-sugar, strawberry-blond hair piled on top of her head, and was wearing a V-necked French-blue sweater and a dark blazer and tailored pants. Yuki thought, If Angela Walker’s testimony is half as good as she looks, this witness will do fine.

Yuki and Nick entered 3B, walked to the prosecution table, and nodded to Hoffman and his second chair, Kara Battinelli, one of those brainy grads a couple of years out of Boalt Law.